IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

Via Bradbblog, Autoblog’s got links to several serious-minded anti-SUV commercials made with the Chevy Tahoe’s gimmick make-your-own-commercial website.

So I went and made one of my own, not so serious but gets the point across.

We used to get this kind of thing in the mail all the time but haven’t since we moved into this building several years ago. So much to our delight the other day we opened the mailbox to find, packed away in a neat little business size envelope, our personal prayer rug. Which comes with instructions printed at the bottom and on the back. The prescription is that we are to stare at the prayer rug until Jesus opens his eyes and stares us down. Then we’re to kneel upon the rug in private, make our prayer, then return the prayer rug with a list of our needs checked off on a handy enclosed form. The prayer rug must be returned, it must not be kept in our possession, because its peculiar so-stated destiny is to be mailed to a second home that needs it.

So it is not our personal prayer rug after all. It’s a two-for-one special prayer rug (or one for two). Which kind of sucks, because I so do like rugs and a paper one wouldn’t gather dust.

I couldn’t possibly have faith in this prayer rug as Jesus isn’t dripping blood from his crown of thorns, but I read the accompanying letter anyway, that tells me about the many who have received blessings through the church, that they are loaning me this prayer rug and that I must return it within 24 hours and that this timing is very important. If I don’t return the rug the next morning then my neglect will break the flow of power. The prayer needs I’m to check off have also a place where I can check mark, “Enclosed is my seed gift to God’s work of $_________”.

I look at the envelope again and see that on the front it reads, “Yours first!” I would be more interested to be the recipient of the envelope that read, “Yours second!” and examine the prayer rug for signs of wear. If any one gets that envelope that reads, “Yours second!” I would love to have a scan of it. ‘K?

The ministry is “Prayer by letters, Saint Matthew’s Churches, P.O. Box 22065, Tulsa, OK”. Their website is here and apparently they’ve had some problems with people accusing them of being…well…scammers. And they must, y’know, be honest folk since they deal with the issue forthrightly on their website.

Saint Matthew’s Churches receives tithes and offerings based on the Scriptures, and uses church donations to buy postage and printing of gospel sermons, books, magazines, and other literature that we give away free of charge. Saint Matthew’s Churches does not sell anything. In its mail sermons, it preaches that God answers prayer, which cannot be construed as a mail scam or mail fraud.

However, the published sermons and sacred literature sent free of charge by Saint Matthew’s Churches crosses the paths of atheists; communists; drug dealers; criminals; the lunatic fringes of society; those who hate the United States, God and Christianity and those who hate us because we are gospel missionaries. They accuse all churches which mail sermons of mail scams and mail fraud.

Now, I would have thought that they would want their prayer rugs to cross the paths of criminals, drug dealers, the lunatic fringes of society (like atheists and communists) and those who hate the United States and God and Christianity, because what an opportunity it would be to minister to us poor sinners. But us sinners apparently just cause them problems then they want nothing to do with us.

Golda Meir, the third Prime Minister of Israel, once said, “We will not roll over and die just to make our enemies happy.” The same is true of Saint Matthew’s Churches and all other churches which are wrongfully accused of mail scams and mail fraud.

Thousands of people are blessed by the church’s mail sermons. Saint Matthew’s Churches understands that not everyone wants to receive our literature. Some who receive one of the gospel books or sermon letters that we send free of charge – and we emphasize “free of charge” - hate gospel literature; from their hatred comes false accusations of mail fraud and mail scams. Honest people just throw the literature into the trash if they do not want to receive it; the literature costs them nothing. St Matthew’s Churches pay all of the costs for printing the literature as well as the postage to mail it. However, some are compelled by their hatred to try and harm the church with false accusations of mail fraud or mail scams.

