vital functions

[kaberett]

Reading. The Story of My Life with her letters and a supplementary account of her education, Helen Keller. Finished. Duke Classics, from a 1905 edition, ISBN 978-1-62011-400-1, edited by John Albert Macy, whom I dislike intensely, in that (1) this digital edition is terribly formatted -- there's no clear demarcation between JAM and the women I'm actually interested in reading -- and (2) he treats Keller -- explicitly -- as a fascinating specimen to theorise about. (And now I double-check and, of course, he was married to Sullivan. Sigh.)

I should note that I also have a certain amount of impatience with Anne Sullivan: for all that on the whole she was probably doing remarkably well at progressive politics for a white disabled woman Of Her Time (we meet her in Alabama in 1890), and that I mostly found myself very much in sympathy with her, there are a couple of instances of casual racism and she is consistently dismissive of sign languages -- as not really communicative, or indeed language -- as opposed to the manual alphabet. (In places I also wince at her ideas about child development and discipline, though she mostly does remarkably well at those, to give her her due.)

In summary: I most enjoyed Keller's writing, followed by Sullivan's; the whole was informative; and most of my anger and frustration is rooted in disability rights. I'm grabbing what else I can from Gutenberg though I expect it will take me... a while... to get to it.

The Secret Chapter, Genevieve Cogman. Inhaled in about 24 hours as is my custom. I continue profoundly irritated throughout (the entire attitude to adoption! how bad everyone is at opsec and paranoia and precise language! consistency of fundamental features of the universe!). That is, it is exactly what I was expecting when I placed the library hold lo these several months ago, and I spent a lot of today curled up in bed reading it resentfully because I desperately needed the escapism and the distraction.

The Last Emperox, John Scalzi. As noted with the previous two it's taking me a little while to settle into the Everyone Talks In Snappy One-Liners All The Time but I have very little doubt I will be entirely absorbed fairly soon.

Watching. Planet Earth: ocean deep.

Okay, I do always manage to forget it's >50% of the surface of the planet.

We're being told it's mostly a desert, and "All life that is here is locked in a constant search to find food" which is a bit. like. UNLIKE ANYWHERE ELSE?

Hello The Biggest Feesh: whale shark. It has good blue stripes-and-spots and I'm also enjoying it being a plankton-feeder. Regular commute between best feeding grounds; Feb: surface waters way off the coast of Venezuela.
- bait fish proceed to actually swarm around it -- because it's a shield! it's FUCKOFF MASSIVE
- the yellowfin tuna, e.g., are extremely wtf no Not Do @ the shark
- ... whoops the whale shark also eats the bait fish, oh dear

General tour of open oceans: plankton-feeding rays, oceanic white-tip shark (is this difference from normal white-tips? ooh, looks like it is). The latter patrol the top 100m of "the emptiest stretches of open ocean" followed around by a bunch of fish that want to eat their scraps. (Pilot fish!) Fixed pectoral fins for minimum energy expenditure, excellent.
- has found a school of rainbow runners, "but rainbow runners are swift and agile and not easily caught"
- so it's just hanging out with them seeing if it can get away with nabbing one

meanwhile, in another part of the ocean, Music Human Has A Moment: 500-strong dolphin school does Fun and gets exciting brassy ballet music because Music Human. "Sensed food around and racing to catch up with it"... and they've yelled enough that there's now a number of schools en route. (what's the difference between a school and a pod?)
- oh hi the Azores
- school of scad mackerel
- more Intrepid Music
- alright we're doing another group-hunting sequence: trap fish against surface to form a bait ball, hello underwater foops of cory shearwaters
- am I... am I sure this isn't a sequence we've genuinellready seen
- shearwaters dive to >20m
- no okay this is a different set of shots, because the dolphins leave before the school's completely consumed

As The Sun Disappears A Profound Change Takes Place In The OCean
- yep we're having the deepwater plankton migration explanation a g a i n
- hi majestic flapflaps
- ysssssss lots of backlit plankton shots good
- baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby sailfish (16cm long): in three years' time, if it survives, it'll be 60kg, but currently it is TINY and hoovering up plankton
- hello giant fuckoff manta rays (8m, >2 tons)
-- blade-like projections on side of head!!!! help to steer plankton. aren't they a GOOD.

