Obsidian Wings

What could I possibly have to add?

by JanieM

To quote a commenter, "I honestly thought I had run out of tears today".

It Ain't Necessarily So

by wj

I think we are overdue for an explicitly Open Thread. So here are a couple of totally unrelated items to kick us off.

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The US Stimulus Checks (technically “Economic Impact Payments”) are finally coming out. Ours just arrived. While President Trump’s name is right there on the front, his signature (contrary to what I had expected) is not.

Everything I have read indicated that they would be $1,200 per person; $2,400 for a married couple filing jointly. At least if your income was under something like $75,000 per person. Yet when ours arrived, the amount was more like $890. For two. (And no, we don't make anywhere near the threshold amount.) No document included to indicate how the amount was figured. In fact, nothing was in the envelope but the check itself. Seems a bit odd.

Has anyone else gotten their check yet? And did you see the same kind of lack of explanation?

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I see that, while Trump is pushing businesses to reopen, much of the stimulus money voted by Congress remains unspent
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/05/18/treasury-coronavirus-bailout-fund-cares-act/
But then, talking about doing things is ever so much easier than actually doing things to help make them happen.

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NASA’s daily Astronomy Picture of the Day is one of my regulars. Today featured Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars. What struck me was just how straight it is. In fact, if I didn’t know it was on a planet, I would have assumed that I was looking at a sphere which had gotten grazed by a bullet. Hmmm....

As noted -- Open Thread

Mowing on Tuesdays

by JanieM

I once wrote something to the effect that God invented black flies to remind us that nothing is perfect, even the month of May.

I wrote hastily.

Comparisons

5/30/20: 7-day graphs updated to today.

5/29/20: New 7-day average graphs, just for Pro Bono if he's still around. Older stuff below the fold.

COVID Science and speculation

by liberal japonicus

Another post for COVID science and stuff. No politics please

Fred Willard RIP

by liberal japonicus

Fred Willard, brilliant comedic actor, passed away. Over at LGM, they posted this Martin Mull show that features him. Funny stuff, take a look below the break.

Kawasaki syndrome

by liberal japonicus

This is something I wrote for a local group, with some additions and changes for here. The sotry about my daughter is almost 20 years ago, so everyone is fine.

Something different

by liberal japonicus

I'm just going to post a few things that pop up for me, these two might be of interest.

Humans Created Earliest Modern Artifacts in Europe

and

New Dates Push Back Arrival of Modern Humans in Europe

If there are any regulars who would like to try their hand at posting, now is the time! Operators are standing by!

The future is a foreign country

by liberal japonicus

Another short thread as I try to write a much longer one. Most of us realize that things are going to be different and this is your thread devoted to telling us what will be different and how different it will be. Two articles that might give a nudge:

Leaving on a jet plane?

all that was needed Brexit and a dash of RNA, whoda thunk it?

the art of playing time

by russell

A while back I posted a video of a studio performance of Paul Simon's "The Afterlife", and made some comments about how the different players were all articulating the time feel of the piece in different ways.  I followed up on that in longer form with a couple of folks, and it was suggested that I post the longer version, if nothing else than as a break from epidemics and the SFJ.

So, a post about the art of playing time.

The critical skill in all aspects of music is listening.  Not just listening, but hearing.  Playing in tune, playing in time, blending in an ensemble, playing convincingly as a solo player - they all depend on hearing what is going on.  And, in particular, hearing what you are playing.  That's often the hardest, because you have an idea in your head of what it is you intend to play, and you assume that that is what is coming out of your voice or instrument.

Quite often, it's not.

So you have to train yourself to hear what it is that you are actually doing.

For time playing, there are two aspects of this.  You have to learn to hear the time - the consistent forward march of beat after beat - independently of what you are actually playing.  Because your playing may not be that accurate.  And, you have to hear whether, and how, what you are playing lines up with that - initially, just to be accurate, but also because, at some point, when you advance beyond beginner and play with players who hear stuff like this, you want to be able to deliberately play ahead of the time, or behind the time, exactly on the time, or any combination thereof.

Humans have a natural ability to sense the passage of time, some more accurately than others.  But for almost everyone, it's something that can, and probably must, be fine-tuned through practice.

So - what is the practice that leads to this?  See you after the page break....