Green screen fail

Don't wear green on St. Paddy's Day if you're going to be in front of a green screen ...

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade

Burton in Persian disguise as
"Mirza Abdullah the Bushri"
(ca.1849–50).

On this day in 1821, Sir Richard Francis Burton was born.  Explorer, author, and rogue, he pioneered expeditions to Darkest Africa years before Stanley searched for Livingston.  One of his most famous exploits was a pilgrimage to Mecca, which was then (and remains today) off limits to non Muslims.  The penalty for being discovered was death, and it was said that Burton was almost discovered, getting away by the skin of his teeth.

He was able to pass for Muslim because of his depth of knowledge of the Islamic cultures and languages.  This led to one of his great literary works, a translation of the Arabian Nights in 1885.  Three years later the great Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed this.

Even in the late nineteenth century - when areas labeled "Terra Incognito" were evaporating from the maps - the educated world was a small place.

R.I.P Chuck Berry

Dead at 90.



"Bigger than the Beatles" is a cliche in rock and roll.  He was one of the few who were actually bigger than the Beatles - their cover of this song wasn't as good.

Thanks for all the music, Chuck.  The Choir Invisible is rocking tonight.

A Chapter From Small Town Roads - Brigid Guest Post

 The most effective way to destroy people is to deny 

and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

- George Orwell

He notices them in the city, old vacant houses, bearing the form of the formerly beautiful.  He  notices them in the country, old empty barns, the houses of which watched over them, also long abandoned. The barns drew him the most, some mystery there in their silent lofts, where among the beams and rough-hewn boards, life from venerable times was lived according to venerable ways, never to be seen again.

There are many reasons such places are abandoned, foreclosure, death, yet they remain vacant, remain fallow, someones dreams perhaps tied up in probate or simply discarded, no one wishing to assume the burden of that which will take some care to make whole. He only stops to look, then drives down the road to home, an older place but kept in meticulous repair, the house warm, the walls adorned with only a few photos of the past, framed copies of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

A young woman walks out to the curb, where renters moving out next door left a few bags of trash.  Laying next to them were two large pieces of cast iron cookware.  She takes a closer look, both were high-end brands, neither purchased cheaply.  Both looked unused but for the thick rust covering both.  The house empty and staying that way, she picks them up and takes them home to examine and clean. Once the rust is removed, the pans oiled and properly seasoned, they look as if new,  these pieces that should last a lifetime. Someone simply did not know how to care for what they had and casually discarded them.

Out at the rural airfield, a man who still wears his youth in his eyes, arrives for a local flight. He notices, off in the distance, tires flat, grass growing up into the wheel pants, there sits an old tailwheel airplane.  The paint hasn't seen a wash or polish in years, the once bright hues that flaunted their color against the sky like a cry of challenge, now laying mute upon the grass  The engine, which once fired up with life, growing louder and louder as the entire aircraft trembled like a racehorse waiting to run, lay quiet, but for the rustle of birds who have built a nest in the intake.  He wonders what it would cost to buy it, to get it flying again.

So many things that go unnoticed until they are gone.  Some lie barren, covered in days until they no longer shine, forgotten.  Other things, capture the eye of someone, be it a house, a piece of machinery, a person, an entire manner of living, which for that one individual, possesses a life all of its own.  It is that missing piece of our history, that forbidden apple whose taste could open up the pathway to heaven, or cast one from all that is accepted.  Yet, they can not resist, like the fruit of the Tree in the Garden of Good and Evil, such things being fraught with the possibility of the undiscovered.

A man sits alone in a house that still shows the remains of the recent past amongst the modern updates,the 70's retro hunters blaze of orange touching some things like flame, shag carpeting stamped flat there in the trails of silent children. It is quiet now, two children and two wives preceding him in death, his remaining child flying in as often as she can, calling every night before he goes to sleep.  The TV is off, the windows open, the curtains breathing in and out with the soft exhalation of evening.  It is a night for memories or passages, those moment within us, that by our history, our remembrances, release us from the shadows, our soul freed there in that  moment that makes certain silences more clear than any words that can be uttered.

In another home, that's seen a hundred years come and go, a young man in a blue button down shirt sits in a chair, surrounded by books and antiques. Each piece was carefully picked from the flotsam and jetsam of estate sales, carefully cleaned and placed in the room alone but for muscle and sweat.  The room  looks no different than if the time was a hundred years ago, but for a small flat screen TV, dusty in the corner.  The safe holds a small collection of rare and unique firearms, some dating back to the Civil War.

Some people are born out of their due place, fate casting them too soon or too late, but they only look ahead, even as they bear a yearning for a place they knew not.  On the shelf is a picture of a woman, not a young woman, except for the eyes, the blaze of her hair.  He looks at the photo, tracing the leather of the spine of his book, with hands that remember. 

A woman works in a basement, putting up boxes away from the moisture, water having crept in during recent storms.  In watching her work, you would think her a young girl.  Only in the harsh light from the window, do you know she is not. She look down at her hands and her forearms, the scar on her palm where she took a fall out of a tree, the rough edged dimple on her arm, where bone forced its way through, her form no match for someone that outweighed her by a hundred pounds, someone who felt that since he possessed something, it was his right to break it.

There's other scars you can't see, the small bite shaped mark of a biopsy, the small shiny serrations on belly flesh, proud marks of the skin's burden as it carries another to life.  Would she erase or airbrush them away if she could?  No, she's descended from immigrants and warriors; for her, life is simply a battle fought, the scars simply marking the skirmishes won.

She is moving some boxes and hanging bags, military uniforms and gear, worn by grandfathers and beyond, men who are now only dust and courage. There is a new box to add to these, for which she must make room. She opens the box, carefully packed up just a week ago to be shipped, the uniform items carefully shrouded and laid to rest within. She touches the items, and even in their stillness, comes a moment of real and profound intimacy with the one who once wore them, unexpected and lasting, as is often our glimpse of truth. They will be carefully packed again to protect them, and stored with those uniforms of generations past. She leaves space on the shelf for another future box, for there will be one more, and probably soon.

At the bottom of the package, carefully wrapped in bubble wrap, in a lone toy soldier, that had been unearthed in the garden one Spring, years after the battle for world dominion with two flame hair children and their troops had ceased. The touch of its small battered form brought back the scent of the earth in their back yard, the shade of the apple tree that sheltered them, the warmth of the sun, times when they could ask Mom and Dad most anything and they'd tell them the truth.

Was this little figurine simply a forgotten toy or was he buried in some forgotten childhood military honor?  She could not remember, but like anything long lost, he spoke to her, of why we remember things and why they are important.

With that remembrance, with the lessons of the past, we can live safer and smarter. We can make decisions based on what we learned the hard way, about the truth, about individuals, about intentions, those deceits and traps that lay like spider webs for the naive or the unwary.

So she continues to look, sometimes seeing the past in front of her, in pieces found years after they were laid there, the answers beneath her hands, under a mantle of dirt and time. She sees them sometimes late at night, out of the corner of her eye. Perhaps it's just fatigue, perhaps an awareness of more than these moments here, now but there at the edge of her vision, she senses those moving moments of lives that went before. People who valued freedom over power, truth over political correctness, people unafraid to ask "why" or "how". People just like her, full of fear and pride and arrogance, courage and love, the knowledge of suffering and foreshadowing of their own death, saying no to death, for generation after generation, knowing that can't stop it, but damned if they won't go out trying.

She sometimes look into unseeing eyes, wondering if at that moment of their passing, the questions were answered, or if perhaps more compassionately, they had forgotten the asking of them. But there is only scent and whispers, there in that cold landscape, speaking, murmuring across time, the questions they can no longer seek, but she can give voice to, with a simple but solemn, signature at the bottom of a page.

The items put away, she returns to a table of tools, a place to work and repair, form and craft, as she finds something soothing in fixing and finding answers in that which is broken, even as she restores its use.

The young man in the button down shirt picks up an old violin, worth more than all of his other possessions combined, even as appearance alone might label it, in unknowing eyes, as yard sale material.  The notes reach out to the depths of the dwelling, penetrating the darkness, laden with the awe and enigma that can be borne on the strings of remembering men. From the shadows, a woman smiles.

These people may all be strangers or they may be bound by blood, bond or friendship.  But they do share one thing; an understanding that life bears with it the remnants of the past.  They can call it baggage or call it wisdom. They can cover it, shed it, walk away from it, forget it ever happened and forget its lessons.  But as they destroy that history, they destroy themselves.

Better they can preserve it, for what it was, those moments, those things that made them what they are. They can treat it all as something shameful, or they can speak or write of it, in a tone that would be a shout of triumph were the words on a keyboard capable of speech.  They can live their lives, old before their time, for the burden of the past, or they can live sufficient, complete, desiring as the young do, not to be bound, but only to love, to query and scrutinize uncontested, left alone with their freedoms. 

It is the future.  It is the past.  An elderly man sits in a chair, surrounded by books and antiques.  The room has not changed in the last fifty years.  On the shelf is a picture of a flame haired woman. He slowly rises and walks towards it, joints stiff with pain, his form cleaving the space she once passed through.  He passes a shelf, a book bound with leather, an old revolver, a small vase, his glance touching what her eyes had lost. He picks up the photo and realizes that some things, even if not present, are never truly gone, fixed and held in the annealing ash that is our history.

As the night descends upon him unchecked, he stands and looks hard at everything.
L.B. Johnson (Brigid)

The Dead South - In Hell I'll Be In Good Company

Tam discovers that "new country" music isn't really country at all.  As a palate cleanser, here is a new group from Regina, Saskatchewan that has a new/old vibe that's pretty interesting.  Part of me wanted to punch them (get offa my lawn) but the music is pretty good.  And it's not Katie Perry with banjos.



In Hell I'll Be In Good Company

Dead Love couldn't go no further
Proud of and disgusted by her
Push shove, a little bruised and battered
Oh Lord I ain't coming home with you

My life's a bit more colder
Dead wife is what I told her
Brass knife sinks into my shoulder
Oh babe don't know what I'm gonna do

I see my red head, messed bed, tear shed, queen bee
My squeeze
The stage it smells, tells, hell's bells, miss-spells
Knocks me on my knees
It didn't hurt, flirt, blood squirt, stuffed shirt
Hang me on a tree
After I count down, three rounds, in hell I'll be in good company

Dead Love couldn't go no further
Proud of and disgusted by her
Push shove, a little bruised and battered
Oh Lord I ain't coming home with you

My life's a bit more colder
Dead wife is what I told her
Brass knife sinks into my shoulder
Oh babe don't know what I'm gonna do

I see my red head, messed bed, tear shed, queen bee
My squeeze
The stage it smells, tells, hell's bells, misspells
Knocks me on my knees
It didn't hurt, flirt, blood squirt, stuffed shirt
Hang me on a tree
After I count down, three rounds, in hell I'll be in good company

In hell I'll be in Good Company

St. Patrick's Day in Black and White

Just some photos taken with the $100 travel point and shoot on a side trip (using some leave days) on an overseas assignment I didn't post "live", due to the nature of the trip.

sláinte

Music for St. Paddy's Day

No, not Finnegan's Wake.  Classy Irish music, of which there is a wealth.  Because I'm a lazy Blogger, I'm reposting from 2014.

What is the "Classical Music" of Ireland? It's not (Italian) Opera, or (German) symphonies, or even an (English) homage to Ralph Vaughan Williams (who studied under an Irish music professor) "countryside music" in the concert hall. Instead, we find something ancient. 

Image via Wik féin

We find something that easily might not have been.  Turlough O'Carolan (1670 – 25 March 1738) was the son of a blacksmith.  His father took a job for the MacDermot Roe family; Mrs. MacDermot Roe gave the young lad some basic schooling and saw in him a talent for poetry; when a few years later the 18 year old Turlough went blind after a bout of smallpox, she had him apprenticed to a harpist.  He soon was travelling the land, composing and singing.

This tradition was already ancient by the early 1700s.  it was undeniably Celtic, dating back through the Middle Ages, through the Dark Ages, through Roman times to a barbarous Gaul.  There bards travelled the lands playing for their supper on the harp.

This was O'Carolan's stock in trade.  He rapidly became the most famous singer in the Emerald Isle.  It is said that weddings and funerals were delayed until he was in the vicinity.  One of his most famous compositions - if you have spent any time at all listening to Irish music, you know this tune - was considered too "new fangled" by the other harpists of his day.  Fortunately, he didn't listen to their criticisms.



He married very late, at 50, and had many children.  But his first love was Brigid, daughter of the Schoolmaster at a school for the blind.  He always seemed to have carried a torch for her.



I originally wrote this post in the normal slot reserved for Classical Music.  Listen to this composition of his, and you see the bridge from the archaic Celts to Baroque harpsichord.



And keep in mind how this brilliance might never have blazed, had Mrs. MacDermot Roe not seen the talent in a blind Irish boy and set him upon a path trod by many equally unexpected geniuses, all the way back to St. Patrick.  It is truly said that we never know what our own path will be until we set our foot down upon it.

But his was an ancient path and he inherited much from those who trod it before him.  His "Farewell to Music" is said to be more in the traditional mold, and might have been appreciated at a feast held by Vercingetorix before the battle of Alesia.



This music is a bridge between modern and the ancient that disappears into the mists of legend.  Perhaps more importantly, it is a music that is still alive today, after a run of perhaps two and a half millenia.  You don't get more classical than that.

