litlog 2014++

connection

Most of us have personal problems, be it material, professional, love life or its absence, health, ... But in the US I have a problem common with people who are not associated with the academic environment or high-tech companies. The problem is the virtual nasty monopoly on access to Internet by Comcast. Also AT&T has a share, and it has learned to act about as ugly as Comcast does. Some people say that that's capitalism for you. Nonsens. Monopoly, if anything, is akin to communism, not capitalism. This difference in the usage of common political terms erases the usefulness term capitalism. When I told this to a friend then he broke up with me (even twice, I think). So ok, he is not my friend anymore. In Poland word friend is much stronger than in the US anyway. Thus I can say that he was never my friend.

A few months ago I was calling local lawyers from the yellow pages to take on Comcast. You'd think that a lawyer would make it big by making Comcast small(er). No such luck. Nobody cared. And the Comcast fees are way higher than those of providers in Europe. Comcast is famous (in a negative way) as being a company which people hate the most.

Well, I have a free connection in my building, five floors above mine (no, not from stupid Comcast ). I can go to coffee places (around here, one is open 24h/day), pizza places (one is open till 4am--not bad, but I often stay up all night till 6am or even after 8am), etc. It'd be still not the same as having a regular connection in my apt. Even places which are like a shared office are not equally comfortable, and they are expensive.

Victory Tour (The Jacksons tour)

I wandered from the chess championship here and there and finally I stopped at


I've committed myself to write about it. This above is the wikipedia's link. The tour was announced by the brothers and Don King (boxing promoter). You can read there in wikipedia what a disaster this tour was despite some financial success for Michael's brothers (Michael himself has donated his own share to charities). So, I had some thoughts about it but it's complicated, and I gave up on writing more about it

11m-2d

This blog has 11 months minus 2 days. Name "...2014++"--its double plus--leaves it open to continue beyond 2014. It has to be seen.

Looking back, I am missing Desejo and her blog entries. Wasn't she supposed to come back about this time? Her posts here had a certain peculiarity. I even wonder if it would continue. (But that is the least important).

A couple days ago the main social organizer in my building has invited me to the today's Thursday party/dinner (we have in the US a traditional American holiday today; would it be related to turkey? I don't mean Small Asia). I was supposed to bring some chips. I said, "Gladly, if I remember". So she promised to remind me Wednesday (yesterday). She even gave up on my chips, it would be enough for me to move the tables before the party.

She forgot to remember, but I didn't forget. To remember, you need to invest into remembering. I did, and I bought all kind of chips just on time before they closed a drug store downtown, relatively near me. I still plan to show up before the time to move the tables. If I remember. And if I don't oversleep. After all, it is almost 7 am. I need to be upstairs in the dining room at 3 pm. I still have 9 hours.

Association. An outstanding Moscow mathematician would insert certain errors during his lectures intentionally, to keep his students on their toes. The sharp keep would interrupt the instructor, would point to the mistake, and the instructor would continue the correct thread. He did the same also away from Moscow, during a lecture in Siberia. They have sharp kids there too, very sharp. When our mathematician, his name was Vladimir Arnold, introduced somewhat wrong formula--but hardly anything in mathematics is wrong only "somewhat", the students said nothing. So Arnold continued consistently, and now, waiting for a correction, he was sweating under the pressure. Finally, it certainly didn't make any sense to continue this way. He erased a whole blackboard of false calculations and proceeded to finish his talk.

And why would Siberian students live with wrong equations, etc.? Because they had respect for great Arnold. They didn't know him personally, so they did the polite thing.

Arnold died a couple years ago. Outside of mathematics, he was very tough physically (swimming in the cold, near freezing sea, and so on). He knew a lot of history but also had some funny historical notions. He wrote great textbooks but his views on education included some horrible garbage, and in general, he didn't show good judgment, just like people on the Internet. But as long as I know, Arnold was not an Internet creature. Today some great mathematicians are very active on the mathematical Internet, and they still are perfectly sensible. They are inventive in the way in which an entire large open Internet group of mathematicians works on mathematics together.

Lit time & my time

I am using a 24h clock. My time right now is 12:23.

Early language development

Most poets were verbally efficient already since their early childhood. The first years are extremely important. That's and virtually only then is when a child learns whole linguistic domains like names of plants and animals. This was not my case though. Due to the circumstances. I had relatively little language contact, or all together any, until I was five. I didn't know it for years that I was not about words but about thinking. I thought that everybody was thinking, that it is like breathing, taken for granted. I payed for this error for years, a lot. And about the language, I drastically changed my language virtually overnight when I was just four.

