Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel —
Children, leave the string alone!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
With the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
he lives — he then unties the string.
Robert Graves, “Warning to Children”
First post?
The poem makes me think of that episode in the original “Cosmos” where Carl Sagan talks about people speculating that our whole Universe is a subatomic particle inside of a bigger one, and the same for every atom within our own, infinitely, and… Well, I kind of needed to lie down after I first saw that.
I have just started to read Dune and it is awe-inspiringly amazing. Now I want to be a Bene Gesserit when I grow up*.
I also may or may not have found the second and third volume at secondhand stores and bought them amidst much silent squee-ing. Packing up all my luggage** for air travel is going to be a challenge. Y’know, when I was a kid and imagined future-bookgirl, who is now preset-bookgirl, I never quite planned on the whole plotting-to-smuggle-books-on-your-person thing being an enduring trait.*** Life is funny that way.
*Fine, I’m old. But I’m sure the universe will give me an extension.
**Books. I mean, I have clothes too, but I can always done those to charity or something. Priorities must be maintained.
***Seriously though- apparently SA airlines are enforcing restrictions on hand luggage now, but there isn’t a single airline that limits how much a person and their coat can weigh. It’s like they’re asking for it.
bookgirl:
It’s probably just as well you weren’t a Bene Gesserit prodigy, considering ***SPOILER ALERT*** how Paul’s sister turned out.
Following up from last thread: it seems like I no longer have permission to see the private threads. I tried both searching and looking in the ‘Life” category.
I’m working on it, Meow!
All right, I think the permissions are now fixed. Cat’s Meow and others who have reported problems, please let me know whether all is well.
Is the highlights thing at the top new?
It is new, and, oddly, I didn’t put it there.
I still can’t see them.
Okay, now I can. Hurrah!
I can see them now! Thanks, Robert.
Sorry this is long, and maybe it belongs in Rants but I can’t find it. Anyway I had a really not-great quartet exam today. I think there was no way to pull out of it at the last minute but I should have, I’m regretting doing it.
The circumstances are a little complicated:
– During the first semester a friend asked me to be 1st violinist in a quartet this semester (she’d be 2nd) but she was still working on finding a violist and cellist.
– I had enough chamber music credits but she needed one so I agreed, thinking it could be fun.
– Since there’s a severe lack of those two instruments at this school, she ended up finding two people who are pre-conservatory. Not to be mean, but to be honest, their technique / general level is quite weak. Understandable, since they’re not at conservatory, and not their fault, but still.
– 2nd violinist girl isn’t great either, was in a joint conservatory-university programme where the instrument admission requirement is way less stringent, and a few months ago she actually dropped out because she decided it wasn’t for her, and is going to pursue something unrelated.
– So back when we first started rehearsing they all seemed like motivated people so I thought, with enough hard work, it might be all right.
– The group chose a hard – too hard! – quartet, we only did two movements, but it was a lot of work to even get it sounding like anything
– Six months later it’s improved but there are still too many issues; the teacher would say the same things at every lesson and they would never be corrected or improved. I think a lot of things were fundamental technique gaps or weaknesses, but also a lot to with not enough work / individual practising on their part.
– I was basically coaching every single rehearsal; if I didn’t say anything, no ideas came forth. I started to dread rehearsing after a while
– I had talked to the teacher about not feeling great about playing with the others because of the level difference, but he seemed to think it would be “fine” for the exam, so I thought it might go okay with a bit of luck.
– This is for a conservatory credit, so the violist and cellist won’t be concerned by the mark. It would originally have been for me and the other violinist, but…she dropped out. So actually, the only place this grade is going is on my transcript. I only just realised this.
Exam time. Monday morning, 9 am. Lots of things that went marginally better during rehearsals, didn’t go well (in my mind). Mainly playing together and as a group, intonation, expression, whatever. I didn’t enjoy myself at all.
Afterwards the other three were all like ‘great job, it went fine, hahaha, I think we did well for a first time playing in front of people’ and I didn’t say anything, I was feeling quite annoyed. Different standards.
The teacher said afterwards I could have assumed the role of leader as 1st violin a lot more and been a lot more assertive. I’m sure that’s true, and I could have forced myself to do a lot more, but on stage I was getting literally no response from anything I did, very little eye contact, and I was really, really ill at ease with the group. I wasn’t worried about my individual part since I knew it well, but what did stress me out majorly, and frustrate me a lot, was how it was going as a group.
So I can well imagine that at a subconscious level I wasn’t 100% engaged with, and probably that was apparent in how I played.
