There is (in non-pandemic times) a major event in my kingdom (AEthelmearc), Ice Dragon. A feature of this event is the arts & sciences pentathlon, which used to be the premier A&S competition in the region. It was the premier A&S competition in the East Kingdom before AEthelmearc split off into its own kingdom.

The competition is divided into several major categories, like clothing and cooking and performance. Each major category has sub-categories like pre-1400 women's clothing and bread and storytelling. You can enter things in individual categories, and if you enter at least five different major categories, you can compete for the overall pentathlon prize. An important feature of the competition, in my opinion, is the cross-entry: if an item qualifies for more than one category, you didn't have to choose only one. Embroidered gown? Clothing and needlework. Belt woven from wool you spun, with a buckle you made? Spinning, weaving, and metalwork. And so on.

I haven't been tracking the event lately (I stopped traveling for SCA events even before the pandemic, due to both changing interests and the inherent Shabbat complications). I was reminded of the event by a post I saw tonight on the kingdom blog, which referred in passing to the limit of two categories for cross-entries. I'm not sure when that was introduced, but it was not always there.

With that rule change one small but fun challenge went away: the single-item pent entry. Can you come up with one work that legitimately fits five major categories? I did this one year and had great fun trying it, and learning some new crafts in the process (which should be one of the goals, encouraging growth). I'm disappointed to learn that this small bit of the event's history is no longer accessible.

It was a book. A book of music that I composed, illuminated (like books of hours), with an embroidered cover. I performed one of the pieces. The book was a gift for my then-baroness (of blessed memory); she had appointed me as her bard and I made the book to honor and thank her. But I embroidered the cover because of the Ice Dragon pent. And I might well have bought a blank bound book, focusing on the music and the illumination (my actual skills), but for the pent.

And I'm glad I did make the book. I learned about bookbinding. I asked a curator nicely and got a private tour of a collection of actual renaissance volumes so that I could inspect their bindings (which are usually not very visible when books are displayed open behind glass). My embroidery was not very good but was full of spirit, as they say.

The single-item pent entry is not the optimal path to winning the pent (if winning the pent is your goal). You can probably make five stronger entries by focusing and avoiding the constraints of other parts of the project. I did not win the pent the year I entered the book. But I had loads of fun with the project (and apparently made an impression). And my baroness really liked the book. So, win all around.

Most recently from jducoeur. To play along, make a post with the following statements in order of when they occurred in your life (feel free to add/remove/edit as appropriate). Just the first occurrences of each, and only ones you were old enough at the time that you remember it.
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I discovered two differently-embarrassing things while processing some old audio cassette tapes today.

Item the first:

I had completely forgotten, until I came across the evidence, that early in On the Mark's existence we had booked a concert hall at CMU to record a demo tape (so we could apply to arts festivals, I believe). I know we used connections and not money but I've forgotten the details. (This wasn't a concert; it was just us, the good acoustics of the hall, recording equipment, and an engineer who knew how to drive it.) The technical quality of the tape is very good (I wonder who the engineer was); the content is, well, what you would expect from a young, not-yet-seasoned amateur group, but some of it is pretty good, good enough that I'm certainly keeping it.

This tape, which has long since become separated from its J-card, contains an instrumental piece, renaissance by the feel of it, that I cannot identify -- even though I performed and recorded it! It is not among the instrumental pieces that we ever published on our CDs, so that's no help. It is not among the pieces that the Debatable Consort published on its CD tracks (from the Tape of Dance project). And at that point in OTM's lifespan I was not keeping historical notes about repertoire, so if we dropped a song I deleted its entry from the master cheat sheet. If the other group members can't identify it I will have to resort to digging through piles of sheet music, no small task. Or settle for "Unknown" as the title among my mp3s. Or post it and ask y'all to take a crack at it. Oops.

Item the second:

I was in a short-lived folk-music group before On the Mark. We performed at exactly one SF con. And in listening to that tape now, it's clear that a polite audience could not possibly have made it any clearer that we should stop singing and just play the instrumentals, but we didn't pick up on that during the concert. We figured we were taking a risk by doing instrumental pieces at a con in the first place -- not only weren't we doing filk but we weren't even doing words? How crazy is that? And in reality, that was our best, and best-received, stuff and we should have done more of it.

Sunday was my congregation's annual mitzvah day (yes yes, every day is mitzvah day, but they organize a bigger community-service thing once a year). I've had bad luck with projects in the past; that a congregant is enthusiastic about some project does not automatically make him well-organized (cough). The best-run project I've been on, the one where I actually felt like I was doing something positive instead of twiddling my thumbs for the sake of PR, was run by Habitat for Humanity, but we don't do that any more. (And then Habitat for Humanity went over to the dark side so I don't support them any more.)

This year, as in the last few years, one of the projects was with the Humane Society, so I signed up for that. I thought we'd be doing things like walking the dogs and cleaning the cat kennels and whatever else needed to be done. But it turns out that their insurance company has been having words with them about fly-by-night volunteers, so we weren't allowed to do any of that because we haven't been through their formal training. Instead, we joined volunteers from the Pittsburgh House Rabbit Club in exercising, socializing, and generally playing with the shelter bunnies.

