Musings

Tangent. That’s what this site is.

I concur with JVF, the content is a window.

But the site is a tangent.

Oooh, what a tangled web we weave.* And live.

Enough!

* No deception offered, just smeary windows….

Posted at 10:02 PM | 4 Comments »

Hint, hint….

Today I added two blogs to my list of RSS feeds: by Paul Krugman (part of the NYTimes), and by Janet Van Fleet.

Krugman you probably know, the guy who just received the Nobel in Economics. I may get aggravated by him and cut him from the list sooner rather than later, though. He’s super-Keynesian, and that may get to me. Of course, you could argue that learning more about macroeconomic theory is not a bad idea, and Krugman’s certainly a good place to start!*

Janet hails from a different part of the world, spatially and conceptually. She’s an sculptor, designer, and artist who lives in Vermont. Check out her web page here, and her blog here. There’s a lovely, wry sense of humor incorporated into her pieces…. It’s a long story how I met her, and the short version is via The Guru.

* Interesting summary of Krugman’s work/position by the Nobel people linked here.

Posted at 11:50 AM | 7 Comments »

The light was crappy and I had the iPhone, yet you can get some idea of the delightful decorations on this residential retaining wall in our neighborhood….

What does this juxtaposition mean?*

As I was preparing the photo for this post, an interview with a recovering alcoholic (NPR’s Alex Cohen talking to her dad) began (I frequently listen to the WUNC stream). I was also thinking about a book review by Roger Scruton (TheObserver and Guardian) that I had just finished reading, of Kingsley Amis’s Everyday Drinking (2008), with three short books he wrote on drink/drinking published together. Notes Scruton:

The famous hangover scene in Lucky Jim is complemented here by a philosophical chapter on the hangover that is one of the great English essays of our time. Kingsley dismisses the run-of-the-mill cures that you can find in any newspaper, since they omit ‘all that vast, vague, awful, shimmering metaphysical superstructure that makes a hangover a [fortunately] unique route to self-knowledge and self-realisation’.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been aware of a hangover as having a “vast, vague, awful, shimmering metaphysical superstructure” or that it is a “unique route to self-knowledge and self-realisation.” Live and learn!

* Aha! I have a theory! [The answer is:] ’Tis the season to be jolly!

Posted at 4:01 PM | Comments Off on Humpty dumpty?

On this day in 2004 we drove to my cousin’s for T-giving, over near Chelsea, home of Jiffy mixes!

Think southeast Africa, in the 1970s–90s, with upheavals, informal militias and less-terrifying times. The following bits are from an autobiography of a woman who grew up in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia when they arrived), Zambia, and Malawi; her parents had emigrated there from England, apparently seeking adventure. The book is Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, by Alexandra (Bobo) Fuller (2001).

There is only one time of absolute silence. Halfway between the dark of night and the light of morning, all animals and crickets and birds fall into a profound silence as if pressed quiet by the deep quality of the blackest time of night. This is when we’re startled awake…. This silence is how I know it is not yet dawn, nor is it the middle of the night, but it is the place of no-time, when all things sleep most deeply, when their guard is dozing, and when terrorists (who know this fact) are most likely to attack. (p.131)

I concur with the special non-sounds just before dawn, except for some birds that get going very early, and some predators that are still trying to get a meal before light arrives. Still, much is silent.

On her first date with the guy she marries eleven months later, they camp out on the lower Zambezi River, with a cooler kindly packed for them by her young man’s friend.

We set up the tent, make a fire, and then open the cold box to reveal Rob’s idea of a romantic meal for a beautiful woman: one beer and a pork chop on top of a lump of swimming ice. (p.291)

The tenters ended up awake all night listening to the predators passing by—including a lion and a leopard—so it wasn’t quite as silent as she had observed previously….

Fast read, pretty good. Mostly from her childhood point of view, in the moment, although obviously written in her adulthood.

Posted at 6:18 PM | 2 Comments »

Lake Clara Meer’s levels are nearly two feet below normal full. That’s low.

So we have a Pres-Elect (already with his first press conference successfully conducted), and he’s already announcing appointments/hirings (or at least Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff). Since he’s not in office, how do they get paid and out of what budget? I assume there’s some mechanism for this, but I haven’t heard mention thereof.

