myopic murmurs

Nightingales and finches in wonderful song, savour the golden sun Who breathes life into the very depths of the wood. The air is crisp with the scent of untainted peonies, And here I sit, sheltered by a striped veranda, satisfied as one can be, With Chet Baker's sonorous voice drifting from inside the red house.

I had quite the adventure with my black metropolitan museum bag a few weeks ago. Momo had been busking at Carl Schurz Park and I left it on the bench when we went back home, but I didn't realize it until two days later when I was searching for my songwriting notebook in vain. In a state of panic, I had my mom post on NextDoor (the app where people are always asking where their cats went) to see if anyone picked it up. I didn't hear from anyone that night, nor the following morning, so I got up early to run to East river and search for my bag. Not a trace. I even found the park office, but no one had seen the bag. This was the first time I'd lost so many things in a bag- my notebook, Kindle, sunglasses, songwriting pen (very, VERY special), and the bag itself, which was quite high-quality. Praying for a miracle, a miracle came. Walking to get my new prescription glasses the other day, I saw flyers posted all around the Upper East Side for a monthly volunteer cleanup. I was t

I’ve been trekking through “Philosophy” by Stephen Law- now on page 60 or so. As he himself stated in the preface, many sentences require re-reading, but most things are clear to me. Today I read about scepticism, a view that I was familiar with, but didn’t take very seriously. After Reading Law’s arguments that we might be manipulated by a greater force to see, hear, touch, and feel are sorts of things that are merely simulations, scepticism seems irrefutable. But still, I’m not sure that I agree with the sceptic interpretation of the world and Law makes the point that should one take this view of life, even so, when they step out of their homes, they conform to societal behaviour without questioning everything in view and trying to find a way out of this simulated life. On the topic of knowledge, which I read about too, I think I agree with Aristotle’s definition of knowledge- belief backed by sufficient evidence. But I wonder how one should decide how much proof is sufficient to tur

Last year, we went to Maine, and while dining at a restaurant, I had a close encounter with death. We’d ordered the Bar Harbor special, a blueberry lemonade drink, filled to the brim with ice cubes. So there I went, crunching on the tasteless ice cubes until a whole ice cube slid into my windpipe! Completely unable to breathe, I pinched my sister’s arm so tightly, my sister said afterward she thought I’d seen a bear in the restaurant. Staggering up, my dad hustled over and began to pat me on the back as you’d do to a coughing baby. I was quite sure I would die in the next few seconds, clutching at my throat as if I were a lunatic with my dad still performing his idea of first aid on a choking victim. Then, this big burly man at the table beside us rushed over and he came behind me to do the Heimlich maneuver until I vomited the cursed ice cube out. It was quite violent, but the ice cube was out, thank god. My head dizzy with shock and my hands trembling from panic, I was too overwhelme