Stumping Dr. Science

There used to be a character on National Public Radio who was introduced thus: "Dr. Science – he knows more than you do."  In our household, I am his stand-in, so called because of my propensity for expounding on random scientific subjects to Kim and the dogs during our walks in the Carlisle woods.  It's a toss up which of the three pays the most attention to what I say.

But Kim showed me something this morning, which I have to admit had me stumped: ice cube spikes.  Actually, they look something like little stalagmites but, given that the water is almost pure and that there is nothing dripping from above, and that they tend not to be vertical, they are not stalagmites. Isn't it amazing how the world-wide web can help you find explanations to such phenomena in just a second or two?  Here is a comprehensive and apparently authoritative article called Spikes on Ice Cubes by Professor Stephen Morris of the department of Experimental Nonlinear Physics at the University of Toronto.

I used the qualifier "apparently" above because the world wide web unfortunately does not give us any indication of authenticity on its articles. Rather than get sidetracked, I'll leave that issue for a future blog.  The department's web page suggests that they are all fans of Monty Python, or possibly the Royal Canadian Air Farce.  There is evidently a certain amount of fun to be had while studying nonlinear physics!

But I was reminded yet again of how amazing H₂O actually is.  One of my favorite parts of my Engineering Science course was studying the so-called steam charts: especially the enthalpy-entropy diagram (see below, with appropriate attribution to WikiCommons) and the pressure-volume diagram. But it's the properties of water near the "triple-point" that are most amazing.

For example, imagine what a world would be like if ice just below the freezing point was actually heavier than water (as you'd expect a solid form to be).  There would be no freshwater fish in the temperate or colder zones since as a lake froze, so its top surface (as ice) would fall to the bottom, allowing more water to freeze.  Eventually, the entire lake would be frozen solid until the thaw came.  Good for fish fingers perhaps but not for live fish.

The other thing that I find fascinating is the phenomenon of sublimation, that's to say ice (in the form of snow typically, where there is a relatively large surface area for any given mass of ice) passes directly into the vapor (steam) phase and disappears into the atmosphere.  On some days, you can actually see this happening as there is a blanket of light fog sitting over the surface of the snow.

On the flip side of course, there is the fact that ice melts under pressure – which is good for winter sports enthusiasts, but not so good for those of us who just want to walk down the driveway to get the morning newspaper.

Oh well, you can't win them all.  In fact, as the three laws of thermodynamics have been restated: you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't even quit the game!

But we can still have some fun!

A good day for the Hudsonian Godwit

The "Hugos" (see picture) that visit the Connecticut shore line should be bobbing up and down with joy today.  Kim, the rest of the TPL team, Save the Griswold Land, the various other groups involved including the selectmen and all of the concerned citizens of Madison, CT have put a parcel of land (the old airport) into permanent conservation.

This is a project which has been several months in the active stage and years in the less active stage.  A referendum was held in the town yesterday to allow the town to purchase the land and in consequence raise the taxes for the next 20 years.  It's hard to get people to raise their own taxes.  But the team mounted a successful campaign and and the yes votes outnumbered the no votes by almost 3 to 2.

There are actually lots of other reasons to save the land.  It's not just the hugos.  But they and the saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow (above) have acted, literally, as the poster-birds for the campaign.

Congratulations to all!  Now, the team will want to follow this Snowy Owl and take a well-earned nap.

Happy Birthday, Frédéric Chopin

In one month today, it will be Chopin's 200th birthday and we at Symphony Pro Musica are celebrating the anniversary in our upcoming concert.  The first half of the program includes the Grand Polonaise and 2nd Piano Concerto with Yelena Beriyeva as soloist.  The second half will be devoted to Anton Bruckner's 4th (Romantic) symphony.

Additionally, we will be performing the Chopin pieces in Jordan Hall on Sunday evening for the Chopin Bicentennial Salute.  Playing in Jordan Hall is always a treat.  I've been privileged to play in some wonderful concert halls in Europe and Jordan Hall ranks with those.  I'm still hoping to play in Symphony Hall one day, reputedly one of the two best halls, acoustically speaking, in the world.

