Armi and I picked up some movies last night after I came back.
11:40:49 PM  #  comment []

Someone got us a set of pinochle cards for us to play Texas Hold ’em. Royal flush, beat that! After a number of rounds of three-of-a-kind kings and full boats aces over jacks, we gave it up, especially trying to push imaginary chips into the pot.
12:10:34 AM  #  comment []

Cursed out Communists in front of Rob and Brian today. Rob keeps thinking when I call myself libertarian-leaning I mean liberal. Not the same thing. Being on the right himself, he considers anyone--well, he once brought up Lieberman in the John St office, calling him too leftist. Jeff, a classical liberal, and I, a libertarian- and right-leaning moderate (with the score to prove it) pointed out that Lieberman would never have gotten onto the ticket if he had been too far left leaning. I pointed out his position on Iraq’s continued flouting since 1997 at least, and Jeff and I agreed that he was a left-leaning moderate.
11:52:52 PM  #  comment []

Walking downtime

We keep a list of “down time” on client site to be able to show periods when we were in an enforced work-stoppage on our main goals because something in the app or environment was not ready for whatever we planned to do with it.

There is one person in this certain departmental complex whom I call the “walking down time.” Whatever his level of skill, he presents himself to us as if he has very little, always asking for information or palling around in a very pathetic manner. I find him a somewhat—no, extremely—lickspittle and parasitic, or rather sycophantic. “You guys are the best, the best.” Of course we are. We don’t need reminding. I can hardly understand one word in four, which is not usually a problem as I try to be tolerant (for I am known to speak too softly and too quickly), but he interrupts my train of thought, which really infuriates me.

In the last two days he’s started touching me. I think I can assure you with reasonable confidence that anyone who has met me knows within ten minutes that I am not the kind of person who touches or brooks being touched by someone on two months’ acquaintance, let alone two weeks’. The second time he did it I almost shook him off, as he was doing it while insulting me. Cleaning up his English a great deal, I still heard something horrifically like “I never met anyone who use a Macintosh, most people who have Macintoshes, are no good technical.” Then he laughed as if to dismiss his assholery, then touched me again, as if to reassure me. I ignored him, thinking, Were that the case, you should get one, asshole.

To encourage him to leave or to bother Rob or Brian, I started singing along with the Alice in Chains playing on iTunes as I worked. Sap. What an album. or EP. or whatever it is. “Oh, who?” I ignored him, staring at the screen, humming back deep in my throat with the melody, tapping away. Rob answered him. “I’ve never heard of them.” I can assure you that if you knew who they were, I would probably stop playing them now, and reconsider my high valuation of them. He started asking Rob and Brian about their work, distracting them from their job. I started singing louder over his questions.
11:41:39 PM  #  comment []

By way of Graham:

A newspaper clipping.

Indeed, Mr. Steiner’s book and career are in many ways a celebration of the virtues of being utterly out of fashion. “In the 60’s, I was teaching amid all the upheaval, but I never had a day of trouble,” he said. “The young despise those who are trying to fake it, but they can accept the fact that you can be nuts or wrong politically. I walked into my classes and said: ‘I’m a reactionary mastodon out of the lost past. You don’t need to come to this lecture. But if you do I will explain something to you. I know an embarrassing lot. Terrible. You know almost nothing. I’ve taken an oath before God to change this equation in your favor. Now shut up.’ I didn’t have a moment’s trouble.”

11:17:23 PM  #  comment []

Sun is out finally, and it’s warm enough for joggers. Head-whipping time in Buckhead. Luckily I’m not the one driving. Unfortunately, another guy is.
11:14:22 PM  #  comment []

Last night, Kuya Tim found an old chess set, and wanted to play, so I obliged him, though I haven’t played anyone in years—fifteen or so. Thirteen? About that.

Anyway, I played. My strategy, if you could call it that, was to frustrate his immediate tactical goals, which is a way to prolong a game, but not a strategy to win. Luckily, it seemed that most of his tactical goals were fairly transparent, and I kept up with him piece for piece up until the end game. By that time, though, I had put my rook in an inaccessible position, only freeing it towards the end, and had rated bishops as slightly higher than knights in the midgame, trading them as somewhat equal, and forgetting how devastating knights are in the endgame. Then I blundered my king’s shoring up of the pawns on the right side. I resigned a few moves into the hopelessness territory, when I was two pawns down.
12:28:00 PM  #  comment []

May’s wedding

The Castro cousins and ourselves were in the front seats, but late. How embarrassing. I liked the flautist, but she arrived at the reception with someone. The impromptu sung vow was nice.

