Brian O’Dowd was born in Dublin. He lives in Toronto. O’Dowd is a Professor at the University of Toronto. His novel ‘A Wicklow Girl’, was published in 2017. Available on Amazon etc. Publisher: Tellwell, Canada. In 2019 he won the prestigious Prix Galien 2019 Canadian Science Award, as reported in the Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/dubliner-wins-prix-galien-2019-award-for-pharmaceutical-research-1.4093350

‘Look At Us Now’ Ⓒ

Brian O’Dowd

Flea’s life by elephant’s tail end,

flew random as they are wont.

Declared if to query!

 ‘What’s an elephant?’

‘Never seen such a one!’

 

Lunatic Knob from young days anonymously broadcast I’d been total dunce in High school, maliciously classified ‘slow learner’.   Held back, take longer to answer which versions to jam or get smart laughs.  Once our nefarious revelations confined to lavatory stall wall.  There’s no need to keep banging on about it.  Now plugged in computer jokers having dumb opinions, career damaged then having ‘doubting Thomas’ girlfriend read.  Got shoved ‘out of here’ by those sexy but spiky high heel boots!  Once caught her eye, now cut loose having departed to Honolulu or someplace daft.  After had me gone all madcap.  Still strive to stay active with my ‘Mill-waukee’ thousand step recommend.  Every place grasping for peaceful straws tramping thru’ farmer’s orchard fields.  Head held low under water even when tides out by Sandymount.  Never her dream boat so no blame with seeking better, it’s what we do natural.  I departed Booterstown stuck ages in Monkstown while eyeing ‘Greatest Off All Towns’ Goatstown.  Take a bow, perhaps easy to claim only idle boast.  Our world with kicking and screaming edges forward, an upward trajectory.  God willing and by those abilities He granted Homo-sapiens things improve, useful stuff happens.  Reliable ‘Fire’ for instance, ever try consume raw spuds?  Praties only for us.  Played role in my life surviving solitaire, mashed with butter and beans!  Needs must when they just up and skedaddle when not a baby washed.    

 

Life’s mysteries.

Eventually in the world,

Best philosophy.

Things get better!

 

With us living beyond even science fiction lives.

 

Vital discoveries on hold, wait for future generations?:  Global history more focused on terminating biology by war-machines, horrendous psycho-terror torture devices.  Devastating scurvy disease one low hanging fruit treated and cured.  ‘Go suck lemons,’ order for sailors.  Scurvy busy hindering long distance sailing.  Advice long time in coming, they’d missed that boat through ages, resulting in deaths of many.  Unleashed thereafter ‘Limey’s’ sailing all about busy building an Empire!  If they all could be lemons, well maybe not.  Not my business but there are 135 pyramids, maybe extra under Antarctica ice.  With 118 in Egypt, many sealed for ages right after construction.   Were ancient big shots busy squandering nations resources making vain glorious Monumental for themselves?  Giant objects admired or not fully understood?   If nation’s attentions out of focus, leave so much undiscovered.  This enlightened age keeps generations of research scientists gainfully employed.  Human beings are good at sciences, evidenced by our lives.   Universities stacked to gills by what’s been revealed all solid hard earned, evidence contained  by miles of book shelves.  Biology investigations seeking nitty-gritty, knocking cellular doors, create step up inroads.  Constant finding smaller yokes waving ‘catch us if you can’.  With barely misspent pennies.  Who among us could live Victorian times, 1820 to 1914?  Scant ~110 years before.  Folk’s photos from those times with young ones?  Fear in gaunt eyes, they’d nothing only poverty.  With us so spoilt!  Highest ever on the hog!  Intolerant of getting to grips with gifted life on the planet.  Complaining!  Not only waiting in rain for crowded bus.  Having favourite TV show cancelled with news of dreadful events happening to others far away.  Place’s so earthly foreign never knew we had it until spotted by Hubble.  Plane to Spanish’s beaches delayed!   Off for two weeks paid vacation in the sun.  Oh Mercy!  Irritated searching dairy products for New Zealand meaty chops.  Then ‘sold out’.  Unacceptable!   How that happens?  Their journey to your dinner plate a mere 11,554 miles!  (Ireland to New York is ~3,100 miles).  That ‘overnight book delivery’ took four days!  Such anguish!  What am I paying for?  Then some fortunate sleeping in beds high up in long hauls.  No one predicted such luxury for us plebs.  E-mailing all wily nilly no postage required.  Living better than Pharaohs, ‘twas mighty inventions got us here.   Well with some flaws in this system, much entertainment at home making people shut in quiet and lonely.  Hurry roll out best robots, something to talk, have a laugh and even cuddle.

