Neither Pliny the Elder nor I will be buying any graph paper. We are in full accord over the Moon. Pliny's graph, which he has been plotting assiduously over the last twenty seven days, has turned into a heartbreakingly beautiful sine curve. It doesn't matter that Pliny's squares are rectangles, the sine curve is undeniable.
Now the Plinies have remembered their maths lessons from school. Not exactly, but sort of. And they agree that it makes sense that the moon appears to change more slowly the more or less of it you can see. They would also probably agree to the exact opposite if someone were to point out that the sine curve was telling them that. They don't fully get it, you see. But they love their beautiful sine curve, a remarkable phenomenon of nature.
Nostradamus, who knows about such things, told us weeks ago it would turn out to be a sine curve.
So the Moon Gadget is redeemed, or would be but for this. The Moon Gadget was set for the Northern Hemisphere, until last week, when I discovered how to set it to the Southern Hemisphere with a simple click. This reversed the bright side of the moon in my Moon Gadget so that it matched what I see in the sky. Nostradamus is currently in dispute with the Moon Gadget over this reversal. On an evening walk he demonstrated to me that no matter which hemisphere we were it the moon should look the same.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Confounded Travels
Pliny and Nostradamus walked to Officeworks this morning to buy an expandable folder. A sheeny white moth crossed the path from left to right in front of them, looking a little frazzled. There were people in colourful clothing sitting at the bus stop over the road.
A woman with a brokendown car was standing at the narrow gravelled gap to the Officeworks carpark, talking to someone on her phone. Pliny and Nostradamus were irritated. They had to walk round her. Inside the shop they looked for the right sort of folder.
They chose one that they thought would do the job. But they had no cash so they had to buy more items. They bought a giant envelope, some Blutack, a Baby Einstein counting book. They paid by eftpos.
On the way home they noticed that the colourfully dressed people were still waiting at the bus stop, and there was no bus in sight.
This reminded Nostradamus that he and Pliny had to go and visit Pliny's mum in the afternoon.
A woman with a brokendown car was standing at the narrow gravelled gap to the Officeworks carpark, talking to someone on her phone. Pliny and Nostradamus were irritated. They had to walk round her. Inside the shop they looked for the right sort of folder.
They chose one that they thought would do the job. But they had no cash so they had to buy more items. They bought a giant envelope, some Blutack, a Baby Einstein counting book. They paid by eftpos.
On the way home they noticed that the colourfully dressed people were still waiting at the bus stop, and there was no bus in sight.
This reminded Nostradamus that he and Pliny had to go and visit Pliny's mum in the afternoon.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Easy Mo Bee
Pliny the Elder saw me reading Aesop's Fables. These tales are meant to be heard, not read out of a book, said he. They are oral tales. That is all very well, said I, but I have borrowed this book from the library.
Perhaps you could google up a site where someone speaks the stories, he suggested helpfully.
So I found a site and listened to several of the fables read by a child who did not read very well. Not all the fables could be listened to. I decided to give up on the child and read Jupiter and the Bee.
It was exactly the same story as the one in my library book. The Bee brings Jupiter some honey. Jupiter is pleased and offers a reward. The Bee asks for a sting to kill men who want to steal its honey. Jupiter is angry, and grants the sting, with the proviso that if the Bee uses the sting it will die. A good story. I suppose the moral is: Always ask for nice things.
But the moral of my story is yet to come. You can double click on any word in the fable you are reading and you will get an instant link to a site called ANSWER, which will tell you the meaning of the word. You can double click on Jupiter for instance, and learn that he is a God. I clicked on Bee. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Bee was a famous New York rapper, whose full name was Easy Mo Bee. I passed this on to Pliny who shook his head in disbelief.
The moral of this story is : The path to enlightenment is littered with red herrings.
Perhaps you could google up a site where someone speaks the stories, he suggested helpfully.
So I found a site and listened to several of the fables read by a child who did not read very well. Not all the fables could be listened to. I decided to give up on the child and read Jupiter and the Bee.
It was exactly the same story as the one in my library book. The Bee brings Jupiter some honey. Jupiter is pleased and offers a reward. The Bee asks for a sting to kill men who want to steal its honey. Jupiter is angry, and grants the sting, with the proviso that if the Bee uses the sting it will die. A good story. I suppose the moral is: Always ask for nice things.
But the moral of my story is yet to come. You can double click on any word in the fable you are reading and you will get an instant link to a site called ANSWER, which will tell you the meaning of the word. You can double click on Jupiter for instance, and learn that he is a God. I clicked on Bee. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Bee was a famous New York rapper, whose full name was Easy Mo Bee. I passed this on to Pliny who shook his head in disbelief.
