The Point At Infinity

Orchid Children

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:13:37 GMT

Working on continuing the saga of the last few days; for now, rejoicing in the regaining of my wallet, last night I picked up a copy of The Atlantic on a whim, and quite enjoyed this article.

Orchid Children - the theory that the same genes that cause depression and antisocial behaviour can, in the right environment, lead to unusual creativity and success.

Art for Art's Sake

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:36:38 GMT

Ok, I was suddenly inspired at work today what to do with the Traveling Art Book that ms_danson gave me when I was in Ottawa. It had been sitting on my desk for two weeks; there is some very lovely art in there to live up to, and I did not feel up to trying to emulate it with drawings etc, at this stage. However, I got an idea of what to do that would cater to my strengths, so would be relatively foolproof so far as my skill was concerned, and so I went to Fincher's to acquire some supplies, and spent the afternoon creating my artwork. It turned out interesting; I am pleased with it. It will need a pretty high-rez picture to get the full detail of it, though. Unfortunately, I do not know any visual artists nearby, although I will ask, so very probably, I will send it back to Ms_danson soon so she can send it on to the next artist in line.

Via Juniperus and Cpolk

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:17:54 GMT

This made me very angry:

Bath and Body Works is getting sued for religious discrimination for firing a Wiccan employee who legally took vacation time to observe Samhain

I'm not Pagan, but they won't be getting my business.

Via A_D_Medievalist: Hehe

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:03:44 GMT

Who is your Harry Potter Mate Your Result: Severus Snape You like your mate with a dry wit and a sharp tongue. You do not mind the emotional baggage that comes with him. You may have to drag him kicking and screaming from the potion lab, but once his love is given, it will never waver.
Remus Lupin
Lord Voldemort
Albus Dumbledore
Harry Potter
Ronald Weasley
Lucius Malfoy
Draco Malfoy
Who is your Harry Potter Mate Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Thoughts and a Curious Question

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:56:29 GMT

Really busy at work. Leaving work at 5:30 two days in a row.

1) Isn't it awesome to learn about something purely through debugging someone else's buggy documentation of it? *sarcasm*

2) Dear flist, a speculative question:
Suppose you had a significant other for a period of time, whom you loved and you thought things were good with, and you had sincere hopes this will continue. Then your significant other leaves you for Person X. Through the stages of grief, you are hurt, upset, wondering what went wrong.

However, do you think you would be more hurt if (a) Person X was very dissimilar to you in personality, character, habits or (b) Person X shared a large number of personality traits, features of appearance, or personal preferences with you?

I do not think monogamy or polyamory matters in this question; the point is that a person very important to you makes the statement that they prefer someone else to you, exclusively.

Alastair and I had a discussion of this, stemming from the story of one of his friends, and we found our opinions fall on opposite sides. I am just curious what other people think, and why.

The Tyranny of Community

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:09:21 GMT

Went walking today and picked up the Globe and Mail. There were a couple of interesting articles:

Melting pot or mosaic? Neither, thanks
Among the British ethnic left, multiculturalism isn't celebrated but scorned
Doug Saunders
Last updated on Saturday, Oct. 03, 2009 03:32AM EDT

It is a strange little paradox that people who write most passionately about freedom are the most likely to be imprisoned in a dull repetition of unoriginal ideas and clichés, a succession of Big Brothers and jackboots that makes you want to flee the penitentiary of their prose.

So I'm glad to notice that the British have begun to appreciate a new concept of freedom, one that is not so much obsessed with the supposedly prying eyes of the government as with a more immediate and all-consuming threat to human success – the tyranny of community.

This is a tyranny Canadians might recognize. Perhaps it is inevitable that it would be most strongly recognized in Britain, which has been a multi-ethnic society longer than virtually any other place.

A number of people here – including the most important ethnic-minority leaders – have come to the realization that in our efforts to define ourselves (or others) as members of predefined “communities,” we have locked large numbers of people into the prison house of identity.

“In general,” London philosopher A.C. Grayling writes in his new book, Liberty in the Age of Terror , “it can be said that the fewer identities people acknowledge themselves as having, the less free they are.”

Some people stick themselves into the cages of identity, but many others get stuck – not just through policies of traditional multiculturalism, but through the assimilation policies that are supposedly their opposite.

Mr. Grayling is a long-time opponent of serious government threats to freedom such as speech laws and detention without arrest.

