On Beginnings of a Sort

Everybody would like to play a musical instrument, but not everybody likes to practice. Or, more precisely, not everybody likes to practice enough to do it. It's like physical health, in a way; everybody would like to be healthier but not everybody likes to exercise.

I have a few advantages in this regard. One of them is that I do not have children, which I want to acknowledge up front is a big advantage in terms of available free time and energy.

Another advantage, one that is especially useful for my instrument, is that I played for a number of years as a child, though I put it down for many years afterward. In my school district, fifth grade was when "Orchestra" became an option. Early that school year the orchestra teacher, a very sweet and patient lady, came into our class and talked about the orchestra and gave us a quick primer on the violin, viola, and cello.

I do not remember that, exactly, nor do I remember this next part although my mother assures me that it is true. Apparently little Arthur got home that day and loudly announced "Mom, I'm going to play the viola." Mom was surprised, but not displeased, and in short order I had a beginner viola from the local music shop, with the standard hard plastic case. I do remember which were the first songs I ever learned, being Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, basically the classic first songs for beginner stringed instrument players.

Not that original case, but functionally identical.

The reason why it is especially useful to have played as a child, with bowed stringed instruments, is that when you are starting out you sound truly horrible. All the jokes about screeching cats are true, as anyone who has been forced to sit in a room with a beginner will tell you.

The main reason for this is that the bow hand, the right hand that holds the bow, has to do three things before you can make a decent sound:

1. Provide steady but gentle pressure down. Too little and you get the sad cat noise, too much and you get the infamous nails on the chalkboard screech that is the bane of parents and siblings everywhere.

 

This is too little pressure, and the noise it made just now was not pleasant.

2. Move at a more or less steady pace back and forth. Again, too slow or too fast produces sounds akin to distressed animals and ill-used classroom equipment. If you move too slowly and push down too hard, you make really terrible noises.

3. Prevent the bow from sliding up the string. What happens is that your thumb acts as a pivot when you're holding the bow. 

Only the thumb is on the near side of the bow, which makes it a pivot. Especially when drawing down, the pinky and ring fingers tend to pull in.

If you pull in too much with your pinky and ring finger down there at the bottom of the bow, the top of the bow goes flying up the string towards the top of the instrument. Pretty much everybody does this at least a few times while they are drunk learning, and it doesn't make a godawful noise really, it's just embarrassing.

This is basically correct and/or sober.

This is how it slides if you pull with your pinky and ring finger too much.

That's a lot of motor control to deal with before you can consistently play non-painful notes. Consider, by contrast, the piano. You hit a key, it makes a note. It doesn't matter if you hit it softer or harder or whatever. Unless you're doing something truly insane, you will never get a piano to make the cat-on-a-blackboard noise that I can still very easily produce on the viola. This, I think, is one reason why little children all love the piano so much. The notes may be in cacophony with one another, but they are still good, clear notes, and little kids love that.

In any case, when you learn an instrument with a steep initial learning curve as a child, you usually can't tell just how bad you sound, or at the very least you don't really care. And even though I put the viola down for many years, when I picked it back up again I still had enough in me to avoid the cats and chalkboards and make something that sounded vaguely like music. This meant that, as an adult, the act of practicing was already at least moderately pleasant right from the start.

Coda

The only people I know of who, as beginners, may have it worse than the bowed string instrument folks are oboe players, which instrument has always seemed to me like blowing into the narrow end of an angry tentacle. It requires some combination of mouth formation, jaw tension, air pressure, and using your own lips to shield the reed from your teeth so you don't literally destroy the thing while playing it, in order to get a decent note. If you mess up, it sounds like a duck being tortured. Comparatively, I think my parents lucked out with their little viola player

With Someone In Mind

Thursday is the rainiest day we've had all year. Some areas flooded, even, and I know of at least one place where an underground water line ruptured, making the flooding problem all that much worse. But my neighborhood is toward the top of a hill, and one advantage of that is we don't flood much.

This particular Thursday is also a very wistful day for me, for reasons not worth going into. Someone very special to me has suggested there might be a kind of delivery to my home today, and I seriously consider sticking around for it. Ultimately, though, I want to be out in the rain, especially in the cemetery, though I have other stops to make. So I prop the front gate inconspicuously ajar and head out.

