Back to index of "this and that in my life" pages by Donald Sauter.
Dedicated to the proposition that every thought that's ever been thunk may be of use or interest to someone . . .
THEE: Another base 8 fan
I liked your webpage in support of base 8. It agrees well with my
feelings on the matter. I have posted a link to your webpage on a
messageboard that supports base 12. I have also posted there in support
of base 8. I post under the name Shoelace - See link:
http://z13.invisionfree.com/DozensOnline/index.php?showtopic=197&st=0#entry3334615
Interestingly, I am also a strong advocate for an esperanto type second
language. It would be a shame if a language as stupid as English
becomes the universal language by default.
I don't think that conversion to base 8 stands a chance unless it is
accepted as being superior to base 12. I agree that thirds just is not
that special compared to halves. And as you point out, base 8 handles
thirds much better than the base 10.
ME: Great to hear from another Base 8 supporter. I didn't know that
there was actually organized support for Base 12, which I think is
certifiably lunatic. How in the world is having "lots" of factors
superior to having just one, simple, beautiful, elegant one? And,
really, all base 12 does is throw out Base 10's 5 and replace it with a
3. Big whoop. Where is the advantage in that?
Thanks again for giving my page a bit of visibility.
THEE: An Odd Sears Roebuck Guitar
I enjoy your site. A lot of information.
A friend has inherited her grandmother's guitar, a vintage Sears
Roebuck. It's a very small bodied guitar, about the size of a Martin
000, and it has a pair of soundholes. The bridge saddle is rather odd as
well, it has a sort of tail that points towards the neck, extending
about an inch and a half to towards the soundholes. I've been trying to
find out more about the guitar, but I'm sort of striking out. Any
information you could pass along would be appreciated.
ME: Thanks for visiting, and thanks for writing. I think the guitar you
are describing would be later than the old Sears catalogs I had access
to on microfilm at the Library of Congress. Definitely a steel-string,
right? About the only search strategy that comes to mind is keep an eye
on old Sears catalogs on ebay, and ask the seller if it has anything
like the guitar you describe. Good luck.
THEE: subject Joe Pope
hi, is there a website where I can see a picture of the late Joe Pope?
Preferably in the 80's or 90's because a friend of mine swears to have
met him so we wanted to see his picture. Thanks
ME: No, I've never seen a picture of Joe. A real quick web search
didn't turn up anything, but you might try digging in real deep. I
found an old fanzine with a tribute to Joe at
http://www.daytrippin.com/Back_Issues_one.html
Maybe they could help. Best of luck.
THEE: Re: my idol's in here somewhere
Funny you should mention The Simpsons. In class of Monday, I used a
quotation from philosopher Lisa Simpson: "A man who envies our family
is a man who needs help." Other quotes I used were Julius Caesar's "I
came. I saw. I conquered," Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give
me death," Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what
you can do for your country," and Martin Luther King, Jr's "Let freedom
ring . . . " section from I Have a Dream. Then we looked at "The man
who envies our family ought to see a psychiatrist," "Every time the cat
goes outside, the mice have fun," "I came. I looked around. The the
world was conquered by me." "Give me liberty, or I would rather die,"
"Ask not what your country can do for you; think about the ways that you
might be able to help your nation," and "Let freedom ring from the
prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire . . Colorado's snow-capped
mountains . . . Tennessee's Lookout Mountain . . . and Mississippi's
hills and hilltops." "The famous versions sound better," one student
remarked. "Lisa Simpson's comment was funnier the way she said it,"
another added. "Those speeches would never have become famous if they
were written like that," another observed. Then we talked about
problems with parallel structure in some the lists my students had
written in their essays.
>>When were the words written for "O Holy Night"?
>Good question. Wikipedia gives a clearer answer than the page above it
in the hit list for "o holy night". (Dang. I have an unfounded "thing"
against Wikipedia.)
Most of the faculty won't let students use Wikipedia because of the
unknown authorship. After pointing out the possible problems, I've
allowed my developmental students to use a couple of articles or article
sections that I selected--one on Jim Crow laws, one on the history of
cell phones. Their Jim Crow laws definition paragraphs grew out of a
reference to Jim Crow laws in a textbook reading. Because I knew that
my students wouldn't know what this meant, early in the semester I gave
them the task of using the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia website
(neat site), the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site website,
and the Wikipedia article to write a detailed definition paragraph of a
full typed page for an audience of high school students. They're now
working on their final essays on cell phone ettiquette as an outgrowth
on a more general textbook reading called "Manners Matter." I provided
32 online news articles and told them they needed to select at least
eight that they could use to develop their chosen essay points. I've
returned the outlines, introductory paragraphs, and Works Cited page
drafts to one class and am about to type and post my comments for the
online class. Projects like this are one good argument for an
educational platform on the Internet. It's easy to post links to the
websites in an assignments folder. The students can click on the links
for instant resources, and we, as the faculty, have far less worry about
plagiarism because we know the sources.
>"O Holy Night" ("Cantique de No l") is a well-known Christmas carol
composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem "Minuit, chr tiens"
by Placide Cappeau (1808-1877), an accomplished amateur.
>In the carol, the singer recalls the birth of Jesus. It was translated
into English by Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight, editor of
Dwight's Journal of Music in 1855 (note the abolitionist reference in
the third verse: "for the slave is our brother"), and lyrics also exist
in other languages.
>On 24 December 1906, Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian inventor, broadcast
the first AM radio programme, which included him playing "O Holy Night"
on the violin. The carol therefore appears to have been the first piece
of music to be broadcast on radio.
That's interesting! Thanks. That's one point in Wikipedia's favor,
too. In what normal encyclopedia would we find much of this
information?
>>A silver hand is better than an iron hand. (In other words, "Better
to rule with wisdom than with an iron fist.")
>Thanks, I needed that! And something that little makes the book ten
points dearer to me. Now how many kids read that book without knowing
what the motto meant? I'm still blaming authors, editors, and the
education establishment generally, before publishers, for works
appearing without helpful explanatory material.
I guess there was a time when many kids studied Latin as a required part
of their education, but those days are long gone. Now too few students
have the chance to study any foreign language until high school.
Although practical in many ways, they then can study only Spanish,
French, and, maybe, German--if they're lucky to have two or three
choices.
Your point is right, though. The push to include explanation needs to
start at the bottom. Almost daily, I find myself needing to explain
very basic background information to my students. For instance, one
reading that focused on the conflict of interests inherent in the USDA's
developing the so-called healthy food pyramid when the department's
primary role is to support the food producers/processors, mentioned the
"the food industry's beneficiaries in Congress." Some didn't know the
meaning of benificiaries; others did. In either case, no one had the
slightest clue what that passage meant. I asked them if they know what
lobbiests are. They were still blank. I was prepared for this, and
pulled out my notes quickly compiled the night before on some of the
lobbying scandals recently in the news.
THEE: Another base 8 fan
Well I am inclined to agree with that argument ... that 5 is being
replaced by 3 ... but that's because we both see halving as being
significantly more fundamental then anything else. But the posters on
the base 12 site are pretty thoughtfull and defend their base with vigor
... it's pretty tough wading onto their territory as a lone supporter of
base 8.
ME: I actually visited the base 12 site after sending my note off to
you, and I see what you mean. I certainly wouldn't call them
"certifiable lunatics" if I chimed in the discussion! But privately, I
have to say I'm absolutely dazed by their thinking. Who cares about a
third of a mile, or a third of an inch, or a third of a centimeter, or a
third of a liter, etc., etc.? And, wonder of wonders, if somebody still
wants to sell eggs a dozen at a time in a base 8 world, they could do
it! They could even design the box for 3 rows of 4 eggs! Now go back
there and slug it out! (says me watching from the sidelines).
Oh yeah, one thing I would have to comment on if I jumped in was the
claim that most everybody has the base 12 multiplication table already
memorized. I'm a tutor, and I see not only what students can do, but
also their parents, and I can tell you that only a small fraction of the
population can give quick answers to the Base 10 multiplication table.
My gut feeling is that far less than 1% could give quick answers to the
base 12 mulitplication table.
Hmmm, now that I got started on that thread, I have to pursue it a bit.
The reason *some* people can multiply up to 12 x 12 is that multiplying
by 11 and 12 are "pretty easy" in base 10. I'm sure most people
confronted with 12x8 go through a quick series of steps, "Ok, that's 80
plus another 2x8=16 equals 96." BUT, if we switched to base 12, we
would need new numerals for 10 and 11, and all of a sudden, 8xB=
(whatever it is) isn't so easy at all. It has to be memorized as a
basic fact.
ME:
>One of the guys at the festival gives the festival staff and orchestra
a DVD of the films with the orchestra's score replacing the original
sound tracks that are turned off for festival purposes. I kept hoping
for a copy of that year's DVD but never got one.
Hmmmm. Would it be too much bother to try to get a copy or borrow one
of those dvds from somebody? You know how I feel like the portable
recorder did an almost miraculous job, but that's under the assumption
it's the only or best show in town. The luster goes off quite a bit
once I know that a *superior* recording exists. I'd really like to give
it another crack using the hi-tech recordings. It would only be a
fraction of the work the second time around since I kept notes on
everything I did. Plus I could experiment with working Comic Hurry into
it. I know how bad you need more "chores", but, on the other hand, "if
you want something done, ask a busy person."
We'd been talking typing monkeys recently. Coincidentally, the editor
of the local paper turned out a very humorous column on the subject
yesterday:
http://www.doverpost.com/pages/lavie.html
I liked the paragraph about high school essays.
I know you need reading recommendations like a hole in the head, but
here's a link to the story that knocked me out - which doesn't imply
anything about what your doppelga"nger would say. Didn't expect to find
something that recent on the web.
http://janda.org/c10/readings/monkeys.htm
I signed up with another isp today: dialup.cc. Things seem to be going
very smoothly. If that continues, I'll drop peoplepc. Should have
acted a little sooner - I just started my 2nd month with peoplepc, so
I'll be paying two isps this month.
THEE: Another base 8 fan
I agree with you about the difficulty of memorizing a 12x12 table. I
must confess that I often resort to some mental gymnastics even in the
10x10 table ie. 7x9 is 10x9 - 9 = 81 etc. Memorisation is for dummies
IMO. 8x8 would be an improvement.
They like the base 12 because you can express usefull fractions so
easily:
1/3 would become 0.4 rather than 0.33333 or 0.25252525.
so with the base 12 you get 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6ths cleanly
in base 8 you only get 1/2, 1/4, 1/8th
As for packing ... I know what you mean ... you can still pack anyway
you wish.
I think that both base 12 & 8 have unique value ... and that's why the
imperial system takes advantage of both ... 12 inches in a foot to aid
in being able to divide things up cleanly in all sorts of ways ...
1/8ths when dividing the inch smaller & smaller ... 1/8, 1/32, 1/64.
Personally, I still like the idea of being able to half to the single
unit. But these guys make me not 100% sure. I'm interested to see if
your position on the matter will change after considering their
arguments.
If we're going to change the world we need to get this issue sorted out.
ME:
>I agree with you about the difficulty of memorizing a 12x12 table. I
must confess that I often resort to some mental gymnastics even in the
10x10 table ie. 7x9 is 10x9 - 9 = 81 etc. Memorisation is for dummies
IMO. 8x8 would be an improvement.
I'm with you there. Notice I used the terminology "quick answers to the
addition or multiplication table", not "have the table memorized". I
never terrorize my students with brute memorization of the tables. How
7x9 plays out in my head is: "it's certainly got to be less than
7x10=70, so it's in the 60s, and the second digit has to be 3 to add up
to 9." Even in the addition table, for almost all of my life 7+5 and
8+5 were "bugaboos". I would break the 5 into two chunks, one of which
gets you up to 10, and the other to the answer.
>They like the base 12 because you can express usefull fractions so
easily:
>1/3 would become 0.4 rather than 0.33333 or 0.25252525.
But of those three choices, the *only* one you could put your finger on
in a unit length is base 8's .25252525. As I argue in my page, in Base
8, you can put your finger on any wild decimal of any number of digits.
And you can go the other way; if someone draws a dot on the line, you
could give the corresponding decimal.
And, yes, 0.3333333333333333333333333333333333333333 is a bit unwieldy
compared to 0.4, but it's rare that we need to go beyond the first one
or two digits of any number in real life. I think you'd be surprised
how few scientific experiments can claim 1% accuracy.
>Personally, I still like the idea of being able to half to the single
unit. But these guys make me not 100% sure. I'm interested to see if
your position on the matter will change after considering their
arguments.
Nothing's impossible, but I'm sure I'm not just being possessive or
stubborn about my Base 8 proposal. The natural back-and-forth between
*any* wild decimal and its real-life representation simply annihilates
having a "nice" decimal for thirds, in my mind. And even if no one
agrees with that, I would say the added difficulty of working in base 12
would be enough to shoot it down instantly.
But it's all quite exciting for me that there is even a dialog going on.
I was sort of disappointed by how little response I got to my four
proposal pages, so this is nice. The responses I did get were generally
along the brilliant line: "So what. It'll never happen." So this is
good.
>I think that both base 12 & 8 have unique value ... and that's why
the imperial system takes advantage of both ... 12 inches in a foot to
aid in [deleted by me during cramfix]
Hmmm. I always viewed it as a hodge-podge rather than something
consciously put together.
THEE: I am an old friend of Joe Pope's. I worked with him at the first
convention in Boston and second. Lost touch with him in the early 80's.
I lost all my pictures and belongings in an awful situation, including
all my memorabilia, letters, irreplaceable memories.
I just found out this week that Joe had passed and was wondering if
there is a picture of him anywhere I might find. I typed many an issue
of the early SFF's at his kitchen table on the old typewriter at his
mom's house in Massachusetts.
Would just like to have a picture if you have an links or ideas.
THEE: Re: ...type no evil
Dan Oliver's dang monkey's must not have had cell phone cameras like
today's students, or they would have figured out that one of them could
photograph Macbeth, one the Divine Comedy, one Canterbury Tales, one War
and Peace, and one the Ozark Dog Song (It's a better hillbilly song, any
day.) They would then have sent the pics to one another and each
"produced" those masterpieces digitally in no time.
Perhaps Oliver should have forgotten his virtual million monkey march to
the computers, and selected only two of the lot. If he'd had the
foresight to name them Christopher Marlowe and Lord Bacon, they would
have whipped out Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in no time.
ME: De Vere, gosh darn it, *Edward* *de* *Vere*.
How many times do I have to say it.
ME: bottom of the barrel
Here were a few things on my list that didn't seem important enough to
bring up out of the blue. Figured I throw them in an email.
The $1 suitcase I got is by Pierre Cardin.
Keep meaning to ask about a hair clipper. Is that a Walmart item?
I fumbled the "forever stamp". If you could buy a batch at $.39, it
would make sense, but buying a batch at the new price is totally dumb.
That's called "buying high".
Same old same old: A guy asked about a piece of music I devote a web
page to. I told him, sure, I'd send him a copy for the project he's
working on. He never emailed back a mailing address.
Another anecdote from helping the man across the street with his roof:
When the subject of that black roof mold came up, he had no idea what I
was talking about. From on top of his roof I could point out 10 houses
with those black streaks. Baffles me how many people have never noticed
it, including my friend R~~, you, and now this guy. Looks horrible to
me; exactly like fire damage.
Opened up a card table in my living room for a project I was working on,
and wish I could have a permanent table, preferably on wheels, in my
living room. Tables are so useful to me. The dilemma is that another
table covered with things looks so bad.
I had a spell of items in the frig going bad - which *never* happens to
me. Poison in the air?
A tv show called somthing like "Dumber Than a 5th Grader" often comes up
in conversations. Ever seen it?
Do you have know-how with curtains? I need some for my office, but I'm
guessing there's nothing off-the-shelf that would fit.
Here's my web page about "The God Delusion". Probably not much in there
I haven't said in person, but I'm sure I say it more clearly.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/god-delusion.htm
After a few days, I'm still perfectly happy with dialup.cc .
Helped out with the spring trash pickup at Bombay Hook nature preserve
today.
ME: re: signor bruschino Hello Danilo,
Before I copy the cd and send it off, I wanted to make sure you would
appreciate it. The sound quality would not be noticeably better than
the tape I sent, assuming your cassette deck is compatible with mine.
The sound on the record is not "high fidelity". The cd would mostly be
for the much greater convenience.
ME: Thanks for stretching my mind. Seems to me though, that there must
be some sort of directing force at work, ensuring that all the
keystrokes that add to the developing Bible are noted and kept, and all
the others are discarded. What about all the other potential books that
could have been created if they also had an overseeing force? Or, might
you argue, that the pre-giraffe did evolve into thousands of other
species by the time it created the giraffe? This line of thought gets
me back to what I believe to be my modest contribution to the whole
discussion, where I beg for evolutionists to just *describe* what
happens as one species is replaced by another. In my main evolution
page I say:
>There can't be a meaningful discussion until this changes. I
suggest, for a start, we put aside the question of "how" and concentrate
on the "what" of evolution. Take gravity, for example. We might not
have a clue as to whybodies come together (curved space blather
notwithstanding), but at least we know what happens. The apple
starts here. It ends there. It follows a path described by a known
equation. It speeds up according to a known formula. No problem.
Nothing to argue about.
>Taking as an example the grizzly bear to whale transition discussed
in talk.origins, whatwould we see if we captured the whole
process in time lapse photography, say? In this thought experiment,
suppose we devoted one frame of the film to each generation. The first
frame will show all of the grizzlies bears alive now. In fact, it will
show only those animals which will reproduce, and it will show them at
some standard point in their lives - sexual maturity, say. Imagine that
it is not only a photographic image, but contains any and all biological
information of interest. (Remember, this is a
thoughtexperiment.)
>What would the film show, frame by frame, generation by generation?
We'll even arrange the animal images conveniently from most grizzly
bear-like on the left side to most whale-like on the right. How many
frames does it take to get to the first whale? What do the
intermediates look like? How many are in each frame? How many
transitional stages are represented in each frame? In the last frame,
do we have all whales? Whales and grizzly bears? Other creatures, too?
>If that example is too overwhelming, take a lesser transition; from
non-feathered to feathered, say, or from double jaw joint to ear-bones.
Does anyone accept the challenge? After evolutionists have presented a
plausible picture of whatthis "fact of evolution" is, then we can
get down to the "how".
***
And still trying to get someone to take up the challenge, I wrote later:
Forget about the definition of evolution. Forget about how
evolution happens. Forget about whyevolution happens. Forget
about the word "evolution" itself. Just describe some interesting
transition in generation-by-generation steps. Account for all of the
descendants of all of the members of the source species until you arrive
at an established population of the destination species.
***
I've had a long time to come to the realization that I embarrassed
myself termendously in those pages, but it still hasn't happened.
By the way, for more "typing monkey" fun, the editor of our local Dover,
Delaware newspaper coincidentally just wrote a humorous column on the
subject. Just for fun - nothing to do with evolution.
http://www.doverpost.com/pages/lavie.html
Oh yeah, I got a nice email from "shoelace" regarding my Base 8
proposal, which you also commented on. I found the discussion among
Base 12 supporters interesting.
THEE: re: case closed was ...type no evil
Alright already. Make it a trio of monkeys. I believe in playing it
safe.
THEE: I love your page on record repair. Very practical. I've been
thinking about ways to fix skips, and I doubt I could think up a better
one than yours. Thanks for the help
THEE: Re: Another base 8 fan
I realise that I meant 9x9 , not 7x9. I would approach 7x9 the same
what as you: 7x10-7. And I agree with your addition of 7 & 5 and 8 & 5.
Perhaps its a more visual way to looking at simple math.
But I do like the idea that you can represent common fractions with 1
decimal ... and certainly not a repeating decimal. I don't think that
required accuracy is the point ... its the ability to use the decimal
system without sacrificing the cleanness of fractions ... if you get my
gist.
Anyway, not much point discussing it since our opinions on the matter
are similar - are you ready to roll up your sleeves and defend the base
8 on the base 12 messageboard? I will have to give it a rest for a
while ... too much on my plate right now. I suggest you read my
original posts on the base 8 ... that was my first attept at defending
the base ... and they really overwhelmed me with a pile of stuff I had
never considered.
What really surprises me is that I was able to find such a site
defending base 12 but none defending base 8. Where is the base 8 team?
