Back to index of "this and that in my life" pages by Donald Sauter.
Dedicated to the proposition that every thought that's ever been thunk may be of use or interest to someone . . .
THEE: Tell me, as an astronomy chap, any comments on Pluto's
sorry fate?
ME: I think we should leave it as the 11th planet (base 8).
ME: Thanks for the recent cd mailings. DDVI had at least three
moments of true genius: Ring Worm, Good Ole Country Music, and
Blue Jay Way. Not counting Maria Galvany, of course. Joanne
O'Connell on Arthur Godfrey was superb. She's nowhere in my
record collection, though. Joel Whitburn has California Sun by
the Rivieras released on Feb 1 1964, making the claim they were
kept from No. 1 by the Beatles quite plausible. They got to No.
5 anyhow. I don't recall any song called California Sun. This
was your second dip into the Mark Hamill Muppet Show for me. I
had you on the lookout for it for something like 8 years for
Scooter's transcendent "Six-string Orchestra" song. Couldn't
find that thumbing through my bound notes to the DChron series.
Get me the original computer files. That's no longer a friendly
request.
I chose "A Piece of Pie" for my first Damon Runyon Theater listen
since it was one of my favorites. I smiled or laughed throughout
the whole thing. And that's in spite of them stonewalling the
funniest line. In the rundown of rules of the eating contest
between Hilda Slocum and Joe Duffle: "The decision is to be
strictly on the amount of food consumed, and the judges are to
take account of anything left on the plates after a course, but
not of loose chewings on bosom or vest up to an ounce." It's
funnier in the context of the whole list of rules.
I was surprised to find a passage that definitely had its origins
in O. Henry - coincidentally, the story I recorded for last
year's holiday season, Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen. "Then
Nicely- Nicely gives the first cheer in person, but the effort
overtaxes his strength, and he falls off the chair in a faint
just as Joel Duffle collapses under the table, and the doctors at
the Clinic Hospital are greatly baffled to receive, from the same
address at the same time, one patient who is suffering from
undernourishment, and another patient who is unconscious from
overeating."
There are 7 stories in the radio series which I've never read.
I had recently read a review of Mojo's "The Beatles - 10 years
that shook the world" in the latest Beatlfan (you gave me). I
picked up a copy at Spence's auction on Friday. In what I've
read so far, there's some good, new information. It starts off
with a picture of Raymond Jones.
I didn't pick up the copy of Bill Adler's "Love Letters To The
Mets" (1965). I see what you mean when you say he was a trendy
sorta guy.
I went to the Renaissance Festival on Sunday. Had a great time.
This year marks their 30th anniversary (or 30th production?) I'm
pretty sure I hit their 2nd or 3rd one, in 1978, in Columbia.
For some reason, I can't put my finger on my hanging folder of
Renaissance Festival programs. I do know I lost one somewhere
along the way, which bugs me.
ME: o runyon
Had to mention a funny discovery in the first episode of the
Damon Runyon Theater I chose to listen to from the complete run
that David sent me. It was "A Piece Of Pie", which I remember as
one of his funniest stories. There was this passage: "Then
Nicely-Nicely gives the first cheer in person, but the effort
overtaxes his strength, and he falls off the chair in a faint
just as Joel Duffle collapses under the table, and the doctors at
the Clinic Hospital are greatly baffled to receive, from the same
address at the same time, one patient who is suffering from
undernourishment, and another patient who is unconscious from
overeating."
That scene surely had it's origin in O. Henry's "Two Thanksgiving
Day Gentlemen", the story I recorded for last year's holiday
season.
I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival on Sunday with Mizan.
Highlights were too numerous to list, but Dame Mizan said for her
it was being knighted by the King. Her good deed was "helping a
kid to learn multiplication."
>It has a built in tapeplayer and CD player, but won't record.
Shucks.
ME: Thanks a lot for the clips. I've been to the Arbutus record show
at least 3 or 4 times. One visit in particular had a big impact
on my life. I bought 2 operas, The Magic Flute (Mozart) and
Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni), simply because I wanted to hear
the original versions of some pieces of music that had been
arranged for guitar. Both operas totally knocked me out, and
that in spite of them being different styles of music, from
different countries and different centuries. And that was the
start of my opera kick.
I agree that Posamentier meant the hundreds place, but keep in
mind the difference between slips and being wrong about
something. His brain might have been on the next paragraph when
he typed that. Or maybe somebody else goofed it up for him. I
could write a two-volume set by now called "This Is What I
Wrote... This Is What They Printed!" If you do write him about
it, see if he can figure out the date of the 4th Sunday in June,
2006. [On an invitation, my sister had provided a date that
didn't match the day of the event.]
What he meant when he said "many" two-digit numbers obey that
trick for multiplying by 11 was, it always works whenever the two
digits add up to a single digit number. If the two digits add up
to something in the "teens" (all the numbers from 10-19) then you
have to add the 1 into the hundreds place.
I wish him the best of luck with his "wow" approach to math. To
be honest, though, he and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
What I try to get across is the amazing power you have in math
with just a few simple, basic concepts. For instance, I try to
break down the distinction between addition and subtraction in a
student's head. Subtraction is nothing new. When you see 11-7,
you'd better not be counting back from 11, you'd better be
hearing yourself saying, 7 plus what gets me up to 11? Same
thing with multiplication and division. When J~~ was telling
about his students who get stuck on 56 divided by 8, I didn't
manage to get in, when I do division with kids, I don't even give
them the problem. I just say, "56. *You* give *me* the problem,
and answer." What else can it be? A firm grip on addition,
multiplication and algebra would put somebody up in the 98th
percentile of math skills. And algebra is nothing more than
"whatever you do to one side of the equation, you do to the other
side", or, what I call, WYDTOSOTEYDTTOS (wydtos, for short). I
bought a book so I can help kids with SAT prep. I was amazed to
find there is not a single thing in the math part of the SAT that
I didn't learn by 7th grade. I have a student now that is having
trouble passing the math part of the PRAXIS exam to become a
teacher. Again, there is not one single thing in the math part
of PRAXIS I didn't learn by 7th grade. In fact, I learned a lot
in 7th grade, such as factoring polynomials, which does not
appear on the SAT or PRAXIS.
The writer's "trick" of seeing if a number is a multiple of 3 by
recognizing the sum of the digits is a multiple of 3 is so useful
in simplifying expressions that I hardly think of it as a trick.
I think I learned that in 3rd grade.
But putting things in perspective, obviously people can live
full, happy, productive lives with little or no math skills.
It's not like, just because everything is either words or
numbers, they have equal importance. But I claim that math
skills open up good career opportunities fantastically out of
line with their importance in everyday life. Here's how I try to
"elicit" Posementier's "wow" reaction. I tell my students, I
have a niece who studied math, became an accountant, and will be
a millionaire before you can blink an eye.
THEE: Re: pardon my french
>Also good news today, the coordinator of the adult literacycenter
finally got me a number for a young man I was hoping to have a
chance to help. He's been described as a "real trip". The
director says he's excited about getting another tutor. What's
got me charged up is, its eems there's a good likelihood of a job
for him at a restaurant in his area if we can get him comfortable
reading the menu.
Good deal. He'll have a definite goal to achieve. Keep me posted
on his progress. For Tuesday, my Reading II students have a
little writing assignment. They're to think about all the times
they read during the day--not just sitting down to read a
magazine, newspaper, or book (cuz they don't do a lot of that
unfortunately) but all the times they find themselves reading
ANYTHING. I didn't provide hints, but they all drive to school,
for instance, and most of them spend time on the Internet. Then
they're to talk about how their lives would be different if they
couldn't read at all or if they maybe read first or second grade
level.
>After despairing forever about finding a good phonograph
turntable, I finally got just the thing from Amazon. I'm a kid
with a new toy, going through my record collection and turning
all my records into cds in the process. Actually, my tests show
that mp3 and wav sound identical to me, so I'm going with mp3,
and that lets me put about 16 or 18 albums on one cd. I've
discovered the benefits of doing this go beyond simpleminded
compactness. I figure about 8 decades should do it.
Hey, that would be marvelous. I don't have all that many records
anymore because I haven't had a working turntable in years and
finally ditched a lot of the records. But we do have a fair
number that I couldn't part with. I found a turntable a while
back, which I mainly wanted to play 78s. Unfortunately, it has
no output connections and can't be connected to a computer. It
has a built in tapeplayer and CD player, but won't record.
Shucks.
>And today I received from my friend David a cd that has 24 hours
worth of the Damon Runyon Theater radio program (1949) on it.
Time's a problem, nec pas?
24 hours on one CD. That's amazing. Damon Runyon Theater should
be fun! And that's n'est-ce pas? Speaking of languages, I sent
D~~ the German dog song yesterday. Made her day. Made mine,
too, since she was able to explain all those contractions that
made no sense to me although I could make out many of the full
words. I still haven't asked her if real Germans would write
those contractions or if it's more just a matter of the way they
would say them.
Btw, all our Internet classes have more female than male
students. Most are 19 to 20-year-olds.
THEE: Kumon and alternatives
Donald, I read your web site and your conflict with Kumon
headquarters and found it to be very enlightening. It's sad that
they couldn't appreciate your suggestions to improve their
curriculum. My kids have been attending Kumon since June and so
far its been beneficial simply because they had not mastered
their math facts. Kumon was a ready-made external way to get
them to learn it. For now we are benefiting from it and it's
better than nothing.
In College Station, Tex, Kumon and Sylvan are the only
alternatives for supplementing and enriching my children's
education. My children are 9 and 11 and I want to help them to
appreciate Math and develop a thorough understanding of it. My
son recently started getting frustrated when facing harder
worksheets which prompted me to search for ways to help him so he
doesn't develop an anxiety with it.
Would you mind sharing your opinion on what resources/facilities
you do recommend? Any online alternatives that do a better job
than Kumon or Sylvan? Recommended workbooks?
Do you think finding a private tutor with a committment to the
child's development a better way to go? I haven't explored this
option as I suspect it will be more expensive than Kumon and
Sylvan.
ME: You ask a very good, and very difficult, question. One would
think by now that some very good math minds have gotten together
and put together the near-perfect curriculum leading any student
from the very beginning all the way through math. How hard could
that be? If the developers don't get it right on the first shot,
they observe where the students have trouble, and modify those
sections until students can get through them easily.
Perhaps such programs are out there, but wading through the
choices is simply overwhelming. Just type "math worksheets" into
google to see what I mean.
One thing I've looked into and like are the Math League contests.
The Math League runs annual contests for the different grades.
Then they publish the contests in books which can be purchased
from their site. (Just search on "math league".) Don't let the
word "contest" confuse matters. The material is basic and
worthwhile, not what I call mathematical gymnastics (until you
get to the high school contests, which I don't like.) The books
give complete solutions to all the problems. The problems mostly
all involve words. In general, they look and feel nothing like
Kumon.
Although the contests for each grade level are a little more
difficult than the ones for the previous grade, they were not
designed as a self-contained, self study program,of course. But
the contests give an excellent idea of what a solid student at
each grade level should be able to handle easily.
So you might try one book of contests for 4th through 6th grade
for a start. If you do, let me suggest a Kumon-like approach.
Don't worry so much about time, but remove the solution and
answer pages so your children are forced to come to you to see
how they scored. See if they can fix their mistakes on their
own, and when that fails, let them look at the solutions.
Hope this helps a little. If *you* ever stumble on the perfect
math program, let me know, ok?
THEE: There's a photo of Raymond Jones!?
THEE: The Renaissance Festival sounds like fun. We have one
about an hour from here in Muskogee . . . at the castle. I've
never been. It started after our kids were pretty well grown,
and they never had much interest. Norman, where OU is located,
also has one. The kids went, but I never got there either. The
son of a friend of mine used to go in his kilt and with his
bagpipes. Bet he was the only black piper around.
THEE: Subject: Disqualified . . . or Giggles
OK, I belatedly have gotten through about half of your latest CD.
And, I'll have you know, I've never peeked at the wrapper because
I follow instructions.
I remember Tubby the Tuba oh so well and enjoyed all the Golden
Slumbers variations. Somehow that laugh-track sounded vaguely
familiar. You had to be there.
Gosh, I see that the Saturday night feature [at the Buster Keaton
festival] is Keaton's College. I could make the drive Thursday
after work and be there for the beginning of the festival . . .
but I don't relish driving those remote roads alone on Friday and
Saturday night. Those critters on the road can be pretty
dangerous. No kidding. A couple of years after I left Pittsburg
State University, a former colleague, who was head of composition
there, hit a horse on the road about 2:00 in the morning when
returning from a conference. He died instantly. My guess is
that the horse died pretty quickly, too.
ME: I'm taking it easy tonight while we get dumped on by Ernesto.
I got some disappointing news yesterday. It happens that the man
I was hoping to help learn to read the menu so he could get a
better job at the restaurant quit his current job there. He
thought his boss was being unreasonable about not letting him
take time off for a couple of things which, according to the
coordinator at the literacy center hardly justified missing work
for. So I won't pursue working with V~~, which I viewed as kind
of a short term side project.
I put up the web page about Caesar Rodney's ride. I had second
thoughts about doing it because there's really very little of me
in it, and I feel like that's the purpose of a personal web site.
But I figured what the heck, a few people might find it vaguely
fun and interesting. The story was not on the web until now, and
I do have other pages that involve wholesale copying (the way to
do history!) Feel free to put it on the deep back burner.
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/rodney.htm
A singer invited me to her web site. It's kind of funny. I
thought you might get more out of it with your high speed
connection. She wrote:
>You have such an impressive selection of classical music, I
thought you might like to check out my website for a bit of
*comic relief*.
> http://www.orrielsmith.com
>Cluckingly yours,
>Orriel
I said there were too many Renaissance Festival highlights to
mention, but this was probably my favorite. Mizan and I had seen
tons of amazing magic and sword swallowing and feats of derring-
do. When we came to a stage with a group of madrigal singers I
thought I would have to use a little coaxing to stop for a few
songs. But Mizan herself said, "Let's go in." Fine with me!
Now madrigal singers don't draw the same crowds as the crazy
guys, so there were *lots* of free spots on the benches. And
it's sort of like church, where nobody wants to sit way up front.
But Mizan walked right down to the front and plunked herself down
a little left of center. Well, a foot and a half from the stage
was a little close for me, so I took the second row, center. The
singers were in the middle of a song, and it was obvious they got
a kick out of a little kid making herself right at home like
that. I know it had to make their day, with Mizan swaying and
clapping along to all their songs. They ended up by getting some
kids and grown-up kids (e.g. me) from the audience for their last
piece. We kept circling around and through an arch made by two
of the singers, and whoever was the last to pass through got
caught, and his head "chopped off" (imaginarily). That's how
Mizan got her head chopped off. And then they gave her a
Renaissance Reveler's cassette, figuring, I guess, that nobody
buys cassettes anymore. (I've already turned it into a cd.) And
I had a pen in my pocket so I suggested that Mizan get a few
autographs on the cassette card. Of course, they were quite
delighted by that, too. Anyhow, the point is, I know how much
musicians like to feel they were appreciated, and I'm sure Mizan
made their day. Along those same, lines, we stopped by a
guitar/fiddle duo playing Irish music, and Mizan tried some Irish
jigging, at least it looked quite authentic to me. The musicians
got a kick out of that. And at another consort we stopped to
hear, the harper invited Mizan to have a few zings on his
instrument.
>Somehow that laugh-track on your cd post card [an audience
watching a Buster Keaton film] sounded vaguely familiar. You had
to be there.
Not to laugh along with it. Something infectious about laughs.
My guitar friend got a copy of the cd post card. She said she
tried to imagine the scenes causing the laughter. You told me
once. Something to do with scooting around in the water, or
popping up out of it.
Just learned a little more about geography out your way by
looking up Iola on my road atlas. The Kansas page conveniently
lets the part of Okla. with Tulsa survive. By the way, what do
you all call yourselves, "Centrallers"? "Middlers"? "Tweeners"?
>Remember my John H. Curran E-Mail?
What a wacky wife! What crazy connections you turn up! I'll try
to keep my eye out for Patience Worth books at the auction.
The local freebie paper printed a letter of mine this week. It's
one of my usual fly-off-the-handle rants about schools - don't
ask me what gets into me. I know there's a missing transition
between the 1st and 2nd sentence in paragraph 2, but I gave up
and figured the reader could wrestle with it if he wanted.
>By the way, that letter to Kennedy reminded me of something one
of my students wrote. Picking up on your comment about being a
slow reader but missing your point ("If there were a contest to
see who reads a story the fastest, I'd lose by a country mile -
but so what? It takes me longer, but I cover more territory."),
one of my students once wrote that she identified with you
because she's a slow reader, too.
Now you go back and give that kid an A+ for his perception. (I'm
throwing in the towel on multi-genderism; it's back to "the
pronoun that feels best to the writer" for me.) Funny to see
myself quoted. It started sounding familiar about 2/3 of the way
through. Of course, it still applies to everything I read, but
what jumped to mind when you wrote that was a funny article I had
just read in Mark Twain's Library of Humor. It was called "John
Phoenix Renders The Editor Of The San Diego Herald An Account Of
His Stewardship" by George H. Derby (a.k.a. John Phoenix). I
laughed my head off, not even having any idea of the background
for what was going on. For example, "...and I now close the
series with an entirely literary number, in which I have
carefully abstained from the mention of Baldo and Wigler--I mean
Wagler and Bildo; no, never mind--as Toodles says, I haven't
mentioned *any of 'em*..." So I went to the web - and the
background to this article is *hilarious* - not to mention, I
learned amazing things like southern California trying to form
its own state with the Sandwich Islands, etc. (Waldo and Bigler
were candidates for Cal. governor.) In a nutshell, the article
describes the return of the regular editor of the San Diego
Herald, Judge Ames, after trusting the editorship for a few weeks
to John Phoenix in his absence. And Phoenix completely
flipflopped the political stance of the paper! In this final
editorial he describes the "interview between the editor and
Phoenix" - a hilarious brawl, actually. Phoenix apparently had
quite a knack for words; he could listen to a sermon and later
quote it word for word. Don't view these as reading assignments,
but here are the links to this good stuff:
Whoops. It looks like Twain's Library of Humor isn't on the web.
I thought it was. Kind of kicks the stuffins out of picking
through this chapter of San Diego history:
http://www.sandiegohistory.org/books/smythe/2-13.htm
If you do, search on the word "combat".
THEE: RE: request to copy william p. frank chapter
The Del American Bicent Commission became the Delaware Heritage
Commission and yes we do hold the copyright. I think it would be
fine to create the information for the web.
ME: Here's how my web page on Caesar Rodney/Katharine
Pyle/William Franks turned out. I think a few people might find
it interesting, and the Katharine Pyle version was nowhere on the
web. Thanks again for your help.
THEE: I just received the music three minutes ago. I opened the
package and I saw that wonderfull music by Carulli inside!
I am so happy now!!!
I will be keeping informed about ths project. This is a wonderful
material and you have been so kind! I saw some corrections you
suggest in scores, one more valuable point!.
Muchas gracias! Thank you, Grazie mille!!
THEE: I have a copy of the grimm's fairy tales that matches the
description exactly of the one you have. do you know anything of
its worth? Do you know the publish date? Can you send me all the
info you have on it?
ME: I really don't know any more about it than what I wrote in
the web page. I hate when books (or records) don't show years!
I guess the thing to do is keep a running search for it on ebay.
THEE:
>>Somehow that laugh-track sounded vaguely familiar. You had to
be there.
>Something to do with scooting around in the water, or popping up
out of it.
Yeah, they man and woman were on a boat. Everything was going
wrong and it was flooding. I don't recall if they were having
trouble getting a romance started or if there had been a fight
between them, but this sort of started everything on the right
path in a very crazy way.
>Just learned a little more about geography out your way by
looking up Iola on my road atlas. The Kansas page conveniently
lets the part of Okla. with Tulsa survive. If you want my two
cents, go for it. By the way, what do you all call yourselves,
"Centrallers"? "Middlers"? "Tweeners"?
The way I look at it, I've always been a Midwesterner, but that's
debatable. Some people lump Oklahoma with Texas and Texas with
the Southwest. Personally, I think "Tweeners" is better because
Oklahoma doesn't have the Mexican heritage of Texas, New Mexico,
and Arizona. I guess we're one of a kind--just Okies.
>The local freebie paper printed a letter of mine this week.It's
one of my usual fly-off-the-handle rants about schools - don't ask
me what gets into me.
So you're a published author yet again. Always fun. Must be in
the genes to voice those opinions.
>Whoops. It looks like Twain's Library of Humor isn't on the
web. I thought it was. Kind of kicks the stuffins out of
picking through this chapter of San Diego history:
> http://www.sandiegohistory.org/books/smythe/2-13.htm
>If you do, search on the word "combat".
Wow! That's what history oughta be! Terrific find!
THEE: We'll say a prayer as we head back into New York for our
trip home for those who sadly lost their lives five- years-ago
during the attacks on the World Trade Center; the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C. (we change planes there) as well as those who
perished on the three aircraft involved. If only we had all the
money wasted in Iraq--billions per month--to make our borders
safer, our ports safer and lives better for our American poor,
elderly, infirm or ailing. Perhaps a nice increase in the
minimum wage for so many hard-working folks who can barely make
ends meet? Our hearts go out to these Americans.
Would also be ecstatic to see some of those billions go to free
pet neutering and no-kill shelters. And, finally, speaking of
animals, big prayers for the family of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile
Hunter and Aussie T.V. personality/performer who was killed
yesterday by a Sting Ray while diving. At least he was doing
what he loved--adventure with creatures.
ME: Thanks again for your help with the liability insurance. Your
agent didn't return my call, but at the same time I had luck with
a State Farm agent here in Dover. It was about the same price as
yours. I eventually got quotes from two other agents - one for
$650 and one for $800. Whether those were based on a
misunderstanding of what I plan to do, or were simply attempts to
rob me, I don't know.
THEE: Subject: Are you the guy?
Don,
Did you used to work for the Southwestern Company for a man named
Jim Calder? If so, how can I get in touch with you?
ME: Hi Jerry,
Nope, not me. Good luck!
Donald
THEE: Subject: Vote for Oklahoma Quarter Design
Interested in shaping numismatic history? If the link doesn't
hold up after all the forwarding, you know how to get to it.
Frankly, I think some of the designs are hideous.
>The oil and natural gas industry has a unique opportunity to be
recognized nationwide for all it has given to the State of
Oklahoma. Gov. Henry is asking the public to vote on the design
of the Oklahoma state quarter, and the industry is featured in a
few of the design options.
>Below is a link to a Web site, where you can vote every 24 hours
for your favorite designs. You can vote for multiple designs.
>http://www.gov.ok.gov/coin2.php
ME: Thanks, I'm still chuckling! Can't stop, actually.
$ $ $ $
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2008
THEE: Wednesday is tooth day. I'm gritting mine until then . . .
and taking Wednesday and Thursday off. A colleague will fill in
for me because I'm not a believer in canceling class although I'm
sure my students wouldn't mind.
THEE: Subject: elvis record
I enjoyed your instructions on fixing a record skip. I have a
first Elvis recording of That's All Right worth $1000 and it
skips right at the end. Under magnification, it looks like a deep
gouge rather than a scratch (maybe a little bigger than a pin
head. How can this be fixed? . . would a little epoxy filler
work or something?..Are there expertas who repair these rare
records?
ME: Did you give my method a try? Based on your description, it
sounds like it might work. I've also wondered about filling in
gouged vinyl and reforming the grooves over a small section, but
have never heard of it being done. Would you be happy to own the
rare record, but capture once and for all a good digital
recording of it? How I handle a skip in the middle of recording
a record to cd is lift the needle back to before the skip and
then apply very light *sideways* pressure to the tone arm in the
opposite direction of the skip to get the needle to follow the
groove. I use a toothpick. It doesn't matter how many times you
fail at this, as soon as you get through the skip point one time
successfully, let the record play out. Then it's a simple job
(believe me) with even free sound editing software (such as
WavePad) to cut out all the extraneous material and get a
seamless recording. Then you could put your record in a nice
display case and play the cd for everyone.
ME: Hi Matt,
Here's a voice from out of the past. Any chance you still have
the cd of guitar duets I recorded with former buddy R~~. It was
a set of arrangements of "Scraps from the Opera" by 19th C. black
American guitarist Justin Holland. They came out dreadful
sounding. Unfortunately, though, it was my only copy. I know
how unlikely this would be for the average person, but I'm
guessing you're much more organized. I'd be glad to reimburse
you for your trouble and mailing costs. Thanks for your help.
THEE: Re: guitar duo cd
I think you have the wrong Matt W~~ here. I'm the sort of person
who might have an album of guitar duets of yours -- I've got a
Borbetomagus album or two around -- but I don't think we've ever
met personally. (If we have please forgive me for forgetting!)
Are you by any chance looking for the Matt W~~ who's a double
bassist in Seattle? I know him slightly, I might be able to help
dig up his contact information.
Or, if there's some connection through Greg P~~ in Pittsburgh
(and Delaware), I can certainly help get in touch with him.
I guess I should be a little clearer about who I am, to help you
figure out if it's me you're thinking of -- I lived in Pittsburgh
for a long time and played with the Pittsburgh free music folks,
Greg P~~ and Mike J~~.
Hope you can find your CD!
best,
Matt
ME: Whoops, sorry bother you! Thanks for taking it in good humor
- in this busy day and age when even a little thing like a wrong
number is supposed to send us into a rage. Could have sworn I
got your email address off of a page that had discussion of
events at American University, which is where another Matt W~~
teaches, or taught, recording technology. The web's so big, I
guess, that there's a page that brings together *any* two (3, 4,
5 . . .) unrelated entities! Guess I'll send a note to American
U.
If you're curious how bad those duos turned out, there's a sample
here:
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/jhop.htm
THEE: Re: elvis record
We've already sold the record and just noticed the skip. He may
want a refund and thus the reason for my questions. I wish i had
recorded it now, but it's already on the way to him. I do want
the record back if he's not happy....thanks for the great
info....
THEE: Re: a brainstorm
>if you hemmed or hawed, I would have offered to pay you
Weeelll...... I don't knowww....... :)
ME: Too late; offer expired. Now you'll have to settle for a
burger or piece of pizza.
Hope to get the music in the mail tomorrow - all 6 volumes.
Shoot an email when you get it and let me know good times to call
so I can explain what they're all about.
P.S. If it gets you a recording contract, you owe *me*.
THEE: Re: Vote for Oklahoma Quarter Design
>Thanks, I'm still chuckling! Can't stop, actually.
Gee, I didn't think it was that funny . . . Didja vote?
ME: subject: heap big artist was: Vote for Oklahoma Quarter Design
$ $ $ $
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2008
ME: to DelDot
Subject: Road project input
Residents of Persimmon Park Place, east of Rt. 1 between Dover
Downs racetrack and the toll plaza, would be very appreciative of
any measures to reduce traffic noise. While installation of
state of the art sound barriers may be prohibitively costly, we
hope that there may be more or less inexpensive measures that
reduce the noise. Your engineers would know best, but these are
some thoughts that occur to me:
If and when the toll plaza rumble strips need replacing, replace
them with strips that actually "rumble", rather than produce
the piercing "buzz" we hear constantly.
Perhaps some sort of inexpensive fencing in the vicinity of the
rumble strips would take the edge off of the buzz.
If and when Rt. 1 needs resurfacing in this area, perhaps a
much quieter blacktop, rather than screaming concrete, could be
used.
In lieu of installing noise barriers, perhaps a taller and longer
fence separating our neighborhood from the highway would reduce
traffic noise. As it is, the tops of tractor trailers are
visible over the top of the fence, so the noise they produce
has a straight-line shot at us.
Again, we all know this is not a high-priority, life-and-death
traffic matter, but perhaps something can be done very
inexpensively, or at no additional expense in the natural course
of highway maintenance, that would make life much more pleasant
for the 150 households in this neighborhood and the apartments
just beyond.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
ME: Here's a small tip for the two batches of opera records I got
from you. It doesn't come close to making up what they're worth,
but I hope it makes all your effort putting up the auctionS and
packing and sending the records off a little more worthwhile.
I'm having a good time with them!
