Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Ira and the Orange Juice

At 4:00 a.m. Leigh came out of room where she was sitting the old woman and told Ira that the old woman wanted some orange juice. Ira said, "OK. But are you sure she's awake?" She's awake. "What is she doing awake at this hour? Is she OK?" She's OK. Leigh went back in the room and the door shut. Ira watched the door close and then looked at the rows of empty open doors on each side of the hallway. She pushed through the saloon doors to the cooking area and opened the refrigerator and reached in, then pulled back her hand and shut the door. She stood by the door for a minute and waited for the door to the old woman's room to open. When it didn't after several minutes she tip-toed to the door and pushed it open. There was no lock on the door. The room was lit by an antique clock lamp that advertised a beer that the old woman never liked her dead husband to drink and by the light Ira could see the shadowed angles in the old woman's face. The old woman was in bed and asleep and asleep in the lounge chair next to the table by the bed was Leigh. Ira waited in the doorway and watched the old lady and waited for Leigh to move but the old lady lay still and Leigh did not wake up. Ira shut the door. She checked the clock and looked at the empty doors again, all open, and stood with one hand on behind her on the counter of the cooking area. She leaned against the hand and watched the old woman's door.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Stupid Chinese Sayings, with Commentary 6

Wind in the cave:
Movement in stillness.
Power in silence.

OK. OK. But I'd rather know if Neanderthals could talk or not. It seems they may have been able to. Poor bastards. They missed all those sounds of silence. That S&G nonsense.

From The Wiki: The idea that Neanderthals lacked complex language was widespread, despite concerns about the accuracy of reconstructions of the Neanderthal vocal tract, until 1983, when a Neanderthal hyoid bone was found at the Kebara Cave in Israel. The hyoid is a small bone which connects the musculature of the tongue and the larynx, and by bracing these structures against each other, allows a wider range of tongue and laryngeal movements than would otherwise be possible. The presence of this bone implies that speech was anatomically possible.

The bone which was found is virtually identical to that of modern humans.

The morphology of the outer and middle ear of Neanderthal ancestors, Homo heidelbergensis, found in Spain, suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans and very different from chimpanzees. They were probably able to differentiate between many different sounds.

Neurological evidence for potential speech in neanderthalensis exists in the form of the hypoglossal canal. The canal of neanderthalensis is the same size or larger than in modern humans, which are significantly larger than the canal of australopithecines and modern chimpanzees. The canal carries the hypoglossal nerve, which controls the muscles of the tongue.

This indicates that neanderthalensis had vocal capabilities similar to modern humans. A research team from the University of California, Berkeley, led by David DeGusta, suggests that the size of the hypoglossal canal is not an indicator of speech. His team's research, which shows no correlation between canal size and speech potential, shows there are a number of extant non-human primates and fossilized australopithecines which have equal or larger hypoglossal canal.

Another anatomical difference between Neanderthals and Modern humans is their lack of a mental protuberance (the point at the tip of the chin). This may be relevant to speech as the mentalis muscle, one of the muscles which move the lower lip, is attached to the tip of the chin.

While some Neanderthal individuals do possess a mental protuberance, their chins never show the inverted T-shape of modern humans. In contrast, some Neanderthal individuals show inferior lateral mental tubercles (little bumps at the side of the chin).

A recent extraction of DNA from Neanderthal bones indicates that Neanderthals had the same version of the FOXP2 gene as modern humans. This gene is known to play a role in human language.

Steven Mithen (2006) proposes that the Neanderthals had an elaborate proto-linguistic system of communication which was more musical than modern human language, and which predated the separation of language and music into two separate modes of cognition.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Stupid Chinese Sayings, with Commentary 5

Moon above water.
Sit in solitude.

Moon in water.
Big fucking splash.
Loud noise loose bowels.
Sit in shitty spray.

Stupid Chinese Sayings, with Commentary 4

Make the crooked sraight,
Make the straight to flow.
Gather water, fire and light.
Bring the world to a single point.

Or not.

Stupid Chinese Sayings, with Commentary 3

Washing at dawn:
Rinse away dreams.
Protect the gods within,
And clarify the inner spirit.

Don't forget to rinse and repeat!

Stupid Chinese Sayings, with Commentary 2

This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place.

Then you fall on your ass.