An Interview with Terence Stamp

With the "Unfinished Song" soon to be released, Terence Stamp was interviewed on NPR by Scott Simon.  When asked about his social exploits (Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Shrimpton), Stamp responded, "They were after the pill and before AIDS. You know, a good time to be a young lad."  He was asked what it was like to work with Vanessa Redgrave who'd had her daughter, brother, and sister die within a year's time.  Stamp replied, "I saw a woman who was kind of very familiar with change of cosmic address."

Not a bad turn of phrase.  I wonder if the post office would forward mail?

In a web search for images of Jean Shrimpton I found a Guardian interview with Jean Shrimpton  from April 2011.  An indifferent student, rocked to fame as the first supermodel, a succession of men, eventually one introduced her to culture (museums, art, and literature).  She's been a hotelier since her 30's and, if the interview is to be believed,  doesn't seem to miss being in the public eye.

Looking at her pictures, now some 50 years old, I was struck by how artificial the hair seems now.  Were people aware of that then?

 

(Photo from http://www.fanpix.net/picture-gallery/jean-shrimpton-picture-17322359.htm)

Bernanke's Princeton Commencement Address

Ben Bernanke delivered a marvelous commencement speech to Princeton undergrads on Sunday, June 2nd.  The video is on vimeo.  My favorite quote:

3) Those who are luckiest also have the greatest responsibility: "As the Gospel of Luke says (and I am sure my rabbi will forgive me for quoting the New Testament in a good cause): 'From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded."

He gave the Biblical quote an academic spin. "Kind of grading on the curve, you might say."

Biology profs will surely quote number 9:

9) On choosing a partner: "Remember that physical beauty is evolution's way of assuring us that the other person doesn't have too many intestinal parasites."

 The text of the enumerated parts of the the speech can be found on cnn (http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/02/news/economy/bernanke-princeton-speech/index.html).  The video can also be found on bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/video/ben-bernanke-s-ten-suggestions-for-princeton-grads-hTsARou6S7md1VCuYjHN1A.html).  I was impressed that the video's time indicator was in Princeton orange.

CIO's Universal Vendor Translation Machine

I discovered a seven year old CIO magazine (June 15th, 2006) while rooting around for things to put out for recycling. I flipped through quickly and found this gem of a hype decoder on the back page. I would normally put a link to the original but I had an odd feeling that the original page might disappear.  You can follow the link to the CIO page or you can read it below. 

(I always suspect that I'm the last person to hear something humorous, but for some odd reason, I'm one of the few who remember a joke.  It's certainly an odd feeling to explain to someone that the joke they're laughing at is the one I originally heard from them.  The entry for "24/7 customer support" feels like a classic.)

I was going to go the long way around by putting the page through an OCR scanner when it dawned on me that the article was probably on line.  As partial penitence for being so stupid I formatted the text as a description list by hand without benefit of search and replace. 

“Fully redundant”

When the product fails, your IT staffers, working by the light of kerosene lanterns, may be able to restart the system using a length of stereo wire, some Juicy Fruit and a car battery.

“24/7 customer support”

You’re welcome to call and talk to our automated phone system any time you want.

“Begins shipping later this quarter”

We use the terms “quarter” and “decade” interchangeably here.

“The leading provider of…”

Just got the venture capital firm’s check last week and finally moved the company out of the dorm room.

“Backward compatible”

Version 2.0 is guaranteed to read files created by Version 1.9 for at least five (5) business days.

“Merger of equals”

We actually believed our own sales forecasts, opening us up to a hostile takeover. In six months, no one will remember our name.

“Ajax-driven Web application”

Guaranteed to crash your browser.

“Open source”

You’ll be relying on Latvian high school drop-outs for upgrades.

“Integrated security”

We bought a little firewall startup and grafted their code onto ours.

“Conceptually, we’re a Web 2.0 company”

Desperately trying to resuscitate ideas from the dotcom era.

“Ensures SOX compliance”

When your CEO and/or CFO winds up behind bars, we’ll send brownies.

“Free six-month trial”

After trial ends, salespeople will call you, e-mail you, IM you, rent blimps to fly over the links while you’re golfing and, if necessary, camp out in your outer office until you agree to buy the product.

“Enterprise-grade”

Too complicated for consumers or small businesses to use.

“Robust”

System runs beautifully as long as no wackos attempt to change the configuration, delete a user or add a record.

“Intuitive user interface”

After two weeks of offsite training, several of your brighter employees will have figured out how to log on.

“Positive ROI within 12 months”

By uninstalling our hardware after 364 days, your time will be freed up to work on more productive things.

Soap/Forge of Empire

The image for Forge of Empires popped up on Pandora.  It reminded me of several things: a hilarious analysis of drawings featuring women who's underpants fell off and the most important invention in the world.  I know I need to explain this.

In reverse order, one of my profs maintained that the single most important thing mankind devised was soap.  I know little kids don't appreciate it, but soap allowed people to remove dirt and contamination from their body and implements.  With (or without) your permission I'll skip over a review of saponification except to say that the expression "wash your mouth out with soap" stemed from horrible experience: early soaps still contained un-neutralized lye which can do horrible things to tender membranes.

Wealthier people could afford scented soaps which also had the lye neutralizing.  Still, the popular depiction of historical characters usually show them at our modern level of cleanliness.  (Some reviewers of a show about John Adams made a point of commented that Paul Giamatti, playing John Adams, was made up to have dirty finger nails.)

Which brings me to the image.  How likely is is it that someone the age of the woman depicted would not be grimy from the woodsmoke and dust?  (I would quote from Farley Mowat's description of smelling Inuits before seeing them, but much of his writing has been documented as fanciful in detail.)  Grime does not come off without soap.  You can trust me on this.

On another matter, how likely is it that the left halter cup would stay in position without support?  I'll let woman and clothing designers debate that.


But the unlikelihood of her top staying the way it is depicted  reminded me of James Lilek's humorous analysis of Art Frahm's illustrations: An Artistic Study of the Effects of Celery on Loose Elastic http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/). Frahm's illustrations featured shapely women experiencing catastrophic elastic failure in a public space resulting in underwear bunching at their feet. (The reference to celery is that most of the pictures had celery poking out of the woman's shopping bag.)

If you need a gentle laugh, James Lilek's blog, http://www.lileks.com.