THEE: Re: heap big artist was: Vote for Oklahoma Quarter Design
>>>Thanks, I'm still chuckling! Can't stop, actually.
>>Gee, I didn't think it was that funny . . . Didja vote?
> $ $ $ $
> \ | | /
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> |/\|
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> (peace) |/\|
> ----
> ( |/\|
> ) ----
> ( |/\/\|
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o0 =======U, |/\/\|
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> 2008
I feel stupid. Is that 4 (4 dollar signs) with peace pipe and
pioneer woman or is it 5 with gushing oil well, peace pipe, and
pioneer woman?
ME: I see a squaw with papoose, two-feather headdress, and peace
pipe, and a gusher. Does that make 2, 3, 4, 5, or more? Maybe
billgates see something else in glorious proportional width type.
THEE: Subject: Karl Katz
You may have found an answer to your query about the contents of
the two volumes of Kinder- und Hausmdrchen (Children' and
Household Tales) by the Brothers Grimm. But if not, here is a
helpful link. I, too, am searching for the origins of this
story, with no luck (Karl Katz). Thanks for your insights.
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm.html#chronology
THEE: Subject: FW: Karl Katz
Hello again- It occurred to me, looking at the site below that
Karl Katz could have been published in the Deutsche Sagen (a
collection totaling 585 German legends). This came to me after
looking at another website which is a reading list/course outline
from professor Paul Kent Oakley(Rutgers University), posted in
1996. The notation of the discussion of "Karl Katz" states that
it is from Germany, written in 1818. The second volume of
Deutsche Sagen was published in 1818.
So, perhaps this is the answer to the mystery. If not, it's
close!
ME: Thanks for your thoughts on the Karl Katz mystery. My best
guess, which seems impossibly far-fetched, is that in the
evolution of the 7 editions of Kinder- und Hausma"rchen from 86
to 200 stories some were simply dropped along the way, and of the
people who have compared the different editions and actually
noticed this, no one thought it was a big enough deal to tell
anybody else. Very strange, for the "most influential book ever
created in the German language."
I *think* your theory about Karl Katz appearing in the Deutsche
Sagen can be shot down. Project Gutenberg has the Deutche Sagen
online, and there's no Karl Katz (or Peter Kraus) in the index.
I also see some discussion in German which pulls in a "Peter
Klaus", as opposed to Kraus, but from what I can gather, no one
in the discussion has authoritative answers.
THEE: Your invoice for eBay purchases - item # 200024624737,
Panasonic KX-T1424 Dual Cassette Tape Answering Machine
Item # Item Title Qty. Price
200024624737 Panasonic KX-T1424 Dual Cassette Tape Answering
Machine 1 US $31.00
THEE: Subject: Untoward
I started getting a little nervous as the nurse hooked up blood
pressure, heart, and pulse monitors. A few minutes later, as the
oral surgeon inserted the IV needle in the back of my hand and
announced he was about to start the Valium-family anesthetic, he
added, "In 10 seconds, you'll have a smile on your face." I
started counting to myself: One-one thousand, two-one thousand .
. . ten-one thousand." Nothing! I kept counting. I recall
reaching "twelve-one thousand." The next I remember, the nurse
was walking me to a wheelchair and wheeling me to a different
room. I may have dozed off briefly sitting there. The oral
surgeon walked in saying that the tooth came out in two pieces,
and that was a piece of cake. He was going to the lobby to get
C~~. They showed C~~ a door from the recovery room to a back
parking lot, and told him to pull the car around there. They
walked me to the car. I looked at the clock. About 40 minutes
had passed since I walked first sat down in the dental chair.
A half hour later, the Broken Arrow Brit periodonist was working
on me. Within another half hour, I had a cadaverous bone implant
and a neat row of sutures, and was headed out his door. That
cadaverous bit bothers me a little, but I'm assured its perfectly
safe. A colleague has been walking around with an armful of
cadaverous bone for five years after a car accident that smashed
her arm shortly after she was hired to teach English at my
campus. She has full use of her arm and no more than scar to
clue anyone in to the past mishap.
The Oral surgeon prescribed the second highest possible dose of
Percoset for the pain and Amoxicillin. The periodonist looked at
the presecriptions, and said, "Fill the antibiotic, and forget
the Percoset." He gave me 6 days worth of steroids instead,
explaining that the pain comes mainly from the swelling and that
he could avoid that. "Take Advil or Aleve" was his advice.
"Enjoy your five-day weekend without being knocked out!" He
wrote down his home phone number and cell number and told me not
to hesitate to call--day or night--if anything seemed "untoward."
When did you last run into a member of the medical profession
like that?
Mom is coming over tomorrow--not because I need the help, but
because she needs to see for herself that I'm doing fine.
ME: Glad things went well! Your story reminds me of my visit to
the surgery center earlier this year for a standard
50-year-old-geezer sort of procedure. (Never mind I
procrastinated for a few years.) When I woke up I was *mad*!
"What are all these people standing around talking so *loud*
for?" I thought. "Don't they know they're trying to put me out
so the doctor can get to work???"
That thing about hustling you out the back door sounds familiar,
too. Can't be a coincidence; must be a reason for it.
THEE:
>Glad things went well! Your story reminds me of my visit to the
surgery center earlier this year for a standard 50-year-old-
geezer sort of procedure.
Sounds like the same one I've procrastinated on. They get me for
that in a few months.
THEE: RE: Karl Katz
Hi Donald - After sending the last email, I found the Project
Gutenberg link and as you observed Karl Katz isn't listed there.
If an answer to the mystery should ever present itself (clearly),
I'll pass it along for you to look at as well. Thanks for your
thoughts!
ME: Forgot to mention I got a big kick out of the Hokey Pokey
Shakespeare. I'm usually pretty leery of those sorts of things,
don't know why, but that was funny.
>The way I look at it, I've always been a Midwesterner, but
that's debatable.
It's always seemed to me that once our country reached its
manifest destiny we should have gone back and renamed the various
sections. (I suppose we can do this at the same time we finally
decide to come up with a name for our country.) You're actually
much closer to the Atlantic than the Pacific, so you're not even
west, much less in the middle of the west. I always thought the
"Midwest" was the Indiana/Ohio region. Somehow, they don't seem
to like my proposal of renaming it the Middle East.
I learned some geography last night that surprised the heck out
of me. I read a "trivia" question that asked, "Is any part of
the United States (other than Alaska) north of the 49th
parallel?" *Whenever* I see a map of our united states, my brain
always extrapolates that upper line of the western half of
the country to slice through Maine somewhere, making Maine the
northernmost connected state. It also just *looks* like it juts
way up there into Canada. Well, I guess I was the last person,
or maybe only ever person, alive to think that. I had to go to
my atlas, and, sure enough, Maine doesn't get anywheres near 49
deg. north latitude. Looks like about 47.5. What you don't
learn everyday... By the way, the point of the trivia question
was that little wart on the top of Minnesota.
I transferred one of my favorite records to cd the other day.
It's "Songs of the Elfin Pedlar", music by Charles Stanford, sung
by James Griffett. It's all English - it *drips* Englishness -
but that doesn't mean one can make it all out, of course. The
texts are all old, so I figured it would be easy to get them all
off the web. No such luck. I only got 3 out of 25. Twelve of
the songs come from the book "The Elfin Pedlar" by Helen Douglas
Adam. In my failed attempt to find the text, I found something
about the writer. (I wouldn't be surprised if you know her;
maybe kinda surprised if you don't.) I'm familiar with musical
child prodigies, but I'm not sure I've heard of literary child
prodigies (sorry Daisy! [Ashford]) so this amazed me.
By the time that she was 20, Helen had published three
books of poetry with a major English press, Hodder and Stoughton:
The Elfin Pedlar and Tales Told by Pixie Pool (1923), Charms
and Dreams from the Elfin Pedlar's Pack (1924), and Shadow of
the Moon (1929). Her first book, The Elfin Pedlar, was published
when she was 14 years old, and includes 120 ballads composed
from the time that she was two, at which time, according
to the book's forward, the child "talked to her dolls in
rhyme. She would tell them stories of fairies and flowers all
clothed in beautiful language and in faultless rhythm."3 The 35
odd columns from different newspapers throughout Scotland and
England that reviewed the book loved recounting certain anecdotes
about the child's precocious mannerisms: "Sometimes, her mother,
overhearing this casual flow of dainty rhymes would
say 'Helen, can you repeat that? To which the child would
answer, Oh No Mummy; but I shall say some more."4
The book was met with enthusiasm, and Helen was hailed as
having "an extraordinary sense and handling of rhythm and rhyme."5
with a "perfect ear and a delicate imagination"6 and "a mind
elect"7 which was "entirely free from self-consciousness or any
thought of posing."8 Indeed, for whatever reasons that a country
needs its prodigies, whether for the pride of Nationalism or
for the moral support that comes from a strong youthful spirit
that re-embodies the rhythms of its history, Helen Adam became
the pride of Scotland. The Elfin Pedlar was graced even by a note
of praise from the Queen of Scotland herself.
That's from this page:
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/prevallet/adam.html
Another really nice record in my collection I transferred to cd
lately was Beethoven's setting of Scottish and Irish folksongs.
Actually, the last one was English - "The Miller of Dee". What's
funny is that now I recognize the text as a Mother Goose rhyme.
It's in a few of my collections, such as the 1895 British one.
There was a jolly miller
Lived on the river Dee:
He worked and sang from morn to night,
No lark so blythe as he.
And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be--
I care for nobody--no! not I,
Since nobody cares for me.
Beethoven and Mother Goose - who'da thunk?
There was another big batch of books at the auction on Friday. I
sifted through about 9 boxes and found The Green Fairy Book by
Andrew Lang, in an "unaltered republication" (the book). That's
one that I've been on the lookout for. So then I had to scrounge
around for enough other books of borderline interest to put a box
together. In this case that was mostly a few books of math
puzzles and a batch of classic fiction for giveaways (Charlotte's
Web, Little Women, for example.) All in all, well worth $2, even
though I'm not thrilled to bring another box of books into the
house. When I took a closer look, though, I was pleased with the
haul. The 49th parallel question, for example, came from one of
the math puzzle books. There's a paperback of Mark Twain's
"best" short stories, mostly unknown to me, and now I know from
his "Library of Humor" that I've got to catch up on the guy.
He's a whole lot more than just Huck and Tom. There's a book
with 24 Arabian Night stories - another thing I need to catch up
on. I've passed up the huge, complete Arabian Nights
Entertainments on several occasions, because I know I would never
tackle that. Here's one of my favorites from The Arrow Book of
Funny Poems.
On John Bun
Here lies John Bun;
He was killed by a gun.
His name was not Bun, but Wood;
But Wood would not rhyme with gun, and Bun would.
Now what sort of crazy brain would think that up? There was also
a borderline horror poem by Walter de la Mare. One of the math
books, "Fantasia Mathematica", turned out to be neat surprise -
an anthology of fiction with mathematical themes. The backlog
grows and grows.
Again, I had planned to do a little more catching up, but
enough's enough. One thing that I'm finally remembering is,
thanks for the Baltimore Electric Blue Print Co. souvenir ruler.
It's been sitting on my table here forever as a reminder, but I
guess it made itself so at home that I stopped noticing whenever
I was plugging away at email.
ME: what got into me
I bought a big batch of beat up, old 45s at Friday's auction.
Looks like just about 200 of them. Don't know why. Must have
been "Rockin' Crickets" by the Rockin' Rebels on Swan.
ME: almost rich and famous
Had to mention that a copy of the trio cd that I put together
found its way to one of the "who-dunits" here in Dover. Joe was
really impressed, and lent it to the music director at his
church. Next thing I hear is Joe asking what we charge to put on
a performance. I told Joe that, sorry, but all things
considered, it really wasn't feasible. [Would take aliens with
suitcases of gold.]
THEE: I found your letter on the Kumon learning center very
informative and helpful, thank you. Its hard dealing with
corporate environments when you have two separate goals, Theirs
is money, and your was sincerely trying to help your students,
regardless of the time restraints. Its sad.
I am a mother of a 4th grade child and 8th grade child. Both IEP.
Both extremely bright.
The 7th grade child was diagnosed with Written Expression
Disorder,, he still spells phonetically and has a hard time with
reading and spelling.
The other child is behind almost two years in reading they say.
I think the child is not a mature reader, but neither was I. She
went through a very traumatic experience in 2nd grade and had a
hard time learning, thoughts were consumed on other things,
worrying, and a hard time relating to anything, especially
because her traumatic experience stemmed from her 2nd grade class
room.
What do you recommend I do to give the children extra support
needed, I thought about a center,after reading you're letter I 'm
not to sure if that's the answer, what about a private tutor, and
how do I make sure there being taught the skills needed to them
to be successful. Not just a bunch of work sheets. Please advice
what you thinks best.
ME: I surely don't qualify as an expert in situations such as
yours, so please view this as just a friend talking to you. As
funny as it may sound, I think the Kumon reading program might be
very beneficial for both children, especially if you accept the
advice I gave parents in the web page and do all the assignments
yourself. If you forget why I suggest that, take another look at
my web page where it discusses the reading program. Good luck!
THEE: Re: nuttin particular
>It's always seemed to me that once our country reached its
manifest destiny we should have gone back and renamed the various
sections. (I suppose we can do this at the same time we finally
decide to come up with a name for our country.) You're actually
much closer to the Atlantic than the Pacific, so you're not even
west, much less in the middle of the west. I always thought the
"Midwest" was the Indiana/Ohio region. Somehow, they don't seem
to like my proposal of renaming it the Middle East.
Heck, 'round here, we consider Ohio as part of the East.
Indiana, well, I was never sure what to do with that no-count
place. I 'spect Middle East is taken and not overly popular.
>By the way, the point of the trivia question was that little
wart on the top of Minnesota.
Never woulda gotten that although I rmember visiting Lake of the
Woods. Our typical summer vacations were spent in Minnesota,
most often near Bemidji or Park Rapids, less often nearer Duluth
where my parents had friends.
>There's a paperback of Mark Twain's "best" short stories, mostly
unknown to me, and now I know from his "Library of Humor" that
I've got to catch up on the guy. He's a whole lot more than just
Huck and Tom. There's a book with 24 Arabian Night stories -
another thing I need to catch up on. I've passed up the huge,
complete Arabian Nights Entertainments on several occasions,
because I know I would never tackle that. Here's one of my
favorites from The Arrow Book of Funny Poems.
If I didn't tell you to do so earlier when I read it in my new
Reading II text, look up Twain's "War Prayer." It won't be in
any humor books, but it's easily found on the Internet. Timeless
piece.
>Thanks for the Baltimore Electric Blue Print Co. souvenir ruler.
Oh, good. I was afraid it had been lost in the packing
material. That was a bit of silliness found in C~~'s aunt and
uncle's garage in Roanoke. They're always trying to get me to
haul goodies home and were surprised when I latched onto that
one. Somehow it seemed like it belonged to someone from
Baltimore County rather than lying unused on a workbench in their
garage.
THEE: Subject: scrabble ?
Hi!
I was reading the info on your website and I have a question.
My family (3 of us) have been playing Scrabble on the regular
board that we lay on top of a lazy-susan. We would like to
upgrade to the Scrabble Deluxe with the built-in turntable.
So the question is... when I looked at the new ones on Amazon the
reviews at the bottom of the page acted like this new version
sucks. Many said that an old one purchased on eBaby would be a
better idea (grid is deeper and doesn't look/seem as
plastic/cheap).
What is your opinion???
On eBay I see new ones, one from 1989 and many from between 1976-
1977... what is best???
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.
ME: I'm not familiar with the newer, "cheaper" Deluxe scrabble
board. I will say that I don't think the older ones were
anything to write home about. The glare was horrible. And my
turntable, at least, broke down, so to turn the board I had to
lift, turn and set it back down. To be honest, I like the simple
elegance of the folding cardboard board. We never have any
trouble turning the board directly on the table top without tiles
shifting. We don't even think about it. I'm wondering if that
wouldn't work better for you than a lazy susan. By the way, try
some of the ideas in my page, like a mixed set of tiles, no-risk
challenges, and three-letter minimum! Thanks!
ME: Will try to catch up a bit shortly, but for now . . .
>> On John Bun
>> Here lies John Bun;
>> He was killed by a gun.
>> His name was not Bun, but Wood;
>> But Wood would not rhyme with gun, and Bun would.
>Groan . . .
Groan my stupid foot! That poem is totally, positively,
absolutely, ummm . . . hmmm . . . errrrr . . . (i got it . . .)
outre'!!! Ranks right up there with the all-time classic, The
Frog ("What a wonderful bird the frog are...") So there.
THEE: Subject: Taranaki Climb
I came across your page on the internet about Harry Vernon. I was
one of the hikers that reported a man calling for help on Mt.
Taranaki and later provided information to the search and rescue
crews. I have been deeply affected by what happened that day. My
condolences to everyone that knew him.
ME: Thank you for the condolences. And thank you for your help
on that day. You might gather from the web page that Harry was
what you would call "quite a character." He still pops to mind
frequently - always will. Somehow, though, as shocked and
saddened as I was by Harry's death, and as much as I'd rather he
still be with us, it wasn't one of those unbearable, painful,
grief situations for me. He was, after all, 80 years old, and
went out doing one of the things he loved most, and in grand
style. Maybe Ronnie (whom you saw in the web page) and I are
even a little bit envious! And Harry didn't leave a wife and
family behind. I can't speak for everyone, of course, but I'm
guessing all of his family and friends would say more or less the
same.
Last Sunday I was playing Scrabble with my father, sister and
brother-in-law and when it got to my last turn I dramatically
read off the scores: 112 to 109 to 105 . . . to 51 - with me in
last place. While everyone was chuckling, I emptied my rack for
a 79-point play to leap into victory and end the game. Man, I
wish Harry was around to tell that one to!
Thanks for writing. It was nice to meet another hero of that
day.
THEE: I'll swap a copy of this for the full version of "The Frog"
-- assuming that wasn't the full poem, that is. These measly 158
words took me about two hours, but they were more fun than the
Internet course proposal I've been workin' on.
ME: evolution
>I'll swap a copy of this for the full version of "The Frog" --
assuming that wasn't the full poem, that is.
That's a deal. When we were in 3rd or 4th grade, Jack Dean found
"The Frog" in a poetry book in the school library. My life was
never the same afterward.
The Frog
What a wonderful bird the frog are!
When he stand he sit almost;
When he hop he fly almost.
He ain't got no sense hardly;
He ain't got no tail hardly either.
When he sit, he sit on what he ain't got almost.
-Anonymous
>These measly 158 words took me about two hours, but they were
more fun than the Internet course proposal I've been workin' on.
Sounds great. I'd call that a very productive two hours. It
would take me twice that to come up with half the number of
words, and having no zing whatsoever, if not completely stupid
sounding. The Delaware State News is featuring me (again, if I
mentioned it the first time around) in their Meet Your Neighbor
feature. Every time I look at what I wrote I change a little
something here and there trying to get something that maybe
sounds ok, or at least won't embarrass me too much. Fat chance.
I got Krystal and Mizan out on Charlie's boat again this weekend.
This time Charlie had a raft-like device for pulling somebody
along behind the boat. It was quite a blast. 18 mph felt like
50. I wish you could see even a 30-second vid of Mizan on it.
Unfortunately, Krystal didn't even have a camera, which was sort
of my fault since I kept it a secret what was in store.
ME: to owens corning
I inquired at Lowe's in Dover about installing a new roof. I
have a low-pitched roof, 3/12. I want maximum overlap of the
shingles. I would like the shingles overlapped halfway (1.5 ft),
as opposed to the modern way of one half tab (6 in.) Lowe's said
they cannot do that. Their reason was, it would nullify the
manufacturer's warranty. That sounds absurd to me. Did I get
correct information? Thanks.
THEE: Subject: shingles
Thank you for contacting Owens Corning. The warranty covers
manufactured defects only. Installation is not covered under
warranty. However, we recommend shingles be installed according
to instructions. Should you require further assistance, please
feel free to contact us at 1-800-get-pink.
THEE: Re: evolution
> The Frog
> What a wonderful bird the frog are!
> -Anonymous
And I wonder whether this anonymous composer was a kid or
some sage of the ages. If Bacon, Cervantes, Martin Luther, or
Prof. Zamenhof wrote the da wg song, it could just as well have
been Chuck, himself.
>Every time I look at what I wrote I change a little something
here and there trying to get something that maybe sounds ok, or
at least won't embarrass me too much. Fat chance.
See, that's what I try to tell my students. A person needs to
revise and revise and revise and hope not to sound stupid. Many
of them want to scribble something out at the last second and
call it good.
THEE: I find it hard to believe that out of all the guestbook
entries you received, only one was negative. Youre site and
guestbook would be alot more interesting if there was some
discourse.
I have read the sections on kumon and unarcy system, and while
you generally make good points on them there are numerous points
to take issue with. I assume you have received emails about these
two subjects?
ME: Surely there are many more negative comments then just the
one you saw. Did you look over the closed-out guestbook as well
as the still active one? I use "active" loosely; it is very
infrequent that anyone submits something for my guestbook.
If you want negative comments, look, for example, at the feedback
to my football page. Also look at my pages on evolution and "the
human race is special". There's hardly a word of agreement in
there.
I have gotten some emails regarding the Kumon page, but actually
not much in the way of agreement or disagreement.
It's been a long long time since anyone has commented on unarchy.
In fact, the main discussion took place in a few fanzines before
the web came along. I would love to see some discussion of
unarchy.
THEE: "In December 1997, a study said that boys start out as
girls, but nothing in the article supported the claim. It said
that if a male embryo doesn't produce male hormones, "the female
body blueprint will prevail". So??? The male embryo does produce
male hormone - probably because it's male, I guess. Anyhow, this
was good enough to get a few scientists a bit of much-needed
attention."
Just saw this and had to email you again, are you saying that
this statement is false?
ME: Giving it everything I've got, I can only see the claim, as
stated, as totally ridiculous and absurd. If the girl-embryo-
which-will-turn-into-a-boy produces hormones that the girl-
embryo-that-really-is-a-girl does not, then they are not the same
thing. Why don't we just call the first one a boy-embryo?
THEE: Re: the project
I've gotten the music. What do you think about recording one
part, sending it to me, and I'll record the other track on top?
Seems that way, we can get it all done fairly quickly. (Or at
least we can do a test)
ME: That would save a lot of money and driving, but I'm afraid
that would make it too artificial.
THEE: I'm not sure what exactly you have an issue with. Are you
criticizing the wording of that statement, or the actual
biological mechanics behind it? If it is the former, I can see
youre point because it is not technically completely correct,
although close enough, however if it is the former then I believe
you are wrong.
ME:
>Otherwise, you may not have mentioned it.
You're right, I never mentioned my "Meet Your Neighbor" fiasco to
you. Here's a paragraph I wrote to my friend David:
>Something that's had me going around kicking puppies and little
old ladies the last few weeks is being done dirty by a newspaper,
as usual. The Delaware State News asked if they could feature me
in their "Meet Your Neighbor" feature. Not without some
misgivings I went ahead with it. I had responded immediately to
their set of questions and after giving it a little more thought
submitted a far, far more fun, meaty and interesting batch of
responses. I was in running communication with the writer, so
had no reason to think the update had fallen throught the cracks,
but it did. They printed the draft. Talk about the mama of all
blown opportunities...
I made a proposal that they give me another shot a year and a
half or so down the line, presuming I would have anything
interesting at that time. The newspaper's editor offered an
upcoming slot, which I would not have proposed, or wanted.
Readers would take a glance and either think, "Him again???", or
"Look, the newspaper made a mistake!" But I wasn't going to
squander the opportunity, and I made this submission as different
as possible from the first one, which wasn't hard. Now it's just
a matter of holding my breath to see what they're gonna do to
this one...
You wouldn't believe (but of course you would) what I just went
through to get an ad set up right by the Delaware State News. My
logo is pure text. What took a couple of days and lots of
frazzled nerves would have taken 8 seconds if I could have stood
over the graphics specialist shoulder and said, "Put a space back
in there."
I don't think I mentioned Krystal's job taking care of an elderly
couple, Becky and Joe, in particular, Becky. She had been doing
this for months, and I would hear occasional anecdotes, but it
wasn't until the first boat trip with Krystal and Mizan that I
realized I knew Joe. I probably would never made the connection,
except Mizan said, "... and they have a dog that's taller than
your car!" And I went, "Ka-boiiingg! - Irish Wolfhound!" And it
turned out that, yes, Joe, was definitely the nice guy with the
Irish Wolfhound I met up on Dover's Green on St. Patrick's day
earlier this year. Of course, the Irish Wolfhound world is a
small world, and he knew my friend Karen, and I even knew most of
the story behind his dog, Erin, a rescue from an animal horror
house up in New York.
Becky had been going downhill lately, and getting visits from
Senator Biden, Gov. Minner, etc., etc. She was also just awarded
Delaware's Democrat of the Year award. A week or so ago, Krystal
called with a funny story. I had given her that guitar trio cd
with the enjoyable program. She never played it, and one day it
fell out of her phone book at Joe's house. Joe wanted to hear it
and Krystal said sure. Well, Joe loved it. He gave it to the
music director at his church who was also impressed. So Krystal
called to say that Joe wanted to know if we would put on a
concert for the church. Well, even the promise of a blank check
for our fee wouldn't be enough to resuscitate the Patowmack
Guitar Trio at this point (shades of Distant Signals). I mention
all of this for no particular reason, except the fun of the
coincidences, and that my emails serve as my diary. But it comes
to mind because Krystal called on Wednesday to say Becky died
that day, which made me sad even though I hadn't met her.
They're hoping [perhaps mostly Krystal's enthusiastic
imagination] that Jimmy Carter, whom Becky had worked for, can
come to the funeral.
Last week I got a very nice "Just So Stories" by Kipling at the
auction. Most recent date in it is 1912, but I'm guessing it's a
much more recent reprint. Have you read The Elephant's Child
lately? Hilarious! My second favorite might be The Butterfly
That Stamped.
Earlier this week I got a 6-volume set called "My Bookhouse" (c.
1920, 1925). It's a really lovely set, never mind the wear and
mold, which I cleaned up pretty well. The bid took me right up
to my maximum. For a while I was thinking I should have let the
lady have them; she looked so disappointed when she bowed out.
She probably figured I was gonna go on forever. One more bid
would have gotten them for her. But now I see how bad my library
needed this set. I've indexed the contents, which you may glance
over if you'd like. They even mixed a couple of little
Shakepeare rhymes in with Mother Goose. I'll be going to the
auction this afternoon - anything I can get ya?
ME: parigi o cara
Here's my part of No. 15 La Traviata. When I played back my
first "good" take I was totally sick at how ragged my rhythm was
in the melody part. The next half-decent take had some squonked
notes, which you can hear. I blasted the next to last chord
louder than I wanted. There's a delay on the last chord, which I
forget if it was inspiration or I just lost my mind. You'll find
a fermata somewhere. Actually, it was kind of fun to play along
with - I've rarely enjoyed that. Even if you make something
great out of it, we'll see if we can beat it live. It was also a
good test for me in that now I think I've got a good level and
mic placement. So thanks for making the suggestion.
Just before sending this off, I realize that I recorded to both
tracks instead of just one. Both tracks are identical, so just
delete one, the left. You'll be left on all our recordings.
THEE: Saw a terrific silent film this afternoon with Mabel
Normand, William Randolph Hearst's mistress of something like
thirty years. It was called Mickey. Another Internet
coincidence because several years ago a man in California
contacted me because an ancestor of his was a ragtime era
lyricist (not composer, if I remember correctly). I recall that
this ragtime era guy's biggest hit was "Mickey," naturally the
theme of the film score this afternoon.
ME: I picked up 32 oil paintings at the auction today. No
Rambrandts or Van Goghs, but I think the overall effect on a wall
in my office will be striking. In fact, they'll be freebies for
the kids, too.
THEE: Next time you get to the LC, will you please copy a couple
of orchestrations for which I have only the first violin part.
