hypocrisy

It's definitely gratifying for Saddam to have been executed by his own country in a place where he ordered many ruthless executions, but I'm still against the death penalty and I am still sad that my country is so hypocritical as to depose Saddam in the name of justice and then give him the same fate that he gave his enemies.

so what?

John keeps inviting me to join new online things, but my reaction isn't much more than to set up a skeleton profile and then ask, "So what?" I must be an old fogie for sure.

speed

My parents' desktop was insanely slow when I returned home, so I've spent inordinate amounts of time fixing it. I've also gone on a cleaning rampage, dumping out old publications that no longer enchant my inner child, donating books and clothes, and picking clothes to attempt to sell on the Haight with the hope that they'll pity a woman on crutches. And yes, as of right now I finally have this computer going at a normal speed.

I miss my days of stargazing (not that we can see anything from downtown Rochester). There are all sorts of things going on in the sky, history being made that only a few people witness... including "the kind of event that turns young children into Carl Sagans," according to one TV guy. Perhaps if Adrien were here...

I finally get my hands on Charles Burney's journal, "An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands," and what should the heading for the first section be about, but "Burney's poor opinion of French music confirmed." He has lots to say about carillons, including the competition between "a remarkable violinist and an equally remarkable carillonneur." I can't wait to find out who drowned out the other.

Another quote: "...and for the serpent, it is not only overblown, and detesably out of tune, but exactly resembling in tone, that of a great hungry, or rather angry, Essex calf." More gems to come in the journal of Tiffany's reading of Burney's journals.

Geckos are superheroes! Soon our cars will be able to scale walls too. I can't wait to hang from the ceilings of belfries.

And Bobby was ahead of his time.

Can one but snicker at the fact that a well-known historical organ resides in Uithuizen, the Netherlands (i.e. Outhouses)?

There is an interesting photography display concerning American outhouses in the Center at High Falls. Most of the doors are labeled with a crescent moon.

artastic ii

Mark had a brilliant reply to the article about art business today I blogged about as artastic.

I think Bourdieu would say, “My name is Bourdieu, and I think the increasing pandering of the art world to the international capitalist class both devalues what art is and clearly represents the need for sociology to function as a martial art to cut through the bulls-t of cultural capital accumulation.”

break the rain

It rained all day, and then suddenly the sun came out and threw golden light on brick façades, and I pulled on my shoes and hurried to the Little Bakery. I ended up stopping along the way into the sketchy corner store to discover it sold all sorts of interesting middle eastern foodstuffs and a few indian spices. Still no produce; can produce really be so unprofitable in downtown Rochester? I bought a Portuguese loaf at the bakery for the first time. The cheerful lady whose name I really need to find out greeted me and told me she was taking the next day off. As I was leaving, she gave me a cookie. It was still sunny, I came in and ate a delicious sweet slice of bread, the only fresh thing I have left, looked out the window, and discovered that it was so overcast it seemed almost as if night had fallen, or at least that nothing had ever happened. So I wrote this as evidence that it did.

bad eurohabit

55% of Belgians buy mineral water and never drink tap water, a European habit that leads to many wasted resources. Not to mention thirsty and puzzled foreigners and expats. I really don't understand how this preference for mineral water arose. I dislike the taste myself.

Then again, in America we buy tons of bottled water (although water is free and falls from the sky -- even better than growing on trees) and then complain about the price of gas, which per gallon is cheaper than the price of bottled water.

wonderful automation

I searched facebook for "Compline" and came up with a fake individual with no network named "Christ Church Compline." Next to it were the standard options: "Send Message," "View Friends," "Add to Friends," and "Poke Christ!"

Furthermore, if you click on the latter option, you will get a screen displaying the following:

Poke Christ?
You are about to poke Christ Church Compline (no network) .

Christ will be informed of this the next time they log in.

Also, if you poke Christ, they will be able to see your profile for one week.

To control which parts of your profile are displayed when you contact someone through a poke, message or friend request, click here.

Click further, and the ultimate result:

You have poked Christ Church Compline.

I await a response from above for my sacrilege.

Meanwhile, if you hit the Back button, you get Christ has not received your last poke yet.
They'll get it the next time they log in. Go back home or return to the previous page.

artastic

Art is being sold, held, and resold at a profit. "Does this mean that art is moving so fast on the market that it may never be enjoyed on a wall and just held as an investment to flip later? Rendell doesn't miss a beat: 'Well yes. But at least it's in very good condition.'"

But what would Pierre Bordieu say about this?

Josh Wolf: Jailed Journalist

Josh Wolf: Jailed Journalist

Josh Wolf, freelance journalist and independent videographer, is currently in “coercive custody” at the Federal Detention Facility in Dublin, California. He has never been charged with any crime. Wolf was incarcerated for contempt earlier this year after refusing to provide a Federal Grand jury with unedited video of a 2005 G-8 protest in San Francisco. His incarceration is virtually unprecedented for a journalist refusing to give information to a Grand Jury. It is widely believed he will likely become the longest held journalist in U.S. history.

Having covered protests for several years as part of the San Francisco press corps, Wolf has gained unprecedented access to much of the Bay Area’s activist community. Access denied to other journalists. Attorneys have raised concerns that demand for the tape is part of a fishing expedition by police seeking to identify political dissidents and protesters. Wolf has repeatedly stated under oath that his video does not contain footage of the crimes being investigated by the Grand Jury. To make his case, Wolf has offered to let the judge review his tape.

Wolf, 24, is the recipient of the 2006 Society of Professional Journalists award for Journalist of the Year. Advocates from Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous others have all spoken out in his defense.

What Others Have Said About this Case

"When journalists like Josh Wolf are put in jail, journalism and the public’s right to know suffer. An independent press needs a Federal shield law to protect journalists like Josh." --Judith Miller, Journalist

“He [Wolf] may not have the clout or journalism credentials of some of the other government targets, but Josh Wolf is no less entitled to First Amendment protection. Each day he remains incarcerated represents another small dent in this nation’s basic freedoms.” –San Francisco Chronicle Editorial 8/06

"The Wolf case has absolutely no bearing on national security, the argument used in other tussles between federal courts and journalists who refused to name their sources or surrender their files. Confirmed contempt of court orders against Wolf would mean that the independence of the press - which is based among other things on the right to professional secrecy – is more than ever in danger in the United States. Keeping Josh Wolf in jail would be tantamount to denying the role that the media is supposed to play in a democracy, one of questioning and criticizing. Congress must quickly debate and approve a federal shield law that would uphold the right of journalists to protect the confidentiality of their sources." –Reporters Without Borders

[read on]

turkeys receive presidential pardon

Heaven only knows what turkeys did to merit annual condemnation in the first place, but old Bush seems to have done something right for the first time by granting a full presidential pardon to the National Thanksgiving Turkey, Flyer, and its buddy, Fryer. The only concern now is whether the turkeys themselves might have chosen an early demise over a life of being jeered and gawked at by children in Disneyland.

thanksgiving makes me sad

Maybe you don't really want to know why.

The most common reactions to my decision to be vegetarian are "Don't you miss meat? I cannot live without it!" and "Why?" My primary reason is that it cuts my environmental footprint drastically. Page 7 of this admittedly propagandic PETA postcard gives some of the statistics that lead my conscience to eschew meat: Livestock meant for our plates consume vast amounts of grain that could have provided much less expensive food for the hungry; more than half of the water used in the US goes to livestock intended for people's plates; raising animals uses a third of American energy resources; and the meat industry creates more water pollution than all other industries combined, to name a few.

Our society has developed remarkable systems to hide the environmental consequences of all we do from our daily lives. Only if garbage pickup stopped would we realize how much waste we create; only if animals were raised and slaughtered in the city would we be widely aware of their mistreatment; only if the pollution emitted by power plants was blown into our own homes would we realize how horrible it is to waste energy. Our world is modern, efficient, clean, civilized, and... deceptive.

americanizing european education

"The world is indifferent to tradition and past reputations, unforgiving of frailty and ignorant of custom or practice," [Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD education directorate] said. "Success will go to those individuals and countries which are swift to adapt, slow to complain, and open to change."

A pretty bleak snapshot of the world.

I worry that a point is being missed. America may boast the largest number of prestigious universities today, but I suspect that your average affordable European university is better than your average affordable American university. Competence is distributed differently. Much like degree prestige and even income in the US--the proportions are outrageous.

I'll be the first to admit how much Yale has done for me. But without a diversity of systems in the world, how will we ever be able to pinpoint a reason when one of those systems fails?

I woke up this morning for unknown reasons thinking of the young friends I've lost along the way to tragic accidents and health conditions. Even after a brush with my own mortality, I still find it difficult to comprehend the deaths of people my age. Take a look at the firefighters who defied the latest California firestorm.

expatica headlines

Sixty days of summer rain, and now that I've left, Belgium may well be set for the hottest fall ever. Life is so unjust.

It's difficult for me to see Europe's need to combat obesity. I never noticed how many grossly obese people walked the streets of the US until I came back from a year in Europe!

Go Belgian housewives!

edumacated city

San Francisco is the second most educated city in the country, following Seattle. I've never been to Seattle, sadly. I'm really overdue for my first visit.

Getting closer to dark matter with Hubble.

The Hollywood film industry creates more pollution than the aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing sectors. Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions.

Now for the first time, I feel really good about not watching movies.

poppy

I've grown up in California, I've lived in Belgium and cycled through its fields, I've spent a day in Ieper playing a concert and wandering the museum and standing beneath the Menin Gate to witness a special Last Post, and I've still hardly seen a single Flanders poppy, that beautiful, tragic symbol that bears no such meaning in California as it does to the Belgians and the English.

First of all, I have to admit both delight and surprise that the American public has voted the Democrats back into office. After 1.5 presidential terms to evidence a dismal track record in voting decisions, I wasn't really expecting much change. And same-sex marriage has been banned in some states. Disgusting. Also funny, and possibly effective, but very dismaying was the Arizona measure to award $1 million to a randomly selected voter in each general election. Do we really have to resort to paying the American people to think about what's good for them?!

We have a funny government. In the Senate, every state has equal representation, and CNN writer Justin Gest points out that "Wyoming -- a state with more cattle than voters -- receives as much of a say as California -- a state with an economy the size of France."

The less serious news is too amazing to summarize when I can quote verbatim:

Producer of dozens of educational films for students dies at 90
11/08/06 08:40 PM, EST
Sid Davis, who produced more than 180 educational films warning youngsters of the dangers of drugs, drinking and running with scissors, has died. He was 90.
FULL STORY

Do that many kids really run around with scissors? Maybe we should let natural selection take its course a little earlier on than 90.

How about this for all of us spice-addicts? Maybe the next time I'm in Belgium missing spicy food, I can just bring a tarantula along for a quick fix.

Tarantulas and chillis share pain target
11/08/06 03:34 PM, EST
Tarantulas and chilli peppers may not appear to have anything in common but an encounter with either the spider or the plant can be a painful experience.

news bites

"Ouch, K-Fed: "There was relatively little taunting Wednesday night from a Chicago crowd that appeared to contain a few genuine fans, though at least one man was led out by security after hoisting a large, cardboard sign insulting Federline's manhood."

I think the man should've been given free tickets to more upcoming bad shows.

Another reason Caltech is one of the more bizarre places in the world (not to imply that this is bad).

Satellite images of Earth from above, one reason to wish one was in DC. Sure, there's Google Maps. But can your computer screen really beat the Smithsonian?

Trains in the US continue to be pathetic. (Not really news, I suppose.

So it is the Dutch who most often evade Belgian speeding fines. No surprise. But doesn't that mean we can ignore our parking tickets in the Netherlands? I know someone on their Wanted List. :)

So whose great idea was it to research the research habits of graduate students?

taal problemen

So Dutch is the 28th most "common" language in the world. But issuing loyalty cards to shopkeepers who speak only in Flemish to their customers? Sounds like a grade school measure. Maybe things have descended to that point.

democracy?

Thirty percent of state candidates running unopposed. Something about our "democractic" system isn't working.

I desperately miss heirloom tomatoes. And now everybody's going to eat them and there will be none left for me!

There aren't a whole lot of numbers, but some surprising insights and sorely needed reasons to feel good about this country in TIME Magazine's "America by the numbers".

salty intrigue

I only saw the Salton Sea once on the way to Death Valley or some other SoCal destination, but I never forgot it. It's vast enough to be mind-boggling, but not so vast that one simply views it as an ocean, as I did on the shores of Lake Michigan. I could never figure out the story behind this body of water, but thanks to a CNN article and Wikipedia article (Wikipedia includes articles on all sorts of things you wouldn't find in other general reference volumes), I finally understand.

The Salton Sea, completely below sea level, was created in 1905 by accident. Its water supply is unintentional and artificial. Its lowest point is only 5 feet above the lowest point of Death Valley. Sometimes thousands of dead tilapia wash up on its shores.

For a while, the Sea was a resort area. Google Maps shows the extensive network of streets built for the Salton Sea. Most of them are empty. (Is my inner photographer screaming to get out there right now or what? It sounds even eerier than Pleasure Beach or Doel.) The sea just got too salty.

Like the Hoge Veluwe, this man-made environment has become essential to many kinds of wildlife. And there are many who are trying to save the sea. There is also thirsty San Diego trying to get at the water that feeds it.

Utterly fascinating. I can't wait for the 3,000-page report due to be released to the public shortly. Well, perhaps I'm being facetious. But I've just found out that a random thing that's always intrigued me is even more strange and otherwordly and controversial and important than I imagined. I wish I could take a couple months to explore and publish a book of photos. Guess I'll have to be content with looking for someone else's.

palm problem

I have a problem with palm trees in California. I love stereotypical images of palms at the beach, and in fact have created a couple of mock-retro ones that I'll try to post if I ever get around to turning on my internal/external hard drive. I have a purse and a bikini with palms, and it's totally for that Cali look. But I never liked the look of palms poking up all over California. They absolutely don't belong in San Francisco, although they line Herb Caen Boulevard and struggle by the new tracks in Visitacion Valley to survive the fog, and they hardly belong in SoCal. Our climate is temperate, but not tropical.

And it looks tacky.