And it is a music where you still hear the yearning of a young blind man for his muse, Brigid.  That is a vitality that should not be exiled to a single day of celebration, even if it is for as illustrious a Saint as Patrick.  On this Feast Day, remember just how deep the roots of our civilization run.

Spying for the .GOV is bad for your business

Interesting observations while shopping for a TV:

Not too oddly, the Best Buy parking lot was surprisingly empty… And all their Geek Squad trucks were still parked. Something about the news saying they were spying on their customers for the FBI seems to have dampened business. Inside had about as many staff as customers. When I came out, my car was alone in its row, and the two rows each side of me were empty. I counted 25 cars in that lot (one of two) that included staff. Perhaps companies ought to consider that before bending over for The Feds Spying Operations… 

Interesting too, was that in Costco I asked about the Smart vs Dumb TVs. The clerk (who was actually clueful) and I got to talking. Seems a LOT of folks were asking about “dumb TVs” as they didn’t want their TV to spy on them. Note to Samsung et. al.: You will see a large drop in Smart TV sales for a while. Perhaps a long while…

There's also a bunch about cutting the cord with Roku.

So what is the "New Country" music?

It's Classic Rock, with a side of Katie Perry.

I'm not generally a fan, preferring something more well aged, but the Queen Of The World likes it.

Happy pie day

Remember, pie are round, not square.

Ultimate Final Exam - A Brigid Guest Post

I read on the news today that New York was going to ditch a literacy exam for new teachers because more minorities were failing it than white teaching candidates, citing "racism" (I didn't know "not actually studying" was not considered "racism"). Yes, let's just reduce the standards so someone that couldn't' pass a 12th-grade level test (and it was) can now teach the next generation.

Back in my University days, there was an "ultimate final exam" floating around that I posted on Home on the Range a couple of years ago. It had one question involving "you will find under your piano seat" and a tiger among other things.  It dealt with emergency situations and self-reliance as well as just flat out "you are so toast on this one".  It's still floating around the web but I see that it hasn't been updated for a LONG time. I figured it was about time for one that mirrored current situations.

Ultimate Final Exam - Home on the Range 2017 edition
Instructions: Read each question thoroughly. Answer all questions. Time limit - eight hours. Begin immediately.

Art 

On your desk is a box of Crayons and a sheet of paper.  Recreate the Mona Lisa.  No smiling. Note that the crayon color "flesh" from your childhood has been renamed as apparently, that was politically incorrect. Even the orange one couldn't be named "what happened when I used Q-T once in the seventies".

Agricultural Science:

Create a process to crossbreed Texas Longhorn and Charolais cattle.  In the back room, you will find a cranky female Longhorn and artificial insemination equipment.  Document your findings regarding resultant lineback color patterns, composite qualities, expected muscle mass of offspring and the impact on raising in parasite infected areas if you are able to write with the bandages.

Business:

You have a product and service that is unrivaled in the current market place and can be distributed at greater savings than competitors. Write a business model to sell off the assets of the organization with the least impact on capital gains after the contract was awarded to a minority business with no actual production experience.

Chemistry

Explain how the use of fossil fuels to convert corn to burnable fuel saves fossil fuel.  You will find a bushel of corn and a car with 1/4 tank of  e-85.  The answer is in a classroom 160 miles away. You are not allowed to refuel.

Computer Science

You have an ancient computer equipped with MS-DOS. Call the help desk that is now in India and tell them the screen is blue and you wish to change the color

Epistemology

Explain why there is no "I" in team, but there is "me" if you rearrange the letters. Be prepared to defend your position and make sure everyone gets their award.

History

Document three historical instances of technological reversals in semi-isolated societies, not including the Torres Islanders and Dorset Eskimos. Describe the impact on the use of weaponry such as the bow and arrow and whether anti-bow and arrow tribesmen contributed to the loss of such technologies and subsequent loss of life and/or livelihood.

Literature 

Compose an epic sonnet based on all that you achieved in your first 18 years of life in which you use the writing style of William Butler Yeats. Tweet it to 10,000 strangers.    No sentence may end in "Nantucket".

Logic

Using accepted methodology, prove all four of the following:

your dryer eats your socks on a regular basis
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
long term public assistance encourages people to seek employment
the sky is infinite

Now disprove all of the above;

Marksmanship:

On the table, you will find a Wilson Combat Tactical AR15, a box of .223 ammo and a can of spray cheese. In 5 minutes several hungry and rabid Honey Badgers will be released into the room. You are in Cook County, Illinois.

