it's zmedsday!

today is tunesday: "genovese bag" by wreckless eric & amy rigby

lids meeting -- october, 2018

LIDS held its October meeting this past weekend despite the nor'easter that kept the area damp and windy.

Woodhenge Natural

The highlight was a presentation by Margo Reed and Jim Murphy from Woodhenge Gardens in Virginia. They spoke at length about their gardens and their hybridizing program, including tidbits about what they look for in the flowers they cultivate. Of particular interest to me was the fact that Jim likes colorfast hybrids so they still have their beauty when he gets home from work.

Flying in Time

I also was interested to note that Jim said he works primarily (solely? -- I didn't catch it) with diploids. I've been under the impression that tetraploids have a fuller look and result in more interesting cultivars. But his dips looked amazingly beautiful. I'll have to understand this whole dip/tet thing better.

The  talk was followed by a mini-auction. I didn't get everything I bid on, but I was the high bidder for two plants: Woodhenge Natural and Flying in Time. I;ll be getting those ion the spring. I also won Central Park West as a door prize. I'll have to find a day with decent weather to put it in the ground.

Next month is the potluck. I have to figure out what to make.

Central Park West

all aboard

I am now on the board of the Jamaica Estates Association.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz administers the oath of office

Before I go on, I should note that the JEA is not an HOA. We cannot dictate what colors people paint their houses, we can't fine people if their lawns are unkempt, and (perhaps most fundamentally) no one is obligated to join the JEA. I have very mixed feelings about HOAs in general -- I can see their value for homeowners who want to protect the value of their houses, but with political sensibilities that are informed by libertarianism I bristle at the extra layer of authority.

But the JEA is a neighborhood civic organization, Membership, though encouraged, is purely optional. And, the simple fact is that anyone could, if he or she wanted to, create an organization to compete with it. A variety of its activities help to get the residents to know each other and to foster a sense of community. It sponsors a neighborhood security patrol which I believe helps deter crime. And through its activism it has the ears of a variety of local politicians.

I've lived in the neighborhood for the last 18 years,* and for most of that time I simply paid my dies without getting particularly involved. I attended an occasional meeting, but that was pretty much it. The change started last year when one of the board members pushed for a gardening club.I joined, and somehow ended up being the club's secretary. The club is still small and trying to find its footing.

Earlier this year, when the club was doing a public project -- planting in the public triangle at the corner of Midland Parkway and Surrey Place -- I was approached by one of the leaders of the JEA about joining the board.

So here I am. The fact is, I love this neighborhood, and I welcome (though I am admittedly intimidated by) the chance to help. I will likely be working on the landscaping committee and on helping with the Association's social media footprint.

*I also grew up in Jamaica Estates, so all in all I've lived in the area for about 40 years.

cinema history class: the body snatcher

Session: Beastly Black and White, Week 4
Movie 2: The Body Snatcher (1945)
Directed by Robert Wise

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A doctor and his student get dead bodies from the wrong source, leaving them open to blackmail. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
The most interesting part of this movie was the way horror was conveyed by showing very little. Brutal beatings are shown in shadows, forcing the viewer to use his imagination. Similarly, a woman becomes victim and instead of seeing it, we just hear that she has stopped singing. It's spooky that way.

Sadly, another thing that we saw too little of was Bela Lugosi. The trailer gives the impression that he's a major star of the film. But that's a case of, shall we say, deceptive marketing. Still and all, Boris Karloff was able to carry the day. The way Joe put it was something along the lines of, even if he had gone into that movie, paying at the theatre and expecting Bela Lugosi, he still wouldn;t have been disappointed.

Ratings:
Me: 9.25
Dave: 10
Ethan: 10
Joe: 10

book of mormon

I had mixed feelings going to see Book of Mormon, the Broadway musical developed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I used to love their TV show,  South Park -- the early seasons were great, but -- while I am not a regular viewer anymore -- I get the impression that the show is a shadow of what it used to be. I enjoyed the movie based on the show -- South Park: Bgger, Longer and Uncut. And, of course, I loved their marionette action film, Team America: World Police. So, I was expecting that I'd love the humor of Book of Mormon. But I had a sense of trepidation; there's something distasteful about a play whose raison d'etre is to make fun of a religion.

