Here is a picture of Audra from yesterday with a stressed look:
And here is a picture of her uncle from a few months ago:
interesting family comparison
April 27, 2007 at 7:35 pm (family)
not the most relaxing day off
April 27, 2007 at 7:32 pm (novelty)
but fun! Audra and her mother and I went to the aquarium. I was especially pleased with this picture:
The biggest cephalopod they had was an octopus. But he didn’t like a lot of light and I don’t want to take pictures of animals with flashes. I think it’s cruel enough they’re all locked up. Not only is there such a thing as noise pollution, but there is such as thing as light pollution.
I was also pleased with these:
a four-letter word
April 25, 2007 at 7:52 pm (novelty, politics)
I just watched the documentary F**k. Man, I forgot what an unbelievable dipshit Alan Keyes is. There’s a lot of Alan Keyes on that documentary. A lot of other choice conservatives, too, like Michael Medved and Dennis Prager. There’s also this horrid woman who just looks like the most anal-retentive person alive named Jan LaRue who is with “Concerned Women for America.”
And good Lord, Pat Boone is SO much like Ned Flanders. I wonder if he’s the prototype for that character.
Luckily, Hunter S. Thompson and Janeane Garofalo and Drew Carey and Kevin Smith are also featured heavily.
Some quotes:
“I think censorship is a good word.” — Pat Boone
“I don’t really have too much faith in the Constitution because you gotta remember that the same day they signed the Constitution you got all these geniuses in a room and they’re like ‘ok, we got the right the bear arms, you got free speech, you can own niggers. Looks good to me. Let’s sign.’ So obviously all those people were INSANE.” — Ice-T
“The word fuck first appeared in print in 1475.”
“We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking basket.” — General George Patton on D-Day, 1944.
“Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.” — Dubya, Time Magazine, March 2003
So, who were the most intelligent and interesting people on the show? You guessed it: the ones who swear.
happy inad!
April 24, 2007 at 4:30 pm (noise, why I hate noise)
Tomorrow, Wednesday the 25th, is International Noise Awareness Day. Apparently. I never heard of this before, but it is something that should be very good.
Some links:
The Quiet Guide
Dr. Hagler’s response to noise as posted on Noise Pollution Clearinghouse: he published an article in Southern Medical Review about the adverse affects of noise on health last month
Protecting the commons
More and more, many of my friends who always made fun of my noise issues are coming around and finding it intolerable. One of them, a young man in his 20s, called me in the fall and told me that he always thought I was overreacting until he got a load of what people are doing with their motorcycle tailpipes nowadays. It’s an epidemic and it’s a health problem.
if you’re looking for a gift for me
April 17, 2007 at 7:13 pm (novelty)
I’m serious, folks. They’re so cool!
OMG. And here is Alpenhorn music from 1545:
Georg Rhaw’s Bicinia Gallica, Latina, Germanica et Quaedam Fugae.
Tee hee:
carpal tunnel
April 17, 2007 at 7:02 pm (books, health)
OK. I am getting fairly convinced that I have developed carpal tunnel in my right hand. I am not happy about this. I’ve had tendonitis off and on since high school, when I was working on a concerto and using bad technique. My mother had surgery for carpal tunnel in the early ’80s. I think it helped. Damnit. I think I’ll have to miss yoga for awhile: our resting position is downward dog and my wrists have been killing me since I started. So I will need to figure out a way to do it without hurting my wrists. I’ve been using flexible splints in class and hard splints out of class, but it seems to not be helping. Grrr.
I am at work reading about alpenhorns in Consort magazine (not that kind of consort: get your minds out of the gutter!) and Deo Gratias, my favorite hymn, in Early Music. I probably shouldn’t be typing.
I finished proofing another book:
It was interesting. Newfoundland sounds a lot like what New Zealand was like back in the ’80s. I haven’t been back to NZ since then, but I’m guessing it’s probably rather different. It was stuck in the ’50s in a way and not too tourist-ridden.
I hate Reagan all over again
April 13, 2007 at 7:00 pm (crazy people, work)
You know, he was beginning to seem like he wasn’t such a bad guy in light of the current administration. But of course, it was his administration that shut down the mental institutions.
I got an email from a friend of mine who said she’d been thinking of me because she heard something on NPR about how public librarians have to simultaneously act like social workers for the homeless population. Here’s the full blog entry and here’s the NPR audio clip.
easter, salzburg, hollandaise
April 8, 2007 at 9:22 pm (church, early music, food, holidays, memories, musicals, popular music)
Well, I’ve had a very busy weekend. I’ve also tried to be as lazy as possible in my downtime as a result (I happen to be starting work on another book tomorrow). So I watched all three Netflix movies: they’ve been sitting around for two weeks or longer, unwatched.
As I mentioned, we had the Seven-Sermon Church Service on Friday. Then I watched movies, including Hotel Rwanda.
Yesterday, I was scheduled to go look at apartments all day starting at 9:30 AM. I broke my butt getting to South Philly: I didn’t even realize the apartment was that far south until right when I planned to be leaving, so I wound up taking a cab. The neighborhood itself wasn’t bad but it was so far away and without a car it would be hell working late nights. Plus the apartment was a dump. They were asking $900 but in my opinion shouldn’t even be asking $500 for that shithole.
I wound up taking the second apartment I saw. It’s even closer to work than where I live now, so it’s about six blocks away. It’s a mid-rise with a doorman and it’s a one-bedroom with five closets. I really liked it a lot.
Last night I watched Water, which was amazing, and Gilda, which was interesting.
This morning was Easter, of course, and we had to be there earlier than usual. Andrew hired brass from Curtis and a chick timpani player! She was amazing. I’ve never seen a woman timpani player before. There need to be more of them. Then a bunch of us went to Kemper’s for brunch and that took pretty much the rest of the day. I made Eggs Benedict and Florentine, and successfully made my first hollandaise sauce.
This evening, I bought Marie Antoinette on Pay Per View. I liked it but I definitely could have done without the alternative rock music. Or if they were going to use alternative rock music, they could have used some that was in tune. There was a terrible recording of Fools Rush In that was sung by a woman. It was very, very similar to Ricky Nelson’s: in fact, it was pretty apparent that the woman who sang it just did her own version of his. But her voice was so terrible, it made me want to scream. Why didn’t Sofia just choose Ricky Nelson’s version? Good grief. At least she redeemed herself with some decent Rameau. 
Right now the Sound of Music is on. My friend T tells me it’s been on all weekend. Oh, well. It’s fun to see all the Salzburg views: one of the main church steeples in any pictureque look at Salzburg is that of the St. Peters Stiftskirche, where I sang with the Smith College Chamber Singers in June 1994.
I love Salzburg. Anyway, I realized recently that part of my love of ensemble singing originated with the Sound of Music. The movie is of course absolute magic to most little girls. I was so enchanted with the part singing that the children do when they sing the title song. My grade-school friend Jolie Jenkins got to be in the Boulder Dinner Theater’s production around 1982ish. I was so jealous of her, but mainly because she got to learn a part for that ensemble piece. I thought it was pure magic.
blessed are the cheesemakers
April 6, 2007 at 5:45 pm (flix)
Blessed are the Greek, for they shall inherit the earth.
I am of course watching Life of Brian right now. After a three-hour church marathon that had not one, but SEVEN (!) sermons. Good grief. And about ten hymns. And of course, the horrific Seven Last Words of Christ.
Nicus and the “dumb” and stuttering guards are on right now. Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam are absolutely hilarious in that part. They kind of remind me of some library patrons….