We don’t have the grade yet but I’m really not optimistic. My teacher explained to the jury beforehand that these were pre-conservatory people, special circumstances etc. so I don’t know how they’re going to judge us, but the groups before and after us were all people in their masters so there is a very obvious difference.
This might sound selfish but everything the other three did also reflects on me, which given that the grade only goes to me, kind of pisses me off. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, right?
I just hope this doesn’t contribute to acquiring a negative reputation with the school / administrative people. There was already a whole drama with the violin exam grades where everyone was graded ridiculously harshly by this “prestigious” guest jury so that didn’t go stellar (my teacher is in the middle of causing a fuss), and now this. At least my other chamber music group got a good mark this semester though.
I can’t un-play the exam and what’s done is done, obviously, but next time I’m in a group that really doesn’t function (which happens!), but especially for basic things, I should insist on not doing the exam (if that’s even possible, this time we’d been signed up on some official list for months I think, I don’t know how that works for the administration.)
I don’t know what else I can do for this particular case except regret a lot.
Hey Selenium!
Okay, so that is a really frustrating situation to be in, and I’m sorry you had to deal with it. You’re completely right that there’s nothing you can do about the particular case at this point. The bad news is that this is a situation you’ll deal with throughout the rest of your professional career. Sometimes you won’t necessarily want to pull out of the end event, be that an exam or a paid concert, and you’ll need to come up with a way to get an end product that won’t embarrass you (and it seems like I have even less control over repertoire I play now than I did as a student, so “choose easier pieces” won’t necessarily work).
I’m not sure if you want suggestions, but I’ve had a ton of quartet training, so, without knowing the specific problems of your group, here are a list of general chamber music tips and rehearsal suggestions. I’m sure you already know some of these, and feel free to ignore any or all, but these are things that have been effective for me in the past. I was in a very serious, high level quartet as first violin for three years, and we definitely had some issues with playing level – but collectively through working really hard, we managed to play at a higher level than we should have been able to, and these are some of the ways we did that.
When you’re working with a group and the other players are at a lower level:
Individually: -make sure you aren’t “playing down.” It’s very easy to be like “well, their parts aren’t sounding good, so I don’t need to do more work on mine” and let your individual part slip. Make sure that your own playing is something you’re proud of, and try to motivate the other players to practice by making your own part impeccable.
– Know the score. Know the other parts. Write cues in your part. The more you know what should be happening, the more efficient you’ll be able to be in rehearsal.
– Practice with a metronome and with a tuner. Make sure you’re not contributing to any problems.
In rehearsal:
-Be kind. This is super easy to say, but it’s probably one of the hardest things for me, personally, to pull off. By this, I mean assume everyone else wants the thing to go well, and that they’re working their hardest. Try to come up with a way to correct what needs to be corrected without attacking anyone or making anyone feel incompetent. Playing chamber music is sharing a part of your soul with someone else, and that’s a very vulnerable position to be in. Respect that.
– Blame yourself to fix problems – instead of being like, “you’re behind me in measure 273,” say, “I feel like I just can’t line up correctly in measure 273, could we do it slowly?” Give people a chance to correct themselves before pointing it out – play a problem spot a couple times through before saying anything. Never, ever, ever attribute a mistake to an element of a player’s personality – i.e. “you’re always sharp, you’re always rushing”. Obviously, read the group as to how direct you can be, but when in doubt, go diplomatic. If feelings get hurt or people get offended, they will withdraw emotionally or mentally from the group, and the end result will be worse. Comments like that can really really rankle.
– Don’t point out an issue if you don’t want to spend the time to fix it. Prioritize.
-TRY EVERY IDEA. Even if you think it’s dumb. Even if you think it’s not going to work. If you have a disagreement about how to play a passage, try it both ways before making a decision. Generally you’ll find that everyone comes to a consensus without having to say anything. Never, ever, ever dismiss an idea without trying it – and when you try it, give it the same amount of energy and effort that you would give your own.
General rehearsal techniques:
For improving responsiveness:
-take away the stands, play a section without the music so you have to look at each other.
-turn out the lights, play in the dark
-play turned away from each other (we used to do corner time, where we went as far away in the room from each other as we could get and faced the wall)
-“live, breath, die” (LBAD) – play a passage through five times. Each person leads it one time. That person can do whatever they want, and the rest of you “live, breath, and die” for that person – so you don’t try to follow them, you try to play it with them exactly how they want. Then, play it a fifth time with everyone leading and following at the same time.
-Choreograph. Be like “okay, let’s do A – B while moving from side to side with the half notes.” This sounds dumb, it feels dumb, and I don’t know why it works, but it does – I think because it forces people to move with each other.
