Notes from a Fiery Nest

It seems that quite a few great creators worked only in the mornings. I don't exactly consider my reflections as being in the same league as these folks' work, but I certainly find that I write them in the mornings, generally on Saturdays, before interacting with anyone else. Design work, I can do anytime, but inspiration-driven writing seems to require more specific psychological conditions.

I wrote this in the context of a discussion in my parish's LGBT & Straight Alliance group. The question of the duality and complementarity of gender as expressed in Genesis (and referenced specifically by Jesus) was raised, and how to square that with homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderedness, etc.¹ This is a rather deeper and harder question than addressing the "clobber passages" which refer specifically to various kinds of homosexual activity.

( Thoughts on tradition, myth, modernity, and diversity. )

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1: ETA; see comments.

This seems to happen to me whenever I get close to a bookstore.

First off, it was great to see so many of you at Pride last week!

My mother-in-law has been in town for a while, and we went up to Quebec City Monday and Tuesday for a whirlwind tour: we mainly hit the Old City, Aquarium, and Montmorency Falls. There's a lot of good food to be had in that town, too!

Work has been crazy busy this week; I think I have to give up these mini-vacations as a failed experiment, since they are just too short for people to feel the need to deal with anything in my absence, so stuff just piles up and rots for the couple of days I'm away. Henceforth, I think that I'll generally take a week or more at a time, so that people know that they can't just let everything wait for my return.

Today and tomorrow, I'm participating in a kenjutsu seminar. A teacher of a style even older than the one I practice is visiting town, and offered to teach a seminar for folks with some sword experience. The schedule is a bit odd, with a late-evening session tonight (see previous post) and a midday session tomorrow, each running 3 hours. I'm looking forward to it: this is the oldest martial art with a continuous lineage in Japan, and was the art studied by the founder of the style I study.

I'm also looking forward to some quiet time with soul_diaspora tomorrow evening and Monday, after all this excitement!

The kenjutsu seminar was very enjoyable, and very different from last year's adventures at Aikido Summer Camp. There were perhaps fifty of us in total, and I met nearly everyone who is currently practicing this style at a senior level. The hardwood floors were good for traction and stability, but hard on my feet; I wore socks for some of the practice, and was far from alone in doing so. The soke (head of the school) is a brilliant, enthusiastic, and energetic man; I enjoyed his classes immensely. The sempai (senior students, singular sempai) were great to train with and learn from, too.

All told, I figure I got somewhere a little over 20 hours of practice during my trip, at various venues: the community center where they usually hold classes, the school where the seminar was held, and my host's home: I stayed with one of the senior students, who has a dojo in his house (it replaced an indoor pool), but was unfortunately unable to practice due to injury. He also has a couple of cats, to which I was surprisingly unallergic, and a pretty good wine and scotch collection, which he was quite happy to share.

One of the students who had been to Japan recently brought back a bunch of hakama storage cloths to give away, so I now have a very nice blue and bronze one. I may also have a line on a second-hand iaito (metal practice sword, blunt, not designed to be sharpened or used in combat) at a good price; we'll see what comes of that.

A couple of us went to visit the Muttart Conservatories, which were nice, but not all I had expected: I had the idea that there were birds and butterflies, but no, just plants. Pretty and interesting plants, of which some pictures may show up (here or on soul_diaspora's LJ) sometime, but very much vegetable-kingdom plants. A few of us also went to the Heritage Festival, where we ate some interesting food, saw a few demos, and generally relaxed a bit between fairly intense classes.

To finish the trip, my luggage just got delivered: WestJet mistakenly off-loaded it when I transferred in TO, but to their credit, called me over as I got off the plane in Ottawa and told me so right away, rather than making me wait for it to fail to show up on the carousel. As usually happens, they delivered it directly to me when it arrived.

I'm glad I have today to recover, and will likely skip tomorrow's aikido practice too. Friday, I'll teach the kenjutsu class, since my sensei and sempai are all away. I'll introduce a couple of the changes and refinements from the seminar, but not overload students with all of it in one go.

