Songs

Burn On

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Burning_water-1-

This is one day out of several in its history when Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire.

The year was 1969, and we remember it today because someone at Time Magazine decided to write about it and Randy Newman processed it in a way that’s simply unforgettable.

The song only lasts two and a half minutes but it says as much about man’s ability to foul his environment as all the words that have been applied to the topic in the 44 years since. That’s the beauty of a great topical song – it can deliver its message quickly, discreetly, and in a way that gets inside your head.

Of course many topical songs become obsolete by the next news cycle, but for me, this one endures.

Apparently there are no known photos of the Cuyahoga burning that day, but Newman’s song is vivid enough to drive home the point that it is ridiculous and fundamentally wrong for a river to catch on fire.

Even if you are a pro-jobs, anti-regulation, big-industry loving, right wing Ohio voter, you could be tempted to sing along with this charming ditty about the smokin’ Cuyahoga. That’s the real power of a well-crafted piece of musical commentary.

What song do you love to sing, even though you don’t necessarily believe the words?

Songs

Opening A Northwest Passage

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On or about this date in 1940, the first successful west-to-east navigation of the Northwest Passage began, starting in Vanouver, BC and ending in Halifax, Nova Scotia, two years later.

The Northwest Passage is a sea route above the North American continent. For many years and quite a few explorers it was an elusive prize. Searching for it brought pain, despair and death to too many adventurers, who wound up with their vessels trapped in sea ice very far indeed from any hope of rescue.

shipwreck

It seemed the Northwest Passage was a myth, like Bigfoot or the Easter Bunny. But With our relentlessly progressing climate change, the ice has gone out and stayed out longer, and what was once thought impossible is now increasingly common. So common, nations have started arguing about who controls the route, which, when open for commercial uses, will save shippers an enormous amount of time and money.

Is this a silver lining in the saga of global warming? Ask a polar bear who is swimming and searching in vain for something solid to stand on.

I can only guess how members of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition might have processed the news that their goal could be reached with no trouble if only they were willing to wait 160 years. The bravery of a handful of long distance travelers willing to sacrifice comfort and life itself could not accomplish what billions of less valiant people have done simply by choosing to ride down to the corner for a pack of cigarettes. The Northwest Passage is destined to be opened by those of us who don’t mind idling in front of the neighborhood convenience store.

Of course it reminds me of this favorite song.

Back in the 1970’s when Stan Rogers wrote about tracing the Northwest Passage over highways in a car, little did he know he was talking about the very activity that, multiplied many times over, would cause a Northwest Passage by sea to finally open up.

When have you found your pathway blocked?

Poems

Poetry Futures Slip

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America’s singsong Poet Laureate Tyler Schuyler Wyler found himself moved to the rhyming dictionary at the news yesterday that a handful of comments from one person can send financial markets into a spin.

trading-floor

It has always been his dream to utter strings of words that change the world. But rather than wallow in jealousy and resentment over the ease with which a mere Economics PhD can upend powerful people using only his voice, TSW decided to immortalize the irony of the situation with some insightful lines.

When words issue forth from Fed Chairman Bernanke
the tycoons of Wall Street all reach for a hanky.
These captains of industry – lords of the deal
become delicate flowers when Ben starts to spiel.
They cry “sell”. They feel faint. Gurgling rather queasily.
Aghast at the thought of cash flowing less easily!
Money was loose because Bernanke freed it.
A discouraging thought – that we still don’t not need it.
We were deep into stocks but now that cash is walking
And won’t turn around until Benny stops talking.

I’m afraid the instant reviews are in and the Sing Song Poetry Community’s expectations of this work were not met by the unsightly word clump that TSW produced. His imagery is lacking. The subject matter is non-universal. Even though the meant-to-be-clever turn of phrase “… we still don’t not need it” is technically correct in describing some attitudes toward an endless stimulus, it was thought by the analysts to be a clear example of Trying Too Hard.

Based on this single effort, Tyler Schulyer Wyler’s global value has slipped. But we were already aware that he was not a real poet because he spends too much time thinking, foggily, about finance. A true artist is aggressively ignorant when it comes to money. You can be Rembrandt or you can be Rockefeller, but you can’t be both. Who knew word choice could matter as much for the banker as it does for the bard?

