"Welcome to my house. Enter freely and of your own will. I am Dracula. I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker."

Dracula (1979)

I notice that China is blaming Tibet for the Chinese occupation, the problems and specifically the "Dalaï Clique" for the recent uprising. That's right, when desperate, blame the victim. China has now occupied Tibet for 60 years, crushing dissent, violating human rights, killing Tibetans and denying them their religion, their customs and their heritage, and it is all Tibet's fault! I can only hope that this blossoms into giant egg-drop soup on China's face. Of course they want the Olympics to happen without a hitch, how better to give a gloss of legitimacy to a regime that is still one of the most repressive on Earth? One can only hope that if the situation persists, and it will, that the movement to boycott the Beijing Olympics gathers momentum and eventually darkens their showpiece moment beyond hope of redemption. I cannot claim purity for ANY of the nations participating in the Olympic farce, as nations are simply collections of human beings and thus as deeply defective and internally torn between good and evil, strife and peace, greed and generosity, hubris and humility as is any collection of human beings. But there IS a barometer of so-called civilized behavior that China fails miserably (along with several prominent Western nations as well). I support Tibetan freedom and autonomy and were I there, I would be working for change as well, weak though my efforts might be. If you are reading this and agree, please visit any of the numerous petitions online and give your support to the Tibetan people. Thank you.
Heather Mills gets about $50 million from Sir Paul McCartney in their divorce (a fraction of what she was demanding) and is not completely satisified. Wow, what a surprise (yawn). The hysterical and bipolar woman hits, reproduces and runs, hoping to walk with a bag of ill-gotten goods in a manoeuvre that is as old as Time and as honorable as her (and the world's oldest) profession. The real loser here is the child, a 4 yr old girl who is the pawn of her mother's finagling. By no means am I a Paul fan, but it can be said that he conducted himself with a great deal more grace during this circus than she, with her media campaign and tediously staged "poor me! poor me! I need hundreds of millions to continue to live the lifestyle to which I so quickly became accustomed!" Had I been the judge, I would have given custody to Paul and granted £1 million to Heather specifically to found a prosthetics foundation for handicapped hookers; luckily for her I was not the judge. Here's hoping that the next time Paul opts for the "pay for play" choice on his gameboard, he uses better judgement.
Perhaps Ms Mills should move to Prague. Prague has long been known as the most "magical" city in Central Europe - "magical" meaning that is has enjoyed a reputation as a center for vampirism, necromancy, witchcraft, sorcery, alchemy and other arcane arts and practices for seven centuries. There are stories of ghosts galore and armies of the dead, as well. Throughout the CE (Christian Era), Prague has always been where you go if you want to lose your soul in pursuit of things that were never meant for you. Of course, in our century that translates as Europe's thriving hub of the pornography industry - a mileu where Ms Mills would fit perfectly. One can only imagine the hit she could have starring in videos, the one-legged rich divorcée with a trainload of hunky, hung, underfed east european men/boys who perform amazing feats of legerdemain upon her curiously bendable form. Or perhaps she could use her divorce settlement to buy enormous amounts of lead, ship them to Prague and finance continuing alchemical research to turn it all into gold. Alchemy, of course, was never really about turning base metals into gold, that was a metaphor for refining the base nature of man into the divine by means of the crucible of esoteric knowledge. Nevertheless, she could give it a try while at the same time picking up some spending money in the "film" industry. I have never visited Prague but would like to do so. Prague and Istanbul, a little round-robin trip to see two cities that I very much want to discover but for which I have not yet had the chance. Let me take a moment to check Expedia© for the price of an air ticket, and SNCF© for the price of a train ticket, hold on . . . okay, the information is in hand. I had to abandon the