The Middle-Aged Librarian WWII Spy You Never Knew About

My friend Danielle requested I create a comic-book version of Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra.  While I think a) there very much should be a comic book version of every tragedy play ever written by Shakespeare and b) I would be the perfect candidate to draft these, I c) don't have the time to draw it.  Yet.

Instead, this week I am going to introduce you to yet another woman who isn't nearly as famous as she should be.  This is part of my Random Acts of Hindsight Feminism (see: Anna Mae Wong and Nicolaa De La Haye or the post inspired by Dr. Marlene Zuk).  Looking back, I am shocked that these women are not nearly as famous as their male counterparts. 

Feminist whingeing aside, I have found a new woman to admire for her gumption, her gallantry and un-gripulous nature.  Don't ask me how I got that last 'g' word.  It's incredibly hard to find a good 'g' word.*

Rose Valland

Oh sure, you might have barely noticed her.  You might have decided, as I think most would, to look at the Giant Naked Lady instead.  

You might have completely ignored that mousey little woman with her pristine stereotypical Librarian fashion.  

But, you see, so did the Nazis.  

Godwin's Law Doesn't Count When You're Actually Having A Discussion About WWII, Right?  

The Nazis, I think all sane people can agree, are an emblem of When Humans Go Really, Really--No, Really--Bad.  I am not going to summarize what they did or even entertain the idea of explaining why they're bad because if you HAVEN'T learned about their actions during World War II by now you grew up in a walnut shell.  Or you're a crazy maladjusted dictator of Iran.  Just saying.

So among the many horrible things this army did systematically, the German Army in the 1940s began an enormous, secretive operation of art proliferation.  After the invasion of France in 1940 and the "armistice" between France and Germany was signed and ratified, Hitler and Goehring had a particular surreal project in mind:  the confiscation of cultural artifacts they liked and the eradication of everything else.

Keep in mind, Adolf Hitler applied to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien, aka the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, as a painter.  He was denied admission.  Twice.**  

That's where Rose Valland comes in.

You May Have A Systematic Way Of Looting But We've Got An Art Historian With A Memory Like A Polyurethane Mattress 

I can't help it.  I like someone automatically if they're a smoker.***  

Rose was the overseer of the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris right when that armistice went through. Hitler had just decided not to obliterate Paris.  Among the many odd facts about Hitler, he both adored and envied Paris and was "happy" when he finally got to visit the city.  It seems a bit hypocritical to point out as an American, but I always thought one doesn't have to overrun a country to become a tourist.

Anyway, the Germans created an organization solely dedicated to systematic looting of the occupied territories.  It was called the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzen Gebietesay that three times fastor the ERR for short.  The ERR used the Jeu de Paume as their central storage and sorting unit before sending thousands of pieces of art--pieces of culture--to Germany.

Emptied frames of the works stolen by the Nazis during WWII

I Spy With My German-Fluent Eye


Rose was a quiet woman.  She didn't dress flamboyantly and didn't cause much attention, which is a good thing because for over four years she recorded the distribution and looting of over 20,000 pieces of art.  Much to the German's chagrin, Rose could also understand German.  


Imagine that sweet, quiet librarian you always thought nothing of, spying on every conversation between brutal, murderous Nazis.  She would just sit there, soaking up the information, memorizing the names, titles and locations of every piece, and would later write it down every night in a secret journal to be distributed to the Allied Forces if and when the invasion would occur.  She also risked her life to send this information the French Underground so that bombs wouldn't be dropped on the trains shipping out the priceless pieces of art. 

And that's why you should know about Rose Antonia Maria Valland.  Yes, she has been awarded and remembered by the French Government for her incredible work.  She published the book Le front de l'art in 1961 describing her incredible story and proceeded to become the chair of many artistic preservation boards.  However, I would have much preferred to learn about her during my sparse education of important women in, say, middle school or high school or hell even in college.  The fact that I'm learning about her now leads me to believe that many other Americans have no idea about her.

So, remember:  Rose Valland.

Bad. Ass.

-Beryl

*I think I now understand why the 'g' spot is not called the 's' spot or the 'f' spot because in English, well, it wouldn't be as nearly evasive, wouldn't it?

