As much as I’ve ever explained it to myself (being intellectually lazy, and consequently a kind of National Park for underdone thoughts), the fantastic turn of vision suits both my sense of the world as a profoundly strange and deceptive place, and my deepest sense of poetry, which is singing. It also gives me the richest possible forest of lives and happenings to move in, busy and shadowed, at home in the shadows of time. At any rate, I am advised that I start talking like that after the second San Miguel.
After the third, I am likely to announce that all writing is fantasy anyway: that to set any event down in print is immediately to begin to lie about it, thank goodness; and that it’s no less absurd and presumptuous to try on the skin of a bank teller than that of a Bigfoot or a dragon. But the truth seems to be that I just see like that, and sing like that, and always have.
Peter S. Beagle is one of those writers who seem to have sprung into the world, like Athena, fully formed and gleaming. His characters are as deep, rich, and real as the fantastic realms in which they dwell. The hapless wizard Schmendrick, the widow Mrs. Klapper, the fading goddess Sia, and the cruel King Shrewd are all drawn with extraordinary empathy. Beagle’s magic never serves as a mechanistic plot device, but it never becomes ham-handed symbolism, either. It’s just another part of a world full of beauty and terror, inhabited by people trying to get by.
Thanks, POSOC!
Happy December! When we came back from break, everyone has gone crazy for Xmas. One girl brought Christmas lights for her locker. My friend put it this way “After 4th of July, It’s like we have one big Holiday called Hallogiving that is overshadowed by Christmas”.
Anyways, I’m trying out for percussion in the school band. Our band director wanted us to “Get familiar with instruments” then try out for percussion. My dad played percussion all the way through college, so he’s setting me up with rhythm exercises.
I should probably make snowflakes for my door.
Another picture from last night’s Kokonvention in Washington, D.C.:
Ooh, is that dessert?
That’s right. There was no pie on the menu, but Rosanne and Kyra shared a lemon tart (a small pie in all but name), and I had a strange-but-nice crustless cylindrical cheesecake. Ruth (Rosanne’s mother, at right) had mango sorbet. All desserts were consumed, not flung, smeared, or smooshed.
It was fun! Robert brought Kokopelli for President buttons and we discussed world domination. And Mom and I had leftover French fries for breakfast
Ah yes, we really must get Kokopelli’s 2016 campaign into high gear…
We need campaign slogans. And a Vice President….
On Hot Topics, I suggested Mickey Mouse, the most experienced cartoon candidate (people have been writing in his name as a joke since the 1930s) as Koko’s VP. Of course, both are from western states, so that ticket might be unbalanced. (Koko is from Arizona and Mickey was born on a cross-country train to California.)
It’s hard to beat Mickey for name recognition, that’s for sure. And we know they get along.
Given that Walt Disney World’s Toontown has closed, I think California is Mickey’s official state of residence, too.
Wow, so you guys were pretty close to my area. (Traffick-wise not included.) I can see the top of the Big Pencil from my shopping center.
Let’s see… Things we learned about Kyra (Rosanne, feel free to join in):
1. She knows a lot about plants.
2. She looks Elvish (but does not have pointed ears).
3. She’ll be leaving D.C. in a few weeks. Next stop: Berkeley.
4. The cats she mentioned on the blog ages ago are still hale and hearty and living in Oregon.
5. Despite a few attempts over the years, she has never met another MuseBlogger.
Things Kyra learned about us:
1. Rosanne and I can be very silly when we get together.
2. Rosanne’s mother is just as bad as we are.
3. We really do read your posts and remember all sorts of odds and ends.
4. Um… Anything else, Kyra?
If she’s in Berkeley before the 17th, she might have a chance at meeting another Museblogger. Assuming final exams and projects haven’t eaten me alive by then.
Don’t worry. The Kokonspiracy guarantees that you won’t be eaten alive
at this point.I’ll be there on the 9th I think. If you want to take a break from exams I’d love to meet up!
What about Stanford? I’ll be done with finals by the 9th!
That’ll be in the middle of
DeadRevision Week, right on the day a paper is due, and two days before another assignment. I don’t suppose you’re there for multiple days? (I could still swing it, but it’d be short.)Oh yeah I’m staying until… sometime in April. I’ll have plenty of time to visit bay area musebloggers!
oh man! I take it all this means you have left the Chicago area???
(I THINK you were the one in CHicago i kept trying to figure out a kokon with but we never seemed to line up? )
Yeah I’m gone for pretty much good. Some of my friends stayed so I might be interested in visiting or acquiring a job there in the future! We kept missing each other!
No, stay here! That will give Jade extra incentive to come visit me
I was honestly very surprised at the silliness levels. But in a good way!
We GAPAs can be serious. We’re pretty smart and sometimes even wise. But when we get together, we’re rarely solemn.
And I only know a lot about plants right now because I happen to have been immersed in tropical botany for the past two months. I’m not that passionate about them.
Additional things we learned about Kyra:
6. She speaks wistfully of RPGs.
7. She supports Kokopelli for president.
8. She has excellent posture.
Thing we learned about Robert:
1. How he came to learn Russian and Arabic and become a diplomat.
Hm. I’ll add the friendly local gaming store to the Kokon itinerary, then. (Games of Berkeley has an overall better selection. Plus Eudaemonia is cramped and smells like glue.)
…Wait, she was probably referring to the RPGs that were all over the blog a couple years ago. Never mind.
Yes, that’s right. Excellent surmising.
Robert, I hope the story behind that last tidbit makes it into the autobiography I hope we all have finally convinced you to write
when was the diplomatic experience? One of my aunts is state department
Things I want to learn about Robert
1) How he came to learn Russian and Arabic and became a diplomat.
I know he learned Russian at MIT for a requirement. This is the first I’ve heard of Arabic, or the diplomacy.
