Courtesy of BBSpot, a NY Times article about the art, er, commerce of the movie trailer. (nytimes.com registration required) I think the most important thing to take from the article is: "Jerry Springer: The Opera!?"

I've been getting a lot of spam lately (You, too? What a coincidence!!), and I just can't help myself, I sometimes must visit the URLs included to try and figure out if it was a targeted email or not.

Aside from the fact that most spam seems directed at men or human beings, I can't seem to detect any targetings, and I know that visiting the websites actually increases the likelihood that more spam will be sent (in the general sense) since the mailing is generating that one eyeball for the site that might otherwise not be there.

Yeah, it's my fault that you're getting all that spam, too. Write your congressperson or something.

Anyway, the other day I was directed to bestphotosite.com (I'm intentionally not including a link; really, now, you don't want to visit it!), where the virtues of mail-order brides were extolled upon.

Now I don't think I've ever known someone to use this method to find a mate, though it's certainly got its place in our cultural mythos, so when I saw an about page, I read it. And when I saw that I could look at the ads posted by potential American and European men looking for brides, I of course had to do that, too. It made for interesting reading.

By far the most interesting reading is this page. I'm quite surprised that it's a link that I found on the mail-order bride site, what with keeper quotes like:

• "There is no question that many of the alien women who advertise for U.S. husbands are far more interested in gaining permanent residence alien status than in gaining a good marriage."
  
• "The true character of the men is well expressed in Glodava and Onizuka (1994:26), who note, 'those who have used the mail-order bride route to find a mate have control in mind rather than a loving and enduring relationship'."
  
• "According to 'The Health Care Response to Domestic Violence' (anon. 1994), 'Within the last year 7 percent of American women (3.9 million) who are married or are living with someone as a couple were physically abused, and 37 percent (20.7 million) were verbally or emotionally abused by their spouse or partner'."

Add to that the probability that some small number of marriages result in the wife abusing the husband in some manner, and maybe we're upping the statistics to somewhere near 50% of all marriages in the United States result in some sort of emotional or physical abuse.

That's scary.

Well, that's enough happy thoughts for today.

That whole colorblindness thing a few entries back still rattles around in the back of my head. In addition to not being able to see the same color palettes that others can, I also can't smell everything that other people can--Exploratorium in San Francisco had an exhibit on genetics when I visited. One of the parts of the exhibit was a small tube that you could open to catch a whiff of some chemical. Thing was, some people can smell it, some people can't. As it happened, the woman I was with could smell it, and I couldn't. So now I'm just certain that it's some component to body odor, and I'm completely offending all my co-workers while I twiddle my thumbs unknowingly.

Anyway, if I can't smell everything that other humans can, and I can't see all the colors that other humans can, how can I ever be sure that what other people mean when they say something is what I think they mean?

E was talking about this concept recently, how people who have known one another for a really long time will often generate shorthand for their exchanges to the point that others might not be able to fully grasp the line of a conversation. Thus, someone who's known me quite some time is more likely to take the time to describe a certain shade of dark green to me so that I know she's seeing something differently than I do. And the areas where we've found over time that our thinking or perception is the same, we merely need to grunt a few quick words to evoke peals of laughter or whatnot.

It's not just a matter of perception, though. I remember K telling me in college that people have things that they're talented at, and then they have things that they have to actually learn. When you're talented at something, it comes to you naturally, and there's not really any way you can effectively teach it to someone else (according to K's words at the time). But if you have to really cram the stuff into your head in order to come anywhere near mastering it, then chances are good that you'd be an excellent teacher--you'd know the material well enough to introduce it to people with a talent for it (who would pick it up immediately and do magical things), yet you'd also understand potential ways of moving through each stage of learning the concepts that don't involve the leaps of intuition possible with true talent, and could help guide others through that process.

E reminded me of this recently with a drawing she tossed out effortlessly. I've seen people do such things in the past, but they always do it with such casual airs that it never really struck me; E dug into it with all claws and head completely down, not coming up for air until it was done, much like I would do if I were presented with a question that I could answer at a computer keyboard. The similarity there recalled K's idea for me, and brought into sharp focus the things that I have some small talent for, and the fact that there are so many people out there with completely different talents.

The world, our cultures, and we humans are startlingly awe-inspiring.

I was pacing back and forth at the busstop after work today when a sudden rain of potting soil fell upon me. I looked up at an apartment window a couple stories up and saw a head quickly withdraw into the building.

