[virii] Writer's Rejection (+ new system: uploading files!)

No, I did not drop off from the face of the earth, but a lot has happened since my last post.

But now lets indulge in this as the literary digression it is supposed to be. I am really excited at the chance of finally being able to post whole stories now (and long monologues, haha), because I'm going to be using drop.io to put up my documents (a true gem of a site and app, I laud it profusely and sincerely, and you should definitely check it out). This way you can finally:
- Preview my work using iPaper so you can skim through the piece easily, and not have to scroll through a copious amount of text if you don't want to
- Download my large pieces and stories to read at your own leisure
- Even print out the stories if you are so inclined
- Have all my literary texts uploaded to one location which you can peruse

Depending on interest (and trust in your discretion), I am thinking of posting a link to the "drop" (where all my literary uploads can be found) in the future if the number of docs grows significant.

Now: on to it. The first piece is no story, but (ironically or appropriately?) yet another Seethe about writing :) Hope you find it amusing.

View "Writer's Rejection Seethe" - and download if you please!

[pathopoetry] Song of the Platonic Sweetheart

I have been meaning to write this for some time, and have been mentally turning it over, and physically reworking it for a while now, so I am very glad and even relieved that it is done. I really wanted it to turn out well and I hope it has; I may still revisit it in the future, but for now I felt that I really must end it, and so I have.

To my dear friends. You know who you are.

Song of the Platonic Sweetheart

No ballads have been sung for this.
Such tempered affection cannot inspire
Spontaneous odes or lilting melodies -
This steady beat won’t make a harmony
Ours was a love the world does not define.

Moth-wing romances resonate the air
Ubiquitous pollen lusts usurp the ear
Expunging fevered words from swollen lungs
All that is oversung, but sung and gone

So that’s the reason that I sing for you
Your care, I knew, deserved a longer line
Love beyond blood is not reserved for lovers -
We forged a link those notes could not endure
And our oaken timbre was sustained

Each other’s understated inspiration
In mutual admiration of our idiosyncrasies
Trading our shoulders to withhold the burdens
Of one another, we remembered God
And birthed a sun unclouded by desire

How many epiphanies can we claim
Within the clustered grove our thoughts have grown
Since we began this green companionship
Revealing truths we started to assume;

Though now we hang on different reaching boughs
I know the very moments I will miss you
The instances this distance will be felt
as some expanse, not solely by our footsteps
but by the different ways we card our lives

I sing for you to gently shore the waves

Remember my perception of your depth
Know that you made an imprint of yourself
Within the silvered lining of my mind;
Ours was a love the world does not define.

mascara

eyes hurt (eyes hurt!)
why (dirt?) no (squirt?)
no; I played with mascara,
even with sophisticated primer (aka
gunk) to add millimeters
to your eyelid hair before you
slather on blackness;

perturbed me
those disembodied spiderlegs
so maybe I scrubbed my face too zealously
grimacing at mudslides of concealer
anxious to be
re-revealed as me I
hardly avoided
that delicate eye area
until I was satisfied my skin had returned
smiled triumphant but my eyes ran burning
(that salicylic cleanser
really, is just soap.)

a few crocodile tears later:
eyes calm (eyes fine)
by all that rubbing, I may have removed a few lashes
but oh, are you winking at me, mirror?



--

Summer is a-comin' in

So here it is, another summer. A couple of life-changing events later, and Spring dandelions have long since peppered the green below my window.

It has been an interesting, eventful few months. I've had the entire contents of my laptop (all 6 years of it) wiped out - an unfortunate occurence which later seemed wholly insignificant after that very sudden death of a very dear person. I've had the great fun of explaining the digestive system with blue paint, plastic tubes and soda crackers; of making some geometric art and tissue paper flowers and sneaking some sketches in at the museum; of reading Shel Silverstein poems out loud and recieving poems written about me from a bunch of wonderful young people.

My life is spinning into a brand new direction, and it seems that this summer will be the time for significant change. But to me, summer is my time for poetry. I may end up anywhere, but I'll see you at Stylus Virus, friends.

grocery vanities

I desire a certain adulation
being selfish again and craving
a word about some wonder in me
as I shuffle doubtful by the aisles
coated and booted I claim no grace
at the cash register, holding tomatoes
my eye wanders lustful to gerbera daisies
browning at the petal-tips at 10pm

hockey-shouldered, I fumble with change.
drop your voice an octave and tell me
among this I am worth a careful sentence
murmur something only you find true
that I can pretend to cast aside laughing
silently soaring, hoping -;
and adoring.



--

Snowly Lullaby

Silently the gentle wind
Moves the earth below
Beneath the clouds the branches sway
softly falls the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Carefully the tender breeze
Takes the leaves below
Carries them so gingerly
Till they kiss the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Slowly in this careful night
I recede below
Into thoughts that still remain
drifting in the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Hoplessly the night moves on
On the earth below
Life will leave and what will stay
sifting in the snow

this is why I need to say
that I love you so

Strangely soon will dawn the day
Rising from below
If I wake, I hope to pray
As recedes the snow:

show me Allah the way to say
that I love you so




--

Nature insight:host-microbe interactions!

I picked up an old copy of Nature today (October 2007 issue) to read in the library...and guess what I found?

An "Insight" supplement on host-microbe interactions!
What's more, you can read it free online here: http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/hostmicrobe/index.html

For more features, visit the Insights archive on the Nature website: http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/. All are free to access for 6 months from the date of publication.

[pathopoetry] jagged jigsaw

jagged jigsaw


Sometimes you think I am crazy, no
if it were that simple; I’m a jagged jigsaw
a hole in the middle when you fit me together
missing a piece never found

without it the portrait remains incomplete
what would the lost one reveal
have I misplaced this place in a heart
or maybe you’d shape it for me

[virii] Hindsight

Hindsight.
If only you could bring it forward to your face when you need it.
"In hindsight..."
Ah. My dear little sight, why are you always slightly behind? The orbs spin backwards in their sockets, but still cannot anticipate the mind.

[virii] A bout of writing at 11.05

Listen to that. You know what it is? It is the sound of some kind of thought. Tap tap. Slug-slugga-chug. Glug. That’s what it is. A wooden spatula, churning up thick batter and molasses up in headspace. Preoccupied with the onomatopoeia of your subliminal messages.
Anxiety, though, makes BLASTS of noise. screeeeeech screeeeech scratch-scratchety. The deeper you furrow your brows the higher in pitch it becomes. Listen! LISTEN!!! Yes, the urgency. You can close your ears, but can you close your mind?
If the brain dies. You are brain-dead. I suppose you hear nothing then. I suppose…snip snip synapses, how will you send the message down now? Not even head-sound. You know? Sound in your head, they say when you sing you have to get the sound up, in your head, have it hum there, take it up out of your forehead. But if there is no sound. Not even head-sound.
There is the sound of me typing at 11:12 pm. Trying to sophisticate a sludge of thought into a slurry of words into a cascading cacophony, a rhapsody in sound.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist.1 #9 Killer cold, or cold trail?

Is a virus a "bug"? I'm used to calling bacteria "bugs" even among trained professionals...but I guess I stop short of viruses due to the whole alive/non-living debate. I do see the usefulness of such an identification for media purposes though - "Killer cold bug" makes a better headline.

Speaking of which, I wonder if and when that new strain of adenovirus serotype 14 will become a real media scare. I wouldn't call adenovirus a "cold" (that I would mostly associate with rhinovirus/coronavirus) but you do get cold-like syptoms. You may have heard that this new strain of Ad14 has been shown to cause severe respiratory illness and mortality in quite a few cases, which is something to take notice of since adenoviruses do not usually cause fatal illness. However, I have seem some strange things floating around the net (internet flotsam?), like conspiracy theories linking the failed HIV vaccine (delivered via an Ad5 vector) to the emergence of the new Ad14 strain.

I have a soft spot for adenoviruses. They are so very cool, and really useful in terms of gene therapy.

As far as pandemics go, we are indeed due for a flu pandemic...but pandemic just means a "worldwide epidemic," not necessarily a high-mortality-epidemic. I guess we'll see.

To read:
Fact sheet for Ad14 from the CDC

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report(MMWR) 2007;56(45):1181-1184. ©2007 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)


This is great. I may no longer be in the world of Microbiology, but I'm connecting with it all the same. That makes me happy.:)

when i.write

My cold fingertips
reaquaint themselves
with an array of keys
smooth from dull jabs, and words
beat jarredly from the gaping screen
l e t t e r by lett- shrink back - streamoutlong
swift. then; one sweep, whole lines are seized
a white slot hole
the text bar blinks, bemused.

Fragments - December 5th

See this post.

--------------------------------------------------------------

1
I'll let you in on something. When the subway rumbles loudly, and I lose some of my 60-before-60 decibels of hearing, and it becomes hard to even hear your own thoughts, I sing.

2

Lately it has been My paddle's keen and bright/Flashing with silver. I keep repeating silver, trying to will my voice into a new tine.

3

You know what? When you fall asleep on the bus, and are totally drowned in subconcious, and you get a feeling that you should wake up...and your eyes look out the window just as the bus slows into your stop...and when that keeps happening in different circumstances...subhanaAllah, subhanAllah.