Dawn Returns And The Plankton Sink Back Into The Depths
- If We Are To Follow We Need To Use A Submarine
- below 500m NEW MYSTERIOUS ANIMALS APPEAR (obv. T drops P increases)
- ... oh no you are SUCH A GOOD FREN do we have ANY IDEA what you are
- "others defy classification" I mean yes fair enough what the fuck are you
- obv all these feed on the Marine Snow
- ... the Sound Effects Human is having a good time with the sea spiders (leggy appendages feathered to stop it from sinking; filter out marine snow for wiping into jaws)
- sawtooth eel!!!! Hangs Upright And Motionless. Gazing Ever Upwards
-- oh no you have a VERY pointy mouth
- ooooooooh hello we're now getting the GLOWY SHIT
- what. th efuck. are you. do you have tentacles? DUMBO OCTOPUS: flaps fin, no use of jet propulsion because that's FUCKING ENERGETICALLY EXPENSIVE
- well THAT'S an ominous sound effect for the Weird Aminal, oh, right, Vampyroteuthis, The Vampire Squid....From Hell
-- special defence: switch off all the submersible lights... so you can see its own lights. bioluminescent bacteria in pockets on arms, to confuse predators.
-- Stress The Squid: reality TV
- awright 2 miles down
- oh huh, marine snow takes actual several months to sediment out that far
- obv as you leave the cotinental shelf you get An Immense Plain That Extends For Thousands Of Miles Gradually Sinking Downwards
- oh hello trace marks in the Ooze
- .... what. the fuck. are you.
-- you look like a pomodern Millenium Dome.
-- like okay you're a sea urchin but what KIND of sea urchin
-- ugh The Bad Shrimp
- ........... thank you Sound Effect Human for the important monkfish blooping
-- It Has A Lure and sits in one place otherwise looking like the sand
- there's a distinction being drawn here between monkfish (predator, can be static) and scavengers (which have to move around -- okay, to find the latest corpses)
-- HELLO ISOPODS
-- heyyyy nice timelapse sequence splendidly done
- Just Occasionally There Is A Gigantic Bonanza
-- is this the fucking sperm whale you dragged into location aGAIN
-- it died 5 months ago and now it's down pretty much to blubber + bone
-- why. are spider crabs. a metre across. no.
- But Not All Food Comes From The Sunlit World Above
-- okay we're doing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge now cool cool cool
-- oh huh black smokers up to like 3-storey-house size
-- 400degC and lots of chemical enrichment but HI EXTREMOPHILES and the (ugh) shrimp colonies you support
-- can we please have some of the more interesting bits of this ecosystem that AREN'T SHRIMP
-- ~~draws all its energy from The Earth's Molten Core~~ oh fuck OFF

Japan! Dragon chimneys! More vents!
- More But Different Bacteria Thrive In A Different Way
- very different crustaceans also! they... go in a pile.
- Squat Lobsters Clad In Furry Armour
- "isolated oases" -- widely separated -- each community is unique, etc

Let's go visit the Galapagos next:
- ... hi Alvin?
- 1.5 miles down, Nine North
- YESSSSSSSSSSS GIANT TUBEWORMS HI <333 (up to 3m in length): fastest-growing invertebrates known
- and nine months later... the chimneys are "cold, sterile, mineral monuments" because the fissure shifted

now we're doing 30,000 submarine volcanoes SOME of which are TALLER than EVEREST (important dramatic music)
- Sheer Volcanic Cliffs Soaring To Drowned Volcanic Peaks
- right yes so then there's the currents up the side which does you a nutrient, with anchorage for lots of fucking frondy things to filter shit out
-- soft corals!
-- OH YES EXCELLENT WHIP CORALS
-- ... giant sponges
- FEESH. feesh.
- oh what a good little umbrellathing
- yessssss what a good diverse community
- NAUTILU SNAUTILuS NAUTILUS
-- "it spends its days hiding 400m down, but as night falls, it ascends up to the reefs to look for food"
-- yessssssss
-- IT DONK IT TRAVEL SHELL-FIRST BECAUSE SIPHON AND IT DONK IT DONK IT DONK THEY SHOW US A DONK
-- related to octopus and squid obv, though they are shell-less and now predate it
-- It Blow Bubble In Sand
-- oh no they only need to eat once a month or so
-- can we. have one.

Thirty Miles Away Shoals Of Squid Are Jetting Upward Towards The Surface
- hunting fish among the plankton But They're Cautious because YELLITY ZOOM DOLPHIN
- specifically, Pacific Spotted Dolphin making one heck of a racket


... oh THIS is interesting feesh wooshing back and forth in gaps while waves
- some of them up to 9000m from sea floor
- i.e. sunshine so Lots Of Life
- MOLA MOLAAAAAAAAAAA
- TELL US ABOUT THE MOLA MOLA DAVID
-- it stop by to be cleaned by reef fish at seamount edge!!!
-- oh no its shit little mouth
-- butterfly fish eat parasites off it
-- live on jellyfish over 1km down
- oh right hi Ascension: 800 miles from any other land; useful stopping-off point
-- e.g. for frigate birds
--nope the frigates don't even want the slopes of ash and lava... they want Boatswainbird island, a pillar just off the coast
-- oooh frigates are the world's lightest birds relative to wingspan
-- what. the fuck. are your faces. oh these your faces are boobies, which are doing a Courtship ("It Us" say A)
-- TURPLE
--- hello Green Turtle <333
--- hasn't eaten in 2 months; travelled up to 1000 miles from feeding grounds, which is apparently the longest Sex Commute
--- rest on sea floor waiting for Night when Safer to Surface
--- AAAAAAAH EGGS LAID AT START OF SEASON STARTING TO HATCH
--- HELLO HERD OF TINIES DOING A GREAT BIG WANDER
--- FLIPPITY FLOOP FLOOP FLOOP OH NO TEHY'RE SO SHIT
--- oh no they wash back up the beach because they are Very Small
--- oh no :( many of them are crap and drown :(
--- Adventure Smol It Brave
--- oh no they so small and flappy and they always come bac to the same beach and We Have No Idea How Isn't The Sea All The Same?????

don't you DARE show us this frigate eating a baby turtle I will cut you
- How Can They See The Signs Of Fresh Supplies From Up In The Air ponders David
- welp they found them some sailfish closing in on actually more tractable prey
- oooh interesting rare wossname of 100 sailfish in one place, which mostly don't gather like this at least where we can see them, that's fun, and they're herding baitfish with dorsal fins
- oh HEY they change their colour from bue to striped to black, to 1. confuse prey and 2. communicate intentions, that's cool
- "sailfish live a high-octane life" ("to survive they must find prey daily")

90% Of Living Space In The Oceans
Home To The Biggest Animal Ever
The Blue Whale (Atmospheric Brass)
- we still have no idea what the fuck any of them do or where they have a sex
- I am still so glad the Whales exhibition at the NHM explained to me how baleen even works
("splort" says Adam)
- Global Changes Now Threaten The Great Blooms Of Plankton On Which The Whales Depend
- ohhhh down to less than 3% of the erstwhile 300,000 population :(
- atmospheric zoom out on a giant whale in a vast ocean for the purpose of the Moral Lecture on whether we Destroy or we Cherish and okay that wwas quite affecting

DIARIES

"ugh but the sea's BIG and we had to FIND THINGS"
- Oceanic whitetip increasingly rare... and needed filming in open water without a shark cage (why?)

so off they trot to the Bahamas in winter. Rick Rosenthal (cameraman) has been working in the open ocean for ~30 years.
- ... wetsuit camouflage. "I'm going for the pelagic jellyfish look."
- I Basically Think Of Them As Little Dogs says the bonus dude who's never met one before, Some Of Them Are Nice Little Dogs And Some Of Them Are Nasty Little Dogs
- "it was soon clear that regardless of being nice *or* nasty, Doug's little dogs were also somewhat camera-shy"
- ... okay they gave up and started chumming (i.e. onion bag of offal)
-- which worked, ha, but No Knowing How Long It Would Hang Around so INTO the water they go