What the bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Tourette's

I was listening to an interview with a person who had Tourette's syndrome when there was a bleep which kept on going.  I thought "Whoa!  That's one huge string of obscenities." 

The announcer finally broke in to apologize for a technical problem with the audio feed.

Two Gay Things

The recent revelations that the pro basketball player Jason Collins was gay (/sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/)  might have prompted a recent discussion among high school students in the pool's locker room.

The general consensus seemed to be that they didn't actually care who was gay or not, but they'd want to know to avoid awkward situations.  In their case it ment avoiding asking a lesbian out for date or using the wrong language around a gay kid.  They each professed to know someone who was gay and had no problem with him. 

I wondered what their use of the term "that's so gay" means.  I think they mean something is dopey or uncool.  It'll be interesting to see if the phrase is still around or if the meaning changes in the next few years.

On a related note, I finally heard what must be a camp classic: "In Spring a young man's fancy turns to fancy young men."

Personal Financial Advisors or a Fool and His Money ...

Perhaps as a nod to gender equality the saying should be modified to "Fools and their money are easily parted."  But, that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I was listening to a rebroadcast of an On the Media interview, How Personal Finance Led Us Astray  with Helaine Olen, author of Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry  Her position was that the only people getting rich in the financial advice business are those giving the advice.

Nothing new here.  In 2009 Jon Stewart famously took on Jim Cramer ("If I only followed CNBC's advice I'd have a million dollars today -- provided I'd started with $100 million.").

Besides the big names, Jim Cramer and Suze Orman, there was one name, which had a faint ring:  Dave Ramsey.  A quick web search found Financial Peace U:

Sounds hokey to me, but what stays with me was an NPR interview a year or so ago with a Christian clergyman who gave financial advice.  I think it was with Ramsey.  What I remember so distinctly was a clip from a female caller.  the woman was asking for advice so she could become financially independent and leave her marriage.

I searched in vain for  the interview on line because I think the phrasing was critical.    Her husband had said something like "You'll never be able to make it by yourself."  The adviser's response startled me: "Does he beat you?"

"Yes."

Anyone in social services might have been just as quick to recognize the situation, but it stunned me.

I usually associate faith-based financial dealings with scams.  Web searches may turn up a link to Christian Financial Credit Union which advised their members about a scam using their name:

Need more?  There's a January 2011 post, "An Overview of Religious Financial Fraud on http://christianheadlines.com:

It's a sad compendium of embezzlement, investments coverups, insider deals, fraudulent tax shelters, flipped property fraud, excessive compensation, and insurance fraud.

The article is not exhaustive. The scams run from Brazil ($2 billion (yes that's a "B") for the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God), to America (claims of $1 billion was money laundered annually at Oral Roberts University, yes, again a "B"), to Ukraine ($100 million business venture fraud).

Makes one think seriously about going back to worshiping trees again.

(In this regard, I remember with great fondness a line from one episode of Mash, the TV show.  Trapper and Hawkeye created a fictitious personnel record for a new doctor.  For religion they list, "Druid", then change it to "Druid reform - he worships at bushes" - a clear reference to reform Judaism.)

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind

This may be really old, but it's new to me. It's a line I'll have to use in class with attribution. From the Madam and Eve comic strip from early in March of this year:

Kwame Kilpatrick Guilty of More Than Stealing

Unless I'm mistaken Kwame is mixing stripes (on the shirt) with plaid (on the tie).

You can read about how he went bad at the Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/12/how-kwame-kilpatrick-went-bad.html).  Nothing new, except that the corruption (misappropriation of funds and kickbacks) occurred as the Motor City was going down the toilet.

Rich Little's Impersonation of Brad Pitt

The Sunday, January 20, 2013 issue of the NY Times carried a story about Rich Little, premier impressionist in American comedy.  I was struck by his comment:

“It’s much easier to do Humphrey Bogart than Tom Cruise,” he says. “How do you imitate Brad Pitt? George Clooney? Wouldn’t mean anything.”

He's right.  What would be imitated?  The great voices are gone.  Have stars have become character actors?  Frank Caliendo - a name I didn't recognize - gave credit to Rich Little and said that his impersonations are of sports figures.  I doubt that I'd recognize them.

After thinking about it for a moment (I couldn't hold the thought much longer) I wondered if the most recognizable impressions would be of characters or the impression of a political figure acting as a famous cartoon character.  It wouldn't be a superfluous effort with so many of our politicians doing their own unhinged imitation of an elected official.

Traditional Values/ William Rees-Mogg

The obit of William Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times of London contained this passage:

He incensed some Times readers in 1967 with a lead editorial in which he attacked the severity of jail sentences imposed on the Rolling Stones’s Mick Jagger (three months) and Keith Richards (one year) for drug offenses.

“If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity,” Mr. Rees-Mogg wrote, under the headline “Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?”

Also in the article was a ripost which can be tuned to many occasions.  (I suspect I've seen variants on this before.)

Lord George Brown is a better man drunk than the prime minister is sober

It's a near relative of Winston Churchill's reply to Lady Astor exclamation, "Sir you are drunk!": "And you are ugly.  However, in the morning I will be sober."

Benedict XVI Resigns

The world has not been waiting breathlessly for my comments about the February 11th announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he would resign on February 28th, but, inasmuch as I've not put anything up for a while, here goes:

The end of John Paul II's life was alternately described as a pathetic old man clinging to life unaware that his time had passed or "a testament of faith".  The last being a statement of a Catholic nun.

I'm sure that in relevant religious communities "a testament of faith" is clear enough description by itself.  Not to me.  After web searches and reading descriptions of testaments of faith in several religions I sort of get it: it's the will of God and the individual will take the lumps because that's what God is dishing out.  The individual recognizes or accedes to God's will (as if there were a choice).

I decided many years ago that the simplest explanation for why bad things happen to good people is because that's the way it is.  It doesn't require anything divine.  It doesn't require a divine plan.  Stuff just happens: brakes fail, metal fatigues, someone goes postal.

Back to the pope.  For some reason I think of the two popes as JP2 and Benny.  (I think the "Benny" comes from a "Prairie Home Companion sketch in which Guy Noir, the private eye, guided the Pope around incognito.)

My guess that Benny saw how the organization lost direction under JP2's decline and wanted to avoid doing the same.

