I'm reading Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion by Michael Patrick MacDonald and got to this passage on page 22 which may be the most surreal thing I've ever read in a memoir.

My first afternoon there I was just about to leave the store when one of the clerks took down a Patti Smith record that was propped on a fireplace mantel that was left over from the days when the shop had been an apartment. I had seen Patti Smith a couple of  years earlier on the Saturday morning TV show Kids Are People Too.  She wore an oversized man's blazer and her gaunt face made her look something like Jesus on the cross.  She sang Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" surrounded by an audience of entranced eight-year-olds.  The show host* had announced her a "punk poet" and "the female Mick Jagger."  As a kid I hadn't been into rock 'n' roll.  All we ever listened to in Southie was soul or disco even though the neighborhood wasn't safe for black people - or anyone else different from us - after the busing riots.  Still everyone knew who Mick Jagger was - especially after the Rolling Stones' "Miss You" became a disco hit.  If Patti Smith was his female counterpart I was surprised I'd never heard of her.  Seeing her on TV on that Saturday morning gave me the willies, and I couldn't get her blank stare out of my head all day.  I was probably eleven and couldn't believe she was on a show for kids younger than me, singing the worst soft-rock ever but turning it into an intense dirge with her deep and onimous voice.  The show's host asked her "Are you punk rock?"  She simply answer, "No," her blank stare unmoved by the host's enthusiasm.  "Well, we think you're punk rock, right, kids?" the apple-cheeked host shouted, to the cheers of dozens of eight-year-olds screaming, "Yeah!"  I had no idea what was going on. Punk rock?  And the Debby Boone song?  And that frightening gaze?

Oh, look, here it is:

Be sure to listen to the question portion where she says that she wanted to be a missionary.

And if you want to read a more light-hearted description of the whole thing, try this article on Open Culture.

And the rest of the book?  Definitely recommended.



* Michael Young

Thank you, Fin Dwyer!

I was recently asked to sub for another actress in a one-act at Silver Spring Stage.  A week's notice, okay, but really that just makes it exciting, right?  And besides, I'm playing a narrator, so I can consult my script while I sit in a chair.  Easy peasy!!  I can read! I can sit!  I can read and sit at the same time!

However.

The play in question is the first act of Brian Friel's Lovers.  Brian Friel is Irish.  So are his characters.  That means that they have ... Irish accents.  And preferably not "Irish Spring" or "Lucky Charms" accents.*  I have long said that I had an Irish accent that would pass auditions but I'd never had to put that to the test before.

So I collected the script a few days ago and have rehearsed with the cast a few times. And the other night at home I re-loaded all of the Irish History podcasts that I had previously listened to back onto Smudge.  And I have been wandering around in my free time listening to the host, Fin Dwyer, tell stories that can be summarized as "As then things went very badly for the Irish"** and repeating what he says more or less phrase by phrase.***

No would seriously mistake me for a resident of the Auld Sod but I think I'm at least ... not jarring.

And I was, of course, no end of pleased when our director was giving notes one night and suggested to another cast member that their accent was wandering.  "Maybe you could listen to some Irish History podcasts," she said nodding at me.

Possibly more difficult will be to stop speaking that way when not in performance.

So this is my tiny effort to repay Fin for the assist.  If you have any interest in Irish history, I highly recommend his podcast and website. 


*Telling an actress that she has a Lucky Charms accent is the sort of thing that makes people go all slitty-eyed and resentful, though outwardly still smiling and charming.


**See, for example, the Vikings.  


***In the episode about the Spanish Armada, I got really good at saying the word "gun" with the proper accent.  Such a pity that word doesn't occur in the play.  Well, unless I work it in every so often.  "He carried his school-books *and a gun* in a leather satchel."  Like that.

The Official AN/SPS-30 Cigarette Lighter

This post from Silver Spring: Then and Again is another one of those areas where elements of my personal history come together.

I live in Silver Spring (or at least moved here as a child) because APL was here. The Navy assigned Dad to APL, possibly as a Tech Rep, so my parents bought a house a couple of miles away. We expected to be here for two to three years. Naturally, I therefore ended up doing all but a few months of my schooling in Montgomery County schools.*  (I'm not sure but I think if I asked Daddy why the Navy assigned him there, he would say that it was to put him in proximity to Crisfields for lunch every day.)

So I grew up in Silver Spring, Daddy worked at APL, and the third leg of this triangle is, of course, that the company I work for now does radar here in Silver Spring, blocks from the old APL site.

Looking at the plaque, I can even understand most of what it says because quite a few of our contracts say much the same thing.  The numbering system for contracts hasn't changed, probably since 1781.

Not that I smoke, but if one of those were to show up at yard sale, I think I'd buy it in a hurry.


*I started kindergarten in at Quidnessett Elementary School in North Kingston, Rhode Island and we moved to Silver Spring in November of that year.  The year that I was 14, I spent six months living with Daddy in Belgium and attended the base school from March to June. Other than those brief lacunae, teachers at Parkside Elementary, Eastern Junior High, and Montgomery Blair High School had the daily struggle of getting me to stop daydreaming or surreptitiously reading.

Lots of Information

I read a book review in the New York Times that I am assuming that David has already read. And I'm kinda assuming that he'll buy the book.*  And after he does, I'd like to borrow it.

Because how can one not want to read a book where the reviewer and the author write, thus, about Ada Lovelace:

Some [colorful digressions] are included just for the sake of introducing the great eccentrics whose seemingly marginal inventions would prove to be prophetic. Like Richard Holmes’s “Age of Wonder” this book invests scientists with big, eccentric personalities. Augusta Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, may have been spectacularly arrogant about what she called “my immense reasoning faculties,” claiming that her brain was “something more than merely mortal." But her contribution to the writing of algorithms can, in the right geeky circles, be mentioned in the same breath as her father’s contribution to poetry.

And if David doesn't, I'll buy it and he can borrow mine.


* "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleik

Why I do dark, difficult plays sometimes

I'm currently in rehearsal for The Shadow Box which is a lovely play about three families coping with terminal illness.  Needless to say, it has fewer laughs and "feel good" moments than your average Neil Simon play.  The show isn't about uplift, it's about closure.

I find myself feeling the tiniest bit defensive about the show because a cheery evening out, it ain't.   Frankly, it's always easier to ask your friends to come see happy comedies.  But theater, as I like to say, is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.  How human beings got where are are and how we'll get where we're going.  And that isn't always sunny or uplifting.  Sometimes it's sad or difficult.

My friend, Craig, who loves dark, difficult plays recently directed David Harrower's Blackbird in comparison to which The Shadow Box is pretty sunny.  I think that he would be very interested to read these quotes which were found and posted to Savoynet* by Andrew Crowther** about W.S. Gilbert's drama The Hooligan which is celebrating its centennial this month. The Hooligan is story of a condemned man's last hours.


Andrew wrote:

A comment from the Stageland column in the Penny Illustrated Paper of 11 March 1911 (a more racy and perhaps more working class paper than others):

It disturbed everyone. Most to applause; a few to resentment. There was the ruddy, ample gentleman whom I met in the bar during what the Col. calls the 'Intermission.' 'You come here to be amused, not to be----" He groped for the word and lost it. 'A man of a morbid turn of mind might think it all right, mightn't he?'


A play that can wing a ruddy, ample gentleman; leave him puzzled, gasping, unsettled; stir up vague doubtings about killing folk and giving them 'no chanst'--a play like that is a play which you ought to pop in and see at once.

In Holbrook Jackson's essay "Why Do We Laugh?" in his volume of essays Occasions (Grant Richards, 1922, pp 94-95):

I always felt that the laughter provoked by [James Welch's] characterization in The Man in the Street was an expression of relief from the underlying tragedy of the thing. But if there is any doubt about that, there could be no doubt whatever about the small gasps of hysterical laughter during his realistic interpretation of the condemned man in Gilbert's little tragedy The Hooligan. The theme is so painful as to be almost unbearable. I have seen people walk out in the midst of this play unable to stand any more of it. Yet those who remained in the grip of the horror, watching Welch revealing the fear of a condemned man during his supposed last few moments on earth--the fear of a man who is half idiot, and who has very little worth preserving in his life--those who remained laughed every now and then at the humour of it. Some things may be too deep for tears, but nothing is too deep for laughter.

