Aspirations

I've always aspired to be a polymath,
But so far I've only made it to dilettante.
—me, last night

Posted on July 14, 2008 at 13.33 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Briefly Noted, Reflections

Lambeth Focused on Bishop Robinson

There's the woman in the short, red dress who brought on her own rape because she dressed provocatively. Or any number of black men in the south who had to be lynched because they got uppity. Martin Luther King, Jr. got plenty of advice from helpful white folk about how he could help his movement by keeping a lower profile and upsetting fewer of those fine people. And, of course, there are any number of caring, sensitive non-homophobes who have nothing against gay people if only we wouldn't keep shoving it down their throats [!]. Need I mention the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and its overt scapegoating?

It's fascinating, albeit tiresome, how bullies always look for someone to blame for their own shortcomings.

And now there's Bishop Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire. You remember him: the seven-headed fifteen-foot tall fire-breathing dragon in the purple robes? Well, mild-mannered Gene, since he is widely recognized as the cause of the possible Anglican schism that may be happening even now by the African bishops and their embarrassing American hangers-on who are actually doing the apoplectic bullying, was not invited to the Lambeth Conference.

The Lambeth Conference, you recall, is a small do for Anglican bishops that happens once every ten years and to which all bishops come — except that Bishop Gene was uninvited. The spineless "leader" of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, seemed to think that by uninviting Bishop Gene, rather than uninviting the blood-thirsty mob who's been heckling Robinson and panting for schism, he could quell the blood-lust and contain the wild fire of schism. The word "appeasement" has been much in the news recently for being so widely misunderstood and misapplied, but this might be a reason to put it back to use in headlines.

Williams' strategy hasn't worked, and he should have known it wouldn't work. (The ever entertaining and wise Archbishop Desmond Tutu has made some remarks.) Bullies bully because that's what they like to do, appeasement never coaxes the genii back into the bottle, and besides, it was wrong. One could try to claim that Williams had a doubly devious strategy in which he announced that he would uninvite Robinson and set off the firestorm in which the braying pack of schism-hyenas would confirm to the world the homophobic bullies they are–but I think that probably gives Williams too much credit for deep strategic thinking.

Speaking frankly as the atheist observer, it's all mildly amusing. I have no good reason to try to cheer on the Anglican Communion by offering good advice, but if I thought Archbishop Williams were listening I'd call for him to reverse his position, lead for a change, and do the right thing. Stiff upper lip, and all. Then, when he did, I would take credit for it

Doing the right thing is hard to do, but we know this because, otherwise, everyone would be doing it.

Posted on July 14, 2008 at 13.30 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity

A Summer Menu

We had some good friends over for dinner last night. I tried to keep our menu on the light, summery side, but it was also the case that the supermarket had a really good sale on (beef) top round roasts, so that was to be our main course. Here's the menu we settled on:

  1. Cold Piña Colada Soup
  2. London Broil
    Oven Roasted Potatoes
    Italian Green Salad
  3. Light Lemon Cheesecake

I'm happy to say that it all came out tasting quite nice, which was a bit of a surprise since two of the recipes were getting tried for the first time. Yes, yes, I know what everyone says, but most times I can't really get up the motivation for trying out something new for just the two of us. Besides, these were friends–we invite them to dine with a sense of adventure and we can always order Chinese carry-out if things really go awry.

But things didn't go awry. I was really impressed with this technique for roasting the london broil / top round roast, too. It was easy, it seems trustworthy, and it cooked the meat to exactly the rare to medium-rare that I wanted. With the marinade it came out juicy and full of flavor with an expectedly firm texture, no sauce necessary.

I'd been wanting to try the Light Lemon Cheesecake recipe for awhile now and I'm glad I finally got around to it. It came out tasting quite a bit like Cold Lemon Soufflé with a lot less work. Now, to be fair, the Soufflé has a much more refined texture and taste and I will still be making it, but the Light Lemon Cheesecake was remarkably satisfying for something so easy to put together. Not to mention that, made this way, it has virtually no carbohydrates, making it low in guilt for us diabetics. It also appealed to my retro leanings and my fascination for all things Jell-O.

The salad was basically what I've described before as an "Italian Green Salad". This one was a big bowl of mixed greens, dressed with olive oil (only), then topped with cucumber, pear, raisins, and green onions.

On to the recipes!

— Cold Piña Colada Soup —

In two batches, process everything in the food processor until it's rather smooth. I put about half the amount of everything into the processor for each batch and then stir both batches together in a big bowl so it all comes out uniform.

Serve well chilled.

This amount makes four generous servings or six modest servings. It's a bit on the filling side, so judge accordingly. NB: The soup really, really tastes better if you chill it overnight in the refrigerator.

[Originally from The Fruit Cookbook, by Nicola Routhier.]

— London Broil (Top Round Roast) —

Put the roast in a large plastic bag and pour in a generous amount of marinade. Seal the bag and marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat the over to 425°F.

Oil a jelly roll pan and put the roast on it. Roast 30 minutes to an internal temperature of 125°F for medium-rare.

Out of the oven, put some aluminum foil loosely over the roast and let it sit at least 10 minutes, then cut across the grain into very thin slices.

(More or less from the meat man.)