P.urge

Oh, do I have much to say. Spinning mind, copious thoughts, and time in disarray.

Points to note before internal combustion:

1) I never realised this, well I realised something as I was handed my bouquet of flowers and signed construction paper card smiling yet completely taken aback while I thought myself insane for curtailing tears after being in that classroom for but a month:
I must teach. I am glowing now, glowing with wonder at how well this fits despite the insanity, how good this feels after uncertainty yet deep in chaos yet again. More later.
2)I miss my friends though, all of them. All of those thunderous wonderous folk I've met, from elementary to highschool and beyond. Much love, drop me a line.
3)My head is spinning, I am really overwhelmed, and truly wasted this day, which is horrible.

4...3...2...Boom!

strung

I need to be a little muffled, a little more
underwhelmed. I
need to be curtailed somewhat
stuffed up with cotton, I
need plush stuffing in my head ears coming out
in white gauzy trails I need
something to smother me

not to hear
not to feel
drawn string taut bow stressed out high gear
I need

time to shut down
time to think and dumb down
time to get it all down and out of my mind I need
time

thunderous wonderous

What have you got
that I haven't got
That makes you so thunderous wonderous, oh,
Have you possessed
An item so blessed
That lets fortune court you wherever you go?
What do you have
That I haven't had
To make you victorious glorious? - "Why,
just this I do:
you judge by a 'You' -
and I weigh myself by an 'I'. "

a mind that shrinks away

compel me to cry
because I am something hard
I am something hurt
I am growing old

once remembered,
once more forgotten
I have raised my hands
placed my head on ground

everything seems to close
calmness is in breathing
strange, it's tangible, this...

I will settle down
in this unbroken state
once I reassure
an agitated mind;

[pathopoetry] a daisy

hashalillaah; the daisy -
long l o n g
stalk
bright
face
flawless floating honey-centred  milk   fan

the grass lies flustered at her feet
at her precocious hovering grace

[pathopoetry] butterfly words

for Neelain Muhammad

My eyes shine
at the fleeting butterfly
from your heart     to words

and the roll of your accent
like gentle, old man river

the simple joy of expression
beneath the humble cap, white robe
your skin belies
the warmth of your concern

so put on your glasses
dip your head
to the microphone and
your eyes shine

Bismillaah 'irrahmaan 'irraheem...

[pathopoetry] two names

I know your name
you know mine
our most distinguishing features

it's wonderful
a confidence
defining

I will carry it in apostrophes
over our
electronic common ground

you will come up
in all sorts of interesting places
with marvellous identities and
surprising images

giving you a sidelong glance
I will read your puerile comments
you will sneak a peak at my angst
laughing at what is archived
mortified it's still there

then from time to time
when we remember
we'll wonder

when there's a good link
after that click
that sudden pulse is
binary

so we'll keep the secret
until we are disconnected

then with our hearts brimming
we'll tell someone
to grope the databases

last, and first

[pathopics] on the other side

[pathopics] despite

Tawaaf

Trying to follow up on my resolution to write fragments (see previous post), I wrote this down as it came, though my old intention was to write a more complete piece on my Umrah experiences. I posted it up in my other blog, as is. It might need footnotes, it might need an explanation of context, but I won't add those, I won't drag this out, I'll put it up as is. If you still need them, you can always ask.
------------------

I don’t know how to explain what makes Tawaaf different from all other religious rites. You really have to be there to truly comprehend. Tawaaf is so raw, so stripped down, so simplified, so real that you can’t compare it, you just can’t compare it to anything else. You’re not singing, you’re not dancing, you’re not eating. You’re not ringing bells, you’re not lighting candles. You’re not garlanding a figure. You’re not meditating in seclusion in a manner that can only be mastered with long training. You, all of us, illiterate and elite, you’re doing the same thing you have been doing since you were born: you’re moving. You’re walking, maybe you’re running. You don’t need to be taught. You don’t need to be told. The Kaa’ba is there so you know where to go. The black stone is there so you know where to start. But in the end, it’s all you. You’re turning.

I’ve heard a lot of interpretations. We go anticlockwise to mirror the movement of the constellations. Or we circumambulate like the angels. They could be all correct, but that’s not the point. The point is what you feel. I can’t tell you that, because it’s what you feel. I’ll tell you about myself though. I felt like I was swept into a current. I knew I was moving but I wasn’t paying attention to my own inertia. I experienced something so unique it is rarely replicated in the world: conscious transcendent contentment. What the world tries to do is get you at this state by getting you out of your state: by getting you drunk, high, making you whirl and couple with spirits, giving you an andrenaline rush. But the strange thing about tawaaf is that you slip into it while being 100% conscious and in control of your senses, while being the same person you were seconds ago before starting, and yet feeling something that completely envelops you, something that is so rare to feel that you are confused about it initially, and only realize it after the fact. You’re not in a trance, you’re not inebriated – you’re completely aware, and yet you’re emotionally overwhelmed. I was praying, and I never wanted it to end. I felt that I belonged, for once, for ever. How can I explain it? I was at peace with myself, with what I was doing; I understood why I was there, I understood where I was going. Towards the end, I was terrified of leaving. I knew what the world was, I knew how quickly my heart could change from the piercing humility of that experience.

Unfortunately, due to my occupation as a reader, I had come across several pedantic, baseless articles – that were nevertheless being toted as true and widely circulated – by some caustic individuals trying hastily to mark the rites as some meaningless, despicable, cultist, pagan ritual. There’s no need to debunk this (any scholarly book would suffice), but I thought to myself: how I pity, how I wish any one of them would do a single tawaaf. There are seven tawaafs around the K’aaba; in any one of them – in all of them – , you could pray for whatever your heart desires. But when you are in the midst of all those people, old and crippled, young and beautiful – what do you hear? They’re praising God. They walk, they cry, they look up, and they praise God. This is the time to get your wants fulfilled! This is the time to ask! And they do ask, but more often than not, they gradually forget why they are asking. The urgency of the prayer of want they so meticulously crafted back home, dissolves into semi-significance and they are puzzled by it, why was it really that important? Because they understand something. Something clicks. You never want to tear yourself away from a tawaaf. You feel that, if I did just a few more, I would reach complete tranquility. Everything would make sense. Why, why did that material thing matter? Why didn’t I spend more time with my loved one? Why have I done all those senseless things? It’s as though you have been looking at life with severe myopia and someone just handed you a pair of glasses for the first time. Everything comes into perspective – your life comes into perspective – and you are dumbfounded that God has held onto you so long for all you are. And you are overwhelmed.

Fragments of this week

I like things to be pieced together well, particularly my own writing. I know when I'm satisfied with my Writ: words may seem strewn but I knew my purpose in scattering them, yes there was a blueprint for the chaos, method in the madness. I'm no Dostoevsky, but I know when I've got it down the way I wanted to.

Unfortunately, as I think I have explained quite sufficiently in the previous post (and even in this post), there is sometimes no time to be so thorough and so careful with it. No - I should correct the latter part of that statement: I think I have realized that I am so careful always - even when I force myself to spin out the words and throw caution - and the words themselves - to the wind...well, how uncanny, I find that I have imperceptibly been fitting those same words with tiny paper wings so that when launched, they would have a safe glide home. I've been doing it even now.

But I think that other part was right: sometimes, you just can't be so thorough. That's what held me down in the lab - I was being too meticulous, I was taking too much time. I was doubting my own precision. You know what? I was doubting that I could do it right the first time.

I've decided that, to stop me from falling back into the trap of procrastination, I'm going to write fragments. Yes in the other post, I resolved to write something at least a couple of times a week, and if I can that's great, but that's not the issue. What I need to do is get myself to write when I have something I feel needs to be written. I need to get it down when it comes, and then expand it, or else I'll probably never write it. Now, I may not get others to read those clipped thoughts, but I ought to write them for my own sake.

Of course I've come to this conclusion before. I think I've even posted some of those fragments here. I guess I just wanted a preamble.
--------------------------------------------------

Fragment 1
Some statistics sink in deeper than others. You can hear 10 statistics in one news segment or read 20 in one article, and chances are that the odd one or two will embed themselves into your long term memory, the others you will forget tomorrow. For me it was the statistic: " 3 out of 4 Iraqis are without clean water" (BBC news broadcast, yesterday).Immediately, my mind converted the ratio into a fraction into a mental picture: 3 out of 4, three quarters, three quarters, that's 75%, that's you me and the kid next door, minus the girl down the lane. Clean water. To wash your hands with. To drink. To wash yourself with. Murky water in rusted pots to put on your face and clean your child with.
...
In the midst of this post (see ellipses), I go to the BBC website to make sure of the statistic, since I don't like regurgitating anything unvalidated. Hmm, is that part of my thoroughness - that I don't like posting without sources? How interesting; reflexive writing.In any case, I find what I believe to be the html page based on the broadcast (here: Iraq faces alarming humanitarian crisis, by David Loyn, Jul.29th). And the statistic is from a July Oxfam briefing report: "Rising to the humanitarian challenge in Iraq." So I really had a Statistic, not a perception, and it really could be validated.
The Oxfam report said 70% of Iraqis had an "inadequate" water supply and 80% of Iraqis "lack effective sanitation." I guess BBC put two and two together. At the end of this passage, I feel no better, rather worse - the sanitation statistic did the trick - though there was a brief glow at discovering I was not mistaken and this was credible. Which meant I had a right to feel that initial surprise, feel pity and sadness, feel indignant. Which meant there was a chance that I could get someone else to feel some of that too, because of the truth of it. So that the next time they saw a statistic, they would know what to do: imagine.

