London November 27, 2009

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that  life can afford.
Samuel Johnson

Now I come to my last part of my travel. From Oxford I took a train to London. I have to say travelling by train in England was very pleasant. I think this was when I felt most independent. Especially when I arrived at London Paddington and had to find my way to the right tube. I love the tube. I don’t know why, really… it’s noisy, dirty, drafty… but still I was sitting on the train there and was just smiling to myself, thinking. I’m in London.

London makes me happy and again I can’t explain why. It’s just a feeling that I get … =) The hostel in London was quite amazing. It was a building from the Victorian area and the furniture and decoration really made you feel like you just travelled in time. On the other hand that’s about the only positive thing I can say about that hostel. There the bathrooms were on the hallway and it was a 6-bed room and people were really inconsiderate. But anyway. Back to the wonderful bliss that was London.

I started by going to King’s Cross. I planned to see the 9 3/4 platform but the whole thing was under construction and I simply walked down the one platform. It’s a huge hall under which all platforms are and just the size of it was quite breathtaking. But I didn’t stay long. Then I went to Covent Garden. I was hungry and I knew exactly where I was going to go. In the one hall where it’s more like on a jumble sale, right in the back on the left side there is a little snack bar. There I got a jacket potato. I had been looking forward to this simple thing the whole time. I think there is nothing on this whole world that tastes better than jacket potato. Then I sat outside Covent Garden on the stairs in the sun and ate. Covent Garden is a wondrous place =) Unfortunately the really beautiful things are expensive but the atmosphere alone is worth a visit. There was a Captain Jack Sparrow actor and even a small orchestra playing… it’s hard to explain… you need to experience it!

The rest of the day I spent at the National Portrait Gallery which was really cool. I saw a lot of paintings that I had already seen in class before. Astonishing when you really think you know a painting and then stand before it and actually see the layers of painting.

The rest of my little trip was uneventful. The next morning I left rather early, without breakfast and then had the best coffee of my whole life before I got on the bus to the airport. On the bus I was rather anxious that I would be too late as we were stuck in traffic for a bit but all went smooth.

Travelling alone was a gratifying experience. It was nice to be able to do just whatever I wanted without having to consider a companion. If I have learnt one thing this year, it is that, if you want to wait for the perfect time to do something or if you wait for someone to come with you, you will never do it. So just do it. I know now that I can do the things I want on my own.  And that I need to, as well.

recent knitting November 25, 2009

let me present: my first pair of socks =) yay

and here they are again, almost finished:

and also recently finished this wonderful scarf:

it’s incredibly soft! 50% bamboo … I love bamboo… I only want to knit bamboo now =D

Oxford-3 November 23, 2009

Well, I have a few more pictures to share

Christ Church College: the cloisters with a modern fountain and an olive tree of which you can see the tips of some branches on the right

the fountain

the amazing Harry Potter staircase – walking up those was incredible

one of the best pictures I shot, I think. view from the staircase into the Tom Quadrangle. See those gentlemen in black? They were watching, making sure everyone behaved. You weren’t allowed to cross the quadrangle for example, let alone step on the grass… they look very British I think

 

a window in the Cathedral; St. Katherine of Alexandria in the middle. I came across her in Book Studies before. She was a martyr in ancient Rome but is known for arguing in favour of Christianity with 50 philosophers who all converted to christianity because she argued so well. She is said to have been educated well and is patroness of female students and of the arts and see how she holds a book in her right and a quill in her left? ^^

Christ Church college was what you’d call a tourist attraction. There were a lot of people and they also charged the highest price of all the colleges though I don’t remember how much it was exactly. It was still worth it as the Cathedral is quite impressive. It might have been the biggest church I’ve been in. It feels like it. Of course also as a Harry Potter fan it’s a must-visit because of the staircase and also the hall which was the model for the great hall in the Potter films.

I do think they did a great job with the paper guide to the college. It told you exactly where to go and what was special about it. Much like a real guide.

After Christ Church I went to Merton college which couldn’t have been more different =) It was free frist of all, small and cute and almost completely deserted:

I think this has to be my favourite picture. I love all these arches.

