John Milton Paradise Lost (1667)Well, well, well. Once again we have arrived at the month of October, my favorite month for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that it heralds the real arrival of autumn, the change of colors, the melancoly yet deeply satisfying turning inwards of both the northern hemisphere and the thought processes of people in that hemisphere. On top of which, October culminates in one of my favorite holiday festivals of the year, Halloween. In order to commence the month in appropriate tenor, I assembled all the available gargoyle films I could find, five in number, and watched them one after another. They ranged from the 1972 camp Gargoyles to a recent Sci-Fi
channel effort, Reign of the Gargoyles. The premises of all the films are silly in the extreme, but if one is a fan of the genre it is a delightful way to usher in the month and its rather lugubrious undertones. I was amused to note that in one Romanian effort, there was a credit in the technical team for Zoltan Dracul, and one can only hope that is his real name and that he glories in it. On Halloween weekend itself, Devi and I shall be in Paris visiting some dear friends whom we plan to take to dinner on that night. I jokingly requested that my friend find a restaurant that will be serving "werewolf soup, vampire steaks, fresh hot witchbread, iced gargoyle delight & pitchers of ghost wine." He replied that he knows the perfect place, which throws an unexpected new light on his character. No matter the result, we will be delighted to visit them at the end of the month, they are cherished friends and as well we will have the opportunity to congratulate them in person on the news which they announced only last night that they have decided to marry, an unexpected but delightful surprise. Devi is overjoyed as she is a friend of long date with the husband-to-be, who recently brought his companion down to Montpellier to introduce her to us and we both found her delightful and charming with a great deal of interpersonal warmth.
In keeping with the October theme, I also watched an American television miniseries playing on French television, Fallen, concerning the Nephilim. While the series itself was rather nebulous, fluffy and commercially driven, the ideas it presented were interesting. For those who do not know, the Nephilim are/were the offspring of fallen angels and human women. I have run into this idea previously but never in depth, so the series served to drive me to the Internet and do some research on the topic. It is quite fascinating. The whole subject ranges from the biblical idea that the Nephilim were giants, such as Goliath, to the modern idea that the Nephilim still exist among us and serve a definite purpose in the divine plan for humanity. What that purpose may be is still clouded and unsure, but the whole theory that angels can couple with humans runs into a small snag; angels are supposedly non-sexed, a difficulty which is sidestepped by stating that that requirement applies only to angels still in Heaven, that the fallen can indeed take corporeal form and couple sexually. Also inherent in the theories is that not all the fallen went to Hell 
with Lucifer, that a great number decided to remain in corporeal form on the Earth and lead their immortal lives amongst us for a variety of reasons, not least of which is their fascination with the fact that human beings have souls while they do not. The price of immortality I suppose. The series turned around the point that one day a Nephilim will be born as "the Redeemer", the one who has the power to redeem the fallen and send them back to Heaven despite whatever crimes or sins they may have committed. From a rather promising idea evolved a great deal of foolishness, including a teenage romance and a Nephilim son of Lucifer the Lightbringer. Azazel had a thick Cockney accent and the angels were a politically correct mélange of races, colors and political beliefs. Oh well, American television will always put its own idiotic spin on big ideas.
As I sit here writing this it has just been announced that President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for 2009. Of course the whining, naysaying and random sniping started immediately, mostly of the tone of "yeah, but what has he actually accomplished?" Well, yes, there is that, but I believe people are missing what he has done in fact; he has single-handedly changed the American image abroad and at home, has re-opened diplomatic dialogue instead of resorting to Texan six-shooter "diplomacy," and is fighting an uphill battle on the fronts of health care reform, climate change, nuclear disarmament and poverty while coping with the Great Recession. Give the man a break. Despite any opinion to the contrary, the Nobel committee does not make these decisions in an atmosphere of "oh, what the hell. . . ." I personally am deeply happy for
him even though surprised by the award, as he is only the third sitting US president ever awarded the honor, the last going back to Woodrow Wilson in 1919. My grandmother was only seven years old and her concern at the time was whether she would receive the doll she wanted for Christmas from the Sears mail order catalogue. And thus the beatification of President Obama continues, but there is a down side to that as well. In any process of beatification, there must be proof of miracles and "hope" does not fall into that category. As well, this award will add to the tremendous burden already riding on his shoulders. Very rarely have so many hoped for so much from a single man, much less a politician. He may be humbled by the award but I would wager a nickel to a dollar that the implications of the award do not escape him and that somewhere in his being there is a small, reverberating groan. After his failure in Copenhagen to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago and media reflections on his uxoriousness with Michelle, however, perhaps it is a sweet moment for him after all; it will certainly be tougher for the GOP to continue to demonize him (unless they can prove he is Nephilim). In speaking of the 2016 Olympics, I was amazed to see the president of Brazil burst into 
tears when Rio de Janeiro was announced as the winner. Oh, those emotional Portuguese. It may be hard, however, to keep the athletes focused on the games when surrounded by naked Rio samba dancers and their enticing 20 foot feather headdresses. Of course, 90% of Rio de Janeiro will be off limits as the crime rate is astronomical, but what the hell, live a little, compete a lot, just stay away from the crack (in every sense).Nasa has "bombed" the Moon at almost the same moment as the Nobel announcement. Bomb is not the correct term, of course; they have sent an