"The Oceanic Whitetip is a known man-eater, a reputation it gained for attacking sailors forced to abandon ship in the Second World War"
- well they're starting out wary of the cameramen...
- Rick (veteran) makes fun of Doug for being a doubting Thomas about how beautiful they are
- "the secret to staying safe is to watch their every move and to know when to leave the water"
- These Sharks Appear To Be Relaxed but apparently! they're very unpredictable! and they've DEFINITELY GOT BIG HECKING MOUTHS so obv they went and got close-ups immediately and were watching VERY carefully for possible Grumpiness
- "that was exciting" says Rick laconically
- on the final day they got three sharks!
- ... and they were getting bolder and more aggressive... and it was impossible to keep track of all three sharks at once... and then they started exhibiting investigative donking
-- "That. was too intense." "One had my fin and was hitting it."
- "It was down to Doug to get the final shots and get out before his Nice Little Dogs turned nasty."
- "For Doug, there was always just One More Shot to get."
-- AND THEN ONE OF THE CRUISING SHARKS CHANGED TO ATTACK SPEED and there was dramatic music
-- but he got the fuck out of the water eventually
- okay but did you actually feed the sharks after baiting them and getting them to do energy expenditure? UNCLEAR.

Okay good thank for this series also. <3

Listening. TMA, surprise. We've just started season 2 on the relisten; I was amused by this week's Important Horticulture.

Cooking. A carrot soup that turned out well (using up celery from the fridge in advance of today's grocery delivery, carrots ditto, plus fennel seeds and lovage grown at home); a pear and apple crumble; banana bread.

Rye flour arrived. We were buying dried curry leaves, which were missing from my spice collection, and the retailer also had both light and dark rye flours. I now have 1kg of each, and have started cooking with them: the first attempt, 50g of light rye plus 450g of strong white plus 100g of wholemeal sourdough starter plus caraway seeds, has come out exactly the way I wanted...

Eating. ... and I am, as I write, eating it (buttered) with asparagus. I am so glad to finally have a viable way to make this specific bread at home.

From the allotment: garlic; redcurrants (! -- eaten straight from the bush, piecemeal, as none of the stalks are quite ready for harvesting entire yet); jostaberries (ditto); fennel seeds and stalks and fronds; cherries (extremely dubiously, mostly ceded to A). From the patio: lovage; strawberries.

Growing. Germinating at home: 'Red Iceberg' (doing pretty well), 'Emerald Oak', rocket (actually coming up!); quinoa 'Rainbow' and 'Temuco' (the latter coming up rather more robustly than the former, to my surprise and interest); leek 'Bleu de Solaises' actually showing its face; French marigolds. As yet nothing doing with the calabrese or the root veg.

Also on the patio: strawberries have started coming ripe, as mentioned, and the blueberries are thinking about it. Parsley's making progress toward setting seed. The mint is (inevitably) recovering from whatever it was that Ailed It. Other herbs various are all doing pretty well for themselves; I've taken the lovage to the allotment and planted it in some actual soil. The tomato in the growbag is flowering; the cucumber is suspicious.

Inside the house: I need to work out where I want the comedy onions to end up and then put them there, and also take the final summer squash (which is now well-established) out and stick that in the ground, too.

At the plot:

• the shallots and onions various seem to be doing okay, with the former working hard on flowering;
  
• I have a grim suspicion that the bed the garlic's in is harbouring white rot;
  
• some of the calabrese sown direct did germinate but they pretty much all promptly died;
  
• 'Red Iceberg' sown direct is getting itself established, and I think that maybe some of the other salads are also coming up;
  
• 'Pattison Blanc' is finally establishing itself well;
  
• I think I'm probably going to end up (from the whole packet...) with ~5 Greek 'Gigantes' beans, which is not a brilliant return on investment but oh well;
  
• 'Sugar Magnolia' (mange tout) is now a riot of flowers, with several pods becoming visible and turning purple;
  
• couple of broad bean pods about ready to harvest, in spite of the blackfly I've not had the cope to do anything much about;
  
