Look out! Octopus!

8:35pm: Swine flu, and other adventures.
So, we spent much of last week dealing with Uriel's illness, some of it in the hospital. As it turned out, it was swine flu, strep throat, and scarlet fever. I didn't know there was even such a thing as scarlet fever anymore, but that's one of the miracles of parenthood; you learn about diseases. Anyhow, he's more or less fine now, though he's on medication until the end of the week. Both Naomi and I were also a bit swine flued, but we're recovering. Still, if you were thinking of stopping by for a visit, next week might be better.

In news not related to illness, I've got another bit of old New York Times for you:

Henry Clay has written a letter in favor of Gen. Cass for President.I state this on unquestionable authority. It is also asserted that Mr. Fillmore will soon be out with a letter declining to be a candidate, but intimating in favor of Daniel Webster. Great commotion among the other Presidential candidates.--Herald

The special and exclusive information contained in the line that we have italicised, may as well be mentioned to that portion of our fellow-citizens who serve their country in the capacity of marines.

New York Times, January 12, 1852

Zing!

2:14am: Writing?
So, apparently, I've gotten back to writing, after a bit of a dry spell. I'm not doing nanowrimo because I've got too many things I'm in the middle of, but there were 4,000 or so words of fiction written today, mostly in the 1851 thing.

They included these:

Given the course I had chosen, it would certainly not be just for me to complain of this violation of the principles of unarmed combat. Furthermore, I will admit that I had not the wind to make that complaint, or any other, for indeed, the chair had knocked it all from me.

I'm not sure that'll survive to the final draft, as it is a bit much, but they amused me.

8:14pm: Celebrities! Right here on my LJ!
So, do you get comments from movie stars on your LJ?

I do.

Okay, maybe movie star is overstating the point. Movie Kuiper Belt Object, let's call him. But he was totally on my lj, sharing anecdotes about how The Asylum takes a script and direction optional approach to movie making.

Made my week, pretty much.

11:29am: My theory.
I believe that somewhere, there is an alien race that has found a way to convert stupidity into energy. So, they seek out the purest stupidity in the universe, devising strange ways of encouraging and refining stupidity.

Hence, Youtube comments.

10:21pm: Couple of questions.
First off, and this is a longshot: I've read that Irish immigrants to New York in the mid-nineteenth century tended to segregate themselves by county of origin. Anyone know where the people living in Corlear's Hook would have come from?

Next, a slightly shorter, but still a relatively long shot: How offensive is it to call Hawaiians "Kanakas"? It's what they were often called in the 19th century, but I don't see any reason to keep a throw-away line with that in it, if it's something that'll upset people.

11:35am: On the off chance that I'm not the only one who didn't know about this.
I'm not sure where or when I encountered it, but I've known about X Minus One for years now, as a radio show that consisted of dramatizations of SF stories, some classics, and others . . . less so. But I just today found out about the similarly named Dimension X, which was more or less the same thing, and which was a sort of precursor to X Minus One.

Point being, there are period dramatizations of stories like "A Logic Named Joe" and "Nightfall." Available for free, on the internet.

12:31pm: The New York Times, on England.
This is by the European correspondent, in the middle of a larger piece about Louis Napoleon seizing power. The paragraphing is mine, I'm afraid. Also, I don't think that there's an HTML tag for small caps, so I went with regular capital letters for people's names. (Apparently, I was wrong on that front. Now, glory in the small size of the caps reproduced below.)

( LJ cut, as it get a bit long. And slightly uncomplimentary. )

1:06am: So, here's a thing about fasting.
For various reasons (mostly a stomach upset before Yom Kippur), this fast was a tough one for me. And, now that it's over, I've realized something about what fasting does. It's not the only thing that fasting does, but it's part of it.

I was back at home, sitting in my big comfortable chair, because I wasn't feeling strong enough to stand, and I realized that I was dying. That is, I realized that if I continued fasting a bit longer, at most another day, I would be dead. I wasn't in any immediate danger--if I was in immediate danger I would have been obliged to break the fast--but my body was doing the things that a dying body does, because that's what was happening. The process of my death had started. I could stop it; I did stop it, about an hour later, but at that time, I knew what dying of thirst felt like, because that's what I was doing.

There are other things happening on Yom Kippur, but death is part of it; the robe that the men wear, the kittel, is the grave cerement for Jewish men, and one of the things that is decided, that people pray for, is to be written for the coming year in the book of life.