ME: I don't know if it was just a coincidence that you both wrote asking
about a picture of Joe Pope at the same time, or if you two know each
other. I didn't think there was a pic of Joe in his fanzine, but turns
out I was wrong. I actually found two. This is the best, by far. You
can see it interested me enough at the time I got the magazine (1980s)
that I highlighted Joe's name. It was in Strawberry Fields Forever no.
21, from Jul 1976 or earlier. The picture itself is from Joe's 1974
Boston convention.
Thanks for asking; I'll probably add it to Joe's page.
web: eat/et study http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/eat eat
Pronunciation: (et), -v., ate (at; esp. Brit. et) or (Archaic) eat (et,
et); eat-en or (Archaic) eat (et, et); eat-ing;
ME: to rec.music.beatles
It's come to my attention how hard it is to find a picture of Joe Pope
anywhere. I found one from his historic, 1974 "Magical Mystery Tour"
convention in Boston. You can see it at the bottom of this page:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatles-vs-elvis.htm
THEE: subject LP
We're getting carpet put in on the ground floor, so we've had to
empty shelves. I moved all my LPs today and I'm sore!
I purged about 50, including most of the classical. Horrors! Yup,
those "Great Performances" LPs took a particularly savage beating. I
suppose I'm devolving as I get older.
THEE: subject Re: joe pope picture
Thanks so much for the picture!! I lost all my pictures and this is so
wonderful. I didn't realize C~~ wrote at the same time and to the same
person looking for a picture... we've been dating for two years and had
been talking about Joe. Anyway I'm very grateful to have a picture of
him.
Was very kind of you to send it.
Thanks again.
ME: Got a box of goodies off. Well, it's really just your stuff, oops,
material, coming back.
>I would like to wrap up the project, but it has a way of growing.
I know the feeling. About those hi-fi recordings of the silent films,
it occurred to me that if the problem is the protected film material,
maybe somebody somewhere down the line would copy just the audio for
you. Then I could redo the W.C. soundtrack for the "final" edition of
your W.C. boxed set.
>>(Dang. I have an unfounded "thing" against Wikipedia.)
>Most of the faculty won't let students use Wikipedia because of the
unknown authorship.
For me, it's simply a matter a resentment and jealously, and I don't
even need a psychiatrist to diagnose me. I'd been trying to get
something like that going for decades in my areas of interest, with not
a cough of discussion generated. And then this gorilla Wikipedia
appears out of the blue, and it's a billion times bigger and a billion
times more amazing. The fact that the media could get such mileage out
of one little short-lived hoax in Wikipedia is a testament to its
amazingness. And this gorilla stomps on everybody. E.g., when I put up
my Karl Katz page, it was the only page on the web that mentioned both
Karl Katz and Rip Van Winkle. A year later, a search on those two names
put Wikipedia at the top, and me down around 20 out of 30. What does it
take, what does it take . . .
Still, taking that nice "O Holy Night" entry as an example, it's perfect
for people like us who want just the top handful of interesting bits,
but it would be pretty thin gruel for a Christmas Carol enthusiast, or a
fan of Adolphe Adam, etc. My point is, every Wikipedia entry could
really be the starting point for a whole Wikipedia on that subject. For
instance, y'know, there was this pop song back in aught-12 . . .
The local newspaper just put out its Directory of Dover Area Clubs &
Organizations. There it is, on page 38, the Dover Scrabble Club. Now
all I need are a few scrabble fans. Actually, I got a call the very
morning the paper came out, but I'm not sure if the caller will follow
up. It seems dependent on "getting his mother out".
I cranked out my third mp3 disc of 200 opera songs from the UCSB
cylinder site. The hold-up is always trying to get a windows folder
listing in text format, which is next to impossible. *Used* to be as
simple and common an operation as breathing in the pre-gates world. But
I dug and dug and finally came up with a program called TextCatch that
did a good job. That allowed me to turn a folder listing into the cd
sleeve you see attached (if I remember.)
Which reminds me, I was thinking maybe Acrobat would do the trick, and
you mentioned recently it does good work for you. I just have an old,
freebie reader. Did you actually spring for a multi-hundred dollar job
that lets you create and diddle with pdf files? Or does the latest
freebie allow that? It's amazing how contradictory product descriptions
by different people can be. I'm guessing the latest freebie is still
just a reader.
By the way, I had downloaded "Nix On the Glow-worm, Lena" a while back
at the library, and finally remembered it. Very humorous! That guy's
voice is getting *very* familiar!
It's a big world, so I guess it's not too surprising there are even E~~
T~~ Bob Dylan fans in google groups.
There was some good discussion lately of my Base 8 proposal among a
group of Base 12 supporters. Base 12 - ever heard such a crazy notion?
Most recently read book was "Dogs Don't Tell Jokes" by Louis Sachar.
Familiar with him and his "Sideways Stories from Wayside School", for
example? I read a few pages of "Dogs" at the literacy center, and got
pulled right in. My feeling was, this is so much fun, I don't care if
there's no slam-bang ending, or no particular significance. But, in
fact, the ending was slam-bang. Great job, even if in a few spots the
material is ever-so-slightly questionable.
Cancelled my peoplepc service today - although they just about make that
impossible to do.
Got one of Krystal's exuberant phone calls today about something Mizan
did. I'll leave you hanging for the time being, in the hopes that I can
eventually send you to an official account of her accomplishment.
THEE: Could the mystery song be "You Don't Own Me"?
On Donald's chart, there are THREE surf classics! Then the Beatles had
to come along and ruin everything!
THEE: No, I would know that song, "You Don't Own Me".
It was definitely #5 this week in 1964 though.
THEE: Great use of resources, and I thank you.
Unfortunately, during the week in question, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
was #3.
We found this significant, in that the song was climbing so high, BEFORE
the Beatles even arrived.
THANKS.
THEE: subject AND THIS WEEK IN 1966
6. The instrumental from the Alka Seltzer commercial?
5. "Day Tripper"
4. "5 O'clock world" by the Vogues
3 "Just My Style" By Gerry Lewis and Playtoys.
2. "We can work it out."
1. "The Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Humperdink.
Have I mentioned that I HATE this song?
Did we solve the "which came first" riddle, the chicken or the kuckoo-
ka-choo?
THEE: subject Re: AND THIS WEEK IN 1966
Really on number six?
Don't know four.
You and Don love Simon and Garfunkel about equally, but I have
a soft spot for them...if not in my heart, then somewhere. Dr. Ebbetts
recently released his first S&G CD, by the way (mono "Bookends").
I still would have backed Johnny Rhythm in a punch-up with "the
Singing Dwarf," of course.
THEE: subject RE: AND THIS WEEK IN 1966
If someone can get the "Graduate" soundtrack and hear that version of
Mrs R, I'll bet it DOESN'T have the kookookoojoob line
THEE: subject AND THIS WEEK IN 1961
6. "Are you lonesome tonight?", Elvis.
5. "My Angel baby". (I don't know who did this. I'm pretty sure its not
the Bangles.)
4. "Will you still love me tomorrow?" (I can't place this girl group
either. The Ronettes?)
3. Instrumental roller rink sound. Familiar, but can't place the artist.
2. Instrumental theme from some drama movie. (Can't place it either.)
1. BERT KAMPFERT, "Wisconsin-land by Night".
(3 instrumentals occupy the top 3 spaces. I betcha that has not happened
again since the beginning of the 60's.)
Who is Mr. Kaempfert again?
THEE: subject Re: AND THIS WEEK IN 1961
As Led Zeppelin once obscurely asked, "Does anybody remember Rosie
and the Originals?"
Don's a big fan. Right, Don?
THEE: Dear colleagues:
I am happy to announce that my website devoted to the history and
cultural history of the American folk song "Follow the Drinking Gourd"
has now launched. The site may be accessed here:
www.followthedrinkinggourd.org
[argues map portion of song not sung in antebellum]
THEE: subject Re: Joe Pope picture
Hey Don! I was at the 1974 convention in Boston, and the second
convention too! Are there anyother pics available? Where/how can I lokk
for them? Thanks!
ME: There was another picture of Joe Pope in his Strawberry Fields
Forever fanzine (no. 16, ca. Nov 1975). It was from the 1975
convention. Due to your enthusiasm, I added it to my Joe Pope page:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatles-vs-elvis.htm
I suppose it's a long shot, but nothing ventured, nothing gained - would
you know A~~ D~~ and/or O~~ I~~? They are Beatle fan friends of mine
and I know A~~ has mentioned lots of time what an exciting experience
that first, 1974 Boston convention was. I didn't start going to Beatle
conventions until 1984, and even though my first Beatlefest was magical
for me, I know I missed out on something *truly* magical.
Stop the press! I just did another web search on Joe and found a very
recent tribute - with a color pic.
http://dailyfemale.blogspot.com/2007/04/in-my-liferemembering-joe-pope.html
ME: Here's a clear-headed discussion about "How do we know electrons
really exist?" In particular, read the paragraph "Who needs reality?"
http://www.nsta.org/main/news/stories/science_and_children.php?news_story_ID=51054
THEE: Re: apr 26 2007
>>Most of the faculty won't let students use Wikipedia because of the
unknown authorship.
>For me, it's simply a matter a resentment and jealously, and I don't
even need a psychiatrist to diagnose me. I'd been trying to get
something like that going for decades in my areas of interest, with not
a cough of discussion generated. And then this gorilla Wikipedia
appears out of the blue, and it's a billion times bigger and a billion
times more amazing.
I know what you're saying. Any search I do, Wikipedia pops up at the
top! Overall, I find a huge amount of good information there, and much
of it is found nowhere else . . . unless on your website. Gorillas,
chimps, what the heck.
Thanks again for your effort on the silent film cd!
ME: Thanks for the nice tribute. I will go through life kicking myself
for meeting Joe, but *not* realizing it was the man, himself, at the
time. What a blown opportunity!
I wanted to invite you to my Joe Pope page if you've never seen it.
The page comes up at the top with a google search on "joe pope
memorial".
THEE:
I'm trying to seek permission to include one line from George
Harrison's song Here Comes the Sun in my upcoming book called The
History of the Snowman published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, an
educational division of Simon & Schuster.
I haven't been able to find contact information for Harrisongs, Ltd in
London and thought you may able to help since you went through this
yourself. would using only one line be "fair use"? It is in the rest of
the world but Beatle rights are notoriously dangerous territory.
Thank you for any advice you may have. Sincerely,
ME: I'm not the final word in copyright interpretation - I doubt I'm in
the top million! - but I'd be glad to share my thoughts. First of all,
isn't it crazy that we even have to worry about using a line from some
work or another? If the advertising industry did such a thing, it would
be called "promotion" - and they'd get paid thousands or millions of
dollars to do it! But since our job title isn't "advertiser", it's the
other way around - *we* have to pay, if we're allowed at all.
Admittedly, I can understand how a copyright owner would want to make
sure his material isn't defiled or used inappropriately. But getting
back to the real world and your question, I'm sorry to report that
Harrisongs was the most definite of all the door-slammers I met in
creating my Beatle game. Everyone else left at least a tiny crack,
which allowed me to beg and crawl and grovel and all that dignified sort
of behavior for the privilege of paying them for very limited use of a
few of their words. But Harrisongs was capital N O, loud and clear.
They told me I could not even use the word "Beatles". Perhaps times
have changed, though, and maybe Harrisongs objection was to my specific,
proposed usage, so give it a try. The address in 1987 was:
Harrisongs Ltd.
26 Cadogen Square
London SW1X OJP 01-581 1256
[not sure where mailing address stops] Cables Atlando
London SW1 Telex 8951338
Good luck!
THEE: subject Re: apr 26 2007
>Got a box of goodies off. Well, it's really just your stuff, oops,
material, coming back.
Good as the homing pigeons my dad used to raise.
>Still, taking that nice "O Holy Night" entry as an example, it's
perfect for people like us who want just the top handful of interesting
bits, but it would be pretty thin gruel for a Christmas Carol
enthusiast, or a fan of Adolphe Adam, etc. My point is, every Wikipedia
entry could really be the starting point for a whole Wikipedia on that
subject. For instance, y'know, there was this pop song back in aught-12
. . .
Right, but sometimes it's enough to have the top handful. As
interesting as so many topics can become, one has only so many hours,
days, weeks, months, and years.
>The local newspaper just put out its Directory of Dover Area Clubs &
Organizations. There it is, on page 38, the Dover Scrabble Club. Now
all I need are a few scrabble fans. Actually, I got a call the very
morning the paper came out, but I'm not sure if the caller will follow
up. It seems dependent on "getting his mother out".
Here I thought you'd found a club to join . . . So it's a caller trying
to talk his mother into joining, or would it be the two of them? Take
it to a retirement community, and you'd probably have members quickly.
The place where Mom lives is always having Uno or Skipbo game days, and
I see tables full of card players everytime I'm there. I haven't seen
Scrabble, but it would probably draw players. Mom and her neighbors are
still doing jigsaw puzzles but didn't figure yours out.
Did I send you a link to another big mp3 site (and much more)? If not,
it's http://www.archive.org/details/audio_music
>Which reminds me, I was thinking maybe Acrobat would do the trick, and
you mentioned recently it does good work for you. I just have an old,
freebie reader.
If you have only an "old, freebie reader," why not download a new
freebie reader? I have the Education Version of Adobe Acrobat 5.0,
which is now outdated. The price on my box is $59.00. It does some
neat things like allow the user to turn any document into an Adobe file
(without the hassle of scanning it as one), turn websites into Adobe
files with all links intact for viewing at anytime even if the website
disappears, or supply definitions that pop up for words in a text. I
use if more for saving complex Word files so that nothing moves around
when I post to my Internet class websites. For instance, if I create a
handout that includes pictures and text or that contains lines for
writing in answers, the files sometimes don't look right when a student
opens them for the simple reason that a margin setting may be different.
With Adobe, there's no worry.
>Did you actually spring for a multi-hundred dollar job that lets you
create and diddle with pdf files? Or does the latest freebie allow
that? It's amazing how contradictory product descriptions by different
people can be. I'm guessing the latest freebie is still just a reader.
Yes, the latest freebie is still a reader, but a better one.
>By the way, I had downloaded "Nix On the Glow-worm, Lena" a while back
at the library, and finally remembered it. Very humorous! That guy's
voice is getting *very* familiar!
Seems like quite a few pop songs led to sarcastic responses from other
composers.
ME: traviata cylinder title goof
Thanks for the amazing cylinder site. I found a little goof. The
imbedded details for cusb-cyl2256.mp3 give this title and artist:
La Traviata. Lorsqu'a de folles amours [Traviata. Ah, fors' e lui che
l'anima]
Louis Nucelly 1912
It's really the baritone aria "Di Provenza il mar", from La Traviata.
"Ah, fors' e lui che l'anima" is a soprano aria from the same opera, cf.
cusb-cyl0553.
While I'm writing, would it be feasible to work the "author" information
into the mp3 details? Unless I'm missing something, one has to search
in Pegasus for that.
One last thing: your faq gives instructions on how to search for
cylinders added to the collection after a specified date. That's a very
useful operation, but I haven't figured out how to implement the
instructions. The closest I come is an "added within last 6 months"
filter.
Thanks for everything.
ME: I found a web page indicating you acquired Joe Pope's Beatle
collection. Any chance you could help me fill out my collection of
Strawberry Fields Forever fanzines? The funny thing is, I paid Joe for
a complete set of back issues, and I got a bunch of them, but the
magazines stayed in Boston when he went to Arizona, and he would say,
remind me when I'm back in Boston (as if I would know when he was in
Boston!)
So let me know if you can help and I'll send a list of issues I need.
Thanks
THEE: Thank you for responding. In the time I initially wrote you I have
contacted Harrisongs and nothing is clear at moment . They DID exchange
e-mails with me and requested to see a portion of the book promising to
respond back very soon. I'll let you know what happens.
ME: DOVER SCRABBLE CLUB
STYLE: Friendly (not tournament).
WHEN: Wednesday evenings.
WHERE: Here (Treadway Towers).
WHO: Open to everyone.
DUES: Free.
CALL: Don for further details.
THEE: Fw: Shakespeare in the Park
Would you be interested in going to this Shakespeare in the Park event,
and if so, is it possible for you to get away from Dover for a Thursday
evening event? We plan to go, but she says that she can also request a
ticket for you. Check out the link and the other online materials.
This looks somewhat like Shakespeare meets the Beatles and the
maharishi.
ME: Thanks for thinking of me. The play sounds like fun, but I'm afraid
it looks like a bit too much effort from here. I still have bad
memories of drives to Carter Barron from my home in Lanham! Among my
several visits there, I saw As You Like It, and Phyllis performing in a
Duke Ellington tribute concert. I'll leave the door open a crack and
say that if things fall into place and I'm in the D.C. area on your
selected Thursday, I would take a shot at getting a standby seat. My
apologies for never becoming a seasoned traveler, much less a social
flea!
ME:
It's funny you should ask about old SFFs. I had just done a bit of
searching for myself. What had happened was, I paid Joe for a complete
set of back issues, but with his move to San Diego, I never actually got
them all. I always wanted to read through all the old issues up to when
I subscribed in the 1980s, but I wanted to read them in order, with no
gaps. What I found was this page, where d~~ mentions she has access to
Joe's Beatle collection.
When I wrote up this email, I hadn't gotten a reply, but when I went to
send it off, there was a very nice one waiting. So send d~ a note at
the address above. Hope everybody asking for old SFFs at once doesn't
cause a breakdown!
Also after getting your note, I tried ebay, searching (title and
description) for
"strawberry fields forever" fanzine
In fact, three issues popped up in an ebay store. For my budget,
they're a bit pricy, and I have one of those issues.
By the way, did you appear in the credits for any of the issues you
helped with?
THEE: I'm very interested in aquiring a copy of the Sychra St.
Petersburg manuscript you mention in your website. What do I need to do
in order to get this?
A world of thanks for your time,
ME: I'd be glad to help. I can send you copies for $.24 a page, which
includes postage. The Sychra adds up to just about 108 pages. So if
you send me a mailing address and indicate you're willing to pay about
$25 (total) when the music arrives in good shape, I'll send it off. The
music was a bit difficult to copy because of the binding, but even on
the few pages where the distortion due to the binding is most severe,
all the music is legible.
THEE: Re: Joe Pope picture
Thanks Don! No, I don't know either person. BTW, so, the first
convention was in 1974 and the second was in 1975? For some reason I
though it was in 1976. I swear that I went to both. I have a
collection of SFF mags from back then. I'll try to dig them out.
THEE: Re: SFF fanzines
Hello Donald! Thanks for your message. I checked out your little Joe
Pope tribute, very thoughtful, and so Joe.
To clear one thing up, I didn't acquire Joe's collection, but I do have
access to it. Joe's widow still owns and has Joe's Beatle collection. I
have been auctioning some of it off via eBay on her behalf.
Let me know which issues you need, and I'll see if I can track them down
for you. I have a few handy, some are still packed away.
I'll forward this message to her.
ME: Thanks for writing! You deserve more than just a dry list of SFF
numbers. For flavor, I've attached a letter from Joe back in 1993, and
my reply. By the way, Joe gave me a great deal on the set of back
issues, so it's not like I'm worried about that money any more. (Don't
know if I can afford collectors' prices for 18 issues, though!)
Lanham, MD 20706
4Jan94
Joe Pope
Boston, MA 02110
Hello! Joe,
Thanks for the stack o' mags. Nope, it never once occurred to me that
you might've forgotten about it. I know that "Joe'll never let you
down" (as A~~ insists.) Besides, I really am in no rush. I've had a
good time with the first batch so far. Best for me was the Yoko
interview - great, great job! She was so sharp, and funny, too.
Here's the updated handy check-off list of issues I still need. Missing
numbers indicate the issues I already have. Take your time.
SFFs For Don - Check-off List
3 4 5 7 8 9
11 12 13 14 18 19 20
24 27 30
32 34 36
P.S. That #880981 thing isn't a prisoner ID or something, is it?
THEE: I went to the Delaware Kumon meeting yesterday and what a waste.
I was the only instructor there along with another instructor's husband,
Emily and Brian. No lunch, presents or any food/drinks of any kind.
Emily couldn't wait to leave and stated that the meeting will only be
for 30 minutes. I made her stay for 2 hours. This is my last meeting!