Piedmont's mood is cheerful and warm, in spite of the cold and wet. One tiny dog is going for a walk wearing a wee little rain poncho, and another tiny dog anxiously checks out every puddle as if it has never seen a puddle before. Umbrellas are everywhere. The smoked meat place on the corner still has their smoker out (determination), with its own patio umbrella strapped on to keep it dry (adorable). 

I spot the umbrellas of two ladies who are walking down the street standing very close to one another. They lean in slightly together, and for a moment it looks like they are cuddling rather than walking. They both have umbrellas, the taller lady holding hers up higher, umbrellas right above each other, green-and-white over black, to make it easier for the ladies to stay close to one another.

I feel happy to see them, and at the same time a little sad to be alone, but also ok with being a little sad. Most days, given a choice, we will choose to be happy. But some days are different, and today is one of those different days for me.

In the exercise studio, three robust looking women jog on the treadmills at the front window, and behind them is what appears to be a lady on an elliptical machine still wearing her rain coat. Like, she never bothered to take it off, and is now exercising with her rain coat still on, is what it looks like. I have to know.

I cross the street and, sure enough, there is an older lady, maybe mid-60's, wearing a powder blue rain jacket over her sweats, hood still up, ellipting away. It seems strange and admirable. One of the ladies on a treadmill up front gives me a knowing smile. Apparently I am not the only person oddly pleased by the rain jacket wearing old lady on the elliptical machine. I smile back, make a mental note that I should exercise more, and walk on.

There is lots to like, here. The yarn store has a small Christmas tree in the window, with little custom knit stocking ornaments on it. The bead store seems more than normally busy, which makes sense. The holidays are a good time for crafty gifts and all. And as I go by Sweet Cheeks Skincare, I cannot help but think boyish thoughts of someone I met recently, because sometimes I am just a boy.

But now, walking up toward the cemetery, there is a funeral procession coming up the street behind me, slow moving and maybe seven or eight cars long. I cannot decide if rainy weather is good for a funeral or not. I wonder where in the cemetery the burial will happen, or if it is a burial at all, and I resolve to keep my eyes open for them. First, though, I must make a detour.

And so I visit the now closed storefront, tucked down an alley and up a flight of old wooden stairs, that used to be Chez Simone. Here was one of the most beautiful meals of my life. Simone was lovely, and aged, and spoke with a thick French accent as she moved about the kitchen and the small handful of tables inside. As we were finishing up the meal, I snuck out to the florist at the mouth of the alley and bought flowers to leave behind for our dear hostess. A couple of moments after we walked out, Simone came bustling out of the cafe with the flowers, thinking we had forgotten them, and we called back with all joy "No, madam. For you! They are for you!" and she cried "AH!" with delight.

The sentiment lingers fondly, if also sadly, as I come up to the cemetery at last. Here are some construction workers clearing out mud, and over here is a lone jogger in a bright green rain jacket, grim and determined looking. The rain is still coming down steadily and the air is almost but not quite a fog. You can see your breath, not so much because it is cold but because it is so incredibly humid that the extra moisture has nowhere to go, like pouring water into an already full glass.

Being in the cemetery in the rain is probably as good an indicator as any of what it is like to have a funeral in the rain. My best guess is this: If that's your mood, as it is mine, and if you can get inside of that feeling, then you'll be alright. I am reminded of one author, who described the trip of Abraham and Isaac up the mountain as "a rather long and gloomy walk." Either you are ready for a gloomy walk, or you are not. Today I am, though I catch myself wondering if the delivery guy has shown up at my place.

Inside the large mausoleum I find a mother kissing a child. Outside, the sphinxes look more stern than usual somehow. An angel who was wearing a Santa cap last week still has her cap, but looks sadder today. Up the hill, I see distant motion and a light, which is probably whatever is left of the funeral, and I adjust the planned path of my walk to make sure I get up there.

If the cemetery as a whole is rendered more subdued and, frankly, more morbid by the grey and the rain, the ducks do not give a crap. The ponds have risen at least three feet since the last time I was here, and as far as the ducks are concerned it is party time. I spot three separate duck couples paddling around together on the freshly risen water. It's like they are checking out the new digs, and liking what they see. I do, too. We have needed this rain very badly.

Walking on, and the first sign that I'm at the funeral site is a flatbed full of gravel, with a heavy steel towline going straight down the hillside. Cresting the rise and looking down, there's a dozer, two of the cemetery's utility carts, and three guys moving some plywood and dirt around. The family is gone. It's all over except the slogging, basically.

I think of C. Doughty and her description of the funeral business. That's what this is, right here, and it is as unpoetic as three guys filling a hole in the ground can be. The funeral itself must have been pretty brief. There's some flower wreaths on the ground beside the hole, and at the side of the road not even down by the grave but here by the garbage can, some candles are still burning. The incense has long since gone out. It doesn't seem "mournful" exactly, as much as just "sad."

I wind my way out of the cemetery, making only one unusual stop at the marker for Kenneth V. De Haven. There are decorations on the markers next to him, but not on his. He is my last stop in the cemetery today. I do not visit him often, and almost never with friends. Do not ask me to take you to see him.

On my way home, I stop at the flower shop that is just down the street. It is very close to where I live, and I make a brief inquiry, but the nice gentleman inside informs me that no, they have no orders of the kind I describe. I thank him and head back out toward home. I have been outside long enough that I am damp all over, and I am ready to be dry and warm again.

Still, a little boyishness remains, even now. As I get close to home I see that across the gutter is a stream of water maybe three inches deep and two feet wide, running to a grate far down the street. I smile quietly and do not step around or over it, but hike up my trousers a little bit as if that will help, jumping in with both feet and making a tremendous and very satisfying BLOOSH. As I walk the remaining two blocks, my feet make the familiar squishing sound of completely and totally soaked shoes and socks.

I do finally get home, and there by the door I see that the delivery has arrived after all. They are red and yellow and green and full and beautiful, and I remember that it is possible to be happy and sad at the same time, because I am both right now. Flowers. So many flowers. I take them inside, get dry, make some tea, and think about things for a long, long time.

Oakland, CA. Piedmont Ave, Eric Garner Protests

The internet tells me that the protesters in Oakland have split up a bit, and some of them are heading for Piedmont Ave. That's my neighborhood. I put on my coat and hat, grab my umbrella, and head out.

The Piedmont strip is still doing business, wet with rain and no sign of protesters. Except, across the street, the police have left one of those customizable street signs that now reads "LOCK VALUABLES IN TRUNK." I have literally never seen that here before.

The street itself is on a long, slow incline, the bottom facing toward downtown Oakland and the top up by the cemetery. The protesters could start downtown and come straight up, or they could loop around to the top of the hill and then come down, or both. But I can't track both, so I decide to head straight downtown, as the most likely approach.

Lots of these stores are still open as I walk past. The reused baby clothes and toy shop has a couple inside looking around, and further down a guy is getting his after-work haircut in a barber window. The boutique shop with special sizes of bra is not only open, but the door is literally propped open in welcome as I go by.

I make brief eye contact with everybody, still a habit. Pretty much everybody looks briefly and then away, basically the same thing I'm doing. Except, as I come up to an intersection, a woman makes eye contact with me and holds it. She appears to be mixed race, black and white, with a freckle on the cheek beneath her right eye, and she is quite beautiful. I nod a little as I walk toward her, still heading downtown, and she smiles and nods back. Eye contact does not bother her, and maybe she knows where I'm going.

Still further down, waiting at a light, I am beside and just slightly behind another woman. She is white and in sweats, with a little pack strung across her back, and she looks nervous. She keeps glancing obliquely at me. I have no interest in making anyone scared or unhappy, so I step to be slightly ahead of her, so that I cannot see her, and she can keep an eye on me easily.

Onward, faster, and the rain picks up again as I get closer to downtown. I have no idea where any protesters are. In the distance, I hear what maybe sounds faintly like a group of people chanting through the falling rain and the now familiar helicopter sound overhead. There is the sound of water rushing into a drain, and just past that a car is playing something very loudly with the windows down in spite of the rain. And then I am past the drain and the car, and there are people. A hundred of them maybe, coming up the street, chanting.

I do the quick count where you space five and then replicate that space over the crowd. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, and get up to about eighty five at the back of the crowd as I fall in, marching up the street with them.

