{"id":233,"date":"2007-08-14T22:40:44","date_gmt":"2007-08-15T03:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tancos.net\/wp\/archives\/personal-notes\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T20:04:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:04:48","slug":"personal-notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/archives\/personal-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meeting of the memes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shamus<\/a> recently posted five things about himself<\/a> that I didn’t know. Meanwhile, John S.<\/a> posted six weird things about himself<\/a>. I think I’ll combine the two. Here are five and a half weird things you probably don’t know about me.
\n
\n1. I walk funny. Usually it’s not noticeable unless I’m extremely tired or wearing hard-soled shoes and walking on a hard surface. Something happened to my left leg when I was four around the time I had my tonsils out, and the muscle\/tendon that runs to the top of the big toe quit working. In a normal foot, this tendon is what flexes the ankle. I never got an unequivocal explanation about what had happened from any doctor; it might have been polio, the symptons of which were masked by or mistaken for tonsillitis, or it might have been carelessly-located injection during the pre-op for the tonsillectomy. (I suspect the latter explanation is more likely.) I wore a brace most of my childhood and did exercises every day for years. Eventually one of the working tendons in my foot was transplanted to a position with better leverage, and the orthopedist let me discard the brace permanently. (One of the reasons I have been so fascinated by ballet is that it is something that I should never have been able to do at all. In fact, my late start was more of a handicap than my weak foot (though a career as a dancer would not have been a possibility even if I had started young enough).)
\n(Update: Since I wrote this, I’ve learned that when the Salk polio vaccine was introduced, there was at least one batch that was improperly processed and which contained live, infectious virus. I think now that some of that bad batch made its way to the doctor’s office in northern Utah, and that my “tonsilitis” actually was polio caused by the vaccine.)<\/p>\n

2. I hardly spoke at all until I was nearly four. My parents thought I was “slow.” Um, no.<\/p>\n

3. I found hundreds, perhaps thousands, of four-leaf clovers over the years. They never had any effect on my luck.<\/p>\n

4. I taught myself to write backwards when I was young. (No, I’m not left-handed. It just looked like an interesting challenge.) Nowadays, my backwards writing is far more legible than my normal script, which even I have trouble reading once it’s cold (thank God for the qwerty keyboard). It still looks like a fifth-grader’s penmanship.<\/p>\n

5. For many years I was frequently told that I looked just like John Lennon. Strangers would say things like, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be dead?” “McClane” and “McLean” are different spellings of the same name, so I was stuck with the face of one singer and the name of another, neither of whom I much cared for.<\/p>\n

5.5. There’s a class of clothing that most people in developed countries regularly wear that I haven’t bothered with in years.<\/p>\n

Let’s tag a few people. How about Gene Wolfe, Jonah Goldberg, Haruki Murakami, Benedict XVI and yoshitoshi ABe?<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Huh?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s entertaining to see what amazon.com thinks I’ll like, based on my purchases and ratings. The first page of their recommendations for me includes John Renbourn, G.K. Chesterton, the Pogues, Jorge Luis Borges, James Lileks and Strawberry Marshmallow<\/b><\/i>, all of which are quite reasonable. Further suggestions get odd, though. A pre-calculus textbook was mentioned because I rated one of James Thurber’s collections. And then there’s this:<\/p>\n

(Missing graphic: Elfen Lied<\/strong>, recommended because I had rated Bottle Fairy<\/strong>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Notice why it was recommended to me.<\/p>\n

(For those who are not familiar with the titles: this is like suggesting A Clockwork Orange<\/b><\/i> to someone because he has read One Fish, Two Fish<\/b><\/i>.)<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Playing favorites<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you can’t focus your mind on the task at hand, you might as well do a silly meme. Here’s one Chan, the Bookish Gardener<\/a>, found. The rules as originally promulgated<\/a> are unworkable, so I ignored #1 & #2, and I also allowed characters from OVAs. I restricted myself to characters I’ve seen in the past five years, which is why Bugs Bunny is missing.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five favorite television characters<\/em><\/p>\n

