This is really true.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
Month: May 2018
Caveat: Poem #670
The moon was orange,
hovering there in the east,
chewing on buildings.
[daily log: walking, 8.5km]
Caveat: Poem #669
Sleep
is strange,
since each night
we surrender
to the brain's stoppage,
as if it's protesting
the fruitless hours of doubting,
and has decided to walk out,
leaving us alone with our body.
Caveat: para llevarme lejos
El viento en la isla
El viento es un caballo:
óyelo cómo corre
por el mar, por el cielo.
Quiere llevarme: escucha
cómo recorre el mundo
para llevarme lejos.
Escóndeme en tus brazos
por esta noche sola,
mientras la lluvia rompe
contra el mar y la tierra
su boca innumerable.
Escucha como el viento
me llama galopando
para llevarme lejos.
Con tu frente en mi frente,
con tu boca en mi boca,
atados nuestros cuerpos
al amor que nos quema,
deja que el viento pase
sin que pueda llevarme.
Deja que el viento corra
coronado de espuma,
que me llame y me busque
galopando en la sombra,
mientras yo, sumergido
bajo tus grandes ojos,
por esta noche sola
descansaré, amor mío.
– Pablo Neruda (poeta chileno, 1904-1973)
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Poem #668
Not even dawn, thoughts obsessed and creeping…
It's true, sleeping would be best…
Just get dressed.
Caveat: 새도 가지를 가려 앉는다
I found this aphorism in my book of aphorisms.
새도 가지를 가려 앉는다
sae.do ga.ji.reul ga.ryeo anj.neun.da
bird-EVEN branch-OBJ be-picky-FIN sit-PRES
Even a bird is picky [when choosing] a branch to sit on.
This advocates for the thoughtful, intentional life, I think. One should choose one’s place, setting, friends, career with care.
I’m not sure what an equivalent English aphorism might be.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
Caveat: Poem #667
Walking home after
a dinner with coworkers
I felt summer's weight.
Caveat: On the possible intersubstitutability of stressors
The show last Friday went OK, I guess. I was so tired over the weekend. I didn't really get much done. Unfortunately, I need to start preparing, because next week I'm going to the US.
This is not a planned trip. My uncle, who is like a second father to me, has been in the hospital. I need to go see him.
So I took my original developing plan to go to the US in the fall, and simply accelerated it. I have already bought a round trip ticket to Seattle. My uncle is in Portland now – he was in Alaska when his problem developed, and had to be air-ambulanced out to Seattle.
I'll give more information later. But basically the one stress of the show has been replaced by a very different kind of stress, as I prepare to go to the US.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Caveat: Poem #666
Well, the devil is in the details.
You could read this poem and wonder.
But the darkness lurks beyond.
There, above or outside.
And couched in symbols.
Unseeable.
In plain sight.
Count it.
Hah.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Poem #665
Can I find words that are hard, strong, useful,
meaningfully shattered shards,
but backwards?
Caveat: and the stern winds brood
The Vast Hour
All essences of sweetness from the white
Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark
Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,
Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night
Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.
Mysterious wings have brushed the air; and light
Float all the ghosts of sense and sound and sight;
The silent hive is echoing the bees.
So stir my thoughts at this slow, solemn time.
Now only is there certainty for me
When all the day's distilled and understood.
Now light meets darkness: now my tendrils climb
In this vast hour, up the living tree,
Where gloom foregathers, and the stern winds brood.
– Genevieve Taggard (American poet, 1894-1948)
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Poem #664
Meaning emerges –
words' materiality –
like a windblown leaf.
Caveat: A man who wears many hats
Today is the big show. It'll be a long day, but the end is in sight. The results will be what they are, and there's not much left to be done except just do the show.
Last night my student Gary, a third grader in one of the lower level classes, was putting in extra time preparing his role. He's kind of the main character for the particular little play that we're doing in that group, and as all the teachers have complained to me, the play is a bit difficult for their level. So he has a lot of English to memorize, and it's quite a bit beyond his level. In my defense, the students did choose the skit themselves, after having read through it and several easier choices several times. So they had some idea what they were getting into.
Gary was feeling pleased with himself because he'd managed to get it pretty well mastered. So he took ALL the animal hats that we are using as costumes for the skit and put them ALL on his head.
I asked him if that meant he intended to memorize all the other roles, too. He quickly removed the hats, but not before I took a picture.