Reception: dancing, and wine. The food: vegan. Sigh. I think that was why she got a faceful of cake and he got to eat his.

After the reception, and failing to convince anyone else with a car to go to May’s afterparty party elsewhere, I tried to hint to a few people about a certain girl who had attended who had piqued my interest. Now sometimes I can be so subtle as to be nonexistent, so I made an effort to be slightly more broad about the hinting. No luck. Either no one knew who I was talking about, which boded somewhat well as it probably meant I was not related to her, or my acute embarrassment was making me subtler than I thought I was being.

At last, Maureen, secure in her own relationship, mentioned her in passing as that coconut who came in with the pute (white) boyfriend. I tried to draw others out on it to get to the name by lengthening the conversation, but it turned to other fruits, such as bananas. I figured out no one knew. Sigh.

Later on, back in Jersey, with Kuya Tim and Tito Willie and the girls in the house, I tried to draw Vivienne out on the subject. “I’ve been thinking about what Maureen said. That girl she was talking about? The coconut?” “Yes.” “Now, did she know that she was a coconut,” ie, did she meet her at all beforehand, “or was it the white boyfriend, or was she being catty?” Subtle, huh? “I think she was just being catty about the white boyfriend.” Durn.

Which turned me to another subject: “I’m kind of reluctant to call anyone a coconut myself. I mean, I don’t have many Filipino friends.” Yen assured me that I was, indeed, a coconut. May she have coconut children someday.

Thinking about it later, I realized that I don’t have many friends, period, so I guess it’s okay. :./
12:19:49 PM  #  comment []

I met Wow’s beau this weekend. Thank heavens he’s not an idiot, nor ignorant, nor Protestant. A Filipino, to boot, phew. We discussed his startup, which develops a front end or a concentrator for web services. I grilled him on several aspects of his work and where he thought the industry was going, “geek talk,” as one of the cousins mentioned. They have in-house Java performance tools already, but I gave him an RTTS card. Contacts! The consultant’s lifeblood. However, they have their own in-house performance tool. Ah well.
11:33:49 AM  #  comment []

Of course the day we leave Atlanta is the day that it’s beautiful out. Edward picked me up and we got some White Castle sliders, my first since Lent.
11:45:00 PM  #  comment []

Yesterday’s Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony:

Kenny Chesney (why do I keep wanting to pronounce that chay-ney?) was touchingly touched by his award.

Alan Jackson’s video for “Drive” I liked that video too, but then I’m easily swayed by that family continuity stuff.

Toby Keith was voted Entertainer of Year. Was “How do you like me now?” only last year? Phew.

The Dixie Chicks did not get a warm reception, and Alan Jackson enjoyed every moment of the hissing. Not that I think they’re traitors or disloyal or anything; that would impute a sort of high-mindedness to the kinds of things they think, like principle or something. No.

I myself reserve the right to despise any person at all, most especially politicians.

Of all the words painted on their bods in the recent EW, I didn’t see “Weasel” on them. They make their statement when they thought it would not get back to their listening audience. It did, and when their sales threatened to drop, when people were so angry they decided to boycott the band’s music, they made more waffling statements about their position.

I hope that they will realize that there’s no pleasing everyone, shut up, and sing.

It seems much along the same lines that Evanescence tried to dodge their Christian rock branding after heavily marketing to that audience, and seems to me to speak to a kind of lack of integrity on their parts. Do they, don’t they? To this they may now say, “We would rather you not concentrate on our opinions.” Well, sorry. They should have thought of that before they opened their mouths.
9:03:25 PM  #  comment []

Greetings from not-so-sunny Atlanta!

I could tell you what I was doing now and where, but then I would have to kill you. Nyuk nyuk. A certain distressed client might complain.
11:13:36 PM  #  comment []

By the way, would some one of you self-absorbed blogger bastidges please tap me on the shoulder as I am leaving the BABB to remind me that I am about to walk through the city, take the farking subway system, and ride the New Jersey Transit rails with a dorky nametag stuck on my chest? Because of course it’s all your faults! Meanwhile, y’all ought to step up to the plate and admit the blame for your part in my eating paper every time I scarf down siopao.
12:23:52 AM  #  comment []

Edward's birthday. And no gift.