When are you most careful about the words you use?

Uncategorized

Pirates and Their Preferences

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Today’s post was scrawled on a soggy boot that was fished out of a holding pond for parking lot runoff in Inver Grove Hights.  The lab analysis is incomplete, but apparently it comes from the outlaw commander  of the Muskellunge, Captain Billy.

Artists Approximation of Captain Billy
Artists Approximation of Captain Billy

Ahoy!

I is writin’ this here missive in an effort to clarify a few points regardin’ a new study of pirate behavior.  It simply ain’t correct that true pirates favors one African coast over another when it comes to choosin’ a location from which to plunder vessels an’ plague civilians.

The very idea that lawless fellas such as ourselves would take local ordinances an’ crime fightin’ techniques into account when establishin’ our bases of operation suggests that we recognizes th’ authority of shore-based entities t’ regulate our activities.

We don’t.

Bein’ lawless don’t mean simply bein’ in the habit of breakin’ laws!  Rather, we holds an abidin’ disdain fer th’ very activity of law makin’ an’ enforcement!  Now it may be th’ case that that certain rank amateurs has entered into pirate-like activities an’ favors a particular area as bein’ close t’ home.  So be it, but don’t confuse such characters with actual pirates, for whom the very concept of “home” is unfathomable.

Th’ entire world is our home, an it ain’t allowed by our Code of Conduct t’ foul it without good cause. Th’ outlines of our code is confidential only t’ us, in order t’ keep it from bein’ misinterpreted by unworthies. An’ them what would point out that havin’ a code of conduct runs counter t’ th’ very thing I just said about “disdain fer law makin'” is exactly the sort of individual I has in mind when I says “unworthies”.

Suffice it to say that stories of cruelty perpetrated by impostors claimin’ t’ be pirates is certainly regrettable.  Me and me boys would never be cruel t’ another human unless they truly deserved it!

Likewise, we shows no particular preference with regard to riches.  I sometimes overhears folks sayin’ “Oh, my booty’s too big,” or “nobody is interested in my booty on account of it ain’t sufficienly well rounded.”

Me and the boys says “hogwash”.   All booty is equal in our eyes, an’ equally subject t’ appropriation.

Let that be a warnin’ t’ ya’s, an’ a guarantee!

Yer humble swashbuckler,
Capt. Billy.

It appears the Captain sees himself as a moral man, as measured by secret standards of his own design.

What would be a principal tenet of your Code of Conduct?

Science, Uncategorized

Your Name Here

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I love this new picture from NASA of the surface of the planet Mercury.

Image of the Day from NASA
Image from NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

This past March, the Messenger spacecraft (launched in 2004), achieved its goal of photographing 100% of Mercury’s surface. Since it is the closest planet to our Sun, I assumed Mercury’s surface was nothing but a molten mess of bubbling goo – not too inviting as a tourist destination. But now I can see that the surface is solid and it has craters. What’s even better, a naming convention has been established to pair Mercury’s pockmarks with dead writers, painters, musicians and other artists.

One of the most recent names approved for a surface feature on Mercury honors the Hawaiian slack-key guitarist Gabby Pahinui. Alvin Ailey, Bela Bartok, Glinka, Goethe, Goya, Grainger and Grieg are other names attached to similar Mercurian blemishes .

There are more standards when it comes to bestowing space names. On Venus, the International Astronomical Union names craters for women no longer on our planet, who, while they were here, made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their chosen field.

If you want to get your name on a crater of our very own Moon, you need to be an astronaut, cosmonaut, scientist or polar explorer. All dead, I’m afraid. It appears you can’t plant your name on a distant planet as a living person, which makes sense. Otherwise everything out there would already be tagged with the names of politicians and tycoons.

There are other guidelines for naming features on various bodies in outer space, though to qualify you would have to be, among other things, a mythological deity, a character from Shakespeare, or a coal field.

I’m guessing, were you able to take a survey of those who have received this unusual honor, only the astronauts, cosmonauts and some of the scientists might have taken a moment to consider that their life’s work would someday cause their name to be permanently attached to a crater. But I’m fairly certain it never crossed Vivaldi’s mind.

