Maureen Fogle, 1959-2010

Maureen and Jerry

My sister Maureen passed away this morning after a long battle with ovarian cancer.

Maureen was the owner, director and principal teacher of the Portland Studio of Ballet and Highland Dance in Portland, Tennessee. A life-long ballet dancer, she performed with ballet companies in Kansas, Virginia and Tennessee. Later in her life she became interested in highland dance, and she won a closetful of trophies competing with girls half her age at highland games. She was particularly good at the sword dance.

Sword dance

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That about sums it up

If you don’t check Dr. Boli every day, you should.

*****

Via Cliff, here’s a little musical story:

C, E-flat and G go into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, but we don’t serve minors.” So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. D comes in and heads for the bath­room, saying, “Excuse me. I’ll just be a second.”

Then A comes in, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and says, “Get out! You’re the seventh minor I’ve found in this bar tonight.” E-Flat comes back the next night in a three-piece suit with nicely shined shoes.

The bartender says, “You’re looking sharp to­night. Come on in, this could be a major development.” Sure enough, E-flat soon takes off his suit and everything else, and is au naturel. Eventually, C sobers up and realizes in horror that he’s under a rest. C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of D.S. without Coda at an upscale correctional facility.

Waving as I pass by

Life is complicated these days, and anime is low priority. I’ve heard good things about Kimi ni Todoke — I gather that the protagonist is Aspie-ish, which could be interesting, handled well — and I plan to download it when I see a batch torrent. Otherwise, though, nothing else recent looks worth the time.

A few random notes:

Via Pete, here’s a look at a deluxe Russian edition of Haibane Renmei.

Many in the otakusphere have been writing about the decade in anime. Uh, guys, you’re jumping the gun. Just as 2000 was the last year of the 20th century, 2010 is the tenth year of the first decade of the no-longer-new century, not the first of the second decade.

Disappointing musical news: Kayo is leaving Polysics. The band apparently will continue to tour and record, but it won’t be the same without her robotic persona and bleepy synths. Who else can possibly shake the pompons in “Peach Pie on the Beach”?

I bought myself a Christmas present, the basic edition of Filter Forge. It’s something like Reaktor for graphic artists: you can download thousands of filters made by other users, or you can roll your own from the tools provided (if you get a fuller version). There are a couple of examples below the fold. Warning: they’re based on a snapshot of myself, and I am not cute. Once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

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That time of year

The Japanese calendars I ordered last month finally arrived. The “Yotsuba&!” calendar was a major disappointment. Instead of Azuma’s drawings, what I got was a collection of uninteresting snapshots with a small sketch of Yotsuba drawn on each. On several of them she’s barely noticeable at all.

The “fortune cat” calendar, though, I am quite pleased with. I had intended to give it as a gift, but I may hang on to it.

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Yeesh

I just got home a minute ago. As I carried my bike up the stairs, a couple of furries got into a car across the street and drove off. One just had a tail, but the other was in full fox regalia, plus a t-shirt. They were gone before I could fetch my camera, which is probably just as well.