These are nothing that particularly interests me, but I have
another reason. The grandson of Charles Horwitz (of the team
Horwitz & Bowers (Fred. V.)is seeking his grandfather's music,
and I have a chance to help him. Here's what I'd like:
Everyday is Sunshine When the Heart Beats True (Stern, 1903) M
1350.0
Where the Sunshine Turns the Oceans Blue to Gold, Intro. The
Altar of Friendship. M1350.0, Box N
At the moment, I'm hopelessly behind although I've worked all
weekend. If I EVER say anything about changing textbooks again,
please talk some sense into me.
ME: Would any of these old emails help? (If not, the 0'Hare joke
is good for another chuckle.) A google search on horwitz bowers
mickey didn't put a handy page near the top linking the
songwriters and the song.
I bought 32 oil paintings at the auction today. A wall in my
office is gwine to look *good*! Maybe a bit garish for some
people's taste, nuts to 'em.
ME:
>Everyday is Sunshine When the Heart Beats True (Stern, 1903) M
1350.0
>Where the Sunshine Turns the Oceans Blue to Gold, Intro. The
Altar of Friendship. M1350.0, Box N
Shouldn't be any problem finding the Bowers. For "Everyday...
I'll try the box that would seem to cover "E". If I can't find
it under 0'Hare, I'll try O'Hare.
>If I EVER say anything about changing textbooks again, please
talk some sense into me.
Hey, if I had any say, we'd be using 100-year-old textbooks.
Truth doesn't change *that* fast. Plus'd save a pocket of
change.
ME: I was wondering if the grandson of Charles Horwitz you've
been helping is named John M~~~. John just contacted me for
a Horwitz & Bowers piece in my collection, and I'd rather
surprise him with it in the mail than go back and forth
describing the piece and asking for his address, etc. Do you
have John M~~~'s address - or was this just a little coincidence?
After all, there's *lots* of composers named on my site. For
example, just a few days ago, a man from the Tirindelli
Appreciation Society in Italy found Tirindelli in my opera record
catalog and asked about the piece (track 5 of side 2 of record 10
of a humongous Longines Symphonette 12-record set.)
THEE: A good night. Tonight's film was D.W. Griffith's Battle of
the Sexes, not a Keaton film, not really a "funny women" film
either because, despite a few funny scenes, it wasn't intended to
be all that funny. It centered on a wealthy family man who got
taken in by a young blond gold-digger, and had to learn his
lesson the hard way. After she'd taken him for a lot of money,
diamonds, and such, his daughter went to the woman's apartment
threatening to shoot her. The daughter and mistress got in a
scuffle, the daughter dropped the gun, and the mistress locked it
up. Her young boyfriend showed up just before the girl's dad.
So the daughter and floosie's boyfriend ended up being relegated
to a back room of the apartment while blondie let in the old guy.
He eventually spotted the gold-headed cane of the young rake,
whom he'd encountered in the apartment once before. Searching
for him, he found the guy kissing his daughter. When daughter
claimed the young rake was "her boyfriend" (a false claim if
anything ever was), dad told her she was disgracing the family
name . . . and eventually realized his double standard and went
home. Rather than booting him, his wife forgave him, and the
film ended as it began with the wife's birthday party, telling us
that the whole story covered a year.
As for the music, the score included WC's "Dramatic Suspense."
It came in at least three times, all during confrontation scenes
in blondie's apartment. Worked well. I'd heard only a small bit
of that piece in another film, but much more this time. Another
nice piece, pretty typically WC, but not as good as "Solemn
Scenes from Nature," "Andante Cantabile," and "Plaintive." Well,
maybe as good for a very different mood, but suspense isn't my
thing, perhaps. This film exhausted me.
Thirty-two oil paintings, huh? Gonna start an art gallery?
That's far more paintings than I have framed sheet music in my
office. Color is good.
Let me know how that second "Meet Your Neighbor" comes out. Btw,
I don't think you answered my question about the Monett Times.
And why didn't you talk that sense into me last spring? Truth
is, though, that I like the new books a whole lot better. The
main instructional material may not change much, but the readings
sure have. Of course, out of three reading classes, I can count
the students on both hands (and maybe a toe or two) who bother to
read them. (The readings, not the fingers and toes, that is.)
Passed the Coffeyville Amazon distribution center today. What a
place that would be to move in and read for the rest of my life.
ME: manet or monett? one can not be sure
>Did I mention making the Monett Times?
Nope.
>Btw, I don't think you answered my question about the Monett
Times.
There. I just did.
When you first asked about mentioning making the Monett Times (as
opposed to mentioning making the Monett Times) I went out and did
a search for a~~~ in google news. Nothing. So I searched for
"monett times", probably both within google news, and on the web
itself. I seem to remember it had a very slender profile. I
could repeat the experiment, but I'll betcha somebody is bustin'
to spill the beans anyhow.
>Thirty-two oil paintings, huh? Gonna start an art gallery?
Maybe not in a perfectly conventional sense, but something like
that has always been bouncing around my mind, even for the Kumon
center. I don't know art, but I know what I hate. (Being silly
there.) My claim is that you can take a bunch of paintings which
aren't so great individually, perhaps even borderline execrable,
and create a stunning effect by crowding them all on a wall.
Museums are too wimpy in that regard. Another difference with my
art gallery is that the tootees will be encouraged to steal their
favorite painting. They didn't cost that much. (There is
actually an entertaining story behind the bidding war, but it
would take *way* too much to type it out.) So they'll just be
more freebies to join my bookcase of freebies. Now, based on all
that, yer probably doubting the artistic genius of these
paintings. I have this to say about that: Candace Battaglia.
Remember that name. You heard it here first.
ME: I got the Panasonic answering machine about 2 weeks ago. It
looks great and is in perfect operating condition, except for one
thing. It records a crackling sound, both on the outgoing and
incoming message tapes. (You could hear it by dialing
302-672-9356 some time when I'm not home.) Cleaning the heads
did not make a difference. Otherwise, the recording is so clear
that the crackle doesn't really affect the understandability, and
most *normal* people might not worry about it. The problem is, I
specifically need this style of answering machine because I
archive messages of interest - generally, anything with personal
content. And for archiving purposes, the crackle is not
acceptable. I'll definitely have to keep searching till I find a
machine in perfect condition.
I'm cool as a cucumber, not upset or angry or anything. In the
scheme of things, it's definitely no big deal. But I thought I'd
fill you in and let you make the first suggestion about how we
should handle it. Thanks!
ME: Do you know about sitemaps? I've just been poking around in
google and horrified to find that they say they only have 18 of
my pages indexed. I'm guessing putting together and submitting a
sitemap is no big deal, but all their instructions are somewhat
overwhelming. I'm guessing that all I need is just a simple
little file listing my web pages somehow. I'm hoping this is all
baby stuff to you, and can get me going with a few words and
simple example.
ME: hobnobbing
Went to Becky's funeral today. There were some big names there,
not surprisingly. But mostly wanted to mention that Miss Becky's
now resting 19 steps from Caesar Rodney.
THEE: Subject: Home again, home again, jiggety jig
'bout enough said. I'll catch up . . . one of these days.
Soon, I hope.
THEE: Re: panasonic answering machine
Sorry that the machine is not what you were looking for. Since
you apparently cannot use the machine you may return the machine
and I will refund your purchase price plus the original shipping
amount once I receive it back.
ME: That's very generous - thanks. I'll pack it up and send it
off as soon as possible.
ME: Great news. Before packing the answering machine up I had to
get the few messages off of it. It never occurred to me the
whole time I was editing and saving them on my computer, but it
hit me later - no crackle! It turns out the crackle is not
actually recorded on the tapes, but is added by the machine when
either is played back. That doesn't matter much to me, so I'll
keep the machine in service. Sorry to give you a fright.
THEE: Just a reminder that your Meet Your Neighbor will rerun
this Sunday in the State News. I have attached the profile, so
you can make sure I have the right answers. Again, sorry for the
confusion.
ME: It looks pretty good. I think "light bulbs" is two words.
Also, "time frame"? (Thanks for fixing "racetrack".)
My dictionary shows "one-on-one" with hyphens, and "one-on-two"
seems a reasonable extrapolation.
Can I have a ". . ." after micro-step evolution? I have other
interests, plus the ". . ." makes the answer seem more like a
sentence.
My dictionary shows "down to earth" with the small e. I think
the idiom is more about down to the ground, or surface, or soil -
not landing on the third planet from the sun.
I suppose there are reasons that make it infeasible, but I wish
my paragraph breaks could be observed. The way it is, all the
bite-size ideas fall over each other.
No chance I can have "(It sure beats that mug shot over there.)"
restored? After all, for the reader, it's only a little chuckle,
and might make a few more readers curious enough to visit my
site.
Could I have the "What I feel strongly about:" heading restored?
I'd like the Golden Rule standing all by itself, plus those
things I feel strongly about are not really guiding philosphies.
Thanks for bearing with me.
THEE: Re: hobnobbing
Glad you went. And good to know that Becky is hobnobbing with
Caesar Rodney, too.
You leaving me in suspense?
ME: Sorry, didn't mean to lead you on. Yes, that was the
hobgobbling I was referring to. The big names were only Delaware-
big, like Senator Carper and Governor Minner. No national-
biggies that I was aware of. There was a really sweet picture of
President Carter and Becky on display - wish there was a copy
machine handy.
ME: Re: manet or monett? one can not be sure
I was wondering if the subject line rang any bells, or did I go
too obscure this time? It was a running joke with some college
buddies of mine.
THEE: I stumbled across your site while looking for my daughter's
Kumon center email, and although I don't have the time now to
commit to reading at length now, I found it very interesting and
jam-packed with many meaningful topics. I plan to read further
about your experience with employment at Kumon. I confess to
having mixed feelings about the program, one main reason being
that the owner of this center holds a masters in ESL or something
along those lines, is being paid to help my daughter with reading
comprehension, yet shows difficulty expressing thoughts
articulately and with proper English grammar. Adding insult to
injury, I myself am a math teacher (yes, savor the irony!) and
from what I've read on your site with regards to the lack of
teaching conceptual math, I have to ask myself if this will
benefit her in the long run. Just thought I'd acknowledge your
site and say hello from the Windy City! :^)
ME: Thanks for visiting. Sticking up for Kumon just a wee bit,
remember that the Kumon instructor is really just a "director";
Kumon's success, or lack thereof, sits almost entirely upon the
method and the materials. Regarding the benefits of Kumon, it's
pretty clear from my web page that I have doubts. Still, the
proof is in the pudding. I know of nothing concrete Kumon can
point to. There is, or was, a study by TIMSS (Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Studies) in which Kumon
participated (ca. Jul 2005). I haven't seen the results, if they
are available yet. And even if I saw the results, whether they
be positive or negative, I'd have my doubts about *them*. When
you stop to think about it, you realize how fantastically
difficult it is to measure such a thing. How "average" is the
average Kumon student when he starts out? Is the great student a
great student because of, or in spite of, Kumon? You really need
a time machine so you could send the same student through life
twice, with and without Kumon. But don't misunderstand; I would
never argue that we shouldn't try anything unless we have firm,
statistical proof IT WORKS! Things may have benefits in
peripheral ways, or benefits that we don't even perceive. Is
that enough rambling? Thanks again for stopping by!
ME: You forgot to remind me about the paddlelball ball under my
car. It's still in the parking lot, I guess. Still, I counted
up about 100 useful freebies for my $2. I plan to put the really
good ones, like the porcelain dolls, out around Christmastime.
V~~ called me yesterday. Crazy as it sounds, we talked for
probably 1.5 hours. It took him a long time to get around to
what he wanted, so I'm not totally sure it's on the level. He
wants to videotape me giving short math lectures, which can be
downloaded from algebra.com for a fee. I'd get a royalty, which
even he doesn't pretend would make anybody rich.
ME: First of all disregard my frantic note about site maps. It
looks like google maintains two entries for some of my pages,
with the full-blown www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049 url,
and the personalized www.oocities.org/donaldsauter. They say
they have 18 of my pages indexed under the short form, but it
seems like they've got most of them under the long form.
Wanted your musical opinion on something. You noticed I flip-
flopped gtr 1 and 2 where music was repeated in La Traviata. Do
you think that improves the listening experience? I think it
does, but somebody might say it's artificial and silly. If you
like the idea of flip-flops, let me know where you think they'd
be appropriate, and I'll cut and paste the parts. In our first
five, I think a flip-flop would work well in Norma 2 ("No. 13"),
in the top section of both pages. (You 8 measures; me 8
measures; you for the rest of the page.) If that sounds good,
let me know and I'll do a paste up and mail it to you.
ME: It's been a while since I tuned into the crazy man's doings.
Looks like he got 29 votes in the primary election.
THEE: Re: manet or monett? one can not be sure
Manet or Monet would have made perfect sense because I'm pretty
well up on my artists. Then, of course, Monett fit this occasion
though Missourians would never go for the pronunciation. You
oughta see what they do with the town name Bolivar! Spanish,
French, whatever, they're gonna term it into 100% Missourah!
THEE: Re: manet or monett? one can not be sure
Are you going to tell me where the question originated?
ME: 'Deed I will, to the best of my abilities. Apparently there
was a PBS series in the early 1970s (or maybe "Educational tv"
back then) that discussed art, or perhaps there were art-related
episodes in a more general series about culture or civilization
or something like that. (Wid me?) Of course, it was all very
high-brow, and the host was a brainy J. Bronowski sort. He
introduced one of the art episodes by displaying an
impressionistic painting and asking, "Manet? Or Monet? One can
not be sure," and indulging in a little high-browed chuckle,
which I don't begrudge him at all. It's good. Again, I never
actually saw this, but some college friends had a good time with
that line, impersonating the host and including his chuckle.
Don't press me for exactly what sort of circumstances calls for
this quote. I waited 30-some years for the perfect opportunity.
While I'm writing, let me pass on to one person in the universe
that I believe Mark Twain's "How I Edited An Agricultural Paper"
was almost definitely inspired by that "John Phoenix Renders An
Account Of His Stewardship" story/editorial I mentioned recently.
I'm not complaining; Twain's is hilarious, too.
Here's a reckoning of the contents of the box I bought at
Tuesday's auction:
29 small plastic/metal/wood toys
13 plush toys, normal
10 jigsaw puzzles
1 story on cassette
2 musical instruments (uke, maracca)
5 porcelain dolls
12 plush toys, high class
5 electronic games, trains
10 gooshy purple brains, in cellophane
Looks like 87 freebies for the kids. Not bad for $2?
THEE: Re: manet or monett? one can not be sure
>You need my nattering like a hole in the head, but I was
wondering if the subject line rang any bells, or did I go too
obscure this time?
E-mails like yours help me keep my sanity.
>While I'm writing, let me pass on to one person in the universe
that I believe Mark Twain's "How I Edited An Agricultural Paper"
was almost definitely inspired by that "John Phoenix Renders An
Account Of His Stewardship" story/editorial I mentioned recently.
I'm not complaining; Twain's is hilarious, too.
Sure, I remember that one. It was funny. I don't think I've
read the Twain piece. Are you familiar with this one?
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html
>Looks like 87 freebies for the kids. Not bad for $2?
I don't think we have auctions like that around here.
ME: eddie or claude, who knows?
>Figured the line had a history since I've heard it before.
Aha, that's what I was wondering, whether it was strictly an in-
joke, or whether it made any impression on the public at large.
Veddy interessant.
Thanks for the link to Twain's dissertation on German. I laughed
continuously. In one spot he made hay with the heavy duty done
by Schlag and Zug in German. Coincidentally, not so many minutes
before I had worked out Nebelzug in an aria from Weber's Oberon.
Zug's main def. is train, of course, and I don't think I've ever
seen an opera translator get so literal, rendering Nebelzug as
"train of mist". I'm wondering if the writer had anything more
in mind than "fog". Actually, that writer was himself a
translator, since Weber's Oberon was written in English. So why
must I wrestle with arias in German when they started out in
English??? And another ??? for good measure. I recently bought
the complete opera from amazon - and got German. :( And not
only were the spoken parts not literal translations, they were
redone and changed completely, even adding different characters!
So fat lot of good it did sitting there with an English libretto,
itself painfully extracted from the web. ("And if elected, I
promise literal translations of the most popular 60,000 operas,
freely available on one shiny little cd...")
I had to laugh throughout his list of suggestions for
improvements to German. I don't exactly know why, but our
ordinal numbers in adverbial form have always sounded somewhat
nutty to me - firstly, secondly, etc. By the time Twain got up
to seventhly, I was squirming around helplessly on the floor.
I wanted to send you a link to Twain's hilarious "Our Italian
Guide" in his Library of Humor. At first glance, it looked like
the web didn't have it, but further sleuthing shows it is an
extract from a chapter of his The Innocents Abroad.
http://twain.thefreelibrary.com/The-Innocents-Abroad/27-1
Start with the line:
In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo
Buonarotti. . .
and end at:
--or by George we'll brain you!"
Couldn't help thinking about Phyllis when I read this.
THEE: Fw: Musipedia: new search possibilities
This is really cool! Now you can whistle a tune (if you have the
interface), or play the piano.
http://www.musipedia.org or http://www.melodyhound.com)
>1. Query by Humming applet: The applet now works a lot better,
> also for sung input.
. . .
ME: re: Americans who helped cement big-bang theory win Nobel
Prize in physics
>News item: Americans win physics Nobel for sealing big-bang
theory
Me, I'm withholding judgment until some judge from an American
backwater rules it true.
THEE: "Our Italian Guide" looks like great fun, but I'll have to
postpone it until later. Way too many deadlines zooming in on
me.
Glad you were twitching helplessly on the floor. That's the way
I felt when I read that essay on German, too.
ME: to: sci.physics
Looks like I need to make clear that in my new and improved
scientific notation, you are free to put the decimal point
wherever you want. I did not propose no decimal point. If
you're sitting around talking about sums of money in the millions
of dollars, and you get to one in double digits, you may say
"thirteen bip six", as opposed to "one point three bip seven"
without a silver hammer coming down on your head.
THEE: LOC Guitar music...
Do you still have copies of these works? Castagna: Luciano
Castagna Cuttoli: A. F. Cuttoli Gargiulo: Enrico Gargiulo Luigi:
Amelie Luigi = Amelia Luigi Montagna: Carlo Montagna Picchianti:
Luigi Picchianti (euro) Tozzeti: Luigi Tozzeti
not-guitarists Chilesotti: Oscar Chilesotti Monti
How to ge them, in case yes ? Thank you for your reply.
ME: Yes, I'd be glad to send you copies of public domain guitar
music I got from the Library of Congress. Please look at this
page for my instructions for ordering guitar & piano music.
http://www.dcguitar.net/donaldsauter/gp.htm
Instead of "catalog numbers", clearly list the pieces of music
you want. It is too much trouble to calculate the cost in
advance, so you must estimate how many pages you think the the
order will contain, and promise to pay $.24 per page plus
shipping after you receive the music.
Here's the page with the guitar music:
http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/lcgtr.htm
THEE: Subject: Thank you for contacting Google
Thank you for writing to us. Due to the tremendous number of
requests we receive, we're unable to personally respond to your
letter. We're always working to provide comprehensive, up-to-date
online assistance and encourage you to consult our Webmaster Help
Center at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters. It's likely
that you'll find the answer to your question there.
We also encourage you to check out Google's webmaster tools. Our
webmaster tools can provide you with comprehensive info about
your site, including queries for which your site appears in our
search results, potential indexing problems, errors our crawlers
encountered trying to access your pages, and much more. The
Google Sitemaps component of our webmaster tools is also the best
way for you to give Google a complete list of the URLs on your
site. To get started, try our Google Site Status wizard at
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/sitestatus
If you've used Google's webmaster tools before, you can access
them by signing in with your existing Google account at
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
Thanks again for taking the time to write to us.
Regards, The Google Team
ME: If a LETTER describing an individual problem, and promising to
PAY for your services can't get the attention of human eyes, WHAT
CAN?
Just so you all can spend the rest of the day laughing your heads
off, here's the letter I sent again: [pasted in letter]
ME: dames
>I don't think we have auctions like that around here.
Looking for a career change? Wanna do something fun? Got a
touch of the entrepreneur in you? Could you stand being filthy
rich?
Came back from today's auction empty-handed - hoo-ray for me.
Actually, it was just dumb luck that, even after starting up a
2nd auctioneer, it looked like more than an hour before they'd
get to that great, huge grab-bag of kid's toys that would've kept
me in stock for years.
The Delaware State News ran my "Meet Your Neighbor" on Sunday.
Haven't gotten up courage to see what they did to it. But it
made me something of a celebrity at the auction today. I
mentioned the auction as one of my favorite regular activities.
I risked closing out with, "And the auctioneer is quite a funny
guy, even when we put him in a bad mood!" (I ask you, what makes
editors so afraid of me?) As I was looking up and down the rows,
Blake took a moment out from his auctioning to holler out, "Hey,
there he is! That's my hero! There's the guy interviewed by the
Delaware State News!" Being taken by surprise, the best I could
do was a few bows to the crowd looking my way. Later, another
friendly young man came up and told me I was the guy in the
newspaper. He mentioned they put a copy of it up in the office
of the auction. I hope all my thoughts in the column designed to
save the world have as much effect.
Forgot to put a funny little thing in my last email about German
and translations thereof. This is part of a duet from the
atonal, ultra-modern (for 1961) comic opera "The Barber of
Darmstadt, by Bruno Heinz Jaja.
Tenor: Tenor:
Wer war die Dame, Who was the dame
mit welcher ich Sie with whom I you
gestern gesehen habe? yesterday seen have?
Bass: Bass:
Das war keine Dame. That was no dame.
Das war That was
meine Frau. my wife.
Translation of the German libretto was by William Mann, the
British music critic who a few years later would create a bit of
a stir by hearing "pandiatonic clusters" and "aeolian cadences"
in the Beatles' music.
Finally getting back to finishing up The Peterkin Papers. I'd
laugh a little harder if I was a little more sure there was a
definite line separating me from the Peterkins.
I'm having a new roof put on my house Thursday. Keep your
fingers crossed for me, even if it makes your teaching chores
awkward.
THEE: I wanted to thank you for your generous mention of my name
under your Wine and Water problem.
Every now and then I google my name, that comes right up and well
- it's nice to see the web has something nice to say about me !
I'm very interested in problems like these. The best solution to
W&W teaches us nothing really about fluid dynamics, but packs a
huge lesson as to the workings of the human mind. The solution
itself causes one to say "Oh. Geez. Of course." The question is
why does virtually nobody see that solution first?
It's rather like an optical illusion, which gives a vivid example
of how the mind can be led down the wrong path.
I thought of the best solution first, but my brain works a little
differently. I am slightly autistic. I'd love to claim earth-
shattering brilliance, but I believe it's because I lack certain
abilities that I wasn't drawn down the wrong path. Like a color-
blind person won't be fooled by certain optical illusions.
In scientific thought, "divide and conquer" is a tried and true
strategy. When faced with almost any problem, the best thing to
do is get a careful look at what all the component parts are up
to, and think about them. In a few cases (like the W&W problem)
however, this scheme fails spectacularly.
It's a peculiarity of my form of autism that breaking something
down into its components is very, very difficult for me to do.
My brain cannot re-integrate the component parts back into the
whole, and I get overwhelmed. For instance, if I get too close
to a tree I am visually overwhelmed by hundreds of leaves, veins
in leaves, pattern in bark, etc. So my brain is naturally
aversive to componentizing things.
The W&W problem seduces the listener into deconstructing the
components and mechanisms; the transfer cup, the fluid
percentages, the two-pass transfer, etc. The scientific brain
goes there *first*, because that's where the answer usually is.
So they miss the real answer, which lies outside the system, and
is simply "liquid is conserved."
There are two other puzzles that point up, I believe, this same
issue.
Two cars start off 10 miles apart, heading toward each other at
10 miles an hour. A fly takes off from the bumper of car one and
heads to car 2, with a ground-speed of 20 mph. When the fly
reaches the bumper of car 2, it reverses direction and heads to
car 1, repeating this pattern until the cars collide head-on.
How much ground does the fly cover before its squished (as if it
had an odometer, so doubling back still counts as more
distance.)?
Many people will calculate the distance the fly takes goin from
car1 to car2, then from car2 back to 1, and so on. It forms an
infinite series. They find the value of the series.
But the best solution is to simply say : the cars collide
30 minutes later. In 30 minutes the fly has gone 10 miles.
This is another example where the reader is drawn into the
*mechanisms* and misses the underlying principle.
At least in both these problems, the reader is drawn to the
correct answer, if by complicated means. But there is another
infamous problem, the Monty Hall Problem, where some great
mathematicians like Paul Erdos have given the wrong answer - and
vehemently defended it - because they get trapped into thinking
about the problems components rather than its underlying
principles.
You can imagine how gratifying it is for someone like me, with a
cognitive impairment, to be able to offer insight to a 'normal'
person. There is an ancient fable where a bird sees a cheetah
blazing across a field. The bird asks the cheetah "Why are you so
amazingly fast?" The cheetah says, "Because I can't fly."
There are many cognitive tasks which I cannot do that a normal 10
year old can. But nature, in her wisdom, made both birds and
cheetahs.
ME: thinking
Thanks for getting in touch. You have a fascinating story.
You're right about the fly between the two cars problem. When I
was first exposed to that problem I thought you would have to do
it step by painful step - never mind wondering how you were
supposed to handle an infinity of them.
When you mentioned the Monty Hall problem, my first thought was
to wonder if you saw my thoughts on my web site. Then I realized
I never put them on the web. I claim that Marilyn vos Savant
never stated the problem rigorously, and I wrote to her about it.
I got that confused with a couple of rounds of vos Savant bashing
in my web pages. I looked over the wikipedia entry on the Monty
Hall problem, which takes pains to state it rigorously. My
contribution to the discussion is that what's interesting about
the problem is that it only takes a few real life trials, using 3
cards for instance (a joker and two deuces, say), to make the
average person think, "Aha, I see what's going on!" No need for
page after page of explanations and discussion!
THEE: Re: [#77666945] Thank you for contacting Google
Thank you for your reply. We understand your concern regarding
your site's rank in the Google search results. Sites' positions
in our search results are determined automatically based on a
number of factors, which are explained in more detail at
http://www.google.com/technology/index.html. We don't manually
assign keywords to sites, nor do we manipulate the ranking of any
site in our search results. In addition, we don't accept payment
to personally review individual sites, nor do we comment on
webmaster techniques or the details of our search technology
beyond what appears on our site.
As we mentioned previously, we've dedicated an entire section of
our site to answering the most common questions from those who
maintain and/or promote websites. You'll find all of our publicly
available information posted here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/
Besides this section of our site, we've created a discussion
forum for passionate Google users. Many webmasters share their
questions and expertise in the Google Webmaster Help group here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help
Regards, The Google Team
THEE: Early 1980 Interview Paul McCartney
YouTube - Paul McCartney - Early 1980 Interview
Really grateful that this video was mentioned in a MACCA-L post
in latter September. Just getting caught up with digests to that
point.
I'm a bit teary-eyed. At one juncture in the interview, as Paul
mentions a plan to record with Ringo, the inevitable question of
whether the Beatles will get back together is asked. Since this
is an early 80's interview, our dear John is still very much
alive. It's a poignant few moments some 26-years-ago. One
almost begs, in hindsight, for the opportunity to warn Paul that
they better get back together NOW because in just a few months
the chance will be forever gone...
ME: October 13, 2006 a bit of exercise
Got a new roof today. John let me help. Said he couldn't give a
discount, though. Didn't matter to me; what's 6 hours times
6 bucks, anyhow? But when we squared up the bill, he insisted on
knocking $50 off.
Started about 8:30 and they were gone a little before 3:30.
Turns out I won't be needing a magnet after all.
The roof looks great from on top. From below, you don't get the
effect.
Like all work I have done, something has to be worse than when it
started. When I went to turn on the kitchen light, now it won't
come on. Just a coincidence, or related to the roof work? I'll
take it apart tomorrow, but I can't imagine I'll see anything
wrong.
ME: Back in 2002 I made a tape recording of a record in my
collection that had Tirindelli's Reverie. You very generously
sent a 2-cd collection of songs by Tirindelli, "La versatilita",
which I've enjoyed immensely.
More recently I've been transferring my records to cd when I play
them. I've just transferred the entire 12-record set, "The
LONGINES Symphonette: Treasury of the World's Most Honored
Musical Favorites" onto one cd in mp3 format. I was thinking you
might like a copy, since it places the Tirindelli selection in
perspective with the 150 or so other selections.
