Evening Thoughts

I once had a period of unexpected joy when, for no apparent reason, the Claremont Vons carried broccoli crowns for ten cents less per pound than full broccoli crowns and stems. This madness lasted a few blessed weeks and even the produce employees I questioned could not explain it.

Despite near perfect weather, I found no one with whom to toss after work today and spent the sunshine instead finishing Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. So, I was feeling particularly apathetic this evening but countered by calling an old friend and planning some expected joy. And just now, as I sat down to await dinner in the oven and discuss broccoli, Gmail presented further joy, in the unexpected form of a Seattle Public Library notice: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks is held at the Wallingford branch for me, after having been requested some two months ago.

I quite enjoyed the pteridological ramblings of the same author in Oaxaca Journal and I was inspired to explore that Mexican region my parents and sister so favor, irrespective of their lack of interest in ferns. The portraits of Sack’s peers and the snapshots of Oaxacan culture were bright and true. Interspersed were Sack’s sometimes insightful but always welcome analyses, musings, and divergences. I offer two passages that tickled me particularly:

I am stimulated by the geometric figures around us to speak of neurolocial form-constants, the geometrical hallucinations of honeycombs, spiderwebs, latticeworks, spirals or funnels which can appear in starvation, sensory deprivation or intoxications, as well as migraine. …
…People are startled by my sudden loquacity, but intrigued by the notion of universal hallucinatory form-constants, a possible neurological foundation for the geometrical art of so many cultures.

And:

I am delighted to hear the word “caltrops” still in use—it is a word I am rather fond of, partly because it is a singular noun ending in “s,” like Cacops and Eryops, my favorite fossil amphibians.