There are many hurting people who believe in biblical teachings and prayer, and who are grateful to receive St Matthew’s Churches church books and sermon letters free of charge. They don’t believe the false accusations of mail fraud or mail scams. These people write back to Saint Matthew’s Churches requesting prayer; they know that God answers prayer. Because Saint Matthew’s Churches is based upon Christian teachings, St Matthew’s Churches form a friendship with those who are interested in receiving free of charge more of the gospel of Jesus Christ, His saving grace, and His Second Coming. Hundreds of thousands have joined the church and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

They may, as they insist, be honest and have a perpetual motion machine sitting in their back yard to boot, but their prayer rug isn’t anointed with the inky blood of Jesus, so I simply can’t have faith.

Besides, since I have kept the prayer rug in my possession two nights, I have broken the flow of power. There is someone else, supposedly, who will not receive the blessings of this prayer rug because of me. Because I’ve kept it in my sinful hands. I even scanned the thing.

It is not a very attractive rug. If you scroll on past it I’m offering a free internet prayer rug in which Jesus’ eyes are already open (for the instant gratification crowd).

Here is my “Pearls of Wisdom Free Internet Prayer Rug”.

Be careful what you wish for. But I think impeachment of Bush is always a good choice. If you are inclined to take the prayer rug and scribble “Impeach Bush” on it then I would consider it to not be theft but an example of multiplying loaves and fishes.

Yesterday I threw away the paper prayer rug “Saint Matthews Churches” and Rev. Ewing sent me in the mail. And today I regretted it, realizing the prayer rug would have fit the space above the toilet in the bathroom perfectly.

Saint Matthews Churches please send me another paper prayer rug! But make me the second recipient of the “one for two” rug rather than the first. Because I’ve become fixated (though not very) on the idea of finding evidence of the promised second recipients. I want the envelope that reads, “Yours second!”

Damn, the space above the toilet is glaring at me (from behind my back, in the other room, I don’t blog while on the toilet as I don’t have a laptop) saying, “I can’t believe you tossed the prayer rug! You wouldn’t have four years ago. What’s happened to you? Where’s your sense of humor?”

I made a note to myself to go around the blogs today seeing what people had to say about the “I would like you to be our guest for the 2006 Email Insider Summit” all-expenses-paid (even airfare) email sent out by Mediapost on Monday. And it’s interesting to me how many people (some probably legitimately) thought, “Wow, yippee”, even felt a bit squishy about being asked, and responded to their invite only to find out the email was sent out by mistake. Deflation of ego follows. But then, as noted, some of these people had legitimate reason to believe they were being honored with a special VIP invite.

Me? I got said email as well. Of course, I have a headstart in that I know I’ve absolutely no business getting such an email unless someone really fucked up. My ego also isn’t very squishy. I’ve got one but it’s doggedly determined to maintain a state of deflation as a matter of course. And I’ve also got a big dose of rock-flipping skeptic in me, which meets my cynicism and fizzes madly like several packets of Pop Rocks dumped in Coca-Cola. (Burp.) Still, curious, I checked out the price of the summit, which is like two and a half grand. I looked at the resort and yeah said resort looked mighty nice. The pictures were purty.

You could smell the chlorine dappling the conference carpet.

I knew this was all a mistake but I allowed myself the fantasy, for about two seconds total, of what it would be like to stay in the fancy resort, attend three obligatory breakfasts, and run off to visit Arizona relatives. The fantasy was only permitted that two second trial because I was not just confident it was a mistake or a profile-upping fake-out, but that if I did indeed show up for such an event the red lights would go off the minute I walked through the door and they’d usher my obviously-out-of-place body out onto the sidewalk.

I told Marty about it. “Hey, look at what I got in my email.”

Marty said, “What the hell, give it a try. They sent you an invite.”

I replied, “No, it’s going to turn out not to be for real. And even if it isn’t somehow a mistake, hey, this is about email marketing, you think I’m going to trust folks hosting an email summit? Even if it’s not a mistaken invite, it’s not for real.”

Then I checked out blogworld to see if this was being written about yet, who else was going, “What is this?!” But nothing was in Google or Technorati yet. Today I checked and found that posts were popping up all over on the receipt of the VIP invite that turned out to be a mistake. Apparently Mediapost followed up with an email saying it was a mistake and giving info on the event (I didn’t receive one). Or with those who responded to the RSVP they sent the email informing of the mistake, that it was intended to go out to only 50 top industry people who’d already accepted the invite/conditions, but you could still come for the price of two and a half grand.

