Journal -4/20/97

`Chasing Amy`

April 20, 1997

Nancy and I saw Chasing Amy yesterday at the Avon. See it. It's very very funny.

The flood warnings for the Merrimack River for yesterday morning expired without any flooding. The wind and rain ended. Today's weather was extraordinary. A gorgeous spring day. The first and last nice day of all time.

We went to Watchemocket Cove. We went to the Looff Carousel in East Providence.

I counted 137 ring billed gulls, 34 Atlantic mute swans, 7 mallards, 6 house sparrows, 4 starlings, 3 red breasted mergansers, 2 buffleheads, 1 cormorant, 1 snowy egret, 1 mourning dove, 1 American crow, 1 herring gull, and of course 1 Canada goose - the ever present Igor. I watched a mallard drake try to drown a rival. He held him under water for a long time but the victim squirmed out of the head lock and high tailed it out of there. The aggressor got the girl.

I tried deconstructing a couple of paragraphs from yesterday's entries.

How can I be this old?

46

My knee aches,

the mysterious knee thing

my shoulder aches, my hands do whatever they do rather badly,

repetitive strain injury, repetitive strange injury, scrivener's palsy

I'm chronically tired,

burnout, work addiction

I lost my umbrella,

umbrella perdido

and I don't know what a meme is...

Reader Jan Yarnot provided this definition of meme: sort of like a gene of the mind. The source is Richard Dawkins, THE SELFISH GENE,

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. So I guess global warming is a meme.

I remember the Wright brothers launching their flying machine like it was yesterday.

do I really need to explain who the Wright Brothers were? Do you really think I was around in 1903?

I remember Henry Ford automating automobile production.

Thanks to Henry Ford's assembly line, you could buy a 1908 Ford Model T "in any color as long as it's black". He made the "horse less carriage" affordable for the public.

I remember Benjamin Franklin flying his kite.

There are some people who think Franklin's experiments with electricity caused global warming.

I remember Pangaea.

Alfred Wegener (1912) considered that: 200 million years ago: All of the continental mass of the earth was one large continent, Pangaea. 150 million years ago: the continent began to break up, and the various continental masses started to drift toward present positions.

I could walk from Africa to South America then.

It is generally accepted that at the time of Pangaea, Africa and South America were attached. The fossil record and the magnetic record confirm this.

See historical info from USGS.

And the birds hadn't even evolved yet.

The Lives of Birds speculates that bird migration patterns are a return to ancient nesting grounds established before Pangaea split up. The problem with this theory is that the birds in question hadn't necessarily evolved yet.

And yet they remember their ancestral homes

Following this theory, the Arctic tern's migration to Antarctica is a return to some ancestral bird home.

in Gondwanaland.

Pangaea separated into Gondwanaland and Laurasia, which then further separated into the continents we know today. Antarctica was once part of Gondwanaland. Some species of birds migrate from the far north as far south as Antarctica.

They need not ask themselves what was your face before you were born

"What was your face before you were born?" is a typical Zen koan (or kung-an)

as they know their homes before their species evolved.

The Lives of Birds speculates that bird migration patterns are a return to ancient nesting grounds established before Pangaea split up. The problem with this theory is that the birds in question hadn't necessarily evolved yet.

Do we too long for homes we knew before mankind evolved?

this could explain religion - think about it

If I were a walrus and you were a carpenter,

The Walrus and the Carpenter mixed in with a Bobby Darrin song frequently used as an example of the subjunctive.

would you marry me anyway?

"IF I WERE A CARPENTER" by Tim Harden, Bobby Darin

If I were a carpenter/ And you were a lady/ Would you marry me anyway?/

... I am the walrus

a Beatles song

Or was that the cheese?

I am the Cheese a scary novel by Robert Cormier

Ashes ashes all fall down

A children's game often reported to be a reference to the Black Death:

"Ring Around The Rosy A Pocket Full Of Posies Ashes, Ashes All Fall Down"

Also referenced in the Grateful Dead song, Throwing Stones.

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How can I be this old?	46
My knee aches,	the mysterious knee thing
my shoulder aches, my hands do whatever they do rather badly,	repetitive strain injury, repetitive strange injury, scrivener's palsy
I'm chronically tired,	burnout, work addiction
I lost my umbrella,	umbrella perdido
and I don't know what a meme is...	Reader Jan Yarnot provided this definition of meme: sort of like a gene of the mind. The source is Richard Dawkins, THE SELFISH GENE, Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. So I guess global warming is a meme.
I remember the Wright brothers launching their flying machine like it was yesterday.	do I really need to explain who the Wright Brothers were? Do you really think I was around in 1903?
I remember Henry Ford automating automobile production.	Thanks to Henry Ford's assembly line, you could buy a 1908 Ford Model T "in any color as long as it's black". He made the "horse less carriage" affordable for the public.
I remember Benjamin Franklin flying his kite.	There are some people who think Franklin's experiments with electricity caused global warming.
I remember Pangaea.	Alfred Wegener (1912) considered that: 200 million years ago: All of the continental mass of the earth was one large continent, Pangaea. 150 million years ago: the continent began to break up, and the various continental masses started to drift toward present positions.
I could walk from Africa to South America then.	It is generally accepted that at the time of Pangaea, Africa and South America were attached. The fossil record and the magnetic record confirm this. See historical info from USGS.
And the birds hadn't even evolved yet.	The Lives of Birds speculates that bird migration patterns are a return to ancient nesting grounds established before Pangaea split up. The problem with this theory is that the birds in question hadn't necessarily evolved yet.
And yet they remember their ancestral homes	Following this theory, the Arctic tern's migration to Antarctica is a return to some ancestral bird home.
in Gondwanaland.	Pangaea separated into Gondwanaland and Laurasia, which then further separated into the continents we know today. Antarctica was once part of Gondwanaland. Some species of birds migrate from the far north as far south as Antarctica.
They need not ask themselves what was your face before you were born	"What was your face before you were born?" is a typical Zen koan (or kung-an)
as they know their homes before their species evolved.	The Lives of Birds speculates that bird migration patterns are a return to ancient nesting grounds established before Pangaea split up. The problem with this theory is that the birds in question hadn't necessarily evolved yet.
Do we too long for homes we knew before mankind evolved?	this could explain religion - think about it

If I were a walrus and you were a carpenter,	The Walrus and the Carpenter mixed in with a Bobby Darrin song frequently used as an example of the subjunctive.
would you marry me anyway?	"IF I WERE A CARPENTER" by Tim Harden, Bobby Darin If I were a carpenter/ And you were a lady/ Would you marry me anyway?/
... I am the walrus	a Beatles song
Or was that the cheese?	I am the Cheese a scary novel by Robert Cormier
Ashes ashes all fall down	A children's game often reported to be a reference to the Black Death: "Ring Around The Rosy A Pocket Full Of Posies Ashes, Ashes All Fall Down" Also referenced in the Grateful Dead song, Throwing Stones.