He also frequently takes aim at popular British worries, such as surveillance cameras and ID cards, whose supposed menace is lost on me.

But here, he has become one of many British figures to draw on economist Amartya Sen, whose 2006 book Identity and Violence makes a masterful link between the single identity and the violent act, and defends the multiple, complex human identity as only an Indian writer can.

“A monk or a nun, a woman in a burqa, a priest with a large crucifix on his chest present an overriding singular identity to the world, demanding thereby to be treated by others chiefly if not exclusively in terms of it. … Such people are thereby trying to dictate to others how those others should treat them,” Mr. Grayling writes, contrasting this with someone who is able to be identified simultaneously as “a parent, a mathematician, a Bangladeshi, a man, a feminist, a Muslim…”

Such people, he says, “live closer to the fulfilment of human potential, something denied or compromised by imprisonment in a single overriding identity, whether or not the imprisonment was imposed or chosen.”

To identify “community” as a form of imprisonment represents a big change in attitude. The idea that a fixed and predefined community is good and even necessary is central to the attitudes of both multiculturalists and assimilationists.

In Britain, there is an interesting backlash against both those positions. Among ethnic-minority leaders here, it is hard to find anyone with anything kind to say about multiculturalism. And no wonder: A great many immigrants in Britain (as in Canada) have come here to escape the confines of a culture, not to be thrust into one.

Trevor Phillips, the Englishman of Trinidadian descent who runs Britain's official equality-promoting organization, has spent the past five years denouncing multiculturalism as a trap.

He has warned that people from different backgrounds in Britain are living “parallel lives,” and that an emphasis on “community cohesion” has led to a system where members of ethnic minorities are kept out of top positions because they're encouraged (and funded) to form separate, “ethnic” institutions.

In other words, the emphasis on community has destroyed freedom.

A few months ago, I hosted a debate at Oxford University between Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, an Indo-Ugandan-British writer who has become a leading voice of minority rights, and Catherine Fieschi, the Senegalese-born, Italian-raised, Canadian-educated head of the British Council's cultural relations think tank.

Except it wasn't a debate: They both detested multiculturalism, saw it as a viewpoint that traps people inside limited futures – that is, inside “cultures.” And that, they agreed, prevents the “mainstream” culture from changing and evolving and incorporating new thoughts and expressions.

These people aren't “clash-of-civilizations” conservatives. They are, according to The Daily Telegraph, the 35th and 92nd most influential people on the British left. This is where Britain has evolved further than Canada: The emergence of an anti-multicultural, anti-assimilation ethnic left is extraordinary enough; even more striking is that it has become the dominant view of the visible-minority progressive.

Even more interesting is that this “tyranny of community” view has not just turned against the old-style view of multicultural communities, but against its chosen alternative, the effort to promote a “core culture” of Britishness.

This idea, a “Britishness agenda,” was aggressively promoted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown about two years ago, and it received support from surprising places. Billy Bragg, the Marxist folk singer, wrote an intelligent book making the case for British patriotism, and a lot of subtle arguments were made in favour of a British culture made up of diversity, pluralism and self-criticism.

In practice, though, it went over poorly: Encouraging people to identify themselves as British above all else, no matter how inclusive or appealing you make that, does not feel much better than encouraging them to be Muslim, or gay, or Slavic above all else. For nationalists, extremists or monomaniacs, such singular identities hold an appeal. For those who want to escape them, an overarching “core” identity is a poor refuge.

Two weeks ago, the Times Education Supplement published a national poll of teachers on the subject of educating students on “Britishness.” An amazing three-quarters of them said explicitly that it was a bad idea.

“We shouldn't be promoting patriotism,” one teacher said. “We should be promoting universal brotherhood.” Schools, they realized, are here to help us escape the confines of community.

And I would be interested in hearing Ms_danson's and Dracodraconis' thoughts on this article:
PEI's Big Immigration Boom --- Sorry, Anne of Green Gables, but there's a new reason people are coming to PEI

Madame Atwood Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:37:11 GMT

Dear Margaret Atwood, before you use a word, check that it means what you think it means:

What [The Year of the Flood] absolutely is not, she insists, is science fiction – a statement she has made repeatedly since the 2003 publication of Oryx and Crake, a novel that shares the same future as Flood and some of the same characters.

Science fiction takes place “somewhere in space, far, far away in a distant galaxy,” she explains. “That's where hell and heaven went after Milton, escaping literarily.”