-----------------------
I was going to write other fragments but I really did drag this out and I really am tired.

Write

I have this peculiar characteristic, which I know I’ve mentioned a couple of times before (like: in this post), but which strikes me as so particularly incompetent I find myself curiously revisiting it time and time again. Especially in those Time Agains where I feel it necessary to make excuses, such as now. I have found colourful ways to word this phenomenon of being, this sad habit, characteristic, blip in the mien, this trait I would like to paint as a shameful anomaly, not as a product of ill-wit and lethargy: in poetic terms, in sultry prose, in –
have I started again?
can you understand the game that causes me to heave up this vacuous carcass of a sigh and declare it:

When I really need to write, I have no words.

Hmmm, you see? Didn’t that come off poetically? I actually like that. I can say that and pretend that I am not ineffectual in my craft, not in the least a procrastinator wallowing in my own sloth, not even a sloth wallowing in the swamp of my own indecision. It comes off beautifully. It even – the blissful irony! – allows me to write something. I can produce something, I can prove my value by virtue of my own ill-proven state! It is unbelievable in its effectiveness, it is supreme.

But it doesn’t help.

Because I am kept restless by the thoughts which pressed me to word them, which depended on my supposed skills as a Conveyor of Thought, Distributor of Meaning, Purveyor of Words. Enlightenment, understanding, depression, contentment, confusion – I held them, scintillating and marvelous, and they said Tell! and I replied wait. They said express! and I said I’m busy. They said Help others know – and I complained I was distracted, I wanted watermelon, that seemed taxing, and I was tired. Those thoughts, those truths, those experiences that, voiceless, drew up a contract with me when we first met in an unspoken declaration of promise:

What you have been privileged to feel, you are obliged to share

To write. Too right. I have squandered time and health. I have been selfish. I have been frightened. I have suspected a revelation of my inadequacies as a writer when truly pushed to the pen, and used this unjustly to justify my inaction. I have also made a good long blog post of it. But I will snub the blog post and Do Right. I Will Write.

Luckily I have friends who write beautiful art without excuses, who I am startled to realize still read my misgivings despite the fact that the poems in their heads surpass the poems in my hand. Something awoken, the vivid russet soil they unearth in their mental excavations settles beside the dust of my dilapidated words. Luckily I have a sister who would think well of me were I to write drivel, coat it in syrup, and sprinkle it with nonsense. Every time I settle into this inept state, I am shaken out of it by the surprise that, they actually read. Then, I must write, for them I must write well, because they read.

But come, let’s dig a threepenny trail together. Only this time, we’re digging up.

Can I keep this promise? I may have to put it in writing.

[pathopoetry] things

There have been a lot of Things.
Small things. Big things. Things in between
we've stood on toes, cradling love
and hurled it - smash - at each other

we've picked it up
we've cocked our heads
analysed shards
discussed the mess

in the end the cracks pretty much
were invisible.

- I just want to tell you - it's ok I know -

so is it enough
not to say

End of a beta-Microbiologist

My brief stint as a beta-Microbiologist has ended, and it is only now beginning to settle into me – the meaning of the thing. I called myself a beta-Microbiologist because I wasn’t a Microbiologist, and though I was studying Microbiology, I still wouldn’t end up as a Microbiologist. I was then, just beta-testing– yes, I was there to work through it all, get all the bugs out, then leave.

So comes the purging. But I’ve been consciously avoiding the confrontation: between the self that embraces the end of a taxing experience and delves into the practicality that is to come, and the other, the hopelessly frightened other – frightened that this exquisite thing is now to be cast permanently away, frightened that what is to follow bears no relation it. Today, the practical self considered the selling of my old texts. Of course, this was the logical thing to do, the proper thing to do for bulky, expensive blocks of plasticized paper and card taking up much needed space – the thing to do quickly before they became outdated or unneeded and were not sought after again, the smart thing that will enable you to buy more texts later, for unrelated things. The thing – but this was impossible, said the other. My texts? Must I? I looked at them. Brock Biology of Microorganisms, Janeway’s Immunobiology in fuchsia; I have a dense primer on Genetics and a formidable treatise on Biochemistry. I have stiff unturned pages and glossy unsmeared pages and spines bent floppy in the frustration of research. Must I? But of course! Why not? I won’t look at them, I hardly did before when I ought to have. But, no, I will! Because otherwise…because without them… I won’t remember – I’ll… forget. How can this be? These four years of mine have been condensed to a crisp paper with a pretty stamp – a pretty glossy red stamp, which I would have admired with shining eyes as a child. Slowly every intricate detail I learned will dissolve, gradually every ray of understanding will dim into nothingness. I will be left with this triumphant page, while the pages of my mind turn blank.

So this is what education is? The painstaking attempt to prove that you know, the heartbreaking realization - that soon enough, you won’t.

I vant to suck your blahd

I wanted to do a bit of research on malaria (a disease I am particularly interested in, for both scientific and personal reasons), but before I hit the online journals, I did a quick Google search. High on the list was a page from the Nobel Prize website - stick me with some quick info, I thought. But when I got there, I was quite bemused, somewhat amused, and slightly disturbed to find: malaria games. Yep, have fun flying around as a mosquito looking for unsuspecting humans, and drain them of 10 microlitres of blood! Or, be a sneaky malaria parasite, infect someone, then multiply multiply multiply! If you're fast enough, you can make the high score!

How...morbidly amusing?

Ok, to their credit they do sneak in a ton of useful info about the disease within the game, which you might otherwise have scorned to read. The games are pretty in the usual Flash sort of way, and you actually get quizzed on what you learn. So I gradually lost some of my initial feelings of discomfort when I acknowledged the educational aspect of it. I still however, couldn't help feeling bemused throughout, though some things were quite funny. Like hearing the mosquito buzz for the first time (they captured that annoying noise a little too well for my liking). Or the karate-slap and ensuing "UHH!" when your poor parasite was engulfed by a macrophage :)

So if you're feeling decidedly vampirish or pathogenic, give it a go.
http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/malaria/

And thus, it begins again

Lately I've been feeling the obligation to blog - ah, how that perfectly lends itself to newly-coined corny term, the "oblogation." I don't really want to shake this oblagation mind you, since I have made a (rather poorly adhesive) mental note that this will be the Summer of Writing, where I will pen all those ponderous thoughts and amorphous short stories (a dozen or so, last time I checked the mental archives) that have been lurking around since oh, the last (unfortuitous) "Summer-of-Writing."

Mental note number 2: stick to resolutions.

I also have some things that are actually worth reading up in that brainspace - you know, accounts of visiting the best place on Earth, experiencing true spiritual calm, etc. - but it will take me some time before I present anything that will even marginally graze the surface of what that experience was like.

InshaAllah.(God-willing)

Reinfection

I'm back from my wonderful one-and-a-half-month break, which also ended up being a strangely satisfying break from the Internet entirely. So it's with a combination of mild fondness and much trepidation that I return to the fray - and of course, with considerable disappointment at the lack of interest in my blog as evidenced by the excruciatingly sparse commenting on the previous post (here's your chance then, since I only now realised the inane comment settings that were on, where only Blogger users could post; so now you have a brilliant excuse you can put to work in your comment. I would particularly like to hear feedback on the font/layout/formatting of the blog - if you read the blog, and the setup doesn't make you frown or cringe or squint, I will be relieved and won't bother changing it, otherwise I will truly take your comments into consideration. After this, I'll disallow commenting; though clearly it makes no difference!). I am very hesitant to resume my usual grazing of the world wide web, as I have put much in perspective over my brief break, and have experienced briefly the reality of living with a sharp and raw connection with circumstances rather than a leading an iLife - and really, there is much about this electro-social snare that I want to untangle myself from. I would like only to succumb to the screen when I can produce words of some worth, which may distil my experiences into emotions that send a current of understanding into someone else.

In other news, none of my friends missed me :) Ah, c'est la vie, non? Friends, if you exist and are reading this, sufficient reparatory measures can be made if you feign missing me and then give me a call, as
a) It's about time you blew the dust from that ancient device known as the Telephone and initiated contact with me through it (rather than gush to me about how you were meaning to do so when you're already on the line)
b) I have laryngitis. Haha, out-trump that excuse!

Take care all, I really do love you. In a sly and seething sort of way.

And one viral replication cycle later...

It's been a year and a bit since the Stylus Virus first infected the blogosphere and wrought havoc on our neuronal cells. I fondly remember the first post; I had decided to let the blog take its own course, and determine its own development. It became more literary and less scientific than I had originally envisioned, and now I think I will rejuvenate scientifically with the kind of articles and commentaries I had hoped to have in the beginning - showing where the line between science and poetry blurs. For those who have enjoyed my poetry, I will probably post some/much of it on Disconnected Verses in the future.


