Tuesday, December 25, 2007

First, before I forget, a probability challenge that came up during the conversation today: What is the actual probability of winning the solitaire game that Grandma plays? The game goes as follows: shuffle the deck, then hold it face-down. One at a time, move cards from the bottom of the deck to the top, flipping them face-up. You can then remove cards from the stack of face-up cards as follows: if two cards are between cards of the same number or suit, remove those two cards (example: J 2 5 J --> remove the 2 and the 5; H S D H --> remove the spade and the diamond). If you get four of any number or suit in a row, remove all four. Recalculate as you remove things, so for example J 3 J 2 5 J --> J 3 J J --> J J. The goal is, obviously, to end up with zero cards left when you've gone through the deck (i.e., to end with four in a row of some number or suit). So, the outcome is 100% determined after you finish shuffling (making it a very mindless version of solitaire). So David wanted to know, what should the odds of winning be? Something divided by 52!, obviously...but what? I don't feel confident this can be solved, but clearly the answer exists, since a certain fraction of all possible orders will lead to a win...I just don't see an easy way of calculating that answer.

Meanwhile, Christmas was lovely, as our Christmases are wont to be. I got a bunch of cooking stuff, which I asked for, and a nice carry-on suitcase, which I also asked for, and some beautiful earrings, a book of photos by my favorite photographer (this guy) one of these, which is amazing, a bear sculpture, two stuffed animals, and a pony from Sarah, which I also asked for. It was a My Little Pony, I believe, and she even put airholes in the box for it. Definitely one of the sweetest presents I've gotten. Of course, the tree did fall on Annie...and Watson did continually feel the need to mark the living room as his territory...but by and large no one Ruined Christmas. And I'm just so impressed with my family every time I have occasion to gather with them. It's amazing to see people whose births I remember growing up into such interesting, complicated people. Elizabeth and my brother and Sarah and I had an intense discussion of the seventh Harry Potter book. Noah's still too young to discuss literature with, but I just love watching him grow up. Steve and Diana and Jon are so satisfying to talk to. I know I'm not being very articulate about this; it's so hard to describe people concisely. But I'm so lucky to have a family with such interesting people in it. Even though by the time we were leaving, I felt like snapping at anyone who so much as looked at me...but hey, that's just how it goes on Christmas evening, right?

Of course, someone needs to hurry up and have kids. Sarah is the youngest of the Christmas Eve Crowd, and she's like nine. Since it's unlikely that anyone in my generation will have kids for the next, oh....minimum of four years, more realistically seven or eight years, we're going to have a period with no little kids around on Christmas morning, and that's sad. That means Sarah will be about sixteen before she stops being the youngest! Who's going to scamper around getting everyone presents? Well, Elizabeth is the one with the most easily available steady boyfriend, so I think it falls to her. She'll just have to put this whole newspaper thing aside for the moment, and do her duty for the family.

In closing, Ian Anderson's take on Christmas:

Got a birthday card at Christmas; it made me think of Jesus Christ.
It said “I love you” in small letters; I simply had to read it twice.
Wood smoke curled from blackened chimneys; the smell of frost was in the air;
Pole star hovered in the blackness. I looked again: it wasn’t there.

People have showered me with presents, while their minds were fixed on other things.
Sleigh bells, bearded red suit uncles, pointy trees and angel wings.
I am the shadow in your Christmas, I am the corner of your smile.
Perfunctory in celebration; you offer content but no style.

Oh that little baby Jesus, he got a birthday card or three.
Gold trinkets and cheap frankincense, some penny baubles for his tree.
Have some time off for good behaviour, forty days, give or take a few.
Hey there, sweet baby Jesus, let’s share a birthday card with you.

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Fruits Basket

I am listening to the Brandenburg Concertos right now; it's rare that I listen to classical music anymore. Music is so fascinating. I couldn't settle upon the right music when I was sitting at my carrell over the weekend forcing myself to actually concentrate on my thesis, until shuffle came upon this Japanese pop song I've never heard before (how did it get onto my ipod?), sung by some woman (unlike 99% of what I listen to), very pop-y and synthetic and rather vacuous...but it was so perfect right then. Upbeat but not too jarringly bright; pleasing sonorities but not too distracting; and there was this particular moment, or repeated moment throughout the song, that made me feel encouraged and inspired to keep working and not be tempted to click onto Opera and check facebook for the fifth time in ten minutes. It was Japanese just rolling along and along, and then it suddenly resolved into the word "yes", the only English word in a stream of Japanese, and it felt so positive. Perhaps it was similar to how John Lennon felt after climbing onto the footstool and holding the magnifying glass up to the ceiling.