Walt Whitman, however, probably knew it was going to happen for him. And it did!

What in the world (or outer space) should be named after you?

The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Surrounded By Ideas

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

I was in the bookstore waiting for my wife the other day. I still use it for a meeting place but have begun to think maybe a park is as good a spot now with the internet serving the purpose that the bookstore once did. The diference being that the book store has stuff to put your hands on and touch and suggest that your brain would never come up with on its own.

Or would it? That is the question.

bookshelves

If left to your own design you would be able to come up with all the cool stimulation of thought to send you surfing into infinitium and off into uncharted worlds like a book store can do. You don’t have to do anything other than pick up a copy of whatever is on the shelf to see if you care. How many times have you picked up a book at the bookstore read 10 words and put it back down. A look at a cover an author a theme that takes you off to somewhere else where you see a realted idea you would never have googled but as long as it is this easy you just pick it up and browse for a minute. It may be that I am more of the mile wide and an inch deep than the average person but I love the ability to walk through the bookstore and breathe in all the possibilities for avenues to cast my brain into.

I think of the time I waited in barnes and noble in galleria to get jimmy carters signature on my book. I got there an hour or so before the book signing was to begin and found the end of the line was already a good ways back through the lower level of the store. Jimmy being the overly conscientious man that he is has anticipated the demand and was there over an hour early signing a book in a little over one thousand one one thousand to one thousand three with a pair of assistants on either side one ot place the next book in front of him, one to take the signed copy form him and prepare for the next and the next and the next. The line in this scenario kind of inched alone even ½ a mile back which is about where i believe when I began.

As I wound my way through the bookshelves I recognized all the authors topics genres as the went by. The line organizers did me the favor of running it through the fiction section and the Margaret atwood kickoff followed by the brontes the and so on past faulkner, hesse, hemmingay twain, Vonnegut, wolfe and into the genre stuff of travel and poetry western and I realized how much I enjoy the process of seeing the title and author and the idea that comes to mind with the snap associaton.

Today I was looking at dc comics and marvel comic section across from manga that new form of picture books that are action stories where the pictures tell the stories and the words go along instead of the other way around. I was looking for the brother of a friend who is a gifted comic book artist. And I came across anne rice who I had been telling my daughter about and suggesting she look into as kind of the grandmother of the vampire flying death angel genre my daughter is very into these days. I thought it was in the wrong place then I discovered it was a picture book version of the story and it did a decent job of telling the story. I looked next to that and there was a copy of farenheit 451 by ray bradberry. He had writen a preface about how farenheiht 451 came to be with a 50 year hindsight viewer as an aide he hadn’t been able to use before. He talked about how he arrived at farenheit 451 from a little incident that happened to him a couple weeks earlier and that he had always attributed that to the origins of the story only years later did he ralize that the story came from deep down in his subconscious and he recommended that when you write you allow the ideas to flow and follow them rather than thinking you have an idea of what you are doing,

Ray bradberrys close on the preface was this: if you had to memorize one book like the people in farenheit 451 did for preservation and to contribute to the furthering of the world, which book would you chose and why?

Uncategorized

It’s a Bird!

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I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to satisfy all the people who want something special to come out of the new Superman movie. But if one is all-powerful and represents Earth’s only hope for survival, one must try.

UltimatePowersSuperman

I haven’t seen the film, but I read a review that faulted actor Henry Cavill for giving us a Superman who is no fun. But that’s in his DNA (if he has DNA). He’s relentlessly able, stiflingly moral and thoroughly boring. I’m a top authority on this topic because I had a Superman suit when I was 10 years old. I didn’t have any super powers, except when it came to influencing one person. On the question of the suit, I used my pleading vision to shoot pity rays out of my eyes, which forced my mother to sew it. She did a fine job on the cape and the “S” emblem, though I would have liked a better pair of appropriately manly mid-calf high bright red boots.