—————–

Change Routes!

Model T for horse.

Phone for telegraph.

Tissues for billowing handkerchiefs. 

Boreen to highway.

Light bulb for candle.

Valve to transistor.

Girl friend ‘OK, you’ll do’.

For now!

Pocket Calculator:  Unheralded yet consequential, by magical appeared in 1971.  My dream come true, put noticeable spring in my steps.  Many great inventions combined to create the device.  Imagine when first turned on get 2 plus 2 = 4?  Such cheers!  Debatable but probably greatest yoke since first wheel with or without a barrow.  I’d severe dose of Math dyslexia at school, posh way of declaring ‘dumb’, cannot count those ways.  One fell swoop Math nightmare obliterated, arithmetic’s tyranny et fini.  Trusty machine now ‘solar powered’, festooned by fancy symbol keys many never pushed, not prone having digit errors or not carry numbers, no stressed limits.  Reasonably functioning citizen so when needing cos, tan, sin, log or square roots?  No clue what they are, nor use.  Never since fancied roots, garden or canals.

Then that question?

 

Use or lose challenge,

healthy have neurons do sums!

Don’t care, suffered too much.

Fully embrace electronic short cuts!

Heartfelt thanks for that!

You’ll never take calculator from my hands.  Taking it even Heaven bound!

Mental multiplying beyond 12×12 uncharted territory, only savants doing 152 x 279 for kicks.  None so smug as number wizards, lads with heads for that game, could unaided figure whatever ‘X’ demanded with chalk stick on black board.  In class with them had me insecure.  Long division/multiplying with pen on paper, now reserved for tricks at nerd parties.  Slide rules abandoned, such yokes invented in 1622, still utilized by Apollo moon lads in the sixties. Wow! One lunar ruler fetched $77,000 likely glides smooth, despite brushing with moon dust!  ‘Slide-rule makers’ you ask?  Dismissed fancy calculators passing fad, check calculated odds?  Well no, still assembled!  Niche market?   Perhaps old geezers resistant to have proud rulers abandoned on the shelf.  Limited ability at school never designed accommodating such things, loaded already with Latin and Gaelic.  BTW what’s with geometry?  Know his name Pythagoras embedded in brains like worm in apple.  Greek born in 570 B.C., milked triangles for posterity.   Why having most better things not invented?  Potato crisps within his grasp, you know once bitten!  Could have cornered entire Med market.

PTSD warning!

“In a right angled triangle the square of the hypothenuse is

equal to the sum of the square of other two sides.”

Got it now?

 

Rumors after this revelation sacrificed an ox.  Verify difficult, but man wins as every school kid knows his name.   Once hearing never forget.  He’d done other stuff, reported not to indulge in ‘pleasures of love’.  Sparing times for two bare hands.  Think arithmetic teachers obsolete?  No chance, career arsenal protected, multi-cornered by other incomprehensible markets.  Stock in trade.

 

When you think worst over.

Then waiting!

In your face and bad dreams.

Algebra, trigonometry, statistics, geometry.

Fruits from the poisonous tree.

 

Biting more than I could hew.

Ireland isle of Saints and Accountants.

How we ended up!

Count profits of briquette bails on trucks.