Medicine -

You have a link to the Obamacare website.  Get health insurance.  You have 1 hour.

Music

Write an opera for alto and soprano using the lyrics of any album by rapper Lil Wayne.  Explain how this is music.

Religion

Explain why Islam is the religion of peace.  Students are not allowed to frame an answer in Judeo-Christian language or comparative reference as such discussion is not appropriate in a state-run classroom.

Philosophy

Write 500 words regarding analytic philosophy as reflected in the works of Monty Python.(Nudge Nudge, Think Think). If you say "who is Monty Python?" do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Political Science 

Explain why Hillary Clinton was elected Senator of New York. You have 20 minutes which is 10 more minutes than you had with the rabid Honey Badgers.

Psychology

In the Twilight Series, Edward Cullen is a 100 year old Vampire with a perfect body and perfect hair, who can run. jump and fight in a supernatural way. Plus he sparkles. Please explain in psychological terms, whether his wish to attend high school in Forks, Washington (population about 3,000)  is based on anticipatory coping or a fixation on females with an apparently improper functioning amygdala. Extra credit for algorithms or Edward and Bella hand puppets.

Biology

Create a life form that can survive without food or water.  Document any useful purpose of such creature, either companionship/service animal, medical research,  food source or benefit to society.  If none is found, have it declared endangered and vacate the learning institution immediately with your can of spray cheese.  Your exam is now over.

Blinded by Science

The Scientific Method, then and now.

Hat tip: Bad-ass biker dude and Linux hacker Burt.

As Maine goes, so goes the nation?

Maine passed a law saying that if you wanted to receive food stamps, you had to work (or look for work).  Maine just dropped 9,000 people from the welfare roles because they refused to look for work.

Hat tip: Rick, who grew up in Maine.

Nerd achievement - half unlocked

3 and a half years ago I found this:

I was out on the Motorcycle, and while waiting in traffic saw a hand lettered sign "Used Book Sale".  Well, I'm constitutionally incapable of passing that sort of thing up, and so pulled into the parking lot.  It was the Milton (GA) Library raising money.  It was late in their display time, and so most of the selection was pretty well picked over.

Fortunately, my tastes are a little (ahem) eclectic.  I cruised over to the history section, and saw this:

That's The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant.  10,000 pages of Pulitzer Prize winningoverview of Western Civilization.

I'm now about half way through Volume VII, which puts me about one volume every 6 months.  There's a lot here.

Decades of doing the same thing, only harder

There's simply nothing to add to this - it was all said twenty years ago.  The War on (some) Drugs has given us a huge butcher's bill: probably 200,000 drug murders since this was recorded.



Sadly, the Trump administration looks to be doubling down on the Wo(s)D.  Maybe that will buy us another 100,000 drug murders.  Some day this Republic will tire of the oceans of blood - of the daily St. Valentine's Day Massacres - and will take the words of the 21st Amendment to heart, extending it to cover other recreational chemicals.

Richard Rodgers - Theme from "Victory At Sea"

NBC ran the series Victory At Sea in 1952 and 1953.  The was was still fresh in the public's mind, and the series won an Emmy.  It relied on film from the conflict, with narration Leonard Graves and a soundtrack by Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame).  This was from a time before people decided that Classical music couldn't be popular, and if it were popular then it couldn't be Classical music.



inspired by an excellent article about Escort Aircraft Carriers that Peter discovered.

Good advice

Brigid Has a Question.

HOTR friends and very kind and patient Borepatch readers. My publicist is in Ireland. TBOB was a #1 bestseller in the UK.  That prompted my husband to send me a text and photo from a large bookstore in London, where he was on business.  My first book was on display with "also by this author", which was a book on ERECTILE DISFUNCTION by a Dr. L.B. Johnson (quick, call the publisher, call the bookstore).

That resolved, (and yes, I'm technically a Dr., but I don't know how to fix the living, only reconstruct the dead) it was time to get back to normal life. Then there is the third book, and my publicist wants to do a Social Media blast this month. I made these tonight and respectfully ask which one you prefer. 1, 2, 3, or 4.

A real post to resume soon. Partner in Grime was gone all week, and I was busy with the house, work, 96-year-old Dad, and dog. Dad can sometimes be a challenge, but as he adopted me when his friends were welcoming grandchildren, I figure I owe him one, and he is one of the kindest men I know.

Someone is getting signed up for Obedience School

Just sayin' ...

Best shot ever made with a 1911

A Army Air Corps co-pilot shot down a Zero with his 1911 after he parachuted from a burning B24.

(via)