Brevity as an art form

During this shutdown period I thought I'd do what a lot of other people are doing - write a blog that nobody reads. But at least my posts are mercifully short.

Which brings us to the point of this one - great works that are shorter than the usual example of their genre: one speech, one music album and one novel.

It's hard to imagine anyone making better use of 272 words than Abraham Lincoln did when dedicating part of the battlefield at Gettysburg as a war cemetery. Since it's so short, the easiest thing to do is quote it in its entirety:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It can be modernised in equally compact terms, as a PowerPoint presentation (complete with obligatory 3-D histogram) or even a 140 character Tweet (remember those?) - though it perhaps loses a little in translation...

Next up, Willie Nelson's The Red Headed Stranger album. Clocking in at just 33:30 for the whole album, there's not a note wasted. You can even - and absolutely should - watch Willie do the whole thing live in a little over half an hour (autoplay the follow-on tracks):



Finally, if you want a fine example of literature that won't take a Moby Dick of time to read, try Hemmingway's 27,000 word The Old Man and the Sea. Other than saying it's as good a book as you'll ever read on the transcendent nature of struggle, I'll spare you my literary analysis. You could just about read the book the time it took to read it anyway. Oh, and the New York Times was unstinting in its praise, describing it as "better than his last one".

The low road oft listened to

Every now and then you find something beautiful and have to share it. I'm off to find a way to give Thea Gilmore some money. It's the least I can do.



Cut me down
Bury this rosary
Somewhere out of town
Somewhere out by the sea
And take this ring
Give it to Emily
Tell her I'm peaceful now
Tell her I've been released

I will be rolling on
I will be rolling on

Well I know that drill
I know it all too well
It starts like a lonely voice
And shifts to a tolling bell
Like rain on the dusty ground
Small bones in the driest well
The spark breeds a fiery tongue
And the tongues kiss the cheek of Hell

And I will be rolling on
I will be rolling on
I have had my part to play
Now I am going home

There's no telling which way, boys
This thing is going to take hold
From the fruit on a poplar tree
To the bruise round a band of gold
From the blood in a far country
To the war of just growing old
We travel a lower road
And it's lonely and it is cold

But we will be rolling on
We will be rolling on
We've had our part to play
Now we are going home

We will keep rolling on
We will keep rolling on
‘Cause for every midnight hour
There's always a rising sun

The end is nigh

Is this a sign of the apocalypse? I fear so.

I don't know what there thinking.

A new game

Power point or cyberman?

Round 1

Umm...

Having scored a bunch of free bookcases recently, I've been sorting the substantial quantities of books we own so that we stand a fighting chance of finding the one we're looking for. It has been going pretty well, and mostly there's a logical place for any given book. But some defeated me and I decided I needed a category of "books that have no category".

Results so far have been disappointing. I must ponder this a while.

Stay classy Harper Lee fans

When I heard that a prequel (of sorts) of To Kill a Mockingbird was to be published, my first thought was that it was a really bad idea. Even worse, it's reported that Harper Lee's editor at the time knocked it back for a re-write that became the classic. In my experience a professional editor's judgement is usually pretty good. It's the same reasoning that makes me avoid 'director's cut' packaging of films; artists aren't usually dispassionate judges of their own work.

I note that Jessa Crispin writing in the NY Times had the same view. (She also thinks the Harry Potter books are dreadful, so gold star for Jessa.) But ultimately it doesn't matter. There's an Anchorman 2 out there somewhere, but I've managed to never see it, read reviews of it or even seriously acknowledge its existance. For me the legend of Ron Burgundy is untarnished. Have some jazz flute (with a nod to Jethro Tull for good measure):




Yeah, I just compared To Kill a Mockingbird to Anchorman.

The clever country?

I was driving in rural Victoria last weekend and saw this sign between Ararat and Maryborough:

I'm willing to bet they don't.

Meta-selfies?

My wife and I were walking through a stunning piece of native karri forest south of Margaret River in WA last month. There was a short walking track ending in a bit of a lookout. There were several people on the lookout, and as I got close I heard "Hey, take a picture of me taking a selfie".