[Interlude: Thanks to Adam, I've been having trouble reading anything for the past couple of days without noticing any nine-letter words and checking what the middle three letters are. That game is exactly the sort of thing I have a hard time getting out of my head...In the above paragraph, I noticed THE, OUR, SSI, CIN, ERL, and, if footstool is actually one word, which I doubt, TST.]

Anyway, it's possible that I've already written something on here about the various ways I find myself loving a piece of music, but it continues to fascinate me. The majority of the time I may find that Japanese song rather boring, or trite, or annoyingly pop-y, but that didn't stop it from helping me finish my thesis more easily, and now I'll always feel close to it. Some of my "favorite" songs I hardly ever want to listen to, because if I listened to them too much they might fade and become too familiar, or just because I find them too intense and need to be focused on really listening when I hear them. I've said before (on this blog, I'm pretty sure...) that I can't listen to Budapest without feeling beyond doubt that it is the best piece ever written--not because it's better than other pieces, but just because that's a quality it has, being as good as something could be, whatever the hell that means. In other words, it's not really a comparative "best". Ideally there'd be a better way to express that in words, I think. I get a similar feeling with Misery. Some songs, I'm convinced, are not written by rather stumbled upon--sort of like the joke about how to sculpt an elephant: just start with a block of marble, and chip off anything that doesn't look like an elephant. Not a perfect analogy...but it's as though the elephant were there inside the marble, just waiting to be shaped so it could be seen by the rest of us; and some songs feel to me as though they've just always been there, and someond discovered how to capture them in a form we can hear. Elegy is in this category, for sure, and possibly Maybe I'm Amazed--I certainly felt that way about Maybe I'm Amazed at one point in my life. Other songs never fail to make me smile in some way or another. Other songs are perfect when I just want good music on to facilitate my creativity or focus. There are just so many ways for a song to be good.

Moving from music into more visual media: I've been watching a lot of anime recently. Movies, and then some Fruits Basket. Lucy vetoed our watching of Paprika last week because she prefers live action movies...I wonder why she feels that way. I'm not saying she shouldn't; I just wonder why she does. I enjoy live action movies just fine...but to me, there's something about animation that allows for a certain elegance and subtlety that it's hard to parallel with live action movies. I haven't figured out how to describe it to myself exactly yet. I could say that the characters exist on their own in a way that they don't when they're played by actors; I think that's true, but it's not exactly what I'm talking about. I like that everything you see was drawn so deliberately; nothing just happens to be there in anime. Maybe that's a minus to some people. I just find it very expressive, in a way that's simple and satisfying when I'm in a certain mood--a mood that often comes on when I'm stressed and overburdened with work. Maybe there's a bit of escapism involved too: sometimes the idea of watching a live action movie, even a silly one, feels like it would require relating to the real world a bit too much, in the wrong way. I don't mind thinking about the real world, even when I'm stressed. But I want to think about it in a slightly abstract, simplified, maybe idealized, elegant form. I want a movie that pleases me aesthetically and artistically as well as emotionally or intellectually.

Anyway, I watched Paprika, which I was not thrilled by, and then I watched a few Miyazaki movies, which were better. I really enjoyed Nausicaa, which I haven't watched before because it never sounded that interesting. But something about those Ohmu is so powerful...Howl's moving castle I liked less, although I must admit, Howl was pretty hot, as animated guys go. :-) Now I'm watching Fruits Basket, with slightly better subtitles than the version I've watched before; although annoyingly, the subtitles are just the dub dialogue, which is pretty faithful to the overall meaning, but isn't really the same word-for-word. And I know enough Japanese to tell when it deviates, but not quite enough to always be able to fill in what was actually said. So it's frustrating. Episode 7, randomly, had two subtitle tracks, one of which was a real translation of the Japanese, and it was so much more satisfying.