Thus not only that I am sorry that I ever touched poetry at all, but on the top of it, I didn't even have any preconditions to get into poetry. Once again, this world is CHAOS, and I am but one more illustration. On the other hand, since poetry didn't come to me easily, I had to make up for it doing what I do well--thinking--I was forced to.

How much talent do you need?

To be truly good at something you need at least 95% of the talent relevant to your activity. Thus 80% is not enough. You even better have at least 98% or else you will have to suffer, you will have to work hard to overcome that 5% shortage. That's the big difference between happy and unhappy genius. Furthermore, a genius needs also the auxiliary talents which surround their main activity. Otherwise you may never hear about them because they never had a chance.

Consider Vaslav Nijinsky (Wacław Niżyński), perhaps the greatest ballet dancer ever. He grew up in Russia, so he was in effect Russian. His Polish father was a superb ballet dancer too. Vaslav believed that his father was even better than Vaslav himself. But anyway, Vaslav was great not only as a dancer and choreographer (director), he also knew for instance about make-up more than anybody else. And when he danced a female role for his female ballet teammates, for the sake of instruction, the women could only wish that they themselves would act that well.

My friend WS had certainly all 100% of ability and more. He lived art since a small toddler. He was an artist, a poet, he could cut your hair like nobody else, joking, making you--on his way--look like this famous actor or that, ... You could only look into the mirror and open your mouth wide, seeing how true it was. Already at age eleven he was not only writing poems but even translating American blues into Polish, giving them his own angle, so that they were half and a half both ways. In his poems, he was often presenting the world of youngsters like him, but artistically the poems were utmost mature regardless of the youthful characters and scenes.

So, he was four and a half years younger than me. We talked sometimes about poetry, but not much, very little indeed, more about other things. He had contact with poetry years before me, despite me being so much older. For instance, I showed him my first poem, years after I wrote it. Fortunately, I had there a good choice of the word "Pekin", which in Polish--at the time--stood for the Chinese capital, but in the poem--for the highest building in Warsaw, namely PKiN. Thus youngsters instead of PKiN were saying "Pekin". Just in case I asked if I should use official PKiN. This shows that I didn't have such a strong feel for these things. WS immediately (without any hesitation) responded "of course Pekin"--there was no need for any discussion. And there was none.

People knew that WS was a genius. It was not helping him much. And as the fate wanted, WS died at twenty and a half.

That was nearly half a century ago. When he was drawing a picture, there was no hesitation, the image was coming onto the paper straight from his brain. And it was a superb brain. You could see things in the portrait by him, say a caricature, which you would never guess looking at the person for years. A few of us on an occasion looked at the caricature and were laughing, and WS too, because you could see in the picture so much rendered just by one-two simple strokes. Or he would hurry, had to leave me. But my small daughter entered the room and was moving around just like a child would do. He was already dressed to go out into the winter, but instead, he grabbed a piece of paper, and clumsily--or so it looked--a pencil into his left hand (whole hand, not fingers), and drew one graceful picture after another, not any caricature. He didn't say a word, he didn't ask her to stop here, to pose there, nothing--she was moving obliviously to his drawing... non-stop .

The story is beautiful. Have you the sketches he made?

Senna Jawa said:

To be truly good at something you need at least 95% of the talent relevant to your activity. Thus 80% is not enough. You even better have at least 98% or else you will have to suffer, you will have to work hard to overcome that 5% shortage. That's the big difference between happy and unhappy genius. Furthermore, a genius needs also the auxiliary talents which surround their main activity. Otherwise you may never here about them because they never had a chance.

Click to expand...

lovely story Senna, but here you are pulling numbers out of you ass and coming to an erroneous conclusion by fooling yourself with a semantic game...
let's start here:

To be truly good at something you need at least 95% of the talent relevant to your activity

the talent
what do mean 'the' the sum total of all the talent or do mean 'your'

Furthermore, a genius needs also the auxiliary talents which surround their main activity

are you talking cross fertilization here? because that would be a good thing, but yes any thinking (and not even thinking that much) person will pull in experience in other areas.

Are you inferring as in the case of poetry, it would be good to know music, art?
math?

All well and good.

What about social interaction?

Psychology?

Linguistics?

