For your Halloween viewing pleasure

Here's a little scooby snack for you. Ruh-roh!



And they might have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those darn kids.

Grow Up, Don't Dress Up

Perhaps I'm overly cranky after two weeks which have been busy enough at work that I've been virtually unable to blog, but it strikes me as particularly foolish that a number of people around the office building were so crestfallen at the idea of missing out on a chance to wear their Halloween costumes to work that they decided to dress up on the 30th. Somehow it seems doubly pathetic when this is combined with a fear of actually looking too un-ordinary, and the reveller thus shows up wearing medical scrubs and a stethoscope to your desk job so you can be "in costume" without looking weird.

I was starting to think we had an invasion of doctors and nurses there were so many people in colorful scrubs, until I saw some brave (or foolish -- you pick) soul parading about in black robes, pointed hat, and carrying a broomstick. (Alternatively, maybe that's just the product manager everyone has been calling La Bruja.)

I'm down on moving holidays at the best of times, but a bunch of people in their 30s and 40s being so attached to the idea of wearing costumes to work that they spontaneously move it just strikes me as pathetic.

Growl.

Anonymous

Here, by popular demand, is a photo of Anonymous, chroniclers of the kings of Hungary. Sorry about the quality of the picture -- I stood on a kitchen chair and took a shot of it in its frame. But you can still see that the tip of his pen has been rubbed golden from all the visitors who touch it to bring themselves a bit of Anonymous's vast literary success.

Historical importance, indeed

This one is for Christopher, whose memories of the cathedral in Cologne prompted me to tell my own anecdote about our visit there.

Darwin and I visited Cologne in the spring of 1999. Our train trip into Germany was an ordeal by non-reservation -- after tooling about laid-back Austria and Italy, no one had told us that the Germans would reserve every seat on the train. We squeezed in the corridor (along with everyone else who didn't reserve) and spent all night trying to melt into the wall to let a group of drunk Americans tromp back and forth to the lavatory. A memorable, if not comfortable, ride.

The press had lightened by the time we were approaching Cologne. Finally able to sit down in a compartment, we glued ourselves to the window, thrilled by the sight of the spires that suggested an end to our journey. But as the miles of fields stretched onward and the spires loomed ever larger and larger, our impatience to be there paled before the realization of the massive scale of the dom. The fact that we could see it meant not that we were close, but that it was mind-bogglingly, humblingly huge.

In the paved plaza before the cathedral, we strolled about amidst the other tourists, feeling dwarfish. And then, we saw it. At our feet was stone, almost indistinguishable from every other stone in the plaza, except that it was engraved. In English. We reached for the camera.


The photographic proof of this is now matted and framed in the kitchen. Every day we see it, in the triple frame between the statue of Anonymous from Budapest and the fountain from the same plaza. And almost every day we wonder: What does it mean? Who put it there? And why didn't he know whether or not it was a place of historical importance? Was he implying that one day it would be a place of historical importance? That at this moment it was a place of historical importance and he just didn't know it yet?

The one who laid the stone was a careful man, hedging his bets. He allows that historical importance might spring from, yea, this very moment, and yet he does not assume that the moment is already historical. He leaves a monument in case one day history will come back to vindicate his cautious assessment of its possible progress. And yet he leaves no name, so he will not be blamed if history proves to be a bitch and fails to provide that place with any import.

Here's some interesting history on the Cologne cathedral as well as a fascinating historical image.

The official cathedral website -- the English page, I think. There's a 3o minute documentary which one can watch in English with lots of great history and pictures.

Not exactly...

We had a long hard week last week, and the coming one doesn't look to be any lighter. Working late, meetings, dentist appointments, checkups, the baby's toe turning black (his own fault) -- lots going on here. But still, it isn't exactly brain surgery.



Thank you, thank you, CMinor, for introducing us to Mitchell and Webb.

Elitist Bumper Sticker

Waiting to be made: "Non cogitas, ergo non es."

When the Two Become One

I always find myself a bit surprised when people find it hard to tell my and MrsDarwin's writing apart. After all, I never have this problem. And we so often measure others by ourselves, even when we have little right to expect similarity.

If it doesn't seem revoltingly naval-gazing to ask:

1) Do you find Darwin and MrsDarwin posts hard to tell apart some or all of the time?
2) Does it seem to you natural or odd for spouses to seem hard to tell apart in print?



And if it does seem revoltingly naval gazing... Well, sorry. It's Tuesday and I'm already talking about it having been a long week at work. All I can say is: