Author: admin

“Do you think it’ll be all right?”

He turned to look at her. “We’ve known for years that our daughter is different. It’s not about what we decide to do, or where we choose to live, it goes beyond that.”

“Yes, I know,” she looked at him ruefully, “but I wish there were something we could do to help.”

He shook his head. “Look honey, it’s not about us. She … sees things. It’s a gift.”

“No dammit, it’s a curse.”

“Hey,” he said gently, “it’s a gift and a curse. Everything has two sides. Can’t we just live with that? I mean, she can. Why can’t we?”

She gave him a long searching look. “What about the cat?”

“The cat?”

“You know what I mean. With Charlotte, everything means something. There are no coincidences. That cat showed up for a reason.”

He smiled sadly. “Would you want our daughter to be any other way?”

“No, I guess not. Damn you, you’re always so logical.”

“Not really. Just realistic. She’ll be fine with the cat. We’ll be fine with the cat. Now try to get some sleep.”

“OK.” She kissed him, and she turned over in the bed. Then she felt his arm around her, and she knew that somehow it would be all right.

Charlotte couldn’t believe how big the house was. It just seemed to go on and on forever. And every room was different from all the others.

“Pumpkin,” came her mom’s voice from downstairs. “You’ve got plenty of time to explore later. Come on down for dinner.”

And it was true — there would be plenty of time. This crazy old house really was their new home, for keeps. At first she hadn’t been very happy about that, but she was starting to really like this place. It was different, it had character. Like her.

“Charlotte!”

“Coming mom.” She bounded down the big curved staircase two steps at a time. It had probably been very fancy in its day, with all sorts of parties and stuff. She imagined how young ladies her age must have walked down these stairs back then, making their grand entrance. They probably got all dressed up for it. In any case, they definitely weren’t wearing sneakers.

“We thought you’d gotten lost up there!” Her mom was pretending to look cross, but wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Her parents were already sitting down to dinner. The food looked really good, and suddenly Charlotte realized she was hungry.

“Sorry mom,” she slipped into her chair. This was already feeling like home. Maybe things weren’t going to be so bad.

She was reaching for the mashed potatoes when her dad spoke up for the first time. “I believe we have a visitor.”

“Oh no,” her mom said. “We must have left the door open. I was sure I had closed it.”

Sitting on its haunches in the living room, looking at them with calm regard, was a black cat.

“Oh mom,” Charlotte said, “she’s beautiful!”

“How do you know it’s a she?” her dad asked.

“I don’t know, I just do. Can we keep her? Please?”

Just as her mother, frowning, started to answer, the cat darted forward, heading straight toward Charlotte. With a graceful leap, it jumped into her lap, and started to purr.

Her mom looked from Charlotte to the cat, and back again, and her face softened. “Well ok, but it’s not clear just who is keeping whom.” She turned to her husband. “Dear, I think the cat should have her own dinner, don’t you? Can you please get her a bowl of milk?”

Charlotte was very pleased. Their little family had just gotten larger. Which made sense, with the house being so big and all.

Charlotte was not at all convinced about this move. “Mom, Dad, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m sorry pumpkin,” her mom said, “but we’ve been over this a million times. Finally your dad and I will get to work in the same college. It’s not easy for academics.”

“Indeed,” her dad chimed in. “We are the hobos of the modern age. Always wandering from place to place, in search of an honest day’s work.”

“You are overdramatizing dear,” her mom said. “I’ve got this. Keep your eyes on the road.”

Tonight was the full moon, and all Charlotte could see outside were trees. Lots and lots of trees. “But we’ve never lived in the country. Is it even safe? I read somewhere that too many trees are bad for you.”

“Actually trees are good for you,” her father said helpfully. “They create oxygen. Makes breathing much easier.”

“I said, dear, that I’ve got this,” her mom said, this time more sharply. “Focus on your driving.” She turned to look at her daughter. “Think of all the new friends you will make here.”

“But I’ve got friends back, um, … home.” As she said the last word, she could feel the tears welling up. She balled her fists, annoyed at herself. There was a serious point to make here, and she would not cry.

“Your friends are aren’t disappearing. Believe it or not, even out here in the country they have the phone and the internet. Besides, after the summer you’re going to start high school — a whole new crop of friends. So you’ll have twice as many friends as anybody else.”

Charlotte sensed there was a flaw somewhere in her mother’s logic. She was still formulating her counterargument when she heard a crunch of gravel beneath the tires. They had arrived.

The black cat sat upon the old stone wall, looking impassively out into the graveyard. Tonight was the full moon, and the town church cast its long dark shadow over every grave. For a long while she remained unmoving, still as a statue. Only her eyes moved, flitting quickly from place to place, as though searching for someone she knew.

Suddenly she leapt, landing without a sound upon the soft brown earth, and began to run lightly between the headstones. She darted past George and Martha Fletcher, took a sharp right at the Hargrove family, and made a long graceful leap over M. Branson, before coming to a stop in front of a small and unremarkable grave in the far corner of the grounds.

She took a few minutes to clean her paws, taking her time, with no sense of hurry at all. When she was quite done, she circled twice around the headstone, rubbing up against it with a soft purr. She then walked to the very middle of the grave, curled herself into a ball, and with an air of contentment, promptly fell asleep.

It was All Hallows Eve, and out on the street
Some people were walking in big Hobbit feet.
On Broadway I saw all those kids from Divergent
Right next to a large walking box of detergent.
A young woman sporting Malificent horns
Passed by a trio of pink candy corns,
While two little boys came as Tonto and Kato
(Their dad was a very large killer tomato).
I counted eleven young men dressed as Sheldon
While one woman showed up as Barbara Feldon.
Nobody knew who that was (which is sad),
Except for Delphine, up from Marienbad.
Right after spotting both Minnie and Micky,
I saw a guy dressed as an open source wiki,
While his friend was a scale in Aeolian mode.
I’m not sure but I think this was some sort of code.
There were Wookies and Trekkies, a green kiwi fruit,
And a rather tall guy who would only say “Groot!”
      Tonight old New York was the best place to be.
      If you were there too, I am sure you’ll agree!