They had a large room set up with several low fences, each area enclosing either one or two bunnies with enough room to do stuff. There were about twenty bunnies total, many of them larger than my cats. They tended to be shy, but if you sat in the pen with them and offered toys, they would often come around. The senior bunnies, a pair of large, mostly-white bunnies with a few black splotches, were very mellow. (They had the run of the walkway between all the pens.)

This all reminded me of Stuart, the Dutch rabbit I had as a pet for about six months. I can't seem to find any pictures of him (hmm, I know I took pictures...), but the second one on the Wikipedia page is pretty close, except that Stuart was a stray, not a grand champion.

I hadn't been looking for a bunny in particular. I had just bought a house and so could finally safely have pets, but I hadn't done anything about it yet. Then someone on a local newsgroup was rather urgently trying to find a new home for a bunny, so after bringing all the might of rec.pets to bear on the problem, I decided this had promise. I wasn't interested in keeping him in a cage for the rest of his life (they're both smart and social), but Usenet told me that bunnies could be litter-trained. You know what they say: go not to Usenet for answers, for they will say both 'yay' and 'nay' and 'try another newsgroup', but I tried anyway. I ultimately failed in this task, but I was able to find someone else who already had litter-trained bunnies who was willing to add him to that colony. I did miss Stuart, but he was much better off with other bunnies, probably moreso than I had realized at the time. I didn't know until Sunday just how social they are or that some of them come in bonded pairs that must not be broken up. I also learned that the Humane Society hosts "bunny blind dates", which are mandatory if you already have a bunny and want to add another. Good idea. They also do this with dogs (optional there, I think), but they forbid it with cats -- the person telling me this explained that no one involved wants the amount of trauma that would bring. :-)

So I don't feel like I contributed much to the Humane Society on Sunday (continuing the pattern for mitzvah day), but it was kind of fun and it brought back memories of the pet who preceded the cats.

I recently found myself in a conversation about grandparents, and it made me think of one in particular. The grandparent I feel the strongest connection with, even though I had the smallest amount of time with him, was my paternal grandfather. It's odd what I do and don't remember: I don't remember what he looked like at all, but I remember his voice and I remember some of our time together. And while I don't specifically remember the incidents, I know that he taught me to think, to question, and to analyze. He surely taught my father the same things and my father taught me, so his influence carried on after him.

My grandfather came to the US from Italy when he was a child. I now realize that I know very little about his life before I was born. I know that my father was the first family member to go to college (grandpa was smart, not necessarily educated), but I realize I don't know how my grandfather earned a living, what took him to Ohio, how he met my grandmother, and lots of other things. Fortunately for me, my father will know many of these things and I can ask him.

Even with all that, though, I marvel at how close I feel to a man I didn't have nearly enough time to get to know.

Questions from Zahava over on Blogger.

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Gegarin was the first, back in 1961
When like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the sun
And he knew he might not make it for it's never hard to die
But he lifted off the pad and rode that fire in the sky.

I'm not quite old enough to remember the earliest manned space flights, but I do remember watching the first lunar landing on TV. I was too young to understand the politics, so I was able to just revel in the "wow, neat!" factor. I wanted to be an astronaut, though by the time I was about 12 I realized that would never happen. But kids are fickle anyway, so that's ok. I was interested in space, but I didn't follow launches avidly.

In 1986 I was a programmer and working in a cube farm. A coworker (who had an office) walked into my cube and said "it blew up". I thought he was complaining about some code I'd checked in. No, he said, the shuttle blew up. He'd been listening to the launch live on the radio.

Most of us programmers went into his office to listen to the news for a while. I remember thinking that this was the end of the space program for a good long time.

And then, three years ago (less a few days), it happened again.

These weren't the first failures and they won't be the last. But these are the ones that I witnessed, albeit indirectly, so they have an impact that other failures and near-misses didn't have. Let's hope we've seen the worst.

1. What's the best place you've ever been, that others can visit?

Pennsic. :-)

Ok, that's because of the people who show up and the cool stuff they bring with them. It's not much for sight-seeing if you aren't already part of the SCA. But in thinking about this question, I realized that I'm not much of a tourist. I mean, for similar reasons, I could say my grandmother's house (well, except that she is no longer living, so technically you can't go there), but that's because of the ties I have.

2. Who is the most inspiring person you have ever known?

For overall effect on my life, my father. For recent in-depth effect, my rabbi.

I've talked about my father in other recent entries. He encouraged me to be smart, which has less to do with scores on standardized tests and more to do with the way you go about solving problems and answering questions. And he's a good person, easy to talk with and spend time with.

My rabbi is amazing. He taught me that it's not inconsistent to be Reform and be observant. He encourages study and analysis, and is willing to study one-on-one with me. He's intelligent and articulate, and when I'm on the bima what's in the back of my mind is "I hope I can be a tenth as good at this as he is". So he pushes me to get better, to think about ethics and behavior in ways I didn't previously, to study more, to consider more observance -- much of it without realizing he's doing so, I suspect.