In my opinion the best joke about the Pope's resignation came from Father James Martin, cultural editor of the Jesuit magazine America: "Boy he's sure .. certainly has raised the bar when it comes to giving something up for Lent." (The official NPR transcript reads: "And my second response was, boy, he certainly has raised the bar when it comes to giving something up for Lent." ~http://www.npr.org/2013/02/16/172175231/how-will-catholics-react-to-popes-rare-retirement)

News 12 Helicopter Video

In the aftermath of yesterday's snow storm Newsday posted a News 12 video on its site (News 12 is a Long Island all news TV station): Chopper 12 over abandoned cars in Lake Grove.  As the camera zoomed in I fully expected the flash of a drone strike.

 

What does that say about our world?

On the Internet, nobody cares if you're an imbecile

This whole thing of "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" has gotten a little out of hand and has morphed into "On the Internet, nobody cares if you're an imbecile."

~ http://www.weeklystorybook.com/comic_strip_of_the_daycom/2012/05/ask_clique_and_claque.html

I was grading a student's drawing I noticed that the arcs didn't seem to join flush to the horizontal lines. 

Zooming in and sure enough.

A look at the top revealed a gap and the lines which should have ended at the horizontal lines extended beyond.

When I asked the student why the dimensions were off he responded:

I was just eye balling, I didn't realize how serious it was to follow the units, I thought they were just reference

I didn't and still don't know how to respond.  He's an Engineering student.  In my mind that means something.  All manner of snarky comments suggest themselves from a lament about American higher education to the hope that he, like many students, will change his major to avoiding domestically produced goods.

When is a Fetus Like Schrodinger's Cat?

Q: When is a Fetus Like Schrodinger's Cat?

A: When a Catholic hospital in Colorado defended itself in a law suit.

If a pregnant woman dies would you rather be responsible for a single death or for three? (She was bearing twins.)  One family's tragedy is a source of humor for the shameless. Of course now the health care system and its lawyers have to confront a doctrinal debate: Catholic doctrine has life beginning at birth.  Colorado law has life beginning at delivery.

And while I'm at it - don't look for a logical association - P.G.Wodehouse is quoted as saying after reading Norman Mailer's novel "The Naked and the Dead"

Isn't it incredible that you can print in a book nowadays stuff which when we were young was found only on the walls of public lavatories.

- NYTimes review of his letters by Dwight Garner (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/books/p-g-wodehouse-a-life-in-letters.html)  Garner liked Wodehouse's novels, but not his letters.

eBook: A Balanced Introduction to Computer Science

Among the perks some faculty enjoy are getting free books, or at lease looking at free books.  Most of society probably would not describe this as a perk, but something of a workplace hazard similar to black lung disease or carpal tunnel syndrome.

For some of us books are treasures which keep on giving.  eBooks?  Well, ebooks done right have one undeniable advantage over regular print books: the search feature.

Although I dd not see this first hand, one of my college acquaintances told me about a favorite prof's library and the prof's uncanny ability to support his statements by quickly finding the book and the relevant passage in that book.  (The student's last name was Barnes, first name now forgotten.  I don't know if I ever knew the prof's name.)

Sometimes the prof just knew.  Barnes felt it must have been a quote he'd used many times.  Other times the instructor had marked the book, either his own index inside the cover or bookmarked pages.

But I've strayed.  It is possible for instructors to get access to books online.  Certainly, for reviewing a book for course selection, online should be fine, because most of the books arriving in faculty offices, especially for survey/distribution courses won't be adopted.

I'll skip the argument about glossy picture books pandering to functional undergraduate illiterates on one end of the scale and abstract, impenetrable tomes at the other, and get right to the point:  if a book's genesis came from notes written for a specific course the content is perfect for that course, but the audience is limited to the captive audience of that school.  Expanding the content to seek a wider audience and authors have to include material to make the book more salable.  Paradoxically, the effort to make the book more appealing may do just the opposite as an instructor may regard material outside their course assignment as superfluous and not worth their student's money.

But that's not why I started this post.  No?  No.  I've had two interesting experiences with ebooks.  In the first, the first several pages of A Balanced Introduction to Computer Science by David Reed present an interesting challenge for the reader.

It took a little bit before I realized that what I was seeing was not just a botched image, but text where the letters v,w, and y were missing.  And not just missing, but missing from only some segments or fonts in the text.  Looking at the example, you can see that "w" and "y" appear in the italicized text, but not the standard text.

One of my students in Engineering Drawing turned in several drawings which were missing some lines.  It turned out that those lines were missing from the ebook version of the text. It was as obvious as the difference between these two:

Water Index

A link on the Yahoo Finance site described the creation of a water index by IBM and Waterfund, LLC.  The index intends to be for water what  the Case-Schiller Index is for housing.

IBM needs no explanation.  Waterfund on the other hand "is developing Software-as-a-Service solutions to measure the financial risk of supplying freshwater. Waterfund is also pioneering the first financial risk management products catered to the needs of the water industry."  Make of that what you will.

The story reminded me that someone I knew had put a great deal of money into a company named Pure Safe Water Systems (PSWS).  He'd had business dealings with the company, was favorably impressed, and expected his investment to provide a comfortable retirement.

From time to time I'd checked on the stock because I've been interested in water for a several decades since a newsletter from my local water service showed that the cost of providing potable water had increase several fold over time.  Most of the increase seemed to come from testing and purification, not from infrastructure costs.

Shortly after that I heard of a bet between two eminent economists concerning the cost of raw material/commodities over time.  The details are fuzzy now, but I think the one who said that commodities actually got cheaper with time bet that the other economist couldn't identify a  number of commodities whose cost would increase over the next several years.

When I heard that, I said I would take that bet with everything I owned and bet on the cost of water.  Potable water is getting scarcer around the world.  Just look at the rising consumption of bottled water over the last few decades.

PSWS which among other things makes portable water purification systems seemed poised to take advantage of the increased number of natural disasters.  Prognostication should be so simple.

The first time I checked the price, the stock was selling for about 25¢ and the person was expecting the price to go to $1 in a few years. 

It was not to be.  There have been some interesting money-making opportunity when the price went from 10¢ to 15¢ and again 6.5¢ to 10¢, but in general, the price has gone down.

My heart sank when I saw the closing price today: 0.0021 0.0002(8.70%).

By any measure whatever money he'd put in was now worth less than 1% of what it had been when he first told me about the company.  (For those who avoid math at all costs, it looks like this:  for every dollar he invested he now has less than a penny)

I Learn Too Much About File Cabinets

Ordered to vacate an office (translation: get all your junk out of the office) I started hauling out all my accumulated shelving and cabinets.