This next part is hard to describe. I do not feel like a protester. I do not feel like a part of this group even though I am now walking side by side up the street with them. I feel like an observer, and I feel like weeping. I just have to be in this street right now.

My foot hits a puddle. I am not weeping, and I am not fainting. There are brake lights ahead of me. A man takes cell phone pictures. It sounds like the audio of the world has been turned way down. I am furious, and incredibly sad. I have decided not to cry here, but I want to so much. There is a helicopter overhead. We have walked one block. My foot hits a puddle that looks to me exactly like the other one did. I know that can't be right.

I am broken out of my reverie by a change in the chanting which, until this moment, has mostly been "The people united can never be defeated."

Now, from behind me, a woman is loudly shouting "The people united can never be DIVIDED." She is trying to correct the chant so that it rhymes, roughly. My senses rush back to me. Her chant is also kind of a tautology. As long as you're united you can't not be united, that's true. My brain is doing this thing now. The irony of disagreement over a chant about being united also percolates.

Almost everybody is ignoring her and still chanting "The people united can never be defeated." She gets louder, and sounds increasingly annoyed.

There is a guy to my left. He is Latino, wearing a hoodie, and is boyishly good looking. He could model, and will probably get carded late into his 30's. He also looks amused, with this big grin on his face, and in a lull between chants he breaks loudly into the same chant, but in Spanish. In Spanish, see, it not only makes sense, but it rhymes too. "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido." Nobody else says anything.

He says it again, louder. A street full of people listen to him yell in Spanish, with a kind of joy in his voice "El pueblo! Unido! Jamás será vencido!" It is so much more beautiful in Spanish than in English. Someone hugs him. The crowd finds a new chant, and walks on. We are getting closer to my neighborhood.

There is brief siren burst from behind us. We are very close to a hospital, and an ambulance is trying to get through the crowd. The protesters move out of the way, quickly, and at the same time there is some sort of discussion. I cannot hear exactly, but it sounds like there are two groups and this one is now trying to rejoin the other group. It occurs to me that the second group must have gone up to the top of Piedmont, to come down it. I wonder if that's what happened.

I also really take notice of the police for the first time. I moved to the sidewalk to get out of the way of the ambulance, but on the side of the street away from where the others are standing. I am the only one over here. No, wait. Not the only one. Looking up at me from his squad car is now a police officer. I make eye contact and he makes it right back.

I find I am not worried. If the police wanted to take action against the protesters, probably that would have happened already. I nod at him and he nods back. Also I have something special memorized. I look around, and see that no, the police are actually clearing a path way out in front, while simultaneously trailing in a line behind. I stop and look at everything except the protesters. The police are forming a moving safety ring that keeps traffic out, and is close at hand if things turn ugly. Cars, motorcycles, foot police, and the helicopter are all more or less chaperoning the protesters up and down Oakland.

As we go on, there is a Y-intersection, with the right fork leading to Piedmont and the left fork leading away. We take the left fork, away from Piedmont. I notice this and say out loud, to nobody in particular "Piedmont is that way."

"Oh THIS group could NEVER make it to Piedmont," comes a voice to my left. I look, and here comes a kid with blond feathered hair, a thin nose, and a high nasal voice. He points to his sweatshirt. It says "Stanford" on it. He says "I'm from Palo Alto." He points again. "So I know about suburban cops." It occurs to me that he doesn't know shit about shit. I do not say this, but just shrug and walk on.

We do not get terribly far, though, before we spot the other group, coming down toward us. There are cheers on both sides, and the chant goes straight to "The people united can never be defeated," again. Friends hug one another in the street. The few officers who were out in front of our group, and the officers who were out in front of the other group, have hastily gotten out of the way. There is a kind of little reuniting celebration.

The groups merge and shift a little and mingle, then kind of collectively make up their minds, turning and meandering back toward downtown, back the way we came. I wait a moment, not going with them. The kid from Stanford notwithstanding, it is totally possible that the other group came down Piedmont, then shifted to this other street to meet us. I have to know, which means that I have to find someone to ask. Also, I want to see the police line, as the cops shift ranks to match the shift in the protesters. I want to scrutinize our chaperones. I follow along, but slowly.