On Planet X, you can still have voices speaking out of burning bushes and “strange creatures with bat wings and horns on their heads flying through the air – dragons, of which I'm very fond.” But “speculative fiction” of the sort she writes deals strictly with things people can experience on Earth “without being stoned,” she says. “It has to be based on real technology, real science, real possibility.”

Um, there is a whole corpus of language use indicating that it's the other way around, fantasy, as well as science fiction, is speculative fiction. Reading this makes me think that the grande doyenne of Canadian literature hasn't read any hard science fiction or well-defined speculative fiction criticism in her life, and is ignorantly trying to avoid branding.

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:31:09 GMT

From Goth_hobbit, because Ms_danson should not be the exclusive disseminator of eventually-NSFW links in my Universe's Denizens. If you are familiar with Twilight in some fashion, you may need to wash brain after clicking this.

And I've had it on my bookmarks for a week, meaning to share it: Letter from the Elders of Sodom. I don't want to know the entirety of what John C. Wright originally wrote, but I know that Hal Duncan's response is totally awesome.

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:46:19 GMT

Question to my friendslist: Does there exist a Flickr-equivalent for audio files? I.e. a site with free accounts on which mp3s to which you own the copyright can be uploaded, given a URL, and shared?

Other than, of course, MySpace, and as a secondary application, YouTube. I can imagine that these two corner the market, since "audio files to which you own the copyright" require a bit more dedication to secure, ironically, than picture or video files of this nature, and it is very tempting to use them to share audio files to which someone else owns the copyright.

After The Nightfall Come Stormy Skies

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:55:27 GMT

Wolf howl, dog's bay in the night
A fist clenched painfully tight
Blood beats in veins like a bird above,
Faith and hope and love

A thousand hands will rise as aye
And our high banner streams along
Sun in a circle and blue sky:
All's in place but something's wrong.

Up above us a star burns bright
No one else would help us set things right
In the dark dark dark dark
Night.

After the nightfall came stormy skies
Weeping rain and a jester wind
Hands in your pockets, down your eyes,
And keep tongue tightly pinned.

Oh, my depression gnaws at me,
My lover strong and true.
Drink and be merry, dance and sing free
I am awhile with you.

Up above us a star burns bright
No one else would help us set things right
In the dark dark dark dark
Night.

- Kino, The Black Album

Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!
Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!

In the streets around the snow has ceased to be white,
In the meltwater mirror we see the moon light.
We walk on, we are strong and bright
Frozen fingers snap and break matches
That will set bonfires alight!

Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!
Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!

This is our day; we know it; the aligned stars above we meet,
Know signs in fire and water, the look in gods' eyes...
And now we take a step onto a bridge incomplete,
We had believed the stars
And "I'm ready!" everyone cries.

Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!
Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!

Those who are weak, those who live from beer to beer,
Cry out, "They don't let us sing!"
Cry out, "Try and sing here!"
We walk on, we are strong and bright,
Frozen fingers snap and break matches
That will set bonfires alight!

Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!
Try and sing together with me!
Come and stand by me!

My favourite rendition of this song on Youtube is the rehearsal video that always makes me smile

I translated this a few months before, in a locked entry. This is just for my reference.

Accidentally I'm Living

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:25:36 GMT

At Slacktivist, there's a discussion of songs and movie lines that 'get you every time' and that got me thinking of one of Vysotsky's two songs that are guaranteed (many others do sometimes, but those are guaranteed) to get me bawling every time I try to sing them, or hear them. So I stayed up way too late last night working around with this one. I took some liberties with the translation: it isn't always close, but except for the last line it is singable; I will be polishing it some more.

And I was crying at it (I don't cry very often, actually; it's just that you people are the ones who hear of it when I do.) And the next day, still trying to review it in the back of my brain, I got the prickling feeling in the back of my eyes thinking of the original --- in the middle of a software demo.

Song About A Downed Airman

Dedicated to Nikolai Skomorohov, twice awarded Hero of the USSR, and to his fallen friend.

Through the war till the ending I yearned for my home town
And though I was hotheaded, did my duty as called.
While he was too hasty, one time didn't duck down ---
And in war turned around, around --- two war years, and nothing at all.

And his heart isn't beating since that spring, 'forty-three,
While dreams war sent fleeting once again circle me,
And I can't breathe, reminded, and dark clouds dim my sight ---
He was better and kinder, and better, and better, and kinder...
I was lucky that night.