— Oven Roasted Potatoes —

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Scrub potatoes and leave the peels on or peel as you prefer. Cut them into pieces about an inch on a side.

Put the potato pieces in a large mixing bowl, sprinkle on the herbs and salt and pepper as you like, pour on the olive oil, and stir to coat the potato pieces with the herby oil.

Bake on a cookie sheet for about 45 minutes to an hour until very crispy and browned to your taste.

(adapted from Suzanne Dunaway, Rome, at Home : The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Home Kitchen, New York : Broadway Books, 2004.)

— Light Lemon Cheesecake —

Spray all side and bottom of an 8-inch spring-form pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle crumbs around the rim of the pan.

Put gelatin in the food processor. Add the boiling water and process until gelatin is thoroughly dissolved.

Add cream cheese to gelatin and process until smooth. Pour into a large bowl.

Stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest. Fold in the whipped topping. Pour into the spring-form pan and chill for at least 4 hours.

(from The Magic of Jell-O : 100 New and Favorite Recipes Celebrating 100 Years of Fun with Jell-O, New York : Sterling Publishing, Inc., 1998.)

Posted on July 13, 2008 at 16.25 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Food Stuff

Update: Science-Book Challenge 2008

The year–that would be 2008, if memory serves–is now half over so it seemed like a good time for me to give a brief update on the official Ars Hermeneutica "Science-Book Challenge 2008".

I am pleased to report ample success at the same time I can note the year is only half over and anyone and everyone is still invited to take the challenge. Just this week we passed a milestone: we now have just over 100 book notes on a wide range of informative, enlightening, and entertaining nonfiction books that have a scientific outlook or a science theme. (Yes, there are even a few that we suggest you avoid).

This has come about through the efforts of seven reviewers, challengers all, who have contributed 35 notes on books read since the beginning of 2008. We are grateful to each one of them and delighted at the variety of titles and the diversity of the voices writing about them.

Here's the mid-year roundup of books, book notes, and the notes' authors. Read some notes, choose some books, and enjoy yourself and learn something at the same time!

Posted on July 12, 2008 at 15.20 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science

Ars Volunteer II

Ars Hermeneutica and I are looking for a very special volunteer, just the right person to double our full-time volunteer staff. I intend this to be a volunteer-to-hire position since our top priority will be to bring some projects to the money-bearing stage sooner rather than later so that we can pay ourselves and hire others. Obviously the selected person will have a significant affect on the course of Ars' trajectory, and I'd like to think that it has the potential to be a very satisfying career wager.

I operate quite well as the ideas guy; I desperately need a doer. Here is the position description and associated information, where it will remain until I identify the right person. So, if the link is there I'm still looking.

I don't need instant full time, and we'll be working for awhile yet without offices, but when we alight we will be located in or near Bowie, Maryland, which is in the Washington, DC / Baltimore, MD / Annapolis, MD triangle.

I am posting this here in the hopes of gaining a little more widespread exposure. If you know someone who might be interested, or you know someone who knows someone, etc, please pass the information along.

Posted on July 9, 2008 at 21.28 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Personal Notebook, Speaking of Science

Beard of the Week XLI: In Pursuit of the Gene

This week's very smart beard, which might live up to calling it a van Dyke, belongs to geneticist and cellist Edmund Beecher Wilson (1856–1939). On the Columbia University Website, where he is one of their "Living Legacies" (despite his being deceased these last 70 years), he is hailed as the first "cell biologist", with which history seems agreeable. He spent the bulk of his career at that institution. That "living Legacies" article, "Edmund Beecher Wilson: America's First Cell Biologist", by Qais Al-Awqati, is a good appreciation of E.B.Wilson's work and life, and the source of these two photographs of the younger Wilson.

Early in his research life, just after getting his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, Wilson became interested in studying the connection between evolution and phylogeny, or phylogenetics (the course of evolution of a species). Later he moved into cell biology and made his greatest discoveries through careful and detailed observation of cell divisions during development, starting with the first division after fertilization of an egg cell by a sperm cell. His work set the course for genetics: the discovery of chromosomes, his own discovery that X and Y chromosomes determine sex (gender), which was a controversial finding at the time, and integrating Mendelian patterns of inheritance into genetics (which wasn't quite genetics at the time, of course).

Some of this I knew about because I recently finished reading In Pursuit of the Gene : From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press 2008) by James Schwartz. I liked the book very much, predominantly for these two reasons: 1) it was a thoroughly researched history of the idea of the gene and how it evolved from its earliest (and rather strange) germ of an idea in the theories of Darwin; and 2) author Schwartz actually discussed experiments and their results as a way to comprehend how the idea of the gene made its perilous journey to the modern idea that everyone recognizes and takes for granted. Of course, I wrote a book note.