Intonation:
-Don’t be afraid to go through chord by chord, building each with first the root / fifth / octave if applicable, then adding third, then adding seventh / others. Do not move on until it is absolutely in tune. If you can’t land on a chord, get it in tune, go back to the previous chord, repeat. This will be frustrating. It is okay to acknowledge that it is frustrating. The good news is that after doing this type of “deep cleaning” everyone’s listening will be better and a lot of places that you didn’t work like this will be more in tune. Enjoy this while it lasts in school. (fun fact: 2nd violin has an outsize number of thirds in chords, and I basically spent two years pretty much every rehearsal being like “higher, lower, little higher, no, that’s too high” to my 2nd violin. End of the 2nd year, she comes into rehearsal and is like “I just realized I can hear when thirds aren’t in tune now, and it’s because of you.”)
Coming up with a cohesive interpretation:
-“Shakespearean counting” – count your parts, with whatever phrasing you want, and really really overdo it. Getting the numbers right is not as important as the phrasing. This also helps with playing together. If you feel comfortable, you can also sing your parts but that generally runs into issues with range.
-Go through and come up with a character word or emotion for each passage, and write them in your parts. It sounds dumb, but actually write it in – having it in black and white does something psychologically that just agreeing on it doesn’t.
-LBAD
-Play the passage twice as fast.
-Play the passage half speed.
Making participation in leading rehearsals more equal:
-take the total amount of rehearsal time, divide it in four. Set a timer (actually set the timer, this is important), everyone gets to completely control an equal amount of rehearsal time – so no one else can suggest doing anything during that time. If you end up sitting there for 20 minutes, you end up sitting there for 20 minutes – but you won’t. No one gets to go over their allotted time, either.
– go around the group, everyone says one thing they liked, one thing they could personally do better, and one thing the group could do better. Be specific – not just “it was out of tune,” but where it was out of tune.
– kind of similar, one thing i like doing while approaching the performance is to do a run, and then right after you finish, no one says anything for like 5 minutes or whatever. Everyone takes that time to write down a list of what they want to fix, and then prioritize it, and then you go around the group, everyone does their first priority, then everyone does their 2nd priority, etc. If someone already covered someone else’s point, that person moves to their next item.
-LBAD
-Come up with a plan for the next rehearsal before you leave – this gives people a chance to plan ahead.
In performance:
-this is something you’ll want to talk about with the group, but most people tend to get more closed in when they perform – they look more at the music and less at the other people. Make a conscious effort to do the opposite. Be more up, be more responsive, be the rock that the rest of your group can rely on.
I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but i hope some of that is new / helpful!
also, take heart: when you get around to taking auditions, no one will ever even look at your transcript.
Thank you so much! A lot of what you said resonates. I definitely value your experience. Thankfully I don’t have to play with this group after this semester and I hopefully have a much better one lined up for next year (to be confirmed…) but it’s good advice for life, I know this won’t be the last time unfortunately!
What I found so frustrating during rehearsals was all the excuses for things that didn’t work: “sorry, this week I just didn’t have the time to really look at the part!” “there’s just something wrong with my bow hold today” “too much rosin” “not enough rosin” “chair in the wrong position” “I’m just very tired this week (every week??)”
The blaming myself to fix problems thing – tried and tested – diplomatic became my middle name, and though I was direct a lot of times, I still feel like I should even have been harsher / more honest. But a lot of their problems were fundamental technique problems that I wasn’t going to be able to fix with just a few rehearsals…
As for ideas about what to improve and such, even when prodded they didn’t seem to be able to come up with much! It’s like we were hearing two completely different things; so many things needing to be fixed stood out to me right away, whereas for them, it was already “pretty good”. Of course once I pointed something out they never disagreed… I’m still baffled.
It’s like how group projects were at school but somehow even more frustrating?
re: excuses, in situations where people hadn’t learned their parts what i found tended to work was choosing one of two ways: 1. forcing them to learn it during rehearsal (i.e. working it slowly and then gradually bringing it up to tempo) or 2. being like “okay, then how about we all take these [two hours, however long rehearsal is] to work on our parts individually and meet [some time either that day or the next].” The trick is to not let it be postponed indefinitely, but instead with a sense of “this is the deadline for learning the part.” Also setting goals for the next rehearsal helps with this, because then people know what to focus their time on.
