Funny and/or incomprehensible journal article titles!

• Long-Wave Sensitivity in Deep-Sea Stomiid Dragonfish with Far-Red Bioluminescence: Evidence for a Dietary Origin of the Chlorophyll-Derived Retinal Photosensitizer of Malacosteus niger

• Modeling Underwater Visual and Filter Feeding by Planktivorous Shearwaters in Unusual Sea Conditions

• Labile Nature of the Visual Recovery Promoted by Reverse Occlusion in Monocularly Deprived Kittens

• Increased Sensitivity after Repeated Stimulation of Residual Spatial Channels in Blindsight

• A Private Ultraviolet Channel in Visual Communication

• Further Evidence That Whorfian Effects Are Stronger in the Right Visual Field than the Left

• Visual Latencies in Cytochrome Oxidase Bands of Macaque Area V2
  

• Visual and Semiochemical Disruption of Host Finding in the Southern Pine Beetle
  

• Perceiving Conductors' Expressive Gestures from Different Visual Perspectives. An Exploratory Continuous Response Study

• Oculoparalytic Illusion: Visual-Field Dependent Spatial Mislocalizations by Humans Partially Paralyzed with Curare

• Visual Performance in Behaving Cats After Prenatal Unilateral Enucleation

*These are all totally legit scientific articles

from another.

Te Solte La Rienda - Jimenez Jose Alfredo

Se me acabo la fuerza
de mi mano izquierda
voy a dejarte el mundo
para ti solita.

Como al caballo blanco
le solte la rienda
a ti tambien te suelto
y te me vas ahorita.

Y cuando al fin comprendas
que el amor bonito
lo tenias conmigo.

Vas a extrañar mis besos
en los propios brazos
del que este contigo.

Vas a sentir que lloras
sin poder siquiera
derramar tu llanto
y has de querer mirarte
en mis ojos tristes
que quisiste tanto,
que quisiste tanto,
que quisiste tanto.

Cuando se quiere a fuerza
rebasar la meta
y se abandona todo
lo que se ha tenido.

Como tu traes el alma
con la rienda suelta
a ti tambien te suelto
y te me vas ahorita.

Y cuando al fin comprendas
que el amor bonito
lo tenias conmigo.

Vas a extrañar mis besos
en los propios brazos
de el que este contigo.

Vas a sentir que lloras
sin poder siquiera
derramar tu llanto
y has de querer mirarte
en mis ojos tristes
que quisiste tanto,
que quisiste tanto,
y que quieres tanto.

Se me acabo la fuerza
y te solte la rienda.

Magic Mushrooms

I found mushrooms yesterday!
I was walking home, and there was a little silky-smooth pale one on the roadside, which I collected. Then, after being inches from kissing three different spiders (which happened to be on webs at face-level), I found a few more in our local abandoned oval:


I feel like Alice in Wonderland..


Some people I told were less than enthusiastic about my find:
"You're gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Do you think they'll kill me?

But they smell so gooood.

Undaunted, I set about preparing them..

YUM.

I am tempted to philosophise about the wonder of mushrooms springing up suprisedly, such rapid unlooked-for gemmy little beings.. but I'll restrain myself.

I love you.


ps 24hrs on, I'm still alive and kicking :)

pps sorry there was no exciting halucinatory story! I should have made one up. hmm but I don't think I can be bothered to rewrite. You'll just have to imagine one.

A Kite is a Victim

A kite is a victim you are sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gentle enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives
like a desperate trained falcon
in the high sweet air
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.

A kite is a fish you have already caught
in a pool where no fish come,
so you play him carefully and long,
and hope he won't give up,
or the wind die down.

A kite is the last poem you've written,
so you give it to the wind,
but you don't let it go
until someone finds you
something else to do.

A kite is a contract of glory
that must be made with the sun,
so you make friends with the field
the river and the wind,
then you pray the whole cold night before,
under the travelling cordless moon,
to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

-Leonard Cohen

Interesting People Part 2

Ela from El Refugio
This lady is German born but has lived in Mexico for the past 25 years. She was travelling in Belize where she met her husband (from North Mexico). They continued travelling through Guatemala (some crazy hitch-hiking stories!) and then settled back in southern Mexico. Through their married life they have seen the powers of good and evil in the world at work in so many ways. Many many people have come to them for all sorts of help.
For the last 15 years they have been living in a gorgeous wooden house in the mountains. They have several grown-up children of their own, as well as two little adopted ones who were abandoned. Ela runs a little clinic and has a birthing house which women come to (both locals, and friends from the city) give birth with her. They have a community of people living in houses nearby who have come to the mountains to seek freedom from addictions, and answers to their questions. Ela and her family are highly regarded, and people seem to come from far & wide to speak with her.