Even though Schwartz took a biographical approach to telling his story, which he could do largely because the gene-meme almost moved from person to person, as though stepping across a stream on stones, the biographical material were there to serve his main story, that of the idea of the gene. One thing that I did not pick up from Schwartz' book was Wilson's love of music, nor the fact that he was a fellow cellist. This is from Qais Al-Awqati's piece (linked above):

It seems that everybody in Wilson’s family played an instrument. His father played the violin and cello, his mother and sister played the piano (as did both of his aunts), and his brother Charles was a violinist. Wilson began by taking singing lessons, and although he did not have a good singing voice, he says that these lessons left him “with an inveterate habit of reading all of music in do re mi language.” He learned to play the flute, but when he went to Johns Hopkins, he developed a lifelong passion for playing the cello. He wrote, “I was too old to take up so difficult an instrument with any hope of mastering it.” But he eventually became an accomplished cellist and reveled in playing quartets in Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia, and New York.

What a treat: a cute, bearded scientist who was also a cellist! I feel a strange connection across the decades.

Posted on July 7, 2008 at 03.00 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science

Thomas Tallis: Nine Psalm Tunes

This evening we were listening, with quite a bit of pleasure, to a recording we recently purchased. It's called "Heavenly Harmonies"; it records the 13-voice a capella group "Stile Antico" singing William Byrd's (c. 1540–1623) "Motets" (from Cantiones sacrae I & II) and "Mass Propers for Pentecost (from Gradualia, 1607), interspersed with "9 Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter" by Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585). (Harmonia Mundi USA, HMU 807463).

Naturally, while we were listening Isaac was doing some research. In particular he wanted to see whether the musical score for the Tallis was online, so that we might consider singing them sometime. Happily they are, at the Choral Public Domain Library (an invaluable resource for stuff like this). See: "Nine Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter (Thomas Tallis)".

It seems that Archbishop Parker published, in 1567, English-verse rhyming translations of all the biblical psalms. These versions apparently were of dubious value even at the time since, we are told, the published work never went on sale.

Anyway, as an example, here are verses 1 & 2 of psalm 68, as translated by Parker (this from the liner notes to the recording):

Let God arise, in majesty,
And scattered be his foes;
Yea flee they all, his sight in face,
To him which hateful goes;
As smoke is driv'n, and comes to nought,
Repulse their tyrrany;
At face of fire, it's wax doth melt,
God's face the bad might fly.

Wow!

Tallis wrote 9 tunes that were to be matched with the appropriate psalm translation according to the "accent" that was indicated for each psalm. The guidelines for the matching, not surprisingly, are presented in another poem (from the CPDL page) that describes "The nature of the eyght tunes":

~ 1 The first is méeke: deuout to sée,
\ 2 The second sad: in maiesty.
\ 3 The third doth rage: and roughly brayth.
/ 4 The fourth doth fawne: and flattry playth,
/ 5 The fyfth delight: and laugheth the more,
\ 6 The sixt bewayleth: it wéepeth full sore,
\ 7 The seuenth tredeth stoute: in froward race,
~ 8 The eyghte goeth milde: in modest pace.

I can't say for sure that we heard exactly those natures in the recording, but perhaps we weren't listening closely enough.

Our eyes were drawn particularly to this note about performance:

The Tenor of these partes be for the people when they will syng alone, the other parts, put for greater queers [= "choirs", of course!], or to suche as will syng or play them priuatelye.

Helpfully the CPDL page provides this remaining fact that may answer a question your didn't even know you had:

It is interesting to note that Psalme. 2. THE THIRD TUNE is the "theme" used in Ralph Vaughan Williams' popular "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis".

I'm sure that at this point some remark would be appropriate about how even the sweetest smelling flowers do grow from manure.

Posted on July 4, 2008 at 23.14 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Curious Stuff, Music & Art

Fun for US Canada Day

I apologize that I neglected to wish all my Canadian friends a happy Canada Day, although we did talk about maple trees on the second. Honestly, Chris, I adore maple trees, just some more than others. To celebrate y'all might enjoy looking at Bill's "Canada Day, 1976" photo album. As one friend wrote, he understood that today was Canada Day down here in the US.

We did rejoice a bit around here on the news of Jesse Helms' death, but not for long because his memory doesn't deserve much of our time. He was more like that big, festering wound that you just want to forget about when it finally goes away. Say something positive about the dead? He was a positively horrible Senator.

One blog I like to keep in my feeds (listed at right) is ManBabies. (I know, I've mentioned it before, but this is a party!) The idea is easily explained: once a day we get to see a photo (maybe two) of a baby with its dad (or some other man, perhaps) in which their heads have been interchanged. Of course it's peculiar–like a good friend should be. Sometimes it's a bit unsettling, but it's always worth the few moments it takes to look. These are a few favorites of mine from the past months that I keep looking at:

You know that I adore the comic xkcd ("A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language"), which is most definitely not to everyone's taste, so I will reveal more about myself by sharing the three that I've saved over the last few months that I find inexplicably hysterical.

I've also saved things from Boing Boing over the last couple of months and can't think of anything to do with them, so here they are.

[Later additions follow: there were a few more from Boing Boing I had pinned that Bloglines finally coughed up from the database. I'd wondered where they got to.]

Posted on July 4, 2008 at 22.27 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Laughing Matters, The Art of Conversation

Bradford Pear Demoted

In one short news story on the radio this afternoon I simultaneously learned two things:

  1. For the last 30 years, the Bradford Pear has been the official tree of Prince George's County, Maryland; and
  2. As of today, the Bradford Pear is no longer the official tree of Prince George's County, Maryland.

