Z is for Zero

 Blogging from A to Z  4 Responses »
Apr 302012
 

When it came to Z-day, I immediately knew the word would be zero. The problem is, I’m not sure what I want to say about it. (I wish I could say, “I got nothing,” but that’s not true.)

Between its significance as a number and the shape of its symbol, zero is a pretty rich topic. A few years ago, a conversation with a friend got me thinking about zero as a concept. That led me to do a free-flow list of terms that come to mind when I think of the word:

Zip naught aught nada nothing goose-egg false no none circle infinity
Japanese fighter plane skunk new origin start neutral center point dot
nowhere never impossible lose loser blank empty wheel anomaly
spent ring eye Oh! opening binary close bagel doughnut okay love

Zero book coverThe conversation also led me to read the book* Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. Prior to coming across the book, I never would have dreamed the humble zero could warrant an entire book. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised considering that, mathematically speaking, zero is only a reciprocal away from infinity.

Is it any wonder, then, that I’m uncertain how to do this amazing critter justice?

Rather than sweat it, I’ll do what I’ve been doing. I’ll punt. Here are a few zero-inspired tidbits.

The Fool, Rider-Waite tarotIn many tarot decks, 0 is the number associated with The Fool. It’s the only card connected with zero. The Fool usually has the flavor of beginning anew. You math lovers will remember that 0,0 is the origin in the Cartesian coordinate system. That fits in that The Fool is associated with innocence, starting a journey, or even being born. (Of course, there’s much more to the card than that.)

Now that I think about it, this all reminds me of the idea of beginner’s mind from Zen Buddhism. The state of zero can be that of a clearing or space into which something might come into being. I almost want to say that zero contains within it the space of infinite potential, but I haven’t thought that one through. Maybe it just sounds cool.

Finally, when I consider zero as a number, I remember how people used to refer to the first years of the twentieth century like “back in aught-nine.” (No, I’m not old enough to have actually used that, though I guess it could apply to 2009, right?)

It turns out aught is kind of interesting. In my trusty American Heritage Dictionary, there are two separate entries for aught. The first defines aught as “anything whatever.” The second entry defines aught as “A cipher; zero” but also contains an archaic definition, “nothing.”

How cool is that? Aught is anything or nothing. Okay, I’m taking major liberties here, but it’s Z-day, so maybe you can cut me some slack.

—–

* I recommend checking out the book. It’s fairly short, and it’s a fascinating history of this number we take for granted.

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L is for Lists

 Blogging from A to Z  6 Responses »
Apr 122012
 

I used to make lists all the time. To-do lists, book lists, lists of writing topics, etc. I’ve gotten better in my old age, but I still do like a good list. And so, since today is L-day, here’s a post full of lists, starting with a list of reasons for posting lists.

5 Reasons for Posting a List of Lists
  1. It could be fun.
  2. It’s silly.
  3. It’s L-day and L is for Lists. Duh.
  4. Lists are supposed to be good for you.
  5. Because.

It might be helpful to make a list of things people might make lists of.

10 Things People Make Lists Of
  1. Favorite movies
  2. Favorite books
  3. Favorite bands
  4. Favorite TV shows
  5. Favorite other stuff
  6. Things to do
  7. Places to go
  8. Famous people it’s okay to sleep with even though you’re married
  9. Reasons for things
  10. Things people make lists of

Just because I listed something there doesn’t mean I’ll necessary include that here. My lists are not the boss of me. So:

10 Things You Can Do With a Stone
  1. Convoluted rockThrow it
  2. Skip it
  3. Rub it
  4. Contemplate it
  5. Balance it on another stone
  6. Use it to scratch something
  7. Weigh something down
  8. Break it
  9. Roll it
  10. Turn it into a pet

Well now, that’s just absurd. Let’s try something more philosophical.

10 Questions About Jim Croce’s lyric, “If I could save time in a bottle”
  1. Would the time in the bottle have an expiration date?
  2. Where would the time come from?
  3. What would the time look like?
  4. Could the time be used by anyone who opened the bottle?
  5. How much time can a typical bottle hold?
  6. Are there any special storage requirements for time?
  7. What would happen if some time leaked out?
  8. Would the saved time be “generic” time to be used as desired? (Or would it contain specific experiences?)
  9. What effect would the containing, storing, selling and buying of time have on the world economy?
  10. Why save time?