The difference playing in a well-designed hall and a poorly designed one is profound, especially for us woodwind principals (bassoon in my case).  It's a very special feeling to be able to hear every instrument individually (and one's self) with such great clarity.  A solo passage marked piano must be played at least forte in a typical high school auditorium in order to be heard over the general din.  This of course destroys the composer's intention and makes the player concentrate more on volume and consequently less on expression.  In a setting like Jordan Hall, however, we can actually play as marked – as the composer wished – and still be easily heard around the auditorium.

The Chopin concerto is a case in point.  During the exquisite second movement, the bassoon has a lovely passage playing along with the piano and, naturally, it's marked piano.  I'm looking forward to being able to play it without undue straining.

While I'm on the subject, there are bassoon-friendly composers (I should perhaps call these fagottophiles) and then there are those who don't make the most of the bassoon, undoubtedly the most versatile and important instrument in the orchestra.  Well, you would expect me to say that, wouldn't you.  But it's still true!  Here are some composers I would give an A for bassoon writing in an orchestral context: Mozart and Beethoven (A+), Ravel, Stravinksy, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Resphigi, Copland, Bach.  I never expected to find myself putting Chopin in with the other As, but I really think he deserves it.  These composers get a B+: Puccini (maybe an A-), Verdi, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, R. Strauss, Donizetti, Bizet, Brahms, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Haydn, Janacek, Dvorak.  I'm sure there are some I've forgotten.  Of course Vivaldi gets a special vote of thanks for his forty bassoon concerti!

Way down the list, probably getting no better than a C, is Anton Bruckner.  Indeed, it's fortunate that I'm not, as I usually do, writing the program notes for this concert.  I would probably be hard pressed to say anything really good about the fourth symphony.  Here, I'll come right out with it.  Bruckner was still learning his craft at the time he wrote this symphony at age 50.  I can almost hear his former (by many years) professors saying "Hmm, melody A-, counterpoint C+, harmony B+, orchestration B, development of themes (and avoidance of repetition): C, etc."

The quality of the music is very far from that of another composer he is often compared to, viz. Gustav Mahler.  In fact, the only thing in common between them is they were both, technically at least, Austrian and both loved large orchestras and long symphonies.

On the other hand, by the time he wrote his ninth symphony, I think he really had got composition down.  Still rather repetitive but this time the repetitions really add to the experience and help the music build on itself.  He and I do share one thing in common, however: love of good beer!

To end with our original subject, Chopin, I am going to have to take a much closer look (or listen) to his music.  The second piano concerto, which he wrote at the ripe old age of 20, far exceeds my expectations.  it turns out that his first piano concerto includes even more bassoon work.  He also lived a very interesting if rather short life (he died in 1849), particularly his relationship with the French author and feminist known as George Sand.

The Greenough Land

Carlisle, the "city in the woods", is extraordinarily well endowed with open space.  That was certainly one of the major reasons we came here, and I suspect it's true for many if not most of our fellow Luguvalians*.

Those of us living in the Eastern part of town are especially well provided for.  Almost all of the land between Maple Street and the Concord River is permanently protected.  Some of it is part of the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge but the rest is town land, including the town's largest acquisition at 242 acres, the Greenough Land.

We spend a lot of time there walking or jogging with our dogs and we never just take it for granted.  It's truly a wonderful place.  The pond and its margins change every day, throughout the seasons and at different times of the day.  The wildlife is always interesting: herons, ospreys, wood ducks, just to name a few.

Incidentally, although I've said it here before, I'll say it again: pick up after your dogs!  We go armed with little colored bio-degradable baggies that your can buy by the thousand on eBay for just a few dollars!  There's no excuse for leaving a mess.  Glad to have gotten that little diatribe out of the way.  The only other minor irritations that we run into there are from the insect and arachnid families: mosquitoes and ticks.  That's one of the reasons we like it there so much in the winter!