THEE: We also have Sunday matinee tickets for The Musical of Musicals at
Metro Stage on May 20. Since it's a parody of several composers of
musicals, I should bone up. Some of them I know well, especially
Rodgers and Hammerstein. What does that say? But, aside from Chicago,
I know nothing about Kander and Ebb.
One of the other Ragtime for Tulsa board members and I are co-authoring
a front page article for the newsletter to come out before our Oklahoma
Centennial ragtime festival, and I've promised to check Tulsa papers to
see what was happening here to celebrate statehood on November 16, 1907.
I found some fun stuff in the Ada Evening News through the historic
newspaper archives. One item involved plans to sound the "30-mile
whistle" at the cement factory to herald the hour of Roosevelt's signing
the official statehood papers--10:00 a.m. Eastern or 9:00 a.m. Central
time. The town was having a week-long celebration with street fair,
bands, and a Fireman's Jubilee. All the main events appear to have been
organized by the fire department. Meanwhile Rufus Rastus in Dixie was
playing at the Ada Opera House.
ME: May 12 in historic Dover sounds fantastic (easy for me to say, with
no great driving chores.) Spreads my social whirl out nicely, too;
today and tomorrow being the Old Dover Days celebration, and Sunday the
Bay Bridge walk. Don't really have a bunch of discussion material saved
up since the last time, so pack a bunch o' stuff.
ME: to me
Ask Joe Pope's widow about Joe's puzzle! [i did]
THEE: Re: Warm up those opree records
Gear.
So, the big question: Do you have 78 rpm-playing ability? I got
one--jazz.
THEE: subject Crabby
No longer crabby at the moment since I'm down to two research papers and
then submitting grades online, but that crab put a smile on my face when
I opened the box yesterday as I was still facing a mound of ungraded
papers.
Thanks for everything:. George Crabbe (sure, he has a name with a bit of
a story behind it), the cds, the cd boxes, the blank tapes (for what
kind of future assignment?), and especially for all your work. Your
editing job on the silent film cd is terrific--just what I need for the
grand finale of my cd set.
A few minutes ago, I discovered two recent cds that include "Cottonfield
Capers." Thanks to the publication of the music with my Ragtime
Ephemeralist article, it looks like folks are starting to play it. Cool
beans, huh?
PS. George Crabbe is makin' himself at home among the houn' dawgs.
THEE: subject Guitar Notation & Damping
I'm currently working on my master's culminating project and I stumbled
across your site because it had information on notating damping on the
classical guitar. I found your thoughts interesting... I tend to lean
more in the direction of the fingering being placed in the musical
moment when the note is to be damped.
If you get a chance, I've attached my proposal, any thoughts you could
lend would be of great help!
ME: Very interesting! Best of luck with the thesis. The two main
thoughts that come to mind are these:
1. I'll be interested in seeing how you concisely notate the damping of
a note at the moment it is to be damped. The note may have appeared
long before, on the previous staff, even, so I'd think you'd have to
print the note again as part of the damping notation. In any case, that
was my thought behind putting the damping notation right with the note
when it appears. And even if a player can't digest the damping
instructions on the first play-through, at least he'll see the warning,
"This note must be damped!"
2. Are you sure you don't want to generalize it and address left hand
damping at the same time, in one grand proposal?
I'm disappointed there was never an effort in the guitar world to
standardize fingering notation, which, if they had done so, and if my
streamlined notation for position and harmonics were adopted wholly or
in part, my proposal for a simple damping notation would follow
logically from that. As it is, I'm afraid my or anyone's damping
notation will be viewed as something from out of the blue.
ME: to rec.music.makers.piano
I've put together a page proposing what I think would be a more reader-
friendly way of notating piano music. In a nutshell, instead of using
the F clef for the bass staff, it would use another G clef, two octaves
lower than the treble staff.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/piano-notation.htm
Let me know what you think.
ME: Glad you found some goodies in the box. Don't know what your next
remote recording assignment will be, but figured you should be stocked
with good-quality tapes, just in case. I figured the original tapes
would just be clutter, but let me know if you want them.
>It's kinda funny how, just when I think I'm ready to burn the
"definitive" version, I find out that I can't because I've found
something else to add.
Maybe the best way to view it is Volumes I and II, with future volumes
appearing every few years. I know your track order will be perfectly
A-ok however you do it, but if it were me I would give top priority to
an enjoyable listening experience, as opposed to chronology or original
vs. arranged, not that anyone pays that close attention to a subtlety
like playing order.
>Since it's a parody of several composers of musicals, I should bone up.
Think of how few people actually prepare themselves for a show of any
sort. Nice to know there's another weirdo out there. I guess the big
question is who's happier, the person who treats a night out like an
upcoming exam, or the person who just wings it, and gets about 10% of
what the creators put into it out of it. Never heard of Kander and Ebb
either. Coincidentally, I just bought a book at the library sale on
Saturday called "Who Wrote That Song?" by Dick Jacobs. It lists over
12000 songs which is pretty impressive, but not staggeringly so. (No
Houn' Dawg.) After all, that's just the equivalent of 1000 pop albums,
which would require surprisingly little shelf space in anybody's home.
Still, it makes a nice companion volume to the Billboard book of top
forty hits, which doesn't give songwriting credits. Checking out Kander
and Ebb, the only song I recognize in the list is New York, New York
(Theme From) (1977). Introduced in the film of the same name by Liza
Minelli; popularized by Frank Sinatra. The songwriters share the credit
for both words and music.
>Meanwhile Rufus Rastus in Dixie was playing at the Ada Opera House.
I'm not online writing this; is there a Dixie in Oklahoma? My road
atlas doesn't list one, and my world atlas only lists one Dixie, in
Alabama.
This weekend was Dover's Old Dover Days celebration. I borrowed Mizan
for Friday evening's activities, called Arty Gras. As usual, she caught
a reporter's attention and got this write-up in a front-page article.
The Delaware State News either doesn't put articles on the web, or I
struck out trying to find out where they hide them. I thought they used
to put a few stories online.
The Downstate Daily State News Saturday, May 5, 2007
Arty Gras delights in Dover by Ali Cheeseman
[...]
Inside the Loockerman Exchange restaurant, puppeteer Jack Foreaker of
North East, Md., entertained an ever-changing audi- ence of kids and
adults.
Mizan Walker, 9, of Dover and family friend Donald Sauter, [transmission
garbled], of Dover, watched and participated in Mr. Foraker's [sic]
show.
Playing a blow-up saxophone for the solo in the song "The Lion Sleeps
Tonight" was Mizan's favorite part of the show.
During the song five volunteers, including Mizan, were asked to, come to
the stage to help be the backup singers for the song with lion puppets
which the kids were able to keep.
Mizan said she attended Arty Gras last year and got to play a blow-up
guitar for the show, which she said she still has.
For such a big chunk of the article, I'm disappointed they didn't take a
picture. There were 7 photos with the article. Of course, there was no
need to mention me; but I'm guessing my antics getting Mizan to put some
swing into her saxophone playing helped catch the writer's attention.
She and a man yanked from another table to play blow-up guitar on
another song improvised some pretty groovy choreography.
Mizan's band and drum line was in the parade the next morning. After
that, I never managed to bump into Krystal and Mizan. Not that it
mattered much, because the neatest part of Old Dover Days was missing
this year - the Woodpile. It was in the schedule of events, but somehow
never materialized, and nobody I asked knew why. The Woodpile is just a
big pile of scrap wood that comes from a furniture maker, I guess, and
the kids get a bowl of elmer's glue and go to town. Hmmmm, maybe you
saw Mizan's "sun house" two years ago. Anyhow, I was working on some
BIG ideas for this year, like a lighthouse or taj mahal or, coolest of
all, a gravestone. Mizan wasn't keen on that last idea; don't ask me
why.
Finished up that book of "Stories of Today" (1912). The last was
Thackeray's fairy tale novelette "The Rose and the Ring" from about
1854. As with "The Man Without A Country" (ca. 1864), it seems "today"
can go back a *long* way. The word is it's Thackeray's only children's
story. It's a lot of fun. As always, darn if I can see the distinction
between juvenile and adult writing. Besides emergency trips to the
dictionary, this one took (me) a lot of effort getting familiar with
characters and hanging onto the threads. When I was finished, I jumped
right back in so I could enjoy it with the benefit of the big picture.
I noticed today doing some indexing work that there's a "The Man Without
A Country" opera. Of course, I've seen the title a million times, but
it didn't make an impression until after reading the story. The plot
summary describes a romance element that wasn't in the story, but used
to be de rigueur(?) in opera. It's by Damrosch, who came up in our
earlier emails.
>Loved Les Huguenots.
And well you might. After all, Meyerbeer was only the world's greatest
opera composer of his era. But then the critics decided his grand opera
was passe around 1840, and the judgment has remained in force ever
since. Make a lot of sense? I mean, criminy, I wasn't even around then
to have the opportunity to get tired of it!
In an auction lot a while back was a National Geographic I hung onto for
the article, "Mark Twain - Mirror of America". I set it here obviously
as a reminder to mention it to you in an email, but don't ask me what I
had in mind. The article was interesting enough, but I feel like all
National Geographic articles are on the "flat" side. Maybe it was this
sentence near the end, where the writer discusses Twain's bitterness and
cynicism, that got a highlight and relates to some of our discussion:
"His philosophical treatise "What Is man?" was deemed so irreverent that
his daughter Jean refused to type it."
Another thing sitting here is a book called "Foolish Fiction" (1925) by
Christopher Ward that I need to subject somebody to before tossing it.
I found it at the auction, too, of course. I read a few of the stories,
and it's sort of weird and sort of funny, but not important enough to
read cover to cover. Here's a sample:
On the platform of the lonely flag-station of San Octoroon in the
Valley de los Negroes sat Lee Birdie. While waiting for the
story to begin he thought such thoughts as would give the reader
a favorable impression of his character. ...
A zephyr light as an angel's breath swept by, bearing on its
perfumed wings the odor of the desert and a bullet that hit
Lee Birdie just above his left eyebrow, but glanced harmlessly
aside. ...
There, even though I know it would be the perfect book for *somebody*,
now I can toss it.
I put up a page proposing what I think would be a more reader-friendly
way of notating piano music.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/piano-notation.htm
Simple as it is, I had the worst time trying to bash it into shape. If
I knew what's too much, and what's not enough, and the best words to
use, and the order to put it in, and how to logically connect it up, I'd
be ok. Is there a writer in the house? (I know you keep pretending
even writers have these problems.)
>Here I thought you'd found a club to join . . . So it's a caller
trying to talk his mother into joining, or would it be the two of them?
Take it to a retirement community, and you'd probably have members
quickly.
Krystal tells me that the senior center in Dover has regular scrabble
sessions. In fact, I did look into that, but the activities director
would never respond to my inquiries. In any case, I need to be in
charge of my own scrabble club because there are aspects of tournament-
style scrabble that I can't abide. And I've solved a bunch of little
problems so tournament and recreational players can have good games.
Some rainy day you can read my scrabble thoughts here:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/scrabble.htm
>Yes, the latest [acrobat] freebie is still a reader, but a better one.
Does it fire up faster?
>She doesn't normally stray from the ragtime group, which is pretty much
defunct, but strange things have been known to happen.
I think internet discussions should be mined for their valuable nuggets.
If the ragtimers have said what they have to say (for the time being),
it seems to me it's time for some industrious soul(s) to take all the
discussion and edit it down into one convenient, readable e-book.
There'd be no repetition, and no opinion.
>>Most recently read book was "Dogs Don't Tell Jokes" by Louis Sachar.
Familiar with him and his "Sideways Stories from Wayside School", for
example?
>Don't know any of those. Did they come along after my kids were too
old for 'em?
"Sideways Stories" goes all the way back to 1978. I discovered it while
here in Dover, but I've met people who knew it back when. "Dogs" is
1991.
>>Still, taking that nice "O Holy Night" entry as an example, it's
perfect for people like us who want just the top handful of interesting
bits, but it would be pretty thin gruel for a Christmas Carol
enthusiast, or a fan of Adolphe Adam, etc. My point is, every Wikipedia
entry could really be the starting point for a whole Wikipedia on that
subject. For instance, y'know, there was this pop song back in aught-12
. . .
>Right, but sometimes it's enough to have the top handful. As
interesting as so many topics can become, one has only so many hours,
days, weeks, months, and years.
My position has always been that summaries can coexist perfectly
peacefully with "the works". I've always felt that every book should
have built-in summaries of paragragh, page, and chapter lengths.
>Btw, how's your literacy tutoring going?
Very disappointing(ly?). Y~~ doesn't show up. He might make it in
if he gets a call, but I don't crawl after people. I've had a good time
"freelancing" with other students who show up at the center, but, to be
honest, it looks like the whole operation is on very shaky ground. I
can't be more specific because I don't really have an understanding of
what goes on at the higher levels, and where the literacy center fits
into the school system and government. But I get the impression the
people in charge don't care about it too much. It hasn't had any
evening hours ever since the one paid staff member resigned a few months
ago. They haven't gotten anyone to fill that position.
>>when I put up my Karl Katz page, it was the only page on the web that
mentioned both Karl Katz and Rip Van Winkle. A year later, a search on
those two names put Wikipedia at the top, and me down around 20 out of
30.
After writing that, I redid the experiment and my page came up first.
My biggest complaint about web searches isn't Wikipedia, which we agree
is quite useful, but all the commercial Amazon-type pages trying to sell
you a book or video on a subject you just want to find a little
something about. For example, after reading "The Rose and the Ring" I
did a search hoping to find somebody's comments on it, not necessarily a
professional critic's. Even a kid saying, "I liked it when the witch
turned the doorman into a doorknocker," would be neat. But I couldn't
dig deep enough. I could read a bunch of online versions, or buy dozens
of books with the story, or scratch my head over a summary or two. A
weird irony was finding a page about 50 down the hit list discussing
*music* written for stage productions of the story, when the story
itself hadn't been discussed anywhere. I wish google had a "no
commercial pages" filter.
The Rose and the Ring had good chuckles on every page, but here are a
few touches Thackeray put in for me. One passage references three well-
known fairy tales. The witch Blackstick has some second thoughts after
"two or three thousand years of this sport": "What good am I doing by
sending this Princess to sleep for a hundred years? by fixing a black
pudding on to that booby's nose? by causing diamonds and pearls to drop
from one little girl's mouth, and vipers and toads from another's? I
begin to think I do as much harm as good by my performances."
Another referenced a Mother Goose rhyme: "So this poor Queen was laid in
the straw like Margery Daw, and driven along in the dark ever so many
miles to the Court..." This would be the short one, "See-saw, Margery
Daw, sold her bed and lay upon straw." It only appears once in my
collection, as opposed to 9 times for the other one, but this makes my
wonder if it wasn't the primary version in that time frame.
There, when I eventually get around to putting up all my email on the
web, there will be some comments on The Rose and the Ring.
ME: red lettuce day
> So, the big question: Do you have 78 rpm-playing ability? I got
one--jazz.
The safest answer is not really. But bring the record along and maybe
we can have some fun with it. One challenge would be to take out the
RIAA equalization. Any chance anybody has worked up an equalization
setting for Goldwave that does this?
> When would you like me out there?
The regular 11 am would be fine. I think that fits with your getting up
time. 10:30 might be little nicer - relaxing from your drive and
settling in here for about an hour before heading out to King Buffet.
P.S. Happy Birthday, if I've finally got it down which digit to lop off
of mine to derive yours. Guess I could look up Twist and Shout in
C&P . . .
THEE:
>Hi Gail or as Joe would say Gail "Wanda Holya" Hann,
This is so funnie! How'd you know he said that lol. :)
THEE: Scrabble question
Hey, I'm writing a novel with a Scrabble game in it. I play Scrabble a
lot, but don't know the answer to this. Maybe you do. I got your address
from your web pages. Is it statistically easier to make a bingo on the
first turn or the second turn of a game? Thanks so much.
ME: Wow, that's a good question. I've never actually given it thought
before. The way I see it, there are two effects opposing each other.
Of course, the chance of finding a bingo in your rack is better on the
second turn, assuming you make each turn with an eye on keeping good
bingo material on your rack for the next play. (In other words, hanging
on to very useful letters like, E I R S T... instead of just adding them
to your play for a few extra points.) But after the first turn, the
problem is tying your bingo in with what's already on the board, which
of course is not a problem at all on the first turn.
When I think back, I feel like I have *very* rarely had a bingo on the
opening play.
Hmmm, after writing the above I reread your question and see I may have
misinterpreted it. If you mean is it easier for Player 1 or Player 2 to
make a bingo on his first play of the game, I think it would have to be
easier for Player 1, for the same reasons given above. They each have
the same chance of having a bingo in their rack, but Player 2 has to tie
his in. The fact that Player 2 could use a letter from Player 1's first
play to *make* a bingo would seem to me to not be enough to even the the
odds. I *think* 8-letter bingoes are much rarer than 7-letter bingoes.
But I can't swear to any of this.
Have you checked to see if there are databases of tournament scrabble
games archived anywhere to do a statistical study on?
All very interesting - good luck!
THEE: Your CD Baby Order! (#1815845)
In case you've never ordered from this outfit, the shipping confirmation
e-mail deserves forwarding.
>Thanks for your order with CD Baby!
> # Description Price
> Total
> === =========== ===== =====
> 1 JOHN REMMERS: hand-played rags $15.00 $15.00
> 1 JACK & CHRIS BRADSHAW: takes two $15.00 $15.00
>
> Sub Total $30.00
> Shipping $4.00
> Grand Total $34.00
>
> Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
> sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
>
> A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make
> sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.
>
> Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
> the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money
> can buy.
>
> We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
> marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
> Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in
> our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, May 6th.
>
> I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your
> picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all
> exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
>
> Thank you, thank you, thank you!
>
> Sigh...
>
> Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
> the little store with the best new independent music
THEE: The memorabilia really wasn't my thing, although I did save it, my
girlfriend who now lives in NY was the Beatle fanatic. Joe [Pope] used
to get me rare albums of groups I liked and music he thought I would
like. He was very thoughtful that way.
ME: I hope you don't mind me asking what Kumon's excuse for closing your
center was. We were in follow-up training together, and it was obvious
you had 10 times as much enthusiasm for Kumon as the average intructor.
Obviously, don't feel obligated to say anything you don't want to; you
may ignore this completely. I'm just curious if there's any rhyme or
reason to what the branch does.
Best of luck in everything.
ME: Here are some comments on what I'm sending to you.
First of all, here is a list of the earliest SFFs that I have. They
were never dated by Joe, but I worked up approximate dates based on
events covered inside.
1. Mar 1973
2. Apr 1973
6. Nov 1973
10. Jul 1974 Previews Mystery Tour '74.
15. Jul 1975 Previews Mystery Tour '75. *16. Nov 1975 Reports on
Mystery Tour '75.
17. Dec 1975 Joe says Happy Christmas.
21. Jul 1976 Previews Mystery Your '76. *22. late 1976 Wings Over
America. *23. Jan 1977 Christmas record is late, but will arrive in 3
weeks.
25. Early 1977 Have to cancel Mystery Tour '77.
26. 1977 Thanks to... Sexy Sindie.
Some personal comments relating to the copies:
In SFF16, on the same page as your letter is one from a good friend of
mine whom I met in 1984. She said that first Mystery Tour, in 1974,
was the most exciting thing ever. It seems funny her letter doesn't
mention Mystery Tour '75 being her second one. A~~ was a big fan of
Joe's; about his occasional tardiness, she'd say, "Joe'll never let you
down."
On the page before is a letter from Joel Glazier, who made a name for
himself in the Paul Is Dead field. I'm in Dover and he's in Wilmington,
and we bumped into each other a couple of years ago at a talk here in
Dover on school desegregation of the 1950s. We didn't know each other,
but we got to talking, and it was the most winding, convoluted, series
of discussion topics that somehow got us around to Beatles and my Beatle
Significa game and Paul Is Dead clues, and then the mutual recognition,
"Hey, I know who you are!"
On the first page is a thanks to Al Cuniff, famous to me as the manager
of a band a high school buddy was in called Wanted. That would have
been about 1970/71. My friend Lester Arengo, the group's drummer, joked
about parallels between Al and Brian Epstein.
Not much to say about SFF22. It was almost entirely clippings of a
Wings tour.
