So Thankful When I Don't Have to Cook

My neighbor Rosemary and I went out for our Thanksgiving meal to a little French restaurant in Harvard Square called Sandrines.  We had the Prix Fixe, which was a good deal.  Our waiter had moved to from Paris to Arizona, where they opened a restaurant.  But after 9/11, there was such a bad feeling towards anything French that they moved east.

So Hooray east!  Rosemary had a nice cuppa wine (not pictured).

I had a sidecar (not pictured).

The turkey and fixins' were nicely presented.

And the lemon and pumpkin tarts were pretty enough to eat.

The good food reminded Rosemary that she must go back to Paris.
Sandrines is a bit too expensive for everyday eating out.

The All-Seeing Mechanical Eye

Today’s  topic is Mechanical Remote Viewing, (as distinct from ordinary Remote Viewing).  MRV devices allow an operator to view scenes live at a great distance without the intermediary of a spy satellite, helicopter, or surveillance camera.  Some MRV devices can even see through fog, walls, and mountains, and some can also pick up audio.  MRV turns up in science fiction and action shows with a hi-tech component. 

I was thinking about this recently as I watched the wonderful 1950 classic Radar Secret Service.  The cops in this movie had “tele-meters” which allowed them to watch their colleagues clash with bad guys out on the roads just as if they were watching a movie.  The miracle of radar made this possible.  (Did you know that radar started out as an acronym for radio detection and ranging?)

Of course, Captain Video was the king of MRV with his Opticon Scillometer.  Check out some of the episodes here, here, and here.

The Martian Spaceship of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians had a MRV screen that a clear view of various Santa Clauses on the city streets of Earth.

The scientists in Riding With Death manage, in the 2^nd half of the movie, to come up with a remote-viewing TV that allows the female lead to watch the male lead’s activities in a bar and parking lot.  The movie’s writers felt obligated to explain scientifically the male lead’s ability to become invisible at will (radiation accident), but the remote-viewing TV is pretty much taken for granted.

My Dad was visiting in mid-October, and we watched the new Hawaii Five-O.  At one point McGarret needed to know if there were any people in a boat on the deserted wharf, so he calls up a Navy friend who pushes a button and retrieves a thermal image of said boat showing one person inside.  She didn’t have to wait for a spy satellite or surveillance chopper.  It had to be Remote Thermal Viewing
.
Perhaps the audiences of the 50s were prepared to accept MRV because of precision bombing during WWII. Paul Fussell explains that "precision bombing" was something of a misnomer: "The fact was that bombing proved so grossly inaccurate that the planes had to fly well within anti-aircraft range to hit anywhere near the target, and even then they very often missed it entirely.  As the war went on, 'precision bombing' became a comical oxymoron relished by bomber crews with a sense of black humor.  It became obvious to everyone except the home folks reading Life and The Saturday Evening Post that although you could destroy lots of things with bombs, they weren't necessarily the things you had in mind."*   But civilians believed that each dropped bomb landed exactly where it was meant to. If you could drop a bomb precisely from 7 miles up without worrying about wind, then why not MRV?

I found a precision bombing propaganda pamphlet that Fussell mentioned and  scanned it.  Here's one image from it:

 Please check out the pilot I have pointed the green arrow at.  Tell me what you think: "Dude looks like a lady," "Dude, that is a lady," "Other."

*Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, New York: Oxford UP, 1989, p 14.

Can a Big Thing be Subversive?

I was doing the Veterans Day shift, when a young man asked me if I didn't think the locking down of Harvard Yard was "subversive."  The question sounded odd; and I wondered, "Why does this question sound odd."  It was the word "subversive,"  which, in academia usually has a positive value.   Note these titles of academic articles and books:
Das entfremdete Subjekt : subversive psychoanalytische Denkanstösse bei Lacan und Derrida
A subversive voice in China : the fictional world of Mo Yan
Unvarnishing reality : subversive Russian and American cold war satire

In modern academic literature, "subversives" are the powerless chipping away at the Powers That Be.  They are intellectuals challenging received wisdom. They are avant-garde artists.  They are despised minority groups.
Probably this positive spin on "subversive" is a reaction to earlier (mostly conservative) uses of the word:

Guide to subversive organizations and publications (and appendix)

Subversive activities control act of 1950. Report ... Eighty-fourth Congress, first session

Interim report of the Special commission established to study and investigate communism and subversive activities and related matters in the Commonwealth. April 26, 1955. [Appendix A ... Resolve reviving and continuing the Special commission ... until February 1, 1956.

