Miscellany

[stoutfellow]

It was a raw and nasty morning - rain pelting down, thunderstorms roaring through one after another. Here we only had a few microblackouts - long enough to upset a lot of the electronics, but not enough to get a squeal from the UPS which guards my computer - but the department secretary told me power was out at her place for a couple of hours. The morning paper predicted a brief window of clear skies in the early to mid-afternoon, to be followed by yet more storms. Although there were things I could (and should) have done at the office, I decided to bolt for home right after my calculus class, so as not to get caught in the rain again. Naturally, there have been no storms since about 11:00 AM.

I didn't sleep too well last night, so after getting home I lay down for a nap. Murphy curled up next to me, as usual. Then his stomach started growling, loud and gurgly, throwing me into panicked thought - did I forget to feed him last night? (No, of course not. He wouldn't let me get away with that.) But, Lord, it was loud. My own stomach started rumbling in sympathy, and equally without justification.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy listening to Chicago. Yeah, "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" is rather pretentious, but "25 or 6 to 4" is fun, and there's a fair range of styles in their other work - "Colour My World" mellow, "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" exuberant, "Saturday in the Park" joyous, "Hard Habit to Break" intense and driving. Good stuff.

I've started in on A Fountain Filled With Blood and Earth Made of Glass. A friend warned me that the latter book was very sad, which of course has me trying to guess the form that sadness will take - private and personal? planetary and cataclysmic? - and desperately fighting the temptation to look at the last page. I've seen a couple of clues, one overt and one tacit, but they point in completely different directions.

"Lost" has continued to be interesting, despite quite a few gaffes. Last week's episode featured a boar hunt... Locke, buddy, I don't care how much you've read about it; I don't care how big your knife collection is, or how good you are at throwing them; you just don't send out a party of three greenhorns to hunt wild boar. Look at it this way. Greek mythology contains many stories of clashes between heroes and monsters. Sometimes it's one hero against a bunch of monsters (Hercules and the Stymphalian birds); sometimes it's one on one (Perseus and Medusa); once in a while you'll get two heroes teaming up against one monster (Hercules and Iolaus against the Hydra); but there's only one case I know of where a whole platoon of heroes was called in to deal with a single monster. They weren't minor leaguers, either: Atalanta, Meleager, Theseus, Telamon - this is a pretty high-powered team, and it took all of them to do the job. (At least one of the heroes was killed, too.) The monster? The Calydonian boar. [And no, I don't think Locke killed that one boar either.]

Comments

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to the identity of the two clues.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I'll tell you, on condition that you do not tell me how right or wrong they are. I'll find out soon enough.

1) "[W]e had no sense yet that [the temple of Murukan]would shortly be one with the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, St. Peter's, or Manhattan's skyscrapers." This points to either major ethnic strife or, less likely I think, some sort of geophysical cataclysm.

2) On a much smaller scale, Margaret's abstraction and secretive smiles make me suspect she's having an affair, probably with Kapilar. Given that her marriage to Giraut already seems to be in trouble, I'm not sure that this would qualify as very sad, but very bad consequences are certainly possible.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

"It was a raw and nasty morning - rain pelting down, thunderstorms roaring through one after another."

Ah, my favorite weather. But 'twould be different if I had to *walk* in it, which I did revel in as a child.

"did I forget to feed him last night?"

Snort, snerk! I've never yet met the dog or cat (or chicken) who would agree to miss a meal. When the Chicken Girls had the run of the back yard, they used to come peck on the family room windows if they felt I was being derelict in my feed duties!

I need to reread the JSF series next, since I've finished my comfort LMB reread. Alec is reading me Dave Barry/Ridley Pearson's The Starcatchers at night. It is actually quite humorously written (surprise, surprise) and there is much, so far, for adults to enjoy.

