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Sunday, September 18th, 2005
Our bedtime story tonight was Chapter 4 of Moominpappa at Sea. Here I am remembering what I really liked about this book last time I read it -- other than the beautiful prose -- in this chapter Moominpappa, who has previously (in this book and mostly in the others as well) seemed to me like the least complete of the major characters, alternately a petty tyrant and a bumbling goofus, starts to establish himself as someone I can really identify with.
posted evening of September 18th, 2005: Respond
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Saturday, September 17th, 2005
Our bedtime story tonight was Chapter 3 of Moominpappa at Sea. Here are a couple of nice things. - Moomintroll discovers a glade, which he wants to make his secret hiding-place. Unfortunately it is already inhabited by belligerent red ants. Here is Moomintroll's rationalization of why it's alright for him to seek to evict them:
Naturally, they were living there before he had appeared on the scene. But if one lives in the ground, one just doesn't see anything of what's up above; an ant has no idea of what birds or clouds look like, or for that matter doesn't know anything about the things that are important to a Moomintroll, for instance. [Sylvia interjects here, like his tail is important to him. -- Because in the previous paragraph, the ants had bitten his tail.]There were many kinds of justice. According to one kind, which was a little complicated, perhaps, but absolutely fair, the glade belonged to him and not to the ants. I love this examination of his thinking. It goes directly to the heart of the matter, tersely poetic. There is also a reference of a sort back to the trial of Thingumy and Bob in "Finn Family Moomintroll", in which their defense was that they thought the King's Ruby was the most beautiful thing in the world, whereas the Groke only thought it was the most expensive. And that seemed pretty convincing in that case, more obviously self-serving here. (Speaking of the Groke, she is portrayed again in this book, and with more depth than before, if still as a monster.) - There is a picture of the sea-horse, with whom Moomintroll is going to fall in love, for the first time in the book -- she has been mentioned before but not shown. Sylvia says, "Hey that's not a seahorse! That looks like a galloping horse!" And I think, "Wow, now for the first time I understand why they call seahorses that." Because the illustration combines the curvy seahorse body with the body and legs of a horse and it looks very natural.
- Chapter 4, which we will read tomorrow (or Monday -- tomorrow is Sylvia's birthday party and she may be too tired out afterwards to want to think about Moomins), is called "The North-easter". When Sylvia heard this she pricked up and said Chapter 3 had been called "The West Wind" and that the two chapter titles were similar. I had totally not thought of that at all -- I had forgotten the title of the chapter we were reading. So props to Sylvia for seeing something about the frame of the story.
posted evening of September 17th, 2005: Respond
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Thursday, September 15th, 2005
Ok I am being bugged by the desire to know what song the melody of Fair Elaine comes from. So I have written out the notes of the melody, in hopes that someone will come along and recognize them: D D F G A G F
Sweet my darling listen well
D D D F G A-C A
And sweet my darling mind ye
D C A C A-G F D
Sweet my darling when I tell you
D F A-G F D E-D
Leave the past behind ye
 Update: the melody is very similar to that of Shady Grove.
posted evening of September 15th, 2005: Respond
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Tuesday, September 13th, 2005
I heard a snatch of melody the other day (I was listening to The Ebony Hillbillies, playing on the sidewalk, Broadway and 78th St.) and it stuck in my head on the train ride home; so I decided to try writing a ballad. Got the first half but the second is vexing me. Fair Elaine Sweet my darling listen well
And sweet my darling mind ye
Sweet my darling when I tell you
Leave the past behind ye I went down to Jansson's place
To drink my worries down
Behind the bar stood fair Elaine
In a long black satin gown Elaine says I How came ye here
You never did look finer
But you've been lying ten long years
In a grave in Carolina That night she said the bandits came
And where were you my Charlie
Out with your fair Irish lass
Drinking the fruit of the barley They cut me up they cut me down
They threw me to the floor
My ghost looked back on that sad sight their foul crime
Through the open door Clearly she should chastise him for another stanza or so and then leave, maybe after pouring him a cup of whiskey or of poison. But I'm not sure how to work this. Suggestions are welcome*. It is sounding very nice on my violin though. Update: Here is an idea of an ending: Then Charlie you did bury me
You never shed a tear
Neither on that day nor once
These ten long lonesome yearsNow Charlie here's your barley-wine
I know you love it so
She set the cup down on the bar
I hung my head down low [or, "I cast my gaze down low"] And slowly slowly she came out
And slow she went away
My grief is going to follow me
Until my dying day
* [pre-emptively defensive mini-rant deleted; I'd really love to hear what you think.]
