Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

One Unusual Dream: Writing this down so I don't (entirely) forget it: Woke from a dream on Sunday morning that was odd because Nothing Weird Happened. It was incongruous with my waking life, because I was back in college (though my current age), and my mother was alive while my father had died.

But the whole dream was just a community meeting held in the college's student lounge, with invited members of the community (such as school-aged children and their parents). And the project at hand was figuring out how to put on some sort of theatrical festival, and who should be in charge of what, and trying to come to some sort of consensus on structure and theme. And people were talking over each other, and it was hard to keep track of side conversations and make sense of what decisions were actually being made.

But ... That was it. At some point in the middle of thinking: "Man! we have some great ideas, and this could be great, but first, we really need to get our act together..." I woke up.

The only really unusual thing was that the student lounge had a working fireplace at one end of the room, and at one point, I was chatting with a woman while she cleaned out the ashes. But then again, this was an artsy-fartsy Liberal Arts college in the Northeast USA, somewhere, so even that wasn't really weird.

I mean, a dream where no articles of clothing disappeared, ninja octopus assassins were not trying to break in, no getting lost in the hallways on the way to the meeting, only to enter an elevator that's a mini-Egyptian museum. It was weird for being normal.

Two Posts from "Rolling Around in My Head" that have got me thinking: The News in Plain Language (making the news accessible to those with intellectual disabilities) and Forgiveness: A Guest Post by Donna Lee (Why forgiveness is often a stumbling block to healing)

Three things I'm pondering:

A) Coming into social awareness amid the Feminist Pride of the 1970s, I never would have thought that, 40 years later, adolescent young women would be subject to online "slut shaming" and bullying, while their adolescent young men partners are not shamed for the same behavior... Excuse me, but: where-T.F. did That come from?!

B) Related to the "Plain Language" post, above: That Up-Goer-Five text editor demonstrated for me that "Plain Language" =/= "common language," especially if it means a) using an uncommon secondary definition of a common word, and (even more important) creating unusual strings, and long strings, of common words when a single, uncommon, word can convey the idea much more clearly (For example: "Teacher" is in the top thousand, and therefor allowed, but "Teach" is not). Sometimes, jargon really does give us the best words.

C) On the possibility/probability that human beings never will explore the universe outside our own solar system: At first blush, that seems depressing. But then again, maybe alien planets and alien beings need to remain fiction, so that we have a storytelling space for exploring alternate philosophies and historical implications.

Four songs/videos I look up, when I need cheering up:

Die Gedanken sind frei (my try) (in German)

"Experimental Film" with Jim Henson and the Muppets

Symphony of Science - "We are all connected"

Classic Sesame Street - Fruit Song (more often than not, this song pops into my head whenever I'm in the produce section of the grocery ^_^)

Five Favorite Flavors:

Cocoa/Chocolate
Ginger
Black pepper
Citrus
Garlic

1. Happy Fourth of July! ...Even if you do not celebrate the commemoration of American Independence from Britain, it's still the Fourth of July (except in those parts of the world where it's not). And in any case, I want the day to be happy for you. Or you to be happy for the day.

( Here, have a compicatedly-patriotic poem read my good friend and mentor for the last ... 25 years? )

2. On American Father's Day, I posted a picture of my dad as a young man (around 40 -- younger than I am now o_O). On American Independence Day, here's a picture of him toward the end of his life, posing with two of his fellow Coast Guard veterans:

( He's the one on the far left, with the Santa / Father Christmas Beard )

3. They found the Higgs boson (kinda, sorta... maybe?) Father would have been pleased. He was a great fan of bosons.

4. Good in the "Weird and wonderful way Real Life decides to act like a fantasy or sci-fi novel": This morning, I couldn't find my glasses. That's not unusual, or weird or wonderful; I often don't start for bed until I'm already so tired I'm half-way to REM sleep, so I could put my glasses down anywhere between my computer room and bedroom and have no conscious memory of where'd I put them, upon waking again.

The weird and wonderful thing is where I finally discovered they were: they were in the precise point I habitually put them down, on top of my bedside table -- same orientation, position, distance from all four edges of the table, Except they were on the floor under the table.

It's as if there was a shift in the particles, either in my glasses themselves, the table itself (or both) and my glasses did a little tiny quantum through "solid" matter, landing two feet straight down. Or maybe they jumped to a parallel universe, and miscalculated the jump back. Or Douglas Adams was right about the universe disappearing and reappearing the moment its secret is discovered, and we're in a totally new universe, with just one or two things different then they were before... (this is precisely the kind of thing that makes fantasy and sci-fi feel more realistic to me than so-called realism of mainstream fiction... doesn't happen often. But often enough)

5. Cheez-It crackers now come with a "Scrabble" design. I'm geeky enough that I bought some today (I was thinking of getting cheese crackers anyway). And no, the serving size is not seven crackers ... I'm geeky enough to have checked for, too.