When I was in the chapel at Merton there was someone singing. It was so beautiful and serene… One of my favourite moments but then the door made noise when it shut and the singing stopped and then an embarrassed looking woman showed up ^^ I smiled at her but she left.

all for now

The Unique Perspective from Within the Broom-closet November 21, 2009

This semester I am taking a class on Neopaganism. This time again, like three years ago when I had a class on New Religious Movements, I chose as my presentation topic Wicca. I had planned to do something different but I somehow still wanted to make sure the right things were said and the religion was presented in the right way. So there I was, and not alone. I worked together with a nice girl I didn’t know before and our presentation yesterday was a success. The seminar in itself is a bit of a challenge, as you can maybe imagine, but at the same time a wonderful experience. It is a good feeling that there are teachers, researches and students who look at Neopaganism just like they would look at any other religion.  Nevertheless I ’stayed in the broom-closet’ as you might say and did not identify myself as a Pagan. And I do not plan to openly do so.

The broom-closet is not a place I feel particularly well in. These past few years I have tried to treat my beliefs as openly as possible. I have my great best friend who is helping me, as you might find us in our favourite pub discussing pagan issues in a normal manner. I have grown used to using terms like ‘magic’ in public. I think our situation will not improve if we all stay hidden. We need to get the public to notice us and have a tolerant, if not good opinion, on us. And I think the first step towards a normal relationship with the mainstream culture is an open attitude on our part.

My experiences have generally been positive as well. Mostly people react interested, or they do not much care. The girl I held the presentation with yesterday asked me last week when we were working on all of that, if I also was interested in it in my private life. I had brought books to show her, one by Scott Cunningham, so I was kind of expecting her question. I answered truthfully (as I always will do, a question deserves a truthful answer) and ever since she has been treating me just like she did before and we still chat about all kinds of things and sat next to each other in the other lecture we share. It has been years since anyone reacted negatively.

In the academic discourse it is different, though. On the one hand I do not fear judgment or negative reactions there, especially not in a Religious Studies class. We all have been trained to be objective and keep a distance both to our own beliefs as well as to the belief system we are studying. So why not just say, ‘I am Pagan, you can ask me whatever you like.’ Well, even though people are generally tolerant and hold the opinion that every religion is just as good as any other and also that every religious belief is valid as long as there is one person who believes it, they do have opinions. They especially do so about things like ‘magic’. Now, if I had identified myself as Pagan, there would have been an important factor in the discussion: politeness.

Take the comment one of the girl made after our presentation:

I don’t want to offend anyone, but what do they do, if it doesn’t work, because let’s face it, it’s magic, it doesn’t work. They can’t really believe it will work.

I do have the feeling she would not have said something like that, if she had known that I was Pagan and practiced magick. She might have hinted at her opinion (she is not a nice-nice girl, if you know what I mean… very opinionated and out-spoken… as a reaction I simply smiled… I was there not as a Pagan but as the objective presenter) but she would not have said something like that, so as not to offend me. It simply is a different thing, offending someone ‘out there’ or someone who just presented some of her own beliefs and the history of her beliefs and is sitting right in front of you. It is so much more interesting to see what people really think.

There is another reason why I did this topic and did it the way I did it: It is simply a good way to practice this kind of double distance I described. It is important to be able to take a step back from what you belief and try and look at it from a neutral point of view. I think I did it well. And maybe I will tell her later on that I am Pagan… we’ll see. I will not keep it a secret. I discussed that girl’s attitude with my co-presenter afterwards and she found it weird, too. I also noticed another girl’s interested glances … interested, not judgmental … as I talked about how it is sometimes easier to stay hidden because of people like that. I enjoyed that immensely. Talking openly about my faith and people being just normal. This was a very enjoyable experience.

This ‘interested looking’ girl is a muslima, wearing hijab and I also have this fascination with hijabs … and sometimes I wish it was as easy as that. You wear a hijab and everyone knows what’s going on. We are on opposite ends, aren’t we? We Pagans want to be taken seriously and want to be seen but it is difficult to get in the right light and muslimas want to be taken seriously and treated fair and are so easily visible but still not always in the right light…

Oxford-2 November 5, 2009

Yeah I know I’m lazy … but here I am and on it goes.