People are saying, “Big mistake!”

Maybe. Hell, it’s a “summit” for email marketers and I’m not so sure the mistaken invite was a mistake. I’m thinking it’s possibly a way of raising the profile of the summit and putting it in the minds of many.

“I could’ve been….!”

How many people were out there envisioning themselves taking in the Arizona twilight at the nice resort?

Kind-of-negative publicity is still publicity. I’m wondering how many people think now they should possibly attend if only because resort and Arizona sunsets are now coupled with email summit Pavlovian-wise, and the Arizona sunsets sound awfully good, and the smell of chlorine dappled conference carpet a bit heady.

Update:

Oh, yeah. And MediaPost also recently sent out a “Best of the Worst” article on how it’s difficult to cover up errors made in email marketing text, while with a website you’ve got an opportunity to correct your mistakes before people visit…or too many people visit.

Mistakes are a fact of life in this channel, and there is no recourse once the e-mail has left your servers. You can potentially change the source images if they contain the error (Circuit City could have done that), but 95 percent of the time you are dead in the water when an error occurs.

So how should you react when it happens? Here are a few recommendations:

Assign a disaster team, sort of like FEMA. The team should convene immediately to discuss the error and outline potential courses of action. One member of the team will communicate internally about the expected fallout (opt-outs, complaints, replies). Don’t wait until your vice president, who is seeded on the list, sends a note down the chain. Have your answers ready.

Minimize impact.

That email went out on April 10th.

Received that in the AM, I think. Received the VIP invite later in the day. It was a long and grueling day so I felt like several days had passed inbetween. Still, a few stray words of the article remained in my brain and I thought, “Didn’t they send out that article on email errors a couple of days ago?”

Funny timing. Could be crazy coincidence. But with marketers I figure who knows, maybe not coincidence. And though I do read Mediapost (this proves it, right?) if something appears to not make sense, maybe it makes ultimate sense to the marketer, and they are marketing a conference here. An expensive email marketing world conference.

By the way, checking my email to find the Mediapost link to the “Best of the Worst” article, I found in my trash that Mediapost had sent me the “you are not actually invited” email. But that one I’d neglected to see. Why? Because after receiving the VIP invite which was obviously a mistake or oops-kind-of-mistake-but-got-your-attention, my eyes went blind to Mediapost. The next one from them that came through the email got tuned out promptly and dumped in the trash.

But here I am talking about them today…

Looks like Tild’s back, Norweganity commenting,

Just to kick things off, a contest! She doesn’t specify a prize in her post, but I know we were talking about something along the lines of a free trip to Arak, Iran, for a chance to meet Mohamed ElBaradei and maybe see a spectacular fireworks display.

Which is my way of leading into how I have indeed been thinking about Iran but have had no inspiration to comment upon it. I give a brief read through posts like Hullabaloo’s Bush’s Nuclear Dictatorship which references Billmon’s “Mutually Assured Dementia” on the prospect of Bush dropping tactical nuclear bunker-busters, which I’d also read yesterday then went back to working on my painting of Paul Bunyan. Which to me all fits.

What I reflected on while working on Paul Bunyan, having prepped to do it by reading H.o.p. the tall tales, was several parts the fiberglass sales attraction, the big draw on the horizon, and several parts Bunyan ripping through the land, tearing up trees, clearing the way West, the Anglo occupation of the continent tied up with the near worship of the subduing of nature.