True story. I would have taken a picture of the scene to document it, but the irony meter on my camera would've redlined.

Animal onsies - "I want that one"

I was walking through the Belconnen market and went past the shop that sells dreadful quality clothing and other dodgy bits and pieces. They had this:

That just might be the worst animal onsie ever. I don't even know what kind of animal it's meant to be. (Whatever it is, it clearly isn't very well.)

But it got me thinking about an animal onsie I'd be happy to own.

You know you want one.

Eternal ambiguity

I went for a run in Wellington, New Zealand, and the path back from the Botanic Gardens took me through the old cemetery, where I found this headstone:

Poor William - killed accidentally at age 29 but remembered by 'a few friends'.

But I have to wonder about the 'sincerely regretted' at the bottom. Do they mean 'geez, we'll miss you bro', or is it more like 'oops, sorry about that dude'? I guess we'll never know...

Serendipity and the large music collection

Back when I was a student, I bought records (yes, I'm that old) very sparingly, which meant that I played each one many times, and knew most of the songs pretty well. There's still a few songs that take me time travelling whenever I hear them because they're indelibly part of that time. Bon Marley's No Woman, no Cry is one of those. Others I've moved on from completely and wonder what the deal was (looking at you, Jethro Tull's Broadsword and the Beast).  Either way, they all got a good airing and a chance to be well assimilated.

These days, with a larger disposal income, I buy a lot more music, and still enjoy it thoroughly. But it does mean that sometimes I buy something, listen to it once or twice, sometimes while doing something else - the soundtrack to the writing of this piece is Dylan's beautiful Not dark yet - and the result is that I don't really know what I've got.

Six years ago I bought volume 8 of the Dylan Bootleg Series, Tell Tale Signs. It must have been one of those albums that I didn't play much before putting on the careful alphabetised shelf. (Everyone alphabetises their CDs, right?) That's the only conceivable explanation for me not noticing that the album contains an absolute pearler of a song in Red River Shore. This is one of Dylan's great songs - yes, it's really up with Tangled up in Blue or All Along the Watchtower.

In form this is a standard ballad, with 16 verses rhyming the 2nd and 4th lines. Eight of them rhyme 'shore', and it's always effortless - none of the awkwardness 'like a bird that flew/tangled up in blue' here. (Though all the other rhymes in Tangled up in Blue are excellent.) At first blush it's thematically a standard ballad too, being a tale of love long lost. But there aren't too many folk standards that begin

Some of us turn off the lights and we live
In the moonlight shooting by
Some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark
To be where the angels fly

That's the crux of the song right there - a reflection on opportunities passed up. There's a very nice essay by Chris Gregory here, so I'll spare you the rest of my analysis.

But it'd be wrong to imply that the song works only because of its lyrics. The music is wonderful, building from a simple beginning to a lovely Tex-Mex ensemble piece. In particular, Augie Meyers deserves a name check, because his accordion work on this song is just beautiful.

You can listen to it here. You're welcome.


Red River Shore

Some of us turn off the lights and we live
In the moonlight shooting by
Some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark
To be where the angels fly

Some of us turn off the lights and we live
In the moonlight shooting by
Some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark
To be where the angels fly

Pretty maids all in a row lined up
Outside my cabin door
I've never wanted any of 'em wanting me
Except the girl from the Red River shore

Well, I sat by her side and for a while I tried
To make that girl my wife
She gave me her best advice and she said
Go home and lead a quiet life

Well, I been to the east and I been to the west
And I been out where the black winds roar
Somehow though I never did get that far
With the girl from the Red River shore

Well, I knew when I first laid eyes on her
I could never be free
One look at her and I knew right away
She should always be with me

Well, the dream dried up a long time ago
Don't know where it is anymore
True to life, true to me
Was the girl from the Red River shore

Well, I'm wearing the cloak of misery
And I've tasted jilted love
And the frozen smile upon my face
Fits me like a glove

Well, I can't escape from the memory
Of the one I'll always adore
All those nights when I lay in the arms
Of the girl from the Red River shore

Well, we're living in the shadows of a fading past
Trapped in the fires of time
I've tried not to ever hurt anybody
And to stay out of the life of crime