train search, as the complictions of using three different national train sites proved too time-consuming. So, by air, for the two of us to travel Montpellier -Prague (stay 6 days) - Istanbul (stay 6 days) - Montpellier would cost 4117.78 € or $6300.20 USD (at current exchange rates) and that does not even include hotels, meals, tourist trips or shopping. So I believe we will not be doing that anytime soon. Unless, of course, we win the lottery, in which case "we're outta here!" Perhaps I could defray part of our expenses by selling bat-thorn once we are in Prague (bat-thorn is a fictitious plant used in vampire movies to ward off the bloodsuckers, better than garlic in its effectiveness). I could take along a couple of sacks of the local thorny garrigue-shrubbery as "bat-thorn". Needless to say, I will not be doing any wheelin' 'n dealin' in Istanbul at all, I saw the movie "Midnight Express" too, you know. Some colorful Turkish knicknacks and folkart will suffice, thank you.
Writing of arcane knowledge, I recently ran across downloads of old favorite comic books online. They are available by the dozens; individual issues, collections, specials, all of them, easy to download, easy to view, and a simple way to time-trip into the past of one's youth and experience again the simple joy of young escapism into the impossible worlds of comicdom. My favorites as a boy were Dr. Strange, The Green Lantern, Batman and other "dark" heros, not for me Superman or the goody-two-shoes heros that were the idols of others - I wanted a soupçon of the dark and bizarre in my vividly-colored comic universe and searched it out. I had boxes and boxes of those things and later in life, learning that my mother had long ago thrown away "all that trash" that had become highly valuable indeed, I emitted a howl of rage and despair on my behalf and that of my bank account. Oh well, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas? Later, I indulged in a quixotic crusade to track down and reassemble my Dr. Strange collection. It took me nearly two years but I succeeded, and they all reside now in sealed boxes in a hidden location far, far away from the howling hordes of Christian mothers who wish to purge the world of this "time-wasting crap." It is an amusing fact that no one collects their old mathematics texts, or their phonetics manuals, or other such ilk, yet old comics fetch thousands on the marketplace. Such is the world in which we live.
I was supposed to start a new project last week, learning Arabic. I was even going to learn Arabic with French as the referant language, but it did not happen. My "tutor" was to be Wicem, a Tunisian journalist who resides here in Montpellier and a "friend of the family." Well, not exactly a friend of the family, rather the husband of a friend of the family who herself was the "one-night friend" of another friend of the family (yes, a real one). At any rate, the couple (she's Polish-Jewish, he's Tunisian-something) have been to dinner here several times, have passed afternoon get-togethers here, etc. Wicem and I had spoken several times of my desire to learn Arabic, so he volunteered to begin my instruction. I never believed it was a matter of being paid to do so and he never mentioned that, it was all conducted along the lines of "friends help friends." Ha. As well, if I want to pay to learn Arabic there are many, many schools and learning centers available here in Montpellier to do exactly that. We had agreed on Wednesday as our tutoring date - no show. I thought perhaps I misunderstood, as Thursday had been mentioned, but no, he did not show on Thursday either. Now, of course, I will research other methods to learn Arabic, which are legion on the Internet, many of them free of charge. The difficulty is that doing it by 'Net, you lack the personal context and connection that help so much when learning another language, but too bad. I shall persevere. On a bizarre side-note, did you know that simply by adding a -t to a name/word in the ancient Egyptian language you transform it from the masculine to the feminine? I suppose that means that Bob is a woman's name if spelled Bobt, Dick becomes Dickt, and Rod becomes Rodt. Is Jane therefore a masculine name if one removes the -t from Janet? I think not.
Oh my stars, the morning is wearing on, my wife has departed for the market and I am still here working on this piece of blogfluff. I must pack the bat-thorn if we are to be ready for winning the lottery. Until the next,
Leducdor(t?)

