Animation, Art, and Other Shiny Things
Whatever the subject matter or genre – if I read book 1 of a series, the rest will fall, in order. Perhaps I should qualify that; if I can complete book 1, then I am compelled to read the rest of the series.
Discworld; flat, on the backs of 4 Elephants, riding the back of the Great A'tuin through space.
This is a terribly important trait in what otherwise is a compulsive idiosyncrasy as it saves me from plowing my way through encyclopedias and Harlequin romance series.
I have suffered through some atrocious monstrosities disguised as paperback entertainment because I held the vain hope that the story would get better. And then book 1 ends and I’m committed…
Working at a library only feeds the problem: even before book 1 is complete, book 2 either on the reserve shelf with my name on it, or on it’s way. Most often, though, I already have it checked out, providing me further inducement to complete book 1.
It can be vicious.
I still shudder when I recall that sci-fi quadrilogy whose books averaged over 600 pages each.
When you begin to despise a character for their blinding stupidity and begin to harbor a vain hope they get “removed” in a story-line-appropriate manner (or at least injured) then you’re generally in for continued disappointment until you can close the back cover of the book. (there is a potential for ‘lingering disappointment’ reserved for the exceedingly pin-headed character’s continued existence… Need I make reference to Jar-Jar Binks? No, I thought not…)
"Garden of Earthly Delights" (ca 1503) by Hieronymus Bosch - Yes, there is a reason it's in this post. Two of them, actually. Figure it out for yourself.
Now before you get all bent out of shape and petulantly expound on how much your little gray cells work out during the perusal of a Spenser or Bosch tale, let me note that a mystery novel is still merely a relatively small set of clues couched in a large number of semi-associated ideas.
If were much more than that it would be a textbook, or at least be so convoluted as to be unreadable for entertainment. Having to take notes just to keep the story straight really kinda takes the fun out of reading a novel. But I digress…
Xanth, Book 1. One of the most evil books in the world.
Amidst the mountain of potentially unfortunate reading material I occasionally do luck out and dive into an exceptional series of books – despite the generally trashy genres I tend to enjoy. Xanth and Discworld are two places I love visiting. As a kid I visited and revisited Narnia alot.
And that is a snapshot of the problem; Xanth is contained in over 30 novels, Discworld in near 40 (Spenser too), Harry Bosch in over a dozen. All other reading materials are forsaken in favor of another world clothed in a character of words until the last page of the last book.
Worse still, I can’t read multiple books during a series. If I am pondering Seldon’s psychohistory, then walking into a Bene Gesserit Chapter House could induce a stroke. I know this because I tried once. Was out of sorts for several days.
Common Wisdom says that if you know you have a problem then you’re on your way to solving it. The corollary is that if someone else knows about that problem, they can use it against you.
And that’s what happened…
Book 1 of the Warriors multi-series. Some of the books in this series cause actual pain when read by anyone who has been a parent.
I’ve know Merc for over two decades, we’ve played many a game together – on the same side and against each other. Of anyone, Merc knows my strengths and weaknesses and knows how to lever either of them.
With full knowledge, and malice aforethought, he brought me a book 1.
The Warriors series is up to somewhere around 3 dozen books including prequels, guides, and mangas. Into the Wild is the first of a 6 book sub-series set in the Warriors world. Written to the pre-teen and young teen audience, it follows ‘clans’ of cats as they struggle to survive. It idealizes and anthropomorphizes cat culture a bit, but the underlying themes of loyalty, trust, and achievement are good ones. Watching the characters work their way through worry and self-doubt shows the young reader that they aren’t alone. It’s engaging, and a lifetime of Disney helps me to suspend my disbelief in favor of my new friends in Thunderclan.
It took me about 3 books to realize I was reading the books like a parent. An affliction that continues to plague me as I’m beginning book 1 of the 3rd series. (multiple book 1’s in a single series is particularly malevolent, by the way) It’s like watching the kids go through middle school all over again. Painful…
In an off-handed way, though, being in the middle of a large series is somewhat comforting; I know the next book I will be reading.
And best of all? I am protected from the other book 1’s out there.
Girl in the Wood (2008) - Su Blackwell
Most often the beauty of a book is contained within it’s words, sometimes it’s the rich cover or heavy paper, maybe it’s the art- or information-filled photographs.
But a few artists are bringing out a book’s different kind of beauty.
All About House Plants - Julia Feld
Su Blackwell creates some stunning art from old books; beautiful scenes reminiscent of the classic places and tales of youth.
