Central Library, Indianapolis

There's hope yet

Human ingenuity + nature's robustness gives me hope for the future.

Shipwrecked!

For anyone in the Indianapolis area who reads this before Sunday afternoon (in other words, all 0.5 of you)...

The Phoenix Theatre is holding its last 3 showings of Shipwrecked! this weekend. I just caught it myself; Charles Goad is captivating in the lead role, from the moment the lights begin to dim until the bitter end. I'll admit that I felt the play drag a wee bit, but some of the funniest moments come near the end, and overall it was well worth it.

The deadpan humor kept everyone smiling, and Queen Victoria had the audience roaring in laughter. I thought Charles nearly cracked up himself at that point.

Very little to dislike, much to cherish, I cannot recommend this play highly enough. I only hope I get to catch Charles Goad in another role this flamboyant.

What have we come to?

Texas is preparing to execute someone who is quite possibly, even probably, innocent. They're getting good at executing innocent people.

What's perhaps more disturbing is Scalia's recent dissent in the Troy Davis case:

This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent.

Read that again. Fundamentally, Scalia is questioning whether once convicted in a fair trial, an innocent person has a Constitutional right to be freed, or even spared execution.

I think he's gone completely round the bend. Read the preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Now read it again. This is the core, defining sentence for the Constitution. This justifies its very existence, and the existence of the government which it authorizes. We create and authorize the government to act on our behalf.

The Constitution is not a weapon against us. It is our best defense against tyranny, against injustice. Can there be a greater injustice than our government killing innocent people when there is an extremely simple alternative?

This is not collateral damage from a missile strike in Baghdad. This is a conscious decision to kill someone rather than commute a sentence when there are clear signs of a failure in the judicial system.

What madness is this?

And Another Thing

I was quite surprised to discover that one of my favorite authors was continuing the work of another of my favorite authors. Eoin Colfer has written a 6th book in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.

• Press release
• Amazon link

I'm looking forward to reading And Another Thing, although I really need to go back and read the 5th book in the series again. Maybe even the 4th book, since I found the 5th difficult to grok the first time around.

If you've never read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or its (now 5) sequels, I highly recommend checking out Life, the Universe and Everything. Read chapter 16 (Arthur Dent's encounter with Agrajag) and if you don't laugh out loud...check your pulse.

Douglas Adams, wherever you are, I hope you get a chuckle out of Colfer's book. We miss you.

Clifty Falls State Park

Little Clifty

Roget's Thesaurus for the iPhone

I can't find it, and it's driving me crazy.

I don't want a thesaurus in dictionary form. If you've never experienced the joy of browsing a schema-based thesaurus, you really haven't lived.

You don't have to understand the Dewey Decimal system to understand that once you've found the library section on cooking, if you wander in one direction you find your way to hunting books, and past that you'll discover books on horticulture and gardening. The other direction? Kitchen remodeling, home improvement, housekeeping.

See how easy that was? You started looking for one concept and found closely related ones nearby. That's what a real Roget's Thesaurus is like.

For example, pulling from the classic 1911 edition:

Entry #444 contains synonyms for spectator
#445: Optical instruments
#446: Visibility
#447: Invisibility
#448: Appearance (including a cross-reference back to #443, imperfect vision)

And so forth. A dictionary-style thesaurus can never capture the raw power intrinsic to this structure.

Please, someone, anyone? I could write one myself, theoretically, but it's the licensed content that would really make it tick. Content from 1911, while free of copyright, wouldn't be nearly as useful as a modern data set.

Indy Irish Fest 2009

>

Sort of, redux

I might have enjoyed this interview on the radio tonight, but I ended up screaming (literally) instead. 36 instances of "sort of" (thanks for an honest transcript, Fresh Air) in less than 24 minutes. And Terry Gross talks nearly half that time, so he was averaging roughly 3 "sort of"s per minute.

Please, if you're going on national TV or radio, please learn to swallow the "sort of".

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Indianapolis

Greek Fest 2009

Sort of inextricably intertwined

I was horrified this morning on WFYI to hear a local piece on an arts luncheon, with someone asserting that the lunch would bring together people who are, in his words, "sort of inextricably intertwined."

Contemplate that phrase for a while. Wrap your brain around it, I dare you.

Sort of inextricably intertwined

I often hear athletes use waffle words; after thoroughly destroying another team: "we sorta came out in the second half and established ourselves," for example. Why the "sorta"?

This, though...this is a semantic nightmare.