I know he worked at an embassy in Egypt, so the Arabic was probably useful there. I don’t know if he learned it for that job or if he got the job because he already knew Arabic.
Not MIT, and the distribution requirements at my college actually made it harder to study Russian. Hm, maybe it’s finally time for me to tell my GAPA tale.
…Did you study it in high school? I knew it was either that or college. But I could have sworn you went to MIT.
I studied Russian for three years in high school, continued in college (though I didn’t major in it) and as an exchange student in what was then Leningrad, and took private lessons for a while after I graduated. I couldn’t bring myself to quit when I felt I was just starting to get a handle on it — and I always felt that way.
I’ve never attended MIT. I was accepted there but turned it down to go to Swarthmore, probably breaking my father’s heart in the process. Maybe I’ve told that story on the blog at some point and that’s what you remember.
You’re said you had the chance to go to the Naval Academy but chose not to. (And that in another life where you did, you became an astronaut.)
Yes. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all went to the Naval Academy, so it took some soul-searching to decide not to continue the tradition. I’m sure there are large portions of the multiverse in which things went the other way.
You told the story about putting “Miskatonic U” on the list of colleges that had accepted you as a joke. You also listed MIT and Swarthmore: I guess I foolishly assumed you went to the first.
That’s what my father said.
I’ve mentioned my stint in Egypt a few times, most recently a couple of years ago:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=13244#comment-475221
Has anyone heard from Choklit Orange? I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s curious about her adventures in Cambridge.
I haven’t heard from her personally, but [REDACTED SOCIAL NETWORK] has some pictures of her looking very excited while punting.
The Cygnus ISS resupply mission is tomorrow, and I think I might have convinced my Spanish teacher (who also happens to be one of my friends’ mom) to let us watch it live in class.
I know that this might sound cheap and shallow (is that the right term?), but I just want to say that it has been a really great experience getting to know all of you people. Here is a group fantastically different humans than I with whom I share some small things in common, and, in some cases, live literally on the other side of the world from. Recently, I’ve been trying to express my appreciation towards my friends and acquaintences at home, and I wanted to make sure that you – every single person here – know how I feel. As I said, this probably sounds really obvious and possibly annoying, but in my school (homeroom, actually), we’re learning about the ‘Amazing Law if Influence’. Usually, I’m not really interested at all in that sort of thing, but the more I think about it, the more ‘amazing’ it actually seems. In the past year, I have built relationships (albeit very basic and rudimentary ones) with what could very well be some of the most fascinating people I will ever know. I remember back when Robert was still doing the Muse Q&A, and I would consider sending in a question but be discouraged by the mere fact that it was ‘too big’. Too many people did the same thing, I told myself. I would never get published. The Muse writers and staff were almost like celebrities to me, and now I have the opportunity to hold an entire conversation with that exact intimidating person RIGHT NOW. And the same for everybody else! Obviously, this is my first experience with an internet community, and I apologize for my nieve approach. I really just wanted everybody to know how much I care about this, and how everyone means something to me. It’s just… beyond words. Thank you for being a part of my life.
Noah, it makes me so happy to hear you say this! Museblog was also a wonderful experience for me, and I’ve met so many interesting people and great friends though here! It makes me smile to know that it still has that effect, even if it’s slowed down a lot from when I started and there’s less people overall. I am sure one day you also will be one of the fascinating people we’re all glad to know–I know most of us here didn’t start out with the skills and knowledge we have now, and I bet over the next few years you’ll come back with lots of your own to share
internet communities are a fascinating and wonderful thing, and Museblog was also my first–it really is an excellent introduction to the internet.
We hope you veterans will stick around to help raise the next generation.
If the next generation isn’t brainwashed Ex-Odyssey readers (As in, the generation after me)
Odyssey readers are perfectly intelligent, just not necessarily as quirky as native Musers. They’re welcome here.
Stressed from test -> try to have fun -> stay up too late -> too tired the next day to want to do work the next day -> more stress -> try to have fun to forget stress -> only study in the middle of the night -> even more tired -> do poorly on test -> stressed from test
It’s a viscous cycle. I want about a week to just sleep and read about fun things like land speed record cars and single-handed sailing and polar exploration and then I promise I could attack everything with my full energies.
I know that “viscous” is probably a typo here but it’s such a perfect way of describing that sort of downward spiral that I love it
-> Make post at 4:30 AM with typos.
I’ve noticed lately that I often switch numbers around when reading them. I don’t know if this has always been a problem, but it’s been starting to crop up recently and becoming a little bit of an issue.
Examples: (these are all written via text or messaging)
> “You’re taking CS224, right?” “No, I’m taking CS242.” “Yeah, that’s what I said.” “…those are not the same.” “…” “…” “…oh.”
> “Did you download version 13 of the software?” “Yeah, look. [copy-pastes program name and it’s version 31]” “That’s not version 13.” “It is, I swear I didn’t screw up!” “That’s version 31…” “…oh.”
There are a couple other examples, but I can’t think of them right now. It’s pretty weird — I took math classes for like 12 years straight and never noticed this issue.
What is the name for a jacket or shirt where one side is pulled all the way across the other, almost to the other arm and then buttoned or zipped there? Like on a Howie lab coat or a WWI pilot’s jacket? (Like the one the Red Baron is wearing in the most famous picture of him.)
Maybe the second-most-famous picture… I mean the one of him in uniform, not the head and neck shot.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re thinking of but possibilities that came to mind: peacoat, double-breasted jacket, moto jacket, military jacket?
All of the first three are usually asymmetrical, but I don’t know if there’s a special name for the type I’m thinking of beyond “asymmetric jacket”.
I never realized it, but the 2014 (13?) adaption of Walter Mitty and The Lego Movie have a lot of similarities. I then (tried) to made a list of unrelated movies with simaler concepts. All I’ve came up with is Disney’s Emporer’s New Groove and Disney’s Brother Bear
Any other differently simaler movies?