Oxford day 2. Maybe time to comment on the Hostel I stayed in in Oxford. I chose the one that belongs to the yha which was in the end a good decision. It was a bit more expensive than the other two would have been. One of those would have been just over a nightclub though and I don’t think I would have slept much at all Not that this one was a quiet place… no … there where at least two school classes staying there. One from Germany and one from the Netherlands and they were insanely noisy and running along the corridors … anyway =) We had a bathroom on our room there which was very nice. I don’t like it when I have to cross the hall to shower. The furniture and deco was all very simple but well, I just were there to sleep after all =) The breakfast was nice but the dining room was crowded with teenagers wearing more makeup than I ever owned in my life…

Well, I left the hostel early on that second day, around half past 8 :p I wanted to be at Bodleian Library as soon as they started selling tickets, which was at nine and I still needed to buy water. The library was amazing. I got my ticket from a very nice man and then, as the tour would only start at 10.30 I visited their exhibition on book binding. It was … breathtaking. I mean I studied all the theory about binding and about things like gilding and such and I have seen early printed books from the 17th century but they were nothing to those books they had there. All that splendour! Bindings with gold and ivory and gem stones, binding made of silk or even vellum (a kind of parchment), I didn’t even know you could actually do that! And they also talked about the purpose of bindings, how they could tell much about what kind of book it was, who it belonged to and if it was maybe just a copy to show off. It was so nice to read that familiar language of book studies. The Book as a physical object… my professor’s favourite phrase =) at times I thought she could have written the comments =) (she didn’t … but she also was in Oxford during the break, was it vacation or work…? I don’t know)

The tour of the library was great as well. It’s good to know that I can follow a tour guide speaking in English that well. I don’t think she knew I wasn’t a native speaker. The others were I think. Also I was by far the youngest  participant ^^

this is the Divinity school, maybe the most amazing room I have ever set foot in. The ceiling alone… so pretty =) It was used as a setting for the Hospital Wing scenes in the first Harry Potter movie, do you recognise it? =) What was also such a pretty room was of course Duke Humphrey’s library but I can’t show you a picture of it as we weren’t allowed it shoot photos. It is a place of study after all. It’s history is interesting… The room was built over the Divinity School when Duke Humphrey who was the Henry V’s brother gave his private library to the university in the 15th century.  Those were more than 281 manuscripts. Most of the books though were confiscated in 1550 during the English reformation when all traces of Roman Catholicism were to be moved from the English Church. Some books got burnt, some were sold. The tour guide said that only eight books of that original collection were known to have survived. Another little anecdote she told us was that during later centuries it happened again and again that books got lost when students took them home and never returned them. The library decided at some point to take measures against that and started to bind the books to the shelves with chains and to forbid the taking of books out of the rooms. And it also made their readers sign a kind of oath making them swear that they’d never remove books from their place. Until today, when you want to become a reader of Bodleian Library you have to sign that oath =)

After the tour at the Library I went to Blackwell bookshop which was very interesting. Waterstone’s in London is bigger I think but this one was far more charming.  It had three stories and the upper one had steep ceilings and in general it was rather narrow and felt… cosy and old. What was really surprising though was their basement room. It was huge. 10.000 square meters! Full of books of every kind of subject imaginable. I walked past all the subjects that interest me, Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, History Really amazing, google Norrington Room and be amazed

After Blackwell I visited another small college: Balliol and then I started searching Alice’s Shop of which I had read in my travel guide. I walked past it first as it’s so small and inconspicuous ^^ It was a really small, charming shop and only sold items connected to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I thought very long about what I would take, they had such great stuff. I got a bookmark and a small bag with characters printed on it in which I now keep my small knitting projects.

Then I turned across the road where Christ Church College is but more of that later …

war memorial garden and Christ Church in the background

Oxford-1 October 13, 2009

Hi again!

I’m back in Germany since two weeks actually and have spent a week only relaxing and now classes have started again. Everything is still rather quiet with not much workload so I can put all my England experiences into an organized tale Luckily I took the journal writing very seriously.

Well, I left home really early in the morning on Tuesday 22nd September as my flight was scheduled for 6.30 and the car ride to the airport takes an hour. It was an exhausting day … but everything went rather smooth. We had a very small plane that wasn’t even full. It was a tiny bit scary as it was a propeller driven airplane and made a hell of a noise! Luckily the flight only takes an hour =) and it also was a smooth flight and I don’t much mind flying What was really fascinating was that 6.30 in Germany was pitch-black night and 6.30 in England was morning sunshine. I guess that happens when you try to put something like time into standards.

