Tag: Sherlock Holmes

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Curious, by Louis Brown

Ionesco, Lewis Carroll, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Eugène Ionesco, La Cantatrice chauve

Eugène Ionesco (born Eugen Ionescu, Romanian: 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and one of the foremost figures of the French Avant-garde theatre [well, the theater of the abusrd]. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco’s plays depict the solitude and insignificance of human existence in a tangible way.

[la cantatrice sings operatic songs or national anthems whereas une chanteuse sings pop songs. Edith Piaff was a chanteuse. That explains the translation “soprano’]

Mr. MARTIN : Depuis que je suis arrivé à Londres, j’habite rue Bromfleld, chère Madame.

Mme MARTIN : Comme c’est curieux, comme c’est bizarre ! moi aussi, depuis mon arrivée à Londres j’habite rue Bromfleld, cher Monsieur.

Mr. MARTIN : Comme c’est curieux, mais alors, mais alors, nous nous sommes peut-être rencontrés rue Bromfleld, chère Madame.

Mme MARTIN : Comme c’est curieux ; comme c’est bizarre ! c’est bien possible, après tout ! Mais je ne m’en souviens pas, cher Monsieur.

Mr. MARTIN : Je demeure au N° 19, chère Madame.

Mme MARTIN : Comme c’est curieux, moi aussi j’habite au N° 19, cher Monsieur.

Mr. MARTIN : Mais alors, mais alors, mais alors, mais alors, mais alors, nous nous sommes peut-être vus dans cette maison, chère Madame !

Mme MARTIN : C’est bien possible, mais je ne m’en souviens pas, cher Monsieur.

Mr. MARTIN : Mon appartement est au cinquième étage, c’est le numéro 8, chère Madame.

Mme MARTIN Comme c’est curieux, mon Dieu, comme c’est bizarre ! et quelle coïncidence ! moi aussi j’habite au cinquième étage, dans l’appartement numéro 8, cher Monsieur !

Mr. MARTIN ( songeur ) : Comme c’est curieux, comme c’est curieux, comme c’est curieux et quelle coïncidence! vous savez, dans ma chambre à coucher j’ai un lit. Mon lit est couvert d’un édredon vert. Cette chambre, avec ce lit et son édredon vert, se trouve au fond du corridor, entre les water et la bibliothèque, chère madame !

Mme MARTIN : Quelle coïncidence, ah mon Dieu, quelle coïncidence ! Ma chambre à coucher a, elle aussi, un lit avec un édredon vert et se trouve au fond du corridor, entre les water, cher Monsieur, et la bibliothèque !

Mr. MARTIN : Comme c’est bizarre, curieux, étrange ! alors. Madame, nous habitons dans la même chambre et si nous dormons dans le même lit, chère Madame. C’est peut-être là que nous nous sommes rencontrés.

Mme MARTIN : Comme c’est curieux et quelle coïncidence! C’est bien possible que nous nous y soyons rencontrés, et peut-être même la nuit dernière. Mais je ne m’en souviens pas, cher Monsieur !

Mr. MARTIN : J’ai une petite fille, ma petite fille, elle habite avec moi, chère Madame. Elle a deux ans, elle est blonde, elle a un œil blanc et un œil rouge, elle est très jolie, elle s’appelle Alice, chère Madame.

Mme MARTIN : Quelle bizarre coïncidence ! moi aussi j’ai une petite fille, elle a deux ans, un œil blanc et un œil rouge, elle est très jolie et s’appelle aussi Alice, cher Monsieur !

Mr. MARTIN : ( Même voix traînante, monotone ). Comme c’est curieux et quelle coïncidence ! et bizarre ! c’est peut-être la même, chère Madame !

Lewis Carroll

CHAPTER II (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland” redirects here. For other uses, see Alice in Wonderland (disambiguation). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a novel by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), published on 4 July 1865

The Pool of Tears

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; –but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, `or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

Alice stretched tall.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


The curious Sherlock Holmes and the curious Dr. Watson, both found many curious clues in their murder investigations. Agatha Christie also found curious clues, curious inconsistencies that led her to discover the identity of a victim’s true killer. It is the favorite adjective of the British murder mystery genre and tradition.

© 11 December 2017

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Bicycle Stories, by Gillian

Apart from many tales of
many many happy days being my Beautiful Betsy’s athletic supporter as she rides
hither and thither and yon around the country, most of my bike stories are not
particularly positive.
My very first ‘bike ride’
was, as with many of us, on a tricycle. It was the summer before I turned five
and started school, and being an only child I had led a pretty solitary,
sheltered, life up to that point. I never owned a tricycle myself; this was an
old one which my cousin Peter had outgrown. Peter was four years older than me,
and it was he who led me off on this adventure. 

