Polemic 3: TrollFreakEurekaSpeak —

 

 

          Salutations … you wondrous will-o’-the-wisp of womanhood … (alliteration: ’tis a fun curse to endure at times). I simply MUST get this off my manly chest:

‘C17: from Greek heurēka ‘I have found it’, said to have been uttered by Archimedes when he hit upon a method of determining the purity of gold …’

‘EUREKA!’

          I read, a few years ago, in some shitty wee Sunday supplement, that very early transcriptions of Archimede’s work had been discovered on vellum or summat … by scanning/photographing with different light frequencies. This work had been lost to time because the vellum had been scoured slightly to receive new text. The new text was, again, some early transcriptions of the relatively new Christian theology; which was advancing like wildfire after the Roman emperor Constantine’s ‘conversion’. (Archimedes work would have been declared as pagan, ungawdly, redundant and disposable). The original piece of scoured vellum (if that’s what it was; I can’t recall) was saved for posterity, somehow, because it made its way to the great receptacles of human knowledge— from all over the then known world —which were being amassed by early-ish followers of the Muslim faith in Mesopotamia. As it did, a great many other ‘pagan’ documents were destroyed, in the West, at the behest of the then top echelon of the Christian faith … as it scrabbled and in-fought to decide what documents would, and would not, eventually comprise their bible. The piece of vellum, of which I speak, was rediscovered a decade or so ago and subjected to the tests I described above … and its secrets were revealed.

          THIS CONCERNS US ALL … in the peripheral murk of ‘thonomy bonhomie!

          There’s a line, in Mervyn Peake’s brilliant ‘Gormenghast Trilogy’, where he introduces one of his main characters, Lady Fuschia. I’ve not got the line to hand, but it goes something like this: if an occurrence of the slightest TILT IN REALITY … a tilt in general perception … was to suddenly transpire … Fuschia would be the most beautiful woman in the world. I loved that line … it’s sublime … but it’s also relevant to those who feel their ‘popularity’ in todays reality— and the, at times, surreality of this site —is of import.

          Maybe, certain aspects (dare I say members) of the site have tilted ‘reality’— i.e. what the site is meant to be doing and how it goes about it —to be perceived erroneously? Just a thought. A thought that niggles.

          Here’s another: ‘Archimede’s Principle’ …

* ‘noun, Physics, a law stating that a body immersed in a fluid is subject to an upward force equal in magnitude to the weight of fluid it displaces.’

          How many feel displaced?

          And, of course … far be it from me to suggest that: if we have any ‘gold’ suspended in the ‘friendly’ fluidity of this site— as with all gold, as any panhandler can tell you —it’s most likely to nestle beneath the grit and the grime and the coruscant surface of-it-all … right at the very bottom.

          Perhaps we need to invest in an Archimedean screw: to drag that gold to the top.

          Anybody feeling screwed?

 

          Toodle-pip!

 

 

(Posted: 08/01/2009 13:42:24 … Page 290, ‘Unpopular People’s Thread‘ by Gil Grachison).