Both of us need it like Hell

[sovay]

1. I slept ten hours last night. I think the last time I got more than six was in September. Today I'm kind of reclusive and slightly burnt out, but still rather happy. I may go out anyway, just to see what happens. There's sunlight.

2. ratatosk has taken to referring to my persistent belief that other people automatically find me boring/brain-dead/annoying as "Tiny Wittgenstein on My Shoulder." He is apparently modeled after Tiny Carl Jung from Dresden Codak (which I still haven't read), but I flashed on the personality sprites from Narbonic. I'm not really sure what I could promise anyone who felt like drawing me gloomy, winged chibi Wittgenstein—probably in his leather jacket, looking glumly agonized—other than a profound apology, but it seems to be a concept I really like. Also easier to integrate into a conversation than yelling "Wittgenstein!" every time I notice I'm apologizing inappropriately, because that way lies Basingstoke.

3. Speaking of which: Is that descending figure that opens the overture to Ruddigore (1887) a deliberate callback to Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre (1874), or is it just me? I was humming the one when I realized I'd switched to the other.

4. I have been eating the hell out of the durian candies sharhaun brought back from Singapore—I got a package from him after The Lighthouse, when he found out I actually liked them. They were delicious and short-lived. I have no idea where I am supposed to get more.

5. I hope someone at Badass of the Week sees this obituary. "To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler."

I really did have a spectacular weekend. I had a good week. I think the week before that was pretty good, too. (Before that was the hell-cold.) It really feels like I shouldn't sneeze or I'll break my life, but I am enjoying myself.

Comments

[sovay]

I've always assumed the very beginning of the overture was a reference to the overture of Il Trovatore . . .

Which I don't know! The Saint-Saëns made sense with the graveyard connection, but you know more about Sullivan's musical tastes than I do.

[sovay]

Basingstoke?

"Margaret, if you don't Basingstoke at once, I shall be seriously angry."

I am now also imagining Wittgenstein action figures; apologies.

Oh, hell, I'd buy one!

Unrelated: but Singing Innocence and Experience is awesome.

I am so glad. Thank you.

[sovay]

It's just that one day the sea got so bored, it went out and couldn't be bothered to come back in again.

*snerk*

[sovay]

I rejoice!

I have rather a headache right now, but it was still worth it!

[sovay]

In all seriousness, I hope that the sequence of good weekend + week(s) continues. Yay for ten hours of sleep!

Thank you! I hope so, too!

(My God, it is still Mardi Gras. I'm so out of touch this year. Awesome!)

[sovay]

You think you're boring? Yeah, that does sound like the Witgenstein on your shoulder problem.

I did say I'm working on it! I don't really want to have to reinvent philosophy . . .

And I should add that I was feeling rather bored and anxious that weekend and I must have walked out of at least 60% of the panels that I attended from sheer disinterest.

Then thank you especially. And I'm glad you've been enjoying Derek Jarman!

[sovay]

I totally misread this as "durian candles".

I don't know what it says about me that you did!

[zdenka]

Yeah, I was going to post a link, but then I got distracted by a video of someone acting out the entire opera with Lego people. (It's not really good, or I'd share the link to that.)

It's oddly difficult to find a recording on YouTube, but I'll call this close enough:

http://youtu.be/41gh6Pwdlwg

And you can make up your own mind. Maybe it's just me!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Okay, this isn't mine, but it's worth sharing all the same




Wittengstein is the gloomy one in the back.

Also: check out this

And ... it's an entire Tumblr dedicated to Wittgenstein!

[sovay]

Also: check out this

We got my father a copy of Logicomix for his birthday the year it came out. He imprinted on Bertrand Russell at a formative age.

And ... it's an entire Tumblr dedicated to Wittgenstein!

I am oddly unsurprised. Sometimes it feels like the entire twentieth century was his fan club. (And continuing, apparently.)

one attempt at chibi wittgenstein

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Mink

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

I suspect it is only in the world of John Fairfax that managing a mink farm is boring.

The researchers in Novosibirsk who domesticated the foxes also worked with less charismatic animals, including mink. If you want to read something short specifically about the mink, search for "Have fur bearers become domesticated (behavioural and brain biochemistry aspects)" and you will get a 290 page PDF that contains this note on a few pages.

