If you are without sight, if the way is twisty and wiggly — and you have a thousand feet, and the ones in front travel over different terrain from the ones at the rear, do you experience a thousand different histories ?
Not having either head or tail will also tend to fragment history ( this was the only millipede I could find on short notice ).
( Looking at the world from the other side of the argument. If anybody asks, you didn’t see me here. )
-Julie
Intriguing question, which I’ve been turning over in my mind all of yesterday.
I’m not at all sure, of course, that a millipede has any concept of history at all … but as a metaphor I’m going to have to curl up around it and pupate for a while.
Comment by Felix Grant — July 29, 2008 @ 2:26 am
Mind = millipede >> or trillion-pede
( widely separated neurons receive widely different or varied information or sensations or reports or tingly-jingly electro-chemical beep-beep-beeps … think of a ten dimensional knock-knock joke )
Comment by unrealnature — July 29, 2008 @ 3:36 am
The concept of a ten dimensional knock knock joke has diverted me wonderfully … I shall urgently seek a way to insert it into one of my maths/physics lectures!
I’m less sure that it has moved me any further along the road to millipede (or trillipede) as historiological metaphor :-)
Comment by Milly Peed (author of /The poverty of historiopediocity/) — July 29, 2008 @ 6:49 am
( This rat WILL NOT take the cheese, daggone it )
Why won’t you bring up the blind men groping the elephant, and I can say that nevertheless there’s only one elephant, and you’ll say, no, there’re many elephants and I’ll say but there’s only one herd, and you’ll say, no there’s many herds and I’ll say, how many perverted blind men can there BE ?? because it’s only the number of blind men, not the number of elephants and I’m sure somewhere in there you’ll try to say there are also cephalopods — but NOOOO you have to skip all the good stuff and just pee on my parade. No more cheese for you, bud.
[ I am willing to bet $2.50 US that you could write a paper on historiopediocity AND get it accepted at some important scientific journal. If you do, I want my footnote. ]
Comment by unrealnature — July 29, 2008 @ 7:14 am
Which blind elephone is that, then?
How did it come to be blind?
Comment by Sennta Pod (author of /The podiatry of historiocity/) — July 29, 2008 @ 10:49 am
“Which blind elephone” The pink one.
“How did it come to be blind?” Cheese deficiency.
Comment by unrealnature — July 29, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
“How did it come to be blind?” Cheese deficiency.
Is that also what you did to the millipede???
A report is on its way PETA. And to PETM.
Comment by Felix Grant (author of /1000 silly things to do with a millipede/) — July 29, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
I cut the cheese for him. One milli-grant of cheese with the fresh scent-o-pee. He wanted PETA-butter instead.
[ I can't believe you didn't notify MILLI-PETA ]
Comment by unrealnature — July 29, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
There’s no such thing as MILLI-PETA. It’s PETM (Philosophers for the Ethical Treatment of Millipedes), and they HAVE BEEN notified. Be frayed, very frayed … a bit like the ends of that millipede.
Comment by Felix Grant (CEO, Vegans Against Millisection) — July 29, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Did you ever have one of those dreams where you’re in this ballroom filled with pink elephants and blind millipedes and you’re dancing with Dr. Seuss and there’s Milly, and Sennta, and there’s all this cheese and vegans, and footnotes everywhere and the whole time, Felix keeps pupating all over the place.
Ever have that one??
And everybody is totally frayed because there’s, like, this … big Felix-type BUG inside the pupate thingie and it’s ALIVE and it’s IN YOUR BLOG ?
Comment by unrealnature — July 29, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
Ballroom?
Dr Seuss?
Comment by S. Freud — July 30, 2008 @ 2:43 am
Drs.
Seuss/ Freud. Same difference. Always with the ballrooms and the pupatings and the histrionics.
Comment by unrealnature — July 30, 2008 @ 3:41 am