Strategy?
oh, yes you have that covered, you play chess

So to be a happy genius you have to call it quits somewhere, because you can never reach that 100%

98% what is that?

genius is an overused word, means nothing for all intent and purposes

so here is a hoot:
Charles Spearman, bearing in mind the influential theory that he originated of conceiving intelligence as made up of a "general factor" as well as "special factors" more specific to particular mental tasks, may have summed up the research the best when he wrote in 1927, "Every normal man, woman, and child is, then, a genius at something, as well as an idiot at something."

query said:

The story is beautiful. Have you the sketches he made?

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Thank you, query.

WS is Włodzimierz Szymanowicz (I just wrote about him also in another thread on this forum). Unfortunately, I didn't manage to save his sketches, and not even a large paper copy of his linoleum-print which won for Szymanowicz an international competition for high-school students "Africa in a child's eyes". I hope that the original made in linoleum still exists(?). Several years after Szymanowicz's death, music was written to his poem "Zaproście mnie do stołu", and the song won an all-Poland competition. You may replay the song on youtube, there are several renditions, the original performer-singer was Elżbieta Wojnowska.

I used to describe myself as intellectually ascetic. But after years upon years I have to admit that it is not true anymore. I just can't help to have a lot of experience from walking many different paths. Thus now I am ready for blog stories. Nothing big, no big deal, just blog. And many times I wrote here some longer pieces or at least the initial module... Then I erase them without a trace. Almost all of them. I get rid of my texts because I am not able to (re)use them later. I almost always have to start from scratch. That's not anything efficient but that's how it is.

Another year, another New Year.

This blog is a little older than one year and two days. My New Year will come in just under three hours. It's back to winter. It is also time to look back at our forum. But it'd be difficult because PF&D is in a severe decline. I hope for better in 2015. I have these days--relatively--almost zero contact with Polish poets. It'd be natural to get back active in English. For years I was sorry to devote to little time to my English poems. Now, I'd think, I have a chance, except that I don't know if I have it in me anymore (in plain English--I don't).

Now for a regular blog style entry: I went to a food store before 5pm. It's a 20-25 minute walk one way. People who drive only would say that at least a 40 minute walk. Funny. I din't buy too much because I had to carry my food back to the apt. The temperature was as low as about 15F or (-9)-C. It looked that I spoiled myself a little. If I did full shopping then the proportion would be reasonable. I bought only the items which were easy to buy and to carry on the street. OK, I did buy a few extras, no big deal.

Einstein's advice, and more.

The Einstein's advice to Lit would be something like this: Always challenge yourself at the edge of your ability Once you get comfortable then go to the next level, increase your potential.

Otherwise, one gets stuck at routine. Around here I think that for instance, Marie was one who would strive consistently to go forward. Also, Angeline does it but only part time .

****************

There were clearly two life stages to Albert Einstein. One until he reached the age of 25y. Then the rest of his life. A physicist said that if Einstein did nothing after his first 25 years he would be just as great as he is forever. He did some high-quality results afterward but nothing as significant as before.

One could ask why? Certainly, young age has its known advantages but Einstein was very capable also after25. Then why?

I think that poetry gives us an answer. Einstein was always modest (well, cocky too, and for a good reason ) and unassuming. Nevertheless, Einstein's attitude to Nature has changed in a way of which he was somehow not aware.

Young Einstein has encountered a very messy situation in physics. There were new facts (mainly--the speed of light, etc). Einstein believed in Nature hence, with his incredible insight, he introduced a new order to the physics and brought harmony and sense. He modestly accepted and trusted the reality (the results of the physical experiments) and managed to succeed.

A digression (an old joke): there came Newton and brought the Heaven; then there came Einstein and brought the Hell back.

The older Einstein still firmly believed in Nature's Harmony. That's what he was claiming. However, now he believed not in the physical facts which the progress of physics was discovering, but this time he believed in his own beliefs. Not physics but he himself was deciding for himself what Nature should be. He ended up in a dead alley.

****************

In poetry there is room for creating your own universe which can compete(!) with the reality. I did it a bit in my own poems (e.g. in my poem on the end of summer, which won me a competition at Literotica, and for that reason, I think). Bolesław Leśmian was doing it a lot. Etc. However, this made up reality still has to be reality-like.

Final final of AO-2015

The last tennis match of Australian Open is already in its third set. However, it's so far 1:1 in sets, and they play to 3 wins. Perhaps the match will last for awhile.