Wish us luck.
[daily log: walking, 8km]
Caveat: Poem #663
A cerulean sky
A bit of wind tugging here
A mortal moment
Caveat: Foki Afa Galande
What I'm listening to right now.
Heilung, "Krigsgaldr." This looks like part of some weird Scandinavian neo-Paganist thing. But it is interesting. I find these "back-to-roots" European nativist movements culturally intriguing, but feel it's regrettable the way they get coopted by various racist and authoritarianist ideologues. I have no idea what specific ideologies are associated with this Danish group, but if they turn out to be offensive, I offer my apologies in advance. I mostly just find it linguistically and culturally interesting, and would remark on the interesting coincidences with ancient cultures all over the world – these performers are not that different from e.g. efforts to recover or reconstruct Native American pre-contact cultures. I think the non-English parts, below, are no variety of modern Scandinavian, but rather intended to be some kind of "proto-Nordic" as recovered from some ancient runic inscriptions – that's what is linguistically interesting to me.
Lyrics.
Min Warb Naseu
Wilr Made Thaim
I Bormotha Hauni
Hu War
Hu War Opkam Har a Hit Lot
Got Nafiskr Orf
Auim Suimade
Foki Afa Galande
What am I supposed to do
If I want to talk about peace and understanding
But you only understand the language of the sword
What if I want to make you understand that the path you chose leads to downfall
But you only understand the language of the sword
What if I want to tell you to leave me and my beloved ones in peace
But you only understand the language of the sword
I let the blade do the talking…
So my tongue shall become iron
And my words the mighty roar of war
Revealing my divine anger´s arrow shall strike
All action for the good of all
I see my reflection in your eyes
But my new age has just begun
The sword is soft
In the fire of the furnace
It hungers to be hit
And wants to have a hundred sisters
In the coldest state of their existence
They may dance the maddest
In the morass of the red rain
Beloved brother enemy
I sing my sword song for you
The lullaby of obliteration
So I can wake up with a smile
And bliss in my heart
And bliss in my heart
And bliss in my heart
Coexistence, Conflict, combat
Devastation, regeneration, transformation
That is the best I can do for you
I see a grey gloom on the horizon
That promises a powerful sun to rise
To melt away all moons
It will make the old fires of purification
Look like dying embers
Look like dying embers
Look like dying embers
Min Warb Naseu
Wilr Made Thaim
I Bormotha Hauni
Hu War
Hu War Opkam Har a Hit Lot
Got Nafiskr Orf
Auim Suimade
Foki Afa Galande
Hu War
Hu War Opkam Har a Hit Lot
Ylir Men Aero Their
Era Mela Os
I found some vague gestures at translation, and will only offer that the part I used as this blog post's title, "Foki Afa Galande", seems to correspond to a meaning "land of shining meadows".
The official video of the same song released by the group is interesting, too.
Heilung, "Krigsgaldr."
[daily log: walking, 7km; children herded, ~∞]
Caveat: Poem #662
Coming out as from a dream
Tilt and turn, the moon's agleam
Bending then to check my hand…
Ghosts afoot, nowhere to stand.
Caveat: Brown-Eyed Mayor
It almost makes me wish I was living in Saint Paul again.
I have high hopes for Melvin Carter in the realm of Minnesota Politics.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Poem #661
I dreamed all my world infested with worms.
Do its weird forms mean I'm stressed?
Not the best.
Caveat: I’ve become impossible
Today is "Buddhamas" (Buddha's birthday, observed, in South Korea, as a single middle-of-the-week holiday).
It's a day off from work, but in the middle of such a busy period, with the talent show coming up and putting in extra hours every other day this week, its feels less like a bonus day and more like a deserved moment of rest. So that's what I made it. I have been reading a novel. I used to read novels all the time, but in fact I think this is the first novel I've worked on in 2018. I simply don't read fiction anymore. I read history – a lot. I read poetry, and online blogs about all kind of topics from politics to linguistics to philosophy. But I haven't been much for novel-reading.
I haven't decided if I like this novel. So I'm going to remain mysterious about what it is. If I actually finish it, it will be my first novel in over a year, and maybe I should report on it.
Meanwhile, what I'm listening to right now.
Nine Inch Nails, "We're In This Together."
Lyrics.