You can only work so far above someone’s technique level; that said, you can still get a fantastic ensemble performance with crappy individual technique. There’s things that you can work on like blend, listening, etc that don’t rely on individual technique, and juries will realize when it’s an individual lack of ability problem. You just have to distinguish between group problems – rhythm, articulation, cohesiveness – and individual – tone, intonation to some degree, how solos are played – and focus on the group. You also want to work to develop an atmosphere where people don’t feel like they have to defend their playing, and it’s okay to sometimes be like “okay, I can’t do this today but I’ll get it next time.”
Not coming up with ideas – that’s why writing things down or the timer method are so valuable, because it forces the group to self examine in a way that they don’t if someone else will bail them out. It also helps to point out the positives very specifically, I’ve found – be like “I liked the way we did this cadence,” “I liked how we made eye contact here” – because knowing what went well helps with knowing what the standards are. Also a lot of the time when people don’t know what to rehearse, it’s because there’s not a cohesive idea of what they’re trying to accomplish, and so sitting down and hashing out “what do we want from this movement [character wise, emotionally, whatever]” is usually a good starting point.
(a useful sentence when dealing with excuses like that is “That’s okay, do you want to work on it now or will you have it next time?” and then if it’s better next time it’s important to acknowledge that positively.)
Ugh, Solar Impulse 2 is finally coming to New York just a few hours after I leave it…
Oh, they scrubbed because of weather… Well, I hope they can fly soon for the benefit of all of my friends still in New York.
Aw yeah, they made it! But they will almost definitely be on to North Africa before I get back and there’s no way they’d come to Athens or Kayseri on their way back to Abu Dhabi.
I’m in Athens! It turns out that the info page that I got sent had the wrong date for when the apartments for students on this dig would open, so I ended up spending a few very tired hours at the American School while they worked it out, but they gave me an easy chair to sit in and spanakopita and water, and the project leader turned out to have a college-age daughter who’s not coming for a month, so I’m staying in her room at his house for a few days.
I literally put my stuff down, put sheets on the bed, showered, put on pajamas, and then slept from 5:30 until 11 and then on and off until 8 AM. I had some peach juice and rolls and now I’m going to shower and go to the American School to get used to their campus.
I need to stop marking my arrival in dig countries by getting too much sun on the third day, feeling miserable, and needing to lie down for the rest of the day.
Could you dig at higher latitudes?
I think I’ll be okay if I spend siesta time in stores or cafes or actually sleeping like normal people instead of trying to climb a very steep hill above the city like I did today.
But oh my gosh, the view, I could see all the way to the harbor…
Today my future dig colleagues (we won’t be digging until Tuesday) wanted to climb the hill after we’d already walked all over the city and around the hill looking for the cable car station (oh yeah, there’s apparently a CABLE CAR THAT GOES TO THE TOP), so I said no way and hung out on the shopping street and in a museum lobby until they texted they were coming down. Now I’m waiting for them in a restaurant where we can eat dinner, but I think we’re going to miss watching the start of the America’s Cup World Series Chicago.
Okay, so ,this news really isn’t all that big, but I am now officially a high-schooler. I feel a lot more mature and have caught myself acting mature a few times lately.
Is this how life works for a 14 year-old?
Catwings:
That’s how it worked in “The Incredibles.”
But yes, in my experience, 14 is a milestone age.
Well, if you start by invading Iceland in the next 6-9 months and stick to a decent five-year plan… Jokes aside, the older you get, the more freedom you have to make your own cool choices and create interesting times. Go for it!
That’s how I feel when I come home for breaks and open my dresser. I know I *can* wear t-shirts with images on them when I’m not going to class, but part of me is still afraid to do so again after wearing polos for so long.
Woo! I came home in time to watch the last race of the America’s Cup World Series Chicago live (in digital version) on the app! Team Japan won, and because they also won the first race, they came in third overall for this event and got bronze medals! I know that in New York, after I told the interview guy I liked them, one lady said that it was good to know that at least someone liked them, because they had been doing the worst so far in the series. But in New York, they won the practice race, and now they’re on the podium! Not bad for the newest team!
First firefly!
And thruuu the night, beeee-hind the wheel, the mileage clicking west…
So it’s the end of the school year. Tonight was my middle school’s promotion/recognition ceremony (like graduation but in middle school. it’s a pretty fun tradition) and afterwards was a big dance for all of the leaving 8th graders. That was lots of fun. Also, there was tons of food. Like, I ate so much that I was literally worried that I would throw up. It was so good though… Chinese, and Italian, and American (aka fried chicken), cupcakes, soda, and candy. It took about half a Mountain Dew to get me moving, and now I’m kinda worried about getting to sleep but oh well.