**Please now join with me in the ritual "What if...?" and imagine how Adolf Hilter might have handled Art 135B, Introduction to Charcoal and Pencil.  Would he have been the type to break his pencil lead repeatedly, unfamiliar with the medium, only to then stab it in his professor's chest for getting a low mark?  Or would he have instead rushed with a fury at his own canvas during Elementary Oil Painting 11 because the damn thing wouldn't dry instantly unlike his darling little watercolor paints?  Personally, I like to envision Hitler after graduating from art school, unable to be taken seriously as a real artist, and ending up trapped in a job as a greeting card artist for slogans like "A Special Message for Someone Special!" or "Miracles come in all sizes!" and "Eye will always luv u!" That last slogan would have to have an image of a cute kitten with big eyes or a magnifier on a happy baby's eyeball or something.  And yes, all slogans would have to be in Comic Sans MS.

***Small Disclaimer:  I like you automatically if you're a smoker but only if you're also French, female and a middle-aged Spy working against the Nazis.

Cricket Love

So I was listening to npr (big shock there) the other day and I got stuck--you know, stuck in the car because you don't want to stop listening to what's playing.

Marlene Zuk (caption later added)

It was with Marlene Zuk, a professor of biology from UC Riverside.  She's just come out with a new fanch-schmancy book (hence the npr interview) and it's called Sex On Six Legs.

I can't help it.  My nerdy little brain just went POP when I heard that there was a book out there talking specifically about the kinky activities of insects.  It combines two things I am naturally fascinated by:  weird ass natural science and sex.  What more could I want?  That meeting I was going to could wait another few minutes, right?  Who needs to talk about the future of my company's finances when there is a discussion going on about cricket sex?  Not I, said the fly.*  Wait, did I tell you I'm one of nine people who founded a theatre company?  I didn't?  Next blog post.

It's My Party And I'll Write About Insect Sex If I Want To

Anyway, fun fact about Marlene Zuk that I just learned:  she got her Ph.D the year I was born.  Another fun fact:  my birthday is next Friday (if you don't buy me a present then I will make this blog invisible to you).  I was planning on just taking the week off from the blog this time around since my scheduled Tuesday posts have been thrown out of wack now.  But, I figured.  Hey.  If  it's my birthday week then this means I get to write about crickets having sex.  Because that's what I do with my free time.  Don't judge.

So here's the story.  Field Crickets in Hawaii were introduced back in 1877.   From what I've learned, whenever I see the words "introduced" alongside a year in the 1800s it usually means White People Ships Crawling With Invasive Species scraping up onto the other beaches of the world.

For example...

A Dramatic Representation of the arrival of Invasive Diseases to The Bahamas

But, however it happened, these Austrailian field crickets (aka Teleogryllus oceanicus because that's easier to say) are now living and chirping away on Kauai island.  These are the bug(ger)s that Dr. Zuk was talking up to Dave Davies.

If you didn't already know, that chirping you hear on those classic summer nights are male crickets singing their hearts out (or wings, depending on how you look at it) to attract lady crickets.  Lady crickets are all about them nice vibrations (hey hey) and will go after the one with the best audio display. Same old story, those who breed get to pass on genes and those who don't get to become queer bloggers who work in theatre.  I mean, what?

Anyway, life would be fab as a male cricket, singing your love songs to your ladies on Kuai.  Except for the fact that there's just one hitch.

Someone else is listening.


No Really, This Is Creepy.

You know the classic story of a stalker-fan of someone's music gets too close and pulls a Mercy on you? Well, it turns out Mr. Singing Field Cricket has got one fan he doesn't want.  They're called the Ormia ochracea.  It's a parasitic fly (don't you get a little inner cringe every time you read "parasitic" in a sentence?).   According to Dr. Zuk, the female flucan "hear the song as well or better than a female cricket," and will land on the cricket, laying her eggs on and around the body of the guy.  The larvae then burrow and live off of the cricket's tissue for a week or so and then...

"They burst out like the movie Alien."

You know, Dr. Zuk.  I like it when the movie Alien is not reinforced as a reality in the natural world.  

Learning Dating Techniques From Crickets

The best part about this story is that around 2003 something changed.  A mutation occured in the male cricket population:  some male crickets are not able to sing.  They just... are tone deaf (re: don't rub their wings).  But, of course, if they don't sing how do they get to pass on their genes?  And if they don't pass on their genes, then how has this mutation continued to grow?

Turns out, insects are more shrewd than I am.  These silent males literally hang out around the dude who's singing, waiting for the females to literally mistake them for him.  It's like sitting around at a campfire, while Grace Slick is singing folk songs, meanwhile you're Yoko Ono off to the side listening and some hot-hottie comes up to you and is like "Hey.  I love your voice.  C'mon.  Let's get out of here."

