| Dadros, art by Steve Rider |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|03:11 pm] |
One of my day job colleagues is an artist named Steve Rider, with whom I share a love of the TV show Doctor Who. A few weeks ago, Steve was showing me elaborate plans he had found for building your own Dalek, and I mentioned how useful I would find a Davros-style wheelchair.
Next thing I know, Steve has sent me the following piece of original digital art (posted with permission):
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Dadros by Steve Rider
Copyright ©2009 by Steve Rider. Do not copy. |
I'm very pleased to say that as of this afternoon, he has also gifted me with the original sketch, framed.
Now I just have to find something for my daughters to annotate.... |
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| Thank You, Lewis Carroll |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:37 am] |
Why am I up after midnight? We got the kids to go to sleep on the early side, and then they woke up and would not go back to sleep. Eventually, we got one of them down, but the other just wouldn't go to sleep, despite being tired.
Nomi sat with her and starting reciting "The Walrus and the Carpenter," which gave me an idea. I found my Annotated "Hunting of the Snark" and started to read it to her.
By the time "the Baker had fainted away," so had she.
Good night. |
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| Conversation at the gym today |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|09:20 pm] |
IAN: So, tonight's the anniversary of the first real date that Lis and I ever had.
BRIAN: Are you going back to the place you went that first time?
IAN: No -- Lis doesn't live there any more.
BRIAN: Oh -- it was a GOOD date. |
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| About the Livejournal Happy Holiday coupons: |
[Dec. 19th, 2009|05:40 pm] |
Thank you to the folks that offered them to me, but I declined them, because I don't intend to "upgrade" to a paid account.
See, I got in to LJ early enough that I've got one of those accounts that doesn't get ads even when it's a free account. Brad promised that LJ would always be ad-free, and SUP or SixApart or whoever decided that it was gonna have ads, but so as not to make Brad break his promise, they decided that accounts that existed BEFORE they bought the thing could get a special status as "ad-free, even when unpaid."
I'm afraid that, if I DID get a paid account, when it lapsed back to unpaid, it'd lose that "non-ad" status. I'm not willing to risk that.
So I'm never going to a paid account, because I fear that it'll leave me with something worse than what I have now, after the paid account expires. |
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| some people have entirely too much time on their hands... |
[Dec. 18th, 2009|11:45 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused and amazed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Sevivon Sov Sov Sov" sung backwards - do dreidels spin backwards? | ] |
unlike me... I have many, many deadlines and projects to finish before the start of 2010. For my own record, I write here that I must: finish two papers for my classes, write a report on a bio-ethics meeting I attended, read 130 more pages for my history homework (before Sunday), put together my "senior notebook" to show how I have fulfilled the requirements for my ordination as rabbinic pastor (hopefully in January 2011), learn a Hasidic niggun and Shabbat mincha nusach for the afternoon service on Shabbat at the OHALAH Renewal Rabbis' conference, write an article for the B'nai Or newsletter on bikur cholim/visiting the sick, write up my notes to present a session at my spiritual direction peer supervision group, buy two burgundy bath mats, and pay some bills. So why am I watching and posting these YouTube videos? Because it is fun and I am amazed!
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| Thank God it's Friday Kisses! |
[Dec. 18th, 2009|06:06 am] |
'twas the week before Christmas,
and all was amiss.
Santa was lonely,
and needed a kiss.
...yet soon there'd be babies
and puppies galore,
and, if he was lucky
a little bit more...
Happy week before Christmas precious ones!
Love, Kel |
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| A Chanukah-Related Thought Question |
[Dec. 17th, 2009|11:48 am] |
This Friday night, like last Friday night, is a Shabbat Chanukah. This means that we light Chanukah candles before our regular Shabbat candles. Shabbat candles are traditionally lit 18 minutes before sunset (lest we come to accidentally light the candles *on* Shabbat, we give ourselves an 18-minute buffer. Many of us end up using these 18 minutes to finish whatever last-minute Shabbat stuff needs to get done (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lcmlc has made a whole chicken dinner in the eighteen; I have said in the past that the existence of the Eighteen Minutes is proof that Hashem loves us)), but Chanukah candles are supposed to be lit at nightfall (actual dark, not sunset), and burn for half an hour (some say 20 minutes). But we can't light candles once Shabbat has started, so we light the Chanukah candles before we light Shabbat candles. This does not change the fact that we have to have Chanukah lights burning at least half an hour into the night.
The solution, therefore, is that we use extra-long Chanukah candles that will burn from candle lighting 18 minutes before sunset until a half hour after it gets actually dark (so this week from 3:54 until approximately 5:30).
