I need to go shopping and it’s far easier on Sundays, as the bus stops closer to my house, but I’m starting to suspect that there is no shopping trip in today’s future. I’m far too comfy. We’ll see how I feel after The Kennedys weekly live stream. Rediscovering my soled slipper socks has made it that much more difficult to leave the house. This is how people were meant to treat their feet. They don’t fossilize so we haven’t found the evidence but I’m sure that as soon as our ancestors came down from the trees they started wearing something very much like this.
Yesterday’s socializing took a new turn, it was a Zoom afterparty that I had no plans for. I was watching Jim Infantino as I blogged yesterday. You should go back and read that. Jim is an old friend and one of my favorite songwriters, yet I managed to miss all his previous shows. I had tried before and there was no show. I found out yesterday that they aren’t weekly but biweekly. That’s a totally useless terms as it means either twice a week or once every other week. Somebody needs to make a rule that everyone agrees to follow. That somebody is me. Biweekly means once every other week, semiweekly means twice a week. Semi means half so there’s no ambiguity so we can reserve Bi for every two. Get it? Are you going to follow the rule? If you catch you using it otherwise I’m going to come over there and sing Ol’ Man River. Just imagine a banjo, accordion, bagpipe rendition of Build Me Up Buttercup and make it twice as bad. I mentioned yesterday that Jim did a song about Tycho Brahe. I didn’t tell you that audience won me over when someone responded “Keplerrrrr.” I like people familiar enough with Tycho to know that he was an assistant to Kepler. Tycho is usually known by his first name, he was nobility, and Johannes Kepler by his last. As I was busy watching the show and blogging I did not have time to do something that I should have done 20 years ago, look up the proper pronunciation of Tycho Brahe. I grew up saying TIE-co Bra. Then I heard some people say Tee-co bra-hay or bra-hee. I suspected that the correct answer lies somewhere between the latter two. When my parents went to Denmark a tour guide referred to him as Tee-co bra-hay (that’s how my father heard it). Nobody but my father knew who he meant so my father interjected, “Maybe people know him as TIE-co Bra.” I tend to believe a Dane when it comes to pronouncing a Danish name, even if it is my father’s rendition of it. I have never heard the brightest crater on the moon referred to as anything but Tie-co. You might remember that from 2001:A Space Odyssey. Today I finally decided to look up and find what was right. I still don’t know. I’m finding pronunciation guides that disagree with each other. This one equivocates.
Clearly someone needs to lay down the law and clearly that’s me. Henceforth we will refer to the astronomer as Tee-co Bra-hay but the crater as Tie-co. I am not going to enforce this one. We’ll see how voluntary compliance works out.
Wasn’t I going to talk about the Zoom? I only knew two people there, Jim and Nate, but it was great, it was such a nerdy group. I made new friends Amy and and and Chuck! It’s tough to remember the common names. I remembered Amy because I emailed her. To get Chuck’s name I had to link it to God’s name on Supernatural. They are the co-owners of Peepers Puppets.
We bonded over Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton. There was also a detailed conversation about narcolepsy between a neurologist and a narcoleptic. That’s exactly the kind of thing but I do but not many would discuss their medical condition in front of strangers. I loved it because I learned. I’m not a narcoleptic but I’ve had similar experiences, hypnopompic hallucinations and instantly hitting REM sleep. See I share that with strangers. Are My Gentle Readers strangers? I hope not, at least not by the second time you read Wise Madness.
As is now my tradition I recorded Gord’s Gold after midnight on Saturday night. That’s technically Sunday morning. I language has difficulty talking about this. It used to be less common to be awake at midnight, but it was never unheard of. Yet the language can’t handle that well. I experience it as Saturday night, no matter what the calendar and clocks say. There is AM/PM time, military time, solar time, and subjective time. I’m getting better at recording, but it still takes me too long to get the sound levels right. The problem might be that my speaking level is not consistent. It’s tough talking to nobody. When you talk to yourself it’s in sotto voce but when you are recording you can’t do that. It doesn’t come naturally to me yet. I just realized that was why it was easier when I was on the air with Brian. Then I just spoke to him. That was part of the appeal of the show, people felt they were eavesdropping on two friends talking to each other. I miss having a radio partner. I’m funnier when I get direct feedback. The focus on this Gord’s Gold is Phil Henry. You can hear it on Folk Music Notebook on Wednesday. It will be archived on Mixcloud the next day. The link to Gord’s Gold is to the Mixcloud archive.
Wise Madness 