For the first time, I've found people who agree. "'They don't provide the same benefits as the other, more leafy trees,' says Paula Daniels, a Board of Public Works commissioner who is heading up the planting effort. Their tall, bare trunks make them inferior when it comes to providing shade, Daniels said, and some experts believe their scant leaves make them less effective at trapping air pollution. And while sun-dappled palms lining a freeway may look good in the movies or on a postcard, Dunlap said people standing beside them can feel as if they are next to a telephone pole." So she's not worried about re-foresting SoCal with palms when plenty of native species are available.

According to one CS grad alum, the mega palms lining the main driveway into Stanford University cost about $100,000 to maintain each year.

fashion = fertility?!

Women, it's time to question your motives when you find yourself scouring your wardrobe for your best outfits: "Women dress to impress when they are at their most fertile, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study they say shows that signs of human ovulation may not be as mysterious as some scientists believe."

So they convicted Scott Dyleski just as everyone expected, but neither the explanations given by the defense or the prosection seem adequate for such a brutal and seemingly premeditated murder.

high-voltage ceramics... or the devil??

Maybe I'll wait on that hybrid after all... for a ceramic power source for electric cars!

Comparable in cleverness to the French-Dutch comeback (link to come): The Rev. Jerry Falwell quips, "I hope she's the candidate, because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't." The Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, retorts, "Maybe the devil made him do it." Another line of worth from the article: "Attendees also were assured during the prayer breakfast that God would preserve a Republican majority in Congress."

Another curious news line: "Gibson's appearance at the [Fantastic Fest] was reminiscent of a similar appearance he made at Knowles' Butt-Numb-a-Thon, which offered one of the first public previews of 'The Passion of the Christ.'"

Like record labels, publishers are scared silly of opportunities to reach new audiences in the information era.

the roundup

It's pretty exciting to be part of the annual count for Belgium. I'm glad I made my lasting contribution!

Maybe something good can come out of the absurdity of everyone suing everyone in America: California sues car firms on fumes.

double entendre

Doctor gives stripper a hand

haunted by bordieu

Somehow I ended up writing in my Fulbright CV about stuff I read in the equivalent of Sociology 101 Yale-style, taught by Joseph Soares, a professor with a powerful personality and unconcealed agenda for his students. Heaven knows my understanding of sociology is in no way advanced, but as I turn every corner and find more spectacular opportunities waiting to be seized, I can't help but wonder when I derailed off the track I should have been in with my Little Vis peers and instead ended up on the path of the privileged. Where I stand in Pierre Bordieu's fields I cannot say, but I know Yale put me pretty high up without my even realizing it. Just the other day, I finally figured out that I can talk to politicians and officials without feeling uncomfortable because Yale invited me to free fancy dinners with famous people and let me do business directly with university deans and secretaries. I took advantage of these opportunities for fun and ambition, but at no point did I realize the incredible level of social training I was inadvertently receiving.

Where am I in the field? An article about Harvard's bizarre move to end Early Action until it sees that other Ivies don't follow suit gives an idea: "At the most selective schools, a 2003 study found, 3 percent of students came from the poorest socio-economic quarter of families, while 74 percent came from the richest."

Nor was I aware that Soares is an exemplary follower of Bordieu's belief that "sociology is a combat sport"--presumably because he never metnioned that Bordieusque idea to us. It always seemed fitting to me that he would be the odd one out in an elitist institution like Yale. I just want to see him get tenure at Wake Forest or wherever he decides he can fight his fight.

litterbugs in space

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, "The number of fatalities [amongst motorcyclists] is outpacing the increase in ridership." Industry, what are you going to do about that?? (Recruit younger riders, I guess.)

Usually Apple redesigns things to look more futuristic and sleek. And then only they can top the design with a new one that makes old models look dated. But the new iTunes looks like some app from a couple years back. Maybe they spilled ice cream from Google It's-Its on their good sketches.

I never thought about it, but even the smallest piece of space junk orbiting the earth at high speed could potentially kill an astronaut. And there are 100,000 pieces space junk orbiting the Earth, including lots of copper needles launched by some idiot American plan.

more wisdom from loveline

Lovely Dr. Drew from Loveline brings us more wise but "doh" news: All members of western culture considered, celebrities love themselves the most. It's puzzling to me that they're low on empathy, though. How can you have a magnetic personality if you can't feel for others?

Sometimes I suspect that I have more celebrity syndrome than my share, and I can't decide whether that would be good or bad.

internet-happy

Unlike television, the internet now makes us happier. Good news for us internet-addicts. It can also inspire wanderlust. But television still makes us dumber, unless new studies have been done contradicting this (which I doubt, since television programing seems to have gotten dumber in general). Does the internet also make us idiots? Or does it make us more well-informed? Or do we just have a maximum comfortable capacity for knowledge, the focus of which has shifted?

To quote Tom's excellent news commentary: "This struck me as beyond hilarious--a Belgian researcher looking at effects of sunlight."

Also entertaining: The Canadians beat the French in fleeing and surrendering... at the threat of two Californians headed their way.

a country of commuters

The longest average commute in America lasts 39.6 minutes in New Jersey. Carpooling and walking is down, driving alone is up. I had hopes that America might improve its public transportation and biking culture, perhaps gaining 1% to 2% of what Benelux has up on it. I step out of the country and look what happens. *shakes head*

elvis lives in belgium!

Is this relative or rival, Elvo? :)

I should really stop complaining about the cloudy skies when "East" Flanders (I don't know how Ghent is considered eastern) is experiencing flooding enough to be considered a "natural disaster".

But I need to vent anyway: Every morning I wake up eager to don my summer clothes, the ones I've been waiting all year to wear, only to realize I need the same old purely functional clothes that keep me warm and dry. I've had a good summer, but somehow I can't help but feel that's it's a waste of one's twenty-third year to spend two summer months without a generous helping of sun. You're only energetic, stylin', and 23 once.

hanging the bell

No more 24-hour marriage services in Las Vegas! Why don't you just stop the fun without stopping a single idiot (couple) from tying an inopportune knot.

In other discouraging news, Apple hasn't been doing too well. Paying off Creative, recalling laptops with Sony batteries that have a tendency to explode into flames, having its hacker-immune image scorched (albeit only during use of a third-party driver), and admitting to "excessive" work hours in Chinese factories... get a hold on, guys.

"Google understands English, doesn't it?" Alice asked me today. A couple months ago, Wendy's boyfriend was sure that nobody in the US would know about this great Dutch-language search engine called Google. A company so pervasive and yet culturally without frills that everybody thinks it belongs to their own culture. Impressive and slightly frightening.

playing by number

When it comes to the U.S. News and World Report, it's all about manipulating a game of numbers. And Princeton still doesn't matter. Not to mention that the cover article of Newsweek appearing worldwide at the same time is by Yale president Richard Levin. ;)

Speaking of games, I wonder why wine-and-dine isn't a more common tactic for loosening the tongues of criminals. Villains have been around for centuries, so this idea isn't new. Why torture prisoners in Iraq yet suddenly break the royal treatment out on the self-(pro)claimed murderer of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey?

And then for the seemingly unquantifiable... there is finally convincing proof of the existence of that wonderful thing called dark matter that probably comprises 25% of our universe. How much of the universe is made of matter that we've been able to detect until now? Probably 5%.