Stylus Virus has a very modest readership at best, so to all that have stopped by: Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it, and hope you had a good read.

To avoid pandering to my vanities, I don't allow direct commenting. But I do feel its important and necessary to allow feedback. So, calling all "blurkers"! You have about a month to come up with witty retorts, snippets of sagacious wisdom and - hopefully - some constructive criticism too.

Feel free to comment on any and everything you wish to about this blog(courteously). If you have some concerns to air, or something thoughtful to say, here's the chance to say it. Or, if you like, just drop me a one-phrase comment :"I read/have read Stylus Virus". And may you have a productive viral infection.

[virii] about a death

When death comes, everything becomes irrelevant.
Be it a death in the family, your friend, your friend's family. Something you had stressed over so severely for days, suddenly dulls down into insignificance. Something that you complained about, that you harboured ill feelings about, shames you now with its pettiness. Then you realise the real reasons to hurt and grieve. The real burdens that weigh upon a soul.
When death comes - that's when you realise what's relevant.

[virii] prayer

Pride has become cancerous in this heart, turning patches into flint; contracting in arrogance, they strike against each other in anger; how one impetuous flash, burns down a garden. Ya Rabb! erode away the malignant stone with the constant stream of Your remembrance.

قَالاَ رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ

They said : Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If Thou forgive us not and have not mercy on us, surely we are of the lost! [Al-A'raf (The Heights), verse 23]

[pathopoetry] the paper

I heard you wrote for the paper
so I thumbed through the pages, searching for you

- you were bold, and seized me by the hand.
For a moment my eyes were stopped in recognition
...then they resolved themselves, were glad for the encounter
pleased at the chance for conversation
even though the voice in my head
wasn't completely yours

Since when did you articulate like this?
When did you become succinct
how your thoughts would effuse

So you can be straightforward when you want to be.
You can be pithy; a tepid read.
It's well that more can now recognize your worth
though you had to blunt the angles of your words
those starbursts that had dazed me with their hues

but even this semblance of yourself
was worth seeing, after such a parting.
Perhaps it's better, so that in closing this, I know
I am not closing you

how could you fit
between the margins

[pathopoetry] Paper birch

My friend leaves me in the wind
And with the wind I sigh

And open the hand holding leaves of love

My sister far, when her sun will rise
the sun sets in my eye

I open the hand with the seeds of love

Wind, my leaves at the feet moving on
Cause them to pause and to understand
Seed, my paper birch above the clouds
Shading my dear under every sun
while the leaves receive her hand

and never let our boundaries move
places our sentiments lie.



-----------

[pathopoetry] I miss my sis-

I miss
my sis-
-ter, we
are far
she is
my star
my sun-
-flower
with words
exchanged
we part-
-ially
relieve
the strain
on both
our hearts
until
those days
she's near
those days
I try
to slow
the pen-
-dulum

Mind of a bemused essaist (and blunderous typist)

Engrossed in a reference book whilst preparing an essay on 11th century Andalusian poetry, I suddenly came accross a poem useful to quote and, instantaneously animated, kept my eyes locked to the page in fixed contemplation as my fingers rapidly and mechanically typed out the opening lines:

A full moon – a midday sun – a stem on a dune of sand – fragrant musk


But, looking up up at the document, I realized that instead of a delicate description of the beloved, I had unfortunately reduced her to:

A full moon – a midday sun – a stem on a dune of sand – fragrant muck

[pathopoetry] I and the robin

I and the robin, the songs we sang!
We sang, oh sang, we sang, but oh!
I and the lark - what saving grace
Called forth the nightingale, cast out the crow!

I and the robin, our colour is true!
Sing we cannot, but song we must be
I have abondened my wreath of rue -
For broader a branch, for greener a tree

Hearts abreasted, love in array
Our colour is true, for truth we display
So friend, forsake me or keep me, I say:
My love will surpass you, do then what you may.

I am the song-, the love-, the blue-
I am the nightingale, casting the crow
I am the lark, but am I the True?
I am the robin; God help me be so.


------

[virii] March 10th

You stop to write, and it is as though you are pausing at a fountain to cool yourself, and wash the dirt from your hands. It takes a while to get used to responding in living terms, to allow your thoughts out of their well-tended pasture and into the barren desert of a page that skeptical eyes may wander over. There is the tendency to make diminutive everything you’re trying to say, to busy yourself building that beautiful greenhouse for your beliefs, barricading yourself inside, and smiling through the glass. But how can you hope to grow ignoring that we are all under the same sun?

Leave the blooms to brave the wind
The wind will bear their legacy
Roses that under bell-jars grow
Though fairest seem, wither alone
And never will a garden yield
Nor fragrance swept, nor flower field.

[virii] March 9th

Tell yourself to write something, and you’ll feel adequate.

You’ll feel necessary. You’ll feel willful all of a sudden. I wish I could type as fast as I thought; I’m not much of a typer. I prefer the physical connection involved in writing. I don’t want to hear my words twice when I write. I don’t want a double echo. I don’t want to fall behind on my feelings.
In any case, this is what happens when you haven’t been at it for a while. Innuendo creeps in. It must be made more important. Stream of conciousness has been overdone. The reality eludes you. Before long, you’re talking in tongues. There you go again. What really defines you? And your sentences are too terse.
You’re still too slow, you know, the thoughts aren’t there yet, pick it up pick it up. I’m not looking at the screen, you know. You can chastise me later. I’m not going to edit this. I want to write, God help me, that’s what. Is that enough? I’ll correct the spelling afterward (look I told you I was a lousy typist. I’m not even a touch typist. I’m an all over the place typist). Like the words, the finger thoughts. You worry none of it will make sense. So what, ha. You’re not intent on creating genius. So what if people are confused. Listen you’re going to publish this? The reason is to give legitimacy. I didn’t like that line. But I’m not going to edit it.
It seems overdone. I said, stream of consciousness is cliché. My fingers hurt I’ve explained why see above. In any case, I should take typing lessons.
There’s a scratch and some redness on my hand because my hand is so dry because it’s so, so cold. Listen, I’m still wearing my winter coat. I had good things to say but this is what comes out when you’re just writing and don’t take the time to say anything. I’m feeling stressed. My stress rises in crescendos. I have multitudes of stress..stress (pause why am I pausing?) multitudes of stress…flies buzzing around impertinently. I want to read a book. And stop being needy. And pretentious. And see my friends and give them hugs (those that I can hug…the female variety). I worry about not making sense. I shift tenses. I start the work. I hurry to do something else, and I say: I will end.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt from "Present Tense" a semi-autobiographical work of circular progress

[pathopoetry] Friend of a thousand

Friend of a thousand dispositions I
am only predisposed to call you friend
soul of a thousand questions without ends
are answers to be inquisitions why

mais je suis, je suis tout le temps   amie
pour toi pour tous pourquoi je pense pour qui

5-minute pseudo-masterpiece whilst trying to write up a mock grant proposal

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #7

I was amused when my copy of Microsoft Word© underlined with angry red zigzags the word "pathogenicity" in my document, reminding me of what I really meant. Although I really wouldn't like to live in a "pathogen city."

(tired) Mind of a beta-Microbiologist -#6

Lemons Lemons Lemons
They're so sour
They're so nice
I like them squeezed in water
With some sugar
and some ice.



----------------------------------------------

That, my friends, is what you think about after spending the day toggling between NCBI searches and assignment typing, and realising that your sanity shows significant deviation from expectation (P=0.011).

[µstory] Partridge

He would a’ bought me a partridge. I can see him now, runnin ’round town, visiting every farm and pet store and ’splaining his ridiculous scheme, and the owners grinning from ear to ear, some laughing, You’re mad! they’d say. Course if it din’ work out he’d get the bright idea of catching one out’o the wild, and lo he’d ’a done it too, near fright’nin the poor bird half t’death I would guess, his head all a-feathered, ha ha! And at night, when we’d all be right fast asleep, he’d a’ got out with the poor thing, climbed up the pear tree in the garden with it in a litt’a cage in the crook o’is arm, and got his head pecked a dozen times, and muttered and sworn and oh my nearly fallen off, but he’d do it. Break o’dawn he’d ’a called us I’m sure. Come out to the garden! he’d be grinning and Look out the window why don’t you, saying we’d be fair surprised. And we would be.

Random writing fragment

An interval.
It has been long since epiphanies flashed before your eyes, long since you felt the sharp stinging pain behind your eyelids that comes with this enlightenment. Shut tight, the light spots warn you of madness, remind you that reason lies beyond. Open, and force yourself to look at Truth in its brilliance; but for that glimpse, you must be blind to all else. Shut tight, and your vision is saved. But there will be only darkness for you to see.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #5

Neisseriae
Are in your nez
Attached by Type IV fimbriae
That from the inner membrane grow
From single units of PilA
And out the outer membrane go.


--------------------------
To be continued? :)

The pathopoet returns...?!

