The Examiners' Bell

I took this photo on an icy Auckland morning at about 9. It's a picture of the ballet examiners' table. It's polite and customary to place flowers on the table; one is expected to provide stationery so that the examiner can make notes for the students and teacher, the tissues also fall into the polite and customary category.

Then there's the bell. As the teacher who has requested an examination of her students by a professional organisation, one must provide a bell. A ballet exam hall is a quiet, lonely and peaceful place, occupied by an examiner and a pianist (or, in our case, nervous me and a computer full of music), with a seething mass of students and teacher on the other end of a door.

The teacher will have spent several sleepless weeks checking and rechecking her schedule, teaching and re-teaching proper etiquette, having nightmares about not having taught enough etiquette, having nightmares about having taught too much etiquette for the students to be natural, getting up in the middle of the night to re-stitch costumes because there's no effing use trying to sleep, alarming her partner by sitting straight up in the middle of the night shrieking, "I FORGOT TO CHECK IF SHE'S VEGETARIAN! GODDAMN!" and generally evading confinement in a tight white jacket only by being too fast to catch.

The students will be bouncing around like so many rabbits in headlight-land.

You see now why the bell is necessary. Only with the use of the bell can the (completely calm) examiner let the teacher know that it's OK to let the next bunch of rabbits into the hall. It is also useful to wake up the mesmerised music person, or maybe that's only me.

So, we practised last week. With a tinkly kitchen bell that was actually quite comforting.

This week, my friend, the Honourable Teacher, received a present, in the midst of the lunatic asylum that currently represents her life.

It was a bell. An examiners' bell. Not just any bell. Not even a new bell. It was this bell.

Many years ago an aspiring young dancer took the stage and danced, in London. I particularly like her because she's shorter than me; and she still made it. For those who don't know, if you're shorter or taller than the average - which is 5 ft 4 - you're in for a rough ride. Aspiring Young Dancer took on and beat that challenge.  

Her life story isn't mine to tell. But at a point, her partner lifted her - and dropped her. On her head. Her dancing career was foreshortened; I'm thankful for reasons that aren't mine to divulge, that she chose to beat that, and became a teacher and choreographer extraordinaire. 

She's chosen to involve herself here with Honourable, and slightly Manic, Teacher. I'm not going to try to describe the depth and breadth of her contribution in this, the first year of Honourable Teachers' teaching; except for the word immeasurable. 

And then she found her own, old examiners' bell; and had the name of her academy shaved off it, and engraved the name of Honourable Teachers' brand new dance school on it, and gave it to her for luck, for her first exams. 

Yeah, OK, I cried. 

A Whole New Flavour of Crazy!

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2014/03/15/comment/coucil-of-islamic-ideology-declares-womens-existence-anti-islamic/

I've been researching Snopes and all my other usual sites to see if this particular gem is a spoof but so far, it seems genuine, so here, in all its logic-defying absurdist glory  it is.

Islamabad - Sharia Correspondent: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) concluded their 192nd meeting on Thursday with the ruling that women are un-Islamic and that their mere existence contradicted Sharia and the will of Allah.

Now, since Shariʻah constitutes a system of duties that are incumbent upon a Muslim by virtue of his or her religious belief, and Allah has not been terribly vocal about his will since eeny-meeny-miney-mo-ing the uterus to the woman, I'm finding it hard to attach a logic basis to that statement.

As the meeting concluded CII Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani noted that women by existing defied the laws of nature, 

The picture that promptly insists on crowding everything else out of my brain is this one.

and to protect Islam and the Sharia women should be forced to stop existing as soon as possible. The announcement comes a couple of days after CII’s 191st meeting where they dubbed laws related to minimum marriage age to be un-Islamic.

I'm confused, now. If women obediently stop existing, isn't the world going to start running out of Muslims at some stage? And then won't a minimum marriage age be a moot point?

After declaring women to be un-Islamic, Shirani explained that there were actually two kinds of women – haraam ( Arabic term meaning sinful) and makrooh ( a disliked or offensive act (literally "detestable")). “We can divide all women in the world into two distinct categories: those who are haraam and those who are makrooh. Now the difference between haraam and makrooh is that the former is categorically forbidden while the latter is really really disliked,” Shirani said.