Every time I marvel at a new discovery or invention that brings us further into the modern and the technological, I wonder at the same time what kind of dark age I'm inhabiting in which we don't understand either the frontiers of space or the workings of the human mind. One day humankind will understand vast amounts more about the universe than we do now--if we avoid self-destruction. And the year 2006, with its proof of the existence of dark matter etc., will be laughable in its ignorance.

Water beats out beer!!!

Every year, the consumption of beer decreases in Belgium. This year, water beat beer as the country's most popular drink. Water! That thin, weak, tasteless, un-artisanal, ordinary drink. And people pay for it, as restaurants do not serve tap water. They serve mineral water in little bottles that only half quench my thirst. Maybe they're large enough to quench European thirst, and I, at 5 feet and 52 kilograms, require at least twice that amount to feel as if I'd had a real drink.

On the other hand, beer comes in far more generous quantities. I can drink only a quarter of the beer that's served to me as my alcohol tolerance is so low. Somehow my hydration needs are the inverse of the norm here. Then again, how can I be speaking of hydration. A tiny bottle of mineral water probably hydrates the body twice as well as a monstrous glass of Duvel.

development hell

It's a real term, though not as colorful as Duivelskermis, which the Belgians use to describe the not infrequent sunshine rain that accosted me throughout the streets of Antwerpen yesterday. And development hell is where the movie based on Orson Scott Card's riveting (if awkwardly prosed) Ender's Game has been since I first started anticipating it in high school.

I wish I could be bothered to write down the tasks and goals that pass through my head when I'm practicing the carillon or organ. It's only at non-computer keyboards that I remember all the things I'm supposed to do (particularly at the computer) but haven't written down, because at those times, my mind is clearest/least cluttered and there's room for memory. At the computer, I forget things and am unable to write creatively because I expect the machine to think for me.

Just look at this blog entry. It took me five years to remind myself to check out the release date of a movie based on one of my favorite sci-fi novels.

belated friendsterization

After I finished my exams, interesting people in Mechelen starting contacting me via MySpace, eight months after I gave up on trying to meet Mechelaars through the damn site. And by then I had no time to even meet these people. No amount of Googling told me what social networking site was popular in Belgium when I wanted to find it. And finally, I find a link in the newspaper for it: Hyves.net. Two weeks before my departure, probably never to live in Belgium again.

minority report

Remember those beautiful white glass screens that John Anderton manipulated in Minority Report? The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen has similar computers to guide you through a selection of its spectacular collection, but I didn't expect the technology to appear next at Polo Ralph Lauren, of all places. 24/7 window shopping... maybe the only good thing Polo has going.

doe-het-zelf paradise

The weirdest man-made island to date?

Gives me a whole new perspective on Ingrid's former hometown of Dubai. It makes sense that they called in Dutch engineers to solve problems in building the island, as the better part of the Netherlands just rose up out of the water in the last century.

The Poles are coming!

Each month, a thousand Polish workers take temporary positions in Belgium thanks to the recent simplification of European Union rules for recruiting workers from the new Central and Eastern member states. I'm obviously out of touch with the population working in agriculture, as all the Poles I know I've either encountered at Yale, Amersfoort, or Poland.

My visit to Poland has left me not only with a five-word Polish vocabulary, but also the ability to tell Poles apart from other Europeans--probably akin to being able to tell the Chinese and Japanese apart. And I can kind of distinguish their language from other Slavic tongues...with a 51% success rate.

fear of the dark

After the theft of my front wheel and vandalism of my brake cables, my view of Belgium changed slightly... it was no longer the unbelievably safe place it seemed and that some claim it to be. It became darker, less relaxed. But Ben took the cake when he confided in me on our way to KBC's Boerentoren that the young woman working at a Brussels cafe he used to frequent had been taken into the woods and clubbed to death by a "friend"/married man a week or two ago. Incidentally, what news should arise but that murder has increased by 35% over the past five years, symbolized recently by the senseless mp3 killing in Brussel Centraal. I doubt that any of the explanations presented in the article--vigilantism, materialism, lack of social cohesion--can really explain this dude going stark raving mad, but it's not difficult to imagine some prevailing force at work.

spirograph

For the past few years, I've returned to wanting more advanced Spirographs than the one I had as a child. There was one model based partially on randomness, with a pen perched over a moving tray.

Now artificially-grown mouse neurons can create artwork that looks eerily similar to the results of said Spirograph. I'm creeped out.

an LA thing

Where can you find an information wanted sign posted by the homocide department of the police bearing 54 photos of aspiring models? Most certainly in Los Angeles. And it's working.

jailbreak

So Will finally writes back. And he's been up to the best kind of no good! A bit reminiscent of the red paper clip.

A potential antidote to iTunes comes, of all possibilities, from National Geographic World Music.

icky

No wonder an American girl conducted a study showing that toilet seats generally host fewer bacteria than ice cream. Even the soft ice in Belgium is dirty.

lies, all lies!

People can't tell the truth about lying. Surprise, surprise.

tolerance?

The Flemish Interest is avidly opposing anti-racism concerts, taking the events as a personal insult. No further comment necessary.

Since when was Mechelen a noisy place at night? Take me to your party!

earth-shaking

"The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year, 100,000 of which can be felt and 100 of which cause damage." You'd think Californians would be working hardest on preparing for the big one, but it's a Buffalo-based company in upstate New York that's developed a "silicon-fluid-filled damper...about 20 inches long and as thick as a pop can, [that] can dissipate 15,000 pounds of force, the equivalent of 20 car shock absorbers." It's already used in the Bay Bridge and Triborough Bridge. It's amazing that such a small thing can absorb so much force.

The earth is always threatening to turn on us. Remember all those forest fires that plague California and the four corners? They're already increasing in frequency rapidly because of global warming. When I'm finally done with my education, will I have a Cali to come back to?!

scofflaw diplomats in new york

Parking in Manhattan can easily cost $20 per hour. So being a diplomat must be sweet: "Between November 1997 and the end of 2002, diplomats accumulated more than 150,000 unpaid parking tickets in New York, racking up $18 million in unpaid fines.

Based on statistics supplied by the city, the report said the worst offenders during that period were Kuwait, which averaged 246.2 unpaid tickets per diplomat per year, followed by Egypt, with 139.6; Chad, with 124.3; and Sudan, with 119.1.

Twenty-two countries averaged zero unpaid tickets per year, according to the study, including Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates."

much ado about nothing

Anyone who thinks that America can operate in its current state without its illegal immigrants is an utter fool. So why not let the status quo continue and save the nation some money to educate immigrant children, etc.? Oh, yes, because people want to be re-elected by a nation of fools.

We could also save some money for the people who nearly died for us in wars not all of us supported. A good half to three-quarters of the homeless in San Francisco are veterans of the Vietnam War, if I recall the figures I was told at a shelter correctly. And now the young people who served as recently as in the Iraq war have no place to go. How can we send them off to a war of questionable motivation and then drop them back in the US with nothing but nightmares of the horrors they went through?

