The End

I like when a website officially ends, rather than just fading away and leaving any readers to wonder if new content will ever appear.  

And so, I end the Keith Huddleston blog.

Shakespeare's Reputation over time

 Wow, Wikipedia for the win here, big time. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_of_William_Shakespeare: 

Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's imagination and capacity for painting "nature" were echoed in the 18th century by, for example, Joseph Addison ("Among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others"), Alexander Pope ("every single character in Shakespeare is as much an Individual as those in Life itself"), and Samuel Johnson (who scornfully dismissed Voltaire's and Rhymer's neoclassical Shakespeare criticism as "the petty cavils of petty minds"). The long-lived belief that the Romantics were the first generation to truly appreciate Shakespeare and to prefer him to Ben Jonson is contradicted by praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Ideas about Shakespeare that many people think of as typically post-Romantic were frequently expressed in the 18th and even in the 17th century: he was described as a genius who needed no learning, as deeply original, and as creating uniquely "real" and individual characters (see Timeline of Shakespeare criticism). To compare Shakespeare and his well-educated contemporary Ben Jonson was a popular exercise at this time, a comparison that was invariably complimentary to Shakespeare.

 See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shakespeare_criticism

Wowie, wowie, such a time to be alive. 

Fake Lao Tzu Quotes

 A website I am glad exists.

https://www.taoistic.com/fake-laotzu-quotes/

Did you know that Alexander Pope . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope :  

After Shakespeare, Pope is the second-most quoted writer in English, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, some of his verses having become popular in common parlance (e. g., damning with faint praise). He is considered a master of the heroic couplet.

Naturally enough, as far as my studies have gone, Pope was of English Catholic stock.   I believe his Essay on Man will be an interesting enough count-point to the early Enlightenment when I move my studies to 1700-1750. 

Pope was born in that Glorious Year (for Protestants) of 1688. 

Cura > curiosity

 I am reading Philip Ball's book Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. It claims that curious comes from the Latin cura, to care and that earlier uses of the word included working "with diligence and caution." 

I have a conjecture based on this -- one would not be at all surprised is completely wrong -- that as curious take up the usage we currently see it used that the word "care" came in to fill that vacuum.  

I would like this to be true because I have always been a bit confused by the etymology of care, which comes from the old English for sorrow, whereas the was we use the word is important to the way a real artist works.  Using the word care the way we do, it is safe to say that when we look at an artifact we evaluate it by how much care we believe was put into it.  We don't mean sorrow here; we mean something like one of the archaic uses of curiosity.   And we very much need to a word with that meaning, especially those of us who see art as our salvation from the the void.  

Onward Meta-rationality

 I'm glad someone -- here Scott Alexander -- showed me the front door on Dave Chapman's project. 

https://metarationality.com/introduction

Simple Benny Graham

 More for my own bookmarking:

http://www.ndir.com/SI/articles/MS1005.shtml

Simple Benny Graham, for simple people. 

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_St_John,_1st_Viscount_Bolingbroke

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (/ˈsɪndʒɪn ˈbɒlɪŋbrʊk/; 16 September 1678 – 12 December 1751) was an English politician, government official and political philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically despite his antireligious views and opposition to theology.  He supported the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 which sought to overthrow the new king George I. Escaping to France he became foreign minister for the Pretender. He was attainted for treason, but reversed course and was allowed to return to England in 1723. According to Ruth Mack, "Bolingbroke is best known for his party politics, including the ideological history he disseminated in The Craftsman (1726–1735) by adopting the formerly Whig theory of the Ancient Constitution and giving it new life as an anti-Walpole Tory principle."

Hume summing up Charles II

 . . .  and, really, the Stuarts as a whole.  

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19216/19216-h/19216-h.htm : 

The French greatness never, during his whole reign, inspired Charles with any apprehensions; and Clifford, it is said, one of his most favored ministers, went so far as to affirm, that it were better for the king to be viceroy under a great and generous monarch, than a slave to five hundred of his own insolent subjects. 

Threads the needle as a starting point for both Hume's and T.R.'s view of the Stuarts -- as well the wider topic of Parliamentarianism versus Monarchism 

But more on this interesting person of a most interesting time.  

If we survey the character of Charles II. in the different lights which it will admit of, it will appear various, and give rise to different and even opposite sentiments. When considered as a companion, he appears the most amiable and engaging of men; and indeed, in this view, his deportment must be allowed altogether unexceptionable. His love of raillery was so tempered with good breeding, that it was never offensive; his propensity to satire was so checked with discretion, that his friends never dreaded their becoming the object of it: his wit, to use the expression of one who knew him well, and who was himself a good judge, could not be said so much to be very refined or elevated, qualities apt to beget jealousy and apprehension in company, as to be a plain, gaining, well-bred, recommending kind of wit. And though, perhaps, he talked more than strict rules of behavior might permit, men were so pleased with the affable communicative deportment of the monarch that they always went away contented both with him and with themselves.

Gallica

 So, I just found out the National Library of France is super psyched about the notion of sharing information with me, ie any random citizen of the world.  

https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/content/accueil-en?mode=desktop

Viva free books!

Marin Mersenne

 The book I read described him as a hub in the intellectual internet of his time.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Mersenne : 

Marin Mersenne (also known as Marinus Mersennus or le Père Mersenne; French: [mɛʀsɛn]; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath, whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for Mersenne prime numbers, those which can be written in the form Mn = 2n − 1 for some integer n. He also developed Mersenne's laws, which describe the harmonics of a vibrating string (such as may be found on guitars and pianos), and his seminal work on music theory, Harmonie universelle, for which he is referred to as the "father of acoustics". Mersenne, an ordained Catholic priest, had many contacts in the scientific world and has been called "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s" and, because of his ability to make connections between people and ideas, "the post-box of Europe". He was also a member of the Minim religious order and wrote and lectured on theology and philosophy.

A deeply religious Catholic -- though notably in France not in the Spain of the Inquisition.  

Milton on his Italian visit

From Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing. To the Parliament of England via

 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44733/44733-0.txt

I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of

     inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their learned

     men, (for that honour I had,) and been counted happy to be

     born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed

     England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the

     servile condition into which learning amongst them was

     brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of

     Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these

     many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found

     and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the

     Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the

     Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew

     that England then was groaning loudest under the prelatical

     yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness,

     that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty.

Milton and a love of learning

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44733/44733-0.txt : 

vou are often to me, and

     were yesterday especially, as a good watchman to admonish that

     the hours of the night pass on (for so I call my life, as yet

     obscure and unserviceable to mankind), and that the day with

     me is at hand, wherein Christ commands all to labor, while

     there is light

But if you think, as you said, that too much love of learning

     is in fault, and that I have given up myself to dream away my

     years in the arms of studious retirement . . . yet consider that, if it

     were no more but the mere love of learning, whether it proceed

     from a principle bad, good, or natural, it could not have held

     out thus long against so strong opposition on the other side

     of every kind.

Robert Howard (playwright)

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Howard_(playwright)

As the 18-year-old son of a Royalist family, he fought at the battle of Cropredy Bridge and was knighted for the bravery he showed there. In the years after the English Civil War his royalist sympathies led to his imprisonment at Windsor Castle in 1658.

After the Restoration, he quickly rose to prominence in political life, with several appointments to posts which brought him influence and money. He was Member of Parliament for Stockbridge in the Cavalier Parliament (1661 to 1679) and for Castle Rising (1679 to 1681 and 1689 to 1698), and believed in a balance of parliament and monarchy. All his life he continued in a series of powerful positions; in 1671 he became secretary to the Treasury, and in 1673 auditor of the Exchequer. He helped bring William of Orange to the throne and was made a privy councillor in 1689. His interest in financial matters continued, and in later life he subscribed to the newly founded Bank of England while continuing his work on currency reform.

The Meta-politics of John Dryden

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dryden :

Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Oliver Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. This appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas (1659), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of chaos, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order.

After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day, he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics: To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662) and To My Lord Chancellor (1662). These poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. 

. . . 

At around 8pm on 18 December 1679, Dryden was attacked in Rose Alley behind the Lamb & Flag pub, near his home in Covent Garden, by thugs hired by the Earl of Rochester,  with whom he had a long-standing conflict.[10] The pub was notorious for staging bare-knuckle prize fights, earning the nickname "The Bucket of Blood." Dryden's poem, "An Essay upon Satire," contained a number of attacks on King Charles II, his mistresses and courtiers, but most pointedly on the Earl of Rochester, a notorious womaniser.  Rochester responded by hiring thugs who attacked Dryden whilst walking back from Will's Coffee House (a popular London coffee house where the Wits gathered to gossip, drink and conduct their business) back to his house on Gerrard Street.  Dryden survived the attack, offering £50 for the identity of the thugs placed in the London Gazette, and a Royal Pardon if one of them would confess. No one claimed the reward.

