Odyssud Pyramids

In Pyramids a-go-go, LoS mentions that in addition to the Masonic pyramid monument at the center of the Place de la Revolution (Blagnac), two pyramids can be found in the nearby Odyssud park. These earthworks, though, might more accurately be called mounds than pyramids; earthen heaps such as these are more conical than pyramidal, and a quick look at the Miamisburg Mound reveals a striking similarity.

That said, they are incongruous, placed as they are in the center of a French town. Set to one side of an artifical lake, they afford those who climb them a view of the environs. Not a spectacular view, but a view nonetheless.

The artificial lake here is probably the explanation. After digging up a few hundred metric tons of earth, where do you put it? You could construct berms or simply haul it away, or you could construct a couple of pyramid-like mounds.

And why not? They're fun. We can see stuff. They excite the imaginations of impressionable bloggers. And from below the little signs which explain what the visitors are seeing in the distance (or not seeing; there are proud proclamations , for example, that we are looking in the direction of Italy), well, these little signs look like a miniature Stonehenge.

So. There you go. Voila, as they say in France. A weird little bit of landscape architecture from the Illuminists of Blagnac.

The Ballad of the Singing Loo # 4

Part 4: When You Piss in a Toilet

Two things are certain: I hate that toilet, and I miss Kevin. Fucking lay-offs.

A typical day now: I tell 20 people, “The bathrooms are that way.” Then I alphabetize some books.

A typical day then? Me laughing as Kevin expounds, “When you piss in a toilet, dude, it sounds like a creek. You know that babbling sound, right? Think about those monkeys typing Shakespeare. If you piss and I piss and everybody else fuckin’ pisses long enough, well tinkle, tankle, bubble, babble, and *whamo!* the vocal ambulations waver just so and a real word emerges from babbling toilet water like the burning bush. And then they lock you up for saying so. Trust me, man. Lock ups.”

When the Hinckley library burnt down we had a field day. I know that’s bad, but we both hated their RFID catalog, which worked so great they fired two librarian assistants (new-found efficiencies, etc.). But something went awry when Harry Potter # 4 started to register as Harry Potter # 3. Then Harry Potter # 2 did the same. Manual systems kept up with the errors for a bit, but the problem spread to neighboring works in the stacks, the Rowleys and the Rowlinsons, and on down the line. Soon the library was threatened with the prospect of holding nothing but Harry Potter # 3. Kevin claimed that the actual books themselves began to change, a word or two at a time, that the physical collection itself slowly morphing into Harry Potter # 3. On top of that, he said that people were getting confused and returning personal copies of Harry Potter # 3 instead of whatever actual book they checked out. It was, in short, getting to be slim pickin’s at the Hinckley library.

Well anyhow, Kevin’s theories, man, that bullshit made my day roll. An RFID virus written by the FBI? The FBI convinced a “Harry-Potter-is-a-witch” wacko to burn down the Hinckley library?

“But … why?” I puzzled.

“A couple months before 911” Kevin looking shifty-eyed, “and someone in the Hinckley library is Googling all this crazy shit about the melting points of steel, the speed and fuel size of various planes, the physics of collision. The Feds found out, somehow got access to Google queries and traced it back. They were all over that place.”

“Seriously, dude,” he drolled, “Our library director’s ass-kiss thing with the Feds? Seriously, dude? Come on. What the fuck? What’s she so scared of, man?”

Silly stuff. But what the hell? Listening to Kevin’s theories sure killed time better than smuggling guitar tuners into whistling potties. And now he’s gone and the toilet coughed up that hairy hand and the Feds are all over us, and every time that toilet whistles—Phewwy eeeee!—I feel alone.

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Previously on The Laws of Silence:
* The Ballad of the Singing Loo #3
* The Ballad of the Singing Loo #2
* The Ballad of the Singing Loo

The Struggle Continues

Recent developments in the ongoing human/animal struggle:

* A plane was pumped full of poisonous gas to kill escaped pythons.

* Humans pledged "millions" to save bees.

* 21 horses dropped dead, mysteriously, right before a polo match.

* Somalian pirates "could only lament their littleness" when thousands of dolphins rebuffed their attacks on Chinese merchants.

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We "Huzzah!" a special shout out to Harper's Weekly Review, which has joined our special coverage of this ensuing event.

Mexico targets Death Saint popular with criminals

You may have heard of the "Narco-Saint" Jesus Malverde and La Santísima Muerte. These unofficial "folk" saints are very popular in Mexico among the poor and apparently with drug traffickers, hitmen, other bogeymen of the Prohibition state. All, we suppose, groups of people immersed in a violent milieu and with little faith in the system. They put their faith in only one true certainty.

According to this article in the Washington Post, the Mexican government has added destroying shrines to Santa Muerte to its list of ways to fight the drug cartels.

"A skeletal figure of a cloaked woman with a scythe in her bony hand, the Santa Muerte has become more popular in Mexico even as its drug wars have become more violent. Mexican law enforcement won't say outright it is targeting Santa Muerte, but last month soldiers stood guard while government backhoes crushed more than 30 public shrines to the saint in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. In the two weeks before, several altars in Tijuana and an altar built on the highway between Reynosa and Rio Bravo were razed."

Pyramids a-go-go

France, so it would seem, is fascinated with pyramids. In the Blagnac park called Odyssud there are not just one but two artifical pyramids more in the manner of the Maya than the Egyptians, with stairs leading up the side to a flat pinnacle akin to a ritual space.

Then of course there's the famous and controversial Louvre pyramid with its apocryphal 666 panes of glass.

Finally, what are we to make of this monstruous beast at the border crossing with Spain just south of Perpignan?