1. Bullwinkle — one of the three great comic characters of the 20th century (the other two are Groucho Marx and Ignatius Reilly).<\/i>
\n2. Reki (Haibane Renmei<\/b><\/i>)
\n3. Lafiel (Crest\/Banner of the Stars<\/b><\/i>)
\n4. Kirika (Noir<\/b><\/i>)
\n5. Touya (Cardcaptor Sakura<\/b><\/i>) — anime’s tribute to older brothers everywhere.<\/i>
\n6. Alice (Serial Experiments Lain<\/b><\/i>)
\n7. Ruri (Martian Successor Nadesico<\/b><\/i>)
\n8. Sai Nanohana (Jubei-chan I<\/b><\/i>)
\n9. Lisa Simpson
\n10 (tie) Kei and Yuri (Original Dirty Pair<\/b><\/i>)
\n12. Washu (Tenchi Muyo!<\/b><\/i>)
\n13. Lexshue (Crest of the Stars<\/b><\/i>) — she might not be a “regular” character, but she certainly is a memorable one, and that’s sufficient reason for me to include her.<\/i>
\n14. Sakura (Cardcaptor Sakura<\/b><\/i>)
\n15. Yomi (Azumanga Daioh<\/b><\/i>)
\n16. Urd (Ah! My Goddess TV<\/b><\/i>)
\n17. Saga (Sugar, a Tiny Snow Fairy<\/b><\/i>)
\n18. “Icchan” (Angelic Layer<\/b><\/i>)
\n19. Chloe (Noir<\/b><\/i>)
\n20. Jiyu Nanohana (Jubei-chan I<\/b><\/i>)
\n21. Kero (Cardcaptor Sakura<\/b><\/i>)
\n22. Mihoshi (Tenchi Muyo! OVA<\/b><\/i>) — incredible but true: a dumb, ditzy blonde who’s not annoying<\/i>.
\n23. Kyusaku (All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku<\/b><\/i>)
\n24. Admiral Spoor (Crest\/Banner of the Stars<\/b><\/i>)
\n25. Giroro (Keroro Gunsou<\/b><\/i>)<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Maybe not<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe<\/B>
\nResult: 35. Your score isn’t an achievement, it just is.<\/p>\n

Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre have created the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, or AQ, as a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however, and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism or Asperger’s report no difficulty functioning in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n

My test tracked 1 variable.
\nHow you compared to other people your age and gender:
\nYou scored higher than 99%<\/B> on points.<\/p>\n

The Asperger’s Syndrome Test<\/a> written by beachbummer<\/a> on Ok Cupid<\/a>.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not autistic, just asocial.<\/p>\n

(Via Fr\u00ebd<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

By threes<\/strong><\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I DON\u2019T UNDERSTAND:
\n1. Cell phone addiction
\n2. Comment spam
\n3. 42<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK:
\n1. Keyboards (QWERTY and MIDI)
\n2. Eighth Day Books<\/a> flyer
\n3. Someday’s Dreamers<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I\u2019M DOING RIGHT NOW:
\n1. Listening to Helium Vola<\/a>
\n2. Coughing
\n3. Missing dance class<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE:
\n1. Write a great novel
\n2. Record a great CD
\n3. Get a good night’s sleep<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I CAN DO:
\n1. Program a sequencer
\n2. Build and play a hammered dulcimer
\n3. Cross my eyes<\/p>\n

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY PERSONALITY:
\n1. Quiet
\n2. Acerbic
\n3. Mostly harmless<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I CAN\u2019T DO:
\n1. Grand pli\u00e9s in fifth position
\n2. Enjoy spectator sports
\n3. Smile on command<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I THINK YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO:
\n(I don’t think I need to mention Bach and Mozart)
\n1. Klezmer
\n2. Bluegrass
\n3. The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart<\/i><\/p>\n

THREE THINGS I DON\u2019T THINK YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO EVER:
\n1. [C]rap and hip-hop
\n2. NPR
\n3. Billy Jeff Blythe<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS YOU SAY:
\n1. However
\n2. Hmph
\n3. No<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS YOU\u2019D LIKE TO LEARN:
\n1. More music theory
\n2. More math
\n3. More botany<\/p>\n

THREE BEVERAGES YOU DRINK REGULARLY:
\n1. Apple juice
\n2. Coke
\n3. Water<\/p>\n

THREE SHOWS YOU WATCHED WHEN YOU WERE A KID:
\n1. Moose and Squirrel
\n2. Dick Van Dyke
\n3. Green Acres<\/p>\n

THREE THINGS YOU WISH PEOPLE WOULD LEARN TO DO:
\n1. Turn the teevee OFF
\n2. Turn the radio OFF
\n3. Turn the cell phone OFF<\/p>\n

Blame Robert the LLama Butcher<\/a> for this one.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Checkmate, stalemate<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s an introduction to the varieties of fairy chess<\/a>. This one we used to play in the dorm at the University of Dallas:<\/p>\n

This variant, Kriegspiel, requires two chess sets, three boards, and three players. Two of the players set up on two boards facing one another, with a screen between them so they can\u2019t see the other\u2019s board. The White player has only the white chessmen; the Black player has only the black chessmen. The third player is the referee; she can see both of the first two\u2019s boards, and has her own board set up with both white and black. This board is screened so that only the ref can see it.<\/p>\n

The object of the game is checkmate, by the usual rules.<\/p>\n

Each side moves in turn; after each move the ref either says \u201clegal\u201d or \u201cillegal.\u201d If the move is illegal the moving player must take it back and try another move until hitting on a legal move.<\/p>\n

Before moving, a player may ask \u201cAny?\u201d meaning \u201cAre any pawn captures possible?\u201d If there are, the ref replies \u201cTry,\u201d and the moving player must attempt a pawn capture before attempting any other move.<\/p>\n

When a piece or pawn is captured, both sides are informed of the fact, and what was captured, but the player losing the chessman isn\u2019t informed of what it was that performed the capture.<\/i> (Actually, in our games the player making the capture wasn’t told the results of his move, though he could guess a lot from his opponent’s screams.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When we played this, the referee would record the moves as they were made. The best part of a game was playing through it again afterwards with all the pieces on one board so you could see how insane the moves were. In my most memorable game, I managed to reduce my opponent’s forces to the king and two pawns, while I merely lost a knight, a bishop, a rook and a few pawns — yet he managed to find a stalemate.<\/p>\n

(Via Ernesto<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Ancient snapshot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve been told that I look just like John Lennon, or Dustin Hoffman, or Jack the Ripper (as portrayed in some movie I haven\u2019t seen). I\u2019ve never seen the similarities myself. A friend recently sent me this picture by Hans Memling, painted sometime between 1485 and 1490:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

If you give the guy a pair of glasses and longer, straighter hair, he would indeed look more like me than anything ever captured by a camera.<\/p>\n

Soundtrack: Leo Brouwer, \u201cEl Arpa del Guerrero\u201d (Michael Chapdelaine, guitar)<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Who needs Hollywood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert the LLama Butcher has come across yet another list of movies to comment on<\/a>. Rather than comment on his comments, I\u2019ll instead list the 26 movies that I awarded 5 stars to at movielens<\/a>:<\/p>\n