Nell Gwyn

 Following up from last post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nell_Gwyn :

Eleanor Gwyn (2 February 1650 – 14 November 1687; also spelled Gwynn, Gwynne) was a prolific celebrity figure of the Restoration period. Praised by Samuel Pepys for her comic performances as one of the first actresses on the English stage, she became best known for being a long-time mistress of King Charles II of England and Scotland. Called "pretty, witty Nell" by Pepys, she has been regarded as a living embodiment of the spirit of Restoration England and has come to be considered a folk heroine, with a story echoing the rags-to-royalty tale of Cinderella. Gwyn had two sons by King Charles: Charles Beauclerk (1670–1726) and James Beauclerk (1671–1680) (the surname is pronounced boh-clair). Charles was created Earl of Burford and later Duke of St. Albans.

Analysis of Puritan Disdain for Theatre

 https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/restoration-drama-england : 

Puritan opposition to the theater arose, in part, from an astute understanding of the role that the medieval church had played in the development of drama, and the many figures that attacked the theater in the period realized that the custom of staging plays had arisen from the mystery and morality plays that had been common in the country before the rise of the Reformation. At the same time, Puritans shared an abiding distrust for all ritualized and theatrical displays, and they believed that evil lay at the heart of the pomp and magnificence of the stage as well as in the elaborate rituals of kingship and the Church of England.

And this is another interesting tidbit: 

 Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I had each thrown their support squarely behind the theater and had opposed Puritan efforts to rid the country of drama. As a result, most of London's actors, playwrights, and theater owners had been royalist supporters during the Civil War, and when their side was defeated, many were consequently forced into exile.

My word, Mr. Pepys! 

The English diarist Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) left one of the great records of life in the Restoration age. He attended the theater almost daily and recorded his thoughts about almost every play performed in London during the 1660s.

My word, your majesty! 

The present entry from 20 February 1668, is notable because he remarks how that evening's play was intended to criticize the immorality of King Charles II, who was in attendance. Charles II, though, was fairly tolerant, and what might have caused the government to close a theater in an earlier period was now allowed to proceed relatively unhindered. It is interesting to note that Pepys refers to Nell (Nell Gwyn) speaking the prologue of the offending play, The Duke of Lerma. She herself was soon to become one of the king's mistresses.

3 10 2021

 It was a clear, beautiful night with the temperatures fine for a walk. 

I stopped several times to gaze at the few stars I can see here in town.

Quote on Literature

From the opening essay from a book that excerpts heavily from Milton: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44733/44733-0.txt: 

The great function of literature, namely, to bring 

into play the spiritual faculties, is very inadequately recognized, and

the study of English Literature is made too much an objective job—the

fault of teachers, not students. When the literature is studied as a

life-giving power, students are always more interested than when

everything else except the one thing needful receives attention,—the

sources of works of genius, the influences under which they were

produced, their relations to history and to time and place, and whatever

else may be made to engage the minds of students in the absence of the

teacher's ability to bring them into a sympathetic relationship with the

informing life of the works 'studied'—with that which constitutes their

absolute power.

3 8 2021

 I did look at the sunrise today.  It was *almost* nice enough to stay out and watch it develop instead of look at it through a window.  

It was a very pink sunrise, more rosy and wispy and there was a crescent moon visible, making the whole thing a little unworldly.

Thomassons

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperart_Thomasson

refers to a useless relic or structure that has been preserved as part of a building or the built environment, which has become a piece of art in itself. These objects, although having the appearance of pieces of conceptual art, were not created to be viewed as such. Akasegawa deemed them even more art-like than art itself, and named them "hyperart." In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in Thomasson, especially since the publication of Akasegawa's work on the subject in English in 2010

. . . 

The term Thomasson comes from the professional baseball player Gary Thomasson, who was signed by the Yomiuri Giants for a record-breaking sum of money, and spent his final two seasons with the team (1981–1982) coming close to setting the league strikeout record before being benched.[2] Akasegawa viewed Thomasson's useless position on the team as a fitting analogy for "an object, part of a building, that was maintained in good condition, but with no purpose, to the point of becoming a work of art.

(h/t 99% Invisible site). Although I got it from their book

California Oil

 I saw in a book and then ran to verify in Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_oil_in_California_through_1930:

The story of oil production in California began in the late 19th century. In 1903, California became the leading oil-producing state in the US, and traded the number one position back-and forth with Oklahoma through the year 1930.  As of 2012, California was the nation's third most prolific oil-producing state, behind only Texas and North Dakota. In the past century, California's oil industry grew to become the state's number one GDP export and one of the most profitable industries in the region.

The first question this brings to me is how did California avoid the resource curse?  (To my non-technical outsider's view, Texas, Oklahoma, and North Dakota haven't since they don't tend to invest in their citizens -- but just writing this out is clarifying for me how muddled my thoughts on this matter are). 

While at the Wiki, this is cool: 

Native Americans were keenly aware of oil reserves in California, and they relied on its utility for thousands of years, albeit not for energy sources. The most abundant oil seep in the ancient California territory was the La Brea tar pits, in present-day Los Angeles. Native Americans used oil from La Brea and other seeps primarily as a lubricant, but they also used it as a sealant to waterproof canoes. When Spanish explorers arrived in California in the 1500s, they also used oil to seal cracks in their ships and the roofs of their homes.

Steak Temp

Note to self [1]:

Steak at 425, keep flipping every 5 minutes. 

Also, golly, I am sick of looking at recipe sites.  They are the worst. 

[1] Which is what I assume this blog pretty much is all the time, but if it ever gives value to others, that is for the good.  

John Hampden

 I'm moving into the 1600s now in my history arc, so I'm getting my Puritan on.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hampden :

John Hampden (c. June 1595 – 24 June 1643) was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War.

After war began in August 1642, Hampden raised an infantry regiment, and died of wounds received at the Battle of Chalgrove Field on 18 June 1643. His loss was considered a serious blow, largely because he was one of the few Parliamentary leaders able to hold the different factions together.

However, his early death also meant he avoided the bitter internal debates later in the war, the execution of Charles I in 1649, and establishment of The Protectorate. This makes him a less complex figure than Cromwell or Pym, a key factor in why his statue was erected in the Palace of Westminster to represent the Parliamentarian cause in 1841.

A reputation for honest, principled, and patriotic opposition to arbitrary rule also made him a popular figure in North America; prior to the 1774 American Revolution, Franklin and Adams were among those who referenced him to justify their cause.

Thought on dreams -- not my own

 Someone else's shower thought: 

Why is it that when you are dreaming, and you talk to someone, why don't you know what the person is going to say?  

3 4 2021

 I tell you, I am moving more toward the soundscape and "sniffscape" of the early mornings.  

Just remember to really be alive, and remember that is free. 

===

Opened a window to better listen to rain hit the roof.  My second favorite cat was with me and just lit up when he was hit by the sniffscape.  Always a joy to see a being you love struck by wonder. 

Otium

 TIL the term Otium. 

Otium, a Latin abstract term, has a variety of meanings, including leisure time in which a person can enjoy eating, playing, resting, contemplation and academic endeavors. It sometimes, but not always, relates to a time in a person's retirement after previous service to the public or private sector, opposing "active public life". Otium can be a temporary time of leisure, that is sporadic. It can have intellectual, virtuous or immoral implications. It originally had the idea of withdrawing from one's daily business (negotium = neg-otium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy). It had particular meaning to businessmen, diplomats, philosophers and poets

Gemini

 Via Ran Prieur is a piece on the "smol" internet, calling Gemini the real dork web.  

It looks like starting with this could be as simple as using gemlog blue, just learning a new mark-up type language for a post and get going. 

So why seek a small internet? Bloat is destroying the computing experience and senselessly wasting natural resources.  Bad design isn't just bad. . . it's a sin. 

3 2 2021

 Even when the sunrise isn't all that much, I grow more and more in love with the golden hour, especially when it features such birdsong as is here in early March.  

==

 We drove into the sunset running an errand.  It was an orange based one, and it was glorious.  We drove on an overpass at it was quite the view.  