Maybe when I go back.
11:02:02 PM  #  comment []

The BABB thing

Notes from Friday 16:

Went to the Jen Bekman gallery, partially to satisfy my curiosity concerning Caterina’s art, partially to burn time after work before the BABB. Caterina’s piece seemed to have sold, as I did not see it. There were some interesting photographic pieces on glass that interested me though. But it didn’t nearly burn enough time.

I forgot my glasses, so; but the red light over the door did not lead me wrong. I must have been the second or third person in there for the BABB, and straight from work as well. Geek.

“Hi, party of Frankenstein, Paul Frankenstein?”
“Uh, is that a band? Can I see some ID?”
“What? No, I’m looking for a guy, Paul Frankenstein.”
“Don’t know him. Okay, cool,” he says, after giving my obviously fake 30-year old ID when I am so obviously fourteen or fifteen the fish-eye for a few moments. “No cursing and no hitting on women.”
“Thanks. Wait, what was that?”
“I said, no cursing and no hitting on women. It’s policy.”
“Hokay.”

Ken brought in Jahna and her sister? cousin? I forget. I made the mistake of getting between the two of them while trying to take some weight off my feet, whereupon the sister/cousin started talking over me. My only recommendation when getting between the two of them is, Don’t!

Megan and Aaron said hello to me. She asked me about the Ethiopian restaurant in Philadelphia she had mentioned, but I had never gotten the address from her, so had never gone, as none of the clerks or liverymen or concierges knew of any Ethiopian restaurant, as the kinds of people who stay at the Adams Mark seem to have little call for it, and I was rambling way too long on a simple no, so I shut up. I told Aaron and Megan that I was contracted to a certain Distressed Client, but then realized perhaps I should not mention the project, so I shut up. Aaron has a new job at a startup, but I got distracted and interrupted their conversation, so shut up. And I never got to question him on his cosmology.

I caught Liz out on having de-linked me over the war. She seemed somewhat sheepish about it, though I have no hard feelings... see, Liz, your link's still there. We started talking about wide ranging things, and I think she holds no personal animosity despite her de-linking me. Which is a good thing.

Some woman intrigued by the, um, for lack of a better word for it, “blogging scene” had dragged her friend here. They seemed to be ignored by most, so I asked a question of one of them, and pretended to act interested (← mistake one) in the long-winded answer while I tried to think of a getaway line. No one conveniently butted in. Sigh.

I thanked Lady Crumpet for the theory card link, complaining Stanley Fish was not in their number. She nodded politely through the conversation.

Pitchaya and I talked about his piece on Woolf. I got to gesticulating, which led to the spilling of the beer, and having neither the napkins nor the presence of mind to go about getting one, I stood over it to make sure no one else slipped on it.

Mike got a Dimage Xi, a later model than the one (Dimage X) Paul had shown him last time, after losing the one he had shown us in a taxi cab. I pointed out that a newer model (Xt) had been released recently in Japan, but he knew about it. I appreciated his piece on Rosanna Cash, and he asked me why I still have not written for his Case for Song project. Now, I live in a fog of music, and selecting a single song from this would probably be beyond my eminently indecisive capabilities.

James LileksAnil Dash was there, pimping marketing whatever he's marketing.

Ravenwolf and NIck M: no-shows.
8:29:14 PM  #  comment []

I am packing for a business trip for a couple of weeks, and connection status there is unknown, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, and suddenly everything appears, well.

Afraid that the TiVo would delete the Series Finale of Farscape, I watched it. Wow, what a bummer of a cliffhanger to end upon, but the episode does tie up all the Ktratsi plotlines.

My suspicions concerning .hack//SIGN seem to be bearing out, and I think I see the way that the rest of the 26-show series will shape up.

I was hoping to get some more typing done, but.
12:24:18 AM  #  comment []

There is no spoon

Combined with some command line knowledge of how the ScreenSaver works, I can use Red Pill to make my desktop look like this (one third the size):[by way of ResExcellence, currently down]
10:06:22 AM  #  comment []

My parents’ anniversary today, in celebration of which I expected to take them out to dinner, was actually celebrated, without my help, in Atlantic City.

There was a lunar eclipse this night and last, but as it threatened to rain on each day, I didn’t see the percentages in it. But I should at least have tried.