Actually, all Disney movies are obviously simaler.
To those two or to each other? While there are many common elements in Disney films such as childhood tragedy, sidekicks, and happy endings, I wouldn’t say that all Disney films ever have completely similar plots, especially if you’re talking about both live-action and animated.
After some internet research, I found out that BB and TENG had totally different production staff. Actually, TENG was originally going to be named Kingdom of the Sun and not be focused on the concept of animal transformation.
Yes, originally it was a version of “The Prince and the Pauper” set in the Inca Empire.
It was originally formatted to be an “epic musical adventure life lesson” film (similar to the Lion King), but was later shifted into a buddy comedy film about llamas. Not sure which version I would’ve enjoyed more, considering TENG is probably my favorite Disney animated film….
It’s really a great comedy as-is, but I am curious about what a more serious version might have looked like. Can we buy DVDs from parallel timelines at that Emporium in the Oasis?
You mean the Borges Library?
I meant the Muse Academy Emporium, where I actually did buy several books from alternate timelines back in the day: https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=7763
Things we know so far:
-It was a musical
-It was a love story
-Half of the characters from TENG didn’t exist, while half of the KOTS characters aren’t in TENG
-Someone was turned into a llama. A non-talking llama, and came back at the end of the film.
-Half of the characters were cut from “fear of large cast”, since the film Hercules had about 20 actors and the film had failed at the box office.
-A good chunk of the production staff quit and either joined what would become “Lilo and Stitch”
-The story was very developed . They had designed a mock movies poster, had already cast actors, and were starting animation. TENG was animated so hastily so they could start advertising.
-One of the film-makers family members filmed a documentary called “The Sweat Box” about the production of TENG, starting from the KOTS days. Disney has apparently locked the film up in the “Disney Vault”. And they aren’t taking it out, most likely.
Of course, I remember. But you can save money by checking them out of the Library of Babel. The trouble is finding them…
There’s a great documentary about it called The Sweatbox, but it’s kinda hard to find.
I’ve seen that! (I think my then-girlfriend downloaded it from somewhere.)
I hung out at the Met with my cousin Alana today! We finally got to see the Islamic Art galleries, which reopened only a few years ago after a long refurb. The geometric tilework was amazing, especially the pieces in the replica Moroccan courtyard that were specially made by tile artisans right there at the museum. (They had a video of it, and the precision with which the tiles were cut by hand with very large chisels was amazing.)
You know sleep deprivation and exhaustion from long work hours is setting in, when you’re cooking yourself dinner at almost 11pm, after spending 12 hours at work, and you’re randomly bursting into song (not even real songs, just singing random sounds) at top volume because it echoes so nicely in your (very echoey) kitchen/dining room. [I don’t think it will echo as much once i have more furnishings.]
and simultaneously dancing around your kitchen.
Here’s a question I have: What is the point of applying creme to a rash to get rid of the rash if the creme contains an ingredient that you are allergic to and will make the rash worse?
There is none, and you should probably tell whomever prescribed the cream about this and ask for a different prescription.
Adventures in the end of the semester:
— my lit prof told us, with all apparent sincerity, during a lecture on Antony and Cleopatra, that Clytemnestra was a Ptolemy. (She… really wasn’t.)
— my history prof sent out an email telling us that the final paper for the (semester) course was due May 5. (It isn’t.)
— Greek prof sent out an email with the subject line “the end is near” (yep)
— I accidentally stole a knife from the dining hall. Just put it in my pocket, I don’t know why.
college? college!
Could “Clytemnestra” have been a slip of the tongue for “Cleopatra”?
no it definitely was and we all took it as such, nobody thought for a moment that Dr. G actually thinks Clytemnestra was a Ptolemy. I should’ve made it clearer but that was my point, really, that it’s the time of the year for such slips.
I find it hilarious that the school related things people tend to fret over are given about 3 sentences in our school newsletter. Such as:
Students will take exams next week. They count as 50% of college credit.
Paul, how are you holding up with all of that bad weather the UK is getting lately? I think Thursday night almost every station in the Shipping Forecast had a gale warning.
Paul?
The end of the semester is in sight, as in, I only have seven assignments left on the list of assignments that I made at the very beginning of the semester. Also, a lot of my other commitments (soccer, work, clubs) have already or are soon coming to an end, freeing up extra time. I’m a little peculiar in that I’m rather fond of Reading Days (next Thursday and Friday) and finals week for this reason – since everything is cancelled, I’m more free to set my own schedule, and in fact, my friends are also technically free at all hours so it can be easier to hang out with them.
Other news:
-I submitted an abstract for the seabird behavior/computational analysis of data project that I mentioned a while back, to a seabird conference which will be in Hawaii in February. Oh boy, I hope I’m accepted!
-My boyfriend (medium-distance relationship) visited this weekend. I taught him how to play soccer and together we spent huge amounts of my food-money which expires at the end of the semester.
-I received a sword wound in my Fencing I class today – a cut on the middle part of my middle finger. The edges on our sabers were sharp enough to make it bleed. I thought the whole thing was hilarious and would not actually mind if it scarred because that would be an awesome story to tell for the rest of my life.
Life is good, all in all.
Hamilton is coming to Chicago next September! Look around look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now. (I’m only Chicago-adjacent, but I get into the city fairly often.)
aaahhh so exciting (I live in Michigan, but I could pretty easily take the train to Chicago)
Wooo! I was hoping for this! I’m also Chicago-adjacent (well, 3 hrs away), at school, and can probably get to Chicago some weekend. Apparently it’ll be there for a while, so here’s hoping I can find a time to go!
Ooh, lucky! I wish it would come to LA.
the mountain goats are going to be in chicago in april
bliss was it in that dawn to be alive tbh!!
btbywvh
otiwtmsfwoclastaotaoaciriluIf my future nieces or nephews are afraid their teddy bears won’t be able to protect them from night monsters, I will tell the story about how teddy bears are named for Theodore Roosevelt, and then tell them that TR’s spirit personally trains all teddy bears to be excellent monster fighters before they get adopted by a kid. Because what monster would ever want to tangle with a bear trained by TR himself?
