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| The Ecphorizer |
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Dear Editor:
Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914) is a wonderful poet, and translating/ adapting him into English is an exacting and stimulating challenge, seemingly tailor-made for Mensa mentalities. Gareth Penn does it with great skill, but, by not acknowledging it as such, becomes a plagiarist. That gains him "instant notoriety" with me.
Robert J. Carr
Oakland, CA
Editor's Note: Don't blame Gareth. He originally submitted his work as a translation, but through a late-night editorial mixup we failed to identify it as such. We hereby apologize to all concerned. Look on the preceding page for the third piece Gareth sent us, which is also the most difficult translation of the set.
Dear Editor:
The Mensa scholarship letter/proposal of Brian Litzenberger on "Thauma-Physics" in the September issue particularly caught my attention. He deals with the possibilities of personalizing and dramatizing the creatures and elements of physics. This reminded me of my undergraduate days jesting about "the sex life of an electron," and its "search for a positive charge" with its head in a "cloud." Magnetic and electric "flux" would entwine and stimulate the "stray flux" needed discipline. The electrons in a "dentode" would move between the "upper plate" and the 'lower plate."
Of deeper excitement is my own dream, of the past thirty years, concerning life-after-death, or after transition to another state. At the transition time our residual and essential spirit would become free to enter a particle of its choosing. An available proton is a good choice.
Now the real adventure of "life" begins. One can visit truly exotic places, unavailable to ordinary life perhaps for all time, places such as: within the earth at the base of the crustal continental tectonic plates; the center of the sun; deep in the red spot of Jupiter; the edge of the universe; and the center of the human mind during great pleasure or great pain.
Riding a quantum photon wave on its route into a spectroscope or diffraction grating and through its interference fringes to a target would be illuminating. And a properly sturdy personalized proton might preserve its identity through a black hole, and reappear elsewhere in the universe. "Shades" of "2010" conclusion!
Well (or tunnel), it's all something to look forward to. I might start locally with a ride on the anti-node of a string in the violin of Itzak Perlman.
Charles Walton
Los Gatos, CA
Dear Editor:
I enjoyed Brian Litzenberger's little piece on "Thauma-Physics" very much, but no doubt would have found it even more enjoyable had he honored ... the rules of language... Thauma is not the Greek word for "drama." The Greek word for "drama" is drama. Thauma is the Greek for "magic" or "wonder"...
Ed Rehmus
San Francisco, CA
Editor's Note: Ed is correct. In fairness to Brian, however, the etymology of "theater" in our Webster notes that the Greek theatron is "akin to thauma." Perhaps that justifies the coinage. 
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| List of other Letters |
Letters in Issue 01, September 1981Letters in Issue 05, January 1982Letters in Issue 06, February 1982Letters in Issue 07, March 1982Letters in Issue 09, May 1982Letters in Issue 10, June 1982Letters in Issue 11, July 1982Letters in Issue 12, August 1982Letters in Issue 13, September 1982Letters in Issue 14, October 1982Letters in Issue 17, January 1983Letters in Issue 22, June 1983Letters in Issue 23, July 1983Letters in Issue 25, September 1983Letters in Issue 29, January 1984Letters in Issue 32, April 1984Letters in Issue 37, September 1984Letters in Issue 53, January 1986Letters in Issue 55, March 1986Letters in Issue 56, April 1986 + more |
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