Or scrap metal?
This elegant vehicle has graced the neighborhood for at least six months now.
Antique?
Efsitz
I thought of this ancient E.B. White story the other day and found it online:
Irtnog
Along about 1920 it became apparent that more things were being written than people had time to read. That is to say, even if a man spent his entire time reading stories, articles, and news, as they appeared in books, magazines, and pamphlets, he fell behind. This was no fault of the reading public; on the contrary, readers made a real effort to keep pace with writers, and utilized every spare moment during their walking hours. They read while shaving in the morning and while waiting for trains and while riding on trains. They came to be a kind of tacit agreement among numbers of the reading public that when one person laid down the baton, someone else must pick it up; and so when a customer entered a barbershop, the barber would lay aside the Boston Evening Globe and the customer would pick up Judge; or when a customer appeared in a shoe-shining parlor, the bootblack would put away the racing form and the customer would open his briefcase and pull out The Sheik. So there was always somebody reading something. Motormen of trolley cars read while they waited on the switch. Errand boys read while walking from the corner of Thirty-ninth and Madison to the corner of Twenty-fifth and Broadway. Subway riders read constantly, even when they were in a crushed, upright position in which nobody could read his own paper but everyone could look over the next man’s shoulder. People passing newsstands would pause for a second to read headlines. Men in the back seats of limousines, northbound on Lafayette Street in the evening, switched on tiny dome lights and read the Wall Street Journal. Women in semi-detached houses joined circulating libraries and read Vachel Lindsay while the baby was taking his nap.
Careful where you step
Summer is here. Soon Tribulus terrestris will cover sidewalks. Cenchrus longispinus, pictured, one of the less-beloved members of the Poaceae, is already making its presence felt.
Dead cat bouncing
For some inexplicable reason, this old comic strip popped into my mind this morning.
110 layers
In the field, stacked focus close-up photography is iffy. Sometimes you get good results, but usually there’s too much wind, the light is constantly changing, or it’s impossible to control the lens with sufficient accuracy to get a workable stack of a botanical subject.
It’s much easier to do indoors, where there is no wind, you can control the light and background, and you have a focusing rail handy. The picture of the very three-dimensional Nigella damascena above was assembled in Helicon Focus from 110 separate f/11 images and has a total depth of field of roughly three inches — not bad for a macro. (Click the image to see it larger; right-click and open in a new window to see it at full size.)
If 110 slices at f/11 sounds excessive, you’re right. Here’s another picture of the same flower composed from a stack of 31 images:
What’s in my camera?
Snapshots from the past few weeks, taken with my little go-everywhere camera.
Inside the burger joint.
Flying panzer polka
I looked around for sheet music to the “Säkkijärven Polkka” featured in Girls und Panzer der Movie. Apparently no two musicians play it quite the same way. Most of the versions I found don’t sound much like the tune in the movie. However, I did find a simple piano arrangement that matches pretty well here. (I suspect that it was transcribed from the OST.)
Bumpy ride
I finally had a couple of hours to devote to Girls und Panzer der Movie. Quick reaction: If you liked the original series, you’ll like this. If you found the original too implausible to enjoy, this is no different. For those who haven’t seen the original: if the idea of watching high school girls engage in the recreational equivalent of war with real WWII tanks sounds like fun, check out the series here. If you like it, then track down the movie. You can watch the movie first, I suppose, but it will make less sense and you’ll miss the significance of the various characters’ actions. I don’t have time to write a proper review, but there are reviews here and here (beware: the latter has many spoilers that aren’t hidden).
As Steven guessed, one of the highlights for me was a lively Finnish polka with kantele and accordion in the soundtrack. The movie’s makers didn’t pick the tune at random; “Säkkijärven polkka” has a little history behind it. To make Steven happy, I’m placing the tune below the fold.1
The real star
So you’re in the mood for a good old-fashioned shounen story about fighting monsters with magic, but every time you watch Twin Star Exorcists you wish someone would slap some common sense and courtesy into the characters? You are in luck: Shounen Onmyouji is available on YouTube, albeit as an old fansub tranlating the dialogue into something similar to, but not quite that same as, English. (It’s intelligible; you just occasionally need to translate the translation. (Update: The second episode and beyond use a much more readable translation.))
Shounen Onmyouji was one of the last series licensed for North America by Geneon, just before it ceased its American operations, and consequently most of it is difficult to impossible to find legally at reasonable prices. Someday someone will rescue the license — it’s too good a show to remain forgotten — but who knows when?
Brief musical interlude
Enough already
This is getting old. (If Wichita isn’t quite in the red zone, it’s close enough that it doesn’t matter.)