In fact, I'm *hoping* you'd like a copy, since it's much nicer in
every way than the cassette tape. Also, I have something else to
send I think you'll like.
Let me know if you're still at the same address:
Associazione Lirica "Pier Adolfo Tirindelli"
V.le Veneto, 24
31015 CONEGLIANO (TV)
ITALY
I also have Carlo Bergonzi singing "O Primavera", with John
Wustman on piano. I suppose you have that recording, right?
THEE: mertz sheet music
I found your sight on the net about classical guitar. I don't
know if I understood your sight correctly but is it possible to
get copies of the selections you have from J. K. Mertz'a Opera
Revue. Would you let me know.
ME: Thanks for visiting. I'm always happy to make my public
domain music from the Library of Congress available to others. I
get requests pretty infrequently, but yours finally made me
buckle down and work up a standard reply. See if this makes
sense, and sounds good to you.
STANDARD RESPONSE TO INQUIRIES ABOUT MY GUITAR MUSIC FROM THE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
I don't have a "business" set up to sell the solo guitar music.
I'm the sort who would be glad to just give it away to anyone who
would appreciate it, but that's not too feasible when you're
dealing with the whole world. It's rather complicated trying to
figure out a fair price for a given order, and almost impossible
to do so in advance. In fact, I used to ask people to give me a
phone call because the email back-and-forth alone would eat up
whatever tip was left for me - and many times over.
Unfortunately, very few people have the courage to call. So
here's the current, one-size-fits-all plan, step by step:
1. List the pieces you want very clearly in an email to me. The
best thing is to copy and paste from the lists on
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/lcgtr.htm
2. Make a guess at the total number of pages involved. I know
how unreasonable that sounds, but it will all work out. You
might figure 3 or 4 pages for what you presume are small American
works, and 10 or 12 pages for what you presume are bigger
European works.
3. Multiply the total number of pages by the MAXIMUM price per
page, which is $.30 (30 cents) to calculate the ROUGH TOTAL.
This gives us a jumping off point - something to work with. In
many cases I will discount the ROUGH TOTAL deeply. The MAXIMUM
price per page applies to the case where you pick and choose
individual pieces scattered throughout my collection. That is
extremely labor intensive for me. If you are requesting a
contiguous "chunk" out of my collection, I will discount the
price fully to $.24 (24 cents) per page. This is much easier for
me to process. If your order is somewhere between chunk style
and pick-and-choose style, I will apply a partial discount. You
can trust me to be fair and generous, even.
4. The MINIMUM ORDER is $20. Bear in mind the labor involved in
processing even a 2-page order.
5. The MAXIMUM ORDER is $50. This is to protect myself somewhat
in case of non-payment.
6. Considering the ROUGH TOTAL calculated above, ask yourself
what you are willing to pay that in a worst case situation.
We'll call this the BUYER'S LIMIT for the cost of the music.
Note that it must fall between $20 and $50, inclusive.
7. Include this statement in your order:
I promise to pay up to _______ (fill in your BUYER'S LIMIT) for
the music when it arrives in good condition. I understand this
will cover at least the first _________ (fill in BUYER'S LIMIT
divided by $.30) pages of my order, perhaps more depending on how
contiguous the selected pieces are in the collection.
I will tell you the ACTUAL COST (number of pages times adjusted
price per page) when I send the music. Note that the ACTUAL COST
will fall somewhere between $20 and the BUYER'S LIMIT, inclusive.
8. Cash is still the most convenient form of payment. I know how
the thought of sticking a little cash in an envelope horrifies
everyone, but I assure you that post office workers do not have
the time to rip open every letter that comes through - even
supposing they weren't under continual observation.
9. Checks are a pain in the neck - and risky for me. Paypal is
usurious. Thus, there is a surcharge for payment by check or
Paypal. No matter what your plans are now, include these
statements in your order:
If I decide to pay by check I agree to pay a $5 surcharge in
addition to the ACTUAL COST of the music.
If I decide to pay by Paypal I agree to pay a $2 surcharge in
addition to the ACTUAL COST of the music.
10. More about Paypal: I have a paypal account. As I write this,
I'm not sure exactly what's involved in paying by paypal. You
probably know better than me. Someone paid me once by Paypal and
I can't even find any record of supplying him with any account
information, so it must be pretty easy. My Paypal user name is
donaldsauter.
11. Postage for domestic orders is worked into the price per
page. Thus, there is NO additional postage and handling charge
for domestic orders. I will ship via USPS "media mail."
12. For foriegn orders, you must also pay actual postage for the
cheapest mailing class. Include this statement with your order:
Since this is a foreign order, I agree to pay actual shipping
costs.
I will ship via the least expensive USPS surface class. I
generally won't know how much it costs until I have copied and
packed the music and taken it to the post office. For an order
of a few hundred pages, it should only be several dollars to most
countries. If you want to estimate in advance, figure that 6
pages weigh 1 ounce, and there are 16 ounces in a pound. (Handy
approximation: 100 pages = 1 pound.) You can find the USPS web
site easily by typing "usps" into google.
13. Supply your mailing address exactly as the U.S. Post office
likes to see it (all CAPITALS; no punctuation, proper line
breaks) so I can print it as a mailing label. Please do not make
me retype your address.
14. The copies are razor sharp, make maximum use of the paper
size, and have near perfect margins. The music is printed on
convenient, U.S. "letter size" 8.5 x 11 inch pages. This is very
close to A4 size. While this page size is generally smaller than
that of the original publication, the size of the music itself is
within a few percent of the original - often a little larger.
15. SAMPLE EMAIL ORDER: No need to be clever and original - just
use the following as a template and substitute your specifics.
=======================================================
Hi Don!
These are the pieces I want:
Carcassi op17/Rousseau/Le songe Carcassi op18:Six airs varies
Carcassi op20//Air suisse varie Carcassi op22/Coffey/Air ecossais
intercale dans La dame blanche Robin Adair Carcassi: SIX
FANTAISIES sur la motifs des operas nouveaux
Carcassi op33/Auber/La muette de Portici
Carcassi op34/Rossini/Le comte ory
Carcassi op35/Auber/La fiancee
Carcassi op37/Auber/Fra diavalo
Carcassi op38/Auber/Le dieu et la bayadere Carcassi op44//Trois
airs suisses Carcassi op56:NO 2 Recreations musicales Carcassi
op68/Strauss/NO 2 Valses de strauss
I guess there may be 120 pages in these 12 editions.
I promise to pay the ACTUAL COST of the music shipped, up to
$36.00 (my BUYER'S LIMIT; must be between $20 and $50), when it
arrives in good condition.
I understand $36 (my BUYER'S LIMIT) may or may not cover all the
desired pieces, depending on my page count guess and how
contiguous the pieces are in the collection. In the worst case,
it will cover the first 120 (BUYER'S LIMIT divided by $.30) pages
of my order.
If I decide to pay by check I agree to pay a $5 surcharge in
addition to the ACTUAL COST of the music.
If I decide to pay by Paypal I agree to pay a $2 surcharge in
addition to the ACTUAL COST of the music.
[For foreign orders only: Since this is a foreign order, I agree
to pay actual shipping costs.]
Thanks!
SALLY GOODIN
9316 PEACH PIT DR <-- ALL CAPITALS. NO PUNCTUATION.
COBBLER GA 21567
=======================================================
16. If you are interested in music for guitar & piano, please
visit this page:
http://www.dcguitar.net/donaldsauter/gp.htm
Since those pieces were prepared with publication in mind, the
ordering process is more straightforward.
ME: Are you available Saturday (Oct 21) to knock out our first 5
duets?
THEE: Re: tirindelli reverie
I thank you. Yes my address is right. I will be very happy to
receive your CD with Reverie. I have O primavera sung by
Bergonzi and others recordings on Tirindelli's music.
THEE: Subject: NPR.org - Uncovering the True History of the
Funerary Violin
The most fascinating news item I heard while driving this past
week . . .
ME: A~~ sent me this link. Thought you'd get a kick out of it.
In particular, click on the "Hear the music" links in the page.
My favorite was the 1913 recording - wow!
THEE: One interesting surprise of the visit is that my uncle has
left us with a manuscript of his memoirs. Since I received the
notebook only last night, I've read only a few snatches, but this
is interesting stuff with a lot of his family history packed
into it. Among other things, he has tracked down books published
by an ancestor, John Caewood, royal printer to Queen Mary.
Caewood's printshop was located on the grounds of St. Paul's
Cathedral in London, and he was buried in St. Paul's. I'd read
only one excerpt from these memoirs previously--the story of a
military buddy and fellow pilot shot down in WWII. It was
written for Memorial Day a year or two ago. Uncle M~~, a
University of Chicago-educated lawyer and retired Houston bank
CEO, is one heck of a good writer. I'm looking forward to having
time to read the remainder.
>>>Looks like 87 freebies for the kids. Not bad for $2?
>>I don't think we have auctions like that around here.
>Looking for a career change? Wanna do something fun? Got a
touch of the entrepreneur in you? Could you stand being filthy
rich?
I think the researcher in me will win out over the entrepreneur.
Did you happen to catch the NPR story about the book on funerary
violin--a previously unstudied genre? In case you didn't, I've
just sent you a link to the page, complete with an excerpt and a
link to the broadcast. Neat story.
>Finally getting back to finishing up The Peterkin Papers. I'd
laugh a little harder if I was a little more sure there was a
definite line separating me from the Peterkins.
Bookmarked the Project Gutenberg copy. This looks like fun.
ME: Thanks for going to the trouble to search me out of the
thousands of people out there who have a hand in math to some
extent or another. I visited algebra.com and I'd be happy to
contribute whatever I can. I certainly don't claim one of the
highest powered math brains, but I believe my habit of looking
carefully at what's going on inside my brain while solving
problems has given rise to a few things worth passing on.
Here are a few questions and concerns.
I got the impression you would videotape me giving a "mini-
lecture". On the site I saw the mini-lectures in a graphic
animation (powerpoint or something?) I like the latter style
best, since I am very stage- and camera-shy. Is there a staff
that creates the animations? Not knowing how it's done, I would
think it would take a lot of effort. Is it really cost effective
for algebra.com to produce these? (I don't want you to lose
money on my account.)
No matter what sort of video is produced, I would guess it would
take a lot of effort and require lots of editing to produce the
final, flawless script. Do you have script writers who work with
the math instructor to produce the final product?
Related to these concerns, can I trust you to not let me
embarrass myself, whether because what I'm presenting is not so
helpful as I think, or because it's unclear, or because it really
doesn't represent anything new, for example?
Here are the first few potential presentations that jumped to my
mind without actually digging through my material.
The importance of instantaneous recognition of even versus odd
numbers.
Stepping through the multiplication table in a logical way, from
least to most hard.
How the multiplication is not nearly so scary as the 10 by 10
array makes it look. (No answers in the 90s, 1 in the 80s,
1 in the 70s, 2 in the 60's... Hardly gets worse than that until
where you get to the problems are very simple anyhow.)
Likewise, stepping through the addition table from least to most
hard.
The various ways of finding the LCM; how they relate; which is
ultimately the most useful. I argue for finding the GCF first,
and jumping to the LCM from that.
A simple recipe for adding/subtracting any and all sorts of mixed
numbers: "whole numbers; plus sign; fraction line; LCD (all
automatic up to this point, and only now do we slow down to) get
the numbers in the numerator.
How to quickly and easily plot a parabola if you have the vertex:
over 1, up 1; over 1, up 3; over 1, up 5... (The "ups" are
scaled by the coefficient of X^2, of course.)
How easy it is to completely factor big numbers. Even with a
scary- looking, large, 3-digit number, you would never need to
consider a prime larger than 31. (Worth remembering this
sequence: 4, 4, 2, 2. There are 4 single digit primes, 4 in the
10s, 2 in the 20s and
2 in the 30s.
Please give a call at your convenience. Thanks.
THEE: U.S. population to hit 300-million mark Last Update: 10/16/2006
United Press International
The population of the United States will hit the 300-million mark
at about 7:46 a.m. EDT Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau said.
The milestone has been watched for some time but Thursday the
bureau established when it will be achieved.
The Census Bureau reached the 300-million figure by calculating
there is one birth in the country every 7 seconds, 1 death every
13 seconds and 1 addition to the United States through
immigration every 13 seconds. That means the U.S. population
increases by 1 person every 11 seconds.
The U.S. population hit 100 million in 1915 and 200 million in
1967. The country's first census -- in 1790 -- set the number of
residents at 3,929,214.
ME: 1/7 - 1/13 + 1/13 = 1/11 ???? Apparently immigration should
be + 1/31
THEE: A note about your multiplication table.
I just wanted to let you know there's a small error in your
multiplication table. It states 7x7=63 where it should be 61.
Just though you might want to know.
ME: Thanks for looking that closely - I'm honored! And you
apparently did it without seeing my challenge just below the
table, where I wrote:
"Figuring that everybody would give that one glance and surf off
into the wild blue yonder, I planted an error or so to snag a few
visitors into taking a closer look."
I planted another error that's much easier to spot. You got the
hard one.
THEE: Re: LOC Guitar music...
Thank you very much for detailed istructions.
I understand perfectly it took you a lot of time to setup this
activity just for guitar's love! So I bless you.
It takes me some time also to read/understand all, but I see all
make sense for me.
My delay in replying You is due to the fact that I asked one of
my closest friend, in case he need something. I am still waiting
for his reply. His wife had a new baby very recently, so he's
very busy now :-)) This is for making a bigger order.
Some of my main interest are for music by Antonio Dominici (e.g.
Italienisch Fantaisie) and other Italians.
Your page rextst.htm has strange links with "\" instead of slash
"/", nothing can be downloaded: e.g.
http://www.dcguitar.net/donaldsauter/Carcassi\Carcassi_Op36_William-Tell.pdf
About REX, I recently had troubles in locating the server, I
cannot find the download anymore. The page listed by Coldwell at
this url: http://icoldwell.com/robert/music/library/denmark.html
is http://rex.kb.dk/ALEPH/-/start/MUS01_RBS doesn't exist any
more !!
I can go here https://rex.kb.dk/ but I found nothing to download.
I have just my old copies of some pieces/manuscript.
ME:
>It takes me some time also to read/understand all, but I see all
make sense for me.
I apologize for it being so complicated. The problem is that it
takes too much work to count up the pages and figure out the
postage in advance, so we have to guess, and I tell you the final
cost when you get the music.
>Some of my main interest are for music by Antonio Dominici (e.g.
Italienisch Fantaisie) and other Italians.
Are you saying Dominici is a guitar composer? I'm not familiar
with the name. (I haven't done a web search.)
>Your page rextst.htm has strange links with "\" instead of slash
"/", nothing can be downloaded: e.g.
http://www.dcguitar.net/donaldsauter/Carcassi\Carcassi_Op36_William-Tell.pdf
Again, I apologize for the confusion. Those links work on my own
hard drive on my own computer. I put the page up on the web in
the hopes that other guitarists would join together in a project
to fix the the links to connect them to the correct REX pages. I
was not successful in creating any interest in this. I thought
maybe anyone who was interested in the guitar music on REX would
use the more sophisticated interface created by Robert Coldwell.
>About REX, I recently had troubles in locating the server, I
cannot find the download anymore. The page listed by Coldwell at
this url: http://icoldwell.com/robert/music/library/denmark.html
is http://rex.kb.dk/ALEPH/-/start/MUS01_RBS doesn't exist any
more !!
>I can go here https://rex.kb.dk/ but I found nothing to
download. I have just my old copies of some pieces/manuscript.
I remember REX being a little difficult to use. I haven't tried
in a long time, so I'm afraid I don't know what the situation is
now.
>My delay in replying You is due to the fact that I asked one of
my closest friend, in case he need something. I am still waiting
for his reply. His wife had a new baby very recently, so he's
very busy now :-)) This is for making a bigger order.
There is no hurry - take your time!
THEE: Thanks for responding Don.
I have been playing concert guitar for years and have quickly
grown bored of the standard music being played by everyone.
fortunately I found myself very interested in opera arrangements
and learned of mertz's compositions. I found your site when
searching on the net. Your site stated that there is 33 operas
Mertz wrote compositions around. I am interested in all of them.
I have inclued the following list from your site. Hopefully this
is correct for your information.
Mertz: PORTEFEUILLE fu"r Guitarre-Spieler
1 Mertz op16/Flotow/ Martha
2 Mertz op17/Balfe/ Die Zigeunerin
3 Mertz op21/Meyerbeer/ Der Prophet
4 Mertz op22/Abt/ Agathe
4 Mertz op22/Schubert/ Lob der thra"nen
5 Mertz op24/Proch/ Glockento"ne
5 Mertz op24/Lindpaintner/Die Fahnenwacht
6 Mertz op27?/Donizetti/ Linda di chamounix
7 Mertz op28/Mozart/ Don juan fantaisie
8 Mertz op29/Flotow/ Alessandro Stradella fantaisie
9 Mertz op30/Donizetti/ Belisar fantaisie
10 Mertz op31/Auber/ Des Teufels antheil fantaisie
11 Mertz op34/Proch/ Das Blu"mlein
12 Mertz op35/Bellini/ Die Nachtwandlerin
13 Mertz op62/Verdi/ Nabucco
14 Mertz op63/Verdi/ Rigoletto
15 Mertz op85/Nicolai/ Die Lustigen weiber von windsor
16 Mertz op86/Verdi/ Il Trovatore
17 Mertz op87/Donizetti/ La Favorita
18 Mertz op88// Russisches zigeunerlied Chant bohemien
18 Mertz op88// Thu"ringer volkslied Mertz: 15 OPERN-
REVUE
Here is another statement I found concerning another provider.
REX includes the entire Opern Revue opus 8, all 33 opera
fantasies.
Can I get all 33 opera fantasies?
The site caculates each work to be from 6 to 15 pages.
I'll pay whatever
ME: I'd be glad to copy the Portefuille set for you. How about,
just for practice, sending your order in the format I suggested,
including mailing address, etc. It'd be nice to know the system
works for when I get future inquiries.
I only have two or three of the Opern-Revues, and they're in
oddball American editions. Maybe the best way for you to go is
to get that complete set off of REX?
THEE: Subject: Yob!
Good talking to you on Saturday.
I did something unusual that evening. I tripped on the
stairs and broke my darn foot. It's not a bad break, they tell
me, but it hurts and I'm now wearing a removable cast-type
thingie. It's supposed to take six to eight weeks to heal.
The other day was Jessica St. George's 60th birthday and I
noted this to my buddy Ben and Andre the DJ.
Who's Jessica St. George, Don?
C'mon!
She's Miss February 1965.
This led to a discussion of the Betales [honest typo!--I'm
leaving it] in "Yobyalp." I directed the folks to the definitive
site on that topic. Here's Andre's first response:
Damn, that is a great site. Thanks!!!
Don't thank me, Andre.
ME: Sorry about the foot. Does that get you off painting? I.e.,
does it move Dover up or back?
Thanks for passing on Andre's nice comment. I've been going
through a bad spell feeling like my site is virtually unfindable
nowadays, crushed under 4 billion tons of web junkmail. For
instance, remember when googling "opera records" brought up my
page at no. 4? Now it's fallen off the charts - can't find it
anywhere.
Recent research:
Read a story tonight in "My Bookhouse, vol. 1, In the Nursery"
(1920) with the phrase "here, there and everywhere."
In Mark Twain's "Library of Humor" (1888) I noted "summersets" in
stories by two different authors. How come it's not good enough
for modern dictionaries?
Still savoring the Damon Runyon theater, and will be for a long
time. Listened to Sense of Humor tonight. A few seconds in, I
remembered it as his only unpleasant story and the radio version
didn't change that.
THEE: Re: A note about your multiplication table.
Your right in saying I didn't see the 8 in the table or the note
about you putting in a error or so to snag a few visitors into
taking a closer look. I guess next time I will have to look a
little closer lol.
ME: No, I wouldn't have any suggestions on how to track the Aria
Senza Voce albums down. I know I'd like to have a complete set
myself - and there's no way I'd miss those distinctive green and
gold covers flipping through old records!
THEE: Subject: kumon
Don't know how I stumbled across your stuff but interesting
reading. I see your point but how can you argue with the growth
and success of Kumon? That is the obvious question. Perhaps
some modification.
I have three kids all in Kumon and it does fill the gaps. I do
think it can somehow be combined with current levels too but
mastery builds self confidence.
I know from doing my own spreadsheets that redundancy is the key
to memorization. This is true with virtually anything: skiing,
math, science, whatever.
ME: Thanks for your thoughts on Kumon. I hope I didn't make it
sound like I think Kumon is valueless. I do know it to be very
unpleasant for the students. I believe it could be 100 times
more beneficial *and*, at the same time, 100 times more enjoyable
for the students. I believe if Kumon could take a look at what
it's doing with a fresh mind, rather than worshipping at the feet
of its founder, Toru Kumon, it could make something so good it
would put public schools out of business.
Regarding the "growth and success of Kumon", I know their
intensive advertising campaign of the last couple of years has
been a complete flop. In a communication to the instructors they
admitted, "Kumon's ALS (average length of stay) and retention
declined last year (2004) despite the big campaign."
When I came on board 3 years ago, they had something like 140000
students. (One child taking both math and reading counts as 2
students.) Now they're up to 200000 students. But that's
because they've blanketed the country with new Kumon centers
since then, AND students are now taking the Reading subject
(which is pretty good) as well, AND they've pushed into the pre-K
market. Everything's relative, but given all that, and the
relative inexpensiveness of Kumon, and the population of this
country, 200000 students sounds pretty pathetic to me.
I'm curious how far your three kids will get beyond the
arithmetic levels of Kumon.
THEE: Yes, my foot probably did get me out of painting. It's
certainly gotten me out of yardwork and dog-walking.
I do not think that the foot would delay a trip to Douvres--it
may only limit the number of times I want to get up and walk over
to the buffet. Let me check that calendar!
I drove to work this morning because the doctor doesn't want me
walking the half to three-quarters of a mile from the Metro stop.
Even hobbling out of the parking garage takes a lot of effort. I
listened to some old-time radio on the drive in. What does one
need to know about "Naughty Marietta"?
In another old-time radio show, a dramatization of "Brave New
World," I heard the expected "feelies" references, but I also
heard a character exclaim, "Everybody's happy nowadays!" I'm
almost certain that would be where the Buzzcocks got the title
for their chart-topper.
Re: Jessica St. George. I recall that her feature was titled
"Greek Bearing Gifts." We loved that. If she really turned 60
last week, she'd have been 18, going on 19, at the time her
photos were taken. Do we believe that?
ME: i'm falling in love with some one (not jessica)
>What does one need to know about "Naughty Marietta"?
One needs to know that I have a lovely boxed set published by The
Smithsonian Collection. This lovely boxed set has a lovely 24
page booklet. The lovely 24-page booklet has neither the words
to the songs nor the spoken dialog (which is not on the records.)
In fact here's what I wrote to you in Mar 2002:
I went online tonight to find the libretto (book?) to
Victor Herbert's Naughty Marietta. That's one I bought
from Saturday's sale (2 bits), but in spite of a 24-page
booklet, there's no libretto. Couldn't find one online,
which is par for me in general, and par for me and online
libretti.
One needs to know that the Smithsonian album makes the surprising
claim: "This album marks the first complete recording not only of
Naughty Marietta but of any Herbert score..."
One needs to know that some of the music is really pretty nice -
not a given in the field of American "operetta". Italian Street
Song uses a device that is familiar to American operetta, and
which I wish real opera would lower itself to now and then. The
whole cast is singing up a storm, and then the soprano takes off
soaring above everybody with an independent line. It's so
*gear*.
One needs to know that at the Library of Congress, if you call up
orchestral arrangements of works by Herbert you will get dozens
of boxes - but the one for "N" is missing. Note that this would
also cover his real opera, Natoma.
One needs to know that Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life is track 4, side
2, record 7 of the 10-record set, "The Famous Choraliers and the
Longines Symphonette In The World's Most Honored Songs".
Actually, one can forget that now that it's album 7, track 8 on
my mp3 disc.
One needs to read an eyewitness account of a Naughty Marietta
performance, this from my internet friend from Jul 2001:
Naughty Marietta was delightful. There's something about soldiers dressed
in buckskin comin' through the forest singin' "opera" . . . somethin'
ludicrous . . . and really fun. Marietta's poor disguise as a gypsy boy
was a hoot, as was the exaggerated reaction when the Louisianans discovered
that their esteemed French governor was the nefarious pirate Bras Picque.
And the overture was terrific. I kept wondering if it was WC's
orchestration but never had a chance to ask.
WC is her great-grandfather William Christopher O'Hare.
One needs to know cusb-cyl1948d.mp3, but not too bad.
One needs to know that I remember thinking when I was listening
to Naughty Marietta that it's plot is very similar to a more
famous opera or operetta, but I can't think of what I was
thinking of right now, so forget it.
THEE: Re: NPR.org - Uncovering the True History of the Funerary
Violin
'Just in time for Halloween. Perhaps this can be an outlet for
the "starving musician". Very interesting.
ME: ah sweet mystery of death
If you all-things-consider everyday, you already know this. It's
the typical unbelievably worthless fare - except the musical
selections are just as unbelievably life-changing. Start with
the 1913 recording.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6202644&sc=emaf
ME: What a wonderful collection you have. I have a lot of my
mother's old Operatic and classical LPs and some 45s and 78s.
Maybe I have something you might need - who knows.
May I have a mailing address for thee as well? I'd love to send
you my "The World's Favorite Cluckoratura Arias" CD as an additional
thank you. Please check my website and see if you think you can
stand it - www.orrielsmith.com (Certainly would add variety to your
Operatic collection!)
ME: I'm disappointed with the recording, but I hope it's good
enough to serve its purpose. I knew that one of my Aria Senza
Voce records had been abused by its previous owner, and it turned
out to be the Lyric Soprano one - lucky you. :( The owner must
have "cleaned" it with some sort of goop that dried to a sort of
insoluble, sticky residue.
I made 2 discs, one which is straight and unaltered from the
record, and the second where I applied "light" hiss removal and
"very mild" click removal. (This was in a sound editing program
called Goldwave.) To my ears, the noise reduction sounds heavy-
handed, leaving the music dull-sounding. But maybe the
brightness of the original is an artifact of the background hiss
and swish.
Anyhow, don't let all this scare you off; one or the other or
both might do just fine. And you might know somebody with sound
editing experience who could take the straight recording and very
quickly and easily remove just the right amount of noise.
I have to chuckle at some of the notes I wrote when I first got
the record. I thought "senza voce" meant I was adding another
"opera without words" record to my collection, where they used a
viola or something instead of a singer. So, for instance, I
noted: "5. Micaela's Air - seems to leave out most of the
melody!", and "4. In quella trine morbide - is this complete???"
I took the liberty of dubbing in a "Si" at 1:54 in track 9, but,
lucky for you, the sound editor mistook my voice for hiss and
took it out again. [joke. the track is Mi chiamo Mimi.]
Now, under the circumstances, I sure don't deserve/ a
Cluckoratura cd, BUT, I can promise I'd get as big a kick out of
it as anybody anywhere. Here's an album made by my guitar trio
to help balance the trade, ha ha. Actually, in spite of us being
amateur guitarists, the music sounds pretty good, I think. I
left all of our modern headbangers off this one.
ME: Here's the whole 12-record set with the Tirindelli "Reverie".
You'll see he is in great company. The sound quality you hear is
exactly what's on the records. It's obviously very poor compared
to recordings of our time, and even compared to recordings of its
time (I'm guessing late 1950s.) But it really isn't unenjoyable
if you just listen to the music.
I also thought you might like the actual record that has Reverie
on it as a representative souvenir of the 12-record set. I had
to gouge out the hole so I could reposition the disc since the
grooves were off-center on this particular disc.
I'd also like you to have a guitar trio cd with me and two guitar
friends as a token of my appreciation for the Tirindelli/Toffoli
cd you sent me. I really enjoy it!
ME: I'm behind, as usual, but thought I send you a link before it
grows cold. Had to think of you and G~~ when I read this
editorial in the local paper. (I can never fill in the funny
blank: "And New York _______ly abstains.") It's always been on
my mind that I need to see 1776 somehow. Definitely sounds like
it imparts more American history than 12 years of public school.
[dead link to Don Flood editorial in the Dover Post]
In going through Twain's Library of Humor for taping the words I
had to look up, I saw lots of little marks noting things I wish I
could share with somebody. I'll limit myself to this one
fantastic rhyme in Darius Green And His Flying Machine referring
to a bumble bee's wings:
Ain't my business
Importanter'n his'n is?
Read a poem in "My Bookhouse - In the Nursery" called "The Elf
And The Dormouse". After all these decades I finally looked up
dormouse. I mean, why bother, when it's obviously some sort of
mouse (that lives near the door?), or, more likely, an exact
synonym for mouse. Whoops. The Old World's got the dangdest
animals. (Did you know the robin redbreast in all those old
stories and poems is hardly related to our robin?) Anyhow, the
American Heritage gives the plural implicitly as dormouses, which
I think is mighty cool. But my encyclopedia referred to dormice
throughout - no fun at all.
THEE: Subject: order of guitar music
I am interesting in the following work
==WOO 70 HUMMEL : Concertante Duet en Pot-pourri==
17 pages
I am OK to pay 20 USD (minimum fee) I use Paypal and am ready to
pay upon arrival of the music My name and adress:
Didier TALPAIN Institut Francais de Bratislava Sedlarska 7
812-83 Bratislava SLOVAKIA
Thanks for all and bravo !
ME: Thanks for your clear order. I'm sorry you didn't ask for
another piece or two for your $20. My paypal name is
"donaldsauter".
Enjoy!
THEE: Fw: john the man
I forwarded your note to G~~. Here's her reply:
----- Original Message -----
Subject: john the man
=) Erica, one of the "new" archivists, had 1776 as her computer
desktop awhile ago. When I saw it, I pointed and exclaimed
"That's the best!!"
Donald has to see it or at least listen to the soundtrack.
Signing off now, courteously, G~~
ME: How's about the following Saturday? You can figure I'm more
flexible than you so the best thing is probably for you to
suggest a day. Doesn't even have to be a Saturday. I was
thinking we could make a goal to keep it from dragging on. How
about having it done by February, which is Black History Month?
THEE: Re: mertz sheet music
Is there any chance I could contact you by phone. I have
questions about contacting REX.
ME: Sure, you may call. To be honest, I don't have any good
advice on getting at REX. I remember following Robert Coldwell's
instructions, and the steps weren't too obvious. Someone emailed
recently and told me that some REX and/or Coldwell pages are not
found. I don't know how correct that is. I thought Robert
Coldwell worked up a supposedly user-friendly interface to get
the guitar music off of REX. I never used it.
If you're interested in the Portefuille hard copies, I count up
18 works at 8 pages apiece = 145 pages. At $.22 per page, since
they're all together, that's $31.90, which includes postage.
That's about $1.77 per 8-page piece.
Let me know if that sounds good.
THEE: In Reference To The May 1954 Article About Ray Bradbury &
Fahrenheit 45
Hello, I'm currently in the midst of writing an essay on
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and would like to use the following
quote:
"I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or
five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one
night, a husband and a wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood
staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one
hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna
quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a
dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious
to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-
opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband
who might as well not have been there. This was not fiction. This
was a new fact in our changing society. As you can see, I must
start writing very fast indeed about our future world in order to
stand still."
The only problem is that I'm required to give the name of the
article that it was taken from. I'm terribly sorry to ask, it's
only that I cannot find any other archive of this sort. If you
happen to know the name of the article, or section, and could
pass it on to me, I would be extremely grateful.
ME: Thanks for finding my page and writing. The quote wasn't
taken from an article, per se. It was taken from the section at
the beginning of the magazine called Contents:Playbill. I've
forgotten the exact format of that section, whether "Playbill"
was a subsection within something larger called "Contents", say.
In any case, "Playbill" was an introductory section which gave an
overview of what you'll find in that edition, and the entire
quote, starting with "This issue..." was taken from Playbill. I
don't have access to the magazines, so I can't take a quick look
at how Playbill fit in with Contents. Maybe the modern magazines
retain the exact same format.
If you think you need permission to use the quote, you would have
to contact Playboy.
I hope this helps.
ME: Again, to get rolling on the Portefuille, the way to go is to
follow the instructions I sent. It would help me to know that
they work, and to iron out any bugs in them. Thanks.
THEE: RE: Aria Senza Voce
Just to let you know, I received your package. My friend Ward
and I are always trying to get better on the guitar. We were
very impressed with your trio and the selections. It's a lovely
CD. Thanx so much! I've been trying to conquer "Recuerdos de la
Alhambra" for about 40 years. Groan. So I finally decided in
frustration to sing it. I'll include a rough mix CD.
I'll play with the two Senza's and see what might work, and send
off the Cluckoratura tomorrow.
Cluckingly yours, Orriel.
THEE: Subject: Paris, and Dover
A~~ is probably correct in thinking I shouldn't undertake any
long car rides until my foot is a little better. I hope you
don't mind if I push back picking a date for a trip to Douvres
until after I see the doctor on Nov. 7. He'll let me know how
the healing is progressing then.
I recently received a compilation (on two DVDs because of their
storage capacity) in a trade of what is purportedly EVERY Apple
single, released and unreleased. Apparently, the set comes from
Belmo originally. It will equal 16 "regular" CDs after I've
worked some magic. I hope you're ready.
Say, you once told me that the Paris Sisters inspired the
Beatles. It had something to do with their lisp, but I don't
remember any more than that. Can you refresh my memory?
ME: By all means, get your foot healed up.
You're ahead of me on the Paris Sisters - I feel like I had never
heard of them. But it is their song "I love how you love me"
that Lewisohn credits for all the "zh" sounds in Beatle vocals.
Actually he only mentioned one example (which isn't jumping to
mind right now) but I think I've snagged 6 or more in their opera
(plural for works.)
http://www.lyricz.net/P/Paris+Sisters/73243/
>It will equal 16 "regular" CDs after I've worked some magic. I
hope you're ready.
I'm much more ready for 2 mp3 discs.
THEE: Can you answer a question about Family Feud
I am wondering if you can clear up a question with regard to the
standard rules of Family Feud?
If the team who gets control of the round by answering the first
question correctly and with the most point value, decides to pass
the question to the other team and that team cannot get all the
answers before they get three strikes, who wins the round?
Thank you for any help you can give me on this question.
ME: The information you supply is not enough to know who gets the
points for that round. Whenever the team that "plays" does not
run the board, so to speak, and get *all* of the survey
responses, the other team then gets a chance to steal all the
points away by guessing *any* one of the responses still
concealed on the board.
If the team who gets control of the round decides to "pass", they
are effectively saying, "We don't think we're good enough to run
the board, but we think we can get one of the leftovers."
Hope that answers your question.
ME: I got your message. It's easy to find that a hummingbird
generally lays 2 eggs at a time. It's harder to find out how
often they lay eggs. It seems that most hummingbirds die in
their first year, but if they survive that they live to about 3
or 4 years old. Type "hummingbird" into Google and see if you
can find a better answer.
ME: FURNACE: Is a heat pump the way to go? I insist that
whatever heating system is installed, it must be QUIET. I want
control over the fan speed.
HOT WATER: I need to understand my options: tank or tankless
system? Or point of use hot water heaters at each fixture? I am
a very LOW LEVEL hot water user. I turn on hot water less than
twice a day, the first time (for shaving) for just a few cupfuls.
If a hot water heater is the way to go, I want it located in my
utility area (near the furnace) where it will be closer to all my
hot water usage.
Would one point-of-use hot water heater serve both the washer and
the bathtub, which are on opposite sides of a wall?
I want out of service plumbing under the house removed. The
fewer pipes, the less chance of broken pipes.
Should this job be coordinated with closing off obsolete vents in
my ceiling and roof? I count up about 6 vents I will no longer
need:
1. from water heater
2. from furnace
3. plumbing vent out of guest bathroom
4. fan in guest bathroom
5. fan over stove (or maybe fan into attic)
6. fan over master bathroom (or maybe fan into attic)
THEE: The only "zh" I can think of in the Beatles oeuvre is
"shweeter than wine."
I had to go cover a meeting in Georgetown today and even
though I took a cab for the eight-block journey, what little
walking I did hurt me bleedin' foot. This stinks!
ME: Subject: anybody read The God Delusion?
Does Dawkins get around to explaining the difference between "GOD
did it", and "NATURE did it", besides spelling, I mean?
ME: Don't know if I mentioned my ISP has not been letting me online
for the last week and a half or so. Have no idea how to resolve
the problem in this day of zero personal attention. Anyhow,
that's part of the excuse for going light on email.
Sorry about the goofs in the review. Gives me the nudge to pass
on the Meet Your Neighbor feature I mentioned - in all it's
glorious embarrassment. The second time around they actually
sent me the set up copy for my approval. They had introduced 10
or more errors, which I told them about. I've never seen the
final article, figuring that it's better not to know. I figure
they didn't correct the errors, or introduced 10 times 10 errors
in doing so. Not really a big deal. I appreciate them giving me
the opportunity to talk to a state's worth of people. So far, I
haven't observed too many of my ideas being implemented, but you
gotta do what you gotta do.
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/meet.htm
ME: I recently whipped up a cd of miscellaneous things for my
guitar friend Norm. The idea was, it was for him alone, not mass
distribution. But there might be a thing or two on there that
others might find fun. In any case, you could monitor every
radio station on the dial for a year and maybe hear one piece on
the cd. Want a copy? I figure it's safer to ask, since even
though it's just an audio post card that anybody can skip through
and throw out, it can terrorize a busy person if it arrives out
of the blue.
I got another email from the cluckoratura lady recently. She
needed a hard-to-find recording in my collection. I said, sure,
I'd make a cd of it. She said she'd send me her chicken cd,
which I know I'll get a big kick out of. It might be in my
mailbox now. At the same time I sent a copy of the guitar trio
cd, and she was very impressed by that. Apparently, she's been
playing the guitar, or trying to, for 40 years. Said she gave up
on one of the warhorses in our repertoire, Tarrega's Recuerdos de
la Alhambra, and decided to sing it instead. Hmmm, it's just
occurring to me that that's not so unusual; Nana Mouskouri and
others have recorded it.
THEE: Re: won't you be my . . .
Like you said in your Meet Your Neighbor notes, a few years ago,
even science fiction wouldn't have imagined the world we live in.
Heck, I recall watching TV as a kid (probably Captain Video) and
seeing machines with push-buttons that allowed people to get food
out of them. Impossible, my brother and I thought!
>I've never seen the final article, figuring that it's better not
to know.
Yup, that's a lesson I'm learning. If it's something I wrote,
such as an article, I generally don't read the published copy,
figuring they can't have done anything too bad to it. I skimmed
that JopFest review just to see if I'd made the cut and was
horrified by what I read.
>So far, I haven't observed too many of my ideas being
implemented, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
As long as it doesn't include kickin' houn' dawgs, I'm with you.
Thanks for the link, which I read in full. You'll never get me
to change to base 8, though.
THEE:
>Hmmm, it's just occurring to me that that's not so unusual; Nana
Mouskouri and others have recorded it.
But I bet Nana Mouskouri didn't cluck it!
THEE: alternative views...
Hello;
I just came across your website today and found it very
refreshing, and I thought you might enjoy something in mine....
www.cosmologyawakening.com...which is a little on the radical
side.
Thanks and best wishes, Matthew Watts
ME: Thanks for visiting, and the kind words. The web has gotten
so big and commercial, it's hard to imagine how anybody can find
a personal site anymore. Will definitely look into your
radicalness.
ME: Nov 4 sounds great to me. Here's the address we'll be
shooting for on our first session, no matter when.
74 Old Mill Bottom Road North Annapolis, MD 21401 (410) 757-2222
super8.com
THEE: Subject: Your webpage
Hi! I didn't get to read everything - I focused on your Kumon
Center experience. I know you are telling the truth because my
kids are in Kumon and I even attempted to become a Kumon
instructor myself. I don't have time right now to tell you about
that. However, I can tell you are a caring, sensitive person.
What Kumon management doesn't realize is that the mentoring is a
very important part of the entire experience. I want my children
to connect with someone who will encourage them to reach for the
stars and be everything they can be. So far, Kumon has been very
helpful. This goes along with what you said in your blog. My
daughter is in 5th grade and is finishing up level D and moving
to E. This has been great for her, because she's started to have
a self-image of herself as a "math whiz." My son, who has a
physical handicap and is chronically ill, is a bit further
behind. However, his daily Kumon work is really helping him,
too. He was much more discouraged, so getting him to the "math
whiz" stage of self-confidence will take longer. However, I'm
proud to say that his Kumon instructor is continually bright and
encouraging. She's not a surface person, she's genuinely kind
and just is herself - which I consider the highest compliment I
can give a person.
Reading your blog has given me food for thought. I'll read it
again soon, I'm sure. Thank you for publishing. One more thing -
If I were East Coast Manager of Kumon, I would have kept you on
or perhaps put you into a management position. I would have
utilized your criticisms in a positive way, searching for ways to
make the method (and company) a better one. I would have put you
head to head with someone who wanted status quo in a
professional, high-school debate type method. For example,
"Resolved: Kumon instructors cannot do their own worksheets."
Or, "Resolved: Kumon Level __blank__ is not: (a) broken down
sufficiently; (b) well connected to surrounding material; (c)
suffiently enlightening, etc. You and your opponent would both
have to argue both sides and the result would be very
enlightening.
However, Kumon is what it is. Limited, yes. But the positives
are there. Start the child with easy to master material, and
gradually move upward. Give them the chance to drill and
practice. Get them into the habit of daily study. My son's
middle school teacher throws difficult new material at him, gives
him about 5-6 problems to practice with, doesn't even check his
work to see that he's actually "getting it." And then gives him
tests and makes sure to write, in red, "D" "E" or "F" in great
big red letters. And that's what's happening, he's racking up
flunking grades. Yet, when the material is presented to him in a
sane, sensible way, he does great with it. Guess where his self-
esteem is?
ME:
>One more thing - If I were East Coast Manager of Kumon, I would
have kept you on or perhaps put you into a management position.
They could have had me for minimum wage, part-time, no benefits.
I agree there are benefits to Kumon, but I suspect they are
confined, in math, to the lowest levels. I'm curious how your
daughter will feel about it when she gets out of arithmetic into
mathematics. Let me know!
THEE:
>Going through the English fairy tales really has me missing
good ol' Harry. I'd have a list of words and expressions and
characters a mile long to ask him about.
Yeah, I bet. A British dictionary would help with words, but
probably not with expressions. Maybe I can find out what you
need to do to access the Oxford English Dictionary online
THEE: Piano & Guitar music
Thank you very much for your web pages about piano & guitar music
in the Library of Congress. I spent many happy hours exploring
the collection there years ago, and I left with as many
photocopies as I could, but I knew there was much more than what
I had seen.
I am interested in purchasing quite a few of your 'restored'
pieces, but before I go and make a firm order, I'd like to ask if
any of your material is in digital format (such as PDF), and
could be either emailed, or sent on a CD. My reasons for asking
this are twofold. First of all, I'm in the UK, and it would be
costly to send hundreds of pages to me. Secondly, I work for
music publishers, and my life is more than filled with papers of
every description, and I prefer to keep digital files of as much
as I can and only print things as and when I need them. (I've
become quite comfortable sight-reading off a computer screen,
too.)
I am not looking for a discount; your price of $.24 per page is
more than reasonable for the work you have done. I'm just trying
to save you the hassle of posting the pages, and to save paper.
Please let me know what you think. Whatever your decision, I
will certainly make a first order of around 180 pages.
ME: Thanks for asking about the gtr & pf music. I'm glad you're
flexible regarding paper vs. digits because paper is all I can
offer. I don't know how other people do it, but for me to
digitize those pages one by one, somehow store it all, and email
them off is hardly imaginable. Others have asked the same
question and my jokey - but not so jokey - response is, digital
copies cost $100 per page. Who knows, maybe some people aren't
concerned about a $99.76 per page service charge. (I lose more
customers that way!) It sounds like you might have been a good
prospect for my offer of shooting double-sided copies and even
binding the guitar and piano parts in two, nice matched booklets,
but that offer is expired. Look on the bright side, 180 pages is
only a stack of paper 1.8 cm high, AND you can run it through a
copier yourself in seconds to create a performance copy. Try
that with digits!
Looking forward to helping you fill out your collection. Don't
let my goofing around scare *you* off!
ME: I got the cds - they're great! I laughed all the way through
Cluckoratura, and haven't stopped since. On a more sober note,
it gave me the nudge to study up on Dinorah and see how the
Shadow Song fits in. I have synopses of the opera in about 10
books, and 6 other versions of the Shadow Song in my collection.
You win! (Well, you share top honors with Selma Kurz, who is
unbelievable in a more conventional way.) By the way, have you
heard Maria Galvany's Queen of the Night on the UCSB cylinder
site? I don't have a precise link but after googling "ucsb" and
"cylinder", this info should help get you there: the title is "Il
flauto magico. Aria della Regina [Zauberflo"te. selections]".
The actual file name is cusb-cyl2353d.mp3 . I think searching on
2353 might do it. Even though she doesn't nail all the top
notes, you won't be disappointed!
The Ghosts of the Alhambra came just in the nick of time. While
waiting for a little friend to go trick or treating with in
Dover's most upscale neighborhood, I had it playing at a goodly
volume in my car with the windows down while all the halloweeners
passed by. So you're being played coast to coast!
ME: I stumbled on the solution to my ISP problem - they changed
all the phone numbers, in Delaware if not all over. No mention
of that on their web site, and I didn't get a notice.
Had a great Halloween. I probably mentioned last year that Mizan
won 1st place for the Mexican costume with the humongous guitar,
and that I was bummed that the paper didn't have photogs there.
I figured correctly that Mizan would trick or treat Joe's house
this year, and she was a good sport about putting on the costume
one more time. I should get some photos this time.
Halloween was a blast in Joe's neighborhood. Joe invites
everybody in for cupcakes, cookies, and cider, and has a
"halloween garden" with little moving characters. The other
residents went all out, with zombie butlers, brewing cauldrons,
cobwebbed doors, flying bats, a wolf who comes to the door in Red
Riding Hood's granny's dress with a big axe, etc. etc. Mizan was
scared to death, and Krystal got a heart attack from the butler.
Twice, even. After we had moved on halfway up the block, I swear
he appeared out of nowhere behind us. I had just looked down the
sidewalk seconds before.
The day before I got the cds from Orriel, the chicken lady. I
haven't stopped laughing since. The bonus cd was very timely.
No, she didn't cluck Recuerdos de la Alhambre - the two vocalized
guitar pieces were done ghostly. In fact, she named the 2-song
cd, "Ghosts from the Alhambre". (The other song is usually
called Romanza and is probably the most-played piece of budding
classical guitarists the world over.) So I got good use out of
that waiting for Krystal and Mizan in Joe's neighborhood, playing
it at a goodly volume in my car with the windows down while all
the halloweeners passed by.
>Thanks for the link, which I read in full. You'll never get me
to change to base 8, though.
Yeah, yeah, and you were one of those people who kicked and
screamed at the demise of cuneiform writing on clay tablets.
After all, it worked perfectly fine for 3000 years. But look at
you now, peckin' away at a computer. And don't ever let me catch
you talking about halves, quarters, etc., of anything, like
inches, cups, miles, hours, etc. etc.
I set a record this year, not finding out about the clock change
until the middle of Monday.
ME: serendipity
I stumbled on the solution to my ISP problem - they changed all
the phone numbers, in Delaware if not all over. No mention of
that on their web site, and I didn't get a notice. No technical
assistance means no technical assistance.
Found out accidentally yesterday that I don't have to finalize
cds to read them into my computer. Man, that saves a lot of time
and bother. I almost feel like I'm doing something illegal.
ME: Hey, I didn't know Sunday was an option, but that works fine
for me.
Here's your assignment: get the opera versions of the first 5
pieces fixed in your brain, and then play through both parts of
each piece once a day between now and Sunday. (Not that you need
any of that!)
Do you need a wire music stand? I'll buy one if necessary.
ME: Here's a checklist to make sure we don't make the trip for
nothing. Can you think of anything I'm forgetting?
You:
6 bound books of JH duos - three each, primo and secondo No. 13
(Norma no. 1) on separate pages all cds (three?) with operatic
versions two guitars music stand footstool earphones
Me:
tape deck (maybe two?) bunch of blank tapes two mics two mic
holders (clamp onto music stand post) music - my batch of
performance copies opera libretti (probably not needed, but can't
hurt) music stand footstool tuner metronome office supplies -
fine pen, whiteout, pens, erasers, paper, etc. guitar (just in
case) capo earphone jack adaptor earphone jack splitter for two
sets, if I find one
Both: prepared for Nos. 10, 13, 14, 15, 17.
Destination: super8.com
74 Old Mill Bottom Road North Annapolis, MD 21401 (410) 757-2222
THEE: Re: serendipity
Wow, I live for setting my clock back an hour. Sunday was so
great.
I haven't tried the non-finalizing trick. I'm happy just to
finalize. It seems not to slow me down too much.
THEE: Re: NPR.org - Uncovering the True History of the
Funerary Violin
What I wanna know is how anyone has the imagination to fake all
of this and make a living at it to boot.
THEE: Subject: Kumon in general
I think there is frustration with the frustration that we often
feel is the difference between what the Kumon student is working
on and the current classroom work level. I know each franchise
has their "business model" that you are supposed to follow. I am
wondering if you can "Modify" the model a little and combine some
things or "skip" some levels.
For example, the article makes a great point about numbers here,
"Neither are "fact families" recognized. Kumon is "old-
fashioned", and that has a certain attraction, but I'd like to
think that fact families are not some flaky, modern concept. In
the Kumon worksheets there is no connecting of 4+3=7 with 3+4=7
and 7-3=4 and 7-4=3. That's four math facts for the price of one!
I would also argue that as soon as a student with number sense
learns 4+3=7 he's ready for 14+3=17 and 54+3=57 and 40+30=70 and
2004+3=2007 and 942+30=972 and
4,000,000,000,000+3,000,000,000,000=7,000,000,000,000. Four plus
three is seven whenever they're in the same place - isn't that
neat? But there are no lessons like this in Kumon. In Kumon,
big numbers are rarer than hen's teeth. In my experience, kids
love big numbers. Giving an answer in the trillions, quadrillions
and quintillions is a blast and makes a kid feel real smart, and
justifiably so. Just playing around with big numbers is a fun
and easy way to a solid number sense.
With Kailey and Nikki they have a pretty good grasp with addition
and subtraction. What do think the result would be if you move
Kailey to multiplication and fractions? I fully understand you
must build a "base", but why not try to modify the Kumon method?
My intent is not to go against the Kumon method but perhaps it
can be modified. I own a Franchise too, "Help U Sell" and they
have a business model just as all franchises do. Most things
though are not black and white and can be modified slightly
utilizing the underlying principles to produce better results.
THEE: Subject: Roger, Marietta, and me
Well, I mean, I knew all that about "Naughty M." Really, what I
needed to know was whether you needed a radio rarity from it. I
believe the answer is yes!
In other news, I attach a photo of Roger Daltrey. I hope this
doesn't take you too long to download. It's a still from the
official DVD of the Who's Sept. 12 concert in Philadelphia.
Cast your eye to the extreme lower right corner. Regard the
tall, bald fellow. That's our pal M~~. His wife C~~, in red,
stands two places to his right and who's that between 'em,
partially blocked by a mic stand? Why, it's your obd't servant!
It's my best likeness.
(See attached file: Roger and me.jpg)
ME: Great photo, congratulations! Shime about the mic stand;
guess that knocks the stuffins out of your royalties. I'll take
your word for it that Roger's somewhere behind the old stagehand
in the blue tee shirt. [joke. that's roger.]
In honor of your Who experience, I read a story the same day with
the word "trews". It was a big day in pop music for me; later I
read a story with the word "plasticine".
THEE: Roger's getting by. He looks and sounds fairly good for
age 62.
There may be better stills of me on that DVD. I just haven't
looked yet. I like that one, however.
Remind me of the word "trews." I feel I should know it.
THEE: Subject: Glow Girl
Of course! I was thinking it was in a Beatles song.
THEE: Subject: Fermi Paradox
Just read your article concerning writings about the fermi
paradox. It occurs to me that one explanation that continually
gets overlooked is this. Accidental self annihilation. Here are
my axioms:-
1. Yes ther are other civilisations. Although conditions for the
emergence of life( and the sustainability for the length of time
needed for an intelligent species to evolve and develope into a
sophisticated civilization) may be rare, with 100,000,000,000
star systems in the galaxy, I'd say it is a given that
civilizations exist. And thats just one galaxy.
2. Any intelligent life outside the solar system, would be driven
by the same forces of natural selection that exist here on earth.
the nature of DNA is such that the first and second most
important drives are that of self preservation and procreation.
Any species not adhering to these prime driving forces will be
come extinct.(see Darwin etc.)
3. As we become more intelligent we overcome the evolutionarry
forces that have driven us thusfar. The quest for knowledge is
more dynamic than the evolutionary forces governing our
developement. See what happened to the Curies. "Oh radium, a new
material, it glows in the dark, thats interesting, lets see what
else it can do, oh shit i've got cancer". The whole history of
science is littered with mistakes where someone trying to further
the human race just causes a new headache for everyone. DDT,
gunpowder, nuclear fall out and the like.
4. To get a spacecraft to travel the vast distances between the
stars in a timescale that would make it worth it, some major
science will be needed. I'm talking controling dark matter, the
generation of artificial black holes and the like.
5. given human history and the current ethos of we will try
anything even if we havent a clue of the consequences. I'm
talking the LHC and other modern day projects. Is it not likely
that before we travel to alpa centauri we are going to blow up
the world.
6. Any other of the millions of civilization s that exist or have
existed, will go through the same processes as ours and that is
why none have ever made it to our planet.
It seems good logic to me. What do you think? Am i mad. Please
share my thoughts with others. 'cause it seems to me that six
billion people are happily cruising along through life without an
inkeling of what may be about to happen.
ME: Thanks a million for writing - I don't get too many comments
on my pages, and even less on my older ones.
I'm certainly no more of an authority on this subject than you or
anyone else, but it seems to me you base your argument on *all*
civilizations out there thinking and behaving and falling into
the same traps as us. And even that assumes that it is
impossible that the human race will come to its senses before it
wipes itself out. Yes, it doesn't seem likely, but impossible is
a pretty strong word.
Responding to one specific axiom, no. 4, I point out that humans
already have spacecraft flying between the stars - and that was
not even a conscious goal of the project! Now if you can imagine
immortal races (I can), or suspended animation (bears are good at
that), or races with no notion of boredom (or a good supply of
pleasure drugs) - bingo! you've got interstellar travel!
And even supposing I'm oversimplifying, and there is, in fact, no
further scientific breakthrough to be had regarding space travel,
there is still the question of why no one has communicated with
us. That would be a cinch, relatively speaking.
I really don't think I'm just being hard headed; I honestly have
never heard an argument from anyone that has made me stop for a
moment and think, yes, that limitation would surely apply to
*every* advanced race that develops.
THEE: Subject: Your Recommendations for Guitar/Piano Music
Donald, Amazing website! I'm a pianist/piano teacher and don't
know anything about guitar/piano duets. Are there any particular
pieces listed from your website that you recommend? I'm an
accomplished pianist, but I'm looking for something that wouldn't
require a large time investment on my part but is still
enjoyable. I have a neighbor who plays guitar - I was thrilled
to find that there is quite a bit of guitar/piano music!
ME: Thanks for visiting, and for writing. To be honest, I have a
general phobia about making recommendations of anything - that's
usually the kiss of death! I'm even more chicken regarding music
recommendations. I don't pretend there are any undiscovered
Beethovens in there. Me, personally, I had a great time with
*all* of the pieces (except Giuliani's Variations et Polonoise,
which is an exercise in frustration for a guitarist of my
caliber.) I think you should have your neighbor look the list
over - he might have favorite guitar composers. Also, at a
couple o' bucks per, the pieces are priced for throwing caution
to the wind!
THEE: i'm re-organizing all my mozart piano concertos/sonatas...
and, well, i know what the K numbers mean, but on a good deal of
these sonatas, there are additional numbers/letters that i have
no clue about. for example, Piano Sonata No.5 - K283 (189h) -
what's that last part mean? any help would be awesome!! thanks
ME: I'm afraid I can't help too much. I remember looking at a
book of Koechel nos. at the Library of Congress and feeling
somewhat confused by it all. The book was in German, for one
thing. I think that some of the numbers changed in various
editions. Mozart's Musikalisches Wuerfelspiel, for example, had
an appended "f" - K516f. I'm looking at the Mozart entry in the
1935 Grove's, and I don't see any instances of a second number
following in parentheses.
This is just a shot in the dark guess, but maybe it has to do
with a new number being assigned to the piece; K189h became K283?
I see a bunch references to "K189H/283" on the web. That's in G
major, right? It looks like K189 is a sonata in C major. In my
old Grove's, the lowest K no. for his piano sonatas is 279.
I just did another search. Check this site out:
http://www.oocities.org/Vienna/Strasse/1025/1771to1775.html
It lists K1 and K6 numbers, which makes me think again there's a
new and old system. Good luck confirming the real truth!
THEE: Re: spooks i guess
>The other residents went all out, with zombie butlers, brewing
cauldrons, cobwebbed doors, flying bats, a wolf who comes to the
door in Red Riding Hood's granny's dress with a big axe, etc.
etc. Mizan was scared to death, and Krystal got a heart attack
from the butler. Twice, even. After we had moved on halfway up
the block, I swear he appeared out of nowhere behind us. I had
just looked down the sidewalk seconds before.
Wow, this sounds impressive--more like a spook house than a
neighborhood. Also, most people today wouldn't let their kids
enter a house for food for fear of the person whose house it was
or of poison. Oh, what the world has come to.
>>Thanks for the link, which I read in full. You'll never get me
to change to base 8, though.
>Yeah, yeah, and you were one of those people who kicked and
screamed at the demise of cuneiform writing on clay tablets.
After all, it worked perfectly fine for 3000 years! But look at
you now, peckin' away at a computer. And don't ever let me catch
you talking about halves, quarters, etc., of anything, like
inches, cups, miles, hours, etc. etc.
Hey, they work. I reckon I could survive a shift to metrics to
come into conformity with much of the world . . . if it ever
comes to that, but unless the whole world is gonna be consistent,
what's the point? [my point was that halves and quarters are
base 8.]
>I set a record this year, not finding out about the clock change
until the middle of Monday.
Whenever I can gain an hour, I don't miss the opportunity!
"Happy Birthday, Norm!" is in the front seat of my car, waiting
for tomorrow's drive.
ME: A short one, while I'm right on line, so as not to let the
backlog grow out of control.
Thanks for the Halloween card. It was a scream.
>Also, most people today wouldn't let their kids enter a house
for food for fear of the person whose house it was or of poison.
Oh, what the world has come to.
Keep in mind that Dover is maybe a little behind modern,
mainstream America. Also, people here would probably trust Joe
above the mayor.
>If you get photos, they would be fun to see.
Haven't gotten them yet, which worries me a little. I was told
emailing them off was as simple as a click.
>"Happy Birthday, Norm!" is in the front seat of my car,
Would you give Norm a call for me? He hasn't listened to it yet
- and his commute is probably twice yours. Never mind that he
doesn't do anything with his free time at home. He hasn't
listened to the previous one either.
>>And don't ever let me catch you talking about halves, quarters,
etc., of anything, like inches, cups, miles, hours, etc. etc.
>Hey, they work.
Of course, they work! - that's the point! Halves of halves of .
. . is the only way that works! That's why we need base 8!
(Had enough "!"s yet?!!) By the way, making a big to-do out of
my base 8 proposal is sort of tongue-in-cheeky. I know it's a
toughy. On the other hand, the other 3 proposals made at the
same time - a system of natural units, streamlined scientific
notation, and universal second language - could be implemented
tomorrow with no disruption to things as they currently are.
>unless the whold world is gonna be consistent, what's the point?
What's the problem? If it's a U.S. idea we can bomb the rest of
the world into compliance.
Started a guitar recording project with my friend Bob yesterday.
Since we live so far apart I came up with the idea of renting a
centralized motel room as a studio. That was in the Annapolis
area. Of course, you'll get a copy of the final product. But
don't start holding your breath quite yet.
ME: take 3
I've put another copy of the Lyric Soprano album in the mail - I
hope it's not too late. I'm pretty sure it sounds better than
the first two, although whether that's good enough, I don't know.
This time I gave it a shot of WD-40 (which had no effect, it
turned out) and applied a mild click-pop remover in the sound
editing program. Hope it works better for you.
THEE: I'd send you a couple of the latest pics from Tallahassee.
I'm not happy about the scooter, but they needed a second set of
wheels now that Meredith has landed a job in the International
Center at Florida State. Of course, scooters are a way of life in
Italy.
ME: Week of Thanksgiving sounds great. How about Monday, Nov 20?
Here's the revised current assignment:
3Fra Diavolo
11Masaniello
12Oberon
17Sonnambula
19Favorite
You also have another assignment: teach me how to get a fat, rich
sound, or at least fatter and richer. Until then, I have to keep
completely to Secondo. Besides that, our recordings sound
*great* - much better than the trios.
THEE: Subject: New Physics Paradigm
I thought you might be interested in a new paradigm that I've
developed which overthrows many of the theories of physics, and
integrates science.
You can find it at
http://members.westnet.com.au/paradigm/essay1.pdf
ME: tha dachshund sonc
Amazing find! Did some website have a reasonbly accurate text
version in the background? My second search, on "dawg" turned up
this:
JME: Hardly after getting into my car, these words came to me:
Carthage
Punic Wars
Hamilcar
I did two Google searches:
"light bulb went off" 73,000 hits
"light bulb went on" 53,100 hits
I doubt too many people even stumbled a second over it. Now if I
said, "light bulbs going out" . . .
Found no evidence of legal action regarding Sam I Am soundtrack.
ME: I just took a quick glance at Meet Your Neighbor. They did
not reinstate my funniest line -
"(It sure beats that mug shot over there.)"
That's it, I'm not looking any further.
No thank you note for Beth.
THEE:
>>I get so many miscellaneous O'Hare notices in my e-mail that I
nearly ignored this one when I noticed it was a 1939 issue of
Etude. Couldn't be anything interesting . . .
>Neat catch. Am I to take this at face value, that an O'Hare
mention in an old Etude magazine is usually old-hat for you?
No, no, no. Most of the O'Hare notices I receive have nothing
to do with W.C. even when they come from the ebay musical
instruments category, which includes sheet music. Initially, I
was surprised at all the other O'Hares, the most common of which
are the boy singer (Master Joe O'Hare) and the band leader, Husk
O'Hare. I figured 1939 Etude would have nothing to do with W.C.
Fortunately, my curiosity won out. WC woulda been 72 in 1939.
Pretty neat that he made it into Etude at that time.
>What's wrong with a scooter? *Coconut*, on the other hand . . .
Nothing really wrong with a scooter other than the danger factor
in heavy traffic. As an M.A. student in Iowa, I had a boyfriend
for a few months, a math grad student, with only a motorcycle.
Since I had no car either, that was our transportation, and it
was great fun. But I was young and reckless back then, I guess,
and we were in a town of only 25,000. The kids aren't the
worriers, but the moms are.
And what's wrong with coconut? It's a food of the gods . . .
right up there with ambrosia and manna.
Speaking of birthdays, I discovered a new type of birthday candle
today. The ones that re-light used to be fun but are old now.
These are curvy-shaped, fat ones with colored flames. In fact,
the various candles have different colored flames. The birthday
party was a surprise for our campus provost, planned by her
daughter who is a student in our vet. tech program. I was
expecting to hear that she found the candles at a party supply
store or some such specialty shop, and I asked. "I got them at
Wal-Mart," she replied. She had also bought a box that included
several dozen balloons and a sufficient amount of helium to
inflate them--at Wal-Mart, of course. Between the balloons, the
cake, the 6-foot sub sandwich, pizza, and punch, we had quite a
lunch-time bash. Btw, if you ever have a cause to buy birthday
candles, these come in a black box. I plan to get some and stash
them away until needed.
ME: to:President@AmericanLiteracy.com
Dear American Literacy Council,
I believe efforts to "correct" the spelling of English words are
misguided. I believe all that effort should be put into the
creation of Universal Second Language. I make my points in a
very short web page:
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/usl.htm
Thanks for your time and attention!
THEE: Re: spelling reform
Thanks. I like the idea of a universal language. Esperanto is not
very good -- to many needless grammatical rules and inflections.
(English does fine without them, showing them to be needless
wastes of time.) Interlingua was much better, and Ogden's Basic
was promising. A woman at Columbia had Small English, which may
have been better, but I've never been able to find out much.
English is great on grammar, but makes up for it thru the
terrible spelling; hence our interest in fixing that.
The most interesting book I found on all this was The Loom of
Language, by Bodner I think. Jumps around a bit but has lots of
fascinating material. I think you'd like it.
PS Here is my old web page, poorly maintained but with links to
my Ogden pages. If a link doesn't work, try to edit out the
diac.com part -- thet was the old ISP.
http://www.ententetranslator.com/btrspl.html
Here is the Kids' page, with a link to the poem The Chaos (link
doesn't work but just scroll down to it. It tells what others
*really* think of our spelling.
http://www.ententetranslator.com/spkids.htm
ME: food fight
>And what's wrong with coconut? It's a food of the gods . . .
right up there with ambrosia and manna.
Of all the foods that people split people into two camps, coconut
intrigues me the most. I often get the impression that coconut
lovers aren't even aware that there are coconut haters, but I
wonder if maybe we're the majority. I remember an airline meal
once where the dessert looked exactly like some nice cinnamon-
apple cake. Almost always, anything with coconut has the tell-
tale scary rough and scratchy look that fits its taste and
texture so perfectly. But this didn't. So I took an
unsuspecting bite - the first and last. Talk about a major
disappointment! And then I did an experiment. I craned my head
this way and that to get glimpses of as many meal trays as I
could - and every single one had a dessert sitting there with
exactly one little corner bit off.
I suggested to the spelling reform group, the American Literacy
Council, that they might sink their efforts into a universal
second language. The prez sent a nice reply and invited me to
this site.
I had heard of Ogden's Basic English, but had no idea he had it
pared down to 850 words. I was curious about their spelling
programs and downloaded the smallest one. Might as well start
getting used to it:
Of al th foods that peple split peple into two camps,
coconut intrigues me th most. I ofn get th impression
that coconut lovers aren't even aware that ther ar
coconut haters, but I wondr if maybe we'r th majority.
This one has a tiny dictionary, which is why it lets crazy things
like "intrigue" and "impression" by.
THEE: Re: food fight
>Of all the foods that people split people into two camps,
coconut intrigues me the most. I often get the impression that
coconut lovers aren't even aware that there are coconut haters,
but I wonder if maybe we're the majority. I remember an airline
meal once where the dessert looked exactly like some nice
cinnamon-apple cake. Almost always, anything with coconut has
the tell-tale, scary rough and scratchy look that fits its taste
and texture so perfectly. But this didn't. So I took an
unsuspecting bite - the first and last. Talk about a major
disappointment! And then I did an experiment. I craned my head
this way and that to get glimpses of as many meal trays as I
could - and every single one had a dessert sitting there with
exactly one little corner bitten off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. When the kids used to be home, it was
three to one. Only Meghan hated coconut. As a kid, though, I
didn't have a family member who disliked coconut--parents, my
brother and me, my grandparents, and all other relatives in town
(which, admittedly, numbered exactly three that we ever ate
with)--all numbered among the pro-coconut political contingent.
Now raisins . . . they're another matter. I like them plain, but
that's 'bout it. I~~ and E~~ don't touch them if they can help
it. R~~ chokes them down in panettone.
>I had heard of Ogden's Basic English, but had no idea he had it
pared down to 850 words.
A good kettle of fish . . .
And what's this guy doing suggesting the addition of alcohol,
beer, vodka, whisky . . . algebra, arithmetic, geometry,
mathematics, physics . . . and opera . . . BUT no amontillado
and no zwieback, no accordian and no zydeco? Not to mention (?)
no dawg and no possum.
Zounds! A person can be awake but can't be asleep. A person can
sneeze or cough, but can't burp or hiccough. We can have a sun,
but it can neither rise nor set. We can have an Earth (if this
abomination permits capital letters) but it can neither rotate
nor revolve. Ogden's 850 Basic English words are certainly for
the birds, but they aren't for the albatross, the buzzard, the
canary, the dove, the eagle, the flamingo, the grouse, the heron,
the ibis, the jay, the kiwi, the lame duck, the magpie, the
nightingale, the ostrich, the peacock, the quail, the roadrunner,
the scissortail flycatcher, the toucan, the Ulan Bator zsu, the
vulture, the whipporwill, the xanthus-bellied poppycock, the
yellowhammer, or the zebra finch.
>I was curious about their spelling programs and downloaded the
smallest one. Might as well start getting used to it:
> Of al th foods that peple split peple into two camps,
> coconut intrigues me th most. I ofn get th impression
> that coconut lovers aren't even aware that ther ar
> coconut haters, but I wondr if maybe we'r th majority.
Ogden wuz a kuku--nutz to 'im!
ME: researcher blues
>>Of all the foods that people split people into two camps,
Now if that line doesn't give an indication of my stop-and-start
writing "abilities". . . Probably saw it dozens of times before
sending it off, but didn't notice until it came back. How many
lashes with a wet noodle is that worth for your kiddies?
>Ogden's 850 Basic English words are certainly for the birds, but
they aren't for the albatross, the buzzard, the canary, the dove,
the eagle, the flamingo, the grouse, the heron, the ibis, the
jay, the kiwi, the lame duck, the magpie, the nightingale, the
ostrich, the peacock, the quail, the roadrunner, the scissortail
flycatcher, the toucan, the Ulan Bator zsu, the vulture, the
whipporwill, the xanthus-bellied poppycock, the yellowhammer, or
the zebra finch.
Can you write a paragraph like that off the top of your head?
I'm afraid to ask.
Hmmm, after writing that, it think I see a fiddle on. I'll bet
in Ogden's Basic, those are just bird1 thru bird26.
>Ogden wuz a kuku--nutz to 'im!
Hey don't bite the messenger's head off! If it works, it works,
what can I say? Anyhow, I wrote them guys to tell 'em to lay off
English.
>Now raisins . . . they're another matter.
You've mentioned that before. I had figured most people didn't
have strong feelings one way or the other about raisins. I mean,
I've never heard of anybody picking around them in all the
cereals and cookies that have them. On the other hand, I've
never heard anybody go bonkers over Raisin Bran, for example,
although that could be easily explained by all the cardboard
flakes between the raisins. I know Raisinets are the butt of
jokes, but I didn't know it would kill anybody to eat one.
I'm the opposite of you in that I find raisins are great
"enhancers", but borderline unpleasant to eat plain. I find them
too potent somehow; they zap the tongue. They are the only food
that I can think of that is truly "too sweet". People say that
all the time about things that are not too sweet at all, but I
think that's to sound superior. ("Sweet is for kids.") I would
put plain raisins at about 10 times as sweet as straight sugar.
For me, an oatmeal cookie or a cinnamon bun without raisins is
about as attractive as bread and butter without the butter
(harking back to when butter had flavor, I mean.) Again, I don't
view raisins as splitting humans into two subspecies, but I feel
like there must be others in my camp. I can think of several
times in my life when the subject of "all-time best candy" came
up, and there was always someone (not me) to put in a plug for
Chunkie. Nobody says, "Hershey bar", and nobody says, "raisins",
but put 'em together - and pow-ee!
Got a box of books at the auction today for $2. There was an old
one that split itself between Pinocchio and the largest
collection of Aesop fables I have in one place now. I got a
2-volume "Dictionary-Catalogue Of Operas and Operettas which have
been performed on the public stage". The work was completed in
1910, when the total only ran to 28,015. Thought you might be
moved by this paragraph in the Prefatory:
There are many hundreds of operas and operettas, besides the 28,015
mentioned in this catalogue, which are omitted because they have not been
so "performed on the public stage," wherever else thay may have been given.
It would doubtless be interesting enough to have this additional list
carefully compiled and made public. So far, however, as the undersigned
is concrned, this undertaking must be left to other, and younger hands.
The sixteen long, and weary years of close and unremitting application
which have been brought to bear on the present compilation, have amply
sufficed to give the compiler all the information he will ever desire
to have in this world, concerning oeratic nomenclature.
In his Valedictory at the end of volume 2, he writes:
Warned by unmistakable symptoms of both nervous prostration and
blindness, I had, unfortunately, to abandon the final revision of
this book, as it came from the printer's hands, at page thirty-eight.
I feel so bad; this guy sacrificed himself for *me*! It's
already answered a question for me, the correct name of a Liszt
opera I had never heard of mentioned in another book I got today,
"Metropolitan Opera Annals". This one catalogs every performance
from the beginning, in 1885, up through 1947 (in 750 pages.)
What makes it really interesting is a generous helping of
newspaper reviews of the operas throuhout the years. While I'm
killing time trying to get sleepy so's I can go to bed, here's an
extract or two I came across while working the book into my
database.
About "Phoebus and Pan" by J.S. Bach, which was a big surprise to
me, but turned out to be a beefed up staging of a secular
oratorio:
"Sir Thomas was his effulgent self and save for some weird
moments among the woodwinds the instrumentalists played beautifully
for him." [New York Sun]
"The best features of it were (a) the music, (b) the performance -
with the exception of some strident hysterics among the brasses . . .
The singing, or most of it, was in style, one supposes. There was
nothing furiously exciting about it, at any rate."
[New York World-Telegram]
About the young Rosa Ponselle in a 1918 Oberon:
"Her scale is seamless, so equal are her tones from top
to bottom. Her personality is pleasing, her acting immature.
"She was a buxom, well-proportioned figure, and in Turkish trousers
she was fascinating..."
Um, I guess I'll stop there.
THEE: A Joe Pope (of Strawberryfields Magazine fame) story.....
I just stumbled on your website and found it most interesting.
I was amused to find you had contact with a Joe Pope of SFF
magazine fame. Here is a Joe Pope story: While a student at
Boston University, I would spend my summers in Boston working at
a men's clothing store. In the summer of '79, one customer was an
"aging hippie" whom I made small talk with. He carried a small
black brief case which he opened to show me a copy of SFF and a
45 disc on the Epic Record label. There was a picture (in color)
of the Beatles circa 1962 dressed as court jesters. Mr. Pope
introduced himself (and one can never forget a name like "Joe
Pope") and explained to me of his magazine, as his love for
everything and anything dealing with the Fab Four. He was amazed
by my knowledge of them as well. Concerning the 45, he explained
that it was a 1962 demo of a song never released by the Beatles
(though I can't remember its name) that caused Epic to turn down
the greatest rock group in history. They went to Capitol Records
with another 45 which, lucky for Capitol, was accepted. The rest
is history as they say.
I did not realize it at the time, but came to realize it several
years later, the Mr. Pope was one of the top Beatles authorities.
I have not heard or seen him since, but the memory has stayed
with me all these years. And I'm smiling as I share this with a
stranger who I think might be interested.
Keep up the good work.
ME: Thanks a million for writing and sharing your Joe Pope
encounter! I don't know if my web page made it clear, but Joe
died of cancer some years ago - a very sad occasion for many,
many people who never met him, even.
I did a quick web search, and on one shot ("deccagone") came up
with a page that shows the record Joe pulled out of his case that
day:
http://www.jpgr.co.uk/pro1100.html
You have a *very* good memory!
ME: Here's a voice from out of the past. We crossed paths via
the Washington Guitar Society a few years ago. Any chance you
still have the cd of guitar duets I recorded with a former buddy?
It was a set of arrangements of "Scraps from the Opera" by 19th
C. black American guitarist Justin Holland. They came out
dreadful sounding. Unfortunately, though, it was my only copy.
I know how unlikely this would be for the average person, but I'm
guessing you're much more organized. I'd be glad to reimburse
you for your trouble and mailing costs. Thanks for your help.
THEE: Re: researcher blues
>>>Of all the foods that people split people into two camps,
>Now if that line doesn't give an indication of my stop-and-start
writing "abilities". . .
Hey, you're forgetting all the typos you catch in my writing.
>>whipporwill, the xanthus-bellied poppycock, the yellowhammer,
or the zebra finch.
>Can you write a paragraph like that off the top of your head?
I'm afraid to ask.
Sure. Couldn't you?
>>Ogden wuz a kuku--nutz to 'im!
If I had to write my book, or even a handout for my students,
with only those 850 words, I'd be finger-tied.
>>Now raisins . . . they're another matter. I know Raisinets are
the butt of jokes, but I didn't know it would kill anybody to eat
one.
My family will pick the raisins out of cookies and raisin bread,
and we never by Raisin Bran. As for any chocolate-covered
raisin, what a waist of good chocolate.
>I would put plain raisins at about 10 times as sweet as straight
sugar.
Strange. I can't say that I've eaten plain raisins for years
since I never buy the things due to family animosity toward them.
But I used to like them when I was a kid. Of course, I used to
like sugar cubes and sure wouldn't eat one today. On the other
hand, when I was a kid, I could eat one of those mammoth dill
pickles or a straight slice of lemon and like it. No more. On
the other hand I hated canteloupe but now like it.
>For me, an oatmeal cookie or a cinnamon bun without raisins is
about as attractive as bread and butter without the butter
(harking back to when butter had flavor, I mean.)
Oatmeal cookies are ok with raisins if only a couple of 'em per
cookie. As for cinnamon buns, you've obviously never eaten mine.
Why spoil 'em with raisins when you can use pecans or walnuts
instead? These are a holiday morning special here.
>Got a box of books at the auction today for $2. There was an
old one that split itself between Pinocchio and the largest
collection of Aesop fables I have in one place now. I got a 2-
volume "Dictionary-Catalogue Of Operas and Operettas which have
been performed on the public stage". The work was completed in
1910, when the total only ran to 28,015. Thought you might be
moved by this paragraph in the Prefatory:
> There are many hundreds of operas and operettas, besides the
28,015 mentioned in this catalogue, which are omitted because
they have not been so "performed on the public stage," wherever
else thay may have been given. It would doubtless be interesting
enough to have this additional list carefully compiled and made
public. So far, however, as the undersigned is concerned, this
undertaking must be left to other, and younger hands. The
sixteen long, and weary years of close and unremitting
application which have been brought to bear on the present
compilation, have amply sufficed to give the compiler all the
information he will ever desire to have in this world, concerning
operatic nomenclature.
Nobody writes like that today, but I understand the writer's
feelings. A person could spend 16 years on the project only to
have more show up each year. At what point would one decide to
quit? I guess when that "amply suffice to give the compiler all
the information he will ever desire to have in this world" state
is reached.
>About the young Rosa Ponselle in a 1918 Oberon:
> "Her scale is seamless, so equal are her tones from top
> to bottom. Her personality is pleasing, her acting immature.
> "She was a buxom, well-proportioned figure, and in Turkish trousers
> she was fascinating..."
>Um, I guess I'll stop there.
What was I saying about nobody writing like that anymore? Sounds
like many laughs in store along with all the information. Next
time I'm out your way, you've gotta take me to an auction or two.
Btw, have you discovered these one yet?
http://classicreader.com/booktoc.php/bookid.1028/
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/George_MacDonald/The_Princess_and_Curdie/
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=macdonald&book=curdie&story=_contents
http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/
And, no, I haven't read them.
Now I challenge you to find the Ulan Bator zsu and the xanthus-
bellied poppycock.
ME:
>Btw, have you discovered these one yet?
>http://classicreader.com/booktoc.php/bookid.1028/
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/George_MacDonald/The_Princess_and_Curdie/
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=macdonald&book=curdie&story=_contents
http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/
Thanks for doing the legwork. No, I hadn't taken "Curdie" to the
web yet. I guess my tape failed to give a hint of how
indescribably more fun and rich it was to actually ask a nutty
Brit. Funny thing is, this second time around, hearing the
Curdie bits on my tapes, there was a much stronger nagging
feeling that I should know him. It seemed like I had crossed
paths with Curdie, something more than the discussion with Harry
masquerading as a memory of reading about Curdie somewhere.
Within seconds of clicking on the first link above, it hit me -
Kumon used an extract from "The Princess and the Goblin" by
George MacDonald. It wasn't burned in strongly because I had
only done that 10-page assignment once, and none of my students
took Kumon that far in reading. The other reason for not
remembering it well is that it was one of Kumon's infuriating
extracts that dumps the reader off in the middle of something
that requires a mighty struggle to make any sense of. I fear you
might be the last person on earth to have any difficulty with the
following, but I assure you that this opening would make even the
brightest 5th-grader, working under a timer, writhe with
frustration:
Nothing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed
them, or even known they had gone out; and they arrived
at the door belonging to their part of the house without
anyone seeing them. The nurse was rushing in with a hurried
and not over-gracious good night to Curdie; but the princess pulled
her hand from hers, and was just throwing her arms round
Curdie's neck, when she caught her again and dragged her away.
'Lootie! Lootie! I promised a kiss,' cried Irene. . .
It probably took me the next page and a half, and a half hour, to
match up characters with the pronouns, or even figure out whether
the nurse was rushing in from the outside with the rest of the
"they", or already home (whose?) rushing in from some other part
of the house.
I had even gone to the trouble to write up a little intro for
students getting to that assignment. Again, you can be sure I
was the only Kumon instructor on earth to do such a thing.
EI 91a. This is what is going on at the beginning
of the excerpt from "The Princess and the Goblin":
There are three characters:
Irene - a princess
Curdie - a miner boy and Irene's friend
Lootie - Irene's nurse
All three arive at Irene's home. Lootie, the nurse,
apparently went out and found Irene and Curdie.
Lootie drags Irene by the hand into the "part of the
house" where Irene and Lootie live. At the same
time, Lootie sends Curdie on his way home.
Clear as mud, huh? See, even with the benefit of stewing over
it, I wasn't sure exactly what was going on.
This is all in chapter 6, The Little Miner, where Curdie is
introduced. A funny little coincidence is the title of the
previous chapter, The Princess Lets Well Alone. "Letting well
alone" is something Harry said frequently. I don't know how that
strikes you, but, being thoroughly used to "leaving well *enough*
alone", it always sounded chopped and hacked the way Harry said
it. (Another botched sentence; you can work "it" out.)
>Now I challenge you to find the Ulan Bator zsu and the xanthus-
bellied poppycock.
I'm so ashamed; I've failed again! A simple google search on
combos of "ulan bator", "zsu", "bird" and/or "birds" didn't turn
up anything relevant. Dunno where you got yer list of birds,
from Alpha to Omaha (as Mark Twain would say.)
>> The sixteen long, and weary years of close and unremitting application
>> which have been brought to bear on the present compilation, have amply
>> sufficed to give the compiler all the information he will ever desire
>> to have in this world, concerning operatic nomenclature.
>Nobody writes like that today, but I understand the writer's
feelings.
So it would be safe for you to reuse? All you'll have to do is
change "operatic" to "cawnine". (And "he" to "um", of course.)
THEE: Just wanted to thank you for saving an old record of mine
that I could not find to buy and have now transferred to CD
thanks to your article on scratches. I usually don't write this
sort ot stuff but I really appreciated the thoroughness and tone
of your little piece and just thought I'd let you know how
refreshing it was to see this good advice of yours high up among
all the crap/business links "solutions". Good to see a nice
attitude out there. You can have my 2 cents. Thanks
ME: You're very welcome. Nice to hear back from a visitor -
rarely happens anymore now that the web is so huge and
commercial. Thank you!
ME: to PeterKentConsulting
I know you can't respond to personal emails, and certainly not
for free. My No. 1 question is, might you respond to questions
about "Search Engine Optimization For Dummies" that are of
general interest and put the questions and answers on the book's
web page?
My No. 2 question: I've been going through the first and
2nd edition simultaneously (to get feel for how things are
changing) and have gotten through about Chapter 5 - and still
haven't figured out whether it even applies to me or not. You
talk about web sites; I think in terms of web pages. My site has
pages that (I feel) should rank high in searches on justice,
democracy, education, evolution, fermi paradox, kumon, beatles,
classical guitar, scrabble, opera records, croquet, dreams, etc.,
etc. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Do I have to split myself
into dozens of single-page sites to get good ranks for them?
