‘Have you been practising, Viswanathan?’
Even now, all these years later, the clipped English tone of that phrase from his old guru made Vishy’s fingers twitch involuntarily. The memory of the long, thin cane that he could see still hanging on the wall would never leave him.
‘I have, guru,’ he replied.
‘Hmmph,’ snorted the old man. ‘Chasing girls and watching films I bet. Why have you stopped your lessons? You need them you know, you don't have the skills of your brother. He was always better than you.’
Vishy took a deep breath. ‘I know, but I have one more piece to play for you,’ he said.
He adjusted the sitar on his lap and closed his eyes. His fingers glided over the strings as the slow notes of the Alap began to form in the air. The long chords thrummed in the humid, Chennai air. The music was unfocused and meandering like a young boy’s mind; ready to take an imprint of its surrounds. Slowly, haphazardly, the notes that would form a life exposed themselves. A soft, harmonic strum followed by a strong, atonal clash.
A birthday party in the slums. One boy runs along the twisting alleys with a large wrapped present held aloft in his arms, followed by a horde of other small children, yelling and shouting. They are watched by another boy, sitting quietly on the steps. The boy with the present comes to a stop before the boy on the steps. ‘Here Shivnath, open this with me.’ The quiet boy, Shivnath, looks into his own face, mirrored before him. ‘It is our present Anand’ he says. They tear away the paper, worth a week’s wages, to see the object within.
It is a sitar.
Imperceptibly the rhythm of the Alap began a metamorphosis into the Jhala, as the rhythm of the music, the rhythm of life formed the piece. Vishy began strumming on the chikari strings, squeezing beat patterns between notes. The notes now began to form into their asthais, the melodic lines of the piece. From the low, harmonic notes of the Alap, the primary asthai pattern was found. Its notes flowed from the sitar in languid, thoughtful phrases like footsteps in controlled, measured paces. In counterpoint came the opposing antara melody, its strident atonal clash disrupting the flow of the asthai. The two lines becoming lost then found then lost again and found again.
A concert hall in Chennai. On stage, two young men take turns performing on their sitars with the backing of an old guru tabla player. Both born under the same star, their fundamental opposition would mock any astrologer. Anand in bright red, he strikes up playing strong, complex ragas. The music radiating out and repeating in on itself in fugues and innovations. Shivnath dressed in black, methodically and implacably works through the melakartaragas. Delving deeply into the traditional forms and melodies.
The Gat’s main melodic lines, conceived in the Alap and grown in the Jhala, were now clear. The merging of the two opposing strains, working together to produce something new, something unheard. The rote compositions from early years of unending practice had become embellished with improvised flourishes and divergences. It was a line of clear melody running through New York, Vienna, Shanghai as it twined around itself.
‘We’re the kings of the world Shivnath, don’t you see? Don’t you see how far we have come?‘
‘The great Viswanathans? Really Anand?’ mocked Shivnath. ‘This is not why we play. This is not what the music is about. I told you I have finished playing. I will not go to Dehli.’
‘One last show Shiva. I promise. I have been working on a great piece. This is the one I have sacrificed everything for.’
‘Sacrifice? You were never serious about this Anny. This was all a game to you.’
‘A game? Do you think I married that bitch for a laugh? I needed to get in the family so her grandfather would teach me his secret compositions.’
‘Whatever Anny, I am done.’
‘Please Shiva, one last show, and then I can.’
‘I can what?’
‘Please Shiva, come to Dehli. I will never ask anything of you again.’
Vishy had now reached the Drut, and the tempo had increased. His fingers hummed over the strings. The order imposed on chaos by the music began to fall apart, the melodies burst free of the constraints of their rhythms as the rhythms themselves blurred into each other. The order of the universe is only that which swirls briefly out of the chaos, before chaos returns again.
The wind blew in through the broken window pane. He looked down onto his brother’s face, pale now from the lack of blood. On the bed lay their old sitar, warped by time and the humidity that their small shack could never protect it from. It was a wonder they had ever been able to learn to play it at all. Picking it up, he plucked an out of tune note. ‘You were always ahead of me,’ he said. ‘You saw what I saw. But you had to go first, as always, to show me what do to.’ He put down the sitar and gently closed his brother’s unseeing eyes.
The last note faded into the air. Vishy looked up and saw the sun hanging low on the horizon. How long had he been playing? How many years had this piece taken to play? How many lifetimes? He sat the sitar on the floor and looked at his guru, the one audience member for the greatest performance of his life.
‘You have been practising Viswanathan,’ the guru smiled. ‘I have nothing left to teach you.’
Vishy stood up, pressed his hands together and bowed. ‘Thank you guru. I have nothing left to play.’ Leaving the sitar behind on the floor, Anand turned and walked out of the house.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Duchamp's Poster for the Third French Chess Championship
Duchamp claimed that he created this from a photograph. Schwarz writes in his Catalogue Raisonné of Duchamp's works:
To make this image, Duchamp tossed an "accumulation" of building blocks into a net bag, then photographed it, printing an enlargement of the picture that eliminated all details except the chance configuration of the blocks in the net. This enlargement was the basis for the final drawing in which he colored the cubes light pink and black.Or did he?
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
re: Joyce
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.
—Back to barracks! he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.
—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
—The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!
He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck.
Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.
—My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?
He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:
—Will he come? The jejune jesuit!
Ceasing, he began to shave with care.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Last Day
James punched away at the calculator. ‘Thirteen times twenty-seven’ he murmured to himself.
Across the room, Kate didn’t even look up from the box she was packing. ‘Three hundred and fifty one.’
‘Uhh, yeah that’s right. How’d you do that?’
‘Cans of food at my uncle’s shop came in boxes of thirteen. For stocktake we added up all the batches so anything times thirteen is like, ingrained or something.’
‘Okay then what is, hang on a sec,’ James punched some more digits into the calculator. ‘Thirteen times forty-three?’
‘Five hundred and fifty nine.’
