Emploi du temps

All night long,  the snowbunnies

whiz and whisper,

over the silent

                shining

                    snow . . . . .

Do Snowbunnies Believe in God? (II)

They would not even understand the question;

they would think you were speaking in riddles.

Their language has no word for ‘God’,

any more than it has for ‘thankfulness for simply béing here’

or for ‘fact-of-being-a-snowbunny’.

They simply lead their lives in sleek serenity,

which comes to them  from somewhere beyond the snow.

Do Snowbunnies Believe in God? (I)

Snowbunnies are so peaceful and glad,

they sleep in their belief  as in a blanket.

They do not think about it,

but it keeps them warm.

[For an introduction to snow-bunnies,

try this:

https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2013/07/contributions-to-exobiology.html ]

Dr J comes out of the closet !

At a time when all the subcortical world is chattering about a creature which purportedly transitioned from what it was, to what is is not (and could never be) -- in bare defiance of Bishop Berkeley’s celebrated (if possibly apocryphal) dictum ("Everything is, what it is:  and not -- another thing...")-- and moreover harvesting accolades for doing so, 

we thought the moment opportune to announce our own chrysalidal Coming Out:   We have finally decided, publically to embrace  Our Inner Penguin !!

Fortunately, this process did not necessitate any unpleasant surgico-chemical interventions, but merely the doffing of the elbow-patched cardigan and academic tweeds, then donning a dinner-jacket.   Behold the results:

Dr Justice  in his native habitat

We await the media frenzy, paying cold cash to appear on the covers of magazines.

~

More surprising is the fact that, as we discovered only this morning,  our lawnmover is, actually and in point of fact, a penguin !!!

Those of you who have followed this blog, will have noticed our yearly celebration (annually reposted) of the triumphant vernal restarting -- upon first try!  -- of our ancient lawnmower, after its hibernation:

        Rites of Spring (iterum resartus)

What we have hitherto refrained from referring to, since we did not understand until just now, is that, as summer approaches, the d*mned thing frequently fails to start.

Eventually I noticed a correlation:  If the day is too hot and humid, the machine is listless;  if crisp, perky.    I tried it this morning, in the cool of the dawn:  it roared to life.  (Regretted to do something so noisy, early Sunday, but figured that the good folk were all away at early Mass.)

For this, there exists but one explanation:   My lawnmover is a penguin!

~

As expected, the media are swarming all over our driveway, trying to get the low-down on what has suddenly become the planet’s number one story.

Q:  So, what’s it like to be a penguin?

A:  Not so bad, providing you like fish.

Q:  What’s the best thing about being a penguin?

A:  Sliding on your tummy on the ice! Mmmm!  We call it belly-‘bogganing.

Q:  Are there any esoteric interconnections between penguins and snow-bunnies?

A:  Yes!  When a penguin is very happy, he sometimes becomes completely white, and thus cannot be perceived against the snowy background.  These are called “polar penguins”.   The (meta)physics of these beings  is not well understood, their study being still in its infancy.

Snowfall !

Just before the Equinox,

snowflakes have parachuted out of the sky,

covering everything.

Snowbunnies race everywhere  over the lawns.

(You cannot see them, because they are the same shade as the snow.

That, plus they move at the speed of light.

They are rather unusual rabbits in certain respects.)

Professor Quine confesses himself baffled

as I point to the scene and say, “Gavagai!”

Snow Day

The druids are predicting eight hundred feet of snow. 

The bunnies make ready their burrow, with plenty of

            * hot chocolate

            * storybooks

            * pillows

The bunnies are looking forward to this day.

Methods of Truth-functional Semantics

Some of us lead lives;  others go to graduate school.  Those who follow the latter path, eventually are possessed of such wisdom as this:

“A proposition is a function   from possible-worlds  to truth-values.”

We illustrate this insight with a simple case:

Snow-bunnies run faster and faster

and faster

and faster

and fasterandfasterandfasterandfasterand

faster than fast.

In the Snow-World, that proposition is as true as petunias;  as blue as cool pools;  as deep as the depths of thine eyes.

The Physics of Snow-Bunnies

Snow-bunnies inhabit their own funny geometry.  They scamper and frisk every whichway, yet every trajectory a snow-bunny takes, is a geodesic.  That’s why the rapid movements of snow-bunnies are so effortless.

When a snow-bunny runs into a black hole, they cancel.

Since snowbunnies move infinitely quickly, infinity has a different meaning for them than it does for us.  But it’s still pretty big.

They run, and they run, and they never stop, lest  like a photon  they cease to be.

