"My name is Legion for we are many"

"They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes, and when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no-one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no-one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs, and on the mountains, he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, 'What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.' For he had said to him, 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!'

Then Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?' He replied, 'My name is Legion for we are many.' He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

Now there on the hillside, a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, 'Send us into the swine; let us enter them.' So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and they drowned in the sea.

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, 'Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.' And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

(The Gospel of Mark)

I listened to a program on Radio National's Encounter this evening called Out of the Tombs, as I was driving back from having been 'jilted' at tennis (transcript linked) (the transcript to the Encounter program not the one to my being stood up at tennis, for which there is no actual transcript). There was quite a bit discussed in this program, none of it terribly edifying. However one statement stood out.

For various reasons these days, it's not at all acceptable to talk about demonic possession in any serious way, and there is a very good reason for this, but nonetheless, you'd think in the context of a bible 'story' that it would be the one thing people might be the vaguest bit curious about. Not so apparently:

Brendan Byrne: Every time you speak publicly and refer to this incident, the one question that everyone asks is 'What about the owners of the pigs, wasn't Jesus rather unfair in depriving them of their livelihood perhaps?'

Right. The livelihood of the owners of the pigs? And that Jesus is acting unfairly.

Jesus wept. FFS.

Anyway, the way the actor said "My name is Legion, for we are many" was seriously creepy. Made me think about that whole method acting thing, and Heath Ledger and stuff. Also this particular Bible story very much reminds me of the film "The Field" with Richard Harris, wherein, if memory serves me correctly, there is a scene where they drive some cows stock off a cliff.

There are only a handful of stories in our culture, many of them derived from bible stories and the old driving the animals off the cliff seems to be one of them. More of it I say.

Brendan Byrne is the:

Reverand Professor Brendan Byrne
Jesuit priest and Professor of New Testament at the Jesuit Theological College in Parkville, Victoria, within the Melbourne College of Divinity.

Dog Dressage

This is the most impressive clip I've ever seen on the internet to date. HT to Helen.

There is an interesting Dickensian-type quality in this girl's tophat and tails outfit, hands held behind back, as though she's out for an afternoon's stroll with a completely adoring companion.

The music is beautiful. The whole thing is beautiful.

Good-bye Kodachrome

Faithful reproducer of colour and light in a WYSIWYG kinda way. Kodachrome was good and for a time hard to beat. Fujichrome was possibly better and is still, I believe, extant. I have a roll of Fuji Velvia in my old and sadly neglected SLR, its been there for a long time.

There is just no beating the luxe and colour of slide film. And so it is a sad day today as Kodachrome has turned up its toes and will be no more.

The last roll of Kodachrome I sent off to be processed off-shore somewhere, vanished without trace.

So for your viewing pleasure (and mine), some shots from the pre-digital dark ages,taken mostly on Kodachrome.















Bronte Splash













Kitchen window View-Medlow Bath













Ranunculas (my favourite)













Dervish Tombstones Selcuk, Turkiye



















Horse - Goreme, Turkiye














Cassowary, FNQ














Transport. Bodrum, Turkiye



Clicking on images to get full widescreen technicolour experience.



Those were the days. Egads.

Deployment

This word appeared in my mind as my sense of 'self', rose up through the hynogogic this afternoon, after a not always taken 40 winks. That and a full bladder. It was cold sitting in my in-need-of-more-beans bean-bag, under the clouds, on the verandah, and Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia was severely taxing my ability to concentrate and therefore making me drowsy.

deploy / di-ploy/ verb 1 bring or move troops into position for military action. 2 bring into effective action: the FBI began to deploy an internet monitoring system.

Hmmm. Effective action eh? Good Lord, whatever might that mean? Action? Effective? LOL.

Pouring more beans into the bean bag would make for an effective action methinks. The (wiki) link above, links to a site where you can read, or start to,the whole of Swedenbog's text. You'll understand what I mean about taxing after the first few bars paragraphs. Worth taking small bites from. For relief I interspersed it with the odd essay from Margaret Atwood's The Tent, for which she did the illustrations. They're not very good illustrations, but they are hers, which makes them all the more poignant. There's a fairly crap, but well written review here.

Incandescent

Lightglobes, not rage. I plan to stock up. How many lightglobes do you think I'll need until 2042, the time I'm thinking the lights will go out for me?

