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Ancient cat goddess statue discovered in Egypt

Koosi considers herself the household goddess. Here she is surveying her territory. If she notices you’ve been staring at her too long, she will come over and slap you in the face. I don’t mean scratch, I mean slap. No claws.

In high school I listened to the radio constantly. I was more interested in pop music than I was in my lessons. In the 80s there were a couple of jazz stations and the classical music station was on all day, but the station I was glued to was the old 99.5RT. Its DJs sounded good, did not affect those fake American accents that now turn FM radio-listening into sonic torture (like attacking the eardrums with a dull cheese grater), and somehow resisted the urge to talk about themselves.

I stopped listening to the radio around 1997. That was the year I got an Internet connection; the two events may be related. Also I didn’t like the music and I especially didn’t enjoy being screeched at by fake American accents.

Every time I take a taxi I ask the driver to turn down the radio. This way I can tune out the unfunny jokes, puns, double-entendres and recycled pop strangled in the singer’s larynx (“Seees alwaaaysss a wooomannn to meeee”). If I need more sonic privacy I listen to my iPod. Lately I’ve been downloading a lot of podcasts: A History of the World in 100 Objects, readings of stories by Chekhov, philosophy lectures (One of my favorite things about the net is that I can get an MIT education for free), and the New Yorker fiction podcasts. I listen to them when I’m dining solo in restaurants, walking around the mall, doing laundry, doing groceries, or grooming the cats—activities that can be done on auto-pilot, because one must pay attention. (Don’t listen while crossing the street. I mean it.) Hearing the words right in your ears makes a favorite story sound more intimate even if you’ve read it dozens of times.

The New Yorker fiction podcasts feature well-known writers reading stories they chose from the magazine’s archive, then discussing them with the fiction editor. Three of my all-time favorite stories are in the selection: T. Coraghessan Boyle reads A Bullet In The Brain by Tobias Wolff, Thomas McGuane reads Last Night by James Salter, and Hilton Als covers Children Are Bored On Sunday by Jean Stafford (I have to thank Mrs. Helen Ladera at Pisay for putting Stafford on the reading list).

Today I listened to stories by Mavis Gallant, Harold Brodkey, Isaac Babel, and John Cheever read by Antonya Nelson, Jeffrey Eugenides, George Saunders, and Richard Ford respectively. The Cheever is a short, devastating piece called Reunion that I read more than 20 years ago when the fat red book came out; I remember wincing as I read it, and today I was wincing so hard the waiter must’ve thought I had indigestion.

Remember, take off the earbuds when crossing the street. Or using the ATM, you might forget your money. (This happened to me last month because I was distracted. By the time I remembered the cash the dispenser had shut, and it took 15 working days to get my money back.)

Make it circular.

Relief copy of a panel from Lorenzo Ghiberti’s The Gates of Paradise showing the story of Noah

Relic reveals Noah’s ark was circular

That they processed aboard the enormous floating wildlife collection two-by-two is well known. Less familiar, however, is the possibility that the animals Noah shepherded on to his ark then went round and round inside.

The now battered tablet, aged about 3,700 years, was found somewhere in the Middle East by Leonard Simmons, a largely self-educated Londoner who indulged his passion for history while serving in the RAF from 1945 to 1948 . . . in the Guardian.

Listen to Flood Tablet in BBC Radio 4’s A History of the World in 100 Objects.

Some local psychics insist that Noah’s Ark landed in the Philippines, specifically, Mount Arayat. “It’s the biblical Mount Ararat,” they says. Riiight.

Upon the recommendation of my annoyingly knowledgeable friend Rene I looked up A History of the World in 100 Objects, a BBC Radio 4 series, on the Beeb’s website. You can listen to all the episodes, 18 so far, on the site, or download them for free on iTunes. Each episode is about 15 minutes long, and narrated by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum. . .

Stone chopping tool from the British Museum

Episode 2 features the oldest object in the British Museum, an Olduvai stone chopping tool 1.8 million years old, found by the archaeologist Louis Leakey in Tanzania. It’s a stone that’s been chipped several times to turn it into an efficient knife. According to the host, the people who made tools like this were probably not hunters but “brilliant opportunists”. They lay in wait while lions and other predators killed their prey, and after the predators had moved away they collected the meat from the dead animal. Without such sneakiness our species would not have survived.

Stone chopping tools were used for stripping meat and breaking into the bones to collect marrow fat, the most nutritious part of the carcass. (The host notes that marrow fat doesn’t sound too appetizing; obviously he’s never had bulalo.) Having this protein to eat meant that they would survive to produce offspring who could make even more complex tools. We’re here today because our ancestors were clever enough to get bulalo. . .

Bulalo photo from pinoycravings.com

Objects make us human in Emotional Weather Report, last Sunday in the Philippine Star.

A History of the World in 100 Objects, with photographs of the objects and transcripts of the podcasts, is at www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld.

Saffy is giving away five pairs of tickets to the Ayala Museum. To qualify, complete this statement: “The last time I was at a museum. . .” Post your entry in Comments. Obviously you have to be in the Makati area at some point within the next month for the tickets to be of any use to you. We’re accepting entries until Sunday at 11:59pm.

Queen’s Cat Goddess Temple Found in Egypt
by Andrew Bossone, National Geographic Daily News

Photographs from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities

Thanks to PdeK for the alert.

Photo: Homer in the British Museum. From Wikipedia.

For our grief we’ll need the strong stuff. We’ll have to go back, all the way to the beginning, to Homer.

This is from War Music, Christopher Logue’s account (not an exact translation) of Books 16-19 of Homer’s Iliad. While prowling around the bookstore yesterday I literally tripped over the Logue. If not for the pain in my foot I might never have opened it, but I did and it was like being shocked into full consciousness. This is what literature is for. I don’t want to hear that everything is going to be fine and dandy because that would be a lie. I need to be reminded that although life is cruel and full of sorrow, it holds out the possibility of the sublime.

from War Music (an account of books 16-19 of Homer’s Iliad)
by Christopher Logue

Down on your knees, Achilles. Farther down.
Now forward on your hands and put your face into the dirt,
And scrub it to and fro.
Grief has you by the hair with one
And with the forceps of its other hand
Uses your mouth to trowel the dogshit up;
Watches you lift your arms to Heaven; and then
Pounces and screws your nose into the filth.
Gods have plucked drawstrings from your head,
And from the templates of your upper lip
Modelled their bows.
Not now. Not since
Your grieving reaches out and pistol-whips
That envied face, until
Frightened to bear your black, backbreaking agony alone,
You sank, throat back, thrown back, your voice
Thrown out across the sea to reach your Source.