So I’ve started a new resolution – rather, I’ve revisited an old and oft-recycled resolution to write some worthy matter every day, or at least twice a week, depending on how it goes. The problem is, I tend to compose veritable epics in my brain and fermenting soliloquies which never end up seeing the light of day, due to the following:

1) I have a strict policy of preening any text that fumbles out of my mind into something decent before penning it down. I try to follow the route of Raymond Carver in my preoccupation with precision; I do believe, like any good poet (not that I’m calling myself a good poet, but merely indicating that I subscribe to similar theories) that things ought to be edited and refined; I vaguely remember my favourite poets and writers concurring through various quotes. However, this tends to mean that I end up writing absolutely nothing. So to remedy this, I am trying to edit absolutely nothing. Oh yes, I shall force myself to post this piece up while I cringe at its jagged corners.

2 )I have quick thoughts. Interestingly quick in Middle English means “alive,” and that is a fitting description too. I can never write as fast as I think – as for typing, will some kind soul please show me how on earth to patter down on these keys without looking? I compose what I consider to be good pieces, only to get hopelessly frustrated as I try to write them down. I am at thought number 998,786 and have gotten down four words. The end result is something that is painfully trying to catch up with the original sentiment, by then long dissipated.

3) I think of good things when it is most inconvenient. By the time I get some sort of writing implement or manage to reunite with my mechanical scribe, the muse has long since gone for a coffee and left me with fragments of ideas which barely make up a paltry sentence.

4) I can’t bear to jot down nonsense. Somewhat bemusedly yet with reasonable trepidation, I realize I am doing just that at this very moment. I love to flirt with sophistication, I am enraptured with subtleties, I gurgle with delight at that elusive complex metaphor. Which has thus far gotten me square in the middle of nowhere, as complex metaphors are wont to do.

5) I am obsessed with Purpose and Theme. There should be a Purpose to all things writ; and if they happened to be writ in a place with a little layout and quaint headings and labels such as “Stylus Virus,” then isn’t it awful to slide in something that is hopelessly disjoint from the whole elaborately established Theme?!

No, I suppose it’s not. And so, I just did.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #4

Corny things to say when you're a microbiologist - 2:

Q:What do you get when you cross an enteropathogen and a glass slipper?
A:Salmonella.

. ..
Okay, my head hurts due to severe corniness.

[pathopoetry] Revival

Most Merciful.
  elevate me
far from subliminal
from horizontal
i have my eye on that
rim of sun

[µstory] Sand in the throat

He still felt some uneasiness in his throat as he continued to stare out the window. He saw the wind whip up the sand into angry, rising circles. He watched sand raised over the lip of sand, watched air become haze and haze dissolve into dust. Then words came clearly from the back of the jeep, arriving in fragments, as though they first had to be retrieved from deep archives and, once recalled, moved rustily through the throat before being deposited by the tongue.

***

Excerpt from "Sandstorm," a short story

[pathopoetry] General anaesthetic

Self-administered
general anaesthetic:

Never admit
the sorrow is selfish

that you've used up all your pity
on yourself.


where was I justified in mourning
for emotions

how can I tell the hungry
that I hunger

my stomach full
their abdomens swollen

when I have cried
was it melodrama

should I purge myself
with cholera


even with fog
a sigh is delimited

what of the words you recognise
when you realise your design
is only a repeating tile





-----------------
© pathopoet

Why I think T4 is supercool

I can't believe I haven't posted this up yet. You'd think with such a blog title and hallmark illustration, I'd plaster this all over here first chance I got. Nevertheless, I now have the legitimate right to gush about how cool bacteriophage T4 is, seeing that I've delayed it so long and have posted a reasonable amount of non-T4-related posts...

Oh all right, I won't gush.

Instead, you have the privelage of viewing for yourself the coolness that is T4 in a very spiffy movie made by scientists at Purdue and Seyet LLC. Even cooler, this movie is an actual representation based on recent discoveries and earlier knowledge, using x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy data!

Original release from Purdue University found here.

Watch the movie here from Seyet LLC.


Animation and image credit: Purdue University and Seyet LLC. Click to watch large-version Quicktime animation from the National Science Foundation website. Takes a long time to load, but well worth it.

Please visit the very informative press release from the National Science Foundation, where this animation is linked from, and where you can also find a streaming RealMedia version of the movie.

You can also watch the animation in .wmv format here, from MSNBC.

[pathos worldview] This is Beit Hanoun

Beit Hanoun.

Sound familiar? Ring a bell?

If it doesn't, you need to ask why.

It may be because you've tuned out temporarily to what's going on in the world.


Or because your world has tuned it out for you.


Is it too much for humanity to reflect upon the suffering of others?


This is Beit Hanoun:

"There are pools of bloodstained water outside one of the houses, which has had a hole blown through the roof and there are shrapnel marks everywhere from the explosion."
-BBC News Nov 8. Gaza town stunned by shelling, Matthew Price. Image: Getty

.

"The situation is very, very bad," said Mahmoud. "The Israelis have destroyed Beit Hanoun - they have destroyed the infrastructure. They've cut the water pipes and the telephone lines.

"They put explosives at the doors of the houses - and then they enter on the women and children. Everybody is terrified in their homes."
- BBC News Nov 8. Palestinians gripped by fear in Gaza
----------

[pathopoetry] Going to the Wind

put on your best coat, love -
come, we're going to the wind.

is it when she sorrows
she wails and clasps the trees

is it when she wonders
she whispers to the seas

in fury does she tear her hair
and strip away the leaves

she crashes down the ocean and
she screams, she screams, she screams...


no, the wind is but a word
the weight within her name

between the kaaf and nuun contained


our fingers sweep the rivulets
our palms cushion the rain

put on your best coat, love -
come, we're going to the wind.






---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*kaaf and nuun: two letters of the Arabic alphabet, phonetically equivalent to "K" and "N". Put together, they form the word kun - "Be". The Originator is He of the heavens and the earth: and when He wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, "Be" -and it is[al-Baqarah:117]

[pathopics] Stitching a way

[µstory] - How cahn you seeh?

This is quite remarkable. I was thinking of posting to my blog today, but didn't really have any idea what to say. But, fortunately, I have been blessed with an amusing, albeit off-putting, incident! How things turn out : )

I just came back from buying groceries with my sister on this very blustery (though pleasant) day, and we were trying to negotiate a heavy-laden trolley down a flight of stairs. I catch sight of this old lady at the bottom of the steps, and so now my task has been rendered triply difficult as I try to
a) keep my headscarf from blowing off my head
b) keep the trolley from careening down and crashing with miscellaneous fruit flying from all corners and
c) attempt to restrict myself to one side of the stairs so that the old lady can pass without incident

Ah, but successful as I was in manoeuvring the trolley to one side (my sister grasping the handle at the top and me lifting it at the bottom and trying hard not to trip on my own feet as we make our way gingerly down), the aforementioned lady climbed the steps, alas, with a wee incident. First chance I get to look up from my fluttering laces, I see this mouth-agape look of disgust. Here is the quaint exchange between us:

Her: HOW CAHN YOU SEEH?
Me: (taken aback – my sister more so)
Her: I hope you drop dead.
Me: May God guide you.*
(*I also said “Bless you” before that when I was a little dazed, but I like this response better :))

The funny thing was that, my sister was much more appalled (meanwhile I giggled at the amusing statement of “how can you see” – uhm, perhaps with these inset orbs above my nose – what’re they called again – oh, eyes). Okay, so it’s not so funny when some random person curses you with death, but hey, at least she didn’t shove the trolley down the stairs. Besides, she was old and thus can be excused from her ignorance.

Interestingly, I’ve met this lady before. I was startled once when she, in her thick European accent proclaimed loudly when our paths met, "How cahn yous see?!"
I smiled and thought, "How can you not?"

:)

[pathos worldview] Apparently, teaching Arabic is akin to terrorism?

To tell you the truth, I'm actually quite amused by this. Not to say that I'm not appalled by it nor adamantly against it, but I'm amused as well. I guess I've begun to take these things in stride : ) It's partly because the previous post was Arabic is a terrorist language, oh the irony.

S.F. STATE
Professor of Arabic barred from returning to U.S. from Canada
S.F. State scholar's visa gets canceled; case under review

An assistant professor of Arabic at San Francisco State University has been stranded in Canada for three months, unable to return to campus, after the U.S. State Department canceled his visa and began reviewing his security status.

Mohammad Ramadan Hassan Salama's troubles began in June, when he arrived in Canada for what he thought was a two-day stay to change his temporary scholar visa, which was due to expire. He planned to exchange it at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto for the more coveted O-1 visa, granted only to those with extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, education, business or athletics. By law, he had to go outside the country to get the visa.

But the Egyptian-born academic got a rude awakening June 20 when a consular official, without explanation, stamped "canceled'' on his temporary visa and refused to issue another visa. Instead, Salama said, he was fingerprinted, questioned and told he could not return to the United States until he received security clearance.

"It was just a shock for me,'' he said by phone on Monday. "It is very Kafkaesque. They just say, 'We will contact you.' I am Egyptian, and Egypt is a very hot country right now that has produced terrorists. They disregarded my Ph.D., my scholarship. My marriage, my kids were blindly disregarded, and I was told I could not come back."

