ㅁ Rain is a pain that will come with more rain. Rain entrains forces that manifest rain. Rain dissolves everything, draining to rain. Rain entertains these quatrains about rain.
– a quatrain in rain (dactylic tetrameter)
Month: February 2020
Caveat: Best of Arhet, Week 2
[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]
The best mapping in Arhet for this week.
User Rustem Pasha, here.
Music to map by: The Hu, “The Great Chinggis Khaan.”
Music to map by: The Hu, “The Great Chinggis Khaan.”
Caveat: Tree #412
A tree sets itself above other trees, hogging the light.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Я молодость свою переросла
ХВАЛА АФРОДИТЕ
1
Уже богов — не те уже щедроты
На берегах — не той уже реки.
В широкие закатные ворота
Венерины, летите, голубки!
Я ж на песках похолодевших лежа,
В день отойду, в котором нет числа…
Как змей на старую взирает кожу —
Я молодость свою переросла.
– Марина Цветаева (русская поэтесса, 1892-1941)
Praise to Aphrodite
1
No more so rich are the gifts of the Gods;
even the river is different now.
Through wide and widening sunset gates
the doves of Venus fly away.
And I, stretched out on cooling sand,
soon into numberless days go forth.
Like a snake, looking back at his old bright skin –
I have outgrown my youth.
– Marina Tsvetaeva (Russian poet, 1892-1941)
– Adapted by Rose Styron
Caveat: Poem #1297 “A diagram of the local geology”
ㅁ
round stones broken stones sharp stones
shaped stones
big stones medium-sized stones small stones
three-dimensional stones
gray stones green stones brown stones
colored stones
i walk
through
i seek
ways
i cannot
understand
reasons
lazy stones calm stones forceful stones
moody stones
– a quennet
Caveat: Tree #411
A tree up the hillside a little ways. Since it was neither raining nor snowing, I decided it was a good day to go up there.
Caveat: because sledgehammers
There is a genre television show in which people have their homes remodeled by a snarky team of hosts who bring in contractors. I have only very rarely watched this type of show, but they have intrigued me the times that I’ve caught them. I suppose they appeal to my utterly unfulfilled inner architect. Or something.
I didn’t watch one of these shows recently, either. I’m just saying that I am aware of such shows, as a preamble to this interesting datum.
Apparently the popularity of these shows has driven a measurable rise in the popularity of the so-called “open floor plan,” in which living room, dining room, and kitchen are combined. I’m not opposed to such floor plans – I grew up in one that was de facto open, and of course a single-room apartment such as I had in Korea is definitionally “open” too.
But now it’s being discussed that the reason these home remodeling shows like to implement open floor plans has little to do with the desires of the people whose homes are being remodeled. The reason these TV shows do open floor plans is because the viewers like to see the contractors knocking down walls with sledgehammers. So the viewer preference for violence drives the architectural style, which in turn drives the style’s popularity. Isn’t that interesting? Here’s a link.
Caveat: Poem #1296 “Twelfth stanza”
Kiamon never once thought on her fate, seeking instead to descend to debate topics that really could not set her free, causing her anguish and hiding the key.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter
Caveat: Tree #410
Half a tree stands by the sea.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: the bombastic intimations of winter
Contrary Theses (II)
One chemical afternoon in mid-autumn,
When the grand mechanics of earth and sky were near;
Even the leaves of the locust were yellow then,
He walked with his year-old boy on his shoulder.
The sun shone and the dog barked and the baby slept.
The leaves, even of the locust, the green locust.
He wanted and looked for a final refuge,
From the bombastic intimations of winter
And the martyrs a la mode. He walked toward
An abstract, of which the sun, the dog, the boy
Were contours. Cold was chilling the wide-moving swans.
The leaves were falling like notes from a piano.
The abstract was suddenly there and gone again.
The negroes were playing football in the park.
The abstract that he saw, like the locust-leaves, plainly:
The premiss from which all things were conclusions,
The noble, Alexandrine verve. The flies
And the bees still sought the chrysanthemums’ odor.
– Wallace Stevens (American poet, 1879-1955)
Caveat: Poem #1295 “An unsolvable mystery”
I found I was unable to decide how the ducks glide, and wobble, through water, inaudible.
– an englyn penfyr
Caveat: Tree #409
A tree down near the water.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Caveat: Rotarypunk
A woman made a rotary cell phone (link) that actually works.
Because sometimes making a statement means thinking backwards. I think it’s an awesome undertaking.
Caveat: Poem #1294 “A stormy evening”
The eager rain gouges limbs just outside; the wind, astride trees, it skims. The light dims.
– an englyn cil-dwrn
Caveat: Tree #408
This tree may have appeared before – because of the artfully piled rocks next to it. That pile of rocks is taller than I am.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: v-truck
Our nearest neighbors, Mike and Penny, are down the road about a half a mile.
