What do you think of the name Erasmus?

I like that name a lot but I'm bound to think of Click and Clack's production staff. You know, the head of the working mother's department "Erasmus B. Dragon".

I'm thinking of that name because Erasmus was one of Henry VIII's tutors in childhood. (A tutor of a Tudor! Ha!) Apparently, like his daughter Elizabeth, Henry was "wicked smahhht" as we say around here. No surprise.

He was also very cunning. He is, of course, a Cancer (June 28). According to my Birthday Book, "cunning" is a trait amongst cancers. However, if our cunning goes unchecked, or we are aware of how persuasive we can be, very bad things can happen. I think Ann Boleyn would agree. And the Catholic church. And Katherine of Aragon. And Bloody Mary.

Erasmus's sobriquet (my new word of the day...) was "Prince of Humanists". He took the middle road between the Protestants and conservative Catholics, pissing off both ends of the spectrum. Free will vs Predestination. To put it in 1990s vernacular: Mrs Gump's box o' chocolates or Lt Dan's Plan. (der...) Humanism in the 1500s "described a curriculum comprising grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as studied via classical authors. Humanists mostly believed that, although God created the universe, it was humans that had developed and industrialized it. Beauty, a popular topic, was held to represent a deep inner virtue and value, and an essential element in the path towards God." This quote's from Wikipedia, so i'll have to do some further investigating intot he topc but it rings true from other things I've read.

Anyway, that's what I've thought about as a result of reading that Weir book I blogged about yesterday. More later...

Le Divorce

Le Divorce

It did not do that well in the theatre but my guess is that it is a very popular late night Saturday movie. Or a Sunday afternoon movie.

I know that's when I watch it. Like right now. And I love it. I didn't the first time I watched it. But there's something about it that's so charment.

I think I like the idea of an American poet in Paris with her scuzzy Parisian husband and Gigi as her mother in law.

And Sam Waterson as a dad. I love his crinkly voice. After he says anything profound, I expect to hear that "chung chung" from Law and Order.


So, while I'm watching this movie about betrayal and alliances and perseverance and pour ma vie comme a vien (taking life as it comes) for the fifth time, I happen to be checking my myspace, especially since they added the new feature where anyone in you email address book can be checked and then get added to your myspace. Little did I know, when I checked all, I'd be adding all sorts of ghosts from the past into my myspace. That guy from the bar on Christmas Eve? In. The guy who had nothing wrong with him except that he didn't want to make time for me while he went to law school. In. Including a whole host of other peripheries.

Oops.

Anyway, while looking through my new myspace friends' profiles, I discovered something i had forgotten, or perhaps repressed. And that is this: wherever you work, the most innocuous of circumstances can actually turn out to be quite volatile or crushing.

I thought I hadn't experienced wheelin' and dealin' and sucking up to the wrong person until I recently entered the corporate world, but while glancing through the top friends of a former presumably close colleague and -- gwon' an knock me over with a feathah cuz that summmabitch had my least favorite person in his top friends. It felt like such a betrayal.

As disheartening as it was, it just reminded me that every where -- corporate world, education world, college academia -- always has its elements of betrayal, forged alliances and lack of respect for karma.

C'est cette lack that will fin en tragedie. But once a person trahis, il ne peut pas be trusted.

Oui. C'est vrai.

So, the day will come when the alliance will bite.

The point of this cryptic franglish blog is that, if you observe someone betraying another person who doesn't deserve such betrayal, beware of making an alliance with the betrayer. It will come back to haunt. It always does.

So, how did it come to this? I call it passive cowardice. You know--like the people who didn't speak up against the Nazis. Only on a much smaller scale. It happens all the time. Just read harry Potter. And that's why I think it's weird that I'm always placed in Hufflepuff in the online sorting hat quiz. Because I'm so Gryffindor in the "speak up and be brave" aspect of sorting.

Anyhoo, this has been an interesting blog. Blame it on the sake.