Before it falls into the sea

The California Coastal Records Project created this cool site where you can see an aerial photo of any portion of the California coast.  Here’s a favorite:

Geeky library voyeurism

I recently picked up Master and Commander from the library.  Somewhere around page 100, when Captain Aubrey was just taking the Sophie out for its first sail, I discovered among the pages the last patron’s receipt for the items he/she checked out at the time.  I have to admit I was vaguely fascinated, as I was reading or had read 3 out of 4 of them (or maybe it was the late hour), and wondered if all 4 books were for the same person or if some were for other family members.  Here’s what they went for (and my 2 cents):

Ender’s Game (excellent)
Master and Commander (in process)
Cannery Row (a modern classic)
The Sunday Philosophy Club (no idea)

Sing yourself

Maybe this is what Whitman meant…

The composer John Cage visited a sound-proofed anechoic chamber in order to experience total and complete silence.  It didn’t quite work out that way.  Describing the experience, he later wrote, “I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation.”

This seems to raise a lot of questions.  Are the two sounds always at the same two musical notes and keys, or do they vascillate and, if so, why?  Can they be in tune with each other, creating a kind of harmony, during which we feel good, or dissonant when we feel bad?  Is the music of our bodies naturally harmonious with the music of those we fall in love with?  Might we be prone to hate someone whose natural music is discordant with our own?

This is not a poem

Blame Walt for freeing verse,
Celebrating himself in front of everyone;
Or Thomas for being so good at it,
Somehow finding rhythm where there was no rhyme,
Telling us what the thunder said.
But now Robert kicks at his box,
Because the nets are down,
And everyone is hitting balls
All over the place,
Writing poems like mad libs.
In the <adjective> twilight, the burgundy <noun>
Goes <silly word> and <adverb> soars to <place>

Google maps is depressing

Near my childhood home there were thick woods, impenetrable in summer and close enough even in winter to block out whatever might lay beyond them.  And there was the rub – what lay beyond them.  I had no idea.  For all I knew, those woods stretched for hundreds of miles.  You might venture in and never come out, or you might stumble right into another world.  It was a great mystery and, as such, would always inspire awe and joy in me.  Especially in summer, and especially at night, when forests get their magic on.

Until Google maps.  Now I see from the satellite image that, after just a few hundred feet, those woods stop at an office building.  And a parking lot.

I suppose it’s nice to know there’s a shortcut to the drugstore.  Too bad they had to kill my magic forest to find out.

The Switchman

“Good morning,” said the little prince.
“Good morning,” said the railway switchman.
“What is it that you do here?” asked the little prince.
“I sort the travelers into bundles of a thousand,” the switchman said. “I dispatch the trains that carry them, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left.”
And a brightly lit express train, roaring like thunder, shook the switchman’s cabin.
“What a hurry they’re in,” said the little prince. “What are they looking for?”
“Not even the engineer on the locomotive knows.”
And another brightly lit express train thundered by in the opposite direction.
“Are they coming back already?” asked the little prince.
“It’s not the same ones,” the switchman said. “It’s an exchange.”
“They weren’t satisfied, where they were?” asked the little prince.
“No one is ever satisfied where he is.”
And a third brightly lit express train thundered past.
“Are they chasing the first travelers?” asked the little prince.
“They’re not chasing anything,” the switchman said. “They’re sleeping in there, or else they’re yawning. Only the children are pressing their noses against the windowpanes.”

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, from The Little Prince