400 Blows, The (Les Quatre cents coups)
\nBrazil (1985)
\nBread and Chocolate (Pane e cioccolata) (1973)
\nCasablanca (1942)
\nChicken Run (2000)
\nClose Shave, A (1995)
\nDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963)
\nDuck Soup (1933)
\nGroundhog Day (1993)
\nLocal Hero (1983)
\nMonty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)
\nPlayer, The (1992)
\nPrincess Mononoke, The (Mononoke Hime) (1997)
\nProducers, The (1968)
\nWrong Trousers, The (1993)
\nAmarcord (1973)
\nHope and Glory (1987)
\nIncredibles, The (2004)
\nKind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
\nLadykillers, The (1955)
\nLavender Hill Mob, The (1951)
\nMagic Flute, The (Trollfl\u00f6jten) (1975)
\nSpirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) (2001)
\nTampopo (1986)
\nTriplets of Belleville, The (Les Triplettes de Belleville) (2003)
\nWinged Migration (Le Peuple Migrateur) (2001)<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

100 questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are my results on the Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index<\/a>. My choices are in bold. This was a frustrating exercise. I haven’t seen a lot of movies or listened to a lot of jazz, and that is reflected in the 44 items where I couldn’t honestly make a choice. I’m shocked at how many books I haven’t read, and I’m irritated at how much I’ve never had an opportunity to see. I’ve read a lot about Mark Morris, for example, but the one time he passed through Wichita the barely-affordable seats were sold out long before I was in sight of the box office.<\/p>\n

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
\n2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? Gatsby<\/B>
\n3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington?
\n4. Cats or dogs? Dogs<\/B> (but I prefer cacti)<\/I>
\n5. Matisse or Picasso? Matisse<\/B>
\n6. Yeats or Eliot? Eliot<\/B>
\n7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Keaton<\/B>
\n8. Flannery O\u2019Connor or John Updike? O’Connor<\/B>
\n9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca?
\n10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? Pollock<\/B>
\n11. The Who or the Stones? The Who<\/B>
\n12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath? Larkin<\/B>
\n13. Trollope or Dickens?
\n14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald?
\n15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Tolstoy<\/B>
\n16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair?
\n17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham?
\n18. Hot dogs or hamburgers? Burgers<\/B>
\n19. Letterman or Leno?
\n20. Wilco or Cat Power?
\n21. Verdi or Wagner? Verdi<\/B>
\n22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe?
\n23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Monroe<\/B>
\n24. Kingsley or Martin Amis?
\n25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando?
\n26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp?
\n27. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Vermeer<\/B>
\n28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Chopin<\/B>
\n29. Red wine or white? Red<\/B>
\n30. No\u00ebl Coward or Oscar Wilde?
\n31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity?
\n32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev? Prokofiev<\/B>
\n33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? Baryshnikov<\/B>
\n34. Constable or Turner? Turner<\/B>
\n35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo?
\n36. Comedy or tragedy? Comedy<\/B>
\n37. Fall or spring? Spring<\/B>
\n38. Manet or Monet? Monet<\/B>
\n39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
\n40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? G&G<\/B>
\n41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? James<\/B>
\n42. Sunset or sunrise? Sunrise<\/B>
\n43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter?
\n44. Mac or PC? Mac<\/B>
\n45. New York or Los Angeles?
\n46. Partisan Review or Horizon? Horizon<\/B>
\n47. Stax or Motown?
\n48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? Van Gogh<\/B>
\n49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Costello<\/B>
\n50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? weblog<\/B>
\n51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier?
\n52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin\u2019 Lovers?
\n53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde?
\n54. Ghost World or Election?
\n55. Minimalism or conceptual art? Conceptual<\/B>
\n56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Bugs<\/B>
\n57. Modernism or postmodernism? Modernism<\/B>
\n58. Batman or Spider-Man? Batman<\/B>
\n59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams?
\n60. Johnson or Boswell? Johnson<\/B>
\n61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Austen<\/B>
\n62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Dick Van Dyck<\/B>
\n63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table?
\n64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity?
\n65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni?
\n66. Blue or green? Blue<\/B>
\n67. A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream or As You Like It? Dream<\/B>
\n68. Ballet or opera? Ballet<\/B>
\n69. Film or live theater? Live<\/B>
\n70. Acoustic or electric? Electric<\/B>
\n71. North by Northwest or Vertigo?
\n72. Sargent or Whistler?
\n73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera? Kundera<\/B>
\n74. The Music Man or Oklahoma? Music Man<\/B>
\n75. Sushi, yes or no? No<\/B>
\n76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn? Ross<\/B>
\n77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee?
\n78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove?
\n79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham? Taylor<\/B>
\n80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? Wright<\/B>
\n81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones?
\n82. Watercolor or pastel? Pastel<\/B>
\n83. Bus or subway? (hey, I live in Kansas)<\/I>
\n84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg? Stravinsky<\/B>
\n85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Smooth<\/B>
\n86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? Cather<\/B>
\n87. Schubert or Mozart? Schubert<\/B>
\n88. The Fifties or the Twenties? Twenties<\/B>
\n89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Melville<\/B>
\n90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce?
\n91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins?
\n92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Dickinson<\/B>
\n93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? Churchill<\/B>
\n94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann?
\n95. Italian or French cooking?
\n96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? Harpsichord<\/B> (or synthesizer)<\/I>
\n97. Anchovies, yes or no?
\n98. Short novels or long ones? Short<\/B>
\n99. Swing or bebop? Bebop<\/B>
\n100. “The Last Judgment” or “The Last Supper”? The Last Supper<\/B><\/p>\n