The other day I saw a small contingent of soldiers walking through New York Penn Station. Presumably they had arrived and were on the alert in response to some potential threat to our safety, so I was glad they were there.

But it occurred to me how odd it is to see soldiers in full camouflage in the heart of one of the world’s most urban locales. In the context of New York City, camouflage clearly does not serve to disguise. In contrast, it does precisely the opposite.

And I realized that this is exactly the point. The soldiers were meant to stand out, and this was achieved by virtue of outfits that make no sense at all, if those outfits are taken literally.

In a situation like this, we are being asked not to take the appearance of these soldiers literally. Rather, we are being asked to see them symbolically, as conveyers of an age-old message: “My very appearance reminds you of the jungle, with all its untamed terrors, so you will remember that I am your defense against the darkness your city lights cannot reach, and that which lies beyond.”

Not a bad message really, as camouflaged messages go.

Today I attended a very nice tribute to Marvin Minsky, an all day event inspired by his ability to improvise music in the style of Beethoven.

There were many interesting intellectual discussions over the course of the day. One that stood out concerned the relationship between composing and improvising. Some thought that they are on a continuum, others contended that improvising is a subset of composing, and one person asserted that they have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

One thought that occurred to me is that our notion of “musical instrument” might be too restrictive. Generally we think of the “instrument” as the physical object you interact with to perform music, such as a piano or a guitar.

But if we look at how we use these instruments, we can see that their physicality is not their essential feature. Rather, their essential feature of a musical instrument is the fact that it has been carefully constructed beforehand, as a mechanism to support musical performance.

But by this token, shouldn’t we include any computer software that is written for a similar purpose? Perhaps a program that helps us create trills, or progressions around the circle of fifths, or just a temporary transposition to the minor.

In the broader sense, anything that has been created beforehand, which then supports a real-time performance, is a kind of instrument.

One might say that if it exists as an object in the physical world, then it is a “solid instrument”. But if it exists only as a digital object, a thing of code and algorithm, then we might as well call it a “soft instrument”.

This evening a friend told me that the number of molecules of water in a teaspoon is, more or less, about the same as the number of teaspoons of water in the ocean.

I am completely entranced by this idea. In some very real sense, a teaspoon is the midpoint between an ocean and all of that ocean’s molecules of water.

Some of you are no doubt thinking of “Cosmic View”, the brilliant book by Kees Boeke that was later so beautifully adapted by Charles and Ray Eames into their “Powers of Ten” films. Both the book and the films that followed were tours de force of exposition, spanning the full scale of our Universe.

But for me, the teaspoon image is powerful precisely because it is so simple. I hold an ordinary teaspoon in my hand, filled with a small quantity of water. On one side of me is the mighty ocean. On the other side, an equal distance away, lies the mysterious nanoscopic world of molecules.

What could be more lovely?

The other day I saw “Galaxy Quest” again. I had not seen it since it first came out in theaters, fifteen years ago. To say that it holds up over time would be an understatement.

I think there really are only a handful of movies that I consider perfect, in that they set out to accomplish something worth striving for, and they achieve it with spectacular precision and effectiveness. “Casablanca” is one, as is “The Seven Samurai”. I would definitely put “Galaxy Quest” into that rarefied category.

Watching it this time, I already knew everything that would happen, and therefore I could focus on structure, timing, variations in dramatic tension, and how these all worked together to produce a perfect cinematic result.

And I realized something I hadn’t seen the first time around: Much of the comedy in “Galaxy Quest” comes from the proximity of tragedy. The characters you care about are essentially all tragic figures, lost and bitter souls who have missed their chance at happiness in life. They don’t start out liking themselves very much.

In their hero’s journey to redeem themselves — essentially to win back their lost souls — they encounter many terrible dangers. The potential for unspeakable horror lurks just around the corner, sometimes even showing up rather explicitly on screen.

It is the very fact that the stakes are so high, the characters are so believably drawn, so real to us, the possibility of tragic outcome so palpable, that makes the comedy so funny. Through the beautiful alchemy of storytelling, we transmute into laughter the tension of seeing people as flawed as we are — people who could very well be us — going through hell and coming out the other side.

I think Chekhov was on to something. *†

* “Galaxy Quest” also, by the way, adheres impressively to the principle of “Chekhov’s gun”.

† No, not that Chekov. The other one.

A friend who had read yesterday’s post pointed out to me, quite correctly, that there was a history of serious grown-up television well before the 1970s.

I had been well aware of the “Goldedn age of television” in the 1950s, which included such programs as Playhouse 90 (“Requiem for a Heavyweight”, “Judgment at Nuremberg” and quite a few other brilliant broadcasts), but I had decided not to mention them because this early trend toward serious adult content hadn’t lasted. By the 1960s it was mostly gone, except in little isolated bits and pieces, such as moments in “The Twilight Zone”.

Yet now that I think about it, the parallel to the history of VR is uncanny. About thirty years before now, Jaron Lanier was pushing hard for Virtual Reality. His company VPL was quite the thing in its day, with people heralding VR in 1986 as the next wave of computer graphics.

A few years after that came Fakespace Labs, in which Ian McDowall, Mark Bolas and others produced extremely high quality VR, albeit at extremely high prices.

I wonder whether there is some pattern here. If you look at any given cultural shift that suddenly appeared and took the culture by storm, perhaps you can often find an echo of it thirty years earlier.

If so, then maybe we should call this principle the “thirty year echo”.