* An e-mail list for Gilbert & Sullivan fans


**Andrew is a G&S scholar who has added greatly to what we know about those two men, their works, and their times.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

I started writing this post (oh my) a long time ago, when the story first ran about the loction of the cabin. I've been moved to update and finish it because the cabin will be open to the public this weekend.

* * * * *

It's a funny thing but until somewhat recently I assumed that Uncle Tom's Cabin was located in the deep south somewhere. Mississippi or Alabama or something. Although the image of Eliza running across a frozen river in the deep south should have put paid to that.

According to this website, the story begins in Kentucky and the icy river is the Ohio. The eventual destination is Canada. Later Tom is sold "down the river," but I'm not sure where. The one thing I do know is that the cabin of Josiah Henson, the slave whose autobiography inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write the book, still exists and is located ...... in upscale Bethesda, Maryland.

Maryland, a border state during the Civil War (and a slave state before it), was put under martial law during the war because of the number of pro-Confederate officials and its proximity to Washington, DC.  My state, however, did remain part of the Union, (whew) due in part to the efforts of her governor, a slaveholder, who negotiated with federal officials.

Quickie geography refresher - the District of Columbia was originally a diamond-shaped territory donated by Maryland and Virginia. It is now a sort-of diamond-shaped territory with a ragged lower left (the Potomac River) because the Virignia section (Arlington - named for Robert E. Lee's home) was returned and is now the site of, among other things, the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery.

Several major arteries go from the Maryland suburbs into DC, including Georgia Avenue, which passes in front of my church. And buried in the churchyard are 17 confederate soldiers who fought in General Jubal Early's raid and the Battle of Fort Stevens.  (The deli up the street has a General Jubal Early burger on their menu.)  I will pass the church (and the deli) on my way to the Josiah Henson Special Park.

And if they have copies of the Reverend's autobiography for sale, I shall buy one* and learn more about the history of my state.


*You know, to provide a bit of income to the Special Park.  If they don't, I can read it on-line.

Maryland SB 116

The Maryland "Civil Marriage Protection Act" has been debated today and will get its final vote tomorrow. I had urged my representatives and the governor to support the bill. I didn't say anything terribly interesting or unusual, just that I support equal rights, including equal marriage rights, for all Marylanders. I took Equality Maryland's basic "please do the right thing" e-mail and added my own thoughts, including my belief that "gay marriage is just marriage."

And it certainly didn't hurt that one of my reps, Delegate Sheila Hixson, co-sponsored the legislation and another, Senator Jamie Raskin, was one of the legislators who introduced the bill.

So I am holding my breath as Maryland is given the chance to treat all of her citizens with dignity and respect. Sort of like in 1864: “Because Maryland remained in the Union, it was exempted from the anti-slavery provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation.(The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to states in rebellion). In 1864 the state held a constitutional convention that culminated in the passage of a new state constitution. Article 24 of that document outlawed the practice of slavery. In 1867 the state extended suffrage to non-white males." (Via Wikipedia)*

The full text of the bill can be found here. It ain't very long and, frankly, it's not all that provocative. It merely lifts the "one man and one woman requirement." But then most really big things aren't that wordy.

And here is Senator Raskin's reply to my letter:

Dear Leta

Greetings and thanks for your very thoughtful note in support of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, the legislation that I have introduced with Senator Madaleno to end the stain of discrimination against tens of thousands of people in our state who are locked out of the institution of marriage. I consider it not only a serious moral and constitutional obligation but a high honor to be fighting for equal rights, benefits and responsibilities for my thousands of gay and lesbian constituents. We are making major gains across the country in securing equal citizenship for all our people and dramatic progress here in Maryland, where I believe we are on the verge of passing SB 116 this Session. I have been working very hard to convince wavering and undecided colleagues that this will be a vote they can be proud of for the rest of their lives. We had an extraordinarily successful hearing on Tuesday, February 8 in which the breadth and passion of support for marriage equality was manifest, along with the palpable weakness of arguments on the other side. On Thursday, February 17, I joined six of my colleagues on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee to vote in favor of the bill, 7-4, and to report the bill to the floor; the Committee also adopted an amendment I offered to assure churches and church-sponsored groups that they will not have to participate in the solemnization or celebration of any marriage they choose not to. In any event, Equality Maryland has been doing a superb job organizing, and I am convinced that we are going to win.