Silver spoons I've not tasted, I ain't one of God's choosing,
I did not seek the rear, and I met fate's attack.
But the women I met with would look silent, accusing,
"If you had stayed forever back there, perhaps mine would've come back."

I am sadly aware of what widows don't say.
I too care that their lives did not turn that way.
And I blurted, "Forgive me, sorry I made it through,
Accidentally I'm living, I'm living, I'm living,
Doing what yours couldn't do."

In his plane he was burning, and I heard his last shout,
"You will live, you will make it!" came through that roaring glow.
We would fly up by heaven, by God's own kingdom cloud,
He stayed there when he flew a bit higher...while I came down below.

And God's airfield dryly met the pilot they called.
He would land on his belly, on it he never crawled...
So he slept without waking, and his song couldn't end.
So I'm back, I did make it, I'm back, I did make it...
It was too late for my friend.

All around and forever I will always be wronging
Those whom if I met now, I'd be honoured to call.
Though we fly home still living, to where our hearts were longing ---
But our memory burns and our conscience torments us, all those who have it at all.

Someone stingy and clear counted hours we mete
In our short stay down here, like airstrip concrete.
On it some crashed and burned, and some flew never to land,
While I, I returned, I returned, I returned and...
That's the trouble, if you understand.

Song begins at 2:48 ; subtitles happen to be included, just in case you want them. (The first song is one I haven't worked on yet, but I'll translate someday, also about air war).

Via aminuteafter3

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:26:47 GMT

Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention & add one more question of your own.

(you are under no obligation to answer these questions, just do it if you feel like it.)

What is your current obsession?
Chordophones, apparently.

What’s for dinner?
I need to go grocery shopping and find out.

What’s the last thing you bought?
Aside from lunch? Some Yorkshire Gold tea and a seaweed-peppermint soap.

What are you listening to right now?
For now, just the cars and birds outside. I haven't picked up an instrument yet, and I kind of don't feel like putting on music right now.

Which language do you want to learn?
Hmm, I'd like to get my French, Spanish and German back up to snuff. However, I am not really in language learning mode at this time of my life. Italian and Japanese, maybe.

What is your favourite colour?
I don't have a favourite colour per se, but I like wearing wine and burgundy and bright maize yellow shades and dusty blue.

What do you love most about where you currently live?
Just about everything except the distance to the nearest bill-paying institutions and music stores.

Describe your personal style?
Casual preppy clothing with eclectic but elegant accessories.

If you had $300 now, what would you spend it on?
I do have $300 right now, but it's going towards bills and operating reserve. if it were on condition to be spent on me and can't be put towards something bigger, then a(nother) pair of Fluevogs or a Daddy-Os dress.

What are you going to do after this?
Head to the grocery store for rice and pasta, as I am nearly out of one and completely out of the other, so as to make supper. Then do laundry and play mandolin and guitar.

Your favourite smell?
Myrrh, hyacinth, yuzu, or red musk, although probably not in combination.

Do you collect anything?
Chordophones that make me happy, apparently.

What makes you follow a blog?
Good writing and insight (theirs) and intuition (mine).

Do you like to comment on blogs or just lurk?
I comment when I feel comfortable with the original poster. Else, I lurk.

What’s one thing you dream of doing?
Having a happy family life with friends, lovers, geekery, books and music.

What is your biggest regret?
Taking too long to gain courage.

What is your favourite thing to do on a rainy day?
Play guitar. If I do not have a headache.

Do you have a tattoo?
No. They're cool on the people who have them, but I can't think of anything that means so much to me I want it on my body on a permanent basis.

If you could be anyone who would it be?
A better version of myself. That's what I'm best at, after all, as I've got the most practice.

Are you left handed, right handed, ambidextrous, or a little of both?
Left handed. But use scissors, play chordophones, and return in badminton right-handed, which is weird.

What is the single most defining moment of your life thus far?
Leaving the city I was born in. My life would have been entirely different otherwise.

You're standing in front of a dusty window. Do you a.) clean it off, b.) ignore it, or c.) draw a little face in it?
Ignore it. I don't like the feel of dust on my finger.

What's your most hated household chore?
Washing dishes.

Name one thing you intend to accomplish in your life (as opposed to a wish, something that actually has a solid action plan you are working towards.)
Getting a novel published.

