Upon a time, I had two screws
Within my life, upon my shoes.
Held in tight, against my sole
Where I could not refuse.
Then one day most unexpected,
Solid threads had been rejected,
Leaving open space that I had
Thought was well connected.
The clip I hear, just as before;
Like tap-dancing across the floor.
But half the power holding strong
Is not there anymore.
Now one is left, and though it might
Still keep me pumping through the night,
There’s something missing in my world.
Next time I’ll use Loc-Tite.
What makes a shape to last
As plaster wreaths itself in dust
When earth is fired
Or retired by the next wave?
And who will save
The moment when a god is slain
Or slakes an earthly virgin’s lust?
When does a story told
Through colored composition hold
A moment’s heart?
Or start another school
And who will rule
Tomorrow’s silent silver screen
When narrative serves more than gold?
How can an empty crease
And feathered quill release
With ink and skill
The thrill of secret love?
And who will move
The kings and queens to come
And make of sorrow slight surcease?
Where have the bodies hung
In frozen air, from stages sprung
With sharp sinews
Or music, heart to steal?
And who will feel
The rhythms yet to beat.
And hear the melodies still unbegun?
Why do I need to ask?
Uncap the pen, remove the mask.
Grab hold the thought
And caught, flinch not, nor blink,
Or who will think
To build, from vision, art
And put the shoulder to the task.
Inspired by a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago in June 2003. Never let it be said that I rush my verse out the door. Also I predict this will look absurd when auto-copied into Facebook.
Nate Silver predicts Prop. 1 will be defeated in Maine. I sure hope he’s right. This is the same Nate Silver who predicted last November’s elections with pretty much 100% accuracy, at least for the president and senate. I didn’t check the numbers for the house. He’s giving 5 to 2 odds that 1 will be defeated.
I randomly picked 2020 as the year by which I predict same-sex marriage is a done deal. If 1 loses, I’m thinking it’ll be more like 2015. C’mon, Maine! Let’s get this stuff fixed!
This is no tiny little jewel box. This is The Jewel Box, a large star cluster visible with the naked eye, if the eye in question happens to be well south of the equator.
Photo taken by WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope. Click to enplait.
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars ~ mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is “mere.” I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination ~ stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern ~ of which I am a part ~ perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
— Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1
I have nothing to add.
Thanks to commenter “Dave” over at Bad Astronomy, for reminding me of this quote.
Vacant crowded streets of stone
Recall a memory, unknown.
Beneath the neon, not outshone
By women tan and thin.
Displayed like sirens from inside
Where crystal walls the world divide
And by revealing, coyly hide
A golden mannequin.
Which lightly trying to beguile
Mind to thoughts more versatile
Removing clothing, thoughts, and smile
Opening to view
So much of skin, a golden lotus
Hoping for a moment’s notice.
Yet my thought, sad and remote is:
All I want is you.
It’s all about the bikes.
Bikes here, bikes there. Bike rush hour! In Soviet Netherlands, bikes take precedence over cars. Vaaaht a caahntry!
The daily ride from the hotel to the university, about 2 miles, is bike paths all the way. Some roads go like this, in cross section:
- sidewalk
- grass median
- Northbound bike path
- grass median
- curb
- car parking lane
- Northbound car lane
- Southbound car lane
- car parking
- curb
- grass median
- Southbound bike path
- grass median
- sidewalk
Even in downtown Utrecht, bricked tight as any old-school European city, the bikes win. Wide lanes on the sides of the street, and the cars have to fight it out for the middle. A park right in the middle of where you need to go? No worries, there’s sure to be a bike trail across it.
And no hills! Nothing but flats. But no glass on the road, so not that kind of flat. Although always a headwind, or so they say. I haven’t particularly noticed.
Check out the tornado-shaped plastic flower arrangement here at SRON, apparently made from discarded bike tubes. With the talcum powder still on. I love it!