Instead of all these things, I crashed the New York Blogger Bash, the fifth or sixth or fifteenth of its name, and my third or so. I would add more, but I put one or two too many pales into this head of mine with no dinner and no sleep besides, so later, later.

11:43:53 PM  #  comment []

150

A man who is trying to learn some art is apt to say, “I won’t rush things and tell people I am practicing while I am still a beginner. I’ll study by myself, and only when I have mastered the art will I perform before people. How impressed they’ll be then!”

People who speak in this fashion will never learn any art. The man who, even while still a novice, mixes with the experts, not ashamed of their harsh comments or ridicule, and who devotedly persists at his practice, unruffled by criticism, will neither become stultified in his art nor careless with it. Though he may lack natural gifts, he will with the passage of the years outstrip the man who coasts on his endowments, and in the end will attain the highest degree of skill, acquire authority in his art and the recognition of the public, and win an unequaled reputation.

The performers who now rank as the most skilled in the whole country were at the beginning considered incompeteent, and, indeed, had shocking faults. However, by faithfully maintaining the principles of their art and holding them in honor, rather than indulging in their own fancies, they have become paragons of the age and teachers for all. This surely holds true for every art.

—Kenkõ
Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkõ
Donald Keene, translator

Okay, a confession. Well, later on. Maybe.
1:32:50 AM  #  comment []

Grant Barrett tossed this into the commentary while I was reminiscing on family, both by blood and the kinds we make for ourselves, in quotations, and I have tried to provide a translation, though my command of the idiom may be quite flawed, beware! (Corrections welcome):

Which in turn reminds me of this. Le premier homme by Albert Camus. 1994 Editions Gallimard. Ch. 3, "Recherche du père," pp 42-3

Cormery regardait les beaux muebles rustique qui remplissaient la salle à manger basse, aux poutres blanchies à la chaux.

« Cher ami, dit-il, vous avez toujours cru que j'étais orgueilleux. Je le suis. Mais pas toujours ni avec tous. Avec vous, par exemple, je suis incapable d'orgueil. »

Malan détourna le regard, ce qui chez lui était signe d'émotion.

« Je le sais, dit-il, mais pourquoi?

[~] Parce que je vous aime », dit calmement Cormery.

Malan tira vers lui le saladier de fruits rafraîchis et ne répondit rien.

« Parce que, continua Cormery, lorseque j[base ']étais très juene, très sot et très suel (vous vouz souvenez, à Alger?), vous vous êtes tourné vers moi, et vous m'avez ouvert sans y paraître les portes de tout ce que j'aime en ce monde.

[~] Oh! Vous êtes doué.

[~] Certainement. Mais aux plus doués il faut un initiateur. Celui que la vie un jour met sur votre chemin, celui-là doit être pour toujours aimé et respecté, même s'il n'est pas responsable. C'est là ma foi!

[~] Oui, oui, dit Malan d'un air patelin.

[~] Vous doutez, je sais. Voyez-vous, ne croyez pas que mon affection pour vous soit aveugle. Vous avez de gros, de très gros défauts. Du moins à mes yeux. »

Grant Barrett • 5/7/03; 7:39:34 PM

Um, time to break out the Cassell’s:

Cormery was looking at the quaint, pretty furniture filling the (buffet hall? cafeteria?), at the blanched lime chicken.

"Dear friend," he said, "you have always believed me to be proud. I am that. But not always, nor with all. With you, say, I am incapable of pride."

Malan turned away, which in him signaled emotion.

"I know it," he said, "but why?"

"Because I love you," said Cormery calmly.

Malan picked at a bowl of chilled fruit and did not answer.

"Because," he continued, "when I was young, so stupid and silly (Do you recall Algiers?) you turned to me, and you opened without appearing to the doors to all I hold dear in this world."

"Bah! You were gifted."

"Of course. But even the most gifted need a spark. He that life one day puts you upon your road, must be forever loved and respected, even if he is not responsible. By my faith!"

"Yes, yes," said Malan with a (little place?) dismissive (?) air.

"You doubt, I know. Look, don't think that my affection for you is blind. You have great, very great defects. At least in my eyes."

—Albert Camus
The First Man
“The search for the father”
Allan, translating...

Any hints on some of the expressions? Ugh, the things insomnia makes one do...