Sort of inextricably intertwined

Thus the pernicious effect of "kinda/kind of" or "sorta/sort of" as space fillers as we search for the right words. Don't let this disease infect your speech. Better to use "um" and sound inept than use "sort of" and risk sounding like an idiot.

On the other hand, perhaps this is the way to achieve immortality: many of us will remember his words far longer than had he not used "sort of".

When I'm gone

A few requests:

• No funeral, just a wake after my cremation.
• No one who doesn't know me well is allowed to speak. I'm not interested in having a stranger (mis)interpret my life or death.
• Play Ben Sollee's "Panning for Gold".

And have fun, please. Play cards. Hearts, horse, and oh heck would be fine. Have the Dailys sing a few hymns (cousins, we need to make sure that occasional tradition doesn't lapse). A small jazz, bluegrass, or blues band with dinner would be delightful, but optional.

I'm not anticipating my wake any time in the next couple of decades, but as family traumas have recently demonstrated, life can change abruptly.

Life itself is an ephemeral epiphany.

Squirrel photo crasher

You've probably already seen this, but if you haven't, it should lighten your day a bit.

At least my cousin Lori didn't jump in front of the subjects of photos when she was a frequent crasher.

Three-minute fiction

NPR is running the second round of their three-minute fiction contest. I missed the first round, but chanced into hearing the announcement of round two today. 200 words later, and I'm in; we'll see if it gets mentioned at any point. I'm definitely not holding my breath.

Of Light and Living Rooms

As I sit at Borders, sipping my peach kula (highly recommended) and reading a book on lighting for photography, it is evident that I need to bite the bullet and convert my living room into a studio. (Kathryn recommended this years ago, but per usual it takes me a while to internalize good advice.)

I don't watch TV, I watch a Netflix DVD once in a blue moon. Only my cat would lament the repurposing of my living room, and she doesn't get much of a vote.

The house is too small for entertaining anyway, and I haven't had anyone over in years. Let the remodeling begin!

(Anyone know how I can get rid of an oversized 1990s era TV?)

-- Post From My iPhone

Lucas Oil Stadium

My last NFL experience for the indefinite future. Impressive stadium, no doubt. It desperately needs more culinary variety, and a few more escalators would certainly be nice.

Thanks to Terry for the tickets, and to Joey for joining me (and for springing for some mighty fine chicken fingers & fries).

Thanks, Eagles

Thanks a ton, Philadelphia. Now that Vick is back in the league, I have to stick to my word and boycott the NFL.

Hopefully they'll cut him so I can have my hopes dashed again in the postseason when the Colts falter.

Indiana Blues

The Indiana Star has an overview of some of local Indiana blues musicians. I'm a fan of Rev. Peyton, but now I have a few more names on my list of musicians to check out.

Indiana State Fair

As much of a disappointment the chocolate-covered bacon is, the Beal Street Blues Band is quite a treat. They also call themselves the Yank Rachell Tribute Band.

Of course, the peach slider slush was wonderful as usual.

Great American Music Tour, 2009

Chicago. Memphis. Clarksdale. New Orleans. Nashville.

As I drove through Bean Blossom today, it occurred to me that this year I've at least passed through, and in some cases caught live music at, many if not most of the cities and towns associated with the great American musical forms. Blues, jazz, bluegrass, rock & roll, country.

Next year, I really need to go to the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival.

Circus City Fest

Green, Indiana

One amusing coincidence I discovered this week (purely by coincidence!) is that of the four (now ten, see the updates below) "Green" towns & cities I'm aware of in Indiana, three are hosting county fairs this week.

• Greenfield, Hancock County, July 10-17
• Greensburg, Decatur County, July 10-17
• Greentown, Howard County, July 13-19

Greenwood, regrettably, is missing, but only because Johnson County's fair is held in Franklin, starting on the 19th.

I hope to hit Greentown tomorrow, completing my personal trifecta, having been to Greensburg and Greenfield already this week.

(How was the discovery of this coincidence a coincidence? I was driving from the Fulton county fair Tuesday to Peru for their Circus festival when I heard a promo for the Howard county fair on a Peru radio station.)

Update: Out of curiosity, I googled "Greenville Indiana" and discovered there is such a place. Per Wikipedia, it was supposed to be the county seat for Floyd county, which hosted its fair last week. Darned New Albany meddler.

PPS: It occurred to me that Wikipedia would be a good way to figure out how many other Greens I missed. Per the Towns / Cities in Indiana categories, there are ten in all: Greencastle, Greendale, Greenfield, Greensburg, Greenwood, Greens Fork, Greensboro, Greentown, Greenville, and Etna Green. I can only imagine how fun it is to tell people you're from Etna Green, Indiana.