• the courgettes are finally getting themselves properly established, and the maize and beans various are doing their best similarly;
  
• some of the fennel self-seeded! I am trying to work out whether I want to let last year's plants go to seed again or if I just want to pull them up and put something else in the space;
  
• both the plum and the cherry tomato in the greenhouse are now steadily setting fruit that's getting visibly larger day-by-day; I think the beefsteak tomatoes are thinking hard about it but not quite there yet; and the outdoor tomatoes continue growing but are only just starting to actually set fruit;
  
• A harvested about a pint or so of cherries (with assistance from me) and is delighted;
  
• the jostaberry and redcurrant are abruptly changing colour;
  
• the grape still has flowers and is happily putting out leaves;
  
• I'm starting to lose count of the number of purple chillis that have actually set, and the bell peppers are this close to having their flower buds open;
  
• the lemon continues a riot of leaves and the fruit are starting to actually turn yellow (!);
  
• the holy basil is looking super happy about its situation on the shelf in the greenhouse;
  
• I need to work out where on earth to put the Tromboncini (like, am I actually going to try building them a trellis? am I just going to let them sprawl all over the ground? WHAT DO.), and ditto the cucumbers;
  
• and all three loofa plant are putting out true leaves so I need to work out what to do with them as well, which is partly still waiting on actually getting the greenhouse infrastructure I've paid for already shipped to me... (It's completely understandable that the company is operating with significant shipping delays! I'm still impatient for Organising The Greenhouse Properly.)

Weeding continues, inevitably. I'm making slow progress, still, on planting out tomatoes and tying together supports and filling in beds with sifted muck. I've now got four pallets and one wooden crate (plus several bits) piled up in places I want to turn into beds, and need to take tools out to do that.

I am not quite, every time I look at it, clapping my hands with glee over how well the fruit cage is doing its job, but it's not far off.

Observing. BAT bat bat bat bat bat bat.

Following a period of frenetic activity the bird feeders are now emptying more slowly again. We can guess what's happened to all the coal tits' tiny gaping maws.

A lesser stag beetle, on the way home from the plot.

(I think I might also have seen a true stag beetle doing the Vertical Sexy Flight Thing out the back window one evening, but I didn't get a good look -- just a good grief that was LORGE as it went past.)

Playing. Going through a struggling-a-bit patch with the horn; noises aren't coming out right. Ah well: we persevere.

PoGo: SHINY MURKROW SHINY MURKROW SHINY MURKROW and also: high IV Larvitar and Venipede (hatched), and Seedot and Shellder (caught). I also put a Lucky Egg on and evolved a bunch of new species I'd been saving up, so that's the Pokédex much less patchy, which is satisfying.

Comments

[jenett]

The "Good Grief, John Macy, why did you have to be like that?" club has other members. (I am one!)

[kaberett]

GOOD I AM GLAD TO HEAR IT.

[sfred]

ohmygoodness stag beetle!! My inner Tiny Fred is so excited!

Also for your bat, but I have at last seen our local bats too :-)

[kaberett]

Hurrah for your bats; I keep hoping I'll manage to see one of the true stag beetles up close not just when they're doing some Important Sexy Flying but thus far it has not happened...

[doseybat]

yes I am still stuck somewhere near the end of Genevieve Cogman's The Masked City, and every time I catch a glimpse of the book it makes me feel frustrated and annoyed, for reasons I haven't quite understood

[kaberett]

I definitely think they're -- well. The insistence on talking about people as being of "kinds" is uncomfortable for me; none of the characters are as clever as they or the narrator think they are; the world-building is completely nonsensical; character motivations don't really hang together; and they're so imprecise about the Magic Language that I end up going "oh come ON" at them pretty frequently.

I'm still reading them because I also find them diverting candyfloss and that's sometimes what I'm in the mood for, but thinking about them particularly hard... enh, no, not rewarding.

I think my take is very much "if you're not actually enjoying it don't bother it's not worth it"; if I weren't finding them quick-and-easy-and-engaging reads I really would not be bothering.

[azurelunatic]

SEX COMMUTE

[kaberett]

MMHMM