Also, I’m learning the electric bass for jazz band next year! I’m still playing the clarinet as a freshman in the concert band, but I’ll be bass in the jazz band! I can already play about half of Smooth and picked up a couple walking bass lines by ear (plus my classical guitar teacher is helping me figure out how to read in bass clef (you know what I want to know is why isn’t the grand staff just two G clefs stacked on top of one another? And one’s just an octave lower? It would make reading SO much easier)). ALSO. One of my sister’s friends (who’s a sophomore now, will be a junior next year), who’s really good at electric guitar (and I kind of know him already because he used to do classical and I once did a duet with him a couple years ago) wants to start up a kind of rock band thing with me, him, and one of my friends who’s my age and plays drums. Basically, we would just be backing up the pep band when they’re playing at football/basketball games. Which means that I also get to learn all of the bass lines to the pep band songs, which are all songs like Hot Stuff (which I actually like playing on the clarinet, but bass could be more fun) and Layla (which I cannot WAIT to hear on the electric guitar). Anyway, that’s me. Tomorrow’s the last day of school. And I just turned something in to my Spanish teacher online that HOPEFULLY will bump my grade up to an A in that class and give me a 4.0 for the school year. Oh, and I also won a math recognition award thing at the ceremony this evening. And I slow danced. Can’t you just TASTE the Mountain Dew in my words? Ok I’m gonna go take a shower now. See y’all later.
PT,
What a day! Did you sleep at all after that?
Well actually, I CONVENIENTLY got a new bed yesterday, too! And now I realize how bad mine was before – it was a bunk bed, and the mattress was like a rock compared the new one. This one’s so much softer/nicer/better in every way. I got about 6 hours. Not complaining.
Beds are important, we spend about a third of our lives in them.
Congrats, that sounds like a lot more fun than my middle school commencement activities all those years ago. I still remember posting about them in detail on the MuseBlog, actually! High school band is tons of fun, and you’ll make lots of good friends. Jazz band is great too (my high school jazz band barely existed this year cause we had a new director and couldn’t get it off the ground). Does your school have a marching band?
Yep! Also something that just happened: Our marching band (which I was playing in this year even as a middle schooler) wad chosen to play in Portland at the Grand Floral Parade of the Rose Festival (the biggest and most important one)! And it was super hectic because our buses pulled up three minutes before we had to go on! THREE MINUTES! That’s just enough time to put your instruments together, stick some plumes in everyone’s hat, run up to the start of the parade, line up, and just go. Didn’t tune or anything. The coordinators actually shoved us in from the side of the start of the parade, since we were suppose to line up inside of a some building but we were just too late. Oh, and did I mention that we also placed SECOND in our division of bands with 100 or fewer members? After all that. That was… two weeks ago, I think, and I’m still excited about it.
Also, congratulations on graduating! Makes my past few days seem kind of obsolete, doesn’t it.
One achievement does not cancel out another; congratulations to you both.
Whoa, that’s so cool! I remember my sophomore year we showed up about ten minutes before we had to go on for a double header. It was hectic- I can’t imagine doing it in three. Even with ten minutes we had time to quickly tune and hype ourselves up. (We won both competitions that day, too!)
It’s awesome that you’re already in marching band. Our band doesn’t do the “letting middle schoolers in” thing but we do have an event where we invite all the eighth graders to play with us at a football game. It’s great that you’ll already know a lot of people starting out in high school- I know that really helped me.
And thanks! Eighth grade commencement stuff is pretty great. Honestly I have such great memories of that time. When you graduate high school it’s more like “oh thank bless, it’s over, now can I leave!!”
AL, this post makes me happy because I remember commenting more or less the same thing on one of your posts four years ago. Time really flies. Go band!
It really does fly, and I’m so glad you and the MB have been there for all of it
*warm fuzzies* to you both
Well, I graduated high school. That’s something.
So, I graduated from college. I don’t think it’s fully sunk in that I’m a Real Person yet, though the prospects of paying rent, finding/paying car insurance, and being Financially Independent are certainly looming. What do you mean, I’ll have to figure out how health insurance works??
But you can stay on your parents’ plan until you’re 26, right?
Somewhat awkwardly, my future health insurance seems to be better than my parents’ current insurance plan. So I could, but it would be better for all of us if I switched.
Ah, well, that sounds like the smart thing to do, then.
Hey, you’re a Stanford technology graduate! Figuring out how things work is what you love to do.
If only if were difficult to understand because it was a complex phenomenon — rather than being difficult to understand because of inefficiency and bureaucracy.
I’m not home yet, technically. I’ll see you guys on the 27th.