To make a long story short, here's a good, brief summary of the tree and its popularity:

Bradford pears are a variety of a pear native to Korea and China, Pyrus calleryana, which was first introduced to Western horticulture in 1908. The seedling which later became Pyrus calleryana "Bradford" was brought from Nanking in 1919, but it wasn't until 1963 that the USDA introduced the variety commercially.

The tree was supposed to be the perfect street tree, with profuse early bloom, a restricted pyramidal shape, and good fall color. So many landscapers, urban planners, and homeowners agreed with your assessment of this tree's beauty that today it can be found almost everywhere.

[Marc Montefusco, "The Pros & Cons of Bradford Pears", Frederick County Master Gardener Program, accessed 1 July 2008.]

They are indeed very pretty in the spring, especially by the dozens lining suburban roads, as they do in many places around here. Here are some lovely pictures of rows of Bradford Pears in bloom: one, two, three.

As the announcer said in his brief news story, the Bradford Pear does not age well. It seems that as they mature they become brittle and easily broken by wind or ice. We've been discovering that around here the last few years. Some of the streets in our neighborhood had Bradford Pears at their sides, but the last couple of years have taken their toll and we now have several fewer of the trees left.

Rarely does an entire tree get destroyed, however; more typically, a big branch, maybe half the tree at a time, will be split off. There was one tree just up the street that had been dealt such a serious blow twice in as many years so that all that was left was a six-foot trunk with this long, skinny branch-like thing growing out of it. I thought it had a lot of character, actually, but the home-owner apparently disagreed with me and finally cut the whole thing down.

It is a bit of a shame, really, because they are quite beautiful when they all bloom and during the rest of the year they have a very graceful shape. Alas, we seem to be left with only the red maples, which are nice enough trees but one can tire of red maples by the gross.

Posted on July 2, 2008 at 17.06 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Personal Notebook, The Art of Conversation

Beard of the Week XL: Plant Pigments

This lovely beard, a beautiful example of a mid-twentieth-century schnauzer, belongs to the chemist Richard Willstätter. I confess that his name was not familiar to me despite his having won the 1915 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Here are two short excerpts from his Nobel biography that summarize his prize-winning research.

As a young man he studied [c. 1902] principally the structure and synthesis of plant alkaloids such as atropine and cocaine. In this, as in his later work on quinone and quinone type compounds which are the basis of many dyestuffs, he sought to acquire skill in chemical methods in order to prepare himself for the extensive and more difficult work of investigating plant and animal pigments. [From Munich he went to work in Switzerland for seven years, returning to Germany in 1912, where he took up a position in a newly established Institute of Chemistry in Berlin/Dahlem.]

In the two short years before the outbreak of the first World War he was able with a team of collaborators to round off his investigations into chlorophyll and, in connexion with that, to complete some work on haemoglobin and, in rapid succession, to carry out his studies of anthocyanes, the colouring matter of flowers and fruits. These investigations into plant pigments, especially the work on chlorophyll, were honoured by the award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1915)….

His main achievement, according to the Nobel presentation, was elucidating the chemical nature of the chlorophyll and "having been the first to recognize and to prove with complete evidence the fact that magnesium is not an impurity, but is an integral part of the native, pure chlorophyll – a fact of high importance from the biological point of view (source, the rest of which makes for very interesting reading)." By the way, "Plant Pigments" was the title of Willstätter's Nobel lecture.

He continued to be productive after winning the prize and worked until he chose to end his career in what must have seemed a startling move.

Willstätter's career came to a tragic end when, as a gesture against increasing antisemitism, he announced his retirement in 1924. Expressions of confidence by the Faculty, by his students and by the Minister failed to shake the fifty-three year old scientist in his decision to resign. He lived on in retirement in Munich, maintaining contact only with those of his pupils who remained in the Institute and with his successor, Heinrich Wieland, whom he had nominated. Dazzling offers both at home and abroad were alike rejected by him. In 1938 he fled from the Gestapo with the help of his pupil A. Stoll and managed to emigrate to Switzerland, losing all but a meagre part of his belongings.

He lived in Switzerland until he died on 3 August 1942, of a heart attack. I was interested to read that a memorial to Willstätter was unveiled in Muroalto, where he lived his last years, in 1956, the year I was born.

This portrait photograph (source) was taken in 1942 by an unidentified photographer. And now we come to the original reason that Willstätter is this week's BoW, namely so that I could mention that the Smithsonian Institution's Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology has put some of their large collection of portraits of scientists and inventors online at Flickr: "Portraits of Scientists and Inventors". This collection has 144 portraits; they tell us that the entire collection is available online in the "Scientific Identity" digital collection.

I first read about the Smithsonian Library's adding photographs to the Flickr commons project by reading an entry in the Smithsonian Library's blog. It wasn't long ago that the Library of Congress delighted fans of photography by putting big chunks of their collections on Flickr in a first-of-its-kind collaboration.

It's a lot of fun with wonderful images to see; it's also a great sink of one's time. But this is culture and heritage and history, right? Besides, I think we're all better people for knowing more about Richard Willstätter now. What a learning experience is Beard of the Week!

I expect we'll be exploring more of these portraits in the future.