On Voltaire attacking the powerful

What motivated him, then, to start up? Partly it must have been that he so much enjoyed vexing stupid powerful people that he kept forgetting that stupid people who had gained power were never stupid about threats to their power. Each time he poked the silly tiger and the tiger clawed back, he was genuinely shocked. 

Next sentences in the paragraph are a different concept, and while interesting, the first block is what completely resonanted with me. 

And then there is a kind of egotism so vast and so pleased with itself that it includes other people as an extension of itself. Voltaire felt so much for other people because he felt so much for himself; everything happened to him because he was the only reasonable subject of everything that happened. By inflating his ego to immense proportions, he made it a shelter for the helpless.

The New Yorker is really good. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/03/07/voltaires-garden 

Better Explained (for when I want math. . .)

 . . . to be better explained. 

https://betterexplained.com/

Razor Update

 I'm still on the Mach 3 razor cartridge that I wrote about here.  Let's call this Blade B to clarify.

I've been on Blade B for a year and two months.  I simply dry the blade by shaking it out and dabbing it on a towel and then use run my thumb on it backwards stropping it (to some extent) and applying some natural oil from my skin.  I then put it in a ziplock baggy that has some old desiccate from something else and a tiny bit of rice.  The theory is that micro-rusts are the enemy. 

In a way, this is now becoming an experiment in how long a ziplock bag can last being sealed several times a day.

Perserving 42

 I actually saw the sunset yesterday, an it was as glorious as any of the year.  I didn't record this fact yesterday, however, because I noticed that both January and February had 42 posts, and I thought that would be something fun to maintain. . . I don't imagine I will try for it again in March. 

Also, because of the new frenetic style of posting, I should break last year's record of 93 total posts this month.  It's not an accomplishment, and I will not feel it as such, but just something to notice.  

Sure you can smell the roses, or pet the cat, but sometimes you gotta just stop and notice the patterns. 

Sack of Rome (1527)

 Holy Shit.  From La Wik: 

The Sack had major repercussions for Italian society and culture, and in particular, for Rome. Clement's War of the League of Cognac would be the last fight for Italian independence and unity until the nineteenth century. Rome, which had been a center of Italian High Renaissance culture and patronage before the Sack, suffered depopulation and economic collapse, causing artists and thinkers to scatter. The city's population dropped from over 55,000 before the attack to 10,000 afterward. An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people were murdered. Many Imperial soldiers also died in the aftermath, largely from diseases caused by masses of unburied corpses in the streets. Pillaging finally ended in February 1528, eight months after the initial attack, when the city's food supply ran out, there was no one left to ransom, and plague appeared.Clement would continue artistic patronage and building projects in Rome, but a perceived Medicean golden age had passed. 

A power shift – away from the Pope, toward the Emperor – also produced lasting consequences for Catholicism. The Emperor, for his part, professed great embarrassment that his troops imprisoned the Pope despite having sent armies to Italy with the goal of bringing the latter under his control. This done, Charles reformed the Church in his own image. Clement, now making decisions under duress, rubber-stamped Charles’ demands – among them naming cardinals nominated by the latter; crowning Charles Holy Roman Emperor at Bologna in 1530; and refusing to annul the marriage of Charles' beloved aunt, Catherine of Aragon, to King Henry VIII of England, prompting the English Reformation.  Cumulatively, these actions changed the complexion of the Church, steering it away from Renaissance freethought personified by the Medici Popes, toward the religious orthodoxy exemplified by the Counterreformation. After Clement's death in 1534, under the influence of Charles and later his son King Phillip II of Spain (1556-1598), the Inquisition became pervasive, and the humanism encouraged by Renaissance culture came to be viewed as contrary to the teachings of the Church. 

2 27 2021

 Fun fog covering the land.  It's not particularly thick, just some atmospherics -- pun accepted. 

Some night sawing

 Working toward a two string instrument that I can actually play with frets instead of requiring a slide. 

I cut the neck out from a bigger piece.  Did the whole process with a handsaw, using masking tape on both sides of the line to create my guides. 

2 25 2021

 The sunrise was quite pastel.  The weather was nice enough to be out in it.  I did some horizontal pulls (like pull ups, but for weaklings) in the direction of the sunrise.  

Cat Fish

 This morning's musing was when it is time to feed the cats, they wish around like they are fish in a narrow pond.  We have four cats, all of different coloring, so the effect is really something. 

They are cat fish in those moments. 

An essay, to me is . . .

 An essay, to me, is an honest to attempt grapple with a topic without an anxiety about being exhaustive.  

The essay is a ground between the "hot take" and an academic speciality.  Hot takes are by definition ignorant, and really are exercises in branding.  On the other hand, forcing someone to be an academic in the subject to able to write word one is too stifling.  It just takes too long to acquire the knowledge to exhaustion -- everything everyone has ever said about the thing -- let alone the credentials.  

Some more thoughts on essays: 

• I need to have thought about the subject for at least a week (though the line of thought can percolate for months, even years, before being put down to text).  
• If I am not drawing from my own life experience, reading one book is enough to be playful in a space, three books to be confident.  
• When only marginally confident of an idea, this should be expressed.  "Weasel words" are our friends and should be an important to our discourse.  The required mode of confidence is wrong, at least for true essays. 
• The best essay to write is one where I know some things that might be of potential interest, but give me an opportunity to think of something new as I am writing.  While this is a very difficult window to formalize, I think a certain few can be developed.

2 24 2021

Almost warm enough at sunrise to stay outside to watch and listen -- almost.  I was out for a moment and was treated to birdsong in profusion and even some sights of birds in flight.  

They seem to agree: that last bout of cold weather we had was the end of winter.  A little later than it has been in some years.  It got up to 70 degrees (American) yesterday after having been in the negatives last week.

2 23 2021

 Sunrise.  Overwhelmingly yellow, washing out most of the sky. 

===

Sunset?  Lil' bit.

2 22 2021

 I saw the sunrise today.  I don't think I was fully present for it mentally/spiritually (whatever).  I am trying to adjust my sleep back.

I am paying the price for that today. 

Nam June Paik -- artist, visionary, crazy uncle

 

 Just one of those hyper-weirdos with an insatiable appetite for novelty.  

He was classically trained in piano when he was young, but took his inspiration from John Cage, in ways Cage was not always happy with -- most likely Cage was least happy the time Paik left the stage and attacked him with scissors, cutting up his tie.  

Notes from The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr

Notes not in order.  

• Subtitle: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket -- that is great. 
•  His previous book was on Yoga, particularly guru scandals, and was called "Hell Bent"-- that title is also great.
• He noticed that those who felt more and more capable through Yoga channeled it into more Yoga, not helping others or anything like that
• Decline in % of budget that goes to food: 1900 = 40%, 1950 = 30%, now = 10%
• Around 1812, 90% worked in food production, now 3% (I'm not sure this one is an apples to apples comparison. . .) 

2 20 2021

 I saw the sunset.  

Notes from Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas

Notes not in book or chronological order

• Marvelous word Anfechtungun for inner battles over faith
•  After Leipzig debate M.L. gets more aggressive and published three books within a year
• From this comes "faith alone" and calling the Pope anti-christ, sometimes back-peddling to Pope as institution is anti-christ
•  Men more extreme than he pushed the movement forward -- notably Karlstadt and Müntzer, but still others claimed to be divinely inspired.  And a strong current of millennialism developed which students to drop out of university at Wittenberg
• Melanchthon was the non-combative, consolatory character of what we now call Lutheranism
• Luther sees Anfechtungun as test if someone is having real visions from God -- it can't all be just peachy keen.  Last part is a quote from the author, not L.
• Karlstadt pushed iconoclasm due to a highly dualistic belief -- nothing should stimulate the senses.
• The humanists had a habit of taking on a new last name to reflect their erudition -- Luther did as well, but I forget it and don't care to look it up
• Luther had already changed his name from Luder, which was a crude word.
• Speaking of name changes, MLK's dad was actually named Michael but changed his name to Martin Luther King after attending a religious conference in Germany, and his son did as well -- those closest to him called him Mike through his life.   
• Author claims that Luther by using pamphlets in German so much essentially created the vox populi 

Theory of stir-craziness

I shoveled snow today, I believe for the first time in my life.  My new theory of stir-craziness is that it is much more likely to occur if you can get yourself to believe that being outside will be pleasant -- at least pleasant enough.  

I was just that eager to get some more printed books from the library.  

H.L. Mencken on Warren G. Harding

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.

Politicians. . . Yeah, they'll save us. 

Notes from Bridgett's Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More

• In More's letters, he has more than one reference disparaging superstition [1].   One of which says that the historical proofs are only hurt when mixed up with fables.  
• In Praise of Folly was written while Erasmus lived under More's roof.  
• Erasmus and More felt they were taken completely out of context after events exploded and many works they had no intention of publication were leaked. Still More writes that Erasmus was merely indignant at those who treated their vices as virtues. 
• Related: More has a story about a man of the cloth whose real job was just to debate.  A merchant tricked him by making up Biblical passages to the watch the man "gift of gab" around them and make up his own sources of commentaries -- this is the type of man M argues E limits his criticisms to. 
• More is given props for good cheer if not affection in 2nd marriage.  She is described as "one of the most loquacious, ignorant, and narrow minded of women" by an outsider.  Bridgett questions this degree of censure, which the author's prerogative.  
• Just a great letter by More on educating his children.  It is clear that his stance is virtue in a way so more clearer than nearly anyone was capable of before or since.  Virtue, not pride.  Virtue, not consumption.  More sees that few really work on Pride, and they don't start early and systematically, and implicitly teach that praise is the reward of virtue, which makes you study what most people want and ashamed to be part of the few.  The letter in question was copied to his children and several copies come down to posterity. 
• Henry VIII had More's daughters perform a philosophical dispute for his amusement -- seeing the fruit of More's experiment in education.  This was years before he put More to death.
• Mind, Catholic author, but stated that Luther's reply to Henry VIII's The Defence of the Seven Sacraments was such a way a King or Prince had "never" been addressed before, and this is why More wrote such nasty Latin in reply (to the reply, to The Bablyonian Captivity.) 
• Henry could not reply to this, and in fact Luther actually issued an apology for the language at a later date.  Our author characterizes this apology as insincere. 
• "Neither business nor literature, nor the wiles of diplomacy, nor the pomps and pleasures of courts, had robbed him of his mirth or dimmed his vision of eternity."  

Related thing I learned by looking through Bridgett's other works: England was one called her lady's (ie mother Mary's) dowery, a title gained under Richard II. 

[1] I really want to trace the idea of anti-superstition in the West.  This lecture (the series, speaker, and university for giving out free content --  since 1597! -- is great) indicates that the groundswell against superstition came before the Reformation, and so there were built in groups to divide when the schism started.  

2 18 2021

Clear blue sky and the snow looks it has little jewels every direction you look. 

I slept in, so no chance at sunrise. 

==

I'll tell you I was not be sorry to have a time when my eyes don't burn from looking out at the snow at the wrong time.  This lends support that I am so overjoyed with snow because it is a novelty. 

2 17 2021

 It is difficult to get over the rare treat (for me) of snow coming down on blankets of snow already on the ground.  

Such a lovely aesthetic experience. 

===

I'm in such a dilemma.  I love how tea makes me feel.  It is much better than the jaggedness of coffee. I am as happy as I can possibly be laying here in bed, surrounded by books and with my tea. . .  But anyone who has passed a kidney stone -- and all I passed was two minuscule flecks -- will understand that I am hesitant to go full in to the tea lifestyle for the risk of kidney stones.  

Oh well, I will make another pot today.

Notes from Henry VIII by Tracy Borman

• Henry VIII as "the spare" was raised in his mother's household.  
• After Arthur's death, Henry VII floated marrying Catherine of Aragon -- locking up the dowery was that important. 
• Henry VII fell gravely ill after Arthur's death and the book questions whether succession would have been really stabilized in that case.
• The tradition was for the next monarch to attend his or her predecessors funeral.  
•  Thomas Cranmer was married twice before becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury.  The second time was shortly before being appointed to Archbishop Henry VIII (who did not know).  Reformation was in the air.
• Cranmer was modest and contrast to Henry VIII's other advisors.  
• Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell carefully laid the ground work England's religious shift.  Cromwell on the legal side, Cranmer the ecclesiastical. 
• The eventual Cardinal Thomas Wolsey partied hard with the King during the early years of his reign and wasn't some heavy downer person to the King's way of life.  As almoner he became the go-between with the King and his cabinet

2 16 2021

 I made myself present for the dawn.  I am glad I  am maintaining the practice of waking up early.  

. . . As I was typing those words our power went off for a little over two hours.  We snuggled under blankets and I got some reading in as the reflection off the snow was enough to light our house. 

===

Snow coming down on snow!  A sight so rarely seen here. It's beautiful. . .  

No sunset to be seen, though. 

2 15 2021

Beautiful blue sky out today -- which has been a rarity as of late -- with temperatures in the teens keeping the pristine sheet of snow intact.  It's been a pretty picture all day. 

===

Ah, finally a sunset again.  And it was pretty good. 

2 14 2021

 I'd say that watching snow fall is at least some conciliation for this streak of no sunrises or sunsets. 

G.K. on the balance for fun

Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

Zone of proximate defined.  

2 12 2021

 No, still too much coverage for sunrises and sunset, but watching gentle snow flurries has become the joy of my life (for now). 

Optimist or pessimist? Wrong question (Chesterton)

The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more. 

And (!)

All optimistic thoughts about England and all pessimistic thoughts about her are alike reasons for the English patriot.  Similarly, optimism and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic patriot. 

Would be nice to live in a place where people were like that, rather than the world of infinite groundlessness and choices, where we are everywhere and nowhere at once.  But that's the rub to Chesterton.  First sacredness, then civic possessiveness, then invest in community:  

If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is THEIRS, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence.  Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy.  I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. . . Men did not love Rome because she was great.  She was great because they had loved her.

2 11 2021

 Still just gloom rather than sunrises. But there was a dusting of snow, and that creates a novel visual effect, at least in these parts. 

So I should correct it to say it is gloom in the sky, but jewels everywhere on the ground.  A joy to watch the world wake up in that state. 

===

Different degrees of snow flurries through the day.  I appreciated the very, very gentle dustings for their subtleness [1]. But when a good flurry is going, that's just winter magic.  

[1] I bundled up at one point and went out in once such subtle dusting to enjoy the world gone silent.  There was the gentlest of cracking sounds, a beautiful aural landscape that made my environs realer.

Experiments in Pilish

 I think if I am going to write in Pilish, I am going to need to tools, and it looks like I need to code them if I am going to have access to them.  

It'd be a fun excuse to dust off Python again.  

I think the way to go, at least at this phase, it to generate several possible lines and then select from them.  I imagine I could get to the point where I just know the length of a lot of common words and get decent at sticking the landings in different sentences -- this is what it would mean be "fluent in Pilish" -- but for now I have a spreadsheet, random.org, and a word finder open.   It would be better to have these functionalities integrated.

Using these, I made the following:

Dao: a love, a twist, tiptoeing in cosmic jokes, and minor delights, localized utopias; Mysticism -- wei wu wei.

I'd be remiss not to also add this:

Yes, I went a while abounding to Narnia. 

Which, believe it or not, is as long of a string as the type of Pilish that you can find "out in nature."   

To continue to test out my methods with these resources, I choose the topic of this years Brooklyn Nets:

Can I show a Kyrie bellyache?  My, Durant, James, and Kyrie function perfectly -- average. Timebombs fed by ego, meriting this streak of losses. . .   Nash may see disaster now.

===

Eh.  Experimenting with this makes me see why the prose is always going to end up stilted.   It is hard to imagine a situation where Pilish is the game I most want to play. 

Duchamp with the grave troll

 Marcel Duchamp's grave epitaph: 

"D'ailleurs, c'est toujours les autres qui meurent" ("Besides, it's always the others who die").

2 9 2021

 So I have learned that gloomy weather seems to basically preclude sunrises and sunsets.   I have still been making my life present to watch as the light changes the view of the world. 

I have been getting more out of bird song lately.  Today, I opened the window and even endured some cold blasts to hear the birds more clearly.

Tips from the OG Mr. 14-19-28-47-61 on Pilish

Catching the link. 

 http://www.cadaeic.net/pilish.htm

Another "do when I have more time" project.

These wacky ideas are spinning off from reading the biography of John Cage and doing some reflection on the nature of art.

The founder of the mother of wheat

 My stray thought was that "Aaron Aaronson" would be the first book in a library's collection, so I thought maybe it would be a source of common pseudonyms.  

I had not seen the movie Hot Fuzz, so I didn't know that character, now I do. 

But of more interest to me is an opportunity for a weird wiki find.  Uhhh. . .