I am certain that the days of marriage discrimination are numbered and we will see justice on this front in our lifetimes, probably very soon. I am proud to be part of this movement for equal rights under the law for all Marylanders. Thanks for taking the time to write me, and please stay in close touch.

All best, Jamie

*I was actually assuming that I would have to include an example of some disgraceful aspect of Maryland history, so I am very grateful to Those Strangers on the Internet for providing me with something more uplifting.**


**And now you’re trying to remember when the 13th and 15th Amendments to US Constitution were enacted, right? December 1865 and February 1870, respectively. As goes Maryland …

Why I blog

For years I have contemplated telling this story, and for years I have put off telling it. While I have delayed, my memory has not improved, and my recollections of the past are more hazy and fragmentary than when it first occurred to me that one day I might write them down.

...although I was at one time conscientious and diligent enough in keeping a diary, I kept it for use at the moment, not for future reference.... It had become a bursting, groaning dust-bin of information, for the most part useless.

About six years ago I moved into a smaller house in London, and I burnt a great many of my earlier diaries as unmovable rubbish. The few passages which I shall quote in this book from those which escaped destruction will prove that my bonfire meant no great loss!

Still, when it was suggested to me in the year of my stage jubilee that I ought to write down my recollections, I longed for those diaries! I longed for anything which would remind me of the past and make it live again for me. I was frightened. Something would be expected of me, since I could not deny that I had had an eventful life packed full of incident, and that by the road I had met many distinguished and interesting men and women. I could not deny that I had been fifty years on the stage, and that this meant enough material for fifty books, if only the details of every year could be faithfully told. But it is not given to all of us to see our lives in relief as we look back. Most of us, I think, see them in perspective, of which our birth is the vanishing point. Seeing, too, is only half the battle. How few people can describe what they see!

...For weeks I had hesitated between Othello's "Nothing extenuate, nor write down aught in malice," and Pilate's "What is truth?" as my guide and my apology. Now I saw that both were too big for my modest endeavor. I was not leaving a human document for the benefit of future psychologists and historians, but telling as much of my story as I could remember to the good, living public which has been considerate and faithful to me for so many years.

From The Story of My Life, Recollections and Reflections by Ellen Terry with thanks to Sam for sharing it as Savoynet discussed how much reliance to have on memoirs written in a subject's later years.

Veris me facies

"Leta - that's a pretty name. What does it mean?"

"It's Latin for 'joyful'."

And my face is pretty joyful that spring is here.

Veris Leta Facies

from the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

Veris leta facies
mundo propinatur,
hiemalis acies
victa iam fugatur,
in vestitu vario
Flora principatur,
nemorum dulcisono
que cantu celebratur.

Flore fusus gremio
Phebus novo more
risum dat, hac vario
iam stipate flore.
Zephyrus nectareo
spirans in odore.
Certatim pro bravio
curramus in amore.

Cytharizat cantico
dulcis Philomena,
flore rident vario
prata iam serena,
salit cetus avium
silve per amena,
chorus promit virgin
iam gaudia millena.

The joyful face of spring

turns to the world,

sharp winter

now flees, vanquished;

bedecked in various colours

Flora reigns,

the harmony of the woods

praises her in song.

Ah!

Lying in Flora's lap

Phoebus once more

smiles, now covered

in multi-coloured flowers,

Zephyr breathes nectar-

scented breezes.

Let us rush to compete

for love's prize.

Ah!

In harp-like tones sings

the sweet nightingale,

with many flowers

the joyous meadows are laughing,

a flock of birds rises up

through the pleasant forests,

the chorus of maidens

already promises a thousand joys.

Ah!

Snowed up

Every time we get a lot of snow (we are currently in the middle of SnOMG 2010 with 5" on the ground so far and another 20 or so expected), this scene runs through my head.

