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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
...but this story, linked by Matthew Yglesias, is the kind of thing I just can't pass over in silence. I've been outraged about the situation in Iraq since before there was a "situation in Iraq" -- by the Administration's many-tentacled approach to starting a war, and to keeping the war going, and to generally running America's foreign policy into the dirt -- but for an American company to enable its male employees to rape their co-worker without facing sanction, and to threaten the victim with termination, and to hold her prisoner -- it just takes my breath away. Not sure what I can do beyond telling other people to read the story, so I'll do that. Kudos to Ms. Jones for the way she is handling this, fighting KBR, telling her story, attempting to help other victimized women.
Update: MoveOn has created a petition calling on Congress to hold KBR accountable for this. You can sign it here.
The first time I watched this movie, I thought it was the best Almodóvar film I had seen. But after a couple of viewings, I am revising that -- I love the film but not as much as All About My Mother or Volver. (It has things in common with both of those films.) What I really like about the movie is the layering of different levels of meta-story -- this layering is more complex than in All About My Mother but not, I think, ultimately as successful. I mean the first time I watched it, the story told by Fr. Manolo at the end just blew me away. But on the second or third time, that seems a little forced. And the identity confusion is great, but again: it is more complicated than in Volver, but when you're watching a second or third time so you have the elements of the story more firmly in mind, you just don't (I just don't) buy that Angel can trick Enrique into thinking he's Ignacio, or that Enrique won't confront him once he figures it out; and no reason is given for Angel to turn on Manolo. Still, an excellent movie -- these are very minor quibbles.
posted afternoon of December 10th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Bad Education
Martha comments a few posts down that the media players are starting up automatically when she loads the page. This is not what I was wanting to have happen -- does anybody know what I should change? I have <PARAM NAME="autoStart" VALUE="false"> inside the <OBJECT> definition for each of them. They do not autostart when I load the page. Is anybody else seeing this behavior?
posted afternoon of December 9th, 2007: 2 responses ➳ More posts about The site
...because I am cooking bacon soup. (Except the store had no fennel and only dinky parsnips, so I am using celery root and turnips instead. It's good, makes it seem a little more wintry. And the store had these enormous organic carrots -- so I cut some of those up into biggish chunks.)
We are meeting Jim and Joyce and Anna this afternoon to watch Meet Me In St. Louis in Millburn, and then having them over for soup.
posted afternoon of December 9th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Food
We watched this movie tonight and I gotta say, I'm starting to think biopics based on the lives of musicians are not the genre for me. I mean the music was great and all; but no dramatic structure was to be found. Characters came and went without contributing anything to the movie, and ultimately no character (with the arguable exception of Piaf herself) was developed with any real depth. Beautiful actors and scenery.
posted evening of December 8th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about The Movies
Monk's Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making, by Dr. Gabriel Solis -- ordered back in June -- has been printed and just now arrived on my doorstep!
posted evening of December 8th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Music
So I've decided to post working versions of songs I am learning and/or writing here. It will give me a point of reference, which is a handy thing to have. So far I have been recording with Windows Sound Recorder and my laptop's microphone. Ideally I would have a good microphone and a more usable piece of software -- I don't really know what software there is, but will look into it. Short of buying a microphone, Mike suggested that I could plug in my violin's pick-up into the computer -- all I need for this is a ¼"-to-⅛" jack converter.
posted morning of December 8th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Songs
So here's how I came up with the new color scheme for this site, of which I am kind of proud -- I think it looks really pleasant, and might even potentially cause someone to remember the site who would otherwise not.
To start with, the blog had no colors specified, so it used the client's Windows (or whatever operating system) colors. Usually this means black text on white background. Now I have my Windows colors set to a little different, so the background is a very light shade of gray and the text is a dark violet color -- I find it easier to read that way. I was reluctant though to specify colors because I did on the old READIN web site and came to regret having done it.
But, well, I think this combination is good enough to use. Light yellow color for the background, deep violet text in the main portion of the window. Here, links are purple and bold if unvisited, dark gray and normal-weight if visited. If the mouse is over them, they are the horrible iridescent color unknown to man which is represented by #009900. (This is true for all links in the document.)
In the sidebars, a lighter color background* and charcoal text, with the links a brighter sort of aquamarine color if unvisited and teal if visited. The links on the right-hand side (which is practically nothing but links) are not bold but the color should be light enough to draw attention to them -- the text around them is sparse. The links on the left-hand sidebar are the only ones that do not change appearance when visited, because they are small and easy to miss.
(Note: Firefox renders this site better than Explorer. I am not sure why and I don't think it matters much because I think most of the visits to this site are with Firefox or such like. But MSIE does funky things with the borders and the positions of table elements.)
*The two are actually slightly different light colors, the one on the right a little blue or green, the one on the left a little orange or brown. I'm not sure why or what is the use of this.
This was fun. As always I find myself in need of a rhythm instrument behind me. If I were playing with a pianist and a singer or something, that could be a moderately long song with lots of verses and choruses. (And with fewer missed notes and beats.)
Update ...and in this tune, I go on without benefit of rhythm for a number of verses:
posted evening of December 7th, 2007: 4 responses ➳ More posts about Fiddling
Nice gift from Ellen: Raising Sand by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. Just what I wanted! (as recommended by Jim Henley.)
First listen this morning, in my car driving to work. Well, the bass is a little too much for my car stereo. Going to have to spin it at home this evening (buncha people coming over for Hannukah). But I can say, the track Jim recommended, "Killing the Blues", is way better than I thought it was the first time I heard it. Also that the cover of "Gone Gone Gone" (by the Everly Bros.) is fantastic, and probably my favorite thing so far. But really need to listen on better speakers to find out what's going on with that bass. (I'm a little puzzled -- I've listened to other bassy stuff on the car stereo with no problems.)
Update: listened to it again at home and I must say, a really sweet record. The vocal harmonies are beautiful. And by a cool coincidence, I find out that just today "Gone Gone Gone" was nominated for a Grammy award. (As of right now I think my favorite track on the record is "Fortune Teller".) But the bass is really aggressive, it distorts a little bit on my home speakers, which are good enough for playing anything else I've ever thrown at them. I wonder if this indicates a problem with the production of the record -- it seems like a strange one, that would be easy enough to catch and fix. Or maybe my equipment is just not good enough.
posted morning of December 6th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Raising Sand