The reunion of the two groups took place in front of a parking garage used mostly by the hospital staff. Now that people have started to clear out of the street, the garage attendant is giving the ok for cars to start exiting the building, but there is also pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. I'm still thinking, so I stand aside and gesture all clear to the car that's trying to get out.

"Thank you," says a bitter, hateful sounding voice. My attention zooms. It is an Audi, the seats are leather, she is blond with an expensive stylist and her skin is tan in spite of a week of overcast weather. On her right wrist is what actually looks like a diamond tennis bracelet. I am sure without seeing it that there is a large diamond on a ring on her left ring finger. Her teeth are nearly perfect and they are clenched. "I. Have been waiting. Long. Enough."

I remain out of the way, and gesture again toward the now clear and open street. She drives off, and while I do not wish her ill, exactly, I do not quite wish her well either. I let a few more cars go, then hustle after the police line, now half a block away already. As I get closer, I see an officer on a motorcycle, parked on a side corner, just waiting there until someone tells him to move again.

I go over and say "Excuse me, but do you know if the one group made it to the Piedmont strip? I live up there."

He says "Yeah. They went up Grand and Pleasant Valley to the top and came right down through Piedmont, then over to meet those other guys." He gestures at the spot where the meeting happened. I mull it over.

"That's a nice hat," he says. "Looks sharp." He gives me a genuinely friendly nod and a smile.

"Thanks," I say back, but I am already making decisions. I'm pretty sure I know how this one goes with the protesters. The rain kept away the people who are just out for kicks, who think that smashing stuff is a good time. The people who are here tonight are, for the most part, the ones who really care enough to march in spite of the rain. They are the ones who care. Probably they'll go downtown, keep at it peacefully for a while in the rain, and then go home.

Also probably nobody did anything on Piedmont, but I have to know. It's my home. I thank the officer again and head up that way.

Things are ok. No broken windows, no looted cars. There's still some people jogging on treadmills in the exercise place, and a couple of the people I saw in the coffee shop earlier are still in there. The boutique bra shop is closed, but the owner is still inside, apparently doing paperwork.

I do not know for sure why I am so fond of the shop that sells unusual sizes of bra. I have literally never been inside there. It is true that I have a pretty standard hetero-male fondness for boobs. It is also true that the shop had a kickstarter that was supported and cheered on by many of my friends here, some of whom apparently know the owner at least by reputation.

But, and this may sound corny, but I have also been an uncomfortable and odd fit, in a way, many times. Often. All my life, almost. And as the protesters make their way back downtown, where they will go on to stage an apparently loud but basically up-beat protest in front of city hall, I consider how I have nestled into this pocket by the bay, and seem, almost, to fit.

A Walk in Oakland on Ferguson Night

My neighborhood is in one of the safer parts of Oakland, and walking around tonight feels like it usually does, though with some noticeable differences. There is a police car making a looping patrol of the main storefront area, presumably trying to justify his presence here rather than in the hectic areas downtown. That's unusual. Overhead, the sound of helicopters is present, which is also unusual.

There are people strolling around, and quite a few of them look cheerful. There are still plenty of restaurants and coffee shops open, here, doing decent after-work business. I do see one guy, wearing faded pink pants and a light blue top, walking down the street with both hands up in "Don't shoot!" style. At one point he lowers one hand to pull out a smartphone and mess with it a bit. Then he tucks it away and puts his hand back up again, still wandering down the street. He goes past an elderly couple, who notice him and don't seem to mind.

I walk past the area with the restaurants, and go down by the shops, which are pretty much all closed. Big lovely windows are untouched here, and I'm glad. There is a shop that opened not long ago because of a successful kickstarter, that just sells unusual sizes of bra. All closed, all safe. There aren't a lot of people here, just a few who are going in and out of a bar on the other side of the street.

Except this one lady over on my side of the road, who has just started to get out of her car. I make eye contact, which is a habit of mine for better or for worse. She is reasonably well attired, and black, and looks anxious. I do not blame her. She stares back at me with what seems to be distress, and she does not blink. I have written about my friendly facial hair and hat before, but tonight my ensemble is not remotely inviting because I am not in the mood. I look away and just walk on.

