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 . . .
ME: Choosing just one memory of you, it was in Mr. Dunn's 9th-grade
biology class. It was one of those tests, which I always hated, where
you traded papers with your neighbor for grading. There was some test
question that required a biological term you didn't remember precisely,
so you took a gallant stab at it and got most of the syllables in there
in some cockeyed way. Your neighbor was a bit miffed at how to handle
it, and brought it to Mr. Dunn's attention. So there you were, forced
to recite your concocted word plasmerotic endiculum in front of God and
man. It was gutsy and brilliant! The class loved it! Don't remember
if you got credit for it.
Anyhow, funny what we remember. Cathy Samakouris also stumbled on my
page and we had a nice email chat. She didn't remember the day Miss
Olsen exploded at her for pasting paper chains all over her (Cathy's)
face. She made Cathy wear them the rest of the day! That was the same
teacher who used to yell at you, "I don't like your attitude!" (I'm
guessing you can handle this at this stage of the game.) Why that
always struck me as humorous - I mean, sometimes I had to fake a yawn to
cover up a laugh - is that attitude wasn't a familiar word to me back
then. It sounded so much like "altitude" and I had a mental image of
you floating around in the air above us, probably with a great big smile
on your face.
>Great to read about the range of topics you're specializing in,
Thanks. "Specializing" may be a tad overstated; I'm just a guy who
thinks about various things, and every now and then comes up with
"something". I think having the world's slowest brain helps me see
things other people don't. I mean, people with lightning brains make
sense out of *everything*, even when it *doesn't* make sense!
Yes, I'm very fond of my simplified system of measures. Nope, no names
for any units. That's the beauty of it; since there's just one unit for
any property we measure there's no need to name the unit! A simple
number is completely unambiguous. Yee-ha! Well, I doubt it will be
implemented tomorrow. But it could be used in science and engineering
textbooks starting tomorrow, and from there infiltrate into the real
world as the students enter industry.
Sounds like you were earning your Masters at Georgetown while I was in
the Prince George's suburbs of D.C.? I moved down there in 1981. Now
I'm in Dover Delaware. I discovered I have a very strong talent for
working with kids, and I love it. In fact, I feel much more natural
around kids than around adults, at least in a professional environment.
Here's a quick overview. In Maryland I volunteered and worked in
several elementary schools for about 5 years. The schools were not
receptive to me, so I figured I would try a learning center. So I
became a Kumon instructor. You can read my web page on how that crashed
(if you're a glutton for punishment.) And now I have my own, personal
tutoring business. So far, it doesn't seem as though Dover parents care
much about their kids' education. But I'll keep plugging away.
My pages relating to education are a rotten mishmash right now. I need
to scrap them and pull together my thoughts nice and clearly. I believe
what I have to offer is something that could take education to a much
higher plane. In a nutshell, somebody with my skills working one-on-two
with kids all day in the public schools forming a powerhouse combination
with the classroom component. Could be done without costing the schools
a red cent. Of course, our education system needs a complete overhaul,
but I don't want to sound too radical. I mean, you tell me, what did
the schools ever do to prepare you for park rangering or fraud
investigation or anti-terrorism or . . . I mean, after learning a few
word and number skills in elementary school, what was it all about?
Besides day-care, I mean.
ME:
>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.
Wow! That has to be the greatest miracle for researchers in the history
of the world! Up to now, I'd say microfilm has been one of the greatest
curses. I remember writing in a guitar society newsletter that
microfilm is all the proof we'll ever need that nobody will ever invent
a time machine - raging researchers from the future would have stormed
back and taken no prisoners. But converting to a digital file - where
you might even get lucky and be able to search on some of the text -
changes the game 180 degrees. So maybe there still hope for a time
machine . . .
>>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.
Nix, and nix. This tells me you *do* know something about scrabble,
your protestations notwithstanding. It also says that you, among
billions of others, have not visited my scrabble page. Not that I
expect any given person to visit, but even with all its shortcomings it
is the best scrabble page on the web. Never mind that it doesn't appear
anywhere on google's results list for the single word "scrabble". (No
doubt, in the 900+ pages that google returns, you have plenty of
opportunity to buy something or other, maybe even scrabble-related.)
But you don't have to read that; the brainstorm relevant to this
discussion is that I mix three set of scrabble tiles and scoop out about
110 for a game. Keeps things fresh, and gives rise to lots of really
neat little oddities.
Regarding that big batch of books I got at the auction on the rainy day,
I forgot to mention I finally got a "Kidnapped" for me - something
you've recommended a few times. I *might* read one called "Can I Get
There By Candlelight?", which is a line from Mother Goose's "How many
miles to Babylon?" The cover indicates it's about a girl and her horse,
but now I see from the blurb on the back that there's a fantastic
element - when Gail and Candy step through the iron gate, she finds
herself 100 years back in time.
>What's the moral of your school board story? Politics corrupt?
If anything, "people ignore". And with every advance in communication
technology, people get more expert at ignoring.
Sunday at my sister's house, Rich had to smile and correct my
pronunciation of Pepys. Sure looked like peppeeze to me all these
years. In the 1960s there was a daily column in the Baltimore Evening
Sun called Mr. Peeps Diary. Now I finally get it.
"Jesuits" have popped up from at least 3 different directions in the
last few days. Trips to two different encyclopedias haven't made any
headway in getting through my thick skull what a Jesuit is.
THEE: "O Solo Mio" was a highlight of that Chinese movie, "Shower, "
which was not entirely great.
Are we still believing the claim about the song "Linda"?
THEE: eBay Item Sold: Baltimore Colts Autographed Glass Unitas Matte
Mackey
Hello Donald, Thought you might be interested to know this is the 500'th
item I've sold since we listed that original Neil Diamond CD! Steven
THEE: When you mentioned that you are reading Quicksilver in
chronological order, it made me wonder which books I've read that bounce
between different times. It's rather common to take two stories and
tell them side by side; I suppose the purpose served is to create
dramatic tension and suspense. But I can't give you any examples off
the top of my head of books that yoyo along a time line. The oddest
example of an author playing with the order in his book is Hopscotch, by
the Argentine novelist Julio Cortazar: he gives you two completely
different orders in which to read his book. You might get a kick out of
it.
THEE: My cultural observer friend had flagged the Zimmers for me. I
believe their version is doing better on the British charts than the
original did. It's all for a good cause--a fight against British
society's (and everyone's) tendency to ignore the elderly. I saw three
members of the Zimmers, including the singer, on "The Tonight Show" a
couple weeks back. One of the members said her flight to California was
only her second flight. Her first was in "19 hundred and 28."
A zimmer is what they call those metal walkers in England.
ME: I'm actually quite an old-fashioned guy, and when I said "mail", I
meant "mail", as in some biped plunking a cd in your mailbox (a steel
box, generally stuck on the front of your house). And "mailing address"
has streets and cities and zip codes, etc. (Just kidding around here.)
Really, if I knew how to send the album to you digitally, I'm sure it
would take 20 to 100 times as much effort.
THEE: We were in Williamsburg last Friday to catch a glimpse of Queen
Elizabeth. Guess we are Anglophiles from way back! Here's my favorite
photo out of the four I was able to take. To put this in context: The
Queen left the residence of the president of the College of William &
Mary and made a quick and public trek to the Wren building after lunch.
One of her security gents raced to the barrier next to where Hself was
videotaping and fetched a baby holding a rose and delivered the child
and rose to Her Majesty. In the photo you see only a tiny bit of the
child but you do see the rose! Elizabeth's unexpected smile made for a
lovely photo. Worth the hours of WAIT!
THEE: reviews of Quicksilver
More or less overwhelmed, generally impressed by aspects but not as much
by the whole
From the Reviews:
"Stephenson's mission to explain is balanced by a desire to entertain:
there is more sex and violence on display here than in any Tarantino
movie.
And it ends on a hell of a cliffhanger.
"For its first third, the book is a sluggish chore, the mountains of
research Stephenson has absorbed making descriptions of Restoration
London feel leaden,
His book is nothing but research in search of a narrative, a gigantic
collection of index cards.
"(O)rdinary readers may find themselves longing -- as I did -- for a
hypertext version, with clickable links to characters' earlier
appearances, family trees, timelines, bibliographies and mathematical
diagrams. [and maps???]
"But, like the element for which it is named, Quicksilver is ultimately
elusive. Just when you think you know what is going on, it slips away.
There are too many loose ends, and too much effort is required to
maintain attention over 900 pages."
Though the novel is intriguing, there's precious little plot.
"To paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, a contemporary of Quicksilver's many
protagonists, the book is often nasty, brutal and long.
ME: Did you know agily is spelled agilely? I found out the hard way in
scrabble last week.
THEE: Sheesh . . .
How does one form most adverbs? By adding -ly to the adjective. Don't
even consider trying to prove me wrong with all those examples that are
instantly popping into your head.
ME: I added two more Mother Goose rhyme records to my collection, making
three. I thought I had more or less wrapped up Mother Goose, but now
I've got the bug for the music that goes with the rhymes; which ones
have a specific tune, and which ones have music whipped up just for the
record. Among all the delights on these records is "There Was A Jolly
Miller", which is the one that Beethoven arranged. It's the same tune -
so cool!
I've given up on Quicksilver. The author was driving me crazy with his
technique of always explaining a page or so later what you're reading
right now. I guess if you're a blazing reader who retains everything,
maybe that's fun. I did a search to see if there were web sites of
annotation for the book. Well, it's easy to find a couple of links that
look just like what the doctor ordered - one that was maintained by the
author, the other by fans of the book. But both pages are gone now.
Then I read some review excerpts that hit home. Here's one:
"But, like the element for which it is named, Quicksilver is ultimately
elusive. Just when you think you know what is going on, it slips away.
There are too many loose ends, and too much effort is required to
maintain attention over 900 pages."
Another one said it ended on a "hell of a cliffhanger". I'm going to
slog through 900 pages for that? So it was back to a book on evolution
(according to the cover) called "Thread of Life", which I've already
packed in, and my Library of Wit and Humor Vol. 6. The story "Jones" by
Lloyd Osbourne had me laughing out loud on every page. Ah, back in the
saddle again.
By the way, are you still collecting "brown"s? Search for "he fell into
a brown study" in "Simon Starts Up In The World" by J. J. Hooper. It's
a funny story, although I feel bad for Bill. [I now realize a "brown
study" is not related to doing one "brown".]
One of these wit and humor stories referenced "Patient Griselda" which
sent me to the web. I got a surprise to see that I met her before in my
Mother Goose studies; Golden Slumbers came from the play Patient
Grisell. Funny thing is, I had a totally wrong mental image of the
latter. He sounded to me like some poor young soldier wrapped up in
bloody bandages in a field hospital. Way off.
>>Did you know agily is spelled agilely? I found out the hard way in
scrabble last week.
>Sheesh . . .
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to change the proper spelling. The
point is just that AGILY looked so right that I guess I never gave any
thought to the root word. What tickles my funny bone is how AGILELY
would have to be pronounced very agilely indeed, what with separated l
sounds. Offhand, I can't think of any other words that make that
demand. (Ok, infantilely.)
Main scrabble story from Wednesday night is a game where I was pulling
U's like crazy at the beginning of a game. After playing off 5 U's in
six plays, I pulled a Q! Arrrgh. Then the Q dragged me down till I
played QUANAH. (Just kidding.) Actually, I got very close to EQUATORS
on triple word score. I played stupid hoping for that to come together,
so I deserved the whumping I got. Almost lost the third game, too, but
tied it up on the very last play. I needed to catch Cyril with 6 points
in his rack, and that's just what he had.
ME: to: kentplan.2007@co.kent.de.us
Proposal: a COMPLETE MORATORIUM ON NEW DEVELOPMENT in Kent County -
buildings and roads. Paving the earth over has to stop somewhere,
sometime; might as well be Kent COunty, might as well be now (if not
already too late.) Nobody except the developers and the next round of
farmers ready to make their killing want it. What makes that
microscopic segment of the population such a protected class? Couldn't
we find some other way to make them filthy rich and send them on their
way? For the other 99.99% of the population, our property values would
skyrocket over night.
THEE: I am doing a lecture on Mudarra at the upcoming GFA fest. Firstly,
do you know where I can purchase a copy of the Chanterelle facsimiles?
Did anybody else ever publish it? Secdonly, do have any advice or
suggestions for such a topic? I am planning on talking about the
"sonatas" or "suites", and the guitar works. What other lofty areas need
to be addressed, in your opinion?
ME: I also remember (I think) a gig at the library you couldn't make in
Apr 2006. But tell Luke Honer his Weiss Allemande was sublime.
I'm the pits at lofty thinking, but I was wondering how effectively a
player could hope to bring out the melody lines in the motets. (I
assume they're supposed to play those notes.)
ME: One of the Mudarra pieces that I always thought was neat due to its
"climbing climbing" beginning is what I call AM39:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/am39.htm
I think it's neat to compare Mudarra's "Romanesca: o guardame las vacas"
with Narvaez's. See my note in
http://www.donaldsauter.com/am23.htm
I also have a few thoughts on Mudarra's Ludovico harp fantasia at
http://www.donaldsauter.com/gramb.htm
about 2/3 down.
There are also a few fun little typos in Tres Libros. Since it was set
in movable musical type, a few characters got put in upside down, like a
3 and a 6. The latter looks a lot like a 9, of course, haha. And a
Gallarda comes out Gallarpa. My favorite is a 0 with the tab line
through it twisted 90 degrees; it looks like a greek phi.
So, you see how "lofty" my analysis is!
ME: The Very Oldest Guitar Music by Donald Sauter
The oldest surviving guitar music is found in Alonso Mudarra's
publication from 1546 called *Tres libros de mvsica en cifras para
vihvela.* This is the third oldest vihuela publication, following Luis
Milan's in 1536 and Luis de Narvaez's in 1538. There are six pieces for
4-course guitar in Mudarra's book.
Of special interest is the first of these six pieces, a fantasia written
for "gvitarra al temple viejo" - guitar in the old tuning. And believe
you me, if the tuning was already old by 1546, it is *old*. This tuning
is like the highest 4 strings on the modern guitar, but with the 4th
string tuned down one step to C.
Mudarra's piece turns out to be our only surviving piece of published
music for renaissance guitar tuned this way. Juan Bermudo, writing in
1555, tells us that this tuning was "more suitable for old ballads and
strummed music than for modern music." When you tune your 4th string
down a step and strum the open four strings, you'll understand why
renaissance jazz musicians were so fond of the major 7th chord. (That's
a joke, son.)
The last of the 6 pieces for guitar by Mudarra was his rendition of the
"Romanesca: o guardame las vacas" (look after the cows for me.) This is
for "gvitarra al temple nvevo" - guitar in the new tuning. This "new
tuning" is the same as the first four strings of the modern guitar.
The vihuelists were the first to compose instrumental theme and
variations. "Guardame las vacas" was a popular theme for composing
variations on. Mudarra wrote another set for the vihuela, and 3 other
vihuela composers did, too. You might like to compare Mudarra's 4-
course guitar version with Narvaez's well-known vihuela version which
can be found, for example, in Frederick Noad's *Renaissance Guitar*
anthology. I suggest you first tune your guitar like the vihuela - that
is, tune the 3rd string down a half-step. Play the Narvaez version like
this. Without retuning, also play Mudarra's version, but on the
*middle* 4 strings of your guitar. This very nicely transposes
Mudarra's piece to the same key as Narvaez's.
Mudarra's tablature was of the upside-down sort. (The only vihuelist
who published right-side-up tablature was Milan.) The 2 pieces here have
been reset in an easy-to-read, right-side-up tablature. Spaces, rather
than lines, represent strings, and rhythm values are given for every
note or chord. The original tablature for "Guardame las vacas" can be
seen in the book *Guitars* (Evans, p107). Mudarra's complete *Tres
Libros* is published in a very nice facsimile edition by Editions
Chanterelle. Information in this article was gathered from guitar
histories by Grunfeld, Turnbull, Bellow and Evans.
THEE:
>One of these wit and humor stories referenced "Patient Griselda" which
sent me to the web. I got a surprise to see that I met her before in my
Mother Goose studies; Golden Slumbers came from the play Patient
Grisell. Funny thing is, I had a totally wrong mental image of the
latter. He sounded to me like some poor young soldier wrapped up in
bloody bandages in a field hospital. Way off.
So . . . ?
A couple of days ago, I searched the web to find the origin of "dog in
the manger," and felt pretty stupid when I learned that it came for one
of the fables credited to Aesop. It all sounded so familiar when I read
the short fable. I'd ended up on a British site that comments on many
phrase origins. Then later the same day, someone sent me a link to the
same site after looking up "sea change." The idea was that this friend
thought I'd like the website. I'd never see it before, but there it was
twice in one day.
ME: Thanks for looking at my latest Beatle page. (I'm the last living
human being not afraid to use "Beatle" as the adjectival form of
Beatles, as scissor is for scissors and trouser is for trousers.) I
don't expect family, friends, and relatives to tune in.
In any case, I haven't gotten *overly* used to having my thoughts agreed
with. You should see the popping blood vessels in the Piano World forum
over my piano notation proposal.
>(I did recognize the passage from Wonderwall but couldn't have named it
for all the tea in China.
I'm impressed! By the way, "Party Seacombe" is a play on Harry
Seacombe, one of the Goons.
>You're a rigorous researcher
Thanks again, although, I'm really just a guy who wants to share what he
has. I'm pretty far along in my project of converting all my "Beatle
talk tapes" to mp3. They come from years of catching Beatle-related
talk off radio shows like The Lost Lennon Tapes, Ticket To Ride, and The
Beatle Years. It's a grind, but I might get a couple of web pages out
of it.
>But I can't give you any examples off the top of my head of books that
yoyo along a time line.
Good word there, yoyo. That's why I'm not a writer. Besides While My
Guitar Gently Weeps, there was one other book I read that yo-yoed. Have
no idea of the title now, but I remember it for being one of the most
gripping books I ever read - with the world's biggest letdown for an
ending. Of course, producing a slambang ending is a tall order.
>I am still baffled by those Sudoku puzzles you gave me,
The "secret" is rigorous notation of where a given digit *can't* be when
it's not immediately apparent from the other positions of that digit.
In know I've misspoken a few times recently. The only one I can think
of now is the definition for agouti - a South American rodent, not an
African antelope. Also forgot to mention that "escape velocity" is not
required for orbital motion; in fact, something that reaches escape
velocity never comes back again.
ME: No, I never got get The Eight Masterpieces of Alonso Mudarra. I
think that came out about the same time I put my Mudarra work up on the
web.
THEE: I found a page of yours googling "repair record skip." I thought
your solution sounded half-baked, and this is one of my Grandfathers
VERVE records (Stuff Smith.) However, I had NO solution, and I thought
that I couldn't really screw it up too much worse ... SO, anyway, it
WORKED and I I am eternally grateful!
THEE: I want to know if there is software to aid the conversion of sheet
music currently on the old G/F clef into C/C clefs?
For example can I find Fur Elise on C/C clefs somewhere?
ME: To be honest, I don't know how close currently available music
writing software can come to producing something like my two C clef
proposal. Keep in mind, really all you need is to convert the bass clef
to a G clef two octaves below the treble clef. I use the "C"s so it
looks completely different. I'm pretty sure nobody has made any music
available in this format. When I brought my proposal to the attention
of the Piano World forum, the response was brutal. In my last post, I
expressed the hope that someone would make some music available in both
formats.
ME: Notes for Adam at Sony 239-768-7600 x3026 Stereo component for a
home stereo system that does noise reduction on the input end?
declicking, decrackling, dehissing? Variable Dolby, for tapes. RIAA
curve elimination, for 78s. Both phono and line input. Right only;
left only; middle only.
Look on eBay for a Burwen (or KLH) TNE-7000A. Works beautifully.
disappointed that audio cd-rws not everlasting
THEE: When you say:" Keep in mind, really all you need is to convert the
bass clef to a G clef two octaves below the treble clef." is this the
same as saying move one up on the F cleff? For example if on a line,
move up one line, if on a space move note up one space?
ME: Yes, that would do it. Then a C chord (for example) will look the
exact same on the bass clef as on the treble clef. It would be played 2
octaves lower, of course.
THEE: Nice end-of-record sounds . . . [on a cd compilation of lp cuts.]
ME: Was that the highlight? Actually, I do that on all my vinyl to cd
transfers, for several reasons. Your subject line has me stumpified;
there's not a "babe the blue mountain goat" on the whole web.
THEE: ...necessitates prep time to abide by the "6 P Rule": Proper
Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
ME: I wasn't 100% sure you were interested in that exact book, which is
why I didn't impress the title and author on you at the time. It's "The
Coil Of Life" by Ruth Moore. I'd be pretty surprised if a public
library had a copy. I do ask a favor that you don't buy the cheap copy
on an ebay store until I give my scrabble club buddy first shot at it.
I keep forgetting to tell him there's one there. I'd be happy to lend
you my copy, by the way.
I remembered another loose end. Not a big deal; you might not remember
the conversation. The Scottish poetry prodigy from the early 1900s was
named Helen Adam. This is the page where I learned something about her
amazing talents.
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/prevallet/adam.html
I guess I was searching on her because one of my very favorite records
is Songs From The Elfin Pedlar by Stanford. There'd be very few records
in my collection I played more than that.
THEE: Do you have direct source I can read on Piano World Forum. I want
to know the pyschology behind using the G clef and F clef and refusing
your proposal. My friend says that those who play piano have to know
more deeply about music composition than say a guitar player. This is
reason for the two different clefs. Can you sight any arguments
regarding this other than your own work?
ME: If by "direct source" you mean the discussion threads related to my
proposal, go here,
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/ubb/search.html
then do a search on: notation proposal. There are only a few threads,
and only one of them isn't related. (One of them I posted by mistake to
the wrong forum.) You'll see that what your friend says comes up often.
My response is, there is nothing about my proposal preventing a serious
musicians from learning all the clefs he wants. In fact, a frequent
argument against my proposal is how *easy* the F clef is to learn, so
what's the big deal?
I don't claim to be a psychologist, but all I see is the typical
kneejerk resentment of people who didn't think up something themselves.
Plus, negativity is so much safer.
ME: here a ly there a ly
>I'll try using the e-mail just like it is rather than switching to rich
text/HTML to add color.
Don't take me so seriously! Add some pizzazz wherever you want. I will
admit, though, that the receent emails with lines that already fit on
the screen makes things a bit easier. Plus, I'm guessing I'm seeing
something more like what you created.
>That's a long book. I don't remember how many years have come and gone
since I read one that long--at least a fiction book.
Keep in mind Quicksilver is mostly real, historical characters, doing
their real, historical things. Most of these characters are from the
science ("natural philosophy") world, which is why book stores file it
among "science fiction", in the sense of "historical fiction", but very
misleadingly. I mentioned how the book sent me to my copy of Samuel
Pepys' diary. Well, a few pages later, Pepys himself joined the action.