But, if we need a change of scenery, we can go to Great Brook Farm State Park at 900 acres or Estabrook woods (around 800 acres, if I recall correctly, most of which is in the town of Concord).  In fact, by going down Brook Street, across Bedford Road and navigating the Davis corridor, we, like the 18th century citizens of Billerica, can walk all the way to Concord.  Indeed that part of the permanently protected Greater Estabrook Woods within the town of Carlisle, including the Davis corridor and various other parcels, adds up to 322 acres, although some of this is still privately owned. I think we've walked on most of the larger tracts of conservation land, but there are still plenty of places we have yet to visit.

How does Carlisle compare to other comparable towns?  One way you can get an excellent visual look is by visiting the Massachusetts Open Space Viewer.  This shows, in different colors, the protection status of the land – permanently protected land is in dark green.  It's easy to spot that the communities through which the SuAsCo river system passes tend to be well-off for protected open space.  Lincoln and Wayland are especially fortunate in this regard.  But you can see that Carlisle is also very well off by comparison with most of its neighboring towns.

While I was researching this, I also came across another fascinating resource: the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas Viewer.  I note from this that the Eastern Bluebird is marked only as "possible" in the Carlisle square.  I'm sure that they are breeding but I'll have to see if I can prove it in the spring.

Having pointed out how lucky we are to have so much open space, the Massachusetts Audubon Society estimates that over forty acres of the commonwealth's open space is lost every day!  Given that the total land area of Massachusetts is only about 5 million acres, this certainly is no time to feel complacent!

I should end by congratulating the Conservation Commission, especially in this its 50th year, and the Trails Committee for doing so much to enrich our town with its wonderful woods.

 * I'm not sure what the proper name for a Carlisle resident is but this seems appropriate, given that the Roman name for Carlisle, UK was Luguvalium.

Fie fie, fickle ones

Massachusetts, what were you thinking?

I haven't written about politics before and I might not again.  But Ted Kennedy's Senate seat going to a Republican is hard to ignore!

Maybe you aren't enamored of Martha Coakley but, goodness gracious, we just threw the bums out and now we're letting one of them back in.  Not just any one but the 41st opposition vote in the Senate!  Now why, Oh Massachusetts, would you help put President Obama in office to fix the mess that Scott Brown's party got us into and then take away the vote that he (Obama) needs to get the job done?

Actually, I think I know.  Americans, like most people in the world actually, are allergic to government.  We never want to give too much power to a government, red, blue, or purple.  That government might then actually get something done!  Far better to keep them handcuffed by the appropriate loss of majority, etc. in one of the other branches of government.

I must exonerate Carlisle, however.  We voted for Coakley (54%) with almost 76% turnout!

What with the Patriots' humbling loss to the Ravens, Massachusetts has had a pretty bad January.

Bread of Heaven

Isn't it strange how often you get home with a nice looking loaf of bread, typically with some such title as artisan rustic whole wheat Tuscan pane, only to find that it is sourdough?  We seem to be experiencing something of an epidemic of sourdough bread trying to masquerade as, well, bread!  Given that the taste of sourdough bread is so very different from what the customer would expect (for Tuscan pane, for example) it seems to me that its sourdough origins should be marked in large letters "WARNING: SOURDOUGH".  Instead, it you have sufficiently good eyesight to actually read the ingredients, you will find, buried in the middle of the list "sourdough starter".

The importance of sourdough as part of the westward expansion of the white folks towards California, is well known.   But I've never experienced sourdough outside the United States, and especially not in Tuscany.  So I decided I needed to know more about sourdough and its history and geography.  The wikipedia article was not as informative as I would have liked, particularly about modern usage in places like Italy and France, but it did give some interesting history.  Apparently, until the middle ages, sourdough was the normal leavening agent for bread, having been developed in Egypt around 2,500 years ago.  I doubt that date slightly – I would expect bread to have been, like beer, an important aspect of civilization itself which began around 10,000 years ago.  It's also apparently the normal way of making rye bread because of rye's low gluten content.

So, I would be very interested to hear of people's experience in Europe with sourdough – I will be happy to hear if I'm wrong.