Penny has a hobby of making three-dimensional pop-up greeting cards. She uses colored cardstock paper and some kind of computer-controlled cutting device. The last time we visited there, she was showing off her hobby. She’d said, “I’ll send you guys one, sometime.”
She sent us a Valentine’s Card. It is a red “Valentine’s truck.” Only in Alaska.
Caveat: Poem #1293 “A hungry ghost”
The sun appeared and pierced the parting clouds. A melancholy thing consumed the wood.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Tree #407
This tree is a tree once aflame.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: rootless
Sometimes I work on my server. I have been trying to automate the map-rendering job for the geofiction site I built, that until now I’ve had to run manually. The problem I ran into comes down to permissions. Who knew that even the infamous Linux ‘root’ user is sometimes not the right person for the job? Emphasis added to the excerpt of the log file, below.
... INFO: Total execution time: 16621 milliseconds. Stopping renderd (via systemctl): renderd.service. osm2pgsql version 0.95.0-dev (64 bit id space) Using lua based tag processing pipeline with script ~/src/openstreetmap-carto/openstreetmap-carto.lua Using projection SRS 3857 (Spherical Mercator) Osm2pgsql failed due to ERROR: Connection to database failed: FATAL: role "root" does not exist ...
It took me all day to figure this out. Not that I was working on it, exactly. Art and I went to town, did our shopping, came home, ate dinner. All the while, I was cogitating on this problem, and how it matched up with the results I was(n’t) seeing. And then, sitting there, it clicked.
These are the more pleasing moments of computer work – when a seemingly intractable problem presents itself and you work it through in your mind and you solve it. After it clicked, I came and opened the log file and saw the error, above, and it was an easy fix to the bash script.
Caveat: Poem #1292 “Excessive brightness”
One day I saw the sun come out. It was a big surprise. More often here the rain just falls. It's easy on the eyes.
– a quatrain in ballad meter
Caveat: Tree #406
This tree can be seen in part but not in whole.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: 입살이 바살이라
Here is an aphorism from my book of Korean aphorisms.
입살이 바살이라
ip.sal.i bo.sal.i.ra
mouth-SUBJ bodhisattva-BE-QUOT
“[As if your] mouth were a bodhisattva.”
A bodhisattva is a Buddhist saint. One would normally pray to a saint for help in some difficult thing, using certain types of Buddhist prayers. This is about uttering such prayers but devoid of target – just speaking as if the words themselves would make it true. That is, to speak as if words had the power to make something true. “If words were magic…”. “If wishes were fishes…”
Caveat: Best of Arhet, Week 1
[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]
The best mapping in Arhet for this week.
User JoJoBa, here.
Music to map by: Maná, “Hechicera.”
Music to map by: Maná, “Hechicera.”
Caveat: Poem #1291 “My recent biography”
I came for the trees, but I stayed for the potholes. ...so many of both.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Tree #405
A tree of your choice can be seen on the ridge to the southwest, backlit by the dawn’s moonset.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: back into clay
A Friend Hey! With the clay you dug out I fashioned a buddha. It rained. The buddha turned back into clay. Pointless as the clear skies after rain. - Ko Un (Korean poet, b. 1933)
I wish I had the Korean version, since this is a translation of the Korean. But this collection doesn’t have it and I can’t find it online.
Caveat: Poem #1290 “Seek silence”
You tire quickly of such talk - you get doubts. You're on the outs, tend to balk. Take a walk.
– an englyn cil-dwrn
Caveat: Tree #404
The trees are waiting for that moment when they look good in the light.
Caveat: four stages
I have experienced this.
Caveat: Poem #1289 “See”
At first light, sometimes I take a walk. The road is dark and the trees loom. I see snow stained lavender. The stream rushes nearby. A puddle wears ice. Gravel crunches. I return. Birds speak. See.
– a nonnet
Caveat: Tree #403
This tree is a guest tree in this tree-picture-posting place. The picture was taken in April, 2018, in Ilsan, Korea.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: dinosaurs eating people
What I’m listening to right now.
Fenn Rosenthal, “Dinosaurs In Love.” Rosenthal is not quite 4 years old. She had help from her dad in production, but the composition is hers.
Lyrics.
dinosaurs eating people
dinosaurs in love
dinosaurs having a party
they eat fruit
and cucumber
they
fall in love
they say ‘thank you’
a big bang came
and they died
dinosaurs
dinosaurs fell in love
but they didn’t say good bye
but they didn’t
say good bye
Caveat: Poem #1288 “Chill”
I look out the window by my desk. Tiny pearls of rain hang, breathless. The sky threads the trees' branches. Purple trapezoids dance. The moon has left signs. Snow has melted. Gravel rests. Fog drifts. Chill.
– a nonnet