I enjoyed the Beaver Steals Fire review. Most interesting for me was
the requirement that the story be told in winter only.
>>Search for "he fell into a brown study" in "Simon Starts Up In The
World" by J. J. Hooper. It's a funny story, although I feel bad for
Bill.
>Hmmm . . . I think I came across that expression long ago but never
thought to associate it with the idea of "doing someone brown." Makes
sense, though.
Hmmm . . . I just jumped to the conclusion that all these funny, old
"browns" had to be related. I guess it ain't necessarily so. In any
case, here's another for your future "brown study" dissertation. In
Mark Twain's story, "Is He Living Or Is He Dead?": "but instead he
dropped into a brown study." I'm pretty sure they'd both be on the web
if you want all the particulars.
Here's the other sort, in "Love Sonnets Of A Hoodlum" by Wallace Irwin.
Will she be on the level, do me brown,
Or will she jolt me lightly on the sand,
Leaving poor Willie froze to beat the band,
Limp as your grandma's Mother Hubbard gown?
How about that? we get sand dancing and Mother Goose tossed in for free.
I read the girl and her horse book, "Can I Get There By Candlelight?"
Pretty good job, in my view. The story incorporated all the elements of
the Mother Goose rhyme:
How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You can get there by candlelight.
Gail's horse is introduced as Candy, but you find out that's short for
Candlelight. Babylon is the 100-year-old estate that Candy takes Gail
to, past the orchard, and through an overgrown gate and woods.
>>play Patient Grisell. Funny thing is, I had a totally wrong mental
image of the latter. He sounded to me like some poor young soldier
wrapped up in bloody bandages in a field hospital. Way off.
>So . . . ?
"So . . . what else is new?" Right, if I ever jumped to the correct
conclusion, *that* would be something. (A quick web search on "patient
griselda" cleared me up.)
The more I think about AGILY, AGILELY, INFANTILELY, etc., the more I
realize I'm not sure what rule, if any, is at work for tacking LY on
words that end in vowel-LE. I mean, if AGILELY is so obvious, why not
WHOLELY? WILELY also comes to mind, but maybe there's a different rule
for tacking LY on nouns to make an adjective. I need to look at a list
of words ending in vowel-LY and vowel-LLY.
Had another Scrabble player join us Thursday night. Her name is Carol,
and she is decidedly *not* a dream DSC member. At least as of her first
session. I could run on for pages about what she put me through. I'll
make one last effort at explaining what the DSC is about, and if she
keeps up the digs, jabs, and slugs in response to every little thing I
say, I'll have to expel her.
>WOW, you have the potential of flouring him time after time. Just make
sure no one lets him in on your source.
Well, no white-face so far, but I've been knocking him for a loop on a
regular basis. At our last scrabble session I announced I had prizes,
one of which was an "American flag" for those few days when Delaware was
the only state in the union. That was earmarked for Cyril, so he got it
for "coming in second". What it was, of course, was a Liberian flag -
which looks just like our flag, but with one big star instead of 50
little ones. (Actually, it has 11 stripes instead of 13.)
>A couple of days ago, I searched the web to find the origin of "dog in
the manger," and felt pretty stupid when I learned that it came for one
of the fables credited to Aesop.
Absolutely no need to feel stupid about that. For one thing, there's
*tons* of Aesop' fables. One of my books has over 120. For another,
different tellings of the same fable can be so different that the story
line isn't really the same, and different editors might even tack on
different morals.
I didn't quite find the groove of Chicktionary. Besides having no
tolerance for moving graphics on a web page, I didn't fully get the
business about hints and searching for definitions. I tried two rounds,
and both times, when I finally asked for a hint, it said I had used them
all up. When I finally gave up, instructions popped up obscuring words
I wanted to see. I also found more of the shorter words than they had
spaces allotted for, which kind of brings the value of the final score
into question.
THEE: Re: Babe the Blue Mountain Goat & cracked bell
Aha! I finally stumpified you. The stamp was a blue mountain goat, but
look where I spent most of my summer vacations as a kid:
http://www.visitbemidji.com/bemidji/paulbabe.html
And, no, not the highlight of the cd--not by a long shot. But I figured
it told you that I listened all the way to the end.
ME: Good one. Even with your "explanation" I had to scratch my head for
a while. What sort of stamp is she talking about? Rubber? Postage?
Did she send it to me, or vice versa? And "cracked bell" only brings a
Dylan lyric to mind - "the cracked bells and washed-out horns, blow into
my face with scorn." Finally, the penny dropped. Yes, it was sort of a
bluish extra-ounce stamp, and there was some sort of critter on it. And
then - and then! - I made the dare-devil mental leap to the 41-center!
It all fits!!!
THEE: Honestly, I don't know what "the highlight" was because I liked
all of the selections on the first hearing. It began well with La
Vergbena de la Paloma's overture. I've long planned to watch the film
version of Carmen Jones, but haven't, so "Dat's Love" finally got me to
add it to my Netflix queue so that the DVD will eventually be delivered
to the house. "We're called gondolieri" and "We are the matadors from
Madrid" tempted me to change professions. "Romance of the Love-sick
Cat,""A Dose of Castor Oil . . .," and "Politics Are in a Fine state"
were all great fun. Several others that really caught my attention were
"Thank you , beloved friends, for those pretty flowers," "Cancion del
fuego fatuo," the Spanish dance from La Vida Breve, "Pretty Gitana . .
.," and the final two dance pieces from La Verbena de la Paloma. I
figured there was a reason that you began with the overture and saved
those for last.
The only piece that I know I've heard in that particular recording is
Kiri te Kanawa's "I feel pretty." The one allegedly arranged for 100
blind guitarists was also amazing, especially if that's true.
Thanks for the terrific CD! The only disappointment was that when I
pulled it from my mailbox, I anticipated Mother Goose songs. ;-)
THEE: i enjoyed reading your article. is there a way to figure out
perfect length of a string for a desired tone. i know tension and mass
can be manipulated for a desired tone. i'm in the process of building
harps and the shape of a harp is a false curve. but it would be nice to
optimize the the strings ability to achieve the correct tone. thank you
roland...oh 47 strings 7 octaves
ME: The way it works is that all *three* are inter-related in the
calculation. If the tension and mass are specified, the pitch depends
on the length you choose. If the length and mass are specified, the
pitch depends on the tension you choose, such as by turning the tuning
peg. So I'm not sure there's a "perfect length" for a desired tone.
All three things can be varied so that you can get a specified pitch
from any given length, any given string gauge (mass), and any given
tension. For instance, if you wanted a bass string one inch long, you
would have to choose a *very* massive string, or a *very* low tension,
or both - no doubt with horrible results in any case.
I'm guessing it would take a *lot* of trial and error to improve
noticeably on what instrument makers have stumbled on by trial and error
over the centuries. But the reward for making the next breakthrough
might make it all worthwhile. Good luck!
ME: You can't possibly know how much it warms my heart to get such a
glowing review. For one thing, it was a *lot* of so-called work. The
typical person could never imagine. I mean, what's the big deal, just
sticking a bunch of songs together, one after another?
Another worry was, isn't this all that "classical stuff" that everybody
hates so much? It sounds about a 1000 times better than pop music to
me, but, as I've been told, maybe I ought to have myself checked out - I
might be mildly retarded.
And maybe the reason I thought it sounded so great was because I already
have an affinity for spanish music by virtue of my guitar hobby. Most
every classical guitarist, at least back in *my* day, pounded out some
quasi-flamenco pieces as a beginner.
And then, just having worked on it so long, I worried about having lost
all ability to put myself in the position of someone else hearing the
pieces for the first time. The songs were so "poppy" that maybe even I
was getting a little tired of them.
>I liked all of the selections on the first hearing.
That's what I was shooting for! I know that it's not part of anybody's,
with very few exceptions, lifestyle nowadays to allow something to grow
on him.
>It began well with La Verbena de la Paloma's overture.
Had to go first. Ever heard such a joyous, come one, come all,
overture? I hope my guitar friends who got a copy look close enough to
see the conductor. Federico Moreno Torroba was one of the most popular
20th century classical guitar composers. Segovia asked him to write
pieces, and they are all very enjoyable (which, of course, keeps him
from being "great".) His main life's work was actually as a zarzuela
composer himself.
>I've long planned to watch the film version of Carmen Jones, but
haven't, so "Dat's Love" finally got me to add it to my Netflix queue
Dat's Love is an example of the crazy effort I went to. At first, I
just chose 3 pieces from Leonard Bernstein's Carmen. Later I swapped in
Dat's Love in an effort to get as much english in as possible. Then I
swapped in a different performance of Lilas Pastia's because Berstein's
started so slow and so quietly - fine for a full-blown Carmen, but
anathema to a casual listener.
>"We're called gondolieri"
So what's a couple of full-blooded Italians engaged in a purely Italian
occupation doing here? Well, sounds about 80% mariachi to me. Even
though there are major characters from spain in that operetta, I don't
know why Sullivan would use Mexican music for that song. (Maybe
somebody with musical brains hears it as pure Italian.) Sullivan makes
a medley out of Gondolieri and Dance a Cachuca at the very end, which I
was interpreting as evidence that he must have viewed both pieces as
spanishy, but now I realize it might represent a union of Italian and
Spanish characters. Been a long time since I followed the story
through.
>"Romance of the Love-sick Cat,"
Kind of an interesting story here. Weber actually wrote that as a
separate song with guitar accompaniment. Mahler used it when he was
bashing Die Drei Pintos into shape. So, between the guitar origins of
the song, and the opera taking place in Spain, maybe it's not my
imagination there's a touch of canto jondo in there. But buyer beware.
>"A Dose of Castor Oil .. .," and "Politics Are in a Fine state" were
all great fun.
As many times as I've heard them, I still laugh every time.
>Several others that really caught my attention were ... "Cancion del
fuego fatuo,"
Was worried this is too heavy for modern, delicate, pop ears (not
yours.) Does that voice have hundreds of years of gypsy blood flowing
behind it, or what? As I mentioned in an old guitar society newsletter,
not so fast. Jean Madeira was born Jean Browning in Centralia (IL?) in
1918. The funny thing is, I also have Victoria de los Angeles singing
El Amor Brujo, and while she is probably the all-time top-notch Spanish
Soprano, her performance pales compared to Madeira's. In my opinion, of
course.
>the Spanish dance from La Vida Breve,
Well-known to guitarists in duo and quartet form.
>and the final two dance pieces from La Verbena de la Paloma. I figured
there was a reason that you began with the overturen and saved those for
last.
A bunch of reasons, not all easily verbalizable. Verbena is so neat
that it seemed perfect to make bookends out of it. The overture "had
to" go first, but I didn't want to squander the selections before the
listener was acclimated to the spanish sounds. And the selections make
such a perfect "dessert", never mind the balance of hearing tunes from
the overture again.
You've heard me gripe about how there's nothing about opera on the web,
here's a case in point. Verbena would be one of the top two or three
most important Zarzuelas - and there's no complete english translation.
(Not sure if the original spanish is there, either.)
>"Pretty Gitana . . .,"
One of the three most important English operas of the 19th c., and,
again, no libretto on the web. Along with Bohemian Girl and Lily of
Killarney, called "The English Ring".
>The one allegedly arranged for 100 blind guitarists was also amazing,
especially if that's true.
Another funny story! Just shortly before my friend asked me if I would
make the compilation - for and older coworker friend, actually - I had
gotten an email from a man in Spain asking about the One Hundred Guitars
album listed on my web site. That was by virture of having a few opera-
related cuts on it. In fact, it has a "100-guitar" overture to La
Verbena de la Paloma, which was also under consideration for inclusion.
So Victor's family had always loved that album, but now it's beat up and
he asked if I could get him a copy somehow. He'd been having trouble
with a site listing it for sale. Well, it's the sort of thing I like to
do, but, on the other hand, it could be viewed as a bit much work for
someone I don't even know. I'd be in trouble if a million people asked
for a copy. But, when the request for a spanishy opera cd came along,
that bumped 100 Guitars right up to the top of the list to be digitized.
I think Victor should have his One Hundred Guitars by now.
To my ears, it sounds more like 8 or so musicians, and I really hope you
don't have to oedipize your eyes to join the group. No matter, the
album is great!
One of my knockouts you didn't mention was La La La La La from Carmen.
So cool! Carmen up on the table dancing for Don Jose, clacking away on
castanets made from broken pottery, and wimpy Don Jose has to run to his
company when he hears its bugles. Carmen, on the other, says, "Great!
Just what I need, an orchestra!" and starts singing and clacking away
harder than ever. (Do you think this match is made to last?) And the
way the soldiers' music fits right in with what she's singing - is that
amazing??? I've wondered if a writer could possibly create any effect
near to that using words alone. Of course, literary writers can do
millions of things not possible in opera.
The other one was the veil song from Don Carlos. Even with the dull
tape it came from, it floors me every time. Imagine that guy in the old
memorex ads slumped in his chair, hair flying, hanging on to the arms
for dear life, from the blast of sound. That's me.
>By the way, have you had a chance to watch that "Maple Leaf Rag" guitar
[tapping style on double-neck guitar] video that I sent the youtube link
to?
Yes; thanks a million. I also tuned in a few of the Bach pieces, and
forwarded the link to my guitar partner Bob. It's impressive beyond
words, and as you hear a but coming I'll trip you up with a however, it
looks like an instrumental form that would be very difficult to work
"feeling" into. Not that I should talk, and not that solo classical
guitar wouldn't receive the same criticism from the casual listener.
Still, you can't take anything away from the boy; he's gone where no
one's gone before.
ME: Mizan and I went to see a black revolutionary soldier re-enactor at
Legislative Hall on Saturday. He was great. If there's info on the
web, his name is Noah Lewis, and the soldier was Ned Hector, who was a
teamster and a bombardier.
http://www.11thpa.org/hector.html
For instance, he came bursting out during his introduction with his
rifle raised demanding to know if the introducer was friend or foe. Ned
produced his own papers signed by George Washington. One of the things
he did was teach us how the team of 7 works together to fire a cannon.
Mizan was no. 2 man on the team; she rammed the charged and swabbed the
barrel after the shot and hollered "Ready to fire again!" I'm sure it
was intentional that the first couple of run-throughs were hastily done
so they would all fall apart during the "real" trial, when Ned, playing
a British soldier advanced on the cannon hollering and with his bayonet
fixed. Very funny. The second time, they managed to go BOOM just at
the last possible second.
Before Mizan took up her station, Noah took the opportunity to tell the
story of a woman soldier who had disguised herself, and got shot in the
leg before being found out. I swore I would remember her name, but
guess what?
Ok, a few keywords, woman revolutionary soldier, brought it back:
Deborah Samson.
http://www.canton.org/samson/
And, as usual, we got interviewed by one of the papers before Ned's
show. I'll see if I can track that down.
Here's a page showing our interpreter, Nate Davidson, and the archeology
museum, and Caesar Rodney's grave seen from Miss Becky's point of view,
I'd say.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070628/WEEKEND/106280032/1022/www.washtimes.com&template=nextpage
ME: Thanks for the great Revolutionary Dover walking tour on Saturday.
My little friend Mizan related some of the stories to Tamara at the
Archeology Museum, and then to her parents later that evening. She even
gave me a call to get some of the details right, which was lucky for me
since her questions brought back things that had almost slipped into
oblivion.
One of her questions was about papers signed by George Washington. I
asked if she meant Ned Hector's papers and she said no. And I said I
thought Cheney Clow had British papers on him. But Mizan makes me think
she remembers there was something else. Were there papers signed by
George Washington in one of the walking tour stories?
And I've forgotten the story about a Methodist averting a confrontation
between patriots and tories, and going on to convert bunches of them.
Or something like that. Can I have a 3 or 4 sentence sysnopsis of that
one?
Do I remember correctly that there was a direct connection between the
averted Black Munday uprising, and the Tory troubles in Sussex County
that Caesar Rodney went to quell? Am I correct in thinking we don't
have an actual account of what Rodney did down there?
I usually don't go to a talk without a pen, but slipped up on Saturday.
Mizan said you should hand out a page with the highlights of the talk to
make it easier to follow and remember. Great idea! (How many kids just
out of 3rd grade are that enthused about learning? How many people at
*any* age?)
Thanks for the other interesting talks I've caught: the one on Delaware
Governors and the one on the Delaware whipping post.
>(If everybody were like me, we'd still be using punched cards - disk
crash-proof!)
Man, how well I remember those punch cards from my college days. When
enrollment time arrived, we'd stand in long lines to hand over our
hoped-for schedules and wait for the women behind the counter to pull
punched cards from a zillion pigeon holes, pigeon hole representing a
class section and each card within a hole representing a seat in the
class. When the cards were done from the pigeon hole, tough luck. Then
we had to sit down, figure out an option . . . and hope that it would
have a remaining card. Registration could be an all-day process. Now
students go online, see the number of spots remaining in each class, and
click a button to enroll.
Speaking of prisons and prisoners, I was surprised to see prison work
crews in Mississippi dressed in stripes. Mind you, not the black and
white we've always seen in cartoons. No. This they were sporting kelly
green and white pants with white t-shirts. A half dozen or so were
doing landscaping/clean-up work around the state archive & library one
morning.
>>>play Patient Grisell. Funny thing is, I had a totally wrong mental
image of the latter. He sounded to me like some poor young soldier
wrapped up in bloody bandages in a field hospital. Way off.
>>So . . . ?
>"So . . . what else is new?" Right, if I ever jumped to the correct
conclusion, *that* would be something. (A quick web search on "patient
griselda" cleared me up.)
Not what I meant! I was looking for an explanation of Patient
Griselda/Grisell . . . without needing to look it up myself, which I
just did.
>The more I think about AGILY, AGILELY, INFANTILELY, etc., the more I
realize I'm not sure what rule, if any, is at work for tacking LY on
words that end in vowel-LE. I mean, if AGILELY is so obvious, why not
WHOLELY?
While you're at it, figure out why HOLISTIC is spelled without a W.
>>WOW, you have the potential of flouring him time after time.
>Well, no white-face so far,
OK, OK . . . I just caught that typo as I was rereading and getting
ready to reply. Wouldn't suggest flouring him unless you're feeling
cannibalistic.
>>A couple of days ago, I searched the web to find the origin of "dog in
the manger," and felt pretty stupid when I learned that it came for one
of the fables credited to Aesop.
As many times as I've heard the expression, I still wasn't sure what it
meant. Not that I didn't infer the right general meaning, but I still
wasn't sure because I didn't know the origin. It's something I needed
to know, because William Jennings Bryan was frequently referred to and
depicted (as in cartoons) that way.
THEE: Croquet
Ha! Enjoyed your assistance setting up for croquet. I am coming back
to browse your website at my leisure. You have some interesting, and
possibly weird, ideas. (^_^)
ME: Thanks for visiting. Nothing weird about my ideas - you just have
to give them a chance to percolate!
THEE: I've been thinking about your comments on the Stephenson book.
For a long stretch I just went along for the ride, but then I started
thinking that he wanted me to anticipate what was coming next.
Obviously, what with the invention of three principal fictional
characters thrust into the historical mix, it's impossible to second
guess him entirely, but the fact that he's constructed his book based
upon certain scientific developments at least gives you a shot. After a
while, I started to get with his program, and found myself able to keep
up a little better. This made for a lot more fun as I progressed
through the later books. It also made me wish I was conversant with the
subject matter of the Ruth Moore book, as well as, for example, The Rise
Of The Great Powers, a book I tackled a decade ago and abandoned midway
through. I think it covered the same time period--wow, wonder of
wonders, I see it on a bookshelf here (written by Paul Kennedy,
published in 1987--I probably attempted it 15 years ago) ((subtitle is
"Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000")). It would
have shed some light on the sections of the Baroque Cycle dealing with
the Netherlands, at the very least.
ME: I hope you enjoy The Coil Of Life. I'm pretty sure it contains tons
more on the subject of biology then what Stephenson worked into his
series.
My overriding complaint with Quicksilver is that it's just too much work
(for me) to be fun. What I need is a running commentary in the margin
by someone who loved the book and knows it inside and out telling me,
for instance, "Pay attention to how many folds are on his sleeve. This
will be important later.", or, "No, you aren't supposed to understand
this passage on your first shot; it will become clear on page 412.",
etc. That in addition to the normal annotation and maps that make
everything understandable. I could even imagine an author doing it
himself, with a big ACHTUNG: THE ARTISTIC MERIT OF THIS BOOK IS TO BE
GAUGED WITHOUT REGARD TO THE MATERIAL IN THE MARGINS.
Anyhow, I'm the sort of guy who emailed Peter Schickele asking him if he
would come clean at this point and go through all of P.D.Q. Bach's
compositions and identify all the "inspirations", in order, from
beginning to end. Sorry, I don't see how anyone can be richer for not
getting something.
You probably didn't know that when I told you about my personal
discovery of the connections between Pepys' diary and Quicksilver, that
was just before Pepys himself joined the cast of characters. In that
respect, kind of odd, in my view, that Stephenson didn't work him into
the London fire passage.
If you've never read a story which parodies Pepys' diary style, I just
read a very funny one called "So Wags The World" by Anne Warner.
Definitely on the web by virtue of being in "The Wit And Humor Of
America", volume VI, edited by Marshall P. Wilder.
THEE: string lengths
thanks for getting back to me. i think what i've come up with is to
watch the strings vibrating under a strobe light and measuring its
vibrating circle starting with the weakest mass high g. then continue to
double it for the next octave and then balancing the tension and mass
acordingly to achieve the right tension to match the tension of the
first octave g. and continue to fill the harp up. that way no matter
what material i use for the voice. the mass is consistant only to the
vibration circle and not the mass itself. that way the air pressure is
caculated in to the strings vibration.also the lower i go the rougher
the surface of the string. that way it creates the most drag on the
air.and more bass at a lower tension. the hardest thing is to find
material that fits the format it sure is fun tring to figure it out. at
least i have the soundboard material figured out. now its time to find
the string voices to match. thanks again roland
THEE: Another sorta similar story involves neither place, event, nor
movie. Susie was trying to wade through a long book by Karl Marx, Dix-
Huit Brumaire, and hating it. Her father picked it up, read a few
pages, and said, "Susie, don't read this. It's incomprehensible. Just
remember that everything about Marx boils down to 'class struggle.' "
Back in class, the professor turned to her and said, "Susie, summarize
this book in a few words." She replied, "Class struggle." "Exactly!" he
beamed. Let's see, how does this relate? Hmmmm. Maybe that facts are
interesting and worth remembering and retelling if learned in an
interesting way whereas other times all one needs to know is the key
point.
