God is dead! And baseboard heating is an abomination!

[sovay]

Ridiculously Social Wednesday Mk. II:

1. Met mrbelm at the Diesel for the second half of the book handoff, meaning I am now in possession of some items I was seriously beginning to wonder if I would ever see again. The Checkpoint Charlie-ness was substantially diluted by the fact that he threw in a CD with vast amounts of The Focus Group, Stereolab, Raymond Scott, and Carl Stalling. (Can you keep those last two on the same disc or will they fight?) Also I ran into audioboy, which was unexpected but pleasant.

There were a pair of children in the little plaza out front of J.P. Licks playing What time is it, Mrs. Fox? They were mostly calling nonsense hours: "Forty-three o'clock!" I hadn't thought of the game since elementary school; I had never heard the feminine version. I liked it. I sat on one of the benches and wrote the beginning of a poem, but it was terrible and will be broken down for parts.

2. Met Matthew Timmins for lunch at Taipei Tokyo. I couldn't remember the last time I'd ordered any kind of bento, so I got a box full of stuff and it was very tasty. He recently introduced me to Posh Nosh. I owe him big time.

I finally walked past Ward Maps when they were open, so I went in and, after resisting some pages from a late nineteenth-century book of astronomy, was suckered by The Boston Terminal Co. Diagram of Tracks and Signals. Resident Engineer's Office. Boston, May 28, 1905. NOT TO SCALE. It looks like the layout for a circuit board, only instead of transistors and capacitors, the components are labeled things like "Power House Yard," "Express Yard," "Atlantic Ave. Bridge," "Subway Tracks." I will try to get a picture up, although I believe I said that two months ago about a photo of George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Canada.

3. Met Dean Grodzins for generalized hanging-out, including the discovery of Q Tonic. He showed me the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments in Harvard's Science Center. I don't own any sundials past the one on my ring finger—and I only wish I had an orrery—but the oscilloscopes, the Geiger counter, and the DC meters looked very familiar. I think the dot-matrix printer in the cyclotron control console is the same one we had on the sun porch when I was growing up. I recognized, but wouldn't swear to the Commodore 64. Upstairs was an exhibit on the Rorschach and the TAT. I remember taking the latter when I was in elementary school; I had no idea the history behind its invention was so batshit Jungian, Jack Parsons without the fulminate of mercury. (Or that it tangentially involved the OSS, but at this point in my encounters with WWII-era intelligence I am beginning to feel I should have been surprised if that wasn't the case.)

I fell asleep slightly on the bus, but I also read the last chapters of Angélica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial (2003) trans. Ursula K. Le Guin. How can this be the only one of her books in English? Is Le Guin working on more?

4. Came home just in time to meet lesser_celery for Millennium. We are nearing the end of the second season; I still think "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" sounds like the hook of a cheerful country-and-western, but I liked the episode's ability to turn knife-quick from sardonically funny as Screwtape to suddenly not. I am not sure it was quite in the same show as the storyline around it, but this season has felt like two or three different shows under the same title already. Fortunately, I quite like at least one of them.

The afternoon mail brought me absolutely gorgeous contributor's copies of Cabinet des Fées' Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes. One of the seven full-page, full-color illustrations is for one of mine. Thank you, Adam Oehlers. And everyone else involved in the lunacy. Goofing off on LJ should lead to art more often.

5. Met derspatchel for dinner at The Friendly Toast. Ordering the fish burrito, as it turned out, was a great idea. So were the Hitchcocktails: the Saboteur was a curiosity, though worth trying (Kraken rum, rhubarb purée, and mint, with what looked for all the world like a violet-streaked orchid stuck on top), but the Vertigo (Gosling's, chocolate ice cream, pomegranate molasses, Grand Marnier) was brilliant and doubled most satisfactorily as dessert. I still mooched off Rob's slice of Drunkard's French Toast. One does not pass up a sauce made with raspberries and Grand Marnier. He is the other person I know who's read Robert C. O'Brien's The Silver Crown (1968).

The title of this post is unrelated to anything that happened today, except that I copied it down from an utterly charming bit on The Colbert Report weeks ago and I might as well get it out of my head now.

I should really try to sleep.

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Wow. You have a sundial ring?

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

And at one point a Roman coin on a chain (it's been too long for me to say for certain). She's like a roving portable anachronism. Somewhere in the backpack is a phial of aqua regia.

[sovay]

You have a sundial ring?

Yes; it's a replica of an eleventh-century Benedictine model. I've had it since my second year of college. It's one of the only pieces of jewelry I wear.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

That...is indeed ridiculously social, and would tire an extrovert who'd just slept for 24 hours. I hope you slept.

ALso, yay fun!

[I thought you'd BEEN to the collection of historical scientific instruments. Did they have any astrolabes?]
Oh, and the Hitchcoktails sound ftw.

[sovay]

That...is indeed ridiculously social, and would tire an extrovert who'd just slept for 24 hours. I hope you slept.

Er . . . sort of. I have appointments in the near future. I tried to get up at eight o'clock in order to work, but instead I fell back asleep and dreamed about a fictional musical from the 1920's that was not The Drowsy Chaperone. One of the second leads was teaching me to dance. Confusing, but tuneful.

[I thought you'd BEEN to the collection of historical scientific instruments. Did they have any astrolabes?]

Oh, yes. Also some bad-ass sextants and a reflecting circle.

Oh, and the Hitchcoktails sound ftw.

We're going there when you're in town.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Wow, I hadn't realized there was a controversy over publishing the Rorschach images (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test#Protection_of_test_items_and_ethics") (and they're most common interpretations) because patients might find them ahead of time and cheat.