And what are you going to do to right this moral wrong?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Because you're a cricket.  And you just want to live long enough to have sex and not get eaten by a parasitic fly out to plant her babies in your body.

I think we can all learn from the Silent Field Cricket.  I am now going to try and hang around Adele's next concert off to the side and whenever some cute-cutie walks by I'll be like "That's me singing" and all will be solved.  Right?

-Beryl

*But, unfortunately Me, said the B.  Don't worry, theatre kids.  I went to the meeting and was on time.  But oh you BETCHA I listened to the feed on the npr website later on that evening.  Now you can listen too.


EDITED TO ADD:  Just FYI, I actually like Yoko Ono.  She's badass and has put up with a lot of crap over the years.  I just prefer Grace Slick when it comes to vocal power.   

13th Century Wave of Feminism: Nicolaa De La Haye

Nicolaa just makes me want to cuddle up with a castle.

Born around 1150AD, and a descendent of a lord in Lincolnshire, Nicola eventually inherited the role of "Constable of Lincoln Castle" (just think CEO of your own real estate that included battle axes).  

One day the French came to invade (as they often did during the Middle Ages) and that day turned into a month-long siege.  

You'd think that'd be the end of Nicolaa and her haye.  But, no.

Nicolaa held out.

 She went on to direct the defense against her attackers and eventually beat them out.

With the defeat of the French (which would later be known as The Second Battle for Lincoln, as part of The First Baron's War*) she basically stopped England from being invaded again.  Ironically, her descendants were the invaders from the first invasion (aka the Normans) but we won't go there today.

*Side note:  this is also the War that lead to the signing of the Magna Carta.  Magna Carta = the founding document and basis for all human rights equality in the Western world.  Just kind of important.

Anyway, Nicolaa didn't stop after saving the country.  During the battle, a knight by the name of William Marshal came to help defend her castle against the French.  But, as a reward for his chivalry he went back to London to try and "legally" take her rights to the castle away.  Far from a wallflower, Nicolaa follows after Marshal to London, approaches the courts and re-secures the castle under her name.

More Feminist Whinging

So, why did I get only Joan of Arc when I could have had not-crazy, job-security-savvy woman? 

I know this is an old complaint.  But, seriously women existed as long as men have--women who were just as smart or just as capable--and yes, just as naive and asinine--as the men around them.  So where are they to be found in the history books?  Where are the stories that allow women to be finally more than just an exception to the rule?  

Yes, we all know the names of those exceptional exceptions to the rule because they were incredible.  But, I want more than just that because exceptions leave you with a huge gap of knowledge of how they got there and also what made them so exceptional in the first place.  Nicolaa was exceptional yes, but she was also down to earth and still worked in a system that was fully endorsed and run by the men in power around her.  

When learning about the Middle Ages in school all I remember is that guys got to hear about the politicians, scientists and inventors that defined relationships between the universe and life.  Meanwhile, girls got to learn about a schizophrenic fundamentalist nutso who got burned at the stake.

It's just that, in between Hatshepsut and Hilary Clinton, you know there have been millions of women that have lived.  It's still sobering to think we've got a small handful of names remembered.

-Beryl

My Family's Big Love: I'm Descended From Polygamists

Hi.


I got sick.  I caught a virus that rendered my throat incapable of doing anything a throat is made to do (pass breath, handle the food, the drink and the other body-stuffs we pretend doesn't happen, like food that burps back up but we swallow back down--I mean, what?).  


I'm trying to look on the positive side, though.  Right after my throat burned itself into a no-entry zone I found out that I do not have Herpes, HPV, or HIV/AIDS.  It was a win/sorta lose kind of moment.


Anyway, in getting so sick I deliberately separated myself as much as possible from my friends.  Being quarantined, I can say now from experience, is not fun.  I get antsy enough as it is when Downton Abbey episodes have run dry on Netflix.  So, in a vague attempt to avoid stir-craziness I started up my latest Campaign of Learning and began researching the people I could socialize with and avoid infecting:  my ancestors. 


You Know When You Kind of Know About Something But Don't Really Know It Until You Actually Start Researching What It Really Means And Then You Wish You Hadn't?

When I was a kid I had heard about my family on one side having more than one family.  Or that two sisters had the same husband.  Or that my grandpa had left a church.  I had asked questions about it in the past, but for some reason even after repetitive explanations from my mom and dad, it didn't quite sink in what it all really meant.


I started off with the photo that had confused me for a long, long time.  It had been sitting on the family mantel surrounded by a pretty antique metal frame.  One day, while hacking up my lung (and lunch), I decided to take a closer look inside and break out the photos to see what they said on the backs.  