BTW, have you noticed that the more formal media is now calling him Mr. Obama? Even though he’s a Senator. Protocol JCB & I assume….

Posted at 4:14 PM | 8 Comments »

That’s 349 for Obama (the funky question mark)….

Points to the media for impressive graphics showing an impressive win at the top of the ticket, and some close races downticket. The above table is from the New York TImes, and the headline/blurb that I stuck on top of it is from the Washington Post, and was up early this morning. Our country is facing economic nastiness, to say the least. The Pres is our leader, yes, but then there’s Congress. And there’s only so much $$ in the budget (which has also shrunk with the lastest “turmoil”), and it can only go so far.

I couldn’t resist a couple of calculations…. States with 10% difference between the total vote counts for the two candidates controlled 383 electoral votes, meaning most state contests were not that close. They went either for one candidate or the other—STATEwide; locally is another story. Also, the states Obama won had an average of 12.1 electoral votes, while the ones McCain won had an average of only 7.5 votes, and only four of his had 10 or more votes. Note that these states had total-vote differences of less than 5%: Ohio, Florida, Montana, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri; they controlled 87 electoral votes.

For more wonderful spatial graphics, visit maps and tables on the webpages of CNN, New York Times, or the Washington Post.

Posted at 12:13 PM | 3 Comments »

Glyph from stone set in wall of closed patio next to the tower, Palenque, Chiapas.

I love it when archaeologists get creative in inserting the past into the present.

David Stuart, a well-known Maya epigrapher, has composed “Obama” in glyphs (it’s “o-ba-ma-a”*), and you can buy t-shirts, cloth bags, or ball caps imprinted with it….

* Oh, you’re asking about the duplicate “a”? That’s explained here. Those crazy Mayas!

Posted at 5:27 PM | Comments Off on Past meets present

Sometimes what’s ordinary in your home landscape sounds rather odd to those passing through*…. I’m not singling out West Virginia here; after all, my home state has both a Hell (with a Baptist church I once watched a wedding party emerge from) and a Paradise (I once ate a fish sandwich there)….

* A quick google-check shows I’m not the only person to note the Big Ugly name…. Here’s a map of one stretch of the river used in Lenore McComas Coberly’s novel, Sarah’s Girls: A Chronicle of Big Ugly Creek (2007)….

Posted at 5:47 PM | 4 Comments »

Sorry, I have no Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf pictures….

Pomfret went to a combination tantalus and electric refrigerator and procured necessities. Fox, glancing around, saw a Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf perched on a cabinet in a corner, and a large deep peach bloom on a table against the wall.

Tecumseh Fox is a lesser-known detective created by Rex Stout, and portrayed in three novels published in 1939–41. This is from the final volume, The Broken Vase. I know it’s a minor concern, but what the heck’s a tantalus?

Answer: lockable stand for liquor decanters, in which they remain visible (same root as tantalize).

And: Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf. This refers to a particular shade of deep oxblood red, produced in Chinese ceramic glazes by additions of copper oxide. The term melds the Chinese and French terms.

Later, Fox is told that this precious vessel is “a Hsuan Te.” This apparently means that it dates to the Ming dynasty, ca. 1426–1435. BTW, the “peach bloom” is another contemporaneous decoration style (I gather).

Bow down to the power of the internet…and consider whether your domicile needs a tantalus….

Posted at 8:58 AM | Comments Off on Stand back!

After our late morning shopping expedition (miscellaneous hardware supplies), we took the long way back from Curtis, thereby circumnavigating* the lake. We stopped to photograph a field of near-harvest-ready sunflowers, and a pair of Sandhill cranes rose up from the far side of the field and flew over the sunflowers and our heads, vocalizing all the way! Exciting! [But mediocre photos.]

Our last photo stop was at the boat ramp/public access on a lovely curve of the Manistique River, where I greatly enjoyed capturing vegetative reflections in the relatively quiet river-surface.

Diary note: cleaned ashes out of wood stove (five trays) and outhouse bucket is now reloaded.

Late afternoon addendum: RIP Aunt NTM.

* Circumnavigate in the dictionary refers to travel aboard (a sailing) ship. Circumambulate means to circle something on foot. I don’t know of a word for traveling around something in a land vehicle.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »