Category Archives: arts

rolling top hits

Rhino Records made a series of CDs of Billboard Top Ten songs for various years. I wonder, if you summed every sequence of 52 consecutive weeks, how many songs would show in those Rolling Top Tens that never made a … Continue reading

Posted in music+verse | Leave a comment

someone please make this movie

I have a very vague – call it abstract – memory of watching the beginning of this movie, but it seems not to exist, so I guess it was a dream. The main character is a spy’s only daughter. Daddy … Continue reading

Posted in cinema, me!me!me! | 1 Comment

RDCB

A generation ago, it was reported that Readers Digest Condensed Books planned an edition of The Bible, provoking obvious jokes that it would cut three Commandments and four Apostles. Now that I’m reading the thing, though, I do see where … Continue reading

Posted in prose, religion | 1 Comment

a question of aspect

The refrain of P. F. Sloan’s song “Let Me Be” (recorded by the Turtles) concludes, I am what I am and that’s all I ever can be. Defiance or fatalism?

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toon trek

A few years ago I decided, having got behind and lost the thread of my favorite webcomics, to start them over; and then developed a more quixotic ambition: to sample as many webcomics as I can find and, more daunting, … Continue reading

Posted in cartoons | 4 Comments

more bent frets

Some simplified meantone guitars (here showing only the first octave): pentatonic (GDAEB); seven naturals; three flats and two sharps; six flats and six sharps.

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31 frets

Here is the neck of a guitar that I’d like to have made someday, if I should ever develop the dexterity to make it worthwhile. The blue stripes show where standard frets would be, for comparison. The tuning is my … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics, music+verse | 2 Comments