Read the full article here on the San Fransisco Chronicle site.

[pathopoetry] Fighting hope

hope has dealt a glancing blow -
has grazed the brick and chipped the stone
and clipped the wings of all the crows

[pathos worldview] Apparently, Arabic is a terrorist language

I was collecting my thoughts to write a passable post on the aftermath of the war. I had originally stipulated to myself that no other posts would be written before the publication of that one. Then I saw this:

NEW YORK (AP) - An Arab human rights activist was prevented from boarding a plane at Kennedy Airport while wearing a T-shirt that read "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic.


Raed Jarrar was at the gate to board a JetBlue Airways flight to Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 12, when four officials from the airline or a U.S. government agency stopped him and told him he could not board with the shirt on, he said Wednesday.
One official told him: "Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank and wearing a T-shirt that says: 'I'm a robber,"' he said.

Okay. It is difficult for me to comprehend this. How people can be so racist, narrow-minded, bigoted, and still claim to be looking out for other people's rights - I'm dumbfounded. Take a look at that last statement there. It reeks of ignorance and contempt. Arabic now equates terrorism? Last time I checked, the Quran was in Arabic. So please don't beat around the Bush.

Jarrar, who directs the Iraq project for Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organization, said he refused a suggestion from the officials that he turn his shirt inside out. In the end, officials gave Jarrar another shirt to wear over his and he put it on rather than miss his flight.

Jarrar said he was forced to give up his seat near the front of the plane and was issued a new boarding pass for a seat in the rear.

How do I discriminate against thee? Let me count the ways.

----------------------------------------------------
Article copyright The Canadian Press, and can be read in its entirety here.

[ pathopoetry] Upset, and a viewed thought

Look
if you press it hard enough
it will leave a residue

don't turn your mind that way
why must it always be
something like that

as though you can't think past
your pants

there is grey matter elsewhere

Look deep at me
you see
it crumbles

I am the advocate for
disparaging souls

[pathopoetry] +/-Sad

My head hurts.
I placed it where my heart was, added some fancy tissue paper
and closed the box.

What will it do there
where moths yearn to go?
complain to a sympathetic friend
who'll say, "it's your turn now."

[pathopoetry] Paperline

I weighed my worth in ounces
forgot the conversion factor, set
the 0 mark wrong

maybe if I shift to one foot
(the burden in the heart must count)
maybe if I lean forward

I spread my arms out, trying to expand myself

how much can you lift
with an emaciated soul
what mind can balance
on adequacy

[pathopoetry] 57

My wife was one of the 57.
Had she been 4? 14? 21?
Who made a mental note when they carried her
saw her crumpled face and thought, '34'?
Or did they do it after, on the ground
was she briefly 10 after 8...9...
covered with a sheet with her knees in the air
- too stiff to lay you down, my love!
There are no spaces for names between the stones
but isn't there a number that she can call hers?
Let them distinguish her from the dust
Give me something I can scream to the world
I tell you there was a sweetness in her
I won't let her dissolve within the words
unmarked as a person, but part of a scene
not just another bag beneath the dirt
not even a number to remember her by






------------------------------------
©pathopoet, 2006

[pathos worldview] Cry out for Qana

Man carries body of girl killed in Israeli air strike in Qana (AFP)

BBC News: Israeli air raid in Qana; Quoted throughout.

My mother sobbed today.

She sobbed because she saw a dead girl, her arms stiff in front of her, carried by a man who stumbled on, dazed with shock. She cried because of the bodies, wrapped in the same blankets they had wrapped themselves in. She cried watching fathers cry while dead limbs reached out desperately from the rubble.
And I went and wrote a blog post.

There was a TV screen between her and the carnage. There is a computer screen between me and this post. We're distanced from both, hoping to touch something with either, hopeless when we realise that neither tears, nor words, nor even blood, has managed to do anything thus far.

A rescue worker moves the body of a girl killed in Israeli air strikes on Qana(AFP)

Reporters in shock manage to put forth, "There were no rockets. This was a building carrying only refugees." No, there aren't any rocket pieces. Only body parts.

Condoleeza Rice will flash her toothy smile and pretend she is "saddened". I say pretend, because saddened people cry. Saddened people say, "That's enough. Stop this senseless killing." Saddenned people don't let other people die, while they say, "Let's wait a while."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier that Israel was not in a hurry to agree to a ceasefire until it achieved its goals in the area.

So I'm pleading, yes pleading to everyone, please look at what's happening. Maybe you're Muslim and you've been bullied into such a corner that you're afraid to utter a pipsqueak of protest. You may be loyal (or afraid) of your Arab governments, but governments don't come before humanity. Maybe you're Jewish and have been taught that Israel can do no wrong. You may hate Hezbollah, but this is the worst way to deal with the situation. Even if Hezbollah is wiped out through this, another group will rise up from the bitter young boys who watched their mothers die as bombs destroyed their houses.

Red cross workers remove bodies of children killed in the Israeli air strike in Qana (AFP)

The ones paying for this are the children. More than 400 civilians are confirmed dead; the true number will likely top 600. Today, in a refugee shelter in Qana, the unthinkable has happened.

Sunday, 30 July 2006

More than 40 people, including 20 children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese town of Qana.
Displaced families had been sheltering in the basement of a site which was crushed after a direct hit.

Maybe you live in North America, and don't know what's happening. You've been saturated with half the story. You've probably seen interviews of the mother of the captured soldier. You haven't seen the despair of the mother of the murdered child. You've seen citizens of Haifa hunkering down in bomb shelters. You haven't seen craters where houses used to be. You've had days where the news of a dead Israeli soldier has blared on for the whole morning. Have you had days where the news of 100, 200, 300 dead civilians, has been mentioned outside that ticker-tape hastily crossing the screen? Have you heard IDF claim they do not intentionally hit civilians, although they only use precision-guided missiles and smart bombs, given to them kindly by the U.S?

Witnesses said the early-morning strike flattened several sites on top of sleeping residents.

One survivor said the "bombing was so intense that no-one could move".

Or perhaps you're ready to dismiss human lives like Haim Ramon (Israeli justice minister) has done and say:

"These places are not villages, they are military bases in which Hezbollah people are hiding and from which they are operating." (Globe and Mail, July 28th)

Please don't come to this issue with a pre-set opinion. Your heart will become cold that way. Just like you would want the world to grieve over a suicide bombing in Haifa, I want you to grieve over a pile of dead children in Qana.
And if you do, cry out.

"May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting"

Qana survivor

[Edit: 57 dead, 37 children (CNN international, 12:15 GMT).]
[Edit: Realities, absurdities of Israel-US policies.]

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #3

Clues that Microbiology is sinking into your neurons:

When you see pink streaks in a tub of old yoghurt and you don't think "ewww," you don't think "whoa,"  you think,

"Oh. Serratia."









---------------
Huh? Icky-link :)
Bacteria of the genus Serratia are often pigmented pink-red. Although some non-Serratia species can be pigmented too. Meh, Serratia are the only ones I know :P

[pathos worldview] In the fire, crouching cold

I mentioned in a previous post that when I am truly upset, I can't write a sensible thing. It certainly held true this time.

I tried to compose a post on the war on Lebanon. I tried to write a poem. I made a promise to myself that I would not write another post unless I had first written one about this inane, heart-lacerating issue. I would not be like the rest of the world: cold, indifferent, draping the sheets of barbed politics over the scenes of horror and devastation. And yet I wasn't just going to post some drabble; no, I told myself, it would provide yet another excuse to disregard or belittle what was really going on. I wouldn't rant because there was no place for that - to sprawl my emotions over the screen would be to undermine the very essence of what I was writing about.

I could have, for example, posted pictures of dead children. But I did not want to disturb the more kindhearted readers. I could have posted video of devastated buildings, airports, bridges. But that would simply be showing the obvious. I could have linked to articles on the current humanitarian crisis, detailing how these attacks have only managed to damage civilian infrastructure that will take years to rebuild, blanketing parts of the region in darkness, whilst stripping part of the people of shelter. I could have rattled statistics on how many civilians had been killed, how many billions of dollars it would take to restore countless towns, how many people were displaced, how many were left homeless, how many evacuated and how many were too poor to do so, too unfortunate to not be citizens of Europe or North America, and have the military pluck them out to safety.

But at this point, frankly, there would be no point. Find out for yourself. If you can't grasp the severity, the cruelty, the magnitude of what's going on, I'm too sick of it to tell you. I've lost faith in a large chunk of humanity. What kills me most is the cold, cold indifference. It's become apparent that people don't care enough for certain lives. "Over 300 Dead Lebanese Civilians" maybe isn't as glamorous a heading. Watching a favourite team lose in the World Cup can wring tears from the most stoic of hearts, but thinking of a bomb ripping the limbs of an Arab mother isn't as moving.

Maybe, I've realised, I've done a lot in this post that I hadn't set out to do. Maybe I've seen things that have curdled my blood. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable. It should. Your silence supports it.