If math intolerant off you go.

Ride waves, no parting tears.

 

After gravity travails Newton delivered calculus, who among asked for that?  No longer allow us floating all about, now back grounded in sweats facing bizarre maths.  Better if he’d taken sabbaticals, enjoyed soaking sun’s rays in Blackpool.  Share cocktails with fair maidens, relax for once.  Callous fellow bamboozled by alchemy’s promise, bogged down coal to gold.  In reach?  Sure then we’d all be on easy street.  Then imagine price of coal?  Unsettling efforts in his times ran aground turned to cinders.  Isaac!  Nuggets only buried underground or in streams.  If married such nonsense avoided, get divorced (no chemistry), switcheroo noble gold to base coal.

Chronovisor: Fact or myth debate continues, want to be real science!  Pellegrino Ernetti,  Benedictine monk created device kept in Vatican could ‘it’s claimed’ observe events, ‘see through time’.  Includes visions of Jesus Christ Last Supper and Crucifixion.  Device dismantled, buried in Vatican archives.  Should be selling like baker’s dozens!  We’d be addicted more than any Internets.  Checking endless events.  Happier times first obviously before she left and on Courtown beach years previous.  First pint of porter by Liffey that concerned about futures.  Was well right to be worried.  Take your pick, Brendan Behan and James Joyce, untold ‘Finneghan’s wake’ and ‘Borstal boy’ yarns.  Fierce Viking long boats, brave Brian Brou’s battle of Clontarf in 1014 at age 73, Ireland High king since 1002.  Check GPO heroes, 1916.  Saint Patrick and shamrocks, Daniel O’Connell, Michael Collins adventures.  Saint Brendan standing on ocean’s whale island.   Gladiators dreadful mayhem in Colosseum.   Having such on tap never vacate domicile except for gargle, working for the wages.  People at Pillar’s stump in 1966, screaming.

‘You’d blow it all to hell’, now how will we meet?  At ‘An Lar’, where’s on this earth is that yoke?’

Me and latest bird always ‘see you by the Pillar!’  Where else?   Phoenix Park at the Zoo?  New birds meeting only hit or miss, met from disco pints of porter on board, never by light of day sure ‘is that her’?  Lost with few coppers for phone box.  After that O’Connell street bridge served for many break ups or cruel stood ups, bus home feeling lonesome.  More waters under the bridge.  

‘Sure never seen you, did you have a hat, scarf or something?’

Time Travel:  Look teleporting books through air, like nobody’s business, not science fiction?  Who on earth figured words flying in formation, not jumbled?  Declares anything possible.  Dubious as flinging unwanted paperback over cliffs of Moher dashed to rocks below, soaking but still read pages in order?  Now with lads returning from futures.  One visitor arrested in 2003 for suspect stock market trades. Portfolio valued hundred million in few months. Confessed came from year 2200 then abruptly high tailed! Likely departed loaded with gold and gossip, sod all else. Glad to be off with acquired riches, back for diamonds later. Reported 1937 painting “Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield,” fella watching his smartphone! That’s not right! Who’s calling him? If travel back portals open I’m carrying stash of solar powered calculators, plus jar of penicillin.  Not needing whatever’s snake oil cures.  Electric kettle useless, only weird alien static reception on radio.  Impress ancient Kings and Queens toast of Europe or burned for witchcraft.  Ancient painting and sculptures displaying handbags held by figures, mystified historians over ages.  Depictions ‘World Over’, earliest Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, 11,000 years ago, also Iraq, central and south Americas. My contention handbags held calculators that fit like a glove.  Intentioned Johnny Appleseed time travelers distributed caseloads of stuff.  Handy in market place comparing mango cost dealing unscrupulous merchants.   Notice handbags with contents never left abandoned in tombs.   Valued!  Like Ma out at the shops finding bargains.

Far fetched?

Wild Speculation?

No proof so not proven in error.

Perhaps helped engineer giant monuments.