My No. 3 question: You take for granted that we all start by
registering a domain name (p92). What about somebody like me,
who has simply used a geocities address for the last 10 years?
Do I really need my own www.donaldsauter.com? Will that put me
back in the sandbox for the next year? (I know you don't believe
it works like that.)
I also have the complication of two forms my address:
http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/index.html
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/index.html
I see now that the search engines view them separately - and not
consistently. How does one fix a mess like that up?
My No. 4 question: What I'm gathering from your books is that
actual clicks from a google search results page, for example,
play no part in a page's rank??? I had been taking it for
granted that this is what *boosted* a page's rank. If my current
understanding is correct, it would help people with my
misunderstanding to state it explicitly somewhere.
I have a "kumon" page which makes it up into the teens (I suppose
after a googlebot visit), and then dives down into the 100s - and
it is a total impossibility that more people are clicking on the
boring and irrelevant pages around and below mine. What person
searching on "kumon" could resist the lure of "Kumon - the good,
the bad, and the ugly; Kumon center locations."?
Anyhow, thanks for considering my idea in question No. 1. Don't
know whether to continue to plow through the books until then.
THEE: Re: mysteries solved and not
>>Btw, have you discovered these one yet?
>>http://classicreader.com/booktoc.php/bookid.1028/
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/George_MacDonald/The_Princess_and_Curdie/
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=macdonald&book=curdie&story=_contents
http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/
>Thanks for doing the legwork. No, I hadn't taken "Curdie" to
the web yet. I guess my tape failed to give a hint of how
indescribably more fun and rich it was to actually ask a nutty
Brit.
Bound to be better than the web. But I figured checking the web
would suffice to prove I listened to your CD, even the parts I
was instructed to skip. That tactic never did work on me.
> Nothing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed
> them, or even known they had gone out; and they arrived
> at the door belonging to their part of the house without
> anyone seeing them. The nurse was rushing in with a hurried
> and not over-gracious good night to Curdie; but the princess pulled
> her hand from hers, and was just throwing her arms round
> Curdie's neck, when she caught her again and dragged her away.
> 'Lootie! Lootie! I promised a kiss,' cried Irene. . .
>It probably took me the next page and a half, and a half hour,
to match up characters with the pronouns, or even figure out
whether the nurse was rushing in from the outside with the rest
of the "they", or already home (whose?) rushing in from some
other part of the house.
Sheesh, Kumon should be ashamed of itself for that one. I mean
what American kid can figure that out, and if anyone could follow
it, wouldn't he or she be wondering what the heck Irene and
Curdie had been up to that might have resulted in their not
arriving home safely, which is to say in their not arriving home
at all?
By the way, if you can't find Curdie at the Dover auction, plenty
of copies are available on eBay, some of 'em are even bargain-
priced if your don't count the postage.
>I had even gone to the trouble to write up a little intro for
students getting to that assignment. Again, you can be sure I
was the only Kumon instructor on earth to do such a thing.
It would help to identify a "nurse" as being someone different
from what American kids would think, but it's probably safe to
assume you'll never use this passage now.
>This is all in chapter 6, The Little Miner, where Curdie is
introduced. A funny little coincidence is the title of the
previous chapter, The Princess Lets Well Alone. "Letting well
alone" is something Harry said frequently. I don't know how that
strikes you, but, being thoroughly used to "leaving well *enough*
alone", it always sounded chopped and hacked the way Harry said
it. (Another botched sentence; you can work "it" out.)
Hmmmm, so is our "well enough" not as good as the Brit's "well"?
To them was it fine as it was and to us is it in need of being
fixed but something we should be satisfied with despite it's not
being quite "well"? There's something to lose sleep over.
>>Now I challenge you to find the Ulan Bator zsu and the xanthus-
bellied poppycock.
>I'm so ashamed; I've failed again! A simple google search on
combos of "ulan bator", "zsu", "bird" and/or "birds" didn't turn
up anything relevant. Dunno where you got yer list of birds,
from Alpha to Omaha (as Mark Twain would say.)
Could it be, just maybe, that there's an explanation for your not
finding the Ulan Bator zsu and, if you didn't try it, for not
finding the xanthus-bellied poppycock? Of course, I assumed the
lame duck would fly . . .
>>> The sixteen long, and weary years of close and unremitting application
>>> which have been brought to bear on the present compilation, have amply
>>> sufficed to give the compiler all the information he will ever desire
>>> to have in this world, concerning operatic nomenclature.
>>Nobody writes like that today, but I understand the writer's
feelings.
ME: to alt.internet.searchengines Hello,
I've just read Peter Kent's Search Engine Optimization book. It
generally seems pretty clear - except for the things most
specifically related to my case. (Murphy's Law?)
1. About finding a hosting company, Kent says, "Don't get an
account in which you have a subdirectory of the hosting company's
domain name." Uncharacteristically, he gives absolutely no
supporting reasons. I've had a Geocities account for 10 years.
Is there any reason that will interfere my search engine
optimization? Do I really need my own domain name?
2. After being www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/ for some
years, Geocities gave us Yahoo!-based alternate names, mine being
www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/ . That seemed much neater and so
I started to use it. Now my pages appear both ways in the
various search engines. (I don't think I've seen a case of the
same web page appearing both ways in one search engine.) Is this
working against me? I presume I need to standardize all my urls
one way or the other (or get my own domain) before asking others
to link to me. If so, is one better than the other? (Is
/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/ the "real" url, and /donaldsauter/
merely some sort of pointer or "logical" name?)
3. Kent emphasizes the importance of the links between your pages
on your own site. Until now I have used the short and simple,
[A HREF="base8.htm"]Base 8 proposal[/A], for example. I see now
that, for most of my pages, Google says there are no backlinks.
Does that mean it really doesn't count the short form as a real
link? For spreading pagerank among my own pages do I need to use
the complete url, starting with http:// , on my own site?
4. Kent's book is all about single-purpose web *sites*, I have a
wide variety of unrelated web *pages*. It makes no sense to
choose one category in the Open Directory Project directory, for
example. Is there a strategy for submitting individual pages, or
collections of related pages, to appropriate categories within
such directories? If I got a bunch of new, free sites, and
created an index page in each one that linked to related pages on
my main site, could I sneak them all in OPD?
While I'm at it, I have a question about a specific page of mine.
It was called mykumon.htm and now I'm changing it to kumon.htm
(as per Peter Kent's advice). I have seen it as high as no. 18
in Google in a search on the single word "kumon". Then it
plummeted down into the 100s. Then it shot back up to no. 19.
Then it fell down into the 100s again. Since I now understand
the ratings have nothing to do with actual page visits, here is
my best guess at this wild behavior. Googlebot comes along;
recognizes what a fantastically interesting and useful page it is
based on content alone; gives it a good rating; goes on its way
to other pages containing the word "kumon" which have little
useful content but a good link from www.kumon.com, say, and
starts tossing them back above mine. Sounds crazy, I know. Any
better explanation?
Any chance Google will ever work page traffic and visitor
satisfaction into their ratings, before I sink all this effort
into diddling with links? It's not clear to me that there would
be any more trickery than with this system based on links, or
that it would be any more difficult to deal with. Wishful
thinking. . .
Thanks for your help.
THEE: subject birds, dawgs, and their cousins galore
Maybe even a monkey's uncle in there somewhere.
http://www.iupui.edu/~engwft/home.html
THEE: This is a great one! It's a modern version of Abbott and
Costello's famous baseball routine, "Who's on first?"
And, you two might love this! Did you see a recent article on
"The Emptying Oceans" (it was in our Friday's Health & Science
section of the Baltimore Sun, 11/10/06)? A researcher at
Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has said that at
the world's current (no pun intended) rate of decrease, the fish
in our oceans will disappear by the year 2048!! The world's fish
expert's name is Boris Worm....
A friend of mine and I have fun collecting interesting
names/occupations of people.
ME:
>A researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
has said that at the world's current (no pun intended) rate of
decrease, the fish in our oceans will disappear by the year
2048!!
2048??? The *true* Y2K strikes!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagghhhhhh....
Don
(P.S. or is it 2049?)
ME: Re: birds, dawgs, and (3 1/6 - 1 19/24) w (4 3/4 - 0.9).
Fun site! I have vivid memories of choosing the same scene from
the Elves and the Shoemaker to draw in 3rd grade. I remember we
were supposed to choose our favorite illustration and draw it,
and I was confused because I had some idea that "illustrate" had
meanings independent of drawing - and to actually draw the thing
myself looked to be a months job! But somehow I did. By the
way, in Grimms, they're little men, not elves per se.
I need to go back to the chapbook page to blow up some pages to
compare with versions in my collection.
Here's a column that I can't imagine you not finding humorous.
Not as much as I do, of course. The instructor was in follow-up
training with me. Guessing you already know the writer.
http://www.slate.com/id/2152480
kumon article, slate.com: Amazingly, I really didn't know
addition and subtraction of sevens and eights. I forced myself to
keep my fingers still as I figured out 8 + 3. My daughter looked
over my shoulder when I got that, then watched as I hesitated at
8 + 4. "Mom, just add 1 to 11!" she said, adding, "Mom, you're
hopeless."
A little while after that, I had my one brilliant math idea.
Coming back to Washington from New York after a Slate meeting, I
rode the train sitting next to my editor, David Plotz. At the
beginning of this project, I established that David was a math
whiz when I got him to tell me his SAT math score: a perfect 800.
On the train, as I struggled over my homework, I suddenly
realized I should make David do it. I handed him a packet, and
within minutes, he was making the same groaning noises that
emanated from my Kumon seatmates. "This is awful," he said as he
tossed his finished packet back at me. But his agony was my
ecstasy as I corrected his work and found he had gotten five
wrong out of 200. That I was getting two to three times the error
rate of a math genius made me feel wonderfully average.
David was right, Level D was awful. Since it took me several
minutes to figure out a single problem, I was now spending two
hours a night on each packet. The true misery in the Kumon method
is that once I finished a packet, I was given it to do again.
Desperate, I tried to farm out my homework. I gave my daughter a
packet, explaining it was good for her to practice her math over
the summer. She did 20 problems, then handed it back to me,
saying, "Mom, this is your responsibility!"
So, I started cheating. Sometimes I would use my calculator to
help me figure out the interim steps in a division problem.
Sometimes I would do half a packet, and if I got it 90 percent
right, I would copy down the answers for the rest. I felt no
guilt. Without this aid, I would be finishing Level D about the
same time the last Enron executive gets released from jail.
Then, at the end of July, Shah told me it was time for me to take
the placement exam again to see how far I'd progressed. With the
test in front of me, I started sweating, and my brain began
buzzing, but I forced myself to calm down and keep my fingers
still. Most of the problems seemed easy now, although I realized
all my "shortcuts" had left me weak in long division. There were
no red marks this timeI had gotten 100 percent right! This
triumph was tempered by the fact that the test was so simple it
only showed that I was capable of doing third-grade math.
ME: the math m*r*n
I laughed my head off! I was a Kumon instructor for
2 years. Your story was a lot more hilarious than mine! Hope
you can find a few moments to glance over it:
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/kumon.htm
It fits in a strange way with your story.
Thanks again!
THEE: Thank you so much for your wonderful website. My husband
plays guitar, and our son plays piano. They have been wanting to
learn some pieces together but have been unable to find ANYTHING
in the music stores in our area. I have printed out a few pieces
from your REX links and will be surprising them at Christmas! If
it is what they are looking for, I will definitely be directing
them to your page to check it out.
Thanks again for what is obviously a "labor of love" on your
part.
ME: Thank you, Maura! I hope your husband and son have a fun
time!
ME: Part of my show and tell will be what I did today with that
Beatle Bootleg mp3 disc you gave me about 12 years ago.
ME: to editor of dover post
I read and enjoyed your editorial "Reality check". Next time
you have reason to write on the same topic, I have a request.
For the benefit of people who think too little or too much (I'd
like to think the latter is my problem) could you make the
interpretation of the rankings more clear? Does "ranking 8th
among the states" mean from the "top" or the "bottom", and in
spending, which is the "top" - wanton wastefulness, or frugality?
I suppose we rank school performance from best (smart kids) to
worst, but even there, we're so conditioned to hearing about the
sad state of education, that some people might start ticking off
from the dumb kid end. For a rank of 27, I guess it doesn't
matter much which end you start from.
I *think* we're supposed to be disturbed by both statistics
separately, that Delaware is the 8th-worst cheapskate, i.e., only
7 states spend less on education (whether total or per student, I
can hardly guess), and there are 26 states cranking out smarter
kids.
If that interpretation is correct, Delaware should actually be
proud of itself. The 8th cheapest spender should be the 43rd
"best" performer (playing along with the undisputed notion that
more education dollars translate into better stuent performance),
but somehow Delaware teachers pulled us into 27th place. Maybe
school systems from around the world should take a look at
Delaware.
On the other hand, if the interpretation is that only 7 states
spend more per student, but 26 states produce smarter kids, then
there is a definite problem.
THEE: RE: the math m*r*n
Donald, I did get your story -- thanks. It was fascinating
and you absolutely hit upon what drove me crazy about Kumon. I
felt I got, as you say, brute fact drilled into me, but I learned
nothing about patterns or concepts. I know it sounds nuts that I
don't know this, but if as you point out, they had said when you
add and even number and even number you will only get an even
number, that would have helped! I was desperate for someone to
address what I was learning conceptually so I could apply number
skills to situations beyond the Kumon worksheet, but concepts
never get addressed. Hmmm, maybe I should get a math tutor and
really try to learn some math....
Emily
ME: Thanks for spending some time with my page - I know it
couldn't be accused of being "fun"! I'm honored by your visit.
THEE: Great observation!!! How could I have missed that!!!???
Damg! (That's Dang, but sounds like cursing.) Two hours after I
emailed you, I was reading my week-old Time Magazine (11/13/06)
which contained a similar article, "Oceans of Nothing", also
starring Boris Worm.
THEE: There's a new wrinkle in our plans. Last Sunday I broke by
leg! It's actually a broken fibula down by the right ankle,
compounded by a torn ligament on the left side. It's considered
an "unstable" fracture, where the bones in the foot can
permanently shift around in a bad way, so my entire leg is in a
cast up to most of my thigh!
I was sitting in the living room chair when dinner was ready. I
held out my arms for my son to help me out of the chair (He and I
do that for each other.. kind of a bonding thing...), when this
time, he yanked me too hard, lost my balance, and kicked the
music stand (breaking the bone), twisting my ankle (tearing the
ligament) as I went down.
The problem now is my doctor gave me a 3-week off work note. I
had thought it was just to allow me to work from home, and faxed
it to HR. But I have to get it changed to a "Light work" order,
otherwise I'll be on short term disability, which nobody wants.
Anyway, the bottom line is, I have to stay off my feet for 6
weeks. I'll still be off next week, if you want to come over here
for the day and record the duets. Maybe spend the night?
ME: Yowchh! Sorry about the broken leg! I sure hope it wasn't
as excruciating as it sounds. My other friend in Maryland,
D~~, broke his foot a few weeks ago, impacting his plans for a
visit out here. I sure hope I'm not the jinx.
THEE: Lighter side: I once asked you about this
Today in history:
100 years ago TODAY: Enrico Caruso is charged with an
indecent act after allegedly pinching a woman's bottom in the
monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo.
ME: Hmm, haven't heard about that crime of the century before.
Under unarchy, of course, . . .
Just finished playing cd one of two of a recent ebay win -
"Maritana" by William Vincent Wallace. You'd think following an
opera written in English, sung in English, and including an
English libretto would be a breeze to follow, or at least
*relatively* so. Nix, and nix. Some looney toon ran me up to
$33 on that one. (I needed it.) Same day I received another
ebay win, "Martha", by Friedrich von Flotow. (I know it looks
like I'm going through all 48,000 operas alphabetically.) Since
that one was written in German, I should have a fighting chance,
even without an English translation. Well, there's no English
translation in the booklet. Not much of a booklet, actually.
And this crew does it in Italian.
Heard something about Tower records filing for bankruptcy. Guess
I'm just as guilty as the ipod kids.
THEE: subject base conversions
Could you advice on the formulas or Stepps on how to convert from
one base to another?
Thanks
ME: That's a good question. When I needed to do a bunch of
conversions to and from Base 8, I realized I didn't know where to
turn and so I wrote my own program.
It's funny you should ask me right now because just today I was
reading up on Google, and it turns out they have a built in
calculator. I just tried it out after getting your message. It
looks like all it will do, though is conversions to and from base
2, 8, 10 and 16.
For example, in the Google search box, type
12 in base 8
and it gives you the answer, 0o14. The "0o" means octal. 0x
means hexadecimal, 0b means binary.
I'm seeing it's pretty limited though; it only deals with
integers. For example, it won't do, ".5 in base 8", which is .4 .
Hope that helps a little.
ME: so many books so few eyeballs
I stopped by the library today on the way to the auction to
listen to "Keep On Truckin'". What a surprise. What put you on
to that? The associated web page wouldn't fire up for me, so I
didn't get any info on the performers.
Picked up a few freebie books at the Tuesday auction from a man
who bought a whole table of things and wasn't interested in the
books.
Son of Tarzan - Intended as a giveaway, although I read the first
couple of Tarzan books 30 years ago and thought they were great.
By the third or fourth, they had slipped some, and I stopped
there.
The Fireside Book of Dog Stories - Also for giveaway. I guess I
checked this out of a library a long time ago. It has the O.
Henry story, "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog", which I read and then
heard on a books-on-tape many years later, but had no memory of
reading it until a few days later.
Elson Primary School Reader, Third Grade - Picked it up mainly
because it was old, 1912. But then I quickly saw it goes into my
collection. Lots of good folk and fairy tales, fables, legends,
etc., some familiar to me and some not. It gives authors and/or
countries of origin, and sources for copyrighted stories. So,
for example, the Russian "The Golden Fish" is a variation on the
Grimms' "The Fisherman and his Wife". A little play called "The
Simpleton" is rightly credited to the Grimms; I think it's
extracted from "The Good Bargain". I'm sure the editor was very
careful, but I've found a few oddities. How about "Brother Fox's
Tar Baby" labeled "French"? It even gives the author whose work
was adapted - Fre'de'rick Ortoli. Hmmmm. In spite of being
turned into a little play, it still sounds a lot like Uncle Remus
to me. How about, "The tar baby says nothing" at least 7 times?
And Elson gives credit for the Grimms' "The Golden Goose" to
Peter Christen Asbjo"rnsen, although I do have other
Asbjo"rnsen/Grimm/Dasent confusions in my collection.
More than you needed to know about the reader. I should have
just gotten up on my soapbox and yelled, "Why do you knuckleheads
(in primary education) think you need new textbooks every couple
of years???"
THEE: AW: base conversions
Thanks for replying.
I'm doing manual base conversions - apparently it has been
included in a Maths book which I purchased, so its practise,
practise and more practise for me.
Problem is the book didn't include any samples or examples on how
to work the problems out manually, so I've had to hunt round the
net for help.
THEE:
I thought I might have asked you about the Caruso incident. In
one of Hemingway's stories, he says that a character was reading
a newspaper about Caruso being arrested for "mashing." I knew
that mashing had something to do with bothering the ladies, but I
had no idea what exactly. Discovering yesterday's "Day in
History" factoid wrapped it up for me.
"Martha"? This has come up before. Was that the opera in
"Phantom of..."?
I was sorry to hear about Tower going belly-up; sorry because I
was unable to walk over there (because of my foot) and cackle
gleefully! Mean.
THEE: Re: so many books so few eyeballs
>Son of Tarzan - Intended as a giveaway, although I read the
first couple of Tarzan books 30 years ago and thought they were
great. By the third or fourth, they had slipped some, and I
stopped there.
I don't recall when I read the first few, but it was way after
most boys would have read them, and I don't remember any girls
doing so. I got on a kick of trying to see what I'd missed out
on all those years of reading Nancy Drew and such beginning
around 5th grade, so I picked up Treasure Island, Kidnapped,
Tarzan, and a couple others I don't recall off hand. I liked 'em
all.
>The Fireside Book of Dog Stories - Also for giveaway. I guess I
checked this out of a library a long time ago. It has the O.
Henry story, "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog", which I read and then
heard on a books-on-tape many years later, but had no memory of
reading it until a few days later.
O Henry's houn' dawg. Did you ever tell me to read that one? If
so, did I? I don't remember it, but I'm betting you can prove me
wrong by consulting your e-mail archive if you did.
>Elson Primary School Reader, Third Grade - Picked it up mainly
because it was old, 1912. But then I quickly saw it goes into my
collection. Lots of good folk and fairy tales, fables, legends,
etc., some familiar to me and some not. It gives authors and/or
countries of origin, and sources for copyrighted stories. So,
for example, the Russian "The Golden Fish" is a variation on the
Grimms' "The Fisherman and his Wife". A little play called "The
Simpleton" is rightly credited to the Grimms; I think it's
extracted from "The Good Bargain". I'm sure the editor was very
careful, but I've found a few oddities. How about "Brother Fox's
Tar Baby" labeled "French"? It even gives the author whose work
was adapted - Fre'de'rick Ortoli. Hmmmm. In spite of being
turned into a little play, it still sounds a lot like Uncle Remus
to me. How about, "The tar baby says nothing" at least 7 times?
And Elson gives credit for the Grimms' "The Golden Goose" to
Peter Christen Asbjo"rnsen, although I do have other
Asbjo"rnsen/Grimm/Dasent confusions in my collection.
Not surprising that the Tar Baby was popular in France and that
the story ended up adapted into a French play. I wonder if it
was performed by puppets? I can about see it at some sidewalk
performance in Paris. Probably beginning in 1900 when Sousa
introduced ragtime to the Frenchies during the Paris World's
Fair, black music and cakewalks became all the craze. I'm not
sure if this is when the French also became interested in the Tar
Baby/Brer Fox, Bear, and Rabbit stories, but it might have been.
On the other hand, that might have come even earlier.
>More than you needed to know about the reader. I should have
just gotten up on my soapbox and yelled, "Why do you knuckleheads
(in primary education) think you need new textbooks every couple
of years???"
For primary education, I agree. Of course, Dick and Jane are
certainly outdated!
>The same day I received another ebay win, "Martha", by Friedrich
von Flotow. (I know it looks like I'm going through all 60,000
operas alphabetically.)
If you can't spend Saturday's digging for guitar music in the LC,
why not? But the surprise would be your having reached M so
soon.
>Since that one was written in German, I should have a fighting
chance, even if it didn't have an English translation in the
insert, which it doesn't. Worse yet, this crew does it in
Italian. Man, life is rough.
ME:
>>It has the O. Henry story, "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog", which I
read and then heard on a books-on-tape many years later, but had
no memory of reading it until a few days later.
>O Henry's houn' dawg. Did you ever tell me to read that one?
If so, did I? I don't remember it, but I'm betting you can prove
me wrong by consulting your e-mail archive if you did.
No, I never recommended that one. I don't think it was in my top
100 O. Henry. Definitely an oddball, being the only one with an
animal narrator. I see one opera reference (Emma Eames); one
asterisk (for the Mont Pelee horror. My note: May 8 1902.
40,000 died.); one question mark (for "as shy as the man on the
steamer who would rather play pedro when they make 'em all
jackpots"); and two smileys (one on, "By Sirius! there was a
biped I felt sorry for.") On second thought, yeah, read it! All
the others, too.
>>I should have just gotten up on my soapbox and yelled, "Why do
you knuckleheads (in primary education) think you need new
textbooks every couple of years???"
>For primary education, I agree. Of course, Dick and Jane are
certainly outdated!
I knew I had to step lightly there. I get the impression the
first item on your job description is, "Reinvent the wheel every
two months."
>But the surprise would be your having reached M so soon.
Fastest ears in Dover.
>Not surprising that the Tar Baby was popular in France
I did a bit of web searching on brer rabbit, uncle remus, joel
chandler harris, france, french, and ortoli to see what was going
on with that attribution in my reader. One of Harris's credits,
a joint effort with his wife, is a translation of "Evening Tales"
by the Frenchman Ortoli, and I'm guessing the editor of the
reader was confused and had some idea that Brer Rabbit or all of
Uncle Remus came from those tales.
I took a closer look at the images on the chapbook page and had a
good time correlating them with items in my collection. Lots of
neat little variants, of which I'll give you just one taste test.
How many people could read and interpret this precisely?
...that killed the Rat,
that eat the Malt,
that lay in the House that Jack built.
For months I've been threatening to get "caught up". Don't know
if I really can, but I know I've been meaning to revisit the math
problems from way back.
>> Action Comic #1, which originally sold for 10 cents, now sells
>> for $18500. This comic has increased in value by what
percent?
>Sounds like eBay! I remember these problems, but, I'll confess
to having forgotten how to figure them. It would be so easy to
divide by 10, moving that decimal point, but I know that's not
right.
You can easily get by without knowing this, but it's fun for me
to try to get a light bulb to go off. (Charlie says that should
be "go on", but a google search shows that a clear majority says
it my way.) This problem cracks me up because of the outrageous
increase in value, but it's just a matter of keeping a clear
head. And keeping a clear head in percentage problems always
means calming down, taking another look at the problem, and
making sure which of two "flavors" it is. Is it asking for a
relative percentage, as in, "50 is what percent of 40?"; or, is
it asking for the percent *difference*, as in, "40 to 50
represents what percent increase?"
In the first case you just divide 50/40 and express the result as
a percent (multiply by 100 and tack on the % sign.) So,
50/40 = 1.25 = 125%
In the second case, you start with a subtraction to find the
increase (or decrease), and then do the division to see how
things changed with respect to the starting point. (50-40=10;
10/40 = .25 = 25% increase.)
So, for the Action Comic problem, you start with the ridiculous
subtraction (18500.00 - .10 = 18499.90) and then divide that by
the starting value (18499.90/.10 = 184999 = 18499900%).
Well, I don't know how clear I made that, but I'm willing to bet
math teachers are few and far between who can present the recipe
for solving percent problems so concisely.
Exercise for the reader: 50 to 40 represents what percent
decrease?
>> If a hat and a feather together cost $1.10, and the hat cost
>> $1 more than the feather, how much did they cost individually?
>Uh, isn't that $.05 and $1.05 with no equation needed?
If that answer jumped straight to mind with no mental juggling,
that definitely puts you in extremely rarefied company. I've
never seen anyone rattle off the answer, and I've been in
roomfuls of people, of decent education, where no one could get
it, and many remaining unaccepting of the correct answer, so
powerful is the tug of, "What's the big deal? A dollar for the
hat, 10 cents for the feather, all's right with the world, Pippa
passes."
Here's another trivial problem of a similar type that I've never
seen anyone get correct right off the bat (including Kumon
instructors).
What is the weight of a fish if it weighs 10 pounds plus half
its weight?
Again, my approach to any word problem, and particularly if it's
presented as a brain teaser, and what I'd like to pass on to the
world, is to go straight to algebra and get the right answer
*mindlessly* - no thinking required. The problem above screams:
F = 10 + .5*F. Now mindlessly solve for F.
About those questions from the reading part of the SAT, I stick
to my guns. In the given excerpt, charge = command worked (I
think), while the "correct" answer, "inspire", is not even an
accepted dictionary definition for charge. And I stick to my
guns that the quotes around all the literature genre types
indicated digs, as my quotes around "correct" do above. Come on,
the mere state of being printed is what "calls attention" to a
word. Would we be better readers if our attention was called to
each word by putting quotes around each and every one, or if
every word were boldfaced, say? This reminds me of pages of
music marked up by a music teacher. Wherever the student makes a
mistake, the teacher draws a big, sloppy circle around it, so
that the page is eventually covered in circles. If circles is
all it takes to get our attention so we'll read and play
everything perfectly, why don't they just print every musical
symbol in a circle? In summary (and I'm hoping enough time has
elapsed to make it too hard for you to come charging back!),
"*you're*" "*wrong*" "*!*". No, no, no. I'm guessing
99.9%, if not more, of your colleagues would agree with you and
the SAT answers, but I'm still left with an uneasiness that this
agreement is not based on any clearly defined set of rules of
word usage. There was a third instance in the SAT book where I
felt like I knew every word in the passage and the questions, but
came up with a different answer. Fortunately, that one would
involve too much typing.