3. Were you ever bullied as a child?

Oh heavens yes. A lot. One of my classmates in particular was a real bully starting in first grade; he would pull necklaces off me (breaking the chains), hit, try to trip, and sling insults. The teachers were either ineffective or unwilling; I'm not sure which. There were many conferences with both parents, to no avail. The physical aspects eventually died down when an enlightened principal gave me blanket permission to fight back in a particular way. Specifically, I was using large-print books due to a vision problem, which meant I had special books that were about four times the volume of the regular text books, and he specifically told me to hit this bully with one of my books if I needed to. (I lamented the fact that I was not strong enough to wield the dictionary. :-) )

Non-physical bullying was a staple all through school, because I wasn't pretty, I had an obvious physical defect, I wasn't into the sports/cheerleader thing, and I was smart. This is an eperience that many of my (current) friends shared.

4. What are your ten favorite words?

Interesting question. I wonder if this is anything like what you had in mind. :-) (No, those aren't the words.)

Think. Question. Passion. Justice. Compassion. Connection. Fun. Life. God. Ginger. :-) (Hey, I had to throw in one silly one. But it's one of my favorite ingredients...)

5. What do you want to leave as your legacy on this earth?

That the world was in some way a better place because I was in it.

I hope I have a significant impact on my family, friends, and immediate religious community. If I am very lucky, some of what I do will have broader ripples. Maybe through my writing I can bring encouragement or insight to people I don't even know. Maybe through my involvement in the Jewish community I an lead other Reform Jews to take religion more seriously. Maybe through my music I can make people smile or think or sigh contentedly.

The rules:
1. Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I'll ask you five questions.
3. Update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. Include this explanation.
5. Ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

Remember the interview meme? ( Read more... )

Gegarin was the first, back in 1961
When like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the sun...

A few days ago, I was reflecting on Challenger and had started to compose an entry in my head. But this past week was a little hectic and I never got the words down in bits. Now, instead, I will write a slightly different entry.

I am old enough to remember the first landing on the moon, but I wasn't old enough at the time to understand what the big deal was. (I was 5 going on 6.) My formative years, educationally-speaking, fell during that decade or so when the space program was no longer "current events" but was not yet "history". Neither my parents nor my small circle of friends followed the space program, so I was pretty unaware until, probably, sometime in college. I heard a lot of space history for the first time from the filk tape "Minus Ten and Counting", which prompted me to go out and learn more. Now that I think about it, I have never properly thanked Julia Ecklar and Leslie Fish for that.

I remember the morning of Challenger quite clearly. I knew there was a launch coming up, but had lost track of the schedule. And I wasn't so hard-core that I watched (or listened to) launches live anyway. I caught them on the news when I could, or read about them in the paper. I was at work that morning, and I had a cubicle, not an office, so I wouldn't have had the radio on anyway.

Scott walked out of his office into my cubicle and said "It blew up". I thought he was talking about some code I had handed over to him. I said "on what? I ran the test suite". And he said no, not that, and I should come into his office and listen to the radio. And I did.

I didn't actually see the footage until later that night. They were playing it over and over, and I sat there stunned. And several of us said that this was probably the end of the manned space program, even though these had hardly been the first deaths. They were the first deaths that we had witnessed, as opposed to reading about, though, and it made an impact.

That was 17 years ago, and it didn't kill the space program, though clearly that program hasn't been a major priority. But it's been there, and that's important to me. I have hopes that some day people will actually leave this planet for more than a few days or weeks or months. I desperately hope that we do a better custodial job on the next planet we get our hands on, too.

Shuttle trips have become fairly routine. There have been enough that I guess I got complacent about it, the way I do about driving a car. I didn't even realize that today was the day they were coming back.

Today was Shabbat. I didn't hear the news. Tonight I read my email and saw a message from someone in the local SF club saying something like "shall we plan a memorial after this week's meeting?". Memorial? What the heck was he talking about. I figured maybe some SF author had died. I bopped over to CNN to see if I could tease it out.

Damn. How did that happen? My heart goes out to the victims. Seven, like before. A first, like before -- last time a teacher, this time an Israeli.

I feel mildly guilty that my heart aches a little bit more for those seven (and their families) than it does for many of the truly innocent, unexpected deaths that happen around the world every day -- earthquakes, famines, wars, disease. Astronauts, at least, know they're going into danger; they're taking a chance. The folks who die in brushfires or monsoons or tornados, or in skyscrapers in New York, weren't doing anything risky or out of the ordinary. I should have more sympathy for them than for astronauts. But I don't, somehow, though I am not uncaring. Call it a character flaw, I guess.

I suspect that this is a setback, not an end, to the space program. But I do wonder how many setbacks it can withstand before an impatient public calls to shut it down and spend the money elsewhere. I wonder if private enterprise will be positioned to take up the slack any time soon.

[1] Literally, "praised is the true judge" -- said upon hearing of someone's death. Meaning: God had His reasons, even if we can't comprehend them.