What if Algernon Practiced Aikido?

In 8th Grade everybody had to read the novel Flowers for Algernon where a new medical procedure dramatically increases the intelligence of a lab rat as it does Charlie, the slow witted Human subject. The now clever Charlie starts monitoring Algernon recording his development.

But the crux of the story is when Charlie realizes that Algernon is slowly losing his intelligence and also realizes his own abilities are fading also. I still remember being quite moved as Charlie identifies his failings with Algernon's.

So what does this have to do with Aikido?

Well tonight I felt like I was a mix of Charlie and Algernon in my Aikido practice.

I've missed a fair number classes the past few months so I probably shouldn't be surprised, but tonight I was trying to do shiho nage and I kept saying to myself

“You are doing this worse than you ever have” and “You are even more tense and stiff than your first day”. All in all I felt like everything I had learned over the years was slipping away

So my intellectual analysis was Charlie and my diminishing Aikido skills was Algernon. Hmmm, that doesn't fit perfectly but make it work somehow. I guess it is not just Aikido that is slipping away. Anyway, I found my own story quite as moving as when I read Flowers for Algernon.

An Electronic Huck Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first book on the cheapest Kindle downloaded from the free books section of Amazon

Hey, what a nice book, but it really is kind of odd.

I wonder what the general feeling about Huckleberry Finn these days? You hear about it being banned in schools and I always assume it is because of the “N” word which you figure is because of political correctness or politeness. But I'd think it would really offend a more conservative or traditional mind since questioning authority seems to be the whole point.

And you know, that Tom Sawyer guy is kind of a jerk.

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Cat On Purple

I promise I will not turn this into a blog about my cats. But I like this pic.

Two Cats In a Pod

Rebel's Yell

Mystic rebels; Apollonius Tyaneus, Jan van Leyden, Sabbatai Zevi, Cagliostro, by Harry C Schnur

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Mystic Rebels - copyright 1949.
The story of 4 “mystics” of which probably only one was close to a stable person.

Apollonius Tyaneus - (Greek: Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς; ca. 15?–ca. 100? CE)

Jan Van Leyden - (1509? – January 22, 1536)

Sabbatai Zevi - (August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676)

Cagliostro - (2 June 1743 – 26 August 1795)

I wonder why he put Apollonius in this study since everybody else seems to have pushed themselves to to their emotional edges. But Apollonius was steady, diligent and very structured and seemed to always look for some greater truth. The others discovered some insights and let their passions overwhelm them . That description is a little superficial but more or less addresses the point.

Jan Van Leyden and Sabbatai Zevi show us what can happen when people with religious faith of a conventional level allow the promise of divine fulfillment overcomes mundane acceptance of an imperfect world. In these two two cases it doesn't end well. Basically they become mad with power and disassoiate themselves from reality.

Cagliostro is anticlimactic in that he is presented as starting and ending as a con man with the notion that he felt he discovered something helpful to mankind in the journey. Unfortunately the still lingering inquisition of the day found him more threatening than charming and he died in a church prison surviving for years in the most retched conditions. In case you didn't' know, he was convicted of Freemasonry (much like our founding fathers)

I bought this used book almost 10 years ago, knowing nothing about the author or the subjects. (other than Greil Marcus's comparison of John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten to his namesake and  leader of the mass Anabaptist in Leiden.

What do I take from the book? Well, history is really, rally strange and if you think people are crazy now...they were just as crazy in the past. I probably should have learned more, but that is all I can articulate now.

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Super 8: The Movie

Super 8. I just watched it and this movie bothers me. ...Super 8...It means something...almost like saying 8mm.

JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg, who both claim to love their roots in 8mm amateur film making decided to crap all over that tradition.

First off, the only reason you use Super 8 is because you are taking your Dad's camera and doing whatever you can to make something like the “real” movies you love. You have no money, no skills, only desire. What does “Super 8” do? It starts off presenting the energy of teenagers wanting to make movies* then takes all that enthusiasm and spends a bunch of money making a multi million dollar blockbuster.

They COULD have stayed true to the super 8 ethos while making a modern movie but no, they had to pull out the checkbook and buy a whole bunch of special effects. Of course the irritating part is that it starts off pretty good but then suddenly you are in Spielberg's “War or the Worlds”

With all humility and acknowledgment that my (our) Super 8 is crude, but THAT is what Super 8 is all about.


*I REALLY had trouble getting past the part about these kids having a sound Super 8 camera, and then after the one was broken another kid's dad had a sound camera. NOBODY had sound Super 8 cameras, that was something you dreamed about. Plus you would need a really expensive editor to make something with it. Realistically, any Super 8 meant silent. I was willing to let it go that one family might have one, but two families? Now Way!

An Econimic Weltanschauung

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics by Nicholas Wapshott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very readable introduction to Keynes and Hayek. I think it is actually more a book of the effects of the two than even an economics 101 view on their actual thoughts. so I m sure that economic geeks bemoan the simplifications of both economist. You get enough to get a feel of the economics and I'm cool with that especially since I think I end up with more knowledge of what is involved than most people who thow their names around.

My condensation of this condensed fare is that there is more to Keynes's economics than portrayed by conservatives and while Hayeks Road to Serfdom may fit in nicely with Glenn Beck's paranoid world view, Hayek was not really at ease with what grew into the conservative movement, although he definitely wanted to privatize most every public service. Strangely the only exception was public health care which is the one area I wish the author would have explained a bit more.

The last few chapters seem a little episodic with tidbits about Kennedy acting as a supply sider and aside from his conservative talk Reagen is revealed to be quite a Keynesian when you factor in the huge unfunded defense spending spree.

All in all Keynes comes across as more complex and apparently he was often drasticly refining and redefining his ideas, while Hayek was pretty well set in his views from the start. Of course as he aged he became more intense with things like when he laments the tyranny of the majority and states the the free market is the only true participatory democracy. Also I think the modern libertarian/conservative movement has adopted Hayeks suggestion below.

“The main lesson which the true liberal (libertarian) must learn from the success of the socialist is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and thereby an influence on public opinion” --- “...(of his views) you can say it almost a religious belief ...that the market is almost God ordained”.

This explains why it is so hard to discuss economics with some conservatives, if you ask them to question some of their premises they feel you are attacking their religion. View all my reviews