Fish. Pondering.

One of the most enjoyable and interesting presents anyone ever gave me was a resin-cast fieldstone water fountain that I coveted the first time I clapped eyes on it. It looks convincingly real, (not exactly as pictured) and sits about three feet high, with the water bubbling up at the back, dribbling and bubbling over five shelves of flat rock, and into a pool below. Lighting is optional, but it comes with a small underwater lamp that can be set anywhere you want.

The resident adult children gave it to me because they knew I’d buy it for myself sooner or later, and it’s been out on the deck for a couple of summers, burbling and throwing ever-changing reflections on the wall. I tricked it out with a timer, of course, so as not to keep the neighbors up too late.

When I was a kid, my dad had a clamshell pool in the back yard of the house I remember. The previous owner had scooped out the earth and laid in a layer of concrete, and finished the whole circumference with a twin border of small flagstones embedded on their ends. The space between these embellishments he filled with dirt, and planted hens-and-chickens. A walkway of flagstones surrounded the pool, and in it swam goldfish.

I believe my dad was the one who had to have a waterfall, so one was build of heavy flagstones and concrete at the middle of the back of the pool. But over time, and every spring, the shallow pool leaked. There being no reinforcement except perhaps a layer of sand underneath it, each heave of the soil would stress the pool, and the spring ritual involved cleaning and water-blasting the pool so that it could be patched and refilled.

Eventually, dad decided to replace the pool, so he called in a crew of some sort, to excavate and build a much bigger, less imaginatively-shaped rectangular pool with a heavy border. He wanted to raise waterlilies, which need about four feet of depth. In the center, he had them form the footings for a cement frog fountain (again, not exactly as pictured, but same idea).

Unfortunately, the crew that poured the pool did not have enough cement mixed to do the job in one pour, and when they came back the next day to finish, there was an imperfect bond along the back side. So the spring ritual involved cleaning and water-blasting the pool so that it could be patched and refilled. The fish always seemed grateful for being released from the confines of their winter aquarium in the basement.

Two years ago, I brought the resin fountain into the living room for the winter. It would have been more successful had not the presence of a small child tended to turn it into a water play area. The experiment has not been repeated. And last summer, I bought five plastic carp for the pool, because you have to have fish in a pond. The raccoons who feed at our patio stole one of the fish. We found it half buried in the soil along the fence line. Another fish had its lips bitten off.

So for now, the fountain sits out in the storage area beside our swimming pool. I cut the big picture of it off the carton and mounted it on our "office" wall, and I console myself with the thought that by the end of March, I might even be able to put it outdoors again. The surviving plastic fish will be very grateful.

A different typo music

This morning while wasting time at the computer I went to the Google Directory in search of internet humor. Unrestrained clicking led me to a folk music style I'd never heard of: filk music.

A little further surfing revealed that

in the early 1950s, the term filk music started as a misspelling of folk music in an essay by Lee Jacobs, "The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music." - Wikipedia

The common thread that underlies filk, apparently, is science fiction or technology or cats and stuff like that and, frequently parody. One really great example is a song entitled "The Star Trek Next Generation Episode Guide" by filk artist Blake Hodgetts.

It's not all parody: there are all different styles and different performers, and a number of festivals across the US and in the UK. How come I never found out about this until now? I guess I just never made that particular typo.

Deja vu from the Dept of Redundancy Dept

A while back, the readers of these screeds were getting multiple notifications of new posts from ChangeDetection.com. I did the only decent thing: after finding that this was not a common complaint, but nevertheless other sites had noticed this, I yanked CD off the site. As a solution, I suggested using the Atom syndication feed that is built into Blogger at the bottom of each post.

May I now offer if not a solution, a reasonable workaround. Try it if you find the RSS type feed too annoying.

I've set up a page on my website that points to this blog. Yes, using ChangeDetection. So you can sign up to monitor THAT page by dropping in your email address. (You can go to Changedetection and kill any previous pages that might have been monitored).

So here's what happens:
1) I write a blog entry and run a QBasic script that updates the date and time on that page on that site. What it actually does is change a local copy of the page and then FTPs it to the website.
2) ChangeDetection's monitor checks that page and finds only the time and date to have been changed. No fancy formatting, CSS or comments that could make it think there have been multiple changes.
3) You get the email notification of the change to THAT page, and click on the link to Cud-Chewing. It's just that easy.