So what is the story of the old lady who was comforted by the word
"Mesopotamia"? I've been searching for at least two hours and so far
have found dozens of references in Google books but nothing that
indicates te source. The best I can tell, the story seems to be of an
old women who couldn't hear very well telling the preacher that she
didn't understand most of what he said but that she was comforted by the
word Mesopotamia, perhaps because she liked the sound. So far I find NO
story, no author, just allusion after allusion going back well into the
19th century. I've also found a British preacher, George Whitefield,
who came to Pennsylvania as a missionary at the time of the Great
Awakening. He is said to have been able to make his listeners weep by
the way he pronounced the word "Mesopotamia." (The History of
Northhampton County, Pennsylvania on Rootsweb.
This doesn't satisfy me. Any chance you've come across this story?
ME: dover scrabble club
Looking forward to your joining us tonight.
Carol comes from the "tournament rule" scrabble world and it looks
unlikely that she can grasp what my club is about - "real words", as
opposed to "easy points". She thinks the American Heritage must be some
sort of silly kids' dictionary for not having her goodies QI, XU, VA,
AA, etc., etc. On the other hand, she gets sarcastic every time a
little goodie such as FEZ or XI (greek letter) *is* in the American
Heritage. I can't win.
ME: One thing that didn't come to mind trying to think of "one last
thought" is the club's tradition of helpfulness in the case of someone
playing a very dubious word. Nobody wants to see somebody lose a turn
for an obviously bum play. There isn't any, "Challenge! You took your
finger off!" A player considers the advice offered him and either
sticks with the play or makes another one. This, of course, is
completely different from any sort of tournament or other social
scrabble. It might be the best evidence for my claim of a "friendly"
style of play.
I realize now that the word "challenge" carries such an unfriendly
connotation, not to mention all the baggage of how it's done in various
scrabble rules, that I am retiring it and formally replacing it with
"double-checking". Maybe that will help people to see what it's all
about.
What I plan to do is put the Dover Scrabble Club guidelines on the web
and urge people to get at least a little familiar with it beforehand, so
I don't get punched black and blue every time somebody shows up who
played a scrabble game somewhere along the line. If you're inclined to
mention that in your article, I would forego eye-glazing web addresses
and just say it's easy to find on my site, which is easy to find by
googling "donald sauter". I'm sure Scrabble's inventor, Alfred Butts,
would have been pleased to death with the way I wrapped up the last few
loose ends.
As if you need to know: in that last game, just as Cyril had effectively
caught me up, he took a dive with GELL (I warned him) and I started to
pull ahead. Near the end I had the rack QENTERS, with little prospect
for using the Q. So I traded that one tile. Two funny things happened.
First, I figured there were probably a bunch of good letters to go with
ENTERS to make a scrabola, but I drew an E. :( I figured, what do I
need another E for, but all of a sudden, I saw that it fit! Do you see
it? In any case, Cyril's next play ruined my spot to play it. But then
he drew the Q, and eventually had to eat it. Serves him right!
A. seertne backwards.
THEE: revolutionary dover walk
Thank you for the kudos. I really appreciate your feedback and am glad
to answer your questions.
1. The papers signed by George Washington refer to the Richard Bassett
story. After the war when he began a great political career, his
opponents kept bringing up his role in "Black Munday" and other
conservative stances of his during the war to claim that he was a Tory
and not a patriot. This all came to a head in the 1798 gubernatorial
election in Delaware. Bassett's followers circulated a broadside which
stated the following:
SLANDER DETECTED,
Or
DEMOCRATIC PROOF OF
RICHARD BASSETT'S TORYISM
The following Certificate is calculated to produce a Blush on the Brazen
Fronts of those who regardless of truth have attempted to circulated a
report that Judge Bassett was a TORY. Will not the advocates of Col.
Hall (John Hall, who was running against Bassett in the election and a
great revolutionary hero in his own right) who was absent from his
Regiment for the space of Years together, and receiving from the Public
at the same time the Emoluments of Pay and Rations, find it difficult to
produce a Testimonial equally honorable?
"The Dover Troop of Light Horse, under the command of Captain Bassett,
being relieved by the Virginia Light Horse, are at present dismissed
from further service. In justice to Captain Bassett, his officers and
men, I am bound to declare that I have ever found them at all times
ready and willing to undertake any duty required of them; for their
punctual performance of which they have my thanks, and are deservedly
entitled to those of the Public. Given at Head Quarters, at Morris
Town, this 2d day of February, 1777. - George Washington
The Original Certificate, signed by General Washington, is in the
Possession of a Gentleman residing in New-Castle; any person wishing to
be satisfied of its Authenticity, may, by Application to the Editors of
the Delaware and Eastern Shore Advertiser, be informed where it may be
seen and inspected.
nd: Cheney Clow did present papers at his first trial which proved that
he was a commissioned officer in the British military, which was why he
was first found not guilty.
2. Freeborn Garrettson, the 1st Methodist preacher ever to come to
Dover had hardly begun his sermon from the steps of the Dover Academy
when people in the audience clamored for his hanging as one of the
insurrectionist Clow's followers. "Sept 12, 1778 was the first day of
my entering the town of Dover, quite a (irreligious) place .. an
invitation to preach in the academy. Scarcely had I alighted from my
horse before I was surrounded .. some said, "He is a god man," others
said, "Nay, he deceiveth the people." And I was also accused of being a
friend to King George. They cried - "hang him" - I was rescued by
several gentlemen of the town - chief among these were Mr. Vincent
Loockerman."
nd: He was attacked because Methodists followed John Wesley's example
and supported the king - they were seen anti-revolutionaries and
loyalists, which angered many people.
3. Yes, there was a direct connection between Black Munday & the
Tory troubles in Sussex. I recently took some notes on this
insurrection from a book called The Loyalists of Revolutionary Delaware.
It seems as though, in the opinions of those that went down to quell it,
it was a lark, for no one was killed or hurt. Interestingly enough,
over $100,000 was spent by the Continental Congress & the Delaware
government to quell this "rebellion." People were just very afraid that
it could blossom into something really bad, though it was never more
than groups of angry people rabble-rousing. Lt. Enoch Anderson from New
Castle had some interesting experiences:
& Proceeding towards Lewes to join his company & stopped several
times south of Dover by groups of Tories who threatened him with such
remarks as, "Here is one of d----d Haslet's men. You're a rebel, we
have got you now and will take care of you," but he was always released
unharmed.
& One occasion they even courteously helped repack his saddlebags
after they had been searched.
& Stopped near Lewes at tavern patronized by Tories, feared rough
treatment, but escaped after buying them a jorum of rum amidst cries of
"Come back you d----d rebel, you d----d Haslet man."
nd: Basically, Rodney was sent down there to investigate the causes of
the disturbance and to hear testimony from the participants of the
rebellion. There was no military confrontation, rather just a
restoration of order.
* June 23 - he writes to Thomas McKean that it was necessary to
stay a few days longer to quiet the minds of the "very disturbed
people," though they knew the House was meeting the next day & DE's
delegation to Congress must be present in Philly the following week. C.
Rodney knew that this meeting would be of utmost importance (Declaration
of Independence).
7 In Summary
* Variety of reasons assigned for June insurrection in Sussex:
militia grievances, trading w/British, arrival of soldiers in Lewes,
destruction of Tory petition - but all symptoms of opposition to change
of government
* Majority of people in Sussex preferred status quo
* Leaders like Thomas Robinson & Boaz Manlove manipulated some of
the actions hoping for aid from British vessels that never arrived
* Neighbor faced neighbor & settled by negotiations between Whigs
& Tories with assistance of 2 members of assembly (including C. Rodney)
* Troops by Cont. Congress necessary to restore order; but DE
Const. Convention showed leniency by restoring weapons to Tories; no one
killed or hurt
* Pattern to be repeated throughout the war: participation of
poor farmers; influence of several leaders; encouragement but no aid
from British; use of militia to disarm & arrest; lenient settlement
That idea of handing out a page with some basic notes is a great one,
and it's something I'll forward up the chain of command. Mizan is
definitely ahead of her years, and would be great on an artillery crew!
Nate Davidson Historical Interpreter First State Heritage Park
THEE: Revolutionary ideas aren't going to work in the pianist corner
You have received a Private Message from Piano Forums at Piano World.
I actually am very intrigued by your proposal of a single, universal
clef that is simply transposed. Of course, we could apply this to the
piano alone, but a universal transposed clef could add another
dimension to ease in reading music of all sorts.
As you can tell, these pedantic and overly rigid people (classical
musicians too entrenched in their ways) are going to oppose your
proposal simply because it goes against tradition, however backwards
that tradition may be. Not to say that standard European musical
notation is badly made, but I'd be willing to try a different system.
These people are not. They're too used to the standard system. They
have been steeped too much in it to cater to this new method.
I suggest you appeal to flexible musicians, people who appreciate world
music, exotic instruments, and so forth. I also suggest you get hard at
work studying the standard system of notation, getting adept at reading
it, intervals, etc. As I said in my post in your latest thread, try the
non-classical forum. The non-classical forum is very loose, laid-back,
and flexible. The pianist corner is tight, rigid, and conservative.
As you say, your new system is not a replacement, but it can be a tool
to ease people into reading music far easier than the standard system,
and also as a tool to write passages that the composer deems easier to
read in such a system. We all know the standard system is incredibly
difficult to teach to beginners, and takes many, many years to master.
The use of only one clef makes sense, after all, most other instruments
operate on just one clef, why should piano be any different?
In a similar vein, another option is writing a melody in the treble clef
and using chord symbols in order for the musician to play said bass and
embellish should the skill of the performer be adequate to do so. This
is a very popular method, as can be seen by wildly popular "fake books".
I think where classical musicianship went wrong is its complete
dependence on the written score, and its treatment of written score,
however masterfully it may have been composed, as dogma. This isn't
what music is supposed to be. The baroque era, above all others, had it
right. Whole passages were left blank for the performer to improvise,
and the performer was expected to embellish pieces on cue. Not quite
pure improvisation within a group context, but purely improvised
fantasias were also options during a solo performance.
All this being said, I think it would be wise for you to continue your
pursuit, but with an educated mind. You must learn the old system, the
old rules, before innovating. This will always apply.
I wish you the best of luck.
I just wanted to write back seeing how you have, please see easy read
document attached. The original was written by Hellene Hiner of Texas
(born in Russia). She has created a wonderful program for learning piano
(and grand staff too). In her original she uses 6 or 7 if/then
questions. If using F/G cleff.......... Please check out their web
page.
THEE: C clef
In his notation proposal, Donald Sauter states:
[I also propose being rigorous about notating exactly which octave of C
the staff is pegged to. Here's a refresher on the pitch names:
Written: C, C c c' c'' etc.
Called: Contra C Great C Small C One-lined C Two-lined C
(Middle C)
(Numerical superscripts and subscripts are also used instead of the
upper and lower ticks.)
Note that Middle C, as strange as it seems, is not the unadorned c, but
gets an upper tick (c') and is called One-lined C. On our new treble
clef, the clef symbol is positioned on the next higher C, written c''
and called Two-lined C (see?), and this is confirmed by the two ticks
shown above the C clef symbol.]
Tina's response: this is quite muddled. the graph shows middle c as
small unmarked, but you say middle c is not the unmarked one! Are you
purposely trying to confuse?
ME: No! I'm trying to make something very confusing as clear as
possible! Middle C is indicated by a small (lower-case) c with one
upper tick mark: c'
In my layout of the varous C-notes, I show the next three Cs below
Middle C, and just one C higher than Middle C. It was necessary to show
three lower C-notes to establish the pattern of lower-case to upper-
case, and the introduction of the lower tick marks.
THEE: A fun Variation of Scrabble, please keep it going.
CHANGE ONE LETTER OF THE BOTTOM WORD POSTED AND SEE WHO GETS STUCK AND
CAN'T CONTINUE!
RULES:
YOU CANNOT ADD LETTERS
YOU CANNOT USE FOREIGN LANGUAGES
YOU CAN ONLY CHANGE ONE LETTER
Send it back to the person that sent it to you, plus 10 new people.
STARTING WORD: foot
Hannah - boot
Mary -bout
[about 400 lines deleted...]
Audrey - pout
Susan - lout
Diane-lost
ME: huh?
THEE: I was a little disappointed in your Davey Moore discussion.
Honestly, I expected that you'd dug up a newspaper article on the
original incident, since I recall that song being one that Dylan had
heard about through the newspaper (two others come to mind: "The
Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll", with its Maryland connection, and
"Talkin' Bear Mountain Massacre Picnic Blues," which has always been one
of my favorites). Instead you talked about the similarity in the song's
construction with other, earlier poems. I don't think Dylan ever
claimed originality in his forms. As an avid reader of Harry Smith's
folk song anthologies, he was clearly aware of how songwriters of all
genres put together their compositions. In fact, I seem to recall this
format being somewhat similar to "The Little Red Hen" ("Not I," said
Dick the Duck," etc., etc.) ...
Anyway, all this is to say that the Beatles' debt to Mother Goose
comes more from their using old schoolboy rhymes as a jumping off point.
Once they've made the swipe, they then make it their own. There's a
clever Elvis Costello quote about stealing musical passages, to the
effect that anyone can swipe but the trick is to swipe only good things
and use them in novel ways--I think he's alluding to his use of
something from the Supremes in an intro to an early song of his, but am
not sure.
One last commend about an annotated Quicksilver. There was a time when
I wanted to be the guy writing those marginal commentaries; and
certainly they are nice to have. But (and this is a very serious BUT)
they should never be used the first time you read something--that would
take away from the enjoyment of the initial read. Take for example your
vocabulary list of Mother Goose. I once had the pleasure (at the time,
though, it started out quite painful) of taking a class where we read a
play by Shakespeare per week. What a slog! Some of his plays
(e.g.,Coriolanus) are just plain tedious. But the effort of working
through the archaic vocabulary was rewarded by how quickly I was able to
read the subsequent plays. By the end of the class I could whip through
The Tempest in an hour with good retention. The same thing was true
with Henry James, who is one of my favorites despite his density; ditto
William Faulkner; ditto Herman Melville.
Because the cream rises to the top, there will be those "Skeleton Keys"
(to cite one example of published commentaries) for particularly great
works. But the reward of working through a tough text honestly is
better than being spoonfed by someone telling you about the folds on a
sleeve.
ME: (klunk) (oof) Anybody get the license number of that bus?
THEE: And if I can expect you to listen to the likes of vaudeville songs
like "Barney McGee's Makin' Sheeps-Eyes at Me" and "Lemon in the Garden
of Love," I guess you can expect me to listen to opera.
OK, so I'll admit to ignoring the fact that gondolieri don't belong in a
Spanish opera. I can live with such things, no problem. Heck, someone
can put them into the canals of Bruges, Belgium, for all I care. They
smell as bad as Venice.
>Jean Madeira was born Jean Browning in Centralia (IL?) in 1918.
Long live the Centralia Spaniards. Well, I guess there are still some
folks around who were born in 1918. I know one born in 1913 who is
still keeping in touch with the world via the Internet.
I've been writing 1907 news for the Tulsey Town Rag. I wrote too much.
Certain items were necessities, such as Roosevelt's signing of the
statehood proclamation with an eagle feather, the bells, and whistles .
. and horns . . . and shootguns following the arrival of the statehood
telegram from the White House, the symbolic marriage of Indian Territory
to Oklahoma Territory, the refusal of the outgoing territorial mayor to
participate in the festivities (Will Republicans and Democrats ever get
along?), the Indian barbecue, Governor Haskell's inaugural address
attack on Roosevelt, which he wouldn't release to the press before
Roosevelt signed the statehood proclamation (Will Democrats and
Republicans ever get along?), the inaugual ball . . .But with all the
essentials, how can a person cut a truly great story like that of
Pussyfoot Johnson? He belongs in an O. Henry story. Or maybe Bret
Hart.
ME: I mentioned being interviewed at Ned Hector's show at Legislative
Hall. Here's the bit from the next day's article in the Delaware News
Journal, "Re-enactor pays homage to U.S. patriot and pioneer":
The presentation delighted 9-year-old Mizan Walker, of Dover, who
found her way to Legislative Hall with neighbor and professional
tutor Donald Sauter. It's really funny to see an old white guy and a
little black kid.
"I came here today because I'm very interested in black history,"
said Walker, who found herself recruited by Lewis for the cannon
team.
(I slipped in a bogus sentence.)
Picked up another Mother Goose record at Friday's auction. That makes
four, enough for a "study". I'm comparing different recordings of the
same rhyme, and recordings with printed music, mostly in my 1897
British Mother Goose. So far I'm disappointed by how many of the
tunes seem to be newly created.
Picked up some other neat books and records. One book, "The Jingle Of A
Jap", is from 1908 and has a really neat design and japanese-style art
and lettering. It looks "valuable". The story doesn't quite live up to
the promise, though. I think I mentioned reading a nice, grimmsy story
at the auction one day called "The King With Six Friends". Now I have
my own copy. Also got a nice hardback called "Democracy in Delaware;
the story of the First State's General Assembly". It's only about a
thousand times more interesting than the title and the photos of the
modern legislators on the inside front and back cover would suggest.
It's made the colonial history of The Three Lower Counties On The
Delaware clearer than ever. I think I'll take it right on up to modern
times. Also got a nice oil painting which will go in rotation over my
table in the office, and an early 1970s Scrabble game, which I need like
a hole in the head, but it was unused, the tiles still sealed in
plastic, and it had one of the very first Scrabble Players' Newspapers.
This is a relic from the very dawn of tournament Scrabble. The
newspaper says Volume 1, with no "number", but it makes reference to
"the first newsletter" so this one, Fall 1973, seems to be the second.
>>One of the three most important English operas of the 19th c., and,
again, no libretto on the web. Along with Bohemian Girl and Lily of
Killarney, called "The English Ring".
>There's a job for you . . .
I saw an old score or libretto for Maritana on ebay once, going for
something like $200. I'd be glad to join in a group effort, but what I
can do myself is the proverbial spit in the ocean.
>OK, so I'll admit to ignoring the fact that gondolieri don't belong in
a Spanish opera.
The theme was all the hispanic touches I could find in any sort of
opera. I'm still wondering if I'm crazy for hearing almost pure
mariachi in the gondolieri song.
ME: If no one has called in about Where Am I? [Dover Post], it's the
funny structure in Silver Lake near the dam and boat launch.
I always thought a section of that red flame in front of the church
across from Dover City Hall would make a good Where Am I. Also, the
mosaic on the wall just off Queen St. a half block or so north of
Loockerman (according to my memory). I am told there is some unhappy
history associated with that mosaic.
ME: [-lely study]
palely stalely
agilely ... docilely infertilely senilely futilely vilely
no ulely elely
solely
-olly turned up no cousins to wholly just coolly woolly
no facilely type word
wily and wiley
ME: to rec.games.board
subject: Word Freak, by Stefan Fatsis
I invite any Scrabble fans to my book report on Word Freak, by Stefan
Fatsis. It's near the bottom of my scrabble page:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/scrabble.htm
If there's any ulterior motive, it's a hope for a movement back to
Scrabble as nature intended - honest-to-gosh words and no barroom bluff
element.
Thanks.
ME: Don't know if I ever mentioned catching the opera bug, probably in
the late 1990s. Which reminds me, there are a couple of operatic
arrangements for two guitars by black 19th. C. guitarist Justin Holland
on my site. He was America's most important guitarist of his
generation, around 1860, which I think is pretty extraordinary.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/justin-holland-guitar.htm
The Faust March is pretty rollicking. The Faust Waltz is kind of
lackluster and unbalanced, I don't know why.
You had asked about scrabble, and my fledgling scrabble club just got an
article in a local newspaper.
It's a pretty accurate job, although I would have emphasized things a
little differently. "New twist" and "renegade" make me sound like some
sort of maniac, when all I'm trying to do is get back to a more natural,
box-top rules sort of scrabble.
ME: My scrabble club did get an article in the Dover Post. I was
surprised to find something like that goes online.
It's a pretty accurate job, although I would have added, subtracted, and
emphasized things a little differently. "New twist" and "renegade" make
me sound like some sort of maniac, when all I'm trying to do is get back
to a more natural, regular dictionary, box-top rules sort of scrabble.
Mainly, it comes down to, in my club you can't play these dumb things:
AA AE AG AL BA BI DA DE ES ET HM MM JO KA MO NA NE OD OE OM OP OW OY TA
UM XU YA FE KI OI QI ZA
(If that doesn't look like dumb stuff to you - I don't want to hear it!)
Didn't quite get the 4-letter word game - besides not having 10 friends
to forward it on to. Darn if I see how it could ever come to a stop.
If there were a rule that you can't go back to the previous word, I
wonder if there are any 4-letter words that can only have one spot
changed to one and only one letter to make a valid word. Which
reminds me, I recently found a useful site for listing words fitting
desired constraints. For example, if you want all the 4-letter "qu"
words, you would type in qu?? .
http://www.onelook.com/
THEE: C c and mathematics
My opinion (and this is from a layman's perspective too cause i am new
to piano),all you have done mathematically with your notation proposal
is said "one minus one is nought". or "look mom, no hands!" Bravo (in
one hand), but still pianists continue to use their beloved G and F
cleff.
I think we speak a different language? si si
p.s. girls (and maybe boys) are nick-named "piano" and "guitar" and the
like here in Thailand!!
THEE: The recently published Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University
Press) has the following:
Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. Allen
Saunders, Quoted in Reader's Digest, Jan. 1957. Often credited to John
Lennon, but this citation considerably predates Lennon's usage.
Fred Shapiro Member posted 02-16-07 10:30 PM
THEE: Life is what happens ....making other plans...
You might be referring to the popular song by John Lennon: Beautiful
Boy. There is a line which goes: "Life is what happens to you while
you're busy making other plans." ~Lyrics by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
(1980)
Francois Dournon, an esteemed member of this forum had posted previously
regarding the origin of the quote. It is attributed to Betty Talmadge,
divorced wife of Senator Herman Talmadge, in the form "Life is what
happens to you when you're making other plans." Source: Barbara Rowe,
The Books of Quotes (1979)
Another book, Quotations for Our Time (1977) (by Dr. Laurence Peter)
credits a certain Thomas La Mance for the quote. Same attribution found
in Nigel Rees' Cassel Companion to Quotations
THEE: Although I have one, I HATE cell phones. I dislike being unable
to escape people's personal calls in public places, and any teacher can
tell unending stories. Wednesday while working in the computer lab on
campus, I saw three students within 15 minutes come out of one classroom
to talk on their cell phones and then go back into class. I don't know
who was teaching that class, but it's someone who needs to lay down some
rules.
THEE: Why some properties generate more trash than others...
My 82 year-old father lives in PG County, in Hyattsville.
One of the reasons some properties generate more trash than others is
based on a more disturbing problem in the County which I have already
addressed with Mr. Will Campos (legislator for his district).