‘Shit the bed. Wow, to think all this time I’ve been married to Rainwoman.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Have you ever thought about using your multiplication powers for good instead of evil?’
‘I shouldn’t have told you about that, now you’re being a jerk.’ Kate picked up an empty shoebox and threw it at James.
James caught it and threw it back. ‘How about multiplying the number of customers we don’t get?’
‘Huh, yeah right, multiplying anything by zero is still zero genius.’
James looked around the small storage room where the last of the inventory was being packed ready for shipping. 'I would have done for some simple addition to be honest' he said.
Kate's cheeks puffed up with the air of a hundred past arguments that she blew impotently out through her mouth. She turned back to the box in front of her and continued stacking small newspaper wrapped objects inside it.
***
They worked together in silence through the rest of the afternoon. James wrapping items with newspaper and handing them to Kate to nestle inside the next cardboard box marked 'Continental Tracking'. Once it was full he would pick it up and take it to the loading dock door, ready for collection. Shadows from the one small, barred window crept across the cement floor until they merged with the gloom gathering in the corners.
Kate ripped out an arms length of tape, holding it up to her teeth to bite it off. She sealed it over the top of the box.
'Well, that's the last one' she said.
'See, I told you we would be able to finish it all today.'
'You said that yesterday. And the day before that.'
'Well I was right today.'
Kate shook her head. 'Alright then Nostradamus, is that everything?'
'Storefront is clean. Office is clean. That's everything.'
'Good, I guess. What about out the front?'
'I'd forgotten about that. Alright, well, come on. I've got the ladder here.'
They walked out of the storeroom through the empty office and into the front of the shop. Long bare counters ran along the sides of the walls where an empty cash register sat like a bad pun at the end of a long, unfunny joke.
James unlocked and opened the front door, setting off the tinkle of the bell above the frame. The evening street was empty, not even haunted by the ghost of a shopper.
They looked up at the sign:
James climbed up the ladder and unhooked the sign. He handed it down to Kate and climbed back down.
Holding it up close you could see the thick layers of paint where Kate had to apply several coats to cover up the lopsided love heart James had painted on the sign.
'I guess we can keep this can't we?' Kate said.
'I guess so. I don't know where we're going to put it.'
'That depends on where we put ourselves, that's the hard part.'
'Well, not as hard as some problems we have.' said James.
'Like what?'
'I don't know, like what's thirteen times twelve?'
'A hundred... Oh you bastard.' Kate hit James with the sign. 'I'm going to kill you'
James laughed, running back into the store. Kate chased after him, smiling, as the front door shut behind her.
Across the room, Kate didn’t even look up from the box she was packing. ‘Three hundred and fifty one.’
‘Uhh, yeah that’s right. How’d you do that?’
‘Cans of food at my uncle’s shop came in boxes of thirteen. For stocktake we added up all the batches so anything times thirteen is like, ingrained or something.’
‘Okay then what is, hang on a sec,’ James punched some more digits into the calculator. ‘Thirteen times forty-three?’
‘Five hundred and fifty nine.’
‘Shit the bed. Wow, to think all this time I’ve been married to Rainwoman.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Have you ever thought about using your multiplication powers for good instead of evil?’
‘I shouldn’t have told you about that, now you’re being a jerk.’ Kate picked up an empty shoebox and threw it at James.
James caught it and threw it back. ‘How about multiplying the number of customers we don’t get?’
‘Huh, yeah right, multiplying anything by zero is still zero genius.’
James looked around the small storage room where the last of the inventory was being packed ready for shipping. 'I would have done for some simple addition to be honest' he said.
Kate's cheeks puffed up with the air of a hundred past arguments that she blew impotently out through her mouth. She turned back to the box in front of her and continued stacking small newspaper wrapped objects inside it.
***
They worked together in silence through the rest of the afternoon. James wrapping items with newspaper and handing them to Kate to nestle inside the next cardboard box marked 'Continental Tracking'. Once it was full he would pick it up and take it to the loading dock door, ready for collection. Shadows from the one small, barred window crept across the cement floor until they merged with the gloom gathering in the corners.
Kate ripped out an arms length of tape, holding it up to her teeth to bite it off. She sealed it over the top of the box.
'Well, that's the last one' she said.
'See, I told you we would be able to finish it all today.'
'You said that yesterday. And the day before that.'
'Well I was right today.'
Kate shook her head. 'Alright then Nostradamus, is that everything?'
'Storefront is clean. Office is clean. That's everything.'
'Good, I guess. What about out the front?'
'I'd forgotten about that. Alright, well, come on. I've got the ladder here.'
They walked out of the storeroom through the empty office and into the front of the shop. Long bare counters ran along the sides of the walls where an empty cash register sat like a bad pun at the end of a long, unfunny joke.
James unlocked and opened the front door, setting off the tinkle of the bell above the frame. The evening street was empty, not even haunted by the ghost of a shopper.
They looked up at the sign:
code:
North by
Kate WestHolding it up close you could see the thick layers of paint where Kate had to apply several coats to cover up the lopsided love heart James had painted on the sign.
'I guess we can keep this can't we?' Kate said.
'I guess so. I don't know where we're going to put it.'
'That depends on where we put ourselves, that's the hard part.'
'Well, not as hard as some problems we have.' said James.
'Like what?'
'I don't know, like what's thirteen times twelve?'
'A hundred... Oh you bastard.' Kate hit James with the sign. 'I'm going to kill you'
James laughed, running back into the store. Kate chased after him, smiling, as the front door shut behind her.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Just finished reading... Inside Paragraphs
The important thing isn't the letter itself, it's the spaces between them.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Pastiche
Krakatoa 2
The world exploded around them as the super-volcano erupted.
Vance stumbled to his feet and looked through the shattered window of the research station. Where the mountain, only five miles away, had stood there was nothing. A million tons of rock vaporised in a second. Above the remains of the volcano, a mushroom cloud billowed up thousands of feet into the stratosphere.