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:49:21 GMT

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

Women and Cinema

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:43:14 GMT

Re-posted from Blackfelicula

I'm posting this because I cannot count the number of times I've gone to the movies only to be left wondering, "Where are all the women? Where are all the women's stories?" If any of you reading my page have the means to help this woman produce her movie, I urge you to lend a hand. At the very least, please take the time to read this in full. Our stories are out there. Our voices are here. Let's use them.
____________________

You know, other than in personal interactions, I do not think I have ever experienced direct institutional sexism yet, but I've met many, many women who have, and Ela Thier's story twists at my heart.

“No, I don’t work this hard to be a star. I’ve put in thousands of hours of unpaid labor because I care deeply about the artwork that I create. The stories I tell, and how I tell them, really matter to me. I think my work will make a difference to people.”

Thu, 14 May 2009 21:33:27 GMT

Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)...

The Renaissance Faire Wench (QLAF)

Quirky Liberal Alpha Female

The hardest part about being the Renn. Faire Wench is that people often mistake you for a beta female. This is not so. You might be quite flirtatious, but you are hardly relient on men. You like to do things the mainstream would consider weird, (like dress in costume, perhaps?). Eat, drink, and be merry, but make sure whoever you date respects you and does not take advantage of your laid-back attitude. (BTW, you are likely the only type who can see That Creepy Guy (NLBM) for who he is, helping him to bring out the Manga Geek (QLBM) inside. This does not mean you have to date one, however. You are quite flexible and can enjoy the company of many of the types.)

You are more QUIRKY than NORMAL.

You are more LIBERAL than TRADITIONAL.

You are more DOMINANT than PASSIVE.

When picking a date, consider: The Lord of the Misfits (QLAM), The Fratt Boy (NLAM), The Snowball's Chance in Hell (QTBM), The Manga Geek (QLBM), or That Creepy Guy (NLBM).

(Image from http://www.buycostumes.com/Lock-Lace-Bodice-Navy-Renaissance-Collection-Adult/27296/ProductDetail.aspx)

Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?) at HelloQuizzy

Sat, 09 May 2009 09:36:14 GMT

I am heading off to Reach for the Top Provincials 2009 in a few minutes. I will probably be able to post from there.

You missed me just posting silly quizzes, didn't you?

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:11:09 GMT

You Believe that Love is Mysterious

When you think of love, you think of what could be possible in the future.

In love, you see things as they are. You accept and love your partner's faults.

If you are in love, you want the whole world to know it. You don't hold back with letting people know.

You are patient in love. You are willing to wait for the right person and the right time.

The Rose Test

Via Juniperus

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:27:29 GMT

Tired of all of those surveys made up by high school kids?! Have you ever kissed someone? Missed someone? Told someone you loved them? Drank alcohol? 49 questions for the people who are a little older...

What bill do you hate paying the most?
Hydro. First of all, I can't do it by phone, secondly it is too dissonant with what I know.

Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
Define 'romantic.'

What do you really want to be doing right now?
Having breakfast, but I have to wait until it cooks. Playing music.

How many colleges did you attend?
I attended one university.

Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It happens to be the one I slept in. I chose it because it was good for sleeping.

What are your thoughts on gas prices?
Hmm, natural gas prices are at near-record lows, because supply is at near-record highs at the end of the season...Oh, you meant gasoline prices? Don't drive, so I haven't been really aware of them in the last couple months.

First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
Don't wanna, don't wanna, don't wanna, hafta, a little later (snooze).

Last thought before going to sleep last night?
Want to stay up later, and can't...

Do you miss being a child?
NOT. AT. ALL.

What errand/chore do you despise?
They have to be done; no use wasting energy on despising them; I made them, I have to do them. Now if I were picking up after someone else, it would be a way different matter.

Get up early or sleep in?
You and I seem to have different ideas about the amount of choice in the matter.

Have you found real love yet?
I love my life now.

Favorite lunch meat?
Not really. Roast beef or good Montreal-style smoked meat, if I can get it.

What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
A headache (~Juniperus).

Beach or lake?
Are these supposed to be mutually exclusive? Three blocks from where I am now, there is a rather large lake with a beach on it.

Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
If you both want it, you should have it, if you don't, don't.

Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
House, M.D., out of very limited choices.

What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
Vysotsky. Richard Feynman. A bunch of science fiction writers.

Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
My bike.

Ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
No.

Ring tone?
I have too purely functional an attitude towards my cell phone. The ringtone that the phone came with. I'm boring, yes.

Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
Ask me about the strange places I've desperately wanted to brush my teeth at, and couldn't.

Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?
... California. (~Juniperus)

Do you go to church?
Only when invited to functions there (that covers all the possible occasions I've been to various denominations of church and synagogue.)

At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
I've started a new career and I love this new career, so it leaves new relationship.

How old are you?
23 for three more days.

Do you have a go to person?
I like Juniperus's "I am the fucking go-to person." It depends on for what.

Are you where you want to be in life?
Yes, actually, to my surprise. And there is plenty of room for progress ahead.

Growing up, what were your favorite cartoons?
Back in the long-ago days I watched cartoons, it was Batman, of those you may know, and the great Russian cartoon "Just Wait" (Nu Pogodi) (which is actually available on YouTube starting here, and has minimal dialogue for most episodes, with the exception of the wolf's key line "Well, Rabbit, just wait!" so I highly recommend it; Athaira has seen it and enjoyed it.)

What about you do you think has changed the most?
My understanding of people.

Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life?
No. There were some darned nice hours of them, but I'd like to believe that the current year is the best year of my life, except for the one that's coming right up.

Are there times you still feel like a kid?
You mean, I'm not a kid?

Did you ever own troll dolls?
I was terrified of them. They were a little less scary than Cabbage Patch, but I still couldn't understand the point of them. I may have been given a keychain once - I have this strange memory of magenta hair.

Did you have a pager?
My mother did, maybe still does.

Where was the hang out spot when you were a teenager?
Early teens, the gym stage curtains, Glendale Park. Late teens, the cafeteria, the Human Rights Monument, that particular corner...I dunno.

Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with?
I was, absolutely, but with my luck, my children may end up being the type to find me incomprehensible.

Who do you think impacted your life the most?
Other than Me, and My Parents? Well, if it were not for the Dark Lord, I may not (or may) have a math degree, which got me to the weird place where I am today. But then, I can also blame a few political figures, too.

Was there a teacher or authority figure that stood out for you?
Well, the above statement makes one candidate obvious. In unversity, Consuelo and Professor Scott. My aikido instructors. Mr. Richardson got me into the gifted program for grade three, for which he should be thanked hugely, possibly for saving my life in the long run. Ms. Heneberry for grade six was cool.

Do you tell stories that start with “when I was your age”?
"When I was your age, I was weird enough that nothing I can tell about myself at that age will probably be relevant to you."

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:50:58 GMT

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the Blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky!

Happy Easter, all those who celebrate! Happy Ostara! Somewhat belated happy Passover! Advance wishes of joy for Orthodox Easter!

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:34:33 GMT

http://syncategorematic.dreamwidth.org/

Thanks to Siderea and Kareila.

Nothing there yet, but I will get to importing sometime today or this weekend.

Yes, I am changing my name. And thanks to DW, I can now use all of my favourite word (LJ had a limit of 15 characters.)

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:37:41 GMT

My brain ordered me to get looking at my fiction writing again.

I hadn't looked at it since early 2008, since before I had been channeling most of my creative impulse into music. I am a different person now than the person who wrote them, from my location and career to my ideas about people and relationships. Different enough from the person who wrote them to be objective.

I am enjoying the read; the question, however, now that they are in MS Word 2007 and it helpfully displays the word count in the margin all the time --- how did I write so much? Nearly 85,000 words in one, nearly 58,000 words in another, and I am still not done (well, the longer one will probably take another 15,000 or so to get to The End, but it's the part of the original that I actually liked, by which time the early apprenticeship stage of my writing was over, and much of it I'll probably reinstate without extensive rewriting.) I find myself wondering whether there are any scenes or plotlines I can reasonably cut from the darned things, for lo, even though much of my genre features doorstoppers, I do not claim that this is a virtue.

I also found myself thinking of the 10,000-hour rule mentioned in Outliers and the parallel rule stated somewhere else that any writer needs to write half a million words to find his or her voice. I think this is true; between starting to actually write a novel, and long thing that it was, at fifteen years old, and the zillion revisions that happened to it after, and my habit of writing epic sagas in some of my posts, and occasionally emails of extraordinary beauty and even more extraordinary length, as ye know --- I don't know whether I'm at the half-million mark yet, although probably I've passed it a while ago, but I don't hesitate when asked to write stuff for work. They at work think it is a talent, apparently. I know that if I am any good at it, it's the result of years and years of practice.