[Learn more about our fleet friends the snowbunnies, here.]

Christian Morgenstern zum Gedächtnis (neu bearbeitet)

"Christian Morning-star."  What a lovely name.

Nun ja, die Schnee-häschen -- die sehe ich auch

He wrote this poem:

Korf erfindet eine Art von Witzen,

die erst viele Stunden später wirken.

Jeder hört sie an mit langer Weile.

Doch als hätt' ein Zunder still geglommen,

wird man nachts im Bette plötzlich munter,

selig lächelnd wie ein satter Säugling.

It is worth learning German just for that.

In the meantime, here is an echo in English.

Korf discovers a new kind of humor

whose effect comes only hours later;

you hear it first in bored incomprehension.

And yet as had a spark lain unsuspected,

one wakes awake in bed in sudden gladness,

softly smiling like a breast-fed baby.

~

Mr. Morgenstern discovered many magical animals, such as : the Mondschaf (lateinisch ‘Lun-ovis’; moonlamb, in the vernacular), and her lunar relative, the Mondberg-uhu;  the mysterious Turtelunke (not yet found in nature -- only a suggestion, to the Maker of things); and the untranslatable Nasobēm.  And we, to entertain him in the afterlife, have reported on a discovery of our own … snow bunnies!

~

Ich bin das ehrlich’ Nasobēm :

welch’ Märchen wär’ mir angenehm?

Schon doch -- ein zaubervolles !

Murphy im magischen Pfandhaus

[Kindle] [Nook]

Hör zu, Maria, zärtliche Vorschläge …

 

 

This too, our poet wrote:

Palmström liebt sich in Geräusch zu wickeln,

teils zur Abwehr wider fremde Lärme,

teils um sich vor drittem Ohr zu schirmen.

Und so läßt er sich um seine Zimmer

Wasserröhren legen, welche brausen.

Und ergeht sich, so behütet, oft in

stundenlangen Monologen, stunden-

langen Monologen, gleich dem Redner

von Athen, der in die Brandung brüllte,

gleich Demosthenes am Strand des Meeres.

And we as one, with whom a lamb were placed in trust,

return it, wrapped in bluest blanket:

Palmström loves  to wrap himself in rustles --

half, himself to spare  annoying noises;

half to shield himself from overhearing.

With water-courses  he outfits his chamber,

purling ever, soft, with sough and simmer;

and thus at ease, declaims, amidst the murmur

monologues, full loud, the wind addressing;

hour on hour he strides, soliliquizing:

e’en as the Dean, of Attic rhetorick:

e’en Demósthenes  on sea-strand, sounding.

Weiteres:
http://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Christian_Morgenstern

Der Schneekönig

Leafing through one of my favorite books (Karl Wildhagen’s German-English dictionary),  I happened upon the following expression:

Er freut sich wie ein Schneekönig

he is as merry as a grig

Now -- grigs are proverbially merry;  but why should the Schneekönig be that way?

We looked into the matter, and found that the explanation is really quite simple:

The Schneekönig is much beloved among the snow-bunnies.

Round and around and around him they run,

till his silly head is spinning,

and he is dizzy with love and laughter.

(And the hop-happy sandboy  laughs along with.)

~

O my gracious !  Just stumbled across another allusion to snow-bunnies  in that same fine reference source:

der Osterhase

Easter-hare (that lays the Easter eggs)

Not many people realize where Easter eggs come from  but now you know!

~

Heavens to Betsy -- Yet another covert snow-bunny reference from that wonderful book!

  ~  schlohweiss  ~

This is a word  impossible to define (I invented it myself, before I was born);  but Dr. Wildhagen does his best:  he calls it “white as snow".  The tricky part is: “schloh” by itself  isn’t a word;  to say ‘snow’, you say Schnee.   So,  schneeweiss means ‘snow-white, white as snow’.  Whereas schlohweiss means:  white as snowbunnies.

Now, many things are white, and some are quite white;  your laundry might be ‘whiter than white’ if you use the new Tide.   A few things are even:  blindingly white.  But only snow-bunnies are exactly, precisely as white as the snow.  

And that means you can’t see them -- a scientist would explain.

But the real reason they’re invisible is:  they’re shy.

Be very gentle with snow-bunnies if you see one (you won't),
because they're really very, very shy.

Snow upon (snow upon (snow …) …)

When night falls, at story-time, these are the tales they tell.

They tell of the great snowfall -- The Big One – O what a time it was!

They tell it at length, and in loving detail.