My dad now lives by himself after my mother's death two years ago,
recycles and rarely has any trash in a bag outside for trash day.
Prior to that the County had cited him for a small amount of flaking
paint on the rakes of his house.
I was livid when I found out that he had climbed on the roof to paint
the rakes in the middle of summer two years ago. This he did even
though he is diabetic and had a triple by-pass a few years before.
When I complained to the county that neighboring properties were being
bought and rented as boarding houses, and basements were being divided
with drywall to house numerous people beyond the approved occupancy of
the house I did not receive any response from the County housing or
zoning office. Many of these people are hispanic immigrants, some of
them probably illegal, which in turn are generating more trash than a
normal household.
The fact that owners of these homes are violating zoning, housing codes
and probably fire codes by warehousing people in single-family homes
designed for probably no more than six inhabitants apparently is of no
concern to the county as long as the property owner pays the taxes.
I no longer live in Prince George's County, however in Frederick, where
I live now, I am now battleling the zoning board to prevent houses in my
development from being turned into boarding houses, which is in
violation of the zoning code; there too these homes generate more trash.
Consequently I have also brought this to light with my HOA which
controls the fees for maintenance of common areas, snow removal and
trash disposal.
Additionally I have the problem that the parking situation is
increasingly becoming more scant because an average family home with two
vehicles becomes one of six or seven residents each with their own
automobile/track/SUV/dump-truck, etc.
So as you can see this problem is rooted in a more disturbing situation
than you anticipated, and the local governments appear not to care about
enforcing far more serious violations.
Good luck.
ME: Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your thoughts. It's been a
*long* time since I put up my rants about trash - and as far as I
remember, you're the first to ever comment on them. Much appreciated.
I moved from Prince George's County to Dover Delaware 4 years ago, and
while the trash fee here is not so oppressive, it's still galling that I
pay the same amount as everyone else. We have larger containers that
trucks pick up with mechanical arms. I go all winter without setting it
out, from about October to March, and maybe every couple of months
otherwise due to lawn waste. Everyone around me sets it out, plus more,
every week. The charge should be per human being, not per house.
THEE:
>Mainly, it comes down to, in my club you can't play these dumb things:
>AA AE AG AL BA BI DA DE ES ET HM MM JO KA MO NA NE OD OE OM OP OW OY TA
UM XU YA FE KI OI QI ZA
Ow is in my Random House Webster's College Dictionary. Isn't it one of
the politer things one says when stuck by a thorn in the garden or when
burning or cutting one's finger in the kitchen? And, well, um is in
there, too, and apparently has been used since the 17th century as an
expression of doubt or hesitation although it seems like less of a word
to me than ow. Of course, oy is in there, also, but I suppose you can
rule it out as a foreign word. But what about ta? The Brits would
claim it as a legitimate word, as does my Webster's.
>(If that doesn't look like dumb stuff to you - I don't want to hear
it!)
Want to or not . . .
>Didn't quite get the 4-letter word game - besides not having 10 friends
to forward it on to. Darn if I see how it could ever come to a stop.
If there were a rule that you can't go back to the previous word, I
wonder if there are any 4-letter words that can only have one spot
changed to one and only one letter to make a valid word.
I'll admit to the dumbness of that game. The only thing that made me
send it was that I'd received it twice--about three months apart. So I
guess what interested me was that the same dumb game could get to me two
times. The first time I received it, someone has accused another of
repeating a word that had been used previously, and I think that should
be a rule.
What I was wondering is if it gets tough if you apply that rule and
really follow the stated rule of sending it back to the person who sent
it to you. This would mean that the person you return it to must then
return it to you, and it would go back and forth endlessley. Aside from
flooding an e-mail box and occupying your life, if you sent it to 10 new
people each time (assuming you knew that many) and then bounced it back
and forth between you and each of those people, I can see the game
becoming difficult if the two people bouncing it back at forth stuck to
a rule of not allowing a second use of any word.
THEE:
>Which reminds me, I recently found a useful site for listing words
fitting desired constraints. For example, if you want all the 4-letter
"qu" words, you would type in qu?? .
And what the heck kind of words are those? What are those words with
numbers? Extra definitions of the same spelling? And since when is an
accent mark added to an e a fourth letter? How many of those qu?? words
would you admit into your Scrabble games?
THEE:
Your search - "pig got up" "i sat belonely" - did not match any
documents.
Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.
THEE: Just few lines to thank you your article on how to fix skips in
phonograph records. It is really interesting and make a lot of sense.
I have been browsing internet for days and not find relevant interesting
information on how fix skips. Only some disconnected suggestions that
together can do something, I transfer to you as a recompilation:
Put a coin over the cartridge and play the skipping area
Use a 0,6 mm spindle instead the typical 0,7 to open, deep and clean the
track
If possible to do it a half the usual speed
Wet the record
Kindly let me know if you have improved your fixing method since your
last 2006 update.
ME: Thanks for visiting. No, I haven't improved my techniques in recent
years. Since I always transfer records to cd when I play them nowadays,
I always use the digital method of fixing a skip. While the recordingis
in progress, just lift the needle, set it down in front of the skip
point, and use a small stick like a cotton swab, to nudge the tone arm
to guide the needle throught the skip point. Then use a wave editing
program to cut out all the extra material.
THEE: I'm going to write something about Alonso Mudarra and will send
that when it's done. I may be pestering you with questions about Mudarra
as the lecture comes up.
Here are some off the top of my head:
HOw did you get so interested in Mudarra; was it the fact that he wrote
the first guitar music?
How do you think Mudarra compares with the other vihuelistas (esp.
Narvaez and Milan)?
How does Mudarra's music compare with those that he intabulated?
What is up with those "tonos"? He is so free harmonically, I'm surprised
that he even attempted to organize pieces by tono. And what exactly are
the tonos? They don't exactly correlate to any real mode. It's a little
vague.
ME: Dear Houghton Mifflin,
I had a brainstorm just after lying down to bed last night.
I am a fan of the American Heritage dictionary. I am also a Scrabble
fan. I despise with all my body and soul the Official Scrabble
Dictionaries and Word Lists used in sanctioned Scrabble play, and what
an artificial exercise they have turned Scrabble into. In my own
Scrabble club, I use the American Heritage Dictionary, Second College
Edition, as the source authority.
The brainstorm is this. I believe you could advertise yourself very
effectively and very cheaply by sponsoring a Scrabble tournament in
which the official word list is an American Heritage collegiate
dictionary. It would take a ridiculously small amount of money to offer
the highest stakes ever in a Scrabble tournament.
What's in it for me is an increase in the number of people who can get
excited about Scrabble again as a *word* game, as opposed to a game
where everybody gets lots and lots of points (whoopee) from funny letter
combinations. Please visit my Scrabble web page, and in particular, my
thoughts there on a book about the revolting modern Scrabble scene
called "Word Freak".
That should explain pretty clearly where my head is at, and what I'm
driving at. A Scrabble tournament with a conventional dictionary and
*real words* could be a big hit with the masses! Maybe a tv network
would pick up on it. And it would be hilarious to see how the pros
would react!
I'll bet you could come away from such a tournament *making* money,
while getting yourself lots of great exposure. Please think about it!
Donald Sauter
My electronic signature above attests that I will make no claims of any
sort on this idea if you pursue it.
THEE: Hello! I might be stranger to you, it is so, I am a student from
in malaysia, but I saw your geocite's web page and I like it so much,
specially those puzzle tricks. I would appreciate if you can tell me
more about you, and teach me a strategy how to solve those problems,
because my lecturer told us that we can solve exercise from the books
that were given but we do not have solving problems skill. By the way I
am from Kosova, and I am in malaysia for my first degree.
ME: Thanks for visiting my site - I'm honored! I think if you dig
around my site a bit, you can find out a lot about me. It seems to me
there are all different kinds of puzzles and problems and brain teasers,
and it wouldn't be possible to devise a "strategy" that works for them
all. I just try to consider all the possibilities, and reject anything
that gives rise to a contradiction. For math problems, I try to use
basic algebra wherever I can.
THEE: Thank you for your suggestion of an American Heritage Scrabble
Tournament. Although we agree that this is an interesting and
thoughtful idea, Scrabble has an arrangement with another Dictionary
company, and so American Heritage would not be able to hold Scrabble
events as a result.
I am very pleased to find that American Heritage has been a source of
help to you, and I hope it continues to serve you well in the future.
Best of luck with your Scrabble tournaments.
Best regards,
Sarah Iani
Dictionary Editorial Department
Houghton Mifflin Company
ME: Don't worry, I'm not out to steal your 1920 dictionary.
"Unabridged" allows too many grunts and groans and foreign junk. My
1985 American Heritage continues to astonish me. There's a web page on
it. Just tonight I looked up "boat train" "nisi" "compass" (tr. v. def.
5. to scheme; plot) and "euchre".
ME: If the record flaw is stamped in, I don't see how it can be fixed.
My method is for a groove that was good, but got closed off due to
something scratching across it. Then there is hope for opening it up
again. It sounds like you aren't set up to make a digital transfer of
the record, in which case you could keep recording until you nudged the
stylus through the skip point, and then edit out all the extraneous
material. I don't know anything about itunes; would they have that
song?
THEE: Beatles Stuff
Hey, I really like plowing through your Beatles-related stuff, and this
morning was listening to what you have in the "Beatle inspirations?"
section. Lots of fun in there. It makes me wonder (and I apologize if
you've got this somewhere else on your site) but has anyone tracked down
what music George Martin used for each of the orchestral tracks in
Yellow Submarine? I know I've heard several snippets over the years and
said "Hey! That's 'Sea of Holes'". George didn't write anything
original for the film, did he?
ME: Glad you had fun with the Beatle pages. Don't quote me as an expert
on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, but I'm sure that George Martin
wrote all the original music for it. When I say "original" I mean
everything that isn't Beatle-composed, like the Yellow Submarine song
tune itself, which he works over a million(?) times in different
arrangements throughout the movie; and the one example (I can think of)
of music borrowed from a famous composer, meaning J.S. Bach. Just
before the cigar explodes in the Sea of Monsters, that's Bach's Air for
the G String. But everything else, like the beautiful Pepperland theme,
George Martin wrote.
THEE: I get a Francesco da Milano song and a partiture for guitar at
http://guitarra-antiqua.km.ru/persona/fr_da_milano.html The song is
"Kanzona y danza" (??????? ? ?????) but the partiture is only Kanzona".
Where can I get the full partiture "Kanzona y danza"
ME: I listened to the Danza in the sound file, but I don't recognize it.
I checked all the Milano in my music collection, including the complete
Libro Terzo, but I don't have that one. To be honest, I don't think it
sounds too much like Milano, or at least the music by Milano that I'm
familiar with. I don't associate him with such dance-like music.
ME:
>How did you get so interested in Mudarra; was it the fact that he wrote
the first guitar music?
Off the top of my head, without researching exact dates or anything, I
think it was just a combination of my general interest in "ancient"
plucked string music, and getting a copy of the Tres Libros as a favor
for helping Michael Macmeeken of Chanterelle with a project he was
putting together - the complete Aguado. After a couple of decades of
playing all kinds of transcriptions and arrangements of guitar and lute
and baroque guitar and vihuela music, I got the bug for "putting my
fingers where the composer put his." I wrote a program that created
tablature exactly to my liking, and started cranking out Guerau and Sanz
and Campion and most any old plucked string music that came into my
possession. I think Guerau was the first.
>How do you think Mudarra compares with the other vihuelistas (esp.
Narvaez and Milan)?
Believe me, my thoughts on this are not weighty enough for
dissemination! I think I played through all of Milan's solo vihuela
music transcribed for guitar from some scholarly edition I checked out
of the library back in the 1970s. I seem to remember sort of slow-going
chords and notes followed by blasts of 16th or 32nd notes that I could
never hope to play in time with whatever slow tempo I had already
established. (Or maybe that was his songs.) Not a lot of fun. I do
think Milan's
6 Pavanas are top-notch - taken together, maybe the best of the vihuela
music?
I just checked my music collection for all appearances of Narvaez.
Turns out I only have Guardame las Vacas, Condo Claros, two small
pieces, and a few extracts in Soundboard articles. So I can't say I
know him. And the other guys, Valdeberanno and Pisador, etc., I know
even less.
>What is up with those "tonos"?
I'm glad to hear a musically educated person ask that! I always figured
I was the only one who didn't know what everyone else was talking about.
ME: Need expert advice on going all electric.
Dear This Old House,
I have a 19-year-old double-wide manufactured home in Dover, Delaware.
I feel certain I could increase my comfort, lower my utility bills, and
simplify my life by converting everything - furnace, water heater, and
stove - from gas to electricity. It would also get an explosive out of
my home.
I *think* what I want is a packaged heat pump. Wouldn't it be a
straighforward matter to calculate the operating costs of such a heat
pump to see what the savings would be? I can show how much gas I've
used to heat the house each year.
I have struck out miserably with contractors in the area. They give me
the impression I am doing something very out of the ordinary. They
either don't want anything to do with it, or try to steer me clear of a
packaged heat pump. My confidence in them doing anything outside of
what they've been doing all their lives has dropped to zero. Now I'm at
the point that if one of them said, "Sure, I'll stick in a packaged heat
pump for you," I wouldn't be able to trust him.
The second part of the idea is even more "radical" - on-demand hot
water, since I only run a bit of hot water once or twice a day. Surely,
it can't make sense for a single person with my life style to keep 30
gallons of water heated all the time, while, incidentally, sending lots
of wasted heat up through the heater's flue. Again, on-demand electric
hot water just isn't done in this part of the country.
I am desperate for the help of an expert in these matters. None of the
contractors I have spoken with have been able to refer me to anyone who
can help. I want to have this done before the furnace, air conditioner,
and hot water heater start going up one by one. They're certainly all
near the ends of their lives by now. I also don't want to have to put
up with the racket of the wind rush created by the gas furnace one more
winter.
I am desperate for expert advice. I think what I am shooting for would
be so clearly advantageous - the gas company in my area is a robber
baron - that such work on my house would serve as a model to many other
homeowners and create a windfall for packaged heat pump manufacturers
and on-demand water heaters.
ME: Had a great day at the auction yesterday. Found a winner for my
collection and had more friendly chats with auction regulars than usual.
The book is "The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book" by the Opies. I knew of it
from Phyllis's sister Cathy who's a librarian in Detroit. It was culled
from that library's collection, but Cathy was wrestling with orders to
get rid of it. Don't know if she managed to restore it to the shelf or
what. Anyhow, I got one in two big boxes of books for $2. It has 800
rhymes, so it'll take a long time to go through it properly. My
previous largest collection has 700+. One neat thing is the hundreds of
original woodcuts they reproduce. Just thumbing through I've already
stumbled on a few neat things. It has, for example, "Hickety, pickety,
i-silicity" which appeared for the first time in my collection on one of
the Mother Goose record albums. Now I can rest easy it's "for real".
In my list of favorites on my web page I include "Moses supposes his
toeses are roses". That only appears in one of my books, so I was
afraid it might be a johnny-come-lately. In the "Play It By Ear" cd
trivia q&a game I scavenged on the rainy day at the auction I learned
that rhyme was used in the movie "Singin' In The Rain", which only added
to my nervousness it might be modern. But it's in the Oxford
collection, and I'm sure the Opies weren't using movies as a source. A
shocker is a completely different treatment of my favorite sometimes
titled "Pairs or Pears?":
Twelve pears hanging high,
Twelve knights riding by;
Each knight took a pear,
And yet left eleven there.
Not a dozen; eleven. Huh? The solution is: [Perhaps only Sir
Eachknight took one]. I've uncovered a mystery regarding the woodcuts.
They are all carefully identified as to which book of nursery rhymes
they came from. The Opies must have a copy of "Mother Goose's Melody",
which I probably directed you to on the web. This would be a later
edition of the first book of nursery rhymes using Mother Goose's name.
The one on the web is missing two pages. Without going back to check, I
had some notion it was the only surviving copy. But the Opies use 8
woodcuts from it - three of which are not in the web copy. It's not
impossible that all three could have come from the two missing pages,
but it sure seems highly unlikely. Most pages only have one woodcut.
And the mystery is even greater if the copy on the web is the only
surviving one. I like these lines from the Opies' Preface: "We have no
desire to establish standard texts. Oral tradition recognizes no
'correct' versions: the only defensible version is how one knows it
oneself."
Which relates to Alfred Bigelow Paine's Hollow Tree series books. I'd
be glad to keep a lookout. Of course, the auction is not necessarily
the most fruitful way of tracking down a particular book (i.e., don't
hold your breath), but finding the Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book shows it
can be done.
Haven't remembered to do a quick web search to see if Pussyfoot Johnson
was a real person or a personification of the hatchet-wielding
prohibitionists. I'm guessing the latter.
>Ow is in my Random House Webster's College Dictionary. Isn't it one of
the politer things one says when stuck by a thorn in the garden or when
burning or cutting one's finger in the kitchen?
According to the American Heritage panel of experts, it's OUCH.
'Course, they're all wrong; it's YOWCH. I have distinctly heard this on
many an occasion.
>But what about ta? The Brits would claim it as a legitimate word, as
does my Webster's.
Ah (ahh? ahhh?), but the *American* Heritage panel of experts agree with
me it has never made it's way across the ocean. In spite of its
omnipresence on Scrabble boards, I've never met a Scrabble player who
could define it. The two most prevalent guesses are "a baby word" and
"bye", as in half of ta-ta.
Given that we know that all dictionaries are different, I'd say your
research into
>>AA AE AG AL BA BI DA DE ES ET HM MM JO KA MO NA NE OD OE OM OP OW OY
TA UM XU YA FE KI OI QI ZA
shows how amazingly in agreement our dictionaries are, and, by
extension, how far-fetched the official Scrabble dictionary can be.
>>Which reminds me, I recently found a useful site for listing words
fitting desired constraints. For example, if you want all the 4-letter
"qu" words, you would type in qu?? .
>> http://www.onelook.com/
>And what the heck kind of words are those? What are those words with
numbers? Extra definitions of the same spelling? And since when is an
accent mark added to an e a fourth letter?
First of all, onelook can't and shouldn't be held responsible for what
the 100+ dictionaries it searches contain. If it made decisions like
that it wouldn't be a searching platform, it would be its own
dictionary. I would have written the program the same way. If some
dictionary puts a funny character in position 5, that's what you get.
You can click on the word to go to that dictionary to sort it out.
Second of all, they have that nice "common words only" filter which
weeds out most of the crazy ones.
>How many of those qu?? words would you admit into your Scrabble games?
Probably the exact same ones as in your Random House dictionary.
Getting back to AGILELY, onelook found 6 more examples of that
construction for me: fertilely futilely hostilely puerilely servilely
vilely. I couldn't find any other exceptions, like WHOLLY and WILY,
where the E or L or both get lost in the transformation, but that's
harder to look for.
>>little by little it started hitting me that FINAL doesn't have an E.
Can happen to anyone. That same day I found a misspelling in my
encyclopedia: BENEFICIENT. Should've noted the volume and page in case
anybody wants proof.
If you remember my SNAKERS and SNAILERS anecdote, I realize where I went
astray. The official Scrabble dictionary goes overboard, in my opinion,
making verbs out of animal nouns, like SNAILED and MULED. Somewhere
along the line my righteously indignant brain took it a step further, to
the -ER form.
Best joke in the most recent Boys' Life Thin & Grin:
Jack: How do snowmen travel?
Robert: How?
Jack: By icicle.
Of course, that would benefit from a good, verbal presentation.
Been on a Gilbert and Sullivan kick lately. I read one bio, and near
the end I got around to visiting the later operas as they were dealt
with in the text. The Gondoliers was already out, as you know. I also
dug into The Yeomen Of The Guard and The Grand Duke. That's three of
their last four operas. I don't have Utopia Unlimited. As usual for
me, I pulled out another, bigger, fatter G&S bio and read the
corresponding sections. The first borrowed very heavily from the fat
one. "Yeoman" is odd in that it's a tragedy, or, at least, has a major
tragic element. While everybody is celebrating Elsie and Fairfax's
love, the jester Jack Point dies at Elsie's feet. Took some getting
used to. He was such a neat guy.
Mizan brought up a letter from Geo. Washington mentioned on our
revolutionary walk around Dover's Green. She was right, which is no
surprise; there was a letter from GW in one of the stories. I emailed
Nate, our interpreter, and he was happy to give long, detailed answers
to my questions. Here's a very brief version of the GW one. One of
Delaware's revolutionary era heroes was a man named Richard Bassett.
The funny thing is, in the middle of a long record of exemplary patriot
activity leading up to and continuing after the war, he was a major
player in the Black Munday *tory* uprising which was quelled by Caesar
Rodney in Dover. Who can figure? Opposing politicians used this blot
on his record against him when he was running for governor in
1798. His supporters produced the letter from GW stating how well
Bassett had served him. They circulated a broadside ending with:
The Original Certificate, signed by General Washington, is in the
Possession of a Gentleman residing in New-Castle; any person wishing to
be satisfied of its Authenticity, may, by Application to the Editors of
the Delaware and Eastern Shore Advertiser, be informed where it may
be seen and inspected.
THEE: I didn't know that you worked on the Chanterelle Aguado project!
That's impressive!
THEE: Check out this website. What a place to spend some time.
http://www.usd.edu/smm/SgtPepper.html
ME: Very impressive site. That heart-shaped trumpet still strikes
terror in my heart. (There was a knockout song on each of the four
sides of the album [Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band soundtrack],
though.) I'd like to see some 19th c. American guitars. Here's the
instrument I'd most like to camp out with for an afternoon.
http://www.usd.edu/smm/orchestrion.html
ME: I had a good time today getting started on the Oxford Nursery Rhyme
book. It answers something, I presume correctly, that we speculated on.
Remember good ol'
See-saw, Margery Daw,
The old hen flew over the malt-house.
She counted her chickens one by one,
Still she missed the little white one,
And this is it, this is it, this is it!
?
The Opies place it with the rhymes for counting and playing with baby
toes.
One of my new favorites from today:
Hush-a-baa, baby,
Dinna mak' a din,
An' ye'll get a cakie
When the baker comes in.
Remember my "thing" about "eat" as the past tense of "eat" and
pronounced "et" (sort of like "read" and "read")? Nobody's ever granted
me that one, even though I've since found an online dictionary that
confirms it. But if I needed a smoking gun, I found one in Gilbert &
Sullivan's "The Grand Duke:"
But on the whole,
Uncertain yet,
A sausage-roll
I took and eat.
Yeap, Ludwig sings the rhyme just as expected.
THEE: I was on your website earlier today, looking at the guitar tables
and unexplained science ideas ... pardon me, "undescribed" science
thing, since science does not explain. I had never heard that
expression before. I'm probably not in those levels of science classes
yet.