". . . drenched deep in sadness."

"And all the animals drew near to him and said, "We do not like to see you so sad. Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it." The Man said, "I want to have good sight." The vulture replied, "You shall have mine." The Man said, "I want to be strong." The jaguar said, "You shall be strong like me." Then the Man said, "I long to know the secrets of the earth." The serpent replied, "I will show them to you." And so it went with all the animals. And when the Man had all the gifts that they could give, he left. Then the owl said to the other animals, "Now the Man knows much, he'll be able to do many things. Suddenly I am afraid." The deer said, "The Man has all that he needs. Now his sadness will stop." But the owl replied, "No. I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and taking, until one day the World will say, 'I am no more and I have nothing left to give.'"
The Old Storyteller, Apocalypto, (2006)

I thought we might take a little walk down Aztec Alley today. Or to be more precise, Mesoamerican images and Aztec Alphabet Alley. Knowing that the masses are out there, hungering for a little basic Nàhuatl (the Aztec language), in my infinite kindness I thought I would give you a short cheat on How To Speak Nàhuatl Like A Native. It is really quite simple. You simply add -atl, -etl or -tl to any word(s) in your sentence. Such as, " I would like a cup of chocolate, an avocado salad with a side of Quetzalcoatl Fries and please tell my mother I will be in the shade of that volcano." This becomes, " Jo would like uno chocolatl, it avocatl salatl con fritos Quetzalcoatl y por favor ditl mamatl jo suetl atl Popocatepetl." You can see how stunningly simple it is. ( In the above sentence, chocolatl [xocoatl], avocatl, Quetzalcoatl and Popocatepetl are actual Nàhuatl words.) Soon you, too, will be able to stroll down the brick-layed causeways of Tenochtitlan on your way to the floating flower markets, speaking like a native. Sidestepping the occasional rivulet of blood from further in the plazas, you may stop at a small vendor and ask for a cup of "chocolatl, por favor." Of course, all of this will be more amusing when you have your TimeTravelTicket© from DisneyAdventures®, but until then, you may continue to practice your Nàhuatl until pitch perfect. Every few years I cycle around, once again, to a transitory and dilettante-ish interest in Mesoamerican culture, practices and mythology. Being born and raised (for the most part) in New Mexico, U.S.A., one might think that I would, by inclination, be more interested in Mesoamerican culture than that but I am not. My Indian background is Osage, a Plains Tribe, and thus not associated at all with blood sacrificetl, chocolatl, cactus spine piercing of my genitalatls nor throwing still beating heartls into the flames atop the sacrificial templetls. There is no getting around the fact that they were a bloodthirsty lot, the Aztecs, nor were they alone. The Mesoamerican Cultures Rollbook resounds with a chain of cultures that all, to greater or lesser degree, knew their gods only liked human blood (not animal, thank you, inferior vintage, eh?): Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Toltec, Mexica, Aztec, Tarascan, Totonac, Huastec and Mixtec, to mention the prominent. As well, the gods had a different take on divine reality specific to that part of the world - Venus (the star) was important, rain as well and of course, the ever popular suffering of children which was provoked by the priests and the children's tears collected and offered to either Tlaloc or Chaac just prior to the children themselves being sacrificed. Long ago, during the brief time of my (very) late post-adolescent gang years, my friends and I would gather and smoke unreasonable amounts of a green herb and, depending on the size of the group, I would usually be asked to "make the sacrifice." This involved picking the youngest stoned female member, friend or acquaintance present, usually Martha, the youngest sister of my close friend, and commence the long, involved, herb-inspired narration of the Sacrifice of the Virgins at the Wells of Chichen-Itza (an actual historical rite).(This was all vocal, by the way.) I arrived at the village square, I picked the virgin (the chosen victim for the night, hopefully deeply stoned), I instructed her that she had been chosen by the gods for a rare and high honor, I led her to the temple, I urged her to drink the sacred drink (no, not chocolatl, usually a beer), smoke the sacred herb (yet more of the green craziness), and then, in a trance, we would proceed to the top of the temple where she would cry out her desire to Quetzalcoatl to be taken to the Pure Lands. Still deeply stoned, we would then proceed to the Wells of Sacrifice (the cenotés at Mayan ruins - sacrificial wells especially at Chichen Itza). I would wrap her wrists with the sacred copper bells, lead her to the edge, tell her to cry out for her god, then ruthlessly rip out her heart, throw it on a smoking brazier at the cenoté's edge, and push her body, bells still tinkling, into the void of the dark, cold water. If I was in form and the herb had been particularly good that evening, at this point the girl would scream - actually, all the girls would scream - as she fell off the end of the sofa with her wrists still shaking "the bells" wildly in the air. All of my friends always deeply appreciated the performance and the young female victim, after a restorative of herb or drink, would sit amazed by the fact that she had "actually been there." I must admit that I rather enjoyed it all but alas!, all good things come to an end and we all moved on to other life paths. I sometimes wonder if my "victims", now grown women, ever dream of the Wells of Sacrifice at Chichen Itza and wake sweaty, a little spooked and feeling slightly stoned. Of course, you out there in Blogland cannot avail yourselves of my hypnotic baritone, nor the amounts of herb necessary to recreate my performance art, but if you like, you can make genuine Aztec chocolatl as drunk by Moctezuma himself. Aztec Royal Chocolatl (be advised, this is nothing at all like the hot chocolate you know): combine 1 square ground bittersweet dark chocolate, 1 tsp powdered red chili, 1 vanilla pod & 1 Tbsp honey in a cup (mortar) and grind finely. Add enough hot water to make a paste, then enough more to make one full goblet, mix. Cool. Froth with a whisk and pour from a great height into a golden goblet which, after use, must be throw away. If it is a feast day, you may add an aromatic flower of your choice to the grinding process. Okay, okay, if you want to Mexify this drink to make it more recognizable to your decadent white palate, use milk and sugar instead of water and honey and serve it hot but be aware that it isn't genuine that way.
Why I got into all of this today I have no idea, perhaps simply nostalgia, recollections of simpler times (mine, not the Aztecs), or simply because I am in my cycle of revisiting Mesoamerica. Who knows? Whatever the reason, enjoy the drink, you never know when someone may pop into your life and tell you it is time to don the bell-bedecked bracelets, the gods are waiting . . . .
Leducdor