Now I use "my" to indicate stuff the school discarded and I salvaged.  "Discard" means that someone wrote "Discard" or "Trash" on a note and stuck the note on the object and I, always cautious of running afoul of  regulations, would ask the janitor or an administrator if I could have it.

The usual justification for allowing an individual to take an unwanted piece of furniture stems from the fact that the school doesn't have an office of surplus equipment to recover some of the costs.  If furniture is actually discarded the school incurs additional costs assigning workers from Facilities to take a truck to pick up the stuff, bring it to a compactor, and then pay a carter to haul the trash away.  Letting an employee haul it away is far cheaper.

I performed my usual feats of strength and leverage getting the stuff down the school stairs (ramps are for sissies), into and out of a van, up and down my stairs.  That would seem to be end of it, but the fact that I'm writing this tells you otherwise.

My modus operandi for getting file cabinets down the stairs involves removing the draws to reduce the weight, align a pair of long 2x4's to serve as rails, and then with the file cabinet on its back, gradually slide the cabinet down the stairs.

All went well until I had difficulty putting the draws back in.  Three went in with no problem, but the fourth was a real problem.  I though that I might have put them in the wrong position.  (The file cabinet frame can get deformed slightly, but just enough to make it difficult to get the draw in it's original position.)

I tried swapping draws and then something happened.  I pushed too hard or pulled at the wrong angle or something, because I heard little pinging sounds as ball bearings popped out of their races and dropped into the draw below or flew against the side and fell to the floor.

Yes dear friends, I faced the mechanical equivalent of forcing toothpaste back in the tube.  The lighting wasn't good so it was time to find the trouble light and an outlet and a way to hang the trouble light so I could find the bearings.  It took a few minutes of searching to find all but 5 of the 60 missing ball bearings.  I don't have images, but the ball bearings were held in place by very thin lips of metal so it wasn't too difficult to pry up the metal, put the bearings back, and then, carefully bend the races back to hold the bearings.

The next file cabinet I moved used rollers instead of ball bearings.  Even better, the rollers were on a frame which could also be removed to make the file cabinet even lighter. 

The take home message is to be careful when sliding the file cabinet draws.

eBook Shock and Puzzle

As an instructor, I can review books on line at CourseSmart.  The first book I looked at started with a great quote from Einstein and then presented this challenge in the first two paragraphs:

Yes, dear friends, when I looked at the eBook preview of A balanced introduction to computer science by David Reed––2nd ed. the letters 'w', 'v', and 'y' were missing.

Perhaps only the preview lacks the letters, but I was not in the mood to investigate.

The Problem with College for Men

According to Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) on NPR the problem with college education for men is that at that point in life that they're interested in the opposite sex and, best of all, their zits have receded increasing the probability that their interest will be reciprocated.

They also mentioned that they're being investigated for taking performance decreasing drugs.

17 Hollow Way/Voyeur by Invitation

Garage and estate sales fascinate me.  Where else can you paw through or look at such intimate stuff?  (Yeah, yeah, you see it all the time on TV or at the checkout counter.  Or maybe you read a tell all book about the fiery love story between Justin the Heart Throb and Tiffany the Good Girl.  But those are celebrities, public people.  I'm talking about ordinary, or maybe not so ordinary people, but generally those whose names won't be recognized.)

A few weeks ago there was an estate sale on an estate.  Google maps put it I looked it up on the peninsula.  If you look at the map you can get some size of the estate by comparing the size of the house to the size of the grounds.

I didn't catch the name of the people who organized the sale, but they knew how to do chicken right.  Their green signs started 5 miles before the location and were located just beyond the intersections to guide you there.  I made a point of telling them that I appreciated their signage.

If nothing else, the sign on the brick pillar set the tone. 

There really wasn't much there for me.  I got a few (3) books.  The library wasn't large and seemed to have tomes on business success and romantic novels.  His and hers I'd guess.  After making quick work of the books I went looking around.

There was the usual abbreviated history electronics: VCRs, DVD players, and generations of wireless phones.  I didn't find much else of interest.  I never know whether the good stuff had been skimmed already or if the family wasn't interested in high-end cutlery and cookware.  There were several pieces of furniture which appeared extra-ordinary.  (Please take my word for it.  I left the camera in the car.)  There were a number of what appeared to be stuffed eagles.  Wasn't that illegal.

What was interesting was that I didn't have exact change so I had to wait for the guy with the "slicked-back hair".  When he appeared (and his hair didn't looked the way I expected slicked back hair to appear) I couldn't find the bill.  There I was holding 3 books and looking between the books, on the floor, searching my pockets - obviously flustered.

"Is this what you're looking for?" he asked.

I paid. He put the books in a very nice new shopping bag.  Very classy.  I then reprised my fumbling looking for the receipt.  "Is this that you're looking for?" he asked, pointing to the bill sitting in plain sight (and all alone) on the table.

"Yup." 

After I got back to the car I got my camera to take the pictures.  One of the people leaving had one of the birds.  It's OK he said, it's not a real eagle.

I looked up the property on a real estate site.  In brief, 5 bed, 6.5 bath, and $1,799,000.

Parsle, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, and My Johnny Was a Shoemaker

I was listening to Pandora when - well it sounded like Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme (actually "Scarborough Fair/Canticle"), but it turned out to be a medley from John Renbourn's "The Lady and the Unicorn" including "Scarborough Fair".

I embarrassed myself.  A mistake like that would have seemed a grievous error when I was younger.  It seemed important to know the provenance of songs when I was in college.  Dealing with folk tunes or the blues gave everyone an opportunity to look foolish.  Riffs and lyrics were stolen/borrowed promiscuously.  Someone could get all agitated to learn that their shining light, authentic blues man had stolen from Lightning Hopkins or Blind Lemon.  (It didn't help that there was a  Johnson and a Blind Lemon Jefferson.)  Most of us seemed to come to an accommodation with the realization that somethings would never be resolved.

I've gotten to the state where I'm grateful to remember that I've heard a song before, and upset that I can't remember where.

My Life Flashed Before Me

Pardon the pun.  I went for a flu shot today. 

Most of the stuff I usually carry with me was still in the plastic bag I'd put them in when I went to the pool the evening before.  I wasn't sure I'd need cash so I transferred the stuff into my pants pockets.

