Update on NOTEFLIX’s “Troubles in the Garden”: Reader Alert: This story is not to be seen by the young. Remember? Two weeks ago Henrietta, The Venetian Chocobird was snatched by the Easter Chocolate Eaters. (See small photo re-cap, top above.) As far as we can tell, this photo tells the sad truth of the matter.
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WORDS & INFORMATION YOU MIGHT NEED TO KNOW
- IMO: IMO is Elon Musk’s Twitter text talk for “In My Opinion” (So You Know – SYK)
- TEXT NECK: A head bowed to a 15 degree angle adds 27 pounds of pressure to the spine. But a 60 degree angle surges to 60 pounds, or the weight of 4 bowling balls…which could cause neck cramps to herniated discs. So, you are better off not texting, IMO.
- PIANOS: China has 7x’s the number of Pianists than the U.S. has per capita. 30,000,000 Chinese kids are studying the piano…10x’s the rest of the world. Where this will end, no one knows. I want to see the global figures on the Guitar and then the ones on the Tuba (think high school bands). I’ll bet we beat the Chinese on those instruments.
- MUSIC: Studies show people are biased towards music from their own countries. (I am conflicted here, because I like Texas Country Western; but I am not a fan of Texas itself. I was not asked to participate in these studies and I do not know where I truly fit, bias-wise. ….I also like French Cabaret…I guess I am a bit of a nomad.
- IT IS ABOUT TIME: The Doomsday clock has been moved up to 100 seconds to Midnight. A record buster. In 1958, for a few days, it went to 11:58 (120 seconds) after the Russians set off a bomb several hundred times the size of our Nagasaki thing. This has nothing to do with Daylight Saving Time, which is the only good news part of this story.
- THE DSM: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. ‘Sex Addiction’ was dropped from the DSM in 1994. What?? Nobody told Congress. Sex Addiction is not even allowed to be uttered in Texas or Florida. OMG.
- DYSOSMIA: The diagnostic term for the disorder when pleasant odors smell bad to the afflicted. I think with all our medical achievements we could invent something which makes unpleasant odors smell good to us….an anti-Dysosmia effect…I’m not talking about adding perfume to gas tanks of busses – like New York City tried years ago; but something that alters the mind…maybe there is a mushroom we could chew, or something we could smoke.
- ALERT! This section is too disconcerting for our Youth to read). THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH is growing as we write. Presently, this oceanic graveyard of trash is 2x’s the size of Texas and 3x’s the size of France. (Which means Texas is bigger than France – Did you know that? …and isn’t it interesting how often Texas comes up in the news these days? Florida comes up a lot too; but they do not mention how big Florida is in relation to either the THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH, or France.) Anyway, the GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH is composed of: (20%) fishing nets and gear) and (80%) plastic from landlubbers. The plastic stuff will stay forever in the water, in some form or another, unless we humans suck it up. We cannot see a lot of it with our naked eye, because it morphs a ghostlike gelatinous mass. It is shaped not so much like Texas; but more like Australia, or the floater in my right eye. There are 200,000,000 pieces of plastic in it, and approximately 8 billion (give or take) people on Earth…so you can see how much plastic per person there is – if you can do the math. The Chinese add more to the GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH than the Americans do, so we are not in first place on this. But there is an ATLANTIC GARBAGE PATCH that I just found out about; and we are numero uno in its development.
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We will end our NOTES for the week – and give you a few words from our Resident Rodent Guest Columnist MATHUZALA:
- Sometimes things are so confusing and so complicated, I just do not know what to say. When those times arrive I stay quiet. This is one of those times. And that is the truth.
Were you to want to know more about TRUTH, please go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and buy “THE RAT PAPERS” and learn what is what.
NOTES FROM TUSCANY:
Last week we travelled to La Marche…a hill-town area on the Adriatic coast of Italy. The towns we visited had many structures which were built in the 1200’s. We noticed most of the exterior walls had these little pock-marks, which were actually missing stones. Can you guess why these stones were missing? (correct answer at bottom of post)
a) Theft b) Design c) Disease of some sort d) Some sort of defense measure to protect against invasion.
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A few salient quotes:
- “Being the Cultural Editor on the ‘Wall Street Journal’ is like being the Medical Editor on ‘The Christian Science Monitor’. – Grigori Sokolov, world famous Russian Pianist. (Imagine what the Chinese pianists are saying about the ‘Wall Street Journal’.)
- “You walked across my heart like it was Texas…and you taught me how to say ‘I just don’t care’.” – Mel Tillis, song…(I like the song, but if Mel had written “You walked across my heart like it was THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH“, He’d have really made his point.)
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Correct answer to quiz: None of the above. The missing stones are ‘placed’ in the walls to accommodate scaffolding – when needed.
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That’s all there is for this week…and a “Hello” to Ricardo, wherever you are.