If this fails, I will abandon the hope of simple notification. See, when The Coffee Bean Goddess blogs, she writes a nice little summary of her new post. The service she's chosen then notifies everyone. Much more user-friendly than Cud-Chewing.

Now, I would do that too, if I had any idea what I was talking about. But ChangeDetection, if it works, is ideal for people in a hurry. It doesn't summarize or repeat the comments; it just tells you that I mouthed off again, and gives you a link. You can run it pasteurize and see if it's working.

Google Calendar: now there's the ticket.

Generally speaking, I’ve kept my nose pretty clean since arriving in the US some seven years ago. You won’t find me on political blogs, commenting about how insane the Bush administration is. You won’t see me railing against the basic selfishness of this presidency and how it has hurt the world in general and America in particular.

But today was different, and it was, apparently, my own damned fault.

Driving back to my office after my class, I noticed a police car in my rear view mirror. I noticed it even more clearly when the bubblegum lights atop the vehicle began to flash.

I pulled over and rolled down the window.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said the officer. “You are driving with expired tags. I’m going to have to give you a citation, so please remain where you are and I’ll be back with you in a few minutes.”

I was flabbergasted. I searched my skull for any memories of having renewed the tags, but when I reached into the glove box, it was clear that I should have renewed for both cars prior to November, 2006. I just plain forgot. I obviously got it confused with renewing the driver’s permit.

When he came back to the car, the officer said, “I’m sure this was just an oversight. I ran your licence, and you have no violations.”

I shared with him that I had only one traffic violation, for speeding, in my entire driving career. Not to influence him, because I think it was a natural reaction by someone in shock. But he did say that he would note on the record that he thought it was an oversight. A very pleasant encounter, were it not for the money involved.

The other violation in question was, to some extent, caused by the police near Stratford, Ontario. Coming back from the Shakespeare Festival one night, I was nearly blinded by a car behind with headlights in the mirrors. I adjusted the interior mirror to “night” setting, but the outside mirror still gave me trouble. So I sped up, just a little: about five miles an hour above the limit. The pursuing vehicle kept pace. That alone should have warned me, but when the annoyance continued, I shoveled a little more coal, and ran 60 in a 50.

On went the lights.

So now, I have to deal with the American court system, to the tune of what I don’t know until tomorrow. Some research on the web suggests $185 U.S. dollars. But that’s a couple of years back. And I still have two cars to register, so we’re looking upwards to $300.

There is an answer to all this. It’s called Google Calendar, and it comes as part of the package when you sign up for a Google Gmail account, which is, as of Feb 20, open and free to anyone who wants one. I’ve now put an annual reminder on it that will tweak me a month before.

I looked up the local jurisdiction and found that there is another person who ran afoul of the gendarmerie back in 1998 by the simple but idiotic method of giving his car fake license plates (tags) to wear in public. Regrettably, he has the same first and last name as I do. I have no doubt that the court computers will identify me as a second offender, again with license problems, and will act accordingly.

Never mind. I have always wanted to visit Cuba, all expenses paid, although not for life.

J has a feel for pushing buttons

Last night I went over to the house of a friend of mine whose computer was showing all the signs of dementia. After an hour and a half of running cleanup programs and diagnostics and making a few educated guesses, we got it working again at a reasonable rate of speed. But computers are always lagging behind developments. They may be bleeding edge when they're still on the store shelves, but not necessarily even then, because it all depends on when they were made. And everyone knows they begin their descent into obsolescence as soon as the ink dries on the check (cheque).

The current buzzword, of course, is Vista, Microsoft's newest version(s) of the Windows operating system. You can find every possible point of view about the merits and demerits of this offering on the web: thousands of reviews that have been penned since the product launched in January.

Most of the seniors I teach, however, want a reliable computer than can do email, surf and search the internet, and show slideshows of their grandchildren to anyone who cares to stop and watch. Modest requirements these are, and yet every time a new version of Windows comes out, it seems they have to drop what they're used to doing and start upgrading and relearning. The computer makes life more interesting but also more complicated. Screens get bigger but print gets smaller, just at the time when it should be getting bigger.