So on Friday, just as we were leaving the lot where we’ve been digging (I guess it’s a lot, it’s kind of just this area two streets over from the Agora in the midst of restaurants and shops where the American School bought some buildings– commerical, not residential– and tore them down to see what was underneath.), and I looked at the comics in boxes at the front of the used bookstore across the way, and I saw that they had a JACQUES COUSTEAU COMIC BOOK. Well, an album, the big bound hardcover kind you can get Tintin and Asterix in, but still! I went back to check it out after washing up and getting gelato with my friends, and they actually had three different ones. They were all in Greek, but I could tell from the pictures that one was about sharks, one was about whales, and one was about a shipwreck. I got the shipwreck one even though I can’t read it.
When I got home, I looked up the series and found out that it was published in the 1980s and 90s in France with the title “An Adventure of the Cousteau Team in Comics” (“L’Aventure de l’équipe Cousteau en bandes dessinées”) and translated into some other languages, including Spanish and apparently Greek. The comics are each based on real expeditions and drawn by an artist who was actually aboard ship for all of them, and the artwork is really good.
I can’t find out if the books were ever translated into English, but it looks like they weren’t. However, as I’ve mentioned a few times, I remember very fondly that the magazine “Dolphin Log” (now “Cousteau Kids”) would publish comics about Cousteau’s expeditions when I was a kid. I don’t really remember the art style that well, but I think the shading was similar to this, and I remember the magazine comics had a multi-part storyline about the team searching for Atlantis, while the comic albums apparently had a two-book storyline called “The Mystery of Atlantis”. (If not the same comic, both were no doubt inspired by the fact that the documentary “Calypso’s Search for Atlantis” was aired as two seperate episodes of “The Cousteau Odyssey”.)
I wonder if I could write to “Cousteau Kids” asking about this and get a reply?
That’s an empirical question. Try and see! Maybe there’s even a DolphinLogBlog out there somewhere.
The magazine doesn’t have contact information online, but the Cousteau Society as a whole does, so I’m going to try to e-mail them.
Adult Chronicles, Vol. XXI:
Tried to pay a parking ticket. Went to the police station, showed them the email with the ticket number. They seemed very skeptical, said they figured I didn’t do it, refused to take my money and sent me to the Joburg Metro police instead. Meanwhile, I contacted the rental car company and my ticket has mysteriously changed from a speeding offense in late May in Durban to a (milder) speeding offense in early May in Parkview. I’m still trying to figure out where Parkview is.
Sometimes I think South Africa isn’t a country, just a weird parallel universe written by a more cynical version of Terry Pratchett.
Oh my god. I just read that Anton Yelchin (who played Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek franchise) died today.
It’s odd. There have been several actors in my fandoms who have passed away recently (Leonard Nimoy, Alan RIckman) and who I had a more particular interest in the actor themselves, but none of them evoked the same visceral response in me as learning of Yelchin’s death did….it felt like someone sucker punched me in the gut. I don’t know if it’s because he was so young (27…only one year older than myself), or if it’s because it was so sudden and unexpected (killed in a car crash), or what. I mean, Nimoy and Rickman weren’t *expected*, but they were old so it’s less shocking?
Is it odd that I have memorized and can recite the first whole paragraph of a Lovecraft story despite only having read through it thrice?
No, it just means the story made a strong impression on you.
I can do “High Flight” and a lot of “Ulysses” from memory.
…Kai I know probably when you say “Ulysses” you don’t mean the novel, but I’m going to keep right on imagining that you can recite a lot of the novel Ulysses from memory.
Anyway, I’ve also memorized a lot of things by osmosis. Unfortunately in my case It’s a tradeoff where I can remember yards of poetry without at all working for it but my autobiographical memory is wildly inconsistent. Swings and roundabouts.
Truth be told, that’s totally what I thought until you just corrected my assumptions.
Oh no, no, the Tennyson poem.
ZNZ, I’m like that, too! I remember words much more readily and clearly than events. It can be awkward but also has advantages. For example, I find it hard to hold grudges. I think that’s better than clinging to slights and insults and nursing resentments the way so many people do.
Yeah, there are definitely advantages. I’ll never be able to write my memoirs but my memory for text is really good for writing solid literary criticism, and fortunately (self-servingly?) I think criticism is a more interesting genre than memoir anyway.
It’s a mutant superpower and a handy trick to have up your sleeve. My advice: memorize as much good stuff as you can now, because it might not last forever.
Woooo! Solar Impulse 2 landed safely in Spain this morning after a 70-hour flight, becoming the first solar-powered aircraft to cross the Atlantic! After staying awake so long, I bet pilot Bertrand Piccard’s sleep will be as deep as his father’s Mariana Trench dives.
