TIME FOR ANOTHER SELF-REFERENTIAL VENN DIAGRAM!

Pursuant a post about the inane extroversion of dogs and an idiotic musical about cats I made some mention of the types of people whom cats will get along with. And it should be mentioned that I know several cats, many of which I see when I wander around Chinatown. Store cats. Very independent minded individuals who like to be scritched, especially on the back of their heads right behind the ears. They are 'social', but not severely so. Feel free to deal with them on an equal to equal basis. But please do not presume.

I enjoy their attention, and do not talk down to them.

[Well, in a sense I do. Can't stoop very well.]


Nice creatures. Haven't gotten low enough to look them in the eye or guess what they like to eat. But I would imagine that they have carnivore breath.
I think they are active mousers, and I would believe that their humans are rather fond of them, but NOT in the wuzza wuzza wuzza fashion.


A commenter (Frau Doktor W) on the post referenced wrote: "The stray cats of Jerusalem like me; though I fear that of your list of folk that cats like I fit squarely into the "grouchy old lady" category despite not having achieved even two score years."

That calls for a Venn Diagram that many dog-owners just will not understand.

If I had a cat, I would probably do laundry much more often; cats like piles of warm clean clothes. And I might actually be a more likeable person.

Cats, as is well-known, have an affinity for pipe smokers.

Which is very often reciprocated.

Hello Kitty isn't a cat.





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THERE ARE NOODLES HERE

A few days ago I explained my world with a Venn diagram, which ellicited a comment from a reader who identified him or herself as "Frau Doktor W", as follows: "It would also seem that some of your favorite people are Jewish bloggers, yes?"
Which is correct. When I started blogging it was in reaction to their essays, and to play in the same sandbox. And I still follow a lot of them, without actually playing in that sandbox very much anymore.

Thoughtful skeptical Jews with a background of some sort in Talmud.

As a number of the people with whom I interact on Facebook are.

The 'Atheist Calvinist Dutchman' within likes the stimulation.

"Some of your favorite people are Jewish bloggers"

Much of what I consider my actual social life involves Hong Kong milk tea, fellow pipe smokers, people who used to be little Chinese girls (please see the group represented by "G" in the Venn Diagram above, for an explanation of which visit this post: Apples, Oranges, and Carburetors), and a significant number of Jewish bloggers.
It is surprising how much of said social life is via the internet.

Significant, but not included in the Venn diagram above are a seller of books and his circle, a karaoke bar with a mostly Cantonese clientele, a skeevoid hamburger joint, and two drinking establishments to which I have not been in a while. Plus kin with whom I communicate around the holidays, usually.

A Venn diagram should not look like a plate of spaghetti.


A part of my social life involves spaghetti.


As does a part not included in either Venn diagram.


I consider myself largely normal.



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COMPARING APPLES, ORANGES, AND CARBURETORS

Many of my favourite women used to be little Chinese girls. Most of my least favourite men weren't. Some conclusions one could draw from this would be wrong. My apartment mate, the ladies at the pharmacy, little miss Mak who hates needles and has been forced to wield a hypodermic in my regard several times, and women at bakeries, especially the bakeries where one can get Hong Kong Milk Tea. All of these were once little Chinese girls.

My least favourite men are all cigar smoking football fans.

Quite a few of my favourite animals are porkchops.

A remarkable coincidence.


About the only significant knowledge that the information contained in these statements can render is that some Venn Diagrams are virtually useless.

On the other hand, I derive great pleasure from this Venn Diagram. It is aesthetically pleasing, to the teenage high-school student within.

A warm fuzzy feeling.


'A' is leaving for work in an hour. I will not see 'B' today, unless I run into them on Stockton Street. Same goes for 'C' and 'E'. If 'C', it is good. If 'E', no comment. I may run into 'F' today, don't know. 'D' is a 100% certainty.





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IT'S GOING TO GET INTERESTING

There is a Venn diagram overlap between House Republicans, the Russian Mafia, a certain man's campaign staff, Netanyahu's government, and Evangelicals. Also involved: the NRA and real estate interests.


What's going to be quite fascinating is seeing how well "the company" succeeds in subverting our justice department.