So which is the true Bread of Heaven?  What did the Welsh Methodist writer William Williams have in mind when he wrote that great rousing hymn which (later) borrowed the tune of the Welsh hymn Cwm Rhondda (the Rhondda valley). Both versions seem to be based on the story of the Exodus as an allegory for the travails of a Christian.  See the wikipedia article for more information.

Altogether now,

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand:
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.
...

The Three Musketeers and the iPhone

I now have an iPhone (my Christmas gift from Kim) and it is truly amazing.

There is never a web page that I can't read (although some pages require a fair amount of pushing and shoving of the text within the window).  But that is so easily done with just one finger.  The touch-screen keyboard makes typing incredibly easy (compare, for example, to the blackberry).  And, one of the most amazing features of all: it knows whether I'm viewing in landscape or portrait mode by magic!  [well, it seems like magic].

That reminds me of why the vacuum flask is one of the most brilliant inventions of all time: it can keep hot things hot and it can keep cold things cold and it knows which to do!

But to return to the iPhone, it also has an enormous number of apps, many of which are free.  I have the iBird app which is like having a field guide to the birds in your pocket.  Actually, it's better because a) it's smaller, b) it has more birds, c) it can play you the bird calls of species you think you might be hearing.  I also use a free RSS reader which allows me to keep up to date on the various blogs and news feeds that I read.

When I'm in need of calming, I go to the special built-in uTube app and play my favorite: Alicia de Larrocha's recording of the second movement of Mozart's 23rd piano concerto.

It also has an incredibly good digital camera built in that is so easy to use, I really don't need my old camera any more (in fact, my old camera always has about a half-second delay before it deigns to take a photograph which pretty much rules out an action shots).  Here, for example, is the photo (top) which I call "the three musketeers" taken on the morning before our foster dog Miley (center) was due to go to her permanent home.

Oh, and did I mention that I can use it as a cell phone?

About the only thing the iPhone doesn't do is make the tea.  Guess I'll have to go and put the kettle on myself.

Survival of the fittest

I'm still enjoying listening to the recording of Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and it is, as is everything by Dawkins, really excellent.  He and his beautiful wife, actress Lalla Ward, share the reading and, in an about-turn of my previous blog comments, I really think that this format enhances the experience.  She has a correspondingly lovely voice, while Dawkins' own voice is also easy to listen to.

One of the most exciting recent developments, and which is covered in some detail, is the 20-plus year experiment of Professor Lenski at Michigan State University (presumably no relation of the Lensky who met such an untimely death at the hands of Eugene Onegin).  Briefly, they have allowed 12 "tribes" of the bacterium E. coli to go through a daily feast and famine cycle for, at this point, almost 22 years.  The results are quite amazing and something of an embarrassment to the creationists, who are now doing everything they can to discredit the results, just as you'd expect.

Dawkins himself has been busy promoting the book and appearing on various TV outlets, even on Al Jezeera where he was, rather surprisingly, very favorably interviewed, given what he says about the Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity in The God Delusion.  There's also an interview (if you can call it that) with Bill O'Reilly where O'Reilly predictably manages to shout louder than Dawkins.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our boys in blue, the Patriots have set a new NFL record for embarrassing losses.  They changed the script from we go ahead by 17 points in the fourth quarter only to lose it in the last minute to a completely new idea: we allow the opponents to completely outclass us and begin the second quarter down 21 to nothing.  At least they keep us guessing!  In this case, it was the Baltimore Ravens who were fitter and therefore survived.  I must say they seemed to be a fairly complete team: awesome defense, a better running game than I've seen in the NFL for a while, and a moderately decent passing game.  Maybe they will go all the way to the Superbowl.

It's hard to know exactly what went wrong.  Clearly the entire team was in shock after, get this, winning the toss but electing to receive in the second half, then allowing the first play from scrimmage to rumble 90+ yards for a touchdown.  On the subsequent series, Brady was completely at sea.  To what extent that was because Julian Edelman couldn't get open like Wes Welker would have, or whether Brady and the team were just not prepared for the Baltimore defense, it's hard for me to judge.  But I don't really think it was the Welker/Edelman factor.  We still have Randy Moss, and several other competent receivers, for goodness sake!