Replace clunky Antikythera mechanism,

Greek ‘computer’ device.

Cog wheels lost in sea.

Rusting.

 

Miraculous Spiral Staircase: New Mexico 1852, Loretto Chapel now completed, Nuns required to climb to their choir loft, encountered ladder problem, flawed design space narrow.   Their Architect had passed away.   Nuns prayed together for solutions.   With mule and tools hero appeared on door step, announced he’d solve their problem.  Nuns delighted!  Carpenter worked three months ‘privately’ as insisted.  Once stairway completed he vanished, no name or payment requested! Result truly unique double helix structure, wood pegs no nails, 33 superb steps. Even now marvel to behold. Convent wondered if ‘twas created by Saint Joseph the Carpenter himself?

Crop Circles: More to this phenomena than meets the eye?  With ~10,000 total reported circles from fields all about. Not beating around the bush, perhaps not all hoaxer’s shenanigans? Not all crap circles. Perplexed and intrigued by complexity, brief times for complex appearance, ‘tis open field for investigations. Who has that time to waste with costs of living? Greetings from ‘some-place’ else getting mixed up and tarnished?   I’ve seen patterns in my dandelion garden, ‘cut me’, alleged crafted by fussy neighbor. Golf putting lawn acceptable, not with yellow bits. Suspect Nature head of that game, know what needs to do experienced Springs over long ages. Relentless killing ‘weeds’ with poison ends in rivers and lakes. Stop that! 

Electron Microscope:  Each day labs open for business, facing intense competition.  Biology cannot follow maps or rules.  Biologists made enhancements to improve lives, should be celebrated like music band heroes?  Where would we be without them?  Suspect not only white coat laundries in despair.  Had a hand early insisting doctors wash even skilled surgeon hands.  Photos of disease ravaged distressing disfigurements and past times with stinking cities, research pulled us where we are today.  Cherish all that.  You never knew had it so good.  Big instruments seeing tiny things.  Game changer use ‘beams of electrons’ that’s for real!  Finding meat on bare bones, fresh as untrampled fallen snow.  How they do that?  That will upset the apple cart in it’s high time.  Now hitting nails on the head, extract cellular info from most difficult yoke on the planet where others could not.  Unless encounter ‘border line prying limits, getting too smart-alec nosey’?  Not as coal mines ‘dig it out lads, get hands dirty’.  Planets birthing giants easier having cells big as ping-pong balls.  Robert Hooke in 1665 first see and tell, after 360 years cells remain mysterious!  Best news scientists forty years ago knew less, even big-shots missing stuff.  Still unknowns vastly more than what’s discovered.   Many old skulls contain brains wracked from careers trying, spend retirement days winding down playing bingo, ‘Two fat ladies 88’.  Bench instruments getting constant upgrades in knowledge pursuit not like moon explorers abandoned for nigh on 56 years.  They say Hooke cantankerous, nowadays biologists strive be ‘first’!  Become national treasures.  Who else going to call?  Humans constructed by 200 unique cell types, even appendix and tonsils.  Working together allow us saunter hither and thither mouthing off having garish opinions.  Nowadays fewer souls dedicate lives figure what our Creator designed in 7 days and flourished through the ages.

First cell designed to cut loose, roam free.  All life formed from that cell.

Ask how you ask, then ask who you are, well why do you live?  Mind your business.

Conquering scourge of dreadful tobacco: Insidious and horrible outed as a deadly killer.  In 1964 Surgeon General of the U.S concluded cigarettes cause of lung cancer.   Tobacco they say preventable cause of disease.  Delicate lungs designed to absorb oxygen from air, cannot deal with tar deposits from smokes.  Stop cigs save your life.  WHO estimate one in five people on the planet used tobacco in 2022, down from one in three in 2000.  In Ireland 10% smoke every day, 76% support banning sale of tobacco.  In response to softening sales, industry in 1950s introduced filters. That should fix it! Many ancestor generations devastated by smoking. Eradication cannot come quick enough. 