Also curious is what they think that will accomplish. We already know that the Republican Party and several individuals currently influential are rotten to the core, that the gun lobby attracts the worst elements and sold what little was left of their soul to the Russians, and that the Evangelicals would like to impose their values on a free society in any way that they can.

And that voting systems can be easily hacked.


No wonder Hillary lost.


Like Hitler's boy scouts or Stalin's NKVD, the Evangelicals are mostly one-dimensional psychopaths, though under the right circumstances likely to become violent. As long as their panties remain bunched up and moist.





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IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

A conversation with a friend and fellow pipe smoker the other day lead me to realize that we had certain tastes and sensitivities in common. Not so much a match, as an overlap of interests in a Venn diagram.

It strikes me that it might be a good idea to list my various interests and fondnesses, to see if anything can be deduced therefrom, and whether any conclusions and thoughts spring to mind as a result.

As it comes to mind ...


INDIAN FOOD
Good lord yes. Bring on the nimboo achar, phul ghobi masala, and flaky kulcha. Predates my involvement with an Indian restaurant, survived frequent exposure to Punjabis and Gujus, and still continues.
Sarson da saag aur makki di roti.
Sabse achcha!

CHINESE FOOD
Steamed pork patty, stirfried stalky mustard greens, and something very fishy. Perhaps dried fish, perhaps shrimp paste, or a steamed fresh fish.
Or sauteed clams and mussels.

CHINESE SEAL SCRIPT
I am rather proud of my ability to read the ancient forms and analyze their derivation. For a while I carved signature seals, but I haven't done so in a long while.

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY
Not horrible at it, but not any good either. I suppose I should practise a lot more. My writing hand is pretty decent, and I write better than most.

BADGERS, BATS, RATS, AND WEASELS
PLUS CROWS & PARROTS
Animals that act intelligent or soulful always deserve attention. For some reason dogs and cats tend to think the same about me.
Which I find suspect.

MILK TEA, KUNG FU TEA, AND JUST TEA
Yes, I have a collection of I-Hsing teapots, including a couple of precious antiques. On a daily basis I am high as a kite by noon.
White tea, semi-ferments, and darker bohea.

PIPES AND PIPE TOBACCO
There is a deep-seated appeal in certain fragrances, and just sniffing the bowl of a pipe that has been cleanly used can bring up moods. It's an aesthetic thing involving the eye, the hand, and the nose. Ancient briar, well-aged tobacco, and a layer of reverie laid over the moment.

There is something sexual about the fecund smell of fermenting leaf.

POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
In the quiet of the night you can hear the celadon make pingy sounds, sometimes even years after it came out of the kiln. But there are also wonderful blues, and creamy green glazes, as well as Japanesy effects with Sung dynasty antecedents. No, not so much into oxblood.
But oil-spot and hare's fur can be wonderful.

BOOKS AND LITERATURE
Having a personal library gives one a sense of certainty and security. Some English literature, some Dutch literature, some poetry in various languages, plus many reference works, dictionaries, and art picture books.
And naturally a slightly excessive amount of Manga.
Some of which is nicely silly.

DRAFTING EQUIPMENT
There is a particular smell to the metal alloys once used in precision equipment, as well as a pleasure in handling. Sometimes it's very nice just to open up the cases and look at the arrayed drop bow pens, proportional dividers, scales, and compasses. Sniff.

SPICES AND INCENSE
Okay, peculiar. That's about all that can be said.
Snow pear wood, cedar, and aquilaria.
Mace, Ceylon cinnamon, cloves.
Saffron, cardamon.

SAYING NASTY THINGS ABOUT REPUBLICANS
Quite an addictive thing. Can't think of any other group that so richly deserves the tongue lash. They are odious.


Well then. I cannot quite see how all of this ties in together. Part of it clearly has to do with my reading in history, part of it certainly comes from thinking with my hands. I am somewhat more into visual stimuli than whatever passes for music, as well obsessed by surfaces and shapes.
The object lust is probably a natural development.

How things look and smell and feel induces shifts in mood.
There is a quietness there, and an emotional balance.
Hold a something in the hand for a while.
Feel it's musicality.


I cannot describe the intensity of a finger-tip touch.




