dual personalities

Another week has passed and soon will fade into snatches of memory: an anniversary celebrated, a movie watched, errands run, packages received, emails sent, and words exchanged in conversation. By next week I will remember what this post records and little else. Here are the highlights of my week.

My office is finally finished! I put the last posters up this afternoon.

Note the new poster half-frames, a marvelous invention that a colleague recommended. These ingenious ‘frames’ consist of four strips of magnetized wood, two at the top and two at the bottom of the poster, so that the it hangs correctly. Frames come in a wide variety of sizes, are incredibly easy to assemble and look great. (A number of different companies make these and I chose almost randomly; I’m not endorsing one in particular.) Here’s another view of the office.

As you can see, I still have piles of paper to go through but it’s getting there, and I am quite happy on the ground floor.

In other news, I received Storm over Sky in the mail and was delighted to discover that it is the prequel to Master of Morgana and takes place about a year earlier.

Lest you doubt that our young hero could experience so much adventure in quick succession, the plot involves trying to catch the sheep thief who threatens to destroy the community’s livelihood and mutual trust. I can’t wait to read it!

When not working (I did do plenty of that), I watched an Indian movie called Talvar from 2015, starring Irrfan Khan. Based on a real case, it is the story of a respectable dentist and his wife who awake one morning to find their 14 year old daughter in her bed with her throat slit. Having failed initially to undertake a complete search of the compound, the authorities eventually find the family’s live-in servant, a 50 year old man, similarly murdered on the roof-top terrace of the house.

The parents’ claim to have slept through the murders seems unlikely, but if they were smart enough to plan the crime, then they should have come up with a better excuse. Rashomon-like, the film presents three different explanations, each of which is incomplete or tainted in some way. The local police are so stupid and incompetent that they ruin the forensic evidence and assume the parents are guilty. The national police take over the case but care only for political advancement and so suppress the findings of their one competent investigator (Khan) on the grounds that his methods are not altogether legit. A third investigator comes up with another implausible explanation, while the media report every sensational and unverified rumor about the poor young victim. Like Rashomon, the story does not inspire confidence in one’s fellow man. The film was well done and interesting enough to make me look up the real case, the unsolved 2008 Noida double murders.

Perhaps the world is full of awful people. I prefer to think that it is full of decent people who are sometimes awful and often stupid. Be humble and remember, the fact that we can outwit sheep and lobsters (as the DH puts it) may place us at the top of the food chain, but it doesn’t mean we’re very smart.

Have a great weekend!