Schooldays
Today, I go back to school. At 3:30.
Even though I'm retired and independently wealthy (independent, anyway) and don't need to learn anything and don't need to get a degree in anything, I'm still nervous,. Probably because I've been working on the string pieces and the piano trios and I'm anxious to find what David has to say.
Yesterday, I went out to the UW music dept. and put up a notice to try to find some violinists.
We'll see.
My blog muse is out getting drunk or something.
Maybe it is gone for some much needed therapy.
What is the muse of blogging anyway?
Bloggo, perhaps? Bloggore?
Has the sound of turgidity which fits (this blog, anyway)
The only one I can ever remember is Erato, of poetry.
Oh, well there's Terpsichore, of dance.
And Tripsichore, the muse of clumsiness.
The muse of music escapes me (as anyone who has ever listened to my music is aware)
And a bunch of others none of whom are here with me today.
Hibernating, I suppose.
I'm reading a book about James Triptree Jr.
An interesting girl she was.
It turns out that quite a few S.F. writers were of the chromosomally challenged persuasion.
Maybe why I lost interest in the stuff.
My wife likes S.F., but that kind of escapism hasn't appealed to me for quite a while.
Since I was in the Army.
Which is a pretty bizarre fantasy world in itself.
As is academia.
I survived both and went in search of "objective reality"
Which divorces one from the imaginary realities that the schizophrenic ape seems to take so seriously.
(I think what Lane is trying to say here is that he is sane and we are all nuts)
Which is why I'm pissed off at the SSO.
Which I seem to think is so hilariously funny and you, of course, don't
But of course it (it being "life, the universe, and everything") is all a construct of the human imagination, which in itself is a product of the brain's chemical secretions.
Warning, Inane joke alert!
Dopamine, Serotonin, and Epinephrine were a singing trio known as the Braindrew sisters back in the forties. You often hear them on "The swing years and beyond" on NPR on Sat. nights.
I refuse to explain or apologize.
That's how you get to be a great leader.
Was that the lunch whistle!!
P.S. "99 & 44/100% pure" was (as you already know) the slogan for a soap product that was merely a bar of simple everyday soap that had been fluffed with about, lemmesee here .56% air.
It floated.
I can't imagine why anybody thought that was important.
I am simple, everyday, and puffed up with a much greater percentage of air.
I don't float, physically, intellectually, or artistically.
Even though I'm retired and independently wealthy (independent, anyway) and don't need to learn anything and don't need to get a degree in anything, I'm still nervous,. Probably because I've been working on the string pieces and the piano trios and I'm anxious to find what David has to say.
Yesterday, I went out to the UW music dept. and put up a notice to try to find some violinists.
We'll see.
My blog muse is out getting drunk or something.
Maybe it is gone for some much needed therapy.
What is the muse of blogging anyway?
Bloggo, perhaps? Bloggore?
Has the sound of turgidity which fits (this blog, anyway)
The only one I can ever remember is Erato, of poetry.
Oh, well there's Terpsichore, of dance.
And Tripsichore, the muse of clumsiness.
The muse of music escapes me (as anyone who has ever listened to my music is aware)
And a bunch of others none of whom are here with me today.
Hibernating, I suppose.
I'm reading a book about James Triptree Jr.
An interesting girl she was.
It turns out that quite a few S.F. writers were of the chromosomally challenged persuasion.
Maybe why I lost interest in the stuff.
My wife likes S.F., but that kind of escapism hasn't appealed to me for quite a while.
Since I was in the Army.
Which is a pretty bizarre fantasy world in itself.
As is academia.
I survived both and went in search of "objective reality"
Which divorces one from the imaginary realities that the schizophrenic ape seems to take so seriously.
(I think what Lane is trying to say here is that he is sane and we are all nuts)
Which is why I'm pissed off at the SSO.
Which I seem to think is so hilariously funny and you, of course, don't
But of course it (it being "life, the universe, and everything") is all a construct of the human imagination, which in itself is a product of the brain's chemical secretions.
Warning, Inane joke alert!
Dopamine, Serotonin, and Epinephrine were a singing trio known as the Braindrew sisters back in the forties. You often hear them on "The swing years and beyond" on NPR on Sat. nights.
I refuse to explain or apologize.
That's how you get to be a great leader.
Was that the lunch whistle!!
