All aboard. People I very much appreciate:

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Pontas Soltas And Sleep-Learning

It is the third day of the year. I reflect upon great issues of the past twelve months and see evidence of disproportion. Decidedly, I reflect! Too much has been written about politics, religion, tremendous upheavals, downheavals, outheavals and heavals of all locative grammatic cases, but not enough about socks. I wrote about socks four months ago but the subject has otherwise been neglected. Let us correct that.
Here, I model Superman socks I got for Christmas from my son. These are socks obtainable only from Krypton. Of course there is no planet Krypton. Krypton is a island in the outer Azores, hence the title of this post. "Pontas Soltas" is  Portuguese for "Loose Ends". What are loose ends?

An example: We were once called Men of Steel because our iron-rich soil affected our diet --to the point of immigration to America. We had to escape incessant island fogs that caused us to rust. This serves as an example of  loose ends, unravels which must be raveled before progress is possible. True facts must be woven to accommodate individual variations without creeping down our ankles.

As a  schoolboy, my preferred method of study was hypnopedia --much in vogue during the 1950s-- but it left many loose ends. Boards of education accepted this innovation across the country, arguably without sufficient research beyond it doing some harm to socks. However, we learned the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence --which is why roll-call was taken each morning and  we wore out a lot of socks. 

27 comments:

  1. Be careful when unraveling loose ends. Pull on the wrong end and your marvelous socks will quickly become a very long thread.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. There's always a danger a thread will snag on tall buildings when I leap over them in single bound.

      Delete
    2. Possibly the loose thread will wrap around a building and cut it in half. The horror is just too much to contemplate.

      Delete
  2. New socks are an Advent tradition at our house. We get chocolate everyday but from time to time, the Advent Fairy also brings socks. I got some Le Petit Prince socks this year. I like your Superman pair very much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like them too, Squid. Little Prince socks, you say? Hmmm...I'll drop some hints this year.

      Delete
    2. Enjoy: http://www.outofprintclothing.com/collections/socks

      Delete
    3. Wow, Thanks! They have Edgar Allan Poe socks!

      Delete
    4. Quoth the maven. No kidding, Squid's recommended site, "Out Of Print Socks" offers Library Card Socks, Edgar Allan Poe-ka Dot socks and many more --all at reasonable prices!

      Delete
  3. Somehow, this delightful post resurrected unpleasant memories of being forced to read "Brave New World" when I was in high school. Perhaps I should read it again, in order to form a more unbiased perspective.

    I'm in favor of wearing Superman socks and think they should be mandatory attire in institutes of higher learning. We need more Men (and women) of Steel.

    If any of this makes sense, I'll be surprised.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aldous Huxley socks! I like it. Ooh, ooh, "O brave new world with such socks in it!" The Tempest, act 5 --Shakespeare socks! You always make sense.

      Delete
  4. Colorful socks have yet to find their way to my sock drawer. They would liven things amongst the blue, tan, blue, white, black and blue. Perhaps my toes will resolve to travel more expressively in this new year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. During working years, my drawer had only white crew socks --saved time dressing. In retirement, it's been a whole new adventure for my feet. Tom, you'll love it!

      Delete
  5. I read it a second time, Geo. - what about sleep-learning? The socks are so thrilling that one has to learn to sleep again? (I need the formula, please!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Brigitta, as Jon suggests in his comment, in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, hypnopedia was used as an indoctrination method. I once thought it might excuse my tendency to fall asleep in class. I don't know why I connected it with my socks.

      Delete
  6. Loose ends: they give us the opportunities to tie them around whatever we want.
    happy new year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A very positive attitude, Ana! Happy new year to you as well.

      Delete
  7. I am a bit dizzy from following your meandering mind (although some people would argue dizzy is simply my natural state), but one thing comes through loud and clear - you got socks for Christmas and I didn't, and, well, that's just wrong! I shall have to buy my own, I guess. Meanwhile, yours are quite awesome.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. O Jenny, we can't always help being dizzy but we can sure have awesome socks.

      Delete
  8. Socks...deal lord above. Ok..so when I was working, consulting actually the last few years, I concerned myself somewhat about socks. Argyle vs others, mostly. I came out on the side of argye, mostly.
    Since retiring, it's pretty been black vs not black. That is modified all black, or grey, and otherwise winter socks.
    Anyway, socks were my answer to Avogadro's problem, as was the copper lost in the theory: Cu(s) → Cu2+(aq) + 2e-
    1 Cu / Cu2+ ≡ 2e- .
    So anyway, Actual value of Avogadro’s number = 6.023 x 1023 mol-1
    Therefore % error = {(6.023 – 6.0092) / 6.023} x 100 = 0.229 %
    With this, we can see that my selection of argyles vs. other, more traditional choices, was consistent to my other lifestyle choices.
    Cheers,
    Mike

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mike, that would be consistent with Avogadro's Law, even if each sock is filled with a different gas.

      Delete
  9. I joined a "Socks of the Month Club". On the 14th of every month, interesting socks, wrapped up in colorful paper, arrive in my mailbox. Life does not get more exciting than that. I am hoping that someday I get a superhero pair like you have, because I could use a little zip in my feet these days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arleen, as more of my kids get in on this gift item I feel like I raised a sock of the month club --but only for Fathers Day, Birthday and Xmas. 14th of every month sounds like even more fun!

      Delete
  10. Socks of the Month club! Does that sound like fun, or what? If we have to encase our tootsies in cloth, it might as well be entertaining cloth. Like your superman socks. Super cool, dude.

    Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dudes like flashy socks, dear Susan. I also got more Star Trek socks from other offspring. A happy new year, like all happy things, starts with repairing discomforts of defeet.

      Delete
  11. Hi, Geo.! I really like your new socks. :) My socks usually never match, because I can't be bothered to fold them and so I grab whatever's in the basket without looking. It's very liberating.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Michelle! Glad you like my socks; I like them too. Good thing about these new thematic socks is you can mismatch them and it creates new continuities --Einstein and Star Trek, Le Petite Prince and Poe, endless possibilities-- and if that's not liberating I don't know what is.

      Delete

Please comment! Stats are just numbers and don't really represent you. I need to read what you think and thank you.