Team Haraam or Team Makrooh? What will the buffs look like? For reference : another thing that is makrooh is prawns.

He further went on to explain how the women around the world can ensure that they get promoted to being makrooh, from just being downright haraam. “Any woman that exercises her will is haraam, absolutely haraam, and is conspiring against Islam and the Ummah, whereas those women who are totally subservient can reach the status of being makrooh. Such is the generosity of our ideology and such is the endeavour of Muslim men like us who are the true torchbearers of gender equality,” the CII chairman added.

Continuing the food analogy : a thing that is haraam is pork. By being subservient, you can get promoted from pork to prawns. Somewhere, Darwin is spinning in his grave and a Chinese restaurant owner is furrowing his brow and staring at his menu.

Officials told Khabaristan Today that the council members deliberated over various historic references related to women and concluded that each woman is a source of fitna (an Arabic word with extensive connotations of trial, affliction, or distress) 

I won't necessarily argue this one on the grounds of logic.

and a perpetual enemy of Islam. They also decided that by restricting them to their subordinate, bordering on slave status, the momineen and the mujahideen can ensure that Islam continues to be the religion of peace, prosperity and gender equality.

I will never, ever get my head around a single sentence that merrily bundles slave status in with gender equality.

Responding to a question one of the officials said that international standards of gender equality should not be used if they contradict Islam or the constitution of Pakistan that had incorporated Islam and had given sovereignty to Allah. “We don’t believe in western ideals, and nothing that contradicts Islam should ever be paid heed. In any case by giving women the higher status of being makrooh, it’s us Muslims who have paved the way for true, Sharia compliant feminism,” the official said.

I thought you had to work at being makrooh. I envisioned this makrooh testing panel, where you could apply for evaluation after seven years of subservience training, and walk out with a prawn buff instead of your pork buff.

The CII meeting also advised the government that to protect Islam women’s right to breathe should also be taken away from them. “Whether a woman is allowed to breathe or not be left up to her husband or male guardian, and no woman under any circumstance whatsoever should be allowed to decide whether she can breathe or not,” Shirani said.

Now see, I really can't decide if the writer of the article just sat staring at his/her screen for five minutes, proofreading what he'd written so far, and then decided, fuck it. Nothing in my life makes any sense. Let's just stick in that paragraph and see if anyone actually notices. If nobody does, then next I'm writing about the decision of the Council to start vetting groups of 72 virgins to be sacrificed for the heroes of the coming jihad via a revolutionary new selection process called Islamabad's Got Talent - only the prawn flavoured ones need apply.

From now on, I'm bookmarking the decisions of the 192+ meeting of the CII, because I think we might be in for the unexpected treat of a public descent into insanity.

We Did Not Think This One Through

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11240982

Note that the only disrespect intended in this article is to those who do not proofread their headlines for common sense rather than spelling.

"Roman Catholic devotees in northern Philippines nailed themselves to crosses today as hundreds gathered to watch the annual Good Friday crucifixion re-enactment."

This, I want to see. How does it work?

"Okay, pass the hammer. Damn, I have trouble keeping my feet on top of each other...wait, one good swing....there, we go, there we go. Ah, shit, I'm too far from the platform, wait, I'll just use the claw...yeah, there we go. Okay, let's position it a bit better...try again - ok, that's better. Hey, Fred!"

"What?"

"Make sure you position your feet on the platform before you nail them down."

"Ah, ok. Thanks."

"OK, all good. Now then, one good stretch...Good thing I do all those sit-ups. Hey Fred!"

"What?"

"What did we agree, palm or wrist?"

"Centre palm. But use that rope to tie your arms to the cross-bar."

"Oh, GOOD thinking! Thanks, Fred!"

"Sure. Oh, hey, start with a square knot."

"Gotcha. OK, let's position this sucker right in the middle. Couple good hard smacks should do it...there we go. All good. Where's the other rope - oh, I see it. I'll just....oh, wait..."

(Silence falls as Stupid and Fred contemplate the diminished list of appendages with which the remaining hand can be nailed and roped.)