Also of interest: "In the United States, a full 42 percent identify themselves first as Christians and second as Americans." From an article about how Muslims are actually doing better than before in Europe.

hearing loss

By the time you've reached your twenties, you've lost your ability to hear very high frequencies, and nobody thought to take advantage of that until now. The possibilities! But it's disturbing to me as a musician that my hearing is already going, particularly since I expose my unprotected ears regularly to the loudest acoustic instrument in the world. How will I detect that the ninth overtone of that bell over yonder is five cents too low?

failure to launch

I watched Failure To Launch on the way to the US, and a gorgeous girl with a Cyrillic passport sitting next to me bore a startling resemblance to Kit (Zooey Deschanel), right down to her outfit. The movie made sense in the US. But I wonder if it would fly in Belgium or just leave people offended.

a nation of workaholics

I had no idea Americans were second only to Singapore in the number of hours worked weekly. And what's the deal with Singapore anyway?

We can't be too clinical about the effects of vacations though. In a recent study described in the article, "nearly three quarters [of respondents] thought that doctors should be able to write prescriptions for vacations." How reasonable could the rest of their answers have been?

city life at its best

Barcelona isn't even in the top 10 most livable cities according to a survey by Mercer. And that's one of the top three places in the world I'd be happiest living in so far.

There's a lot more traveling for me to do. And I really have been meaning to visit Zurich.

London lags quite a bit behind San Fran? Clearly I'm more spoiled than I think. Either that, or living in crime-ridden communities has desensitized me to the effect of that factor on city living.

camel cavalry

From a history of Confederate president Jefferson Davis' camel cavalry:

In 1863, a camel-express service was tried between New San Pedro and Tucson, Arizona, but with only limited success. Around that same time a group of Mexicans loaded up some camels on wagons with the intention of making beasts of burden out of them, but abused them so severely that most of the animals died.

There are so many nonsensical things about that. Not to mention that anything concerning dromedaries or Jefferson Davis may be considered comical.

another reason SUVs are evil

Even the police can't drive them without running over people's heads.

Damn motorists. You gotta do Critical Mass naked just to get their attention, and not just in Mexico City.

blue and gold, blue and...

When the University of California was deciding its colors in the 1860s-70s, it was decided that gold would represent the state's principal natural resource and blue would honor Yale, the alma mater of most of the new university's founders.
Source: calbears.ocsn.com.
Joe McMillan, 19 November 2003

Sweet! Even the California Governor's (Arnold's) flag is on a Yale Blue field. But was Yale blue chosen after Oxford blue? Cuz whether I'm in Oxford or Cali, I feel right at home with the university colors.

what happened to rights?

Ok, so nobody would actually wear a burka in the US because the reaction would be so bad... but at the same time, there's no way in hell anyone would even think to try to make it illegal.

doh

When you've installed so many programs of questionable attainment that you've forgotten some of the most powerful software on your machine, you know you're an addict. All this time I've been trying to run beat-up old Adobe Pagemaker 7 on my Virtual PC for Mac (running Windows XP Pro) when I had Adobe InDesign CS installed on OS X the whole damn time!

I still haven't paid Adobe a cent in my life, but I feel as if I owe the company my first-born child. Has a single week gone by in my college and post-collegiate life that I haven't used their software?

swan love

How... cute?

another reason to sleep

Women who sleep less gain more weight, and to my surprise, it's not because of late-night-work-induced munchies. Let's just hope my metabolism isn't affected, because I'm not planning on changing my schedule anytime soon.

spring

temperature-wise, it may not feel like late spring, but apparently the birds are oblivious--at least the one currently chirping outside at 5 am is. "And smale foweles maken melodye, / That slepen al the nyght with open eye..."

Alexander Capelluto

The state of everyday cycling is still abysmal in the US. "Unlike most countries, the vast majority of bikes sold in the United States are used for recreation rather than transportation. About 550,000 Americans -- less than 1 percent of U.S. workers -- bike to work regularly... 'For a lot of people, it's intimidating and you don't feel safe.'" But gas prices ($3.50 per gallon) are starting to change things. "The $286 billion federal transportation bill signed last year will double the amount of money available for bike and pedestrian facilities to about $4 billion. Federal legislation introduced in the Senate last month would offer employers a tax incentive to help cover the cost of riding to work."

Try telling that to Alexander Capelluto, Berkeley '08, who was killed by a 10-wheel truck while biking back from the boathouse on Thursday. The second Yalie in twelve months to die in a biking accident, and the second also to be involved with the Habitat for Humanity ride across the country. You know there's something wrong with a nation when people doing something as simple as biking to raise money for new homes for the needy are endangering their lives.

I was following a freighter truck when my accident happened. If things had gone just a little differently, I could have been the second fatality. Who decides these things? Why Alexander?

Strangely, reading WTNH's article brings to light how Yale-centric the YDN article is. Well, obviously. But there's something upsetting about that disparity too.

apple 24/7

A new Apple store opening in Manhattan that never closes, and furthmore is right by FAO Schwartz (most ridiculously huge toy store in town)? Heaven.

solo e pensoso

Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi
vo misurando a passi tardi e lenti,
e gl'occhi porto per fuggir intenti
dove vestigio human l'arena stampi.
Altro schermo non trovo che mi scampi
dal manifesto accorger de le genti,
perché ne gl'atti d'allegrezza spenti
di fuor si legge com' io dentr'avampi.
Sì ch'io mi cred' homai che monti e piagge
e fiumi e selve sappian di che tempre
sia la mia vita, ch'è celata altrui,
ma pur sì aspre vie né si selvagge
cercar non so ch'Amor non venga sempre
ragionando con meco, et io con lui.

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)
stunning settings by Giaches de Wert (Weert, near Antwerp, 1535 – Mantua, 1596) and Luca Marenzio (Coccaglio, c1553 - Rome, 1599)

[Death Valley, winter 2003, tkn]

woopers

San Francisco ferry crash injures 9 at 4:20 pm. And they wonder why.

here without you

I cannot pinpoint why you've been on my mind all day. I listened to the sappy 3 Doors Down song Elvo dug up for me from his junk folder twice this morning with dewy eyes. Perhaps because of that I began to pity myself again. But why that song this morning? Last night I may have dreamt about you after reading your email, but I can no longer recall any dream, just the feather's weight of a memory. Then again, the reason(s) may be circumstantial. It's been warm and sunny for three days, I've been out cycling again alone anxious and exhilarated discovering my little bikeable world, I've been practicing diligently and better at the carillon than ever, I've been savoring luxurious chocolates several times a day, I've been cooking and eating out well, I've been sleep-deprived and pmsing, I've been alone for the weekend, and somehow some or all or none of it brings me back to thinking of you. I forget sometimes what it was like to think of you, but days like this force the memory, and again I am haunted by some profound solitude, the depth of which I can only comprehend when it has already taken hold of me. Nearly two years ago, I could hardly bike for the memory of you after you left for Europe. In Europe myself, biking finally helped me reconcile myself with the thought of you--the faster I flew, the further behind you seemed. Now I take off on my bike, and the very activity that helped me escape the memory of you takes me straight to you. Millay, is there ever relief?

think you don't drive an SUV?

"A new study of how much greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere by the production of food shows that the difference between a meat-based and plant-based diet amounts to the same as driving an SUV versus a small sedan."