 Not everything it seems. 

When I got back to the car, there, lying on the ground, was my flash drive with a semester's worth of documents.  (Yes, there are copies of the files on the University's network and at home, but still, I'm certain there were stray files which are only on the flash drive.)

The Small Print: Anti-Concurrent Causation Clauses

Many home insurance policies contain so-called anti-concurrent causation clauses. The Consumer Federation of America says this language makes it easier to deny coverage if two factors destroyed a home around the same time. (paraphrased from WNYC-FM)

If two events damage the same structure at the same time and one is covered and one is not, the insurer can deny both. It was an issue that affected some claims after Hurricane Katrina, and there was concern that the same problem would resurface in the aftermath of the nor'easter which followed Superstorm Sandy in areas like Breezy Point where fire destroyed homes after flooding.

Just one more reason why someone needs to learn to read carefully.  Many people learned to their regret that there is a difference between flooding and a storm surge.

I'm waiting for the exposés.

Monkey's Paw Biblio-Mat

The Monkey's Paw used bookstore in Toronto, created a Biblio-Mat vending machine to dispense at random books which used to go into their dollar bin. NPR aired a story about the Biblio-Mat on their November 18, 2012 broadcast.

Not quite the way I want to get books. I think back many years to a throw-away passage in a story in Playboy magazine. The story, as I remember it, was told in the first person and described an adventure driving in the Mid-East in a Phaeton touring car during the 1930's. Being in Playboy the narrator stayed in a house with several nubile daughters with whom he slept. However because they made love in pitch darkness he couldn't tell with whom he had indulged. At one point he gives the woman a little nip on the neck so he will be able to identify his partner. The next day each of the women weas a scarf.

The big surprise of the story hits after he has left the house when he learns that there is a daughter who is kept hidden because of some disease or disfigurement.

The reason I remember the story has nothing to do with the sex, but what occupied the backseat of the car: a crate or two of books. When the car broke down, something which would be expected with some regularity, he would reach back, pick any book at random and head for a comfortable place to wait and read until assistance materialized.

This fits into the profile of the men in my family: Give us a comfortable place to read and we're content. When heading off to where we might have to wait, we pack reading material. Reading makes the DMV experience almost painless. (Padding the benches would make it painless.)

Spared by Sandy

The Frankenstorm Sandy came barreling through the area on Tuesday, October 30, flooding homes, knocking down power lines, and killing a few people.

Everyone had a story.  Mine might be the most unusual: we lost cable and Internet access for a day.  Other than resetting the clocks on the radios it was a normal day.

For the neighbors and the county, however, the storm lived up to its billing.  There were huge trees down in some of the wealthier neighborhoods.  Houses on the South Shore of Long Island were flooded or knocked off their foundations.

We'd muddled through about a week without power when hurricane Irene came through last year.  I anticipated that Sandy would finally convince me to buy a generator.  It has.  What Sandy has also done will be seen in subsequent years.  I expect:

• People will stock up on gasoline for their cars and generators prior to storms. 
• Insurance policies will get another evaluation.  Sandy was not technically a hurricane.  The damage caused by a storm surge is not damage caused by a flood.  Some insurance policies are written so that no payout is necessary for coincident events.  Expect the courts to be littered with split hairs.
• Someone who loses everything becoming unhinged and do something terrible to an insurance agent or adjuster.  It'll make for interesting reading, a tragedy for those involved, and have no deterrent  for insurance companies to write policies accurately described by Tom Waits in his song "Step Right Up" on his album "Small Change":

  the large print giveth and the small print taketh away

Robert Fabbio

Digging through my accumulated debris I unearthed a March 3rd, 2003 edition of Information week. Nothing caught my attention except the headline, "Entrepreneur's Next Big Thing", a story about Robert Fabbio, one of the founders of Tivoli. His newest venture was Veio, an "systems management" appliance.

The article noted his runner up in the Imelda Marcos competition, male division: 100 pairs of shoes, 50 watches, and 30 suits. 

Searching the web for traces of Veio I came up with nothing except a link to some nice music videos.  Fabbio himself has moved on:

In 2006, Mr. Fabbio left the technology industry to focus on healthcare and launched WhiteGlove Health where he is able to uniquely apply his technology background to address the many challenges found in the healthcare industry today. ~http://www.whiteglove.com/about-us/management-team/49-robert-fabbio.html

I Hate Actors!

I was at a garage sale the other day when I spotted a book, I Hate Actors by Ben Hecht.  Ben Hecht is the author of Gaily, Gaily and Front Page/His Girl Friday. I'd never heard of the book before.  The $3 asking price was more than I.  They accepted $1 and I was on my way.

There's actually more to the story of course.  I was driving east on Northern Blvd when traffic came to a halt.  I never got to see what caused the problem.  If I were enterprising I would have parked the van and taken my trusty camera in search of an answer.

Diverted through Roslyn side streets I came out on Glen Cove Road.  (Guinea Woods Road, the original name of Glen Cove Road, was changed in a fit of cultural correctness decades ago.  Natives still say "Guinea Woods" to flaunt their primacy.)  I was just about to forget about the estate sale when I noticed the sign across the road said Lakeville Estates.  The turnoff from Glen Cove Road into the area with the estate sale was Lakeville Drive and sure enough I was headed in the right direction.

Not much of interest there other than the book and the book case.  The room looks pretty much as depicted.  Hect's book sans dust jacket was located in the area outlined in red.

 

What is interesting is that the book case rests on a platform.  Below the light line that runs underneath the red box is a set of small cabinets.  To get to the book shelves you have to go up the steps on the right.

I'm not tall.  It was an odd feeling to be staring eye to binder with the books on the top of the bookcase. 

The novel is written from the perspective of a screen writer brought in to rescue a Hollywood travesty, "Sons of Destiny".  Because Hecht was known for his command of the language, especially the vernacular, I was struck by not recognizing several terms:

• "billingsgate and tears" (p  24) - Billingsgate was a fish market in London and represented course language
• "brilliant didoes" (p 27) - "didoes" is defined as a mischievous or capricious act, usually cut didoes.  The original citation with origin unknown is 1807.  Odd I thought because the immediate association would be with Dido, the ancient queen who killed herself after being jilted by Aeneas.   Hardly a prank.  (A late friend used the same spelling, but procounced it Dee-Doh as it was a condensation of her first two names, Diane Dorothea.)  
• "false Tarquin" - Merriam-Webster.com was no help.  My attempt to to submit my citation was frustrated I because I could not authenticate against Facebook, Yahoo, or AOL.  Their loss, but not yours:

  I was trying to understand the phrase, "false Tarquin" (p 84) in Ben Hecht's novel, "I Hate Actors", Crown Publishers, 1944.  "Go on," the Tweed ace nodded, like false Tarquin, "just tell the truth."