Posted on June 30, 2008 at 03.00 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science

On the Ontology of Old Cars

When conversation really, really lags and I feel the need to do something desperate, I have long relied on my metaphysical topics: 1) the potato-chip question*; and 2) the antique-car question. Topic #2 is our purpose at the moment.

The question is rather simply put, as it should be. Imagine an antique or classic car, say, a 1956 Ford Thunderbird, long one of my favorites, the one with the removable fiberglass top. In "Thunderbird Green" should do nicely, I think.

Anyway, imagine that this Thunderbird is exceptionally well maintained. As light bulbs burn out they are replaced. As other parts wear out, they, too, are replaced. The engine has probably been taken apart and put back together at least twice, and perhaps the transmission has been replaced. Over time body work is necessary here and there, possibly a new fender and a new bumper were required.

You get the picture. Over time little bits of the Thunderbird are replaced. After some number of years it becomes possible, then likely, that none of the physical materials of which the Thunderbird is currently constituted were actually incorporated into this car in the factor. In fact, every piece of the original car has been replaced at one time or another. And yet, provided the replacements are made small enough at any one time, the car will still be considered an original and well-maintained 1956 Thunderbird by most people, collectors and connoisseurs in particular.

And yet no piece or particle of the car is in any way original. Where, then, resides the essence of the car? The question appears in other guises, too. I once read a fascinating article about different attitudes between American conservationists and Asian conservationists, the former being aghast to learn that the latter conserved old buildings by tearing them down and building them afresh every 100 years or so.

I think it's a fascinating question; some people think it's trivial and irritating, but they're not very interesting people anyway, so they can be ignored.

But the question itself, interesting as it is, is not the point of this essay. The real point is that I had always thought this was my question, having never encountered anyone else who had put this notion quite this way. Until this morning, that is.

My current reading, one of it anyway, is the mystery novel by Reed Farret Coleman called Empty Ever After. So far so good, but I'm really only getting started.

Regardless, what should I read this morning but this (from p. 89):

How much, I wondered, peering at my tired-looking reflection, had I changed without noticing?I thought back to philosophy class at Brooklyn College.

Essay #1
If you own a car for a number of years and over the course of those many years you replace part after part, at what point does that car cease being th original car? Does that car ever cease being what it once was? If you were to replace every part, would it cease being the old car?

I was startled, but now I know that I'm not alone, for better or worse.
__________
* Without going into detail, the question has to do with how to distinguish between a "potato chip" and "part of a potato chip". In any group I find that everyone feels the question is trivial and the answer obvious, but if the group is larger than 5 or 6 there can be serious disagreements on the obvious answer.

Posted on June 29, 2008 at 21.53 by jns · Permalink · 8 Comments
In: All, Notes to Richard, The Art of Conversation

Continuity in Narrative

I've been thinking lately about continuity in narrative, "continuity" rather in the sense it is used in film: what the author narrates to the reader in getting a character from one point in the plot to the next point. I imagine it's been on my mind since I recently finished a novel by an author who had ideas that diverged from my expectations about what was necessary to narrate, resulting in something akin to a badly edited film.

When I'm writing fiction I sometimes think explicitly about continuity, but more often my characters move around and the plot unfolds according to my intuition–until one of my initial readers points to a problem where his expectations differed from my intuition. It's also under the heading of "continuity" where I file most of my thoughts about what makes one writer different from another. At the most abstract (and silliest, tautological) level, different authors choose to put different words after each other from the gazillion of available choices.

Still rather on the obvious side: different authors choose to show us different things to tell their story. Some authors show and describe in lots of detail; others go for a less opulent approach. I tend towards the latter, partly because I don't tend towards flowery, over-abundant prose* I also prefer psychological characterization to physical characterization, particularly when I want the reader to fill in many of the details to suit his own taste, for example. I also have a taste for ambiguity.

But still, all of us writing fiction have to get characters from here to there, whether in physical reality or in psychological unreality (with the exception, I suppose, of some experimental writing). There clearly is a great deal of latitude in what an individual author can choose to show, but just as clearly there are boundaries not to cross. Where are the boundaries? Are the boundaries the same for different readers?

For instance, this passage cuts way to quickly for me not to be jarred by reading it.

Mona looked quickly around the hotel lobby. Near the stairs she saw a glint off gun metal. She had to get out of there!

She floored the accelerator in her Porsche, squealing tires as she backed out of her space and sped out of the parking lot.

On the other hand, this level of detail is hardly necessary, until the author feels it is revealing something about the character.

Mona looked quickly around the hotel lobby. Near the stairs she saw a glint off gun metal. She had to get out of there!

Mona rotated forty degrees to her left and began striding quickly towards the revolving door ahead of her, starting with her right foot. After forty-two paces she reached the revolving door, which she pushed heavily to get it moving. The rubber flashing on the door flapped twice as ….

Sorry, but that was just getting tiresome and I didn't really care to figure out just how many steps in her red high-heels (2.5" heels) it would take to get to her car.

Some of the continuity choices affect the pace at which the action seems to move. Quick cuts and fast action go with a sort of blur of background detail as it rushes past. Slower action and more detail might accompany a more reflective mood on the part of the character in the middle of the action.