One gentleman I used to see in a nearby town asked me to come over and help him sort out a problem on his computer. It turned out that his machine was a relatively early IBM PC. He had used it for all his research and correspondence for years, but now it was showing its age, and refusing to print.

When it finally became apparent that his machine was past retirement age, he cast about amongst his friends, and someone donated a more recent model which was functional, although not significantly advanced beyond the ailing machine. He was very pleased with this turn of events, given that he was not anxious to part with good money for something that really didn't need to meet complex demands.

I guess it comes down to what a person needs to be satisfied. In my case, life is simple. If I want to watch a prerecorded television program, I ask J to watch it with me. I lack the remotest interest in learning how to program or control the digital video recorder. The number of buttons on the handle is daunting. And in any case, what I need is the company, the companionship and the mutual interest. J, on the other hand, is a master of anything remotely related.

How does J learn to operate all this stuff? Not by reading the manual. That's for sure. She just presses buttons and watches screens until she has her muscle memory programmed to feel for the right button. It is all a great source of wonder and amusement to me. Come to think of it, that's enough for tonight. She wants to watch something. Excuse us, will you please?

Enlightenment down under.

Today the news announced that it's lights out for the old Edison-type electric lamp in Australia. What a great idea! Not only for ecology's sake, and the reduction of carbon pollution, but because it will save everyone pots of money. Compact flourescents are the answer.

Back in the day, we had only one bulb in the "back basement", a dank, smelly dungeon in which the washing machine and laundry tubs were located. When I was a kid, the washing machine was a motorized tub with a beater in it and a wringer that had a trough below it. The trough could be pressed down to spill the wringer water in one of two directions. When the Momma turned the trough inward most of the water would drop back into the tub as the clothes went through the wringer and dropped into the rinse water. Then, after pushing on the clothes with a plunger, she would lock the wringer between the tubs, and pass the clothes from the rinse side to the other side, which was dry.

I used to stand in the "back basement" for a considerable time, fascinated by this intricately choreographed effort. But how clean were the clothes? Hard to say, because the entire scene was lit by nothing greater than a 40-watt bulb. My parents, children of the Great Depression, were very cost-conscious.

Other underlit places come to mind. The bathroom was one of the more illuminated spots: after all, Dad had to shave in there. This he did by the light of two bare 25-watt bulbs in black, unadorned fixtures on either side of the built-in medicine cabinet. Patches of stubble were sometimes the more obvious result. The old knob-and-tube wiring in the walls probably couldn't support much more.

I could tell when my parents were getting older. The wattage went up. But still, Dad was fond of the advice his dad gave him.

"R... that light switch has only so many clicks in it. When they're gone there won't be any more." This was an incentive for me to leave the lights on, but for Dad, the reverse.

The millions of "wall warts" (low voltage transformers) that power our electronic toys and recharge our batteries are costing us a bundle for the convenience they offer. My folks would have been disgusted by the amount of power and ultimately carbon dioxide pollution caused by the number of computers we have. But for them, the biggest waster of electricity was always the electric light bulb. My shins were living proof of how successful they were at conservation.

More again from the Departure of Redundancy Department

I've removed the ChangeDetection.com facility from the blog side-bar. A little research on the Internet showed that it is fine for normal web pages, but has been reported as having problems with CSS-type pages (and not with all of them, just some).

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets are responsible for the fancy formatting you see on blogs of this generation of the web. They make it easy for authors to control the way pages look no matter what the browser the user is using to read them. Apparently they're too confusing for ChangeDetection to handle properly, hence the repeats, according to several users.

So if you want to keep up to date with this blog (and why you should, I'm not totally sure), navigate to the bottom and click on the link to Atom feed. This will create a live bookmark in Firefox, which will list all the articles and let you read them directly. If you have an RSS feed reader, you may not be able to see the articles, and I haven't had time to figure out how Internet Explorer will give direct access (depending on the edition of IE). Almost any good newsreader will handle Atom feeds as well as RSS feeds. I'll have more to say on this when I'm not on my employer's time.