  The reference is probably to Tarquin the Proud, the last legendary King of Rome, a vile person if his wikipedia entry is to be believed.  His rape of Lucretia is probably reflected in the context of the story where a woman who bore a child out of wedlock by a recently deceased actor is providing the true alibi for a suspect for whom a false alibi has already been provided.
  
  Had I not been so alienated from popular culture I might have thought the reference was to Tarquin Anthony "Quinn" Blackwood, a character in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles.  Saved by my naiveté.

2012 Presidential Debate #1

The debate spawned a torrent in the Twitterverse.  Of the best,(CNN's 25 Funniest Tweets) these were the ones I thought memorable:

Phil Plait ‏-- After reading all the variations of the debate drinking games, I have decided to simply remove my liver and set it on fire.

Tara Ariano ‏-- Frankly, neither candidate is working hard enough to land the immigrant feminist small business owner non-voting socialist vote.

Fired Big Bird -- If you don't vote Obama, Mitt Romney is going to be eating me by the end of November.

Dave Weigel -- This is like watching a tax law professor debate an investment advice infomercial host

A members of a listserv to which I was added through no fault of my own passed along two famous quotes about economics, both of which were unknown to me:

Thomas Sowell:

"The first lesson of economics is scarcity. There is never enough of anything to satisfy everyone who wants it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. "

From Frans de Waals' book, "Chimpanzee Politics" :

"...Harold Laswell's famous definition of politics as a societal process determining 'who gets what, when, and how'..."

Septermber 3, 2009: Hoffer Quote, DeepWater Horizon, Freedom Communications

I finally got around to reading the September 3, 2009 edition of the New York Times.  It had been yellowing in the back seat of my car.  I figured it was mellowed enough.

It was an interesting read: SEC investigation of its own failures to find Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, an overview of Ted  Kennedy's posthumously published autobiography, the murderous bank robbery in Iraq by security forces, and two bits that caught my eye:

1) An announcement of BP's discovery of huge oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico with the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.   Seven months later BP, the rig, and teh word "disaster" would be linked in the news.

2) This quote from Eric Hoffer, the self-taught "stevedore philosopher": "Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves."  It is in much the same vein as the atheist claim that atheists are acting on a higher moral level because they are doing good by choice and not be fear of divine retribution.

3) Although not as memorable as the Hoffer quote, there was a note in the financial section that Freedom Communications, founded by the staunch Libertarian, R. C. Hoiles, was filing for bankruptcy.  For a firm which had as its founding principle the sanctity of private contracts, bankruptcy protection should have been an anathema.  The article points out that debtors who charged a higher rate for understood that their higher rate was predicted on greater risk and a place further back in the repayment queue.

Meridith Monk @ the Greene Space

I was listening to WNYC's New Sounds program tonight.  The most accurate way to describe the sounds is this: voices straining to imitate  fire engines screeching over a string quartet.

Jeez, I could just imagine what junk the host had to listen to to have selected the awful stuff he was playing.  The song came to an end to applause.  What I'd been listening to was not music chosen by the host, but a live performance by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble along with the Todd Reynolds Quartet from the record release party for Monk’s latest album, “Songs of Ascension”.

Right away I thought of a Jules Pfeiffer cartoon in the Village Voice which showed a prototypical 50's early 60's era beat type identifying the film everyone walked out on as a test. 

Someone somewhere will claim some wretched excess as art.  Between songs the host,  John Schaefer said, "You explore the boundary between noise and music."  I think she's gone over to the dark side.

I left a post on the page indicating that I'd never heard her music before, but midway through the first piece the Garcia effect kicked in.  (I thought that was the most succinct and civil way of saying that I'd never voluntarily listen to her music again.)

Put another way, I'm too old to waste my time for this.  When I was younger I watched Antonioni's "Red Desert" twice because I couldn't believe that it was so bad on the first viewing.  It was. 

I don't intend to repeat the error with Monk.  Time has become too valuable.

Dendritic Arbor

In a Radiolab (http://www.radiolab.org/2007/jun/04/) broadcast on zoos the term "dendritic arbor" was used to describe the growth of dendrites after a monkey was transferred to a more enriched environment.

My immediate thought was to formulate a sentence using the term.  After a few attempts, perhaps influenced by having read an article about hallucinogenic mushrooms leading to a gruesome murder I settled for "Drugs were implicated in the pruning of his dendritic trees."  Not bad, but something involving topiary would have been better, e.g., "His dendritic trees look like topiary."

A Found Lyric and a Quote

I came across a piece of paper on which I'd written:

Not murder in the first
Not murder in the second or third
That woman brought down her man
as a hunter brings down a bird

 It sounds like a lyric for Frankie and Johnny/Albert.  I suspect it came from a performance on Prairie Home Companion.

A web search didn't get any useable hits in 4 pages. It did turn up a link to Raymond Hamilton, an associate of Bonnie and Clyde in a Google book, "Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde".  The book contained this quote:

Americans have fought one war to win their independence and another to preserve the Union.  Now they face a new war, between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess. " ~ former president Theodore Roosevelt in 1910

Nice quote, but doesn't seem so applicable to today's situation.

Ripped out a friend's heart and tongue

Under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms, mixed martial arts fighter Jarrod Wyatt of Crescent City, California ripped out the heart and tongue of his sparring partner.  The story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48953331/#) and the accompanying comments just left me numb.  According to Wyatt the two believe they were in "a struggle between God and the devil".

On Thurday, September 6, 2012 Wyatt agreed to plead guilty before his trial to spare all (his family, his victim's family) from reliving the events.  He'll be serving 50 years to life.

What an obvious waste.  My father would comment, "This was so  unnecessary." in response to avoidable mishaps.  The comment was suitable for events large and small.  It's applicable here.  All they needed to do was not take the mushrooms.

Perhaps it is a curious facet of law that Del Norte County District Attorney Jon Alexander "said it was important to him that Wyatt admitted to killing Powell, and that it was a premeditated murder that wasn't the result of drinking psychedelic mushroom tea".