P.S. "99 & 44/100% pure" was (as you already know) the slogan for a soap product that was merely a bar of simple everyday soap that had been fluffed with about, lemmesee here .56% air.
It floated.
I can't imagine why anybody thought that was important.
I am simple, everyday, and puffed up with a much greater percentage of air.
I don't float, physically, intellectually, or artistically.
Labels: Choline, Dopamine, Epenephrine, Seratonin
posted by Lane Savant at 11:12 AM
4 Comments:
Doug Palmer's School Days, which are much more exciting than it was for Tom Brown. For one thing there are no older boys trying to cornhole him in the locker room, nor any gym instructors forcing him to exhaust himself, and then declare he is too weak to be a real boy, so he must be a girl. Let us assume that David will like the string pieces, the piano trios, and give you the reinforcement you need; as we all do.
Glad to hear that you trekked out to the UofW music department searching for fiddle players. Cornish works too. Or blog Jeremy Denk and quiz him. Or just call those folks mentioned by Anonomann.
The Muse of Blogging could be Cyberina, or Blogabeth, or Compurathine, or Seaflatty, or like that.
In Greek mythology Erato is one of the Greek Muses. The name would mean "lovely" if derived from Eros, as Apollonius of Rhodes playfully suggested in the invocation to Erato that begins Book III of his Argonautica. Erato was named with the other muses in Hesiod's Theogony. She was invoked at the beginning of a lost poem, Rhadine, that was referred to and briefly quoted by Strabo[1]. The love story of Rhadine made her supposed tomb on the island of Samos a pilgrimage site for star-crossed lovers in the time of Pausanias[2] and Erato was linked again with love in Plato's Phaedrus[3]; nevertheless, even in the third century BCE, when Apollonius wrote, the Muses were not yet as inextricably linked to specific types of poetry as they became[4].
Erato is the Muse of lyric poetry, especially love and erotic poetry. In the Orphic hymn to the Muses, it is Erato who charms the sight. Since the Renaissance she is often shown with a wreath of myrtle and roses, holding a lyre, or a small kithara, a musical instrument that Apollo or she herself invented. In Simon Vouet's representations (illustration), two turtle-doves are eating seeds at her feet. Other representations may show her holding a golden arrow, reminding one of the "eros", the feeling that she inspires in everybody, and at times she is accompanied by the god Eros, holding a torch.
With Arcas she had one son: Azan.[citation needed]
in Greek religion, one of the nine Muses, patron of lyric poetry and dancing (in some versions, flute playing). She is perhaps the most widely known of the Muses, her name having entered general English as the adjective terpsichorean (“pertaining to dancing”). In some accounts she was the mother of the half-bird, half-woman Sirens, whose father was the sea god Achelous or the river god Phorcys.
Greek mythology, Terpsichore (IPA pronunciation: [ˌtərpˈsɪkəri]) ("delight of dancing") was one of the nine Muses, ruling over dance and the dramatic chorus. She lends her name to the word "terpsichorean" which means "of or relating to dance". She is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying with her music to the dancers' choirs. She is sometimes said to be the mother of the Sirens by Achelous. Her name comes from the Greek words τερπέω ("delight") and χoρός ("dance").
Terpsichore was portrayed by Rita Hayworth in the 1947 film Down to Earth and Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu (1980)
Her name is also used as one of the weapons in Soul Calibur III. The dancer class's third weapon is called the terpsichore.
The John Cleese character in Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch claims "I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse."
The Jellicle Cats in T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" and in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats" musical are said to have "terpsichorean powers" which they reserve "to dance by the light of the Jellicle Moon".
Tony Award winner LaChanze provided the voice for the muse Terpsichore in Walt Disney Pictures film Hercules (1997 film).
In Daniel Quinn's My Ishmael, the fictional planet Terpischore is a land ravished by dancing, with dancing paralleling the rise of agriculture on Earth. Dancing (in an unspecified manner) speeds up the growth of the natives' "favorite foods."
Kurt Vonnegut's character Rabo Karabekian briefly makes reference to Terpsichore in Bluebeard (novel) (1987).
In Greek mythology, the Muses (Greek Μοῦσαι, Mousai: perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "think"[1]) are a sisterhood of goddesses or spirits, their number set at nine by Classical times, who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris, from which they are sometimes called the Pierides. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an inspiration, as when one cites his/her own artistic muse, but they are also implicit in the words "amuse" or "musing upon".[2]
According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they are the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from Uranus and Gaia. Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses; the first being daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia (the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares) which contradicts the myth in which they were dancing at the wedding of Harmonia and Cadmus.
Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae, and also the apsara in the culture of classical India.
Now as to the Muse of Clumsiness, perhaps Tripsichore would work, or maybe Dipsichore, or Clunksichore. Hell I am really grooving and jamming to the "sound of turgidity", and it has me very pumped up.
James Tiptree, Jr. (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was the pen name of American science fiction author Alice Bradley Sheldon, used from 1967 to her death. She also occasionally wrote under the pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon (1974–77). Tiptree/Sheldon was most notable for breaking down the barriers between writing perceived as inherently "male" or "female" — it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree, Jr. was a woman.
Unsure what to do with her new degrees and her new/old careers, Sheldon began to write science fiction. She adopted the pseudonym of James Tiptree Jr. in 1967. The name "Tiptree" came from a jar of marmalade. In an interview, she said: "A male name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation."[1]
The pseudonym was successfully maintained until the late 1970s. This is partly due to the fact that though it was widely known that "Tiptree" was a pseudonym, it was generally understood that its use was intended to protect the professional reputation of an intelligence community official. Readers, editors and correspondents were permitted to assume gender, and almost invariably they assumed "male."
"Tiptree" never made any public appearances, but she did correspond regularly with fans and other science fiction authors through the mail. When asked for biographical details, Tiptree/Sheldon was forthcoming in everything but gender. Many of the details given above (the Air Force career, the Ph.D.) were mentioned in letters "Tiptree" wrote, and also appeared in official author biographies.
After the death of Mary Hastings Bradley in 1976, Tiptree mentioned that his mother, also a writer, had died in Chicago—details that led inquiring fans to find the obituary, with its reference to Alice Sheldon; soon all was revealed. Several prominent science fiction writers suffered some embarrassment. Robert Silverberg had written an introduction to Warm Worlds and Otherwise, arguing on the basis of selections from stories in the collection, that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman. And in an introduction to Tiptree's story in his Again, Dangerous Visions anthology, Harlan Ellison opined that "[Kate] Wilhelm is the woman to beat this year, but Tiptree is the man."
The revelation of her gender had less adverse impact on people's opinions of her talent than she had feared; her final Nebula Award (for "The Screwfly Solution," published under her other occasional pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon) was awarded in 1977.
In 2006 Tiptree was included as an entry in Ben Peek's Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, a novel exploring the nature of truth in literature.
Man, you really used to dig Science Fiction. It was you that turned me on to Harlan Ellison, and lots of those heavy metaphysical cats like Philip K. Dick and Edgar Rice Burroughs. What SF moves Meredith?
Hey, when you were in the Army, up there in the frozen north of Fairbanks at Ft. Wainwright, you had just quit college, or quit attending forcing them to flunk you out, and the "objective reality" you sought found its way to your knuckles through chrome socket wrenches and sledge hammers, and oil and grease and gaskets and tanks of stove oil and cleaning fluid, and the smell of Bondo and paint in spray cans, and the thrill of terminal grease that soaked into the first three layers of your skin, right? i guess since torn knuckles and grease in your hair is "real", like a baseball bat across the knees, then you would not, or could not, be involved in "imaginary reality" like being patriotic, believing in our government or elected officials, accepting the judgement of others, and like that? As to the "schizaphrenic ape", you got me on that one. Could that be those parts of mankind that just piss you off with their stupidity, like the bad boss, the "ape in the corner office", or cops, who get younger every day, or bureaucrats who jam up your life, or long lines to movies and at the DMV?
I like the notion that human imagination is nary but a secretion
of a brain chemical. Would that incude creativity, which involves imagination? Remember in the great land of Metaphysics, we are all cells in the great body of Allthat is, a twinkle in God's eye, or a spurt from God's organs. I had not realized until you mentioned it that your righteous anger with the SSO also seemed funny to you. Funny as in absurd? Funny as in comedic, stupid, inane? Funny as in frightening? Define your terms, sir.
My parents had quite a stack of old 78 records, and I believe that the Braindrew Sisters were included. One of their hits I recall was the Boogie Woogie Booger Boy, and then there was Mr. Sandman, or was that some other sisters?