From the Department of Redundancy Department

If you give it your email address, ChangeDetection.com sends you an email whenever there's a recognizable change in the text of the webpage you're currently reading. The only thing is, it seems to have sent out two or three notices for the same page in the last 48 hours. In the several years I've been using it to watch for page changes on many other web sites, that has only happened about three times.

In my view, this is the Sorcerer's Apprentice Phenomenon. You remember the Disney's movie Fantasia where Mickey Mouse was apprenticed to the master sorcerer? When the master left instructions that Mickey was to mop and sweep the shop while the master was on an errand, Mickey decided to try out his nascent magic on a broom that lay quietly in a corner. Commanding the broom to grab a bucket and fill it at the cistern and then start mopping the floor, Mickey sat back and napped as the broom did as it was commanded. Suddenly awakened, Mickey felt panic as the broom kept on drawing water and sloshing it on the floor until the place was awash. And panic became horror when Mickey tried to stop the broom, first by reciting every magic word he knew and then by splitting the broom with an axe. The broom was now cloned, and two brooms continued the actions of the first.

Of course, when the master returned, a single word was enough to reverse the situation. But Mickey was hung out to dry. His career path to wizardry was cut short.

Automation is like that. If there is a law that applies to the process of allowing a computer to take over something, it is probably that of Unintended Consequences. One example that's more common than you might think is the Utilities System computer that sends you a bill for an account balance of $0.00, and unless you damned well send it a check (cheque) for that amount, you'll be dunned and sent to a collection agency. I tell you this: any company that puts me in that situation won't get nothing from me.

So I have to assume that if you sign up to be notified of changes to this blog, Mickey Mouse's broom will take over at some point, and you'll have so many notifications that you'll ignore them or put them in your spam filter. This would certainly be an unintended consequence. Or the other thing you can do is regard the problem as a blip. I've found once or twice that I've mistakenly signed up for a service more than once. I tend to do that with things that are free... since, as we all know, they are the best things in life.

Don't put your futon the gas pedal

Son-In-Law has a very large car. It's a Buick Roadmonster of some vintage or other. These machines are best described by the phrase "That was the last year that they made...". At any rate, he acquired it from a good friend of his who may or may not have known about all the parts and pieces that were on the verge of collapse. So over the past year it has become a money pit, but even at that, it has one thing that none of our other cars have: room.

Tonight J and I headed for darkest greater Cincinnati to pick up the futon that we ordered last weekend. The Roadmonster is the only thing big enough to accommodate a futon mattress. So SIL obligingly removed the High Impact Baby Clamp from the back seat and folded the seat back to floor level. Then we left for the open road which is pretty much clogged these days with unforgiving ice ruts and snowbanks.

Well, actually just before we left I had to learn to drive all over again. I normally bounce around in a 1998 Dodge Neon (called "Neona") whose rear struts have long since been bent to uselessness by her role as the family mini-truck. So here I was, easing into a leather-lined cockpit where the first challenge was to find which of the many chrome buttons would push the seat forward enough for my feet to reach the pedals.

Looking out over the vast expanse of hood, I realized that normal stopping distances and width calculations would likely fail me. And so now I understood why so many old men drive like snails. They're stuck with cars that are big enough for their potbellies, but too long for them to reach the pedals.

Eventually, I found a panel switch that not only pulled me forward, but jacknifed me like a giant clam. "This can't be good," I thought, as I twiddled the remaining controls to neutralize the unwanted embrace.

I started the beast, and after a bit of head scratching, the automatic temperature control decided to spring into action, trying to reconcile 14F outside with 72F desired inside.

J scrambled aboard, and we started off, arguing about which button would lower the steering wheel. A moment of panic at an intersection later and I determined to ignore any further adjustments.

Down Main Street and out to the highway we cruised. It was an experience opposite to the line in Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song: "I ache in the places where I used to play". I found myself tensing up as we approached the usual hazards, like potholes and beaten-down railroad crossings at which Neona would bounce, wobble and bang. What? The Roadmonster didn't even notice these minor annoyances. I could get used to this. I played in the places where I used to ache!

Finally, after our usual one or two excursions into roads that led to the wrong places, we arrived on the scene and I pulled in to the parking lot. J, of course, intuitively knew that all we had to do was drive to the side shipping doors, and someone would take care of us. But as a Canadian I'm so conscious of the need to follow the rules that I went in and asked. And the receptionist said, "Drive to the side shipping doors, and someone will take care of you."