Unfortunately, my team's efforts in the open knockouts at the most recent bridge tournament, were agonizingly similar to Brady et al's.  The first two boards (of a total of 24) that we played at our table ended up as losses of 20 and 13 imps!  We outplayed our opponents 50-23 on the other 22 boards but it was a question of too little, too late.  Still, we managed to get 3rd (of 20) in the board-a-match the following day so we recovered some self-respect.

Marmalade from Peru?

Like Michael Bond's lovable character Paddington Bear, I am lover of marmalade.  In fact, it's breakfast time right now and I'm eating toast and some really tasty marmalade, made by one of our bridge friends Gloria Tsoi.  Here's my review of her very tasty brandy marmalade.

While marmalade isn't really a native British food (it's generally too cool to grow oranges, unfortunately), it's been enthusiastically adopted from southern Spain and Portugal in much the same way that sherry (Jerez) and port (Porto) have been.  Indeed, marmalade is ubiquitous in British homes and hostelries as part of that wonderful creation "the full English breakfast" (from which, incidentally, we get the expression The Full Monty, after Viscount Montgomery of Alamein who, reputedly, was a devotee of such breakfasts).  [At least, this is the origin of the expression, as far as I know – but see this article for a fuller discussion].

There are three rival centers of marmalade making in Britain, that I can think of.  One, the best known and, by the way, origin of the best cake in the entire world: Dundee in Scotland.  The other two are our two great centers of learning, and my two alma maters: Oxford (Frank Cooper's) and Cambridge (Chivers).  Indeed in my second year at Oxford, I lived directly above the Cooper's store on the High Street.  I love their thick-cut "Oxford" marmalade which, fortunately, I can actually buy here in the U.S.

But the best marmalade of all, bar none, is my own mother's.  And I'm not just saying that.  She really knows how to make marmalade and goes to the ends of the earth (well, the ends of Kent, anyway) to find Seville oranges, the proper marmalade oranges (because of their high pectin content and somewhat bitter taste).  She is fond of bringing me pots of marmalade on her visits here.  Unfortunately, she sometimes forgets that marmalade is a gel, and therefore not permitted in hand luggage.  Several pots of scrumptious marmalade have found their way, presumably, to the security officers' breakfasts.

Exactly how Paddington Bear had acquired a taste for marmalade "in darkest Peru" is something of a mystery, although I do recall that there was a semi-plausible explanation.  Presumably, darkest Peru is the part of the country through which the Amazon flows. The rest of Peru is, I imagine, rather light and airy, especially up in the Andes around places like Cuzco. My daughter Miranda is currently in Peru for a year on a Fogarty scholarship, and has actually been to Iquitos on the Amazon (indeed she has rafted for three days in the annual Amazon river rafting race), I'll have to ask her if she found plenty of marmalade while she was there.

I expect the real explanation has more to do with Bond's fondness (fetish?) for citrus fruits.  One of his other characters is the hilariously funny Monsieur Pamplemousse, a Clouseau-like character who has retired from the Sûreté and, with his faithful dog Pommes Frites, investigates the gastronomic delights of France as a reviewer for le Guide.  I'm a big fan of M. Pamplemousse.


Stands the church clock at a quarter past?
And is there marmalade still for breakfast?

[with apologies to Rupert Brooke]

Bedford and Biology

Today, I'm turning my attention to our neighboring town over the river, Bedford, MA (not to be confused with New Bedford, MA).   I lived there in an earlier life for longer than I've ever lived anywhere.  And I still spend a lot of time driving through it, shopping, etc.

If you follow the link given, you'll certainly read about Bedford being the home of the oldest flag in the United States.  And a few other interesting tidbits, especially regarding the nation's first narrow-gauge railroad, the remarkably short-lived Billerica and Bedford Railroad.  The kids called it "Deadford" but that's a bit unfair, I think.  It's actually a fantastic town to grow up in (as my two did).