One still morning, Laura came downstairs to find Ma looking surprised and Pa laughing. "Go look out the back door!" he told Laura.
She ran through the lean-to and openend the back door. There was a rough, low tunnel going into shadows in gray-white snow. Its walls and its floor were snow and its snow roof solidly filled the top of the doorway.
"I had to gopher my way to the stable this morning," Pa explained.
"But what did you do with the snow?" Laura asked.
"Oh, I made the tunnel as low as I could get though. I dug the snow out and pushed it back of me and up through a hole that I blocked with the last of it. There's nothing like snow for keeping out wind!" Pa rejoiced. "As long as that snowbank stands, I can do my chores in comfort."
"How deep is the snow?" Ma wanted to know.
"I can't say." It's piled up considerably deeper than the lean-to roof," Pa answered.
"You don't mean to say this house is buried in snow!" Ma exclaimed.
"A good thing if it is," Pa replied. "You notice the kitchen is warmer than it has been this winter?"
Laura ran upstairs. She scratched a peephole on the window and put her eyes to it. She could hardly believe them. Main Street was level with her eyes. Across the glittering snow she could see the blank, square top of Harthorn's false front sticking up like a short piece of solid board fence.

From The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Wearing my poppy

When I was growing up I believed that Memorial Day honored those who died in War and Veterans Day honored all service personnel. It turns out that I was mistaken.

Memorial Day (originally Decoration Day) celebrated Union soldiers and the date (last Monday in May) was chosen to match the day of reunification after the Civil War.

Veterans Day (also known as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day) originally honored the veterans of the first World War. When I was in England last November, we stopped our singing and such in time for the moment of silence at 11:11 am and afterwards our host, Bob, asked if any of us had parents or grandparents who fought in that war. His father fought for England as the did the fathers and uncles of several of the people in the room.

I had landed at Heathrow a couple of days before and as I was going through the airport with Carol and Claire and Mariel, I saw a box labeled "Poppy Appeal". Ignorant American that I am, I asked what it was and what it meant. I was told that the Poppy Appeal which offers little paper poppies in exchange for donations, supports the Royal British Legion, the nation's leading Armed Forces charity providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present.

I asked if a pound was enough (oh, any amount is fine, luv), put my pound in the tin, and took a poppy. I put it through the button hole of my sweater and was severely grateful that I had learned this before I had needed any kind of assistance, as I had assumed that the many people wearing poppies were airport personnel of some kind.

I made sure to wear it that Sunday and also made sure to put it where I wouldn't lose it when I got home.

A couple of months later, I was at the James Lee Community Center for an audition or a rehearsal or something and was chatting with a friend who works there. I noticed a box of poppies on the counter and asked about them. It seems that the American Legion also uses poppies to raise money for the support of veterans.

So now I have two poppies and this week I have worn my British poppy on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for Remembrance Day and will wear my American poppy today, tomorrow and Friday for Veterans Day. My Boss saw my English poppy on Monday and today is wearing the one that he got on a recent trip to London. My other boss has not been able to find a poppy anywhere locally, so I have lent him my English one. And the three of us are explaining our poppies to the many people who ask about the paper flowers we are wearing.

Why poppies? Because many of the fallen in World War I were buried in Flanders Field in Belgium where poppies grow like poppies.

To all who served my country or their own, including my father and grandfathers, my thanks. Thank you for your service.

The Poppy Appeal

American Legion Auxilliary Poppy Campaign

Camping ... in Pennsylvania

A couple of years ago, when I was working on Taking Leave, I would have dinner after rehearsals with a friend. We'd chat about this and that and I don't really remember how much of my Markland experience peppered my conversation but apparently enough because one day he said something along the lines of "This camping you mentioned: did it happen ... in Pennsylvania?"

Why, yes. Yes, it did. I used to go to the Pennsic Wars every August and be all medieval surrounded by hundreds of other people being all medieval, too. There was very little that was modern as far as the eye could eye could see. Well, except for the coolers.* And the sunglasses. And the paperback science fiction.

Every Pennsic had its own character but certain things seemed to be a given: There would be at least one torrential rainstorm during the week which would teach excellent lessons about the inadvisability of having one's blankets touching the edge of one's canvas tent and about how efficient a process "wicking" can really be; at least one person would get what everyone else called the Plague but more literal me called a flux,** although thankfully not a bloody flux; and at least one someone would hook-up with one someone else with said hook-up turning out to rather regretable and a fruitful source of mockery in the future.

I haven't been to a Pennsic in years, so imagine of my delight when I found this post on Medieval News.***

Ahhh, good times.


* We used coolers for our food because food poisoning is no fun no matter what century you are currently inhabiting. And it's even less fun when you are a modern person sleeping in a tent and sharing a port-a-potty.