When I was very small and afraid of things in the dark, my father told me that his naval sword (which his father and grandfather had also carried) was guaranteed to protect against all monsters. It worked.
Does anyone else think we should try to start another RPG, blog game, or writing project of some type? It seems like we haven’t done much creative/fun stuff on the blog lately.
I’d be down!
Absolutely! I kind of would lean towards a Pulp Adventure RPG just because I’ve been reading so much about Spirit of the Century recently, but any other genre would be fun, too.
Other random genres that could be fun:
B-Movie Spoof (Giant atomic ants, alien shape-shifters, mad science, greasers, everything is black-and-white, etc.)
Agents of M.U.S.E (Exactly the kind of crazy spy adventures you imagined in your head as a kid. Gadgets, laser grids, crawling through air vents, parachuting into volcano lairs, and some really nasty bad guy with HPB minions.)
Mysteries of the Musiverse *cheesy electronic music* (How do I describe this… it’s like a parody of those 70s paranormal books your aunt has around the house– are you groovy enough to investigate the strange mystic portals that are making people and vehicles vanish and spewing out mythical monsters, flying saucers, and previously-missing people?)
All of those sound really fun!
I’d love to do something intentionally cheesy and trope-filled again like the Worst Story Ever RRR. Would be more of an affectionate parody though.
Yes, and I think these would be fun because there would be a direction to the tropes used because of the genres they were based on rather than Worst Story Ever being kind of a free-for-all. (Also, they would be actual roleplaying with a semi-serious plot rather than purposefully trying to write a story that was amusingly horrible.)
I’ve realized that M.U.S.E. could be the Multinational Undercover Service for Espionage.
Or the Movement for Unobtrusive Social Education, or Manipulating Unaware Societies toward Enlightenment… There are many possibilities.
I think the first is better for a spy agency, though.
A self-acknowledged spy agency, certainly.
Should we make a poll for what genres people would want a new RPG in?
I’d be in too. All these british school uniforms remind me of Muse Academy, so something”classic” in that direction would be cool.
Can “Muse University” be a thing, you guys
Musiversity? Why not?
I’m on board with Muse U. We need to have some kind of grad school that would accept me.
Ha! You’ll be welcome anywhere you go.
Muse U. needs to have a Lanrick team. (Look it up.)
I still don’t quite understand what Lanrick entails but I’m definitely in.
I thought the Academy just went straight through, so you never have to bother with applications or moving or getting letters of recommendation.
I swear I never noticed there are two “R”s in “Hurricane” until just now…
There can be three if you misspell it!
“she knew how to start spelling ‘banana,’ but she didn’t know how you stopped.”
I thought there was only one… I’m not very good at spelling.
Manic All-Nighter Insights:
Pinchot-Roosevelt-Muir = Spock-Kirk-McCoy
Alert level raised and extra police / security deployed in Geneva, looking for four “suspicious individuals” with links to IS, may be connected with the Paris attacks, talks involving senior American / Russian / UN officials on Syria taking place here on Friday…
Hey Sel, looks like my itinerary has been squished a lot (as in, we are spending a lot less time in each city than I thought) because the friend with whom I will be traveling likes to travel that way (and also I bought a 21-day unlimited Eurail pass, so I might as well maximize the $400 I spent on that) — so I might have time to swing by Geneva! Everything is pretty up in the air right now but if I went (uncertain) it would likely be between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Unfortunately I won’t be there between Christmas and New Years! I’ll be skiing in France with my family. I’m back on Jan 3 if you still happen to nearby, but don’t change your itinerary on account of me. Hope you have a great trip!
Oh dear, I hope everything is resolved safely…
Hot tip for writing that essay you really don’t want to write (you know the one): start your essay by typing “Gentlemen of the jury, I’m curious—bear with me. Are you aware that we’re making history? This is the first murder trial of our brand new nation, the liberty behind deliberation! I intend to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (in 4-5 double-spaced APA formatted pages) that” and then inserting your thesis afterwards. (Replacing the parenthetical with the actual requirements for your paper, obviously.)
Remember to delete it before you turn it in! But it’s very motivational.
I’ve heard of starting with “Listen up you cakeheads I am going to explain you a thing” and the like, but that’s even better.
I’m having to participate in a MLK essay contest. We have to interpret the quote “If you can’t fly then walk…. Etc” for a chance to win a scholarship to a community college. If this wasn’t being sent to the district office and community college for judgment, I would probably enter this:
“Does MLK Jr’s. quote [Insert quote I have forgotten] have a significance to you? To me it does.
The quote means that humans obviously can’t fly. But our lack of development in aviation shouldn’t keep us from hailing taxis. Are there even taxis in SC? Anyways, the quote means humans shouldn’t become fat from lack of exercise.
In conclusion, humans can’t fly. But they shouldn’t take cabs. If there are any in SC”
But instead I am writing a 3 page essay a little…. deeper and well written then my original one…..
My own (less Hamilton-inspired) strategy is to write the most obscenely rude paper possible and then go back and delete all the bad parts. Usually you’re left with something useful.
While writing an outline of what the next day’s work had to cover late one night while taking marine geology, I summarized a region’s geology as being nonconductive to the formation of hydrothermal vents, “therefore no fishies and no cute wormies.
“
“–procounsel, Hamilton, sit down–“
so many of A. Burr’s lines to Hamilton just boil down to [Peter Falk voice] “yes, you’re very smart. Shut up.”
It’s funny because I’ve got both of their first names and I identify deeply with both Burr and Hamilton.
Do we have a theater thread? We’ve got music and movies…
I’m more of a Jefferson as I love small government and pasta and say “what” 30 times a day.