(I am reminded of my epiphany about the string ensemble I had been in, in high school; they were a select group from the senior orchestra's string section, and at times they had the busiest performance schedule of any non-chamber group at the school. I realized one day that it wasn't that the string ensemble was composed of the technically best musicians that made it what it was; it was that it can be relied upon to perform, at short notice, without many rehearsals, get out there and do it.)

I'm no Anne Rice; I still need an editor; everyone does. Those two beasties I particularly will need an editor for, but for now, I will reread them, only noting the occasional badly-phrased sentence, and then finish the darned things as best as I can find the time. Then get to the actual editing bit.

I am needed in that darkness there

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:13:56 GMT


Darkness ahead --- keep your head! 
There are headwinds and slanting rain cutting, 
Standing sunsets like walls crimson red, 
And the roads, the roads are all rutted. 
   
There are alien replies,
There's bad gossip and lies,
There unwanted encounters take place,
There the grasses have withered and died
And tracks
Can't be traced
In the dark.

There your toughness is tried in defeat,
There are fogs there, and tidings rising rip.
And your heart stumbles over its beat 
And its rhythms will skip.

There are alien replies,
There's bad gossip and lies,
There unwanted encounters take place,
There the grasses have withered and died
And tracks
Can't be traced
In the dark.

Sounds and colours there aren't like elsewhere,
But I can't have a choice or have fear,
I am needed in that darkness there,
So stay calm; it will clear.

There are foreign replies,
There's bad gossip and lies,
There unwanted encounters take place,
There the grasses have withered and died
And tracks
Can't be traced
In the dark.

V. Vysotsky, 1969

Work's going great, why do you even ask? :)

Longtime fans would know that I started this one a long time ago.

"Some songs take several years, a verse at a time, while others can take half an hour," I said the other day.

"Why do some take so long?" my interlocutor asked.

I said something about how the wordplay of some songs is tough to map to the target language, which is a part of it... But what I didn't say is that I needed to be in the right mind-frame to want to write such a song - in order to translate it. Some songs, you can only translate when you grow up.

"No, she's quiet and waiting it out"

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:00:27 GMT

Apparently the more stressed-out I am, the more work I have to do, the more I completely, unstoppably want to create or translate poetry. I wonder if a similar process goes on with Ms_danson putting art on her journal if she's busy. Vysotsky's 'Song of the Earth' came onto my playlist, and my brain insisted that this one is turning into English, and right now.


Who had said, "It's all burnt far and wide
From this Earth seedlings never will sprout"?
Who dared say that the Earth has now died?
No, She's quiet and waiting it out.

Motherhood can't be taken from her,
For the sea can't be drained with a leaf...
Who believed that the Earth is all burned?
No, she's black from her sorrow and grief.

They have cut trenches into her flesh
And the bombs have blown wounds on her plain.
And the nerves of the Earth, raw and fresh,
Cannot speak of unearthly deep pain.

She'll endure, she will bear all things ---
List her not with the cripples unhealed.
Who dared say that the Earth never sings, 
That her lips now forever are sealed?

No! She stifles her moans and she calls
Ringing high from each wound and each hole,
For the Earth is our soul, after all,
And jackboots cannot trample a soul.

Who believed that they burned down the Earth?
No, she's quiet and waiting it out...

 1969

YouTube clip with somebody else's translation.

The Singer At The Microphone

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:08:11 GMT

A while ago, I translated "The Song of the Microphone" (and I am slowly polishing that one --- for a song of fewer than six chords, it is deceptively difficult rhythmically as well as melodically) and now I got bitten by the translation bug* to go attack its complement song, which appears to give the situation from the singer's point of view. Taken together, these two songs conclude that the microphone is the natural enemy of the singer, and vice versa**. Taken separately, they both have deep metaphorical meanings, but of somewhat different aspects.

*An insect that buzzes and whines in multiple languages, one language in each ear, and which is the adult, post-metamorphosis stage whose larval stage is the earworm. Non-bilingual musicians hear their subspecies of it as buzzing, "Recreate the music! Make up variations on the music! Possess it! Possess iiiitttt!"

**and the strategizing general in this war is the recording engineer, I suppose.

Before I get carried away mixing my metaphors any further, I present the usual, with, indeed, a YouTube link (which doesn't have all the verses; it ends at the refrain after the snake-charming verse.)

The Singer At The Microphone

I turn to the task I do again today,
I cannot hide --- I'm flooded with the light.
I go to the mike, like to a holy site to pray ---
No, no, today it's to a rifle sight.