We arrived and a few minutes later, the futon was loaded. Off we drove, back up the street to a Ruby Tuesday's (bar and grill) to indulge in supper before heading home. I noticed that a courtesy lamp in the rear of the vehicle did not turn off, but thought that perhaps it was on some timer or other.

After a dinner that tasted good but embodied the Cajun concept of "slow cookin'" (as in: they sent someone to Jamaica to get a tilapia for my order) we once more boarded the bus for Hamilton, OH. The rear light was still on.

It wasn't until I got home and SIL came out to help cart the futon inside that I learned that this luxury light actually has a small switch on the side. Apparently while being squeezed into the back seats at the loading dock, the mattress caught the switch.

So now, let me confess: although the Roadmonster is a beautiful, smooth-riding relic, I much prefer driving a car that doesn't force you to read the owner's manual before you turn the key. And these days, I prefer a car where you don't notice the fuel gauge unless you've been on a really long drive. But as a truck, it totally rocks!

Neona, I'll never carry cement blocks in you again.

No hurt felines

Cats seem to have mastered the art of being content anywhere they find themselves. At the moment, J's cat, K, is stretched out atop the set of four fluorescent lights that I put together as an antidote to J's Seasonal Affective Disorder. Light therapy is common now for this particular problem. But for K it's not the light but rather the heat that matters. It's a considerable leap of faith and feet for a cat of uncertain age to jump the 50 inches from the floor directly onto the top edge of this contraption, but her motivation is undeniable.

Owing to my allergies to all things feline, I had to mount a screen door on the bedroom door frame, to act as a kind of airlock for when we try to get into the bedroom without a cat. Occasionally K or D or B or T will manage to time the entry so well that we find one of them inside the room even though we did not see it happen.

The only reliable method I've found to dislodge a wayward cat from a forbidden venue is to capitalize on her fear. It takes considerable effort, but always works. I head for the cleaning closet across the hall and drag out the vacuum cleaner. In the past, I've had to plug it in and actually start it up, but thanks to the Pavlov effect, the illegal immigrant will now generally seek the nearest exit seconds after hearing the closet door open.

The other intriguing phenomenon is what we call "milling". The cats will sit anywhere they feel good about it, but the second J gets up to head for the bathroom or the kitchen, the tails trans-moggy-fy into question marks and out into the slipstream their owners glide, drawn, no doubt, by the possibility of food or treats.

During meal preparation, the level of milling usually doubles. At the point where we actually sit down to eat, K will occupy the nearest vacant chair, while D will sharpen his claws in preparation for the begging act to follow.

The meal proceeds calmly for a time, when suddenly J lets out a surprised yelp. D has made his point(s) on the side of her legs. K, meanwhile, is much more ladylike in her approach. She merely leans toward the plate that interests her most. When she believes you are not watching, two front feet will delicately ascend to the tabletop. At this point, J barks "Hey!" at her, and she withdraws, knowing full well that a pacifying portion of the evening's entree will be forthcoming.

It is a ritual not to be denied. What have I learned from being allowed to live with cats? Life is best devoted to comfort and leisure, for someone will take care of you if you let them.

Winter is a skate-freeze zone.

All this layering of snow, ice, rain and sleet that we're having today in southern Ohio puts me in mind of my early years in Toronto, where you could count on snow (because we were sitting on the north end of a Great Lake).

Toboggan. Toboggan comes from two Micmac words (or Algonquin, depending on the internet source), probably meaning "tow' and "bogging", as in "I hate towing this sled uphill. It's always boggin' down. Here! It's your turn." (The native peoples were noted for saying a great deal in very few words.) Ultimately, the tow-person would try toboggan (Noo Joizy or Noo Yawk infinitive form) with the passenger person to get him or her to drag the heavy, icy thing back to the top of the hill so they could have another thrilling six-second slide.

One winter Tronna had a blizzard that deposited snow half-way up our front door, itself elevated by a porch that was about four feet tall. Dad diligently got out and shovelled the front steps, building a huge pile that eventually came to about the height of the front door. On this, OB and I sledded, tobogganed and generally launched ourselves into space.