Peter & Gillian just before starting on the adventure.

We started off sedately enough
down a paved lane which became a muddy cattle trail which in turn became a
steep, narrow path hurtling down from the pasture to the river. Peter, also an
only child and not averse to having someone, especially a soppy little girl, to
show off to, shot off down the path on his boys’ two-wheeler, pedaling as fast
as his legs would turn, and letting out some pseudo-macho, pseudo-cowboy, yell.
I, oblivious to lurking dangers, rushed to keep up. Had I had anything beyond
zero experience on a trike, I would, of course, have known that three wheels on
a path like that were, at very best, going to get hopelessly stuck. But I
headed off in blissful ignorance, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes! 

Well,
long before I could get stuck in the mud, the front wheel hit an exposed tree
root and I ended up, or rather, down, face first onto a lump of granite, which
seriously loosened by two front baby-teeth. Meanwhile, Peter, arriving safely
but too swiftly at the end of the path, was unable to stop his bike and ended
up in the river. There had been recent thunderstorms in the hills and the river
was an angry brown torrent. Luckily for Peter, he and his little bike tangled
up together and jammed between two rocks, where he hung on for dear life and
yelled for yelp. This story might have had an unhappy ending, but my aunt,
casting a suspicious eye on her son as do most mothers of nine-year-olds,
observed us heading off across the pasture on the bluff above the river, where
he was, I later learned, forbidden to take his bike, and gave full chase. So,
other than, later that day, my uncle pulled out both of my battered front baby
teeth, we were little the worse for wear.
I never went bicycling
with Peter again, though we both rode bikes. I rode mine for purely practical
reasons; it was a way to get around. Peter rode to get around, but also rode
just for the fun of it. Then he went on long rides as a member of a bicycle
club, and did a little competitive racing. His daughter eventually married a
serious cyclist, though she never cared for bike-riding herself. Her husband
was in France training for the Tour de France when he died, on his bike, of a heart
attack. It turned out that he had some abnormal, and relatively rare, heart
condition, about which the details were never very clear and I forget if I ever
knew the correct term. He was only in his twenties when he died.
Twenty-five years later,
my cousin Peter, in his sixties, was riding his bike home from a nearby harbor
where he had been fishing. He died, on his bike, of a heart attack. As if two
men in the family dying of heart attacks while riding bikes was not coincidence
enough, the autopsy showed him to have the exact same heart condition as his
erstwhile son-in-law. And some like to say there is no such thing as
coincidence!
It seems that the
bike-riding at the time of the heart attacks was also coincidental. Both men
could as easily have succumbed to their heart conditions anywhere, anytime; as
likely to die reading the paper on the couch as to die on a bike.
Yes, but …….. I must
admit that when I got news of Peter’s death, and the circumstances, it scared
me. Two members of my family dead on the very seat of a bicycle, and I was
deeply in love with, and committed to, an avid bicycler. You must admit, it
would give you pause! And shortly after that, Betsy decided to go on her ride
from Pacific to Atlantic, an endeavor which of course I wholeheartedly
supported even while it rather gave me chills. I just had to get over it, which
in the event was not so very difficult. My anxiety level decreased rapidly as I
tried to consider it rationally. I decided it was actually good. I was what
Robin Williams refers to in his Garp persona, as ‘pre-disastered’. To
have such a thing happen twice in one family is extraordinary; a third time is
surely out of reach of reality. I even began to be amused, thinking of Sherlock
Holmes’s musings,
‘To lose one wife may be
considered unfortunate, but to lose three?’
No. It was ridiculous. I
shook it off. Now I never think of it. We are already too old to die young, and
if, by some horrible chance, Betsy should be stricken by a lethal heart attack
while riding her bike, hey, thank you kind fate. To die suddenly and swiftly in
the midst of an activity you love. Who could ask for anything more?
………………………………………….
And, although it has
nothing to do with my story other than the topic, I have to include a simply delicious
quote I stumbled upon.
When I
was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that
the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.
Emo Philip
© 30 May 2016 
About the Author 
I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.
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Communication, by Ricky

          “What we‘ve got here is …. failure to
communicate“ is a movie line from Cool Hand Luke spoken by Paul
Newman that is perfectly delivered, humorously and sarcastically, in keeping
with the character’s personality. 
Unfortunately for Luke, the senior guard was not amused, receptive, or
tolerant of the mocking of the Captain’s phrase.  Herein lies the difficulty with communicating
with anyone; words.
          The
Captain and the Boss were communicating a message to Luke but their words were
not precise enough for Luke to clearly understand.  Thus, the Captain and the Boss were the ones
who failed to communicate.  They should
have made it perfectly clear that if Luke tried to escape again, he would be
shot dead; they didn’t and Luke died.
         
