April 30, 2002
Lilith More Focused on Dental
Care Since Sept. 11
How did the Sept. 11 attacks become the cause
and explanation for everything from insomnia to
stock market fluctuations to increased food bank
demands in Chicago? Why is September 11 now
the only valid point of chronological reference?
Mind you, this isn't unusual. It's been common
practice for ages among homo sapiens to date
things from the last major event: The third year
after the Great Earthquake, the Tenth Year of the
Reign of Sulia the Hairy etc. This method does
have a certain romantic appeal, like writing with
a quill pen or wearing a vintage hat, but I've
grown quite fond of the new B.C./A.D. system
myself and I am hoping it will catch on in
America as it has in Europe.
Romance on Washington Street
It was there when I walked by Monday: a left-
foot Nike on the curb between a light post and
the bus route sign. I wonder about single shoes.
Are some of them just loners? Tuesday it was
still there--muddy laces trailing behind.
Wednesday I walked a different route, but when
I saw it again Thursday it wasn't alone. A right-
foot high heel stood beside it, tall and
curvaceous in black velvet. They were such a
cute pair: tall and short, elegant and casual, toes
pointed a little inward. But it wasn't meant to
be. That evening when I passed the spot, the
high heel stood alone. I looked around for the
Nike, and spotted its heel protruding from under
the wheel of a parked car. Was it an accident?
A sneaker suicide? Or was it something more
sinister?
Report from the Department for
the Prevention of Cruelty to
English
The following words and phrases have been
rendered meaningless by gross overuse. Please
do not use these terms for at least three years:
- Terror (and all derivatives)
- Tragedy (and all derivatives)
- Infrastructure
- Crisis
- Strong words
- War of words
- Horror (and all derivatives)
- Unthinkable
- Hero (and all derivatives)
Are Trolls Real?
Just another curious bit to add to the mountain
of idle speculation: if dragon legends could be
an ancestral memory of the dinosaur, I say the
Scandanavian troll legends are an ancestral
memory of the Neanerthal. Sure, the story
would have been much embellished over the
millenia: Neanderthals didn't turn to stone in
the sunlight or quickly regrow limbs hacked off
in battle, but their description does bear some
resemblance to that of the troll, and Neanderthals
are supposed to have been contemporary with
cro-magnons. Neanderthals were a highly cold-
adapted species: short, stocky, probably
extremely hairy with enormous noses. This
would jibe pretty well with what trolls are
supposed to look like: ugly, big-nosed, hairy...
According to the rather sketchy translated
folklore, trolls are the degenerate descendants of
the Jotun (a much bigger, wiser, and older race).
In the descent from Jotun to troll, these creatures
remained very strong and extremely ugly, but
became smaller (no longer giants) and grew very
stupid -- which would jibe with the
anthropologists' ideas about the Neanderthal's
intelligence (though I'm not sure I agree with
them on that count, but that's another rant).
So the real question is what kind of people
were the cro-magnons? Could they have had
enough of an oral tradition to keep the memory
of Neanderthals alive even after Neanderthals
themselves died out? Or, alternatively, could
pockets of Neanderthals have survived much
longer than the archaeological record has
revealed (after all, everything we know about
them is from just a handful of sites -- I imagine
what we don't know about them is far more than
what we do know)?
_________________________________________
The views expressed in this publication are MINE -- ALL
MINE!! AAHahaha! They are the ultimate truth of the
universe and you must restructure your thought patterns to
conform to them. Otherwise, send complaints (or comments
or musings) to Elleason@aol.com where I will claw through
them like a ravenous animal because I have no life and will
then make snide comments about them in my next posting in
a vain attempt to disguise the silly excitement I felt at getting
a reply. Or not.
..................... Lilith