And no, I did not wear the suit to school. I was an enthusiast, but not reckless. In fact, there are no photos that I can find, so you’ll have to take my word for it. If such a thing had happened at my house with my own son, there would be enough of a visual record of the Superman phase to fill several bookshelves. Perhaps there was an intentional effort made to spare me future embarrassment. Just like the real Superman, I guess my parents did everything in their power to protect me.

But back to the character’s lack of personality. The Superman I knew from comic books was one-dimensional, just like the the movie cowboys and TV cops of the day. Think about Sgt. Joe Friday’s monotone. To be human was to be imperfect. Competent in every regard and totally bland – that was the style. Remember that Superman’s vacation spot was called The Fortress of Solitude. That pretty much says it all. Not really a people person.

Part of Superman’s problem is that he’s always trying to win folks over by rescuing them from burning buildings, intercepting bullets and catching disabled airliners as they plummet groundward. You don’t really see him taking much time to sit and talk with people. He’s not interested in getting to know anyone. He’s always rushing off to save the world, never stopping to make a friend.

No wonder he’s dull.

Maybe we need a hero who’s extra powerful only when it comes to connecting with people.

What one super power would you like to have?

Uncategorized

Riding A Rail

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This is the anniversary of the opening of the Disneyland Monorail System in 1959.

monorail

I’m old enough to remember when monorails were the future of transportation. Back when I was nine I knew that by the time I became the age I am now, I would be zipping to and fro in a sleek bullet shaped train that glides on a single rail between gleaming skyscrapers that were all monuments to my greatness.

I never paused to wonder why such a great personage as myself would be traveling with the unwashed masses on the monorail.

Today, monorails seem to be doing all right in Asia and Las Vegas, but elsewhere, like at the Minnesota Zoo and in Sydney, Australia, they are on the way out.

Too bad, since I have a working HO scale model of Sydney’s Darling Harbor Monorail boxed up in my basement.

Most things, (the weather, the stock market, the Kentucky Derby, our transit choices in the next century) are hard to predict.

How will we travel 100 years from today?

Uncategorized

One For The Record

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I was intrigued by this article about the ongoing effort to document theater productions in New York by making archival videos. For many reasons this is a superb idea, and it would be great fun to have this as your job – capturing timeless performances to inform the work of artists of today and tomorrow.

videocam

Of course it’s one thing to do this as a line of paid work and quite another to attempt to make a video and photographic record of your own life and the lives of your loved ones. That can turn out to be time consuming and more than a little wonky. I am guilty of the Cam Dad Syndrome. I spent too much time watching my son growing up through a viewfinder rather than just watching him grow up. And now I’m left with many hours of videotape that must be transferred to digital memory and organized for posterity, though as a 23 year old man with important work to do and lots of obligations, I’m fairly certain he does not want to spend much time in front of the TV, watching himself cavort around the yard as a carefree 7 year old.

Not right now, anyway.

But there is a basic watcher/doer conflict there. You can record your activities for posterity, or you can do things worth remembering.

But you can’t do both at the same time.

What kind of visual record will you leave behind?

Science

Advancing, Icily

34 Comments

Screen shot 2013-06-11 at 9.11.13 PM

Now that the weather has turned warmer, I was not expecting to write about ice – especially after so many months with the opportunity right outside my window every single day. But this video from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory amazed me. The scientists there have figured out what might cause unusual markings they’ve seen on the surface of Mars. Downhill tracks that have a distinctive profile – a certain shape that helps explain how they were formed.

Under the right temperature conditions, dry ice can glide down a slope on a cushion of gas.

I love it that researchers were able to duplicate the effect here on Earth. Sliding blocks of dry ice down sand dunes is a form of light entertainment I hope to try someday – a kind of stranded-in-the-desert shuffleboard, I guess.

The notion of ice in motion reminded me of this incident from a couple of months ago, when the slowly melting lake ice in Lake Mille Lacs was pushed by a spring wind to create a real-life version of the voracious ice monster in a child’s nightmares. It comes across as the evil spawn of a slithering blob and a slow-motion avalanche.

Fun, at first. But horrifyingly relentless as it creeps, creepily.

I realize that we do not have to worry much about hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes in the Upper Midwest, but it feels like the ice is all around us, and on the advance.

What natural phenomenon strikes you as unnatural?