This is how I destroy antiques.

Meet Charles Henry Haderlie:

Or, as he was fondly called back in Switzerland, Karl Heinrich Häderli. Yea, that last name was hard for me to pronounce first time I saw it.  Think "Hey!-D.A.R.E.-lie" Sounds kind of like an anti-drug abstinence program.


Karl--or as I like to think of him, Crazy Charley--was a polygamist.  No, that doesn't mean he was an avid gamer, as I had foolishly hoped. Charles had more than one wife.

To make matters even more intriguing, his wives were also sisters.


Meet The Schiesses.


Btws, Schiess is pronounced "sheess"not "shies," as I had again foolishly thought; that would have meant that they were the Shit family in Swiss.   

Mr and Mrs. Schiess and their children, Anna Barbara, Bertha (at age 5)  Jacob and John.

Around 1876 Johannes Ulrich Schiess, or as I like to think of him, Mr. I'm The Only One Whose Beliefs Matter, uprooted his entire family from their gorgeous little farm in Appenzell Switzerland to go Manifest Destiny with Joseph Smith and join the Church of Latter Day Saints.  


Big Love Just Got Very Real.


As hard as it may be to comprehend in the Post-3rd Wave Feminism world of the Bay Area, as hard as it is for me to see this as anything but some form of voodoo cult culture, the two daughters of Ulrich pictured above ended up being married to the same man, Crazy Charles Henry.  

Bertha (now age 17) with new hubby Charles Henry, who at the time was already married to her sister.

It gets better.


Meet The Haderlies.

Gotta love those 1940s up-doos and wide-lapel suits.  Pictured above are the thirteen--yes, thirteen--children of Bertha Schiess and Charles Henry Haderlie.  Just for kicks, here they are again as children in 1905, when Bertha had only had nine by that point:

The Haderlie 9; the baby is Mabel, little girl is Ina, top right is Clifford.

Déjà vu-Doo Cult?


Ok.  I really should stop passing judgment on polygamists.  I mean, without them and their crazy-breeding techniques, I would not exist.  Flat out that is the truth.


But.


Charles Henry didn't just marry two women.  He didn't marry just two sisters and have an exorbitant amount of kids with his second wife.  


He also was simultaneously making thirteen other children with Anna Barbara, Bertha's sister, bringing that up to 26 children total. 




Wait.  What?  


26 children.  From three people...you can get 26?  Don't women's uteruses fall out after their fifth child?    Don't men's penises fall off after the 10th?  I don't understand.


Apparently Charles Henry Haderlie did.  Like a crazed scientist, trying to force a "solution" to his original crack-pot idea, he placed the two sets of children and wife on either side of the Idaho and Wyoming state border, both along Tin Cup Creek. 


That's right.  That was the dude's solution.  


Got two families?  No prob.  Put them in different states.  That way, no one will know and no one will have the awkward family reunion moment of wearing the same genes to the same party.  


That was a bad pun.


I apologize. 


According to what we have from record accounts, the families did not consort with one another, but merely shared resources (one owned a ranch, the other a lumber mill).   And, apparently tensions ran particularly high after one incident where one of the boys from the mill got fresh with one of the girls from the ranch and he and his siblings were politely met with gunpoint by their half-brothers upon a return visit.


When Did Mormons Become a Fad?


If you're interested to know how I'm related to all of this, it's quite simple.  I'm the great-grand-daughter of one of those thirteen kids pictured above:  Clifford Moroni Haderlie, to be exact.  His eldest son, Eugene, is the very same Eugene who just celebrated his 90th birthday a week and a half ago, aka my grandpa.


Eugene politely declined to be a part of the Church of Latter Day Saints as a young man, and was excommunicated.  Our relatives who still belonged to the Church kept trying to get him to come back for a while afterwards but they stopped when my grandma (a British war bride who had survived the London Blitz) said she'd haunt them forever as a ghost even after she died if they kept it up.


They stopped calling after that.


Anyway, it seemed fitting to "come out" to everyone about my family's somewhat sordid history.  The Book of Mormon, written by South Park's creators, has become the latest broadway smash musical.  Also, Big Love, the HBO series on a fictional Utah polygamist family, just concluded with its last episode only a few weeks ago.  I find it oddly coincidental that the two head writers of Big Love, Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer are a gay male couple, as I now find myself in a slightly intriguing position:  


It's 2011 and here I am.  I am the great-grand-daughter of a devout Mormon family (among many others) and I am an out, lesbian atheist.  My existence is somewhat of the exact opposite of what Charles Henry Haderlie had intended in producing so many heirs; his religion was forgotten with my mom and standard procreation could easily stop with me and with that, his line of genes.