This wasn't a near death experience, exactly. Call it an "in the general neighborhood of death experience". But one of the things that it brought home to me was the fact that I'm going to die. The traditional Jewish response to the thought that someone will die isn't denial, exactly. It's "until a hundred and twenty"; that's the maximum that people are expected to live. Okay, granted. By May 11, 2096, I'll be dead. (May 3rd, actually, if it's 120 by the Jewish calender, but I digress.) Which is a long ways off, but still isn't terribly pleasant to think about.

But that's what fasting does; that's what this iteration of the fast did. There's an abstraction to the idea of death, if you're healthy and comfortable, that there isn't when you're sick and weak. I'm not going to talk about what followed that realization. That's private. But I can't help but feel that at least part of the reason for religious fasting is to get that feeling, and to get a perspective of that sort.

4:45pm: Offerings from the demi-plane of refreshment.
Someday soon, I'll get back to actual blogging rather than just sort of . . . keeping a log of things I see on the web. But, odd as it may seem, I do seem to have seen this on the web. To summarize: I wonder if truth in labeling laws will require them to say something along the lines of "contains less than 8% genuine Illithid brain juice".

And, for those who are wondering where I've been finding the Old Time Radio I've been listening to, the answer is Archive.org's Old Time Radio collection. Man, Gangbusters. Is there any better way to hear about gangs, and the busting thereof? I would posit that there isn't.

3:03pm: Internet Slang of the 1940s.

Frank Chandler: Well, if it's spelled R-O-X-O-R, as it sounds, it's spelled the same forward and backward. It's a very ancient trick of, of sorcery.
Dorothy Regent: Sorcery? You mean black magic?
Frank Chandler: Exactly.
Betty Regent: I don't see why we have to get all mixed up in black magic and everything all of a sudden. It scares me!

11:08am: Now that's, I say, now that's an opening paragraph.

She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him. It was at this point, however, that she remained; changing her place, moving from the shabby sofa to the armchair upholstered in a glazed cloth that gave at once--she had tried it--the sense of the slippery and of the sticky. She had looked at the sallow prints on the walls and at the lonely magazine, a year old, that combined, with a small lamp in coloured glass and a knitted white centre-piece wanting in freshness, to enhance the effect of the purplish cloth on the principal table; she had above all from time to time taken a brief stand on the small balcony to which the pair of long windows gave access. The vulgar little street, in this view, offered scant relief from the vulgar little room; its main office was to suggest to her that the narrow black house-fronts, adjusted to a standard that would have been low even for backs, constituted quite the publicity implied by such privacies. One felt them in the room exactly as one felt the room--the hundred like it or worse--in the street. Each time she turned in again, each time, in her impatience, she gave him up, it was to sound to a deeper depth, while she tasted the faint flat emanation of things, the failure of fortune and of honour. If she continued to wait it was really in a manner that she mightn't add the shame of fear, of individual, of personal collapse, to all the other shames. To feel the street, to feel the room, to feel the table-cloth and the centre-piece and the lamp, gave her a small salutary sense at least of neither shirking nor lying. This whole vision was the worst thing yet--as including in particular the interview to which she had braced herself; and for what had she come but for the worst? She tried to be sad so as not to be angry, but it made her angry that she couldn't be sad. And yet where was misery, misery too beaten for blame and chalk-marked by fate like a "lot" at a common auction, if not in these merciless signs of mere mean stale feelings?

11:08am: The wit and wisdom of google.
"Results 1 - 10 of about 369,000 for "in the year 2525" "what the hell"."

10:28am: From the institute of "I did not know that."
http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.html.

Long story short: Roman gladiators were pudgy vegetarians. Makes sense, but not what I'd have expected.

9:09am: Well, I'm back.
Actually, I've been back in Israel since the end of August, but there's been stuff to do, and catch up on, and suchlike, so I haven't been on livejournal much. But now I've caught up, and suchliked, so here I am.

The trip went well; it's possible that I'll assemble my fragmentary memories into the form of posts, but I'm not sanguine that there'll be much more than fragments. Still, here's one to start:

On the flight over to the US, I had a long layover in Schipol airport. Which is a very nice airport, as far as it goes, though it doesn't have very many free outlets. Anyhow, I was sitting near one of those outlets, and a pair of conservatively dressed young men took up the seats directly behind mine.

"Did you know, Jack," said one of them. "That there are those who don't know that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies of the Messiah?"
"Really? But surely, they are aware that in Isaiah, 7:14, the Hebrew prophet specifies that the Messiah will be born to a virgin?"
"That's right, Jack. And while some might argue that . . ."

