July/August 2012 Muse Roll Call and Discussion
Tell us when your magazine arrives and/or what you think about it.
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Squid Gallery
Jadestone and Dodecahedron have finished sewing their space squids and have sent us pictures of the celestial cephalopods.
Scariest Thing We’ve Seen All Year
Cat’s Eye sent it with the note:
I was recently surfing the Internet and I happened to stumble upon this photo. Shortly afterwards, I found out that it was taken in my area; the statue/mural in question is in San Francisco. In light of this, I thought I would send it in to be observed and recorded by the general MuseBlog community, and perhaps ask for a small prayer on my behalf.
Things of Which We Are Unreasonably Fond, v. 2012
By request. The description on the original thread:
You know what we’re talking about: things that, for no good reason, you enjoy having around, being around, or doing.
Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012
The gentlest and most poetic of the classic science-fiction writers lived in the October Country:
“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.â€
GAPA in the News
Editors work behind the scenes, but every now and then we accidentally catch a piece of spotlight. One of Robert’s recent projects is getting a little attention this week. It’s called Mysteries of Astronomy, and you can read about it here:
www. msnbc. msn. com/id/47637714/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Welcome, Neophytes! (June 2012 edition)
If you’re new on the blog, please stop by this thread and say pie — er hi.
Happy National Doughnut Day!
In the United States, at least, National Doughnut Day is the first Friday in June. If you check your usual sources, maybe you can get a free one. (See? Some of what you learn here is useful.)
This seems like a perfect occasion to reprise the Feather-y Valentine that Cskia sent to the blog a few months ago.
June 2012 “Happy Birthday!” Thread
Known MBer birthdays and “K Days” this month:*
06-02 ZNZ’s birthday (1997)
06-04 Drama Llama’s birthday (1999)
06-09 Beetles’s birthday (1999)
06-09 FantasyFan turns 7,000 days old
06-13 muselover’s birthday (1997)
06-19 Raynpho’s birthday (1994)
06-29 Selenium the Quafflebird’s birthday (1996)
06-29 bluefire27’s birthday (1997)
You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between September 24 and October 23, 1998.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between December 29, 1995, and January 27, 1996.
You turn 7,000 days old this month if you were born between April 3 and May 2, 1993.
*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.
Continued from Triangular Sentences, Other Assorted Typographical Diversions, and Just Plain Silliness
In case you have no idea what we’re talking about, or need some inspiration, here are the previous entries in this category:
Triangular Sentences and Assorted Typographical Diversions, 2010
Triangular Sentences, v. 2007.2
Triangular Sentences, v. 2007.1
Triangular Sentences and Other Typographical Tricks
Chess: bookgirl_me vs. bookgirl_me, 1-0
The self-heckling is likely to be the best part of this game.
Chess: Agent Lightning vs. L (Monkeyboy), 0-1
Ratings at start of game: Agent Lightning 100, L 100.
Ratings at end of game: Agent Lightning 50, L 150.
Conjugation Game, v. 2012
Sometimes called “prejudiced triples,” this game takes an an activity or trait and shows how one’s perception of it changes depending on distance from the speaker. For example:
I am firm. You are stubborn. He is pig-headed.
(That’s the classic example, which we’ve seen attributed to Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, and someone called K. J. Stavronides.)
On MuseBlog, of course, the gender-specific “he” can be replaced with the gender-noncommital “en.” Here are two recent examples from the original “Conjugation Game” thread:
I am writing my french-history paper. You technically aren’t taking a break from said paper*. En is downloading Disney and AVPM songs and planning to go running.
*Because you haven’t started yet.
I am enjoying my vacation. You are being lazy. En is inanimate.
See how it works?
Robert’s Time Capsule: Improving Rodin
This time capsule was inspired by Choklit Orange’s recent encounter with sculptures by the French artist Auguste Rodin, which she said she would like to pie. As it happens, Robert also had a Rodin experience once upon a time — one that involved a different kind of food. Over to him:
It was when I was in my 20s and sharing a house with some high-school buddies near Washington, D.C. My friend J. J. Martindale, whose name some of the older MBers will recognize, was working in New York and came down for a weekend to sleep on our couch and see some sights. She was feeling mischievous, as usual, and I was delighted when she and my housemate John agreed to try something I’d been pondering for a while.
