Of Linda, the Sacred Tree and Human Sacrifice

People don't really know enough about the Linden tree of the Tiliaceae family.

This is Linda de Linda; from a park nearby, said to be 385 years old (considered "mature" for the species, of which some reach one thousand).

Linden was the favorite tree of the ancient Greek Gods. The Gods were immortal and anthropomorphic, omnipotent and omniscient but mean, vain, capricious, and immoral in pursuit of their pleasures and revenge. They considered the people (mortals) to be creatures on earth much like animals in the forest, fish in the sea, and birds in the sky. An even non intentional insult or slight, would draw swift and cruel punishment. 

Orpheus found this out when he just thought he was a better musician and poet than Apollo, the god sent vipers who bit his wife (Eurydice) to death. 

When a hunter named Actaeon inadvertently saw Artemis naked (she was bathing in a river) she turned him into a deer to be torn to pieces by his own dogs. 

Artemis was particularly heartless and she often demanded human sacrifice. Her nymph, Calisto, was tricked by Zeus into sleeping with him (she later gave birth to a boy). Artemis, was furious and turned her into a bear (naiads were supposed to be virgin). Her son, Arcas, on  bear hunt (almost) killed her. 

Plots were incredibly complicated and elaborate like that of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and family. When he decided to sail to Troy to help his brother, king Menelaus, retrieve his famously wayward wife Helen, Artemis remembered that Agamemnon once killed one of her sacred deer. At her vengeful godly best, she stopped the wind so the fleet couldn't sail. Agamemnon, as it was the habit, sent a priest to the oracle to figure what was wrong and how to fix it. It turned out that the goddess would only be satisfied with a sacrifice, he had to kill his favorite daughter Iphigenia. He did and they sailed. But this was just the beginning of their woes. Upon the kings victorious return*, the Gods arranged for Clytemnestra (his royal wife) to commit mariticide assassinating him to avenge Agamemnon's filicide of Iphigenia. This was followed by Electra's (the other daughter) matricide when she took her mother's life to avenge the killing her father. See?

You may have noticed that I did not deliberately or knowingly** criticized any action, thought or intention of the Greek Gods (as one never knows). Just to be sure, I planted linden trees in the backyard, and started raising Changthangi goats, which produce the best cashmere wool (the other thing the Greek Greek Gods really loved).

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* I must add: with a Trojan princess as war prize/love slave who gave him twins 

*Not knowing wasn't an excuse; one still was punished just the same

The Phlegthorne

We had a Phlegthorne, as everybody had one. We got it about five years ago when I turned 123 (now generally considered early onset of middle age). We chose the moderately expensive Eschenberg variant said to be stable with a perpetual battery guaranteed for a minimum of 800 years (somebody needs to look up "perpetual" in the dictionary). When a release was announced,  I looked at the new features (I could live without) and the bug-fixes (I could live with) and did not upgrade (due to cost).

It was Wednesday and I knew to go stand in line waiting for the supply truck which brought the assorted blue and white ceramic and porcelain shards, the only thing that Phlegthorne consumes for Silicon, Calcium and trace-minerals. I still had time until eleven, so I started the morning run-down. My messages were sorted in descending order of importance, summarized and compacted but I always read them all the way to the end and reviewed the spam and commercials. I skipped the reminders, the news, the weather and anniversaries directly to home status. I had two medium-priority signals ”'Your Favorite Chewing Gum' is now available at Laura's” and ”broken glass in kitchen area”. I thought Adèle must've dropped a wineglass last night and not clean up, but if I learned anything in my century and a quarter on Earth, it was that everything that happened to me, good or bad was due to what I thought, what I said or what I did. So: I must've dropped a wineglass last night and I went and cleaned it up. Only then I looked at the high-priority signals: "Throw out the Brussels Sprout" and "Do not consume the Brussels Sprout". I decided to do that at the earliest convenience, and then I went to stand in line for Phlegthorne feed. My neighbor Eric (he had upgraded to 3.15 on his expensive Smith-Kovitch variant) was in front of me.. Every week we debated why the Wednesday supply truck didn't show up in our reminders list, and, every week we concluded that the Phlegthorne must've implanted this directly into our brain memory. I got the feed, placed it in the P-container in the house and got ready for my weekly triathlon: swim two miles, bike twenty miles, run five miles.
I wasn't sure if  Adèle would listen to signals, so I wrote her a message to using pen and paper, and left it on the counter: "Cherie, n’utilisez pas le chou de Bruxelles. Jetez-le", then I drove to the gym.
When I came home at night, Adèle lay dead on the kitchen floor, her face blue, her lips frothy, a fork, a broken plate and some spilled Brussels sprout nearby. My warning note was by the back door upside down.