And as each one succumbs to the tug of the tale, sinking into snowdrifts of sleep,

their bunkmates in the burrow   take up the thread…

"It snowed and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed"

            "and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed and it"

                        "snowed and it"           

                                    "snowed and"  "it snowed"           

                                                "and it"

                                    "snowedandit"    "snowedandit"

snowedanditsnowedanditsnowedanditsnowed…

              snowed

                        snowed

                                                snowed

snowed

            snowed

                        snowed

                                    snowed

                                                                        . . . . . . . .

[Scholiast to scholars:

The Urtext for this is “Piglet Entirely Surrounded by Water”.]

Life cycle of the snow-bunny

Snow bunnies nibble nothing  during their brief time on earth.  But they are richly nourished during their gestation, which lasts one hundred years.  They are born knowing all languages (though they never speak),

For other scientifically presented life-cycles, click here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/11/life-cycle-of-newborn.html

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/05/life-cycle-of-lion.html

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/05/life-cycle-of-lion.html [hamster]

Your Questions About Snow Bunnies Cheerfully Answered

Q. Where do snow bunnies come from?

A. God opens his palms, and there they are.

Q: Where do snow bunnies go when there’s no snow?

A: Their home base is a planet called Counter-Earth.  Like snow bunnies, Counter-Earth is real and substantial; but like them, it suffers from an irremediable impossibility of observation, as it orbits the sun exactly antipodal to Earth, being thus  from our standpoint  permanently in eclipse.  The Pythagoreans knew all about Counter-Earth, but everyone else just forgot.

Q:  What are snowbunnies like, really?

A: They are very small and private;  soft and quiet. 

They toil not, neither (save at the speed of light, round & round & round …)

 do they spin …

Q:  You speak mysteriously of the ‘spinning’ of snow-bunnies.

Are they therefore fermions, or bosons? 

(An enquiring public  wants to know.)

A:  They are neither. They are “bun-ons”.

Their spin is rather difficult to detect;  though infants can see it …

The empty stage

It would appear that I am the only person who knows or cares about snow bunnies, or who will admit to knowing.  I should go on a lecture tour, discoursing on snow bunnies to empty halls.  “Sorry none of you could make it here tonight” and, “In your own way, you’ve been a lovely audience.”

(Hush(shhhhhh) …. )

Once a little boy at bedtime  said a prayer so pure, it was picked up by the snow bunnies.  One by one  they crept into his bed as he slept, till he was covered with snow bunnies, a great furry comforter  of snow bunnies.  And then he dreamt a dream so true,

that all the squirrels dreamt it too.

Crucial Things to Know before your Trip to the North Pole

The main things to know about  are Polar Bears.   Read and memorize  the following key points:

[1]  They’re big.

[2]  They’re furry.

[3]  They lumber.

Also, they are mostly very friendly;  but it is possible to run into one who is having a bad day, so do not poke or provoke them  (vide point [1]).

Remember -- Polar Bears are our friends!   So let’s keep it that way.

Hyperboreal Travel Advisory

Whenever trekking in arctic regions, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for snow-bunnies.
You won’t see any, because they’re invisible;  but you never know.

Have a safe trip !

3 Truths 4 U

Some say that tiny children can see snow bunnies.  Of course, they think nothing of it, since their little heads  are filled with snow.

~

Snow bunnies believe in God.  They don’t know that they do; they just do.

~

Sometimes my best friend asks me if I really believe in snow bunnies.  He is kindly but concerned.

“Oh, they’re real all right,” I say. “It’s just that they are mystical and imaginary.”

A Positivist goes after snow-bunnies

Once there was a man -- not bad exactly, but

very much  on the wrong path.

“Heh heh heh,” he said to himself.

“No-one can see snow bunnies, because they look exactly like snow.

But they cannot be the same temperature as snow;  and hence I,
(the great and powerful),

with my clever infrared apparatus,

shall capture them, in the moonlight,

as plain as day.”

Yet when he examined the negatives,

all he  saw  was  the blankness

of his own sad sorry soul.

For snow bunnies are:

  as white as the snow;

  as pure as the snow;

  as cold  as the snow …

A Reasonable Objection

The citizen splutters.  “If these… snow bunnies of yours are so real, then how come Saint Augustine never mentioned them?”

            “He did,” I reply, “but only to his friends.”

Theological Non-starter

Someone asked, Do snow bunnies believe in God?

That’s a kind of funny question.

It’s like:

do snow bunnies

believe in snow …


["Die Frage ist ... schief gestellt".  -- S. Freud, Traumdeutung (1900).]