Talkwards

One of the more deadly things you can do is to act normally in an extreme situation.

This goes for extreme weather situations, being taken hostage, living on a planet that may be dying, etc.  etc.  Basically I believe panic will make you react in a predefined way, while keeping your cool will make you react according to the situation.  A few times panic might save you (running from a violent person instead of trying to talk sense to them) while in most cases not panicing will probably get the best result.

Interesting thought: aren’t we presented with “extreme” situations now and then, and once we’ve managed through them, they’re not extreme anymore.  Take for instance, first day at school, first love, first day as a parent, first day of retirement, or being a victim of a crime, being in a car accident, or other accident, being falsely accused, getting fired and being unemployed, etc. etc, there are a buss load of extreme situations out there.

So, the thing is to keep from getting pissed at  your boss for firing you, and trying to get a good letter of recommendation out of it (after all, who say’s you’re getting kicked cause your boss dislikes you?)  Or to stop being a kid yourself once your little ones are on their way, or to get out of that car wreck, and try to get everyone else in it along, before something worse than a roll and a spin happens.

So, it’s all about controlling panic then… or?  Hmmm…

Humans are  in fact not that different to other species. We make a little bit more complex sounds and our territorial behavior is a bit more involved, but to say we’re the crown of creation is rather self involved. The most that can be said about mankind’s standing in the family of species is that we’re the black sheep, or the obnoxious kid sibling everybody has to put up with, or mom and pop will give them a hairy eyeball.

Demons live in hell below,

Angels in heaven above,

What does that make us humans in between?

A couple of years ago, when I’ve just about purchased my Nikon D50 I snapped off a number of “still life” like pictures. These are the sometimes unusual things you just happen to have lying around in an otherwise rather uninteresting apartment.

Still life 1: Pile of laundry

This is obviously one of the first things I snapped a picture of. After looking at the picture closer I realized it was a rather nice picture, selection of subject excluded. Anyway, as far as I’ve been able to determine there’s no underwear on the picture, and no insanely dusty socks, so I hope it’s at least PG-13

The thing with this picture I like is that the object in center, the pile of clothes are actually adding a kind of calm from the rather detailed background. It feels kind of backwards, and perhaps it is.

Still life 2: Knick-knacks

This is a bunch of knick-knacks lying around on my desk. Among other things you might notice a burnable CD box, a can of 5-56 universal oil and an ear cleaner rubber thingy. I’m especially proud of the bizarre factor that one adds. To my defense I might add that I used it to dust off my computer… you squeeze it and it blows air…

The ear thing sits atop an ancient letter scale, a bit crooked from being in my possession. I inherited it from grandpa who got it sometime in the fifties…

Still life 3: Bookshelf

This is one of my favorite pictures. A classic book picture, true but still… it has a kind of uneven, haphazardly-piled impression to it that I really like.

What you probably don’t know is that this is my unread-books “pile” or part of it anyway. The thing you can’t see on this picture is that all the books are quite dusty…

Too much work makes Hoakzie a dull boy!

Still life 4: Fruits

Okay, I confess: I’m a sucker for the classics. The only extenuating circumstance would be that there’s no banana or pine apple in there. And that the “cloth” in the “basket” is in fact a dish towel mom gave me when I moved away from home…

I woke up this morning after having gotten about 5 hours of sleep, however, I’ve snoozed wildly for about two hours so I was in fact in real trouble. Crawling to the edge of the bed and forcing my legs over the side I happened to look at the clock which simply confirmed my creeping suspicions: I was late beyond repair and then some.

I fell back on the bed on my back moaning. Just as I realized I was on my back, and with no snoozed clock at that the thought popped up in my head: “This will bad endly…” (No that’s not a translation or anything, I’ve been known to have my mind invaded by English from time to time.)

Which brings me to the topic of this post: Talking backwards, or as the proper phrase would be, Balking Tackwards (in forgiving circumstances it can be paraphrased to: Balking Talkwards… if that is indeed the purpose of the backtalking…)

Basically what you do is swapping consonants, nouns, vowels or even whole words. If there’s only one of them just switch its place. Don’t let things like word limits stop you, you can take a word like unseemly and turn it into suneemly as easily… Here are a few examples, I am sure you can come up with tons of more!

Even though the baby-talk factor is pretty high, the purpose, if an exercise like this one needs a purpose, is to have fun until something like balking talkwards, or badding endly comes up.

One warning however. Don’t do this if your are over 65. They might come and take you to the doctor and/or home if you talk like this… (I’m looking forward to it myself…)

Vi slås av den dystra tanken
att trängseln på tunnelbanan
är det närmaste mänsklig kontakt
vi kommer

On the last day,
When I die,
I will not curse,
or ask you why

I’ll simply trust,
in what you do,
close my eyes,
and rest anew

You save your money,
protect your children,
and write for future generations

You care for peace,
and human rights,
you pay for cleaner air and less pollution

You aim for kindness,
and strength in spirit,
you try to lie only when you have to

You strife for meaning,
laughter and purpose,
you’d spend your day spreading love and kindess

And still you die in the end

She rests her head
On pillows and dreams
Flowing away
To foreign realms

She is my friend
when she wants to
And my foe
when not

She gives me light
Flicks the switch
And fills me with humming
thinking and living

She is inspiration

At day’s end
when crickets sing
and darkness fall
the evening might turn cold
but no less beautiful