Subject: LLeP - of pancakes, wisdom, and
Hanoi
Date: 10/22/03 4:37 PM
From: Elizabeth Pfeiffer, lizzie@hydrene.com
To: Monte, Shelby, Heidi, Shanon, Ciam
So who would have thought I would ever be
grateful to the Towers of Hanoi? (which is just one more in a long list of
things that I know far too much about) Or that they would have a profound
influence (gad I had to type that word a lot (early attempts being infuelnc,
inflecne, and infleunce)) on the clever preparation of a breajfasty snack (I am
leaving the j there so that no one will think that I was making up the
"influence" misspellings). But there it is - from computer science
wankerism to deft pancake savoir faire. Life is amazing!
It hearkens back to the article I read..
oh... a couple of hours ago, about memory and age and exercise. Now, I have no
intention to address the exercise part of the article, other than to conclude
ahead of time that my article will lead to the conclusion that exercise leads
to non-exercise. The memory and age thing is my theme. The article said that
age increases memory, which you may note flies in the face of all accepted
wisdom, humor, and experience. But, you see, it was a trick answer (the
flipside of the trick question), which concept in itself has an exalted history
in fairy tales - the dreaded "hosed wish". Example: the genie appears
in the morning to grant your wish. Being muzzy headed, and not realizing the
world changing opportunity presenting itself, you ask (the question part) for
perfect pancakes. Flash! There is the tray on your bed, and there they are the
most perfect pancakes ever created. But of course you can't eat them, because
if a bite were taken out of them they would no longer be perfect, right? Thus
you are hosed by the trick answer.
In the article under discussion, the trick
answer is "intelligent memory", which is some techno jargon for
"you learn from experience." We are not talking "hey, did I
shampoo already?" memory, but the memory of "hmm, last time I touched
that coil on the stove when it was orange like that it really really
hurt". The article actually ends with the mind numbingly brilliant
conclusion that you get wiser as you get older, sort of reminiscent of another
scintillating bit of research I read, which lead the scintillating researchers
to the conclude that when one spouse is depressed and unhappy, it tends to
affect the other spouse. ! . What can you say to such ingenious and ground
breaking reasoning?.
Well, I seem to have augmentated my intelligent
memory in correlation with my chronological accumulation, precisely as
predicted by the article. How so? I had made one pancake and it was languishing
on my plate awaiting company. But as I was preparing to place the second
yummilicious carb-bomb on the plate I noticed that the second pancake was
considerably larger in diameter than the first. So of course I couldn't put it
on top of the first one. Larger pancake on top violates all aesthetic rules of
stacking. And I have no intention of delving into the rules themselves because
that would draw me into an embarrassing discussion of the Libra part of my
chart, and here at the LLeP we do try to keep the focus on the Gemini Moon.
So the large pancake had to go underneath the
small pancake. But what a pain in the spatula to accomplish. Until the Towers
of Hanoi program surfaced murkily from some neglected and grimy part of my
brain. Now this program was highly popular in college for a little while, as a
measure of computer chutzpah. There are rings of various sizes stacked on a
pole all willy nilly (shudder). There is another empty pole. The computer (poor
thing) is supposed to get the rings all arranged in size order, largest on the
bottom, and the only way it can do it is by moving rings from one pole to the
other. I mean really, the things that people set computers to do. No wonder
they take revenge in so many Sci Fi movies! I eagerly await the movie which
starts with a scene of lots of people in a room, forced by computer overlords
to move rings from one peg to another, or try to find how many ways you can get
from Duluth to Tucson.
But somehow all that stacking and shifting
informed my present existence in a positive way. Because suddenly I put the
small pancake back into the frying pan, on top of the large pancake, then put
the resulting stack onto my plate. And suddenly my breakfast became more than a
guilty treat, it became a feast in celebration of my wisdom. Once in a while I
still have to check if the shampoo bottle is wet to figure out if I already
shampooed, but I am a kick ass genius at pancakes!
And now I am going to punt the exercise crap,
because Buffy is on, and Willow is going to wreak havoc after which I will
cease to watch the show because they broke it with guns.
Okay, commercial. so... Who are the super
wise people in the world? Gurus and yogis and such, right? What do they do?
Nothing! So we must conclude that the ultimate wisdom leads to the
understanding that doing shit is too much trouble. And since (according to the
article) exercise improves intelligent memory, then sufficient exercise will
lead one to wise up and stop doing stuff. Pretty lame, eh? Sorry,
love love love,
Lizzie
PS Important Late Addendum! My last paragraph
is now echoed (and thus vindicated, naturally) by the Onion kid who got enough
gumption from his karate classes to quit them.