** See the reason for the use of achronistic coolers, supra.

***I should note, however, that even though the "Voice of America" video says that the winner of the Pennsic War receives the title to Pittsburgh, them of us what were there, know that it's the loser who takes possession. See? Even those strangers on Wikipedia agree with that.

An RC Cola

The only Mardi Gras I ever attended was in Mobile, Alabama, so it was awfully nice to hear this story yesterday on All Things Considered about Mobile's claim to have been celebrating Fat Tuesday before Neworlens was even a Blackened Cajun spot on the map.

I don't remember catching any Moon Pies, but there were definitely beads, and candy, and trinkets, and dime store junk a-plenty flying through the air. My cousin, Robbie, was living with my grandparents in those days and he was taller than we were, so he caught as much as he could for his younger girl cousins from up North.

And here is a little more about the Land of My Father.

Inauguration Day 2009

Simple Gifts by Elder Joseph Brackett

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

(Kathy Sobansky of Clam Chowder wrote second verse of:)

Tis a gift to be simple,'Tis a gift to be free,
For the proud are cast down deeper than the sea,
The first shall be last and the last shall be first,
And the meek at last shall receive the earth.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

It does say it all

Gwyn found this and sent it to me and a few other folks. And while I agree with most of it, the last paragraph really spoke to me. Now matter which side of the aisle the people you voted for sit on, we're all in this together.

It's not over. One election doesn't solve anything--no matter who you elect, that candidate still has to live up to his promise. No matter what change you want, you have to get out there and make it yourself. But for the first time in a very long time, it felt like the country had opened its eyes again and remembered its name.

The Morning After on Cleolinda's LJ.

This seems familiar. Too familiar.

Christopher Stasheff wrote a series of SF/fantasy books back in the 80s about a interstellar agent who fetches up on a planet called Graymarye which is a semi, kinda, sorta medieval society.* Pretty much, as I like to say, what would happen if Markland and the SCA had their own world. Or if Renn Faire was alway and everywhere.

The one that I am reading now is the second in the series, King Kobold Revived. Most of the characters speak rather "yeomanly" but Rod Gallowglass, our hero, speaks in very idiomatic late 20th Century English, as does Yorick, a time traveling Neanderthal**, in case the following excerpt sounds a bit peculiar.

...."There's that little matter of the rumor he's supposed to circulate," [Rod] reminded Tuan.
Yorick shrugged. "That you and your army have really come just to oust Mughorck, isn't it? Not to wipe out the local citizenry?"
"Thou hast it aright."
"But you do understand," Yorick pointed out, "that they'll have to fight until they kow Mughorck's been taken, don't you? I mean, if they switched to your side and he won, it could be very embarrassing for them -- not to mention their wives and children."
"Assuredly," Tuan agreed. "Nay, I hope only that, when they know Mughorck is ta'en, they'll not hesitate to lay down their arms."
"I have a notion that most of them will be too busy cheering to think about objecting."
" 'Tis well. Now..." Tuan leaned forward, eyes glittering. "How can we be sure of taking Mughorck?"
"An we wish a quick ending to this battle," Brom explained, "we cannot fight through the whole mass of beastmen to reach him.

" 'The High Cave'?" Tuan frowned. "What is that?"
"Just the highest cave in the cliff-wall. When we first arrived we all camped out in caves, and Eagle took the highest one so he could see the whole picture of what was going on. When the rank and file moved out into huts, he stayed there -- so Mughorck will have to have moved in there, to use the symbol of possession to reinforce his power."
"Well reasoned," Brom rumbled, "but how if thou'rt mistaken?"
Yorick shrugged. "Then we keep looking till we find him. We shouldn't have too much trouble; I very much doubt that he'd be at the front line."

*Amazon's description: Gramarye is a forgotten colony of Earth, an abandoned planet of telepathic outlaws, where elves and witches are real, and the fantasies of the Middle Ages endure.

**Yeah. Don't ask.

Shakespeare put it best

"See what a grace was seated on this brow...."

"Like a mildew'd ear"*

Even if Richard had not been piteously slain and murdered, he'd still be long dead, I agree. Either way, yesterday was his 556th birthday.