To a degree, I was surprised. The show didn't make fun of Mormon theology as much as I was expecting, though it did spend some energy on making fun of the organization of the Mormon church and its missionary activity. In a sense, then, Mormonism was a stand-in for organized religion and its outreach practices. But Mormonism was singled out, so there is still something that doesn't quite sit well with me.

Putting aside those qualms, I was kind of disappointed. Some of the songs were very good, and there were some very funny gags.  But the story itself was a bit of a mess. It managed to right itself by the end, but there was a stretch where I was just wondering WTF.

Actually, the thing that I find the most interesting about the show -- and I don't know if this was intentional -- is the message that religion needs to relate to the needs of a society for it t catch on there. That's an issue that I, someone who was brought up with some semblance of religion but has become a nonbeliever, think about quite a bit. I think about Jewish customs and, while I don't believe in their theological underpinnings, I can often see how they can be of value. In BoM, Elder  Cunningham tries to explain Mormon theology to Ugandans who are suffering from poverty, AIDS and a bloodthirsty warlord. The message, and the stories don't resonate with his audience. But when, desperate to get them to pay attention, he starts making things up and saying they're in the Book -- notably, God punishing a practitioner of clitoridectomy by turning his face into a clitoris* -- then the people sit up and notice.

It had moments, but it wasn't great.

*Yeah, Broadway plays aren't quite what they used to be.

earworm wednesday: iv

cinema history class: isle of the dead

Session: Beastly Black and White, Week 3
Movie 2: Isle of the Dead (1945)
Directed by Mark Robson

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
Stuck on an island in the middle of war, a group of strangers, relatives and friends waits to die of the plague (or be killed by a vorvolaka -- choose your poison). Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
This movie had a very different feel than pretty much anything else we've seen in this class. It had gravitas, and felt like a true dramatic film. And in it, Boris Karloff (whom I;d thought of as capable of little more than monster roles) proved himself in a dramatic part as the ill-fated but duty-bound General Pherides.

An ambitious movie (though Ethan thinks it simply tried to do too much), Isle kept the class riveted, and paid off by not paying off -- leaving an ambiguous question mark as to whether the cast were killed by the plague or by the vorvolaka. Though I usually like to have closure, I enjoyed the question mark that the film leaves.

And that opening scene, where Pherides condemns his friend to death is very eerie. I spent a good part of the movie wondering why it was there, since it seems largely disconnected from the rest of the story, but I eventually realized that it served perfectly to show how Pherides is, despite whatever emotions he has, totally devoted to duty.

The only downside was that some of the movie was slow-moving at times. If it had kept the pace up better, I might have rated it a 9.5 or higher.

Ratings:
Me: 9.1
Dave: 9.6 -9.7
Ethan: 8
Sean 4 out of 4*

*incorporating a rescoring of last week's movie, Mad Love to 3 out of 4.

in case you're planning a road trip

Suppose you want to plan a road trip around this great country of ours.

Now, you want to visit all 48 contiguous states. But you're kind of anal retentive. So you want a path that will take you through all 48 without returning to any state once you've left it. The following is true:

• Your path will either start in Maine or end in Maine;
• If your path starts in Maine, the first seven states you visit will be (in order): Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York;
• If your path ends in Maine, the last seven states you visit will be (in order): New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine.

The proof is left to the reader.

earworm wednesday: iii

up at old 78

Colorway performing at the Old 78 Farm Fall Festival

Ethan and I were at the ninth annual Old 78 Farm Fall Festival. It's an all-day music festival (though some insisted that it's a one-day sh'-bang-bang) in Warwick, VT. Ethan was there as a workaway, having spent the entire week up there helping to prepare. I drove up Friday night so I could attend, maybe help out, and then drive him home. I was kind of torn about whether to be a workaway or an attendee. As an attendee I'd have to pay the $15 fee for a ticket -- but I would have the freedom to relax and not work. In the end, I paid for the ticket so that I could refuse to work, but did help out a little. Emphasize "little."

Interesting thing about the name. You hear "Old 78" and "music festival" and assume the name is a reference to the old 78 RPM records. In fact, it's because the festival is physically on top of old route 78. For that little fact (and more information, the festival's website is here.

Anyway, the festival seemed to have a good variety of bands -- some bluegrass, acid blues, power pop. Psychedelic pop... No one I'd ever heard of, but that's fine. You'll never hear music if you never hear music you never heard. One interesting highlight was the band, August First, who did bluegrass versions of "Life in Wartime" and "White Rabbit."