We start school in three weeks. I hope I haven't forgotten too much
math; I cannot recall the name of the ! symbol. I know it means add up
every number below X, but I just do ont remember the name of the silly
vocabulary word.
ME: As always, thanks for stopping by my home on the web! The general
rule of thumb is that family, friends, and relatives wouldn't consider
it if you stuck their nose in a vise. Which is ok, actually.
I still need somebody to explain the seeming impossibilty of surprises
in our dreams.
Thanks for the youtube recommendation. I'll take a look next time I'm
at the library. Takes too long for electrons to dribble through this
phone line.
To the best of my knowledge my pumpkin sprout is still drilling its way
to China. By the way, I play scrabble with a fascinating man who is a
plant physiologist. He's trying to "crack the secret of plants."
You saw my guitar tablature? It is so simple to play. Pull out a
guitar, and you'll be outplaying your dad in minutes.
Of course you've never heard anyone say "Science describes; science does
not explain." The schools are all part of the conspiracy.
6! is called "6 factorial", and it's the *product* of 6 and every number
below 6. Factorials get real big, real fast.
I added a killer Mother Goose book to my collection at the Dover auction
on Friday. It's called the Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. It has 800 of
'em. Spent some time today incorporating them into my master index.
Here's one of my favorite new ones. If this doesn't turn a little kid
into a bent twig, nothing will.
Hokey, pokey, whisky, thum,
How d'you like potatoes done?
Boiled in whisky, boiled in rum,
Says the King of the Cannibal Islands.
THEE: Tonight it's almost time to start DVD 3 or a BBC adaptation of
Dicken's Bleak House. Those Brits know how to adapt a massive novel.
It can only have a chance of being good by being a l-o-n-g adaptation.
Neat thing is that, although the first episode was an hour, the others
have all been 30 minutes. It's easy to watch 30, 60, 90, or even 120
minutes (or more, although I haven't) at a shot, as it strikes one
fancy.
THEE: Stopping an hour or so in Lindsborg, KS, on my way north, too. We
discovered it on a fun trip to South Dakoka Badlands and Black Hills
during spring break many years ago. Neat town.
THEE:
>The book is "The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book" by the Opies.
Who, pray tell, are the Opies?
> Twelve pears hanging high,
> Twelve knights riding by;
> Each knight took a pear,
> And yet left eleven there.
>Not a dozen; eleven. Huh? The solution is: [Perhaps only Sir
Eachknight took one].
Or Sir Each Knight took a pair and the others took one?
>I also showed him your "place" and "plant" photos, in violation of the
rules. Wanna spill the beans? Don't know if trying to use the web
would pay off.
Aha! I named the place for you in the e-mail and figured that one was
far too easy. Without looking, think music. As for the plant, do you
recall the single stem from the trip to the salt marsh preserve?
>According to the American Heritage panel of experts, it's OUCH.
'Course, they're all wrong; it's YOWCH. I have distinctly heard this on
many an occasion.
No, it's OOO-CHAY. Ask any Italian. There's kinda a funny story to go
with this. Rinaldo initially learned most of his English from Evelyn.
One day, for fun, she started whining about her "ouchie," as if she were
a little kid again. A week or so later, he hurt himself somehow, and
blurted out "ouchie!"--adding that he had an "ouchie." Evelyn compared
this to his once having referred to a rabbit as a "bunny" after she had
done so. I can say those words, but people will look at you strangely
if you do," she explained. "Men don't use those words." That's when he
told her that the explanation for "ouch" or "ow" in Italian is
pronounced "ooo-chay." (I'm not sure of the spelling.) He has assumed
that "ouchie" was the English equivalent and happy to find such a
similar, easy-to-remember word.
>That same day I found a misspelling in my encyclopedia: BENEFICIENT.
Should've noted the volume and page in case anybody wants proof.
Proofreading errors sneak in everywhere, don't they? You ought to see
some of those I find in textbooks. One of my favorites is in an
exercise that asks students to distinguish between dependent and
independent clauses in sentences. One sentence ends with a group of
underlined words, which the answer key indicates are an independent
clause. There's just one problem. If you read the full sentence rather
than glancing only at what's underlined, the clause is dependent. The
underlined words are preceeded by "because." It was clearly a mistake
on someone's part because without the dependent clause, this would have
been a run-on sentence. I use the exercise to give an extra credit
bonus to anyone who finds the error. Of course, the students don't have
the answer key, but I tell them to read every sentence carefully and
consider the structure of each. A few sharp students find it, but only
a few--something like one per class. Occasionally none, never more than
two.
>Best joke in the most recent Boys' Life Thin & Grin:
>Jack: How do snowmen travel? Robert: How? Jack: By icicle.
>Of course, that would benefit from a good, verbal presentation.
Groan . . . . Didn't even hit me until you said that. Just looked like
two words and was mildly funny. You're right that it would improve with
the right oral delivery.
>The 100 Guitar cd I sent to Vincent in Portugal came back a few days
ago marked "Endereco insuficiente/Adresse insuffisante". You wouldn't
believe the effort I went to to make sure I got it in the precise form
of a Portuguese address.
THEE: This is what we do best, these weeklong driving trips meandering
all over the landscape. (Three memorable ones:
1) spring of '03: down to Memphis via Rt. 81 across Virginia, then over
to Chattanooga and back;
2) summer of '03: circumnavigating Lake Erie, hitting Pittsburgh,
Cleveland, Dayton, Detroit, and cutting across mostly agrarian Ontario
to Niagara Falls; then across New York state via Rt. 90, heading south
at Binghamton via Rt. 81;
3) summer of '05: down through Virginia, stopping at Roanoke, on into
Tennessee and then Kentucky, and after seeing Mammoth Cave heading north
into Indiana, where we visited Wolf Park before heading straight east
across Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania.)
The destinations are, to be sure, not as important as the experience of
discovering odd and out-of-the-way attractions, too numerous to mention
here (maybe if I start my own web page)...
Excellent and as usual very thorough stuff on the British Embassy
incident; fun tidbits on Scrabble; and science describing, not
explaining.
ME: The potatoes that were cooling on the stove were the best ever.
Moral: always let them cool way down first.
An internet search on the number of blocks per mile is pretty
disappointing. You'd think that someone somewhere would have taken it
upon himself to define a "standard block", but it doesn't look like it.
So everyone who chimes in says the same thing about, "it depends on the
city you're in." Good grief. Anyhow, it seems like most answers say 8
to 12 or 13 or 16. So when I said an eighth of a mile, that would be
about the longest.
You were right about the cerebellum:
>The cerebellum is located in the inferior posterior portion of the head
(the hindbrain), directly dorsal to the pons, and inferior to the
occipital lobe (Figs. 1 and 3). Because of its large number of tiny
granule cells, the cerebellum contains nearly 50% of all neurons in the
brain, but it only takes up 10% of total brain volume. The cerebellum
receives nearly 200 million input fibers; in contrast, the optic nerve
is composed of a mere one million fibers.
I had mentioned the use of the word "axe" for "ask" in an old British
nursery rhyme. I found it again in a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta,
Ruddigore. Richard says: "But, axin' your pardon, miss..." and, later,
"Ax your honour's pardon, but..." Admittedly, he's *supposed* to sound
like a low-class sailor.
About me trying to bring a little happiness in the world via scrabble.
Keep in mind it's only one of hundreds of things I've been bending over
backwards trying to offer the world for decades. So far the world has
snarled, "You CANNOT share anything with me," but what am I supposed to
do? Crawl in a hole and watch tv 20 hours a day?
Just for you, here are some nice Mother Goose rhymes I've found in my
latest book. I don't intend to add them to my Mother Goose web page,
which is already too big for anybody to read.
Hush-a-baa, baby,
Dinna mak' a din,
An' ye'll get a cakie
When the baker comes in.
***
Hokey, pokey, whisky, thum,
How d'you like potatoes done?
Boiled in whisky, boiled in rum,
Says the King of the Cannibal Islands.
***
Hush-a-ba birdie, croon, croon,
Hush-a-ba birdie, croon,
The sheep are gane to the silver wood,
And the cows are gane to the broom, broom.
And it's braw milking the kye, kye,
It's braw milking the kye,
The birds are singing, the bells are ringing,
The wild deer come galloping by, by.
And hush-a-ba birdie, croon, croon,
Hush-a-ba birdie, croon,
The gaits are all gane to the mountain hie,
And they'll no be hame till noon, noon.
***
The man in the mune
is making shune,
Tuppence a pair an'
they're a' dune.
THEE: Hi! I didn't know there was a Dover Scrabble Club. The only one
I could find was one in Wilmington and that's too far to drive. Can you
give me more info on the club please?
ME: Easiest thing is to give a call. 678-7100
THEE: Dear Donald, I've got it! You don't imagine how happy I was when I
saw it in the letterbox. There is a "but", a big "BUT" (!!!), I've
discovered that the disc you have is differente from the one my parents
have!!! Don't think I'm not happy anyway. I'm listening to it now and
it's the same musical group, the same sound I've been liking for 40
years. I've descovered a little (or big) brother of the disc I know, in
some way. What I don't understand is that my parent's disc has the same
name: "Orquesta Popular de Madrid de La O. N.C.E.: One Hundred Guitars".
I must understand that several albums were done with this name which is
in fact the musical group name. Donald, there is only one thing that can
be done now: I'll have to manage to find a way to digitalize my parents'
disc! It's gonna be hard work but, sure I'll send you a copy one day.
Just don't ask me when! On thursday I go to france for 2 weeks. I'll
see what more information there is on the cover of the disc and I'll
send this information to you. After I'll see what I can do...
In the end, all this is probably the best thing that could happen. I
really think so.
I'll keep you informed.
This story has no end :)
ME: What a surprise! Keep me informed when you solve the "mystery"!
THEE: Have you ever considered the similarity between Get Back and Perry
Como's Catch a Falling Star?
ME: No, I never considered the Get Back/Catch A Falling Star connection,
but I'm chuckling right now playing the main lines mentally :-) Good
"catch"!
ME: I was referred to you in regards to my effort to convert my home to
all eletric. I have a 19-year-old double-wide manufactured home in
Dover, Delaware. I feel certain I could increase my comfort, lower my
utility bills, and simplify my life by converting everything - furnace,
water heater, and stove - from gas to electricity. A side benefit would
be getting an explosive out of my home.
Last year I tried to get rolling on this under my own steam, calling
contractors about putting in a packaged heat pump. I struck out with
them. They give me the impression I am doing something very out of the
ordinary. They either don't want anything to do with it, or try to
steer me clear of a packaged heat pump. Is there something basically
wrong with the idea that I don't understand? Isn't it a straightforward
matter to calculate the operating costs of such a heat pump vs. gas
furnace vs. electric furnace to see what to see what the savings would
be?
The second part of the idea is on-demand hot water, since I only run a
bit of hot water once or twice a day. Surely, it can't make sense for a
single person with my life style to keep 30 gallons of water heated all
the time, while, incidentally, sending lots of wasted heat up through
the heater's flue. But, again, it all depends on calculations of
upfront costs of tank vs. tankless and the respective monthly bills.
The issue of the hot water also gets me into rerouting of the plumbing.
If the gas furnace is replaced with a packaged heat pump outside, the
available spot would seem to make a perfect, more centralized, place for
the hot water heater. It is currently far away from where I use hot
water.
I want to convert one unneeded bathroom into a storage room, and it
would make sense to do it along with everything else since the plumbing
is being rerouted, anyway.
All of this is to say that I need an expert for the energy studies and
to coordinate the project. I'd like to have this done before the
furnace, air conditioner, and hot water heater start going up one by
one. They're all living on borrowed time as it is. I really dread
having to put up with the racket of the wind rush created by the gas
furnace one more winter.
Hoping you can help, or put me on the right track. Thanks.
ME: twelve poems of emily dickinson, baltimore, 1970
Hi Ruth,
I recently found a copy of your record, "Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
set to music by Aaron Copland" among some boxes of records at the
auction here in Dover, Delaware. I am first and foremost an opera buff,
but that sounding interesting, not to mention, the cover sure *looked*
to be autographed by Aaron Copland! It said,
For Ruth and Arno Drucker
with my deep appreciation for
their superb
performance
of these
songs
Aaron Copland
Baltimore
1970
On closer inspection, I'm not sure it's a handwritten inscription. The
black ink seems to have the reflective quality as the printed matter on
the cover. Also, his use of the word "their" instead of "your" seems to
be a clue it was written for the public.
Do you remember this album? Maybe a dumb question, but it was a private
pressing by the Bradley Recording Co., Baltimore, Maryland, and it's not
a given that a copy made its way back to you.
My best guess is that Copland made the inscription on program the day of
the performance, and that was used as the album cover. Of course, I'd
like to find out it's a *real* autograph!
As far as I can tell, there is not a hint of a mention of this album on
the web. But my search brought me to yours and Arno's neat site - very
heartwarming to find you all alive and kicking and together after all
those decades!
Anything you can tell me about the inscription? Do you need a copy of
the recording on cd?
Thanks for your help, and thanks for the nice album!
THEE: Re: twelve poems of emily dickinson, baltimore, 1970
How lovely of you to write. That was a very special performance in our
musical life. We performed (this was a live performance that was
captured on tape) on Copland's 70th birthday concert in Baltimore, MD.
After the performance he came on stage crying and said "You made me
forget I wrote those songs" and autographed our copy of the music. Of
course I still have that original music. It was one of the first
performances we had given in Baltimore having arrived in 1967 for my
husband to get his DMA degree at Peabody with Leon Fleisher. We had
Bradley make the LP for us - a limited private pressing, of course, and
have no idea how it made its way to Dover, Delaware, unless a former
student of mine was giving away his/her old LP's. Thanks for your
offer- but we have transferred the original tape to a CD. I am on a few
commercial recordings - not opera - contemporary music by Larry Moss and
another by Gordon Cyr (composers who wrote for us and are/were friends -
Cyr is recently deceased).
Thanks for your email - glad you enjoyed those beautiful songs.
Ruth L. Drucker
Arno P. Drucker
Baltimore, MD
ME: Thanks so much for the interesting background on the performance and
recording. I grew up outside of Baltimore, by the way. Even though
it's not Copland's actual ink on the cover, it'll remain a very special
record in my collection. I'll tell everybody it even has his tears on
it. Speculating on the travels of a record is pretty futile. There was
one in that batch that had an owner's address label from Chicago.
30-plus years after the compact disc, any record that's avoided the dump
should thank its lucky stars.
P.S. You can hear some pieces recorded by my classical guitar trio
here. I like the extremes of Canone Breve and Plunkety Plunk
Schottische.
http://www.dcguitar.net/
THEE: I was in the very late stages of "ataxia" [as one doctor Glasby
put it] I need to look that up when at home. Good thing I have
dictionarys. By the way, the newest is American Collegiate printed 2005
. Thankfully, my mgr. gave me coupons worth $60. or $80 and I used it at
"Barnes & Noble" for said dictionary. [maybe I had to add cash, but it's
nice to have a large, newer version in edition in addition to the older
2 versions that do have valuable information. You know that words do
really change? [for example, the "King James" has meanings that are
opposite of what modern man would expect Theresa told me and I do
believe her] She used a 1900's dictionary to look up some words.
THEE: axe is not aks
ME: So far, the fingernail splits haven't hit I M or A. In fact, it
looks like two of them on my left hand are closing up, so maybe it's not
as threatening as it seemed.
WORK UP TWO MORE PIECES.
NOW!!!
:-)
ME:
>>The book is "The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book" by the Opies.
>Who, pray tell, are the Opies?
The Opies are the bomb. Iona and Peter Opie came up in earlier
conversation as the editors of that cool book, "The Classic Fairy
Tales", which collected the earliest english versions of the most well-
known fairy tales. Remember? when Goldilocks was a little, old silver-
haired woman?
Wanna hear some of my favorite new ones from the Oxford book?
THE TURNIP VENDOR
If a man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
It is proof that he would rather
Have a turnip than his father.
***
PUNCTUATE
King Charles the First walked and talked
Half an hour after his head was cut off.
The Oxford book cleared up questions I had about a few of the rhymes.
For example, one of my books has:
Gray goose and gander,
Waft your wings together,
And carry the good king's daughter
Over the one stand river.
I couldn't figure out the last line for anything. But the Oxford book
has, "Over the one-strand river", which makes perfect sense.
By the way, do you know A. A. Milne's poem "Disobedience"? I think it's
great. I found it in a book at the auction the other day. Krystal and
Mizan were around so I read it to Mizan, substituting her name to the
best of my ability. It made no impression, other than relief at getting
it over with. Oh well, I try.
I *thought* I found an autographed Aaron Copland record at the auction
last week. It was called "Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson set to music
by Aaron Copland". Across the cover and through some of the printed
text, even, was scrawled:
For Ruth and Arno Drucker
with my deep appreciation for
their superb
performance
of these
songs
Aaron Copland
Baltimore
1970
On closer inspection, the black ink of the inscription looked to be the
same as the printed material. I went to the web to research it. Not a
peep on that album. (What else is new?) But it led me to the web site
of the performers, who seem to be going strong all these decades later.
I've gotten other nice records and neat, old games lately. One favorite
record is Marian Anderson singing spirituals (1962). The neatest old
game is called "Dig", by Parker Brothers. A huge pile of cardboard
squares with letters represents the goldmine. The players have these
pickaxes with a sticky pad on the end and use it to pick letters from
the pile to form a word in front of them/him/you know what I mean,
according to the subject on a chosen card. Of course, the stickum is
all gone after 60 years, but I found some foam insulation tape that does
a good job. The rules make it clear that, "Formal dress is not
essential; although it would make a pretty picture."
Thanks for the "Mesopotamia" lady research. It could easily be a pure
coincidence, but W. S. Gilbert did something kind of similar in
Ruddigore. Mad Margaret could be calmed down with the word
"Basingstoke", which is hauled out about 8 times in one of the passages.
Ruddigore also has a couple of "ax"es for "ask".
>Aha! I named the place for you in the e-mail and figured that one was
far too easy. Without looking, think music.
This raises the profound question, can a clue be a clue if there's no
clue that a clue was given? But now that I know, here's my guesses for
the Place: 1. the Old Camp Ground; 2. Marching through Georgia; 3. Down
Upon the Swanee River. Getting warm?
>As for the plant, do you recall the single stem from the trip to the
salt marsh preserve [Bombay Hook]?
Whoops, I can't get that to come to mind. But that's really neat.
Whatever it is, don't let it take over Oklahoma. I tried to get some
purple dandelions from Montana to grow in my yard in Maryland, but no
luck.
Speaking of a poor memory, while searching for something on my computer
I discovered I sent you the same "do brown" citation twice, probably
with the same dopey comments, forcing you to politely respond without
saying, "How come you're telling me that again?" Ooo-chay.
>One of my favorites is in an exercise that asks students to distinguish
between dependent and independent clauses in sentences.
I've always had to stop a fraction of a second to determine which is
which. I mean, conceptually, I know instantly whether a clause is
independent or dependent; it just takes moment to choose the right word.
If that sounds funny, I'm sure it has to do with the word "independent"
being made from, or *dependent* on, the word "dependent". So the words
themselves behave opposite to the concepts they're assigned to.
Hey, if you think that's dumb, I played "QUAFT" in scrabble the other
week. Plopped it down without the least inkling something might be
amiss. Guess I was woolgathering about wafting along on a raft,
quaffing a tall, cold root beer. There's the life!
"Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" brings to mind a story I just read,
"The Camp-Meeting", by Baynard Rust Hall. It was pretty humorous; lots
of fun dialect to "translate". Biggest stumper was "juul". It sent me
to my encyclopedia to learn up on John Calvin and Servetus. Found
another typo: "God is in the spendor of the stars."
>>Jack: How do snowmen travel? Robert: How? Jack: By icicle.
>>Of course, that would benefit from a good, verbal presentation.
>Groan . . . . Didn't even hit me until you said that. Just looked like
two words and was mildly funny. You're right that it would improve with
the right oral delivery.
Hey! No fair groaning at something so subtle it took an explanation to
get! But thanks for the gentle nudge toward proper word usage. I was
never confident about "verbal", and I'll bet I hesitated when I got to
it in that sentence. The usage note in my dictionary has me cleared up
now. I think it's the word "verbalize" that causes the trouble. Seems
like that should be "oralize" to keep everything straight.
>Where are your e-mails going? I didn't receive this one either!
That's, what, three missing e-mails? Please resend.
THEE: In your reading, have you come across the word "scroot" as it
would fit this context: "I remember when he was just a scroot." Must
be something derrogatory similar to a "mutt" because it appears in a
cartoon in which the [CANINE] is parading proudly between two rows of
onlooking dogs. One of the other dogs makes the comment above. Online
I've found a couple of definitions: "a flirt" and "someone who looks or
searches" (from scrutiny). Clearly, neither fits. The word also
appears in the Peter Tamony Papers at the Western Historical Manuscript
Collection, State Historical Society of MO. I know the collection from
having looked at it several years ago. It's a series of very sketchy
linguistic notes compiled over the years by Tamony from his reading.
THEE: pumpkin going to fair #1
Could'nt resist puttin this baby in the Timonium Fair. Guaranteed 1'st
place. I'll send you some other pics individually, because they go a lot
quicker that way.
ME: I liked this picture of the big (ugly) pumpkin my brother entered in
the Maryland State Fair. The kids aren't related.
THEE: mini pumpkins
Figured I'd enter these in the mini pumpkin category. Didn't see many
others , so might win that blue ribbon too!
ME: Fwd: mini pumpkins
Now *those* are pumpkins!
THEE:
> Hokey, pokey, whisky, thum,
> How d'you like potatoes done?
> Boiled in whisky, boiled in rum,
> Says the King of the Cannibal Islands.
Love that rhyme . . .
> Hush-a-ba birdie, croon, croon,
> Hush-a-ba birdie, croon,
> The sheep are gane to the silver wood,
> And the cows are gane to the broom, broom.
> And it's braw milking the kye, kye,
> It's braw milking the kye,
> The birds are singing, the bells are ringing,
> The wild deer come galloping by, by.
So 'tis fine milking the cows, is it? Better brush up on my Scots.
> And hush-a-ba birdie, croon, croon,
> Hush-a-ba birdie, croon,
> The gaits are all gane to the mountain hie,
> And they'll no be hame till noon, noon.
>***
> PUNCTUATE
> King Charles the First walked and talked;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> Half an hour after,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, his head was cut off.
>>Aha! I named the place for you in the e-mail and figured that one was
far too easy. Without looking, think music.
>This raises the profound question, can a clue be a clue if there's no
clue that a clue was given? But now that I know, here's my guesses for
the Place: 1. the Old Camp Ground; 2. Marching through Georgia; 3. Down
Upon the Swanee River. Getting warm?
Yup, it's the Swanee River a little over an hour from Tallahassee.
Meredith and I went hiking at Swannee River State Park one day.