I can never quite tell what I think of Tohru. I thought her voice was way too high and kind of annoying, but when I heard the English voice it sounded so awful and way too low...so I guess I'm loyal to her voice, even if it sometimes annoys me. I get very frustrated with characters who are just portrayed as so good and sweet and kind and giving and gentle and generous and loving that everyone who meets them just can't help feeling like they're a really special person. As though it were that easy. Sometimes I want to hear stories about girls who don't immediately capture the hearts of everyone they meet, like most of us. But with all that said, I think she's a good character, and she works well in the story, and as a foil for all the other characters. (Foil isn't quite the right word, 'cause she's not exactly contrasting with them...just a sort of, vehicle through which to develop the other characters?) So why does everyone like her so much? Because she's good at cooking and cleaning? Because she does a lot of work and never complains and always smiles? Because she spends all of her money on chocolates for other people? Because when she enjoys someone's company, or wants to be their friend, she just says so, so sweetly and innocently and honestly? Would that work in real life? I'm not convinced.

For example, I've met a handful of people, through things like classes and math clinic and my thesis research, who I really liked and felt as though if we had a context to get to know each other more, we could have been really close friends. But you can't just become close friends with someone whenever you want to. Without a context, it's just not going to happen. What do you do? Send facebook messages that say "hey, I really enjoyed our conversation, and I think you should take the time to get to know me better because I have a hunch we could have a really good friendship"? In Anne of Green Gables, Anne just says to Diana (I paraphrase), "Hey, let's be best friends for life, okay?" and Diana says "sure," and then they are. And all Tohru has to do is tell Yuki that she hopes they could still be friends even if her memory has to get erased, and he practically falls in love with her on the spot. If only everyone were that desperate for close friends...I guess we all just need to hope to find someone who's never had any real friends because he's afraid they'll get freaked out when they find out he turns into a mouse from time to time. Sometimes I've actually contemplated sending facebook messages like the one above...but I always decide in the end that social norms forbid it. Maybe that's a dumb decision. But right now, all my closest friends (at school) are people I've known since freshman year, from living near them. And I love them, and I'm so glad to be close to them. But what about all the people out there that I would really care about if I had any excuse or chance to become more than aquaintances with them? It's frustrating sometimes.

I like having a blog that no one reads. It's a nice balance. We've talked in adolescence classes about imagined audience, and a bit about how it relates to blogging. I like having a vague, hypothetical, imagined audience--the fact that anyone theoretically could read this (it's even linked on my facebook, I think...) helps me put a little bit of effort into what I write, so that I can pretend that a random stranger stumbling upon this blog might think I was a vaguely interesting person. Yet, since I'm pretty sure no one ever actually does read any of this, I can write whatever random things I'm thinking about and not worry about impressing anyone.

What do you do when you read a bit of someone's blog, and it sounds very personal and emotional, and you really want to tell them that what they write is beautiful and powerful and interesting, that you relate to some of it a lot, that they're a great writer...but you don't really know them that well, and don't really feel like you had a right to be reading about their emotional life (even if it is linked on facebook or AIM), and in any case don't really feel that the proper response to writing that feels very personal is "you're such a good writer" or even "I relate to a lot of what you say," because if someone said that to me who I didn't really know that well, my responses would probably be something like wow, that's pretty dismissive of my actual emotions...and umm, no you don't, you barely know me, respectively. But I dunno. Tohru would just go ahead and say something like that anyway, and everyone would love her for it.

Meanwhile, I'm done with my thesis defense (it was, I must admit, a rather lackluster attack...I didn't need a battle ax after all, which is lucky, since I failed to acquire one), and I've nothing due 'til the end of the next week, and I'm very unmotivated to work...hence why I've been watching anime and reading people's blogs and musing about social norms. I've just killed an hour or so writing this, but I don't think I can come up with much more to say. It's not that I have nothing to do--I need to get transcripts sent out to grad schools, and write my personal statement so that I can send it to Ted, and start studying for math (which I'm rather scared about), and figure out what the hell I'm going to say in my syntax paper. I just...don't want to right now. I want to chill with my friends but they're all working. I'd like to play Duelist of the Roses with my brother, but that would require being in New Jersey. I'd like to talk to Andrew but he's in school. I'd like to write a story, but I can't think of one that's ready to be written. So it's probably more Fruits Basket for now, and/or reading the rest of the packet the ling department gave me.

I close with an item from said packet, a supposedly read slogan from some church's tithings campaign:

"I upped my pledge -- Up yours."

:-)