Note to self: must update blogroll.
1:18:11 AM  #  comment []

Caught a bit of Rigoletto last night on WNYE. Though the TiVo said it was the Jonathan Miller production at English National Opera, with John Rawnsley, Arthur Davies, Marie McLaughlin, it looked more like it was set in the original period, rather than the Depression-era Miller production. The Mantuan duke was played by a Argentinian (?) tenor, so I suppose it was this one.
11:10:00 PM  #  comment []

I thought, what the heck, it’s been some 16 or 17 sneakypeeks since I last tried posing to Radio Userland with OmniWeb, why not? (OW 4.5 sp 26) Write, copy to make sure a crash won’t kill the post, post, and publish. It seems to work now, without crashing OmniWeb and actually posing the post. Yay, Omni!
10:20:57 PM  #  comment []

Ten things I hate about Star Trek

Everyone else is linking this, so why not? I’m juggling a few other things that are not ready for bloggage yet, so I hope this will entertain.

It is quite a pity about Firefly, but I haven’t quite made up my mind about whether or not it surpassed the Farscape space opera. But certainly both touched more resonant chords in me than anything the Star Trek franchise has touched since the animated cartoon, alas. Except perhaps the psychological torture of Picard. Perhaps.
10:16:27 PM  #  comment []

“Networking Frameworks Comparison” by Aram Greenman.
12:20:51 AM  #  comment []

Cocoa code snippets, from Karelia.
11:59:54 PM  #  comment []

The Hub: MMORPG studies
11:45:18 PM  #  comment []

Whoops. As I cannot blog at work, I took some notes on paper that I forgot about. I found it just now.

A street festival on Fulton today (er, Friday). Two blocks, with the usual suspects; videos, music, sunglasses, pottery, weavings, none of which look quite kosher. Definitely non-kosher foods. Drinks. Mostly an annoyance on the way to the lunch. I pointed Karlene out to the kung-fu movies, but. she. has. All. of. them. Addict. If I had known about it earlier, I may have gotten food there, but by that time I had fixated on the idea of McDonald’s fries and an empanada from the empanada place just past the festival. The fries were disappointing, the empanadas, expensive as ever. Ah well.

Alan Kay on Ivan Sutherland. (find quote) How does he remain so quotable?

TiVo has a new scheme, one that may attract more customers.

Gotta re-do the web page. I was working on something with stylesheets some time back, but stopped.

Last night (Thursday night) I discovered why Reel-Eyes videocap program was giving me problems: Qualcomm PureVoice audio recording was giving it fits. I changed the encoding to uncompressed, and I could record using Reel-Eyes again, which is definitely much simpler than configuring Adobe Premiere.
4:27:17 AM  #  comment []

Speaking of tests, I had not realized that the SATs had become so debased: Colin Fahey took it to get the lowest score, but goes over various aspects of the test as well.

[by way of Slashdot].
4:06:48 AM  #  comment []

Speaking of interesting suicide methods (Caesar’s suicide by Senate), Steven Brust has an interesting one: suicide by Emma Bull.
3:42:37 AM  #  comment []

For those poker fans out there (yes, you, Paul, and you, Ken) there is a fan site that follows the World Poker Tour, covering both the Travel channel coverage and the game itself.
11:38:39 PM  #  comment []

Continuing in the boring tradition

That I score embarassingly boringly on these tests is not the worst of it; it’s that I take them far too seriously and overanalyze them.

When I first took one of those political compass tests in college more than a decade ago at the behest of a campus libertarian recruiter, I came out centrist as well—he was appropriately dismissive. So I suppose my political beliefs are not only boring, they’re boringly static as well. I took one of their smaller self-test back to Dave and Ron’s room and managed to game myself to the libertarian end. I took the test last year when Felicity and Liz mentioned it, and came out only a few tenth-points more to the right, despite my pretentions (fraudulence=moderate) to libertarian conservativism.

I keep thinking that perhaps my belief in natural law warring with my libertarian impulses brings me these awful scores, but who am I kidding? I am neither conflicted nor sophrosyne, I am boring!

Speaking of Inferno, Zits had something like it on Tuesday, meaning this image should be correct in a week and a half: .

I tried gaming the Inferno test to shoot the moon, and still got only into Purgatory (as there seems to be no Paradiso) with very low scores for each circle but fraudulence, very high for limbo, and extreme for purgatorio. So even my repentance (High) is middle of the roadish, missing very high and extreme. Bland bland bland. Ah well.