In SFF23 the story of Joe on the quiz show cracked me up. Is there an
interesting story behind who Abbey Rodent really was? The letter writer
O~~ is also a good friend. She and A~~ are housemates, and have been,
going maybe back to the '60s, I think. A buddy and I met them at a John
Lennon Peace Tribute at the Lincoln Memorial on John's birthday in 1983.
We all sort of said, see you later, without making any real plans; you
know how that is. Then he and I went to Beatlefest 1984, which was
*my* magical Beatle convention. Firstness only happens once, they say.
Besides being a very special anniversary year celebration, a large part
of the magic came from meeting up with the ladies again. I wasn't sure
they'd be there, or that I'd recognize them. But I thought I saw
somebody who could have been R~~, and turned out it was. So here I am
reacquainting myself with R~~, and she's being followed around and
filmed and interviewed by the BBC, which makes me feel half like a star,
and then she takes me down to O~~ and A~~, and they're at the auction
bidding on about the last of 20 Sgt. Pepper albums that Harry Nilsson
sent around to be autographed by Paul, George and Ringo, with proceeds
going to handgun control. O~~ and A~~ had missed out the day before
because that one went too high. So here they are at their maximum bid,
a little below $1000, and Lapidos is saying, "Going once...", etc. while
my heart is pounding - and they win it! We all became close friends and
hosted Beatle get-togethers at our houses over the years.
The Buy, Sell, Trade page got copied by mistake (copy machines think
they know better than us nowadays) but I left it in so you can decide
whether those pages are important to you.
If you need more, just ask!
ME: suitable for framing
Turns out Mizan did get her picture in the paper. I had asked Krystal
to take a close look at the pictures on the front page. When I saw her
and Mike at the auction today, she told me that it wasn't Mizan. Then I
got a call tonight saying it was; that she wasn't looking at the right
person or something. But she was still waffling and asked Mizan, "Are
you sure???", and I hear Mizan in the background, "Yeeeessss." Besides
the pink top, it looked to me just like the mango snow cone she bought.
Of course, Mizan takes things like this in stride. She sang with
Britney Spears at Dover mall when she was two or something, and it's
been all downhill since. Like her picture and name went up on the space
shuttle recently, and I couldn't even get the full story on what that
was about.
Her marching band and drumline will be in the Preakness parade next
week. Don't know how far and wide that gets broadcast.
None of this has to do with Mizan's recent accomplishment I alluded to.
I think there's some ceremony and picture-taking tomorrow (Wed.) Keep
in mind, Krystal has way of blowing things up - which is good, in my
book. More people should show a little excitement in this world.
P.S. Fairy Blackstick, not witch. Guess I should read it a third time.
THEE: In honor of Queen Elizabeth's visit
>>Meanwhile Rufus Rastus in Dixie was playing at the Ada Opera House.
>I'm not online writing this; is there a Dixie in Oklahoma? My road
atlas doesn't list one, and my world atlas only lists one Dixie, in
Alabama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dixie_%28Oklahoma%29
No town named Dixie, but this is redneck Oklahoma . . . more so even than
the rest of the state.
>Mizan's band and drum line was in the parade the next morning. After
that, I never managed to bump into Krystal and Mizan. Not that it
mattered much, because the neatest part of Old Dover Days was missing
this year - the Woodpile. It was in the schedule of events, but somehow
never materialized, and nobody I asked knew why. The Woodpile is just a
big pile of scrap wood that comes from a furniture maker, I guess, and
the kids get a bowl of elmer's glue and go to town. Hmmmm, maybe you
saw Mizan's "sun house" two years ago. Anyhow, I was working on some
BIG ideas for this year, like a lighthouse or taj mahal or, coolest of
all, a gravestone. Mizan wasn't keen on that last idea; don't ask me
why.
I know a grave it could have marked . . .
>Finished up that book of "Stories of Today" (1912). The last was
Thackeray's fairy tale novelette "The Rose and the Ring" from about
1854. As with "The Man Without A Country" (ca. 1864), it seems "today"
can go back a *long* way. The word is it's Thackeray's only children's
story. It's a lot of fun. As always, darn if I can see the distinction
between juvenile and adult writing. Besides emergency trips to the
dictionary, this one took (me) a lot of effort getting familiar with
characters and hanging onto the threads. When I was finished, I jumped
right back in so I could enjoy it with the benefit of the big picture.
Were Victorian kids "real" kids?
>I noticed today doing some indexing work that there's a "The Man
Without A Country" opera. Of course, I've seen the title a million
times, but it didn't make an impression until after reading the story.
The plot summary describes a romance element that wasn't in the story,
but used to be de rigueur(?) in opera. It's by Damrosch, who came up in
our earlier emails.
Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember coming across that when I was
reading all the newspaper articles about Damrosch. That's a project
I'll return to someday. His Depression-era Musician's Relief Fund
deserves an article. As of a few years ago when Ed Berlin checked the
bibliographies of music publications, no one had written such an article
that he could find. I have far more than enough material. Speaking of
Damrosch, someone is mighty proud of this photo:
http://cgi.ebay.com/WALTER-DAMROSCH-PHOTOGRAPH-SIGNED-10-23-1937
So what if it's autographed. You could probably fine it buried in a box
of autographed first editions and pick it up at the Dover auction for a
buck . . . or maybe latch onto it for nothing from someone's reject
pile.
>In an auction lot a while back was a National Geographic I hung onto
for the article, "Mark Twain - Mirror of America". I set it here
obviously as a reminder to mention it to you in an email, but don't ask
me what I had in mind. The article was interesting enough, but I feel
like all National Geographic articles are on the "flat" side. Maybe it
was this sentence near the end, where the writer discusses Twain's
bitterness and cynicism, that got a highlight and relates to some of our
discussion: "His philosophical treatise "What Is man?" was deemed so
irreverent that his daughter Jean refused to type it."
One of the best thing about most National Geographic articles is the
pictures. I, too, haven't found the articles particularly engaging.
>Another thing sitting here is a book called "Foolish Fiction" (1925) by
Christopher Ward that I need to subject somebody to before tossing it.
I found it at the auction, too, of course. I read a few of the stories,
and it's sort of weird and sort of funny, but not important enough to
read cover to cover. Here's a sample:
> On the platform of the lonely flag-station of San Octoroon in the
> Valley de los Negroes sat Lee Birdie. While waiting for the
> story to begin he thought such thoughts as would give the reader
> a favorable impression of his character. ...
> A zephyr light as an angel's breath swept by, bearing on its
> perfumed wings the odor of the desert and a bullet that hit
> Lee Birdie just above his left eyebrow, but glanced harmlessly
> aside. ...
>There, even though I know it would be the perfect book for *somebody*,
now I can toss it.
You may want to dig it out of your trash can. You have a piece of
Delaware history.
http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/ward/ward1.htm
>>Yes, the latest [acrobat] freebie is still a reader, but a better one.
>
> Does it fire up faster?
On my high speed cable connnection it does . . . :-)
>"Sideways Stories" goes all the way back to 1978. I discovered it
while here in Dover, but I've met people who knew it back when. "Dogs"
is 1991.
Did the Sideways Stories have places where the reader could chose a
direction for the story and later go back and reread, choosing a
different direction? I remember those books but not what they were
called.
>My position has always been that summaries can coexist perfectly
peacefully with "the works". I've always felt that every book should
have built-in summaries of paragragh, page, and chapter lengths.
My students would agree with you. They'd opt for a one page summary of
each of their textbooks, and then--maybe--read that but skip the
chapter-length summary and the book. I'm convinced that reading is
passe . . . or will be. As to reading fiction, most of the kids say
it's worthless to read anything that isn't "real." Yet, they'll lay out
good money for Spiderman III and any horror film that comes along.
>>Btw, how's your literacy tutoring going?
>Very disappointing(ly?). Y~~ doesn't show up. He might make it in if
he gets a call, but I don't crawl after people. I've had a good time
"freelancing" with other students who show up at the center, but, to be
honest, it looks like the whole operation is on very shaky ground. I
can't be more specific because I don't really have an understanding of
what goes on at the higher levels, and where the literacy center fits
into the school system and government. But I get the impression the
people in charge don't care about it too much. It hasn't had any
evening hours ever since the one paid staff member resigned a few months
ago. They haven't gotten anyone to fill that position.
I'd think evening hours would be in order for an adult literacy center,
and I'm sorry to hear that Tyrone doesn't show up. That was G~~'s
experience as a tutor with the Tulsa City-County Library literacy
program, too. Good that you're having fun with the others, though.
>There, when I eventually get around to putting up all my email on the
web, there will be some comments on The Rose and the Ring.
That's a nightmare prospect . . .
By the way, scroll down to Sousa's "Mother Hubbard March."
THEE:
>Thanks for stretching my mind. Seems to me though, that there must be
some sort of directing force at work, ensuring that all the keystrokes
that add to the developing Bible are noted and kept, and all the others
are discarded. What about all the other potential books that could have
been created if they also had an overseeing force?
Yes, absolutely. The monkeys at keyboards analogy always seems to have a
fixed goal in mind, in this case a particular book such as the bible.
This is one way in which the analogy with evolution of life does not
work, since in life the "noting and keeping" of some keystrokes and the
"discarding" of others is done by natural selection, which simply keeps
successful reproducers and discards unsuccessful ones.
> Or, might you argue, that the pre-giraffe did evolve into thousands of
other species by the time it created the giraffe?
Not quite. The point is that the pre-giraffe *could have* evolved into
thousands (to say the least) of other 'species', but those species never
came to exist.
>This line of thought gets me back to what I believe to be my modest
contribution to the whole discussion, where I beg for evolutionists to
just *describe* what happens as one species is replaced by another. In
my main evolution page I say:
>...
>What would the film show, frame by frame, generation by generation?
We'll even arrange the animal images conveniently from most grizzly
bear-like on the left side to most whale-like on the right. How many
frames does it take to get to the first whale? What do the
intermediates look like? How many are in each frame? How many
transitional stages are represented in each frame? In the last frame,
do we have all whales? Whales and grizzly bears? Other creatures, too?
I'm not sure about the grizzly bear link, but if you search for "whale
evolution" on Google (and ignore the Creationist site hits), it seems to
me you get a picture not too different from what you were asking for.
Try for example http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/introduction.html.
>***
>And still trying to get someone to take up the challenge, I wrote
later:
>Forget about the definition of evolution. Forget about
howevolution happens. Forget about whyevolution happens.
Forget about the word "evolution" itself. Just describe some
interesting transition in generation-by-generation steps. Account for
all of the descendants of all of the members of the source species until
you arrive at an established population of the destination species.
One thing to remember is that the evolution of species happens amongst
large numbers of individuals rather than down a single line of
generations. So strictly it would not be possible to make a general
generation-by-generation description of the transition from one species
to another. But you could certainly select an individual from the
descendant species and trace a generation-by-generation line to the
ancestral species by following, say, the female line all the way. In
that case you would expect to see a lot of apparently directionless
meandering at the generation-by-generation level, much like the stock
market looks if the time scale is short. But over longer scales you
would notice gradual transitions as features changed from one form to
another. If it was possible, you would also be able to match these
changes to changes in the species's environment.
I appreciate that this is not a specific source and destination species,
but sadly nobody has a complete generation-by-generation fossil record
for any species transition (though it would be every palaeontologist's
dream).
>***
>I've had a long time to come to the realization that I embarrassed
myself termendously in those pages, but it still hasn't happened.
>By the way, for more "typing monkey" fun, the editor of our local
Dover, Delaware newspaper coincidentally just wrote a humorous column on
the subject. Just for fun - nothing to do with evolution.
> http://www.doverpost.com/pages/lavie.html
Nice article :)
The discovery of the Earth-like planet was of great interest to me, but
the whole thing quickly became an exercise in frustration as, much like
the Dover Post article hinted at, the media here in the UK started
talking nonsense about the implications.
>Oh yeah, I got a nice email from "shoelace" regarding my Base 8
proposal, which you also commented on. I found the discussion among
Base 12 supporters interesting. Shoelace wrote:
>>I liked your webpage in support of base 8. It agrees well with my
feelings on the matter. I have posted a link to your webpage on a
messageboard that supports base 12. I have also posted there in support
of base 8. I post under the name Shoelace - See link:
>>http://z13.invisionfree.com/DozensOnline/index.php?showtopic=197&st=0#entry3334615
Good stuff. You'll recall that I was a base 16 advocate when I first
contacted you. Your argument about learning the times tables was pretty
convincing, so I'd class myself as undecided between 8 and 16.
But when it comes to 8 versus 12, I'm firmly in the 8 camp with you and
Shoelace!
THEE: Re: suitable for framing
YUP, that's Mizan, alright! :-)
I don't remember ever seeing the Preakness parade back in the days when
I never missed the Triple Crown races. I guess I was in junior high.
That was in the days when a friend's relatives raised Welsh ponies and
we used to get to ride them pretty often. Welsh ponies are a bit
smaller than horses, but pretty good sized and a lot of fun.
I'll have a place to sleep other than the living room although it will
still be on an inflatable mattress. The new generation of "air
mattresses" is actually very comfortable.
THEE: PS. What is this RIAA biz?
ME: a signal you don't want to hear, and the phono preamp massages into
shape.
ME: I'd still like to have a complete collection of all the pieces
recorded by the WGS orchestras. The WGS years represent a significant
chunk of my life, and I sank a lot of effort into it. When I look over
the list of pieces that were performed, whether or not recorded, I see I
prepared all but one of them for performance (cut and paste, numbered
measures, copied parts, etc.) I'm also sure that a complete set of the
pieces we recorded would simply make a very enjoyable guitar ensemble
album. I finally managed to get everything Bev has (maybe). The ones
that I still need that you have (hopefully) are:
The Old Castle
Brouwer quartet (recorded same day; first section may be salvageable.)
Summerset Follies
Floating Ancillary Ants (I can stitch together the sections)
(Anything I'm forgetting?)
This is very important to me. I'd pay for your time, if necessary.
Most convenient for me would be copies on cd. No need to do any
editing; I can put it all together. I'll send you a finished cd, with
which you can inspire your students!
ME: miss dover
Some of Mizan's Arty Gras artwork appeared in today's Dover Post. It's
the fish behind Anahy's head. I helped with the tail. You can see
Mizan's signature; it says, "By Mizan".
My scrabble club got rolling tonight. Yippee! Had 3 great games with
Cyril, who enjoyed himself tremendously, too. He's a really friendly
guy. I had a bingo in each of the games: LOADERS, SNAPPER, and
SQUEALED. Got burned on BUOYERS - how can that not be a word??? Had 3
Zs in the last game.
ME: Congratulations on the school board post! I thought I'd ask you
what I occasionally ask other elected leaders and candidates: might you
consider using the internet to determine where the people stand on each
issue, and act in accordance with that?
I've always felt that all government decisions should be in accord with
majority will; having a single vote in the decision-making process
certainly isn't asking too much. And you can't blame me for thinking
the people in charge of education, in particular, have been making
lunatic decisions for decades.
THEE: What species of fish was it? Can't make it out?
Buoyers? People who install buoys? Maybe human buoys? People who like
to bob up and down in the water while swimming?
What's with miss dover?
ME:
>What species of fish was it? Can't make it out?
The prehistoric coelencioauc fish, once thought to be extinct.
>Buoyers? People who install buoys? Maybe human buoys? People who
like to bob up and down in the water while swimming?
Gee, thanks for the sympathy. BUOYERS n. pl. 1. more than one that
keeps afloat. 2. more than one that uplifts the spirits of or heartens:
the Monkees were the buoyers of the sixties generation.
It's pretty safe to -er-ify transitive verbs, especially if it's a
bodily action (fingerer) or might be an occupation (shingler). I got
burned once in my only scrabble tournament on GAMBOLER - and I've seen
it two times in print since then!
Another memory from that tournament: I took a chance on GLAMORED,
thinking of two or three possible verb defs for GLAMOR. The referee was
called and it didn't fly. During a break my whilom opponent was telling
everybody what an unbelievably stupid word I made. "Can you believe he
made *GLAMORED*?" I asked her if she looked it up. She said, "What
for???" I said you might see something interesting. She whipped her
official Scrabble dictionary open, saw GLAMOURED, and kind of groaned
and shut up.
>>Had 3 Zs in the last game.
You were 'posed to ask, "Howed you git 3 ZZZs in one scrabble game???"
(No, I didn't take a nap.)
>Welsh ponies are a bit smaller than horses,
but bigger than rabbits.
>>There, when I eventually get around to putting up all my email on the
web, there will be some comments on The Rose and the Ring.
>That's a nightmare prospect . . .
Maybe for you . . .
>>I wish google had a "no commercial pages" filter.
>The commercial pages are proliferating almost daily, it seems. Now and
then, they come in handy. How do you think I found those two
"Cottonfield Capers" recordings?
I meant a filter that the user could turn on or off as desired.
>Did the Sideways Stories have places where the reader could chose a
direction for the story and later go back and reread, choosing a
different direction? I remember those books but not what they were
called.
No, it wasn't one of those books. It was just a bunch of short
chapters, each devoted to one of the students in... Well, let me just
scan in the introduction:
This book contains thirty stories about the children and
teachers at Wayside School. But before we get to them,
there is something you ought to know so that you don't
get confused.
Wayside School was accidentally built sideways.
It was supposed to be only one story high, with thirty
classrooms all in a row. Instead it is thirty stories high,
with one classroqm on each story. The builder said he was
very sorry.
The children at Wayside like having a sideways school.
They have an extra-large playground.
The children and teachers described in this book all go
to class on the top floor. So there are thirty stories from
the thirtieth story of Wayside School.
It has been said that these stories are strange and silly.
That is probably true. However, when I told stories about
you to the children at Wayside, they thought you were
strange and silly. That is probably also true.
>>>Yes, the latest [acrobat] freebie is still a reader, but a better
one.
>>Does it fire up faster?
>On my high speed cable connnection it does . . . :-)
I mean on your own computer, not connected to the internet. For
instance, I used HP Director to scan that text above. It goes to a pdf
file, and then I fire that up, select and copy the text. I actually
timed it this time. It took acrobat 14 seconds from the moment I
clicked on the file to when the contents finally came up. I know 14
seconds doesn't sound like the end of the world, but every little thing
in this high tech world now involves just standing there for 10-30
seconds, waiting for something to happen. It wouldn't be so bad if I
didn't remember the good old days, when you turned a knob or punched a
button or pressed enter, something happened right then.
>>Another thing sitting here is a book called "Foolish Fiction" (1925)
by Christopher Ward that I need to subject somebody to before tossing
it.
>You may want to dig it out of your trash can. You have a piece of
Delaware history.
Thanks! Unbelievable catch. And to think that I waited a long time to
get Christopher Ward's "The Dutch and the Swedes On The Delaware,
1609-1664" off of ebay. Still haven't read it, but I *do* see it in a
prominent place on my bookshelf all the time. My excuse it the spine
only shows "WARD", yeah, that's it. Don't really know where to fit
"Foolish Fiction" into my collection, though.
The CD Baby note was hilarious - a classic.
>What's with miss dover?
I'll ask Krystal.
Donald
p.s. coal and chalk
ME: to dover post
I was wondering if the Dover Post might be interested in running an
article on my new tutoring business. About three years ago the Post
featured my Kumon Math and Reading Center, which was a franchise
operation. That's been shut down for more than a year and I've started
up my own tutoring company called Karate Brain Math Tutoring. I'm
hoping enough time has elapsed and the new venture is seen to be
independent from the old.
Here's a quick introduction:
"Karate Brain" implies a mental discipline analogous to karate's
physical discipline. I'm not concerned with raw speed, but I want a
student to always know what the next mental step is in solving a math
problem.
My advertising catch-phrase is, "Catch up; tune up, or blast ahead!"
(See Dover Post classifieds.)
All grades.
I tutor word skills as well, even though I only put "math" in the
business name.
Very inexpensive relative to Sylvan, Huntington, Kumon, New Horizons, or
big-city tutors.
Located in Treadway Towers.
ME: pits was: grooves
I'm guessing the Shakespeare play would kill you, but you might find the
description interesting (if painful):
http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/ffa/index.aspx
If you were wondering about the ladybug hovering over your sleeping
head, that's Delaware's state bug. Mizan made it at the Governor's open
house a few weeks ago, and forgot to take it home.