The Discovery Channel can claim this is late-breaking news, but the vegetarian community has always been aware of this.

Also of interest: birds can learn grammar better than your kid.

more parallel universality

Lawmakers arrested for a good cause? Maybe the world is getting better after all.

parallel universe

Elvo tells me that "meeting yourself" is a Flemish expression for a close call. When he first commented on it after braking at high speed on his bike, I thought he was describing some quantum mechanical phenomenon of travelling at a high enough velocity to meet yourself...

In a parallel universe?

I felt as if I'd been plopped down in one when I read that Bush is advocating alternatives to oil.

But maybe I've just been thinking too much about the next Trek revival.

chthonic ambiance

More quake celebrations are going on in SF, now at the Exploratorium, within a magnificent classical Roman complex built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (photo to follow). A new exhibit at the museum where I attended my junior prom with my best friend Janice, contemplating neutrino tracks and blowing giant bubbles while dressed in ballgowns, allows you to hear sounds created by the movement of tectonic plates, although my quick skim of the article didn't reveal how the sound is reproduced. Chthonically cool.

420

Europe: The perfect place to celebrate 420. More stoner cartoons.

By the way, take me to Raleigh's on Telegraph.

deep thought

"A man is what he thinks about all day long."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mr. Emerson...?

One small but fun aspect of living in Europe is that packages come labeled in at least half a dozen different languages. Today I noticed a funny Finnish word: Imukykyvaihtoehdot. Don't ask where it's from.

Okay, a tampon box.

Today we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Great Quake of '06 (1906 in San Francisco, that is), marking the event with a study finding that the same quake today "would cause 1,800 to 3,400 deaths, damage more than 90,000 buildings, displace as many as 250,000 households and result in $150 billion in damage." Yet the author of the sanguinely-titled "The Great Earthquake And Firestorms Of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself" himself still lives in old SF. We may be fools, but we'll hang on to the last and rebuild it from rubble because there's no place like it in the world.

Aprill

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T. S. Eliot and Geoffrey Chaucer are commemorated just a couple meters away from each other in Westminster Abbey. Two men of terrific brilliance, two diametrically opposing visions of one month. Last year I had an Eliot April. This year Chaucer has snuck in.

flee to Canada!

Outrageous: There are still up to 300 protesters in jail for the Tiananmen Square protest of '89. One dude just made it to Calgary, Ingrid's 'hood. How much of the world is actually civilized? Far less than privileged people like you and me will probably ever comprehend.

geeks shall inherit the earth

"Society is paying people more for their brains than for their brawn," Vedder said. "The nerds and the wimps and the geeks are ruling the world."

A shocker to find in an article about college grads being attracted to cities that can sustain the interest of the educated, not for its content, but for its particular turn of phrase. Also surprising and not surprising, many cities with a high concentration of college grads have expensive homes (surprising: fresh out of college, one has no money; not surprising: eventually out of college, one makes decent money). San Francisco, with one of the highest concentrations, was the costliest in 2004, with a median home value of $662,000, more than four times the national median of $151,000.

I figured that the half-a-million median home value of my high school days would have gone down with the deflation of the Silicon Valley boom. But IIRC, it's gotten a wee bit higher.

Having been reminded by my cough over the past few days of my mostly sick childhood, I thought again of how I may well not have lived to twenty-three without the help of modern medicine. At least within economic classes able to afford health care, humanity has circumvented survival of the fittest based on physical traits. Where will that leave our physiques in another few centuries (if we don't blow ourselves up first)?

an apology

In the past few weeks we've grown so much closer. I'm glad. Thank you for patience and honesty and understanding--more than I could have mustered.

But can I ever escape wanting to stay far away? I keep trying, but my record, though improving, has been poor.

fluttering over the Amsterdam CS tracks

Sonnet II

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917.

wi-fi sf!

San Francisco is getting Wi-Fi citywide to bridge the digital divide and bring the internet to everybody, and the city is paying nothing. How does that work???

italians online?

"Three-fourths of [Italians] hesitate to access the Internet because they don't know how to use a computer". (Hard to believe... unless the Italian population is quite elderly). So someone interested in making digital info physical created the Phymail Box.

I ruefully agree with the inventor that "the computer forces you to stay there because it offers you everything", but I'm not sure that having access to email anywhere I go is the solution. The upside of having even a PowerBook is that you can't sport it around in your pocket when you should be enjoying the world around you.

Another interesting tidbit: the Poste Italiane allows customers to compose an email on its website and have it delivered to the recipient like a paper letter.

Italians don't seem to mind wasting paper.

paradise

It's funny how people continue to live in their hometowns or motherlands despite the obvious drawbacks of each area--hurricanes in the southeast, blizzards in the northeast, flooding by rivers, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes in California. The majority of Californians don't even have earthquake insurance. Take a look at the aftermath of the Big One in 1906 (the Legion of Honor exhibit catalog is available at the bookstore of the Nederlands Architectuur Instituut, of all places). But is there any place in the world without major drawbacks? Can we ever be safe from mother nature?

pny oops

No wonder the crowd at PNY 2003 seemed to consist of teenagers who should have been at a hip hop party instead of old-school ravers. I was hoping the electronica scene would be much better in Europe, but it still seems difficult to find anything but mainstream parties unless you have connections.

Anyone interested in coming to STRP in Eindhoven with me?

blond and badass?

Jessica Simpson snubs Bush to the great dismay of the Republican party by refusing to meet with him at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising event, but nowhere does the article state what her party is. Nevertheless, I'll reconsider my low opinion of her for that show of spunk.

Robert Kenney's killer was denied parole for the thirteenth time... but his lawyer sounds even worse off: "His longtime attorney died last year after numerous failed attempts to get his client a new trial." Heartbreak can be lethal too.

There are plenty of fish in the sea, but what do we really know about big numbers?

mystery manuscript

The uncrackable Voynich manuscript (MS 408, Yale Library - Beinecke) is now available in facsimile edition! Aspiring cryptographers, get yours while supplies last!

I picked up a postcard of a dude carrying a crook with a bell in Antwerpen yesterday, and it led me to a fun website that encourages folks to "think." For example: Elvo's example of deep thinking.

So there are free wifi hotspots...in Brussels. Big help to me. And the city is looking into implementing wider access. I love the last line explaining WiMAX: "It is similar to WiFi in concept...online dictionary Wikipedia said." Either someone figured out how to interview a non-living, non-physical entity, or someone's English sucks.

miao!

Pets outnumber people in the United States by about 60 million, and they are becoming increasingly pampered. I was once horrified by a little dog being walked by a college-age girl in Los Angeles that had been shaved, except around its neck, to look like a one-foot-tall lion with a ribbon in its "mane." The poor creature can never regain its dignity. Why have comically tiny short-legged dogs that have to race just to move at a walking pace and are therefore evolutionarily impractical in the wild become such popular pets in recent years?

spiegel

Mirror mirror on the wall
Haven't I any email at all?

Furniture surfs the web. Leave it to the Japanese.

haar

Why are human beings the only animals that lack fur and yet can grow really long hair only from their heads? Other creatures must find our appearance freakish.

