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How we grew each other's hearts and schemes of home
I got up early this morning for a COVID-19 test so that I can make my doctor's appointment on Friday. I would prefer not to have to see a doctor at all, but once again it turns out that being kept from regular access to medical care is bad for me. I am still not exactly sleeping and it means I'm not doing much of anything else except working, although I did eat some very nice Taiwanese food this afternoon and discover to my surprise that a pair of jeans I bought off the internet actually more or less fit. I have moved on to watching the 2005 BBC Bleak House, which I remember my father highly recommending to me at a point in time when I just couldn't picture anyone but Denholm Elliott as John Jarndyce. I am in fact enjoying it. I may also be maxing out my capacity to watch TV. I'm treating it as an experiment. While visiting my mother for purposes of honeycake-baking earlier this week, I ran into the neighbor with whom I had discussed the radio telescope I built in high school and Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud (1957); this time he wanted to know if I had read Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland (1884) and then he asked what sort of science I did nowadays. I had to explain that I am not professionally a scientist any more than I am professionally a classicist or professionally a musician or any of the other things I seem to look like to people until they get close enough, although I did at least remember to tell him that I am professionally a writer. I know part of it is the beginning of the academic year, which I am starting to feel I will have to be actually dead not to feel like a ghost-shiver from the wrong universe over. (I hope that one is less plague-ridden and/or on fire. Somebody should get to be.) I know the sleeplessness never helps and I have been rummaging around in parts of my head that were likely to produce this reaction. I think I'd feel a lot better if I could write a poem about it. But for that I would have to be healthier and sleep more, which is where we came in.
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Thank you! And for all the rest.
*hugs*
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Good luck with the doctor today.
You are certainly professionally a writer, and the other things you do--science and classics and singing and folklore and film commentary and so on--you do with knowledge and joy and accomplishment, enriching the lives of everyone who experiences them. You're a real *everything*, very much alive, a shining part of the kaleidoscope. ... I would very much like for you to be a less-in-pain part of it, and a less physically vulnerable part of it. Always praying for that.
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The only thing I really liked about the 2005 "Bleak House," the only version I've seen, was Smallweed's repeated line "Shake me up, Judy," and her quick responding action. I did a text search afterward. In the book, he only said it once or twice, but in any case, it's a great reminder that someone who is in a wheelchair for hours, especially someone who might be paralyzed, needs frequent re-positioning to avoid skin breakdown. Otherwise, I mostly wanted to smack those people (nearly all of them). I'm sure it did me good to be familiar with a Dickens novel that I would probably never read, though.
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Being alive is already so complicated, who needed to add logistics?
(Thank you.)
*hugs*
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Junior and senior year of high school. I wrote about it once—I had invaluable assistance from my father in the construction of the telescope, but I ran the experiment myself. It took two years to complete. The first year, all I could confirm was that we lived in a galaxy with some kind of structure in which components moved relative to one another. The second year, even confined to the single data source of neutral hydrogen emissions collected by a two-and-a-half-meter satellite dish in a suburban backyard at a sub-optimal latitude for this application of radio astronomy, I could show clearly that we live in a rotating spiral galaxy. I had wanted to know if it was even possible to make this determination from homebuilt equipment with any degree of accuracy and it was. My recorded spectra were consistent with professionally collected spectra. I had planned to continue the experiment a third year with both technological and methodological refinements in hopes of more and cleaner data, but it proved incompatible with my first year of college and my brother ended up taking over custody of the telescope and doing a project of his own with it, I want to say meteor-related. I had to learn the derivation and application of the Oort constants and a bunch of electronic design. The telescope itself was programmed in FORTRAN and the worst part of the entire experiment was the Excel spreadsheets into which I dumped all the data from the drift scans. It was crude compared to the work of Frank John Kerr and Gart Westerhout, the pioneers of the 21-centimeter line, but really fun.
Good luck with the doctor today.
Thank you! The test was yesterday and the results were negative; the appointment is tomorrow and the results will ideally be positive. Today I got up early for a videoconferenced commitee meeting, which my brain appeared to interpret as the equivalent of a panel and therefore the performance adrenaline kicked in and I am definitely not napping right now.