Sorry about the W.C. O'Hare set; I suppose that would have been more
appropriate for someone with an interest in music; or cool music; or
cool, old music; or music from exactly 100 years ago; or films; or film
music; or recorded sound technology; or obsolete sound technology; or
state of the art sound digitization technology; or state of the art
sound editing techniques. I try, but can't win 'em all.
I spent a lot of time with my new Beatle rarities and upgrades. You
asked if I need or want them and here's my Current State Of The Beatle
Acquisitions. As far as "best ever" monos and stereos of the
commercially released material, all I really need is stereo Beatles For
Sale and stereo Hard Days Night. I'm perfectly satisfied with the
"horrible" commercial cds from that point on. I don't need mono Beatle
albums. About the extra "Sessions" material, based on PPM and WTB, I'm
afraid cds of that would crowd me out of the house. I think I'll wait
until Purple Chick is done, and all the "Sessions" tracks are mp3-ed
(assuming *that* won't crowd me out of the house.)
The big pile of goodies you brought me shook loose a new operating
procedure. When I have a cd, commercial or fan-produced, that
supercedes a Beatle lp in my collection - the lp gets tossed, just like
the opera lps I transfer to cd myself. So yesterday I had a grand
purge. Purple Chick cds went into my PPM and WTB lp jackets, and the
vinyl got tossed. I'll bet you I was the only person on earth yesterday
- maybe ever - who threw a PERFECT Mobile Fidelity PPM lp into the
trash. (It sounded identical to the cd.) Same thing for my import WTB.
What did ladybugs used to be called? And I did the same thing with EMI
Beatle cds and the later Beatle albums, and the British Help! you gave
me (I think.) I threw out my *own* transfer of the Decca Tapes(!) What
can I say, Purple Chick sounded a bit better. I am proud to say that my
pitch correction was almost exactly the same as Purple Chick's. Tony
Sheridan on the amazing Polydor record sounded identical to Purple
Chick, but I saved that because of the non-Beatle tracks, and as a
testament to the possibility of sound quality on vinyl.
The Apple Singles project is starting to roll with the third one. Long
after I've forgotten all about it, I finally get to hear the mythical
Wall's Ice Cream EP! The cd allowed me to toss 7(!) Apple 45s in the
trash. The cd was a clear winner soundwise over the 45s with the
exception of one side of one single, which I threw out for the sake of
completeness. So you can see, all in all, your pile of cds actually
freed up a lot of living space around here.
P.S. WTB = With The Beatles
P.P.S. and WARNING: There is a test above to see if you read this email!
Even the subject line is mildly clever!
THEE:
>>What species of fish was it? Can't make it out?
>The prehistoric coelencioauc fish, once thought to be extinct.
Drat, I should have recognized that one!
>>Buoyers? People who install buoys? Maybe human buoys? People who
like to bob up and down in the water while swimming?
>Gee, thanks for the sympathy. BUOYERS n. pl. 1. more than one that
keeps afloat.
Aren't those buoys?
>2. more than one that uplifts the spirits of or heartens: the Monkees
were the buoyers of the sixties generation.
And is this from Don Sauter's Unabridged Scrabble Dictionary??? Why not
spell it buoyeurs to match voyeurs?
>It's pretty safe to -er-ify transitive verbs, especially if it's a
bodily action (fingerer) or might be an occupation (shingler). I got
burned once in my only scrabble tournament on GAMBOLER - and I've seen
it two times in print since then!
>Another memory from that tournament: I took a chance on GLAMORED,
thinking of two or three possible verb defs for GLAMOR. The referee was
called and it didn't fly. During a break my whilom opponent was telling
everybody what an unbelievably stupid word I made. "Can you believe he
made *GLAMORED*?" I asked her if she looked it up. She said, "What
for???" I said you might see something interesting. She whipped her
official Scrabble dictionary open, saw GLAMOURED, and kind of groaned
and shut up.
See, what was I saying about inserting a u???
>>>Had 3 Zs in the last game.
>You were 'posed to ask, "Howed you git 3 ZZZs in one scrabble game???"
(No, I didn't take a nap.)
Hey, man, it's been years since I played scrabble. Am I supposed to
remember how many zzzzzzzzs? I've slept since then.
>>Welsh ponies are a bit smaller than horses,
>but bigger than rabbits.
Yup, and bigger than rarebit, too. Farewell, Welsh Rarebit . . . But
you probably won't recall that as one of WC's songs. I don't recall
which one of us found it for sure, but it may be one I dredged up from
Landover.
>>>There, when I eventually get around to putting up all my email on the
web, there will be some comments on The Rose and the Ring.
>>That's a nightmare prospect . . .
>Maybe for you . . .
Zactly . . .
>>>I wish google had a "no commercial pages" filter.
>>The commercial pages are proliferating almost daily, it seems. Now
and then, they come in handy. How do you think I found those two
"Cottonfield Capers" recordings?
>I meant a filter that the user could turn on or off as desired.
Excellent idea, of course.
We picked up a few books for a quarter each at the new Rockville library
today. A couple that tempted me were some sort of chicken story and The
Lion King, both in Arabic, with the story starting from the back. Only
problem is I couldn't read them, but they looked great. One I snagged
may or may not be good, but it beats the nothing I previously had on the
topic. It's The Opera Handbook by John Lazarus, published by G. K.
Hall. For the price, I figured I'd get my money's worth. Whatever I
learn is more than I knew about opera.
>>>>Yes, the latest [acrobat] freebie is still a reader, but a better
one.
>>>Does it fire up faster?
>>On my high speed cable connnection it does . . . :-)
>I mean on your own computer, not connected to the internet.
OK, OK, I forgot your main use of pdf files. I use Adobe Reader all the
time on the historic newspaper archive. The files often open in about 5
seconds as contrasted with one to two minutes on my old dialup
connection.
THEE: In other news, I am about 90% sure that I'll be having brain
surgery over the next several months. I have a congenital brain
condition called an AVM. I've known about it since 1990 and it is now
becoming mildly symptomatic (dyslexia, memory, and word searching). A
recent CT-A revealed that the venous side of the AVM is in a state of
hypertension which is putting pressure on the surrounding brain tissue
(thus my symptoms). I am having an angiogram later this month which will
give more information as to the risk/benefit ratio. So far the prognosis
is good. I hope the angiogram will confirm that. In the meantime, I am
at risk of increasing deficits and rupture. I'll be consulting with two
other neuro-surgeons (one in Chicago and the other in PA) after my
angiogram to get their assessments. There is an old saying, "measure
twice... cut once".
The treatment is done in multiple stages. Each stage is done about a
month and a half apart. If everything moves forward, I anticipate having
the first procedure this summer. If all goes well, I should be able to
teach between procedures and keep my job.
ME: Thanks for finding time to dig out the old WGS recordings. I'm
guessing it won't be a problem, but Bev indicates that dats are
relatively short-lived, and even had trouble with some of hers.
ME:
Hi Sue,
>>Gee, thanks for the sympathy. BUOYERS n. pl. 1. more than one that
keeps afloat.
>Aren't those buoys?
And I suppose JUDGER and SCOUTER aren't words just cuz we have the words
JUDGE and SCOUT?
Oops. Don't answer that.
>Hey, man, it's been years since I played scrabble. Am I supposed to
remember how many zzzzzzzzs? I've slept since then.
General knowledge 101: Scrabble has four "big gun" letters that show up
once each in the set of 100: J Q X Z. Well, maybe the average bum on
the street might fumble the J.
>> Wayside School was accidentally built sideways.
>> It was supposed to be only one story high, with thirty
>> classrooms all in a row. Instead it is thirty stories high,
>> with one classroqm on each story. The builder said he was
>> very sorry.
This passage brings to mind an observation from my friend V~~ who
visited on Saturday. When I told him the name of my office building,
Treadway Towers, he laughed - without even having seen it. He knew
there were no "towers" in Dover. It's funny, but it had never occurred
to me before - and then it struck me as so odd that I was wondering if I
were getting the name confused. The building is long, straight, and
narrow - like a tower that's fallen over, maybe. I'm on the upper
floor, the third, but even that is only the second floor above street
level. Some "tower" . . .
>One I snagged may or may not be good, but it beats the nothing I
previously had on the topic. It's The Opera Handbook by John Lazarus,
published by G. K. Hall. For the price, I figured I'd get my money's
worth. Whatever I learn is more than I knew about opera.
Obviously not true. You could write a book three times as big on
Treemonisha alone. And Treemonisha is full-fledged opera, nothing less.
And even putting aside your out-of-the-ordinary general knowledge (never
minding oddball letters in our alphabet), I know you've gotten exposure
to cool things like Danish opera and Meyerbeer and Regina and Traviata
and Forza del Destino and Benvenuto Cellini and the Beggar's Opera.
There's a statement in one of my books something like, "The path from
novice to expert in opera is very short indeed." Truer words have never
been spoken. There are thousands of operas, yes, but the framework in
which they fit can be presented in a few short chapters. This is not to
say that I believe that everyone should or needs to take up opera.
>>It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't remember the good old days, when you
turned a knob or punch a button or pressed enter, something happened
right then.
>But that something wasn't generally very sophisticated, as I recall.
Way too big and potentially frustrating a topic to get into via email,
but I can't accept that because computers are bigger (storage-wise) and
faster that basic functions should become slower, more complicated and
difficult. Most of what I do is still diddle with text - type, search,
send and receive. I can't think of a single thing that I was doing 10
years ago, from booting up (about 15 seconds) to turning it off (just
punch the power switch), that isn't slower and more difficult now.
Right now there about 30 programs running on my computer - only one of
which I asked for.
My 1987 cd player bit the dust a year or so ago. Now I have a $350 Sony
cd recorder, and every button involves standing there and waiting. From
turning on to getting music out probably takes half a minute - if you're
on your toes.
>To know if the new version opens faster, I'd need to replicate your
process. I'm guessing it would depend in part on the computer.
Actually, I mean just the time it takes to show the first page, whether
the whole pdf file has two words, or 200 pages of images. But you've
answered my question; if your acrobat can fire up the first page of a
web file in 5 seconds, it has to be tremendously faster than my version,
which just took 10 seconds to fire up a pdf file on my hard drive.
Talked with Krystal the other day. She wasn't clear herself on what
became of Mizan's newspaper appearance. Mizan wrote an essay on water
conservation that won first prize statewide (according to Krystal.) A
newspaper came to her school to take pictures and I figured it would
appear in a day or two. Don't know if Krystal missed it or if it's
still in the works.
discard: Gmail used to take a few seconds to get into; now it's over a
minute. And gathering up my email is easily 20 times more labor
intensive than the old days of "capture" in a communications program.
THEE: Nope, the subject header is over my head.
There is a sign on Route 1 that says that you should take Route 113
to Bethany. This may come as a shock to you, but in this one instance,
your government is lying to you!
ME:
> Nope, the subject header is over my head.
Records have grooves. Cds have pits. "was:" indicates old subject
replaced by new. Funny computer age way of saying, "Out with the old;
in with the new." Or, "That was then; this is now." Email all about
throwing records in trash, replacing with cds. Additional humor/shock
value from discards being to-die-for collectibles.
The answer to the test to see if you read the email was "ladybird".
ME: I suppose my suggestion of considering the will of the people on
school board matters was not embraced with enthusiasm. I thought I
would take one last shot at it.
I firmly believe all government decisions at every level should be based
on majority will. Nothing could be easier to implement, and certainly
at such a low level as a school board. If democracy is impossibly
radical even at this level, all I'm hoping for is *one* school board
member who will just solicit and *consider* majority opinion, and then
report back for each issue whether or not the school board knows better
than the people. Taking the steps necessary to get on a school board
would seem to indicate evidence of a belief that things are not right in
education. It's hard to imagine any thinking person not agreeing that
things have been wildly off-track for the last four decades. I doubt
the Capital School Board can turn that around single-handedly, but now
that there's a well-oiled referendum process that makes voting "No" a
waste of time I'm scared to death the lunacy will only accelerate.
About those referenda: the schools send home scare-story letters with
the kids; the polling places - elementary schools - are anything but
neutral; people whose money is not at jeopardy, and even older school
kids, are allowed to vote; newspapers are loaded with pro-school
editorials and letters on the day of the vote; and the schools get to
keep running referenda until they finally get the desired result. A new
ploy is, "It will cost MORE in the future, so might as well pay now!!!"
Nice deal if you can get it - what worker wouldn't take all his future
wages now? And I have an inkling of a suspicion that memories will fade
instantly and the schools will be back for more money soon enough. And
there's another new scam (yes, scam; "ploy" doesn't cut it): "The state
will triple match each of your dollars!!!" Hey, it works for public tv
fund-raising drives! And afterwards the state says, "Huh???" But even
if the state could pay, where do we think *its* money comes from -
Martians?
And no one ever slows down to consider the relationship between money
squandered and student performance. I came from Maryland, and I know
the Maryland counties that spend the least per student have the highest
performing students. Doesn't surprise me in the least. Until recently,
at least, a similar claim was made for Caesar Rodney.
Finally, if you're sure you're not inclined to consider public opinion,
perhaps another member might? I'd be happy to donate my services to the
effort.
Finally, finally, best of luck to you and the rest of the school board.
Finally, finally, finally, GET MATH TRAILBLAZERS OUT OF DOVER SCHOOLS.
THEE:
>But you've answered my question; if your acrobat can fire up the first
page of a web file in 5 seconds, it has to be tremendously faster than
my version, which just took 10 seconds to fire up a pdf file on my hard
drive.
I haven't timed it. Five seconds may be optimistic. But I can tell you
it's a lot faster than before.
> Talked with Krystal the other day. She wasn't clear herself on
> what became of Mizan's newspaper appearance. Mizan wrote an
> essay on water conservation that won first prize statewide (according
> to Krystal.) A newspaper came to her school to take pictures and
> I figured it would appear in a day or two.
Well, if Mizan's essay won statewide, what newspaper was running the
contest?
Let's' hope it wasn't a Wilmington paper. I'm fed up with that backward
burg. [...]
By the way, there were several other Mutt and Jeff rags and other Mutt
and Jeff music genres. My favorite title, with no connection to
Oklahoma, is "Mutt Wrote the Music and Jeff Wrote the Words, and They
Called it the Funny Sheet Blues." That one came along in 1923.
ME: While I'm writing, thought I'd share a minor guitar anecdote. At
Guitar '84 in Toronto I heard the world premiere of a piece called
"Platero - elegy for two guitars and narrator" by Ray Sealey. The
guitarists were 11 and 12 years old. I thought the piece was very nice
(as was Myrna's Platero by Castelnuovo-Tedesco). Also brings to mind
your compositions involving narrator. I eventually found and bought
Sealey's Platero and enjoyed it over the years. I recently transferred
it to cd and thought I would shoot a note to Sealey and the guitarists
if possible. Although Sealey was big in the Canadian musician
organization, I couldn't find any contact info, and no hits whatsoever
for the guitarists. The record itself gets 1 hit on the web - in an
ebay store. And that in spite of being on a distinguished label,
Hyperion. People are always preaching to me how you can find *anything*
on the web - my own success rate is about 30%, I'd say. I caught the
opera bug about 10 years ago, and the web has, for all intents and
purposes, nothing on opera, for instance.
ME:
>Stave notation is common to almost all instruments (and of course to
the voice) and isn't meant to tell the piano player where to put his or
her fingers. It represents the intended sounds, not the means of
producing those sounds. What the original questioner seems to want is a
piano equivalent of guitar tabs. That wouldn't be achieved simply by
tinkering with the standard stave system.
What the original questioner *wants* is to open up keyboard playing from
written music to the widest possible masses, including himself.
Presenting piano music in one "language" only (G clef), instead of two
languages simultaneously (G clef and F clef) has nothing to do with
guitar or any other sort of tablature.
He also *believes* the two systems can coexist peacefully indefinitely.
Nobody is going to break down your door and confiscate old piano music.
So far, all the articles in this thread imply that the authors can not
read the top part of four-hand piano music, or solo music when the bass
clef shifts up to a treble clef. He *knows* that is not true.
ME: to audiophile group
I have been transferring records and tapes to cd for about a year and a
half. I feel like I have the process down as efficiently as I ever
will. It's not a horrible job - in many ways quite satisfying - but at
this point I can't kid myself it's not a *lot* of work. Turning a 3-
record set into a declicked mp3 disc today involved about 7 hours, soup
to nuts.
Sometimes I want to just throw a beat-up (not by me) old record on and
listen to it! But I can't bring myself to do that, now that I've tasted
declicked. Even if a record is in good or perfect condition, my problem
(no jokes please) is the feeling that by playing the record now, I've
eaten into the benefits of the eventual transfer to cd. I have
thousands of records, and they will probably only get heard once more
each, on the average, before I die.
I know there are sound-editing programs that do their thing in real-
time, but I can hardly imagine hooking a computer up to my stereo. Even
if they made computers that turn on and off instantly, were absolutely
quiet (all the computers I've owned so far have been bent on deafening
me) and didn't double your air conditioning bill, it still seems like
ridiculous overkill for just this one function.
So... is there any chance that someone will ever manufacture a component
for a home stereo system that does declicking? Of course, if they went
to the trouble, they might as well include other functions, such as
variable Dolby, for tapes, and RIAA curve elimination, for 78s. And a
switch for phono or line input that won't let you accidentally blow up
your system.
But I need a declicker box worse than life itself. Obviously, Sony's
not going to do it for me alone, but surely there are many others who
would plunk down a few hundred bucks for such a thing.
Yes? No?
THEE: French cheesecake and sick actor
Gotta tell you about our day's adventure going to the Musical of
Musicals in Old Alexandria. Since we'd allowed plenty of time to get
lost and arrived about an hour before we could get into the theater for
the all general admission seating, we decided to go to the sidewalk cafe
part of the French restaurant next door to have a cold drink. After
looking at the menu, we decided to splurge and split a $6 desert and
drink only water. As we were trying to decide on the desert, the
waitress approached. We both made a different choice, but were both
willing to accept either. In the end, I suggested we blow our wad and
each have a desert, thus allowing for trying both. H~~ ordered
something that was described as a combination of waffles and bread
pudding with an orange sauce and I ordered the lemon verbena cheesecake
with a raspberry sauce. After 20 minutes of more, the deserts came.
H~~ had two huge, thick triangles that filled her plate. I had a
long white plate, I'd say a foot long, with a round piece of cheesecake
at one end--the size of a half dollar (if that) and a thin swirl of
raspberry sauce curving the length of the plate and one fresh raspberry
strategically placed at the far end of the swirl. It was an artwork,
and I wish I'd had a camera. What made if funny was the thought that
we'd come close to ordering this cheesecake to share and that the
waitress had said nothing when she heard us discuss that possibility.
So with full bellies, we proceded to The Musical of Musicals and
laughed ourselves silly through the first 3/5 (Rodgers and Hammerstein,
Steven Sondheim, and Jerry Herman). Rodgers and Hammerstein was a
cinch. Though the main parody was of Oklahoma, we immediately picked up
on dozens of small musical references to The King and I, South Pacific,
and The Sound of Music. The Sondheim version of the repeated plot was
based on Sweeney Todd, which is the one Sondheim that I know best, but,
again, there were some other musical jokes we picked up on, such as from
Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music,
and Merrily We Roll Along. Neither of us knows much about Pacific
Overtures, but it came in as a recognizable reference to someone making
"specific overtures." Again, we aren't very knowledgeable of Jerry
Herman's work, but, again, the repeated plot was know a parody of Hello,
Dolly, and filled with typical Dolly dance and song. Then came
intermission.
Just as time came for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kander and Ebb, the stage
manager came out to announce that one of the actors was suddenly ill and
that the remainder of the performance would have to be canceled. For a
moment, I think most of us were thinking this was a joke, but it wasn't.
(Maybe he'd had too much cheesecake before the show.) The theater
offered everyone a choice of tickets for a future performance either of
this show which runs into early June, tickets for another show, or a
full refund. Knowing we weren't going to be able to work in the show
and that the theater was a chore to get to, we opted for the refund. So
we saw 3/5 of the show and saved our $70 plus tax. Not bad, but we
would have loved to see the remainder. For anyone who knows the
parodied plays and music and, even better, for anyone able to pick up on
at least a goodly number of the other allusions, it was a delight.
ME: Good job on the refund! Yes, I was expecting the sick actor to tie-
in to the cafe and its desserts. When you get a chance, clarify me on
the meaning of "repeated plot". (A 15 second web search didn't do it -
I's lazy.)