Aaron Aaronsohn (Hebrew: אהרון אהרנסון‎) (21 May 1876 – 15 May 1919) was a Jewish agronomist, botanist, and Zionist activist, who was born in Romania and lived most of his life in the Land of Israel, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Aaronsohn was the discoverer of emmer (Triticum dicoccoides), believed to be "the mother of wheat."

And. . . 

Aaron Aaronsohn was born in Bacău, Romania, and brought to Palestine, then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, at the age of six. His parents were among the founders of Zikhron Ya'akov, one of the pioneer Jewish agricultural settlements of the First Aliyah. He had two sisters, Sarah and Rivka. Aaronsohn was the first car-owner in Palestine and one of the first to own a bicycle, which he brought back from France

Emphasis added by me. 

 

Birdsong, preliminary google searches

 I thought to myself, what do we humans know about birdsong?  How does it fit in music theory?  I'm not even sure I want to follow the leads right now, but I'll make a first pass. 

First internet search was "academic study bird song," hoping there some 

Sort of a jackpot overview: 

https://courses.washington.edu/ccab/Baker%20-%20100%20yrs%20of%20birdsong%20research%20-%20BB%202001.pdf 

Another article: 

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-development-of-birdsong-16133266/

Here is a Florida State group going in the weeds: 

https://birdsong.neuro.fsu.edu/publications

Next I went "bird song music theory" but it came up with too much that seemed too confident, yet contradictory, so I will such search that another time when I have the time and interest. 

Page three of the results yielded this gem (I clicked it because I thought it would be the least jargon-chocked): 

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/january-february-2014/dr-emily-doolittle-music-birds

A quote: 

Across cultures, people find the musician wren’s song quite interesting. The range it sings in is much closer to ranges you’re used to hearing in music. Many birds have songs so high that it’s hard for us to think of them in musical terms because they’re above any instrument or voice we listen to. The musician wren also sings slower than other birds of its size, so we can listen to it in real time. The timbre [vocal quality] is very similar to a human whistle. If you were walking in the Amazon and you heard one, you might think there was a person whistling that tune.

2 6 2021

 Raining a bit in the morning, so no sunrise to see, but some very, very beautiful blues developed in the sky between 7:00 and 8:00.  

My wife and I had spent a late night out with company, so I am a bit surprised by how early I woke up without an alarm. 

2 5 2021

I woke up about an hour early.  This let me get today's chore, the litter boxes, done before sunrise, so I drove out to get a better view.  There was a quick pink that took up a huge section of sky, but that died down within minutes.  

Still, it all developed into the golden hour nicely.  

When I got to work, I also saw a garbage truck picking up three large metal dumpsters, and that really was poetry in motion.  The arms of the truck interlock with the dumpster sides and the mechanics of lifting it up an over, with a little pause for a rotation, where just a thing of beauty.  Seeing it sync up with the sounds made those loud thuds into percussion that worked with a dance.  

It sure would be nice to fall in love with the world every day. 

2 4 2021

 Sunrise? Y.  Kind of weird streaks of clouds that stayed blue and looked almost like crystals.

2 3 2021

 Sunrise? Y. 

===

Sunset? Yes, a glorious spread of orange, almost blinding to look -- but as these things tend to -- it died down into something inspiring.  And then it kept going and going.  It was just what my soul needed after an exhausting day .

Chesterton on Gratitude

  The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom.  Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets.  Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? 

2 2 2021

 Sunrise?  Y.

I have been more consistent on seeing dawn and sunrise this year.  When it comes to the afternoon, my wife is a real wild card.  She comes it at different times, and so I often miss the sunset rustling up dinner.  

===

Sunset? Y.

Free and Maybe

 A new project where I stack up texts that are online that I might read one day, but have no short term plans to.  Not currently organized in any way. 

The Gospel of Buddha.  Carus.

The Philobiblon.  Bury

Outlines of Mahaŷâna Buddhism.  Suzuki.

The Ego and His Own.  Stirner

History of Florence.  Machiavelli

The Blind Musician.  Vladimir Korolenko

Notes from the Underground.  Dotoesvsky.

Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind.  Condorcet

The History of England.   Macaulay

Travels in Philadelphia.  Morley. 

Blunders and Forgeries.  Bridgett.

Eikon Basilike Charles I

Samuel Pepys, and the world he lived in Wheatley.

Modern Swedish Masterpieces: Short Stories.

Lucian

Erasmus

Bernal Diaz del Castillo

English Works of Thomas Hobbes

Duchamp as lightweight

 According the book I am reading, Where the Heart Beats (Larson, pg 46-47), Duchamp was a "little known light-weight" all the way to the 1950s. 

There is an interesting pattern-similarity here with Son House, who I was interested in late last year.  What we know about is filtered through the next wave of people who were seeking to re-discover, piece together, and collect what they could about another time.  

2 1 2021

 The development from dawn to sunrise was a symphony of color.  

I really enjoyed watching the change over time.  I also picked up a trick that I think will work on the days that the sunrise is more of a dud -- look up at the gradients of blue higher up and watch the lightness move upward between looks.  

===

Sunset?  Indeed.  It was meh.  I think dawn to sunrise was in fact better today. 

John Cage on his project

 Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord. 

1 30 2021

 It was rainy at sunrise, so no go there.  

Later on in the day it was essentially a perfect day -- in the 60s, a great day to keep windows open and enjoy the fresh air.  

===

Worked a bit on removing a broken gate.  It appears a cold front is coming in so repairs and replacements will have to wait. for a nicer stretch of weather when I have the time.  

1 29 2021

The dawn featured lovely pinks.

To always accept change is to forfeit progress

G.K. Chesterton:

 It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself his object or ideal.  But as an ideal, change itself becomes unchangeable.  If the change-worshipper wishes to estimate his own progress, he must be sternly loyal to the ideal of change; he must not begin to flirt gaily with the ideal of monotony. Progress itself cannot progress.

1 28 2021

 I saw the sunrise.  It was a very good, expansive one. 

Stuckness

 Listening to Robert Pirsig NPR interview from back in the 70s.

He made an interesting point about "stuckness."  The clouds are particularly beautiful in those moments -- if you stop what you are doing and look.  Stuckness is a special type of moment when the world is very real.  

He elaborates that stuckness is a special type of non-doing and that is a problem in a culture trained for doing. 

Mottos and Mastheads

 G.K. Chesterton: 

The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious.  The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. 

Similar point made by Pirsig about Quality.   If you let there be a mystery premise, you can build from there.  Back to Chesterton: 

 He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health. 

My dogmas in the center are the ones I use on the masthead above (at least of the time of this writing).  I try to live by creation rather than consumption and giving rather than selling.  

1 27 2021

 The dawn was lovely in a very subtle way.  That is part of this whole looking out every day thing, however; it is an exercise in seeing.

===

I have not been playing with music as much.  I did scale work play on our keyboard last night, but I haven't been learning new songs.  Instead, I am dusting off my Spanish.  I'm pretty amazed that I have the mental energy to do this after work, and I am certainly monitoring for the early signs of discomfort as I would really like to not burn out.  

I have given up on learning oh so many languages, but I Spanish useful and beautiful enough that I think I should keep at it, at least get the next 1/3 million words read to hit my first million words read and go from there to see how much more needs to be done.

I have started with Anki again, this time using a large Spanish sentence deck, set to as little as 5 cards at a time.  

=== 

Sunset?  Yup.  Orange-y. 

1 26 2021

 A great sunrise.  At first I thought it was just going to be a band of rose, but compared to what I had been seeing, even that was a welcome change.  As it was, the sunrise developed over time.  It is cold outside, so I just turned off lights in the house to make the view better.  This caused some consternation with my wife as she was trying to go through her morning routine, but ultimately I think she understood. 

===

Sunset?  Yes. 

1 25 2021

 Yet another sunrise dud -- it is nice that I keep showing up, however. 

==

Sunset majoring in yellows at first and then moved into the clouds to great effect -- all sorts of colors.  

I found out that Saturday's sunrise, which I missed because I was talking to my wife, was good.  At least the person telling me that was able to enjoy it with his daughter. 

Right Before Newton. . .

While the time of Newton and Leibniz is absolutely exciting, they had predecessors that laid the ground work. 

Reading about Isaac Barrow is a trip.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Barrow

Isaac went to school first at Charterhouse (where he was so turbulent and pugnacious that his father was heard to pray that if it pleased God to take any of his children he could best spare Isaac), and subsequently to Felsted School, where he settled and learned under the brilliant puritan Headmaster Martin Holbeach who ten years previously had educated John Wallis.

