[ via #joiito ] A German couple went to a fertility clinic to find out why they were still childless, and the answer turned out to be ridiculously simple.
How this is possible in the country that created carstuckgirls.com [safe for work, but a little weird] is beyond me. I smell a tall tale. I hope.
This entry and this entry got me thinking about a story I haven’t read in a long time.
Most people with at least a passing interest in literature or science
fiction will have heard of H.G. Wells’ better-known works such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds (does anyone remember the prog-rock album inspired by it?). While I enjoyed both, the Wells story that really “got” me was the short story, The Door in the Wall.
(The “Door in the Wall” link leads to the full text of the short story. Go ahead and look — it’s a pretty quick read.)
In The Door in the Wall, Lionel Wallace is an Englishman of high standing — “A Cabinet Minister, the
responsible head of that most vital of all departments”, as he describes himself. Redmond, the narrator, describes Wallace:
In spite of all this, Wallace is not a happy man. He is a haunted man, consumed with regret.
When he was a child, he wandered away from home and got lost in West
Kensington, where he chanced upon a green door set into a white wall.
He felt strangely compelled to pass through the door, which led him to
a magical garden filled with friendly panthers, happy playmates and
wonderful games. After playing for some time, he was appraoched by a
woman who showed him an unusual book:
“It was wonderful to me, because the pages of that book were
not pictures, you understand, but realities.”
The page immediately after the one that showed him wondering whether
to go through the green door did not show him playing in the garden.
Instead, it transported him back to the grey streets of West Kensington.
He tells Redmond that he has seen the door a number of times
throughout his life, but never went through it again. Each time he had
seen the door, he had some kind of pressing appointment: school, a
lady, an important vote in parliament. Each time, to his eternal
regret, he chose ignore the door. After telling his story to Redmond,
he vowed that the next time he saw the door, he would not ignore it.
He is found dead in a tubeway construction site the day after he saw
Redmond. He had apparently gone through a door set in a wall
surrounding the site and plunged into the excavation to his death.
Was the door and the garden just the product of a bright but stifled
child’s imagination, or did Wallace actually discover some kind of
gateway to another world? I don’t think it matters. Regardless of
whether it was a magical portal or ordinary door, if he had tried the
door at least once after his
first encounter, he wouldn’t have lived a life of hollow victories, of
“if only” and “what could have been”, and he might not have fallen to
his death as a result of desperation.
Do you keep walking past your door in the wall?
I’d just like to thank everyone for their kind words and condolences in response to my entry about my grandfather’s passing away. You guys are the best.
On Sunday around 8:00 a.m. Manila time, Dr. Saturnino Ador Dionisio I,
my mother’s father and my last remaining grandparent, passed away.
I admired him for his cleverness and his tech-savvy, a trait that runs
strong in the Ador Dionisio family. During the brutal Japanese
occupation of the Philippines during World War II, the Japanese army
were in the habit of confiscating Filipinos’ automobiles for their own
use. Granddad took his car apart and hid its component pieces all over
his property. When the war was over, he reassembled it and was one of
the few civilians with a car in 1945.
His
request was to be cremated and to have his ashes flown to Toronto,
where they will be laid to rest beside my grandmother’s.
R.I.P. Granddad.
In reponse to the recent entry, A slice of last night as a play in one act, both Liz and Graig have written responses in their blogs. Go check ’em out.
For more on the topic, check out:
Your comments, as always, are welcome.
At long last, all the entries of The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century are finally in one place!
For the longest time, entries before July 2003 could only be found in my original Blogger-based blog, located at http://kode-fu.com/shame, while anything from that point on was located here at http://accordionguy.blogware.com.
That changed a couple of hours ago after I imported all those old
entries into this blog. This blog now has every entry I’ve ever made —
over 2200 in total — from November 11, 2001 to the present day.
For those of you not familiar with the old blog, here are links to what I consider are some of my best entries:
The New Girl Story
This is the blog entry that got me nominated for a bloggie and landed me a chapter in the book Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs.
The short version: I gush about my new girlfriend in a blog entry,
someone reads that entry and sends me an email warning me that the
girlfriend is not whom she says she is. Creepiness ensues.
Adventures in Banking
You wouldn’t believe the bureaucratic gymnastics I had to go through
back when my housemate gave me rent cheques drawn from an American bank.
The Star Spangled Banner and Anal Sovereignty
The accordion saves my ass from US Customs…literally.
That Syd, what a mensch!
He’s been our family’s accountant for over twenty years because he’s
not afraid to get into shouting matching with Revenue Canada or suggest
roughing up my deadbeat housemate.
The World Youth Day Piece
I take the “unpopular” side in the debate over World Youth Day.
The accidental go-go dancer
The last thing I expected was to end up being hired as a go-go dancer
for a downtown club. That accordion gets me into some odd situations, I
tell you.
Not-So-Smart Mobs
Conversations and observations from the 2002 Reclaim the Streets party in Toronto. Their hearts are in the right place, but their heads might need a little work.
Breach of Security
Once upon a time, a guy posing as a new neighbour in distress conned me and
my housemate out of 80 bucks. Three months later, in what is either supreme
testicular fortitude or forgetfulness, he visits my house again and manages
to con my housemates out of 80 bucks and a lift.
The Best Christmas Present Ever
Christmas meets crablice (no, not mine!). A heart- and crotch-warming
story of the true meaning of Christmas that’s not likely to be turned
into a television special anytime soon.
Last Night
In a single night, I face romantic disappointment, thwart a pickpocket,
endure bad poetry, entertain a crowd, aid and abet underage drinking,
come between a small-town girl and two Gap ninjas, entertain another
crowd and get complimented on my hat.
Konichiwa, 2002!
In which I recount what happened to me on fourteen New Year’s Eves, in reverse order, from 2002 to 1988.
Now it can be told
I went on the date, brought the accordion, got a job.
Worst Date Ever
She was a pretty blonde waitress with an English accent who worked at
the cafe I frequented. I had a crush on her from the first moment I
laid eyes on her, and it turns out that she had a thing for me, too.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the few things that went right during the
relationship. This funny story contains scenes with adult situations,
violence, strong language and ABBA.
Robertson J. Strickler is the new housemate at my abode, Big Trouble in
Little China. He will enjoy the amenities that our fine bachelor pad
has to offer, but he needs to be mindful that he doesn’t waste his life
glued to the digital cable or our megabits of bandwidth. I defer to
“Hugo” from the webcomic Scary Go Round:
