To relieve stress and participate in an activity for an adolescent psychology class presentation today, we were asked to identify the shapes below and write down an object we imagined that matches the shapes:
These were my answers after just taking a really long math test with not much time for sleep (or meals) this week:
Circle = Table
Square = Table
Rectangle = Table
Pyramid = Freaky hotel in Vegas
(I hope I did better on my math test!)
P.S. My Poe book of poems, short stories, and essays went on a walk-about a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty sure I left it in the classroom after my presentation, but it wasn't turned it. I kept thinking it would show up, but I never could find it. Today I thought I'd stop in the bookstore across from the campus just in case it showed up there. Sure enough, it was behind the counter! It seemed so much like Poe to go missing and find him on an adventure. The bookstore across the street from the school used to be a tavern and still has a dark interior and the same counter. The manager knows me because I buy textbooks there often (and occasionally have to part with them). He sold it back to me for what he paid someone for my book, $5.00. It had all my handwritten notes inside, so it was easy to identify. My book now has a "Used" sticker on it, even though I first bought it new; it's another mark of ownership in the life of my book. As soon as I left the store and waited at the stop light, the local church bells, which are nearby but are very loud, began to ring, it was 2pm. How precise. And our last reading assignment for the Poe class this semester was "The Bells." I guess Emerson was right, he is "that jingles guy." The book arrived just in time to begin my class on The Beat Movement.
This Hubble photograph of an hourglass nebula has a strange looking center...
...compared to this picture of my eye, which looks similar to me (except this is not Hubble, it's my cell phone camera, which is not as clear even so close up and my eyes are hazel green):
I also read a description while doing some research recently which reminded me of the picture of the hourglass nebula:
In Chapter XVII of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, the opening passage reads: "I am Tem in rising. I am the only One. I came into being in Nu ("Nu, of the dark waters." Nu was the incomprehensible source of all things -- Chaos or Space.). I am Ra who rose in the beginning... The pillars of Shu were not as yet created (the division of heaven and earth). It is Ra, the creator of the names of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods, who are in the train of Ra" (i.e., the gods who personify his phases) -- fourteen Spirits, seven dark and seven light..."I am the Bennu bird (the Phoenix, type of resurrection) which is in Anu, and I am the keeper of the volume of the book of things which are and of things which shall be." In the eternity of his being occur vast cycles of activity followed by equal periods of rest: "Millions of years" is the name of the one, "Great Green Lake" is the name of the other, the "Lake" representing the cycle in which are swallowed up all things produced by "The Begetter of millions of years." In Chapter XLII he "who dwelleth in his eye" is beaming in "the solar egg, the egg to which is given life among the gods." In Chapter XV he is "Yesterday," "Today," and "Tomorrow," the one "who reposeth upon law which changeth not nor can it be altered." In Chapter LXXV he is the self-created god: "I gave birth unto myself together with Nu in my name of Khepera, in whom I come into being day by day. I am the creator of the darkness who maketh his habitation in the uttermost parts of the sky ... and I arrive at the confines thereof. I sail over the sky which formeth the division betwixt heaven and earth... None sees my nest, none can break my egg."
(Is it customary for all the gods to "speaketh" thus, or is it just the translators?)
The Book of the Dead, or as I prefer, the book of "Coming Forth by Day," was written long before Hubble, since now we can at least see the uttermost parts of the sky, and breaking the egg sounds similar to cracking a code to me. I like the idea that, as we are peering into space, someone would be looking back, "Would you like your space eggs solar fried this morning, or heat wave scrambled at 3 degrees above zero?"
I also heard an interesting description on PBS regarding astronomical measurements of the universe in waves which are expanding, the red shift theory, and blue shift, and the discovery of "3 degrees above zero," which was calculated in a laboratory in Princeton at about the same time the actual waves were being discovered by scientists working on radio and microwave measurements to pick up data that was outside of the range of light, as heat waves in areas of space void of stars, and where they expected it to be void of substance, and was expected to be cold, even colder than the space inhabited by stars. What they discovered was a presence of heat, 3 degrees above zero, which is described as being evidence of the afterglow of the big bang, a kind of cosmic "euphoria," and if that was as many billions of years ago as they have calculated, that was quite a bang to have such a long lasting afterglow(!). Oooo, he is a god!
The red shift is a measurement similar to the doppler effect of sound, like when a siren on an emergency vehicle passes by, blue being relative to the higher pitched sound as an object farther away moves toward you, and red being the lower pitched sound as the object passes and moves away from you, even though the speed itself has not changed if you are riding within the moving vehicle, the sound waves shorten with the approaching sound (blueshift waves) and then lengthen as it moves farther away (redshift waves), since frequency and wave length are related. Astronomical physicists and scientists are using this technique to study deep space and to measure what cannot be seen as light. If you see a duck swimming in the water, the wave frequencies in front of the duck are pushed closer together, and the waves behind are stretched out and longer, which, consequently creates an egg-shaped oval of frequency in the waves.
Does all this make your head spin? Its not spinning, its really only a reflection, or you could call it a phase of "lunar libration."
Friday night, I went to an art show near the OU campus in Norman, Oklahoma which was being held by some local artists and musicians. One of my friends who owns a used book store, "Book Beat & Co." was one of the artists with artwork on display and also playing music for the venue. He's known musically as "Bloody Ol' Mule," Shilo Brown from Oklahoma, a "Hell-bent honky tonk stomp hillbilly blues one man band kickin' your teeth in since 1976." He mixes banjo, guitar and drum, and other sounds all on his own, and who apologizes to me for his use of bad language if I'm around, although I tell him I'm not an innocent bystander and its not necessary!
While I was there, I started talking to one of the women standing by, who turned out to be "Rebelline," who, in addition to having some of her artwork on display, is one of the OKC Victory Dolls, a roller derby team in Oklahoma City. It turned out that many of the girls at the event Friday night were on the roller derby team. I ended up meeting some of them while hanging out for the evening, which included as much as you want to drink and ended with Rebelline inviting me to join their roller derby team. They seemed tolerant enough of my not drinking, which at the most usually involves me carrying around the same half-empty drink all evening, sooo, it could work...right? The next game is on May 15th, so I guess that leaves plenty of time to practice?
I wonder if it would be possible to wear a latex suit that is too slippery for anyone to catch me and bump me off!
Latex option
Speaking of latex, Rebelline is also friends with a local side show artist named "Boobzilla," from The Carnival of Cleavage, a female side show that is a combination of body modification and "Jim Rose Circus" type of stunts. They are planning to do an event together with the OKC Victory Dolls in the next few weeks. I recently met Jim Rose, which opened up an opportunity to perform in a sideshow, but his show is not local. The Carnival of Cleavage, on the other hand, is local.
Either way, if I were to consider it, I would need to come up with a stage name, a costume and an act - preferably something sci-fi, or an approach that isn't being done, since most of these ladies are three times my size. Jim Rose's wife, puts a large scorpion in her mouth. I would need something to give me an edge, but something more my style... Ziggy Stardust meets Rob Zombie comes to mind, as well as an aerial show, climbing ropes or silk sheets, doing stunts and falling in mid air to be caught at the last moment as: "the woman who fell to earth." What more can you do for fun, living in Oklahoma?