You are certainly professionally a writer, and the other things you do--science and classics and singing and folklore and film commentary and so on--you do with knowledge and joy and accomplishment, enriching the lives of everyone who experiences them.
Thank you. I feel like a lot of fake things and I am tired of friends and family having to reassure me otherwise. I feel like I'm not growing at all.
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Yes. They were willing to consider waiving it since I have been for months a shut-in who interacts only with other shut-ins (and has tested negative multiple times before), but I didn't push: I do not mind my doctors feeling reassured that I won't make them sick. I'll have to get tested again afterward, of course, since I will have been inside a clinic. That will be trickier.
Otherwise, I mostly wanted to smack those people (nearly all of them). I'm sure it did me good to be familiar with a Dickens novel that I would probably never read, though.
I loved the 1985 BBC Bleak House when I discovered it in 2010; it was one of the rare cases where I had not read the book first and had only the vaguest idea of the premise, putting me in much the same position as Dickens' original serialized readers. (I guessed most of the reveals before they were, but I can do that with any decently patterned narrative.) It had a top-notch cast, a production design that really committed to its candlepower, and a near-supernatural, slightly Tarot-like feel that turned out to source directly from the novel. I always meant to write it up and never did. Enough time then passed that I could contemplate trying the 2005 version and I am finding the differences and similarities really interesting, as well as enjoying the performances. I still want to rewatch the 1985 version. And I have a friend who can get me a copy of the 1959 BBC Bleak House which I am (amazed still exists, given how much TV of the 1950's doesn't) almost certainly going to watch for the sake of completeness and Colin Jeavons, and then I suspect I will be Bleak House'd out.
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CAN’T YOU JUST INFORM PEOPLE
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IT DETRACTS FROM THE EXPERIENCE.
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Thank you. I hope your dentistry also does what it's supposed to! I understand your wariness.
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I can't promise how you'll feel about it as a version of one of your favorite books, but in terms of attention span, I think if you can handle kdramas, you can totally handle a 15-episode Bleak House. (I am seven episodes in and only prevented from binge-watching by the technological bottleneck between me and my generous greymarket source.) I am happy to give opinions on random things that have struck me so far, so long as you keep in mind that I have not read the novel or seen the earlier version in ten years. In terms of where we are in the narrative, Johnny Vegas just spontaneously combusted.
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May the visit to the doctor be productive only of good.
P.
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*hugs*
May the visit to the doctor be productive only of good.
Thank you! I like that way of phrasing it.
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I'm curious about so many things: how (and I mean this in the most pedestrian and yet fine-grained sense) did you come to think of doing it? And how did it come to be that you were able to carry a project over two years? What was the course, or was it an independent study? And was this an exceptional thing, or was Lexington High School just filled with highly motivated, persistent, imaginative students?
It must have been amazing to see your data fall in line with other observations. I'm always amazed when even the simplest of experiments *works* because in my experience of school labs, often they didn't: one tries to make a lemon battery (or is it a potato battery? Or can you do it with either?) and it ... fails to actually generate a noticeable charge, who knows why. Usually someone in the class, or several people, get it to work, but some people's are duds. So when something *does* work, it's marvelous. Even processes: the first time I tried boiling down maple sap to make maple syrup, I was amazed when, yes, as promised, it really did work. Even for me, even in my kitchen.
I feel like a lot of fake things and I am tired of friends and family having to reassure me otherwise. --Yes, I can understand that. Really what you need is to feel the truth of what we're insisting for yourself.
I feel like I'm not growing at all. --That must be extremely dispiriting, and I'm sorry.
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I am cheered and reassured to know this.
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I hope all the appointments go well.
And Shana Tova!
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In the event you're able to confirm a television capacity limit, you might consider spending part of screen time budget on Undine, either at the virtual NYFF, or at some point later. It seems thematically up your alley.
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*hugs*
I hope all the appointments go well.
Thank you! This afternoon's was logistically nerve-racking, but useful in terms of information.
And Shana Tova!
L'shanah tovah!
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Thank you! I could have done with less time in the waiting room, but the appointment itself was valuable.
In the event you're able to confirm a television capacity limit, you might consider spending part of screen time budget on Undine, either at the virtual NYFF, or at some point later. It seems thematically up your alley.
The title is certainly attractive: I don't know the film. What's it like?