Vance shook his head to dislodge the ringing in his ears the massive blast had caused. Kristen was still on the ground, her hands clutching her head. Vance grabbed her, pulling her to her feet.
‘Are you OK?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Vance looked back out the window. ‘We’ve got about five minutes to haul ass out of here. Once that plume collapses, a pyroclastic cloud of superheated ash travelling over five hundred miles an hour is going to rush down the mountain and destroy everything. There won’t be a living thing left within twenty miles.’
Kristen stared at the mountain. ‘We’re too close, we can’t out run it. What about the plane?’
Vance looked out the other side of the building at the runway. A couple of Mordred’s black armoured mercenaries were stumbling on the tarmac, recovering from the blast.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea either. The air is going to be full of…’
A boulder the size of a small car crashed down on the runway, squashing a mercenary into paste.
Vance looked at Kristen. ‘I think I know another way.’
***
2 minutes to the pyroclastic cloud
The sleek black power sleds Mordred’s men had used to drive up the lava tunnels and infiltrate the station were still there.
Kristen stared. ‘These aren’t fast enough, they barely moved when they brought us up here.’
‘These are ATV ThunderCobras, designed by the US Navy for SEAL covert insertions. This hood on the back is a sound suppressor, like a large muffler, that reduces the throughput and makes them silent. But,‘ Vance bent down and released a catch at the bottom of the engine ‘you can take them off.’
Vance heaved the black bulky hood onto its side, unveiling the engine underneath. ‘Rolls Royce Ascot Mark IV Turbofans. They were hauling a couple of tons of gear up these tunnels, with suppressors, and they still made a good 30 miles an hour. Without the suppressor, and just the two of us, I’m betting these babies can get up to at least 150. Since we’re underground, we’ll be safe from the ash.’
Vance sat on the driver seat. Kristen paused while climbing up behind him. ‘Uh Vance,’ she said. ‘These tunnels, they’re old lava tubes right?’
‘Yeah’
A rumble shook the earth.
‘So please tell me that isn’t what I think it is’ said Kristen, pointing up the tunnel. In the distance, a bright spot of light had appeared in the darkness. Like a flash flood streaming down an old river bed, millions of tons of lava were being forced out of the volcano into the tubes.
‘Shit, get on now.’
The engines roared to life and they sped down the tunnel. Kristen clutching to Vance.
The smooth black basalt of the tunnel surrounded them. Kristen couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder at the approaching wave of molten rock. They had barely gone a mile down the tunnel before she saw it reach the spot where the remaining sleds were parked, disintegrating them in seconds, as it roared onwards, completely filling the tube.
‘Shit, it’s moving fast Vance, get this thing going’
‘What do you think I’m doing.’
The speedometer on the sled crept up to 150mph. The black sides of the tunnel whipped past. Vance racked his brain trying to remember if he had seen any cave ins on the way up.
As fast as he pushed the engines, the lava was moving faster. A maelstrom of molten rock over 2000 degrees rushing down the tubes like the wrath of an angry god.
Kristen couldn’t look any more and buried her head into Vance’s shoulders ‘oh god oh god oh god’.
The lava was only 800 yards behind them now. 700 yards. 600 yards. The walls around the tunnel were now lit up as bright as day, and the searing heat began to scorch their backs. Vance jammed down the throttle and the needle crept up to 180mph.
500 yards. 400 yards. 300.
Smoke began rising off the engines, the air was like hell’s furnace, the oxygen being replaced by thick sulphuric fumes. Vance couldn’t even hear Kristen’s screams over the tremendous roar coming from behind them. He didn’t dare to look back and focused on the floor ahead of them. He knew they weren’t going to make it.
Then ahead, a small spot of light appeared. Vance leant down low over the controls. From the light of the lava behind him he could see a small vent leading off the side of the main tube with daylight at the end. He had one chance at this, he wrenched the steering column to the left and the sled veered into the vent.
The boiling rock was only yards behind them now as they launched out of the vent into the air… and into a gorge that dropped out under them a thousand feet to a river running far below.
Vance yelled to Kristen ‘hold on to me’ and locked his arms around the sleds’ steering column as he hit the emergency brake.
With a ‘pop’ two parachutes shot out of the back of the sled, arresting its descent. Beside them only a few dozen yards away, a torrent of lava continued to poor out of the vent, like a massive golden waterfall steaming into the river below. Convection currents swirled the sled around, until it drifted down to the far bank, throwing Vance and Kristen face first into the mud.
Vance started to get up, spitting dirt out of his mouth when the distinct sound of the cocking of an AK47 made him stop.
‘Well shit Vance’ said Mordred. ‘Looks like you've plum fell out of the fire and into the frying pan.’
The world exploded around them as the super-volcano erupted.
Vance stumbled to his feet and looked through the shattered window of the research station. Where the mountain, only five miles away, had stood there was nothing. A million tons of rock vaporised in a second. Above the remains of the volcano, a mushroom cloud billowed up thousands of feet into the stratosphere.
Vance shook his head to dislodge the ringing in his ears the massive blast had caused. Kristen was still on the ground, her hands clutching her head. Vance grabbed her, pulling her to her feet.
‘Are you OK?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Vance looked back out the window. ‘We’ve got about five minutes to haul ass out of here. Once that plume collapses, a pyroclastic cloud of superheated ash travelling over five hundred miles an hour is going to rush down the mountain and destroy everything. There won’t be a living thing left within twenty miles.’
Kristen stared at the mountain. ‘We’re too close, we can’t out run it. What about the plane?’
Vance looked out the other side of the building at the runway. A couple of Mordred’s black armoured mercenaries were stumbling on the tarmac, recovering from the blast.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea either. The air is going to be full of…’
A boulder the size of a small car crashed down on the runway, squashing a mercenary into paste.
Vance looked at Kristen. ‘I think I know another way.’
***
2 minutes to the pyroclastic cloud
The sleek black power sleds Mordred’s men had used to drive up the lava tunnels and infiltrate the station were still there.
Kristen stared. ‘These aren’t fast enough, they barely moved when they brought us up here.’
‘These are ATV ThunderCobras, designed by the US Navy for SEAL covert insertions. This hood on the back is a sound suppressor, like a large muffler, that reduces the throughput and makes them silent. But,‘ Vance bent down and released a catch at the bottom of the engine ‘you can take them off.’
Vance heaved the black bulky hood onto its side, unveiling the engine underneath. ‘Rolls Royce Ascot Mark IV Turbofans. They were hauling a couple of tons of gear up these tunnels, with suppressors, and they still made a good 30 miles an hour. Without the suppressor, and just the two of us, I’m betting these babies can get up to at least 150. Since we’re underground, we’ll be safe from the ash.’
Vance sat on the driver seat. Kristen paused while climbing up behind him. ‘Uh Vance,’ she said. ‘These tunnels, they’re old lava tubes right?’
‘Yeah’
A rumble shook the earth.
‘So please tell me that isn’t what I think it is’ said Kristen, pointing up the tunnel. In the distance, a bright spot of light had appeared in the darkness. Like a flash flood streaming down an old river bed, millions of tons of lava were being forced out of the volcano into the tubes.
‘Shit, get on now.’
The engines roared to life and they sped down the tunnel. Kristen clutching to Vance.
The smooth black basalt of the tunnel surrounded them. Kristen couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder at the approaching wave of molten rock. They had barely gone a mile down the tunnel before she saw it reach the spot where the remaining sleds were parked, disintegrating them in seconds, as it roared onwards, completely filling the tube.
‘Shit, it’s moving fast Vance, get this thing going’
‘What do you think I’m doing.’
The speedometer on the sled crept up to 150mph. The black sides of the tunnel whipped past. Vance racked his brain trying to remember if he had seen any cave ins on the way up.
As fast as he pushed the engines, the lava was moving faster. A maelstrom of molten rock over 2000 degrees rushing down the tubes like the wrath of an angry god.
Kristen couldn’t look any more and buried her head into Vance’s shoulders ‘oh god oh god oh god’.
The lava was only 800 yards behind them now. 700 yards. 600 yards. The walls around the tunnel were now lit up as bright as day, and the searing heat began to scorch their backs. Vance jammed down the throttle and the needle crept up to 180mph.
500 yards. 400 yards. 300.
Smoke began rising off the engines, the air was like hell’s furnace, the oxygen being replaced by thick sulphuric fumes. Vance couldn’t even hear Kristen’s screams over the tremendous roar coming from behind them. He didn’t dare to look back and focused on the floor ahead of them. He knew they weren’t going to make it.
Then ahead, a small spot of light appeared. Vance leant down low over the controls. From the light of the lava behind him he could see a small vent leading off the side of the main tube with daylight at the end. He had one chance at this, he wrenched the steering column to the left and the sled veered into the vent.
The boiling rock was only yards behind them now as they launched out of the vent into the air… and into a gorge that dropped out under them a thousand feet to a river running far below.
Vance yelled to Kristen ‘hold on to me’ and locked his arms around the sleds’ steering column as he hit the emergency brake.
With a ‘pop’ two parachutes shot out of the back of the sled, arresting its descent. Beside them only a few dozen yards away, a torrent of lava continued to poor out of the vent, like a massive golden waterfall steaming into the river below. Convection currents swirled the sled around, until it drifted down to the far bank, throwing Vance and Kristen face first into the mud.
Vance started to get up, spitting dirt out of his mouth when the distinct sound of the cocking of an AK47 made him stop.
‘Well shit Vance’ said Mordred. ‘Looks like you've plum fell out of the fire and into the frying pan.’
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Friday, February 8, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
A small, orange flower on the corner of west 34th street
In 1743, the German naturalist Traugot Gerber unexpectedly left his teaching post at Moscow University and attempted to flee the country. He died suddenly in the city of Vyborg, near the Finnish border. His herbarium of 2,400 different species, which he had collected throughout his life, was never found.
In 1884, in South Africa, the orange gerbera daisy (Asteraceae) was discovered growing naturally on Table Mountain. Its taxonomy was classified as the same as a flower collected by Gerber on the Volga river over one hundred and fifty years earlier. No one has explained why it was growing at that latitude.
The hothouse flowers reached up to the lie of the cold December sun that broke through the conservatory's glass ceiling. Lara shuddered briefly as she moved inside the humid, equatorial room from the brisk New York morning outside. Rows of orchids, Amazonian lilies and begonias filled the roof-top greenhouse, obscuring the view of the nouveau skyscrapers outside.
Lara pulled off her coat, hanging it on the small rack next to the door. Moving through the lush vegetation she emerged into the centre of the room where an old man sat at a table, potting saplings in small terracotta urns.
'Jean-Paul' said Lara smiling.
'Ah, mon cheri, Lara, welcome to my garden enfolding spots of sunny greenery.'
'This is a true pleasure dome Jean-Paul. It even has its own caves of ice.'
The white-haired Frenchman gave a brief smile and turned back to the plants on the table, picking up another seedling and gently tapping it out of its pot, encouraging it to take its first steps in the world. Lara sat down on the opposite wooden bench and took up another seedling, teasing out the roots for transplanting in the waiting pot.
'I see you have not lost your les pouces verts, your thumbs green since going to Langley' said Jean-Paul.
'You didn't ask me here to spread mulch Jean-Paul. What do you want?'
Jean-Paul sat back. 'Non, no I did not.' He pointed to the seedling Lara was potting. It had sprouted a small, orange flower.
'What is the plant you have there now?' he asked.
Lara looked at it more closely. 'I'm not sure' she said. 'It looks like a genus of daisy.'
'Qui, tres bien. It is a member of the Asteraceae family. An interesting fact about the Asteraceae family - they all have either fifty-five or eighty-nine petals based on the Fibonacci system which...'
'I know Fibonacci numbers Jean-Paul, I watched The Da Vinci Code.'
