Saturday, March 27, 2010

Perpend.

Looks odd that word all alone up there in the title box.  I once bought a book designed for teachers of music and children that contained a section on rhythmic clapping, it was entitled 'Pass the clap' which didn't sound very nice.  Nevertheless my juvenile brain somehow appreciated it so I made it into a birthday card and sent it to a person who liked to come in and out of my life at leisure.

I hadn't realised how many cells we have in our bodies, anything from 50-100 trillion depending on what you read, biology was never my strong point, being squeamish, the thought of cutting open anything other than a celery heart makes me shiver.  As a youngster my dream was to become a nurse and I enrolled with the St. John's Ambulance and managed to pass 'First Aid' and 'Home Nursing' easily dealing with the dummies and making beds.  My mind changed a bit later, when my brother too enthusiastically engaged with a glass door (our house was built in the 1930's by Nash and all the doors were glass - gradually my Mum replaced the glass with hardboard because she understood children and glass don't really mix that well) he sliced his arm wide open.   After a mad dash to casualty I passed out as a reaction to all that blood.  Later the blood thing got so bad that I'd pass out trying to give it.

I don't understand the desire now in so many people to become forensic photographers - it surely must be a grotesque thing to do and not the least bit fun.

Thinking about all those cells boggles the mind but reminds me again of Thich Nhat Hanh and Mindfulness.  I was watching my hands and my fingers, the skin covering them, thinking about the ability to touch and feel and how everything all works.  How lucky we are while we are alive.  He's got a point you know.
   
Recently it was reported that there has been a link made between a rise in syphilis in young people and Facebook users.  A horrible thought.  Though why Facebook and not My Space?   Another nasty 'virus' lurking within our netbooks?   Obviously it isn't, it's not the technology's fault but what we do with the information we get from it.   In any case the idea brings me back to the question of my lonely and futile debate, what's best - the book or the screen?

Books don't seem to contain the same kind of threat although it does remind me of a dusty old book I bought for 50p called "The Lure of Love A Manual for future brides and benedicts" written by Dr Robertson Wallace, MB, CM who was also the author of "Indigestion : How to Avoid It" rather appropriate that he wrote both since one begets the other.   The "Lure of Love" had obviously been consulted as I found a pubic hair stuck within its pages,  which raises the alarming question: what deed was being performed to cause it to be there?  It's not like opening a treasured book and finding a much loved lock of hair, this one strand was stuck to the page by its root.

There is no date for the publication of the book but it uses phrases like 'the ribbons and decorations of the men', 'the cloying sweetness of Love's banquet' and all by itself 'Perpend' so it's fair to say the book and the pubic hair are early examples and that the problems of sex have not receeded.