Once I learned that there were three basic nervous systems in mammals. The central and the peripheral (as if…) were the textbook two and the intestinal was the third. The big worms in our guts are known to respond to touch. There was a time when it seemed insane to decompose an image into frequencies -- for better viewing. There was Josh running around the blackboard area of a classroom, holding a chair by its back, shoving it back and forth to demonstrate the differences in energy states between the airwaves entering the cochlea: the principle of decomposition.
This was the principle of observing the universe. There was a joy at seeing things. Only infinite curiosity can uncover some of their shapes. The joy of being there was all that Josh was about. And he found pleasure of exposing (questioning) some of the mysteries of the universe to the lucky few.
The end of this is just wrong.
***
There was Josh with his pointy wits.
I asked him once (can’t really remember why) where “exactly” was he from. New York New York so nice it has to be said twice. Put in my place, so many times in front of this joker, I looked around our little lab on top of Manhattan and that's all I could ever do.
Travel north a bit:
The house, most of it is a kitchen. Fresh fish and meat are on the outside and exotic spices from far away on the inside. That was his home. I saw him enjoying his wine when he said: Primoz, you know you can always come here. I looked up the hill where he had put some chairs just to overlook a lake below. It was getting darker and I felt that was the greatest little gift, the way he said it, I had ever got. No one has ever been so nice to me.
There was Josh, the blackboard full of plots. The theory of circadian rhythms by Josh: go to Asia, he would say and just walk in the sun at approximate time of your subjective midnight. The circadian clock would be unsure. Should I move back or should I move forth? So the clock would just reset. It actually works!! Try it.
In my mind I saw the lake, the house, the spices, the friends… I see Josh in Brooklyn. I see him all around NY even when I’m not there. I have never felt so sad.
Primoz Ravbar
2 May 2012