          Words
arrive containing varying numbers of syllables, shades of meaning, and ease of
pronunciation.  The definition of words
can be modified from the original by common usage, which tends to happen
because members of society do not learn enough vocabulary so they can pick the
perfectly accurate but seldom used word. 
Some people use many long words and complex sentences to communicate
simple ideas; a practice which often leads to misunderstandings.  There are yet others who can communicate
powerful ideas using simple and everyday words. 
An example is Abraham Lincoln’s statement, “You can fool some of the
people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot
fool all of the people all of the time.” 
Do you suppose Lincoln was warning other politicians, warning the
public, or giving politicians a tip on how to get elected?
          Some
communications take on a life of their own and are so common in usage as to
become clichés.  “Houston, we have a
problem.” is one of those. The phrase originated following the Apollo 13
disaster.  Unfortunately, no one ever
said those words.  Here is the actual
conversation between the Houston command center and Apollo 13.
John Swigert: ‘Okay,
Houston, we’ve had a problem here.’
Houston: ‘This is Houston. Say again please.’
James Lovell: ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus
undervolt.’ 
          For
dramatic effect, the movie of the events surrounding Apollo 13, altered the
exact words.  The incorrect phrase was
picked up by the movie going public and now is commonly used to indicate any
problem not just very serious ones.
          Likewise,
“Beam me up, Scotty” is a catchphrase that made its way into popular culture from the science fiction television series Star Trek. Though it has become
irrevocably associated with the series and movies, the exact phrase was never
actually spoken in any Star Trek television
episode or film.
          “Beam me up, Scotty” is similar to the phrase,
“Just the facts ma’am”, attributed to Jack Webb’s character of Joe
Friday on Dragnet; “It’s elementary, my dear
Watson”, attributed to Sherlock Holmes; “Luke, I am your
father”, attributed to Darth Vader; or “Play it again, Sam”,
attributed to Humphrey Bogart’s character in Casablanca; and “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!”
attributed to Gold Hat in The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  All five
lines are the best-known quotations from these works for many viewers, but not one is an actual,
direct quotation.  Yet each of them
conveys an idea, concept, and image that communicates very well because a large
number of people have seen the source of the misquoted dialog and the erroneous
version has become ubiquitous in our culture. 
          Communication also suffers when the sender and the receiver
are not talking about the same concept or idea. Remember the dialogue between Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins in the
movie “Big”?
          Susan: I’m not so sure we should do this.
          Josh: Do what?
          Susan: Well, I like you … and
I want to spend the night with you.
          Josh: Do you mean sleep over?
          Susan: Well, yeah.
          Josh: OK … but I get to be on
top.
          One conversation between two different people, but on two
incompatible topics.  This particular
conversation also illustrates the effect differences in age and experience (or
lack thereof) can have upon the inferred meaning of the words heard.
          Yet another problem with communication arises when one
party doesn’t understand the clear and plain message he was given or does not
take it seriously.  While in the Air
Force, one of my commanding officers was a colonel and a pilot.  He related to me the following.
          Before becoming a pilot he was a navigator on a military
transport aircraft approaching his U.S. destination after crossing the Atlantic
Ocean.  The plane was understandably low
on fuel.  Their primary destination had
bad weather to the point that they could not land and there was just enough
fuel to make it to the alternate airport. 
The navigator called the traffic controller for permission to depart for
the alternate destination.  He was told
to standby to which he replied that they needed to leave now or not have enough
fuel to make it.  Again, he was told to
standby.  He repeated the situation yet
again and was told to standby.  At this
point the pilot called on the intercom asking if they had permission to depart
for the alternate airport.  The navigator
told him “yes” even though no permission was given.  The person on the ground did not appreciate
the gravity of the situation and let himself be bogged down with control
issues.
          Sometimes the person initiating the communication sends an
accurate message composed of factual data but in reality doesn’t state the
actual issue.  For example, when I was
young I once told my mother that my urine was runny (a fact), which did not
impart any information to her.  The real
issue was I had diarrhea.  Another
example would be the numerous politicians who when asked a question answer with
information not directly related to the question.  I think they have a condition known as
“Diarrhea of the Mouth”.
          The moral of this essay: 
Be gay when the concept or idea or message goes through without
resulting in chaos.  The word “gay” is
used correctly, but did it, the other words, and the sentence structure combine
to confuse or clarify the message?  This
is yet another example of the potential for a message to get “lost in
translation” when there is a poor choice of words and grammar by the sender.
          The real moral of this essay:  In your next life, pay attention in language
class.
© 22 April
2012 
About the Author 
 I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale
and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to
turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their
farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents
divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is: TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com