Words’ End

I must be the last kid on the block to find Holy Tango of Literature by Francis Heaney, available in its entirety at the linked site. Brilliantly executed, authors’ names anagrammed and used as titles for pieces parodying original works. (For example, the title of this post is a line from “Is a Sperm Like a Whale?” by William Shakespeare.)

Not only is this good reading, it’s a good metaphor for my days, which of late have been spent rearranging the insides of my head and heart for a healthier, happier result. It’s mostly working, all things considered. But (and?) it’s a process far from finished.

OK, so I hadn’t seen much of Oscar Niemeyer‘s stuff until today, but just check out his work in Brasília, Brazil’s capital city!

The man turns 100 today, and is still working – in BBC’s words, “sculpting curves from [steel-reinforced] concrete.” Damn.

ETA: BBC has a 30-minute radio piece on him here. The first minute or so is about something else, but don’t despair.

Thank you, $obscure_mailing_list: images and sounds from Earth that were sent into space on the Voyager are now online. Check out the Voyager Golden Record.

Good way to start a morning: Moxy Früvous’ rendition of “Early Morning Rain” (you can listen to the song if you follow that link).

Good prospect: coffee with a friend I don’t get to see nearly often enough. And breakfast! Having an appetite at all is the kind of good thing I seize on these days, because for whatever reason food just hasn’t appealed for weeks. Still in good health and everything, though.

Good Yule or New Year’s present, especially (I scheeemingly think) for a kid: a gift certificate from Kiva.org, a site that matches microlenders with small enterpreneurs in developing countries. Hat tip to Jill for the pointer.

That’s right, Wired recommends that you get Zune instead when you’re out holiday shopping.

For me the debate is (ha) academic, since I am quite happy with my iPod nano. I was going to rag on Zune about its lack of a solid-state drive – the single best feature of the player I use – but no, there are 4GB and 8GB solid-state versions of Zune as well.

But come on, pink? At least Apple does something socially conscious with its (better) color choices.

Wired: “Group Touts Seaweed As Warming Weapon.”

The idea is simple: deforestation? No problem – just use the vast amounts of space out there in the oceans to grow a bunch of seaweed and algae of various sorts, which apparently photosynthesize carbon dioxide “at rates comparable to the mightiest rain forests.” Better: they grow quickly.

Critics say that this isn’t truly carbon sequestration if the seaweed is then fed to people, because then the carbon is released right back out. I clearly don’t know enough of the mechanics of photosynthesis – I thought the carbon was transformed and/or incorporated into more complex structures, not merely stored? And if it’s stored as something other than carbohydrates and (as the Wired article says) the carbon is released into the atmosphere as seaweed decomposes, isn’t it a good idea to feed it to people, then?

Ahha, gummint scientists to the rescue:

Q. Should we be concerned with human breathing as a source of CO2?

A. No. While people do exhale carbon dioxide (the rate is approximately 1 kg per day, and it depends strongly on the person’s activity level), this carbon dioxide includes carbon that was originally taken out of the carbon dioxide in the air by plants through photosynthesis – whether you eat the plants directly or animals that eat the plants. Thus, there is a closed loop, with no net addition to the atmosphere.

Anyway. The question of using seaweed to combat the insanely high levels of carbon dioxide humans put out is only beginning to be explored, but already it is an interesting idea!

Friday afternoon I left town just a bit too late, too close to Friday traffic going out of the city along the Pike. That and the slush coming down from the sky made the trip to Inspirit Common in Hadley a two-and-a-half-hour one; good thing that just before leaving I had downloaded some talks by Ajahn Brahm (thanks for the suggestion, Rob, what I’ve heard so far is good).

Together with Emily and Bucky (the friends who own and run the above-linked mind-body-spirit center) and their six-month-old son Kadin, I went to a drum-and-dance event. And for the first time ever I played a djembe in a drum circle, for half an hour or so. It’s a rush! I came in with this tightness in the middle of my chest, which almost worked itself out in the course of trancy dancing to the drums, but it was still there afterwards. Sat down to make rhythms, next thing I know there’s a lightness where the bad used to be. Later on in the evening Bucky said, “It opens up the heart, doesn’t it?” That’s exactly what drumming did for me. I will buy a djembe before I buy an iPhone, and that’s saying a lot.

Driving home late at night, I took the long way along Route 9. On and on and on through endless trees and industrial towns and mist. The road looked like it belonged in Neil Gaiman’s stories.

Subject line of a spam email: “saskatoon typography festival”. My first reaction: Damn, I want to go!

But, speaking of travel: I’ll be in Chicago 12/27-30 for a conference. I have a hotel room for the nights of the 27th and 28th; does anyone reading this have, or know of, a place I could crash on the eve of the 29th? My plane leaves O’Hare at 9am on the 30th, which means I’ll want to be there by 7:15-7:30ish; so proximity to public transport would be lovely. Bribes of chocolate, genuine Boston saltwater taffy, a drink and/or dinner available.

Went to the Peabody Essex Museum today. If you are in the Boston area and have a chance to visit Salem, I highly recommend the Yin Yu Tang exhibit, centered around a 200-year-old Chinese house taken apart brick by brick, transported over to the States and meticulously put back together. Watch the movies, too; just be prepared for the extreme misogyny of two centuries’ worth of a rural Chinese family. It was fascinating and alien, and somehow strangely familiar in some of its Communist elements.

Then we sat and read in a coffee shop, not far from a man with not one but two four-squares-to-a-row Rubik’s cubes and diagrammatic notes in a notebook. And then we came outside, and it’s dark and it’s snowing and everything’s white. The same streetlight-lit white of the evening sled rides of my childhood’s winters, with mom or dad or brother pulling the aluminum sled and laughing, and laughing.

It’s gray outside, and I keep looking at the skylight expecting to see droplets of rain on it. But no, the sound I’m hearing is the soft patter of water in my cats’ drinking fountain.

What a nice side effect of making sure kitties have fresh, tasty water to drink even when I forget about it for a day or two. I’ve always kinda wanted one of those plug-in fountains with the rocks and a little happy Buddha on top, but who needs one when I have the Drinkwell? At any moment, while in my bedroom, I can close my eyes and listen to the water falling and falling.