But my purpose here isn't to review the festival. I couldn't stay through the whole thing, and Ethan had a cold, so we left early. And I don;t want this blog to degenerate into a series of reviews. I do, however, want to share what was the highlight for me. Colorway, a power-pop trio was playing. It came late in their set. I was chilling with Ethan, just chatting while the music surrounded. And then I heard it. Have you ever heard a song for the first time and immediately thought "Holy shit! This is what music is supposed to be!"? I've had that experience maybe a half dozen times in my life, and this was one of those times.

I thought, based on the refrain, that it was called "Shelter from the Storm," but lead singer Alex Johnson corrected me -- it was "Heidi." I had asked because the group had a few CDs for sale, and I wanted to buy the one with that song. Sadly, Johnson had to explain to me that the song was by his former band, Drunk Stuntmen. I know it's probably bad form to post a video from a band that wasn't part of the festival, but that song was just so good I have to share it with my reader:

stoopidstats 2018 -- wins, losses and games over 500

Another baseball season is over, so it's time once again for StoopidStats!

So let's start with the cumulative won/lost records file, which you can get to here: https://www.dropbox.com/preview/Files%20to%20link%20from%20blog/HistoryThrough2018.xlsx?role=personal

The file is ,chock full of charts, but the above is the 2018 version of the dream chart that got me doing this in the first place: Cumulative games over .500 for every major league franchise ever.

Of course, the file also looks at cumulative wins, and groups statistics by location, by state (or state-like entity), and by name.

Highlights for this year in terms of wins:

• No franchise passed any other franchise.
• Los Angeles passed Washington and Baltimore to become the 10th-winningest location. Since Los Angeles is one of only three locations that currently have two teams (the others are New York and Chicago -- which are in first and second places), it makes sense that it would be moving up in rank.
• Milwaukee passed Kansas City to become the 15th-winningest location.
• Miami passed Providence to besome the 34th-winningest location.Of course, Providence hasn't had a franchise since the 1880s. Miami didn't have one until 2012, so it is now in the process of passing all those locations that used to have franchises but don't anymore.
• No state (or state-like entity) passed any other this year -- something which surprised me.
• "Twins" passed "Browns" to become the 17th-winningest team name. Congratulations to Minnesota fans.
• "Rays" passed "Superbas," "White Stockings" and "Naps" to become the 37th-winningest team name. The other three fall to 38th, 39th and 40th. I have an uncle in the Tampa area, so I should probably congratulate him. 

cinema history class: mad love

Session: Beastly Black and White, Week 2
Movie 2: Mad Love (1935)
Directed by Karl Freund
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
An brilliant but obsessed doctor agrees to repair the hands of the husband of the woman he loves. But such devotion has a price. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
In this adaptation of the 1920 French novel, The Hands of Orlac, Peter Lorre proves himself as one of the great silver screen's great madmen. His nervous manner made him constantly seem like he was just one twitch away from a violent eruption.

One of the sequences I found most interesting was one particular bit of misdirection. After Gogol transplants the hands from the beheaded criminal, we see the criminal explaining it to Orlac. I, watching the film, was thinking "hey...wait a minute...he'd dead!" But then I rationalized it by figuring that maybe Gogol was just so good he could reattach a head and bring the victim back to life. That kind of confusion kept me into the film.

It's kind of interesting to watch an old movie that had such an effect on things that came later but that I saw earlier. Every time Orlac threw a knife, I was thinking Frankenhooker, and somehow the plot kept reminding me of a specific episode of M*A*S*H.

In retrospect, maybe I should have given this a higher rating...

Ratings:
Me: 8.5
Dave: 9.96 -9.7
Sean 4 out of 4

one christmas party i'll be skipping

Well, this is a Monkees album I won't be buying...

Two and a half years after their last reunion album (2016's Good Times!, which the critics loved but I thought was kind of meh), they've put together a Christmas album, which is expected to be released next week on Rhino Records.