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BUT THESE ARE JUST MINOR DETAILS

Somebody asked me why I tend to hang out in Chinatown so much, given that I am not Chinese, and very unlikely to pass for Chinese, ever.
It seemed peculiar to him.
Possibly even weird and obsessive.
A misguided eccentricity.


In truth, the answer is simple. Entirely aside from needing to leave the apartment on my days off after a certain time, so that the evidence of my smoking airs away before the non-smoking person with whom I share my digs returns from work, there's the recognizability factor.

All of the single Vegan moms, anti-vaxxers, pampered middle-class allergics, puritans, religious nuts, conspiracy theorists, gmo or chemtrail obsessed, tobacco-hating wheatgerm snarfing obnoxiously self-righteous and strident Berkeleyite pricks in Chinatown are clearly marked.

They are white, and speak fluent English.

Most of the people who are none of the above are also fairly easily recognized, by a Venn-diagrammatic overlap of two factors: they speak Cantonese, and / or they look Chinese. If there is a perfect match of those characteristics, we have lift-off. They'll happily tolerate me as long as I don't do anything obnoxiously white Anglo-Saxon Protestant dickhead; I'll get along well with whoever provided they don't pull any weird sh*t.

Not everyone who is English-speaking and white is like that.
But enough. Trust me. It's a preponderance.



You know, there are two fabulous words in Indo-Dutch.

Anstil, and Tingka.

The first means stuck-up, pissy attitude, whatever is her problem, and the second means pretentious, ooh just too damned precious, a completely self-centered set of expectations, and an easily bruised sense of entitlement, the poor dear.

Anstil is a characteristic, tingka is its manifestation.

While these are dreadfully common in Bay Area whites, and also crop-up among Chinese American female college graduates who didn't go to San Francisco State -- especially if they don't speak Cantonese -- they are comparatively rare among the people in C'town.




As I said, the answer is simple. It is filled with a certain amount of bile, and a whole bunch of concepts which are difficult for many modern Americans to comprehend, foreign ideas for most of them, but simple.

And I really enjoyed explaining it.




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TRANSPORTING SOFT BRAINS

It's either daemonic possession, or a type of acute intellectual failure endemic in Marin County, which is a special place in the universe.
I am, of course, speaking of the Golden Gate bus which carries me back to the city after a long day of assaulting various pudgy middle-aged male sportsfanatic cigarsmokers with whips and cattle-prods.
There was screaming, and loud obscenity.
Some team won today.

The bus contained a broad and enriching slice of humanity, all of them unique individuals, with rich inner lives.


PARAGRAPH TWO

Minor annotation, necessary for understanding why the phone conversation that caught my attention caused me to grimace:

Matterhorn: a very tall mountain in Switzerland, straddling the border with Italy, not too far from France.
Switzerland: a not-insignificant country in Western Europe, sort of centrally located, bordered by Germany in the North, Italy in the South, and France in the West. Money repositories, mountains called Alps, clockmakers, chocolatiers, and Heidi can be found there.
Sweden: a place which is not Switzerland. Sweden is known for hard rotten fish, soft rotten fish, slimy rotten fish, and semifirm rotten fish.
It's really a rather nice country, located in Scandinavia, which is in
Northern Europe. The weather is colder than Switzerland.
Gohverdomme: an exclamation frequently used by Dutchmen.


PARAGRAPH THREE

Cell-phone conversation excerpt.

"I'm on the bus on Van Ness, and you should know that there's actually a Swedish Restaurant in San Francisco!"

"You should tell them! All three of them are totally Swedish, we should take them there."

"No, I just passed it; it looks clean and very nice, and for sure it's Swedish."

"It's called Matterhorn, they have the Swedish flag on the awning."

"Yeah okay then, I'll tell them and let them decide."

"I've never had Swedish food either."


And, other than causing me to swear under my breath (gohverdomme!), it made me realize that there is a substantial overlap of stupidity, ignorance, and silliness (or rank confusion); it's a Venn diagram.

Too many Americans inhabit a Venn Diagram.

We are a Venn diagrammatic people.


Some of us are ignorant. Painfully, cripplingly, ignorant. Others are stupid, and can barely find their way out of a ripped cardboard box. And yet others are silly. Or confused. There is nothing wrong with silly, or confused, but sometimes there is nothing right about it either.

And some of us are all of the above.