>>As for the plant, do you recall the single stem from the trip to the
salt marsh preserve?
>Whoops, I can't get that to come to mind. But that's really neat.
Whatever it is, don't let it take over Oklahoma. I tried to get some
purple dandelions from Montana to grow in my yard in Maryland, but no
luck.
It was one of the freebies, and the hummingbirds love it. Actually, I
ended up with two stems--mine and H~~'s because she's not allowed to
plant anything in the "landscaped" garden area by her door. And, yes,
the bee balm might take over Oklahoma . . . as least a yard on Quoza
Court.
>I've always had to stop a fraction of a second to determine which is
which. I mean, conceptually, I know instantly whether a clause is
independent or dependent; it just takes moment to choose the right word.
If that sounds funny, I'm sure it has to do with the word "independent"
being made from, or *dependent* on, the word "dependent". So the words
themselves behave opposite to the concepts they're assigned to.
Sheesh . . . I''d better not ever mention that to my students. Here's
my highbrow explanation of dependent and independent clauses, which I
hope I didn't send at some time in the past. Somehow I think Frances P.
may have come up, at least.
Back around 1960, Frances P. Dolliver, passed out a stack of old purple
ditto copies to a class full of disbelieving students. On the paper was
an outline of a trailer attached to a car. She handed each student a
black crayon and a red crayon. "This is the big black Buick and the
little red trailer," she said. "Color the car black and the trailer
red." We had long suspected that ol' Miss Dolliver was senile, but this
confirmed it.
But we were obedient little tykes and colored our pictures. Then she
explained that the big black Buick was the independent clause that could
go by itself, but the little red trailer had to be attached to the big
black Buick in order to move.
Many years later when several of my old friends and I all ended up home
in Des Moines at the same time and got together, we started recalling
funny school experiences. Someone asked, "Do you remember the day that
Miss Dolliver made us color that picture in class?"
"Yeah, what was that, anyway?"
"It was a car and a trailer."
"The big black Buick and the little red trailer."
"Oh, yeah! What was the point?"
Simultaneously, we all blurted out, "The independent and dependent
clause!"
That was when we realized that ol' Miss Dolliver wasn't as dumb as we
thought. Everyone remembered.
There's something else she told us that I didn't remember as well,
however. I thought I remembered her telling us that her father was a
former Iowa governor. Turns out Jonathan Prentis Dolliver was both a
U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Iowa, who died in office in
1910 while in the Senate. We always suspected she was about 115,
herself, especially since my parents had also been her students and
thought she was at least 80 then. Here's something I found on
Wikipedia:
A famous political quotation is attributed to Dolliver. Referring to his
home state's traditional allegiance with the Republican Party, Dolliver
said, "Iowa will go Democratic when Hell goes Methodist."
The boys in our class entertained themself with rapidly chanting her
first name, middle initial, and last name over and over.
Any idea where that concept of woolgathering comes from? Seems like
woolgathering ought to be industrious, but I guess people don't exactly
gather wool, do they? Maybe that's the point?
I'll end with my funny (?) story of the day. Around 1:00, I stopped at
a McDonalds for the sole purpose of a restroom stop. As I turned in, I
suddenly realized that the drive was blocked by a charter Trailways bus,
and I was thus stuck blocking the entrance for about 5 minutes while a
seemingly endless line of oldsters slowly de-bussed. Finally, I was
able to park. You can guess the rest. By the time I got inside, about
25 gray, white, and purple-haired women were in line in front of me.
Still, I left the parking lot ahead of the bus.
At 3:30, I reached my day's destination in Salina and checked in. Then
I returned to my car from the few items that needed to come in for the
night. As I exited the motel, what should I see but the same tour bus
pulling up to the main entrance. As I gathered my belongings, the
adroit bus driver and tour guides were rapidly unloading bags by the
scores, and lining them up from the bus to the pillars supporting front
portion of the entryway. Between the luggage and the hedges, the entry
was effectively barracaded. I headed around the building to find
another way in. Since I was headed to the third floor and was fairly
well loaded down, I next headed to the elevator . . . You can imagine
the rest.
These folks are headed south on I-35 just as I am. It'll be interesting
to see if they continue on I-35 or turn East in Oklahoma as I will.
We're getting to be old friends.
THEE: Neat picture, Donald. And, yes, that's a big, ugly pumpkin. Too
bad thekids aren't related. They're cuter than the pumpkin.
ME: fransa speed oliver fransa speed oliver fransa speed oliver fransa
speed oliver
Funny story about that twilight zone-y bus. It reminds me of one of the
dreams I recount on my dream page, although it's a station wagon, not a
bus. Here's the address of that masterpiece:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/dreams.htm
>In fact, I sallied forth for some shopping
I spelled SALLIES in scrabble a week or so ago. When I recounted this
to Bennie, he had never heard of "sally" or "sally forth". Nobody knows
everything, but that surprised me.
>and turned around to get my car safely back in the garage in case hail
was to accompany the downpour.
I used to predict hail storms. [See my "Most this and that in my life"
page.]
Will see the family on Sunday. I'll find out how Steven's pumpkins did.
He gave a seed apiece to brother-in-law Tom and me, neither of which
produced. (Antecedent could be the seeds or the planters, no matter.)
Steven wanted some competition. He says disgustedly, "*You guys* . . ."
I did the best I could.
> PUNCTUATE
> King Charles the First walked and talked;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> Half an hour after,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, his head was cut off.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
King Charles the First walked and talked half an hour :-(
after his head was cut off! :-)
Get with it.
I let somebody outbid me on an old "Fairy Tales from Shakespeare" book
the other day. Actually, I won the bid, but there was a mix-up, and
Blake started the books over again, and that's when I let it go.
>Yup, it's the Swanee River a little over an hour from Tallahassee.
That was really my first guess, although I thought it was 56 minutes.
>And, yes, the bee balm might take over Oklahoma . . . as least a yard
on Quanah Court.
Aha, "bee balm" did it. That brings back a weak but definite memory of
the stems or cuttings.
>>I think it's the word "verbalize" that causes the trouble. Seems like
that should be "oralize" to keep everything straight.
>Makes sense to me.
Maybe another excuse is a trip in my college years to the drug store
with college buddy Ron Takemoto (with the $100 last name). He was
looking for a thermometer and the salesgirl asked, "Oral?" Ron said,
"No, verbal."
THEE: Hello, I greatly enjoyed reading all you had written. I was in
search of a resolution to my quest regarding music of Ringo when I
happened upon your site. Now for my plea.... many many years ago I was
married to a wonderful man who has since passed away. My heart is
yearning to hear a beautiful song by Ringo that was on one of his albums
in the very early 70's. My husband was a musician (drummer) with a small
country group that traveled the midwest trying to "make it" the name of
the group was Larry Good & The Good times, but neither here nor there
for my quest and hearts desire is to hear this song my husband brought
home & played over & over for me saying he heard it and had to have it
as it always brought me closer. It had a beginning of Oh darlin' I
believe. If you could help me by giving me somewhere to hear albums of
this time period I know I would recognize it. It was never a big hit or
anything I just believe it was on Ringos first album relaease I'm just
not sure. I know this sounds crazy but I am in very bad health and know
I will be with my beloved John soon I would like to hear this song one
more time. I know I have given you very little and you may not even be
bothered but I would appreciate some guidance.
ME: I really wish I could help, but the song you describe doesn't ring
any bells. Would you say the song was country-flavored? Ringo had a
country album, but none of the songs seem to match the lyric you
remember.
THEE: Croquet Question
I've searched dozens of sites, reading countless versions of croquet
rules. No one has addressed this issue and you are the only one kind
enough to offer an email address for questions - so here goes: Sunday
here was cool, sunny and gorgeous. Perfect weather to break out the
croquet set - for the first time in 20 years. Like riding a bicycle, we
assumed it would all come back to us. For the most part, we were right.
Until my brother - let's call him The Cheater - began playing with a new
strategy. Rather than trying to advance through the wickets, he was
chasing his opponents' balls in an attempt to roquet them into the
stratosphere. My feeling is that, if you accidentally strike an
opponent's ball AS YOU PROCEED THROUGH THE COURSE!!! then, by all means,
roquet away. He says it's perfectly fair to intentionally bypass the
wickets, roquet your opponents, then go backwards and go through the
wickets. Any insight you can give would be most appreciated since we
nearly came to blows over this. Thank you!
ME: Sure, I'll talk about recreational croquet any time! What baffles
me the most about The Cheater's behavior is how it could possibly pay
off. Yeah, a player is free to whack his ball in any direction and
chase after other players, it's just so near-impossible to have any
success at it. If he does get lucky and hit a ball 40 feet away, and
then makes a roquet, he's left with one shot to get back to where he
started. What's the advantage? And he can't try to hit that ball again
until his next turn. And if he ever misses one of these long shots,
then the other person is likely to have a good shot at him to get two
extra shots. If you're saying he thinks he can go through the wickets
in his own personalized order, no way!
Is there any chance you're using some sort of rules that allow for the
accumulation of strokes and THE CHEATER has a way of keeping going
forever?
Anyhow, my best advice is to take a close look at the recreational rules
on my page. They might not correspond exactly to any particular set of
tournament rules anywhere, but I promise you they have worked to
perfection with any and all croquet players of any age or ability I have
ever met.
Hope I answered your question. Let me know if I missed the boat.
THEE: Here's an interesting website sent to me by Meghan:
http://www.librarything.com/
THEE: Of course, she's getting a letter today and photos [including a
copy of the MRI showing that BIG tumor removed from my cerebullum].
Would you believe that my brain has filled in to the space formerly
occupied by aforementioned yuckiness? You'll laugh but I think I'm more
intelligent now! Well, I'd better send this before it's lost in
cyberspace.
ME: You can also be a guinea pig on my most recent beatle-related page:
http://www.donaldsauter.com/john-lennon.htm
I'd hate to think that I'm deluding myself that it's not a typical pop
star page and that "outsiders" could find lots of funny bits if they
looked. Or maybe just wonder at who would concoct such a thing.
Here's how intellectual I am in my spare moments: there is little I
enjoy more than settling down to a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle on some
aspect of this country's history (I have three that I've finished in the
last 15 months: The Civil War, Historic Maryland, and Historic
Washington, D.C.--they're all White Mountain puzzles, and they are a
dilettante's dream. You get to pretend you're learning history while
you're simply goofing around)...I bought the D.C. puzzle on our recent
trip and finished it in my spare moments at work, where I have a nice
table to spread puzzles on.
Our trip went well. We like to pretend we're doing something
educational, and for once, we really did. The big stops that day were
at an artist's studio in Eastern shore Virginia (Turner Sculpture,
Onley, Virginia) (completely unplanned, the best kind of discovery--
these folks do fantastic work, mostly of natural settings: herons,
eagles, otters, etc.), at the restaurant in the middle of the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge Tunnel (saw dolphins swimming close to the shoreline--cool!),
and at the Virginia Living Museum. The next day, after spending the
night in Richmond, we took in Monticello and Ashlawn/Highland, where
Monroe lived. (Missed, however, the Presidential Trifecta by not having
time for nearby Montpelier, where Jemmy Madison lived.) Rose wanted to
see some Shakespeare, so that evening we raced to Staunton to see a
production of The Winter's Tale. From there we took the Blue Ridge
Parkway toward Tennessee, and made it to Gatlinburg; then we spent most
of the next two days in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park--
spectacular terrain. We gave up on getting into Kentucky, though we did
get to Cherokee, North Carolina, which turned out to be a big
disappointment (we had remembered it as a cool place--it wasn't). On
our leisurely drive back we stopped at Harper's Ferry, so we got a
little bit more historical perspective. All in all, a long trip (1700+
miles in 7 days), but an enjoyable one, and the key thing: we were not
working!
If you don't mind I'd like to hang onto The Coil Of Life for a bit
longer, since it's taking me a while to slog through it (though I have
to say, I find it fascinating--it's all brand new to me).
ME: Thanks for the feedback on the "John Lennon" page. I'm afraid maybe
it's too much for you to slow your Mach 3 brain down to my my brain's
old, beat-up, bi-plane functionality. :) The page is not meant to be a
John Lennon bio or fan tribute or artist appreciation or personality
parade-type article, or anything else, for that matter, that any known
publisher would touch. That's the glory of the web. Even though I use
Lennon to snag readers, it's about all kinds of things: British beggars,
spoonerisms, evolution, the trials and tribulations of transcribing
speech, unconscioius plagiarism, the amazingness of a 10-watt college
radio station, Shakespeare (although, admittedly, I forwent this
opportunity to try to inform the world that it was really Edward de
Vere), Yoko Ono's art before joining the Beatles, Watergate tapes,
memories playing fantastic tricks . . . and funny, funny, funny! (Sez
me.) It's more about some guy and his odd collection of interests and
offbeat way of looking at things and digging up funny little connections
than about Lennon.
Most concerned about:
>The interview tapes are hard to follow, not having either the book or
the tape at my fingertips
There was nothing to follow; each excerpt was self-contained. Nobody
needs the book or the tape; I provide them both. Slow that brain down!
Kind of curious about:
>the real Lennon and not the one the media has created since his death.
Not so sure what the media has created since I'm almost totally
disconnected (no radio, tv, or major newspaper). Still, if the media
presents Lennon as a saint, or great artistic genius, or the "only"
Beatle, I think I would know about that. As far as I can tell, the
media has let him fade away to almost complete nothingness - the end
result of most pop artistry. The Chinese restaurant I visit once a
month with a Kumon instructor friend has a feed, or a tape, with a muzak
version of Jealous Guy. That might be about the only public John Lennon
I've been subjected to in the last 5 or 10 years, or more.
In any case, now that I've put so much effort into my Beatle Talk tapes
and the Lennon page, it'd be unnatural if I didn't do the same for the
other three. For whatever reasons, mostly that Lennon had a bigger
mouth, I guess, the others will be lucky if I can squeeze out two
screen's worth. George and Ringo are groovy guys; McCartney interview
material is painfully worthless, for content and entertainment value.
Did you know that George formed the Beatles?
What does Tennessee have in common with Delaware?
Hang onto The Coil Of Life as long as you want. I'm glad it interests
you that much.
ME: spence's auction
Attention, please. Would the person who stole the souvenir bottle of
vodka from Cancun at last Friday's auction please have someone return
the empty bottle to the office anytime. It has great sentimental value.
$20 reward. No questions asked. Thank you.
ME: 3 days later, no reply to fransa, nor any of the 3 biggies.
>Where are the B-I-G ones? Or have they fallen into the black holes of
cyberspace again?
Now does this mean you didn't get my email from less than an hour before
on the same day with a subject starting "fransa", or the fwds of the
three missing emails that followed? Even I'm starting to wonder if
something funny is going on. Anybody policing your emails?
THEE: Don't mistake my meaning re: your Lennon pages. I found them
very entertaining. Whereas you claim to be disconnected from the media,
I can tell you that he's been somewhat canonized by the music media (at
the very least). As a regular reader of several magazines (Uncut, Word,
Paste, Q, Mojo, etc.) that specialize in music, I have read many biased
articles in his favor. Just this past summer, a CD was released
entitled Instant Karma. Its profits are to go to the Darfur relief
efforts, and the CD contains covers of Lennon material by many of
today's mainstream artists. In 2002, Uncut issued a compilation disc
with its October issue--all Lennon covers, and also bearing the title
Instant Karma. Last year (I think--maybe 2005) Mojo or Q released
"Lennon Covered": yet another CD of his material by contemporary
artists. Uncut purports to keep its listeners up to date on new bands,
but they have a big magazine to put out, so every month they have at
least one or two articles on older bands (I suspect their readers aren't
all 20-somethings, but other oldsters such as myself). I'm merely
reporting the general spin on Lennon in their pages. (Lennon comes in a
distant third in their shameless pandering department, no doubt due to
his death. They absolutely love Bob Dylan and have an article on him
every three issues or so; they also fawn all over Paul Weller of the
Jam, a competent rock trio from the late 70s and early 80s. But Lennon
is a close 3rd.)
I would love to read the George Harrison page(s) you propose. Not
interested so much in Ringo or Paul, though I believe there's a wealth
of Paul material to examine. What was that weird radio show Paul did in
the
80s or 90s? [Ooboo Jooboo, I think.] And I recall something about a
secret website connected with him sometime this decade? I'll go
snooping to see what I can find...
I know George turned up on SNL, and played with Carl Perkins and a host
of other rock stars at something I have under the name "A Rockabilly
Session." Some of it's quite good. Also, George had something on the
radio where he played "Rock Island Line". I'm sure this is old news to
you.
Didn't know George started the Beatles. A good case could be made for
the Traveling Wilburys being his as well.
THEE: My McAfee security system has recently undergone some changes,
which might account for the missing emails. I'm not sure why some would
come through and not others, but there's no understanding how email
filters work.
Anyhow, I've discovered a setting to "Add Friends" to my system that is
separate from adding people to my address book. This is supposed to
guarantee that those friends' emails aren't filtered. You're now
officially a "friend." We'll see if those emails rejected at least
twice now come through.
THEE: Do you know anything about a shareware program called Zotero,
created by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason
University. I downloaded it this afternoon and pretty quickly used it
to save all the catalog entries for WC's music at the Library of
Congress. One can also save complete website pages, pdf files, etc. and
highlight and/or add marginal notes. Maybe you'd find a use for it, but
you first need to download the Firefox web browser. Both can be
downloaded at the URL below if you're interested. Try watching the
video tour first, but that may take a trip to the library:
http://dev.zotero.org/
ME: vodka bottle
$20 REWARD
TO: Whoever found a souvenir BOTTLE OF VODKA from Cancun in this area at
last Friday's auction.
The bottle has sentimental value.
Please have someone return the empty bottle to the office anytime. Or
call Don, 678-7100. No questions asked.
Thank you.
ME: Not that this email will ever get to you or anything, but I got word
of my brother's pumpkin [blue ribbon for largest at the Maryland State
Fair in Timonium] appearing on California tv a couple of days ago in the
most round-about way. Dr. Isaac Brown is in Liberia for a conference.
He called his daughter Mavinia at his home in California. He asked what
was going on. She was flipping channels. She said, wow, there's this
great big pumpkin in Baltimore. Since they all had lived in Maryland,
that caught Dr. Brown's attention. He asked for particulars. Mavinia
saw my brother's name on the screen and wasn't sure of the
pronunciation. Dr. Brown asked for the spelling. He recognized it as
being the same as or similar to my name, in other word's "M.V.'s
friend." (Apparently he saw my name once as a potential guest at a
family member's wedding.) Uncle Isaac called his niece Velissa, my
friend, M.V. to her family, in Indianapolis. She set Uncle Isaac
straight, and said, no, that Steven is my brother. Then Velissa called
me, although not about this, but it came out at the end of the
conversation. I passed the story on to Steven, who was floored by it.
Before he left our family get-together on Sunday, he was telling my
father that Phil the Gardener, from Modisto Cal., was putting his
pumpkin on tv, radio, newspapers, etc. So I thought Steven might
already have had word on the tv spot. Turns out he was just pulling our
father's leg about the tv, etc.!
If you remember, I had floored Cyril when I asked him out of the blue,
"Do you know Dr. Isaac Brown?"
ME: to rec.games.board
subject "real word" Scrabble
I tightened up my age-old Scrabble page recently. Also added an
appendix with actual completed Scrabble boards played with
- good words only
- collegiate dictionary
- mixture of 3 sets of tiles
- three-letter minimum
Very gratifying to see the board filled with honest-to-gosh words. Give
it a try some time.
http://www.donaldsauter.com/scrabble.htm
THEE:
>Not that this email will ever get to you or anything,
Wrong this time . . . Maybe my finding that "Friends" list in my McAfee
Spam filter has helped, but I still don't understand why some of your
mail would come through and some would get zapped. Sure makes me
wonder what else I haven't received--not just from you, but from other
people. I think I mentioned the e-mail from Spain, which was sorta--no,
not sorta, but very--important since
So . . . getting back . . . Retry those twice-zapped emails. We'll see
if they're thrice zapped.
And I don't think ice cream on lettuce leaves is ever gonna catch on at
Baskin Robbins. See The Battle at Baltimore, 1912.doc
ME: I have a great little book called "The Dictionary of American
History" by Sol Holt that caught me up with the Taft and Roosevelt
business of the 1912 election. Actually, when it comes to politics, I
don't expect to ever have much of a grip. I see that Roosevelt's
Progressive Party was for "woman suffrage, conservation, minimum wage
laws, abolition of child labor, direct election of senators, initiative,
referendum, recall and other reforms." Does that mean the Republicans
were against all those things? And, if so, did the Democrats find a
third position other than pro or con? Or did the Republicans and
Democrats just pound away at a different set of issues? In other words,
what did "Republican" and "Democrat" mean in 1912? (I'm guessing it
wasn't the same as in 1860!) This is all rhetorical here, of course,
but in my dream world, a book would have appendices for background
information like this. Even if the information is presented at length
and clearly in the main text, such appendices would be extremely
valuable to a reader who is just dipping in or using it as a reference
book or for whatever reason not reading it straight through. I think
I've suggested the same thing for characters who pop up more than just
momentarily. Two or three sentences of relevant biography is worth
fifty page numbers after a name in the index.
Cool to hear about the 5th Regiment Armory in Baltimore. Growing up, we
saw circuses and other things there.
Funny to note that MS Word flunks "outcheer". On Mar 6 1993 Lloyd
played CHEER on triple-word score. I managed to save up O-U-T to make
OUTCHEER to hit another triple-word score. The official Scrabble
dictionary, a concoction of five major dictionaries of the time, said
ixnay to OUTCHEER, and I went on to lose by a few points.
With the mention of Harmon, I realized I wasn't sure how many men were
fighting for the nomination at the 1912 Democratic convention.
I eventually confirmed my suspicion that "Democracy" refers to the
Democratic party ball of wax, whatever that may be at any point in time.
Seems a bit pretentious, and not a little misleading, if you ask me.
>and there I was thinking you'd bought to copies of the Dover Post. Big
deal!
That would have been a BIG deal! considering they throw the things on
our driveways for free, and if I ever need extra copies I can just sneak
around the neighborhood at night.
I'll try to dig up the old emails again. I'd hate to be in your shoes
since, even if the "Friends" list works, it wouldn't help for anyone
emailing you the first time. I've always viewed Norton and McAfee as
viruses themselves. But I'm sure they make a good business at it.
It's a bit coincidental that in recent weeks I stumbled on this same
story of The Star Spangled Banner being performed at the Met. It was on
opening night of the 1918-1919 season, which was Armistice Day. It was
after the first act of Samson et Dalila, which I've been going over
recently. The principals and chorus performed anthems of America,
Britain, France and Italy. As I write this, though, I'm sort of
confused. I don't recall the newspaper article mentioning Samson et
Dalila, which would have instantly tipped me off where I came across the
"same" story recently. Have to double check to see if I'm not confusing
two similar stories. I didn't hang on to the pdf file.
