poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2008-10-01 09:58 am

Eid Mubarak

I know nothing about economics, so my opinion is worth nothing,  but I reckon what's going down right now is karma. 

Yesterday was a damp, dark, dreadful day. I sat in my big chair and read Swift.

Gulliver Book II is rather charming- a Georgian idyll.  It's as if Swift had forgotten he was supposed to be blasting humanity and had allowed himself to fall in love with these people- the king and Glumdalclitch in particular. Brobdignag is a nice place and almost everybody- in spite of the skin problems- is nice too.  It would have been much better for Gulliver if he'd stayed.

I'm also reading Murakami's After the Quake- a set of stories, dealing- obliquely- with the Kobe earthquake of 2000. The people in them are living on the very edge of the void- as we all are, all the time- only mostly we prefer not to notice.

Google this morning features a weird graphic involving a grinning goon in a wooly hat, a couple of manic kids and a bunch of heart-shaped balloons. In the background there are explosions. On one side of the goon is a melting cross, on the other a bleeding heart.  Happy New Year- or the end of civilisation as we know it?

Doodle 4 Google winner: Daniel Thorne, aged 15

[identity profile] poliphilo.livejournal.com 2008-10-01 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
So it's not just my warped imagination- thank goodness for that.

[identity profile] nostoi.livejournal.com 2008-10-01 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
No, it's mine too! :D