I love this. Applying to my anthro capstone final paper.
Another tip, which just got me through the first draft of my last history paper: google “Written? Kitten.”. Some of you have probably already used this for NaNo. It shows you a new kitten picture every 100 [or whatever you set it to] words. You can also change what kinds of picture it shows by changing the link.
I fly out Friday! How did that happen? I feel like I’ve been looking forward to this for so long that I didn’t really expect it to ever happen.
I’ve planned out my layovers in Helsinki down to the hour (critical because of the limited time I have there and when things open), done laundry, gotten my backpack in the mail, and gotten nice new waterproof shoes that I’ve been breaking in.
eeeeeeeeeeee
Wait… I just realized that Friday is tomorrow.
Maybe it’s time to panic a little…
Have a nice flight!
Thanks! I just checked in for it, starting to get jittery.
christmas will be the death of me
i am the war on christmas
you can enlist if you want i am always open to new members
i’ll get you a comp ticket
Not all these young wild girls?
cigarettes, and whiskey, and wild wild women
they’ll drive you crazy, they’ll drive you insane
*gasps*
NASA has color images of Pluto now!
Welcome to Berkeley, Kyra. Fantastic weather we’re having, isn’t it?
Whoops, I meant the 9th of January haha. The weather’s pretty nice here in DC!
Next week is going to be awful, in the terms of schedules and assignments. The students who tried out for percussion and were accepted (crosses fingers for good luck) will totally halt all clarinet, sax, trombone, trumpet, and flute, so we instead of working on song #67, all percussionist will have to learn their bell set and snare drum.
for students of a higher educational level, if you want to say the real name) History, Math, and ELA. Then we take Band exams and art exams. Since we haven’t really LEARNED anything in art and have just been doing projects (since we got an art teacher a few Mondays ago) we aren’t taking a written exam. We’re making collages. Out of all the things in art, collages are my WORST skill. And then we start preparing in QB for spring out-of-state tournaments, and the district championship. Not to mention I still have Xmas shopping, which is going to be hard since my town doesn’t have a mall…. We have the skeleton of an old mall, which has a books a million and a shoe store and some kiosks…..
And we take exams next week. Science GT (or STEM
Good luck with your assignments and exams.
I was accepted into the percussion section in my school’s band! Yay! While I was enjoying Clarinet, I have prior experience with this. I am the third chair out of 5. I’ll have to trade my clarinet in for a snare drum and bell set, which will be very awkward to carry from class to class before band.
Congratulations! Any way you can drop it off in the band room before classes start and leave it there during the day? That would be much easier than carrying it around, and is what I did when I was in band (although I played the flute, so I would have had a much easier time carting it from place to place!)
Thanks :)! Our band DOES have a storage room that is itty bitty and is reserved for itty bitty woodwinds and brass. Our band director has a lovely (wait for it) CORNER in his office that is also itty bitty. There are some unoccupied cubbies that are from when we were an “orchestra” for the larger strings. A few years ago, the band and strings split up. There’s been a rivalry ever since. Just like the Math Counts team and the Academic Team. I’ll look into having a personal cubbie….
Congrats! Percussion is really neat, and it can give you a ton of opportunities- you can be on drumline or in the pit of a marching band, you could do winter percussion if your school/area offers that, you can play in symphony orchestras or you could invest in a drumset and become a jazz drummer.
Like Jade said, nobody will expect you to carry around anything more than a stick/mallet bag from class to class. Never in all my years of band experience have percussionists been expected to haul around their own snares or bell sets. (unless it’s marching band in which case there’s a truck or a lot of helpers to move the entire pit around.)
Ask your band director and I’m sure they’ll help you find somewhere to put it.
Does it weird anybody else out that the Canadian Prime Minister looks bearly old enough to vote for himself? (I know he actually isn’t that young, he just looks like it.)
Do any of you know who David Ogden Stiers is?
Why, yes. Friend of yours?
Not quite. But he does do a lot involving local music in our area, and today he actually sought me out to listen to and compliment my guitar-playing at the Farmer’s Market today. And then dropped sizable tip in my case. I’m still kind of in shock, actually.
Oh, a fan of yours. Even better!
Hmm… maybe I should start watching MASH.
Yes. Yes you should.
Sweet! You’re in demand!
Today, I found my old melty bead kit from third grade. I still love melty beads, so I went ahead and made a melty bead Urania, just for a time waster. Tomorrow, I’m doing Bo.
Cool! I’d love to see pictures if you happen to take any.
I think I’ll send in a group pic when I finish the population of Kokonino county.
Cool, can you post pictures?
Odd… My comment about posting all of the muses when I finish disappeared….
I just got back to Vienna and it’s …weird. Like, I just wished all my students, colleagues and friends back in Joburg a happy summer vacation in the sweltering heat. Now it’s cold, gets dark early and everyone and the christmas spirit is in full swing. Somehow, it feels like I was in a coma for three months.
In addition, there’s a certain disorientation with an eerie familiarity beneath it all- I can’t picture my keys anymore, but I just got back from a walk and unlocked my door purely on muscle memory without realizing what I was doing. On my walk, I almost panicked because I felt lost. Not physically- my mind kept going to memories of last december, and pretty much everything I was focused on at that time- my first thesis, my relationship with my ex, my job application- is water under the bridge now. I hope the weirdness goes away soon.
Sorry, this doesn’t help, but — I will be in Vienna very soon (in Amsterdam right now), like the 19th or 20th maybe, will you be free then? If not, no worries, I’m sure I can keep busy, but might be nice to say hi.
I’d love to meet up! So far, I’m probably going to be free on the 20th- I can let you know for sure Wednesday afternoon. GAPAs, as we are both 18+, may we exchange emails?
Certainly, no restrictions. Do you need help with that?
Yes please! In Prague now, heading to Vienna on the 18th.