There is absolutely no chance of them getting any sort of headline today in either the UK or the US, but perhaps back home in Switzerland…
“Someone referred to the great medieval cathedrals of Europe as symbols of human spirit and faith, as humanity felt compelled to express them. The moon landing was the contemporary expression of the same enduring spirit, went the argument. The space flights were our cathedrals. Can the adventurers who climb Everest or who sail through the Southern Ocean make a similar claim?”
“Do these expeditions keep validating humanity’s coupon– its claim that, among many other terrible things, we’re also brave, tough, ingenious?”
– Derek Lundy, “Godforsaken Sea”
I’m not quite sure if I mentioned this before, but I’m volunteering at my town’s aquarium (I’m assuming I can’t say the name of it, but really there’s only one in my general vicinity) and today was my second day ever on the job! It’s so much fun, especially since I’m able to share all of this knowledge that I have with other people. Also, apparently this could help me get a summer job interpreting at my town’s historic light house state park (there are some really amazing tide pools down on the cobble beach below the light house and they hire high schoolers to interpret for visitors). Some of my sister’s friends are already doing it, and it sounds like a lot of fun. And I would get paid, too! Of course, I don’t KNOW that I would get the job until I apply next spring, but it’s exciting to look forward to. But yeah! Volunteering! Aquarium! Exciting! Fun!
That sounds like a great job, I’m really proud of you!
The Leave vote won (Brexit). 51% to 48%. I’m so angry.
Walls and moats are coming back into fashion, I’m afraid. Young people don’t want them, but old people outvoted them. (Moral: Vote!)
The Scots voted heavily to Remain, as well. This result is bound to reinvigorate the Scottish independence movement. And there will be many other consequences, not all foreseeable.
75% of those 25 and under were for Remain. All the pensioners that voted out won’t be around much longer to face the consequences. We will be here for a lifetime yet, stuck with a decision we were against.
Common sense has gone out the window. Michael Gove (Leave campaign) claimed that people were sick of experts. Those with university degrees were more likely to be for Remain; those with up to secondary education Leave. The Leave campaign’s scare tactics and false promises worked. Despite EU migrants contributing far more in taxes than they take in benefits, immigration is “evil”. There’s no economic justification, just plain xenophobia. What about all the British pensioners who live – retired – in Spain, France, etc.?
Facts seem to be irrelevant nowadays – I’ve seen the phrase “post-factual democracy” being used. “But can anybody tell me the last time a prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism has lead to anything other than bigotry?”
That why it’s important for the Muserly people of the world to carry the torch, contain damage, and clean up messes.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.â€
Is it only a dream that there’ll be no more turning away?
KaiYves,
In my experience, things just keep turning and turning every which way. That’s why we mustn’t turn away.
Unfortunately, I don’t even get to vote.
To quote Opus the penguin: “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do.”
Let’s not panic just yet- Cameron resigned, chaos and burocray will reign while he is replaced by some incompetent opportunist. After this backlash, it would take a gutsy politician to go through with Brexit- besides, the referendum isn’t legally binding. And -from an emotional perspective- good riddance. Britain has always demanded and received special treatment: not bearing the Euro inflation, taking in a fraction of the refugees foist upon other countries… To be clear, I hope Britain will stay after being knocked down a few pegs. But this is not the apocalypse.
It would take a gutsy politician to not go through with Brexit. 52% is still a majority, however upsetting that is to the other half of the country. Though I wonder why no one thought to require a supermajority vote for this referendum.
The major pro-Brexit politicians all seem to have disappeared since the vote. I’m reading speculation that nobody will have the nerve to invoke Article 50.
Fingers crossed that Bookgirl turns out to be right. (Do you play poker. Bookgirl?)
I hope she turns out to be right. There’s a widely-shared analysis from the Guardian comments section claiming that “Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.”
Whoever takes over the leadership will have the responsibility of invoking (or not) Article 50 and of all its consequences. Now that the Leave campaign has actually won, no one actually seems happy about winning.
“When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was “never”. When Michael Gove went on and on about “informal negotiations” … why? why not the formal ones straight away? … he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.”
Re: Poker: Only when my opponents are inebriated.
Half of winning is figuring out how to stack the deck to your advantage.I’m keeping my finger crossed as well. Funny that my cynicism about politicians should actually make me more optimistic than most of the others I’ve spoken to regarding Brexit.Traveling cross-country again, this post comes to you from Portland (take 2). I went to a conference, Open Source Bridge, and gave a talk, and I wanted to share this picture with you all. I had to take it through a chandelier, unfortunately.
TFW you get a personal message from the universe.
