Psychotic Symphony

Who better than Anthony Perkins to spend your Halloween night with?

Irena and I went and watched Psycho at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony providing the movie’s musical soundtrack. Being the movie buff that I am, I must say that I never really focused on the musical soundtracks, unless there were specific songs I enjoyed. Watching the movie with the symphony live, gave me a new perspective on the role of setting mood that the soundtrack provides. Nothing like some screeching violins to warn you to be careful in a shower.

Side note: Big guy with raincoat and surprise underneath wins best costume of the night award!

Peace Out

Bill

In Touch with my Inner Female Tweener Self

Inspired by a bumper sticker (which read, “All men should read Twilight and take notes!”) and Irena’s validation of that statement, I embarked on the four book vampire series that has all of the high school girls a twitter, Twilight.

Twilight Series

Twilight isn’t the kind of story that will tax your mind, but it is entertaining enough. I’d say it is like the diet version of Ann Rice’s vampire stories. I did like the twist of the shape shifting wolves mixed in with the vampire angle and found myself eagerly turning the pages at the end to see how the story wraps itself up. For me, Twilight is what a Disney fairy tale would look like had a 16 year-old girl wrote it.

The other cool aspect of this series is that it takes place up here in the Pacific Northwest in a small town called Forks on the Pacific side of the Olympic Peninsula.

As far as the note taking is concerned, there are some obvious fantasy qualities about Edward; being the most beautiful man in the world and super non-human strength saving Bella from all types of doom, but I think what ladies connect to is that Edward always puts Bella first, even when it makes him uncomfortable. In particular Jacob, who is Bella’s best friend and pines for her, presents a challenge for Edward, but eventually he realizes his and Jacob’s places in Bella’s life and makes peace with Jacob and his own emotions.

Notes taken

Peace Out

Bill

More Barker

My morning ritual consists of a 20 minute walk from my former house, now known as the storage unit to the ferry dock. Every morning I listen to books on my iPod. I just finished the Black Swan and man talk about a real brain exerciser! It wore me out thinking about probability and statistics and how they are used and abused in predicting events. I needed something a bit more entertaining for my next listen. To the rescue is one of my favorite authors, Clive Barker.

I started listening to Mister B. Gone. Here is the Publishers Summary of the book:

The demon, known only as ”Jakerbok”, is a major force of evil then and now. He taunts the listener to “Burn this audiobook” throughout this satanically autobiographical monologue, for he has embedded his very self inside each word….as a long-dormant vehicle for the dark forces to finally conquer all things good and holy in this world.

A one-man (or, rather a one-demon) narrative, in which this medieval devil speaks directly to the listener, is sure to become an instant classic for all fans of major “good vs. evil” literary works. This is the first known time that the voice of a major demon has ever been realized in audiobook form, in which it speaks directly, as in a poker game, to the listener.

Featuring shockingly crafted dialogue and details of the epic hell that the “author” can – and promised to – unleash if this work is circulated, the storyline of this short fiction has Jakerbok explaining his “roots” in this world to the listener. He goes back centuries, to his childhood traumas at the hands of his own parents, who are themselves super demons.

The story then tells the saga of how Jakerbok rose from being a “minor” demon to a “major” demon. It culminates with his insidious plot to “invade” the minds and hearts of all humankind everywhere via this very book, which contains the ancient demon’s actual power deep within every word.

©2007 Clive Barker; (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers

Like it says in the summary, the book starts off with a very unique twist as the demon tells you to stop reading and burn the book. I think what I like most about Barker is his eloquent dialogue. He has such a creative way of describing an event that always sucks me in and places me right in the middle of the story.

What does it say about me as the two books I am reading right now are about vampires and demons? Must be getting close to All Hallows Eve!

Boo

Bill

PS The artwork in my banner and the namesake of my blog, Shadwell’s Jacket is taken from my favorite Barker work, Weaveworld.

Removing the Toolbox

One distinct memory I have from when I started playing ultimate as an old man was Richie ‘Sky’ Milder, yelling from the sideline as I ‘ran’ down the field, “Rambob, take that toolbox out of your ass!” Not a pretty mental image, but it was apropos.

I think the best way I can describe trying to run with an old body is that my legs never felt loose. My leg muscles were always bound up and they no longer responded to my mental commands. There was no second gear, let alone overdrive. Had I never been able to run fast, this would probably have never bothered me, but being a shorter person, with a one inch vertical leap, my one advantage in any physical sport was speed. It was something I could always rely on. You might be able to out jump me or have better skills, but I will out run you! Or at least I used to be able to, thus my challenge now of playing without that advantage.