Paul Bunyan may have started out as French Canadian lore to do with a specific event, but when I was a child, the tales of Paul Bunyan in school were largely related to impart the BIGNESS of Anglo-American determination to occupy (though no one called it occupation, instead it was all land improvements, like a giant real estate venture) become almost mystical with visions of second-wave settlers driving their wagons through hills and mountains already nearly conquered for them by the voracious hunger of Paul Bunyan’s gigantic ax, which retained a peculiar French accent. Paul was not only the twilight bridge between the “beast” and “civilization”, he represented the notion of divine right; the initiatory human actions of settlement, of occupation, clearing the land, becoming in themselves a sacred stealth authorization making treaties null and void. For which reason when I read the tales to H.o.p. I felt it was time to talk about what that gigantic, plundering ax and showed H.o.p. also graphics of the reach of forest several hundred years ago as opposed to today.

Paul Bunyan may have been popularized in the 1900s by the Red River Logging Company, a sales scheme, but he entered the schools as tales for swaddling, well, the children of Manifest Destiny and letting them know it was all A-OK.

To me this leads right up to today. So it’s not as if I ignore the present while working on a picture based on a 90s photo of a figure that became a successful ad campaign clearing the consciences of the children of Manifest Destiny. I don’t know how successful a campaign it was for the Red River Logging Company, but several generations of school children have been so indoctrinated with the tales of Bunyan that I imagine there are adults raised on tales of Paul Bunyan who would say it woul be near illiteracy to not regale children with them now.

When I was working on the painting of Paul Bunyan I was painting that history. There is not a tree in sight around that Paul Bunyan.

I wrote a post recently on the fight to preserve Bear Butte, a sacred place for a number of First Nations, but Jay Allen in early April won a liquor license for his biker bar complex 2 and 1/2 miles from its base. A biker complex, the first phase of which is promised to be over 150,000 square feet of asphlat and 22,500 square feet of club and eventually an ampitheater that can accomodate 30,000 concert goers.

He (Allen) argued at the hearing that he has a right to develop his land, which totals about 600 acres. But amid strong opposition from a room full of Indians from several tribes, Allen pledged to be a good neighbor.

“I’m embarrassed that it’s evolved to this,” he said.

State officials have said at least 17 tribes place special significance on Bear Butte. Others have said nearly 60 tribes consider the peak sacred. Bear Butte, a volcano that never erupted, has been a state park since 1961, and a special area is set aside for Indian ceremonies.

Opponents of Allen’s project said at the hearing that thousands of noisy motorcycles and other large campground and entertainment complexes near Sturgis already disrupt the serenity of Bear Butte.

“We need a quiet place,” said Arvol Looking Horse, a Sioux who wore a fully feathered headdress and buckskin tunic. “Bear Butte is a very sacred place.”

Indian groups, led by the Bear Butte International Alliance, oppose all development that would disturb the tranquility around the peak. The alliance has been pressing county officials to stop issuing beer and liquor licenses within a seven-mile radius of Bear Butte.

Dean Wink, a county commissioner, said he understands the significance Indians attach to the butte. But he said other businesses in the area have received alcohol licenses and to forbid Allen the same opportunity would be to deny him his rights.

Work on Allen’s project is under way.

Source

Here are photos of the an April 4th rally to protect Bear Butte.

How did I get from Paul Bunyan to Bear Butte? Paul Bunyan’s exploits take him across the land conquering by way of appropriation. Paul Bunyan’s blue ox, at its death, was buried in South Dakota, and its burial mound is now the Black Hills. To children this means something. And what it means is that “this land is mine” because Paul Bunyan went in and by means of his gigantic, nearly sacred nature obliterated First Nations’ treaty rights. No, I don’t think anyone was thinking about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox while fighting over Jay Allen’s liqour license, but the tales of Paul Bunyan and others help set the standard of what is right and meet and seemly to do in the eyes of generations of kids who become adults and may have forgotten that Paul Bunyan told them it was A-OK to build the BIGGEST BIKER BAR IN THE WORLD at bear butte, but the BIGGEST LOGGER THERE EVER WAS is certainly part of America’s occupation-propaganda litter jamming their brains from mustering any sort of rational, responsible, reasonable thought.

A friend asked me recently if I felt some affection for America’s giant roadside attractions and its kitsch cult. After all, the centerpiece of Amazing Wonders of a Subatomic World or In Search of the Great Penguin is a gigantic fiberglass penguin.