And so on. It was hilarious. Honestly, the amount of missionizing that I've been subject to has fallen off considerably since I left the US, and even there, it had been much more common when I was a teenager than when I grew up. But all the same, this is the first time I can recall passive-aggressively missionaries. I let them go through their whole script, which was a clever one--there were a bunch of places where they made the sort of gross errors in translation that invited interruption, but, once it was clear that I wasn't taking the bait, they went sadly off, presumably to find some other obvious non-Christian to discuss the bible near.

2:31pm: Misc and various
So, I'm in New York, which was pretty much what a rational person would have expected. The hours in the airport were excruciating, but the flight itself wasn't bad -- they have that system where you get to pick from a selection of movies and TV shows, so I watched things I might actually have chosen to watch, rather than things that are more entertaining than that little screen showing how far you are from your destination.

And now I will talk about those movies, as that's somewhat more interesting than "I was in an airport. Then, I was in another airport. The food wasn't good.": No Country for Old Men: Confused and arbitrary plot, deliberately unsatisfying resolution. But there was an entertaining sort of voice to it, and it got the sort of worldbuilding stuff right. But I'll admit that I fast forwarded a bit in the middle, as I quite simply lost patience with people not leaving Texas. Yes, it's true that it would break the tone and atmosphere of the movie. But honestly. Just get on a Grayhound bus, and go to Indiana. That will make it hard for people to find you. Monsters vs. Aliens: It was actually okay. The blog thing wasn't actually funny; there was a sort of generic quality to its jokes, and attitude, and comedic voice. But the rest of the cast was okay, and the plot wasn't bad. The Da Vinci Code,: Look. I'm moderating a worldcon panel about bad movies in like a week; this is something that I need to study carefully. The pacing of the beginning is actually okay, but the long bit where wossname -- he had some ridiculous name like Chuzzwozzle Thickbottom -- let's call him Magneto. The scene where Magneto goes ahead and explains the ridiculous backstory was just stupid and unending. I don't see any way they could have fit that stupid theory in more elegantly, but the tricks they tried didn't work. Generally speaking, when you have to interrupt your movie for some academic power point, you're not winning. There was also an episode of CSI Miami (The one where the investigators burned down the crime scene because they are mindblowingly stupid.), some late season Simpsons, and the first bit of The Spiderwick Chronicles which seemed to be about half fun stuff, and half tired cliche.

Basically, I think the trend is that planes are becoming less unpleasant places to be, while airports, particularly US airports, are becoming more unpleasant. The fact that I'm short and not terribly fat probably is what makes me think that airplanes aren't that unpleasant, but there you are.

3:26am: Free wireless, woo, woo.
3:05 in the morning. Less woo. Considerably less woo.

Something you may not know about me: I get travel anxiety. Generally, it's not too bad, but sometimes, it does get pretty irritating. What I've discovered today is that when I don't have people around, it's . . . not helpful. You see, the way it works with me is that there's this sort of free-floating mass of worry. When it lights on a topic; "you're going to have an upset stomach, and they won't let you on your flight," it is very hard for me to stop thinking about that particular chain of thought -- the extent to which my stomach is upset, the ways in which the flight crew will notice this, and decide to keep me off the plane, the difficulties that would ensue from missing this particular flight, and so on. Which isn't fun!

When there are distractions around that mass of worry doesn't go away, but it doesn't adhere to anything in particular. So I'll be tense and snappish, but I will not be driving myself actively insane. Today, Uriel, Naomi, and Naomi's parents left relatively early in the morning. And yet, I did not have a relaxing day. Instead, I worried. And you know what's not a great idea when you've got that sort of worry? Talking to people with the exact same sort of problem. Because when I'm talking to mom, her reaction to a scenario like the above is less, "ha, ha, you're driving yourself nuts," and more, "that is a very serious concern which you should worry about, and which I am now going to worry about as well." Which is sympathetic, but not entirely helpful.

As a result of this, I took a taxi out to the airport at 1:00 AM, rather than a train the previous night at 9:00 PM. Because while I don't actually have any reason to fear the security check at the airport, I do fear it, and I decided that spending three or four hours actually facing the security check would leave me exactly the sort of twitching wreck that they'll give subject to an intensive search. And if I miss this plane, then I'd wind up flying on the ninth of Av, which is one of Judaism's more intense fast days. And I don't want to do that, as flying west makes a day longer.

