Rats by MR James - 8 out of 10

 

Rats by MR James

 

8 out of 10

 

“Rats” is a short ghost story by the British author M.R. James. It was first published in the March 23, 1929 issue of the magazine At Random. The story revolves around a young man named Mr. Thomson, who is the sole guest at a small seaside inn. One sunny afternoon, Thomson decides to explore the inn’s other bedrooms. He discovers that only one room has a locked door. Inside that room, he finds a bed with a completely covered human form on it. The head is covered, as if the person were dead, but the form is moving…’

 

The above is what Copilot gives you, the Artificial Intelligence available with edge, Microsoft’s search engine, and it looks like I will start my notes with whatever this pilot brings out, because then I can relax and get off on my tangents, with the assurance that the essence is already on the page, provided by an entity with higher IQ

Consolation might be provided by the idea that they do not have EQ, Emotional Intelligence https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/emotional-intelligence-by-daniel-goleman.html the ultimate expert on that would be Daniel Goleman, and I think I have read that EQ is twice as important as IQ, so we have the last laugh

 

However, I now think that EQ may have some explanation in Blink – The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, albeit I have to think about that, on the spur of the moment, it seems as if you take decisions in the blink of an eye, it is the Thin Slicing Theory at work, and therefore you ‘read the person in front’ and that is EQ

But if we look more carefully, it must be more complicated than that -or maybe not – I had the impression that, after a couple of decades of working with people, I could see if the one I just met will be trouble, obnoxious or somehow interesting, worth exploiting – but there is more to this than just anticipating that side

 

Having a good, or better than that emotional intelligence would be more than just seeing some things about the one you have in front, and just for some seconds, but it is a good start, I think Blink does explain so much  https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/blink-power-of-thinking-without.html and it is a spectacular read anyhow

Let us just stop here for a moment, or the rest of the note, although feel free to leave this space, as stated before, the only real good thing about Rats is in the first few lines, provided courtesy of Microsoft, Edge and their Copilot, the ‘rest is silence’ as in Hamlet…so you meet somebody for the first time, and you can analyze him

Let us work with a male subject, not because of misogyny, but on the contrary, to avoid exposing a female subject to this ordeal

 

If you work fast, that is ‘you think without thinking’, then you see if there is a potential for compatibility there, or the opposite is true – now, on cue, I just jump on another tangent, and look at proverbs, and how silly they are, take the ‘opposites attract’, such insight in this and this popular folklore, wisdom of the crowds

Bullshit, as our most venerated Constantin Noica said - he was and still is also very disputed and controversial, but then nobody is an absolute maverick and sage, you should read Intellectuals https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html by Paul Johnson and see about Leo Tolstoy, Ibsen and so many others

 

Constantin Noica wrote about proverbs and concluded that they are not worth the respect they get, one example is ‘you can’t have the cake and eat it’, on one level that is clear, but then from a different angle, this is when you really have it, when you put it inside you, and let us move to another, even more obvious

‘All is fair in love and war’ and Putin, his buddy Kim, and many others would agree, they do whatever the hell they want anyway – now for another tangent this is what Orange Jesus said about NATO, he invited Russia to ‘do whatever the hell it wants’ unless they pay protection money, it is simple for him, this is the ultimate fool in my book

 

The trouble is that, cave man that he is, he has the support of about seventy, maybe seventy-five, we will soon see, other ghouls that will likely put him in the White House again – moving from topic to topic, what about this CEO of Black Rock, who I supposedly smart, not EQ clever maybe we can conclude, and who supports Trump?

So back to Constantin Noica https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/02/povestiri-despre-om-de-constantin-noica.html alongside ‘all is fair in love and war’, there was that other saying ‘in love you never say I am sorry’, which was so popular some decades ago that we saw it printed on t-shirts, even in the Ceausescu regime

 

It was promoted in Love Story, first the book, then the blockbuster movie with Ali McGrow and Ryan O’Neill, produced by Robert Evans, a major box office hit https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/06/love-story-by-erich-segal.html a narrative where tragedy is front and center, the heroine falls sick and dies of cancer

There is no ‘they marry and live happily forever after’ unless we think Evans and Erich Segal, we read about the motion picture in The Kid Stays in The Picture https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-kid-stays-in-picture-by-robert.html the innuendo, the despicable behavior of Ryan O’Neil, but also about The Godfather, Chinatown and so much more

Finally, with no connection, there is this joke about lawyers and rats – scientists have decided to stop testing on lab rats and use lawyers instead, for three reasons – 1) there are not enough lab rats, 2) people get attached to rats, 3) there are some things even rats won’t do

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”