A slightly pained look crossed Jean-Paul's face. 'Well then, count the petals on that flower.'
Lara paused and studied the small flower in her hand. A mayfly meandered over the table.
'Sixty-one' she declared. 'That can't be right.'
'Non, it cannot be right. Yet there we are the having. I have been cultivating that plant for over a year now, and each cutting will produce flowers with different numbers of petals. Any odd number from fifty-seven to eighty-five. But never fifty-five. And never eighty-nine.'
'From the same cutting? But that is just...'
'Impossible! D'accord! But it is fact.'
'There must be some explanation. A mutation?'
'Non!' said Jean-Paul. 'There is not, it cannot happen in nature this, this, obscenity.' His face had become flushed. 'This is something else.'
'What do mean 'something else.'
'I have studied the taxonomy of this plant, its history. And let me tell you Lara, it has a very strange history. I even went to the length to give it to my friends at MIT to complete a cellular analysis. And what came back...'
'What was it Jean-Paul?'
'It is not a plant, mon cheri. It is a machine. And it is everywhere now you know' he said. 'Wedding bouquets, street corners, potpourri. Just another flower that is kind of nice to look at, nothing more.'
Lara looked down at the delicate flower cradled in her hand and dropped it as if stung. 'What do you mean it is a machine?'
'Just so. An object mechanicale, a device with a creator, unknown and unknowable that can do two things.'
Lara's voice sank to a whisper. 'What two things?'
'It can reproduce' replied Jean-Paul. 'And it can absorb and store information from the environment.'
He picked up the flower that Lara had dropped, crushing it between his fingers.
'It is watching us.'
In 1884, in South Africa, the orange gerbera daisy (Asteraceae) was discovered growing naturally on Table Mountain. Its taxonomy was classified as the same as a flower collected by Gerber on the Volga river over one hundred and fifty years earlier. No one has explained why it was growing at that latitude.
The hothouse flowers reached up to the lie of the cold December sun that broke through the conservatory's glass ceiling. Lara shuddered briefly as she moved inside the humid, equatorial room from the brisk New York morning outside. Rows of orchids, Amazonian lilies and begonias filled the roof-top greenhouse, obscuring the view of the nouveau skyscrapers outside.
Lara pulled off her coat, hanging it on the small rack next to the door. Moving through the lush vegetation she emerged into the centre of the room where an old man sat at a table, potting saplings in small terracotta urns.
'Jean-Paul' said Lara smiling.
'Ah, mon cheri, Lara, welcome to my garden enfolding spots of sunny greenery.'
'This is a true pleasure dome Jean-Paul. It even has its own caves of ice.'
The white-haired Frenchman gave a brief smile and turned back to the plants on the table, picking up another seedling and gently tapping it out of its pot, encouraging it to take its first steps in the world. Lara sat down on the opposite wooden bench and took up another seedling, teasing out the roots for transplanting in the waiting pot.
'I see you have not lost your les pouces verts, your thumbs green since going to Langley' said Jean-Paul.
'You didn't ask me here to spread mulch Jean-Paul. What do you want?'
Jean-Paul sat back. 'Non, no I did not.' He pointed to the seedling Lara was potting. It had sprouted a small, orange flower.
'What is the plant you have there now?' he asked.
Lara looked at it more closely. 'I'm not sure' she said. 'It looks like a genus of daisy.'
'Qui, tres bien. It is a member of the Asteraceae family. An interesting fact about the Asteraceae family - they all have either fifty-five or eighty-nine petals based on the Fibonacci system which...'
'I know Fibonacci numbers Jean-Paul, I watched The Da Vinci Code.'
A slightly pained look crossed Jean-Paul's face. 'Well then, count the petals on that flower.'
Lara paused and studied the small flower in her hand. A mayfly meandered over the table.
'Sixty-one' she declared. 'That can't be right.'
'Non, it cannot be right. Yet there we are the having. I have been cultivating that plant for over a year now, and each cutting will produce flowers with different numbers of petals. Any odd number from fifty-seven to eighty-five. But never fifty-five. And never eighty-nine.'
'From the same cutting? But that is just...'
'Impossible! D'accord! But it is fact.'
'There must be some explanation. A mutation?'
'Non!' said Jean-Paul. 'There is not, it cannot happen in nature this, this, obscenity.' His face had become flushed. 'This is something else.'
'What do mean 'something else.'
'I have studied the taxonomy of this plant, its history. And let me tell you Lara, it has a very strange history. I even went to the length to give it to my friends at MIT to complete a cellular analysis. And what came back...'
'What was it Jean-Paul?'
'It is not a plant, mon cheri. It is a machine. And it is everywhere now you know' he said. 'Wedding bouquets, street corners, potpourri. Just another flower that is kind of nice to look at, nothing more.'
Lara looked down at the delicate flower cradled in her hand and dropped it as if stung. 'What do you mean it is a machine?'
'Just so. An object mechanicale, a device with a creator, unknown and unknowable that can do two things.'
Lara's voice sank to a whisper. 'What two things?'
'It can reproduce' replied Jean-Paul. 'And it can absorb and store information from the environment.'
He picked up the flower that Lara had dropped, crushing it between his fingers.
'It is watching us.'
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Reconstruction of Turing's "Paper Machine"
"It is an amazing fact that the very first chess program in history was written a few years before computers had been invented. It was designed by a visionary man who knew that programmable computers were coming and that, once they were built, they would be able to play chess. The man, of course, was Alan Turing, one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived. Soon after the war he wrote the instructions that would enable a machine to play chess. Since there was as yet no machine that could execute the instructions he did so himself, acting as a human CPU and requiring more than half an hour per move. A single game is recorded, one in which Turing's "paper machine" lost to a colleague.
Garry Kasparov will sketch the historical context of Turing’s involvement in chess and then go on to describe how the chess computer experts reconstructed the paper machine to run on a modern day computer. In the process they encountered a problem: the chess engine refused to duplicate all of Turing’s moves as recorded in the historical game. The debugging process, in which computer chess pioneer Ken Thompson was involved, left the programmers baffled. Then someone called Donald Michie, a colleague from Bletchley, who advocated debugging not the program but Turing! “Alan did not care about details; he was interested in general principle.” Kasparov’s lecture will discuss the points of deviation from the recorded game.
