I don’t usually do video embeds, but I was inspired in part by Via Negativa’s Memorial Day mix. Herewith, Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream,” performed by Arlo Guthrie and Shenandoah.
Author: David Gorsline
Sage decoded
Robert Sage, in his contribution to the Joyce symposium Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, looks at the prosody of this passage from what would become Finnegans Wake:
She was just a young thin pale soft shy slim slip of a thing then, sauntering, by silvamoonlake and he was a heavy trudging lurching lieabroad of a Curraghman, making his hay for whose sun to shine on, as tough as the oaktrees (peats be with them!) used to rustle that time down by the dykes of killing Kildare, for forstfellfoss with a plash across her. (Book I, chapter 8, known as “The Washers at the Ford”, p. 202 in the Viking edition)
Here’s part of Sage’s analysis:
Then comes the stronger three-syllable word sauntering, indicating development (adolescence) and leading by a short beat to the epitritus silvamoonlake, signifying full growth (maturity), the further associations with the latter stage being sylvan and the silver moon reflected in the lake. (p. 168)
So I marked epitritus in the margin, and when I got home started tracking it down. An internet search founders on the various inflections of the four-to-three ratio and a genus of ants. Randel’s Harvard Dictionary of Music offers, “A sesquitertian ratio, e.g., 4:3, which characterizes the interval of a perfect fourth.” Not what I had in mind. So let’s hit Webster II. Nothing under epitritus, but epitrite is glossed as: “A foot consisting of three long and one short syllables;—so called from being compounded of a spondee (which contains 4 times, or morae) with an iamb or a trochee (which contain 3 times). It is called 1st, 2d, 3d, or 4th epitrite according as the short syllable stands 1st, 2d, etc.”
I think that Sage heard the second syllable of silvamoonlake as the unstressed one, making this a second epitrite, but it’s a close call. To me, the four syllables sound almost equally stressed.
Not a moment too soon
Metro is considering a return to sanity, and by sanity I mean at least following its own guidelines for station names, as Kytja Weir reports. A naming policy review is planned for this week.
Some 15 of the 86 existing stations violate the 19-character limit, Metro says, and seven of those have more than one hyphen or slash mark separating the names.
Transfer stations have an even higher violation rate: three of the eight hubs exceed the 13-character limit.
The problem was highlighted last week when the blog Greater Greater Washington sponsored a fantasy map contest, asking its readers to submit redesigns of the existing Metro map. Of the 17 submissions, some maps struggled to fit the long names on their designs — and left off some stations altogether.
(Link via Washington Business Journal.)
(Washington Examiner web site team, your hack of the copy button is not unnoticed.)
Silver Line progress report: 18
The teal-blue frame of the elevator shaft is visible rising above the mezzanine level of the future station for Wiehle Avenue. Concrete station walls have been poured, with the surface finished in Metro’s signature rough board-and-batten pattern.
With the closure of the Reston East park and ride lot, I have to be more creative in finding places to park so that I can stop and take these shots.
Language’s lembick
So I’m reading the introduction to John Donne in the anthology I’m recording, and I come across the terms tenor and vehicle in the context of metaphor. How did I not know that there were terms for the parts of a metaphor?
Department of Order
I’d like a stack of Knuth’s yellow cards to hand to people eating in the subway: Nicholas Kulish patrols with Knuth Kaufmann, a member of Germany’s Ordnungsbehörde. And I’m certain that my neighbors would like to give me a yellow card for the weeds in my front yard.
Good for something
Dr. Caren Cooper is collecting data on variation in House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) eggs.
Because House Sparrows are a nonnative species, they are undesirable inhabitants of nest boxes in North America, but they are an easily accessible study species that can be used to address ecological questions without disturbing native birds.
Researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology are studying this species to help better understand the enormous variation in eggshell patterns and color. House Sparrow eggs exhibit an extraordinary amount of variation. Eggshell coloration and pattern may vary with available calcium, sunlight patterns, or habitat quality, and are expected to differ seasonally and geographically as well.
NestWatch participants are encouraged to submit digital photographs of eggs to Dr. Cooper, together with sufficient information to make scientific comparisons. Follow the link for more details.
Sugarloaf wildflowers
After a misty start, the weather proved especially cooperative for our final field trip for spring wildflower ID. Would that my point and shoot had done the same. I made suitable images neither of a darling yellow flower of the amaryllis or lily families, Yellow Stargrass (Hypoxis hirsuta), nor of the delicate Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense), another lily.
Along Mt. Ephraim Road, where it crosses Bear Branch, to the west of the Sugarloaf Mountain summit, we compared the wiry stem of Indian Cucumber Root (Medeola virginiana) (yet another lily) to the fleshy stem of the pogonias, in this case Large Whorled Pogonia (Isotria verticillata) (an orchis family member). We also found some lingering fruits of Partidgeberry (Mitchella repens) along with this year’s tiny red flower buds in pairs. Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), looking like a dandelion as the flower is opening, is easy to distinguish from its fellow Composite when you see the somewhat hoof-shaped leaf.
The bottomland along the stream turned out to be a bonanza for non-spermatophytes, with at least five ferns in evidence. These are early fronds of Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis), so named because it dies back after the first frost.
And as an added bonus, a completely different division of the vascular plants: Equisetophyta, the horsetails. This drift of plants, per one general guide, is Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense).
We then took a quick drive and climb to the summit, finding hawkweed along the roadside and blueberries as we mounted the stairs. Up top, there are a few tiny patches of Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule)—I think I prefer Moccasin Flower for its common name. Also some nonreproducing American Chestnut trees (Castanea dentata). We went in search of Checkerberry but only found a group of five-plus Mourning Cloak butterflies (Nymphalis antiopa).
Also scratching out a living on the summit, along with the Table Mountain Pine, is the leather-leaved Blackjack Oak (Quercus marilandica).
Threaded
As I was saying: we have come/ (or are we still going?) to a/ point where it is necessary to/ speak at cross purposes with what/ we are saying. It is because what-/ ever we were saying so failed to/ hit the mark. Now at last we know that/ saying one thing requires saying/ the opposite in order to keep the/ whole statement from being like/ a Hollywood set. Perhaps it would/ be better to be silent, but a) someone/ else would be speaking; and b) it/ wouldn’t keep us from going and we/ would continue doing what we/ are doing.
—John Cage, “Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?” (1961), collected in Silence
Something useful
A brilliant idea: injecting low-tech graphics into a woefully constrained communications channel: kottke.org collects the best examples of sparktweets.
Nicht lachend
One more casualty of the SEOing of everything: witty headlines. (I differ with Jakob Neilsen on this point.) David Wheeler attends a copy editors’ workshop. I have no problem with mundane headlines for hard news stories. But for a magazine article about cooking, what’s wrong with a little kick?
Please give
Recent disasters, natural and man-made, in Japan, Haiti, the Gulf of Mexico call out to us: we want to give time and money to alleviate suffering and mitigate environmental damage. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But several columnists have pointed out that the need for charitable giving is a 24/7/365 thing (among them Holden Karnofsky at GiveWell). The earthquake victims are still under duress even after their tour through the news cycle. Often, what’s needed most at a disaster scene isn’t what’s easiest to fit in an envelope. Donated funds that are earmarked for relief of a particular calamity hamper organizations’ ability to deploy resources where they are most needed.
The best way to help is to establish a long-term relationship with a few select organizations, and to make unrestricted gifts. There is a handful of groups that I have helped for ten years or more, through thick and mostly through thin: there’s been maybe a year following a layoff when I wasn’t able to give. But when times are flush, I try to give more, and to more organizations.
To the extent that a particular sharp event cracks open your wallet, keep the relationship going. I made my first contribution to the American Red Cross in the aftermath of 9/11, and I’ve been giving slowly but steadily since.
Annoying Habit #92
Mom (seeing me making slides): “Again?”
Me: “So?”
Mom: “Why not try writing for a change?”
Me: “Excuse me, this is my slide journal.”
Mom: “I mean writing a paper.”
Me: “Ugh! Who even uses that word?”
Mom: “I see a lot of white. Where does the writing come in?”
—Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, ch. 12
At the park: 43
Dave and M. K. have installed new nestboxes for Prothonotary Warblers (Protonotoria citrea) in clusters near some of our duck boxes, in some cases sharing the same pole. Today was out first check of boxes in four weeks. Since that time in April, five boxes have hatched out, two boxes have new clutches, and, alas, one nest has failed (in addition to a failed nest that we cleaned out last month).
General bird life was a little quiet, although we did see several Great Egrets (Ardea alba) stalking the shallows, and White-eyed Vireos (Vireo griseus) made themselves heard. In the openish woods by box #13 and the observation tower, I found a couple patches of Quaker Ladies (Houstonia caerulea).
On the walk back along the boardwalk, Richard ID’d this pair of Northern Water Snakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon).
Thompson WMA
We set off down the Trillium Trail on the western edge of the Thompson Wildlife Management Aera, and we indeed did find trilliums. In abundance. Heck, you don’t even need to leave the parking lot, if that’s your thing. The species found here is Trillium grandiflorum, which blooms white and fades to pink and purple as it sets seed. Formerly, a patch of Nodding Trillium (T. cernuum) could be found on the property, but no more, it would seem.
Thompson is on the Blue Ridge, southwest of Sky Meadows SP; farther to the southwest, across Interstate 66 and Manassas Gap, is Shenandoah National Park.
Karyn showed us the way to two orchids, the Larger Yellow Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium calceolus var. pubescens), with its penchant for growing at the end of pipestem trails off the fire road, and the Showy Orchis (Orchis spectabilis), which is showy in comparison only to other members of the genus.
I’m beginning to understand the Avenses (Geum sp.), but these members of the Rose family are still perplexing. One clue that seems to work is that the basal leaves are a darker green, almost like wintergreen. We looked at Carrion Flower (Smilax herbacea), the smilax without thorns. Lots of Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum), a mystery boneset not yet in flower, bellworts, two ragworts, Eupatoriums in past and future fruit. Newcomb says that the leaves of Horse Balm (Collinsonia canadensis) smell of citronella when crushed, but Bella noted the even stronger smell of agaric mushrooms.
I tried to avoid the distractions of warbler song. I heard my first Wood Thrush of the year.
When is a violet not violet? When it’s green. And, in fact, the Green Violet (Hybanthum concolor) is not in the same genus with the other violets. Down the fire road where it meets a stream that eventually feeds Goose Creek, we also found Viola trilobata and V. cucullata.