I have a box of the new fangled long life ones, but I haven't installed them anywhere and until such time as I find a ladder, so they can go outside, I don't plan to. I do not like the light they emit one bit and have no intention of getting used to it. The soft yellow light from the incandescent light globe I intend to have lighting my solitary evenings for many years to come. I seriously doubt that my having one lamp on at night represents a wanton waste of electricity.

Incandescent lightglobes will no longer be imported into Australia after October this year. So stock up. Fools. The new fangled ones have mercury in them and cannot be summarily disposed of in the garbage bin to be dumped as land fill at the tip although millions already have been. They didn't mention that on the packet did they? So in twenty years when mercury levels in the water table have hit an all time peak, we'll know why.

and another thing:

Mercury poisoning of Chinese factory workers

In the past decade, hundreds of Chinese factory workers who manufacture CFLs for export to first world countries were being poisoned and hospitalized because of being exposed to mercury. Examples include workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory in Foshan city where 68 out of 72 were so badly poisoned that they required hospitalization. At another CFL factory in Jinzhou, 121 out of 123 employees were found to have excessive mercury levels with one employee's mercury level 150 times the accepted standard. ^[57]

(From wikipedia).

Men's and Women's Brains

This is pretty funny, and a fair approximation.



. . .athough I have a nothing box too. But I don't need to go there all that often.

On last words

What strikes me about the quotes below is the dying words of many seem said at least as much to humour those around, as some final, profound, utterance.

My Father's last words were: 'Bring out the champagne', A statement which had an interesting double meaning that I'm still not sure about. Was it so we could celebrate our being freed of his suffering or that he was happy and wished to celebrate an end to it himself? Or both? We never drank champagne much in our household, so it was an odd suggestion either way. He had been lapsing in and out of consciousness for a couple of days, but had come to, as many do, with lucidity and light heartedness for one last look about and to comfort we who stood around, like empty lemonade bottles, not knowing what to say or do. He died that night at 8.00 pm, November 14th,1984. He was a youngish fifty-seven.

My favourite quote below is that of H.G. Wells': Go Away. I'm alright. And after a bit of googling around I discovered, as I had dimly thought, that Edgar Allen Poe had claimed in life to be an atheist, hence his dying words are not funny at all (especially not for him).

H.G. Wells makes me wonder that dying alone might for some, be more preferable, than being surrounded by a host of hand-wringing, hangers' on, waiting in anticipation for one to exhale the long, last, breath. Wells was an atheist too. If he had seen signs of life on 'tuther side, perhaps he didn't want anyone to get an inkling of his astonishment.

I'm not planning on dying any time soon, although I should live as though I expect to. I do know when my time is up, should it creep up slowly, as opposed to suddenly and violently and both are possible, I will receive the signs of dying, the dreams, the states, the slipping in and out of consciousness, gladly and as best I can, sans fear. What's to fear? What's the worst that could happen? I resolve to die happily, confidently. I will look forward to the resolution of the process once begun and guess I'll try to live a life where I'm not immediately consigned to some infernal realm without so much as a weighing up of heart. I've read that happens too. Indeed, whatsoever ye think will happen to you when you die, most likely will and you'll be there to see it all unfold.

--Gee,g'day. Long time no see! How's it all going then?

--Wild.

--Where's Aunt Maud?

--Oh. She's lying down somewhere. Six feet under actually. Catatonic. Poor thing, thinks that's what death is.

Dying words

Am I dying or is this my birthday?

 ~~ Lady Nancy Astor, d. 1964

When she woke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her bedside.

Now comes the mystery.

~~ Henry Ward Beecher, evangelist, d. March 8, 1887

Friends applaud, the comedy is finished.

  Ludwig van Beethoven, composer, d. March 26, 1827

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.

 ~~ Humphrey Bogart, actor, d. January 14, 1957

It is very beautiful over there.

~~ Thomas Alva Edison, inventor, d. October 18, 1931

Yes, it's tough, but not as tough as doing comedy.

 ~~ Edmund Gwenn, actor, d. September 6, 1959 

When asked if he thought dying was tough.

It's all been very interesting.

~~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writer, d. 1762

Lord help my poor soul.

 ~~ Edgar Allan Poe, writer, d. October 7, 1849

I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.

~~ Leonardo da Vinci, artist, d. 1519

Go away. I'm all right.

 ~~ H. G. Wells, novelist, d. 1946

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.

 ~~ Oscar Wilde, writer, d. November 30, 1900