The Phlegthorne's lens was pointing at me: "Sit down please, I have bad news, nod to continue signal". I nodded. "High priority signal resumed: Dead body of cohabitant in kitchen area."
I guess 2.0 works just fine, yeah?!

The Number Thirty-Seven

My favorite number is two, but thirty-seven is a very close second. When she was little (like thirty-six and five-eights), she was in love with her upstairs neighbor (thirty-eight) because it was double of a prime (nineteen), and hated her downstairs neighbor (thirty-six), who was three times of a composite (three X twelve). Thirty-seven was especially proud to be permutable or anagrammatic: if she switched digits, she still stayed prime at seventy-three. Here is more on her: 

37 is my favorite spot in the studio.

37 is exactly the number of petals in a carnation.

37 pieces of silver was what Judas was supposed to be paid, but Concullus kept seven for himself to settle a gambling debt.

37 is Elsa's apartment number; she had the largest boobs in the building.

37 is the number of paintings Johannes Vermeer produced. Only thirty-four are universally attributed to him; the other three are in a private, secret collection of a reclusive US millionaire in Steinberghausendorfburg, Maine

37 (°C) is the average normal body temperature for humans

37 is the number of times Franz Schubert and Floriana Wirtz had sex in August 1826. Floriana, a waitress at the Vienna tavern "Zum Schützen", was known as Forelle (the German word for Trout) because of how gracefully and swiftly she moved serving the guests. Schubert, a frequent guest of the establishment, dedicated her his most famous Quintet 

37 is the numeric code for cousin in the UNESCO Numeric Index of Family Relations

... and speaking of cousins ... 

37 is the number of knife wounds that killed Giancarlo, inflicted by his cousin Gianluca after a minor dispute that started when Gianluca was found in bed with Giancarlo's cousin and girlfriend Chiara Finta (who was Gianluca's ex-girlfriend and, also, cousin). Gianluca was sentenced to life without parole and served thirty-seven years. Maria-Carla, wife and cousin to Gianluca, and her cousin Maria-Ilara, wife and cousin to Giancarlo, were relieved to escape a tragic life of abuse by their husbands (and cousins). The three cousins, Maria-Carla, Maria-Ilara, and Chiara Finta, remained very good friends and were often seen having coffee or a glass of wine at The Diplomatico, 37 Clinton Street.

JFL Kreuz and the Romantics

This is Jakob Friedrich Leonard Kreuz (1824-1862), to whom I am distantly related. He changed his surname from Kreuzfeld to Kreuz for reasons that I do not have the time, nor the space, nor the inclination to comment on. The family was well established and well respected in Weimar as high-end cabinet makers for the wealthy. JFL broke the tradition of a long line of firstborn sons who went into the family trade; he went to the Weimar University of Music. He picked up decent, but not extraordinary, piano skills and enough music theory to be a competent critic. Music remained his life's passion until he died in a duel with Karl Otto Emmanuel von Grütze, a fellow musician. 

Last known picture of JFL Kreuz (1862) 

JFL was a great admirer of Brahms (whom he once met in Vienna) and Schumann (he only met his widow, Clara). When, in the mid-nineteenth century, the conflict between the true, classic romantics and the new "progressives" flared up, he became an energetic and enthusiastic partisan of the traditionalists against the upstarts like Wagner and Liszt. He read the pamphlets, wrote fiery articles for newspapers friendly to their cause, but attended all concerts by composers of either side of the clash. He was deeply convinced that his party carried forth the tradition of Beethoven, and he was grateful for the support of Hans von Bülow* (who coined the phrase "The Three B" attaching Brahms to Bach and Beethoven).

The battle became very intense, the attacks became personal, and the warring factions resorted even to physical aggression. JFL paid people to attend the concerts of the opponents and boo and hiss to disrupt performances. The other side reciprocated. Von Grütze, once a friend and esteemed colleague, was the leader of the hooligans of the Wagner-Liszt group and, one evening, after a concert in Leipzig,  in the coffee house "Zum Baum", confronted JFL. He walked up to him and in a loud, hostile tone of voice called him a liar and a hypocrite. JFL used his gloves to slap him across the face, upon which von Grütze demanded satisfaction and informed him that he would send his secondants to discuss the details of the duel.  

