it warn't always like this

12:33pm: A really weird tribute to my dad
Math nerds and Paul Erdos always make me think of my father, who was a math hobbyist. (He called himself a numberhead -- sort of like being a Deadhead.) My father died on the day before Father's Day in 2006, and Father's Day is this weekend, and...I saw this on xkcd today and it made me smile.

Yeah, it's weird. Some people keep their memories of their fathers wrapped in old jackets or the smell of a particular brand of tobacco. For me, it's references to Erdos numbers.

10:19am: Judith Krug
I just found out Judith Krug died last weekend. Why does that matter and why does it bum me out? She was the longtime director of American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom To Read Foundation. She really, really defended the right of people to read whatever the hell they wanted. Including stuff she personally hated, including stuff she thought was just lame. She went to bat for absolute crap, absolute mediocrity, and absolute brilliance.

I don't know that she was aware of the recent Amazon kerfuffle, but I think she would have been pleased so many people got outraged and involved. I'd say rest in peace, but I hope she's still raising a ruckus wherever she goes.

5:50pm: Oh, and...
Be free, little info tidbits, be free.

National Library Week free databases.

5:45pm: Magazine people love to recommend it
So here's Frank Sinatra has a cold.

Only part way through it, but I stopped because I heard the story about Harlan Ellison from Ellison. Which is not to say he and I were out drinking - I attended some semi-interactive lecture of his. And I couldn't figure out why this story was so important to him - yes, sure, Sinatra, but I just didn't get it. So now, reading it, now, knowing magazine writers and editors love the piece and recommend it to the universe, now, ah, I get it. I get the why, even if I'm not, shall we say, feeling it.

1:38pm: Huh. I just discovered that all but one of the pieces I published in juked were "retired due to old age." Archive.org doesn't seem to have them, although it has bits of juked. A pity, mainly because the only remaining piece is one of my least favorite because it was jiggered with in ways I did not like after I submitted it.

Am I now free to resubmit them elsewhere? Are they still part of juked, even though inaccessible, or are the sands now lone and level?

12:49pm: Taken
"Taken" is the perfect middle-class, middle-aged, white divorced dad fantasy. I honestly can't imagine a way to make this film a better version of that. Hollywood grind, I salute you.

I was entertained by it anyway. In part, I was a little surprised, nearly pleased, to see that he was allowed to be Not A Very Nice Man. He does things that are unforgivable, and he does them without compunction. The fact that he says "sorry" once is excellently negated by the fact he says it to the wrong person.

12:46pm: apropos
The military rejected the election results.

Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor and Anthony Esler. Prentice Hall World History. 2008. 978013365911. p. 1029

( Africa sadly has a history of not-peaceful transitions )

2:15pm: after a long delay, a sentence

"Winthrop was apparently not the only Puritan father with a wayward son." p. 53
Morgan, Edmund S. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop.

( This one was a bit sad )
 

1:27pm: some things just pair well
I used to be a fan of mycathatesyou.com (a couple of my captions even made it in). This one, which is NWS and quite rude, was one of my favorites. And then I find this one on icanhascheezburger. They strike me as mates, like a pair of bunny slippers.

1:20pm: courtesy happened strangely, over in the evil empire of blogspot
Gorey, Star Trek, and a dancing penguin in a deathmatch. Ok, lied about the penguin. And the deathmatch.

2:03pm: chicken tikka monorail
Found on Vernacular, I bring you something that opens with:

"I've been thinking about this cat/toast business for a while..."
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200010/zero-gravity.cfm

Even if you ignore the rest of it, the opening line is lovely.

9:24am: Finally saw Fritz Lang's M last night.

That sweep across the court is breathtaking - there's a spot where I thought it would stop, but it keeps going.

And I'm still trying to sort out that shot through the window into the room. There's a flick like a pane of glass moving from right to left, but it's otherwise beautifully continuous. I'm sure someone's already explained it in some book that we probably have at work, but it's a nice puzzle for my non-cinematically trained mind.

The shot from under the desk that centers on the man's crotch while he's on the phone, though - eeuuch.

For something that is so purely a man's movie, letting a woman have the last word is fascinating. (At least in this cut - apparently it's been chopped repeatedly.)