She has also ‘sized up’ her art for commercial installations to great effect.
To my mind’s eye, however, a book is more than just a medium.
Every single book is printed for a reason. It’s not always a good reason, but enough of one to get it to press at least. What is held between the front and back cover is the reason for it’s existence. The very soul of the book.
And in a very interesting way Julia Feld has been baring those souls of select books.
Favoring out-of-date reference books Ms Feld uses various sharp implements and plenty of glue to create these intricacies that bring out the artwork within the book itself.
She’s building quite the gallery of beautiful work. Check it out at her Hokey Stokes! blog.
In honor of Dave Brubeck’s 90th birthday today his most notable work; “Take Five”. The tune was actually written by Paul Desmond, saxophonist and long-time band mate. (playing the sax in this clip, as a matter of fact)
Brubeck has been a prolific composer over the years and played alot with odd time signatures in his music. Don’t worry if you don’t know the term, you’ll recognize it when you hear it. “Time Out” is a record full of examples.
I’m kinda partial to his Late Night’s at the Blue Note albums and the Charlie Brown tunes, but his 60-some year career has gems buried all the way through it.
He almost became a Veterinarian…
…but transferred on the urging of the head of zoology, Dr Arnold, who told him “Brubeck, your mind’s not here. It’s across the lawn in the conservatory. Please go there. Stop wasting my time and yours.” Later, Brubeck was nearly expelled when one of his professors discovered that he could not read music. Several of his professors came forward, arguing that his ability with counterpoint and harmony more than compensated. The college was still afraid that it would cause a scandal, and agreed to let Brubeck graduate only after he promised never to teach piano.
I certainly hope the irony was not lost on his professors as Brubeck’s career progressed…
Dave Brubeck also stood up for his fellow musicians. The Dave Brubeck Quartet was integrated and some clubs owners didn’t like it. (this was back before the civil rights laws of 1964) He canceled his concerts at their clubs, as well as a TV appearance when he found out the black musicians in his band would be left off-camera.
Go here for a great article on a concert he did just last week at the Blue Note, then pop on over to Youtube and watch some great videos of one of the great musicians of all time.
In taking a stroll through the blog here I noticed a definite trend: Cats.
You would think that I would’ve noticed it before – this is my blog and these are my posts – but then the forest is indeed hard to see when amidst the trees. I just write what catches my attention and post it if I can actually finish the piece and it appears to make sense. (I have a seriously overloaded Draft folder of posts in progress…)
Between the animals we’ve domesticated and the habitats we’ve encroached on, humanity is living amongst a pretty sizable menagerie. Arguably the most interesting beast on the urban landscape is the Crow. One of the few, if not the only, truly omnivorous bird. (well, maybe pigeons are too, but they aren’t even half as interesting as crows.) Check out the PBS Nature episode A Murder of Crows for a great look at one of the most intelligent creatures on earth. (full episode streaming goodness! A digression, certainly, but a worthy one…)
On the micro-urban landscape, at least on mine, the most interesting beast is the common house cat.
Now, about this blog’s trend; If you’re waiting for an apology and a heartfelt promise to balance my posts more between cats, dogs, and perhaps even the occasional budgie, well…. I do feel bad for you because you won’t be getting one, and if you’ve read any of my blog, you know how deeply I care about my readers and their feelings.
And really, when it comes right down to it, I’m a “cat person” anyways.
No offense to dogs. I’ve had some great friendships with dogs – grew up with them – like ’em in general. (except for those little nervous, yappy things)
There are some distinct advantages to cats over other domestic pets, not the least being that they all come in generally the same size: About 650 cubic inches in volume; two-fifths of a cubic foot. (empirically speaking, actual cat size is completely independent from the size the cat thinks it is) This handy, standardized size means that accessories and furnishings are consistent as well. No problem of having to check the size on that collar that catches your eye when it’s for a cat.
Another major bonus is that a cat does not need to be walked. In fact it’s contraindicated in the vast majority of cases. While initially trying to take your cat on “walkies” it is more of a test-of-wills drag or perhaps a spirited rodeo-on-a-rope, eventually though Muhammad will come to the mountain – and you are that mountain. Easy access to a First Aid kit is an essential precaution should you decide to attempt this feat.
Thirdly, and the most fascinating to me, is that a cat does not rely on it’s humans to define it’s self worth, and they make that very evident. A nice, self-contained psyche. This does not mean you can’t play mind games with a member of the feline persuasion, I make it a point to do just that, (I have a diploma from the Monty Python School of Cat Confusion [correspondence] so it’s OK.) but be aware that you can lose a battle of wits to a cat and they modify your behavior.