The heartless microphone doesn't wish me well ---
I know my voice will tire any hearer.
I'm sure if anywhere a lie I tell ---
It'll amplify it, mercilessly clear.

And the lights shine on my face unkind
From the side, the spotlights drive me blind
The beams lash at me as they repeat...
And the heat! The heat...The heat!...

Today my voice is strongly hoarse and low 
But I dare not change to another key ---
For if my soul slightly twists, I know
The mike will never straighten it for me.

That beast, the mike, it's sharper than a blade,
And hears each cent of flatness that I do! 
It doesn't care that today is not my day 
As long as every note I sing is true!

And the lights shine on my face unkind
From the side, the spotlights drive me blind
The beams lash at me as they repeat...
And the heat! The heat...The heat!...

Upon its supple neck that evil mike
Lifts up its head, it's snakelike, serpentine:
The moment I fall silent it will strike ---
I must keep singing --- unto madness, unto dying.

Don't stir, don't move, don't dare to, I say!
I see your fangs, you are a snake, I know!
I'm not a singer, I'm a snake charmer today ---
It is to charm a cobra that I go!

And the lights shine on my face unkind
From the side, the spotlights drive me blind
The beams lash at me as they repeat...
And the heat! The heat...The heat!...

The hungry mike, with an eaglet's greed again
Out of my mouth it grabs at every sound.
It'll shoot a bullet deep into my brain ---
By my guitar my hands are trapped and bound!

Is there no end to this endless time and place?
What is this thing, this microphone of mine?
It is a candle by an icon's face ---
But I'm no saint, and the microphone won't shine.

And the lights shine on my face unkind
From the side, the spotlights drive me blind
The beams lash at me as they repeat...
And the heat! The heat...The heat!...

My melodies are simpler than a scale
But if I go off, even by a tone
My face is whipped, as by a bullwhip's tail
By the still shadow of the microphone. 

A storm or stillness --- now what will I feel?
I cannot hide; I'm flooded with the light.
I go to the mike, like to a holy site to kneel...
No, no, today it's to a rifle sight. 

 1971

The Ballad of Departing for Heaven

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:08:04 GMT

I only got acquainted with that song of Vysotsky's a couple of months ago, even though I've read quotations and references to it for untold years. And then I finally acquired it, and froze, and listened to it again and again.

And then when a couple of weeks ago I seriously messed up at work and spent a sad evening fixing it at home, this was the song I put on loop for about thirty times while I did it. I cannot articulate why.

But I resolved to translate it, just to be able to tell this. There are still rusty spots in the translation, and once I play it, I will probably find more rusty spots to fix, but oh well.

The Ballad of Departing for Heaven

There is your ticket, there's your car,
It's in good order, you may now board here.
In Technicolor heaven your dreams are,
A constant movie for three hundred years.
 
All's now behind you, all you've seen,
We took your prints, and smuggled goods won't pass.
Like seraphim you're sterile-clean,
You still get bedding, though you aren't in first class.

Now all the prophecies are now all coming true;
A skyward train --- we wish you all the best!
Oh how we want to, how we're all wanting to
Not die, but definitely sleep and rest.

This station Earth...Don't look so blue,
No point in shouting; it's deaf now to our calls.
Where one of us is travelling to ---
He'll meet God there; there must be God, after all.

Go tell him hi from us, you know...
If you forget, we'll live, and we won't cry.
We've got a few more years to go,
We'll play some more, and properly we'll die.

Now all the prophecies are now all coming true;
A skyward train --- we wish you all the best!
Oh how we want to, how we're all wanting to
Not die, but definitely sleep and rest.

Our sons and grandsons, three ages hence,
Will follow us into this void without dreams.
Though God forbid a war, perchance,
Or else our great-grandsons will very foolish seem.

You'll wake, and someone'll show you to
A world where cancer, stench and war are past,
Where vanquished is the Hong Kong Flu...
For all things ready --- are you happy, fool, at last?

Now all the prophecies are now all coming true;
A skyward train --- we wish you all the best!
Oh how we want to, how we're all wanting to
Not die, but definitely sleep and rest.

Well then, farewell, there goes the bell,
Safe be your journey from all troubles and goodbye!
And if you do meet God there, then tell
From all of us below --- just tell Him hi.

This is far from the only song Vysotsky has dealing with death, but I find it one of the most arresting.

Edit: Read the discussion Siderea and I had in the comments.