I've become impossible holding on to when
When everything seemed to matter more
The two of us
All used and beaten up
Watching fate as it flow down the path we
Have chose
You and me
We're in this together now
None of them can stop us now
We will make it through somehow
You and me
If the world should break in two
Until the very end of me
Until the very end of you
Awake to the sound as they peel apart the skin
They pick and they pull
Trying to get their fingers in
Well they've got to kill what we've found
Well they've got to hate what we fear
Well they've got to make it go away
Well they've got to make it disappear
The farther I fall I'm beside you
As lost as I get I will find you
The deeper the wound I'm inside you
For ever and ever I'm a part of
You and me
We're in this together now
None of them can stop us now
We will make it through somehow
You and me
If the world should break in two
Until the very end of me
Until the very end of you
All that we were is gone we have to hold on
All that we were is gone we have to hold on
When all our hope is gone we have to hold on
All that we were is gone but we can hold on
You and me
We're in this together now
None of them can stop us now
We will make it through somehow
You and me
Even after everything
You're the queen and I'm the king
Nothing else means anything
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #660
the ragged edges
and vast inchoate boundaries
of time aggregate…
Caveat: 1320 feet
[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]
I continue to be really busy with work, so I don’t have a lot of time for mapping or server stuff.
I have been progressing further on Makaska. The hydrology is pleasing, and contours feel like they’re falling into place and that it will be possible to actually finish them in a finite amount of time.
Another thing that needs working on to make a truly “US analogue” midwestern state such as Makaska, is that there need to be realistic county and township divisions. This means replicating the kinds of the errors and styles of 19th century “compass and chain” survey methods.
I am quite pleased with my results – not yet uploaded because I want to make sure the townships I’ve laid out are in sync with my ideas about where the rivers and county lines will go and I want everything to have a name, of course. Anyway, here is a screenshot in JOSM.
My title refers to the fact that the 19th century North American grid style was based on the mile, which is 5280 feet. A standard township was made up of 36 “sections”, 6 miles by 6 miles square. Each “section” was divided into quarters (160 acres, 2640 feet to a side) and those were further divided into “quarter quarters” (40 acres, 1320 feet to side). So in recreating the survey process for my fictional place, I “paced” my way across my entire state in 1320 foot lengths, imagining my surveyors stretching out their chain over and over. By doing it this way, I could introduce random “mistakes” that would render the result realistic, and I could account for the way the curvature of the earth forces periodic resets of the alignments of the north-south meridian lines.
So my grid contains these inconsistencies, and in a few places, I have deliberately failed to “walk” perfectly north/south/east/west, forcing a later realignment.
In the picture above, the little “tic marks” on the north-south “base meridian” are 1320 feet apart.
Music to map by: 블락비, “닐리리 맘보.”
Caveat: not such tall tales
"You know, it's just not right." – Yeoeun said, looking over at me wryly and shaking her head disconsolately. She put her hands on her hips, for emphasis. She's an 8th grade girl, who was standing and looking up at several 5th grade boys who towered over her in the hallway.
[daily log: walking, 5km]
Caveat: Poem #659
sometimes I wake up
terrified – as if I'm still
in the hospital.
Caveat: 웃음조절장애
Sometimes my middle school students talk to me in Korean, even though they’re perfectly capable of expressing themselves in English. Partly, this is to indicate a different pragmatics: it shifts control of the discourse from me to them, since I’m the one with limited Korean ability. I think they derive some satisfaction from that. So, especially during times of just chatting or joking around, they’ll start talking in Korean, but still talking to me. This is remarkable, because half the time I don’t understand them, but I fake it pretty well, and I guess they enjoy the notion that they’re “teaching” me, too.
On Friday night, some girls in my HS2M cohort had the giggles. Well, certain types of 8th grade girls often have the giggles. I said, somewhat jokingly, “Are you going to stop laughing? Ever?”
One girl, Gayeong, said, painting a serious face for just a very short time, “But, Teacher! I have 웃음조절장애!”.
I laughed pretty hard. “웃음조절장애” means, roughly, “Laughter control disability” – with the same formal or vaguely medicalized discourse level. It’s the way a Korean child psychologist might talk about it, if it were considered an actual disability. So it was a joke.
I’ll have to remember the experession.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Poem #658
Sometimes the dust that inhabits my room
spirals around as if searching for what
random thing might have been lost or forgot.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]