‘Zoopharmacognosy’: describes jungle primates self-medicate eat distinct leaves treat various ailments.  We but Johnny come lately, having them leading us to identify useful plants.  Under investigations from observing Chimps new medicine!  Anti-microbial and inflammation!  Most days our pet mutts realize kind Vet nurse in white coat makes things better.  After that scary needle injection.  That’s an ‘even steven’!

Brighter Sky: Astro lads have it made in the shade.  Closer look at Galaxies from billions of years ago, busy photons, never tired or old, travel for millions of years.  James Webb telescope finding life indications from atmosphere on nearby planet K2-18b, well it’s 124 light years away.   Best let them come, explain how!  Columbus first trip to New World took two months!   Now travel on wonderful Aer Lingus.   We got to the moon, it’s right there, three days sat in a rocket.  Our dear neighbor at 225,623 miles (1.25 light seconds!).  Question what took us so long?  Mars is 420 times further.  How did we imagine there were Martians?  With any sense never visit Mars in the flesh, dust storms, dry as fridge after St Patrick’s day.  Physics tied with string theory knots, now ‘Big Bang’ in doubt, perhaps more likely series of smaller ‘Bangs’.  Remain flexible, so glad I was useless at Physics.  Once Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico was bees-knees then decommissioned and fell to ruin.  Still dear old functioning friend Hubble, not yet a relic from great fun times.  All our efforts made easier if aliens only showed up reveal everything, seems that’s not how galaxy knowledge shared in this Milky Way.   DIY place.  Is there a Universe library, can we borrow?  Alien biology fat lot of good to us if different, best stay hidden away in moon craters, btw think we see you.  Rules of engagement Star to Star having strings attached.  Try do no harm, with negative ramifications.   Suspect agreements between them and our ‘elite leaders’.  Betters.  Not appear before us, due to worldwide disruptions, upsetting apple carts.   Like how Eve and Adam got us in this pickle.  Aliens with knowledge of previous times, monitoring through ages.  May control ‘Black Knight’ satellite, expose too much.   Remember Cronovisor dismantled, so much blabbermouth revealing better not broadcast.  Not bang on about loads of Earth’s history with humans.  Having giant ‘cultural’ events get upended. Dear to people’s existence, after only hells bells to pay.

——————

 

‘Prof tell us how life works?’

Quick even yesterday too late.

Here’s a widow’s mite for your trouble.

Life from no life requires that spark!

Agnostics belly up?

Get off the fence!

Surely!

 

Genome: In 2022 ‘sequence of human genome 3.2 billion base pairs’ revealed, will lead to dramatic advances with novel disease treatments.  We’ve crossed that Rubicon!  Gets to heart of the matter, from pioneering work of James Watson and Francis Crick.   Things picked up now right galloping as never before!  By Hooke and by Crick (et al) discoveries soldier on!  Move at faster clips.  All benefit, even when ridiculed working with fruit flies, bacteria/yeast.  Species related when advances made, good for Goose and Ganders.   Even Hen’s teeth.  Can’t be messing willy-nilly with humans, put a lid on that.  Still unknowns causing catastrophic illness.  In time …. all revealed?  Doing best we can.  Never fear.   So far no stop signs with laps to go.       

Paintings:  Historians need state precisely what things are, no problem with interpretations.  Everything needs Rosetta stone.  We’ve seen confusions.  Back of paintings artists must state who’s depicted, portrayed and why, plus artist state of mind.  Not be salivating over Mona Lisa’s thinking or why Norway guy screams from the bridge.   Picasso and Dalí off limits, let them alone, leave us guessing.

  

Booze: Say no more.  By the bye, win or lose celebrate! Enjoy excellent Irish beer tap or can from finest river waters. World’s best by far, as preaching to the choir. I’ve indulged all over, experienced expert opinion! Not easy but someone needed step up.