The moral of this story is : The path to enlightenment is littered with red herrings.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Immensely Flat
Pliny the Elder: Far be it from me to dispute with anybody over their use of English, but don't you think 'immensely flat' is a rather inappropriate epithet for a small moth that turned out to be a lick of paint?
Me: What, you don't believe it was very flat?
Pliny the Elder: I do indeed. I am not disputing the adjective 'flat', but the adverb 'immensely'.
Me: Why?
Pliny the Elder: Because, my dear, it implies great size, and your moth, as you say, was very small.
Me: I meant that its flatness was immeasurable, not that it was of great size.
Pliny the Elder: Well now, tell me the truth, are you still happy with 'immensely flat'?
Me: Not indisputably.
Pliny the Elder: Then I am immensely flattered.
Me: What, you don't believe it was very flat?
Pliny the Elder: I do indeed. I am not disputing the adjective 'flat', but the adverb 'immensely'.
Me: Why?
Pliny the Elder: Because, my dear, it implies great size, and your moth, as you say, was very small.
Me: I meant that its flatness was immeasurable, not that it was of great size.
Pliny the Elder: Well now, tell me the truth, are you still happy with 'immensely flat'?
Me: Not indisputably.
Pliny the Elder: Then I am immensely flattered.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Flat Black Moth
Pliny and Nostradamus were on their way home from a lecture at the SA Museum. They stopped off to order a pizza from Domino's on the way home. It would be ready in twenty minutes.
Crikey, but Pliny needed a pee! Luckily the public toilets over the road at Firle Plaza were still open.
While she was washing her hands she saw on the yellow painted wall to her left a small black moth. She looked at it closely. It was immensely flat. But Pliny knew that moths sometimes looked immensely flat. She leaned in even closer so that she was looking at it from the side insofar as that was possible, given the wall. It couldn't have been flatter.
She touched it lightly with the tip of her finger expecting it to flutter away. It didn't budge. It didn't feel like a moth either. It felt like wall. Pliny touched it again. It was just a splot of black paint in the shape of the wings of a moth. Pliny was disappointed.
But to this day she still remembers it as a moth.
Crikey, but Pliny needed a pee! Luckily the public toilets over the road at Firle Plaza were still open.
While she was washing her hands she saw on the yellow painted wall to her left a small black moth. She looked at it closely. It was immensely flat. But Pliny knew that moths sometimes looked immensely flat. She leaned in even closer so that she was looking at it from the side insofar as that was possible, given the wall. It couldn't have been flatter.
She touched it lightly with the tip of her finger expecting it to flutter away. It didn't budge. It didn't feel like a moth either. It felt like wall. Pliny touched it again. It was just a splot of black paint in the shape of the wings of a moth. Pliny was disappointed.
But to this day she still remembers it as a moth.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Every Australian Bird Illustrated
The pair of birds we saw at Goolwa
on the weekend were
Sooty Oystercatchers that
live in that sort of habitat.
Now we know that these birds look
just like they ought to look,
and now we know that they behave
the way they did behave.
They lay their eggs
just like the egg
that I saw in the sand.
That egg will be deserted
Since I touched it with my hand.
on the weekend were
Sooty Oystercatchers that
live in that sort of habitat.
Now we know that these birds look
just like they ought to look,
and now we know that they behave
the way they did behave.
They lay their eggs
just like the egg
that I saw in the sand.
That egg will be deserted
Since I touched it with my hand.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Three Hats
The following morning they went for a walk on Goolwa Beach. There was a strong breeze and they followed it, wearing three hats between them.
Pliny saw many wondrous items that had been thrown up on the shore. Orange peel sponges and mandarin skins, giant polished beetle polyps, fans traced on the sand by wind with a seaweed pen, scarlet and purple striped sea urchins with white stitched borders and toothless holes, spherical balls of fine weedstring, and long ones shaped like turds.
Turning back into the wind they were faced with low streams of fine dry sand passing between their legs like time lapsed clouds. It was quite unpleasant.
Pliny saw many wondrous items that had been thrown up on the shore. Orange peel sponges and mandarin skins, giant polished beetle polyps, fans traced on the sand by wind with a seaweed pen, scarlet and purple striped sea urchins with white stitched borders and toothless holes, spherical balls of fine weedstring, and long ones shaped like turds.
Turning back into the wind they were faced with low streams of fine dry sand passing between their legs like time lapsed clouds. It was quite unpleasant.
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