Mischief managed!
PSA: make sure you watch Stephen Colbert and Lin-Manuel Miranda perform Button.
That was hilarious!
Tangerine is sick and taking some kind of medicine, I always hear her and my mom talking about it in hushed tones. I asked my mom about it once and she said “Tangerine can tell you if she wants,” but I don’t want to ask her because it seems like I’m not supposed to know. Hopefully it’s just something personal or embarrassing and not something really serious. :c
Oh no, I hope everything’s alright. Family being secretive about stuff is really annoying and sometimes scary.
For once, I’m not dreading the pep rally, with its loudness and unable to understand what anyone is saying-ness, since their revealing a time capsule. I’m not sure what they put in. The capsule is from 1990, and they have the 1990 awards on display along with all of there awards, so I’m not sure what the contents are. School Spirit T-Shirts? Old Textbooks?
Pep rallies are annoying (I always find a way to skip them), but a time capsule sounds way cool! I cant wait to hear what’s in it.
Tucked into the jacket flap of one of my library books (Neil Gaiman’s The Spindle and the Sleeper) is a note. Smallish piece of lined paper, torn I’m guessing from a small composition book. Pencil, a hand I don’t recognize. It says “We should hang out in real life sometime,” and it’s signed “Yr. Obedient Servant, A. Barr” and then in smaller letters the rest of a surname which begins with Barr.
I think I might know this person? I mean I think I know who it is, and if it is who I think it is I think we’ve met, and I know for sure we have a friend in common. Charmed as I am by the idea that this might make me A. Ham (mouthy white kids from the caribbean, yo!) there’s absolutely no chance this message is actually meant for me. Probably she sent the note to the last person who checked the book out, who stored it there for safekeeping and forgot it when they turned the book back in.
Choose your own adventure, friends: is there realistically anywhere I can proceed from here?
Regardless of whether it was meant for you, you know you can talk to this person about Hamilton.
yeah, usually I wouldn’t care this much about a rando note in a library book but anybody who signs things that way is somebody I wanna meet.
Send a message via your friend in common? Good luck!
I say go for it! personally I’d find it amusing to know a note/message of mine had wound up in the book of someone i sort of knew.
my own sort of similar story: in middle school, I checked out some YA-fantasy type book from the school library to read. I was about halfway through when I turned the page and found an envelope in the book… with my first name written on it.
feeling slightly surreal, i opened the envelope, and inside was an invitation to a birthday party I had attended the previous year–the card had actually been specifically addressed to me, not someone else with my name. I’d apparently checked out and read at least part of the book the year before, stuck the card in to use as a bookmark, and forgotten it there and returned it. Then I guess no one else took it until I picked it out again over a year later. WACKY.
I think this was the idea behind Operation Bookworm, back in the day.
And a jolly good idea it was.
For those who weren’t around then, Operation Bookworm was hatched on the 2008 and 2009 Kokonspiracy threads during one of the blog’s outbursts of missionary zeal:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=1149
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=2240
On Wednesday night, I found a permission slip for some elementary school event from 2007 inside a book at the Strand. The back had been used as scratch paper and there were a few phone numbers written on it. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just left it there.
Maybe that’s how everybody else has felt and what everbody else has done since 2007.
Depends on when the owner donated it. Maybe the book was only there for a few weeks or months before I read it, but the donor just hadn’t looked at it since 2007 and had forgotten his old bookmark.
ELA exam in the bag! Tomorrow is math, then Science (fine, STEM), and social studies.
About the pep rally. Inside the capsule was a “cell phone”, newspaper articles, a pager, and a yearbook. Also, there’s a legend that a second time capsule is buried on the campus from when the school was started that no one has ever found. Mysterious….
Good luck with your exams! I had Osteology today.
I celebrated the summer solstice (a little early) by setting stuff on fire in a Sydney park.
Well… the actual idea was we’d have a picnic, light candles, sing some songs, talk about New-Year related stuff, etc. I went up because a) it was super awesome last year b) I wanted to spend some time with a particular Sydneysider. Unfortunately we couldn’t do anything sun-related because it was overcast the entire day. Fortunately, this time we did a good job of keeping candles lit despite the wind!
I didn’t have much good to say about how things had been for me personally this year, but enjoyed hearing about some of the things others had been up to, and discussing fun stuff like the year’s progress in science and technology.
I didn’t get to spend as much time with… let’s call him Channis… as I’d hoped, and didn’t get to cuddle or anything. But I have got him to come to my town this February. He’s helping do a thing for a group we’re part of, it’s not like he’ll just be there to see me, but yay! We’d talked about that sort of thing a few months ago, but I wasn’t up to making plans or putting effort into things, but I’m somewhat better now.
And now for something a little different… When I went to Melbourne for the first time in August, it was amazing. Marred by my terrible sleep and anxiety and procrastinated-on assignments, but still awesome. Now, I’ve been to Sydney a bunch of times for a bunch of reasons, and meh. Because it’s big, it has more people with various interests, and groups doing things I like that don’t exist in my town. But let me illustrate some differences:
Melbourne: “You have to try a Melbourne coffee.” I try a Melbourne coffee. I go back for many more.
Sydney: I order coffee. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. (It was noon and my brain wasn’t really online yet, but I don’t think that effects it.)
Central Melbourne, Saturday night: *wanders round the streets with a couple of other unfit geeks, uneventful*
Central [hometown]: *goes on a rare trip to the small cluster of drinking establishments, extroverted friend waves at bored cops*
Central Sydney: Nearly step out in front of a paddy wagon, sirens in the background sound like the background noise in city-based TV shows.
Sydney: It’s 23C, overcast and a little muggy. Sydneysiders assure me this isn’t the norm. The next day: It’s a little warmer, otherwise exactly the same. Getting off the bus at sunset in [hometown]: Beautiful pink-orange clouds against… wait for it… a blue sky. (Same for venturing outside the next
morningafternoon: Whoa. There’s blue sky! And only a few clouds!)And don’t even get me started on the traffic. Or the difficulty of not colliding with all the other pedestrians.