I had a great time and great success at Friday's auction. You'd get a
kick out of seeing my haul. Words couldn't do it justice - and a few
hundred scans is a tad much work. How about a compromise? Here's one
of my favorites, and it has a tie-in to your Musical of Musicals
experience, although this is from the movie version, of course. Yes,
the inscription is real, true ink. [Autographed photo of France
Nuye(sp) - Liat in South Pacific movie.]
ME: a break from grim reality
I got a ton of autographed movie star photos from the '40s and '50s at
Friday's auction. This is one of my faves. There's also a goodie with
a strong Beatle connection - wanna guess?
ME: I see from a previous question that the device is designed to remove
ticks from phono playbacks. I see that it has RCA inputs. Is that for
phono input, or line level input? I'm hoping it's phono input so I can
just hook this machine up between my phonograph and receiver. In other
words, I'm hoping I don't have to find and hook up a preamp that goes
before the Burwen. Thanks for your help.
THEE: My assumption would be that the inputs are line level as they are
all marked TAPE. I believe this unit would be placed after your receiver
(line out / tape out) and before your recording device. Of course if
you are just wanting to remove the artifacts while listening, you could
always wire it up like this: Turntable to Phono IN on the reciever.
Channel out / Tape out from the receiver. Into the unit, out of the
unit. Input to an additional channel on the receiver. I know it seems a
bit convoluted, but in theory it should work, if you have an available
AUX channel.
ME: Here's a little math problem good for a bit of discussion.
If the product of 1000 whole number factors equals 1000, what is the
greatest possible sum of those factors?
THEE: a break from grim reality
Donald, I actually see two.
1) It's autographed in French, apparently. That's the EXACT SAME
LANGUAGE the waiters spoke at that dinner that the Beatles had to
celebrate "I Want to hold Your Hand" reaching no. 1 in the U.S.! Look
it up, it's in a book.
2) The more obvious one: The autograph references "South Pacific"
(thanks for invoking the Schwartz coat of arms in your subject header).
A top hit from that show was "Bali Hai." And there's no getting around
it, starting around 1964, the Beatles got hai on drugs on a fairly
regular basis.
ME: what does it take
> Are you saying that this photo has a strong Beatle tie-in?
No. Actually, I said,
>There's also a goodie with a strong Beatle connection - wanna guess?
The word "also" strongly implies an "autographed movie star photo from
the'40s and '50s" *besides* the one mentioned in the email and attached
to it. The "guess", then, if you're inclined, is for some *other* star
in a *different* autographed photograph.
Of course, from your point of view, that would seem impossible. Me,
knowing the answer, can hardly think of anybody else. Here are some
clues:
1. glamour
2. not American
3. not French
2. Double initial.
3. Not MM (but you knew that from 2.)
4. Not BB (but you knew that from 3.)
5. Not even Deana Durbin (although I have hers too)
6. It was twenty years ago today
7. Welcome the Rolling Stones
Ans. ____________
Also wondering, is it possible that a huge stack of vintage, autographed
movie star photos makes no impression on a movie fan?
THEE:
>When you get a chance, clarify me on the meaning of "repeated plot".
(A 15 second web search didn't do it - I's lazy.)
The Musical of Musicals tells the same story five times--each time as a
parody of a different composers or team's style. The basic plot was
that a young woman had no money to pay her rent and the other female
character basically told her, "No, problem, we're all going to die
anyway." The wicked landlord always had a solution of some sort. In
the Oklahoma parody, he was the Judd Fry character. The young women, of
course, was Laurie, the romantic lead was Curly, and the other woman
Aunt Eller. The names were slightly different, for instance Judd was
Jidder and Curlie was Willy. In the Oklahoma parody, Jidder offered to
tear up the lease if June (Laurie) married him. Naturally, Willy
offered to pay but, alas, he was too late. Thinking she had no way out,
June had just married Jidder. Then came the news that Kansas had gone
on daylight savings time (Yes, it was Kansas, not Oklahoma), and,
therefore, the marriage license wasn't valid yet because the stated hour
hadn't come. As the remaining three members of the cast were singing
the finale (D-A-Y-L-I-G-H-T-S-A-V-I-N-G-S-T-I-M-E), Jidder, who had
fallen on his knife and who was assumed dead, began tapping his fingers
and by the end was semi-reclined but moving to the music. There was a
lot more, including the replacement of the opening "Oh, What a Beautiful
Morning" with a parody titled "Corn" and the "Dream Ballet."
Sweeney Todd came next, and the demonic contrast was a hoot. Jidder now
Jitter was a nervous wreck of a Sweeney Todd. Naturally, he was
plotting horible ways to kill everyone and even asking the audience for
advice. That horrible screeching noise of a saw in Sweeney Todd became
the doorbell in the parody. Everytime it interupted the music as it
does in the original, symbolizing someone's being cut to pieces, someone
had now arrived at the door. No summary can do this one justice.
Jitter's facial expressions and comic-demonic movements, coupled with
the parodied music, had everyone nearly rolling in the aisles. Then a
couple of times, the four performers suddenly became the chorus, moved
to the front of the stage, leaned forward, and made frightening faces as
they sang and as the lighting changed in such a way that they looked
truly evil.
From that, we went to the opposite extreme with a parody of Hello,
Dolly! that included the trademark Jerry Herman chorus lines and flashy
clothes, including a scene with Mr. Jitters in drag and sporting a red
feather boa.
I'm still digging around at the LOC. Today, I had to escape a mad (in
the sense of crazy) New Yorker, who had plunked himself at the next
microfilm reader although all the other's around were empty and who kept
insisting on knowing what I am researching, what my name is, where I'm
from, etc. He got very incomplete answers and I would think he'd have
picked up on the fact that he was irritating me to no end. But he
didn't seem to. He was harmless, I'm sure, but seemed to think we has
way to much in common although he was a loud New Yorker and I was being
about as reticent as I could be without completing ignoring his
existence.
Anyway, I decided I'd had enough of him and escaped first to the reader-
printers and then to the Performing Arts Reading Room where I faced an
irritation of another sort. I'd prepared a list of requests from
Landover, having taken a lot of time to look up all the copyright
numbers and to write everything up in the form that I'd been asked to
use the last couple of times I requested material from remote storage.
When I tried to hand over my list to the guy at the desk, he sent me to
the reference librarian currently on duty. She wasn't about to accept
my word that I'd hunted high and low through catalog number after
catalog number for these before asking that someone look for them in
Landover. "Did someone help you," she asked, "or did you just blindly
guess at numbers on your own?" I told her briefly what I had done, and
that, yes, I had sometimes requested help. I omitted the usual response
to my requests for help, which boiled down to checking the online
catalog and telling me that the items weren't there and then saying,
"Gosh, you have a tough one there."
Even so, she looked at my list, and said, "I'm sure we have several
copies of "In My Merry Oldsmobile" and some of these other titles. I
tried to convince her that I'm not looking for just any old version of
those pieces but very specific arrangements and vocal arrangements, but
I don't think she ever got it. She told me that it would take several
days, to which I replied that in the past the lists had been faxed to
Landover and I'd had approximately an 80% success rate in 24-48 hours.
She kept insisting that she needed to look on site first. What a
situation. I tried to explain to her that she didn't have the
information to do that because I'd provided only what I'd been told to
provide for a Landover search by copyright number: date, number, title,
composer. I was always told not to provide anything extraneous for a
copyright number search. Of course, this means that she'll probably
retrieve all sorts of music by these titles that will be exactly what I
do not want. For instance, the list does not say whether a piece is an
orchestra or band score, a song, or a choral arrangement. Naturally,
it also doesn't mention W. C. O'Hare except in a very small number of
cases when he write the piece.
I didn't tell her that I have a second list. I'll make sure that I give
it to a different reference librarian who will fax it directly.
Last Saturday, we went to the Bead Museum in China town and had a blast
talking to the black historian who was running the place. He was
extremely funny. For instance, when S~~ asked for the key to the
restroom, he waited until she left and then asked us if we were betting
people. He then predicted that she'd be talking about the bathroom when
she returned. After that, he gave us the rundown on all the best and
most interesting of Washington, D.C. bathrooms and told us how he'd
knocked on the door and called out several times before going into the
women's bathroom upstairs to see it the one time that he entered. "The
other people who use it are all lawyers," he said, "and I sure didn't
want to walk in on one of them."
Turns out that Sandy had quite a surprise when she opened the door and
turned on the light. The walls and stalls have realistic people painted
on them. She said that she felt like she was walking into a surprise
party.
>I had a great time and great success at Friday's auction. You'd get a
kick out of seeing my haul. Words couldn't do it justice - and a few
hundred scans is a tad much work.
I don't know how you do it . . . Are you sure you're not Irish?
ME: Sorry about the LC horror stories. Was the Music Reading Room
nutcase somebody new?
Thanks for the rundown on the Musical - way beyond the call of duty.
(My other email correspondents don't even read my emails, much less
reply to anything I've said.) It sounded like a hoot. Unfortunately, I
don't really know the musicals it was parodying and I hate it when
somebody enjoys something more than me so I guess I'll just have to take
my satisfaction in them cancelling the second half on you - ha! (Just
kidding.)
ME: But you indicate you're in contact with N~~, and there might be
something she knows that's been driving me crazy for years. It's all
explained at the bottom of my tribute page to Joe where he says, "No one
knows this but me and my girlfriend..."
If N~~ could solve that mystery for me after all these years, I'd be
thrilled! Any chance you could ask her for me? The page is at:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatles-vs-elvis.htm
If you're afraid it's a bother or somehow inappropriate, that's ok -
don't worry about it.
THEE: Shucks, I've been counting on meeting the NLM loonies, such as the
guy with dog that he talks to on the phone and the pink bunny that he
takes with him on lunch break and the historian from Germany who never
meets his deadlines because he's always shopping online.
Sweeney Todd is loosely based on the true story of a British barber who
took to killing and chopping up his clients. In the Sondheim musical,
Mrs. Lovett (Angela Lansbury) baked 'em into pies. Sondheim writes some
good music with clever lyrics. You'd find yourself laughing . . . and
probably feeling sympathy for Sweeney along with the revulsion.
Actually, there would have had to to be a follow-up package anyway
because I was holding off until I received the two versions of
"Cottonfield Capers," which CD Baby's Japanese expert carefully
handpacked and which were promptly delivered following the company
celebration and my departure from Oklahoma.
ME: I sure understand about being among a bunch of strangers - probably
better than anyone. For me, that's practically a fate worse than death.
So don't feel bad about declining. This isn't meant to apply any
pressure whatsoever, but before you give your *final* final answer,
here's a few things to consider.
You could get to see all those neat movie star pictures I just got.
(Hey, every little bit counts.)
I think you'd find this area of Baltimore County quite different
geographically from Ok. etc. Everybody should drive or ride up Quaker
Hill once in his life.
There could very well be a historical component, if we take the walk
along the river back to Daniels, a "company town" where the strange kids
came from and was deluged by Agnes in 1972.
You might meet my cousin C~~ who is a funny guy and taught himself to
read at age 4. (You and he remind me of each other.)
You would meet my brother Steven who auctions off cool things on ebay.
You could play roofball with the originators of the sport.
Doesn't your "last weekend" include Monday as well, in which case
several hours on Sunday might seem slightly more expendable?
To minimize the lost hours, I could pick you up from the Park & Ride at
Rt. 95 and the beltway at 1:00. I could get you back there by the 7:00
time frame. So it's only 1/4 of a day (although, admittedly, the prime
1/4, and calculating 6 out of the full 24 hours is a bit of a scam since
you probably spend a few of them sleeping.)
I, too, have a piece of junk to hand off.
All the foregoing points were mostly just padding for the main point,
which I was hoping not to have to haul it out so it would be a big
surprise (if I could pull it off.)
I haven't asked Krystal yet, because I've been working on this linearly,
but my plan was to try to borrow Mizan for the day, thinking it might
fly since Mizan's family would surely be celebrating Memorial Day on
Memorial Day. (Maybe Mizan wouldn't want to go to Baltimore County, in
which case I would try to entice her by spilling the beans you'd be
there.)
So would that make a difference, if I managed to bring Miss Dover along?
You say "there's always next year", but this alignment of stars might
not come again, and next year Mizan might not even be a kid anymore.
>I don't know if the Reading Room nutcase is new, but her first name is
Robin.
Robin's been there since before time.
>and this morning on my way to the newspaper archive, I passed a room
with a visible PowerPoint title slide on the screen that said something
like "Fire Drill Follow-Up."
That strikes me as funny somehow.
Had another great scrabble night with Cyril. The third game in particular
was probably the strangest, wackiest scrabble game I've ever played. It
would be folly to try to explain why, and it would glaze anybody's eyes
over to listen to a verbal reconstruction of a scrabble game, so I'll
leave it at that. Crazy.
My bingoes on the night: RECEDES FLOATERS NAILERS RETAINS. Got burned
on SNAILERS (more than one that oozes along rather slowly.)
Cyril's bingos: SCRAWLS (one vowel!) COTTAGE.
Also turns out Cyril is an assassin, in addition to teaching at Delaware
State U. That's what his cane with the twist-off head is for.
Sometimes he tries to pull my leg though.
THEE:
>I think you'd find this area of Baltimore County quite different
geographically from Ok. etc. Everybody should drive or ride up Quaker
Hill once in his life.
You think Oklahoma has no hills? What about the Wichita, Ouachita,
Arbuckle, and Quartz Mountains . . . and that hill on the Tulsa edge of
Sand Springs that has TCC West Campus at the summit? HUHHHH? Yup,
we've got some flat spaces, but much of Oklahoma has hills . . . and
lot trees. The Dust Bowl didn't do the state's image any favors.
>You could play roofball with the originators of the sport.
Yup, that one crossed my mind immediately.
>So would that make a difference, if I managed to bring Miss Dover
along? You say "there's always next year", but this alignment of stars
might not come again, and next year Mizan might not even be a kid
anymore.
>>I don't know if the Reading Room nutcase is new, but her first name is
Robin.
>Robin's been there since before time.
Robin was in some kind of a mood. She said that I shouldn't ask about
the music until next week. Maybe I'll try tomorrow, though, if she's
not around. It wasn't that massivie of a list--something like 15-16
items. I'll save list 2 for next visit. Last year, I submitted a list
of slightly more than 20 and approx. 75% was waiting for me two days
later. I gave her my e-mail address and have heard nothing. I'm half
expecting that she'll have wasted her time and mine tracking down all
the wrong versions because she wasn't listening.
I had to wait to talk to her because she was on the phone with someone
from Colorado. That person was looking for music by someone named
Truax. She checked American Memory, found several hits, and told the
person to try there. Now wouldn't you think that anyone who knew they
could call the LC and who had the number just might have checked the
Internet? Which all reminds me of an e-mail acquaintance who had
contacted the LC about a particular piece of music before my last visit.
Whoever he talked to told him that it couldn't be located. I found the
copyright number in minutes and then requested the music from Landover.
It came in with my stack of other requests. It's nice that the LC
offers phone and e-mail help, but the quality doesn't strike me real
help. Seems like all the employees spend most of their time sitting
around doing nothing, H~~ constantly has the same complaint about
the gov't workers at NLM. A couple of the contract workers are pretty
lazy, but she says the gov't workers are mostly hopeless.
>>and this morning on my way to the newspaper archive, I passed a room
with a visible PowerPoint title slide on the screen that said something
like "Fire Drill Follow-Up."
>That strikes me as funny somehow.
This was a complex drill with so much emergency management involved, so
government bureaucratic procedures probably require them to expend more
time and money to discuss it.
>Also turns out Cyril is an assassin, in addition to teaching at
Delaware State U. That's what his cane with the twist-off head is for.
Sometimes he tries to pull my leg though.
I hope he's not also an umbrella-carrying Bulgarian.
THEE: GREAT SITE!!!
I was reminiscing last night about the days of sneaking into my dad's
room to check out his Playboy's as a kid and I remember reading all of
the music poll issues and charting the Beatles rankings during the
years.
Got to wondering if that info was on-line and sure enough, here you've
done it!!! Thank you!
Does your research go beyond 1972?
Also, do you have scans of the cool illustrations they used to do for
the All-Star Band?
ME: Whoa, what a coincidence! I haven't looked at that page myself in
years, and I've just revisited it to shape up the formatting. (I had
worked up a much nicer style when I did my "opera in Playboy" page.)
I probably just spent a solid 20 hours neatening it up, and even though
the text is 99.9% the same, it is so much nicer to look at. For
instance, I got the page nos. out of your face, and the subtitles
looking like subtitles.
Soooo.... I hope you haven't digested the whole thing already. And
even if you have, please come back just to take another look. I was
hoping to put the updated version up this afternoon (Thursday).
I myself had a blast revisiting it - amazing what you forget!
Sorry you found it just a few days too soon!
Donald
http://www.geocities.com/donaldsauter/yob.htm
soon to be
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatles-in-playboy.htm
Sorry, that was the last one for me. I give my reasons for Feb72 in the
introduction.
Sorry again. I *know* how much some images would add to that page, but
I had no capabilities like that at the time. I don't have access to the
collection anymore, even if I was crazy enough to think about adding
images.
ME: agouti omega
>You think Oklahoma has no hills? What about the Wichita, Ouachita,
Arbuckle, and Quartz Mountains . . .
Maryland has mountains too. I said Quaker Hill. There's just one in
tarnation.
>Robin was in some kind of a mood.
I remember Robin as usually being somewhat irritated. One example that
comes to mind is when I went to the desk to alert LC that some music had
been filed in the wrong box in an area of tricky, multi-word
alphabetization. I knew what was coming beforehand so I quadruple
checked that I was right. Yes, she tried to brush it off in a
belittling way two or three times before she finally saw I was right.
(Doesn't mean LC did anything about it.)
>>Crazy. [scrabble game]
>Ok, I'll believe it.
Actually, for my own benefit more than anybody else's I need to
chronicle at least part of it.
It all started with AGOUTI. No it didn't, but this telling does.
How often does AGOUTI pop up in scrabble I ask (rhetorically)?
That's not the point. It's that Cyril took my spot!!!
I needed that T - bad - for my SATURATE.
Now how in the world did I come up with SATURATE you ask? (Not so
rhetorically this time, but I am putting words in your mouth.)
With great difficulty.
In fact, I certainly would not have found it under ordinary
circumstances but Cyril took a bathroom break just then which allowed me
a lot more time to shuffle my rack.
Still, you're wondering how hard could that be; in fact, I should have
all the possibilities for A SAUTER memorized, right?
It's just not that simple. I was resigned to playing off the AU leaving
me the killer combo ATERS for future damage. By all rights, *any* two
random letters of the alphabet should make a bingo with those guys.
Just before Cyril returned I noticed I had SATURA E, and there *was* an
available T on the board!
The board was wide open, and the T was tucked away in an almost
protected little spot, so I figured it was all mine, hee hoo.
Yes, Treemonisha there.
You're jumping ahead and figuring Cyril just sat down an plunked his
AGOU I around that selfsame T.
If that was all, I'd still be sane to this day, but it was the way he
toyed around with me, looking over all those big wiiiide open spaces,
and even playing another place first that got me.
(How he might get a second chance is because in my club, someone who is
familiar with the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary can have another
go, at least during a grace period, if he plays a word no good in the
American Heritage, but good in the OSPD.)
So AGOUTI ruined me, and I reverted to plan A, plunking AU in front of K
for 7 points.
I wasn't even a 100% sure of AUK, and if it didn't fly I'd have the same
rack to torture me for my next turn.
But it was ok - the American Heritage even supplied a lovely photo.
I draw 2 tiles to replenish my rack figuring, as noted above, *anything*
will give me a bingo with ATERS to work with.
Most readers would smell a mile away what's coming but it's come to my
attention that you're somewhat shaky on the goofier letters in our
beloved alphabet.
Yes the first tile I turn over in my hand was a Q! A *Q* of all the
dashnabbit letters in tarnation (today is tarnation day)!!! :(
And I just got rid of my U!!! Can you imagine what a killer hand that
would have been with a U? The mind boggles.
Hoping against hope (I never really knew what that meant) I turned over
the second tile.
If this were a work of fiction, *of course* it would be a U (the
scrabble equivalent of a knight in shining armor here.)
But real life stinks.
It was an *I*, as if I needed anymore vowels anyhow.
