158: Cats and Crosses

[thefourthvine]

So. Someone on my friends list linked to the YouTube clip about the T.S. Eliot Equation, and I realized it could be used to prove three things about me:

1. I won't have any cats in my old age, because zero divided by anything is always zero. This is good, because I am tragically allergic to cats.
   
   
2. I won't live to be old, because some right-thinking

Comments

[entrenous88]

So. Hercules and the Bible.
I am so all over that story idea -- looking forward to checking that fic out!

And seriously, the Bible reads much easier if you go through the first five books pretty much in a row, and think of it as the trials and tribulations of a really cranky character named God.

[thefourthvine]

When I posted this, Best Beloved stared at me and said, "You're not supposed to read that part! Just skip it like everyone else!" (Best Beloved has the advantage of many years of bible school, here.) Which, yeah, I've found a lot of interesting stuff just browsing at random in the Bible - there is a substantial helping of gorgeous language in there, for starters - but all my instincts (honed in the closet mentioned in this entry, actually) say you start at the beginning of a book and read until the end. You don't skip parts just because they sound like four grandmothers gossiping at a reunion of a family you don't know. (Or because it reads like the potluck list for the family reunion.)

On the bright side, this means I am the only person left in history who can be surprised by plots from the Bible. I cried throughout the Prince of Egypt, for example, and I'm Jewish. Didn't matter, though, because I can't read Hebrew and thus didn't know what was happening in the Haggadah until I saw the movie

[entrenous88]

I think it also helps if you consider the Bible more an omnibus-anthology of books rather than a single book. That allows for more reading out of sequence if you want to go that route.

On the bright side, this means I am the only person left in history who can be surprised by plots from the Bible.
Surprise stemming from narrative developments in any well-known text is very cool -- it's such an interesting perspective that we don't usually hear about. It's funny to think about such works as having "spoilers," but they really do (sort of like most people who have taken some literature classes know what happens in Moby Dick, etc.). I'm sure there are some major texts that I managed to stay unspoiled for until I read them through that I can't think of only because it's 7am on a Saturday. OH! One example -- when I read Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, I hadn't read Chaucer's poem or other treatments of that story, so there were some moments of genuine surprise there.

[holli]

Uh. I think I know who Beast would be.

I think it's Sam Carter.

I think I have a problem with my brain being missing, oh god.

[thefourthvine]

Oh my god. You are a genius. That's exactly who Beast is!

*pleased beyond measure*

(And, obviously, you don't have any brain missing; in fact, judging from this, you have extra brain. Or I am unusually dense. Or, as is all too likely, both.)

[holli]

Now I'm plagued with this mental image of Sam in her dorky glasses from that time-travel AU episode I can never remember the name of, only blue. Brain, why do you do this to me?

...oh my lord, "Holy Hannah" is totally the new "Oh my stars and garters."

[thefourthvine]

...oh my lord, "Holy Hannah" is totally the new "Oh my stars and garters."

I think I love you.

No. I'm sure I love you. Your brain is made of awesome.

(And I feel sure that somewhere in all this there's an explanation for Sam's affinity for blue jello.)

[musesfool]

I won't have any cats in my old age, because zero divided by anything is always zero. This is good, because I am tragically allergic to cats.

ME TOO!

I look at that video as a vindication of my cat-hating ways, really.

[thefourthvine]

ME TOO!

I had to type "LOL" in a story once. It hurt. A lot, actually.

Also, when I look at emoticons, what I see is random punctuation with no inherent meaning, so - yeah. Zero divided by any number will always be zero, and thank god because there is not enough asthma medication in the world for me to cohabit with a cat.

I look at that video as a vindication of my cat-hating ways, really.

I don't actually hate cats. They are non-primate mammals, ergo I like them. But they tend to rub up against me, and then I pat them, and then I stop breathing. And then I break out in hives. (You would think I would have learned by now not to touch cats, but no. The call of the non-primate mammal is strong.)

[musesfool]

I don't actually hate cats. They are non-primate mammals, ergo I like them.

See, possibly because of the hives and the not-breathing thing, I think cats are probably trying to take over the world and since I am also trying to take over the world, this is a problem.

[frostfire_17]

dude, that totally threw me, too. I mean--okay, first of all, obviously the exclamation points should be an intensifying factor. And then there's the fact that using too many exclamation points almost certainly stems from the same gland or whatever that using too many LOLs and/or smileys does, so there's probably a direct correlation, which would mean that the number of cats would always be the same, wouldn't it?

[thefourthvine]

*bonds*

And then there's the fact that using too many exclamation points almost certainly stems from the same gland or whatever that using too many LOLs and/or smileys does, so there's probably a direct correlation, which would mean that the number of cats would always be the same, wouldn't it?

Excellent point. Would you like to co-author a paper? Our hypothesis would be that, if we survey a random sampling of emails written by Future Old Age Cat Owners (FOACO), we will find a trend toward a specific value of the cat number (nc). Probably, the older a FAOCO gets, the closer one comes to the ultimate value of nc.

*wonders where we could find a sufficient random sampling of FOACO emails*

[delurker]

Once I visited Mont Saint Michel, which is a mountain connected to the mainland by a causeway, and all the way down I kept having flashbacks to Five go to Smuggler's Top, which I have read so often it is engraved on my brain. (I kept waiting for the secret passages to turn up, but no such luck.)

[thefourthvine]

I remember Five Go to Smuggler's Top!

Oh dear god I'm having flashbacks. Send help.

(Also, yet more blame to heap at Enid Blyton's feet: you went to Mont Saint Michel and thought of the Famous Five. That's sad.)

I kept waiting for the secret passages to turn up, but no such luck.

Oh, I know. Just in general, my youthful reading prepared me for a much more secret-passage-ridden adolescence and adulthood than has actually come to pass. *sad*

[delurker]

I can't believe I even remember the title of that, and yet I do. Why can't I remember more useful stuff? (Obviously because Smuggler's Top got there first. Thanks, Enid. Thanks a lot.)

(Fortunately, the actual mountain part was so awesome I forgot about it for a while, but when we got back down to the car park it all came flooding back. I was waiting for the smugglers to appear, but alas, none were forthcoming.)

Oh, I know. Just in general, my youthful reading prepared me for a much more secret-passage-ridden adolescence and adulthood than has actually come to pass. *sad*
So true! Nancy Drew is also a major culprit here.

Did you know you can actually pay someone to come to your house and install a secret passageway? One of the really awesome ones, with the entrance through the bookcase where you pull down a book.