Martha had asked me to retrieve a book that Calculus had borrowed. Old librarian habits die hard! The book was entitled Survival Wisdom, and had, she said, a distinctive blue and yellow binding.
i’d ventured into Calculus’s yurt but Calculus wasn’t there, so i loitered awhile, looking for the book in question among the clutter of his desk. There were sheets of paper littered with number calculations, geometric designs, and patterns of Islamic art. i could not spot Survival Wisdom, but i did see an old fashioned school exercise book. It was pale blue and puffed up owing to the pen of Calculus pressing heavily down upon its pages. And across its front cover Calculus had scrawled A Theory of Relevance. With scruples ceding to curiosity i opened it and began to read:
– We distance ourselves, deliberately or unintentionally, from what is relevant. This may be self-evident in terms of the physical; the separation from shelter, heat, food. In the mental realm, however, we are more easily deceived by faux relevancies, tricked into separation from familial love, solid friendships & intellectual curiosity. To be distanced from such true relevancies is a badness which eats into mankind’s very soul…
i read all this with with little surprise. But then, in turning the page, i was confronted with the truly unexpected. Because what i proceeded to read was assuredly no theory of relevance.
Observations:
Moon 6 day 1 – 12 carrots.
Moon 6 day 2 – off food.
Moon 6 day 3 – 5 whole cucumbers!
Moon 6 day 4 – tolerates the presence of goats behind chateau, enough grass for all animals to graze upon.
Moon 6 day 5 – swallows whole bowl of lentils.
Moon 6 day 6 – has shower.
Moon 6 day 7 – lettuce and cucumber.
Moon 7 day 1 – suns herself in front of château.
Moon 7 day 2 – sluggish, off food.
Moon 7 day 3 – loves dandelion leaves.
Moon 7 day 4 – stung by bees, off food.
Moon 7 day 5 – attacks two goats, ravenous; eats 19 cucumbers, some mouldy.
Moon 7 day 6 – 85 carrots!’
Moon 7 day 7 – Seems to appreciate being ritually bathed.
It went on in this vein, passage after passage on Germaine’s eating habits! To think that this what his brilliant intellect had been working on. You can imagine my deception. Political scientist inside a cocoon of pure deep thought… master theoretician destined to be society’s saviour… theory of relevance to go down in the annals of political philosophy… i DO NOT THINK. This was terrible – to learn there was no king in the kingdom of the hippie.
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