Someone took movies of the entire act, so it's much easier to remember that OB and I had snowsuits with snow helmets that had earlaps that were made of the scratchiest available material. I think they sold this same liner to the quartermaster at the cadet corps in our high school to make uniforms. At any rate, these helmets were tied under the chin, usually by a parent in such as manner that almost precluded its removal after the events of the day were over.

The other Great White North experiences were (when we were older and more self-reliant), skating at the public rink a couple of blocks away, and sliding down the huge hill at the High School a couple of blocks away. And if that failed, there was a lesser hill in the public school yard across from our house. All very convenient and alluring.

Ah! The odor of wet mittens and scarves that were redolent of the stockyard. Even more rank was the scent of the kids who vigorously played hockey on the public rink despite the prohibition and the presence of a boarded rink on the same site, as they sat smoking, swearing and impressing no one except me in the heated change room, with its memorial carvings of initials in the wooden benches. Seemed to me those guys were permanently on the bench. I only saw them on the ice in their boots, walking home. But they stuck their sticks vertically in the snowbanks as they entered the smokehouse change room, so I, for one, believed heartily in their athletic prowess.

There wasn't much worse than getting snow in your boots and having to walk home, except, perhaps, getting snow down your skates, and continuing to circle the ice to the scratchy 78 rpm rendering of "The Skaters' Waltz" on a single loudspeaker despite the obvious chilblains developing in your unprotected toes. After all, skates in those days were unforgiving leather boots with long, fat laces that would break at the slightest sign of strain. Not like those pampered hockey players personal form-fitting boots that let them play barefoot.

Take off, eh?

Last week ended for me on Thursday, when I had a vacation day left to take before the anniversary date of my employment. It is such a delicious feeling, not to have to set the alarm clock for three whole nights in a row! Furthermore, it is an spiritual experience to be able to lie in bed beyond the time when one would normally be stumbling about in the kitchen, making choices between two generally unappealing breakfast alternatives and trying to remember where my socks are.

Friday morning I was comfortably past the normal alarm clock time, still feeling that dreamy drowsiness that accompanies the onset of lack of responsibility, when a sparrow started a sharp chirping right outside the double-hung, closed window. This is a normal result of our neighbor's feeding station, hung to attract chickadees and cardinals but generally overwhelmed by sparrows. Ordinarily, being up and out the door before this hour, I do not hear this concert, but today was different.

Saturday morning, I decided that some deterrent was needed, since J, my wife, has also been similarly awakened at undesired times. I turned to the internet where I found many types of gizmo including electronic ones that could break an egg. Now, that's bird control!

What caught my eye was "bird spikes", which are an array of plastic or metal spikes set in a ten-foot long base to be glued to the window ledge as a method of keeping birds from landing or nesting where they are not wanted. Also what caught my eye was the asking price: $49.99.

Thus began a day of drilling pilot holes at inch intervals and pounding 3.5 inch galvanized nails through them into a treated plank. I don't know how many nails are in five pounds, but it was in the hundreds and felt like thousands. The outdoor temperature hovered at 14 F all day. I broke two drill bits and had to sharpen a third to get through the plank, but by the end of the day, as they say on "The Daily Show", I nailed it.

Then I began a second board to accommodate the three-inch setback of the window itself. It only needed a hundred nails or so, but involved my third trip to the local Lowes.

By early evening, I had constructed two vicious spike strips that appeared both evil and medieval. I felt like Vlad the Impaler on a bad day. I pushed the pieces into place on the sill, and went inside to thaw out.

Sunday morning dawned much like Saturday. Cold, windy, and extremely comfortable in bed. The silence was awesome.

No birds were harmed in the making of this device. Disappointed, yes, disgruntled, no doubt. Only one thumb was mashed, but only twice, and not severely. The cold saved me; I was wearing mitts.

The net saving over the commercial spike strip was $10.00, which ought to just cover the replacement drill bits.