But I digress, in a slightly insane going manner. Now, I'm through the security checkpoint, which reduces my anxiety by about 70%, and soon I should be on a plane, assuming all goes according to plan. Where I'll probably get a little sleep, as I've had about an hour and a half tonight. Then they'll wake me up to give me a horrible breakfast.

If Schiphol has free wireless, I might be online again in a bit. Otherwise, I'm not sure how often I'm going to be checking email for the next week or so. After that, Worldcon.

Assuming that they don't throw me off the plane, for some reason.

10:14am: Winding down the dig.
Official post is up; it's been a while since I've done one of those.

And, if you've been kinda vaguely interested in the excavation, but not sufficiently to actually read my . . . moderately tedious official posts, I'd recommend reading this one, and, hopefully, the next two. They'll pack all the tedium of an entire season into a few blog posts! Also, they should explain what we think we've found, and why those interpretations make more sense than the other things we've considered. Also, maybe there'll be pictures from parties and suchlike. And then it'll be done, gloriously, gloriously done.

Anyhow, here's a ( picture of Uriel )

7:00pm: On a non-excavation related note.
My Worldcon panel schedule (as of 7/18/09):
( cut for long )

8:58pm: Real post tomorrow, I hope.
Sorry about the radio silence; I've been working . . . well, not harder than I had been for the previous six weeks, but somewhat more constantly. Now that the volunteers are gone, everything needs to be wrapped up, so while I'm getting up at 6:30, which is two hours later than I had been, I've been working through from 7:00 until about now, without much in the way of blogging time between. But, hopefully, I finish the last of what I have left to do tomorrow, and can do a gigantic wrap up post. Or several smaller wrap up posts.

As far as what I've been doing, there's a lot of measuring going on. I had to use the Pythagorean theorem three times today, which is quite a step up from the usual sort of mathematics that archaeology usually involves. Generally, subtraction is about our limit. But we do a lot of subtracting, I tell you what.

Right; going to sleep now.

8:16pm: 2009 season, day, um . . . late 20s, I guess?
official post is tired, I am up. Soon, one of those things will change.

Also, there's a picture of ( Uriel )

3:38pm: Ashkelon, days 25-27
Well, there's an official post up, and, unfortunately, the stuff that I've said there about not having time for much posting applies here as well -- I have to do a matrix tonight, for instance. And yet, I can forsee a time, not too far from now, when I will be able to post here more, about things like my Worldcon programming schedule, or what exactly a Harris Matrix is, and why I have to make one.

Until then ( here's a picture of Uriel )

7:53pm: Ashkelon, day 23
Official post is up. It's a short one, because I'm stupifyingly tired.

( Uriel's continued adventures at the zoo )

9:18pm: Ashkelon, day 22.
Official post is up, and it's a long one.

At the level where I'm at, an awfully large portion of my job is basically secretarial work -- I make notes, and get information which I put into a computer, and so on. Then there's administrative stuff, and sort of routine decision making. "Do we dig this pit the normal way we dig pits?" and so on. Add in an occasional bout of heavy manual labor, a bit of memorization of pottery types and forms, and then there's the part that involves thinking. I like that part best, though I'll admit to fondness for the memorization as well.

Which isn't to say that I'm going to be able to think my way into finding a function, or even a clear description of the stone installation. But I'm going to get as much evidence as it's willing to give me, and see what I can make of it.

And, for those of you wondering where we went on Uriel's birthday, it was ( . . . )

7:25pm: Ashkelon, day 21
Official post is up.

This is, more or less, the last full week of excavation. There's another week with volunteers, and then a staff week after that, but those weeks are for wrapping everything up, not really for digging, so it seems as though everything that we're going to dig is going to be dug in the next few days. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be there on Thursday, as it's a fast day, and heavy manual labor in the sun without water seems like a less than great idea. So, big push over the next three days. Assuming that everything goes like it should. Which it probably won't.

In other news, Uriel is now three. Expect to see more information on this subject in the coming week. Information like ( this! )

8:59pm: Ashkelon, day 20
Official post is up, for them what wants an official post.

I was going to do a long post about stratigraphy and stratigraphic problems today. But instead, I played gemcraft. Now I'm tired, so I'm going to go to sleep. I'd say "maybe tomorrow," but tomorrow is a trip to the zoo in honor of Uriel's birthday, so I'll say "maybe not tomorrow," instead.

But let's see what Uriel ( thinks )