But what if you're going out to shul or (if you're skipping shul) to someone's home for dinner? You are supposed to light where you're going to sleep. Lighting Chanukah candles and then leaving home is not particularly safe (and is something I have refused to do since Ross and Charlie's Very Special Chanukah Fire of 1990). One could light the shorter candles, knowing they'll go out before the requisite amount of time. Or one could light at the location where one is going to be eating dinner (or at shul), even though they know they aren't going to be sleeping there. But does that lighting then fulfil the mitzvah? Or does pikuach nefesh (literally, "saving a life," something done to prevent death or serious injury) trump here? |
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| Online in the Air |
[Dec. 16th, 2009|10:05 pm] |
I had to make a post from the Virgin America free wifi. It's very surreal to be online in the air, and I'm NOT going to keep the computer online the whole flight. VA itself gets full marks for good reliable service, modern design and a clean interior. It's been a nice highlight of a smooth eastern trip that also included an amazingly foggy SF Bay ferry ride this afternoon, a return to BART, and, soon, stepping back into Massachusetts with 20 degree winter weather. |
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| The Friendly Neighborhood of Peter Parker: Free for a Limited Time |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|10:53 am] |
Two years ago, Smart Pop Books published Webslinger: SF and Comic Writers on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man edited by Gerry Conway, and I was pleased to have an essay in the book. I grew up in Forest Hills, the same neighborhood of Spider-Man's secret identity, Peter Parker, and as a result I always took a greater interest in the character than I might have otherwise. It didn't hurt that I, like many others, identified with Peter and the difficulties he faced in his regular life. So when I had the chance to contribute to the book, I plumbed my own personal life and wrote an essay about the real Forest Hills, as opposed to the one in the Marvel universe. I explored what Peter's life might have been like had he grown up in the neighborhood of my childhood, noting the actual stores, schools, and sites he would have woven into his background.
Smart Pop Books is promoting their line by running whole essays from their books, and for this week only my essay is available. So if you never picked up the book, but would like to see what I said about Spider-Man (and about my own childhood, come to think of it), check it out here:
"The Friendly Neighborhood of Peter Parker" |
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| Music |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|12:51 pm] |
I'm not sure how interesting this will be for people, but...
A few years ago, Nomi and I got iPods. But when we got iPhones, I stopped using my iPod as my portable music player. Especially after my Palm device died, it made much more sense for me to combine all my functionality into one device. It's true that my iPhone can't hold as much music as my iPod, but it was easier to carry around only one device rather than two (or the three I used to carry).
Sometime after we bought the iPods, we also bought a Bose SoundDock so we could plug the iPods in and listen to music in the living room. But once I stopped using my iPod, I thought that perhaps that was the end of using the SoundDock.
It wasn't until this past weekend that I realized how foolish I was being.
I dug out my iPod, loaded all my new music into it, and plugged it into the SoundDock. We now have a SoundDock with an iPod always plugged into it, so we can always play music for the room.
I took advantage of this yesterday by playing songs for the kids, and singing and dancing with them. I hope they like Schoolhouse Rock and Peter, Paul, and Mommy.
Any suggestions for music for babies would be welcome. |
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| Any of youse guys do Victorian costuming? |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|11:53 am] |
I was just talking to someone from the Ipswich Historical society -- they're planning their schedule for next year, and asked me to do a talk on historical alcohol in Ipswich and Essex county (so, if anyone wants to help me with research, that'd be cool -- we've got until next September, so no rush).
They're doing two other talks in the series -- one is on antique rugs, evaluating and making reproductions, and the other is on Victorian clothing.
They've got someone for the rugs program, but they're still looking for someone on "How to Dress a Victorian Lady." They did "How to Dress a Colonial Lady" last year, and it was very popular, so they want to do this one. But they don't have anyone who does really GOOD authentic Victorian garb.
I know some people who do, but the first person I thought of lives in Connecticut, so I don't know if she'd be interested in doing this. I emailed her anyway, but, in case she's not willing to drive five and a half hours round trip to give a fifty-minute lecture, I was wondering if any of you LOCAL folks do historically-accurate Victorian upper-class female garb and might want to give a lecture on some Wednesday in September. |
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| Cats and cat toys and catnip. Also, @, @, f, f, and an r |
[Dec. 12th, 2009|03:42 pm] |
Last night, for Chanukah, we gave our seven-month-old cats their first taste of catnip.
Now, as many of you know, cats are either on board or not with catnip. There are few cats that really dislike catnip -- even cats that just are mostly indifferent seem to feel that it smells pleasant enough, but it only has drug-like effects for some cats. And we were curious to see which way our kittens went.
When we came in the apartment with the bag from Petco, Nora was immediately interested to see what we had. So Lis found a cardboard box, in an, as it turned out, futile attempt to contain the eventual mess, and sprinkled some nip in it.
Nora immediately jumped in the box and started rolling around. Nick looked at her, and looked like he was thinking, "Okay, sure, I'll wrassle -- that looks like fun." So he wrassled for a bit, but she wasn't really playing along as much as she usually does, and Nick looked kind of confused. He looked at the box, and appeared to be thinking, "Well, I guess that must be a pretty cool box for Nora to be enjoying it that much. I like boxes, I'll play in there."