There are many more posts up for Blogging Against Disablism Day, but here are a handful that my mind keeps returning to. And I couldn't help punning on the "5 good things" theme

1) "I've never met anybody who wasn't important, before."

2) Truth is

3) It gets inside our heads

4) Toppling Transactionalism

5) Recall to Pride: Blogging Against Disablism Day, 2012

And here's a link to the whole archive: Blogging Against Disablism Day -- 2012

1 ( This one has been building since December 14, 2011 (television: CSI: Why hiring disabled actors matters) )

2 ( Random 'Cerebral Palsy' Education Info-dump )

3 ( What lesson I hope Networks will learn from the recently ended 'Chuck,' sadly, probably in vain )

4 ( Obit: Davy Jones of the American sitcom 'The Monkees' )

5 ( Thinking of doing 'Camp NaNoWriMo' instead of, or in addition, to, the regular, November one )

*looks back over five.*

I guess this can be summed up as Good Writing=Good ??

(I'm typing this with a cat firmly anchored in the crook of my right arm. There is no dislodging her)

57 minutes.

I've had this vague thought that I should write something New Yearsy today. But to tell the truth, I've been drawing a blank.

55 minutes.

Things I've been thinking about instead:

1) Douglas Adams and Richard Dawkins. They were sort of a pair when it came to speaking about their atheism -- I think Dawkins invited Adams to read from HHttG at one of his lectures, iirc. So I've kind of been puzzling through why Dawkins makes me clench my jaw after reading through three successive paragraphs, and Adams fills me with warm fuzzies. And I think I've figured it out: As a writer of speculative, humorous, fiction, Adams recognized that even if a story were untrue it still has worth, even if it's a religious story.

2) I'm really liking the way the series Chuck is winding up its final season. The Intersect, the hi-tech pseudo-scientific, quasi-magical plot device which has driven everything in the previous four seasons has been completely written out (saying how would be spoilers), but the story continues without it, based on the characters (who'd of thunk it?), and what they've learned and how they've changed because of the Intersect. Even though it's not there, now.

Really. Characters who are written as people who can be interesting even without the hook that got the show made in the first place. Wow.

I'm going to keep my eye out for this writing team, to see what they come up with in the future. Because that? is something every genre of series TV needs.

38 minutes.

3) My monster bear. That's what I've been working on this weekend. I'm working from the smallest, fiddly pieces up to the large central torso. So far, I have the snout, ears, and one arm sewn. The arm is... a lot skinnier, turned right side out, than I thought it would be. The main body is a "bright" maroon (not bright, bright, but vivid, and more red then blue) and for the highlight color (inside the mouth, the inner ears and inner arms) is gold-ish (recycled sweatpants that I first bought for my second attempt at my freshman year of college ... 25 years ago?) So my bear will be a mix of new and old. I hope the body won't turn out as proportionally skinny as the arms did -- or at least, that one arm.

27 minutes

4) 2011 was a mixed bag. Emotionally, I think I was just sadder than my normal average. But I did some / am doing some nifty stuff (Plato's Nightmare / Aesop's Dream, my Zazzle store)

5) There is a New Year's Carol (which was considered nostalgic and old fashioned in 1647) with this as a second verse:

And now, with new years gifts, each friend
Unto each other they do send;
God grant we may our lives amend
And that the truth may appear.
Now like the snake cast off your skin
Of evil thoughts and wicked sin,
And to amend this new year begin
God send us a merry new year.

(To the tune of Greensleeves)

I wish New Year's was the Big, Gift-Giving Holiday, instead of Christmas. Because it's a (mostly) secular day; even cultures with different Official New Year days (Chinese, Jewish, Persian, etc.) recognize the Common Era calender, for business, if nothing else. So it's got the energy of a global cultural push behind it. And people could exchange gifts without wondering what holiday name to tack in front of it, and worry if they're using the wrong one.

And that global energy is one reason why the New Year (9 minutes) is a bigger, more emotional holiday for me, personally. But, because of all the local emphasis on December 25, nearly every one else around me is burned out just when I'm starting to want to sing.

(I guess this turned into a New Yearsy post after all.)

6-something minutes...

1) Woo! Now, when you cite an LJ Community, using DW's tags, you get the community icon, instead of the "single user" icon. I was wondering when that code would catch up.