Speaking of TV gaffes, I really hate TV plots that are SO contrived or unreal that they don't bear watching. We watched about 3/4 of an episode of a new series, the name of which escapes me. It had Mark Harmon and David McCallum in it, which should have made it great; in fact, they were the *only* good thing about it. The silly premise was that the good guys are Secret Service agents investigating the murder of a member of some one of the armed services (that's how good it was, for me to pay such close attention to detail (g)). The Teflon Spouse told me later that the Secret Service is part of the Treasury Department, so why would they be doing a kind of military police investigation? Good point. Silly premise no. 2, the new agent is a stunner in 5' high heels and the shortest skirt they must make as part of a uniform or undercover wear. Yeah. I'd sure wear that to investigate a crime scene. No need to *even* go into the particular plot problems. They'll never get me again. I hate such a waste of talent and my time (all 45 minutes of it!). Well, my goodness. That was an unexpected rant, wannit? (g)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Your series sounds like Navy NCIS (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364845/); at least, it's got Harmon and McCallum in it.

[allyra.livejournal.com]

I really do love listening to Chicago, too. (As I'm sure you already knew!) Don't forget to listen to their *other* stuff, though...the things that were never meant for radio play. That's what I love best. I made myself a 3-CD collection of Chicago, and it probably has 10 songs that were released.

Great stuff. Thought sometimes listening to it makes me sad that Peter Cetera became ascendent with his "radio pablum" (as a fellow die-hard fan once called it) and caused Robert Lamm's and James Pankow's stuff to go into eclipse...

(Did I mention that I'm a Really Big Fan? Heh.)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Don't forget to listen to their *other* stuff, though...the things that were never meant for radio play.

Such as? (I can't say that I'm a big fan - in the sense of having a fan's knowledge - but I'm always ready to learn.)

[allyra.livejournal.com]

Erm, well...just about everything else. On the earlier albums, at least. "Colour My World" was actually taken from the middle of a gorgeous suite called "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon". "Make Me Smile" was hacked off the beginning and end of it. All the best parts get left off!

If you'd like, I could make a CD of some stuff for you. Unfortunately, my program does some odd stuff to tracks that are separate yet connected (if that makes sense), so something like the Ballet would likely have odd bits between each "song".

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Everything else, besides the songs I mentioned? You're confusing me...

Okay, reading the liner notes from my album (a two-disk set labelled "The Very Best of Chicago/Only the Beginning") I think I see what you mean; there's a reference to the album "Chicago Transit Authority" "[going] under the editing-room blade". Hmm... So I guess you're referring mainly to the first two albums?

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Thank YOU! Now I know which show to avoid (g). Mark Harmon is a very solid actor; in fact, he was good in the bits that I saw, but I wish he'd find a better vehicle. And McCallum, whom I absolutely adored as Illya Kuryakin in Man From U.N.C.L.E., surely deserves better than the strange role he has here.

When I was in 6th grade, we used to LIVE Man from U.N.C.L.E. The teachers were very tolerant, but it was a 24-hour game. We divided ourselves up into two groups and spent the days spying on each other and counting coup, which could be determined by how long until the discovery by the other side, that the first side had successfully penetrated the perimeter and taped a small bug under the desk of one of the opposing side's members. Said bugs were tiny pieces of paper with a grid drawn on it! Lunches were spent discussing how to infiltrate *their* side, with secret agents, double agents. At night, we phoned each other to make plans for the following day. It's a wonder we learned anything at all that year.

Hmm. this memory is good enough, I'm going to xpost it to my journal, too. Funny how exciting and glamorous the world of intelligence seemed at the time, juxtaposed with the grim reality most of the undercover jobs probably entailed. Living on the edge sounds great from the armchair (g).

[allyra.livejournal.com]

Well, I really meant everything other than the things they actually released. The first 3 albums, then Chicago VII, had a real lack of "radio-ready" things. Those are my favorite albums. Once that you can really just *listen* to. Some cool experimental stuff, too.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Well, I really meant everything other than the things they actually released.

I suspected some such thing, but I don't - didn't - know what they didn't release. (How come? 'Cause I never heard it! [g]) I didn't notice them until about '75. (I think that Chicago, um, IX? was the first album I ever purchased - not the first Chicago album, the first album, period.) But I'll start looking for those albums.