I didn’t even realize I missed Free Comic Book Day this year (apparently it was on the same day as the first day of the America’s Cup, so that explains that), but apparently there was a volcanology comic that talked about the Kraffts and because I missed it, I’m going to have to wait for the full book to come out in October…
Why is it that in science fiction movies, I always see spacecrafts that are directly level with each other, or positioned the same way? Isn’t there no direct up or down in outer space? Why can’t there be a sideways or an upside-down spacecraft? What would the difference be?
((SFTDP: Oh wow, old avatar. Sorry))
A purist might say you’ve discovered a litmus test for telling a real science fiction movie from an action-adventure movie set in space.
There wouldn’t be any difference in the absence of gravity, “up” and “down” mean more when you’re on a world’s surface. The walls onboard the International Space Station are labeled “Port”, “Starboard”, “Deck”, and “Overhead”, with “Deck” being the wall closest to Earth and “Overhead” the wall furthest from it, but there’s nothing stopping astronauts from storing things on any of the walls or using the railings on them to stop, push off, or hold on when traveling around the station. They could decide to treat “Overhead” like the ceiling and not store anything there, but that would be a waste of… space. (There is a very small amount of gravity onboard the ISS because it’s in orbit around the Earth, but in terms of what the astronauts experience onboard, it’s as if there wasn’t any at all– this is called microgravity. On a ship far out in space away from any planet or star, it would be true zero gravity, but everything described above would be the same.)
So in a spacecraft with no gravity, “floor/ceiling” and “upside-down” are completely arbitrary concepts. In a spacecraft that created artificial gravity by spinning like some of the wheel-shaped conceptual space stations such as DS 42 in Museblog’s old Sci-Fi RPG (or the gravity wheel portion of the Hermes in “The Martian”, if you’ve seen it), gravity would pull towards the outside wall of the spacecraft, making that area the logical “floor” or “down” direction. But looking at the spacecraft from outside, the “down” direction the people inside are experiencing would really be “out”– the exterior wall is “down” no matter where in the wheel you are.
Hmmm, can I draw this in ASCII?
Whether you are:
_
^
|
Here
||
Or Here
|
v
_
Gravity would be pulling in the direction of the arrow. “Down” on a spinning wheel spaceship is really “out”, and thus still arbitrary. At the center of the wheel, there wouldn’t be any gravity at all, and you’d be back to the zero/micro gravity scenario.
On a ship with the kind of fictional artificial gravity they have in Star Wars or Star Trek, you could presumably pick any side you wanted and make it “down”, but for docking with another ship, you’d probably want to make sure your “downs” matched so people coming across didn’t suddenly get pulled “up” to the “ceiling” and hurt themselves as soon as they got through the door. (Yes, this would be “falling up”!) If your ship was designed to land on worlds with gravity, you’d also probably want the side with landing legs, skids, or wheels to be the “down” for the same reason.
This is a very long answer, but basically, you’re right, an “upside-down” or “sideways” ship wouldn’t make much difference unless both ships had artificial gravity and wanted to send people or things in-between by docking or teleportation.
All of this is why it’s useful in space to talk about the x (instead of front or back), y (instead of left or right), and z (instead of up or down) axes, just like in 3-D modeling on a computer or some coordinate problems in math class. Picture it like two pieces of graph paper intersecting each other with the ship at the very center.
Okay, the ASCII didn’t work, it was supposed to be a cross/compass shape.
The enemy’s gate is down!
(sorry)
“Shaka, when the walls fell.”
spring breeze–
though deep in the grasses
my home village
–Issa, 1803
Hi guys! I’m home for two months. My plans: sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.
DAD!!!
Welcome home, Piggy.
Piggy!
Hello, Piggy!
Piggy! *hugs*
Welcome back! *hugs*
How petty is it to want to take an Air France flight with a layover in France back to New York at the end of the summer because I want to see Vendée Globe ads and merch in the airport?
Also, did you know that on a Mac, you can type an accented letter by holding down “Option”, pressing “e”, and then letting go and typing whatever letter you want accented? (For “Vendée”, you just hit “e” again.) On an iPhone, you hold down the letter key.
Has anybody heard of the OEDILF (Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form)? It’s a collaborative project to write a limerick version of the English dictionary, at least one poem for each word, which strikes me as a very Muserly endeavor. I’ve known about it for ages but I’ve only just rediscovered it and signed on as a contributor.
One of my friends writes for OEDILF! She composed the definition for “gamelan” and several others.
It looks like she’s also responsible for “episiotomy”? I really approve of your friend.
And 137 other definitions. She has a rare talent.