We're all here to learn

When I was little and couldn't sleep
But wasn't allowed to creep or peep
Downstairs to see the adult folks
To join in the laughter and the jokes
But had to stay in bed instead
While fun sounds echoed in my head
I learned to hug my gray bear tight
To deal with the sorrows of the night
To hear him agree with all I said
To follow my thoughts wherever they led,
The promises whispered to the bear
That we would vow never to share
With adults on the floor below
Because they had no right to know.

As time has flown, some other bears
Have suffered through my list of cares
And shared the secrets of my heart
And whatever else I might impart
To furry ears knowing full well
The secret's safe: they'd never tell.

In retrospect a downside, too,
A countervailing point of view:
By "bearying" my secret life
I made it harder for my wife
To understand some of my acts
Which did not tally with the facts.
For buttons pushed should not result
In instant rage in an adult.
Those buttons labeled "DISAPPROVE"
When pushed are antidotes to love
And, pushed enough, the bonds will break
And love is something you can't fake.

The sad thing is, it's taken years
To learn the Secret of the Bears:
That there are other buttons, too
And most of us have quite a few.
Some are labeled "Love" and "Truth"
(Though they were there all through my youth
They seemed difficult to find
Much moreso than the other kind).

Now ones marked "Listen" and "Understand"
Are closer to my outstretched hand,
And since they know I've found the cure,
The bears are happier, I'm sure.

The day the music died

One of the gifts my parents gave me, over my dead body at times, was music lessons. I learned to play the piano over a period of several years, under two piano teachers.

The first was a taskmaster: a well-known boys and men's choir director at a church in Toronto. He was born of English parents in India, and had the classic British public school education. (Note to Americans: "public" meant private school in British English). It showed.

Since the major component of any British education is discipline, Mr. L. invoked fear and shame as the two major learning motivators. On someone who was in his late childhood, this approach had a profound effect that has lingered for years. My failure to practice diligently was detected at almost every lesson. No excuse served.

I believe it was this approach that caused me to perform miserably at his annual concert in the church hall, in front of parents and peers. I took my place on the stage at the piano, and after fiddling with the knobs on the piano seat, and placing my trembling hands on the keys, commenced Beethoven's "Für Elise", a tender love ballad.

I suddenly realized that I had no idea what key I was playing in. I soldiered on, and got off the stage as quickly as possible, vowing never EVER to play in one of those concerts again. I am certain Beethoven never heard his opus rendered as quickly in a transposed key in his lifetime.

Shortly thereafter, my parents persuaded me to resume lessons from a local woman whose manner was much more compassionate. Still, the damage was done. I suddenly lost my ability to sight read (i.e. play while reading notation from music that was totally new to me). I became terrified of keys with more than one sharp or flat. And thus did my formal musical education end just prior to the Grade 7 Piano level examinations.

Nevertheless, none of this deeply horrific psychological scarring dimmed my love for classical music. During my rebellious years (the teens through the late twenties, I believe they were), I wavered between long periods of listening to country music and jazz and rock 'n' roll, but I would always come back to Bach and the baroque.

High school found me at (what else) a boy's private school, which had a compulsory cadet corps. As I was terrified of guns and had never known war, I hated this whole experience, especially the prickly woolen uniform. I turned to music as a way of reducing the angst. I played clarinet and later, bass clarinet, in the cadet corps band.

I seem to recall that I was wearing orthodontic appliances with hooks and rubber bands during this period, a factor that deterred me from attempting my real interest, the trumpet. At least the clarinet did not lacerate the lips, although the upper band did tend to restrict the circulation in the upper lip while attempting to create a good seal over the mouthpiece. Still, in the best traditions of British education, I stiffened the upper lip and learned to love the "licorice stick".

I did, of course, have my moments of shame in the band. One night as we were marching down the hall toward the auditorium, I was carrying the bass clarinet. I would be the featured soloist in Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, in particular the bit where the burro trundles the tourist down the narrow trail. What I didn't notice was that the pad had fallen out of the key cover at the low end of the clarinet. So that night, the burro trotted confidently "On the Trail", but as he neared the base of the cliff, he bellowed a very convincing "Hee Haw!!", and was rewarded by a flushed face on not only his rider, but also on that of the conductor of the tour.

I was, I surmised, meant not to perform, but rather to appreciate the artistry of those who do. And so, tonight, I'm tuned in to "Otto's Baroque" on 1.FM.

