I am in the Greenville/Spartanburg area of South Carolina, and it’s all green and the weather is warm—no need for a jacket. And I got to see Snowball the Cockatoo dance (it looks much like this), and dance to several songs with different beats. (I also learned that, after practice, Snowball learned to dance to Dave Brubeck’s jazz classic “Take Five” (see the song here), which is in 5/4 time. You try dancing to that!) Remember that this sulphur-crested cockatoo remains the only individual animal ever shown to move rhythmically to a beat, varying his dancing to match the song. He is said to have seventeen dance moves, and I saw a bunch of them.
It was a truly stunning display of animal behavior, and I will put up some videos I took when I get back to Chicago. I also received many presents from my affable hosts, including wonderful pastries, a Snowball book, customized buttons, a Drosophila mug, and so on, followed by a great dinner at Stella’s Southern Bistro (I had the pickled Florida rock shrimp, followed by “Beeler’s Farm Pork Ribeye & Stuffed Carolina Quail, with laurel aged rice & Sea Island red pea hoppin’ john, fava beans, fines herbs, applewood bacon jus.” That was fantastic, with the quail very juicy and gamey and the local pork ribeye cooked with a bit of pinkness in the middle. I have eaten well.
At noon I lecture on evolution at Furman University, sign copies of WEIT, and have a BBQ dinner with the local humanist group. Life is good. But I will be occupied much of the day, and posting is likely to be light. I do my best.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is using her usual method to gain entry to the house, but his staff is outside:
Hili: I’m afraid you are not at home.
A: No, I’m not, because I’m taking pictures of you.
Hili: In that case I will stop banging on the window.
Hili: Obawiam się, że nie ma cię w domu.
Ja: Bo robię ci zdjęcie.
Hili: W takim razie przestaję pukać do okna.
Ooh, a challenge!
I did that, but as I suspected I found it boring. (Except when the melody was on, which reminded me of local folk songs.) Too little variation to improvise over, I think.
I recall Richard Furman as an example of one of the many Southern religious leaders who used the Bible to defend slavery. About three-quarters of the way through this linked page http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2896 is an excerpt from an 1838 correspondence entitled “Exposition of the views of the Baptists relative to the coloured population in the United States in communication to the Governor of South-Carolina” where he correctly states “The right of holding slaves is clearly established by the Holy Scriptures, both by precept (law) and example.” He finishes by saying “In proving this subject justifiable by Scriptural authority, its morality is also proved; for the Divine Law never sanctions immoral actions.”
The above correspondence was published in 1838, Furman died in 1825.
Ghastly man.
Well, it sounds as if his eponymous school has evolved a bit, then, to be hosting Jerry’s talk at least.
That is definitely a quote to remember!
OMGourmandizer! The food sounds divine and to die for! 😉
(‘*her* staff is outside’… Hili, the first transgender kitte)
*kitteh*
The Jazz video is brilliant too.
Hili’s dialogue is so funny today. I would love to share it on Facebook, but I’m afraid it would require too much back story.
Oh, Take Five is easy. It’s an interrupted waltz. It’s never one-two-three-four-five, but always ONE-two-three-ONE-two.
Again, think of a waltz but with a step left out every other measure.
It’s just like the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV42rvV2WP8&t=19m19s
Cheers,
b&
That would work of course, but still be quite difficult because of the swapping of lead foot all the time. You’d have to practice – I can imagine getting quite tangled up if you didn’t concentrate.
My friends will take that challenge.
Songs with odd time signatures can be fun. I often ask people to hum the opening bass line from Money. People never get it right. They always add an extra note as if it’s a march in 4/4 time. But it’s in 7/4 which gives it that unsettled restless sound.
The second instrumental part is actually in 4/4 as David Gilmour was having was having trouble composing a solo to go with the original bass part. The guest musician on sax didn’t have this problem in the first instrumental. I think the song actually works better with the 2nd instrumental in 4/4, though it’s tedious to play on the bass. Chromatic runs, boo.
I think it’s also one of the last songs Waters wrote and played without using drop-D tuning.
This morning for breakfast I had some yogurt, peanut butter, and cherry jam. The brand was “Danish Orchards”, which the label says was produced by Scandic Foods of Warsaw, Poland, under license from Scandic Food of Denmark (distributed in the US by http://www.acmefood.com/), and labeled ‘Product of Poland’.
Cherry jam, product of Poland.
Is there any possibility that some of the cherries in that jam, even a homeopathic percentage, are cherries that Hili supervised the picking of?
When I have seen videos of Snowball dancing, he seems to favor his left foot, and as a left-hander myself I picked that up. Now and then I notice an animal that seems to be left pawed, and I wonder what the incidence of leftness is in the animal world.