And (!!!) 

He spent the next four years travelling across France, Italy, Smyrna and Constantinople, and after many adventures returned to England in 1659. He was known for his courageousness. Particularly noted is the occasion of his having saved the ship he was upon, by the merits of his own prowess, from capture by pirates. 

The links in the first block quote also start building out the world of thinker-mathemetecian-(and at that time always) theologians.  The birth of our world of numbers, data, and models grew out the religious world.  No big meaning to attach to that at the moment, just a fact.  

Also, Barrow was the first person to be the now-famed Lucias Chair at Cambridge, but gave it up six years later so Newton could hold it.  Imagine someone giving up an academic post so someone else, even someone more brilliant, could take it.  A very different world indeed! 

1 24 2021

 I now have proof that there are sunrises that are complete duds no matter where you are looking.  Today there was quite a bit of clouds and even some fog.  Still, I headed out to the Walmart parking lot to give myself a chance.  

I committed the additional sin of leaving the car on for heat and listening to the radio.  

===

Around sunset time there was some limited purpling, but the cloud cover remained all day, though the fog seemed to lift.  I didn't go a chasing the sunset. 

Back up of Metamodernist Manifesto

 I sure would hate to lose this, so I back it up. 

Attribution:  Luke Turner, 2011.  Originally at  http://www.metamodernism.org/ 

===

METAMODERNIST // MANIFESTO

1.We recognise oscillation to be the natural order of the world.

2.We must liberate ourselves from the inertia resulting from a century of modernist ideological naivety and the cynical insincerity of its antonymous bastard child.

3.Movement shall henceforth be enabled by way of an oscillation between positions, with diametrically opposed ideas operating like the pulsating polarities of a colossal electric machine, propelling the world into action.

4.We acknowledge the limitations inherent to all movement and experience, and the futility of any attempt to transcend the boundaries set forth therein. The essential incompleteness of a system should necessitate an adherence, not in order to achieve a given end or be slaves to its course, but rather perchance to glimpse by proxy some hidden exteriority. Existence is enriched if we set about our task as if those limits might be exceeded, for such action unfolds the world.

5.All things are caught within the irrevocable slide towards a state of maximum entropic dissemblance. Artistic creation is contingent upon the origination or revelation of difference therein. Affect at its zenith is the unmediated experience of difference in itself. It must be art’s role to explore the promise of its own paradoxical ambition by coaxing excess towards presence.

6.The present is a symptom of the twin birth of immediacy and obsolescence. Today, we are nostalgists as much as we are futurists. The new technology enables the simultaneous experience and enactment of events from a multiplicity of positions. Far from signalling its demise, these emergent networks facilitate the democratisation of history, illuminating the forking paths along which its grand narratives may navigate the here and now.

7.Just as science strives for poetic elegance, artists might assume a quest for truth. All information is grounds for knowledge, whether empirical or aphoristic, no matter its truth-value. We should embrace the scientific-poetic synthesis and informed naivety of a magical realism. Error breeds sense.

8.We propose a pragmatic romanticism unhindered by ideological anchorage. Thus, metamodernism shall be defined as the mercurial condition between and beyond irony and sincerity, naivety and knowingness, relativism and truth, optimism and doubt, in pursuit of a plurality of disparate and elusive horizons. We must go forth and oscillate!

1 23 2021

 I didn't do the sunrise today.  I actually got up with my alarm -- 6:33 [1],  but my wife wanted me to stay and talk, and so I did.  

[1] Chosen to be a multiple of 3, but not of 9.  That's just a little number game I play.  When I warm up food in the microwave, I also try to follow the same rule.

===

No to sunset.  

I ended up doing quite a bit of writing today, but all for private consumption.  

Strangely enough, this switch in format to me blogging a lot of very small pieces frequently coincides with me becoming a more private person. 

1 22 2021

 Sunrise was a dud again.  It must have something to do with my angels and what is obstructed.  

===

Just knowingly skipped the sunset.  Some times I just want to rest. 

1 21 2021

 I looked out at the right spot at the right time for the sunrise, but it was a dud.

===

At 4:44 there were beautiful streaks of nebula pink in the Western horizon.  

Another round of laying down with a good angle on the sunset.  Work exhausts me as ever.

The sunset majored in whites and yellows creating a heaven effect and it moved into some pinks during the die down3 

1 20 2021

 The clouds didn't catch color as they often do before the sunrise as they sometimes do, but I don't consider the time and attention wasted as I think it is on the whole a good ritual.  

===

Sunset? Yes.  

===

I can actually play the strings correctly on Plucky using my fingers pressing on the frets instead of using a slide.  I think I'll start developing string-player callouses on my left hand. 

1 19 2021

 My insomnia afforded me a good, long cuddle with my favorite cat before the sunrise, which I saw.  

===

I have a couch by the window where I can watch sunsets laying down, at least this time of year.  

===

Learning some Itsy-Bitsy Spider on both Plucky and Jack (we're going to shorten Jack's Can Guitar to just Jack).  I'm getting sound from the 15th fret just fine, if not 16.  It makes me wonder if I really need that second string on Jack, or if I need to bother with making any more one stringers any time soon -- I have some just novelty stuff to do, like try to make a one out a big popcorn tin that we got for Christmas. 

My wife said "music is the constant creation."  A nice little aphorism. 

Insomnia Edition

 I woke up around 2:30 AM and couldn't get back to sleep.  

So, game plan with music:

• Use noob notes to collect a bunch of melodies from songs I know and love.  
• Learn them on the keyboard.
• Figure out how to play them on one or two-string set ups (currently Jack's bass.  I have two more strings to make another one -- sink the resonator can so that I can have frets). 
• Learn how to read sheet music.
• Collect melodies that work in the range of the one-string set up. Draw much from traditional and folk music
• I will then be my own jukebox. 
• THEN if I want to get intricate, I can do so on the keyboard.

1 18 2021

 Sunrise?  Nope.  

I stayed up a little late working on untitled SPAM project to the point of stringing it and playing around, but not yet finding where the frets go.  

I like the sound of the thing, but this aint you grandad's SPAM box.  The tin is really, really thin and the inside is actually plastic.  The force of strings under tension is pulling the box in on itself with big dents that have the strings as their center.  I'm going to play around with it and see if this is a failure mode, either with total collapse or an inability to keep the strings in tune for long.  

So I am abandoning the name Spamjo because I am not sure that will be the resonator for all that long. Also, Porky is not a good name.  And having spent the last few days with the SPAM food product, I don't believe it rises to the level of pork. 

Since I the wood I used for the neck and a little base to make it easier prop up came from something from a neighbor, I think I'm going to name it Jack's guitar. 

===

My wife agreed that the sound to the thing was great, so we had some fun playing around on Jack's guitar.   Because the one of the strings was nice and thick my wife had flashbacks to her cello days.  

I thought it might be neat to have both strings the thick, lower note bits.  Well, in trying to get the tension on the string it pulled through the hole in the SPAM resonator. . . So much for that.  

That leaves a one string instrument that sounds pretty good, but I already had a one string; I was wanting to get two string to increase my range to all of the pop melodies I've been collecting.  So back to the drawing board.  Time to take a break from making -- at least from making instruments.  

===

Tore out the SPAM resonator -- oh, what a saga that was!  I put a flat used cat food can.  It is obviously less powerful of a resonator, but much easier to mount.  

I'm pretty happy with Jack's Can Guitar -- final name for the project. 

===

Saw in meme form: art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time. 

===

Saw that the sunset was doing that special space nebula thing, so I sat outside and working on finding my frets on Jack's Can Guitar while watching.  I might become that guy who plays music on the porch -- wouldn't that be an interesting type of guy to be? 

1 17 2021

 Slept in, so I missed the sunrise.  I stayed up a bit late cutting that plank for untitled SPAM project -- it'll either get the label Spamjo or Porky. But sometimes something has to exist before you can give it a name. 

The bird song is really something right now. 

===

I just came up with a way to think about normies: 

It is a fractal universe, always another layer to be found, but normies are just stuck on one level of description -- often one aspect of one level of description.  

This isn't bad -- some of these are narratives are those of saintly good -- it's just thin.

===

Beautiful blue sky today acting as perfect frame for the clouds.  Just an endless pleasure to look at.  

===

Easy to catch the sunset when I am working in my garage with the door open, often facing out as I work.  