Recrudescence

In his 50th anniversary appreciation of Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange in the New York Times Book Review (9/1/2012), Martin Amis used the word, recrudescence, an unfamiliar term.  I doubt that I'd ever seen it before.  the definition is simple enough:

breaking out afresh or into renewed activity; revival or reappearance in active existence.

 Sounds like a term which could be trundled out to describe the dieting habits of the American public, but Amis used the term in reference to self-punitive guilt.

Beautiful Days

This sat as a draft for 5 months.

The days are lyrically nice.  It's early spring, girls are in their summer dresses (more on this in a second), and the weather is delightful warm, sunny with a slight breeze.  The fair skinned are slathering themselves with sun block.  Those in pursuit of a tan are well on their way.  The only fly in the ointment is civilization's implosion in the aftermath of the upcoming environmental collapse - nothing new here.

Girls in their summer dresses: many years ago I found myself staring at a young woman in my chem lab section.  I could not tear my eyes away from her.  It was embarrassing.  I'd been teaching the section for about 10 weeks, but on that spring morning I was staring at her.  Why?  After a few minutes the realization hit me and I started laughed out loud:  She was the first female student I'd seen in a dress in seven months.  For at least 8 months every female student had worn slacks or jeans.

Lying Weasel

Jeff Greenfield's analysis of Paul Ryan's acceptance speech on Yahoo! Finance was particularly disappointing. Greenfield pointed out several errors/lies/misrepresentations in the speech and then went on to explain that the Republican/Conservative faithful can dismiss the particulars because they'll attribute the charge to a tainted source, their traditional whipping boy, "liberal media".

That this is now accepted, that demonstrable facts can be dismissed because one doesn't like the source of the information bodes ill for this country.  (Is it ironic that Sally Kohn's article on Fox News, Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words boiled it down to this: Dazzling, Deceiving, and Distracting.)

Alluding to Nazis is now a marker of the point where a debate/discussion goes off the rails.  However in this case, my immediate thought was "The Big Lie", perfected by Paul Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda under Hitler.  I'm not drawing a parallel between Ryan and Goebbels, but the phenomenon of repeating a falsehood loudly and persistently that others will repeat the statement as given truth.

As for the particulars in Ryan's speech:

The claims that Obamacare cuts $716 billion of benefits from Medicare when in fact the cuts are to payments to hospitals, not benefits.

He pinned S&P's downgrade of U.S. debt on Obama, when S&P itself explained its downgrade resulted from Congressional Republicans refusal to pass measures to increase revenues.

Ryan accused Obama of promising to keep a GM plant open for "hundreds of years" after he was elected, only to have it closed in the first year. In fact, GM closed the plant before Obama even took office.

Sigh.

The Mist of Collecting Data

The email from the editor read:

"We are in the mist of collecting data for our annual best places to work story."

I responded:

"I'm available to do prufreeding on a part-thyme basis."

I hope he appreciates the humor.

38 Studios Post-mortem

Boston Magazine had a sobering article about 38 Studio, the video game company started by Curt Schilling, the baseball player.  In a nutshell, the never-say-die, positive thinking which served him so well in sports doomed his company.

I passed the link to the prof who teaches the entrepreneurship course.  It might be required reading for sports stars.

The point is made that fame and expertise in one field does not presage business ability.  The article made clear that those in the trenches didn't now how dire things were until checks started bouncing.  In one of the tougher ramifications, one employee found himself with two mortgages, a pregnant wife, and no income.  (He was hired with the understanding that a firm hired by 38 Studios would arrange for the sale of his house.  When 38 Studios stopped paying the firm, the mortgage then became the employee's responsibility.)
All very sad.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/07/38-studios-end-game/

A Body at Rest Stays at Rest

Woman charged with cashing mummified friend's checks

In brief (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/26/12970220-woman-charged-with-cashing-mummified-friends-checks?lite):

A 72-year-old Michigan woman [ Linda Lou Chase] who authorities say kept the body of her longtime companion [Charles Zigler] in her house for more than 18 months after he died is being charged with cashing more than $28,000 worth of his benefit checks

 Now the really interesting thing about the case is that she didn't do anything other than cover the body.  Cashing the checks was illegal, but:

Most of Michigan’s current laws concerning bodies deal with inappropriate disposition by a licensed mortician or removal to interfere with a criminal investigation.
“She literally did not move the body – so moving a body before the medical examiner could examine it doesn’t apply,” [chief assistant prosecutor] Blumer said.

A mental competency exam is scheduled.

50 Shades of Grey Reviews

Gotta love the comments.  "50 Shades of Grey", the current erotic bodice ripper favorite, has terrific comments on Amazon:

Identifying himself as "a male senior citizen, a semi-retired gynecologist whose customary literary fare is spy novels and military techno-thrillers", david shobin/thatch pond corp wrote, "At my age, my arthritis flared up just reading about Ana's sexual gymnastics. And for some reason, I kept thinking about her contracting genital warts."

"DS from LA" used the Kindle search function, to tabulate the repetitive physical references to eyes rolling (41), lip biting (35), lips "quirking up" (16 and, no I don't know what it means either), "cocks his head to one side" (17), etc.

 edenae  pointed out that when " characters speak to each other they have to remind themselves who they are talking to 'Hello Mrs. Steele', 'How was your day Mr. Grey', 'It was fine Anastasia', 'Oh good, mine was great Christian.'"

 Elly Abs had some quibbles: "EL James has very limited vocabulary and frankly if a man screamed my name every time he reached climax i would have to slap him into next Tuesday."

 DocKaren "dockaren" : "The best thing to come of this book are the multiple cleverly written reviews posted here that describe how repellant this book is much more eloquently than I could ever hope to."

I Flunk Celebrity Trivia - Again

There was an article about Lindsay Lohan getting a new half-sibling because her father's girl friend, Kate Major was pregnant.  Who is Kate Major?

You may know who Ms Major is, but I'm clueless. Celebrity magazines at the supermarket trace the amorous exploits of bold faced names I don't recognize.  It doesn't make a real difference, but I usually feel that there are two stories: the one which is written and the one about the implications of the story.

For example, the latest biggest Hollywood bust up between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes has fascinating legal plotting behind it.  Ms Holmes ability to get sole custody of the child will have matrimonial lawyers doubler checking the custody arrangement clauses in their prenups.