posted afternoon of September 13th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, September 7th, 2005
We've been on a real Moomintroll kick around here! We were just getting to the end of Comet in Moominland as we left for Italy; Sylvia said she wanted me to bring the next Moomin book as well. (Technically the next book in the series is Finn Family Moomintroll but I picked out Moominsummer Madness instead.) So on vacation we finished both of those -- she ate up Moominsummer Madness voraciously, multiple chapters at a sitting, and when we got to the end we spent our reading time going back and rereading favorite bits. Now that we are home we have started (and nearly finished) Finn Family Moomintroll, and Sylvia is saying she wants to hear Moominpappa at Sea next. Tonight's reading was Chapter 6 of Finn Family, which has a special place in our relationship with the Moomins -- it is the first Moomin story I read to Sylvia and we read it together many times over the past year. When we started reading she said she had been waiting for this chapter to come. Also that she thought (correctly) that Thingumy and Bob's suitcase had the ruby in it that the Hobgoblin was after -- she knew this from looking ahead at a picture in Chapter 7 that shows the ruby, and also I guess from remembering when we read Chapter 7 -- we must have read it twice or so, but not in several months' time. The other major reading I did on vacation was The Ancestor's Tale, which I loved and am meaning to post about soon.
posted evening of September 7th, 2005: Respond
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Sunday, September 4th, 2005
Herewith, a selection of snapshots from our stay in Tuscany: I tried my hand at using some of the advanced features on Ellen's camera. The results were mixed but I got a couple of nice evening landscape photos from our terrace:
posted evening of September 4th, 2005: Respond
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Thursday, September first, 2005
We spent last week in Italy, where we have never been before. We stayed at an Agriturismo -- a farm which rents out efficiency apartments as a side line -- in Tuscany; specifically, in the village of Monteoriolo, which is 2 km north of the town of Impruneta, which is 10 km south of Florence. It was nice staying out in the countryside -- very quiet and peaceful, and beautiful views of the valley and Florence. The drawback was, it meant we had to rent a car and drive every day, and the driving in that part of Italy is terrifying -- narrow, narrow roads with a wall on one side and a drop on the other, and hairpin turns. We went in to Florence 4 days, spent one day in Lucca and one in Siena; plus most days we went to Impruneta to shop for dinner and the next day's breakfast, and to let Sylvia play in the very nice playground which abuts the main piazza in the town. The place to shop for food was Coop supermarket, just behind that piazza, which is almost a US-style supermarket; very good selection of fresh produce and low, low prices. The two exceptions were the day we spent in Lucca, when I shopped for dinner at a small grocery store there, and our last day, when I shopped at a small grocery in Florence, on the Via de' Cerchi. Cooking was fun and most of what I made came out very well. I went up and down a lot on this vacation, between being worried about school starting (I go to register for classes today! Start next week!) and liking the place where I was. By cool coincidence [or a subconscious cry for help? No, probably coincidence] I bought a very nice yo-yo at a toy store next to the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and played with it pretty constantly until I broke it in Lucca, trying to undo a knot I had created. Fun! I never have been able to do any yo-yo tricks, but this time I was doing around the world pretty consistently. I will keep an eye out for another one. It seems like the weight is pretty key -- this one was wood and a bit heavier than any other yo-yo I have played with, I think they have all been plastic.
posted morning of September first, 2005: Respond
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Saturday, August 20th, 2005
When we go to Italy (on Tuesday) I will bring with me two books. One is a bilingual edition of Pinsky's translation of the Inferno (not that I can read Italian -- but it seemed like nice to have available for understanding how the poetry should sound); and the other is Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale". I got that on an impulse at Coliseum Books yesterday afternoon and have been reading it with enthusiasm ever since. Dawkins is such a great, engaging writer -- the one thing that puts me off about this book is how frequently he feels compelled to point out that evolution is a fact and creationism a bizarre fraud; but I recognize the necessity of his doing so. I've been thinking about re-reading the Inferno ever since my birthday -- 35 seems like a good age to look at it again. And our trip to Florence will provide a nice context.
posted afternoon of August 20th, 2005: Respond
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Friday, August 19th, 2005
As of tomorrow, Ellen nd Sylvia and I have been a family for 4 years. We adopted Sylvia from the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute on August 20, 2001. We are celebrating with a day in the city, going to Central Park and to Lincoln Center. (Also it's Ellen's birthday soon, so it's a celebratory time of year for us.)
posted morning of August 19th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, August 17th, 2005
Today is Wednesday, the 17th of August. Next week, and the week following, I will be on vacation; we three are going to stay in Italy where we have never been before. Then I will come back home and register for classes at Columbia, where I start my Master's Degree program this fall semester.
posted evening of August 17th, 2005: Respond
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