Before Limbo, for virtuous non-believers, there is the hell of the uncommitted, which would have been a nice category for the test. Perhaps in a more complete test, I go there.

I am not quite sure Socrates belongs in Limbo; believing that Christ is the Word (Λoγoς) and that reason (λoγoς) is the disembodied preIncarnate Christ, I think Socrates’s adherence to truth even unto death may put him in purgatory, if not paradise. Caesar may belong lower, as a man of appetites and discord and violator of authority, even, according to that Richard Girling/Luciano Garofano documentary I saw (synopsis), a suicide by Senate.

The synopsis includes some material not included in the documentary, including the “kai su, teknon” bit, adding that this if true (probably not) would make Brutus, of the line that expelled the Tarquins, a parricide. This is one of the worst crimes in the Roman canon of crimes, subject, if I recall correctly, to a horrible punishment involving a bag. Maybe dogs. Or was it a drowning? Umm...nope, all three. It may be, if Garofano is correct, that by all his bestowal of honors on Brutus, Caesar was making it a broad implication, and thus was pushing Brutus into the Cassius castra.

Where was I? Whoops. The next several turns of the downward spiral are reserved for the unrepentant, immoderately concupiscent, including, I am unreliably informed, the chocolate lovers and the chocoholics (boogah!). Further down come those who do not respect truth, nature, and goodness. Then the heretics of Dis (though I find Dante’s definition of heresy somewhat overbroad) and the violent. Then the fraudulent, in one of ten bolgia. Then the great lake Cocytus, which I have always conflated with Colchis, where teacherous traitors gnaw upon each other’s brains.
10:50:07 PM  #  comment []

Boring!

I hate these things. I always fall into the most boring categories: you’re in Purgatory, you’re a moderate, you’re a centrist (Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 0.13
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -1.28
[how lame is that?]
by way of FMcC). Bah!
11:42:21 AM  #  comment []

Purgatorio

Your fate has been decided....

Purgatory

---

You have escaped damnation and made it to Purgatory, a place where the dew of repentance washes off the stain of sin and girds the spirit with humility. Through contrition, confession, and satisfaction by works of righteousness, you must make your way up the mountain. As the sins are cleansed from your soul, you will be illuminated by the Sun of Divine Grace, and you will join other souls, smiling and happy, upon the summit of this mountain. Before long you will know the joys of Paradise as you ascend to the ethereal realm of Heaven.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

By way of various sources, including Ravenwolf and Dr. Weevil.
11:41:24 AM  #  comment []

Which passage reminded me of this one:

And there were other things.

“You’re my teacher,” he said quietly. “My friend. Ten years ago when I was going insane trying to—to crush out the fire inside me—you told me that it was possible to have that fire, to hold it and keep it, not as a secret that I had to hide but as a way I could make my living and as a glory, a joy in itself. You told me that dreams were not insanity. Just for that, if you’d done nothing for me from that moment on, I’d still owe you...”

“You owe me nothing!” The crippled fingers tightened fiercely over the soft, stubby ones in their grasp. “Owe—it’s a filthy word! We are not permitted to marry, but we need sons and daughters, Rhion, to whom we can pass our knowledge. To whom we can pass what we are. Not children of the blood, but children of the fire.” There was a long silence, broken by the far-off mewling of gulls.

Rhion on magic; Jaldis on fatherhood
The Rainbow Abyss, 110<
Barbara Hambly, Sun-cross

1:34:50 AM  #  comment []

From Slashdot:

Why so many songs? I got tired of carrying around a CD player and so many CDs. And even if I brought 100 CDs on a long trip, I'd always find myself in the mood for something I had left behind. No with my entire collection at hand, I always have everything I want.

Funny, that’s the way I feel about books.
11:08:19 PM  #  comment []

I meant to post that last quotation last Tuesday or Wednesday when I read it or Thursday when I finished the book. Lots of literary references in other languages, some of which I can Just Make Out. Ooh, the next one in the Lymond Chronicles looks to be a court intrigue, which is a particularly favorite subgenre of mine, in any genre.
11:06:54 PM  #  comment []

“Why should you think so? Why assume me to be of such different stuff? We have the same blood, the same upbringing. What else is there, at the end of the day, that we can call our own? We’re our father’s prejudices and our swordmaster’s dead men; our mother’s palate and our nurse’s habit of speech. We’re the books unwritten by our tutor, and our groom’s convictions and the courage of our first horse. I share all that. Five years—even five such as these—can’t tear me drop by drop from your blood.”