It is now already Thursday morning. I started this comment on Wednesday afternoon, but I am way too verbose to whip it out in just a few minutes. I like Thursday mornings, because at 4:50am I stop at Mickey D's and get two sausage egg McMuffins, dripping with cheese and grease and poached egg, and a large Minute Maid orange juice; the breakfast of Champions.
I did not realize, as well, that Sir Lane Savant was interested in being a Leader, great or otherwise; nor a follower either. I thought he and you existed unto yourself, an island of sanity, or insanity, off the mainbrainland, adrift in the current of De Fuca, fighting the urge to become one with the fresh and salt water, and just flow with everyone else out to sea, into the great gray-blue vastness, the void of sameness. No, that would never do for you, probably, and most assuredly.
You remember that back in the early 70's John Frankenheimer came to Seattle to shoot a parade scene for his crime drams 99 & 44/100% DEAD, with Richard Harris. I managed to get into one of the crowed scenes, though I never could pick myself out when the film was released. I remember being pissed off because a chase scene started in Seattle and ended up in Los Angeles with all kinds of palm trees in the shot. What the hell kind of editing was that. It was mish-mash of a movie; one that Frankenheimer would like to forget.
Was that floating soap, DIAL? It certainly was not IRISH SPRING, which was not around then, and certainly will not float much, leaving a green or blue scum as it attempts to.
Cassius Clay, before he became Mohammed, and flpped off the Army, used to say,"float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!", and look what happened to him; too many blows to the head. You, sir, have had blows to your heart, your emotions, your gonads, but your head is still another country, a vast landscape filled with flora and fauna and quips and humor and music. Long may it float and fly and endure.
Glenn
"Schizophrenic ape"
There is no such thing as a "human being"
A human is an ape with a mental aberration.
A case of elephantiasis of the brain.
With too much imagination, the "human" lives constantly in an unreal world of its own fantasies.
Split off not so much from the solid world as from his own self.
Give me a break, butch, Ivory was and still is the floating soap.
Everybody knows that.
A "Leader" is one who, in attempting to escape the lunacy of the crowd, moves sideways to the direction of the insane mass and, if he doesn't get trampled, finds a platform to mount and get shot at from. Leaders are all as crazy as the herds they try to run away from.
"Kithara" is the root word that has become Guitar, zither, sitar, etc.
Basically it's a box with strings.
Lyres, violins, rebecs, and such.
Just another figment of your fevered imagination.
Some of what you say about perception and imagination holds a few drops of water, but remember that when it comes down to the bare bones of quantum physics, where we begin to understand that even the particles within an atom only show up for us to see when we look for them, that "reality" is just a product of our imagination; a sidebar affectation relative to our being co-creators of this universe, and certainly this plane of existance, this orb we call Earth. Something has substance because we decide it has substance. Thousands of abductees who have had alien encounters have found that off-worlders have no difficulty moving through the space between atoms, or transforming their bodies to do the same, passing through walls, rooves, etc. I do happen to believe that apes are our cousins, perhaps our ancestors, that alien intervention, or Godly intervention at peak times of mankind's history, have given us math, music, tools, knowledge so that we could progress as a species. So in a very "real" way, sir, there is no difference between your fantasies and the solid world, since your control both of them with your mind. But it gets "turgid" when you go deeper than that, to fathom the inner demons, the ID, the higher self, right brain-left brain crap, your chakras, your aura, your energy flows --heady stuff to be sure.
God, give me the dunce cap immediately. I could not dredge up Ivory Soap for the answer. I will remember ad infinitum now though.
As to leadership, just think back to your school days, and your time in the Army. Whenever a bunch of folks are tossed into a situation, certain personality types seem to float to the front, to the top, and find themselves being held responsible for others, becoming squad leaders, spokespersons, malcontents, and then after several traumas later, and a rejection of the whole magilla, become pariahs. God, we love to persecute our former leaders; shows how superior we think we are to them, right? Of course right. You have always contended that you avoiding leading because your were too smart to get suckered into the role. I kind of adopted the same philosophy, even though I realized that my intellect was a mere portion of the massive IQ lodged in your gray matter. To be a leader, to some extent, is to be the boss. To be the boss is basically a bullshit position only sought out by shrews, idiots, bullies, and bullshit artists.
As to figments of my imagination, I wonder how figments taste when you dry them out and add sugar?
Glenn
Lane:
St. Cecelia is the patron saint of music; perhaps the muse of music is "Cilly" (pronounced "silly").
-- Anonomann
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