Note to pedestrians: The word “fiets” sounds like a cognate for “feet”, so you might think “fietspad” means footpath. Wrong. “Bike path”. Really, that should be your first guess. I’ve been here five days and haven’t been in a car yet.
It’s all about the bikes
Cali to Maryland to Florida to Maryland to... where next?? It's not just a shipment, it's an adventure!
Oh looky! It wasn’t enough that my footer forms made it all the way to Laurel (about 15 miles from here) and then went off to Florida. It wasn’t enough that it took 5 days to get back from Florida (must have stopped for a long meal at every Cracker Barrel along the way). No, now it gets back to Laurel and the status is… (wait for it) … Exception. Your shipment is currently within the UPS network; however, an unforeseen event has occurred which could result in a change to the Scheduled Delivery Date.
And, and and! It’s been forwarded to the facility in the destination city. No, stupid, it’s already in the destination city! Well let’s see, maybe it has the wrong address.
Shipped To: GLENN DALE, MD, US
Oh crap, wrong address! Now that “MD” has been changed to mean “Florida”. Boy, I wish that hadn’t happened.
The British government has apologized for the appalling way it treated one of the men most responsible for winning WWII.
I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.
It’s been a long time coming, and it’s good to finally hear something like this from 10 Downing St.
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
If you haven’t heard the story of Turing, it’s fairly well explained in the statement. The whole thing is on the PM’s website. Also you should read Cryptonomicon.
I’ve been very confused about some aspects of the health care “debate” recently. Happily, Roy Zimmerman has explained it all in his latest newsletter:
I’ve been listening - really listening - to the good citizens who oppose health care reform, because I feel it would be easy to miss the subtlety of their reasoning amid the screaming and the booing and the finger-poking and the name-calling and the shoving and the cold-cocking and the Red-scaring and the race-bating. As I see it, their argument breaks down to seven well-considered points:
- We can’t have a Public Option because options limit Freedom.
- If we had a government-run health care plan, people would certainly choose it over their own plans because government can’t do anything right.
- We need “tort reform,” whatever that is.
- Socialism.
- Private insurers have an obligation to stockholders and government does not, so government-run health care would concern itself with health, not with profit, and Adam Smith wouldn’t like that.
- There’s no place for government in health care except when implanted in a woman’s womb.
- Barack Obama is a Marxist Nazi.
- And Black.
He forgot “Keep your government hands off my Medicare, you damn dirty ape!”, but otherwise that about sums it up. Plus, someone can’t count, and I don’t think it’s Roy.
I hope that clarifies things.
Excuse me, sir, can I see your receipt? No. Thanks, I already paid. But you have your receipt? Yes, it’s in my wallet, in my pocket. I need to validate it. Yeah, I really don’t have time. (I’ve been shopping for 3 hours, and I’m hot and sweaty and not interested in digging around in my pocket for the receipt I just put in there. and you’re stopping me why?) I need to validate your receipt. No, you really don’t.
Chasing me down out of the store? Seriously? At least I am a sir, not some short-haired biker chick who you’ll really piss off. And how many people walk out without getting validated while you’re following me around?
(No, I’m not going to show you my receipt. How is it you don’t get that yet? You gonna charge me with shoplifting, or you gonna let me go? Or maybe neither, and try to detain me, and good luck with the lawsuit. Did you really not see me 10 feet from you at the checkout stand?)
No, you don’t need to validate anything. Well no need to be an asshole about it.
Okay, that’s it. Were I not tired to death of shopping it was time for a little walk to ask your supervisor if it’s store policy to call customers assholes. Shirley you know you can’t stop people.
Welcome to my almost-boycott list, Lowe’s. Along with Home Depot, which leaves a lot of distant places to shop. Which is why the almost-. I need a real lumber yard that doesn’t chain across the country. Hammond Lumber, why do you only live in Maine?
Yes. Yes, I know ycycle does this better. Tough.
Upon a time, I had two screws