Francis Crawford of Lymond
to Richard, Baron Culter, his brother
Game of Kings, 449,
Dorothy Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles.

3:33:41 AM  #  comment []

Phew. All day at work I was sniffling sneezing wheezing stuffy head but thank you no fever or coughing, but it had all the earmarks of when I have not had enough aggregate sleep over the last three days—I call them stress colds, exacerbated by allergies. So I zonked at eight and slept til now. Blech. Now I cannot sleep; here I am, writing about colds and reading weblogs. And tomorrow the same. Sometimes I despair.
3:21:44 AM  #  comment []

San Juan de la Cruz, sitting in his cell, staring out over the Castillan plain and the empty sky: todo y nada he mutters to himself, “Todo y nada.” But, fellow traveler in a latter age, which was which? Are you quite sure?
12:35:50 AM  #  comment []

Scratch the bus comment. From 2:10 to 6:00, we waited at Caesars for an Academy bus. Caesars was not forthcoming with information, and the Academy buses came already filled, if they came at all. Of course, if anyone had listened to me, we would have disbelieved the staff when they told us the Academy bus came empty to Caesars and gone to Showboat where it originated.

At Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, I've noticed this before: the priest asks questions of the parishioners, and expects answers, as opposed to the St Cecilia's, where the questions are asked rhetorically.

King’s Chef on Route One South north of us, after some wandering. I kept getting distracted from the conversation.

Heaume et gaine! Heaume et gaine! Gigoté chic!
11:29:24 PM  #  comment []

Went to Atlantic City by bus with Mom and the girls, from Cheesequake. It was not as bad as I expected.

Yes, I brought my laptop to the unit, ← How uncool am I?
which if you may recall from last summer, has no connectivity, anywhere. ← How uncool am I?

Notes: Filipinos who come to the States eat steak steak steak. I am a seafood person. The alarm went off while at the Tropicana buffet: “They’re not going to cheat me of my crab legs! Gr.”

Mom went off to Hilton and the girls took me on a tour of the near casinos to observe the people playing. I tried to explain what I knew of the table games to them. One-eye king of the blind.
11:23:33 PM  #  comment []

Somehow roped into a trip to Atlantic City, so this may be my last post for a while.
8:33:14 PM  #  comment []

Home early today, and though it looks to be stormy, I came before and early enough. Wood doves over a woodshed cooing and petting like a couple of ecstatic ravers. The groundhog that has been basking by the same woodshed over the course of the last week was accosted by and fought off another groundhog. At least I think it did. At least I think that they were fighting. Fish are jumping, cotton is high.
5:52:01 PM  #  comment []

Like the dollar store...ON CRACK

I agree.
2:23:09 PM  #  comment []

I followed a link in my referer logs, and got this:

Mesmerising. Not so much the world as a blog, but the blogosphere as a fishbowl.

Why don’t more people have GeoIDs? Besides the whole stalker thing, that is? Oops, never mind.
9:19:13 PM  #  comment []

Bruce Wexler thinks poetry is dead, and that he helped kill it. Discuss.

Whoops, I meant to write more. Notes:

Wexler places the blame on the surrounding culture, rather than poets and the institutions with which they surrounded themselves, as Gioia did.

Edmund Wilson: “Is Verse a Dying Technique.”

Epstein once asked in... Commentary, was it? “Who killed poetry?”

He ends with an allusion to Frost, much as Plato’s Republic turns on the pure poetry of the language. Wexler just isn’t as good as Platon.

Experimental poetry of the sort...

Love of language is the root of poetry; not all verse is, or need be experienced, as written verse. Nor was poetry strictly limited to the lyric anciently.

The New Formalists and the Expansives have been telling long stories with verse... but do not seem to get much buzz. The book-length poem is not dead: James Merrill, Rachel Hadas, Frederick Turner, Vikram Seth, John Bricuth, ...

By the way, would someone please apply some smackdown to Happy Tutor concerning Wallace Stevens and philosophy while I rummage about for the Necessary Angel? I can’t find my copy to do it myself.
12:01:01 AM  #  comment []