I responded, “Do I feel affection for Americana? I look at it this way. (The character of) Faith is all purchase power as action and the unhealthy part of consumerism is all tied up in her. But she’s also creative. Purchase and trade of goods is a fundamental part of being human and socializing and connecting with humanity at large and even the universe. So there’s a lot in Faith and Americana that’s creative and even inspirational and one can have some affection for it. But it is in a sense its own religion/spirituality (which makes sense, as it makes connections and sense of place and belonging) and doesn’t honor other spiritual systems very well. Tends to be pretty dead set on mowing its way over other spiritual ways/religious systems. I can feel empathy and affection for people enjoying the bonding and finding place in Americana. But I’ve not much sympathy with it when it crosses the line and becomes destructive, which it too often does. I do look on America as being a nation of homeless and these things like the giant Oscar Meyer wiener as a family bonding event are both heartening and distracting because advertising has made it a part of that peculiar purchase/trade church, and it unifies and supplies a certain piece of ‘home’. This may sound an extreme view but I think it’s very much a part of what happened here, so many people coming from different places, leaving communities and familes of origin, ongoing with the ease of people moving all over the country…” the culture of consumerism becoming the place where individuals strive for their meaning in relationship to the all.

Thus Bear Butte. Which may be said to be just business and even fair play in conducting business (can’t deprive Allen of his liquor license when others have their own), but it isn’t just business.

People talk about the separation of church and state but it’s pretty well impossible when it’s business interests that operate as the spiritual heart of the United States, and the church of consumerism its official relgion.

For your viewing pleasure at YouTube, Brandon Hardesty’s, The Tortured Life of Ezekial J. Potts.

You can also see it here at Idyllopus because it’s 425 pixels in width, fits just right.

Yeah, I know, all other homeschoolers have their kids using the library like crazy, but until this year H.o.p. firmly believed in never a lender or borrower being. He would have nothing to do with it. Not the library, but the idea of lending and borrowing. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. Kind of. He did borrow, last year, a toy from a cousin.

But now H.o.p. gets it. As far as the library is concerned. And on Tuesday he got his library card. He spent a long time choosing his first book, having it in his mind for some reason that “one” was it. He was going to bring home A Book From The Library and the idea of being able to return it and check it out again or get a new one was impressive to him.

So, it now occurs to me, the Very First Library Book To Be Checked Out By H.o.p. was a choice that I should archive for him. That book being Jessica Souhami’s “The Leopard’s Drum” An Asante Tale From West Africa.

He had a simple reply to the reason for his choice.

“Because I like the jungle.”

We went to Rock Eagle Mound Friday. About two thousand years old, it is one of two bird effigy mounds east of the Mississippi. The other bird effigy mound is Rock Hawk (also known as Little Rock Eagle Mound) which is also located in Putman County but is closed to the public. I was unaware until today that Rock Hawk even existed, but found it mentioned on the Lostworlds.com site that describes Rock Eagle. And here’s a 4H publication article that adds a little more recent history on the site and excavations, which was good to find as I was wondering how invasive the excavations of it had been.

Below is a pic I took of Rock Eagle Mound from its observation tower.

There are 9 pics in the Rock Eagle photo album.

We arrived as a couple was leaving and so were the only individuals there. As we approached the mound from the parking lot, three hawks came flying in and made several circling passes directly over the area of the mound and then flew off. I managed to get a couple of poor shots of them but it was quite something to be at the mound and watch the shadows of the hawks circling. (Or maybe they were vultures.)

H.o.p. and Marty climbed the tower and I followed them up after a bit. One is only able to see the mound in full from the top floor. I took a number of pics and as H.o.p. and Marty started to go back down I mentioned that I had hoped the hawks would come back around so I could try for a picture of them from the tower.

I faced the window again and said, “Hawks, come back” and amusingly, coincidentally, at that moment two of the hawks came swooping in low overhead, directly over the tower, made one more circle over the mound and then coming to its head they turned to the parking lot and flew off to the northeast, the direction in which the effigy, head to tail, is aligned, its beak facing East/Southeast.