I think we can all agree that is a much more useful list. Of course, many lists showcase someone’s favorites. I’ve always found it hard to come up with favorites because any favorites I could name change over time (or even from day to day), and I am indecisive and answering would require, well, deciding. But, for the sake of L-day, I’ll make the effort to come up with a list of some favorites.

If nothing else, these might give you good reason to scoff at me.

Top-ish 20 Movies (in no particular order)
  1. Go movieGo
  2. House of Yes
  3. Hero
  4. Groundhog Day
  5. The Incredibles
  6. 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould
  7. Princess Bride
  8. Serial Mom
  9. Grosse Pointe Blank
  10. Inglourious Basterds
  11. That Thing You Do
  12. Pulp Fiction
  13. Raising Arizona
  14. The Red Violin
  15. Run Lola Run
  16. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
  17. This is Spinal Tap
  18. Shrek
  19. The Man Who Knew Too Little
  20. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I almost feel a need to justify my choices. After all, a lot of those movies aren’t exactly highbrow. But all of these movies stuck with me either because they were fun (like “That Thing You Do”), clever (like “Go”), hilarious (like “Raising Arizona”), deliciously twisted (like “House of Yes”) or beautiful (like “Hero”).

Then again “favorite” lists are subjective. To each their own. Agree to disagree. Etcetera etcetera, etcetera. Maybe I should have included “The King and I.”

Top-ish 10 TV Shows

Dexter

  1. Dexter
  2. Frasier
  3. Big Bang Theory
  4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  5. Arrested Development
  6. Twin Peaks
  7. Modern Family
  8. Parks and Recreation
  9. Scrubs
  10. Veronica Mars

Limiting the list to ten is hard. The trouble with TV shows is that many that are really entertaining aren’t necessarily that good but still sucked me in. (i.e. “Warehouse 13″ or “Fringe”) Others that were well done aren’t ones I’d necessarily watch over again. (i.e. “The United States of Tara”)

Top-ish 10 Fiction Books

Queen of the Damned

  1. Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
  2. Nine Princes in Amber (series) by Roger Zelazny
  3. Titan (trilogy) by John Varley
  4. Ghost Story by Peter Straub
  5. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
  6. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
  7. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
  8. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
  9. Harry Potter books by J.K. Rawling
  10. You Suck by Christopher Moore

Holy crap, that’s even harder to do! I know I could have done a list of twenty. Still. Maybe because books take longer to read, and because “favorites” are spread out over a longer span of time,  I had to rack my brains more for this list than any other. Even as I’m writing this, more books are popping into my head, like Lord of the Rings, Ringworld, etc.

Maybe this listing of “favorites” wasn’t a good idea. Okay, just one more.

Top-ish 10 Bands

Die So Fluid The World Is Too Big For One Lifetime

  1. Die So Fluid
  2. Animal Alpha
  3. Paatos
  4. The Crest
  5. This Ascension
  6. Riverside
  7. Concrete Blonde
  8. String Cheese Incident
  9. Fluttr (Fluttr Effect)
  10. 4 Non Blondes

This is one of the more volatile lists since I’m constantly finding new bands.  In fact, all the groups on this list are bands I didn’t come across until long after college. A lot of times when I hear people name their favorite music, they come up with an old band I suspect was their favorite back in their teens or twenties. If I were to list my old favorites, I’d have a list of music I can still appreciate or that is very nostalgic, but that I almost never listen to anymore. Is that sad?

Sorry this post is so long. Maybe I should make a list of reasons not to have such long blog posts…

Do you have any favorites? Do you wonder about any of mine? What do you like to make lists of?

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Again! Improv and letting go

 Improv  No Responses »
Oct 252011
 

One of the improv games I’ve played is called Again! Three improvisers line up facing the rest of the class. One begins a story by saying a single word. The next person adds the next word and so on, rotating one word at a time.

The rules are simple. Go as fast as you can. If at any time, any of the players is not having fun with the story, they stop it by jubilantly throwing up their hands and shouting “Again!” The other two join the first in an “Again!” Then one of them begins a new story.

As with most improv games, the deceptively simple can illustrate many key improv principles. For example, Again! requires:

  • Listening to your partners
  • Accepting your partners’ offers
  • Being spontaneous

When I first played Again! I was reluctant to stop a story. My mind played a monologue that went something like:

We’re bogged down. Should I stop it? But what if the others aren’t ready to throw in the towel? And isn’t stopping a story without giving it a chance a sort of copout? Plus, if I throw up my hands, I’ll be drawing attention to myself. That’s bad. On the other hand…

But, once I played Again! enough times, I realized that all that internal chatter was pretty much the point of the game. The little monologue above illustrates some of the hobgoblins of improv:

  • Self-consciousness — What if I mess up? What if people notice (and judge) me?
  • Driving – I have an idea of where this story should go, even if my partners try to derail it with their own ideas.
  • Attachment — We’ve already invested in this story, so we should try to make it work somehow.
  • Taking things too seriously — What if this story ends up being the best story ever! Isn’t quitting wrong?