But hold on!!! We know there are tons of (stupid Middle Eastern
foreign) words in the OSPD that have a Q without a U. That's why we
hate the OSPD!
Less well known is that the American Heritage, in a fit of
mischieviousness included two: QOPH and QINTAR.
I remember the second as a Middle Eastern lutelike instrument. (It's
really a unit of currency.)
But I digress.
All I need is an open N and I (meaning myself, not a scrabble letter)
can do some major damage.
And there it is! Positioned perfectly for QINTARS so that the Q hits
double-letter score and the S reaches double-word score, whoo-ee!
Once again, Cyril toys with me, looking all around the board before
finally playing right up against (not on) a space I needed for QINTARS.
Waaahhhhhh...
I was still salivating for a bingo and that Q was anathema, so I skipped
a turn to trade the QI back in.
This time I got 2 normal letters, N and I (scrabble letter this time)
which gave me a wealth of possibilities.
But when my turn came my own brain sabotage me! I had two places on the
board to plunk RETAINS. It was still neck and neck so I stuck my neck
out for the most points, playing RETAINS on triple-word score so that
the S turned NAILERS into SNAILERS.
I was *sure* that SNAILERS and SNAKERS were two crazy, but acceptable
scrabble words. No doubt in my mind! I always hung onto them as
examples of dictionaries going just too dad-blame far.
But the aliens had erased them from all earthling dictionaries! (Or else
they had planted them in my own brain one night.)
So RETAINS comes off (you can check this saga for consistency of tense)
and I *know* what's gonna happen . . .
Cyril, being a top-notch scrabble player (besides assassin) would surely
mess up the other spot on the board where I could play RETAINS.
But somehow that didn't occur to him, plus, he was wrestling with a bad
rack and decided to trade letters. He dumped his whole rack - all 7
tiles.
Talk about manna from heaven. Cyril lets out a quiet groan as I go for
the other spot. The 63 points give me an insignificant lead.
Hallelujah!, right?
Wrong! The bag is near empty, so when I draw my 7 tiles I get (I
presumed) all the junk that Cyril just traded in! Seven miserable,
rotten, lousy, no-good-for-nothing vowels! Ok, so one of them was an E.
Oh man, I think, my lead won't hold up with that junk to play out.
I believe it is therapeutic to moan and groan during a scrabble game
when things aren't going right. I encourage everyone to. I mean, you
want your opponents to know there's a *reason* you're only making 3-
point plays.
This is where the story gets psychological, even if only inadvertantly
so.
Cyril hears me groaning and moaning (I believe in mixing it up) and he
jumps to a conclusion! (What is it?)
I play off a dumb vowel or two for a few points. I draw *more* vowels
to replenish my rack. How many did that guy throw back???
Cyril takes his turn and gets the last tiles from the bag.
Now it's his turn for moaning and groaning. I don't give it much
thought at first, beyond thinking, hey, if he's got a lousy rack, too, I
just might have a chance.
But as the wailing gets louder it occurs to me, hey, that Q I threw back
some turns ago - it's never come out, and it sure ain't in *my* rack.
Hee hee hee!
Cyril had thought I was moaning and groaning over getting the Q that
*he* had thrown back (which, of course, was the Q I had thrown back even
earlier)! So it was the shock of his life when *he* drew it!
Well, now I am sitting purty. In fact, I can indulge in a little
niggling. The board had no lack of U's, that's for sure, about 6 of
'em. And they all were open enough to accept a Q in front - but not
quite open enough make a word! There was even one spot where the Q
would fit in front of a U going across and a U going down,
simultaneously. As I said, hee hee hee!
And thanks for hanging in there, but actually, none of that is the
story.
The story is this.
In working off all those vowels at the end, I was left with an A and I
and seemingly no place to go.
But the clouds opened and there it was!
Along the way Cyril had spelled GOUT.
I wrapped the A and I around GOUT to spell, ta da, AGOUTI! - for the
second time on the board, right above the other, separated neatly by one
row.
Craziest game and craziest board I ever saw.
Where's the Wide World of Sports crew when you need 'em?
ME: to Governor Ruth Ann Minner
Thank you for taking a stance against urban sprawl. I wonder if its the
firmest stance yet taken by any governor of any state. Good luck.
Again, in lieu of taking up an Open Door After 4 slot, here is a recent
concern of mine. It involves the Capital School District school board.
That's not a state issue, of course, but it's all connected, and may
have some bearing on education in Delaware, generally.
The quick background is that I know personally the member most recently
elected to the board, L~~. (She ran unopposed, and I had no knowledge
of any elections being held recently, but that may be my fault.)
I wrote L~~ with my universal suggestion to all leaders - might you
consider majority will in your decisions? My belief, right or wrong, is
that the education establishment is wildly out of touch with reality,
and many people are aware of that to some extent or another.
I got no response. I composed a follow-up email making my points more
fully, and sent copies to all the board members, including Capital
School Superintendent Michael Thomas, plus Dover Post editor.
I think there are points in there worthy of response, but I got none
from anyone; thus, the notion to send it to you. Besides the rudeness
itself, the other issues are (1) the value of the thoughts of the people
at every level of government; (2) the unfairness of the schools'
referendum process; (3) the questionable relationship between money
spent on education and results; and (4) the insanity of "fuzzy math"
curricula implemented in several Delaware school districts.
Thanks for your time and consideration.
ME: Here's Mizan's latest newspaper appearance. Maybe it's not quite
the picture Krystal painted, but it's A-ok and something to be proud of.
I think it took me quite a few more decades to log as many newspaper
mentions. I haven't seen Mizan's essay or the accompanying artwork.
Recently one of my Kumon parents was "elected" to the school board in
Dover, actually called the Capital School District. (She was unopposed
for the spot. I wasn't even aware of any elections recently.) We were
good friends and did lots of gabbing about the schools and education. I
couldn't pass up the opportunity to email somebody I know on the school
board. All it contained was well-wishes and my universal suggestion to
anyone in a leadership position at any level: might you consider the
wishes of the people? Never got a reply. Since the suggestion is just
as applicable to anyone on the school board, I fleshed out the first
message a bit and added some thoughts on the unfairness of the school
referenda here, and on the "fuzzy math" taught in the Dover schools, and
sent it to everyone on the board, which includes the Capital School
District superintendent. Didn't get a reply to that, either. Guess
that answers my question.
THEE: Thanks for Mizan's picture. I'm trying to recall the times I had
my picture in the paper. There was a French Club bike hike when I was a
high school sophomore, the high school spring break trip to New York
and Washington, D.C. sponsored by the city U.N. association when I was
a junior, and then the top 15% of the graduating class. I think that
was it. Why the first was newsworthy I'll never understand. It must
have been a slow day for news. I think I've made my campus provost's
newsletter only twice in 6 and 1/2 years, but that may be partly my
fault. A few of my colleagues must supply their own information to the
newsletter, but that's not me. Actually, it's not many of my
colleagues, either. Only a handful repeatedly appear in the newsletter
and mostly for such things as taking student groups to competitions of
some sort. No such thing exists for my students.
What's the moral of your school board story? Politics corrupt?
THEE: Re: agouti omega
>Maryland has mountains too. I said Quaker Hill. There's just one in
tarnation.
Ok, Ok, I'll accept that there's only one Quaker Hill . . . even if New
York, Connecticut, Maine, Indiana, and who knows who else, would argue
with you. Every Quaker Hill is bound to be unique.
>>Robin was in some kind of a mood.
When I went in Friday, I picked up the three items that had come in.
Not good luck, but they were three I wanted. Two original WC sacred
songs and the orchestrations of Harry Armstrong's Frisco Rag and Dave
Reed, Jr's Honeymooning Honey in Bombay. (You've copied enough
orchestrations to make that count come out to three.) I didn't see
Robin that stop. Later in the day, I returned, and she was there. I
spoke to her, and she looked at me but didn't acknowledge my greeting.
Obviously, that means she didn't mention that my music had come in even
though it had been addressed to her so must have been seen. In
contrast, three other people in the reading room remembered me from all
the past visits and said it was good to see me again. Two of them
remembered that I'm from Oklahoma.
When I signed in Friday, two spots above my name was the name Gillian
Anderson. When I mentioned that to H~~, she thought of the young
actress by that name, but to me Gillian Anderson is the musicologist and
conductor, who among other things has written the silent film music book
that everyone is referred to who asks anything about silent film music.
I looked around and saw two other women in the place. So which of the
two was Gillian Anderson? I noticed that one was going through a huge
box of photos that appeared to be film stars. Later I did a Google
images search and discovered that I was right.
Elliott the New Yorker has been back to the newspaper archives and
parked himself beside me every day. No one has given this man decorum
lessons, and to make matters worse, he constantly clicks his pen (which,
as we both know, he shouldn't be using in the first place).
>It all started with AGOUTI. No it didn't, but this telling does.
Fair enough.
>In fact, I certainly would not have found it under ordinary
circumstances but Cyril took a bathroom break just then which allowed me
a lot more time to shuffle my rack.
Plotting his strategy, more likely.
>Most readers would smell a mile away what's coming but it's come to my
attention that you're somewhat shaky on the goofier letters in our
beloved alphabet.
When it comes to Scrabble . . .
>Yes the first tile I turn over in my hand was a Q! A *Q* of all the
dashnabbit letters in tarnation (today is tarnation day)!!! :(
Goes to show you that you shouldn't have used that U.
>And I just got rid of my U!!!
What did I just say? Of course, you beat me, but I hadn't read yours.
>But hold on!!! We know there are tons of (stupid Middle Eastern
foreign) words in the OSPD that have a Q without a U. That's why we
hate the OSPD!
Hmmmm, showing my ignorance of the OSPD, I was about to say that Arabic
contains a lot of Q words without the U, but I figured foreign words
were taboo. However, if you had another A to build off of, you could
have used QATAR
>Less well known is that the American Heritage, in a fit of
mischieviousness included two: QOPH and QINTAR.
>I remember the second as a Middle Eastern lutelike instrument. (It's
really a unit of currency.)
Confusing it with an Indian sitar???? No, a Beatles fan couldn't do
that, could he?
>Once again, Cyril toys with me, looking all around the board before
finally playing right up against (not on) a space I needed for QINTARS.
Waaahhhhhh...
Cyril must be watching your eye movements.
>I wrapped the A and I around GOUT to spell, ta da, AGOUTI! - for the
second time on the board, right above the other, separated neatly by one
row.
>Craziest game and craziest board I ever saw.
Great story. The suspense was killin' me.
ME: Of course, an obvious Tuesday activity is Spence's bazaar and
auction - and it was a another winner. I snagged a copy of "The Norman
Rockwell Storybook, told by Jan Wahl", signed by Norman himself.
Could've sworn I was going to get competition from a woman leaning on
that pile of books. Looked like she was protecting it but, no, she
really was just supporting herself. I've already read it and gotten
much more than $2 worth of enjoyment out of it. I see a "Tom Sawyer"
book autographed by Rockwell in an ebay store going for $1800. The used
book store at the bazaar also had a dollar bag sale today, and I got
some nice ones for giveaway. The plum may have been "13 Clocks".
We took the walk halfway back to Daniels along the river. Didn't make
it all the way because we stopped at the good place to jump (or step)
in. I made it all the way across ad back, barefoot, without the current
knocking me down. After that accomplishment, I put my shoes on and got
back in and walked down the "rapids" in pure comfort. Lots of nature
and history tidbits offered up by various members of the gang. We were
even treated to a train going by, across the river. Some accounts say
75 cars, others, 76. C~~ keeps a lucky kopeck in his wallet, and
didn't go for my idea of putting a kopeck on the track.
I had my E. Power Biggs "Stars and Stripes Forever" album with me,
thinking there were a few conversation points. For example, there's the
Blind Tom piece, and I wanted to show how in transferring to cd, I
separated "The Battle of Trenton" into 19 tracks, one for each part with
a description. When I was putting it back, C~` said, hold it, there's
the slow drag from Treemonisha. He had seen it on Braodway in 1976 (or
1975).
C~~ also gave me his read copy of "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson,
which he had been highly recommended to him and thought I would like,
too. In Rich's own perceptive words, missed by the blurbs, even, it's
about getting to "something" from "nothing". Which is true. Well, I
won't flounder around trying to explain what I'm talking about. Maybe
you're familiar with the author, or have heard of this "Baroque Cycle".
C~~ laughed about one passage that brought me to mind: "Daniel
Waterhouse did not own slaves... So little Godfrey sits not on the lap
of some Angolan negress, but of their neighbor: the daft but harmless
Mrs. Goose, who comes into their home occasionally to do the one thing
that she apparently *can* do: to entertain children by spouting all
manner of nonsensical stories and doggerel that she has collected or
invented... Many words are said but they make no more impact on Daniel
than Mrs. Goose's incoherent narratives about cutlery leaping over
coelestial bodies and sluttish hags living in discarded footwear." Hey,
forget all that stuff about Newton and Leibnitz and Huygens and the
plague, etc., and let's hear more about this cool lady!
Just got a copy of Benjamin Britten's opera for child performers,
"Noye's Fludde", today from half.com. Everything about it suggests a
counterfeit, which bugs me. Now I have to figure out how to handle it.
THEE: rice krinkles
Hi Donald, What a pleasant surprise to hear you say you were nuts about
Rice Krinkles as a kid. I grew up in the mid 50's and would ask for
them EVERY time my mom and I went to the grocery store. They were
without a doubt my favorite cereal and nothing today comes even close to
the taste. Can you still remember the taste ?? I can.... Well I just
wanted to tell you I'm on your side when it comes to Rice Krinkles and I
surely wish I could get my hands on another box of them today......
ME: Thanks for writing! Yes, I still remember the Rice Krinkles flavor
- pretty amazing the way the human mind works, isn't it?
THEE: record repair
I took your idea a step further and taped a brass pin to the arm of my
turntable and played it with a few coins as weight, and it made a very
bad old rare LP much much better. I was scared to try it but glad I did.
I doubt anyone would ever guess this thing could have sounded so bad.
The first 20 seconds of the first track, which is the one that made this
Lp famous, was horrid, Now it plays very well with just a few pops.
Thanks again for a great idea Tim
ME: Very interesting idea there - glad it worked for you!
THEE: No time for a "real" reply, but good to know that the frisky
doggies didn't flatten you, that you didn't drown in the river or get
swept away by the rapids, or that the kopek didn't go on the track and
derail the train, causing you all to be whisked away by the CIA and
Homeland Securities as foreign terrorists.
Loved that Mrs. Goose quote, but I know nothing about the book or
author. Sounds like fun.
ME: to Indiana Governor Daniels,
I am writing once again in regards to my friend S~~, an Indianapolis
resident. The latest in a series of surprise health problems is a
broken wisdom tooth. This is causing almost unbearable pain and affects
the nerves in the area such that she can't see out of one eye.
S~'s health insurance premiums of $700 or more per month (almost
$350 per two-week pay period) take a huge chunk out of her paycheck.
But her policy does not include "dental", because she needs *some* money
to live on, and everyone involved is sticking to the letter of the law -
that oral surgery is no different from having your teeth cleaned. I get
the impression that if the broken tooth became infected they'd let her
die on the sidewalk if she couldn't come up with the money, and be proud
of a job well done.
I'd say something isn't quite right here. People with plush jobs with
big companies and the government have health coverage to the hilt, as do
people who don't work or hardly work. But those people who slave away
the hardest to make ends meet are hit the hardest with health insurance
costs - and still have to cross their fingers that the insurance will
cover what happens. Perhaps my impression is exaggerated. It also
seems weird to me that someone working in health care, as S~~ does,
doesn't receive any health care perks.
I've sent a check for $1258 to pay for S~~'s oral surgery. All I'm
asking is that appropriate people in charge be aware of situations such
as this and take a moment to consider whether there is room for
improvement.
Thank you.
THEE: Thank you for contacting Governor Daniels.
Thank you for emailing Governor Mitch Daniels. The Governor appreciates
that you took the time to contact his office and play an active role in
the discussion about making Indiana a better place to live, work, and
raise a family.
Your email will be shared with the appropriate staff for a response.
Again, thank you for contacting Governor Daniels' Office.
THEE: rice krinkles
It most definitely is. I miss the tastes if my youth......I've tried
frosted rice krispies but it's just not the same. Probably because it
wasn't really a sugar coating on the rice krinkles... it was some sort
of a glaze.......aaaahhhhhhhh to be young again.............
ME: I received the Noye's Fludde cd and it gives every indication of
being a counterfeit. Both pieces of printed material are color copies.
The disk has cheap-looking printing and a very shoddy looking LONDON
logo, and is much, much plainer than London cds in my collection. I've
checked your feedback and see that you are a highly regarded seller, so
I don't think you knowingly sold a counterfeit cd.
I haven't played the cd and really wouldn't want to keep it if it played
well. Here's my suggestion on how to handle this. I send back the cd
and the printed material, but not the plastic case, and you refund the
purchase price and half of shipping. That works out to about $14.50
(I'm not worried about every last penny if you want to round up or
down.)
The USPS may break the cd, but that doesn't matter since it should be
destroyed anyway.
Sound like a fair resolution?
THEE: When we verify that it is a bootleg, we will issue a refund of
$14.00. We truly apologize for the inconvenience, we did not intend to
send you a pirated copy of a cd. Thank You, OWM
THEE: the wine in the water problem
I think the final question itself is confusing: "Is there more wine in
the water or water in the wine?". For example, I would guess ordinary
wine is at least 50% water, so this final question is not clear to me.
Before the liquids are mixed, there is definitely more water in wine
(50%) than wine in the water (0%)!
However, I understand the question revolves around considering the wine
and water as separate entities that mix together. It seems the question
would be better phrased using mixtures that are entirely different, like
oil and water, although these do not mix well.
ME: That's a good point. I'll work it into the page in an update. It
seems up to now everyone has viewed it the way you describe in your
second paragraph. Also, someone might view those water molecules
already in the wine as being an essential component of the wine; that if
you separated those water molecules from the wine, the remainder would
not be "wine". Just thinking out loud . . .
THEE: the wine in the water problem
I suppose it all boils down to what can be identified as "wine". A way
to clear everything up is to state the problem in terms of mixing pure
alcohol and water, as these two molecules mix well (in wine, for
example!). However it begins to sound more like a chemistry experiment
which doesn't sound as "real world" and wine and water.
THEE: Help-100 guitars
Hello, I would love to find a copy of the record: "one hundred guitars"
(orquesta popular de Madrid ONCE). Do you have an unarchy or Dadarchy
way of sending or selling or twillightzoning me a copy of it? My parents
already have this record but we've listen to it so many times, with an
old Thorents turntable, that it is in very very poor state. I would like
to digitalize it. Can you help?
ME: I like doing favors for people and my first thought was to put the
One Hundred Guitars record - which I think is cool, too - high on my
list to transfer to cd, and send you a copy. But a quick web search
seems to indicate there are copies of the lp available on the web. For
instance, there's a cheap "nm" one here:
http://www.wingrecords.com/results_catagory.asp?frmCategory=IN&offset=180
If you really, really can't find a copy to replace yours, then get back
in touch. Good luck!
THEE: From the land of palms and magnolias
>The plum may have been "13 Clocks".
Great bargains, again. How you end up with all those autographed
goodies astounds me, and 13 Clocks, alone, is a pretty fair bargain for
a buck. The kids must like being able to take these books home.
>Hey, forget all that gobbledygook about Newton and Leibnitz and Huygens
and the plague, etc., and let's hear more about this cool lady!
May have said this before, but I don't know nuttin' about Quicksilver,
Neil Stephenson, or the Baroque cycle. But Mrs. Goose sneaking in with
Newton and Leibnitz and Huygens and the plague. One of these days
you'll get some good Ma Goose parodies.
>Just got a copy of Benjamin Britten's opera for child performers,
"Noye's Fludde", today from half.com. Everything about it suggests a
counterfeit, which bugs me. Now I have to figure out how to handle it.
Hmmmmm . . . I've never gotten one of those online, but I know they
abound. I do sometimes see folks selling photocopies of orchestrations
on eBay but announcing that they are photocopies. Sorta makes me wonder
sometimes if I oughta go into business.
Time to break out the bread, peanut butter, and apples for supper. I
have no desire to get back in the car to look for carry-out.
THEE: I found your comments about kumon interesting. some were helpful.