I admit I need more sleep, but nobody's going to buy the claim that "Sleeping only six hours a night for a week will make you as tired on that seventh night as if you'd had no sleep at all" from the CNN article To sleep, perchance to live. Sure as hell I know what it's like to not sleep a wink, and it's real different from how I feel on a regular Sunday.

eligible and successful

"It's a fast, comfortable way of meeting eligible Ivy League singles just like you.... You must sign up with a friend of the opposite sex to ensure an even number of daters" (March 2006 newsletter of the Yale Club of New York City). Wrong in so many ways, like the Yale Visa card (which I must admit I occasionally want for the Harkness Tower photo).
Not half as wrong, however, as the very existence of the book Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers, and How You Can Too, a review of which well-intentioned John Bordley thought Tom and I would find interesting...with ill results. I question the credibility of authors who claim with 'egalitarian' spirit, "Every Asian American could have written this book; we were just the first ones." I doubt the Kim sisters are really so stupid as to take the "model minority" stereotype as a given fact, but they do in order to sell their money-making scheme. Most of the Asian-American students I knew weren't going anywhere fast and certainly couldn't write. And if I were willing to sell my soul and write such a book (in six months during my free time, no less!), it would argue tenets opposite to what the Kim sisters advocate (i.e. "encouraging children to pursue financially lucrative careers rather than 'whatever will make you happy'"). While co-author Jane Kim may have failed to achieve her dream of becoming a writer within just one year after graduation, her exemplary current job as a lawyer, her main qualification to write about Asian-American success, could easily suggest that she chickened out and sold her dreams for a money-making career...as she and her sister are doing now at the expense of untold numbers of American children.

I could rant forever, and I will later.

b/w

I finally figured out why I never wash my loads as "white" and "colors." No, it's not a socio-political statement. It's just that I hardly have any white clothes.

I've become so desperate for baigan bharta, which none of the Belgian Indian restaurants serve or know of even though it's a common dish in Indian, that I tried tonight for the second time in my life to cook eggplant. The first time I cooked an eggplant dish, it was so inedible that I started to feel ill, tossed out the meal, and cooked dinner anew.

My adventure tonight began with spearing the eggplant on a chopstick and roasting it over an open stove flame for seven minutes, as our kitchen has no roaster. I also mashed together my own garam masala, forgetting to roast it (not that I could). Halfway through the cooking process, I had gone from optimist to gloomy Gus, but the final result proved far more edible than expected--and decidedly hot.

funky sticker site

The Pope rocks out with an iPod nano.

babies schmabies

On the train from Zaventem Luchthaven to Mechelen, I got into a conversation with a tall German fellow living in Lyon, France, and regularly commuting 100 miles to Switzerland to work for Dupont. Occasionally, he travels to one of Dupont's largest facilities in the world--in Mechelen!

Somehow we got to talking about the state of planet. Thinking of the conversation I'd had with a woman I'd met on the train to New Haven, I commented on how puzzled I was by high school friends who were impatient to have five or more children, to which he replied that Europe was facing a baby deficit that could have severe economic consequences.

The economy is absolutely important, but it nevertheless leaves me frustrated and angry that Europe is trying to promote a new baby boom. Having a mother or father around full time is important, and when women are in the workplace, parents can't take care of that many children well. More importantly, there are uncounted numbers of unwanted children in the world. And European governments are spending their budgets on encouraging people to have babies who will consume the food that starving children and orphans will never have.

Mother earth does not need more people. Every 20 minutes, the human population grows by about 3,000. The current global population of 6 billion people exceeds the earth's capacity to sustain present standards of living by about 30%. We're going to have much larger problems on our hands than European policy revisions in a couple of decades.

I am afraid sometimes for the future in which I'm trying to carry out my plans. Will any of my hopes be relevant or practicable by then?

ceci n'est pas une pipe bombe

MODED!

Band Sticker on Bike Prompts Bomb Scare. Paranoia is a terrible thing.

Antwerpen has everything. The largest Jainist temple outside India is in outlying Wilrijk on Laarstraat.

bikes

Bruno brought my baby home today good as brand-spanking new. There are no words to describe the joy of being reunited with my other half.

Interesting adjunct to urban spelunking photography: abandoned bikes in new york.

mr. fusion

Reducing, reusing, and recycling is a passion for me. I've always really wanted that car in Back to the Future with the Mr. Fusion engine into which you could throw your half-finished can of Coke and banana peels.

San Francisco recycles 60% of its garbage already. Is it any surprise that the city has figured out how to recycle doggie poopoo as well?

Bulldogs in Baghdad

I wonder who masterminded this?

Officials say Iraq internship poster is a prank

I don't suppose it was inspired by the emails regarding Bulldogs in Brussels.

In other news: The Love Parade lives! But I'll be in Gdansk, Poland for the World Carillon Federation Congress. Of all weekends to pick, the first time I'm in Europe to join in the fun!

wi-fi

San Fran has the biggest municipal Wi-Fi network in the country, the 35-square-mile free MetroFi in the south San Francisco bay area. And Chicago is jealous.

Now if only Wi-Fi was available in a single cafe in Belgium!

Les Carillons de Flandre

Arriving in the town square of Mechelen, Belgium in September 2005, I was greeted by a plaque entitled “Les Carillons de Flandre”—a poem by Victor Hugo about the instrument so ubiquitous in the Low Countries. Standing by restaurants called Onder Den Toren and De Carillon, the plaque reassured me that I had entered a culture in which the carillon resounds through everyday life.

Within this city of 80,000 people stands the world’s first carillon school, the Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn”. It offers a “Practical Diploma” and the final “Laureate’s Diploma.” Three American students are pursuing the typically seven-year Laureate’s Diploma in one year: Tom Lee and myself (recent Yale Guild alumni) and John Bordley (Sewanee). Each week, we take lessons in carillon performance, composition, and campanology. For composition, students write a set of variations and an original piece, both of which they perform for their final exam recital. A thirty-page thesis on a historical, cultural, or technical aspect of campanology is written with individual guidance. Basic musicianship courses in choir and piano are also mandatory.

Students must perform a short midterm exam in December and a final exam recital of about 45 minutes in June. Because European carillons call for different repertoire than those in North America, foreign students may find themselves immersed in a repertoire quite separate and challenging from what they have played before. In perhaps no other musical discipline is accessibility to historical instruments so open—playing centuries-old carillons is easy to arrange.

The student association Campana organizes several outings to carillons, museums, and foundries, but overall student interaction is limited to the school day as most people commute, including a high number of foreign students. Students usually take classes two days per week and are otherwise free to practice, research, and travel. Travel is irresistible—it is affordable, and utterly different cultures are just hours away.

Mechelen is a small but culturally rich city in which everyday conveniences are within walking distance and cycling is often preferred to driving. Brussels and Antwerp are fifteen minutes away by train and well worth getting to know. The Flemish government offers free Dutch language courses, and city life is rich with cultural festivals and early music concerts, as well as Belgium’s famed cuisine. You may soon find your wallet slimming as your waistline expands from heavy intake of chocolate, waffles, fries, and Belgian beer. And you will gradually adjust to a slower pace of life in which savoring a meal with company for several hours and closing stores promptly after work and on Sundays is more important than reaping profits. Nevertheless, Belgium enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world.