It involved “The Burghers of Calais,” a bronze sculpture by Rodin, one cast of which stands in the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. The sculpture, a larger-than-life representation of half a dozen mournful-looking men with ropes around their necks, commemorates something that happened in France during the Hundred Years War. When the city of Calais surrendered after a long and miserable siege, the victorious English army demanded that six prominent citizens come out in their underwear, with nooses, to be executed. The English changed their minds at the last minute and spared them, but it was a close call.
J. J. and John and I went to an upholstery store and bought some large cylinders and thin sheets of foam rubber, which we took home and carved into the shapes of oversized buns, meat patties, and leaves of lettuce. We glued them together to look like hamburgers, stuck some watermelon seeds on top to approximate scaled-up sesame seeds, and spray-painted the foam murky green and black to resemble weathered bronze. Once the hamburgers were dry, we stuffed them into knapsacks and drove to the Hirshhorn.
J. J., who hailed from Surrey, England, by way of Cambridge, distracted the guard by pretending to be a confused tourist. (“Excuse me, could you tell me whether that large building over there is the White House? Oh, it’s not? Are you sure? The Capitol, you say? What do they do there?”) Once we were in the clear, John and I unzipped our own foam mini-sculptures and slotted them into place. Voilà :
Date: May 19, 2012
Categories: Life, Nonrandom Craziness, Sound and images, The Universe, Time Capsules
Swedes Hack Their Own Grammar
Swedes, it appears, love to tinker with their language. A few decades ago, they decided that their formal pronoun Ni (the equivalent of Spanish usted, German singular Sie, and French singular vous) sounded too stuffy, so they abolished it. Just like that, the Swedes became knights who formerly said “Ni.”
Now reformers there are trying to introduce a gender-neutral pronoun to supplement the standard han (he) and hon (she). A couple of writers have produced a children’s book that uses it exclusively to refer to all the characters.
The pronoun is hen.
Hm… Why does that sound familiar? Have the Swedes been reading MuseBlog?
Robert’s Time Capsule: The Avengers et al.
Robert recalls:
Throughout primary school, I read superhero comic books with an obsession verging on addiction. I was fiercely loyal: Marvel was my brand, first, last, and (I vowed and believed) forever.
I started buying them in second grade, in the PX of the long-since-dismantled Hunter’s Point naval shipyard in San Francisco, where my family spent a year living in a quonset hut while my father’s ship was in drydock. My first comic book was the Avengers; their colorful costumes caught my eye, and the confusion of characters inside posed a puzzle I had to solve.
Muse Academy May Ball, 2012
Off with your coats!
Muse Academy’s spring formal is now in progress!
Details can be found on the planning thread. Here’s how Cerulean Pyros summarizes them:
Entry hall: furniture attached sidelong to the walls and ceiling and floor, to look like the rabbit-hole turned on its side.
Ballroom: Indoor garden; large mushroom-shaped seats; chess; lion and unicorn archway to roof; tea party; holograms.
Rooftop: Tent, to turn it into an interior; croquet; clever and complicated mirror maze, as described extensively above.
Dancing will be: Lobster quadrille, and an assortment of interesting music. Food extant according to guests’ imaginations. Attire to be formal, comfortable, stylish, and individual. Interactions not relegated to fellow MBers, due to the infinite range of Mysterious Strangers who attend the ball.
The rest is up to you.
Muse Academy May Ball 2012 — Rooftop Garden
An adjunct to the May Ball, this year’s rooftop garden features a tent, to turn it into an interior; croquet; and a clever and complicated mirror maze full of optical illusions, all described extensively on the planning thread.
It is warm and well lighted inside the tent; outside, for those who need it, there are cool fresh air and moonlight.