>http://dev.zotero.org/
Didn't have much luck with this. Wouldn't have known what it was about
from the web site without your comments, and never found the video tour.
To be honest, I've never quite figured out the value to me of having
access to the catalogs of millions of libraries. I hardly ever look for
a specific item at the local library. I've searched Worldcat maybe once
or twice for something, but strictly out of curiosity. I remember my
one shot at an inter-library loan, and that was a bad experience.
Still, I presume I'm the one missing something here.
This brings to mind something. Remember from the old Washington Guitar
Society newsletters that the LC music division said they would be happy
to add a bound set to their collection? I think within the last few
years I did everything in my power to find it in the LC catalog, with no
luck. I'll admit, I had been wondering if they were just pulling my
leg. Then again, with all the LC catalogs, I never kidded myself I knew
what I was doing. You wanna show me how a pro does it?
>Here's an interesting website:
>http://www.librarything.com/
Once again, a testament to my dullness or impatience. After spending
too much time with it, still didn't see how to upload my review of Word
Freak. Also would have gotten a kick out of entering 3 or 4 books I'm
reading or have just read and seeing who else is reading the same
things. But I didn't have the push. Also bummed that, to delete my
account, I have to send my password to the administrator. Guess it'll
just sit there dormant forever.
Found another British ax. Here's a line from Alfred Perceval Graves'
"Trottin' to the Fair":
Till I axed her, "May I
Steal a kiss or so?" . . .
And my Molly's grey eye
Didn't answer no.
That was set to music by Charles Stanford and I got the cd, "Trottin' to
the Fair", off ebay recently. It's great; almost as good as "The Elfin
Pedlar" album which is one of my all-time favorites. The singer on both
is James Griffett.
You know the second verse to Jack and Jill?
Then up Jack got and off did trot,
As fast as he could caper,
To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob
With vinegar and brown paper.
I always thought that was standard Mother Goose genius, but I just found
this in a story by Edward Everett Hale called "The Skeleton In the
Closet". The narrator recounts how his tripping over some hoop skirt
wires in the attic lost the war for the Confederacy:
When I came to myself I was in the blue chamber; I had vinegar
on a brown paper on my forehead; the room was dark, and I found
mother sitting by me, glad enough indeed to hear my voice, and
to know that I knew her.
So was vinegar and brown paper a standard medical procedure back then?
When I got to that passage I couldn't imagine Hale having a little joke
over Jack and Jill. But now I'm not so sure. He does get a bit silly
later in the story, so I'm changing my mind.
In "The Associated Widows", by Katharine M. Roof, there was a passage
that brought good ol' Harry to mind.
"Children," exclaimed Mrs. Hilary imipotently, looking from
one to the other, "where have you been?" (She pronounced it bean.)
Mrs. Hilary is English. Harry could never get over the way Americans
pronounced it bin.
>Just for you . . .
>Coalition aims to expose Shakespeare - Yahoo! News
They ain't tellin' me nuttin'. By the way, I've "always" known that
Silver Lake here in Dover was originally called Shakespeare's Pond. You
can easily find William Shakespeare's grave right next to it in Lakeside
Cemetary. I took a walking tour of Dover a couple of weeks ago with
Nate, interpreter par excellence(?). I learned more about Shakespeare
and his operations on the lake, a gristmill and a tannery. I also
learned he was a descendent of the famous Shakespeare, fraud or no. At
least, I'm not gonna set about disproving it.
ME: I played around with Narrator a little more. After I fired it up
(Start. All Programs. Accessories. Accesibility. Narrator) I
unchecked the boxes that were checked. Then I just noodled around in
windows while the guy was tallking. He read right through a .TXT file
opened in Notepad, for example. Didn't have luck with a .DOC file in
Word, which tells me I don't know what I'm doing.
We had a great time at scrabble at the Delaware Hospital For The
Chronically Ill. The people were real nice. I won my game in
spectacular style. After being last for the first few rounds, I played
QUITS, FOX and TEENSIEST for almost 200 points. After the last one I
went to draw tiles, and, surprise - the bag was empty! So the game was
over, while everybody else had full racks left!
THEE: piano clef article
g clef, f clef, my thoughts: EXACTLY!
why can't they just write the left hand in the treble clef like the
right hand... it's the dumbest rule I've ever seen.
then I can stop trying to make my left brain memorize GBDFA, FACEGB
ME: Thanks! Nice to hear somebody in agreement - good for the soul.
It's amazing how vicious the guys at www.pianoworld.com were. Who would
it hurt if somebody started publishing piano music using two G clefs?
THEE: But Roosevelt was a "progressive" (although he was accused of
having his favorite Trusts and letting them get away with whatever they
chose), and the progressive Democrats were much closer to Roosevelt than
to Taft. There was even some talk that Bryan might bolt the Democrats
and team up on a ticket with Teddy.
Bryan rammed through a resolution that put off the writing of a platform
until after the selection of the Democratic candidate. How's that for
sense? Always seemed to me that one was supposed to choose based on
platform, not that anyone follows it. Bryan's fear was that the
reactionaries would ruin the chances of a progressive nominee by writing
a conservative platform.
The [1912 Baltimore Democratic] convention was a "to the death" battle
of "reactionaries" vs. "progressives." As for definitions of the two
terms, it boiled down to whomever Bryan labeled as "reactionary" or
"progressive." The mentality was much like the McCarthy Era. Call
someone a "reactionary" at the 1912 National Democratic Convention was
tantamount to calling him a "Commie" and calling him up in front of the
House Un-American Activities Committee. Say he has "reactionary"
friends, and at best you say he's a "Commie sympathizer."
The Alaskan and Puerto Rican territories sent delegations.
>Funny to note that MS Word flunks "outcheer". On Mar 6 1993 Lloyd
played CHEER on triple-word score. I managed to save up O-U-T to make
OUTCHEER to hit the triple-word score in front.
You keep a record of past games? I should have known . . .
Here's just a small sample of my experience with Windows Vista and Word
2007 in early August. I went to the lab to use a laser printer. I sat
down in my favorite spot and looked at the desktop. Yikes! What the
*#*! is this? Nothing looked familiar. If it weren't for using a flash
drive, I wouldn't have been able to open my file because I couldn't even
figure out how to open Word. Fortunately, that little auto-run box
opened when I inserted my flashdrive, and I was able to select the
option to view files and click on the appropriate folder and file on my
trusty flashdrive. So now my file was open. I was ready to print.
Yeah, sure. Where is the Print icon? Where is the File-Print option?
Nada! Ok, calm down. You know the keyboard shortcut. CTRL-p. Miracle
of miracles, that still worked. Time to remove my flashdrive. Oh, my!
Where's the *#*! icon to shut down the flashdrive. Calm down. See all
those foreign icons on the lower right. Click on them until something
works. The last one I tried (OK, I can hear you about now) worked. Let
me clarify that. It was probably about the fifth one I tried.
So much for Windows Vista and Word 97. Today I took my Borders
Bookstore 30%-off coupon received in my email, and hightailed it to
Borders to buy Using Microsoft Office Word 2007. . .The ONLY Word 2007
Book You Need . . . Special Edition by Faithe Wempen, published by Que.
I'm puttin' my faith in Faithe . . . and all those five-star user
ratings on Borders/Amazon.
Browsing a bit in the bookstore before buying, I started reading how to
create an index. Wow! This just might be worth learning. There's what
sounds like an easy way to select words in your text that you want to
turn into index entries. Then select the correct index option. And .
. . PRESTO . . . the word goes into the index with all the pages
following it that the chosen word appears on. Then, should you revise
the text after creating the index and thereby through off the
pagination, there's an "update" feature that puts everything back in
sync. The index function also creates cross-references within the
index.
Another neat feature I'd heard about earlier is the option to save Word
files or whatever sort of Office files as .pdf right there within
Office.
I won't even say how long it took me to figure out how easily I can
create endnotes in Office 2003 and have them automatically readjust if I
add or delete a source anywhere in the chapter. Should have had a book
for 2003!
>With the mention of Harmon, I realized I wasn't sure how many men were
fighting for the nomination at the convention.
Uh . . . too many to mention, but several were minor "favorite sons"
that got no more than a few votes or no votes. Democratic candidates
worth mentioning and that will appear in the chapter about other
candidates: Clark, Wilson, Harmon (OH), Marshall (IN), Underwood (AL) .
. . and, unofficially but rumored, Bryan, himself. Marshall got little
but Indiana's vote until Indiana shifted to Wilson, but he's worth
mentioning since he became Wilson's VP. Bryan became Wilson's Secretary
of State. There's something to be said for helping out the winning
candidate.
Man, we get nuttin' thrown aroun' here for free except about
6 huge phonebooks per year. Seems like I'm forever throwing them away.
A big controversy was raging in 1912 about the "national anthem" since
we didn't have one. Even during WWI, people weren't sure if it was The
Star-Spangled Banner or America. It wasn't either although Wilson did
declare The Star-Spangled Banner the song to be played for military
events. Only Congress could name an official national anthem, and I
think that came in sometime in the 1930s.
>>http://dev.zotero.org/
>Didn't have much luck with this.
This isn't so much a way to use all the catalogs of the other libraries
as to save one's choice of what one finds in all those catalogs. It's a
tool for researchers. It's not as much fun as the librarything.com,
though.
>Remember from the old Washington Guitar Society newsletters that the LC
music division said they would be happy to add a bound set to their
collection? I think within the last few years I did everything in my
power to find it in the LC catalog, with no luck. I'll admit, I had
been wondering if they were just pulling my leg. Then again, with all
the LC catalogs, I never kidded myself I knew what I was doing. You
wanna show me how a pro does it?
How long ago was this? Give 'em about 10 years to send the newsletters
out to be bound and another 10 to catalog them after they're bound.
You're talking about the LC, remember? I probably told you about my
experience trying to find a book written in Italian about Treemonisha.
When I first discovered it in WorldCat, there were three listings. One
was the LC, one was Notre Dame, and I don't remember the third. I
figured I could find it at the LC and make out enough to tell if it
contained any hoodoo material of the sorts I was working on. For
instance, I figured I could make out American sources. When I requested
the book by online catalog number, someone brought me another book by
the same Italian author. It was something about Treemonisha but a very
small book and nothing like the one that was supposed to deal with
hoodoo. The catalog numbers were very close though, which is logical.
They looked again. No book. One of the people at the reference desk
checked a catalog and said that the library didn't have the book. I
pointed out that it was listed in WorldCat and had been for at least a
year, maybe two. This person said that it must have been a mistake.
Someone else overheard this--one of the few helpful people there. He
checked different records and said that the book was in cataloging. He
gave me a purchase date of a couple of years earlier. "It's been in
processing for two years?" I asked. He grinned and said, "That's
normal." I checked again a year later and the book still wasn't
available. I requested it through ILL and got if from Notre Dame in
about a week.
>>http://www.librarything.com/
>Once again, a testament to my dullness or impatience. After spending
too much time with it, still didn't see how to upload my review of Word
Freak. Also would have gotten a kick out of entering 3 or 4 books I'm
reading or have just read and seeing who else is reading the same
things. But I didn't have the push. Also bummed that, to delete my
account, I have to send my password to the administrator. Guess it'll
just sit there dormant forever.
Gosh, I entered 5 books in about as many minutes, and they all have
other readers. It's also sort of fun to see the recommendations and to
click on the tag words and see what else comes up. I don't think you
can upload a review. It looks like you have to type it in on the site.
I discovered one book that I have to buy: Ella Minnow Pea. Look it up
on Amazon and read the reviews. In fact, click on the Look Inside this
Book option (hardback edition) and read the sample pages after reading
the reviews. I was laughing myself silly just from all that. Then I
started reading about his novel Ibid, which is nothing but the footnotes
from a supposedly lost biography. I started laughing all over again.
This is a guy with one quirky sense of humor . . . maybe right up their
with Jasper Ffjord. While you're in Amazon, look up Fforde's The Big
Over Easy: A Nursery Crime and The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime.
Haven't read that one, but the Eyre Affair was delightful.
> Till I axed her, "May I
> Steal a kiss or so?" . . .
> And my Molly's grey eye
> Didn't answer no.
Molly had only one eye???????? Great final line, though.
ME: The beautiful music cd has dozen of highlights for me, but I've
always been attached to those two versions of Tammy, one straight, one
discoed up.
ME: Had my all-time best scrabble score for a single play last night. I
hit two triple-word scores simultaneously with RECEIVERS. The Brits
call that a "nine-timer". It was worth 140 pts.
Guess who's No. 3 on the Google hit parade for "kumon"?
Called the bank manager today [about a credit card for a good customer].
All she did was belittle me and laugh at me. Lucky for me I've never
got around to buying an AK-47.
ME: thanks
Dear National Scrabble Association Dictionary Committee,
There's a group at the Delaware Hospital for the Chronically Ill in
Smyrna Delaware that plays Scrabble every day.
The volunteer coordinator called me to see if some members of the Dover
Scrabble Club wanted to drop by and play.
It sounded good. We did.
Almost all of their games have a QI and a ZA.
Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
[Sarcasm]
THEE: Re: fransa speed oliver fransa speed oliver fransa speed oliver
fransa speed oliver
So much for adding you to my friends list. These emails still didn't
arrive in my cox mail. Maybe it's the goofy subject line that sounds so
much like a lot of the absurd spam?
THEE: The snitch couldn't have been there [scene of the crime] because
he was in prison. By the way, he was an impressive guy, very
intelligent, with an excellent vocabulary. Maybe prison had been good
for him. Did I mention that he had taken his notes in Braille so they
couldn't be read if seen? Not the raised dots, but pencil dots in the
formation of raised dots. He'd learned Braille working on a project in
Montana prisons.
The attorneys tell me that he's also an extraordinary artist and does
all his drawings with dots. This might help him get away with making
dots while pumping someone for information.
>I spelled SALLIES in scrabble a week or so ago. When I recounted this
to Charlie, he had never heard of "sally" or "sally forth". Nobody
knows everything, but that surprised me.
Huh . . . what else do knights do? And how about all those arched
entrances to universities. In fact, the Rice alumni magazine is called
The Sallyport.
ME: Any chance anybody in your company is up on electric water heating -
tank, tankless, and point of use? I can hardly get up courage calling
any more plumbing companies over here. I might as well be talking
martian to them. They laugh at the idea of converting to electric from
gas, and they say, "Our supply houses don't even carry tankless."
Can anybody give good reasons for not going electric tankless, backed up
by numbers? It seems to me a simple matter of how much natural gas or
electricity each of the various models uses to produce a given amount of
hot water, say a 2-gallon draw once a day. I could convert that to
dollars.
THEE: Mother Goose at the [Baltimore 1912 Democratic] Convention
I.
Rock-a-bye delegates, five in a bed!
When you are bent you can sleep in the shed;
When you are broke you can sleep in the street
And trade us your clothing for something to eat.
II
.
As I went up to Baltimore, I met a man with wives a score.
Each wife had a portmanteau containing twenty gowns or so.
With all the expenses, too many to mention,
How much did it cost him to see the convention?
III.
Sing a song of poverty, pocketful of air!
Four and twenty delegates wailing in despair.
Once they all affected the hobo to despise,
Now it looks like all of them will soon be counting ties.
--St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2 July 1912, p. 2
THEE:
>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.)
Don't think I've ever seen an S on a gerund before, or on a present
participle, for that matter. Better give him that rule, too, for without
a context, it's hard telling.
>Coincidetally, 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".... Something's wrong here,
folks.
I think that was the book turned into a film. Sort of a docu-drama
about a bunch of dysfunctional nut cases. Haven't seen it, though.
>Even going back to Kumon days, there's never been a whole lot of
interest in the freebie books, boohoo.
I keep hoping that kids still like to read, but I know teenagers don't.
A few of my students say they've read all the Harry Potter books, and
some of the girls read Nicholas Sparks novels. I'm betting that Harry
Potter books challenge their vocabulary more. Winnie the Pooh would.
>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.
Funny about Pepys coming up. Last Friday night I watched an excellent
film, 84 Charing Cross Road. If you come across the book by that name
for $.50, or less, or even a couple dollars, snag it for me. It's
autobiographical, written by a woman with a memorable name--Helene
Hanff. Frustrated by not being able to buy obscure British books in the
U.S., this outspoken American spotted an ad for a used bookstore in
London, and sent a letter with a wish list. Starting in the post-WWII
years, her correspondence with one store employee spanned many years as
she requested more and more books and gradually got to know everyone
working at the store and their families at home. It's hard to imagine a
film built entirely around letters, but it came off wonderfully and
touchingly as the characters aged, grew close, exchanged gifts, but
never met. On Amazon, I see that there's a sequel in which she meets
Frank's family and sees the literary England that she always read about
and imagined seeing.
So you're wondering what that has to do with Pepys. Here's an Editorial
Review from Amazon:
84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural
difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New
York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an
increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks &
Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase
'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with
expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent
identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert
Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive,
Hanff is ecstatic--but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual
arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the
six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a
kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank
Doel, does the real fun begin. Two years later, Hanff is outraged that
Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "I enclose two
limp singles, I will make do with this thing till you find me a real
Pepys. THEN I will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP
THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh
or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's
family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued,
but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died.
In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist
friend, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for
me. I owe it so much."
The "wrap things in it" comes from books she has bought that are wrapped
in pages of other old books. She writes back that this is sacrilege to
tear up old books and use them for wrapping paper. Later she received
the reply that they were pages received by the store without any cover
and impossible to sell.
THEE: 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.
>Wow! That has to be the greatest miracle for researchers in the
history of the world!
Yeah, it's great. And you have a choice of saving the full page or of
saving only the article you want. A selection tool lets you outline the
article. The historic newspaper archive I subscribe to also lets me
save full pages, but I'm not sure I can save individual articles other
than by printing them.
>>But, oh, the security. Don't let me get away without describing it in
detail in a later e-mail.
>No rush, but I am curious - though I suspect what you describe will put
me in a frustrated rage.
This had to be the Mississippi State Library and Archive. So here goes
. . .
Stop by a desk near the entrance to get a plastic ID.
Walk a few steps to the security gate for the library/archive.
Swipe your ID like swiping a credit card in a credit card machine at a
store.
Security gate opens.
Stash all your belongings in a locker other than paper and pencils.
Enter the library.
Stop at the desk and sign in with name and address.
If using the library, you're then set to work. (More about archive
later.)
Trip to the restroom requires swiping your card at the Exit security
gate.
When you exit the library to walk to another part of the building to
find the restroom, you don't dare carrying anything with you or it'll be
searched.
Reswipe your card at the Entrance security gate to get back into the
library.
No real problems using books and microfilms in library. Films are self-
serve, so that's good.
Archive is in a separate room with a guard at the entrance. No door,
but a clear separation, nonetheless. If you try to enter the archive
without knowing what you're doing, the guard will stop you. All
materials must have been requested BEFORE entering!
You must use one computer in the main part of the library to request
archival materials. This requires name, address, phone number, ID
number, and name and catalog number of the material you are requesting.
Wait about 20 minutes.
Return to the archive. If your material has arrived, the security guard
will scan your card.
Then a librarian scan your card and give you papers to sign that now
contain your scanned card info and the identification of the material
you will be using.
Pick a desk. All desks are for one person, and all seats face the guard
and librarians' area.
Return your materials and have your card scanned again.
If you're ready to leave the library, pick up all items from your
locker.
Let person at desk by entrance examine all belongings. She will even
thumb through all pages of photocopies or microfilm prints to be sure
you haven't stashed something between the pages.
Swipe your card at the Exit security gate.
The saving grace was that all these people were extremely friendly and
helpful in marked contrast to most at the Library of Congress.
>In last week's games with Cyril, the only thing that comes to mind is
when I had COZY in my rack for a potentially decent score, and I
couldn't for the life of me remember if that was how it was spelled.
When I wrote down COZY and COSY they each somehow looked better, and
worse, than the other. I threw caution to the wind and played COZY, and
the dictionary confirmed them both. I have no recollection of ever
noting somewhere along the way that there are two ways to spell cozy.
I've seen it Cosey, too. A piece of sheet music titled "In a Cosey
Corner."
>"Jesuits" have popped up from at least 3 different directions in the
last few days. Trips to two different encyclopedias haven't made any
headway in getting through my thick skull what a Jesuit is.
I don't know much about Jesuits, either, but always associated them with
being the scholarly bunch. Let's see, what others are there.
Dominicans, for one.
THEE:
>I was a little disappointed in your Davey Moore discussion. Honestly,
I expected that you'd dug up a newspaper article on the original
incident... In fact, I seem to recall this format being somewhat
similar to "The Little Red Hen" ("Not I," said Dick the Duck," etc.,
etc.)
Ah, come on . . . Anybody can find the original articles. And what
version of "The Little Red Hen" names the animals????? I remember only
"Not I," said the cat. "Not I," said the rat, etc. But, man, nobody
can read that story in the rhythm of "Who Killed Davey Moore?" I think
he missed the point.
OK, I like his taste in novelists and agree with what he says about
reading Shakespeare. I took that class, too, albeit from a different
professor at a different university. Dr. Forrest, who taught my class,
carried her complete Shakespeare wrapped up in a blanket, much like a
baby. It was falling apart, but she wouldn't trade it for a new one.
Many people call Thomas Pyncheon's Gravity's Rainbow the "greatest novel
ever written." Others still apply that to Joyce's Ulysses. In
graduate school, I read two of Pyncheon's novels, The Crying of Lot 49
and V. They were quirky and in places downright wierd. I more or less
enjoyed them. Ulysses is largely incomprehensible. I'm sure a person
could reread it for a life time and understand new things each time. In
fact, scholars have done that. But why?
I don't think I've ever heard of Riddley Walker, but from Amazon, here's
the first sentence: "On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear
and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs
any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint
looking to see none agen."
Never read Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum although I've heard many times
that its good. It's a classic of modern anti-war novels. A copy of
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is sitting on one
of my book cases where it's been for about 10 years--still unread. I
bought it after falling in love "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,"
one of his short stories. Then I was always too busy with work to face
that massive book.
THEE: More Mother Goose [at the 1912 Baltimore Democratic convention]
Little Boy Blue come toot your flute. The Interests are destitute.
They're backing Bill And they're backing Ted, And it looks like The
Democrats are ahead.
One, two, Bryan will do. Three, four, run him some more. Five, six,
nobody kicks. Seven eight, happy to state. Nine, ten, the run him
again.
"The Political Mother Goose." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 9, 1912.
THEE: Opportunity to improve school performance. In India.
A colleague of mine referred me to your open letter to school leaders on
how tutors can be used to improve the performance of schools.
