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.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I believe she still has the chain.
You have got to be kidding about the aqua regia.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I have never been to the bottom of the backpack.

[sovay]

You have got to be kidding about the aqua regia.

It's not in my backpack; it's in the cabinet in the garage with the metallic sodium.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

As long as you don't store your cravat out there (when you get it, oy. The fabric store has not been big on "linen in colors that don't look like a flax field fornicated with the Cadbury bunny.")

[sovay]

As long as you don't store your cravat out there

What do you take me for? (I am a gentleman.)

(when you get it, oy. The fabric store has not been big on "linen in colors that don't look like a flax field fornicated with the Cadbury bunny.")

I don't even know what that would look like, but it can't be good.

[sillylilly-bird.livejournal.com]

for all your linen needs:

http://www.fabrics-store.com/

[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.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

If Noel made you a macaroni necklace, you'd wear the hell out of it.

Truth.

[sovay]

If Noel made you a macaroni necklace, you'd wear the hell out of it.

. . . I'd keep it somewhere very nice.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Awww, c'mon.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Okay, the ring impresses me. I've always wanted an orrery, too.

I'd probably try the Saboteur out of the Hitchcocktails. Kraken versus rhubarb? Yes, please.

How are you finding The Focus Group, by the way? And talking about WWII intelligence, have you read "Between Silk and Cyanide"? I keep meaning to find a copy.

[sovay]

I've always wanted an orrery, too.

If I ever get one, you can visit.

I'd probably try the Saboteur out of the Hitchcocktails. Kraken versus rhubarb? Yes, please.

It was much less like a mixed drink than a gardening experience, but I am not sorry.

How are you finding The Focus Group, by the way?

I am on the very last track of my second listen of We are all Pan's People (2009), so you can tell how I feel about that one, and I rather liked Sketches and Spells (2004) and Hey Let Loose Your Love (2005). Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (2009) was just terrific.

And talking about WWII intelligence, have you read "Between Silk and Cyanide"? I keep meaning to find a copy.

I love Between Silk and Cyanide: it's one of the most fascinatingly detailed/guarded memoirs I've ever read. If you see it in a used book store, buy it on sight. Also you should see Peeping Tom (1960), for which Leo Marks wrote the screenplay; and if you're really curious, Cloudburst (1951). And here's "The Life That I Have" embedded within the Clancy Brothers' "Lily Marlene."

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Also try Moon Wiring Club; they've got a similar vibe to Ghost Box, but the music's all done on a PS2 (what MWC has described as "fizz-pop hip-hop") - a hell of a lot of very strange samples ("Oh dear, I use the word 'tripping' in its Elizabethan sense"), choppy beats, eighties-sounding synths. The artwork's great too: implying very strange events happening in the moorland town of Clinkskell.

I started watching Peeping Tom late one night, but dozed off, sadly. Cloudburst sounds interesting, too.

[sovay]

they've got a similar vibe to Ghost Box, but the music's all done on a PS2 (what MWC has described as "fizz-pop hip-hop") - a hell of a lot of very strange samples ("Oh dear, I use the word 'tripping' in its Elizabethan sense"), choppy beats, eighties-sounding synths. The artwork's great too: implying very strange events happening in the moorland town of Clinkskell.

SOLD TO THE GENTLEMAN IN THE LOW-GROWING IVY.