In the second part of the lecture Kasparov will describe a number of Turing Tests that have been performed for chess. For a while it was impossible to reliably tell computer games from those of humans. However, today the task has become simpler because of the ruthless precision of computer play, which has reached a level of many hundreds of Elo points above the best human players."
http://videolectures.net/turing100_kasparov_friedel_paper_machine/
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Dish
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/
Subscribing partly to read Sullivan's mad ravings, partly to support the business model. I hope it is a success.
Also... Go Ravens!
Subscribing partly to read Sullivan's mad ravings, partly to support the business model. I hope it is a success.
Also... Go Ravens!
Monday, February 4, 2013
The Trial
Pohl stepped out of his cell into the Passage.
The Heilt Sacah, the steady dry wind of the Passage, blew as always from his right hand side, the Upwind side. You had once been able to see forever down this hall. People like mice against the vastness; traders moving Downwind and other acolytes running chores. As a dare he had once walked Upwind as far as he could. The Heilt Sacah was not strong, but it was relentless. After four hours he was panting. After six hours he was exhausted, slumped down on the red stone of the floor. A Trader passing by had snorted at his foolishness. After he caught his breath he stood up, defeated, and headed back Downwind to the dormitory.
That had been an age ago. Now the Passage was dark and utterly deserted. Pohl looked Downwind and saw Nym, the only other acolyte stepping out of her cell a few doors down, dressed in the same gray robe.
‘Well’ she said. ‘It’s time.’
Pohl fell in next to her and they began to walk Downwind together. Pohl glanced across at Nym. Her brown hair sat short and rough. ‘You sliced your hair?’
Nym looked at him. ‘I didn’t want long hair getting caught up in the Trial’
‘We don’t know what the Trial is, maybe long hair might help’.
Nym snorted. Pohl didn’t know what else to say.
They continued on in silence. Ten minutes later as they reached the Crest, Pohl felt Nym’s body tense. Downwind from the Crest was the only short slope in the known Passage. The floor dropped by only a foot over a hundred yards, but in the unrelenting flatness of the Halls, this was vertiginous. It was great sport amongst the acolytes to sprint down it. Even today, of all days, Pohl knew Nym could not resist racing. As they touched the Crest Nym cuffed Pohl on the shoulder yelling ‘shalat’ and sprinted down the slope. Pohl raced after her, his longer legs catching up easily. As they reached the bottom, Pohl shortened his stride slightly, and Nym crossed ahead of him.
She turned to him, eyes bright and breathing heavily. ‘I knew I could beat you.’ Pohl tried not to look at her chest heaving up and down. It had filled out considerably in the last year. He smiled. ‘I am shalat. You win.’
Nym grinned victoriously. ‘A good omen’.
‘Good for who?’ replied Pohl.
Nym’s grin faded.
‘Come on’ said Pohl. ‘We’re nearly there.’
The door to the reliquary stood in the wall of the Passage like every other door. Only the covered lantern hung outside distinguished it from the thousands of others. Behind the door, a long straight passage took Pohl and Nym to the sanctum sanctorum. Of the thousand candles that had once burned in this place, only a handful still spluttered on their dying wicks. Even as the acolytes entered another one snuffed out, lowering the gloom even further. A hoarse, stentorian breath echoed from the recesses.
‘Ah, and here we are. The last pupils of Yallasht, come at last.’
In unison, Pohl and Nym knelt on the floor. ‘We are the pupils of Yallasht. We are the hope of...'
They both trailed off as a figure limped into the candlelight.
At some time in the past, he had been skinned alive, and then had his flayed flesh wrapped back around his body with rivets and staples. Slowly, very slowly, he shuffled, the agony of his torture still fresh as blood seeped through his skin. He stopped and stared at two kneeling on the floor. 'At last Mishka,' he slurred through his mishapen lips. 'We come to the binding of all things through the whorl of mind's eye. Two and two. The thrones of Yallasht. Two there are for the children of Yallasht.'
Pohl glanced at Nym and then up at the figure before him. 'Your Holiness. We have taken instruction. We come for the Trial.'
The tortured figure continued. 'I broke the marrowbones of kings and lived through the Fall. Passage bought is passage taken.'
It turned to the high altar in the centre of the chapel and touched the frontspiece. With a slow grating rumble, the tabernacle turned, revealing an open doorway. Pohl and Nym moved forward. The space behind the door was not just dark. It was an utter void. Nym reached and took hold of Pohl’s hand and together they stepped across the Final threshold and out of this world forever.
Step.
Nym’s head was fastened in the jaws of the beast. Its talons had slowly ripped a wide, black tear in her stomach. As Pohl watched, a wet, scarlet tongue slowly slid out of the opening, tasting the air.
Pohl looked down at his arm. The skin had dried completely and turned to parchment. He could only stare at his other hand as it reached across and began tearing at the dry flaky substance, ripping deep into his paper flesh.
Pohl screamed.
Step.
Ahead of them stood a skeleton throne, topped by a grinning death’s head. Pohl looked around. One throne. He looked across at Nym, her torso hung off the slick, black creature crawling its way out of her stomach. Her head lolled drunkenly as her eyes bulged, staring into nothingness. Pohl looked back at the throne, his body in agony as his hands continued to rip away his own brittle flesh.
Step.
Pohl had reached the throne’s pedestal where blank faces had been carved into the relief. Nym lay next to him, her nightmarish prodigy had finally worked its way free, leaving a gaping red wound. Her eyes flicked to the grinning skull on the throne, and then met with Pohl’s. The madness faded away and she began clawing at Pohl, tearing away fistfuls. With his last remaining strength, Pohl thrust his leg out against Nym, pushing her back into the embrace of her creature. It hungrily snatched her up , and began tearing into her skin again.
