Three Random Topics from carbonel

[lydy]

Galaxy - As an sf fan, I am supposed to love astrophysics and astronomy.  I kind of...don't. I think stars are very pretty, and I know that a lot of galaxies look like stars unless you use a strong telescope, and sometimes even then.  I also know  that galaxies are designated by the letter M and a number, and that there was at least one Minicon that used the number of that Minicon, and an image of  the galaxy that it described.  Was that M31?  Really not sure.  Also, there was (is?) a famous sf magazine called Galaxy.  

Waltz - I cannot dance to save my life, and I'm crap at identifying time signatures.  However, I was delighted to realize (incredibly belatedly) that "The Times They Are A-Changing" is a goddamn waltz.  I have always wondered how much truth there was to the Vienna Waltz craze, where allegedly people sold their last stick of furniture to be allowed to waltz a bit longer, and some died of exertion after waltzing for several days, straight.  It sounds exactly like the many iterations of the killer drug and killer youth craze that I've seen in my own life, and none of those were particularly fact-based.  They were, however, reported solemnly by papers of record, and so historians are totally going to believe that LSD caused blindness, violence, and genetic mutations.  And that D&D was used to summon literal demons.

Train - Trains are much nicer than busses, and I really wish they ran more often.  I also know that Amtrak is badly managed by policy, and that we could have nice things if only the Republicans would stop trying to prove that they aren't fit to govern.  I also know that the whole thing is more complicated than that, but I pretty much want to start by turfing anyone who thinks that the point of being elected to office is to destroy the government from within.  Public transport is a public good, not a profit center.  Also, I used to really want to have one dress that had a train, but my goodness, where could I possible wear it?  Since I can't dance (see above) even if I were the type that got invited to historical re-enactment balls and such, I still wouldn't be able to show it to its best advantage.

I would also like to note that all three of my assigned topics are the subjects of passion and have intense fandoms associated with them, and wonder if carbonel  intended that. 


So, that's three random things about which I have demonstrated great ignorance.  If you also wish to have an opportunity to blather about three random topics about which you know nothing, I would be happy to assign them.

Comments

[pameladean]

I will like astronomy for you, but you'll have to get somebody else for the astrophysics.

And as for three words, sure, why not? I really want to post more, and nothing else seems to be doing it.

P.

[lydy]

Hmm. Geodes, Cardamom, Elephant. That seems sufficiently random.

[womzilla]

Fun fact about "galaxy"--it's from the Greek word for "milk" (which also gives us "lactose"), because they also called the great swirl of stars "the Milky Way"). One of my go-to examples of how myths are not stories for children is about Hera, in a fit of maternal instinct, attempting to nurse the infant Heracles and him biting her breast so hard her milk flew across the skies.

Waltzes were apparently scandalous because of the extended physical contact, so thinking of the Waltz Craze as the Reefer Madness of its time makes perfect sense to me.

I would accept three random topics but I can't promise to get to them right away.

[lydy]

Oh, lords, myths are in no way children's stories. Also, Greek myths are chock full of sex, only some of which is consensual. And just plain weird as shit.

Random topics, for some later date. Tortoise, Banjo,. Pavane.

[calimac]

Tolkien's "On Fairy-stories" is full of declarations that myths and fairy-stories are not children's, or specifically children's, literature. I'll have to tell you later the rather amusing story of how Tolkien learned that.

At at some point too, I could write about three words if you'd care to give them.

[lydy]

I would delight to hear that story.

Three words: Needle, stalk, tape. Nouns or verbs, your choice.

[womzilla]

Tortoise. I can never remember if tortoises are a well-formed subset of turtles ("all tortoises are turtles but not all turtles are tortoises") or if they are just overlapping sets. I have a dim memory that tortoises are turtles that live all of their lives on the land, but that's probably wrong. Nellorat briefly had a pet tortoise named Apollo when she was young--they had several varieties of very exotic pets, including a monkey of some sort--but she doesn't seem inclined to return to that. I know several people who have reptile pets, but they really don't appeal to me; they don't evoke enough empathy for me to find them truly lovable. I am also now convinced that "tortoise" is deliberately misspelled just to give copy editors and spellcheckers something to do, as it should clearly be 'tortise'.

Banjo. Steve Martin, who has won a Grammy for his banjo playing, said that the definition of a gentleman is someone who knows how to play a banjo but refrains from doing so. I have a lot admiration for the banjo for being a relatively simple musical instrument (its four short strings present much less of a challenge to beginners than the six longer strings of the standard-issue guitar) that can produce remarkably complex music. I also admire it for its volume--like the Dobro and the National guitar, it is designed to be heard, without amplification, even in casual venues that are not engineered for great acoustics; yet it is much less useful as a hand-to-hand weapon than either of those metal-clad devices. I'm sure someone has experimented with banjo pieces that don't sound like bluegrass, but I'm not sure I've ever heard any. (A great deal of classic rock sounds perfectly fine translated into bluegrass.)

Pavane: I have made three separate attempts to read Keith Roberts's Pavane and keep bouncing off. I feel certain the word itself refers to a very specific genre of poem (or sung poem) like a serenade or an aubade (respectively, songs praising the night and abjuring the dawn) but I will be dipped if I can remember without looking what the genre is, so I'm going to just indulge in fake etymology and say that they are songs about bread, or perhaps all starchy foods.

[carbonel]

I didn't choose the words on the basis of passion; I didn't even think about that. Mostly I was trying to avoid words that I know are subjects of your own passions (including "mustard") -- while still being more or less random.

I did elect to leave "train" as singular rather than plural so you could treat it as both a noun and a verb if you so chose.

[lydy]

I do not wish to train a dragon. Or a dog. Or a parrot. Or a cat. Especially not a cat. Also, not a tree or vine. Mostly, I don't want to train anything.

[jeffy]

M is for Messier object, and while some of those are galaxies (like M31 which is the Andromeda Galaxy), most aren't. A fact I only know because my dad is an amateur astronomer who has spent many many hours capturing and processing pictures of some of them (and talking about same in my hearing).