I find that fantastically sweet as a form of revenge, in the name of all and any women who were badgered into being second wives.  But, I don't like to end blogs on a vengeful note.  So, let's go back to genealogy.


WOO UPDATE:


This is Woo with HER extended family.  Here are her half siblings from the same mother.

Can you see the resemblance?

Woo, Blue and Roxy

Also, this is Woo's late mother, McKinley.

I like to think Woo got her mom's eyes.  Something about that bulginess and confused glassy stare...

Baking The Devil's Dogs: How To Celebrate Your 90-Year-Old War-Hero Grandpa

I just wanted to post some pictures from my grandpa's 90th Birthday Celebration.

I also wanted to show off what my mom and I made for his birthday.

It's a selfish post this week.

Anyway.

My grandpa, you may or may not know, is one of Those Guys who did amazing things in his life.  He even has a book on it:

His biography, "Conversations with Marco Polo: The Remarkable Life of Eugene C. Haderlie" is for sale on amazon.com, if you're interested in reading more.  Or you could just ask me for my copy.  I've already read it and have had my fill of feeling inadequate.

Anyway, mom wanted to do something special for his 90th birthday since he did the whole War-Hero, Scientist-Extraordinaire thing.  I recently got her hooked on the online cook/blogger/photographer/gardener/allthingsdomesticgoddess The Pioneer Woman.

So, we decided to tackle her recipe for Devil Dogs for my grandpa.  He has the sweetest sweet tooth--even at 90.  And personally, I feel as though if you've arrived at the ages that are multiples of both 9 and 10, you're allowed to eat as many sweets as you like.

If you haven't clicked on the above link that will take you to that recipe, be prepared for a picture-documentation of the party's festivities starting now.

Thick, thick (not Thich Nhat Hanh) frosting

That was a bad buddhist monk pun, if you hadn't caught on.  Then again, this recipe certainly made me live in the moment.

Anyway, skipping past the process of mixing and baking the cake batter, mom and I were delighted at our success in re-creating Ree Drummond's recipe.

We began piling them on, and I had the brilliant--alright, alright it was cheesy--idea to frost his initials on the mini cakes

Note:  the very necessary glass of wine next to the baking site.  When baking for family events, it's good to be prepared.

Gorgeous!

Even Woo had a problem staying away from the packed food and goods readied to be taken down to Monterey.

Either she's pulling a new yoga pose for pugs that I don't know about, or she's snooping.

"What?  I wasn't...I mean...what? I'm CUTE."

I think grandpa enjoyed the cakes.  At least, I made sure to bombard him with it.  He had no escape.  You might think that it was because he was in a wheelchair but honestly I doubt it--he can move fast in that thing and it's frightening trying to outrun him.  I just know a man with a sweet-tooth is easy to bamboozle with a tray filled with cake.

My Grandpa (aka Hell on Wheels), the Devil Dogs, Joanna and Me

Anyway, we celebrated, we ate, we laughed, we cringed when he got grumpy and didn't like us fussing over him and we went home.

Ah, family.

One last thing, though.  I got to hang out on my grandma's memorial bench.  

Why is it when you try to wear black to minimize the boobs they just get bigger?

If you're ever hanging out around Hopkin's beach in Monterey (basically right across the way from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of the many things my grandpa has had a hand in oi...) you should come on by and say hi to Aileen Elizabeth Watson's bench.  It's got a great view.  

No, I don't mean me.

Although I'm pretty schnazzy.

Ok.

I think that's enough self-exhibition.  For now.

-Beryl

WOO UPDATE: Remember how I mentioned Woo was running amuck (for once) in the local dog park?  Normally she's an anti-social dog, who prefers the company of humans.  We were so excited to see her run, which again looked like a strangled attempt and double-dutch jump rope for dogs.

Anyway, mom decided to take her back to the park and let her "run wild" again.

But, mom made a mistake.  It was raining and Woo wasn't having it. 

Mom decided to walk forward, yelling encouraging words back to the dog she thought was right behind her.  Several minutes later she looked back and saw this:

I'm not sure exactly what she's trying to convey with this look...but perhaps....

A Moment of Silence: Photos From Japan

In case you haven't seen the levels of destruction in Japan, here are the images I came across earlier today.  It is unreal.