Also fascinating was to witness dawn from up above. To see colour creeping up into everything. Slowly everything turns from shades of grey to colours. It was beautiful.

The journey from Stansted to Oxford was the longest it terms of time. I took a coach (it was the less expensive alternative) and it was a three hour ride. But the coach was comfortable and it had air conditioning and the driver was sweet. It was my first time on a british street, driving, not crossing it it was weird ^^

From this first day I don’t have any pictures as I had left the batteries for my camera at the hostel. I started with St. Mary the Virgin – the University Church. A very pretty church. And I walked around it a bit – I like walking through churches as I kind of still like the atmosphere and the architecture. Then I climbed the tower and had an amazing view over the city. The viewing platform was just above the clock that you can see on this picture and you could walk around the whole tower.

Then I visited New College which actually was my favourite college and I wish I could show you pictures  that I made myself… The cloisters (every college had its own chapel and cloisters as Oxford University has always held close ties to the church and in medieval times you coud only study Theology, Law or Medicine there and you had to take minor church oaths), anyway, the cloisters were very small and in a simple way very, very beautiful. Also they filmed scenes for the fourth Harry Potter film there.

I spend the rest of the afternoon hunting for something to eat (I ended up at McDonald’s :p), got something to eat and drink from a supermarket and then called it a day. I was exhausted

Wat struck me at this first day was that you always have a picture in mind of a place you want to visit. And from my travel guide book I kind of had the picture of a quiet, medieval city in mind. Of course Oxford is a normal mid-size modern town with shopping centres, clothes stores and McDonald’s. And it was packed that first day and I wasn’t really prepared for that. In a way though it is a bit like Münster … You walk into a side street of horribly noisy High Street and then into a college and there it is, the Oxford I expected. And Münster has these green, peaceful corners as well.

Well, more during the next days

In case you wondered ;) September 18, 2009

Well, I have been silent for a while, haven’t I …? So I thought I’d give at least a bit of an update of what I have been doing. Sadly I’m not ready to post any real post, I’m kind of not … inspired … but I think I’ll soon write something.

So, what have I been doing? I had to papers to write (one on Working Class Women Readers in the 19th century in Britain and one on The Druid in the Role-Playing-Game System DSA ) it was a lot of work, especially as I’m not used to writing two papers during my break but there’s the prospect of graduating soon so I sat down and worked.

I also have been knitting A LOT with which I don’t really want to bore anyone with as I’m not that good really  but maybe I’ll think about uploading some pictures.

Another nice little story is that I started volunteering at our local library in town. I feel there I can do something for my hometown and work on my social skills and learn about working in a library. It’s a very small one and I’m only there one afternoon a week and once the semester starts I’ll have one Sundaymorning a month and every other Friday. But I really enjoy all of it =) and all the people I met there! ^^ like my former teacher form primary school who I have wanted to tell that she almost ruined my life for a very long time but I’m just too much of a coward to talk to her… and she doesn’t seem to recognize me.

All in all though it rather feels like my life has been but on hold again. Next week I’ll be on vacation finally (in Oxford and London) and then I’ll plan my next semester and probably make some changes and hopefully I’ll be more inspired by then

~Sarah

Religion and Community May 21, 2009

Today I want to deliberate on community and on community in relation to religion. What made me consider this was a recent blog entry from Migdalit. She said that Paganism without community was not possible and I think I do not agree but more on that later.

So, what does Community really mean? It derives from the Latin communitas which in classical Latin means “joint possession or use, participation, sharing, social relationship, fellowship, organized society, shared nature or quality, kinship, obligingness” (Oxford English Dictionary) and its meaning hasn’t really changed that much, has it? The broadest modern definition on the OED is “A body of people or things viewed collectively.” Then you can break down the meaning of it towards a place (“a place where a particular body of people lives”) or towards some shared feature (“A group of people who share the same interests, pursuits, or occupation, esp. when distinct from those of the society in which they live.”). Then of course it can also refer to the online community which is mostly defined by the category of space but of course in another way than the earlier one. I think I don’t have to explain, though, do I? (This is really broke down to the essentials, there are 13 major meanings of community listed in the OED, of course several of them are considered obsolete now)

What, now, is the common factor in these definitions? It’s the people of course. And then they need something to hold them together. This is nothing more than a description of course and doesn’t say anything about the function, something called community holds in a society.