(Hamlet, of course, not Richard III. Act III, scene iv)

*By far, my favorite comparison in all of His Bardness's work. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Nope, much better to compare a king to a mildew'd ear. Good one, Will!

Article Something or Other

I think that I have previously mentioned that my Capital B Boss* likes to talk to me in military and I like to reply in theater. We understand each other pretty well, largely because these cultures share some deeply held beliefs and traditions.** Like "hurry up and wait" which well captures Tech In. Sure the military likes to do things very early in the day and theater people like to do things very late at night, but those two times often overlap, so my comparison holds.

Anyway, I was smirking smiling about something or other a couple of days ago and Boss pointed out to me that I could be charged under Article 131 for "Silent Contempt." He wandered off to do something important and I wandered over to Google.

The next time he was near my desk I got his attention and pointed out that Article 131 covers Perjury.

"Oh. Well, try Article 133."

"Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman."

It seems that the UCMJ may have been revised and/or expanded, so we have settled on my being prosecuted under Article 134 which is actually referred to as the General Article, but I informally call "Things That Annoy Your Boss." It reads thus:

Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

As you may have guessed, it is the phrase good order and discipline that really speaks to my Boss. He loves that phrase. And he did tell me a story about someone who was Court Martialed during the war in Viet Nam for "making a gesture of silent contempt" while in the line.

So I told him about a book that Brett owns called (I think) Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots which includes a listing of all courts martial during the American Revolution. One gentlemen, who shares my surname and I desperately hope is a relative, was brought up on charges for "refusing to follow the order of a superior officer and threatening to shoot any soldier who follows same."

And no, he can't get me under Article 88. That only applies to contempt against public officials, not one's Boss.


* Winner Best Boss Ever '05, '06, '07, '08.

** No, no, no. Not rum, sodomy, and the lash. Or, well, maybe....

I wonder why I own this book

Over the years I have acquired all sort of books, I know not when or how. And sometimes I know not why, except that I've always been prone to reading whatever I could get my hands on.* The books can sit on my shelves for decades and be dutifully packed up and moved every few years until I get around to them, which for some of them is looking to be well after I retire. Sometimes I read one only because I think that I'll end up getting rid of it and thus freeing up that bookshelf space. Imagine my chagrin when I end up loving it and having to keep it forever.

So I am currently reading Herbert O. Yardley's** The Education of a Poker Player, a book Yardley clearly assumed would only be read by people already conversant with the language of the game. I am not. I haven't played poker in years (and years) *** and even then I think that I only knew the poker terms that were commonly used on epiosodes of The Odd Couple.

On page 27 I have finally come to a poker-related sentence that I understand with no explanations needed:

A card player should learn that once the money is in the pot it isn't his any longer.

*Including somthing I found in Mom's bookcase when I was around eleven or twelve called, iirc, The Jane Castle Manuscript which was .... very educational. More benignly, I found my first Dick Francis book in Dad's bookcase a few years later.

**Yardley is best known as a World War I-era cryptologist and the author of The American Black Chamber, a book that made Philip Agee and Peter Wright the modern-day Herbert Yardleys. Or at least allows me to make that comparison.

***I think I last played at a BaltiCon and I remember being a little disturbed at how much money I won off of my lawyer - who should be smarter and a better strategist than me if I'm paying him to do stuff - until I realized that dilettantes such as myself have no discernable strategy and thus cannot be out-thought because we are not thinking we are just reacting.

Precious Lord

Take My Hand, Precious Lord, usually the version recorded by Mahalia Jackson, is often the music playing as a button for public radio pieces on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Written by a man who had just lost his wife and child, the song asks for strength and comfort in a time of loss and despair.

I first encountered Precious Lord while singing with The Metropolitan Chorus, which performs a beautiful arrangement for solo and chorus composed by music director Barry Hemphill.

It's a lovely, lovely piece and hearing those tiny snippets on the radio made me want to hear the whole thing, even if only in my head. For those of you not as familiar with the tune, there's a midi on Cyberhymnal.

Take My Hand, Precious Lord
Lyrics by Thomas A. Dorsey
Music, Maitland by George N. Allen

Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light:

Refrain

Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.

When my way grows drear,
Precious Lord, linger near,
When my life is almost gone,
Hear my cry, hear my call,
Hold my hand lest I fall:

Refrain

When the darkness appears
And the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand:

Refrain