And he started playing in the box, having a reasonable amount of box-related fun, but seeming just a bit confused at just how much Nora liked it. I mean, it was a fine box, there was nothing wrong with it, but he couldn't figure out why Nora was just CRAZY about it.
Anyway, Lis had wanted to make a toy for the cats, as well, and she just made it today. She figured that we should teach the cats to hunt things that cats hunt.
Specifically, "r".
See, in Nethack, rats are represented by a lowercase "r". (Cats are "f", people are "@".) So Lis decided that our cats should be able to attack an "r". She made one out of felt, sewed it and stuffed it (with just a hint of catnip in it, too).
Nora LOVES it. She's been carrying it around and playing with it since Lis finished it. |
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| The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down |
[Dec. 12th, 2009|11:47 am] |
This "Winnie the Pooh" song comes to mind in storm-unprepared California.
The rain rain rain came down down down
In rushing, rising riv'lets,
'Til the river crept out of it's bed
And crept right into Piglet's!
Poor Piglet, he was frightened,
With quite a rightful fright.
And so, in desperation
A message he did write.
He placed it in a bottle
And it floated out of sight.
And the rain rain rain came down down down
So Piglet started bailing.
He was unaware, atop his chair,
While bailing he was sailing!
And the rain rain rain came down down down
And the flood rose up up upper.
Pooh, too, was caught and so he thought,
"I must rescue my supper!"
Ten honey pots he rescued,
Enough to see him through,
But as he sopped up his supper,
The river sopped up Pooh!
And the water twirled and tossed him
In a honey pot canoe!
The rain rain rain came down down down...
[ The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down (Winnie The Pooh And The Blustery Day) |
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| Lis's commute takes her past Arkham Asylum |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|01:18 pm] |
As you may be aware, H.P. Lovecraft's town of Arkham is based, more-or-less, on Danvers, Massachusetts. The mental hospital in which H.P Lovecraft characters end up is never named in his stories, but is in Arkham, and the folks at DC use the name "Arkham Asylum" to refer to the place where Batman's enemies always end up and immediately escape from.
I'm not talking about the Batman one; I'm talking about the Cthuloid horror one. The mental institution in Danvers was originally called the State Lunatic Asylum at Danvers, and later the Danvers State Insane Asylum. It was a creepily impressive neo-Gothic building that looked like a Cthuloid horror insane asylum.
It was closed down in 1992, and was finally torn down a couple years back. It's now condominiums, but they managed to re-create the look of the main building on one of their central buildings.
Lis's commute to work goes right past it. It's right next to the State Police armory, incidentally. Lis thought this was generally a good idea for when the psychotics broke out and started rampaging; I thought it was just a way to make sure that the rampaging psychotics could get guns.
Lis, incedentally, works in Ipswich. The (fictional) town of Innsmouth, home of the fish-people, lies within the real borders of Ipswich. |
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| a new Hanukkah song sensation and my new favorite |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|12:57 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | holiday | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | NOT "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" | ] |
"Eight Days of Hanukkah" is an upbeat song written by the senior senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch, a Republican and a Mormon. It took the sensibilities of a Mormon to write a rocking Hanukkah song about miracles and religious freedom.
How did this very upbeat, cheerful, really really good song for Hanukkah get written? Here is the story from The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg: "Ten years ago, I visited Orrin Hatch, the senior senator from Utah and a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Capitol Hill. I was writing for The New York Times Magazine and Hatch was thinking of running for president. We talked about politics for a few minutes, and then he said, 'Have you heard my love songs?' No senator had asked me that question before. It turned out that Hatch was a prolific songwriter, not only of love songs, but of Christian spirituals as well. We spent an hour in his office listening to some of his music, a regular Mormon platter party. After 5 or 6 Christmas songs, I asked, him, 'What about Hanukkah songs? You have any of those?'"
( Read the complete, true story of Orrin Hatch's Hanukkah song. )
A seed (of light?) was planted and a decade later "Eight Days Of Hanukkah" grew from the creative collaboration of Hatch - a Mormon, Madeline Stone - a Jew, and Rasheeda Azar - a Syrian-American singer. Would that we all could collaborate so beautifully. There would indeed be light, beauty and peace in the world.
And why did Orrin Hatch do it? Here is a quote: "Anything I can do for the Jewish people, I will do," Hatch told the New York Times. "Mormons believe the Jewish people are the chosen people, just like the Old Testament says."
Well, Senator Hatch, I might disagree with this statement, as I disagree with many of your beliefs and politics. And I might even disagree with your interpretation of the story of Hanukkah. But the fact remains, you have written my all-time favorite Hanukkah song. |
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