If I counted correctly, I am in sympathy with Teachout 29 times and in opposition 27 times for a TCC index of approximately 52%.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

33 additional questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

After working through Terry Teachout’s<\/a> Cultural Concurrence Index<\/a><\/B>, I had to compile my own. Here is the T\u00e1ncos Cultural Eccentricity Inventory<\/B>, focusing on areas that Teachout overlooked. My preferences are listed first.<\/p>\n

1. Philip K. Dick or Robert Heinlein?
\n2. Winsor McCay or George Herriman?
\n3. Crimson or scarlet?
\n4. Cream or Hendrix?
\n5. Francesco di Giacomo or Jon Anderson?
\n6. Cordwainer Smith or Isaac Asimov?
\n7. Mammillaria or Euphorbia?
\n8. Jacqui McShee or Maddy Prior?
\n9. The Dream<\/I><\/B> (Ashton) or A Midsummer Night’s Dream<\/I><\/B> (Balanchine)
\n10. Austrian Copper or Peace?
\n11. A Wizard of Earthsea<\/I><\/B> or Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone<\/I><\/B>?
\n12. Thunderstorms or snow?
\n13. Heath Robinson or Rube Goldberg?
\n14. The Face in the Frost<\/I><\/B> or Stormbringer<\/I><\/B>?
\n15. Muriel Spark or J.F. Powers?
\n16. Penrose tiles or the Mandelbrot set?
\n17. 3 Mustaphas 3 or the Klezmer Conservatory Band?
\n18. Steve Morse or Steve Vai?
\n19. Photography: black and white or color?
\n20. Four o’clocks or vinca?
\n21. Mountains or beaches?
\n22. Minimoog or DX7?
\n23. Chesterton or Belloc?
\n24. Stand Up<\/I><\/B> or Aqualung<\/I><\/B>?
\n25. Walnut or oak?
\n26. Chocolate: dark or milk?
\n27. Bill Nelson or Bryan Ferry?
\n28. Edward Koren or George Booth?
\n29. Terry Pratchett or Tom Sharpe?
\n30. Donald Barthelme or John Barth?
\n31. Randy Newman or Richard Thompson?
\n32. Stapeliads or orchids?
\n33. McCartney or Lennon?
\nBonus question: “Simple Gifts” or “Amazing Grace”?<\/p>\n

(If all internet lists and quizzes were to suddenly disappear from the servers, how much disk space would be freed up?)<\/p>\n

Later: Let’s change the scoring.<\/p>\n

First, calculate the magnitude<\/B> of your eccentricity. Count the number of pairs in which you can make a choice without bluffing and multiply that number by 3 to obtain the percentage score (add one percentage point if you counted 17 or more pairs).<\/p>\n