Join me, won't you?

How the mighty have fallen

Well, maybe not mighty. But certainly fallen.

All day at work, I had a pain across the intestinal area. But I kept on working because I had stuff to do that seemed more important than going home to lie down and veg out.

This isn't untypical of many people. I read an article not too long ago that basically pleaded for common sense: if you're sick, STAY HOME! That way you won't spread the gift of whatever it is. But unfortunately, the article also pointed out that most often, if you've reached the point of feeling like you need to stay home, you've already passed it on to the rest of your colleagues. And fair is fair: they probably gave it to you in the first place.

So what's the problem here? There are many people who can't afford to take time off to be sick, for fear of losing their jobs. At least that's what can happen in any country where the "employee serves at the pleasure of the company". In many cases, this happy phrase gives management the pleasure of withdrawing their pleasure in the name of productivity or risk assessment. However, I have the good fortune to work for a library system where humanity and decency and understanding tend to take precedence over the bottom line. I wish all of the working people could be so lucky.

Ever since our common ancestor dropped out of the trees or slithered up on the beach, microbes have been attacking in an unrelenting effort to compete for resources and check the population explosion. OK, I'm no biologist, but that's what it feels like when your gut aches every time you move for a whole eight hours or so.

See, somewhere along the line, we began to subscribe to the theory that we are indispensable: that nobody else can do what we do, or at least as competently as we do. Ego is perhaps a defense mechanism, but at times it sure gets out of hand. We define ourselves in terms of the job we do and how well we do it and how dedicated to it we are.

Of course it could be incentives: some contracts give you a bonus in some fashion for not using your sick days. And while that holds out a carrot, the microbes are laughing themselves sick. And face it, when you're dragging your posterior through the day, you really aren't doing anyone much of a favor: in some way, they're likely having to compensate for your lackluster performance.

So go, my children, and be sick. But don't be sick at work. Give health a chance.

Noble thoughts. I wonder what I'll do if I still feel this way on Monday. They don't call me "Indispensa-Bill" for nothing. They don't actually call me that. I think that's what I call myself. At least that's my gut feeling.
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Footnote: "Service 'at the pleasure of' an appointing authority is a term with legal significance, meaning that the appointee may be dismissed at will, with no need for a hearing of the making of any particular findings." Link

Lighten up, everyone

One of the concepts that fascinated me about Star Trek was that Data was a photon-based creature, while (for the most part) the other folks on board the Enterprise were carbon-based.

There are many advantages to being light-based, as we learned by watching the series. You don't have to eat or, presumably, poop. You have endless reserves of energy and strength, and are naturally unaffected by those nasty microbes that reduce the rest of us to sniffing, dribbling victims. You can regenerate in the presence of the right frequencies. You can learn everything, understand everything, and recall everything without having to invoke a computer. You ARE a computer.

The downside, if I have it right, is that Data was so different that it was almost a full-time job for him to learn what it was to be human. I always wondered why he felt he needed that capability, but perhaps it was in his photonic nature to try to enlighten himself to infinity.

In the old days of phonographs and records, the technology for recording was essentially carbon-based, from the steel needles to the wax and bakelite recording surfaces. Today, the laser is the key to perfect reproduction of sound. The surgeon's scalpel is giving way to the laser which can cut and heal at the same time. The wired world is yielding to the wireless.

Never mind that light is essential for our growth and that it directly influences our mood. The time-honored way to scare an audience in a horror flick is to darken everything and slowly reveal two red, piercing eyes emanating powerful beams as they move towards the audience. The presence of the light is as startling as the absence is disquieting.

We speak of someone's eyes "lighting up" as they become enthused by an idea. But what, I wonder, would happen if actual light beams (they were, after all, beaming with pleasure) were produced by the endorphins released at such a moment. You couldn't help noticing that transmission, and it would probably stimulate pleasurable feeling in everyone within eyeshot.

Fireflies attract their mates though blinking their butts. Perhaps there are other possibilities for us, too, if we are truly on our way to becoming photon-based. Suppose that by smiling, we could "light up a room." Suppose that just by being supportive, we could encourage someone to "see the light." Just by loving someone we could "light up their life."

Beam me up, Scotty.