Pohl crawled up onto the throne. As he finally shrugged down into the skull’s cold embrace, another long red tongue snaked out of Nym’s body.
The Heilt Sacah, the steady dry wind of the Passage, blew as always from his right hand side, the Upwind side. You had once been able to see forever down this hall. People like mice against the vastness; traders moving Downwind and other acolytes running chores. As a dare he had once walked Upwind as far as he could. The Heilt Sacah was not strong, but it was relentless. After four hours he was panting. After six hours he was exhausted, slumped down on the red stone of the floor. A Trader passing by had snorted at his foolishness. After he caught his breath he stood up, defeated, and headed back Downwind to the dormitory.
That had been an age ago. Now the Passage was dark and utterly deserted. Pohl looked Downwind and saw Nym, the only other acolyte stepping out of her cell a few doors down, dressed in the same gray robe.
‘Well’ she said. ‘It’s time.’
Pohl fell in next to her and they began to walk Downwind together. Pohl glanced across at Nym. Her brown hair sat short and rough. ‘You sliced your hair?’
Nym looked at him. ‘I didn’t want long hair getting caught up in the Trial’
‘We don’t know what the Trial is, maybe long hair might help’.
Nym snorted. Pohl didn’t know what else to say.
They continued on in silence. Ten minutes later as they reached the Crest, Pohl felt Nym’s body tense. Downwind from the Crest was the only short slope in the known Passage. The floor dropped by only a foot over a hundred yards, but in the unrelenting flatness of the Halls, this was vertiginous. It was great sport amongst the acolytes to sprint down it. Even today, of all days, Pohl knew Nym could not resist racing. As they touched the Crest Nym cuffed Pohl on the shoulder yelling ‘shalat’ and sprinted down the slope. Pohl raced after her, his longer legs catching up easily. As they reached the bottom, Pohl shortened his stride slightly, and Nym crossed ahead of him.
She turned to him, eyes bright and breathing heavily. ‘I knew I could beat you.’ Pohl tried not to look at her chest heaving up and down. It had filled out considerably in the last year. He smiled. ‘I am shalat. You win.’
Nym grinned victoriously. ‘A good omen’.
‘Good for who?’ replied Pohl.
Nym’s grin faded.
‘Come on’ said Pohl. ‘We’re nearly there.’
The door to the reliquary stood in the wall of the Passage like every other door. Only the covered lantern hung outside distinguished it from the thousands of others. Behind the door, a long straight passage took Pohl and Nym to the sanctum sanctorum. Of the thousand candles that had once burned in this place, only a handful still spluttered on their dying wicks. Even as the acolytes entered another one snuffed out, lowering the gloom even further. A hoarse, stentorian breath echoed from the recesses.
‘Ah, and here we are. The last pupils of Yallasht, come at last.’
In unison, Pohl and Nym knelt on the floor. ‘We are the pupils of Yallasht. We are the hope of...'
They both trailed off as a figure limped into the candlelight.
At some time in the past, he had been skinned alive, and then had his flayed flesh wrapped back around his body with rivets and staples. Slowly, very slowly, he shuffled, the agony of his torture still fresh as blood seeped through his skin. He stopped and stared at two kneeling on the floor. 'At last Mishka,' he slurred through his mishapen lips. 'We come to the binding of all things through the whorl of mind's eye. Two and two. The thrones of Yallasht. Two there are for the children of Yallasht.'
Pohl glanced at Nym and then up at the figure before him. 'Your Holiness. We have taken instruction. We come for the Trial.'
The tortured figure continued. 'I broke the marrowbones of kings and lived through the Fall. Passage bought is passage taken.'
It turned to the high altar in the centre of the chapel and touched the frontspiece. With a slow grating rumble, the tabernacle turned, revealing an open doorway. Pohl and Nym moved forward. The space behind the door was not just dark. It was an utter void. Nym reached and took hold of Pohl’s hand and together they stepped across the Final threshold and out of this world forever.
Step.
Nym’s head was fastened in the jaws of the beast. Its talons had slowly ripped a wide, black tear in her stomach. As Pohl watched, a wet, scarlet tongue slowly slid out of the opening, tasting the air.
Pohl looked down at his arm. The skin had dried completely and turned to parchment. He could only stare at his other hand as it reached across and began tearing at the dry flaky substance, ripping deep into his paper flesh.
Pohl screamed.
Step.
Ahead of them stood a skeleton throne, topped by a grinning death’s head. Pohl looked around. One throne. He looked across at Nym, her torso hung off the slick, black creature crawling its way out of her stomach. Her head lolled drunkenly as her eyes bulged, staring into nothingness. Pohl looked back at the throne, his body in agony as his hands continued to rip away his own brittle flesh.
Step.
Pohl had reached the throne’s pedestal where blank faces had been carved into the relief. Nym lay next to him, her nightmarish prodigy had finally worked its way free, leaving a gaping red wound. Her eyes flicked to the grinning skull on the throne, and then met with Pohl’s. The madness faded away and she began clawing at Pohl, tearing away fistfuls. With his last remaining strength, Pohl thrust his leg out against Nym, pushing her back into the embrace of her creature. It hungrily snatched her up , and began tearing into her skin again.
Pohl crawled up onto the throne. As he finally shrugged down into the skull’s cold embrace, another long red tongue snaked out of Nym’s body.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Saturday, February 2, 2013
1963 Seagull: Once you get locked into a serious watch collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can
In 1961 the Ministry for Light Industry received the order to develop a new 'aviator's watch' for the People's Liberation Army Air Force. This was designated Project 304. The Venus Watch Company, Switzerland, were wanting to offload the calibre 175 chronograph tooling to raise capital for development of their calibre 188. The USSR were not interested, but the Chinese were. The 175 was purchased for Project 304. By October 1965, the third test batch were completed and submitted to the Ministry and Air Force for approval, which was passed in December. The production version was designated ST3. By May the following year, 1400 chronograph watches had been delivered to pilots of the PLAAF. A seconds-only chronograph version was prototyped, but it did not enter production. A small test batch was produced bearing the WuYi brand.