I bring this all up because last night my legs felt great for the first time in probably 15 years. I am not saying I can run like I used to, but it no longer felt like I was carrying that toolbox around. The pessimist in me says that the planets aligned for a night and I did a really good job of stretching and I should enjoy this moment because the toolbox will be back. But the optimist says that the three miles I am walking each day on my daily commute to work is loosening the legs back up and after a few weeks of ultimate I am getting the carbon burned out of the pipes and maybe, just maybe there is a second gear now!

Peace Out

Rambob

PS OK, so here is the story on Rambob. One of the things I used to enjoy doing in my earlier days of ultimate was let my wild alter ego express itself. The nickname Billy Bob came from an April Fools tourney where we went as clones and everyone had Bob as their name on the back of their shirt. Billy Bob stuck. I used to also face paint up quite often and accessorize my uniform with crazy bright red sunglasses or my daughter’s cute fuzzy kids watch. On one evening in Arizona, I found an Army action figure on the sideline and taped him to my shoe, so he could experience ultimate. My teammates dubbed him Rambob (Rambo Billy Bob combo) and again, another nickname stuck.

A Wicked Day in Seattle

Wicked

Irena and I had an incredible day in the Emerald City figuratively and literally. On Saturday we made our way around the sound to take in the 2:00 showing of the play Wicked. When I had first heard of this play, I thought it was a retelling of the story that we had grown up with, but in fact it is really a prequel, telling the story of how the three witches from the movie came to be. The play was at the Paramount Theatre  which is such an incredible venue and our seats afforded a great view, although I wish the lady in front of me was a little shorter .

The play started with Glenda, the good witch floating down in a bubble (excellent stage work to provide this effect) to inform everyone that the Wicked witch was dead. As she is about to depart, someone asks her about the rumor that she and the Wicked witch had been friends at which point she launches into the story of how the two had met.

It is a heart warming and funny tale, that just like the recent Star Trek movie, whenever a line from the original was used, the crowd would go crazy. After seeing this play, you will never watch the movie the same way again. It is moments like Saturday, where I am entertained by the incredible imagination and creativity of the arts, that makes me feel good about the human condition and how I will always have this venue to exercise my mind and my heart.

After the play, Irena and I fought the traffic, parking gods and my frustrations with them and journeyed to our dining destination, Lark. Lark describes the experience of eating there as, “Lark’s version of small plates is intended to inspire communal dining with waves of courses coming to your table, a blend of simple, seasonal, classic, and adventurous dishes.” I think they hit that mark pretty well. (for a more detailed synopsis of our dining experience, visit Shadwell’s sister site, Tao of Chow)

We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, capped off with an incredible Pear Tart dish and some good coffee, and after an incredible day in the Emerald City, we clicked our heels together three times and found ourselves back home.

Ultimate Milestone

When I stepped on to the field last night to play my first point as a member of Grover (all the teams are named after Sesame Street characters. We were playing The Count) in the Tacoma Rec Hat League, I reached a personal milestone of having played ultimate in four decades of my life, 20s, 30s, 40s and now 50s. I didn’t even touch the disc the first two points as I settled in to the horizontal stack offense (one that I learned in my last rec league in AZ) and learning who was who on my team. Finally I caught a pull and started an offensive flow that has me touch the disc about 3-4 times and our team scores.  That was cool.

I played moderately throughout the night, playing about every 4th or 5th point, subbing in on O as much as I could to limit my defensive liability to my team. One defensive moment pretty much sums up my ability at this point as I was trying to cover a player, probably at least 25 years younger than me in the end zone. I anticipated his first cut, reacted to his second and then watched his third cut play out perfectly to the corner of the end zone as he received the disc for the score as I stood there and tried to untangle my feet!

I am a relatively conservative handler when I play ultimate and pride myself  in minimizing turnovers. A successful night for me is zero turnovers. My rust showed through last night as I both threw a flick into the ground and dropped a pass as I was already looking down field before I had secured the catch.

We won our game, coming back from a two point deficit at half to win by two, 19-17. Near the end of the game, I foolishly tried to dive for an errant pass that was actually intended for a teammate of mine. I got a piece of the disc, but couldn’t reel it in as I hit the turf. The not so eloquent landing knocked the wind out of me and this morning I am feeling the effects of forgetting just how old I am.