It is Djokovic against Murray. The woman singles were won by Serena Williams. In the present set it is 3:3.

It's fun to watch youtube when it shows the best sport moments. They are very artistic. The same with chess. It's fun to see some sequences of moves. On the other hand, advanced sport makes no sense (while for your own pleasure it certainly does). And politics in the professional chess is ugly (in some other sports too). Politics in chess is like the big politics but--of course--in miniature.

At this moment, in set 3, it's Djokovic 4:3 Murray.

simple mind games

Does anybody around here play "Free Cell" or kenken or 2048? Or other similar solitary games (but I play only these three). In the past couple days I started to play (horribly) chess on line (chess.com) but chess is a game for two. (OK, you may play against computer--does it count as solitary?).

Senna Jawa said:

Does anybody around here play "Free Cell" or kenken or 2048? Or other similar solitary games (but I play only these three). In the past couple days I started to play (horribly) chess on line (chess.com) but chess is a game for two. (OK, you may play against computer--does it count as solitary?).

Click to expand...

Sometimes I like to play solitaire and listen to music (jazz, classical or something in a language I don't know). That's my thinking about writing time. It usually leads me into writing something.

Angeline said:

Sometimes I like to play solitaire and listen to music (jazz, classical or something in a language I don't know). That's my thinking about writing time. It usually leads me into writing something.

Click to expand...

Right, naturally, one may listen to jazz when thinking about poems, playing Free Cell, drinking beer, ... However, to play a game and thinking about poetry is not something I would guess. You must have the ability to divide your attention. Not me. Free Cell is silly but when I play it then I play it!

Hey, Angeline, do you know your longest winning streak? Can you estimate roughly the length of your winning streaks?

The most profound game is weiqi (GO). I am a poor weiqi player but I may write the rules for you. I feel like sharing them because they are incredibly simple and harmonious. Especially the polished version arrived at by a 1958 conference in Taiwan (while weiqi as such is also the oldest game of significant depth, it's about 4000 years old--one may check me on this). It's also nice to compare chess and weiqi metaphors. One look at them is enough to see how their spirits are different.

Senna Jawa said:

Right, naturally, one may listen to jazz when thinking about poems, playing Free Cell, drinking beer, ... However, to play a game and thinking about poetry is not something I would guess. You must have the ability to divide your attention. Not me. Free Cell is silly but when I play it then I play it!

Hey, Angeline, do you know your longest winning streak? Can you estimate roughly the length of your winning streaks?

The most profound game is weiqi (GO). I am a poor weiqi player but I may write the rules for you. I feel like sharing them because they are incredibly simple and harmonious. Especially the polished version arrived at by a 1958 conference in Taiwan (while weiqi as such is also the oldest game of significant depth, it's about 4000 years old--one may check me on this). It's also nice to compare chess and weiqi metaphors. One look at them is enough to see how their spirits are different.

Click to expand...

At one point I wanted to see if I could play 100 games of Free Cell without losing and I think I got up somewhere around 70 or 80 games before I did. But that is including the (many) games where I'd go backwards and change moves after doing something dumb. And to go back helps one become a better player--try harder to see more moves ahead. I have to admit I like word games better (of course), scrabble and crossword puzzles. But I think playing any of these games helps keep the mind sharp.

And yes I am a good multi-tasker. Always have been. But I can't do anything additional if I am listening to music with words. I get too caught up in them.

I've heard of GO, but never played it. When I was a college student I created a board game based on the epic Beowulf. It was a project for an Early English Literature course and we were not allowed to just write a paper. It actually turned out to be a fun exercise.

Angeline said:

[...]I wanted to see if I could play 100 games of Free Cell without losing

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I can't believe it. For a moment I thought that I am reading my own post! I tried to get a 100 long string of wins for years. It was not any hight priority, intensive project, but nevertheless.

I think I got up somewhere around 70 or 80 games before I did. But that is including the (many) games where I'd go backwards and change moves after doing something dumb. And to go back helps one become a better player--try harder to see more moves ahead.

Click to expand...

I guess I was a little more serious. I got close to 90. I got streaks longer than 70 a couple of times. And I never go back. It's like with chess, since childhood. I never take a move back. Every time my streak ends before 30 I get frustrated but it doesn't happen too often. The main element is to keep concentration a game after a game. Most of the games are easy, especially that I got good technique. But that gets me lulled into carelessness. Also, many times I would be extremely tired or sleepy or sometimes a drink might do it to me.