We live in a world where being humane is taxing. Being supportive of your government, no matter how much it errs, no matter how much suffering it inflicts on others either directly or passively by ignoring what is right and delicately masking what is wrong, is considered tantamount to civility. But don't do the dismissive thing and brand me as "political." I'm not a vigilante. I'm a daydreaming student who won't kill an ant crawling on her keyboard even though she's allergic to ants. And no, I'm not a "terrorist." Funny word, that. How some people can put on veils and be called terrorists. And some other highly equipped people, with very large bombs, can crash them into villages and be "spreading freedom." Or "defending themselves."

It appears that I've poured out a great deal of words. I suppose it's been cathartic. Perhaps it was necessary. Perhaps it's better the dam bursts in this calm and sensible way. It's odd, I set out with this post explaining how I couldn't write. And I couldn't write, I couldn't watch; so I drew. Without much thought, my hand moved across the notepad and I looked at what I had done, puzzled. It was almost as though it was telling me, "You're sad, but it's ok." And right there and then, I redrew the sketch quickly, scanned it, and told myself, "This is what I will post." I knew it was hopelessly drab and not worth sharing (it did nothing justice), but it was what I could do at the moment, it was a testament to the confusion of my current state, and it would save me from wrenching words out of my system. I ended up writing after all, but I wouldn't have typed a single letter, had it not been for this paltry sketch, the one I took one look at and thought: This is what it is. In the fire, crouching cold.

[pathopoetry] Recovery

You've fooled her, love.
This is her scar, superficial wound
bone-deep.

Inflammation
Of the heart's blood
and pain

The fever breaks
She wonders;
Had it been latent?
Self-inflicted?

Suffering;
But it's her own
Immune response.



--------------------
©pathopoet 2006

[µstory] - What to be (excerpt)

“µstory” (“mu-story” or “micro-story”) is a categorization I use to designate a very short story, a prose-poem, or an excerpt from one of my stories/works-in-progress.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

He had his palm on his forehead, leaning his head heavily on it, wisps of hair jutting out miserably from the crevices of his fingers. "I want to do something...spectacular," he breathed, gazing at the table as though the furrows in the grain shared with him some muted understanding. "But am I someone that can do something real? Something good? A person can do a collection of nothings and be elevated into the recognition of the world. Even be infamous if you can't be famous, notorious if you can't be notable. But I - I don't want to be anything to the world. Just to be nothing, but do so much that it's worth something. So later, you'd look around and say, ‘See, something good has happened, we don't know why or how, but it’s wonderful, it's changed.’ Yes, that’s…”
- He buried his hand deeper into his hair, furrowing his brows, closing his eyes as though the table had blinded him. "Nothing seems to be enough for people to notice the world now. It's no longer important enough, no longer severe enough, compelling enough to hold our attention. No, for that we have fiction. Blink at it, oh yes it’s happened, let’s turn to a far richer experience. A whole, real life isn’t enough, isn’t even worth a sentence; awful, wretched it is! So I can’t… I can’t just put forward some simple amount of good as all the rest like me, some small offering that will sink away… insignificant. To really do something, to shake the world and say, “Look!”, to – to help, it must be more than surreal, it must be greater than turning away, so strong it’s worth being a part of, so unimaginable it fills volumes. I don't want my deeds relegated to the prelude of a novel.”

...................................................................................



- Excerpt from a 'novella-in-progress' (for the pathopoet, everything is in progress!), "London Avery"

[pathos worldview] Though this won't help you, Gaza

But when I crudely stitch an honest thought
My falt'ring voice will crack between the lines...

When I am upset, I usually rant to my dear friends, and may turn out a few choice phrases, trying to both describe and alleviate my condition at the same time. Poetry may come out then, in bursts of consolation. But when I am truly disturbed, wholly unsettled, I can't write. I shrink from writing because I can't put something sensible together. I can't wax eloquent when my mind is spinning. But my mind is spinning, and I'm writing now. So forgive me if there's more emotion in this than eloquence.

I burnt my garlic toast just now, rushing to the computer, listening to the TV, trying to found out what was going on. In Gaza. The TV is on and there's a call-in discussion program, in Arabic. They are talking about what's going on, in Gaza. I simultaneously listen to the caller whilst frantically opening blogger to spill some of this out of my head. The ancient Arabs were unique in their ability to wax poetic no matter how dire the situation, and most educated Arabs can do the same. The caller proceeds in flowing prose, a prayer, a controlled cadence, he says, "We understand the desire to free the one soldier, what about the 400 children in Israeli jails?" He says it in more eloquent terms but I can't think well enough to remember them. His voice quavers at the end, but his sentences are flawless. The next caller is not so controlled. His voice is shaky from the start. "Brother, he says, although the word is a sigh in itself, "I feel like I'm going to incinerate."

I have just watched bridges broken, missiles hitting, streaks of powder in the sky. I have watched an man's elederly mother refuse to evacuate her house, probably because she is senile and doesn't know what's going on. That's the difference here, in the middle east. People see it with their own eyes. Most households have either CNN or BBC world, a few ones have Fox. But unlike my home in North America, there're the Arabic channels. There are the live images. On both sides. But that's another story.

The story I'm watching intermittently is the one which had been unfolding surrealy in front of my eyes. Gaza bombed, thousands are left without water or electricity. The power plant has been hit; it may tke months to replace destroyed transformers. The deafening sound of missle strikes, one right in the middle of a BBC interview with a resident. The reporter ducks and turns around - the man breifly flinches, then resumes talking.

( I stop posting briefly to hang out laundry from the washing machine. It seems inane. But the intellectually unchalleging monotony of pegging pyjamas in the balcony calms me somewhat.)

I try to sort it through in my head. The desire to return a kidnapped soldier, understandable. The decision to punish an entire community, involved or uninvolved, mwomen and childeren, unfathomable. A single soldier, captured while fighting, who sparks a full assault on an already suffering people. The soldier is named, about my age. The 400 children - below the age of 18, in Israeli prisons, who won't be exchanged for his sake, are faceless and nameless. His life is toted as important but his government won't do the one thing that would almost certainly save him. Rather, they do the one thing that make very grim the prospect of his recovery.

No exchange. Then no electricity. No water. I think of the irony - I just spent the better part of the day with no running water due to scheduled plumbing. There were buckets of water though, enough for me to do the dishes and my ablution and whatever I needed. And I knew it was coming. Yet still I lingered impatiently at the faucet.
I'm upset at my own idiocy. My own incompetence.

Then I remember a female caller on the show, long ended. "Let the people know, we are in their prayers." And I realise it's the best that I can do. So I decide to stop posting, and do the only thing I can do that will help the most.

I don't bother to read what I've written since I'm certain it's drivel. I know there are mistakes but there are worse out there in the world that I can't fix. I'm tired and upset. I want to pray and I want to sleep. I need a hug. I want to hug a child.

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - [2]

Corny things to say when you are a Microbiologist:

#1 - "We're livin' in a bacterial world, and I am a bacterial girl..."

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #1

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - observation #1:

Whenever I hear the odd word "Islamist," I think of "FluMist®" : which is a flu vaccine in the form of a nasal spray, and then I think,
"FluMist®: a live attenuated influenza vaccine"

...

Why I still remember this, yet forgot the stuff I really needed for my exams is beyond me :)

[pathos worldview] Marines murder in Iraq

`No question' Iraq killing was murder
TIM HARPER, Toronto Star May 29th:

..Marines are now alleged to have gone through the neighbourhood door to door, firing shots at such close range, according to witnesses quoted by The Washington Post, that the bullets passed through the bodies of the victims and into walls or floors.

Included among the dead was a young mother shielding her 1-year-old daughter. Witnesses reported hearing her screams for mercy before she and the child were shot and Marines tossed grenades into the kitchen and bathroom of the family home.

I'm too tired and unhappy to properly respond, but it's not even necessary. The only thing I'm surprised about is the surprise of people when told that such things occur. But hey, if it's not on CNN or Fox, then it doesn't exist, right? That most can seriously believe this massacre and Abu Ghraib are accidental, isolated incidents is a remarkable feat in propaganda. I guess it's possible, seeing how people still label the occupation and decimation of Iraq a "war on terror." Perhaps they should change the "on" to an "of".

Mohammed Basit, 23, an engineering student, said that he watched as Marines entered the home of his neighbour, Salim Rasif, He peered from a window as the family, including Salim’s wife, sister-in-law and their five children, rushed into a bedroom.

“I saw them all gathering in their parents’ room, then we heard a bang which was most likely a hand grenade, then we heard shooting,” he said.
Fearing for his life, he moved away from the window.

Throughout the next day the Americans cordoned off Salim and Iman’s homes, which are located about 20 metres apart. The next night Basit and his father slipped inside Salim’s house.

“The blood was everywhere in Salim’s bedroom,” Basit said. “I saw organs and flesh on the ground and a liver on the bed. Blood splattered the ceiling. The bullet holes were in the walls and in different parts of the house.

“We found an unexploded grenade in the bathroom, which had been set on fire. There was shrapnel and a crater on the floor and the wall of the bathroom.”

Later Basit joined relatives and friends who went to al-Haditha mortuary to pick up the bodies of those whom the Marines had killed. The corpses were zipped in plastic bags. “They were all shot, even the kids. They were shot more than one time, mostly in the chest and the head,” he claimed.