I hate for this to be like the joke where I say "have you heard the one about…" and then realize half-way through that I've forgotten the punchline, but I don't think I have many good answers–I'm not even quite sure what the question is yet.

I'll get back to you on that.

__________
* This is not to say, however, that I don't tend towards writing excessively baroque sentences. In my first drafts I can easily have subordinate clause pile-ups that endanger writers in neighboring states, but at least that gives me something useful to do to get into editing a story.

Posted on June 27, 2008 at 16.45 by jns · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: All, Writing

Beard of the Week XXXIX: Schütz, Schein, and Scheidt

This week's beard belongs to Philip Cave, who has recently taken up the post of music director at All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.†

Philip Cave (his website) is an accomplished tenor who has sung with the Hilliard Ensemble, The Sixteen, the Choir of the English Consort, and the King's Consort, among others, as well as his own ensemble Magnificat. As you can surmise he makes a specialty of renaissance and baroque music.

This past Saturday, 21 June, as part of the Washington, DC Early Music Festival he led an all-day workshop that he called "Schütz, Schein, and Scheidt: Early Music Masterpieces from Germany". Isaac and I went, along with our early-music cohort HelenJean. It was an exhausting but exhilarating experience.

There were about 60 participants in the workshop. We had a pretty good assortment of men's and women's voices with, perhaps, a slight excess of sopranos (in number but not in vocal power). There was a wide range of musical experience, but everyone shared a keen interest in the music and most were not timid about singing lustily and with often surprising accuracy.

The pace of the workshop was quite brisk. We had a good chunk of repertoire to get through:

From about 10am until 1pm we spent our time reading through each piece and then rehearsing bits of it (generally back to front) and then going through one more time. By lunch time we had gotten through each piece, a total of 55 pages of music. We had a brief lunch break and were back to singing by 1:45 in the afternoon. Here our strategy was to revisit each piece in our repertoire to check for tempi and to have one last look at the rough spots in each piece. Our time for rehearsing was limited because at 4pm we had about a dozen people show up to listen to our concert (who knew?) at which we performed each piece. To be honest we performed them surprisingly well, too!

It's all glorious music. I become a bigger fan of Schütz with each new piece I hear or learn or perform. It was just a year ago that I performed the Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt with Isaac's choir (see "Beard of the Week XXI: Renaissance Polyphony") and I was delighted to see it again in our music booklet. I'm sure there was a bit of relief from seeing something familiar, but also I was excited to be singing it once again, it is so much fun to sing. The ending of it, a doxology with amen is stunning to hear but even more stunning from the inside, as it were.*

The other pieces were largely unfamiliar to me but they were all good choices, each one with some choice bit to savor. Music of this period is rich in complicated rhythms and delightful and surprising combinations of independent voices that sometimes produce the most startling harmonic effects. you can hear some of that in this not entirely successful performance of the "Cantate Domino". Finding out how the effects are produced by singing one of the parts is a real ear-opening experience. You also find out, if you had any misconceptions about it, that four-hundred year old music is not simplistic music!

You may recall that I don't sing in performance all the much. A couple of musicals a year, maybe, and perhaps a few pieces a year with our early-music nonette (more or less) at Isaac's church. I've been singing early music like this with that group for maybe seven or eight years and loving every bit of it, but this workshop probably doubled my personal repertoire.#

I feel pretty sure that my sight-singing has improved by one big chunk because of the experience. There was no coddling in this workshop. Philip was a good choir leader, effective and efficient and good natured, although he did seem to keep saying, after we'd been through a section once: "Okay, now that you've got the notes let's pay some attention to the words!" Okay, my vocal German pronunciation has also improved substantially and I know more about the words and all the musical painting that goes with them, too.

As I said, it was an exhausting but rewarding–if unusual–way to spend a day.
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† The church is located in Woodley Park, just off Connecticut Avenue on Cathedral Avenue. The rector since last summer is John Beddingfield. This is the church where Isaac became the new parish administrator last December.

* First, remember that his setting is called "The Echo Psalm", because he uses two choirs, the "large choir" and the "small choir", and the small choir mostly echoes what the large choir sings; large choir sings a phrase, small choir echoes, and sometimes there's overlap. With physically separated choirs you get stereo. Anyway, after mentioning the father, son, and holy ghost there is the "amen", in which all the voices of the large choir sing "amen" in overlapping scales and the small choir echoes, also in overlapping phrases. There's lots of "amens" just tumbling all over the place as the harmony moves towards its conclusion, at which point all the voices come together in the closing chord on "a-men", except the small-choir tenors, who sing "a-". Everyone else stops abruptly and the small-choir tenors are left alone singing the closing "-men". It gives me chills. I loved being a small-choir tenor both times.

# In case you're interested, feel free to look at my "Performance Vitæ", where I try to keep a list of stuff that I've performed since 2000 or so, playing 'cello and singing and doing musical theater.

Posted on June 25, 2008 at 01.06 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art, Personal Notebook

Lightning Safety Awareness Week 2008

Yesterday I had a press release from NOAA letting me know that this week, 22-28 June, is "Lightning Safety Awareness Week". Apparently it is the seventh such declared week. The motto of LSAW comes from the mouth of Leon the Lion: "When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!"