I am the CEO of an organization called The Spark Group
(www.thesparkgroup.net). Our mission is to improve the quality of
education at a grassroots level in India. We are planning to start a
chain of high quality private schools targeted at low-income
communities. The system that you describe in your open letter is
something that we have been contemplating for a little while.
Will you be open to advising us on how to implement an effective system?
If required, we can even envision asking you to come here to India (we
are currently located in Hyderabad) and help us roll out the initial set
of schools. Will you be open for that?
ME: I'm very pleased that you found my web pages presenting some of my
thoughts on education, and that someone else has been thinking along the
same lines. I had been meaning for a long time to revisit those pages
to give them another round of editing to make them clearer and easier to
digest, so I doubly appreciate your effort.
It seems we are already in agreement on the value of a "Tutor", or
"Academic Coach", or "Academic Master", working within the school to add
a one-on-one component to the classroom component for _all_ the
students. I have a more-or-less clear vision of how I would go about
it, and I'd be pleased to try to clarify, expand on, or defend any of
the ideas I present in my web pages. But I don't consider myself
qualified to "advise" you. I also feel that I express myself a little
more clearly when I'm forced to put a response in writing. All of that,
combined with the fact that I've never gotten very comfortable with
traveling, says to me that a simple, cheap, old-fashioned, email
exchange is fine for our purposes. But thanks for the invitation!
My ideas developed while I was volunteering and working in American
schools and, as such, may be less appropriate for schools in other
countries. I've always imagined that Indian schools, for example, are
much more rigorous than American schools. I suppose my proposal has
value for all grade levels (the American school system has grades 1-12,
for ages about 6-17), but I am most passionate about the first 6 or 7
grades. The skills taught in those grades are the foundation for any
higher, more specialized study. And for the student who, for whatever
reason, decides not to pursue higher education, the skills learned in
grades 1 through 7 are the ones most useful for life. (I think of 7th
grade as taking a student through basic algebra.) A baffling irony is
that, here in America, states are implementing graduation requirement
tests - and all they require is about a 6th- or 7th-grade mastery.
Likewise, the SAT test, which colleges look at for evaluating applying
students, has nothing above
7th-grade, basic algebra in the math section. It makes me wonder, what
is going on in our schools from 8th through 12th grade???
Let me get the ball rolling by restating some of my ideas off the top of
my head, without taking a refresher look at my web page. See if this
sounds like what you've already read:
- All a school of a few hundred students needs is one Tutor.
- The Tutor is not encumbered with administrative work. He will
spend as much of his time teaching as possible. He will also
provide valuable feedback to the classroom teachers, such as when
a class as a whole has missed an important concept.
- The Tutor works with students, two at a time, all day long. Two
is the magic number.
- The Tutor works with _all_ students, from the weakest to the
strongest. I am convinced that in pulling the best students up,
all the others are pulled up, too.
- Throughout the school year, the Tutor works with just two grade
levels, such as 3rd and 5th, or 4th and 6th. Thus, each student
will meet up with the Tutor during two separated school years.
- Ideally, there is some sort of sensible, standardized test that
the students are facing. The Tutor has complete familiarity
with the expectations of this test and has it in mind at all
times while working on with students.
- The Tutor meets these requirements:
- He was an outstanding student himself, say 95th or 96th percentile,
at least.
- He has a certain number of years, say ten, of working in the
"real world", outside of education.
- He is fun to work with. Curmudgeons need not apply. In fact,
the students can have him fired.
- He does not need, and should not have, formal training as a teacher.
Working with students directly is altogether different from running
a classroom.
I sincerely hope the basic idea will be successful for you, and, in
fact, is so successful that schools from all over get word of it and
become interested. I'd be happy simply with the credit for any parts of
the idea I contributed.
ME: Thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll try to contact a manufacturer.
My experience is that, what with the internet and the web, companies
make it just about impossible to talk to a person. Searching the web
for something like "water heater electric tankless" turns up so much
information and so many makers you could spend years reading up on it -
and still not know which way to go.
For instance, supposing I decided to go with a conventional electric
water heater with a tank, is there really any advantage to a smaller
one? That might seem pretty obvious, but the question is, does a
smaller model hold the heat in better than a larger one? If not, it
would be more expensive to run. If water heaters are perfectly
insulated, a big one wouldn't use any more energy than a little one. I
feel like people must have made studies like this somewhere. I wonder
if Consumer Reports has ever looked into it.
Had a good time yesterday morning joining in the annual Coastal Cleanup.
Chose a beach near here called Pickering Beach. The clouds were rolling
and the wind was blowing. Dragged a huge pile of trash off the beach.
Didn't find anything good except a little frisbee, a china cup, and
rubber ball that looks like perfectly spherical driftwood. Still
bounces good.
THEE: As for Floating Ancillary Ants, I do remember finding it as a DATA
file (only readable with special software). I will try to get to that
this week and get it off to you. Also, when I send it to you, I'll send
you a DVD of my students performing at Yale University. They did Ants as
one of the pieces on the program. At first the kids didn't like it, but
after it started coming together, it became one of their favorites to
play.
Are you going to GFA? I was supposed to give a lecture on the role of
guitar in public education. They have extended their invitation to me so
that I can present in San Francisco in August. It really is a
fascinating topic. Part of my discussion will propose to change the
GFA's focus on "pre-college" guitar. The goal is not to create a world
of guitar majors, but music lovers and to bring meaning to life.
ME:
>The goal is not to create a world of guitar majors, but music lovers
and to bring meaning to life.
I like it!
ME: to: tower hill school, wilmington delaware
I was reading from volume 9 of "The New Wonder World", called "The Child
In The Home", and found two plays written by sixth grade classes from
your school a long time ago. My edition of The New Wonder World shows
copyright dates 1936 - 1943. Thought you and your students might get a
kick out of that, in case it's been forgotten.
[Never received any sort of reply. :( ]
ME: It shouldn't be any surprise to you, though, that "heavy" is not my
thing in life, and even less so with only a couple of decades left to
go.
ME: Just read Cyril Broderick's book, and rereading the main part, his
personal story. It includes the history of the Grain Coast. I more or
less knew the history of Liberia, but found out about Sierra Leone,
which was the first one that freed slaves and recaptured natives (from
slave ships) were brought to. Cyril's story is thankfully not too
horrific - the few atrocities are off-stage - but it's more than enough
to make you thank your lucky stars you've never lived in a war zone.
Imagine going in to work, and the rebels show up, waving their guns at
you, threatening to blow up any car that moves, and telling you that
they're "doing all this for you." Have to get on Cyril for not including
some basic maps in the book.
>but I liked that July 2007 letter from the woman at American Heritage!
Well I didn't!!! Why blow off such a good and simple idea? Hey, you
must have done a lot of reading to get down the page that far. No
comment on whether I made a case for real- vs. artificial-word scrabble?
You've been hard to read; in some cases taking the position that if
anybody's ever uttered it and any dictionary anywhere picked up on it,
it's a perfectly good word; and other times passing judgment
unilaterally.
I got a call from the volunteer coordinator at the Delaware Hospital for
the Chronically Ill up the road in Smyrna. They have a group that plays
scrabble every day and she wanted to know if anybody in my club wanted
to join in (figuring that I have 40 or 50 members, I guess). I was a
little nervous, but Vivian and I have gone up a couple of times and had
a great time. One of the reasons for mentioning it is that they use the
current Official Scrabble Dictionary - and almost every game has a QI
and ZA on it. :( :( :( I fancy myself a tolerant, live-and-let-live
sort of guy, and whatever people enjoy doing is fine with me, but here's
a case where I can hardly imagine a single person on earth disagreeing
with me that that's ridiculous, crazy, absurd, idiotic, insane, and
completely and totally outside the spirit of what scrabble is all about.
If scrabble is all about points and nothing about words, why not just
draw tiles from a bag with point values and add them up? Part of what
makes scrabble a blast is that some of the letters are hot potatoes. J,
Q, X, or Z might make or break you. Anyhow, my disgust is not directed
so much at the players who get a cheap thrill from 60+ point QI plays,
but the Scrabble dictionary committee, which has gotten a raging piece
of my mind.
The next game was sort of similar. Just before my last play, Keandra
got within a point by tacking IER on RITZ (my word, after someone played
ZA). But I had saved 4 good letters for going out, catching Lillian
with a Q, X, and Z.
Favorite play last night at my club was FAIRNESS, which took a lucky
stroke to see, stretching to a 3w score.
Sorry, I could talk about scrabble forever.
Maybe I will. I found an interesting web page by a former champion
named Dan Pratt who gave up scrabble in disgust at the artificialness of
the official word list. He makes a sensible suggestion, that a word has
to be in at least *two* dictionaries to be added to the scrabble list.
Apparently, each dictionary out there has its own "thing", and goes
overboard with this or that sort of word. A tremendous number of these
words appearing in one dictionary only cannot be found in any running
text anywhere and would look completely unfamiliar to anyone not on a
dictionary committee. On the other hand, a new word that appears in at
least two dictionaries would look so familiar to most people that they
probably be surprised it hasn't been a good word forever. He gives the
example WIMP. The other thing that interested me is that, of all the
dictionaries mined for scrabble words, my good ol' American Heritage is
the most conservative. And that's fine with me. I'd like to weed out
half the nonsense in there. There are extremely few words that the
American Heritage contributes to the scrabble list all by itself. So, I
feel pretty lucky to have chosen that dictionary for my own use back
around 1985.
Because the American Heritage doesn't have everybody's beloved JO and YO
and YA and AG, etc., they figure it's some kids' dictionary that doesn't
have anything, so I'm always fighting that fire. Here's just a few of
the words I played last night that were upheld: LARDY LINGO BONG NARC.
I always push the limit more than anybody else, so I also get burned
occasionally on words that I expected to fly. Just last night I lost
LINTIER. Some others: LOANERS, TENNERS, SEANCES, PILER, FLINGER. I
mean, baseball pitchers have been called flingers since time immemorial.
The day after playing TENNERS, it popped up 3 times in a Damon Runyon
radio story, and also the original print version. Can you guess why
SEANCES is not in the American Heritage? In any case, all that's a
small price to play for using a real dictionary.
>Got any tunes to fit "Mother Goose at the Convention"?
I have music, either printed or recorded, for about 30 rhymes. Only
these two are in that group:
Rock-a-bye delegates, five in a bed!
Sing a song of poverty, pocketful of air!
Are you aware that almost all of the published versions of what we call
"Rock-a-bye baby" start "Hush-a-bye baby"? I wonder how we got
switched. "Rock-a-bye baby" is a different rhyme, starting,
Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green.
>Pretty cool. Good books, more artwork, and a chance to increase your
pool of Scrabble letters . . . and take our chances of drawing 4 Qs.
Uh uh. A mix of three sets is my limit. Do you know what it takes to
periodically double check that all 300 are there, and to deduce a
missing tile, if any? That's a morning's work!
Hey, you got me talking scrabble again. Do you know the world's most
perfect scrabble tile bag? That nice, purple Crown Royal bag. I'd been
needing a few extra. There's a restaurant/bar on the 1st level of my
office building. I stopped in and found a nice manager who said he
would have them put some aside for me. A few days later he had a bundle
of 10! I've handed out most of them already.
I was really hoping that yesterday (Wed) I could shoot off an email with
a link to the current Dover Post with a picture of me, but such was not
to be. I joined in the annual Coastal Cleanup on Saturday morning at a
beach near here called Pickering Beach. There was a photographer and he
took an action shot of a group of us dragging a huge pile of trash off
the beach on an old, torn up, pickup truck liner. It was real work.
Anyhow, it didn't make the Post.
>I know what you mean, though. In a perfect world, a hundred or so
people would join in such a project [opera database].
A hundred? Why not a hundred thousand?
I wondered how Dylan could have stumbled across the old, old British
publications of the poem [Who Stole The Bird's-Nest]. But now, Ha!, I
can demonstrate it's struck much closer to the here and now. I picked
up a few books at the auction a week or so ago. Was mainly going for
"Baseball's Best Short Stories" on an impulse but there was a set of
"The New Wonder World", which is much like "The Book of Knowledge".
This edition has copyright dates spanning 1932 to 1943. I just kept
three volumes with the kids' stories and poetry of interest to me. Lo
and behold, volume 9, "The Child In The Home" has "Who Stole the
Bird's Nest" on page 119. Now I can easily imagine little Bobby
curled up with that one.
Remember my old, bound St. Nicholas magazines from 1889, with the
separated contractions (oxymoron?)? The Wonder World is still doing the
same thing 40 years later: had n't, did n't, were n't, was n't, etc. I
think that's *strange*.
The Wonder World also included two plays written by sixth grade students
from a school up the road in Wilmington. I thought that was neat. I
dropped the school a line in case they've forgotten about that.
>Rich: Anyway, all this is to say that the Beatles' debt to Mother Goose
comes more from their using old schoolboy rhymes as a jumping off point.
I think that's all I was trying to demonstrate, that there are these
things rattling around in people's brains, and they can color what comes
out. It'd be odd if they didn't.
>Rich: Now, on to Marilyn Vos Savant. I was happy to read her get her
comeuppance about the "salary raise" problem, though I like it better
when there's no confusion in semantics and just plain mathematical
mistakes afoot.
I didn't tell him how this disappointed me. C'mon, the smartest person
on earth can't see that there's something that needs to be got to the
bottom of when the claim is that "$75 twice a year is better than $300
once a year"??? He'd rather see a "30 x 40 = 120" slip or typo?
Rich is Tarzan-like in that he taught himself to read at age 4. Just
came out of his room one evening reading. His parents were staggered.
I also invited Rich to my "John Lennon with sound bites". He wasn't
impressed by my noting a possible typo in Lennon's first book. He told
me that even he made a typo once, but he missed the point. Yes, I see
tons of typos, and they're no big deal, beyond the fact that they give
me a feeling of camaraderie with the writer and are sometimes mildy
humorous or intriguing. I'm not going to put every one on a web page.
In this case, though, the interest is that I may have found a bona fide
typo in a book that's *based* on intentional typos. That's kind of
funny. I'm guessing no one else has ever flagged it.
On the other hand, I have a friend who has a brain about my speed, but
he uses it like the dare-devils [wht did I mean by that?]. There have
been dozens of instances when I've asked him to look at some web page,
ad, email, fortune cookie fortune, etc., and he's *never* understood it
the same way I had. I even asked him if he just reads a few words out
of a passage and makes it mean something, and he freely admitted it.
Hey, I just got a dozen 2-minute sand timers in the mail today for use
in scrabble.
>Most of those books such as Cliff's Notes and Monarch Notes are
unreadable and deadly dull
That's certainly been true in my limited experience. What I always wish
for, though, is auxiliary information laid out side by side with the
original text (not necessarily in the book itself) that answers every
question a typical reader might have and help him get as close to 100%
of what the writer put into it out of it. What's the point of reading
something and getting 40%?
>This had to be the Mississippi State Library and Archive. So here goes
. . .
Amazing that you can remember every last detail [of the security
procedures] like that! Anyhow, something in me says there has to be a
better idea than employing millions of people to hassle tens of millions
of other, honest people. I don't claim I have the answer, but I suspect
it would involve holding wrong-doers responsible for what they do.
>I've seen it [cosy, cozy] "cosey", too. A piece of sheet music titled
"In a Cosey Corner."
Funny thing is, I have a guitar transcription of than one by Trinkaus,
but when I plugged "cosey" into my database program, nothing came up.
It did when I typed "cosy", and I was all ready to tell you we have
variant spellings of the same title, but I checked my music and it turns
out I just typed it wrong entering it into my database. Just think of
all the millions of web searches I've stymied with that typo.
>You obviously had a different British literature teacher in high school
than I did,
I'm not at all proud to say that I don't remember much of anything about
12th grade English, except that the teacher was a pretty neat guy. He
was reading some Shakespeare character with an exaggerated lisp, and all
I could think was, how does he know to do that? He must really be
smart. I would've just read it with my usual reading voice.
I only continue this thread because just a few days ago I downloaded
Blind Tom's "Battle of Manassas" from the UCSB cylinder site.
>"I enclose two limp singles, I will make do with this thing till you
find me a real Pepys. THEN I will rip up this ersatz book, page by page,
AND WRAP THINGS IN IT."
That's funny. My Modern Library Pepys certainly doesn't have most of
the things I've searched it for specifically.
>No snow globes with Florida alligators? I didn't see any snowmen. BUT
. . . what is a "flying pizza man"?
And you wouldn't see the snowman, see? That's the good joke. The snow
globe is just filled with water and a hat and a carrot and some coal
buttons and a broom that float around.
>So much for adding you to my friends list. These emails still didn't
arrive in my regular mail. Maybe it's the goofy subject line that
sounds so much like a lot of the absurd spam?
Goofy? GOOFY???
>Major issue to come up is that the convention was a "to the death"
battle of "reactionaries" vs. "progressives." As for definitions of the
two terms, it boiled down to whomever Bryan labeled as "reactionary" or
"progressive."
There, that's just the sort of explanation(?) that would be so handy in
an appendix.
Your tales of Windows Vista and Word 97 have me cringing in pain
already, even the ones you viewed as a step forward. Hard for me to
believe that simple indexing function wasn't programmed 30 years ago.
Also, I *despise* pdf, and haven't yet figured out why it exists. Just
give me the text and give me the image, although, having the text, I
would probably rarely look at the image. They had better not take the
command prompt mode away from me in Vistas. Sometimes I have 6 command
prompt windows open at once.
>Gosh, I entered 5 books [at librarything.com] in about as many minutes,
and they all have other readers.
But I wasn't interested in who had such and such a book. The intriguing
promise was, "Your profile connects you to people who share your books.
With over 250,000 users and 18 million books in the system, you'll find
some "eerily similar" libraries."
I was hoping to type in
Democracy In Delaware
The Wit And Humor of America, vol viii
The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book
Can I Get There By Candlelight?
and find somebody reading:
Monarchy In Montana
The Hex and Voodoo of Armenia, vol. wjjj
The Cambridge Knock Knock Joke Book
Escape - Liberia, Africa and the USA: The Surrender of Harbel; War,
Accommodation, and Reconciliation for Peace, Agricultural Development
and Economic Prosperity
or something.
Enow for now?
THEE:
>You can also be a guinea pig on my most recent beatle-related page:
>http://www.donaldsauter.com/john-lennon.htm
Loved it. I really started laughing when I came to "Stewball" and
"Happy Xmas." No wonder "Happy Xmas" seemed so familiar to me. I had
the LP with "Stewball"! What does this tell me? That I listen to the
words.
Loved the "Good God, it sounds like Walton gone mad!" comment, the
Grammy coincidence, and your sound editing.
By the way, I decided I needed "Who Killed Davey Moore, " so I bought
Dylan's Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 a couple of weeks
ago. Some old familiars, but also some new to me. Guess after seeing
one of Dylan's guitar's in Vermillion, I needed the two disc set.
What a fabulous museum that was and I lucked into hearing the
orchestrion. The best feature of the museum was the CD player given to
me when I arrived. With it around my neck, I could watch for special
numbers on many of the displays, select that track, and hear additional
history AND the instrument playing the music it was intended to play.
Among my favorites were the French church serpents (both curly and
straight).
>>but I liked that July 2007 letter from the woman at American Heritage!
>Well I didn't!!! Why blow off such a good and simple idea?
I agree with you on the use of a normal dictionary such as American
Heritage. If ordinary educated folks can't use a word, if it never
comes up in magazines, newspapers, normal sorts of books, or intelligent
conversation, then it ain't a word worth using in a game, in my opinion.
By liking the American Heritage representative's letter, I didn't mean I
thought she gave the right answer, but it was probably the safe one.
Scrabble box cover rules may say that players can decide on a dictionary
before playing, but when it comes to tournaments, someone might get
picky and lawsuit happy.
>Remember my old, bound St. Nicholas magazines from 1889, with the
separated contractions (oxymoron?)? The Wonder World is still doing the
same thing 40 years later: had n't, did n't, were n't, was n't, etc. I
think that's *strange*.
I agree, and haven't seen that in newspapers. The only oddity has been
to-day and to-morrow. But no yester-day.
The articles come from newspaperarchive.com. That archive is a paid
service for people like you and me but it does offer some free special
collections. Also, you can try these, which are free:
http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/
http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/
>I even asked him if he just reads a few words out of a passage and
makes it mean something, and he freely concurred.
Sounds a little like some of my students. Some detail catches their
eye, and suddenly it's the central point.
>Did you need all that? Hey, I just got a dozen 2-minute sand timers in
the mail today for use in scrabble.
Sand timers I could live with. My kids had a word game (Taboo, if I
remember right) with a timer that clicked loudly and then buzzed in a
way that would make me jump even though I knew it was coming. I was a
nervous wreck.
>What I always wish for, though, is auxiliary information laid out side
by side with the original text (not necessarily in the book itself) that
answers every question a typical reader might have and help him get as
close to 100% of what the writer put into it out of it. (Hmmm, that
sentence sounds familiar.) What's the point of reading something and
getting 40%?
Sometimes that 40% may be 100%. I'm convinced some writers don't want
readers to understand that they're saying so little and purposefully
trying to conceal the fact.
>>I've seen it Cosey, too. A piece of sheet music titled "In a Cosey
Corner."
I've been having some trouble with variant spellings--or with Bill
Gates' desire to standardize them with Autocorrect.
>I'm not at all proud to say that I don't remember much of anything
about 12th grade English, except that the teacher was a pretty neat guy.
He was reading some Shkespeare character with an exaggerated lisp, and
all I could think was, how does he know to do that? He must really be
smart. I would've just read it with my usual reading voice.
Can't think of a Shakespeare character that should have a lisp, but I
can see it working on stage.
>>Don't think I've ever seen an S on a gerund before,
>See above. [readings]
Don't think that one qualifies. Here's a gerund use:
Reading is one of their favorite pastimes. The gerund has to refer to
an activity but in a way that the activity is a noun. In your sentence
with "readings," its clearly a thing rather than an activity.
>>Gosh, I entered 5 books in about as many minutes, and they all have
other readers.
>But I wasn't interested in who had such and such a book. The
intriguing promise was, "Your profile connects you to people who share
your books. With over 250,000 users and 18 million books in the system,
you'll find some "eerily similar" libraries."
>I was hoping to type in
> Democracy In Delaware
> The Wit And Humor of America, vol viii
> The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book
> Can I Get There By Candlelight?
>and find somebody reading:
> Monarchy In Montana
> The Hex and Voodoo of Armenia, vol. wjjj
> The Cambridge Knock Knock Joke Book
> Escape - Liberia, Africa and the USA: The Surrender of Harbel; War,
> Accommodation, and Reconciliation for Peace, Agricultural Development
> and Economic Prosperity
>or something.
Loan me The Hex and Voodoo of Armenia, will you? I'll read it right
after Unarchy in Utah and The Oxford Elephant Joke Book, vol. CX.
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