Lissa and I were visited this afternoon by an elegant little lesser goldfinch, first sitting on a sprinkler head, then perched on the iceplant picking out some sort of meal. We had them last year, light enough to perch on the sunflowers and eat their seeds, but we’d both forgotten, and had to pull out the bird books to identify him. I’ll have to put out sunflower seeds for him. Hope he hangs around.
names
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.
This whole naming thing is incredibly important.
I do not write fiction, but if I did, here is what I would write. It’s a story about a lonely middle-aged man who lives in a little town in the desert of California. These are pathetic towns, where the marginal go to live, all real estate fantasy and sad tourism. Imagine an old weed-grown miniature golf course that no one’s played on in years. I once sat in a McDonalds in Yucca Valley and saw a poor old leathery woman buy a small cup of coffee, drink it half down and then fill the empty space with those little plastic things of half-and-half. Food.
The man befriends a desert rat of a woman, and they sit in her backyard on spring days and she teaches him the names of the birds that frequent the feeder she lovingly stocks with seed. Knowing the names of the birds becomes incredibly important for the man, where knowledge is dominion and the name is the token of the knowledge.
I do not know my Bible well enough to be sure, but that’s what I think is going on in that passage of Genesis I quote above. God bids Adam name things, and therein lies the human’s dominion over every beast of the field, and the fowl of the air.
I love to learn the names of things.
Still Dead
The Philadelphia Daily News concludes: Johnny Unitas still dead.
Too Weird
OK, this is weird. Some guy just gave me 125 blogshares. I think it’s a scheme to get me to link to his blog and thus drive up its value. I think it might have just worked.
GNOME 2.4 Diaries
I finally overcame the obstacles and inertia and got a working working GNOME 2.3.x built. I had to bail out on the much preferable jhbuild scripts because of some unexplainable auto tools problems, but prayer to the God of CVS and the sacrifice of five sheep seems to have brought some marginal success. I still don’t wanna be a hacker, but now at least I can play one a bit to get some work done.
Cinco de Mayo Redux
Come to think of it, we could celebrate my birthday today. Nora got me Bagombo Snuff Box. (We have a Vonnegut thing.) Lissa made me sugar-free strawberry pie. (We have a sugar-free thing.)
One time when young I was on the radio on May 5, and I played the Beatles Birthday and dedicated it to Karl Marx:
You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too – yeah.
Dunno why, but that has always amused me, to this day bringing a grin. I amuse myself, and believe that is a good thing.
You say it’s your birthday
Well it’s my birthday too – yeah
You say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you.
Cinco de Mayo
I’m sure beating the French totally rocked at the time, but things in recent decades have gotten out of hand. So let us today celebrate not cerveza, in which a minor Mexican holiday is transmogrified into an opportunity for the sales of beer. Let us instead celebration the liberation of The Netherlands from the Nazis. Could drink beer I guess, if you want to.
K Times 4
Baseball’s very mathematical, a game of discreet events. I think that’s why it works so well on radio. Just one thing happens at a time. Fastball up. Breaking ball away. Outfield shifted around toward left. Jones delivers, and it’s a ground ball to short – Gregorio up with it, fires to first, in time for the out. There is much more to it than that, of course, texture beneath the discreet events, but the steps can all be captured verbally.
I grew up on Vin Scully (go ahead, click on the link, it’s worth it, I’ll wait). When I was a kid, had a record album, a centennial history of baseball, and on it Scully told the story of a pitcher who had four strikeouts in a single inning. That is possible because of rule 6.05(c) , which spells out in rather complicated detail the consequences should the catcher not catch the third strike while first base is unoccupied. Four strikeouts in an inning is possible if a batter reaches first safely under 6.05(c) and the pitcher strikes out the side.
It’s a rare occurence – 24 times in National League history (twice last year!) and 18 times in American League history. Chuck Finley has amazingly done it thrice.
Out at the ballpark this afternoon, I saw it happen. It was Triple-A ball, the local nine (the Isotopes) against the Salt Lake Stingers. Greg Jones, a right-handed throwing relief pitcher whose statistics suggested no great promise, took the hill in the bottom of the sixth to face ‘Topes second baseman Jesus Medrano. I wish at this point that I kept a better scorecard, and could give you the pitch count, but you will have to settle for this – Medrano swung at a third strike that was in the dirt, it kicked past Stingers catcher Wil Nieves and went to the backstop, Medrano sprinting down to first ahead of Nieves’ throw.
Jones struck out ‘Topes left-fielder Chris Wakeland, Medrano stole second, then Jones walked Chad Allen. Allen is our big trouble at the plate, had tripled earlier, so Jones didn’t seem to want to give him much. Designated hitter Rob Stratton hitting behind Allen is weak, so the walk seemed a safe bet. And sure enough, Stratton K’d, bringing up ‘Topes third bagger Jason Wood. I leaned over to Lissa, as baseball smart know-it-all, and pointed out that Jones had the opportunity for minor baseball history. She gave me a look of confusion, as if she did not fully grasp the elegant possibilities offered by 6.05(c). But Jones did it, and some small piece of Triple-A history is now his.
And the ‘Topes won. It was a sloppy game, but they won.
I’ve not yet seen a triple play in person, nor a no-hitter. But I’ve seen a pitcher strike out four batters in an inning.
Uncle Wen Says Hello
Ran across this treasure today while cleaning:
cactus
The saguaro is an icon of the southwest, so it’s something of a surprise to many to find that we don’t have any of them here in Albuquerque. They pretty much don’t grow anywhere in New Mexico naturally, requiring careful nurturing – winters too cold, etc. But in Tucson, where I spent several days last week, they’re ubiquitious. And such a stunning plan. Maybe it’s because their outstretched arms give them a human form. Whatever. I really got a kick out of driving up the narrow little road to the USGS lab on Tumamoc Hil, seeing the road lined with saguaro and the amazing green-trunked palo verde, still in spring bloom.
Best of all was my good fortune to be in Tucson at the tail end of an ocotillo bloom. I love the desert.