I cannot see any helicopters from this part of the street, but I can tell they are up there. I can hear at least two, maybe three. They sound like distant and very large lawn mowers, which they are after a fashion.

There are the dark corners and alleys where one generally does not go or look too closely. This is my neighborhood, though, and so I do, quietly and respectfully. The two people I see there do not notice me. The one in the dark corner behind the barrier at the closed bagel shop is covered in a large ratty blanket. The other, huddled in the stoop by the dark part of the church yard, is facing away from me. It occurs to me that in a world without beds, let alone television or internet, "Michael Brown" is probably just another name.

Coming back around by the coffee shop, I notice that the newspaper vending machine has had one of its doors torn off, and been emptied. The little door is still sitting next to some of the outdoor tables, which are themselves unoccupied. I have not seen that cop car for a while now, and wonder if he got called to somewhere else.

I keep going, past the froyo place, the Chinese restaurant, and the bubble tea shop. I go all the way up to where the street dead ends into the cemetery, gates closed. Here, a woman is sitting in a parked Honda Civic, one arm extended out the open window and holding a cigarette. The arm does not move. She is black, but does not seem to be anxious or moving at all. She does not look up as I approach and I wonder if she is asleep. Walking by, I glance in and see that in her other hand she is holding a smartphone, and is staring with great intensity at what appears to be a game of scrabble.

On my way back down from the cemetery, I pass by a place with a clear view of the southern sky. Off to the east, a cluster of stars is clearly visible and makes the sign of Orion. In the west, a cluster of helicopters is also clearly visible, and makes a very different kind of sign. There are at least four of them. One of the helicopters is closer than the others, lower, and it makes an audibly different sound: higher pitch, louder, different engine. Something is happening.

Passing by the sushi shop on my way home, I see that one of the chefs at the sushi bar is staring up and to his right. He is staring at a television mounted to the wall, and there on TV is I-580 as seen from a helicopter, packed with unmoving cars and protesters on foot. That's maybe a mile away. I could drive down and check it out, but would risk being trapped, really actually trapped, along with everybody else. I could also just walk there, which is what I really want to do. The internet confirms that arrests are already happening, though, which puts an end to that plan. As I walk home, that one song by REM goes through my head, with the video where people get out of their cars and start walking down the freeway, called "Everybody Hurts."

The last CHS salon and SERENDIPITY

The CHS Salon

1. The CHS is a good venue for these kinds of presentations. It's a good size, with totally serviceable acoustics and a nice high ceiling. It's also pleasantly lit, so that even with the lights turned down for the presentation you can still see the faces of the audience; there's no blinding spotlight in your eyes.

2. If we were going to do the Bonus Timekeeper routine again, I would almost certainly want to spruce it up a little, making it more integrated with the presentation instead of something that is happening next to the presentation, if you see what I mean. Anyway, I'm not sure how the audience felt about it, but from my side of the podium it certainly added a sense of urgency.

3. I'm really glad that I got to talk at the Time Traveler series.

4. It seems to me that the last speaker, whose name I have shamefully forgotten, had one main payload to deliver, and he delivered it: make us want to visit the off-limits tunnels beneath Alcatraz. Sure enough, once the presentations were over, and still today, I want very much to go rummaging around in them there tunnels.

SERENDIPITY

5. It is a different experience in the small room than the big one (duh). All the comments and laughs and quips from the audience, in the smaller space, can generally be heard by the folks speaking. The upstairs feels like a large living room, while the big room feels like a presentation hall. That isn't better or worse, but the difference remains striking, at least to me.

6. Now that "winter" is here, it doesn't get nearly as hot up there. Thank heavens.

7. Many of our speakers read from scripts, and for the first time I really paid attention to that. There seem to be ups and downs to script use. Note that this is not meant as a "Thou Shalt Use Scripts" or a "Thou Shalt Not" as much as me offloading thoughts about the thing, so sprinkle with salt to taste:

7a. The up, the really big up, seems to be that you get a stable and reliable place to go no matter how nervous you might be. You get your basic pacing, what you're going to say for each slide, etc. You can experience what Charles Whitebread called "The Great Flush" where everything just flushes out of your head, and as long as you're still literate you can keep going.

