First Post: Monday, August 21, 2023

Introducing…

The Mallinckrodt-Lannett Observations

First in an occasional series…

They often asked him how he did it, going at least 20 hrs. between bites of solid food. He said he just did it one day, then the next, and then every 24 hrs. after that, and before he knew it, it became part of his life, and now it is a matter of habit, the same way some other people might expect to eat three square meals a day at regularly spaced intervals. 

Physically, it may have been a bit trying at times, some bouts of fatigue, weakness, dizziness, general malaise. But once he learned to drink a lot of water during those 20-hr. fasting spans, the initial symptoms lessened, and the physical body became accustomed to it, easily relegating the mental mind to some other (likely imaginary) worry or concern. To But the fasting was not one of them; to his thinking, the physical body had overcome the mental mind. 

But, on reflection, it just as well might have been the other way around: the mental mind overcoming the physical body! Or maybe the two entities had come to some kind of agreement, that this was how things were going to be, and it was better to coexist gracefully, reaching some equilibrium in which the concerns of the one did not endanger the pair as a whole. 

Indeed, he had had to remind himself from time to time that his daily bout of abstaining from solid food for a good part of the day was no big deal, was really of no great import to anyone out there, and maybe as well not any concern to that fragile concept known as The Self. However, it was enough of a deal to the real principals: the physical body & the mental mind, the former existing as a material certainty, and the latter at least partly material.

So, true, from time to time it was good for him to remember that any discomfort or bodily complaint was nothing sufficient to stop him from the fasting. He remembered some of the stories he’d read about people who truly had it abysmally bad, on the verge of becoming corpses, physical bodies without life, mental minds no more. The Holocaust, the Siege of Leningrad, Stalin & Mao’s dictatorially engineered famines, so many others. These stories were so persuasive a cautionary tale to him that he gladly forbade himself to take this small bit of fasting so seriously, so desperately. As well, the brave & silent resilience of those survivors he had read about naturally prevented him from succumbing to the kind of slap-yourself-in-the-face, outward-turned style of motivation, the performative kind put on for the benefit of everyone else, to justify the ego, the soothe The Self. No, he absolutely would not resort to relying on external groups and their approbations to keep going. Rather, he did this without comment, for the sake of his own physical body & his own mental mind, quietly, composedly, leaving the fanfare, celebration & undue attention to those who needed it. The stories of the pogroms and the mass starvations and other accounts of true deprivation & suffering were enough to put him in his proper place, to understand his role in this was simply to do it. 

And he would try to extend this ethos to other parts of his life. His physical body & mental mind were trustworthy guides, but he needed to allow his soul & his spirit to lead him, too. His mental mind would nudge him toward troublesome & rigid places, locations named for such clinical and folksy ideas such as The Identified Patient, Museum States, The Bondage of Self. To him, those were getting old & tired, old Friends of Job who meant well but had less-than-honorable intentions planned for him. Perhaps with a better physical body & a cleaner mental mind, he could arrive at a station where he might be of best service to the people who might matter. It was hard for him to accurately describe such a station, but the strongest conception of it was: God’s Concierge.

God? Why not Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha or Krishna etc.? 

OK. The Universe’s Concierge.

Next time: Anonymity, getting out of the way, the role of the concierge, plus other high-minded blather. 

BestLine Racing Society Recap:

Fort Erie, Finger & Keystone / Phila. Park / ParXXX from before.

We begin at Fort Erie, Ont., Canada, and Race 2 there; in it, #5 Diamondback (.434 Win Prob / 1.30-1 Fair Odds / 1.76-1 Premium Odds) won it for Arizona, BMX & select reptiles at $11.90. Then in Race 5 there, #1 Sofia’s Slugger (.177 / 4.65 / 6.91) hit it out of the proverbial park at $37.10. The next overlay winner could be located in Race 7, in which #1 Fafa Fooey (.209 / 3.78 / 5.70) foreswore failure at fourteen-even (read: $14-even).

At Bensalem Twp., Penna., #3 Veeson (.261 / 2.83 / 3.60) took the fifth at an unimpeachable $9.60. Then in Race 8 there, there were three first-timers entered, but the best of the experienceds, #9 Jody’s Ruby (.344 / 1.91 / 2.49), came through at $7.80.  The next overlay winner could be located in Race 11, in which #4 Buy Land and See (.369 / 1.71 / 2.25) found purchase in the territory of the winner’s circle at $12.20; completing your winning $24-even exacta was #3 Nimitz Class (.345 / 1.90 / 2.48) — the premium price on that comboa (comboa!) was $15.66. Finally, there was Race 13, won by #5 Keithsendshelloooo (.179 / 4.59 / 5.70) at $14.80. By most measures, except those put forth by the most virulent haters & nay-sayers, a nice day! (We understand there are haters & nay-sayers; to deny their existence would be to run afoul of reality!)

BestLine Racing Society Nightcap: 

Assiniboia tonight. 

Strongshots

Race 1
#5 Unbroken Star (.295 / 2.39 / 3.07)

Race 7
#1 Bits of Lemon Drop (.255 / 2.92 / 3.71)

Longshots

Race 5
#2 Gentrified (.190 / 4.26 / 5.32) 
#5 Out On Saturday (.183 / 4.46 / 6.65)
#7 Camps Bay (.171 / 4.85 / 7.19)

Race 8
#5 MIA’s Majesty (.178 / 4.62 / 6.87)
#8 Tomahawk Explorer (.155 / 5.45 / 8.03)