But there is no list of famous sons (or daughters) of Bedford.  No Presidents (or even Vice-Presidents) were born there, no notable politicians, entertainers, sports figures.  At least none that are mentioned, or that I know of.

Meanwhile (I'll connect) ...

Knowing how much I love to read Richard Dawkins books, and how much I love to listen to recordings in the car, my son Will gave me for Christmas a recording of the latest Dawkins volume The Greatest Show on Earth.  In it, he makes the case for evolution according to natural selection, by examining the evidence.  As he admits, his earlier books have all just assumed the fact of evolution.  But there is a growing (yes, growing) number of people in the civilized world who don't believe in evolution.  Forty percent (!!!) in the United States, according to various polls. 

It's scandalous!  Yes, Americans are famous for being bad at mathematics and geography, not to mention spelling, but biology? Well, of course, we know that it's all political.  There are some people who, like the Catholic church for the last two millenia, have tried to pull the wool over our eyes in order to line their own pockets.  I have to admit that it was a smart tactic, at least before old Gutenberg screwed things up.  Keep the masses ignorant and live a nice comfortable life.  There are people here in the U.S. who are spending lots of money (someone else's money, presumably) doing essentially the same thing: try to stop the ordinary people from finding out that we are the result of three and a half billion years of evolution, rather than having been created in a puff of smoke 4,000 years ago.  And they're doing quite a good job of it apparently.  They only have another 60% to go and we'll all be back in the dark ages.

Anyway, Dawkin's book is his answer to these whackos.  He's laying the case out like a detective novel.  The book is great of course, although I'm not 100% sure that switching voices between himself and his wife, Lalla, is really all that helpful to the listener.

In any case, the first chapter has reminded me what a debt we all owe to that great evolutionary biologist, Ernst Mayr.  I admit to being appallingly ignorant of the details of this great man's life.  I didn't know for example that he lived to be 100 years old and certainly didn't know that, get this, he died in Bedford, MA just five years ago.  Who knew?

This discovery reminded me that in researching Igor Stravinsky years ago for the program notes that I write for SPM, I read that he (Stravinsky) had married his wife in, you guessed it, Bedford, MA.

All of which points back to that Wikipedia page.  Someone needs to go in there and add a few famous names.  If there are any, apart from the two I've mentioned who are, admittedly, a little incidental.

Patriot Games

Is it a coincidence, or do I somehow manage to cause the Patriots to lose, simply by turning on the TV?  And, what if, as on this last Sunday, I actually record it on Tivo and watch it later?  How can my watching, affect what happens 2,000 miles away on the football field?

Yes, of course it's a coincidence.  Yet, every time I have watched the Patriots this season, they have lost, typically by blowing a seemingly comfortable fourth quarter lead.  In the latest installment of utter frustration, they were ahead by 14 points early in the fourth quarter.  There were no last-second heroics by the home team, the lowly Texans in this case.  They simply scored 21 unanswered points and then intercepted the ball in the last minute of play to seal the game.

The really bad news, however, was that we lost Wes Welker for the season, to an ACL injury, just like Tom Brady's last season (except that that was in the first game, rather than the last game).  The actual result of the game didn't matter much, it was really only for seeding (although it mattered quite a lot to the Texans).  For this reason, Belichik was spelling the starters and giving playing time to backups.  Unfortunately, the play on which Wes was hurt occurred early in the game when he was still in play (obviously).

Wes Welker, like his counterpart on the current Red Sox team, Dustin Pedroia (5' 8"), is one of those rare athletes: a short guy at the very pinnacle (excuse the pun) of his profession.  My old neighbor Doug Flutie (officially 5' 10", but I've heard that questioned) was another example.  Flutie still holds the single-season CFL records for passing yards and passing touchdowns.  Even in basketball, there have been short point guards who were really good.  Case in point, Muggsy Bogues at 5' 3"!