Subversion in racial unrest, an outline of a strategic weapon to destroy the governments of Louisiana and the United States. Public hearings, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, March 6-9, 1957

The web of subversion; underground networks in the U. S. Government..

However, in both cases we are talking about small subverting large.  Small communist cells would be slowly subverting the whole United States.  So, can a big thing subvert a small thing?  There's nothing in the definition of subvert to suggest that size is important.  So I suppose the question was not odd.

Tree-in-a-Hole

The tree in the Pusey hole looked quite brilliantly red today.

Everything's Better With Photoshop

Barb and I in Times Square, improved.

Do Shoes Come From Heaven?

wait for the other shoe to drop wait for the next or final thing to happen. North American *

Sure!  Shoes come in pairs, so when the other shoe drops, you have a complete pair.  Then it's time to walk.

But why does the shoe drop?  What's it doing way up there?  My shoes are on the floor or hanging on my closet door.  Do other people keep their shoes on such high shelves that they must knock them down with a pole?

Or maybe shoes used to grow on tall trees, and people had to shake the trees to get the shoes to drop. (Thus, the "shoe tree.")

Do shoes come from heaven?

*"shoe"  Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Edited by John Ayto, Judith Siefring and Jennifer Speake. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Harvard University Library.  17 October 2011

TGIT

On Thursday Diane and I had Chinese takeout for lunch.












We made JB call in the order because he was being such a lazy boy.  (He doesn't like to be photographed, but this is his cubicle.)

Missed Kay Ryan

I was going to hear Kay Ryan at the MFA last night.  But the heavy, cold rain held me back; I just wanted to go home and get in bed with the cats.  Here is a poem of hers based on a museum experience.

Outsider Art
by Kay Ryan

Most of it’s too dreary
or too cherry red
If it’s a chair, it’s
covered with things
the savior said
or should have said—
dense admonishments
in nail polish
too small to be read.
If it’s a picture,
the frame is either
burnt matches glued together
or a regular frame painted over
to extend the picture. There never
seems to be a surface equal
to the needs of these people.
Their purpose wraps
around the backs of things
and under arms;
they gouge and hatch
and glue on charms
till likable materials—
apple crates and canning funnels—
lose their rural ease. We are not
pleased the way we thought
we would be pleased.

Origins

When JB gave me the robot ornaments, he asked me if I recognized them from movies.  I didn't.  He thought maybe they were toys.  I found images of 2 of them.

The Great Outdoors

This afternoon Rosemary and I checked out the Oktoberfest in Harvard Square.  As usual, there were no beer-bearing Mädchens, just the usual outdoor-fair paraphernalia.

An Early Christmas Gift

JB brought this in for me today.  Robot Christmas decorations! (Some assembly required.)

Here they are next to the Coke Slut.  Thank you JB!

A Grave Visitor

This odd truck was parked on my street today.  Fortunately, no sythe-bearing visitor came to my door.

The Office Beautiful

Here are some more office decorations.

A Piet Mondrian left here by John Collins.

A Map showing Stalin's plans for cutting up Russia into rectangles.

A Map mixing geography and genealogy.

Back from Paris, France

Rosemary went on a Rick Steves tour of Paris and was thoroughly satisfied with her travel experience.  She brought me some nice souvenirs.

There is a Claude Monet fan and  some goodies from Versailles.

Rainy-Day Activities

As usual in hurricane situations, by the time it gets to me, it's just some rain and wind.  It's mostly the suburbs that get the flooding and power outages.  But I stayed indoors.  The T shut down after 8 am, I'm guessing that stores closed too.  There are always lots of things to do indoors:

One can investigate new venues and postures for relaxation.

One can replace that piece of fabric art one got tired of with some pictures of the Painting Goddess.

And one can hang out on the patio and eat bugs.

More Cute (and Educational) Cat Pictures

Here are a couple of educational shots showing the thumb placement on a polydactyl cat.

This is the Cat on my Hat.......................

........and this is the Cat on my Hat from the Back.

The cat's in the bag.