Second, calculate the quality<\/B> of your eccentricity. Count the number of pairs in which your preference is the same as mine. Divide that number by the total number of pairs in which you can make a choice and multiply by 100.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/p>\n

Robin, in the comments, noted that she could make choices in 16 pairs, and 10 of her picks were the same as mine.<\/p>\n

16 x 3 = 48, so the magnitude of Robin’s eccentricity is 48%.<\/p>\n

(10 \/ 16) * 100 = 62.5, so the quality of Robin’s eccentricity is 62.5%.<\/p>\n

I would expect that people who read odd books and who listen to odd music (Steven<\/a>?) will get high magnitude scores, particularly if they grow odd plants. Quality scores, on the other hand, will probably vary unpredictably.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

25 more questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chan the Bookish Gardener<\/a> has posted her own list specifically for gardeners<\/a>. How can I resist?<\/p>\n

1. Lilies: oriental or asiatic? Oriental<\/B>
\n2. No-till or till? No-till<\/B>
\n3. Bare hands or garden gloves? Bare hands<\/B>
\n4. Garden tchotchkes, no or yes? No<\/B>
\n5. Clay or sand? Clay<\/B>
\n6. Shrub roses or hybrid teas? Shrub<\/B>
\n7. Hollyhocks: single or double? Single<\/B>
\n8. Foliage: gray or glaucous? Gray<\/B>
\n9. Hemerocallis: flava or fulva? flava<\/B>
\n10. Impatiens: double or single? Single<\/B>
\n11. Calendula or tagetes? Tagetes<\/B>
\n12. Arborvitae or juniper? Juniper<\/B>
\n13. Spaded edge or “edging”? Edging<\/B>
\n14. Asters or mums? Asters<\/B>
\n15. Reflecting pool or coursing waterfall? Pool<\/B>
\n16. Morning glory blue or forget-me-not blue? Forget-me-not (but which one? Anchusa? Myosotis? Brunnera?<\/B>
\n17. Lettuce: leaf or cos? Leaf<\/B>
\n18. Hyacinth bean or red runner bean? Scarlet runner<\/B>
\n19. Orange or pink? Orange<\/B>
\n20. Garden bed shapes: formal or informal? Formal<\/B>
\n21. Garden bed planting schemes: informal or formal? Informal<\/B>
\n22. Hydrangeas: lace-cap or mophead? Mop<\/B>
\n23. Spirea japonica: dried flowerheads standing over the winter or in bloom? In bloom<\/B>
\n24. Japanese beetle drowning medium: kerosene or dishsoap solution? Detergent<\/B>
\n25. Garden stroll time: dusk or dawn? Dusk<\/B><\/p>\n

If I counted correctly, this gives me a Bookish Gardener index of 64%. It would be higher, except that Calendula and Arvorvitae don’t like Kansas summers.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

It must be the nose<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"incredibly
You’re incredibly Jewish!<\/p>\n

How Jewish are You?<\/font><\/a>
brought to you by Quizilla<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

\"JaneEyre\"
‘Tis a great mystery, but somehow you have come to
belong in Jane Eyre; a random world of love,
kindness, madness, bad luck and lunatic ex-
wives. There really isn’t much to say about the
place you belong in. It’s your place, and
though it seems far from reality largly due to
how random the events are, you seem to enjoy
it. You belong in a world where not too many
people understand you, and where you can be
somewhat of a recluse.<\/p>\n

Which Classic Novel do You Belong In?<\/font><\/a>
brought to you by Quizilla<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

(Via Eve Tushnet<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meeting of the memes Shamus recently posted five things about himself that I didn’t know. Meanwhile, John S. posted six weird things about himself. I think I’ll combine the two. Here are five and a half weird things you probably don’t know about me. 1. I walk funny. Usually it’s not noticeable unless I’m extremely … Continue reading “Personal notes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":225,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-233","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4xam3-3L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188293,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/233\/revisions\/188293"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}