Novel Eye

B with whom I can say the most absurd things (and for that I love her--you know who you are) and I had this intriguing exchange in email. I used the word "JOY!" in an email and then asked if she thought I was Ren or Stimpy (and fans of the show will know why). She responded that I was Ren to HER Stimpy because she was almost always Stimpy except for certain friends where she was Ren , and that her old boss was R to her S, but with his wife he was probably S and she R and further, that I was probably S to my husband's R. I'll go with that.

I mean to write long exciting things and I have several going (realize I'm going to have to post two extras to have a full set for March) but TV is interesting again, which leads us to... Over the weekend, caught the last episode of " Blackadder Goes Forth (or Fourth)" which is the saddest episode of the whole set (well, duh, since it's a comedy!). At the end of each Blackadder series everybody dies a horrible death, but it's surreal and it's funny. At the end of this one, set in a trench in WWI, everybody goes over the top and dies and it's not funny. It's terribly, terribly sad. "In Flanders Field the poppies grow" (John McCrae ). "Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade" (Sting). And the series treats it as such--there's no closing credits, no music, just the field as it is now, soft and green. Stephen Fry before The Baftas and his novel and Bright, Young Things . Tony Robinson before archeology . Rowan At...

Tonight I did something I'm ashamed of: I watched two episodes of Project Runway. Well, I read while they played on the TV, but I looked up a lot. Bless me, Readers, for I have sinned and I feel unclean. I hate reality television, even something as "positive" as this, someone will get a lot of money and a start in fashion from it and no one has to eat bugs or cheat on their loved ones or set fire to themselves. For every supposedly positive thing that reality television promotes--rooting for a fan, an underdog, rewarding some talent--there is something dark and horrible, because in the end we are all waiting for someone to crash and burn on national tv, and we all know that the most talented (whatever that means) is not going to walk away with the prize (Clay Aiken, anyone?). I got sucked in because of the first challenge which was to make dresses using only material that they had ripped from the dorms where they are staying. I love a good challenge esp. of materials, and...

I'm posting in the middle of the day! Wahoo! Totally random post because I'm on lunch break and I feel like it. Just had bubble tea for the first time. You'd think being interested in Japan I'd have had this before, esp. since I like Tapioca, but it's rather expensive and I was afraid I wouldn't like it. Well, I don't LOVE it, but I don't hate it either. The flavor was Earl Grey and the tapioca was flavored with Raspberries. It gave the tea a milky flavor and it was disconcerting to have the tapioca come up the straw periodically (could have been solved with a smaller straw, I realize), but the flavors worked well together and the tapioca was well done instead of being hard (which I kind of expected. What's funny is it DID NOT go with the crispy eel sushi I was eating for lunch. Fish and raspberries--not so much. Should have had plain flavor, or drunk it after the sushi. I do love Newbury Street in Boston though. I only work in town one day a week no...

Red Queen asked that I make a permanent link to A Hat A Day so I have complied. Also want to point out the new link to my friend Duncan's website. He is a painter but I hadn't seen any of his work. I love it! I really, really like art like this. He is having a show in Arlington, MA starting a week from Sunday for anyone around.

As promised, many posts ago, from Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad . A Love Poem in Tensor Algebra Come let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to n, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And ever vector dreams of matrices, Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our asymptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face. I’ll grant thee random access to my hear, Thou’lt tell me all the constants of they love; And s we two shall all love’s lemmas prove, And in our bound partition never part. For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel, Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler, Wielding their compasses, their pens, and rulers, Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell? Cancel me not—for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A r...

I've added a new blog. I'm going to try to post there every day, but only on hats. I hope you enjoy it. www.ahataday.blogspot.com

Woah! Reread my last post and found all kinds of errors. Must be from doing it at midnight on a Saturday after a long week. I am a mediocre speller, so apologize for that in advance. I believe that style sometimes (but only sometimes) trumps grammar, but I do try to always make sense.

First, adding pictures. Tomorrow maybe links! Second, driving a friend home at 2 in the morning and realizing that the night belongs to the cabs and that the cabs are monsters, roaming the wilds looking for victims. Watched two run red lights, another make an illegal left and have one cut me off. All in the space of half a mile--GGRRRR.