1:37pm: Sometimes, the smallest things help the world chug along for me. In Park St Station on the Green Line tracks, I saw tiny birds. I thought they were mice, at first, and thought it was odd they'd migrated up from the Red Line, where they normally reside in Park St Station. And then they fluttered. So I got to spend the transit between then and my stop wondering how they got in, and how long they'd stay.

9:01am: It's Banned Books Week. Half over, admittedly, but plenty of time to check how many on the frequently challenged list that you've read. :) I've usually read about half of 'em.

12:42pm: Walrus has a bucket...
...we now have a condo (which is to say: mortgage and keys and boxes everywhere).

Never, ever, buy a foreclosure. (corellary: never buy a short sale, but I don't have personal experience in that regard) Even if it's empty, and in good shape, and is at a price you can afford. Just don't.

Oh, and sometimes, lawyers are awesome.

9:43am: since I have no paper quote sheet at the moment
"When he goes off the reservation, he packs a lunch." -L.

1:40pm: I heart Vannevar Bush's essay
"As we may think."

I read it, or parts of it, quite awhile ago. And just got it again as recommended reading for my class. It just makes me excited. That's an absurd response, but really...I want to jump up out of my chair when I read it.

1:44pm: Allen Smith
A farrier, a librarian, and an elegant wit died on Saturday. http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2008/08/only-good.html

I'm glad some folks put this together: http://gslis.simmons.edu/wikis/dwiggins/Allen_Smith_Quotations

10:31am: Just finished Robin McKinley's Spindle's End. Didn't think the ending was anything great, but it did resolve, and that's worthwhile. The rest was a solid read, and took me out of my current universe.

Now I'm on Steampunk. I understand starting with Moorcock, but the selection didn't really work as an opener for me.

And B's first book has finally gotten shipped to Pande - I had bought the second, but I don't like reading sequels out of order, so I waited on that.

I actually haven't been reading much SF&F in awhile - mostly popular non-fiction (science) and course readings. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was a great way to re-enter the field though, as it's about someone who reads SF&F. Comparing an historical dictator to Sauron - ah, warmed my heart.

(No sentences lately, because I hadn't had time to go, and then the studio closed to move. So, maybe in Fall. Or maybe something new.)

Elena

8:42am: file under things funny only to certain people

The spam filter at work caught a message from our auto-"no reply" bounced messages acccount. Cracked me up.

9:42am: Went to Harvard Commencement yesterday. (My guy's tradition, and I like to keep him company and hang out.)

Faust was the self-described warmup act for Rowling. What a weird, weird sentence that is.

1:10pm: sentence
I'm sad for you, but I hope the next letter will help you understand the other side of the story.
-Ann Landers, Aug 12, 1986

qtd in Longres, John F. Human Behavior in the Social Environment. Thomson: 2000. 287.

2:01pm: sentence
For "Literature" and autobiography, see Beer...

Lee, Hermione. Edith Wharton. Knopf: New York, 2007. 777 n36.

I'm reduced to giggling at people's names, but all I had to work with was bibliographic citations. Not the fun endnotes, where academics merrily slag on each other, but the boring ones.

As I was doing a bit of shelving today, I came across another book by Hermione Lee, about Philip Roth. The book on Roth was 1/10th the size of the one on Wharton. Funny old world.

1:28pm: Lack of this valuable asset has driven countless small companies into bankruptcy.

Zimmerer and Scarborough. Essentials of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management. Pearson: 2008. 425.

The asset is cash. This just brought me to mind of my former anesthesiologist roommate, who one day railed against the first sentences of anesthesiology journal articles. He said they were always useless, reciting something obvious and dull. He read them out to us, saying that even non-specialists would find them dreadful. This was actually the second sentence, but I think it holds.

In context, this sentence made more of an argument for existence. But not much of an argument.

9:08pm: sentence
I hope this chapter will show that although I think Hemmer is right to bring up the theme of fidelity, I think his conclusions are completely wrong.

Toril Moi. Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism. OUP: 2006. 364 n. 8. 

I love a good scholarly throwdown. I don't love pages and pages of citations in Norwegian. I was grateful for the German and the French citations, which, if you wouldn't otherwise know, means the Norwegian was punishing to attempt to pronounce.