Tourism 101

I'm on a quest to visit all the county fairs in Indiana. Not this year specifically, but someday.

Now, let me ask you this: how difficult should it be to locate the county fairgrounds?

Marion County has a difficult to reach location, but it's easy to identify on a map, and their website has a map on the front page.

Most counties don't have a dedicated website for their fairgrounds, but many have information available through Purdue, and others through local newspapers, chambers of commerce, etc.

But they apparently assume that if you want to go, you already know where you're going.

Look at Clinton County, for example. So far as I can tell, the best place to look for information is here, via Purdue.

They have an address in Frankfort for contact information. Is this the fairgrounds? Beats me. I've been reduced in some occasions to looking at satellite imagery for addresses to see if it looks promising.

One of the best (well, one of the only) general resources is Countyfairgrounds, USA, but they can't pinpoint many of them closer than a town/city name.

I've have spent literally hours looking for fairgrounds before/during my excursions, and I've been to only 6 so far this week. C'mon, Hoosiers, you can do better than this.

Update: Of course, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm having better success with the Purdue Extension website. There is a "Directions" link associated with most (all?) counties that I had previously not noticed or had ignored that has addresses for the fairgrounds.

More traveling ponderables

What, precisely, is the "panting crew" about which I was just warned
via electronic sign?

Golden light, hard work, and good timing

Jim Richardson writes about one of his aerial photographs, and the work that it entailed.

Mainly, I wanted to make sure all my 1.5 readers saw the photograph. Just gorgeous.

Traveling ponderables

Is "Nameless Creek" nameless?


View Larger Map

Notable quotes

Courtesy IndyStar.com:

"A shooting makes everybody come out together," said Harmonie Wescott, 20. "It makes this place like a family reunion of the neighborhood."

Banan

I was extremely fortunate tonight to be introduced to Banan, a traditional Persian singer. As soon as I turned on Radio Darvish in iTunes I heard his transcendent baritone, and rushed to find a copy of the tune, "Dele Khasteh". Thank you, Apple, for taking more of my money.

I highly recommend seeking out his music.

21st Street runs...forever?

21st Street rolls on and on
Past a Gem, Indiana
Drive by Philadelphia
East through Greenfield (hello, McKenzie Road)
Dissuaded by dust & diesel, I turn south
But in my mind's eye, 21st and I will hit the Atlantic
Someday.

Karl Malden

It's an odd, and sad, coincidence that "A Streetcar Named Desire" showed up in my mailbox from Netflix the day we learned of Karl Malden's death. To make it just a bit more poignant: the DVD was broken.

Digital mayhem

I decided it was time to simplify my online web & email hosting, mainly to save money. I was already committed to MobileMe, since its features make my iPhone much more useful, and my website wasn't nearly important enough to warrant another significant expenditure on top of that.

8-10 hours later, I think I finally have everything sorted out, although my phone is being a little stubborn about my new email provider for reasons I can only guess at. An entire day lost to tidying up my digital life, and now I get to figure out how to incorporate iPhoto or Aperture into my workflow so I can start managing my photo galleries again. Surely that'll be another 8 hours, minimum.

Sometimes that shack in Montana is very appealing.

Reclaiming our heritage

I was fortunate yesterday to encounter the Ridgefield Subdivision Nature Park in Fishers, Indiana. This is a 6.5 acre wildlife- and people-friendly stretch of prairie and meadow that was recently a flat, Canada geese-infested stretch of grass.

The Ridgefield subdivision saved several thousand dollars the very first year by replacing the grass with native plants. The financial and ecological benefits are amazing.

I've never wanted to live in Hamilton County (oy, the traffic!), but if the rest of the county follows the lead of Ridgefield, it could be tempting. Thanks to Dan McCord and the Hamilton County Urban Conservation Association for leading the way.

Related links:

• Indiana Native Plant and Wildlife Society


• Wild Ones

It started out as Hogwarts, now it's Lord of the Flies!

If you're at least 30 years old, watch this video.

That is all.

iPhone and device convergence

PCWorld asks whether TomTom for the iPhone points the way towards the end of dedicated, single-purpose devices.

In comparison to Apple's intuitive touch interface, I've found it highly frustrating to deal with other devices. Simply setting the volume on an XM receiver yesterday was a maddening exercise. The conference phone at my office has a screen with labels for the buttons beneath them, but I keep expecting the labels themselves to be useful. My two-way pager has one of the worst interfaces I've ever used. Hardware manufacturers tend to be incompetent at interface design.