2) OK-Go: I like their YouTube videos, but a couple of weeks ago, I guess it was, I caught them as the "musical guest" at the end of "The Late Show with David Letterman." And from seeing them just standing on the stage, I realized I don't like their music very much. It might be good, but I can't tell, because the sound balance is off between voice and instruments, and it just strikes my ear as a loud, jaunty, muddle. Also, I suspect they are covering their vocal weaknesses with AutoTune.

3) Speaking of "striking the ear," Vihart (of "doodling in math class" videos) has recently put up a longer work, that's a mix of live action, stop action animation, and montage, that wonderfully explains the biology, physics, and mathematics of sound, here: What's up with Noises? (The Science and Mathematics of Sound, Frequency, and Pitch). On the one hand, it's a wonderfully poetic explanation that validates all my love for music. On the other, it also validates the feeling I often have of being overwhelmed by hearing All The Sounds, All The Time.

4) I'm trying to figure out how to write about the Grimms' tale Hans-my-Hedgehog; usual (i.e. Jungian) interpretation generally frames his half a life as Hedgehog-boy as being metaphorical, and his shedding of the hedgehog skin (and emerging with milk-white complexion and blue eyes) as being the "reality." And I want to turn that on it's head. But I'm not sure how to frame that.

5) Still thinking of writing up a Similes Meme. But 30 is a lot. So it will probably end up being Seven Days of Similes, instead.

1. A thought experiment, with the same premise as Jane Elliott's "eye-color racism experiment, to illustrate how society's ableism bias creates disability out of difference:
   
   ( I elaborate behind here )
   
   
   
2. A startling thinky-think sentence from the introduction to Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of Strangers:*
   
   "The population of classical Athens when Socrates died, at the end of the fifth century BC, could have lived in a few large skyscrapers."
   
   
3. Remember my entry, here, about how "Monster" comes from a Latin word for offspring born with missing, or extra, limbs? I wonder if that's why so many 'monsters' have "Fish Tails." Where normal two hind legs would be, you have the two fused together, instead...
   
   
4. I love Geeks. I even enjoy, for the most part, hanging out with geeks who have a different flavor of geekiness than I do -- math geeks, or comic book geeks, for example. I think what makes someone geeky, and what makes geeky people so much fun, is that they refuse to develop a vaneer of cool cynicism: They remain enthusiastic about the things they love, and want to share it with others, regardless of whether or not others will think them silly for it. In this sense, I think, Geek is a better word than "nerd" because "geek" originally meant "village idiot" -- someone who knows a lot about their favorite subject, but doesn't really care for the fads and fashions valued by her fellow villagers.
   
   
5. This last weekend, I lost contact with the Internet, and so I resorted to reading an actually printed book to pass the time (the one I quote from above). And I realized one reason why I prefer to read from the computer screen. When I'm reading from a paper book, I have to hold it horizontally, so the light will shine on the pages, and that means, to read the pages, I have to bend my neck to look down at them, and that leads to strain, after a while... either that, or I have to hold the book up in front of my face, and that leads to arm strain. Whereas, when I'm reading on my monitor, my hands are resting on my desk, and my back and neck are straight, and I'm looking straight ahead. So my body's attention span doesn't give out before my mind's does. I think that's why an e-reader doesn't (yet) (fully) appeal to me: a computer that you have to handle like a book misses the point. ... or, at least, my point.

*(Well-written and engaging -- mostly, until the casual ableism slips out at random spots. Still, I'm enjoying the general flow of it, regardless of ocassional winces)

To celebrate, here are a few things that tickled my fancy, today:

1. I learned that Brian May, guitarist for Queen, has a Ph.D in astrophysics. That was a casual aside, btw, in a science story on NPR about a mysterious glob of giant glowy gas in Space.
   
   
2. This YouTube vid of Old School Seseme Street with Bert and Ernie singing a litany of "L" words (See what I did, there?). And I agree with Bert. His words are just as lovely as Ernie's; even if the objects the words refer to might be pedestrian (might), the words themselves are nifty. Just saying.
   
   
3. Another Youtube Vid: Outakes from Season 2 of New Who (especailly the bit from 7:40 to 7:53, when K-9 meets a real dog, walking in the park)
   
   
4. My kitty, Trixie, standing in front of my monitor and very purposely putting her paw on my chest.
   
   
5. The Thomas Jefferson Hour on the radio, today, learning about efforts to save the Lakhota language from extinction... especially the bits where I got to hear the sound of that language.

I gacked this from alryssa, this time.