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According to the description:
"Undine injects a supernatural element into a melodrama of star-crossed lovers—the title character (Paula Beer), a historian and tour guide at the Berlin City Museum specializing in urban development, and industrial diver Christoph (Franz Rogowski, Beer’s co-star in Transit). Linked by a love of the water, Undine and Christoph form an intense bond, which can only do so much to help her overcome the considerable baggage of her former affair. The story of a contemporary relationship guided by age-old cosmic fate, Petzold’s film contains indelible images of lush romanticism while remaining scrupulously enigmatic."
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Just in time for my birthday!
Thank you for letting me know.
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Thank you! I am very fond of the hydrogen line.
I'm curious about so many things: how (and I mean this in the most pedestrian and yet fine-grained sense) did you come to think of doing it?
I don't have an answer that doesn't sound tautological: I wanted to know if it could be done. If small student-built radio telescopes were common when I was in high school, I didn't know about them. I was interested in astronomy. I knew about the hydrogen line and I knew it was how we learned what kind of galaxy we live in. I can't remember any kind of eureka moment: I just became curious whether it was the sort of thing I could have discovered for myself. I was lucky in that I had the resources to find out.
And how did it come to be that you were able to carry a project over two years? What was the course, or was it an independent study?
It was my science project. We were supposed to do one every spring; they could be entered in the school science fair and then, if they were rated highly enough there, in progressively widening and more competitive rounds of science fair. The slime mold went to the regional level. No one was quite as interested in the radio telescope, as I recall, which still strikes me as weird: I thought it was technically much more complicated. All I did with the slime mold was raise it in a terrarium in my basement, feed it E. coli and photograph it, and draw conclusions about its life cycle. (I couldn't find any information at the time on the thing I wanted to know, namely whether Dictyostelium discoideum could be kept indefinitely at the roving amoeba stage if plentifully supplied with food—it was known that starvation induced the myxamoebae to secrete cyclic AMP and aggregate into the multicellular slug which wanders around and presently roots itself, sends up a stalk, and releases a fruiting cloud of spores that hatch into amoebae, starting the whole cycle all over again—or whether at some pre-programmed point they would aggregate and reproduce regardless of their resources. I discovered it was the latter. Even well-fed Dicty eventually grow up. I was asked last year if I ever published my findings; the answer was no, because it never occurred to me. Nearly twenty-five years having passed, I assume someone else has done so since.) I think squishy science went over with the judges better than the techy kind.
And was this an exceptional thing, or was Lexington High School just filled with highly motivated, persistent, imaginative students?
I think the answer to the second half of your question is yes, because my friend group was full of interesting people, and I have no idea about the first. It might have been slightly unusual. I was—and in many ways remain—very bad at evaluating that sort of thing. I never like the memes that ask you to list your weird habits or identify something you've done that no one else you know has. I have no idea what other people have done that I just don't know about. I never know that anything I'm doing is weird unless someone else tells me. It's normal for me or I wouldn't be doing it.
one tries to make a lemon battery (or is it a potato battery? Or can you do it with either?)
You can do it with either. You can also run a charge through a pickle and get a low-rent, flickery, kosher sodium lamp.
Even processes: the first time I tried boiling down maple sap to make maple syrup, I was amazed when, yes, as promised, it really did work. Even for me, even in my kitchen.
Yes! It's really exciting.
--Yes, I can understand that. Really what you need is to feel the truth of what we're insisting for yourself.
I work on it. Sometimes it feels true. Too much of the time it doesn't and I feel by now it really should. I shouldn't walk around with this kind of damage for the rest of my life.
--That must be extremely dispiriting, and I'm sorry.
I'm not even sure it's true. It's just something I'm afraid of.
("I will tell you a story . . . As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. At last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to be working backward at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom.'")
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That's even better.
What were you watching that he turned up in?
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I have very fond memories of her in One Man, Two Guvnors!
I am glad it was fun and I hope you find some way of screencapping Sam Collings.
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*hugs*
Michael York, Martin Sheen, et al
https://youtu.be/C8oiwnNlyE4
Re: Michael York, Martin Sheen, et al
Do you recommend it? Those are very good voices.
Re: Michael York, Martin Sheen, et al