These things alone make it easy to quickly find yourself with your very own pride of domestic lions prowling the living room savanna.
To further complicate the matter try walking into your local rescue shelter then doing a bit of math. Assuming a 1000 square foot home, seven foot 2 inches in height, you get about 7,160 cu ft of volume, enough space to fit nearly 18 thousand cats! Now, stacking cats like cord wood is a practical nightmare, ask anyone who’s attempted to put a single feline in a box without said tabby’s consent.
In practical terms, however, our home is beholden to the ubiquitous force of gravity so we really can’t think of it as a volume, but rather as a collection of potentially grimalkin-laden surfaces. In looking around my local habitat there appears to be about 5 percent of the floor area Izzy can’t access, however in most cases there is a corresponding surface atop the offending furniture item. Assuming a cat covers about three-quarters of a square foot this makes our cat potentiality just over 1300 felines.
Unsurprisingly one can assume that as cat density rises, cat attitude drops, and it would be in the best interest of our health to factor that in. Averaging the take-no-prisoners temper of Jazmine with the inquisitive acceptance of Izzy I come up with a reduction factor of 15 making our herd about 86 and a tail. (you’re free to check the math yourself) This allows for nearly 12 square feet of area per cat.
86 is still a largish number but can logistically be managed assuming that small-space cat herding is your primary occupation and you have a small personal fortune to finance truckloads of kibble, the salary of a full-time veterinarian, and annual furniture replacement.
And this is how a crazy cat lady is created; by doing the math. And by doing those calculations and coming up with numbers that sound perfectly reasonable it becomes easy to consider adopting a whole wall of caged cats from the rescue shelter.
Yet it’s also those beautifully precise figures that illustrate the fact that there are just too many kitties for one crazy cat person to save, no matter how many square feet per feline. We could adopt every cat from every shelter and by next week their cages would be re-filled.
So what can we do to make a difference (short of convincing neighbors and friends to become crazy cat ladies)?
Adopt a cat. Fix the cat. Love the cat. When your cat passes on – do it again.
You can be a crazy cat lady with a single cat. I am.
Antimatter pegs my geek meter pretty hard, especially when it’s in the real world.
[A] research collaboration at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, has managed, 38 times, to confine single antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap for more than 170 milliseconds.
The magnetic trap was an octopole electromagnet that created a balance point for an atom that “has a more subtle magnetic character that arises from the spins of its constituent particles”. That applies to regular ol’ hydrogen too.
Granted, this isn’t very many atoms, and they aren’t the first to be created, but they lived the longest. Keep this up and we’ll be ready to start construction on the USS Enterprise 1701 in no time.
I won’t pretend to quite understand the spins and outs of creating antimatter, it is after all, rocket science, but the ability to trap antimatter, even as small and simple as antihydrogen, has enormous implications for energy applications. Stable storage of an energy source that packs a punch for it’s size. Of course the trick then is figuring a way to smooth out the energy-to-antimatter-to-energy curve and this will evolve into warp nacelles. Well, that and learning how to control energy release. No sense in having it happen all at once. In fact that could be rather bad in higher doses…
One thing that stands out to me is that; Given that when antimatter and ‘normal’ matter meet they cancel each other out releasing energy, their sustained existence does seem to demonstrate that gravity is indeed a quantum force and without a physical component.
This is a small step, but it’s significant to both quantum and relativist physics. And geeks…
We just brought Izzy home a few minutes ago.She’s about 4 years old and was on her 3rd time through the shelter; first as a stray, second as a ‘surrender’ and thirdly due to the owner having allergy issues. She has a nicked ear, so she’s seen some action at some point.
Nonetheless, she is now an indoor kitty, nobody’s allergic, and we won’t be giving her up – ever.
Already she’s investigated the house, is gravitating toward the most pets and scratches she can get, and shows no need to hide whatsoever. Very cool.
We adopted her from the Seattle Animal Shelter. There are still plenty of cats and dogs and critters there that need good homes so please stop by. If you can’t give an animal a home please donate to your favorite (preferably local) animal rescue/shelter and remember;
It’s been a week! My apologies at being remiss in posting a new digression, but as you can imagine, the Calf household has been a bit out of whack since losing Miz Jaz. It’ll be a couple weeks still until we start crawling the shelters looking for a cat that needs a family, but I’ll see what I can do about posting around here in the meantime. I’ll keep ya posted, as it were…
For now, please watch this instructional video carefully. Take notes if you need to. This film will save lives…
Five years ago a young lady decided she wanted another dog. Sensitive to the plight of hundreds of thousands of abandoned and unwanted animals she began her search at the pounds and shelters of our metropolitan area.