A public [dis]service
Somebody dropped by looking for “rich anime woman laughing.” He presumably was interested in the “noblewoman’s laugh.” Here’s Renge from Ouran High School Host Club to demonstrate:
The noblewoman’s laugh is particularly associated with Slayers‘ Naga. Here’s more of her than anyone needs:
A list
While pondering a reply to Robin’s comment on the previous post, I thought it would be useful to compile a list of the Nebula award winners for novel, novella, novelette and short story from 2000 on and note the sex of the writers:
It’s a silly, silly, silly, silly world
Upon Hearing Leaf Blower on a Fine Spring Eve
It’s the Divine Right of Neighbors
To run their motors loud
At the sitting hour, proud
I’m like Sitting Bull, Red Cloud
Aghast what Pale Face has allowed.
*****
I am so much more enlightened than you.
*****
Consider the winners of the four categories [best novel, novella, novelette and short story] over the last five years:
• 2015: 4/4 women
• 2014: 3/4 women
• 2013: 4/4 women
• 2012: 2/4 women
• 2011: 2/4 women
Fifteen stories written by women have won the main prizes in the Nebula awards in the past five years, and five by men.
I never cared much about the Hugo awards. They have never been anything more than popularity contests, and that they have been demonstrated to be meaningless is mildly amusing and nothing more. The Nebulas, on the other hand, are determined by a vote of the SFWA membership, i.e., actual writers, and reading the annual volume of Nebula winners was one of the ways I found writers worth following many years ago. But I find it difficult to believe that nowadays women write three times as many of the best stories as men. So, the hell with the Nebulas. I think I’ll read Tim Powers instead.
*****
Every few years I clear my evenings for a week and re-read The Lord of the Rings — I’ll probably do so again sometime this summer. I also enjoy most of his other fantasy-oriented works published during his lifetime. However, I’ve never gotten beyond page 20 in The Silmarillion. It turns out that I’m not alone, and The Silmarillion is the worst book with Tolkien’s name on it. It may be worthwhile to check out his other posthumous books, after all.
*****
*****
Does the term “vibrancy” actually mean anything? (Note that the word “diversity” has become its own antonym.)
(Via Isegoria.)
*****
Every man his own rhinoceros: at last, a political party I can join. Unfortunately, it’s Canadian.
(Via Francis W. Porretto.)
Feeling blue …
… so here’s a California bluebell, Phacelia campanularia.
Double feature
Most of Satoshi Kon’s works are long out of print and are generally only available at extortionate prices or through irregular channels. However, Paramount Pictures is currently streaming Millennium Actress, his most approachable movie, for free. That’s it above.
Meanwhile, Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle has been acquired for North America. Will it come to Wichita? We can hope, but I doubt it.
Somatic perfection
Francis W. Porretto on Ghost in the Shell:
Ghost In The Shell is the absolute pinnacle of its art form. There’s nothing else in the anime oeuvre to compare with it, especially as regards graceful writing and philosophical depth. Masamune Shirow will be remembered for centuries for the story. The makers of the anime can be justly proud of the finished work. That Hollywood should choose to make a live-action version is merely additional praise of the original.
So what is this SJW concerned about? That central character Motoko Kusanagi, a round-eyed, big-bosomed cyborg, will be played by round-eyed, big-bosomed Scarlett Johansson, one of the foremost female action stars of today. “Whitewashing!” “Racial exclusion!” “Cultural appropriation!” “Insert your preferred SJWism here!”
These…persons deserve nothing but contempt. They’re the true bigots and squanderers of cultural treasures – all cultural treasures. That a brilliant piece of anime, known mainly to devotees of the art form, should be picked up by a major Hollywood studio and cast with a terrific, somatically perfect leading lady is an act of high praise…but no! “The character has a Japanese name!” Therefore, by SJW rules, she must be played by a Japanese actress. Failing that, at least one with an epicanthic fold.
Anyone who grants these cretins the smallest sliver of time or shred of respect is doing a disservice to the entire human race.
I wouldn’t say that the first Ghost in the Shell movie is incomparable in its philosophical depth — there’s Serial Experiments Lain, at least — but it is a superior work, and the remake, if competently done, should lead its more adventurous viewers to seek out the animated version.
Annual rite
It’s recital season, and I spent a chunk of this weekend taking too many pictures at a ballet school’s dress rehearsal. Here are a couple of them. There are about 260 more to run through Photoshop.
Ouch ouch ouch
I suppose I should be grateful that my neighbors aren’t mowing their lawns this Sunday morning, but banging a hammer on a resonant roof is no improvement.
Testing, testing
One way to display a panorama without using 360Cities:
Clicking on the picture (if you’re using an older version of Safari) or the title in the lower left will take you to its Flickr page, where you should see it at a much larger size.
Update: This panorama is now an “Editor’s Pick” at 360Cities. Here it is using their embed code:
You can see another, rather different one of my panoramas at the bottom of their homepage.