Nothing funny about feldspar

Wow. Chunhyang is Korean pansori wrapped around a scenic (and somewhat sexy) love story. Folk tale and modern performance wending together in a poetic retelling of a famous story of loyalty and class. Watch it.

While putting on my daytime pajamas (i.e. sweats), I was wondering about what to use for my slippers equivalent. Slippers are just not appropriate (in my mind) to wear after I’ve gotten dressed, no matter how casually.

So I did what I usually do: I pulled on a pair of socks. Now, I would be embarrassed to wear these socks someplace if other people might see them, but here at home, they serve their purpose to keep my feet warm(ish).

But I got to wondering, which wears out socks more — shoes or floor?

I asked Plagioclase, but as glib smart as he is, he couldn’t decide. And I can’t either. The bottoms of the socks slide on rougher surfaces if you’re walking around the house (we’ve got wood, tile, vinyl and carpet), but inside of shoes there’s more full-time contact.

I’d run an experiment, but given that I can’t seem keep a pair of socks together…

In a fit of pique, I took down all the pictures I’ve had in posts.

Well, despite not figuring out how to slow down hot-linking, I’ve got a picture that I just couldn’t not share.

But surprisingly enough, it’s not Albite nor a flower… I’m breaking my phototaciturnity with this:

This is a portion of an advertisement from a local/regional furniture store. I would have sent you to their website to see it, but I couldn’t get a decent version from there to show you, so here you are — my first step into posting images again.

But you may be wondering to yourself why I would care to post this ad? What is it about it that makes me want to show it to people on the web? After all, I showed it to Plagioclase, and he said, “Huh? So?” and Plagioclase’s mother said, “Huh? So?” and you may well say “Huh? So?”

So, look closer:

I can’t decide if the designers only wanted to have a nice neutral background to the furniture, so that’s why they faced all of the books in the bookcase (and everywhere else in the room) so you can’t read the spines, or perhaps they figured that if they showed real books then people who don’t like books¹ wouldn’t want to buy this bedroom set. Either way, I find it mighty strange. It’s not even like that line from Auntie Mame, because these tomes aren’t particularly decorative.² Maybe they thought the “owners” of this room would be psychic, and read books by their aura.

Wouldn’t that be cool? Then I could just absorb all the words without having to actually move my eyes. I imagine, however, that the books would all blend together and it’d be like trying to listen to untuned AM radio in between several markets… That definitely would make it hard to sleep in that bed!

1. there are such people?!↩
2. Plagioclase figures they’re probably a bunch of the same book. His mother wondered why they build a bookcase into the window. Actually, now that I look at it, I wonder why, too.↩

Challenge for February 18: The object of this challenge is to develop nine different mathematical expressions that equal eight. You must use the digits 2, 7 and one other. And that other digit must be a one in the first expression, two in the next expression and so on, up to nine. You can use a digit once and only once in each expression.

You may use the four arithmetic symbols: plus, minus, times and divided by, as well as exponents and decimal points. You may use parenthesis as you need them. For example: Using the digits 2, 7 and 1 you can make the expressions 2+7-1= 8.

It’s too late, of course, to actually submit this (though I never do anymore), and I’m embarrassed by how long it took me (even with Plagioclase’s help), but my answers are below the fold. The only excuse I’ll give is that I was away for several days. It wasn’t just that I was dense or anything, oh no.

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Sonatine is a yakuza film that is violent as well as minimalist. I would probably get more out of it if I had some understanding of Japanese culture or language — but then again, if I understood more I probably wouldn’t watch it in the first place. There’s something about the emotional distance that makes it possible for me to watch it and see it as a film.

There was an interesting juxtaposition between Kitaro’s interview and Quentin Tarantino’s intro/outro. Tarantino exclaims over the yakuza genre, and specifically discusses Kitaro’s style. Kitaro, on the other hand, says (in translation) that he might like Taratino’s films better if he understood English. I kinda know how he feels.