Icon meme:
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of Icon Squee!

alryssa picked these:



Feminist:
A black and white photo of a middle-aged man with a bushy white beard, wearing a high black turban. The caption (in black and dark red lettering) reads: "This is what a feminist looks like."

This is Dadabhai Naoroji, a late-Nineteenth / early-Twentieth Century human rights activist and politician (the first British MP born in India). I got the picture, and the inspiration, for this icon from one of spiralsheep's history posts, wherein she highlights history of women and People of Color. One of the causes Naoroji worked for was the equal education and civil rights of women.



No Tea. Thnx:
This is a Doctor Who Companion of Awesome: Zoe (She traveled with the Second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton). In this scene from "The Invasion," the Doctor has gone off to confront the baddie, and she's worried that he's been gone too long, and (irrc) suggests that she go looking for him. The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, old military man that he is, basically pats her on the head, says that's nothing for her to worry about, and suggests she calm down with a cup of nice tea.

This is the dirty look she shoots at his back.

The caption is my own wording of the unspoken subtext: "Patronize me again. I dare you!" (as a short-statured, wheelchair-using woman, it's a frustration I've often felt the need to snark about [or make an icon of]).



Mirth:
A holstein cow wearing a jester's cap-and-bells, standing in a cartoon meadow. The caption reads: "got mirth?" in lower-case ariel font. This is one of the first icons I ever made, years ago. It's a take-off on the American Dairy Association's "Got milk?" ad campaign of the time. And it's an expression of my belief that a trickster's attitude is as good for your health as the proper dosages of calcium and vitamins.



Our life:
An animated text icon, in a blue script font on a white background: "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." snowgrouse made it for me. The quote is from Shakespeare's As You Like It -- the opening speech of Act 2.

The duke has been usurped by his (mustache-twirling, evil) brother, and he and all his courtiers have been living in exile in the Forest of Arden. He's being all: "Yay! Exile is the Bestest thing Evah! I'm learning so much from Nature about how to be a good human being!" His courtiers, meanwhile, are rolling their eyes and muttering: "Yeah... Um. I'd quite like my warm bed, and proper food, and entertainment, thanks. I'm tired of moral lessons."

I like the quote because it expresses the notion that there's more to life than humanity and popular culture; it's both very Pagan (i.e. our "Bible" and our "Sermons" are in paying attention to Nature), and very Naturalistic-in-favor-of-biodiversity (there are no "Bad" species, or "Bad" weather). Also, I'm a cock-eyed optimist, too. Most of the time.



Affixed:
A black engraving-style illustration of Shakespeare (or an imaginary version of Shakespeare) on a white background with the caption in red: "Yea! My head hath been affixed!"

This was the graphic attatched to a Shakepeare quote meme that circulated a while back, where you insert your name (or any random word), and it gives you a famous Shakespeare quote with your text replacing a key noun.

Here it is, if you're curious: The Shakespeare Quote Generator (from the same folks who gave us the food monkey wars, irrc). A meme within a meme, yay!


There's just something about the pose in that image that struck me as suspicious (like it's a cropped illustration of a random Elizabethan Gentleman that someone stuck a vaguely Shakepeare-looking face onto). So I snagged it and added a vaguely Elizabethan version of "My hed is pastede on, yay!"

One: A chandelier light fixture shaped like a tree upside down, so that the anchor/bracket in the ceiling are shaped like the roots and trunk. And the "candle flame" shaped light bulbs would be the "fruit" at the end of the branches. And all throughout the chandelier would be brass and / or silver leaves that would reflect the light and cast shadows, and create really interesting patterns on the wall that would help define the space of the room.

Two: a set of holiday lawn figures that are basically giant, life-sized versions of hand puppets, that you could make an armature for out of pvc pipe, dry-fitted together (you could use 90 and 45-degree joints for the elbows and shoulders), and drape your head & body over. When that particular holiday is over, you can take the pieces apart and store them (also, you could sneak out when no one's looking and change the poses).

Three: an adobe or other such house, which is shaped like an overturned bowl / dome. No right angles inside-- everything curvy (I've always wanted to live semi-underground, in a snuggly burrow, ever since I was a little girl... I wonder if that's related to the fact that I was born in the year of the rabbit).

Four: An oven with a door like a roll-top desk, or something similiar, so when the door is open, it's not in the way of actually reaching into the oven and pulling out what you're cooking.

Five: A rocking horse that's grown-up sized, that would be comfortable enough that you could relax while sitting astride it. I "inherited" from a friend (When she moved away) and antique wooden rocking horse that was white with red rockers. Its tail and mane were missing but I loved it. I miss it. It would be much to small for me, now.