My town is about three orders of magnitude too big for everyone to know everyone or anything resembling that. But year12!me did have a point when saying that I needed to physically leave to get away from my old life.
If you don’t unexpectedly see someone you actually know, you see someone who looks familiar enough that you’re pretty sure you know them by sight. My friend knows my dad’s girlfriend’s sons. I’ve seen my brief high school rival (she beat me in physics once) on campus. Twice. I go to the mall to see a movie with my friend and find a mutual friend in the lobby for completely unrelated reasons. After the movie, I go shopping on my own, starting with coffee, and run into another friend from completely different circles.
So in Sydney, it was only after 24 hours of doing a double-take at various people that I finally told my brain that I wasn’t going to see anyone here I wasn’t specifically trying to meet.
There’s a cute little Google Doodle today, in honour of Beethoven’s birthday!
So I finally watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (why didn’t I watch it back in 2008 like everybody else? well, I was ten years old–and I definitely knew about the musical as of 2011ish but I never got around to checking it out until recently). On first viewing I had super mixed feelings, I don’t respond well to cynicism and you can’t convince me that the ending isn’t a fridging, but I’ve not been able to stop thinking about it since. Really gets into your head, doesn’t it? Can’t figure out why, but there’s definitely something there. I’m probably gonna end up watching it again soon.
ANYWAY exams are over and I feel pretty good about all of them. I’m flying home tomorrow morning!
I really like the fan theory where Penny is a spy from the Evil League whose mission was to win Dr. Horrible’s affections and then fake her own death to push him over the edge.
ah! I’m not sure the ELE care enough about Horrible to go into so much effort? but I’m 100% here for this theory.
Tomorrow is my last exam. Then Winter break. Then Xmas. Then my birthday. Then Valentine’s Day. Then St. Patrick’s day. Then Spring break. Then Summer break. Then Independence Day. Then school again. Then Halloween. Then Thanksgiving. Then exams again.
Man, where does the time go?
One day at a time.
It only gets worse as you get older! Seems only yesterday I was finishing up 2014 and wondering what sort of year 2015 would be.
I kokonvened with Gradster this evening! We braved the traffic on the outskirts of DC, went to my favorite Ethiopian restaurant, and had a lovely visit. Unfortunately I had to dash away earlier than I’d have liked, but not before we got photographic evidence of our joyous meeting.
Yay! Wish I could have been there!
Are you in DC these days?
No, New York.
IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
I did the cliche thing and went to Rockefeller Center to see the tree (and also photograph the Art Deco architecture). Crowded, but fun. I also checked out the LEGO store, but I didn’t feel like going to Nintendo World without my brothers.
I have an idea that I think would make a good horror story, but I don’t like horror and I really don’t think I would like to write a story in which bad things happen to good people.
Maybe we could do it as an RRR on here?
I have experienced the same phenomenon. Do you know anyone who likes horror stories (any MuseBloggers out there who do?) Maybe they’d write it for you?
I had an idea once that I’ve mostly forgotten except that it involved a talking toilet.
Could always take it to the Writers’ Notebook thread. I like horror (in small doses), but I’ve had very little practice writing it, and it involves specific skills I would do well to develop.
A talking toilet…
A talking toilet could be scary if you encountered it in real life.
Yes. I know from experience, it’s scary! (It wasn’t really talking but I thought it was.)
It would certainly be surprising.
So I kokoned with Kokonilly yesterday and it was awesome! Picture-evidence forthcoming once I wrangle my phone into submission
Yes! This was an event that occurred! I am now in Switzerland, heading to Frankfurt tomorrow. After Vienna I went to Salzburg, then Munich, then here for Christmas with family.
Craziness happiness here. Currently over 100 baby praying mantises roaming about in my house and my dad isn’t too pleased… They couldn’t help that we stole their tree while they were in their nest! They’re so cute! They were just little black sticks the first few hours after they hatched when I first noticed them and now they actually look like mini yellow praying mantises!
this is the most amazing story i have ever heard oh my god. please take pictures of praying mantises everywhere, I know you can’t post them, i just want to know that they exist. POOR BABIES. THEY DIDN’T EXPECT TO BE INSIDE!!!
(YELLOW IS A FESTIVE COLOR! YOU DON’T EVEN NEED ORNAMENTS NOW!!)
On the first day of Christmas, my father gave to me, a praying mantis tree!
Spaghetti for breakfast, like being back in Australia.
Happy Apollo 8 Week, MuseBlog!
What I’m most excited about for tomorrow is my family’s happiness at the gifts I’m giving them for Christmas. They requested experiences or charitable donations rather than material gifts, and I think I’ve come up with something perfect for each of them. That’s an awesome feeling!
That sounds wonderful. How did it go?
Merry Eating Chinese Food Day! (okay, I’m a day late) I did not actually have Chinese food, because there are no Chinese restaurants near me, but it’s the thought that counts.
One of the downsides to having a birthday 13 days after Christmas is being overshadowed by Xmas.
Merry Christmas MB!
Happy Boxing Day, YYS12!
Is that why that radio station is currently playing “Jingle Bell Rock”?
Well, there are twelve days of Christmas. I guess your birthday just misses the window.
Maybe I counted wrong. I was born on the epiphany, or the last day of Christmas.
Your birthday cake should be a King’s cake!
Really? 13 days is a pretty significant gap, and your birthday is after New Year’s to boot. I feel bad for my sister — she’s the day after Christmas. We work hard to make sure her birthday isn’t overshadowed and that she gets separate birthday and Christmas presents. I also feel bad for a friend of mine, born on Christmas, named Noelle. She has never stopped resenting her parents for her name.