[sovay]

Wow, I hadn't realized there was a controversy over publishing the Rorschach images (and they're most common interpretations) because patients might find them ahead of time and cheat.

I hadn't heard Wikipedia was involved!

I don't remember ever taking a Rorschach. I remember playing with inkblots, which is different.

43 o'clock

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love unselfconscious invention in children (or anyone, really).

I still think "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" sounds like the hook of a cheerful country-and-western,

I'd like to see the lyrics of such a song :-)

[sovay]

43 o'clock

I do want to write something of that title now.

I love unselfconscious invention in children (or anyone, really).

Hear, hear.

I'd like to see the lyrics of such a song

—that said, I'm not sure I could write it and live with myself . . .

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Also, couldn't resist:
http://qkme.me/3onb4s

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

beginning of a poem, but it was terrible and will be broken down for parts.

I like that image. A lot.

[sovay]

Also, couldn't resist

I kind of hate you, but I understand.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

Funny thing: I spent the evening in Diesel after job training, trying (and failing) to write. Why do I even try to concentrate in there? Diesel is for book handoffs and loud, caffeinated conversation. One day I'll learn.

Also, I'm going to J.P. Licks tomorrow (I'm in town again, more training) to fill out an employment application. Our lives keep nearly overlapping. Do wish I could have seen the kids playing there, though I did hit Rodney's (yet more overlap) and find a couple of books I'd wanted for years, so the evening wasn't a total wash-out.

Hey, since I'm complaining about Diesel being Diesel: do you like any relatively quiet cafes in Harvard Square, Porter, or Central as writing environments? Random question, but it's on my mind. I should make that a post as well.

[ckd]

The Panera in Porter has a downstairs that might be a reasonably quiet hole-up kind of place.

[sovay]

though I did hit Rodney's (yet more overlap) and find a couple of books I'd wanted for years, so the evening wasn't a total wash-out.

Apply for a job at Rodney's! Complete the circuit!

Hey, since I'm complaining about Diesel being Diesel: do you like any relatively quiet cafes in Harvard Square, Porter, or Central as writing environments? Random question, but it's on my mind. I should make that a post as well.

I don't write in coffeeshops: it is not a conducive environment for me. I can get work done in them—I found that out last March—but that says more about the nature of my work than it does about the coffeeshops in question. I can, however, recommend Porter Square Books very highly as a hanging-out place. They are neither noisy nor highly caffeinated, they are very good for conversation, I used to stop by for lemon scones even when I couldn't afford books from them, and they'll make me herbal chai. By now they are sort of my default meet-up spot in Porter Square. They generate good memories.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I remember a friend of mine in college did Tarot readings, and it seemed to me that the point might be to arrange evocative images and see what stories your mind naturally made of them -- that it was the stories that really told you something, not the cards. I referred to them as Jungian Rorschach blots. Didn't know that Rorschach blots themselves were supposed to be Jungian.

My mother said in the psychology course she took in medical school the professor made everyone talk about their interpretations, and then said cheerfully that one of his patients had ignored the whole large blot, focusing on three dots down in the corner, saying "This is God and me and my father having tea in the garden." That, he said, was an example of an abnormal reading. The students, who had been very worried that everything looked to them like pelvises, sat back relieved.

[sovay]

I referred to them as Jungian Rorschach blots. Didn't know that Rorschach blots themselves were supposed to be Jungian.

Morgan and Murray seemed to have used them like Tarot cards. The whole thing is an ouroboros.

"This is God and me and my father having tea in the garden."

I want to read that story.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

There is also, in the basement of the Harvard Science Center, a locked room labeled in neat white letters "Collection of Hysterical Scientific Instruments". I have been trying to find out who has the keys since 2004.

I thought I might have read The Silver Crown, but the Amazon summary seems to indicate I read a different book with the same motif, only with more mind control and dystopian futuretech. Now I'm gonna wonder what that was.

[sovay]

I have been trying to find out who has the keys since 2004.

When you find out, you will tell me.

I thought I might have read The Silver Crown, but the Amazon summary seems to indicate I read a different book with the same motif, only with more mind control and dystopian futuretech.

It does have both of those things. What do you associate with the name Hieronymus?

Now I'm gonna wonder what that was.

Any chance you're thinking of the silver-mesh Caps of John Christopher's Tripods trilogy?

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I think there are two versions of The Silver Crown, just to confuse things. http://www.mugglenet.com/booktrolley/rco-silver.shtml

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm glad for the various good things. It sounds like a very social Wednesday, indeed, and I'm glad it all sounds so pleasant.

I hope you've had sleep, and that Thursday went well, or at least not badly.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

[sovay]

I hope you've had sleep, and that Thursday went well, or at least not badly.

It involved seeing ajodasso in the afternoon and in the evening watching with Alison. Not bad at all.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Thank you! Likewise.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

"Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" is a Darin Morgan episode. Those are idiosyncratic. (He also did "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" and a couple of quirky X-Files eps.)

But Millennium also tends to change a lot over its short run. The next season feels, in retrospect, a bit like a prelude to Fringe.

[sovay]

(He also did "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" and a couple of quirky X-Files eps.)

I've never seen any X-Files, but I was pleasantly surprised by "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense." It shouldn't have worked at all and it was one of the better episodes of the season.

But Millennium also tends to change a lot over its short run. The next season feels, in retrospect, a bit like a prelude to Fringe.

Is that a recommendation for Fringe and/or the third season, or just a comparison?

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I love this icon devotedly. The answer to that question being, of course A) play "Blue, Blue, My World is Blue", B) destroy your hopes and dreams proactively and C) any literally damned thing she wants.