Whenever I stopped looking at the window, more dirt cascaded downward.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love urban living?

"The aromatic Ring we know today, [...] but who," lifting his open hands on each beat, like a bandleader, "who, sent, the Dream? [...] Who sent this new serpent to our ruinous garden, already too fouled, too crowded to qualify as any locus of innocence--unless innocence be our age's neutral, our silent passing into the machineries of indifference--something that Kekule's Serpent had come to--not to destroy, but to define to us the loss of . . . we had been given certain molecules, certain combinations and not others . . . we used what we found in Nature, unquestioning, shamefully perhaps--but the Serpent whispered, 'They can be changed, and new molecules assembled from the debris of the given. . . .' Can anyone tell me what else he whispered to us?"

Or, earlier, when describing a technological breakthrough in the development of the A4 rocket:

...the A4 itself suddenly came in reach. The danger then lay in being seduced by approaches that were too sophisticated. No one was immune. Hardly a designer there [...] didn't come up with at least one monster rig, some Gorgon's head writhing with pipes, tubes, complicated folderol for controlling pressures, solenoids on top of pilot valves on auxiliary valves on backup valves--hundreds of pages on valve nomenclature were printed as appendices to these weird proposals, all promising huge pressure differences between the inside of the chamber and the nozzle exit--beautiful, as long as you didn't care much about those millions of moving parts behaving together too reliably.

Sometimes I think Pynchon's really writing about software development.

Through some strange paths on the web, I found myself visiting this page, my first-ever glimpse of the first episodes in Superman's public life. I'm actually kinda surprised that I'd never seen this before, but what surprised me even more is how tough Supes is in the comic! I kept getting the impression that I was reading a film noir comic instead of a Superman issue--he keeps throwing people around, threatening them ("YOU'RE NOT FIGHTING A WOMAN, NOW!"), and even the final climactic moment seems inspired more by a desire to bully than a sense of honor.

So this has me wondering--when/why did Superman become such a source of honor and righteousness? I already know that it was the Max Fleischer cartoons that caused Superman to convert from being a far-leaping hero to someone who could actually fly, but I'm not familiar enough with early Superman history to be able to delineate any shift in his ethical stances. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with WWII, though--the first Action Comics was published in 1938.

Best of all, though: having just recently seen the comic's cover, I knew the answer to a Trivia Night question yesterday.

Several years ago I asked my ophthalmologist to test me for color blindness. I couldn't see a lot of the numbers, and when he "graded" me my results put me right into the realm of people who are considered color blind. But then he told me that he didn't really think I was color blind for some reason unbeknownst to me. That kinda sucked, since I had several people telling me that the colors I saw weren't the "actual" colors that were there. If I'm not color blind, what the heck am I?

Today I happen across some pages that provide online tests for colorblindness (one word or two? I can't make up my mind). Obviously my monitor is broken, since I can't see any of the numbers. Asked J to take a look at my screen, and he immediately correctly identifies all the numbers. Sigh.

Anyway, people often ask me how I see things differently (because I'm obviously able to tell what they can see), so I offer this page as an excellent example. Most of the items on the page I can see the difference on, but I've gotta admit that the Ishihara plate example is spot-on. Both of the images look exactly the same to me.

So apparently I'm not just hunting around for an excuse for my inability to wear normal-looking clothing.

This fine page courtesy of a co-worker's sigblock. 'Course, now that I type that, I wonder if they're really a co-worker. The word sorta implies that I've actually met the person face-to-face before, or talked to them, even. But in this case it's really just that I read something the person posted to a public forum. Do I count USENET posters among my circle of friends? Thus, is someone my co-worker just because they happen to work at the same company as I do?

I think we need some rulings on this issue. I'm going to put my foot down and say that anyone I have not directly corresponded with in person, email, or worked on the same piece of work, and they're not in my department...that person is not my co-worker.

Unless they really want to be. Then I'd probably let it slide.

Although some people have already done a fine job commentating on Bugs Bunny on Broadway, I have nothing else of public interest to report upon for today, so I shall endeavour to add my own two cents to the mire.

I loved it. Well, first I must confess that I adore any sort of live symphonic performance--there's just something about all those people grinding away at their instruments that gets me all teary-eyed, so just toss some people on stage, and I'm likely to be oozing in my boots.