The National Weather Service, operated by NOAA, maintains a Lightning Safety Website that is filled with useful information and other interesting lightning-awareness stuff. For instance, there is a nice gallery of photographs of lightning, whence came the dramatic photograph at right, taken by Harald Edens near Socorro, NM, 2003 (used by permission).

On the home page, towards the bottom, there is a near real-time map showing lightning strikes in the continental US (and bits north and south) over a two-hour time period (delayed, they say, about 30 minutes after the data were collected).

We learn that each year in the US an average of 62 people are killed by lightning. Of those,

We are told that lightning can strike from storms as far away as ten miles, which is why the NWS advises "When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!" There really are no safe places to be outdoors. Either go inside a "safe building" or get inside a completely enclosed car (with metal roof). A "safe building" has walls with electrical wiring and plumbing, the latter being conductors that can get charge from a lightning strike into the ground instead of into people. Open shelters in parks, for example, are not "safe buildings". Naturally, there's more complete information around the NWS website.

Needless to say, perhaps, but my attention was drawn by two pages: "Lightning Science" and "Statistics and More". Woo hoo!

From "Lightning Science", lots of fun lightning facts:

"Statistics and More" has several interesting sounding things like interesting lightning events in history, details on lightning deaths, policy statements, factsheets, and guidelines. Links can be so much fun sometimes.

My own awareness was increased this week by the rather dramatic thunderstorms we had last Sunday night, and again on Monday night, when Isaac and I were out and we both saw a brilliant stroke of lightning.

Posted on June 24, 2008 at 22.52 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation

The Lovely Cyd Charisse

Two days ago Cyd Charisse died. We liked seeing her in movies, watching her dance. To be honest, though, we seem most to associate her with Gene Kelly's voice as heard in the film series "That's Entertainment", once we noticed that he always referred to her as "the lovely Cyd Charisse".

I suppose this is only partly about Cyd Charisse because what came to mind when I heard the news was possibly my favorite dance sequence from a movie musical, "The Girl Hunt Ballet" from "The Band Wagon", a strikingly original and vibrant segment choreographed by Fred Astaire, danced by Astaire and Charisse and the company, with Charisse playing two roles.

It's a sort of satire of a hard-boiled detective story; Astaire is the dick, Charisse is the suspicious acting blond and the femme fatale (in a fabulous red dress!). The choreography is heavily narrative and in a very angular jazz idiom. The style seems rather foreign to what we usually imagine Astaire dancing but he is, as always, perfect at it and I find it thrilling to watch. I admire the technicalities of his dancing, particularly his precise timing, that nevertheless tells its story so effectively. I think it's the most brilliant thing Astaire did.

The movie "The Band Wagon" itself–I have mixed feelings about. It surely it at the top of the list of all-time great MGM musicals, it has lots of fabulous song and dance numbers, it's got Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray, Oscar Lavant, the book was written by Comden & Green (the best musical-comedy writing team ever, probably), the music by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, and directed by Vincent Minnelli. What a team! Unfortunately I find the story rather weak and pointless, but it is basically a musical review and I love it for the music and dance anyway, I'm just a little disappointed that Comden & Green didn't write a better book since I know they could have. (The writing they did for the stage musicals "Bells are Ringing" and "On the Twentieth Century" is some of the best ever.)

This clip from "The Girl Hunt Ballet" begins when the story is already underway and stops well before the end, but it does highlight some of the best dancing and the lovely Cyd Charisse's red dress!


Posted on June 20, 2008 at 00.20 by jns · Permalink · 6 Comments
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook

It's Ice!

This news from NASA and the Phoenix Mars Lander seems to be traveling around with near light speed:

Bright Chunks at Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice 06.19.08

TUCSON, Ariz. – Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

[more]

Of course this is big news for the mission and everyone watching it. Finding evidence of water* on Mars–even evidence of water ever having been on Mars–is usually taken as a necessary condition for finding evidence of any life existing, or having existed at one time, on Mars. Whether this is really true is another matter, but water played a necessary role for life to appear on Earth so it's thought that no water would mean no chance of life.

Now we believe that there is currently frozen water, existing now, today, on Mars. It doesn't mean extraterrestrial life but a serious road-block (i.e., no water) has been removed. Besides, discovering signs of water, either now or ever, has been a long, long quest for a good number of people, and now they've found it.

A lot of people are pretty excited.
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* The evidence: four days ago Phoenix was digging a trench when it came upon a solid, white layer. The layer could have been frozen water or maybe something like salt. What's happened in the last four days? Some small chunks of the white substance, loosened when Phoenix was digging, disappeared. Disappearing means evaporating (more precisely, "sublimating", which is the word that means evaporating directly from the solid form without first melting), something that salt and other likely substances would emphatically not do, whereas exposed water ice would do exactly that.

Posted on June 19, 2008 at 23.38 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science

Check Out Them Roses

Some things are just too fabulous not to share. Joe ("Sing Out, Louise!", Joe.My.God, 19 June 2008), looking into Patti Lupone's acclaimed Tony-award performance from "Gypsey", tripped across this homage by one Michael Burbach. I couldn't say it better than Joe: "I don't know who the heck this Michael Burbach kid is, but he is made of the awesome. And the fabulous. Watch this clip and you will instantly became 100% gayer."