Decent sunset. 

Thomas Müntzer

 The book I am reading introduced me to Thomas Müntzer, who counter-intuitively was the first Lutheran (since he took on the label, which Martin Luther did not).  

Holy crap, this guy was a radical personified. 

He and Cola di Rienzo show there was no lack of people with the abilities and psychological traits to create extreme change before the eras of extreme change.  Rather, context had its part to play. 

1 16 2021

 I could tell it was going to be a brilliant sunrise, so I went to the Walmart parking lot -- my go-to place for a wide view.  The view did not disappoint.  At one point a Coke delivery truck parked right in my line of sight, so I had to move, but no matter. 

===

I had bought some SPAM because I saw videos of people using the rectangular can to make a good resonator for string instruments.  I sizzled some up and then added eggs to make a scramble. 

I can see how someone might acquire a taste for it, but I am not in love with it.  A "what is this?" signal keeps going up my nervous system when I get too big a bite of Spam without enough compensating egg. 

===

I think what I have been learning on the keyboard fits well with today: a section of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning from the musical Oklahoma -- yes I know you want me to link to Hugh Jackman singing this.

Oh, what a beautiful morning

Oh, what a beautiful day

I've a got a wonderful feeling 

Everything's going my way

If I am going to play this on a string instrument (at least in the key it is written) I think I'm going to need a second string to increase my range I can pick.  So, I better keep working on eating that SPAM.  I want to build another string instrument for under $2 soon.   

===

The cloud cover stayed all day, leading to a glorious sunset as well.  My wife and I went to the location where we can get a good view of sunsets.  It's good to know these things in advance. 

===

Emptied the SPAM out into a bowl and put it in the refrigerator so I could clean out the can.  I started cutting out some a strip of wood to be the head stock. It was from a piece a neighbor had given me, knowing my hobby and that he just wanted to throw it out anyway. 

 After discussing the matter with my wife, I am going to be conservative and try to make a 2-string instrument out of the spam can because I have seen examples of that before, but never one as a 3-string.  Why take the risk?  I only need a few more half-steps of range to play the rest of the songs I currently want.  This means I'll have to save making a three string for another later, and unless I want to disassemble Diddley One, Plucky, or untitled SPAM project, I'll need to buy some more strings -- $5-$10.  What am I made of money? 

Catch up on sunrise and sets

I didn't let the internet fast stop me from noticing sunrises and sunsets.  I made a chart on a piece of paper.  Here is what I recorded: 

Day       Sunrise         Sunset

M              y                   n

T              y                    n

W            y                     y

Th           n                     y

F            y                     y

So happens that today's sunset was the most glorious of the bunch.  Such great purples available at almost any angle.  

Internet Fast

 I plan on taking a fast from non-work internet the next work week.  

I don't have a phone that can do internet, so at least I don't have the "before I get up, as I go to sleep" habit to fight.  I tend to do mostly school work at school, so even that isn't a week spot.  I need to just turn off my computer I use at home 

What the world really needs

(Must admit certain *ahem* news events at the Capitol got me to break my YouTube fast.  At least I saw this.  On to the next fast. . .) 

1 10 2020

 This time the cat stayed on me, and I did indeed miss sunrise.  

==

I have given the following names to my homemade one-string instruments: Diddly One and Plucky (because it with the bridge lower it can be played very closely to a guitar whereas Diddly One can only be played with a slide).  

I figured out the frets for Baby Shark.  My God, that sounds good (at least in the annoying spirit of the song) on Diddly One. 

1 9 2021

 I thought I was going to miss the sunrise for the adorable reason that a cat got on me shortly after I got up and settled in for some reading and writing.  

But the cat in question got up just in time.  From the first look I got outside one cloud was so positioned as to go pastel pink.  Turned out that when I got another angle -- went to make coffee -- it was two clouds, but the composition was better the first way, a kind of metaphor about uniqueness.  

==

While we were driving, I got to see the most glorious sunset of the year so far, and it was one of the best ways to see it as there was good, open land where we were driving.

1 8 2021

 Sunrise -- looking outside, but no effects.  No pinks, yellows, etc.  Did I know it could do that?  Have I been seeing many more sunrises than I thought and just not registering the crap ones? 

Should I learn to notice better and see more levels of subtle beauty?  Probably. 

==

Ghostly hues of washed-out yellows for the pre-sunset.  

==

Keyboard -- working on "King of the Road." 

1 7 2021

 Play: recorder.  Still very much in the frequent squeaky notes phase.

Also keyboard.   

1 5 2021

 Sunrise? Yup.  A little thin, but nice.  

It's almost like writing about this every day has brought it to my attention, and increased my likelihood of noticing it. 

===

Along with the keyboard, my mother-in-law gave us some very easy song books, the type with large print with the letters written in the bubbles of the notes.  I'll be working through those for the foreseeable future.  

The first song I've been working on out of that collection is "Always on My Mind"

My bench might have been cat proof, but it was not "play music on a rug that has patterns sticking up" proof.  Partly the screws I used didn't go deep enough.  I repaired the joint in question by using glue and decently longer nails to go in.  

===

Sunset?  Nope.  I was looking at the set up, but got to working on something and forgot until too late.  The cloud cover was nice, so I bet it was a decent one I missed.  I feel a bit saddened by that.  Regrets. 

1 4 2021

 My sunrise streak ended at one.  I had one last day off, so I slept in until 9:00, making up for the absurdity of waking up early yesterday. 

The bench/saw horse I finished yesterday is holding up well under the cat test.  Cat-levels of jumps don't make it rock.  A human can, but they have to really try.  Now I have two benches, so I can cut sheet goods much more easily, and I can have one sitting near the door of the garage to make it extra convenient when I wish to go outside to saw or sand.

===

I started thinking about work tomorrow and then got highly frustrated when I realized there was a bit much more complex than I had previously imagined.  My wife suggested I go the trails, and so I did so with a notebook and towel in my backpack.  I stopped cleared my head and stopped several times to write notes.  The sunlight and the perspective really helped improve my mood.  

Also the way the wind blew made the water of the pond lap up against one of my favorite spots.  I recall sitting there shortly after I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the first time -- in spite of the title, it is quite the book to help open your eyes to reality around you.  I sat there that day for a long, long time, smiled and said "this is so much better than television."  

You have to be able to see for yourself to be able to dream for yourself.  Go back to the source. 

===

I've been seeing a lot of pigeons in my back yard lately.  I'm really digging them. 

==

Sunset? Yes.  A bit weak, but there were some pink clouds on the opposite sky.

Books Read 2021

The Odyssey.  Homer.
Tuck Everlasting.   Natalie Babbitt.
BIP 2013.  Discordians.
The Unreformed Martin Luther. Andreas Malessa.
Where the Heart Beats. Kay Larson.
Orthodoxy.  G.K. Chesterton. 
The Shadow King. Lauren Johnson. 
Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him. Tracy Borman.
We Have No Idea. Cham and Whiteson.
Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More.  T.E. Bridgett.
Martin Luther. Eric Metaxas.
The Secret Life of Groceries.  Benjamin Lorr.
Apocalypse Never. Michael Shellenberger
The Man Who Invented Fiction.  William Egginton
The 1500s: Headlines in History. 
The 1600s: Headlines in History
Oliver Cromwell.  Theodore Roosevelt.     
Hume's History of England, Vol F. 
The Inimitable Jeeves.  Wodehouse.    
The Age of Genius. A.C. Grayling
Curiosity.  Philip Ball.
Newton and the Counterfeiter. Thomas Levenson.
When You Trap a Tiger. Tae Keller.
The Code of the Woosters.  Wodehouse
Frederick the Great. Tim Blanning
The 1700s: Headlines in History
An Essay on Man.  Alexander Pope.
Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf.    Jennifer L. Holm
Four Lost Cities. Annalee Newitz
Letters on the English. Voltaire.
Fire and Light. James MacGregor Burns. 
Very Good, Jeeves.  Wodehouse.
The True History of the American Revolution.   Sydney George Fisher.
Evening in the Palace of Reason.  James R. Gaines 
Candide. Voltaire. 
Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet. Bill Kauffman
Revolution. Peter Ackroyd.
The Lady and Her Monsters.  Roseanne Montillo.
Romanticism: A German Affair. Rüdiger Safranski
Andrew Jackson.  Don Yaeger and Brian Kilmeade. 
American Lion.  Jon Meacham
A Country of Vast Designs. Robert W. Merry    
Dominion. Peter Ackroyd.
Opium: Reality's Dark Dream. Thomas Dormandy
Underbug.  Lisa Margonelli
Friedrich Nietzsche. Curtis Cate
Friedrich Nietzsche. Georg Brandes

1 3 2021

 I wouldn't have thought that it would be a sunrise I would have seen first rather than a sunset this year, but there you have it.  It was a good sunrise, as those go, which made me think what makes me prefer sunsets so much.  