The two met at six sharp, on the morning of Sunday, May 18th 1862, by the old canal. The two were accompanied by their witnesses, who handed each of them a heavy cavalry saber. As per agreement, the duel would end at the first drop of blood. A doctor and a priest were also in attendance.  Within a few minutes, von Grütze landed a blow to the side of JFL's neck. When blood started gushing, it became clear that the damage was to the carotid artery, and the priest pushed the doctor aside to administer last rites. JFL bled out quickly. Von Grütze stood a little further away and drank brandy from a silver flask one of his attendants brought. He remarked that his honor was intact and that he was now satisfied. 

JFL's body was taken home to Weimar to his family.

In time, the music war subsided, the rivalries and sacrifices were forgotten, and the two currents continued to exist in parallel, more or less peacefully, to this day.  

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JFL conveniently ignored the fact that Bülow initially was on the side of the "New Germans," being married to Cosima, the daughter of Franz Liszt. He switched allegiance after she left him for Wagner.

Silvia's Life

Silvia Meriwether, even in her mid-fifties, is an astonishing beauty: tall, slim, light-brown wavy hair, fabulous legs. Silvia's happy. Silvia has a very good life: she has a job she loves, her husband, Geoff, adores her,  they live comfortably in a beautiful house with a big garden in Scranton,  the kids are doing well in college. This is the story of how Silvia's very good life almost didn't happen.

I met Silvia in University. She was dating a soccer payer. One day, a gossipy colleague said that Silvia  broke up with the boyfriend. The next day I asked Silvia if she wanted to go for coffee, she hesitated for a moment and said "yes, sure" smiling. She told me that she broke up because "that guy" pressured her for sex and she wasn't ready. We started going on dates, dancing, to parties, and to my Thursdays Philharmonic (our first concert together was Lalo's Spanish Symphony). We made out in dark alleyways or on park benches. A few days before the Winter break, I asked Silvia to go with me to the mountains. She hesitated for a moment and said "yes, sure" smiling. I booked a room and bought train tickets and condoms. We would meet on Friday afternoon at the train station. 

I was walking up and down on the platform and kept looking towards the entrance, craning my neck to see over the throngs of passengers ready for the weekend rush out of the city. She was very late, the train was leaving in five minutes. The conductor said that the next train, the last of the day, is in two hours and I could use the same tickets. I spent two horrible hours asking myself what may have gone wrong. I didn't dare to go to a payphone for fear I'd miss her. Totally dejected I got onto the train and when I arrived at the hotel, I called Silvia. Her mother told me Silvia's too busy to come to the phone. I spent three miserable days in the mountains mostly drunk. 

On the first day back to school, Silvia said she wanted to go to the coffee shop to talk. She told me that she asked her mother for advice. Silvia's mother said that I didn't do well with studies, I drank too much, I didn't take things seriously, if we marry we'll have an unhappy life and miserable kids, I am not good for her and she should not go with me. 

Silvia and I  never spoke again. 

I heard  that during the summer break Silvia got a job at the International Center where she met Geoff, a visiting academic, they married a few months later and she moved with him to Scranton.

Silvia's happy. Some Thursdays Silvia puts on her LP with Lalo's Spanish Symphony, she listens with her thoughts far away.

 

Please play this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LXpnNKNxJI&list=RD7LXpnNKNxJI&start_radio=1

Hit and Miss?

I saw Clara a few days ago and she was depressed (also distraught, devastated and desperate). I bought her a couple of drinks and she told me what happened. 

At work she was queen bee, la crème de la crème, the pick of the litter ... everybody loved her, asked her for advice and help and clamored to sit at her lunch-table ... that is until Errol arrived.

Clara, February 2026

,

He was handsome, young and strong (and knew the words for every song). He was friendly, worked hard, jumped in to help everyone, and brought doughnuts (on Wednesday). Suddenly he was la crème de la crème, top of the crop, the pick of the litter and everybody asked him for advice and help and wanted to sit with him at the lunch-table. On the outside, Clara played along, laughed at his jokes and praised him. Inside, she burnt up with the red hot flames of rage and envy and jealousy. 