So now, Religion. I will spare you the problem of defining religion (I’d be typing for a week…) but just tell you my understanding (not definition!) of religion. In my view a religion is a world view (or ideology, conviction, philosophy of life) that covers all aspects of one’s life in a comprehensive and rule-setting way. In doing so it often refers to super-human entities. Its rules are obligatory and not following them often has severe consequences. In a functionalistic sense it has the power to answer contingent questions. These are questions that are not certain, things that could be one way, but could be the other way round just as well (take the question “What will happen after death?”). Furthermore it has the power to build communities and make people act morally.

So bear in mind, this is my view I include world views here that others might not see as a religion. Also note that when I say religion I mean an individual’s religion. In that sense there are as many religions as there are people on this earth. I do not refer to institutions most of the time. So, this also means that, to me in this semi-scholarly understanding, one person is enough to make a religion.

Bringing these two together it should become obvious that I do not think that community is vital for religion per se. An individual, in my view, can have a comprehensive world view that he alone follows and I would understand it as a religion. But. There is a big, major but.

In order to discuss it now, I have to break it down to single religions in the sense of major movements. And I do think that in order to become a major movement you need to have a community. This is quite obvious as well… You need to spread it in order to make it a movement. There is no growth if you keep your world view only to yourself.  Imagine Jesus would have been a silent scholar. Not a preacher who talked to people and convinced them but someone who had it just thought up and maybe written it down. We wouldn’t have the Christianity we have today.

And also, imagine the people who were early Christians wouldn’t have cared that there were other Christians who believed the same thing. We also would have a very different picture (of course in the making of the picture we have today there are other important forces than just the people who felt they made up a community).  Without the sense of community there is no growth, no impact. And this also holds true for other non-religious movements like the Enlightenment.

If you now ask me what was there first, religion or community, this is pretty much a chicken or the egg-question. I think that people always moved/lived in communities and that they always had comprehensive worldviews.

To sum up my point until here again: A sense of community can make a movement out of a personal worldview. It can make a “religion” (in the common understanding) out of a personal, comprehensive worldview. And I think history proves it.

Now, maybe I have to relate Paganism to religion, first. With Paganism it depends highly on how you understand religion, if you regard it or its forms as religion. It is not as easy as with, say, Christianity where you have among the many denominations still the combining elements of the Bible and Jesus and a merciful God. It is difficult – close to not possible – to name the combining elements in Paganism. I will maybe also write on that one day but not today. For this topic it is enough to point out that it is more difficult than in other major religions.

The question if Paganism is a religion is difficult as well. If you would ask me now “Is Paganism a religion?” I would say no. Paganism is many religions. It is made up of several movements and several personal comprehensive worldviews that haven’t made it as a movement (yet maybe) and these, yes, are religions but Paganism is more like the term Abrahamic religions. There are common features but it is not like an entity (of course it is also problematic to say Christianity is a religion or Islam is a religion).

Still, I would say, there is a sense of community, a sense that there actually is something that makes “us” a community. Whatever that may be… For a lot of “us” though this community is not one of the first part of the definition (remember: “a place where a particular body of people lives”) for a lot of us this community does not exist in a manifest, concrete way. A lot of us are alone. And here I want to quote Migdalit:

It just lately at Beltaine struck me how useless being a Pagan is in a way if there’s no (Pagan) community to share with. You just cannot possibly celebrate any of our fests alone … you need other people; a circle, a family, a coven – just something. Being Pagan just means being part of a community; without that it’s just not the real thing …

So, Migdalit, I want to ask you why. I could put a why behind each of these sentences. I just see it so much different. I don’t want to attack you of course, I just wonder as I do see it very different.

I mean, what is the “use” of being Pagan? That’s in itself such a personal thing. I am Pagan because that is my path. Why can’t you celebrate our festivals alone? Most my Pagan life I have celebrated alone. And I am content with it, maybe just because that’s all I know, but still, I do not miss like-minded people at those occasions. And when I did celebrate with other people, those weren’t even Pagan. (Last year on Beltane I had my best friend and girlfriend over and we just sat and chatted about this and that and on Litha we were at an amusement park. Great things to do for these festivals I thought.)