>The way I look at it, I've always been a Midwesterner, but
that's debatable. Some people lump Oklahoma with Texas and Texas
with the Southwest.
I went to a couple of encyclopedias to see what the "experts"
say. (There's those "s again!) My Americana actually puts us in
the same main region - fancy that! - the South. They further
divide it with you in the West South Central and me in South
Atlantic. A World Book Encyclopedia divided it up a bit
differently. You're a Southwestern State, which goes from
Oklahoma to Arizona. They put me in with the Southern States,
although I feel like Delaware and Maryland are perfect fitters
for the Mid-Atlantic States just above us.
>>I always thought the "Midwest" was the Indiana/Ohio region.
Somehow, they don't seem to like my proposal of renaming it the
Middle East.
>Heck, 'round here, we consider Ohio as part of the East.
Indiana, well, I was never sure what to do with that no-count
place. I 'spect Middle East is taken and not overly popular.
Also double-checked this one to make sure I wasn't crazy. The
Americana lists Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc. among 12 states in
their "Midwestern States" entry. However, Midwestern is not one
of the regions or divisions shown on their map where I got the
information above. Must be casual terminology.
>>>Ogden wuz a kuku--nutz to 'im!
>If I had to write my book, or even a handout for my students,
with only those 850 words, I'd be finger-tied.
Hey, calm down! Ogden wrote a *2nd* language, *not* a
replacement for English! Think about it, if you could go
anywhere in the world armed with an 850 word language and say 99%
of the things you normally say throughout the day to anybody on
earth, wouldn't that be a good thing? Kind of?
ME:
>I thought I might have asked you about the Caruso incident.
In one of Hemingway's stories, he says that a character was
reading a newspaper about Caruso being arrested for "mashing."
This time around, that sounds more familiar, although there's no
record of it coming up in our email. My reference collection is
actually rather light on Caruso's life.
After writing that paragraph, another think come to me - a book
called "The Glorious Ones" which hasn't joined my front rank
because it has a chunk of pages missing. There's a whole chapter
on Caruso, including this passage:
He was always in the news. America took to him and the
press followed him everywhere. Once in a while the news
was not to his liking. There was the Monkey House episode in
1906. Caruso, in the Central Park Zoo, gave a woman the supreme
Italian accolade. He pinched her derriere. She called the cops,
who seized Caruso and put him in a cell. The newspapers had a
field day. At the county hearing the plaintiff, Hanna Graham, did
not appear. Caruso was found guilty and fined $10. He was paralyzed
with fright at his next performance. Would New York boo him off the
stage? He got an ovation. All was forgiven.
>"Martha"? This has come up before. Was that the opera in
"Phantom of..."?
Good memory. Yes, the movie had at least the "porter bier" song,
but neither of the most well-known Martha arias, "Ach, so fromm"
and "Last Rose of Summer". That, combined with the spelling on
the poster board, "Marta", kept me confused for a while.
>I was sorry to hear about Tower going belly-up; sorry because I
was unable to walk over there (because of my foot) and cackle
gleefully! Mean.
That's ok for you, but what am I supposed to do at used book
sales 20 years from now, buy beat-up old ipods? How many are
loaded with opera? And do they come with booklets?
THEE: Re: geography aftermath
>>> If a hat and a feather together cost $1.10, and the hat cost
>>> $1 more than the feather, how much did they cost
individually?
>>Uh, isn't that $.05 and $1.05 with no equation needed?
>If that answer jumped straight to mind with no mental juggling,
that definitely puts you in extremely rarefied company. I've
never seen anyone rattle off the answer, and I've been in
roomfuls of people, of decent education, where no one could get
it, and many remaining unaccepting of the correct answer, so
powerful is the tug of, "What's the big deal? A dollar for the
hat, 10 cents for the feather, all's right with the world, Pippa
passes."
Only this for now. It's late. Not quite straight to mind.
Naturally, I thought of $1 and $0.10 first, but it took only a
second to know that was a $0.90 difference. From there, it was
simple. Subtract 5c from one; add 5c to t'other. No algebra
needed.
THEE: subject Working at Kumon
I just read much of your experience with Kumon. At the moment I
am considering applying for a job at a center here in Johnson
City, TN. My hope is (or was) that I would be able to tutor
students one-on-one. But, after reading your account, it sounds
like the most I could hope for is to be an assistant. I know that
there is some variation from center to center (regardless of what
the administration would suggest), but do you think that I should
even bother? Thanks for your time.
ME: Thanks for asking. Generally speaking, it seems that Kumon
is agreeable to instructors to helping students on an as-needed
basis when they have some particular hurdle to overcome. In my
case, I think Kumon thought I overstepped some line in giving
every student personal attention on every visit. I would suggest
that you at least inquire at your local center. If the director
needs help, it is probably with the routine of grading worksheets
and entering scores into the database. But, you're right, there
is variation from center to center, simply by virtue of
"everybody's different". I think it's safe to say no Kumon
director would hire someone solely as a one-on-one tutor, but he
might give an assistant some degree of freedom in helping
students who need it. Hope that helps. Good luck.
ME: No problem with putting another copy of my Kumon page up.
The more the merrier... If we all start actually linking to each
other, well, the skies the limit!
Did you see this recent article in Slate?
http://www.slate.com/id/2152480
It's quite humorous. It's not anti-kumon exactly, but it *could*
have been, if the writer had taken the approach, "if Kumon was
such torture for me, can you imagine what it's like for little
kids???" Geez, I wish teachers and parents would actually put
themselves through what they put students through.
THEE: subject HAPPY POST THANKSGIVING! Here's my story!
Dear Friends, (Personal note and turkey photo below!)
HAPPIEST POST THANKSGIVING!!!
HA HA! Just a little PICK-ME-UP humor...after the work, work,
work of Thanksgiving!
We had a wonderful, beautiful twenty-one pound bird--slightly
over cooked--but very Martha-looking( it was the cheesecloth
soaked in butter that browned it to the hilt...)! THANKS,
MARTHA!
The cleanup took hours! Every year I say, "NEVER AGAIN," and
then I relent and do either Thanksgiving or Christmas. YEA!!!
DONE FOR THE YEAR!!!!
Hope you all had a peaceful, bountiful day!
CHARRED BIRD ELEGANTE' ALA MARTHA
THEE: subject Thar and then
Do you have this ballad in any of your old books? Supposedly it
was known by one and all in the latter decades of the 1800s . . .
and was a standard in American textbooks until it became
politically incorrect.
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/hay01.html
Does anything strike you as familiar? What makes me wonder is
that I looked up the poem after finding a reference to it in a
1912 newspaper article: "And as the late John Hay said of the
late Jim Bludso, 'He seen his duty, a dead sure thing, and went
for it thar and then.'"
ME:
>Do you have this ballad in any of your old books?
Yes, in one place only. Here's what my search turned up:
Search string: bludso
BOOK: The Library of Wit and Humor, Vol III, American
JOHN HAy 249 Jim Bludso - Pike County Ballads
>Does anything strike you as familiar?
Gee, I dunno. I don't think I had read it anywhere before - I
haven't started on the Library of Wit and Humor (I've read about
3 volumes of The Wit and Humor of America) - but everything about
it rings familiar. Maybe just your asking the question
influenced me, though. A search for "bludso" on my hard disk
didn't turn up anything besides this one in my story catalog.
I'll bet when you tell me, I'll say, "Right!"
Went to a play today down in Milford, Del. Saw a notice in a
paper they throw on my driveway occasionally on Saturdays, so I
could have easily missed it. It was "An O. Henry Christmas" by
Howard Burman, and I figured it would be extremely unlikely that
I wouldn't enjoy it. What the playwright did was use "The Last
Leaf" as the framework for 3 other O. Henry stories within the
story. One was good ol' "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen" moved
up to Christmas. The first was another fave, but not
specifically Christmas related, called "One Thousand Dollars".
The third and last was "The Gift of the Magi". I also caught
quotes from O. Henry's unfinished - literally, :( - Christmas
story. The playwright worked O. Henry himself into the story.
He "told" the three stories, using the other characters to act
them out. I felt pretty dumb not realizing the character was O.
Henry until they finally forced him to give his name - William
Sydney Porter. Burman used episodes from O. Henry's life, but
stuck together a bit differently. Here, he was in New York on
the lam from prison, and was enticed to go back and give himself
up because his wife was sick. (The cop who was after him the
whole play gave him an envelope of money for the train ride.) In
reality, O. Henry fled to Central America, and coming back to his
sick wife is what got him in prison. Then he went to New York
when he was released. Burman ends the play with his own nice
little surprise. After Porter heads off, the pickpocket produces
the envelope with the train fare, justifying her action by
pointing out that Porter said he would just as soon hop a
freight, anyhow. When they looked into the envelope, they found
a note Porter had slipped in, telling them to enjoy the money.
This evening I went to my Americana to refresh myself on O.
Henry's bio. In a couple of places they had a few complaints
about his stories (repetition, contrivance... shallowness).
Shay, when did encyclopedias get into literary criticism? I also
found a funny little slip up. If you look up "Cabbages and
Kings", by O. Henry, it directs you to PORTER, WILLIAM SYDNEY for
the main entry on him, but that just points you to HENRY, O.,
which is the real main entry.
>Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.
That we did. Among the eating, story-telling about Thanksgivings
past, and other activities was a good scrabble game. Only M~~
and I have any experience at scrabble - me much more than her, of
course - but C~~ had built up a nice lead. Getting near the
end, M~~ made her best play, a 45-pointer, putting her close to
C~~ and making my 3rd place look even bleaker. Worse than
that, she used the spot I was going to use to unload my last 5
tiles. But I did some shuffling and plunked A S T E R in front
of N, for a whopping 6 points, but with everybody going down by
what was left in their racks, and me going up by that total
amount, it was enough to secure 1st place. Hmmm, in retrospect,
I wish C~~ would have won. Anyhow, it was an exciting finish.
ME: md my md
Thanks for the outstanding visit. All those shots of "me
medicine" [mouthwash] successfully warded off an impending cold.
The leftover turkey has served as the main course of 3 meals so
far, and I figure will give me 2 more. Both West Side Story and
The Jewess have been ceedeed already. The biggest bummer is the
2 skips on the Lester Lanin disc. I wondered if I heard a skip
while we were working on it, but found out for sure on the ride
home. That's the biggest pitfall of transferring vinyl to cd
with the sound off during the playback of the record. Those were
the first skips that actually made it to cd without me catching
them on the computer first. Anyhow, I'm more than somewhat
embarrassed. Maybe we could find another fun and wacky Beatle
cover album to pass on to Ben and Andre?
Thanks for the May Pang show. She's always a good, level-headed
speaker. The John Lennon/Paul Simon episode was new to me.
Dennis Ferrante commented on the relative fame of the two,
laughing poor Simon off. I think you invited Andre to my Beatle
pages. At your discretion, you might direct him specifically to
my Muzak and Beatles page, which sheds some fuzzy light on the
Beatles versus Simon and Garfunkle, for what it's worth.
http://www.oocities.org/donaldsauter/muzak.htm
THEE: subject How to Fix Vinyl LP's
Hey mate,
I read your guide on fixing vinyl LP's. It makes sense.
I wish I had the guts to try it.
I have a Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here original 1975 press record
with a scratch right before the acoustic guitar solo on the first
track.
I paid $30 for the record second hand, and after listening to
side 1, which was perfect, I thought I had gotten a mint
condition record.
When I got to the title track (my favourite song on the album!)
and it skipped backwards I almost cried. Ha ha
Since then I managed to put another scratch on the record whilst
trying to skip the previous scratch. I'm extremely annoyed at my
own carelessness.
Maybe one day I'll build up the courage to attack my record with a
pin.
I've also been considering putting a forward scratch on the record
so it skips forward instead of back. This is mose listenable
cause it doesn't just sit there repeating.
ME: Give it a try! Don't "attack"! Practice the motion on a
junk record, if you're not confident. Or try my suggestion for a
digital fix, nudging the needle through the skip point with a
toothpick.
ME: I'm afraid the "petering out" started with the Lester Lanin
transfer - after all, we squeezed 20 days worth of work, by your
rules, (nominally 2 cuts/day) into an hour.
I mentioned my half.com purchase of a Charlotte Church cd. For
my $.75 I got an autographed cd booklet! By the way, if you
google Charlotte Church pix (for autograph verification, of
course), you'll see she's not your daddy's 13-year-old voice of
an angel anymore.
Scavenged 4 albums today at the auction that had several opera
tracks per. Also scavenged the first Complete Short Stories of
Mark Twain and "A Child's Garden of Verses" in a nice old (1945)
Golden Book format, although it's not a Golden Book.
THEE: subject unarchy
i guess "simple majority vote" for guilty/not guilty is clear.
but how does a "simple majority vote" determine the punishment?
ME: Supposing a jail sentence is considered appropriate, the
sentence would be set at the greatest length of time that gets
the vote of a bare majority. Likewise, if a fine is considered
appropriate, it would be the greatest fine that gets the vote of
a bare majority.
Speaking for myself, I believe in restitution, not punishment or
punitive fines.
Thanks for visiting, and thanks a million for taking the time to
consider unarchy and writing!
THEE:Before I start, I've gotta say that I'm listening to one of
the best ragtime CDs I've ever heard . . . maybe THE best. This
is a new orchestra from Michigan or almost knew. It's their
second CD in maybe a year. The group has the unusual name of
River Raisin Ragtime Revue. Yup, that's Raisin, with no
apostrophe. River risin', OK, but what the heck is a river
raisin?
The orchestra leader, William Pemberton, posts to ragtime
newsgroups now and then. When I spotted rave comments about the
CD posted by Ed Berlin and also by his dad, I ordered from the
group. Wow! They have the sound and spirit of the original
ragtime era recordings without all the scratchy sounds. If the
instrumentals weren't good enough, I just reached the vocal of
"Hawatha." Again, the sound of a vintage recording. Time for
Norway's Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra, which has long been awarded
the ragtime laurels, to stand up and take notice.
And on to . . .
> Search string: bludso
> BOOK: The Library of Wit and Humor, Vol III, American
> JOHN HAy 249 Jim Bludso - Pike County Ballads
Figured your index would come through. I wouldn't call it humor,
but, just maybe, wit will do.
>>Does anything strike you as familiar?
>Gee, I dunno.
Odd little things hit me. The name Jim, which in itself didn't
hit me at all . . . until later. What struck me as familiar was
"He seen his duty . . . thar and then." OK, so it was "seed" in
the dog lyric, but that line, especially combined with the choice
of name, left me wondering if ol' Webb M. didn't know Jim Bludso
well and maybe even think a few listeners might get a kick out of
the recognition of another anti-hero who saved the day.
>Burman ends the play with his own nice little surprise. After
Porter heads off, the pickpocket produces the envelope with the
train fare, justifying her action by pointing out that Porter
said he would just as soon hop a freight, anyhow. When they
looked into the envelope, they found a note Porter had slipped
in, telling them to enjoy the money.
Sounds like a good bit of fun! Wish that paper had been
delivered to my driveway. The best I've been able to do lately
was the Red Fork Native American Film Festival, but it was
terrific even if an Anglo can't hope to fully understand true
Native American films.
>I did some shuffling and plunked A S T E R in front of N, for a
whopping 6 points, but with everybody going down by what was left
in their racks, and me going up by that total amount, it was
enough to secure 1st place. Hmmm, in retrospect, I wish C~~
would have won. Anyhow, it was an exciting finish.
Great finish. And this reminds me of something I might not have
otherwise remembered to ask. Do you know if Mizan has seen the
film Akeelah and the Bee? If she hasn't seen it, she should.
It's about an 11-year-old girl who reluctantly gets roped into a
spelling bee (that or detention for her absences). It all builds
from there to become a really touching, inspirational film. But
what does that have to do with Scrabble? Trust me; it does.
That book [A Thousand Resurrections] somehow reminds me of a
fascinating book I read about ten years ago. The author was a
missionary among the Kiowa Indians in Western Oklahoma back in
the days when the Kiowa were *real* Injuns. Sure wish I could
recall the name of the book or of the author or who loaned it to
me. She said she had the local used book store holding every
copy it received, knowing she would buy it to give to someone.
I'm normally not big on missionary stories because I kinda hate
to see a culture lose such a big part of what made it a culture
in the first place, but this was an outstanding story. The
author changed every bit as much as, perhaps more than, the Kiowa
although she had her impact.
Remember to find out in some sort of sneaky way about Akeelah and
the Bee. Just find a way to bring up spelling bees next time you
see her. That oughta do it. If Mizan doesn't know the film, or
if she likes it and doesn't have her own copy, let me know.
It'll be my Christmas surprise. I guess 'bout everybody has a
DVD player these days . . . except one Luddite friend of mine . .
. unless his computer has one, that is.
THEE: Jim Bludso was a movie in 1912 and around 1902 was a
melodrama. Also have the scoop on the "real" Jim Bludso--or one
of 'em.
ME: 1:53 am
>>>Does anything strike you as familiar?
>>Gee, I dunno.
>Odd little things hit me. The name Jim, which in itself didn't
hit me at all . . . until later. What struck me as familiar was
"He seen his duty . . . thar and then." OK, so it was "seed" in
the dog lyric,
At this moment, a resounding "Oh, riiight!!!" rang throughout the
house.
>but that line, especially combined with the choice of name, left
me wondering if ol' Webb M. didn't know Jim Bludso well and maybe
even think a few listeners might get a kick out of the
recognition of another anti-hero who saved the day.
>>I'll bet when you tell me, I'll say, "Right!"
>So . . .?
I was right.
>>If you look up "Cabbages and Kings", by O. Henry, it directs
you to PORTER, WILLIAM SYDNEY for the main entry on him, but that
just points you to HENRY, O., which is the real main entry.
>Hey, we all know his REAL name.
Actually, there's some uncertainty over Sydney vs. Sidney. Maybe
he used both? Also in the encyclopedia, in a title given in the
references at the end of an article, they printed "O'Henry". I
doubt that that really slipped through in the title of his
biography.
>I guess 'bout everybody has a DVD player these days . . . except
one Luddite friend of mine . . . unless his computer has one,
that is.
The list of features on this dell included:
Fixed CD/DVD Drives 24x Max Variable CD-ROM Drive
I didn't give it much thought, but vaguely figured that meant it
could "take" dvds, whether or not I needed to acquire extra
software to play 'em. Somebody told me I did, then somebody told
me I didn't - so I sprang for a 3-episode disk of the Beverly
Hillbillies at the dollar store. My computer didn't know what to
do with it. I went back and took another look at that line item
above and saw that the "CD/DVD drive" was outfitted with a CD-
ROM. No big deal; I just gave the dvd away.
>Thanks for providing my break again. The rest of the night
devoted to school work.
Hey, whenever you need another break there's the previous partial
catch-up email with all kinds of exercises for the reader. Still
wondering what the common um (which isn't you of course, but you
are good at shedding light) thinks about, "that eat the Malt",
for instance.
ME: land of nod
>Oh, since I'm absent-minded, remind me to tell you about my
latest eBay treasures.
Let me tell you about mine first. Actually it was half.com. It
arrived today. It was Charlotte Church's 2nd album, which has
about 5 or 6 opera cuts on it. It cost $.75 (plus $2.11
postage). Can you imagine, for my $.75, I got a nicely
autographed cd booklet!
Good day at the auction today - scavenged 4 albums that had one
or more opera tracks per. Also scavenged the first Complete
Short Stories of Mark Twain and "A Child's Garden of Verses" in a
nice old (1945) Golden Book format, although it's not a Golden
Book. Thought I needed the Twain for "The Man That Corrupted
Hadleyburg", which I see is highly praised, although I see now I
have it in another anthology of short stories by various authors.
I picked up 5 more gel cushions for $3, but guess what?, all 5
gel packs were safely removed and discarded right at the auction!
They can't fool me a *fourth* time!
THEE: subject Re: unarchy
unarchy and your presidential ideas seem to be based largely on
the vote of the "bare" majority. how do minorities fare in this
philosophy? i'm sure that in certain parts of the country it
would be easy to find a majority that would vote that
Christianity be taught to all students at a public school.
slightly less plausible would be that a majority of a particular
jury would sentence a black man to prison for dating a white
woman. why, I dare to say that I could even find a jury where the
bare majority would vote to prohibit the playing of classical
guitar music in public places. ;-)
regarding your explanation of sentencing: i think all (or at
least the bare majority) would agree that if true justice is
anything, it is consistent. if we administered perfect justice,
punishment (or restitution) would always be the same for a given
injustice. In today's system, we've failed miserably. unarchy,
with its thousands of juries determing their own "level" of
justice, would exacerbate the problem to the point where we would
have achieved the antithesis of justice.
ME:
>unarchy and your presidential ideas seem to be based largely on
the vote of the "bare" majority. how do minorities fare in this
philosophy?
They fare according to the compassion of the majority. We're all
minorities, by the way. Me, first of all, by being male, and on
top of that, white. What's that, maybe 35% of the population?
>i'm sure that in certain parts of the country it would be easy
to find a majority that would vote that Christianity be taught to
all students at a public school.
In tiny pockets - *maybe*. If you live there and object, you
homeschool, turn to private schools, or move.
>slightly less plausible would be that a majority of a particular
jury would sentence a black man to prison for dating a white
woman.
Inconceivable.
>why, I dare to say that I could even find a jury where the bare
majority would vote to prohibit the playing of classical guitar
music in public places. ;-)
I'd probably vote for that myself.
>regarding your explanation of sentencing: i think all (or at
least the bare majority) would agree that if true justice is
anything, it is consistent. if we administered perfect justice,
punishment (or restitution) would always be the same for a given
injustice.
No two crimes in the history of the world have been identical in
all the particulars and circumstances.
>In today's system, we've failed miserably.
The understatement of the millenium.
>unarchy, with its thousands of juries determing their own
"level" of justice, would exacerbate the problem to the point
where we would have achieved the antithesis of justice.
What evidence do you have showing anyone, much less everyone,
wants injustice to prevail?
As always, thanks for putting my feet to the fire!
ME: I put my Kumon experiences in a web page. It's far too
sprawling to expect anyone to read much of it. The tie-in with
Emily Yoffe's article is that I firmly believe adults - meaning
parents and Kumon instructors - should subject themselves to the
Kumon experience so they know what they're putting the kids
through, among other reasons. That's not the tack that Emily
took, but her article should make any reader wonder, "Gee, if
it's that unpleasant for a motivated adult, what's it like for
the kids???"
THEE: Thanks again for coming. please come back and I'll come
out to Douvres. I hope your visit to Maryland wasn't too
"taxing."
I saw today on the BBC web site that Charlotte Church is taking a
leave of absence from the music business to work on her career as
a TV host. Does that increase the value of your CD?
I didn't send notification but BBC DJ Alan Freeman died Monday.
Someone claimed that his early catchphrase "not arf!" is parodied
by Johnny in "Sheik of Araby."
THEE:
>Also in the encyclopedia, in a title given in the references at
the end of an article, they printed "O'Henry". I doubt that that
really slipped through in the title of his biography.
Can't say that I haven't started to type his name a few times
with O'H. Guess it's many years of habit.
>so I sprang for a 3-episode disk of the Beverly Hillbillies at
the dollar store. My computer didn't know what to do with it. I
went back and took another look at that line item above and saw
that the "CD/DVD drive" was outfitted with a CD-ROM. No big
deal; I just gave the dvd away.
Most people could watch the Beverly Hillbillies on TV. As a
matter of fact, I caught an episode of Leave it to Beaver this
afternoon after coming home early and relaxing as I had some
lunch. June went to help a relative who had just given birth,
and Ward, apparently unable to take care of two boys on his own,
consented to having Aunt Martha come to stay. This uppity
Easterner immediately decided to change Beaver's image and took
him shopping for what looked like a little British schoolboy's
suit with shorts, knee-high socks, bowtie, and cap. You can
imagine the fight he got in at school when she insisted he wear
his new clothes.
THEE:
>>Oh, since I'm absent-minded, remind me to tell you about my
latest eBay treasures.
>Let me tell you about mine first. Actually it was half.com. It
arrived today. It was Charlotte Church's 2nd album, which has
about 5 or 6 opera cuts on it. It cost $.75 (plus $2.11
postage). Can you imagine, for my $.75, I got a nicely
autographed cd booklet!
Okay, my story is an anticlimax. In one purchase, I picked up
two Vanguard double-LP ragtime sets by Max Morath, 1972 and 1976.
They look and play like they've never been out of the jacket
before. No autographs, though. :-(
>Good day at the auction today - scavenged 4 albums that had one
or more opera tracks per. Also scavenged the first Complete
Short Stories of Mark Twain and "A Child's Garden of Verses" in a
nice old (1945) Golden Book format, although it's not a Golden
Book. Thought I needed the Twain for "The Man That Corrupted
Hadleyburg", which I see is highly praised, although I see now I
have it in another anthology of short stories by various authors.
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg is excellent. It was used for
an episode in the American Short Story series years ago on PBS.
Herman Munster played The Man. (Well, make that Fred Gwynne.) I
haven't seen it for years, but I remember some catchy music as
the townspeople started receiving letters.
>I picked up 5 more gel cushions for $3, but guess what?, all 5
gel packs were safely removed and discarded right at the auction!
They can't fool me a *fourth* time!
Whose has the life-time supply of gel cushions. I don't think
I've ever seen a one of 'em.
We have that winter storm moving in that dumped two feet on
ME: to trane: I would like to get rid of the gas furnace and go
all electric. I am hoping a package heat pump will serve my
needs. So far, the heating ccontractors I have contacted seem
leery or completely unwilling, but have not made it clear to me
why a package heat pump would not serve my needs. I have not
been able to find published information showing exactly what a
package heat pump can deliver. Please respond!
THEE: subject musical strings
I am making a medieval tromba marina and I am looking for a
string for it. I have read a book that says I should have a
2.2mm string (it only has one). It will be tuned to the lowest C
on a piano and it will be 4'8" (1400mm) long aprox. It will be
played in harmonics. I am not sure what string to buy and all
the ones I have looked at seem very very expensive. As this is
experimental I do not want to pay out too much money on something
that may not work and I want the best resonance I can get out of
it. Please have you any thoughts on what size of string I should
get, what it should be made out of and where I might get it from?
THEE: Try this test.
Smart Test
Below are four (4) questions and a bonus question.
You have to answer them instantly.
You can't take your time.
Answer all of them immediately. OK?
Let's find out just how clever you really are....
Ready? GO!!!
First Question:
You are participating in a race.
You overtake the second person.
What position are you in?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Answer: If you answered that you are first, then you are Absolutely Wrong!
If you overtake the second person, you take his place, so you are second!
Try not to screw up next time.
Now, answer the second question,
But don't take as much time as you took for the first one, OK?
Second Question:
If you overtake the last person, then you are...?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Answer: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are
wrong again. Tell me, how can you overtake the LAST Person?
You're not very good at this, are you?
Third Question:
Very tricky arithmetic!
Note: This must be done in your head only.
Do NOT use paper and pencil or a calculator. Try it.
Take 1000 and add 40 to it.
Now add another 1000 . Now add 30.
Add another 1000. Now add 20.
Now add another 1000
Now add 10. What is the total?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Did you get 5000?
The correct answer is actually 4100.
If you don't believe it, check it with a calculator!
Today is definitely not your day, is it?
Maybe you'll get the last question right....
...Maybe.
Fourth Question:
Mary's father has five daughters:
1. Nana, 2. Nene, 3. Nini, 4. Nono.
What is the name of the fifth daughter?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Did you Answer Nunu?
NO! Of course it isn't.
Her name is Mary.
Read the question again!
Okay, now the bonus round:
I may have sent this one before. I'm never sure.
A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush.
By imitating the action of brushing his teeth he successfully
expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.
Next, a blind man comes into the shop who wants to buy a pair of
Sunglasses; how does HE indicate what he wants?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He just has to open his mouth and ask...
It's really very simple....
Now how do you feel?
ME: Hi Chuck,
I blew the bonus question. :(
Donald
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