It was a lot of fun and it was good to feel the endorphin rush again.

Peace Out

Billy Bob

The Philosophy of Science

For those of you that peruse my musings on Shadwell’s you know a common theme running throughout is my thoughts on being careful of what you hold to be absolute truths.

The current book I am reading, The Black Swan delves into the philosophy of science and into some very intriguing and at least for me a little bit difficult to grasp at times concepts like induction, empirical data and deduction from observation (which is where the title of the book comes from).

I have already shared some of my thoughts from early impressions of the book (I am about 25% through the book right now), but I was struck with a very powerful thought on how to look at what Taleb is sharing. He is really looking at how human nature plays into what I had previously perceived as ‘hard’ science. This morning on the walk in he talked about how we naturally look for facts that back up our preconceived ideas to validate them, instead of the more powerful approach of trying to prove them wrong. He says the latter approach is the path of the truly confident. Have a belief? Put all of your efforts into trying to prove it wrong, don’t look for corroborative data. He used religious and political views to really hammer this point home. Think about if you are an ultra conservative or an ultra liberal how you view the ‘facts’ around the current healthcare debate.

This book is deep and dry, but I am really enjoying the mental workout it is giving me. For those of you that worry I am going off the deep end into this spacey intellectual what is real concept in my reading, don’t fret. I am balancing my intellectual workout with the Twilight series

Peace Out

Bill

Said Another Way…..

…how can we figure out properties of the infinite unknown based on the finite known – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan

Having just finished listening to the Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers (which I thoroughly enjoyed), I have started a book called Black Swan. It basically addresses the ideas that no amount of understanding of history, statistics and trends can prepare you for the unexpected, the Black Swans. I found the following excerpt in a review of the book that I thought said it very well. One of the anecdotes that the author Taleb cites is where the name of the book comes from. Apparently at one point in European history a common saying used to categorize something that was a given or known fact  was, “All swans are white.” And all evidence available to the scholars of the day validated that. Then, lo and behold upon further review while exploring Australia they came upon Black Swans. Here is the passage from the review.

Briefly: observing an event once does not predict it will occur again in the future. This remains true regardless of the number of observations one adds to the pile. Or, as Taleb, recapitulating David Hume, has it: the observation of even a million white swans does not justify the statement “all swans are white.” There is no way to know that somewhere out there a black swan is not hiding, disproving the rule and nullifying our “knowledge” of swans. The problem of induction tells us that we cannot really learn from our experiences. It makes knowledge very problematic, if not impossible. And yet, humans do behave – almost without exception- as though they believe that experience teaches us lessons. This is forgivable; there is no better path to knowledge. But before proceeding, one must account for the limits that the problem of induction places on our claims to knowledge. And humans seem, at every turn, to lack this critical self-awareness.

I didn’t realize that the idea of doubt would crop in to this book, let alone be a major theme, but it is a concept that continues to weave itself throughout my psyche.

Peace Out

Bill

In Praise of Friendship and Doubt

I love the Pacific Northwest and my new life, but one of the things I miss the most about Arizona is my Starschmucks philosophy sessions with my good friend Mark Wallace. Mark and I would meet on occasion at the Starschmucks off of Gilbert road in the morning before work and just rap on life over a good cup of joe. Mark was the first person I felt I could talk to on an intellectual level about heavy emotional things like religion, philosophy and relationships. We had to meet early in the morning, because Mark was so busy working two careers trying to get his photography business off of the ground (which by the way he has, quite successfully. Check out Snapfactory.) that it was the only time we could find to get together, but our friendship was important enough that we made it work. These sessions were a major influence on how I look at the world.

I bring this up, because Mark just brought to my attention a great interview that was done on the Diane Rehm show on NPR. They had Peter Berger on the show who co-authored the book, In Praise of Doubt. Mark knows me well in this space and my constant questioning of the world and how I feel that I can tell you what I think about something based on what I know now, but that I can’t be 100% certain of its absolute truth. In fact I blogged on this topic back in February in a post I titled Sorta Certain. Peter expands on this idea and says that there are some ethical and moral truths, but in general he believes and articulates very well how having some doubt is better then being absolutely sure. Here is a link to his NPR interview. I have just bought his book and downloaded it to my Kindle to dig deeper into his thinking.

Even though we are three states away, Mark continues to feed my intellectual curiosity and our friendship.

Thanks Mark

Peace Out

Bill