And when it's all been said and done
I never did know the score
One more day is another day away
From the girl from the Red River shore

Well, I'm a stranger here in a strange land
But I know this is where I belong
I'll ramble and gamble for the one I love
And the hills will give me a song

Though nothing looks familiar to me
I know I've stayed here before
Once a thousand nights ago
With the girl from the Red River shore

Well, I went back to see about her once
Went back to straighten it out
Everybody that I talked to had seen us there
Said they didn't know who I was talking about

Well, the sun went down on me a long time ago
I've had to pull back from the door
I wish I could have spent every hour of my life
With the girl from the Red River shore

Now I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago
A man full of sorrow and strife
That if someone around him died and was dead
He knew how to bring 'em on back to life

Well, I don't know what kind of language he used
Or if they do that kind of thing anymore
Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all
Except the girl from the Red River shore

Oh, it's a 3

Here's a thought for the day: why do they publish answers to Sudoku puzzles?

Think about it - you either get them out or you don't. What possible use is it to be able to say 'oh, there's a 3 in that square'? Nothing about the provided solution helps you understand why there's a 3 there, or how to see that there should be a 3 there. It's just a 3.

Sudoku answers: file under 'inexplicable'.

What, you DON'T hallucinate about William Shatner?

One night a couple of years ago I was sitting in the departure loungs at the airport in St Louis waiting for a flight to DC. I was in that very odd time-free zone that exists within airports, and hideously jetlagged. Through the fuzz that was my brain I could have sworn that I saw William Shatner reciting the Tweets of Sarah Palin as beat poetry.

Now, as hallucinations go, that's a pretty cool one. But it turns out that I didn't dream it.

Enjoy.

(Turn it off at 2:26. Worst edited YouTube video ever. Well, that's not even close to being true, but turn it off when Shatner finishes anyway.)

Lesson learned from a long weekend

Truck stop meat pies.

Just say no.

Baby this town rips the bones from your back... ooo, three ply!

So I'm in the supermarket, making my way between 'personal items' and 'dog food', when I become aware of the music playing over the PA - the racing drums and uptempo riff that is the opening to Born to Run.

(For those who lack a classical education, here it is)


This song was a revelation to me in the 70s, and has happily tracked along with me over the years, even if I relate more to the more wistful 'reflective of a youth now behind me' version these days (as, I suspect, does Bruce):


Anyway, back in the dog food aisle, it suddenly dawned on me that the greatest "1, 2, 3, 4!" count-in in rock history (3:00 in the first YouTube clip) is now deemed suitable for background supermarket music.

Gawd, I feel old.

Note added: even Bruce is taking the piss out of this song now. Coles: all is forgiven.

One glass of pineapple flavoured air please

Warning: bizarre rant (and first world problem) follows

There's an alarming trend in cafes - especially more expensive ones - to serve juices 'frothed'. In Sydney last week I ordered a glass of pineapple juice, at a cost of $4. When it turned up, not only was it about one third ice, the juice had been blended/whisked/whateverthehelltheydowithit within an inch of its life. I reckon I got about a tablespoon of pineapple juice in total.

If people like that, fine. But can I at least ask for some truth in advertising? Rather than

Pineapple Juice                                   $4

on the menu, how about something more accurate, such as

Pineapple burp (with ice)                    $4, sucker

Good joke, poor history

I just finished reading Hitler's Scientists. It's not a bad book, although it can't really decide whether it's a collection of biographies, a history, a prosecution brief or a reflection on the sociology and philosophy of science . In truth it's a bit of each.

Most of it is engaging enough, and the author (John Cornwell) clearly did a ton of research. And he also clearly has strong views. That's fine, unless it gets in the way of accuracy. Unfortunately, once or twice that seems to be the case. It's the prosecution brief I have most trouble with; the author is obviously convinced that Wernher von Braun and Werner Heisenberg were firmly in the Nazi camp during WWII, despite both having received at least partial exoneration after the event. And he might be right. He makes a reasonable case for Heisenberg, not least of which from the transcripts from post-war conversations at Farm Hall in England.