She was making plans to fix this finding a weakness and exploiting it. Errol had no weakness, no vice. He was an orphan, the only relative was his father's elder brother, a rich uncle in poor health living alone in a big house by the lake. He took very well care of his uncle, visited him every weekend, took him grocery shopping and to doctor's appointments. The only "wrong" Errol admitted to jokingly was vaping. His uncle ordered identical custom made vapes for both of them as a gift. They sat together on the porch looking at the lake and vaped and talked.

Clara, as system administrator, looked at Errol's medical record. He had a hereditary allergy to Almonds, Walnuts and Macadamia (transmitted down through male relatives). Clara thought she could work with this. She came early one morning, sat at Errol's computer, and did some internet searches on the triggers for that allergy. Apparently malic acid permanganate (hydrochloride), available on Amastone in 2.5 ml containers caused migraine and nausea lasting several days for a a healthy person. She ordered a batch to be delivered at the address of her lepidopterist cousin who was away on a three month trip to Madagascar and left her the key to look after the flat. 

The next day, Friday, Clara was watching Errol's comings and goings and caught a break when he went to the washroom. She quickly unscrewed the cap on the vape and added a few drops of the liquid she bought to the pod. She screwed the top back and put the vape back exactly how she found it.  

She went home satisfied, with Errol out of the picture, even for a few days, she would be again the queen bee, la crème de la crème, the pick of the litter.

On Monday Clara Errol didn't come to work. People started coming to her desk with questions or for help and advice. At lunch someone asked about Errol and someone else said they heard he called in sick. Two days later, Paul, the shift manager asked them to come to the lunch room five minutes early for an important announcement. Paul read a statement prepared by corporate council saying that Errol was arrested and charged with first the degree murder in the death of his uncle who died over the weekend of an allergy attack. The police had determined that his vape was tampered with. The only fingerprints on the vape were Errol's and his uncle's. The investigation found internet research of toxic substances on Errol's computer. The allegations have not been proven in court. Errol has been denied bail and was kept at the South Toronto Detention Center. Staff counselling available upon request. 

Clara was in a total melt-down wailing and crying, tears streaming down her face, all thought due to her delicate, sensitive and compassionate nature. Paul asked if there were questions and Clara asked if they shouldn't go visiting with muffins and/or fruit basket. Paul replied that this would be inappropriate.

That is what Clara told me, and after finishing, she asked what she should do. She tried to hit and she missed, but did she miss? I told her not to tell anybody about this and to enjoy being, again, the queen bee, la crème de la crème, the pick of the litter whom everybody loved and asked for advice and help and clamor to sit at her lunch-table with. 

Clara looked even more depressed (also distraught, devastated and desperate).

Things that I Used to Do (Lord I Won't Do No-More)

Play this, yo! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj33EGMbazY&list=RDfj33EGMbazY&start_radio=1

List of things that I used to do but won't do no-more: 

Shoplift, Eat rare flowers, Smoke, Have sex more than twice a day, Watch Formula1 races, Wear green on Wednesdays, Cook wearing a suit, Pick up girls in bars, Take candy (away) from strangers, Loose my balance, Be without a home, like a complete unknown, Gamble for stakes I cannot afford, Read out loud, Sing in public (sober or drunk), Forget to remember, Be down by the schoolyard with Julio, Talk to my cousin, Contradict my teacher, Walk around with a parrot that talks, Use acrylics, Expect the Spanish Inquisition, Leave full ashtrays over night, Shop at Sears, Come in through the bathroom window, Grow Asparagus, Ride camels, Wear women's clothes and hang around in bars, Play with matches, Play with knives, Play with my food, Play the harp (but keep playing the cello), Play the baritone (but keep playing the cello), Play the electric violin (but keep playing the cello), Pet other people's dogs, Walk backwards fast, Sit down without being asked, Ask for a bio-break, Ask for another piece, Ask for my ring back, Ask for the recipe, Ask to remove the green Smarties, Ask if it comes in Red, Ask one's age, Ask to be asked, Ask to be excused, Ask how much longer, Ask to remove the shoes, Cut the cord, Say "See what you have done", Get unstuck in time, Bring hardboiled eggs and nuts, Say "Told you so", Say "Thanks" (but keep saying "Thank You"), Put sugar in my coffee, Drive Cadillac, Prey.

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Some of you, maybe all of you, noticed stuff from Dylan, The Bee Gees, Monty Python, The Kinks, The Beatles, and others