unarmed rocket crashing into a south polar lunar crater in order to cause a plume of debris which will be analyzed for the presence of ice (water) on the Moon in order to justify further lunar expeditions and the possibilty of human bases there. I hope no one is surprised when the Lunarians "bomb" the Earth, searching for signs of intelligence beneath the surface since there is obviously none ON the surface. Meanwhile 
the Giant Space Crabs (see previous blog entry # 29 ) are fine tuning the hexnut on Saturn, advising the homeworld of this disquieting development and requesting advice on the feasability of launching the "Humans with Butter & Lemon Sauce" operation sooner than foreseen.Let us mosey around the world a bit, shall we? The "Hail, Prince(ss) of the Obvious!" award for this entry goes to
Manisha Tank, a Hong Kong based CNN anchor who stated, on presenting video showing a protester throwing his shoes at the chairman of the IMF in Istanbul (a deep insult in the Middle East), "Well, there must be some discontent there." Hail, Manisha! The Swedish firm IKEA® will not being doing much business in Israel for awhile due to Israel's discontent with a Swedish media story of Israeli soldiers harvesting Palestinian organs from their victims for use back in Israel. In Saudi Arabia, a man convicted of bragging about his sex life has received a sentence of five years in jail and 1000 lashes. Presumably he will not receive the lashes all at the same time as I understand that you die well before 100. A small useless fact is that 25% of the world is Muslim and that percentage is growing - Pope Benedict XVI, on your toes and take that 
Popemobile on a tour! Drifting over to Southeast Asia, one can only marvel at the massive amount of bad karma that seems to be falling from the sky. Successive earthquakes in Samoa and Indonesia, a linked chain of typhoons sweeping the Philippines, many hundreds dead, many hundreds of thousands displaced and homeless, being born in Southeast Asia seems to be a definitive judgement by Fate that you need to atone for something, even if you do not know what that may be. The Sri Lankan general
Udaya Nanayakkara explains to the international media that there were and are no war crimes committed against the Tamil Tiger rebels, despite claims to the contrary, yet he will allow absolutely no reportage from within the "former" war zone, keeping it utterly isolated. China, in a wistful recall of the imperial days of the Mandate of Heaven, celebrated the 60th anniversary of Communism with a gigantic celebration in Tienanmen Square, complete 
with dancing dragons, fireworks and a military parade the likes of which has not been seen since the glory days of the USSR. Upon watching bits of the proceedings, I began to wonder, "If China can do that for its 60th anniversary, why can't I?" I can imagine it now - a nominal rent for the Square, dancing dragons, a commission for the largest fireworks display ever seen, a banquet for ten thousand of my closet friends, thousands of tightly choreographed dancers as entertainment during the banquet, all to celebrate my 60th birthday in just a few years. Why not? I will have to see if Devi and I can squeeze the necessary funds out of our retirement accounts. Japan continues its cinematic fascination with the erotic, the psychotic and the homicidal as attested by a spate of recent films combining all three elements, most of which show up on the French arts channel, a kind of francophone PBS. A recent piece on fad mad Japan
informed me of the newest trend there, IV cafes. You enter one of the countless Tokyo highrises and proceed to the offices of your favorite IV cafe, where you choose from among ten packages of various vitamin supplements suspended in saline solution. There is one for clearer skin, one for rejuvenation and muscular suppleness, one for this and one for that, etc. You relax in a recliner while the nurse administers your vitamin boost intravenously, at the price of around $30.00 USD, and walk out feeling as if you have done something to better your health. All of this only served to remind me of my small regret that I have never tried smoking opium and probably never will. Perhaps they can administer it intravenously if I go to Tokyo . . . .On the random side of things . . . watching an Italian film recently, I was amused to note among the technical
credits the name of Fabiomassimo Dell'Orco, a name which I find highly wonderful. A friend of Italian extraction in Seattle states that either he had "a grand drunken time thinking up his stage name or his parents had delusions of grandeur." I opt for the latter, as normally a technical person does not need a stage name. In an Austrian fim, under tech credits, came the name Helga Ungarat. Again, I enjoyed it. The name itself conjures up an image of Helga, a mix of Prussian and Romanian influences, perhaps a childhood spent in Bucharest, longing for the freedom of East Germany (sic). Quincy Jones, in a CNN segment entitled "My City, My Life" bills Seattle as a city of mystery and intrigue. Really? I have visited Seattle and it did not strike me as the Prague of the American West Coast. Lately
it seems that my eyes have become more focused on spotting really beautiful women, the stunningly beautiful kind, and I find it wonderful to look and appreciate while at the same time my mind repeats constantly that you cannot trust an improbably beautiful woman any further than you can toss the Great Pyramid. In line with the old adage, "Never marry a very beautiful woman, you will never be sure." My acquisition of the complete 24 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Universalis is now complete and I am content that we now have in the house a decent reference source for history, art, literature, science, religion, economy, society, philosophy and geography, at least until next year when new discoveries or political changes will render it all absolutely out of date.I shall finish at this point, as I need to contemplate whether I shall take an Halloween costume to Paris or not. I had planned, when the idea was to stay in Montpellier, on dressing as a Roswell grey alien carrying a Doc Johnson® anal probe, but that is now out of the question as the Parisians might just take me at face value if I were to wear said disguise. Please do not forget to take the latest poll at the end of the blog (just hit "End" and you will be whisked to the appropriate line). Until the next,
Leducdor
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