A bit of science to the rescue, highly recommended if you are a sunset aficionado -- or even one of those hip, contrarian fans of the sunrise. 

===

My wife and I enjoyed putting together the first shelving unit for the garage yesterday that we did the other one today right after we did our grocery shopping. 

===

I was working the garage so I saw the sunset all the way from development to finish. Meh. Not much cloud cover so it didn't do much.  

Charles V, Emperor of the Road

One thing I've been interested by in studying this time period is what a mess the Holy Roman Empire was.  

From La Wik:

Charles V revitalized the medieval concept of the universal monarchy and spent most of his life defending the integrity of the Holy Roman Empire from the Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and a series of wars with France.  With no fixed capital city, he made 40 journeys, travelling from country to country; he spent a quarter of his reign on the road

1 2 2021

 I found that my canjo only stays in tune if it is laying flat -- picking it up and playing it like a guitar either muffles or moves the can resonator, or both.  To solve this, I found a small block of scrap 2 by 4, cut that in half using a miter box and hand saw then put those under the thing to make legs.  

This makes it a table top instrument which engages all of my stabilizing and movement muscles in my hands and arms in different ways -- some of that variety which I hear is the spice of live and all that.  

I should back up a bit.  As I recently decided to learn music and started doing my research, it seemed like simple string instruments -- one to three strings -- were the way to go.  I do love minimalism and I had dreams of a minimal musical system with home made cigar box guitars and a recorder to use to tune them -- and, you know, play songs on.  I have just a set up now, but in my enthusiasm for the idea got my wife wanting a keyboard, which led me to almost buying one until we told my mother-in-law which prompted her to ask us to take her old keyboard off her hands.  For under $20, I now have four instruments  I am learning to play -- flat canjo, one string guitar, recorder, and keyboard.  I can play "Mary had a Little Lamb" on all of them.  If my friends could see me now . . . 

I have made a curated YouTube playlist with some videos about three string, two string, and one string instruments.  I am shooting for this being my last time on YouTube for a while, unless I am searching for something and it comes up as the most plausible way to learn.  

===

Beginning to put up shelves in the garage to get it organized.  But it is a massive Tetris problem to create enough room to work to set up the first shelve unit.  But once that is done, I should be able to clear up enough space to make the other one much easier.  

Hume on Richard III (and notes)

From Hume's History of England. 

Hume was not a fan: 

Never was there in any country a usurpation more flagrant than that of Richard, or more repugnant to every principle of justice and public interest. His claim was entirely founded on impudent allegations, never attempted to be proved; some of them incapable of proof, and all of their implying scandalous reflections on his own family, and on the persons with whom he was the most nearly connected. His title was never acknowledged by any national assembly, scarcely even by the lowest populace to whom he appealed; and it had become prevalent merely for want of some person of distinction, who might stand forth against him, and give a voice to those sentiments of general detestation which arose in every bosom. Were men disposed to pardon these violations of public right, the sense of private and domestic duty, which is not to be effaced in the most barbarous times, must have, begotten an abhorrence against him; and have represented the murder of the young and innocent princes, his nephews, with whose protection he had been intrusted, in the most odious colors imaginable. To endure such a bloody usurper seemed to draw disgrace upon the nation, and to be attended with immediate danger to every individual who was distinguished by birth, merit, or services. Such was become the general voice of the people; all parties were united in the same sentiments; and the Lancastrians, so long oppressed, and of late so much discredited, felt their blasted hopes again revive, and anxiously expected the consequences of these extraordinary events. The duke of Buckingham, whose family had been devoted to that interest, and who, by his mother, a daughter of Edmund, duke of Somerset, was allied to the house of Lancaster, was easily induced to espouse the cause of this party, and to endeavor the restoring of it to its ancient superiority. Morton, bishop of Ely, a zealous Lancastrian, whom the king had imprisoned, and had afterwards committed to the custody of Buckingham, encouraged these sentiments; and by his exhortations the duke cast his eye towards the young earl of Richmond, as the only person who could free the nation from the tyranny of the present usurper.

He will not brook defenders: 

The historians who favor Richard (for even this tyrant has met with partisans among the later writers) maintain, that he was well qualified for government, had he legally obtained it; and that he committed no crimes but such as were necessary to procure him possession of the crown: but this is a poor apology, when it is confessed, that he was ready to commit the most horrid crimes which appeared necessary for that purpose; and it is certain, that all his courage and capacity, qualities in which he really seems not to have been deficient, would never have made compensation to the people for the danger of the precedent, and for the contagious example of vice and murder exalted upon the throne. This prince was of a small stature, humpbacked, and had a harsh, disagreeable countenance; so that his body was in every particular no less deformed than his mind

I read to the book -- really, only one volume of the book --  to figure things out about the development of government, the implicit and living (rather than explicit) constitution of England.  Hume did not disappoint me.  The same concerns were often at the front of his mind.  

The gradual progress of improvement raised the Europeans somewhat above this uncultivated state; and affairs, in this island particularly, took early a turn which was more favorable to justice and to liberty. Civil employments and occupations soon became honorable among the English: the situation of that people rendered not the perpetual attention to wars so necessary as among their neighbors, and all regard was not confined to the military profession: the gentry, and even the nobility, began to deem an acquaintance with the law a necessary part of education: they were less diverted than afterwards from studies of this kind by other sciences; and in the age of Henry VI., as we are told by Fortescue, there were in the inns of court about two thousand students, most of them men of honorable birth, who gave application to this branch of civil knowledge: a circumstance which proves, that a considerable progress was already made in the science of government, and which prognosticated a still greater.

His thoughts on some of the antecedents

The ancient Saxons, like the other German nations, where each individual was inured to arms, and where the independence of men was secured by a great equality of possessions, seem to have admitted a considerable mixture of democracy into their form of government, and to have been one of the freest nations of which there remains any account in the records of history. After this tribe was settled in England, especially after the dissolution of the heptarchy, the great extent of the kingdom produced a great inequality in property; and the balance seems to have inclined to the side of aristocracy. The Norman conquest threw more authority into the hands of the sovereign, which, however, admitted of great control; though derived less from the general forms of the constitution, which were inaccurate and irregular, than from the independent power enjoyed by each baron in his particular district or province. The establishment of the Great Charter exalted still higher the aristocracy, imposed regular limits on royal power, and gradually introduced some mixture of democracy into the constitution. But even during this period, from the accession of Edward I. to the death of Richard III., the condition of the commons was nowise eligible: a kind of Polish aristocracy prevailed; and though the kings were limited, the people were as yet far from being free. It required the authority almost absolute of the sovereigns, which took place in the subsequent period, to pull down those disorderly and licentious tyrants, who were equally averse from peace and from freedom, and to establish that regular execution of the laws, which, in a following age, enabled the people to erect a regular and equitable plan of liberty. In each of these successive alterations, the only rule of government which is intelligible, or carries any authority with it, is the established practice of the age, and the maxims of administration which are at that time prevalent and universally assented to.

To understand history, and abstract principles from it, reveals how foolish blind ancestor worship truly is:

Those who, from a pretended respect to antiquity, appeal at every turn to an original plan of the constitution, only cover their turbulent spirit and their private ambition under the appearance of venerable forms; and whatever period they pitch on for their model, they may still be carried back to a more ancient period, where they will find the measures of power entirely different, and where every circumstance, by reason of the greater barbarity of the times, will appear still less worthy of imitation. Above all, a civilized nation like the English, who have happily established the most perfect and most accurate system of liberty that was ever found compatible with government, ought to be cautious in appealing to the practice of their ancestors, or regarding the maxims of uncultivated ages as certain rules for their present conduct. An acquaintance with the ancient periods of their government is chiefly useful, by instructing them to cherish their present constitution, from a comparison or contrast with the condition of those distant times. And it is also curious, by showing them the remote, and commonly faint and disfigured originals of the most finished and most noble institutions, and by instructing them in the great mixture of accident, which commonly concurs with a small ingredient of wisdom and foresight, in erecting the complicated fabric of the most perfect government.