Anyway, about Ms Major: a web search found this mug shot (http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/gallery/kate-major-mugshot/):

Kate Major's mugshot from early 2012. Not to be confused with her other recent efforts.

It made me wonder if fans argue about which mugshot made the object of their obsession look the most or least wasted.  "Oh yeah, the DWI mug shot in Santa Monica was so much better than the DUI in Maryland."

It reminded me of an article in the local college paper from a student who stated that the best way for her to control her drinking was to think of her mother's reaction to her mug shot.

Morse: Before

Yesterday, Sunday July 1^st, marked the first American appearance of Endeavour the prequel to the popular Inspector Morse series. The episode had a well turned praise which started as an insult: One of the secondary characters says to Morse, "Poor old Morse. You were never Oxford material. Too bloody decent by half." (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/endeavour-morse)

A thought about forensics occurred to me.  A death appears to be a suicide because of the powder marks on the skull, but nothing was said about gunshot residues on the deceased hand.  Is this classic misdirection? 

Alex's Wedding

This past week Doonesbury has been concerned with Alex's Wedding to Toggle.  Sunday's strip in which Mike is stunned to see his little girl in her bridal dress brought an outpouring of posts from men recounting their own emotions on seeing their own daughters marry.  

In follow up strips BD tries to explain the rules of marriage to Leo.  It  brought this response from L. Rodriguez | Guaynabo | Puerto Rico | June 18, 2012:

RULES

Okay, Leo, here you have the Three Main Rules of Marriage, in a nutshell:

1. Men always have the last word in a discussion, as long as they say "Yes, dear." (My cousin uses the same line:  "I never have any trouble with my women [his wife and daughter].  I just look them in the eye and say, "Yes, dear."  Works every time.")
2. When men demand hot water, they get hot water. Doing the dishes otherwise is not reasonable. 
3. No matter what, women always end up kneeling before men. And when they are kneeling, you will hear them say "Get out from under the bed!".

(Sigh.) 

Best of luck.

A few days later this post:

POOF!

CB's Grandma | Baltimore, MD | June 21, 2012

Today's strip is so true. You see a little girl pretending to be a bride and then poof! She is one. One second she's playing with a doll, and then poof! It's not a toy, it's your grandchild.

Reminded me of a Benny Anderson poem on Prairie Home Companion.

Whole Foods > Portuguese Stock Market

The headline read:

Whole Foods Is Now Bigger Than The Portuguese Stock Market

The free-float method used the total market value of the available stock to calculate the value.  The Portuguese market has fallen 70% since 2007, but, still, to have a single American supermarket company worth more than the entire Portuguese stock market is simply stunning.

A former coworker asked me for an alternative to the stock market.  He was certain that the American economy was going to tank regardless of who wins the election.  How the bleep do I know?  There are corporate bonds, annuities, and other strange things like investing in paying cash for lottery annuities.   (As the words left my mouth I remembered that Scott Rothstein's Ponzi scheme (and his 50 year sentence) was based on paying cash to people who'd won large malpractice awards.) 

This coming on the heels of news reports of the decline in middle class wealth makes me want to pack MREs, flashlights, extra batteries, and toilet paper and head for a cave.

XXX

As part of a database project I thought I'd demonstrate how entering a fake item in the ITEM table would automatically enable the new item to appear with its image when the user tried to place an order.

My fake item was named "xxx".  Can you see where this is going?

I'll chalk it up to being tired.  I searched for "XXX" hoping to see something like the Super Bowl XXX logo,

although I imagined silver X's on a blue background.

What I got was thumbnail images of women who thought it was clothing optional day.  Nice under other circumstances, but definitely not what I wanted at the time.  I spent another fruitless minute looking for a logo for "yyy" or "zzz".

In the end, I made my own XXX image at a make-your-own-logo site:

It's nothing to write home about, but it served the purpose which was to figure out in code how the image should be manipulated to fit the online form.

Doc Watson

The May 31st edition of the NY Times had a short article by Ry Cooder about Doc Watson in which Cooder described the first time he heard Doc Watson. Watson, Clarence Ashley, Fred Price, and Clint Howard sang "Daniel Prayed" on the UCLA campus.

Cooder remembered thinking, "these men know something about music I'll never know, even if I practice and study all my life.  You have to be born into that."

For myself, I remember one memorable moment of a Doc Watson concert.  (I've forgotten the guitarists Doc referred to, but you'll see it doesn't matter.)  Doc said, "I always like the way the Johnson brothers played.  Earl Johnson played like this."  Doc played a little.  "And Ray, he played like this."  Doc played a little more.  "And together they sounded like this."

It sounded nice.  Then jaws dropped when we realized that what sounded like two guitars was Doc on a single guitar.  Most of us laughed and applauded.  The poor folkies were probably wondering if they should head off to the bathrooms to cut their wrists right then and there or wait until after the concert because it was at that moment that they realized that they would never, ever, be that good. 

He told a joke about a Quaker farmer who owned a cow which would swat him with it's tail and try to kick him or overturn the milk pail.  Imitating the farmer patting the cow on the head, Doc said, "I will not beat thee, but in the morning I will sell thee to a Baptist."

I cherish the memory of that concert because I believe it was the first time I heard him sing "Otto Wood the Bandit".  I was taken with the way he sang Otto stressing both syllables as"Ot-tow" instead of "Otoh".   (I was unaware that that was the way the song was originally sung.  See for example The Carolina Buddies recording at http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-9/9-6/otto-wood.html.)

If you want to get some measure of the man and why he was so revered  listen to Terry Gross's 1988 Fresh Air interview with Doc Watson.  The interview proceeds as one might expect when interviewing an unassuming legend until Terry respectfully asked him about the death of his son Merle.  With the honesty that marked the man, he recounted that he was so devastated that he didn't want to play anymore.  If he hadn't been persuaded to keep playing he might have stopped.  His wife had stopped singing, being unable to deal with Merle's death.  A very moving interview.

There's a good biography of Doc Watson, " Doc Watson: Blind But Now I See (Book Review) on eartymemusic.com which includes this quote from Daryl Anger:

“There was a feeling… that Doc was sort of like a spectacular natural feature of the landscape; inevitable, fully formed, iconic.  He seemed ageless, and his so-called disability and spectacular transcendence of that along with his folksy manner made him a kind of mythic character, sort of a household god.”

 I can only add that those who never had the opportunity to see him in person have missed something memorable.