But the case against von Braun depends (in part) on an interpretation of the Himmler's motives for arresting him in March 1944. After a chapter full of carefully footnoted observations and explanations, it's surprising to have it end abruptly (and with an implied triumphant exclamation mark) like this:

[The arrest] bolstered his image as a scientist who had doggedly maintained a non-political stance and who was even credited with having been persecuted by the SS. The truth of the matter was that Himmler had perpetrated the allegation in order to take over the [V2] project.

No footnote. Odd, because that's a very important claim. Instead, the next chapter switches tack entirely, as if we're supposed to think 'well, thats von Braun wrapped up'. But we aren't quite finished with him. Later on, we find this anecdote:

A token of a refusal to forget occurred on the eve of the Apollo moon-shot, when von Braun strode out of a press conference on being asked by a journalist whether he could guarantee that the rocket would not land on London.

That's a funny story, albeit with dark undertones. But it seemed a bit pat and it didn't quite ring true to me. So I went looking for the source, figuring that a NASA press conference on the Apollo program was likely to be well documented. I found out that the Q&A story is a bit of an urban folktale. As near as I can tell, the quip about London actually belongs to comedian Mort Sahl, who commented that von Braun's autobiography 'I aim for the stars' should be subtitled 'but sometimes I hit London'.

I also found this in an archive of Life magazine:

There was one tale every reporter had heard. "Tell me, Dr. von Braun" a correspondent is reported to have said, "what is there to keep a Saturn V from landing on London"? Von Braun was reported to have walked out of the room. But the story was doubtless apocryphal; it smacked of reporters' bile. (LIFE Aug 29, 1969).

Don't get me wrong - von Braun's undoubted involvement with slave labour is more than enough to cast a shadow over the man and (alas) over the Apollo program he later led. But I like my history to be rigorous, and when I find undocumented major claims and urban myths paraded as fact, I'll wait for something more definitive.
 


Footnote: Erwin Schrödinger is the inspiration for Professor Frink. You know I'm right.

Separated at birth? 

It's a trap!

There's a minor meme out there about the difficulty Germans have saying the word 'squirrel'. Here's an especially annoying example.

I have a German colleague, and a photo of a squirrel on my iPad (one of about 100 my wife and I saw in Central Park - each one of which was greeted with a shout of 'Squirrel!!" from me, to looks from passers-by that ranged from amused through puzzled to alarmed and accompanied by an increasingly exasperated look from my wife, but I digress... ).

So I decided to try it out. Not only did he not have too much trouble saying it, he returned the favour and asked me to pronounce the German word for squirrel.

Follow the link. Listen to the pronounciation. Try it. Try it again. Try it a thousand times - it won't make any freaking difference.

Admiral Ackbar was right.

Isn't nature wonderful?

I found these on my morning dog walk today:

What a brilliant idea, I thought. These leaves would be really well camouflaged in a forest... oh, wait.

'Green on blue' is so 2012

It's the time of the year when the media is full of stories about cats raising puppies, retrospectives of 2012 and - worst of all - dictionary publishers getting their annual fifteen minutes of fame with their 'word of the year'.

This year saw a couple of the worst choices ever. Not because they are bad words, but because they aren't freaking words at all. The Australian National Dictionary Centre* (yes, there is such a thing - who knew?) chose 'green on blue' as their word of the year. While the Oxford American Dictionary went with 'GIF'.

Wait, what? Are we to understand that dictionary compilers can't tell the difference between a word (noun: a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence) a phrase (noun: a small group of words (see previous) standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause) or even an acronym (noun: a word formed from the initial letters of other words)?

If I wanted to get all meta on their arses (as well as making a cool pop culture reference) I'd say 'I do not think that the word 'word' means what they think it means'. But I shall rise above that. Instead, here's a list of perfectly good existing English words that I think need more exposure. One of my New Year resolutions is to use all of them in my professional writing this year. They are:

misbegotten

insouciant

ne'er-do-well

shenanigans

woebegone

I think we'd all be richer for hearing those more often. Spread the word - but not the phrase or the acronym.



*Spelling finally corrected. Good eye Duffman.