Based on the listing on Amazon, it looks like this is going to be a mix of originals and traditional Christmas songs. There's also a track called "Wonderful Christmastime," which may very well be a cover of Paul McCartney's most annoying composition. I seem to recall reading somewhere (but I don't recall for sure) that one of the songs is by Andy Partridge, of XTC. So it looks like they're trying to reproduce the formula that got them GT's critical praise. I know that's not a lot of information. And, frankly, if this were still a pre-Good Times! world, I'd be eagerly seeking out more information about this album, maybe looking for Youtube videos or tweets in case there are people with information.

But fuck them.

Two years ago they put out an album. Then they put out a deluxe edition with two extra tracks -- barely a week later. That cynical ploy to get their big fans to buy two copies of the album in short succession annoyed me more than it should have. ANd I'm not going back to the well.

earworm wednesday: ii

how i escaped a vampire in the pages of a tabloid

This post is in honor of a friend who, like me, has a soft spot for that paragon of journalism, The Weekly World News.

I't's tempting to now, go through the history of my letters to newspapers. But I'll leave that to another post. This post is about one of my favorite letters -- the one that got printed in the WWN.

It was the Autumn of 1987, and the WWN published an article warning its readers of the dangers of vampires going door to door, pretending to be young truck or treaters. The News quoted a "noted vampirologist," Richard Ferenc. If I recall correctly, the article explained that vampires were nervous about drinking the blood of homeless people because of the risk of getting AIDS. Suburban housewives were safer victims. I don't remember why they ran the article after Halloween, when it could have saved more necks if it had been run before the holiday. But, whatever.

Anyway, the article got my blood flowing (as it were), and inspired me to write the letter which is reproduced here. It remains the only time I got a letter in the Weekly World News.

So, if anyone is thinking of writing a book with a title such as An Actuary Reads the Weekly World News, I would be the perfect candidate to write the foreward.

Pick me. Pick me. Pick me. Pick me. Pick me.

an american watches cricket

It's no secret that I'm a baseball fan. Or was a baseball fan. I'm not sure what's the most accurate way to describe my level of interest in baseball. Whatever. I am knowledgeable about the mechanics of the game, so I can watch a game, and understand what's going on, what the basic strategies are, etc.

But cricket...that mysterious relative of baseball that they play elsewhere in the English-speaking world? That has remained a mystery to me. Not that I'd ever made any effort to understand it, mind you.

Until now.

We have an English friend visiting -- I'll refer to him as "Rich" since that's his name, and I decided to take the opportunity to learn cricket. Sort of. The strategy was pretty simple: We'd find a complete match on Youtube, and watch it together while he explains it to me. It's not unlike the strategy I employed to explain baseball to Sharon a couple years back. Of course, she got bored of it pretty quickly, so it was a bust. Oh well. But I'm more motivated to understand cricket than she was to understand baseball, so I had that going for me, which was nice. As a disclaimer, I should note that the Youtube video above is not the same match that Rich and I watched. I couldn't find that one. But this was played in the same stadium. Or on the same pitch? Is that the terminology? I think so.

Anyway, after one game I'm still no expert -- "I'll take 'duh' for a thousand, Alex." And even if I were, I wouldn;t try to explain it here. Because there's really no need for me to explain the sport. But I have a few observations* -- generally about the differences.

• In baseball, the two teams alternate turns at bat. That is, the visiting team bats for one inning, then the home team bats for one inning, then the visiting team, etc. In cricket, one team bats its full allotment for the game, and then the other team bats its full allotment. I like the baseball way better.
• In cricket, the ball can be hit in play in any direction -- a full 360 degrees. That just looks so odd to someone like me who's used to seeing a game where, only 90 degrees is considered in play.
• It strikes me as odd that the batter, having hit the ball into play, can decline to run. If he doesn't run, he can't get thrown out. In baseball, of course, the batter must attempt to get to first base -- if he decides not to run, he can still get thrown out.
• The players run with their bat. WTF?
• There are always two runners -- the batter and the runner on the other base (unlike baseball, there are only two bases). They must coordinate their decision and both run or both not run. In the game Rich and I watched, there was one play where they miscommunicated -- one ran and the other didn't.
• You get a point for every base you advance (as opposed to baseball, where you get nothing until you've advanced four bases).

All in all, it was kind of interesting to watch, though I think I still prefer baseball. Of course, that may be simply that I understand baseball better. Maybe I'll watch another game with Rich at some point. Or -- radical idea -- I can read up on it on Wikipedia or some other resource on the intertubes.

*Yeah, like there's a need for my observations