There was a boy in my 5K class who shared a birthday with his sister.
my cousin and her brother are born on the same day, three years apart
My brothers and I were born four years and one week apart. I always made sure to save the Chuck E. Cheese tokens from my birthday when I was a kid so that I could use them at theirs a week later.
In eighth grade we discovered that one of our friends- who was in eighth grade- was younger than one of our seventh grade friends by exactly three hours.
I know a girl named Eve, who was born on Christmas, and the kicker is that she’s Jewish. She hasn’t had a proper birthday her whole life.
I just finished reading the copy of “Tom Swift Jr. and his Rocket Ship” that I found at the Strand on the dollar cart. Slightly cheesy 50s fun, including Aliens Ex Machina. Also kind of interesting to read about the second Mr. Swift, having grown up reading the early-90s Tom Swift IV series about his grandson.
I grew up on TS Jr.! I started with Tom Swift and his Megascope Space Probe and collected more than a dozen of them. So they continued the series later?
Recently I’ve inherited some of the original Tom Swift books that used to belong to my grandfather. I can’t wait to read about the adventures of Tom Swift, Sr., with his Aerial Warship, Giant Robot, and Electric Rifle.
There was a 70s series set mostly in space that I didn’t know about until I looked it up, and then a series in the early 90s that I read at the library that was set in Southern California and that I thought was the most awesome thing in the world at the time. Now I realize it had a few “trendy” plots about video games and extreme sports that might not hold up so well today, but at the time, I thought the ideas were interesting. (I have occasionally made references on MB to Xavier Mace, the primary antagonist of that series, and his attempts at weather control.)
There was also apparently a fifth series in 2006 that I’d never heard of. Given that the fourth Mr. Swift is likely in his thirties today, it makes sense he might have a son of his own named Tom who is having his own adventures.
Long ago, I started to write a parody of Tom Swift, Jr. All I remember about it is that one point, the Irish (of course) police chief shows up at the Swifts’ house to arrest Tom’s father. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us, Dr. Swift,” he says. “There’s a man downtown been shot with an electric rifle — and, as you may know, this city is not exactly swarming with electric rifles.”
That was kind of a prescient joke, wasn’t it?
How so? I had heard of the book.
Well, I presume the joke predated actual TASERs, which were invented by a former Tom Swift reader and named for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle.
Hello! I’m still alive! I’m glad to see that y’all are as well. I’ve had about seven hours of sleep total in the last three days, so this is just a short comment, but: in a nutshell, I’ve been busy, I’ve been well, I’ve cut down more honey locust trees than I ever foresaw, my sister got married, and now I’m home for three weeks. I hope all of you are having the merriest imaginable Christmas.
It’s been quite fun here, I hope your Christmas was pleasant as well.
Hi Piggy! Merry Christmas! Glad to hear you’re alive, busy, and well. What were the honey locust trees cut down for?
Have you seen honey locust trees? They’re clearly an invasive species native to several of the deeper circles of Hell. They spread like crazy, grow alarmingly quickly, choke out other plants, go straight through heavy work boots, pop car tires. They’re nasty.
Actually, they’re a native species indigenous to the south central United States. They certainly do look infernal, though, with those vicious thorns.
Hell is actually a little too far north for their native range; they only go to the southern border of Michigan. (Omaha’s basically the western border of their range though)
ahahaha
Has Hell frozen over yet this year? I know some winters it does?
No, actually, I never have! They sound awful. I took a class on invasive species this fall and I have deep sympathy who those who battle with those quick spreaders.
I decided a few months ago that I would take up embroidery because I was feeling artistically unsatisfied, and last night I finally started. Naturally, I couldn’t stop once I had an idea of what to do, so around 4:30 in the morning I finished a little piece that says “Y’all means all” in rainbow colors. I’m pretty pleased with how it came out, for a first try that I plunged into headlong with very little actual preparation.
I kind of want to write a book about the SECOND-most-superlative of everything that exists, to get people to appreciate all of the things that are never talked about just because they aren’t the most. I mean, how much do people talk about K2 compared to Everest, Apollo 12 compared to Apollo 11, or the Tonga Trench compared to the Marianas Trench?
If somebody else whose username starts with “K” helps me write it, it could be the “K2 Book of…”, which would go with K2 being the world’s second-highest mountain.
Or maybe call it “You’re Only Second Best” a la the song from Aladdin. Assuming that isn’t a copyright violation.
That seems a little insulting for a book that’s supposed to be celebrating the second-best things.
True, I guess I didn’t think that one through enough.
You could call it TOO. And give it a silver cover.
I think it would have to have a silver cover.
And an appendix for the rare cases in which the second-place finisher wound up better known than the first. There must be a few — Edison’s light bulb, maybe.
I think this is a great idea for a book.
Well, many second-place finishers in matters of human activity are simply deeds or objects that were once the record holder but have been surpassed, and may have become famous in the period they were (e.g. the tallest building in the world becomes the second-tallest when a taller one is built), but that’s kind of a different scenario than what you’re talking about. (For example, Alan Eustace’s parachute jump last year, which purposefully had very little publicity around it to the extent that most people probably wouldn’t even know he broke Felix Baumgartner’s record unless they looked it up in a world record book.)
Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott would probably be the clearest example of the kind of thing you mean– Amundsen’s team was first to reach the South Pole, but Scott became more famous because his team died tragically on the way back and were memorialized by the Edwardian Literary Industry. We could almost call it being “Amundsened”, although that could also be the related phenomenon of success being overshadowed by tragedy, regardless of whether or not the one experiencing the tragedy came in second.
It would have to have a metallic cover as a visual pun on how the yearly editions of the Guinness Book of World Records have had metallic covers for the past decade or so, and plain silver would be the natural color to use because of silver medals at the Olympics.
Exactly.
Fun Fact of the Day
Olympic gold medals are mainly silver.
True, it’s been a hundred years since they were solid gold.