I don't know how else to convey this other than just not talk about it and re-post the photographs.  I've given credit to the photographers, so I hope I'm not infringing.  But, please let me know if this is a no-no in online land.  It's always good to know the rules I'm breaking.

Ship Asia Symphony breached, Kamaishi. EPA/STEPHEN MORRISON

Rikuzentakata, SHIHO FUKADA for The New York Times

Otsuchi, YOMIURI SHIMBUN via Associated Press

Kesennuma, KIM KYUNG-HOON/REUTERS

Kesennuma, SHIHO FUKADA for The International Herald Tribune

Natori, KYODO NEWS via Associated Press

I am very aware that California is due for a big earthquake and also located on the Ring of Fire, and not just in the cool Johnny-Cash-Song kind of way.

This week, if you haven't already, please take the time to arrange for yourself and your family a simple earthquake-kit.  We all learned as kids growing up in California to duck and cover, stay away from windows in case of glass shards breaking over you, etc.  But, I also know that it's easy to forget the basics.

My family keeps a supply of earthquake food, batteries, water and medicine just in case of emergency.  So, for those of you who don't know what an Earthquake Kit looks like here are the basics, as laid out by Ready America's kit recommendations:

Water, one gallon per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and/or sanitation.
Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food.
Radio, battery-powered or hand crank 
Flashlights and extra batteries
First Aid Kit
Dust Mask, to help filter contaminated air 
Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities (if auto-gas-lock is not placed on household gas lines)
Can opener for food (if non-perishable food is canned)
Local road maps
Cell phone, with chargers, inverter or solar

Also, here is a more in-depth article on how to use your cell phone as a tool during an emergency:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2319595_use-cell-phone-as-emergency.html


-Beryl

p.s. For those in need of a laugh after all of the heavy news, here is a WOO UPDATE:


Mom took her on a walk a few days ago over on the Navy Base of Alameda, which if you didn't know existed, please feel free to brush up on your Alameda geography with the last post concerning the abandoned Navy Base.

It was deserted and quite lovely with the green clover everywhere.

Woo also apparently loved that she had the space and freedom to roam around without any other pesky dogs trying to socialize with her.

So she went galloping--and I mean that in the pug-sense; i.e., it was not so much as a gallop but more of a lolloping-circular movement akin to a potato rolling down a steep hill.

I don't know why but this picture just makes me laugh out loud.  I think it's because running just looks so wrong when she does it.  But, she was enjoying herself, which makes all the difference.

The Meaning of Life: A Function

So, you might have noticed the above header icon for this blog.  A while ago, when I had first been exposed to CalculusandI'velostyoualreadyhaven'tI? I was delighted by the visual that math can provide   for patterns.

You might have noticed that I love visuals.

You might have also noticed that I love patterns.

You might have also also noticed that I use patterns and visuals to create comedy.

You can see why math was an obvious route when I first got to college: Why not learn the official rule book for patterns?  There is a "rate" to comic timing.  Why not learn the rule book for comedy?


My Love for Humorous Visual Patterns Didn't Quite Make It Into the Third Dimension

Well, when I got into Multi-Variable Calculus (i.e., 3D Calculus) that failed.  It failed because the patterns became more or less like any other in-depth study; so wide-spread and detailed that my basic understanding and desire to only understand it in a basic way kind of thwarted my goal.

Anyway, while flitting out of math and feeling all blue about it, I remember someone telling me that the meaning of life is the summation of all your experiences, not just about hitting pointed markers in life.

I've never quite forgotten it.  And as a sort of joke I decided to take that theory literally and put it into mathematical terms.

That's when I came up with this.

This Is Your Life On Math

It's ok if you're not following this.

Really, I am not going to test you on it.

I just wonder if I have actually found a way to mathematically describe the meaning of life.  A while ago I had been working hard on a function for sense of humor and then comic timing by taking the derivative  of a sense of humor, but apparently some Swiss Mathematician had already beaten me to it.  I will say this, though--mine was pretty close to his, in a sort of I-used-the-letter-B-and-you-used-the-letter-H-to-describe-the-same-variable" kind of way.

I'm still bummed about that.

I Don't Want to Calculate The Meaning of My Life

Anyway, if we were to graph a life using the above formula for the function of life, then this is mine up until Summer, 2009.  It is because of this that I have decided to not take the next step and "add" up my life experiences thus far.  

Intriguing, no?  

Next week:  The Buddhism and the Four Golden Rules of Buddha!

-Beryl

Woo Update:  There are no words.