Posted on June 19, 2008 at 17.07 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Faaabulosity, Music & Art

Look at All the Happy People

[Original caption:] Robin Tyler, left, and Diane Olson rejoice after marrying in a Jewish ceremony on the steps of the Beverly Hills courthouse.

Photo by: Luis Sinco; from Carla Hall, John M. Glionna and Rich Connell, "Gay marriages begin as California ruling takes effect", Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2008.

Posted on June 17, 2008 at 17.13 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All

End-of-Civilization Vigil

This is just a little reminder, in case it has slipped from your attention, that civilization as we know it will end this evening at 5:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time.* I'll be listening for the first cracks.

The end itself will begin, of course, with the institution of marriage, thought by some to have survived intact and unchanged for at least two-thousand years, or possibly since the beginning of time, which may have occurred not much earlier–there seems to be some ambiguity in their sole source-book of complete and infallible information. This disregards the fact that the institution of marriage was most recently updated in the US by the Supreme Court in 1967, not quite two-thousand years ago, but close. I suppose it's the thought that counts.

It just struck me today that although I have long preferred referring to "marriage equality" in avoidance of the much more popular "gay marriage", I don't think I've ever enumerated the reasons. There are several

I understand that a few heads may explode upon hearing one man refer to another man as his "husband', but the human mind seems infinitely flexible at dealing with novel concepts–witness the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics–and that natural selection has to weed out through head explosions those that cannot cope with evolving social concepts. Fortunately, marriage equality does not alter jurisprudence or practice concerning who showers with whom in semi-public or private.

Just what form the end of civilization might take is not clear, nor is it certain that it will arrive precisely at the appointed hour despite the time that the big guy has had to prepare. Could this be the occasion of the big earthquake that will cause all of California to fall into the Pacific Ocean, or is something more subtle indicated? Perhaps the source of all retribution will follow its time-honored practice of waiting an inscrutable number of weeks or months or years and then, say, destroy with flood or hurricane or plague of alligators some small town in Florida where there lived someone whose niece had a friend who knew two guys who got married in California. You laugh, but it's happened before.

Whatever and whenever, it starts this evening. 5:01 PM, PDT. I'll be listening and I hope everyone else pays very close attention, too.
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*For the second time, of course, having already ended once in 2004 when Massachusetts recognized the universal, inalienable right marriage equality, but only for residents of the state. The difference this time is that anytwo are allowed to avail themselves of marriage equality in California.

Posted on June 16, 2008 at 15.49 by jns · Permalink · 5 Comments
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity

Re-Tiling Our Shower I

Longer ago than I really care to admit, one wall of our master bathroom revealed that it had been damaged by water (and poor construction) and needed remedial treatment.

Over time all of the tiles on that wall, an exterior wall with a window at one end of our large shower, were removed, the old, damaged wallboard was removed, fresh green-wall put up in its place (by our ever-handy, ever-resourceful neighbor Michael) and its surface finished, ready to receive new tile. Then, of course, came the difficult task for Isaac and me: choosing a new tile. We decided we didn't simply want to replace or reproduce the medium-gray tile that had been there and still covered the other two walls of the shower. Instead we wanted some color and a different tile that would harmonize with the gray ceramic but perk things up a bit. It turned out to be a quest that revealed us at our most indecisive. We never quite found something that excited us that we agreed on and that we thought would meet our specs.

Well, today we had success. A friend had suggested we go to The Tile Shop in Rockville, Maryland, about a 40-minute drive if the traffic is good on the capital beltway. We did and it was.

We roamed systematically around the store and saw lots of nice tiles that didn't do anything for us until we got to the back corner of the store and saw this "Sky Blue Porcelain Mosaic". It caught the attention of both of us in a "hmm, that's not bad" sort of way. Then we discovered, as we roamed further, that we compared everything we saw to the "Sky Blue Porcelain Mosaic". Could it be? Could it possibly be as simple as that? Had we at long last found a tile that would suit us both and look good on that wall.

We quickly decided that the answer was yes! We were aided by discovering that one of the display walls in the store was decorated in "Sky Blue Porcelain Mosaic" and it looked lovely to us, just the sort of effect we were thinking of. The individual tiles are 0.75" square, medium-saturated sky-blue color with irregular, medium-gray markings on the edges. The photograph is a fair representation, although I don't think it give a comprehensive idea of the effect of an entire wall covered in the tile, but it is quietly attractive without being outlandish. We will use a bright white grout, which brings out the tiles' colors without being garish.

As it happened there was a matching tile in a dark blue called "Sapphire" that we could use for an accent, so we decided to use the "Sapphire" to make a strip across the wall that would contain the long, skinny window, using it to cover the window sill and such, too. The tiles are ordered and should arrive in a week or two.

A few of you have seen the inside of our house and will be able to imagine the situation, perhaps. For the rest, I will try to remember to keep a photo-diary as the work progresses because I know how very much y'all will want to see what's going on.

Anyway, we're quite happy to be moving at long last into this final phase of getting our bathroom put back together after altogether too long an exile.

Posted on June 15, 2008 at 23.19 by jns · Permalink · 2 Comments
In: All, Personal Notebook