Albert was a quirky, laidback, stick-thin Italian dude who had come over to Mexico a bunch of years ago and never returned to his home country. He met a girl in Mexico City and they ended up marrying, coming out and settling on a little patch of land near where Ela lives in the mountains of Oaxaca. They're just on the edge of a tiny village called San Mateo. They built their own little wooden house with the help of friends, on a hill with an amazing view through the valleys. They have two cows, whose milk they sell to support themselves (fresh cow milk seems to be pretty rare in Mexico), a skinny horse, a donkey, a cat who is friends with the donkey, and a tiny pixie of a girlchild.

El Chingiringi
This guy was a real character. I met him at El Refugio. He had taken a nasty cocktail of drugs & alcohol before arriving and was still recovering. He was totally loopy, but cheery and goodnatured most of the time (unless he was begging Jose for "un chingiringi" - a shot of mescal. This gave him his nickname). The day after arriving the guys already had some funny stories to report of him. Apparently he commented on the family's black labrador, saying "I've never seen a blue dog before!" Later he was found in the cookhouse below, waiting with a stick by a hole in the floor - for a seal to stick its head up!!
After a few days he wandered off again. He found his way to San Jose (5km away) where apparently he got into a spot of trouble and was transported to another town about three times as far away. He walked all the way back to SJ before the crew found him, and had the biggest blister on his foot that I've ever seen. They sat him by the fire and Ela set about mending his wounds. To everyone's merriment, he began telling another guy that he was his king.. then one moment when Ela was distracted, and before anyone else could stop him, he grabbed a burning log straight from the fire and dropped it in a basin of water by him (which was waiting for the kettle). "Para calientar el agua" (heat the water), of course!

Interesting People...

Just a Few of the Interesting People I Met [Part 1]

Diplomat on holiday
On the bus on the way up Volcan Poas in Costa Rica, I met a lady who said she worked as a UN diplomat! Naturally, I said 'wow, how on earth did you get to work for the UN?!' Just in case you are also wondering, I'll tell you. She said she did an arts degree in International Relations (she must have done pretty well), got a job with the Red Cross, then a couple of years ago got this job. Since then she's worked in South Africa and somewhere in Europe, and now for the last year in Colombia! She was still pretty young. Basically what she does in Colombia (and elsewhere) is ironining out conflicts, working with govts and the drug groups and guerrillas, trying to get communication happening and restabilise.
Wow. She also told me that Colombia is very beautiful and well set up for tourism. Go there!! [just avoid the druglords, ok?]

Epic combi-driving dude
In Santa Elena, Costa Rica, I met a Canadian guy who spent 4 or 5 months driving a VW combi all the way around north america! He said that less than 2 weeks into the trip the combi broke down and he and his friend began to doubt they'd make it all the way round.. but then they found an internet site devoted linking to combi lovers-helpers-fixers with combi-drivers-in-trouble. So then whenever they had a problem, they would look up the closest combi-enthusiast in the state, and ask for help. Soo many people went out of their way to rescue them, doing over and above what they ever imagined! They had a fantastic trip. I was so inspired!

Belizean back to his roots
In Belize I was bumping along for a few hours in a practically antique bus from Belize City to the sleepy coastal town of Corozal. The African-looking guy (though with lighter, more honey-coloured skin) I was sitting next to was very polite, helping me get settled on the bus with my stuff, but was determined to not bug me or get in my face (he said later), and so sat staring straight ahead and didn't say a word.
This of course had the effect of making me intensely curious and wanting to talk to him. Finally I started a conversation, and drew out that he'd lived in the US ever since he was a small child, had been educated at uni there and everything, but that it was not his home, and he thought that Belize, and his family's little property in the middle of nowhere was the most wonderful place in the world, and so just a couple of weeks ago he had come back to stay. We continued on talking about what's really of value in life, about the states, Australian culture, and his home, until it finally came in sight and he leapt off the bus and carted his things down the driveway..

Farming in drug country
In a hostel in Oaxaca city I met a young fellow, early twenties, who has been coming over to Mexico in his summers for about five years now! He and an old guy he knows own a patch of land up north in Oaxaca, and have been working it, and trying to get alongside the local community as well. They try not to get directly involved in town politics, but have a few friends among the villagers who they talk to about stuff, and they pass on suggestions to the rest of the community as they see fit. They've done things like taking people all the way to the city when they need it, getting papers signed, legal support, etc. Also trying to encourage different approaches to agriculture, and a greater variety of crops. One thing they're working on at the moment is trying to set up a coffee cooperative. He also had some interesting stories to tell about clashes with those people you _don't_ want to be clashing with...

The Back of the Wind

One Night

Three girls sat talking. One was seeking, she did not know for what, and she did not hold much hope of finding.
One knew for what she was seeking, but had not yet fully found it.
The third knew that what she had sought, she had found, and lived and delighted in the knowing.