Still, the performance was good. I wondered before the show started how well the music would intersect with the action on the screen...oh, wait, have I not explained what I went to see?

Basically, it's Looney Tunes with live symphonic accompaniment. They concentrate primarily on the 'toons that incorporate classical music, but I'm also having trouble getting "The Michigan Rag" out of my head from "One Froggy Evening" (1956).

I was wondering how well the music would match up with the action on the screen, and I must say they didn't do too badly--for the most part I could just sit back and enjoy the cartoon and revel in the better sound quality on the music track. They also interspersed the program with some pure music bits so that I could spend some time:

1. Boggling at how skin-tight first violin's dress was and wondering how often she had to work out to maintain that sort of physique.
   
2. Thinking, "Ah, so that's what it means to be 'second fiddle'."
   
3. Lusting after the woman with the big violin (bass? I'm not sure, but there was just something about how rarely she smiled that got me all riled up).
   
4. Admiring that dude with the really long beard who gets to sit on the outside facing the audience; have I mentioned lately that I really like Seattle?
   

The music was good, the cartoons were good. Some of the music didn't quite synchronize with the action of the cartoon, but I could easily forgive it. I also must say that Warner Bros. cartoons are much more enjoyable with kids in the audience. And I was impressed by the quality of the "prints".

I wasn't so impressed by the sound quality of the cartoons, though--Benaroya Hall seems to still have some problems with certain acoustics. I've heard that concert halls need to age for a while before their acoustics are best, so I'm assuming this is the case here, but the video's audio (heehee) was somewhat tinny, especially in contrast with the symphony. 'Course, maybe that was the problem--I'm not used to having such a ready comparison at hand.

"What's Opera, Doc?" (1957) has me thinking I should check out the Ring Cycle next time it comes to Seattle.

Finally, I must complain, as I am oft wont to do. What's the deal with standing ovations and excessive applause in orchestral performance? People will give a standing ovation at the drop of a hat at Benaroya Hall, and that's the only place I've experienced it. It really seems excessively gauche to me, but maybe I've just spent too much time in movie theatres or something.

Anyway, people of Seattle, if you really love me, please stop standing up so readily at performances. If you don't, you'll one day find yourself applauding a performance that actually moved you, and you'll find that you have nowhere to go with further praise. Then what will you do? Strip down to your skivvies and dance around like a deranged chimp?

Still, I love you no less. Especially because you clapped so enthusiastically when Mel Blanc intoned the phrase "The Wishy Washy Washing Machine Company of Walla Walla Washington".

Remind me sometime to write about Walker Percy's thoughts about why people clap on the Tonight Show when their hometown is mentioned.

Majestic Bay Theatre showed some honest-to-goodness Merrie Melodies last weekend in a special summer thing they're doing where they show kids' movies on Friday and Saturday mornings. I went on Friday with scant others (unfortunately), but the movies were great. It's kinda sad, too--the prints are really starting to show their age, and I really think there's going to be a time soon when they really won't be viewable. I pity the audience who grows up into that.

That got me to thinking, though--is digital going to be the savior of classic films? Signal degradation for analog storage methods is pretty much a given, but digital shouldn't experience that much degradation, and the fact that copies can be so easily produced means that the rarity of prints won't be so much a factor.

From what I've seen of Episode II, digital looks pretty good, too. I could definitely see the classic toons as excellent candidates for digital storage in order to preserve them for future generations.

'Course, do we really want to do that? William Gibson once participated in the production of a work that destroyed itself as you experienced it. Isn't there a certain value in an experience that conjures up its own transience? After all, "Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."

I can't remember how I stumbled across it, exactly, but I'm glad I did. Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite authors of all time, though I can't remember at all what originally spurred me to check out his Three Californias series, but I'm soooooo glad that I did. Not only was it a nice reminder of what I liked about Southern California while I lived there, but it was a great reminder of why I left as well.

Robinson's books are so palatable to me that I'm tempted to call them brain candy--I can't help but tear through them at a steady pace, enjoying every idea and the facile style he uses to construct his works. I'd have to rate the Three Californias series at the top, though his short story collections also have some gems in them. The Years of Rice and Salt is sitting there on my bookshelf waiting for a free moment in my reading schedule as well, and I'm quite looking forward to it.

For some reason, I often think of Robinson's work as what I'd really like Harry Turtledove's to be like. I'm not sure why I make that comparison--are they both SoCal authors? I vaguely recall that as being a fact.