That was it for the hawks. (Or maybe they were vultures.)

Marty and H.o.p. went down and I took a picture of them from up high. Dawdled a bit on my way down looking at all the mud dauber nests throughout the tower. Lake Oconee Rock Eagle Lake is not far from the mound. H.o.p. and I walked down the hill to get a glimpse of the lake across a curving road and through the residences bordering it.

H.o.p. and I tromped back up the hill and we all passed back by the mound and went to the parking lot. As we reached the lot there was a sudden loud sound from high overhead which Marty describes as having sounded somewhat like a loud creaking gate, and thinks it was the sound of a tree branch splitting (none fell). I’ve only ever heard a cracking sound of trees splitting, similar to the sound of a rifle, and this was instead an abrupt high singing screek of a “creee” ascending then stopping.

All that’s at the site is the mound and the observation tower and a plaque that has a brief couple of sentences on the mound, so if you just follow the signs from the highway with no prior knowledge of the mound the only resource for knowledge on the mound are those few words.

Impressive that the mound has survived. There was once a rock wall around it and I was wondering if it was something that disappeared after whites or before. Was wondering if trees had hemmed in the mound or had always remained cleared to some degree around it. Was wondering if vegetation tried to take sprout amongst the rocks (a plant was growing in a part of the tail) and if that vegetation had been regularly cleared away and if so what was the arrangement for it being regularly cleared away in particular past the era of its being a regularly visited. Those were some of the things I thought about. And if there had been communities nearby and up to what period, for I’ve seen no information on that.

The mound needs to be circled with a fence to keep people off of it and to prevent individuals from walking off with the rocks but the fence cuts off the ability to appreciate the mound in an unalienated manner, for which the observation tower seems a sort of uneven compensation. There was no tower in the past, of course, and if there was no fence I wouldn’t have felt a need for the tower. Not that I really felt a crying need for the tower as I had stood outside the fence looking at the effigy. For, in a sense, the hawks were themselves a tower. One could see and feel it via them. Their arrival, their circling the area and their shadows made the tower superfluous. And I was glad we happened to be there when they were around.

I read the rocks are not of the area and came from about 40 miles away perhaps, and that there were three types of clay used and that these weren’t from the area of Putnam County (if I remember correctly).

Certainly there were more than these two bird effigy mounds east of the Mississippi, and these are the only two that have survived, both in Putnam County.

Weird thing just happened (at least it’s weird to me, in my book) and I wish someone would explain it for me. I was neatening up around here and noticed on a corner table (plastic) a small wadded up piece of tape covered with lint. I picked it up and screamed (yeah) and dropped it because it was so warm that it was almost hot. And one just doesn’t pick up a piece of trash and expect it to be so warm as to be almost hot, thus the astonished screech. I felt the table, felt all around it and nothing was warm. The room is air conditioned and everthing else in here is relatively cool to the touch. Marty came in and picked up the tape I’d just dropped, commented it was still warm, but as he held it the heat rapidly dissipated within a couple of seconds and was gone.

Can someone explain this for me?

Update: A commentor wondered if it had come unstuck from a lightbulb and floated down. No, the nearest lighting fixture is a ceiling one about 7 feet away. The tape wad, though small, was heavy enough it would have dropped right to the ground.

I probably should further note this was an old wad of plain scotch tape and that I wasn’t doing anything like vacuuming. There’s also nothing electronic nearby either except for the recharger for a cell phone that is located on a bookshelf about 8 inches behind which was not being used and was cool to the touch. I’d not been moving around anything that was heated or electronic that it could have come unstuck from and fallen to the table. The table had not been used at least that day and no one had been around it.

Yeah, I know, silly, stupid mystery but I’d love to figure this out.