7b. You also don't forget something you were supposed to say, which can be a trivial blunder that nobody notices, or may force you to go back in your presentation to correct the omission.

7c. One downside is that, between checking the screen, fussing with slides, turning pages, and audience feedback, speakers sometimes lose their place. Listening to the audio, you can hear now and then a little pause where people are relocating their spot in the script.

7d. I'm not sure, but it may be a little harder to interact with the crowd when you're using a script. There's a lot of thoughts here, too much for this short post, but when you have a script you need to be actually looking at the sheet of paper or whatever in order to read, and that kind of thing has small but meaningful collateral effects.

7e. Some people do very, very well with scripts for these kinds of presentations. I am not among them; it is not a tool that I am proficient at using.

8. [quasi-vanity note] Two separate people commented that although my attire was overall pleasing, the smart phone in the coat pocket seemed out of place. One of them was the doorman, wearing black jeans and scruffy black band t-shirt. I do not say that to besmirch his input. Rather, when the guy in black jeans and a band t-shirt very kindly notes that there is something incongruous about your attire, news flash, there is something incongruous about your attire.

MACHINE Notes

Notes from a Thing at the DNA:

1. The space filled up nicely, and was legitimately crowded at its peak. Having the tables was really excellent, and we actually could have done with more chairs. If this became a thing, I could see more tables with chairs filling most of the downstairs, and barstools with the tall bar-round tables in the upstairs along the railing. Especially for a lecture series given in a bar/pizza place, making sure that everyone has access to a table seems wise.

2. There was a little back and forth, but in the end it seems good to have a separate area that presenters can be in if they want. Mentally gearing up for a performance takes some amount of focus and concentration. I slipped upstairs for a while before getting on stage.

3. It's nice that the big room has more room, but I hadn't realized how that would impact the feel of the crowd. That is, in the small room upstairs you can almost touch the audience, they're right there, and you can see facial expressions and hear the chatter, etc. In the big room, you can't see anybody and you lose all but the loudest and most overt crowd feedback. Different!

4. I bet there is some way to take orders or prepare drinks and/or food prior to the intermission so that people can just pick them up, rather than there being a big crush. I can think of a couple of ways to facilitate this, but probably it won't be relevant since we'll only be in the big space for like one more show.

5. I was really glad that we started with a non-white female mad scientist to kick off the evening. If John had more time I would have loved to hear like five more minutes just about Ada Lovelace, just her exclusively. My own presentation was Balding Dead White Men of Science, which certainly has its place, but there are also other stories to tell.

Notes on My Bit Specifically

6. I think I like the "Part I", "Part II" technique and may keep it.

7. Thank god for Arlo. I really needed coffee and the line was very long, and Arlo just got me a cup of coffee. It was a little thing, but super helpful.

8. Was really not sure how the drinking game would go. I think at this specific event, with this particular crowd, it worked alright. Not sure if I'd do it again. If so, probably would be best right after the intermission, so people who are drinking could have a full drink at the ready.

9. Note for future presentations: our audience really likes to shout "Whores!" If you include ships and science, but no whores, they will find their own reasons to shout "Whores!"

10. I dithered before the show about whether to go with the red or the yellow cravat last night. I went with the red, but that was a mistake. Note to Future Arthur: If you're really not sure, bring both with you in case you change your mind.

11. Playing Rule Britannia right at the end was nice and I liked it. Had to rush a little to get done speaking during the instrumental part, but that was ok. Speaking while music is playing in the background has a very different feel, and I think it has a different effect, and I would be curious to play with that but I'm not sure Odd Salon is the right venue. If I was ever going to give a talk for 30 minutes, a soundtrack would be aces.

12. Listening to the audio of the show, it seems like you can hear when Steen is discreetly experimenting with sound effects. When Annetta is talking, there are a couple of spots where it sounds like she echos just very slightly.
1. The echo effect during the "Mad Scientist Drinking Game" bit was nice, but not mandatory.
2. The audio glitch was awkward but not catastrophic. The Odd Salon audience is friendly and generally sympathetic, and we're all on the same team.

13. There are (roughly) two Arthur speaking styles: Commanding Arthur and Gentle Arthur. There is room for both, but I think I like Gentle Arthur better. He will certainly emerge at the CHS.