Salim’s daughters — A’isha, 3, Zainab, 2, Noora, 15, and Saba’a, 11 — and his eight-year-old son, Mohammed, were among the dead.

-The Times May 29, 2006
Marines and the 'massacre': a neighbour tells of aftermath
From Ali Hamdani in al-Haditha and Ned Parker in Baghdad

The evolutionary history of Copella arnoldi

Copella arnoldi (previously Copeina arnoldi; order: Characiformes, family: Lebiasinidae, for those who are actually interested in such things) is a small freshwater fish found in the Amazon River basin. I recently learnt about it and frankly, I think it's the coolest thing swimming around in the Amazon (cooler than red-bellied piranhas, you ask? Hmmm. We'll get back to that :) ).

What's truly remarkable about this fish is not it's defences (none that I know of), or appearance (cute little gray/reddish thing), but rather its unique method of breeding. I've seen a stunning video of it, but unfortunately I could not find any adequate visual representation on the net. The only decent picture I found was from Animal Diversity Web, (view here), but it's copyrighted so I didn't post it up. Since I did not think explanations alone would give this feat it's due credit, I finally made some quick schematic sketches myself. Meet Mr and Mrs Copella arnoldi - the dashing male in white and the sleek female in black (aww, aren't they cute? Ahem.):
When it's time for Copella arnoldi to mate, the male first ushers the female to a suitable location. He then darts back and forth apprehensively, as though communicating the plan to the female. The female reciprocates. Then suddenly, they make their move.
The male literally jumps inches into the air, followed in synch by the female. For Copella arnoldi have the rare distinction of being the only freshwater fish to breed out of water. Somehow, the male has determined a suitable target: an overhanging leaf where they will mate, and where the female will deposit her eggs. The timing and positioning is absolutely critical. They have to aim exactly and land perfectly. The target surface must also be appropriate - rough enough to adhere on, but not too much that it injures the little pair.
Once the male has hurled himself at the breeding surface, suckers on his underside help him attach to it. And this illustrates another remarkable fact (termed in pathopoet jargon as, "super-cool"): although it's the male who has determined where they are going, the female must jump at exactly the right time, because she in fact has no way to attach to the leaf [edit: I'm quite sure this is correct, but nosing around, I've found that early journal articles say that both male and female use their ventral fins to attach. Since I'm hardly qualified, I'll put in a disclaimer of caution: I'm writing this solely from memory - a dangerous thing - so I appologise for any errors and encourage you to do your own research]. They must arrive together, in order for the male to grab and hold her long enough for her to lay her eggs; to aid this, they lock fins partially before the jump. After seconds, the pair fall off, leaving some eggs behind. They repeat their stunt a few more times, after which the male chases away the female. He has more important things to do now :)
As if this aerodynamic courtship wasn't enough, the male now exhibits behaviour even stranger among fathering fish: he proceeds to care for his young. In order to prevent the eggs from dehydration, he splashes the eggs with his fin, aiming water at his developing progeny with remarkable accuracy.
The fry develop quickly, and when they are mature enough, the weight of the water drops actually pulls them down. A fry-containing drop splashes into the river below, and the little fish darts away immediately and instinctively to safety within water plants that hopefully will obscure him from hungry eyes, assuming of course he hasn't already been intercepted by a hungry mouth!

For their unique characteristics, Copella arnoldi are known by several appropriate names, like "jumping characin," "splashing characin," or "splash tetra." Well after all that, I hope you can understand some of my enthusiasm! (if not, I still think they're super-cool) :)

After finding out about these little darlings, I mean vertebrates, I - being a ponderous person -, began to ponder how one could explain the complex traits of Copella arnoldi. Sure, the scientific answer I'm programmed to give is, "some unknown selective pressure must have lead to the divergence of the characin fish, such that the species Copella arnoldi lay their eggs above water, increasing the chance of survival of their brood." But how exactly would you outline these intricacies of development? Thus, I decided to make an evolutionary map of Copella arnoldi. I tapped into my dusty brain archives of ecology/genetics/phylogeny/etc. and came up with the following "plausible" explanation, likely to be found in some journal a few years down the road. Or, maybe even someone's dissertation. Hey, feel free :) :

• 1- Unknown selective pressure (e.g. predatory) selected for Copella arnoldi that had the ability to jump into the air (i.e., some mutation in Copella gives them ability to jump, jumping Copella have advantage since they die less, frequency of jumping Copella increases etc. -- viola, natural selection).

• 2- Some mutation(s) arise(s) that gives rise to Copella with suckers; these Copella are selected for (again, they survive/die less because they can attach to surfaces and avoid the unknown (here, let's assume predatory) selective pressure.)

• 3- Some jumping-attaching-Copella have mutation(s)/polymorphisms (i.e. genetic differences) that compell them to mate above water (e.g., some female Copella has propensity to mimic behaviour and jump alongside male. Some male Copella have propensity to hang on to female. And etc.) Brood from jumping-attaching-mating Copella survive more/die less and inherit mutations/polymorphisms from parents.

• 4- Jumping-attaching-mating Copella progeny: some mutation(s) arise(s) that compells one of them to "splash" eggs. Brood from this fish survives more/dies less, carrying the trait to a later generation.

All this happens in thousands/millions years, i.e. whatever you can slot into "evolutionary time".

Sounds plausible? It is. But I myself would call it a tad preposterous :). So let me, like any good cartographer/phylogenist, be the first to dissect my little blueprint(note: no animal was harmed during the making of this post):

• 1- It's a bit difficult to accumulate the mutations one would need to make a Copella "jump." Unless one fish was born with an unnatural tick that made him sporadically jump into the air every so often, you would assume it would take an accumulation of mutations, that would lead to a "jumping" characteristic. Thus, each "mutation-step" must be heritable, plus a benefit to the Copella, to be passed on to the next generation. But, all in all, this is still plausible. Let us move on.

• Assuming we now have a bunch o' jumpin fish, we get down to the business of attachment. I'm pretty sure that no single point-mutation will give rise to suckers. So we're again assuming a series of mutations, each selected for because it somehow benefits the fish, that finally leads up to a sucker. Hmm, a bit tougher than the last. You've now added a chunk to evolutionary time. And I can't think of how intermediary sucker-appendages would give a jumping Copella selective advantage. Plus there's the business of actually hurling oneself to a leaf to realise you have a sucker. Unless you assume the Copella has aquired a sucker before getting to the jumping part. Note that the male only has this trait. So now I'm sure you'll say, aha! Mutation in the Y chromosome. Hmm, getting complicated, but we'll leave it at that. Let's move on.

• Jumping-attaching Copella. One could see how they'd have a selective advantage. But grabbing a female in mid air? Now that's tough. And why, pray tell, would she want to hurl herself at a leaf? Unless we assume Copella have stunning cognitive abilities and can communicate a radical and novel plan for mating to females, here the ice gets thin. Although of course, you could attribute it to random chance that some Copella managed to mate above water. Again, plausible, as chance always is. Then perhaps later Copella aquired the ability to usher their mates to a suitable "jumping-spot" and communicate the need to synchronize jumps. Throw in a couple of mutations and a dollop of evolutionary time; plausible, as always. So, finally:

• We've been through the realms of superfluous probability, and agree that these changes can't be due to a directed development by the superior cognitive abilities of our dear Copella arnoldi (though we still love you!) But, the fish splashes its eggs - certainly not because it "knows" they will get dehydrated. Un-splashed eggs would be done for, minimizing the chance of those Copella mating above water to have a selective advantage (the fry have a hard time already after they come out of their eggs). It's difficult for me to imagine a series of evolutionary changes sustained by selective advantage that would lead to Copella aiming and splashing eggs which they don't particularly realise need such care (outline the development of instinct). So even with 'bronzed' scientific hypotheses (compared to my quick musings), I find there's mostly well-presented plausibility, which (when pondered by the most basic part of the logical mind) is oddly low in probabilty. :D

The above may be the ramblings of a pathopoet (as usual!), but I hope you found them amusing nonetheless. If you want to taste a more 'scientific' argument and a denser discourse in plausibility, I've referenced a journal article at the bottom of the page (it doesn't talk about Copella arnoldi though, but goes through similar spawners). But for me, I just like to be fascinated with Allah's (God's) super-cool creatures : )

And that I guess, my well-appreciated readers, is just the way the cogs of the mind grind :) Congrats to those who made it thus far!! I admire you for your patience and thank you sincerely for the contribution of your time and the straining of your eyes. Hope you enjoyed the weird (and wonderful?) turns of a pathopoet's brain as much as the leaps of a jumping characin. If you like my images/stuff contact me and I'll let you use them, just credit me please : )

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Read more:

Martin K, Swiderski D. 2001. Beach Spawning in Fishes: Phylogenetic Tests of Hypotheses. American Zoologist 41(3):526-537 [ Access it at Oxford Journals online]

(for an easier read: good essay by an undergrad student): Wesolowski, J. 2002 Copella arnoldi: the Spraying Characin. [access here: University of Texas Online]

EDIT: View the footage that I watched in the first place! A snippet from a documentary entitled, Equator: Rivers of the Sun. Watch here uploaded by some person on YouTube.