And why does being Pagan mean being part of a community? In my way being Pagan means taking responsibility for one’s actions, leading a healthy, happy and colourful life, respecting others, respecting and protecting Nature, honouring the Gods and the festivals. I can do all this with people, I can do it alone and even when I do it alone I still feel part of a community (in that non-space way).

For some Pagans the essential thing might be to live Paganism in a community (i.e. with their family, with their coven, circle, whatever). For some, this community is something in between. They have their concrete community but it is not the main thing. And for others still this community is nothing more than the knowledge that there are likeminded people out there. They may be in direct contact with them (and probably in our modern media world most of them are) or they might even be “all alone”. Maybe they miss to be in touch with that community but maybe they don’t. Their way of Paganism still works.

Insight of the week May 21, 2009

Hi there,

I want to try something. I had something like this in mind already last year when I still had my blog on myspace and I want to try it here. It is called insight of the week. Each week I want to present a small item, something useless, funny, strange, surprising that I learned during the week. The little things you might laugh about And I don’t want to write about them long because I’d never get it done that way It takes way to long to compose a blog entry from first idea to final version. So here it goes:

Insight of the week #1

Hell is empty. Yes it is. From a protestant view, god is gracious and forgives everyone so Hell is empty. So please guys, stop trying to tell us that we’re going to Hell for practising Magic, Hell is empty.

City of Glass – Paul Auster April 26, 2009

Today something different. As reading is a big part of my life I thought I’d mention books I read. If just to keep writing and not forget about my place here

So here it goes: Paul Auster – City of Glass

My good friend and pen pal, Emma, has been recommending Paul Auster for some time. So when I made my book ordering after Christmas I decided to give it a try and ordered New York Trilogy. I didn’t know what to expect but I like to experiment and, as another pen pal recently put it, read books “outside the comfort zone”. I finished the first of the stories in the book last night. I was surprised that I finished it, actually because before I couldn’t really get myself to reading it, I found it dull. But then I told myself that as soon as I finished it I would start Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ Stone again. So I finished it. Not just because of the prospect of the reward but also because I wanted to know what would happen.
I do not understand Paul Auster. Or at least I did not understand City of Glass. I have no idea why someone would tell such a story. And I can’t help wondering about it either. It is a strange fascination that now drove me to typing a kind of review. One the one hand I think I don’t understand the story. On the other hand, what I’ve learned studying English literature tells me that that probably is the purpose of the story: I am supposed to not understand it and wonder about it.
Point one: there is a character called Paul Auster in the story (LC). He’s introduced quite early but doesn’t appear until much later. The central character is mistaken for him. At first I thought it was a clever trick to make me wonder about things like authorship, perspective and maybe a narrator. It drove me to thinking about the real author Paul Auster. But then the character was introduced which was a weird scene. A bit like an author meeting his figure just reversed. Then I wondered if maybe the character Paul Auster was the author Paul Auster and that there was a true story behind it. But then something weird happened. Suddenly the narrator drew attention to himself. Hum… He was an acquaintance of Paul Auster LC thus making it clear that LC was not telling the story so LC was not equal with the Paul Auster. You don’t get these narrators often these days. It’s not so fashionable anymore but I think it opens so many possibilities to perspective and for issues of reality and such. Furthermore, if you have a narrator that draws attention to himself, he usually does so at the beginning. If he doesn’t you usually don’t really notice that you have a narrator except for omniscient remarks now and then. Take Harry Potter for example. There you have  an omniscient narrator that you don’t even notice, except for little remarks and well, from the fact that there are chapters without Harry. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about the narrator until he drew attention to himself. If he hadn’t I think I wouldn’t be wondering what happened to the central character. In admitting that he is just telling what he has found out he opens up riddles. Who left the food on the floor? Where did Virginia Stillmann and Peter go? Why couldn’t they reach him? Where there really two Peter Stillmanns? What happened to the central character?
I am going crazy with these questions in my head …
What I also don’t get is the title. City of Glass… city… New York … glass … breakable, transparent… maybe a reference to the human mind as two characters go nuts… just a guess…
It’s probably the fact that I’m used to well-plotted books with a straight-forward storyline and here I was asking myself again and again “what is the purpose of this chapter/paragraph/fact?” I can only conclude that the purpose of all of it was to leave me wondering about this strange, strange story.