Training Your Human

Exasperating Cat lives in hope that he can dig his way through a glass door.

Let me give some background.

We have a cat-flap, and a cat to go with it. We also have a rather engaging white-and-ginger Incursion Cat who is doing his doe-eyed best to get adopted. He's really cute and funny and if he actually got on with our cat - Alley, the Black Menace - I'd consider adopting him.

But they don't.

So we've taken to locking the cat-flap so entry is forbidden but exit is OK. This means that when Alley wants to come in, he travels round to the glass sliding-door in the lounge, stands on his back legs and starts digging at the door. This can be a bit unnerving when you're an insomniac as I am, and you're writing away quietly in the deep dark night; suddenly a pair of eyes like headlamps appear at the same time as nails shriek across the glass.

The thing is, Alley has taken to this game with gusto. He may not have opposable thumbs, but he's certainly mastered the art of making a human leap out of its chair and slide the door open for him; in my husband's case usually accompanied by "Oh, God, cat!" which may actually be the acknowledgement he's been waiting for.

His two most recent additions to the game involve - first - coyly hanging back before coming inside (which has caused said husband to commence his maths lessons - "Cat - I'm counting to three. One, two....bloody cat") and, more recently, the where-is-my-Honour-Guard manoeuvre. This involves standing at the recently-opened door and staring beguilingly up at the foolish human who opened it, requiring an escort to the location of his food.

Let me just point out here that the location of said food has not changed since we came to this house. It's in the scullery, just inside the door, on a pet mat, in a small white bowl. Right next to the water-dish.

But if you're in the middle of something else, like say trying to proof-read the material you've been writing through the deep, dark night, or wargaming (in the case of Honourable Son) or watching Rickie Fowlers' putt for eagle in the Masters (in the case of Beloved Daughter) or even ancient Egyptian worship ("Oh, God, cat!" in the case of Exasperated Husband) it's just easier and faster to get up and escort the little nuisance to his food bowl rather than watch his headlamps look at you accusingly while he purrs like a badly-tuned engine.

Hence the Honour Guard was born.

This was not enough fun.

We have a coffee-table in the middle of the lounge. Alley is not and has never been allowed on it. So his latest trick is to come hurtling back out of the scullery and land on it. Now, personally I'm inclined to cover the table with a nice smooth cotton mat (rather than its usual random scattering of books), because there is nothing funnier than watching a cat land gracefully on its bottom and then go skidding and shrieking off into space; but the rest of my family does not share my sadistic tendencies and also we probably don't want too many scratches on the table. Honourable Son glanced up the first time he did this, got up and pushed him off the table and went to open the glass door. I looked at him enquiringly and he said in a bored voice, "He just wants to go out again", and I realised those two had been doing a LOT of bonding in the deep dark wargaming nights.

Cat comes in, cat goes out. This was still not enough fun.

I've been waking at 4, and getting up to write rather than toss and turn. No sooner has the dim light in the lounge been switched on than the headlamps appear and nails shriek over the glass. I open the door, honour-guard God to the scullery, wait for him to finish eating, shove him off the table, and let him out again.

Twenty minutes later the performance gets repeated.

So far we are up to First Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Third Breakfast, and as we speak he is having Fourth Breakfast. Perhaps he is a hobbit. He does have hairy feet.

Unable to sleep, (possibly due to Rickie Fowlers' eagle putt), Beloved Daughter was up for Fourth Breakfast. As I wearily escorted God to his food dish she said, "Maybe we should move it around."

I looked at her enquiringly.

"Just to validate his belief that that's what happens when he isn't looking."

And that, folks, is how religions are born.

On opening Facebook today

I found this ad.

ARE YOU SERIOUS????


OK, I've previously started a blog post about how ridiculous some of these ads are, and not posted because I think I'm being picky.

But, seriously...SERIOUSLY?????!!!!!

How does this woman's expression say anything besides, "Please. Kill me now. Before the lips spread over my nose and asphyxiate me; and then nobody has to worry about the f'n wrinkles."?

Well, you know, besides the ME, staring in bewildermint at a huge pair of lips atop a human body where its head should be and whispering, "But isn't Mick Jagger still alive?"