Welker is listed on the Patriots web site as being 5' 9".  This year he leads the NFL in receptions (he has 123 to Steve Smith's 107) and for his full stats and bio, see Wes Welker.  It's pretty amazing reading.  This seasons reception total of 123 is tied for second in the history of the NFL!  Even Jerry Rice's best season was only 122.  And, no doubt, if he hadn't been injured early in the game, he'd have got at least 124 putting him a clear second on the all-time list.  Trivia Question: just who does hold the league record for receptions (with 143!)?  Clue: this person has been in the news for almost catching a more deadly kind of projectile.  Answer in next blog (you can answer in comment if you like).

So I look forward to the Baltimore Ravens coming to town on Sunday.  There is hope.  The Patriots are unbeaten at home this season.

Dark Eyes

I've been noticing a lot of dark-eyed juncos this winter here in Carlisle.  It seems to me that, while normally abundant, their numbers might be even as much as double the norm.  I could go and check the old Massachusetts bird sightings to be sure.

In any case, they are a fascinating little bird and very colorful, especially given the backdrop of snow that we have on the ground here.  Is it my imagination, or are there more of various other species, too?  I'm thinking particularly of the white-crowned sparrow, the downy woodpecker and the carolina wren.

Whenever I think about juncos, however, one of my favorite songs, Fair Phoebe and her Dark-eyed Sailor,
always pops into my head.  This turns up in two of my most special, and admittedly disparate, recordings: one by Steeleye Span and the English Idyll, number 2 by George Butterworth.  Be sure to listen to track 3 from this recording.  The opening (which is about all you get to hear) is a double-reed lover's delight.  The oboe plays the tune, while a pair of bassoons play a counter melody, in harmony.  Just wonderful!

No doubt, there are other settings that I don't know.  I've provided the link to my own page about Butterworth where you can see how highly I regard this great composer, but of course you can look him up in Wikipedia, or wherever too.

There's one other musical reference to dark eyes that immediately springs to mind: it's from Recondita armonia, Cavaradossi's first-scene aria from Puccini's Tosca.  His painting of the Madonna that he's working on has, somewhat to his own surprise, the wrong hair and eye color, i.e. not those of Tosca, his girlfriend.  This turns out to be a fatal mistake, literally!

• ... È bruna Floria,
• l'ardente amante mia.
•  ...
• E te beltade ignota,
• Chinta di chiome bionde,
• Tu azzuro hai l'occhio,
• Tosca ha l'occhio nero.

Floria, my passionate lover (Tosca) is a brunette, while you, the unknown image are blond and with blue eyes, Tosca has dark (literally black) eyes.

The Naughty Aughties?

Well, the Aughties are over.  And we're back to having 10 year decades, 100 year centuries, etc. (as opposed to the 9-year nineties and 99-year 20th century).

But were the Aughties naughty like their predecessor (1901-1910)?  Not really.  That decade was naughty in the social sense of emerging from the Victorian era and letting it all hang ("Relatively") out.  There were no great wars, at least as far as Western Europe and the U.S. were concerned (unlike a century earlier when all of Europe was in turmoil), and by all accounts it was a golden age, assuming you had money to enjoy it.  The horrors of WWI and WWII were unimaginable at that point in time and they knew nothing about global warming or the finiteness of oil, which they had just begun to pump out of the ground in places like Azerbaijan.

Our Aughties were naughty in other ways.  First, we had those extremely naughty people flying planes into our great buildings.  Then we had those naughty Republicans using that attack as a smokescreen to further enrich themselves by invading Iraq.  And throughout, we've all been very naughty by continuing to waste our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and doing absolutely nothing about it.

As a result, we may have witnessed the very last Aughties, at least in the sense of a reasonably civilized world where our coastal cities are dry and intact.  I'm skeptical that the World is going to end at the winter solstice of 2012 as suggested (through omission) by the Mayans et al, and more recently by Hollywood.  But I'm afraid it's going to become an increasingly scary place as people compete for (dry) land and resources.  I sincerely hope that by the year 2100, we are all* living comfortably in our solar-energy-based economy with the polar ice and sea levels re-established.  But I'm doubtful.  See the works of people like Daniel Quinn and Jared Diamond, etc. etc.

* anywhere between 6 and 14 billion of us.