2nd update: Shakespeare’s Sister wondered about static electricity and I had wondered last night if there wasn’t something similar to do with radio waves going on but could the charge produced by a small wad of old tape be that intense? I did find the below on the internet on scotch tape producing radio waves. There was no visible sparking of the tape and it wasn’t adhered to the table. The only thing adhered to the tape was the lint. I didn’t pull the tape off anything. There was no metal involved. As noted above, the table it was resting on was plastic.

3.5 How does scotch tape work?
Believe it or not, this is a subject under research. It is believed that, when
the adhesive touches the plastic tape below it, both surfaces become elec-
trically charged because one material steals electrons from the other. If the
adhesive steals electrons, then the adhesive will have more electrons than
protons (net negative charge), and the plastic tape will have fewer electrons
than protons (net positive charge.) Note that no friction was involved!
”Static electricity” in this case is also known as ”contact electrification”,
and friction is not a requirement. When the two surfaces become oppositely
charged, the electrical charges remain close together, therefor the spool of
tape remains neutral (the tape contains an equal number of positive and
negative charges.) However, when you peel the tape off of the spool, you
SEPARATE the adhesive from the tape below it, and this separates the
regions of opposite charge. A high voltage appears between the positive and
negative charges, and this causes a ”discharge” or spark to appear that is
sometimes visible. The separated charges leap together through the air, and
as with any spark, this creates light.
The sparking will only discharge the tape partially, and the piece of tape
will remain charged, as will the surface of the tape remaining on the spool.
If you peel two strips of tape from the spool, then hold them near each other,
they will repel each other (because alike charges repel, and unlike charges
attract.)
TRY THIS EXPERIMENT: take a long piece of tape and stick it to
a painted metal surface, such as a filing cabinet or a refrigerator. Take a
small AM radio, turn the volume up, then tune it between two stations so
you hear no signals except static. Hold the radio near the tape, then peel
the tape from the metal. You will hear a crackling noise from the radio.
Those sparks from the tape are creating radio waves and your small radio can hear them.

Source: http://personalwebs.oakland.edu/~rojo/P120/static_electricity.pdf

I’m so disappointed. H.o.p. began last week a little story book called “The Rude Cayman” but never finished it.

He cut out the cardboard cover and drew the pic and cut out paper to fit inside and began drawing the pics and writing the story then pffft apparently ran out of steam and interest and that was that.

So now I will never know what happened with the rude cayman croc.

Boingboing has a link to a video of San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Muriel Maffre performing “Ballet Mori”…conducted by the earth. It’s a “musical composition modulated line in real time by the fluctuations of the Earth’s movement as measured by a networked seismometer at the Hayward Fault”. The 3 minute dance was in commemoration of the 1906 San Francisco Quake.

The NY Times elaborates:

The seismic fluctuations are transmitted by a sensor at the Hayward Fault in California…a MIDI system programmed with a mix of natural sounds (rock slides, volcanic eruptions, thunderclaps) translates the fluctuations…

I called H.o.p. over as the ballet began and I asked him what the music was. He made several wrong guesses and I told him to stop and simply listen and I would tell him when the ballet was over. He watched a couple of seconds more and then he said, “Earthquake”.

Now I think that’s pretty cool that someone can listen to white noise and make that kind of a guess. Plus, I had the sound way down low (where it does seem pretty much like only white noise) so some elements couldn’t even be heard, such as water gurgles etc., which may have made it more confusing to hazard a guess actually if they could have been readily distinguished. Didn’t realize how low I had the sound until after the guessing game with H.o.p. when I later read around to see exactly how this was done and found mentions of the natural sounds that were used and that it was described as roars and crashes. Roars and crashes? So went back and turned up the volume loud and watched again.

I’m not impressed with the dance itself, at least what I could see in the video, which I know is far removed from the experience (reviews range from great and haunting to calling it unimpressive and “been there done that”) but H.o.p. enjoyed it and it made a good base for discussion on plate tectonics and seismometers and the “living earth”, a concept with which H.o.p. has obviously no problem.

Now, back to static electricity, I think. Yesterday, because of the mysterious event with the scotch tape, we did little science experiments with scotch tape demonstrating static electricity, magnetism etc. Had promised more of the same today.