The face of the 1963 is pure, purposeful and surprisingly elegant for a military watch. The outer index of black markings and numbers indicates both the minutes and elapsed seconds down to a fifth of a second. Moving in, there are large golden hour markers, comprised of a mix of numerals and triangular markers. The use of surface applied golden markers, rather than printed markers, both create a more legible index and a welcome aesthetic detail. The 1, 5, 7 and 11 triangle markers point in towards the center of the watch, guiding the eyes to the Chinese characters above 6 and the golden-bordered red star under 12, as well as the printed “19 ZUAN”. At 9 there is the seconds sub-dial and at 3 is a 30-minute counter for the chronograph. Both have delicately styled blued hands, but the seconds hand is more decorative than the minute counter. I really enjoy that slight lack of symmetry as it breaks up the otherwise very even face. The main hour and minute hands are long and thin blued rectangles that are punctuated by the striking red of the chronograph seconds-counter.
The face itself is a sort of pearlescent khaki/silver. It has a slightly antique feeling to it that suits the 60’s vintage well. One thing I must say is that this watch is extremely fun to photograph (which you might be able to tell from the gallery). Everything shimmers and shines in a unique way; there are flecks of gold, blue, silver and red in every angle. There is also the decorated ST19 movement, which is visible through the screen-printed display case back. The glass of the case back has, all in red, four Chinese characters, a star in the center of column shape and the number 1963. The movement itself is an elaborate lattice of golden gears, jewels, blued screws and “Seagull striped” bridges. It is the sort of movement that is hypnotic to look at: reminding you of the brilliant intricacies that go into every mechanical watch.
The watch measures a mid-small 38mm with an 18mm lug width, but is approaching 14.5mm tall. The overall sensation is not that of a small watch. Between the weight from the mechanical movement and generally bulbous shape of the acrylic crystal and case-back, the watch has a definite arm presence, one that is increased by a NATO strap. And as Z. D. Smith, the owner of this 1963, demonstrated in his Pairs Well With, the watch’s styling compliments contemporary fashions very well.
The 1963 is now available in a couple of varieties. The one featured in this article is the 19 jewel, acrylic crystal model with display case back that was purchased about 6 months ago directly from the Hong Kong factory, which is a way to save a bit on the purchase, running around $180. The Seagull 1963 site now lists these as unavailable. Currently, through the 1963 website, the available model is a 21 jewel, sapphire crystal model that will run $389 or more with the multitude of strap options. Frankly, having played with the watch myself for sometime, I think $389 is a still a great price, and I am sure that with some hunting one can find it for less. I would not buy this watch without the display case back, however. Part of what makes this watch so cool is that it is a faithful recreation of a vintage watch, down to the movement. As such, the movement, which is truly mesmerizing, should be viewable.
So, as far as the Seagull brand goes. I hope that they continue to pursue the avenue suggested by the 1963. Taking the rich but relatively obscure history of their own brand and bringing it to light via recreations, while establishing themselves as a quality and competitive watch manufacturer. For example, given the current lust for vintage Rolexes and Omegas going on, I am surprised that they haven’t brought back the “Dongfeng”, which was the first original Chinese movement (where as the ST19 was based on Swiss designs). Its thoroughly late 60’s styling is very of the current moment, and once again, its history makes it fascinating… I mean, as a watch-nerd, how can one turn down a fashionable conversation piece?
The face of the 1963 is pure, purposeful and surprisingly elegant for a military watch. The outer index of black markings and numbers indicates both the minutes and elapsed seconds down to a fifth of a second. Moving in, there are large golden hour markers, comprised of a mix of numerals and triangular markers. The use of surface applied golden markers, rather than printed markers, both create a more legible index and a welcome aesthetic detail. The 1, 5, 7 and 11 triangle markers point in towards the center of the watch, guiding the eyes to the Chinese characters above 6 and the golden-bordered red star under 12, as well as the printed “19 ZUAN”. At 9 there is the seconds sub-dial and at 3 is a 30-minute counter for the chronograph. Both have delicately styled blued hands, but the seconds hand is more decorative than the minute counter. I really enjoy that slight lack of symmetry as it breaks up the otherwise very even face. The main hour and minute hands are long and thin blued rectangles that are punctuated by the striking red of the chronograph seconds-counter.
The face itself is a sort of pearlescent khaki/silver. It has a slightly antique feeling to it that suits the 60’s vintage well. One thing I must say is that this watch is extremely fun to photograph (which you might be able to tell from the gallery). Everything shimmers and shines in a unique way; there are flecks of gold, blue, silver and red in every angle. There is also the decorated ST19 movement, which is visible through the screen-printed display case back. The glass of the case back has, all in red, four Chinese characters, a star in the center of column shape and the number 1963. The movement itself is an elaborate lattice of golden gears, jewels, blued screws and “Seagull striped” bridges. It is the sort of movement that is hypnotic to look at: reminding you of the brilliant intricacies that go into every mechanical watch.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Thursdays are hard
Best clues:
10A Quite unable to top her inter city in UK (10)
Quite unable to (CANT) top (ie replaces the top of) hER inter (means BURY) city in UK = CANTERBURY
11A Clairvoyance about final days - so have a coffee (8)
Clairvoyance (ESP) about (RE) final day(S) SO = ESPRESSO, a coffee
1D Gus covers two points, one with brilliance (6)
GUS covers (is spread around) two points (E, N - two points of the compass) one (I) with brilliance = GENIUS
7D Exercise and art. Again, with direction, it bears fruit (4,4)
Exercise (PE) and ART. Again (RE) with direction (E) it bears fruit = PEAR TREE
16D To start discussion, bring in her work with a dinosaur (8)
TO start discussion (D, first letter of discussion) bring in (has inserted the following) HER work (OP, or operation which is work) with a dinosaur = THEROPOD