...but I think it's still a good message well expressed.

The Secret to Getting Really, Really Good at Something

And yet, the entries I post with my own writing seem to get the least comments.

Boardgames this Sunday at my place, start time 1 p.m., RSVP/ETA/snacks/more games welcome but not required!

We tried filming this one (the church producing too much echo for a good recording, it was recorded in a separate room); I will likely post a link to the recorded version in a few days, once they're done with the editing. I'm looking forward to seeing the recorded version, because it will help me critique my own technique.

Reflection for 25-26 August, 2012
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B
Text: Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Ephesians 4:32-5:1-2, 21-32++; John 6:53, 60-69.

( Difficult teachings, including that reading with 'Wives, be subject to your husbands.' I make reference to abuse in this reflection. )

Gotye's song Somebody that I Used to Know has spawned innumerable covers, one of which I posted about a while back. Rather than exploding in litigation, Gotye has instead made a mashup of covers, which I think is an awesome response and thank-you to the fans.

Off to aikido summer camp... see y'all in a week!

What is politician weather, you ask?

Big thunder, little rain.

Reflection for 7-8 July, 2012
14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B
Text: Ezekiel 2:3-5, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Mark 6:1-6.
( What is a prophet? )

As for its reception, so far so good: no overripe tomatoes, croziers, or lightning bolts have been aimed my way yet!

I have a couple of invites available for Duolingo. Currently available languages are German, Spanish, and French (in beta). If you're interested, let me know!

It's continuing to work well for me... I'm gradually getting more comfortable with Spanish.

I've just registered for the US Aikido Federation Summer Camp: a week of pretty much flat-out aikido, at the end of July. It promises to be intense!

Read this article on quantum entanglement first.

If your brain hasn't imploded yet, here's a question:

What would happen if Alice and Bob checked the correlations of their measurements before Victor decided whether or not to turn on his entangler?

(Link ganked from dagibbs!)

Duolingo is impressing me quite a bit... I was invited in to the beta this weekend, and have been working on my Spanish. The premise is pretty neat: you mix various language exercises with translating stuff from the web, and they use the crowdsourced translations to cover their operating costs so you learn for free. The implementation is also very good: I haven't found it buggy, and it's engaging, which is really important for language learning, especially when it's a hobby. Currently, they only offer English, Spanish, and German, but more languages (supposedly including Klingon!) are on the way. I don't think it's sufficient to become fluent, but I think it can help one reach basic competency in a practical and enjoyable way.

5 parts table cream
4 parts Licor 43
3 parts Scotch (I used Grant's Sherry Cask)
1 part Cointreau

Shake gently with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass.

This is a fairly strong [ETA: and sweet] cocktail, with smoothness from the cream and 43, alcohol warmth coming mainly from the Scotch, vanilla and other more subtle flavors from the 43, and an orange note (which comes through especially in the finish) from the Cointreau.

Warren (the original chef at Sweetgrass, which is now gone) has a new restaurant, and it's on our semi-regular rotation. A few dishes of note:

Pulled pork: Yummy, with the vinegar note that soul_diaspora likes but has a really hard time finding up here.

Ribs: Tasty and meaty, with very little fat. They are not "fall-off-the-bone" tender, but if you want a more substantial experience, this is the stuff.

Jerk: awesome, with the flavor very deeply pervading the meat, not too spicy (although gets considerably hotter on reheating). The pork is excellent; for the chicken, the dark meat works better than the white.

Pirri-pirri: really tasty, but **** that's hot! soul_diaspora and I could not finish an app of pirri-pirri wings even working together... we were defeated by the spice.

You order and pay for your sides separately; even so, the cost of a meal isn't unreasonable, coming out well below what a steakhouse would cost for similar fare.

Vote for Saturday or Sunday this weekend... I'm open to both right now!

A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudoephedrine From N-Methylamphetamine by O. Hai and I. B. Hakkenshit.