The Royal Carillon School is in an exciting time of transition, finalizing joint programs with the Netherlands Carillon Institute (Boudewijn Zwart) and the Dutch Carillon School in the Netherlands and the International Carillon Institute (Tim Hurd) in New Zealand. By the end of the year, an accredited bachelor’s degree in carillon will be jointly available with a partner conservatory.

For more information, attend the education panel at the 2006 GCNA Congress and keep your eyes on the Royal Carillon School’s website. I am translating it into English, and for my thesis, cataloging and building an online multimedia version of the school’s Carillon Museum: www.beiaardschool.be.

biking news

1. Launch of the Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Wiki!


2. [New York] City Rebuffed in Trying to Bar [Critical] Mass Bike Rides


3. Horses and bikes may not be vehicles for long [in Aberdeen, South Dakota]

cruel and unusual

CNN.com headline reads "Lethal injection must change before execution: Mix of drugs may be cruel and unusual punishment".

It's disgusting, the absurdity of fighting over such petty details when the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual punishment.

Apparently an apartment complex just off the ring in Mechelen was a holding place for Jews during WWII. There is, in fact, a Mechelen Museum of Deportation and Resistance in the city and, preserved nearby in Willebroek, Breendonk Fort National Memorial, a former concentration camp.

i am my lifelong idol!

Your results: You are Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others.

Star Trek Personality Quiz

What disturbs me is that my runner-up identity is Deanna Troi, my least favorite character, right in line with Jean Grey in the X-Men for being a useless wimp whose existence is solely to serve as eye candy. "Oh Riker/Cyclops, help me!" or "Oh, I sense... too many emotions... can't take it anymore..." What an embarrassment to womankind.

Jean-Luc Picard		70%
Deanna Troi		60%
James T. Kirk		50%
Will Riker		50%
Chekov		50%
Geordi LaForge		45%
Beverly Crusher		45%
Uhura		45%
Spock		39%
Worf		35%
Mr. Scott		30%
Mr. Sulu		30%
Leonard McCoy		30%
Data		29%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		25%

ohhh the irony...

Shout-out to old man Yale-dropout Cheney for cementing the world's impression of Americans as rifle-toting, card-carrying NRA members. Bush Learned Within Three Hours That Cheney Shot Hunter, but the American public didn't learn it from the White House.

At least some good humor has come of the event. Jon Stewart interviewed a fake "firearms mishap analyst" who told him, "The vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the bush."

And when Bill Gates appeared at a computer security conference in California, he quipped, "I'm really glad to be here. My other invitation was to go quail hunting with Dick Cheney."Loading...

snuggles endangered!

Polar bears may get endangered status. What next? But I'm glad that Snuggles would be protected.

there is hope...

Democrat veterans are running for office to fight the war in Iraq.

stardust

And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart.
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart.
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die.
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by.

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights dreaming of a song.
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration.
But that was long ago, and now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song.

Beside the garden wall, when stars are bright
You are in my arms.
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
Of paradise where roses grew.
Though I dream in vain
In my heart you will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain.

Silentium!

Silentium! Silence! Sei still!
Speak not! Do not open your soul's intimate abode.
What you may feel, what you may dream -
In profundi let it steam.
Safeguard it in your spirit's mine
Let it ascend and then decline,
Like silent stars on heaven's dome.
Bathe in their light and watch them roam,
Admire them, splendid or bleak,
But in silence. Do not speak.

How can a heart be braced in words?
Another fathom what is yours?
And understand what you live by?
A thought expressed becomes a lie.
Don't muddy springs, lucid and unique:
Drink from their depth, but do not speak.

Learn to live within yourself. Explore a universe
That's you. Behold between your soul's shores
All the mysterious thoughts. Know: noise
Rips the enigmatic lace, destroys
The magic chorus. Noon rays will make it weak.
Listen to its song. But do not speak.

-Fyodor Tyutchev (1830), translated by Elisabeth Konovalova

From the liner notes of Silencio.

outsourcing

Can it get any more outrageous? My country is now outsourcing torture.

Then again, my country is still barbaric enough to put criminals to death. The more distance I gain from the US, the stranger the idea of legalized (re-legalized since 1976) murder becomes. Prison sentences seem much shorter here (to positive or negative effect, I don't know; they seem too short and fines too reasonable to my American sensibilities). But even the maximum sentence for serial killer Marc Dutroux was just lifetime imprisonment. There is no harsher sentence.

just as i feared...

I'm Eponine!
Spunky, resourceful, and fearless, I don't take a lot of guff from the world, and sometimes I'm kind of freaky. Secretly, though, I just want to be loved in spite of my attitude and my goofy hat. Which Les Miserables Character Are You?

She's cool and appropriately tomboyish, but it sucks to get the short end of the stick.

identity crisis

Crikey. Thanks to Tom for this little revelation...

You Are 80% Boyish and 20% Girlish

You have a tough exterior - and usually a tough interior to match it. You're no nonsense, logical, and very assertive. Sometimes you can't understand women at all, even if you're a woman yourself. You see things rationally, and don't like to let your emotions get the best of you.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

seen

Still deriving endless entertainment from the Elm City Cycling listserv:

Because you demanded it...
KURTZ VS CROWDER
TO THE DEATH
"What doesn't kill me, only makes me ride my bicycle more."
"What doesn't kill him, ain't what I'm gonna do!"
Two men.
Two bicycles.
TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW AT THE DEVIL'S GEAR

footprints

Oddly enough, Klaas had similar thoughts today: SIGHTSEAING: Shocking...

NASA, stop littering!

Space Debris A Growing Problem

You can't really blame NASA, but I can't stand litterbugs on Earth. The average American (the worst of all offenders) jettisons 1,460 pounds of garbage per year. I want to leave a lasting legacy on the world, but it has tortured me throughout my short life to think that my garbage will probably be the most permanent contribution of all.

You too... eat Finnish økologiske speltflakes in the morning?


Or perhaps you too... want to throw yourself off a mountain?

I'm too dense for games. But if the world were a kinder place, perhaps you too think of something you believed in when you see beauty.

gaan of niet gaan

(Thanks to Klaas for correcting my erroneous Dutch.) Dilemma: 45 minutes late for Dutch class. Going for the second half (which is 90 minutes of the 3.5 hours) would nevertheless cost me almost 10 € roundtrip, and I'd learn almost diddly squat.

Oké, not so much of a dilemma then. Just guilt trippin. :)

Exciting news (to a nerdy cook in a foreign country): The solution to my spice name translation woes is here!

BEZERKELEY HERE WE COME!!!

INGRID GOT INTO BERKELEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't begin to imagine what kind of trouble we'd get into there, considering that Bezerkeley is exactly our kind of trouble. I'm overjoyed that she's going where she wanted to go (against foreign student odds at a state school too). And now I have a reason to visit my favorite city in the world as often as possible, and can make myself at home as a squatter anytime. >:) Life is grand. Freakin' grand.

The heavens sent me a sign about this earlier today: I noticed for the first time that there's a business in Mechelen called "Klepto," and immediately thought of her and resolved to send her a photo.

Speaking of Berkeley, I always wanted to recreate this little gem from Cal's campus as a prank at Yale, but never got around to it:


Then again, some things can really only exist in Berkeley, California.