Very few of us are both totally Swedish as well as Swiss.


PARAGRAPH FOUR

No, I'm not going to excuse that woman on some spurious grounds, don't be ridiculous. I'm not condemning her either. I'm just saying that that is one heck of a Venn diagram.

Gohverdomme!

THE MATTERHORN

"Matterhorn from Domhütte - 2" by Photo: chil, on Camptocamp.org

Derivative work:Zacharie Grossen - Camptocamp.org.

Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn.

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PERSPECTIVE IS A FANFICTION REQUIREMENT; OR, WHY I LIKE VENN DIAGRAMS

As Gene says in Bob's Burgers, "what kind of maniac wakes up an hour early to write erotic fanfiction?" Tina Belcher admitted she did. Proudly.
I have a confession to make at this point. I have never written erotic fanfiction. Don't know if I even could. Not at five in the morning.
Tina has a complicated thing for zombies.
That may have some bearing.
Also buttocks.

Apparently, females will notice buttocks.

The fanny pat was invented by a woman.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. If some person of the girl persuasion were to yell "hey studmuffin, nice ass", I would assume that someone else was the target and keep on walking. No, I wouldn't turn around to see who she yelled at, or what pair of glutei maximi so excited her.
Because, after all, it's unheard of to yell something back.
A note of agreement and approval, for instance.
Yes, that welder does have great buns.
So round, so denim, so firm.
We can all agree.

Hear hear!

The buttock thing, of course, explains why all the girls are down at the football field watching practice, instead of assiduously swotting their algebra homework. Geometry and physics are much more thrilling than dry mathematical logic. The only overlap is the Venn Diagram, which is what some bottoms look like.

[The Euler Diagram is difficult to fit into this scheme. I would be keenly interested in other people's thoughts on this issue.]


Being masculine, quite naturally I have my own perspective on the rump. Unfortunately, being a single man, I never get really close enough to have a good perspective. Likewise breasts, waists, the delightful curve of the belly, thighs, collar bones, velvety skin, or small warm hands and kissy cheeks. This interferes with my ability to form an educated and informed opinion on these matters.

If I did actually get close enough, I would need to wear my glasses. My vision is perfectly fine for everything between three blocks and twelve inches away. It's those last crucial twelve inches that count. Without reading specs, I cannot tell the time, and have more often than I care to admit hit myself in the face with a teacup. Or a rice bowl. Or a coffee mug.
Stabbed myself fiercely in the cheek with a briar pipe.
And sometimes I've tried to light my thumb.

It's a lack of perspective.

I can imagine myself being smacked in the face by breasts.
Or thighs, and the delightful curve of the belly.
Small warm hands and kissy cheeks too.

There are worse problems.



If you are up an hour early, please feel free to write some fanfiction in the space provided. I'll approve it for publication, or respond to you privately, when I get back.




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A FIT SUBJECT

A friend has reacted with hurt surprise that I have not written far more about breasts and lesbians. Surely, his facebook comment seems to imply, these are subjects of import? Why have I neglected them?

The answer, dear Mark, is that I take them for granted.

A search on the internet brings up millions of breasts and lesbians.
Not all sites that list, describe, analyse, or feature breasts and lesbians do so with sincere fascination, nor are overmany of them scholarly in-depth theses. Most of them are written by Beavis and Butthead.

Almost all lesbians have breasts. Consequently, any article that mentions both will contribute as much to the total of breast reference as it does to the lesbian narrative. Breasts are, logically, represented in far greater numbers on the Web than lesbians.

Think of a Venn diagram. In one circle, globe, or ovoid shape, are all the breast sites. In another circle, globe, or ovoid, are all the lesbians. It is a significantly smaller circle, globe, or ovoid. There is a very great degree of overlap between these two circles, globes, or ovoids.

There are, of course, numerous other circles, globes, or ovoids that can be added; monolithicity is remarkably absent in this field, both subjects are varied and diverse. Details and foci can be stressed or omitted.
Mention must be made of nipples and aureoles.
Or larger and smaller lesbians.

There's an entire fascinating world out there.
We have only just begun to explore.
More research is needed.


As just one example of worthwhile investigation into one aspect, please note a website named 'the bra museum'.
It's a good start.
Solid.



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