And Miz Liz came home with a cat.
An old, cranky biddy, floppy belly from litters of kittens, black with white points and striking green eyes. Jazmine was 8 or 9 years old and had an attitude that gave no quarter to those that didn’t understand that all she surveyed was indeed hers. She didn’t play well with others and demanded to be the only feline within any given domain. Female cats are termed “Queens” and she lived up to the title, if not defined it.
A 9-pound cat with a half-ton personality.
When Miz Liz moved to the Rose City, Jazmine came to live with Aunt Bee and I. Without missing a beat she took over our house and our lives – and we loved every minute of it.
At 9:30pm, any night of the week, Jaz and Aunt Bee pursued parallel naps in front of the tv.
Better than any alarm clock, she insured we got up by 7am daily. Her food dish wasn’t going to fill itself and she needed the use of an opposable thumb and we had the only ones in the house. At 5pm she began stalking the wild Friskies can, also called “The Food Dance” as her steps were fairly ritualized: around the table, between my feet and the chair – be sure to tail whip the legs so I know she’s made a circuit – climb Mt Aunt Bee, and do it all again until one of us silly ‘hoomans’ goes to the food room and makes that “skritch” sound right before food appears in the shiny thing at proper cat height.
An exclusively indoor cat, she still took her role as protector very seriously. A cat shows up on the patio? Jazmine would climb the screen door in our defense. (I haven’t been able to find my hooman-cat dictionary, but I’m pretty sure that old Queen had one heckuva potty mouth on her.)
She ran a tight and secure ship. When the late-show monologues came on she was ready for her handful of dry food and then escorted us to bed – on point. Once in bed, she’d tuck us in, drape across Aunt Bee for a few seconds (to fix her in place, probably) then scoot off to see if The Z was still up. If he was, Jaz would loudly request access to his room from the hallway. She had an uncanny time-sense to wait that 10 to 15 minutes until you’re in that sweet spot on the edge of sleep to come back into our bedroom and complain about being denied access to The Z’s room, or tell us how boring we were when we slept all those good hours away.
Yesterday, to use the parlance of Erin Hunter (all three authors who use the pseudonym), she went to hunt with Starclan. A battle with hyperthyroidism and kidney failure, both common in older cats, had reduced her to a slip of her former self.
The decision to put her to sleep was, and still is, stunningly devastating. What gave us the right to make that decision for her? I should have been able to fix it for her. What should I have done? How could I have failed Miz Liz so miserably by not keeping Jaz healthy? How could I have failed Jazmine so completely?
Aunt Bee is being so much more well adjusted about this than I am, the rock that she is, and reasonably I know she’s right. It was for the best, no matter our pain. But the questions still nag at me and probably always will. It’s just how I’m made and that’s just life. What isn’t in question, though, is the importance she had to our lives and in our family.
Trotting through the house, her belly flopping to and fro. Head butts and cat butts. Schedules and rituals. The little “I’m here” brrr you hear when walking into a room and the “goodnight-sleep tight” brrr’d conversation we’d have as we got ready for bed. Such little things. Such important things. So missed and so treasured.
So, thank you Miz Jaz-cat, for everything. It was a privilege to be your minion. Hunt well.
(Jaz Cat flickr pics can be found here)
[part 1 – the idea][part 2 – the software][part 3 – the hardware][part 4 – the build]
Part 5 – The Aftermath
We’ve been using the HTPC now for about a month and I’ve realized that I’m actually watching more television now! The TV isn’t on any more than it was, but I’m paying more attention to the shows that are on because I’ve taken the time to chose them rather than to simply settle on them as I flip by. This has actually opened me up to some interesting and good shows I wouldn’t have ever considered tuning into pre-HTPC. More on that later, though.
Interactive TV for Cats
I did finally get good control of everything into the single Harmony remote. Part of the issue there stemmed from having to go through the iMon software built into the case. A bit of a bother, but the remote’s programmability helps alot. Getting it down to the single remote affected the WAF (Wife Acceptability Factor) greatly, but for the first few weeks Aunt Bee was much like a cat at a fish pond; there are things in there that I want but if I try to get them my paw gets wet – and what if I fall in? She is getting the hang of it, though.
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The Ruffled Crow 