I have to admit I like word games better (of course), scrabble and crossword puzzles. But I think playing any of these games helps keep the mind sharp.

Click to expand...

Free Cell makes me a little bit more dumb, which is ok. I am sharp enough.

And yes I am a good multi-tasker. Always have been. But I can't do anything additional if I am listening to music with words. I get too caught up in them.

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You're multi-tasking and diplomatic. You could make good business(wo)man or even a politician (no, don't go this path ). If I had even one of these two virtues I would be a very rich man.

[...] I created a board game based on the epic Beowulf. It was a project for an Early English Literature course and we were not allowed to just write a paper. It actually turned out to be a fun exercise.

Click to expand...

Impressive!

Best,

A story behind poem "disk maintenance".

I was, completely privately, editing a collection of an excellent poetess. We were also participating in a poetic group of true talents--the sharpest group of this type that I have ever encountered. It was twenty years ago. The cooperation of the two of us got cut short soon, still almost twenty years ago. Near the end of the project I sent her somewhat urgent email, worried that she might do something in a rush. To my shock she answered me in an extremal hostile way, hysterically (women! ). Why? It's enough to say that she posted the answer on the group. Because, by her mistake, she assumed that my private email to her was posted on the group. That's it. The whole secret. So she broke our relation (not for very long ). Thus I removed her poems from my computer. And I wrote

disk maintenance​

I hope that today it is ok to write about all of this. Actually, it felt charming to me all this time, despite me being scolded and worse for nothing. And I hope that you too will find this story charming.

About poetry again

--





(now you know--do you?)

Engineers contra theoreticians

During a business lunch, engineers had no problem opening tiny plastic condiments with mayonnaise or ketchup, while I--a mathematician, and my friend--theoretical physicist, couldn't do it. Engineers were advising us to try to break the plastic at this corner or that corner... Nothing helped the two of us. We had no working solution. Finally, I understood what this was about. The answer has occurred to me some 6-7 years later.

Obviously, we were not very intelligent. Were engineers, under the circumstances, smarter than the two of us--the theoretical guys? What about you--the esteemed poets? (Don't confuse esteemed with estimated).

Senna Jawa said:

During a business lunch, engineers had no problem opening tiny plastic containers with mayonnaise or ketchup, while I--a mathematician, and my friend--theoretical physicist couldn't do it. Engineers were advising us to try to break the plastic at this corner or that corner... Nothing helped the two of us. We had no working solution. Finally I understood what this was about. The answer has occurred to me some 6-7 years later.

Obviously, we were not very intelligent. Were engineers, under the circumstances, smarter than the two of us--the theoretical guys? What about you--the esteemed poets? (Don't confuse esteemed with estimated).

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Hi, SJ. This is your blog, so you may consider this response intrusive. If so, I apologize.

I come from a family of engineers. My father, two uncles, my brother, my father-in-law, and a brother-in-law are/were all engineers. My degree is in experimental psychology, but my career was spent essentially as a software engineer.

Are engineers "smarter" than theoreticians? Of course not. I grew up wanting to be a theoretical physicist, but my math wasn't good enough.

On the other hand, are theoreticians "smarter" than engineers? I'd just point at the Roman baths in Bath, UK and how the water flow is still within tolerance 2000 years later. Effing amazing.

Thinking and building are different functions, both of which are necessary to civilization.

PF&D's blog

Tzara said:

Hi, SJ. This is your blog, so you may consider this response intrusive. If so, I apologize.

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Tzara, the very opening statement for this litlog 2014++ reads:


The same was true about the earlier Lit blog, which I opened on 2006-01-30. It said, again in its first post:


It said so in its very first paragraph. Then that first post ended on:


And that's how it was (with hardly any unpleasant exceptions). True, this present blog is nearly dead, but it doesn't have to be. Let it have true blog entries, without any hostility (if there has to be any gzzzz, let it be posted elsewhere ). After all, this is NOT my blog.

worked 36 hours straight with no sleep, a temperature of 39 degrees C on two courses of antibiotics and two different pain killers,
and I think I still have all my fingers......

Damn Sinus Infection!!!

todski28 said:

worked 36 hours straight with no sleep, a temperature of 39 degrees C on two courses of antibiotics and two different pain killers,
and I think I still have all my fingers......

Damn Sinus Infection!!!

Click to expand...

Wanna join my I Hate Sinuses club?