So as much as possible, I'll gladly replace single-purpose devices with my iPhone. More convenient, vastly better interface, always with me: what's not to like?

On the other hand, as a photographer, I would never replace an SLR with an iPhone, but I'll have my phone with me more often than my "real" camera. If I traveled extensively through major metropolitan areas, I might need a dedicated turn by turn GPS device. I still need a pager, because my cell phone is not nearly annoying enough, and doesn't hold a charge as long.

So no, we'll continue to have dedicated devices, but hopefully most consumers will need fewer, and hopefully Apple's strengths in interface design will compel other gadget manufacturers to pay more attention to usability.

Empathy

If Solomon exhibited the amoral, blind justice that conservatives claim they want, he would have cut the baby in half.

Millenium Park II

Millenium Park, Chicago

Mumuki

I was fortunate tonight to see the Butler Jazz Ensembles perform at Clowes Hall, under the direction of Matt Pivec, with Fred Sturm guest conducting.

Overall, the performance was quite good, with one notable exception: Mumuki, by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla.

It was marvelous.

Brian Grimm on cello and Nana Omori on piano put on a wonderful performance. I definitely want to hear more of Piazzolla's works (apparently he created around 3000 songs, so that shouldn't be difficult) and I hope Brian and Nana aren't graduating this year; with luck, I'll get to see them again next season.

Trip photos

Speaking of decent photographs, I've placed some of my favorites from my trip down South (and a variety of parade photos, whose quality doesn't thrill me, but I wanted to capture a bit of the feel of a Lundi Gras parade) in my gallery.

Josef Sudek

Thanks to The Online Photographer for bringing this Czech master to my attention. If I could generate just a few photographs of that quality in my lifetime, I'd feel pretty good.

I know what I want for Christmas

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/seitz-d3.shtml

$38k? Not sure who in my family loves me that much, but I'll ask around.

Trip recap, by the numbers

Hours	271
Miles	3301
Hotels	6

	Canon 1D	Canon 400D	iPhone 3G
Image count	1139	1134	137
Memory used	4.5GB	10GB	47MB

Post-processing time for the photos: ∞

National Corvette Museum, Bowling Green

Nashville bluegrass

John at the parade

Proteus krewe parade

Preparing for a Lundi Gras parade

Lafayette cemetery #1

Anne Rice's former home

Peyton's childhood home

Sunset over Mobile Bay

Florida is burning

Proscribed burn, I think.

Jean's mural

Panoramic photo of Grandma's room

Home at last

Queenie

St. George

Leaving Alabama

Approaching Fort Morgan

Boarding the ferry

Dauphin Island

Alabama

Mississippi

Lake Ponchartrain

Homochitto National Forest

Natchez Trace

Serendipity

Through pure dumb luck, I have discovered two Mississippi institutions
in one evening.

The first was the Blue & White Restaurant in Tunica, where I enjoyed
the decadent tower posted earlier. I found it by driving past it; I
love finding locally-owned restaurants, and that certainly fit the bill.

The second was the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, where I'm currently
writing this. I'll write more later about Rat and his establishment,
but suffice it to say that this is the most unusual inn at which I've
ever had the good fortune to stay. I found it via my phone; I drove
past it twice in the dark.

Sent from my iPhone

Now that's Southern cooking

Mississippi

Memphis

Tennessee

Arkansas

Whacked

Someone took a weed whacker to Missouri's trees. Apparently an ice
storm was followed by a wind storm this week. Along I-55 near New
Madrid, I'd say at least 80% of the trees were hit, with most now
being 20-30 feet tall. Pretty ugly.

Sent from my iPhone

Missouri

Illinois

The Travellin' Blues

Here I am, cruising towards Memphis and Clarksdale, listening to the
blues on XM, and I left my harmonicas at home. All this practice time
wasted.

Sent from my iPhone

Or Photoboard

Collage for the iPhone

Fun tool, looking forward to using it on the road next week.

Charlie says hi

Where Words Prevail

I just finished watching a documentary on Cicely Berry, Voice Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, titled Where Words Prevail.

The website captures more about her work and the documentary than I could hope to here; I merely wish to draw attention to it. If you love theater, if you love Shakespeare, if you teach, if you value creativity...heck, even if none of those apply, I still recommend it.

Yet another regret: why in the world didn't I participate in theater in high school?