The beauty of the game lies in seeing the flip side of those:

  • Be generous with your partners (Make your partner look good.) — If I’m feeling bogged down, they probably are too. Maybe they’re afraid to throw up their hands too, so I’ll step up and put this story out of our misery.
  • Accept your partners’ offers (Say “Yes!”) — Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s go with that and see what happens.
  • Let go — This story hasn’t really panned out the way I had hoped. Let’s just start a new one.
  • Play and have fun — This is only one of a bazillion stories. Why continue if it isn’t fun anymore?

Getting to the point where I actually loved shouting “Again!” was so freeing that the game became one of my favorites — both to play and to watch. I found myself cheering when one of the players on stage stopped the story.

One reason I’m thinking of this game now is because Nanowrimo is rapidly approaching and I feel that an Again! attitude may make the whole endeavor more enjoyable — and more doable. I’ve got 50,000 words to work with, or 50,000 words to play with.

I could look at it like: “I have 50,000 words to write a good story,” or I could look at it like “I have 50,000 words to discover a story.” It may not happen until I’m at word 35,072, but that story may not have come to me without the 35,071 words that came before it.

One thing I know, if I insisted on slogging through a story I hate, the chance of getting to 50,000 words in 30 days is nearly zero.

So, that’s the game I’m playing during Nanowrimo. What games are you going to play?

Today’s Haunting Tidbit

Ghost Story book coverOccasionally I’ll read a book that I find haunting. One of my favorite such books is Ghost Story by Peter Straub. I think one aspect of the story that I like is how it takes place over a span of 70 or 80 years, with the historical pieces being interwoven with the story’s present. I also found the characters interesting.

Do you have any books you’ve found haunting?

In Books: A Romance on Three Legs

 Random  3 Responses »
Sep 252011
 

I recently read A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano by Katie Hafner. Glenn Gould was one of the most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He is especially known for his performances of Bach and his incredible technique.

Romance On Three Legs bookcoverThe book itself was well-written and easy to read. It is certainly not a biography of Gould, but rather a story illustrating some of the eccentric genius of the man as his life intersects with one very specific piano, Steinway CD 318.

In the process of telling the tale, Hafner sketches in Gould’s background, and then introduces other threads that weave through the rest of the book. Those threads include the history of the Steinway & Sons Co. and of the concert grand pianos they built. I learned something of the process of building pianos and why each piano has its own unique personality — especially when pianos were hand-built in a process that took months or years.

Another character in the book is Charles Verne Edquist, the man who for years tuned and voiced CD 318 in the attempt to satisfy Gould’s quest for perfection. Edquist’s own background story is told and is interesting in itself given he was nearly blind from childhood, and grew up in 1940s Canada.

So, would this book be of interest to someone who is not a musician or a classical music buff? Since I can’t erase my own background as a piano player, I can’t say for sure, but I believe so and here’s why:

  • It’s the story of an eccentric and interesting man.
  • The book includes tidbits of history and its effects, for instance:
    • The history of Steinway & Sons and their relationship with concert pianists
    • A bit about growing up blind in the early-to-mid 20th century
    • How World War II affected the making of pianos — especially CD 318
    • How changing attitudes during the 20th century affected live performance and even how pianos are manufactured
  • The Steinway CD 318 is itself a fascinating character in the story, beginning with its unique birth during WWII, and ending with its purchase by the National Library of Canada.
  • There’s even a mystery of sorts, involving the dropping of CD 318 during transport.

I’m (obviously) not a book reviewer, but this is my take. 

Gould has special significance for me. In the 1990s, my piano teacher, Marilyn Pennington, referred to him as a pianist whose interpretation of classical music was based on his own inner ear rather than on a strict or pure interpretation of the music as intended by the composer. In the context of our conversation, she was essentially using Gould as an example showing that my own way of playing classical piano had some precedence.

Of course, Marilyn’s heart really belonged to jazz, so taking a more laid back approach to the drier world of classical music was natural.

That has nothing to do with the book, really, but it helps explain how it even got on my radar.