The numbers in Table 1 show that domesticating mink was extremely difficult, and that at the time of preparing the article only .03% of the mink they had (5/17,500) were all the way on the "fully domesticated" end of their scale (the fox experiment was enormously more successful). The relevant bit to your comment is that they also bred a strain of super-aggressive mink. I will quote their mink-aggressiveness scale, because the descriptions of angry mink are wonderful (there are a few missing words in the original; I blame difficulty of proofreading when none of the authors was a native English speaker):


–Score 1. Fearful response towards human. When
attempts were made to catch the caged mink, it retreated, hid in its wooden kennel, gaping and baring its teeth, cried shrilly or hissed, its posture showed intense emotional stress.

–Score 2. Attack from the wooden kennel. When attempts were made to catch the caged mink, it jumped to the entrance of wooden kennel, hid in it to attack the gloved hand, bit it with considerable intensity.

–Score 3. Active attack outside shelter. When attempts were made to catch the caged mink, instead of hiding, promptly attacked the hand. Even after the test was over, it kept crying, gnawed in fierce assault the bars of the cage at the sight the approaching gloved hand.

–Score 4. Attacks enhancing in response to human approach. Before test onset, i.e. before the breeder opened the cage and stretched out his hand, the caged mink vehemently responded to human presence by about the cage, gnawing its bars.


Moral of the story: Mink can be really nasty, but with selective breeding you can make them even nastier.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

1.

I'm glad for your getting sleep and feeling rather happy. I hope the sunlight was pleasant.

2.

If only I could draw, I'd be drawing Tiny Shoulder Wittgenstein. Alas, the only things I can draw are cartoonish horses, dogs, and other critters.

4.

I hope you can find more durian candies. I might have to look for some, myself--the idea is interesting.

5.

Agreed, he definitely deserves a turn as Badass of the Week. The bit about apprenticing as a pirate is particularly interesting, although that may be because, despite the inappropriateness of the same when compared with real-life piracy, I'm having Gilbert and Sullivan-esque thoughts.

I'm very happy that you're enjoying yourself. I hope today has also been a good day, or at least an okay one.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. I'll send you thoughts when I'm less stressed.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Oh, me too. Me three, actually.;)

[sovay]

one attempt at chibi wittgenstein

Aw!

[sovay]

I'm glad for your getting sleep and feeling rather happy. I hope the sunlight was pleasant.

It was, and so was hanging out with ratatosk and derspatchel for a couple of hours!

I hope you can find more durian candies. I might have to look for some, myself--the idea is interesting.

I really like durian, or at least the one variety of durian that scottedelman brought to Readercon this summer and the flavor represented by sharhaun's candies. I'd like to try more.

The bit about apprenticing as a pirate is particularly interesting, although that may be because, despite the inappropriateness of the same when compared with real-life piracy, I'm having Gilbert and Sullivan-esque thoughts.

I think so does everyone who reads that line. It's impressive.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think to be truly chibi his body should be even more minimal--like about half the size it currently is. Maybe tonight I'll make another attempt!

Re: Mink

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ratatosk, for the tiny Wittgenstein notion! And for the scale of mink aggressiveness. (Poor minks!)

[sovay]

Moral of the story: Mink can be really nasty, but with selective breeding you can make them even nastier.

This is where I tell you to read Cordwainer Smith's "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons."

That said—

gnawed in fierce assault the bars of the cage at the sight the approaching gloved hand.

—is a magnificent description.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I loved Edward II but I never really gotten around to watching his other movies until now. I think it was because I was underwhelmed by Jubilee.

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

There are œdipal edible tallow candles, or at least, there used to be in the 19th century. I'm pretty sure there still are.

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

It's been over a decade since I saw Il Trovatore, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have an overture.

[zdenka]

You're right, I misspoke. The introduction. The music which plays before anyone sings.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Oh, and "Basingstoke" made me laugh, thank you. I may use it as a codeword myself!

I've had facetious thoughts on mashing-up the themes in this thread:

Chibi Wittgenstein gets apprenticed to the Pirates of Penzance.