But I couldn't help but wonder how much of the disagreeability was
rooted in the difference between Japanese cram-school culture and the US
college education methods.
Anyways, I have some further questions to ask you about opening a kumon
or joining a kumon center. If you're interested in sharing your
experience.
ME: I'd be glad to answer any questions you have to the best of my
ability.
>I couldn't help but wonder how much of the disagreeability was rooted
in the difference between Japanese cram-school culture and the US
college education methods.
My best guess, in the absence of any communication from Kumon in my last
year, is that management chose to view the personalized attention I gave
students as being "something other" than Kumon. Of course, a franchise
can't let a franchisee change things. My position is that my students
were getting the purest, most direct Kumon of any Kumon students on
earth.
THEE: response to the Muzak
Hello, I too am disgusted with the music of today and have been trying
to find out how I can get Music Choice. We had Music Choice channels on
our cablesystem and they had great selections, my favorite was the easy
listening instrumental music. It was just like listening to Muzak and in
stereo. Our cable company discontinued those channels and replaced them
with music that I would call noise, half of them are rap or hip-hop and
with vugar language. I bought an adapter on ebay that lets me get muzak
from certain FM stations. they are not all beautiful music, but you have
a very good chance there is a station that broadcasts it. Many fm
stations broadcast 1 or 2 extra channels that we normally don't know
exists. They are on subcarriers of 67 Khz and 92 Khz. If you know
anything about electronics, this should be easy to do. nothing is
scrambled or encrypted so we are not hacking anything. We can only use
this for our personal use only. Also, you can buy a radio on Ebay with
the adapter already built in. You need an SCA adapter or go on Ebay and
type in SCA FM. They do have radios that have been converted. I have one
and it works great provided you have a strong signal. It is interesting
about how many "Hidden" channels are on FM. The drawbacks are that SCA
is mono, and does not have the frequency range like a CD does, and you
must have a strong signal that carries the subchannels. Do a search and
read about SCA FM. Theres all kind of info about it, Muzak still uses
some of it today. It's the only way I can now find the older decent
instrumental music.
ME: Thanks a million for the info! It is all completely new to me -
never heard of "hidden channels" or SCA FM. Crazy. I'll definitely
read up on it and see if it might serve me here in the middle of
Delaware.
THEE: Vinyl Repair
Thanks for the tips on your website regarding vinyl repairs. I just
spent a lot of money on a rare record from brazil only to discover that
it skips in about four different places. Strangely, no scratches, marks,
and crud - super clean vinyl but it just seems like a manufacturer's
defect; the needle just jumps the groove onto another part of the song.
Any way of going about rectifying this or is it a lost cause. Also, do
you provide the service of fixing yourself as if you had successes in
doing this, I would definitely pay. Kindly advise whenever you have a
moment.
ME: Wow, that's a perplexing problem. What you're describing has
happened to me on *very* rare occasions - and certainly never more than
once on a record. I think I say somewhere in my page that you have to
make a visual identification of the skip point, or you're out of luck.
Have you tried turning the record slowly by hand in the area of the skip
in hopes of finding the spot? I know this sounds horrible, and I'm the
last person to touch record grooves, but if the pad of your most
sensitive finger is clean and dry, it can't hurt anything to brush it
over the spot to see if you feel a tiny piece of crud. In fact, what
you're describing sort of fits the description of a record that's been
perfectly cared for, but has a few mold spots on it. If you found the
spots, it doesn't sound like deformed vinyl so my pin method wouldn't
apply anyway. The two remaining solutions are to wash the record, or
just in the skip areas, or to try my suggestion of guiding the stylus
through the skip point with a little sideways nudge with a toothpick or
q-tip. That's not so practical if you plan to play the record over and
over, but is the way to go if you're transferring to digital. Hope that
helps. I can't offer to try to service it myself.
ME: to rec.music.beatles
I've put up a new page I call "Beatle inspirations? Little musical
borrowings by and from the Beatles."
Even I'm not sure what I mean by that, so why don't you just drop by?
There might be a fun thing or two.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatle-inspiration.htm
But don't everybody click on the sound files at the same time.
ME: to Webmaster stream@wmucradio.com; note to dave's record
collection
Could you forward my message to Dave of Dave's Record Collection, if
possible? Thanks.
ME: I give you a mention and try to put in a plug for your show in a
page I just put up. Hope it's all right.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatle-inspiration.htm
You went to the trouble to make me a complete copy of your MLK special
10 years ago. I've gotten a *lot* of mileage out of it - and it still
chokes me up. This is a picture of a little friend of mine who's a big
MLK fan and got a highlights cd of your show:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/mizan30.jpg
Have you ever considered Phranc's "Bloodbath" for your special?
Thanks again.
ME: experimental outsider
Not a whole lot to report on since the last email; just a bit of
catching up.
I made myself slightly miserable, as usual, working up a new web page.
But I think it turned out ok, so the misery has faded away now. Here it
is, for a future goof-off moment:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/beatle-inspiration.htm
I don't expect people to spend time on web pages outside of their own
areas of interest, but I always try to keep such people in mind whenever
I work on one. Of course, I can't be impartial enough to know if I'm
the least bit successful. Let me know if you find anything fun in that
page.
I shocked myself, even, about a week ago when I got up nerve to take a
look at how my kumon page was doing. Hadn't looked at it in months. It
was at no. 8 on google's hit list for a search on the single word
"kumon". (I see tonight it's down to no. 9.) I wouldn't say I'd given
up on it, but I had run out of ideas for increasing its visibility. I'm
pretty sure what happened is that google let it out of what search
engine optimizers call "the sandbox". The wisdom is that a page has to
mature for 8 months before google lets it out. Anyhow, I'm guessing
Kumon isn't thrilled with my page right on the same search results page.
Had another good session with Cyril last week. The funny thing was him
pluralizing gerunds. Not that I can give a good reason why you can't do
it, but I've long known from my scrabbling that you can't. Apparently
it's never come up in his games before, or, more likely, I suspect, that
he's played scrabble games where everybody got away with pluralized
gerunds. First he played CRYINGS, and I taught him not to do that, but
not so well, I guess, because a little later he played SNOWINGS. Then I
gave him a note that said, "Do not pluralize gerunds," and asked him to
take it home and study it. (All in good fun, of course.) SNOWINGS was
funny because he played down from an S on the board (to triple word
score), meaning he had the bingo SNOWING in his rack. And I had been
considering playing either AID or KID to improve my rack. Well, after
he took SNOWING back up, I had to find something besides either of those
plays!
I also played NINE on triple-word score and figured since the E was on
double-letter it was worth 9+1=10 times 3 for 30. But he wouldn't let
me have it(!!!)
Coincidentally, at Spence's on Friday I bought a book from a dealer
called "Word Freak - heartbreak, triumph, genius, and obsession in the
world of competitive scrabble players". A "can't-put-it- down
narrative" if you believe an L.A. Times blurb. I remember some things
Harry said that obviously he got from reading it. I've already gone
through it, although I skipped big chunks. Another one o' them "where
is my goshdang doppelganger when you need him?" episodes. Although it's
an impressive, if not amazing, job by the author, it was anything but
pleasant - maybe the most sordid book I've ever read. (I've led a
sheltered life.) Anyhow, there's too much to say about it in an email.
I guess I've already hung a book report assignment over my head, to go
on my scrabble page (not my head). I would hazard a guess that, in
spite of its stint on the N.Y. Times bestseller list, and a rash of
media attention it brought to scrabble, it could not possibly have
inspired a single human being anywhere to take up scrabble, either
seriously and certainly not recreationally. Something's wrong here,
folks.
>Somehow I'd think of Stars and Stripes for ever more on the 4th of
July, but, what the heck, it sure works for Memorial Day, too. Slow
Drag from Treemonisha in The Battle of Trenton? Or were those separate?
Sorry about that. See, that's what you get for giving off an aura of
knowing everything. Actually, I had a vague thought that maybe the
album had come up in our Blind Tom discussions and that maybe you even
had a copy - pretty far-fetched thinking, I'd say. Yes, Finale from
Treemonisha was a separate track. Biggs writes, "Let's not think of the
finale only by its title in the opera (A Real Slow Drag), but rather --
from its insistent marching rhythm, and the opening words of the chorus
-- as "Marching Onward". That's America!"
The Blind Tom piece, The Battle of Manassas, is interesting for being in
a completely different vein from The Battle of Trenton on the same
album. The latter is as programmatic as possible; Blind Tom's is based
on music the soldiers sang. Having a big Civil War piece made the album
very appropriate for Memorial Day, since Memorial Day started out as
Decoration day which honored the men who died defending the country in
"the late rebellion." I've never been up on Memorial Day but I had
looked into Decoration Day recently, probably because of one those 1912
"Stories of Today". The Civil War connection still runs deep. Five
southern states, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and
Virginia celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, and in most of those cases
it's in *lieu* of the general Memorial Day and on a different date.
>How you end up with all those autographed goodies astounds me,
And at the next auction after the autographed Norman Rockwell book, I
found a copy of Tales Of Old Dover. I more or less knew that would be
autographed by the author, and it was. Unfortunately, I already have a
copy, and I couldn't justify sticking around to add another one to my
collection. I don't specifically remember showing it to you on your
visit, but I'd think that I would have had it with me. It was a sort of
private edition of Dover anecdotes and apocrypha, a neat book to have,
but not something you would base your dissertation on. It has an oblong
shape, tan pages printed on one side, huge margins, and side-stapled so
it would never lie flat in a million years. You gotta love it. I found
a copy in the Dover library and not knowing if I would ever find my own
copy, made a copy of it. (You can bet that one lies flat!) Then one
did come up on the web, and I snatched it up. I showed the copy at the
auction to a couple of people in the hopes that it would end up in the
hands of someone who would appreciate what he got.
>The kids must like being able to take these books home.
Even going back to Kumon days, there's never been a whole lot of
interest in the freebie books at my center, boohoo. The most use they
get is right within the center, such as a parent picking out one to read
with a younger child. Last week Jewel, Jamaal's mother took one that
interested her called Ophelia Speaks. That makes it worthwhile.
Last Tuesday's auction looked like about the smallest ever. Still, it
had some scattered books to look through. I read a nice Grimms-based
one called The King And His Six Friends. Then I went to the dealer
tables and found the neatest 3-D picture of the Three Bears story for
$.50 . It must be about 12x16", and the apparent depth is amazing. The
picture itself is funny; Baby Bear is crying over his empty porridge
bowl, and his little chair is smashed. I agonized over whether to buy
the Munch "Scream" Halloween mask for $.50, but eventually decided I
just didn't have use for it - even if I could get Halloween going in
Dover.
Along with the Word Freak book at the Friday "sale" (what the locals
call Spence's Bazaar) I got the full, 900-page edition of the
Quicksilver book that C~~ lent (or gave?) me. It's confusing. The big
book called Quicksilver comprises 3 books - *not* a trilogy, however
that can be - the first of which is called Quicksilver. So even C~~
was tripped up. In the bookstore, he passed up the expensive big
Quicksilver thinking the cheaper, smaller Quicksilver was the same
thing. Then he discovered he'd have to buy the other two books
separately, which added up to more money than the big book, grrr. Even
when I was looking the big book over at Spence's I had the durndest time
figuring out whether it had more than my fat little book, or just had
bigger print and thicker paper. Anyhow, for 50 cents I have my own copy
- of all three books - which I *know* I can mark up to my hearts
content.
Before leaving the Quicksilver theme, thought I'd mention a moral it's
confirmed. I have a little Modern Library edition of Pepys' Diary in my
collection. I picked it up long ago for the guitar references in it.
But I've never liked the book. It doesn't have an index, and I wasn't
going to read the whole thing for the few guitar mentions that weren't
already quoted in guitar books. And it wasn't an enjoyable writing
style for me, although now I quite like it. So whenever I saw it on a
shelf I always thought about throwing it out. Even though it was small,
it wasn't a "fitter" in my collection. But it's hard for me to just
throw out something once it's gotten a toehold in my collection, so it
continued sitting there and annoying me, year after year. Well, it
covers the same years as Quicksilver, including the year of the London
plague, 1665, and London fire, 1666, and provides fascinating firsthand
accounts of both of those. For example, Quicksilver describes houses
being blown up to stop the spread of the fire, and Pepys reveals he was
the one who ran to King Charles II, his boss, to inform him of the fire
- and frantically begged him to start blowing up buildings to contain
the fire! Pepys is the man! Moral: don't never throw nothin' out. Or
something like that.
Besides the two books, I picked up a few of the auction leftovers: a
jigsaw puzzle called What Movie Is That which requires movie knowledge
to put together; the Scarlet Pimpernel, which I see I wish I had the
time to read myself (I remember when I was a kid, smart girls read that
one); a nice little book called Ivan the Great, which I started at the
auction and found left there when the auction was over; a plush kitty
cat; a plush flying pizza man; a snow globe with a Mexican in a
sombrero; a water globe with a "Florida snowman" (did you see any of
those?); and a 20-song, tv only, Al Jolson record. Man, tell me this
world ain't full of wonders!
>>Just got a copy of Benjamin Britten's opera for child performers,
"Noye's Fludde", today from half.com. Everything about it suggests a
counterfeit, which bugs me. Now I have to figure out how to handle it.
So far so good. When I checked the seller's feedback, it was
immediately obvious that he doesn't make a practice of selling
counterfeits. His rating is almost perfect, and it doesn't look like
cds are even a significant part of what he sells. I think he
unknowingly acquired the counterfeit. He's agreed to a refund if what I
returned turns out to be counterfeit. It's very obvious, but I enclosed
a smoking gun - a photocopy of what the print side of a real London cd
looks like.
I had intended to go up the line of earlier emails to wrap up loose
ends, but I'll give you a break here. Hope your trip wraps up smoothly.
I could probably figure out if you're home yet by plans spelled out in
your emails, but I figure you know whether you're home or not.
[above email not replied to]
THEE: response to the Muzak
Hello, Just wondering if you came across anything relating to the SCA
FM? I bought one of the dual channel subcarrier adaptors and have it
installed in a good car radio with no room to spare. That radio is jam
packed. It is amazing what I found. Those little radios that they sell
on ebay for about $30.00 work, but not near as good as what I have now.
Have you heard of Music Choice ? This is a music service that provides
all sorts of music choices in stereo. They do Have the easy Listening
insrumental music, It's just like how muzak used to be. See if your
Cable provider has it. It is CD quality and in stereo. Our cable company
dropped Music choice and went to another company. I really do miss the
"good" music. I am in the process of getting Music Choice via satellite
for a small monthly fee. The only drawback is that you have to sign a
contract, But I would want to keep it anyway. Maybe I could record from
the Music channel on to CD for my car, I don't think there would be a
problem with doing that. I'm not downloading it or selling it. Hope to
hear from you again, will wait to see.
THEE: Back home . . .
ME: Great! Somebody to tell my auction and scrabble stories to!
Last Tuesday I put together a nice box of juvenile-type books. Then I
went to the office and worked for an hour or so and came back, and it
was obvious they still weren't going to get to my box before I had to
run back for a student. So it looked like I would miss out. But I went
back after finishing up Jake, and not only was my box still there, but
the 4 or 5 neighboring rows from the same lot looked hardly picked over.
I had to ask a few people standing around if it was possible that they
were finished with those rows, and the said yeah. I forgot to mention
there were a couple of cloudbursts during the latter part of the
auction, and I think that ran a lot of buyers off. Anyhow, so instead
of getting a big box of neat books for $2, I got about 3 times as many
books (about 125), plus a big stack of opera records, plus puzzles and
little toys and classy glassware and a cd game called Play It By Ear;
etc., for nothing. I must have made 8 or 9 trips to my car.
Had 3 games with Cyril Thursday night. The first and last were sort of
wacky. In the first, Cyril took an early lead and kept it up. He had a
good play with the Q. I plugged away, but never got any rack great
enough to pull me up. After what turned out to be Cyril's penultimate
play, he was winning by 65 points. He made a few points on his last
play, and that was it! He was stuck with two Qs! I picked up enough
points in my last two plays so that him being penalized
20 points for the Qs, and me going up 20, gave me a very slender
victory.
The third game was kind of similar for a while. I was in a big hole.
But I eventually got lucky with a big Q play to at least give me some
hope. When the bag was empty I plotted out two clever moves to go out
and hoped that Cyril would get stuck again with a bad letter, which
might just give me another skin-of-my-teeth win. *This* time, he was
not so accommodating. His last rack was a scrabble player's dream. He
spelled SOLIDS using 2 blanks and an S, and messed up one of my spots,
to boot. And dashing my last hopes that maybe he'd have to eat his last
tile, that was *another* S, which gave him a good final play and a blow-
out. Well, letting Cyril win every now and then keeps me from getting
assassinated, which is good.
These dopey scrabble play-by-plays don't really do much in the way of
introducing you to Cyril. If you haven't figured out by now, he's one
of the most fascinating people I've met. I did learn finally what he
does at Del. State. I hadn't the vaguest idea. Besides assassin, I
mean. Might have taught poetry for all I know. (One word that was
played started him reciting Masefield's Sea Fever.) Or an artist. (See
the attached drawing of the scrabble action across the table from him.)
Turns out he is a plant physiologist. He has a lab and is trying to
crack the secret of plants, in which case, I guess, we'll all turn green
and won't have to eat anymore. Really wild that I found us talking
about all those characters I've been reading about in (and out of)
Quicksilver - Hook, Lavoisier, Leeuwenhoek. Cyril told me an
interesting Delaware anecdote. I knew that Lavoisier was one of the 3
or 4 greatest scientific minds in history, and the b****** French cut
his head off. One of Lavoisier's students was Dupont, and he came to
America to avoid the same fate. And that was the origin of Delaware's
chemical industry.
THEE: Hows your pumpkin doing?
I know this is nothing to brag about, but I'm sure it will grow with age
ME: 20 years ago this year (oof)
Thanks for the latest batch of cds. The stereo Hard Day's Night and
Beatles For Sale beat the mono cds hands down. I took DChron66 to
Baltimore County and played lots of tracks for my cousin C~~. He can
name the Beatle connection to most songs, like Stardust and Besame
Mucho, but struck out on Linda and O Solo Mio. I was surprised that the
Max Weinberg Seven was new to him. O Solo Mio was the highlight for me.
I have a 2-record "complete" Naughty Marietta set - missing The Owl and
the Bobcat. Time To Get Alone is also a highlight; what's its
qualifications for inclusion?
Did you ever guess what British glamour star with initials D. D. on the
Sgt. Pepper cover autographed a photo of herself in my possession?
Any progress on a 20th anniversary of the Beatle cds party? Just pick a
Saturday, and I'll contact R~~ and she'll contact everybody else.
Simple!
THEE:
>I must have made 8 or 9 trips to my car.
So the moral is pray for students and rain on auction days?
>He was stuck with two Qs! I picked up enough points in my last two
plays so that with him being penalized 20 points for the Qs, and me
going up 20, I pulled out a very slender victory.
I thought there was only one Q . . . Either you're pullin' my leg, or
I'm going crazy.
>Well, letting Cyril win every now and then keeps me from getting
assassinated, which is good.
Always a good policy when associating with assassins.
>One of Lavoisier's students was Dupont, and he came to America to avoid
the same fate. And that was the origin of Delaware's chemical industry.
Cool story and another lesson regarding assassins: If you don't want to
let 'em win, emigrate!
I'm still playing catch up with things around the house and trying to
finish putting away the carload of papers and such I was carrying with
me or that I located during the trip, so this is a short, uninspiring
note. Just a few lightning-fast points:]
2. New microfilm technique at Florida State: no printing! Everything
saves from microfilm to one's flash drive by way of software called
CapturePerfect. The microfilm image is captured from the reader onto
the connected PC and then saved as .pdf file.
3. Amazing State Library and Archive in Jackson, MS. Puts the LC to
shame. Not the collection, of course, but the friendliness and
helpfulness of the staff. I don't recall ever meeting such a terrific
group of librarians in one place. But, oh, the security. Don't let me
get away without describing it in detail in a later e-mail. Mississippi
was Alabaman Oscar Underwood country, so no love for Champ and his
[TRANSMISSION GARBLED], but some terrific quips. I figure these will
strengthen my chances with the University Press of MS. Can't hurt,
for sure.
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Parents, if you're considering tutoring or supplemental education for your child, you may be interested in my observations on Kumon.