The Cane of Emperor Norton

Earlier today, I spent some time looking at one of the canes that belonged to Emperor Norton. I am reasonably confident that the cane was given to Emperor Norton by some members of the local San Francisco Irish community.

First, I think the wood is hawthorn. Both hawthorn and blackthorn get long thorns on their younger, thinner branches (thus the name) but still get bumps on the older, thicker branches. On some trees, those can become burls, and this is a stunningly burly branch. Hawthorn is also native to California; blackthorn is not:

Second, the cane a bit tall for His Majesty, or anyone else of average height from that time. Canes are usually measured by standing up straight, letting your arms go loose at your sides, and measuring from your wrist to the floor. That's usually about half of your total body height, for both men and women.

During the 1800's, average height for a man was between 5' 4" early on, to 5' 6" later that century, and we have no reason to suspect that Norton was taller than average. But the cane is 35.5" long, which would be right for a man 5' 10". It's way too big for him, as canes go:

But it is a decent size for a shillelagh. And, in fact, the Irish frequently used both hawthorn and blackthorn for shillelaghs on account of their relatively light weight and great strength. This particular stick also has a big burl at the top, right where you'd want to hit someone.

Which gets us to the burn marks. At first glance, the obvious thought is that there were plenty of fires back in the day; the stick is made of wood and apparently ended up near one of them. However, and I love this part, the Irish had a practice of drying the wood by stuffing them up the chimney. Soot-blackened shillelaghs became popular for their dark, textured appearance, which apparently looks cooler than a normal wood-colored stick.

If that's what happened, if it was an Irish shillelagh prior to being turned into a cane for Emperor Norton, then we would expect four things:

1. Darker and more burning at the bottom than at the top. You hold the stick by the base when you stuff it up the chimney, so the bottom is closer to the fire and should be more blackened. It's a little hard to see from my poorly shot pictures, but the bottom is definitely more burnt.

2. The handle, cap, and engraved collar should not show signs of scorching. They would have been put on only after the blackening process had completed and the wood had been pulled out of whatever chimney it was stuck up. So, wear yes, burn no:

3. There should be varnish on the blackest, most burnt parts of the wood. If the exposure to fire happened before varnish was applied, then there should be varnish everywhere (except places where wood has literally chipped off). If the exposure to fire happened after varnish was applied, then probably the varnish would burn away, at least on the spots most exposed. Here, you can see the black bits are all nice and glossy:

4. For similar reasons, you would expect the same amount of varnish on the lighter parts (where the blackening soot was rubbed away) as you have on the blackened wood. Probably someone rubbed off the blackening on some of the burls to make them stand out visually even more. It accentuates their appearance, and once you're down to natural wood tone again, you put on the varnish. Here you can see the lighter and darker bits all have a comparable gloss:

This is all easier to see in the full sized photos, and even easier to see live. Which, the next time you're there, absolutely check it out. But in any case, it all lines up pretty nicely in favor of Irish shillelagh.

One reasonable guess is that someone saw this wonderful but admittedly rather bizarre shillelagh, and had the notion to turn it into a cane for a man who might be described in roughly similar terms. San Francisco certainly had a robust Irish community by that time and, not just a coincidence, "Norton" is an Irish surname.

Also, by looking at the handle you can tell that Emperor Norton was right handed, and you can see how he held the cane. The palm rested on the right side and down close to the collar, and then further up on the left side is a smaller wear mark from where his thumb would have been:

And also, you can see he's not holding the cane right on top, like most people do. He's holding it down a little. Why? Because it's too tall for him. Lord help me, I love this stuff:

It happens that Cheryl Maslin, the Registrar and Collections Manager at the California Historical Society, was on hand while I was looking at and taking pictures of the cane. She agrees that this is all a credible, even probable, account of the origins of the cane. She asked if I would write it all up in a form that might be presented to people when the cane is brought out for events and display. I'm sure you'll understand I was very glad to agree.

Finally, I must acknowledge my dear friend, Dr. Jen Anderson for setting my feet on the right path, here. She studied Irish Art History, with a focus on devotional Irish woodwork, at no less a place than Trinity College, Dublin, and I am absolutely indebted to her expertise.

Cheers,

Arthur K.