Month: November 2017

R is for the Rashomon effect

That this different interpretation is occurring is indisputable.

While playing Boggle with my wife, I had an obvious revelation about Rashomon. We each spent our three minutes per round looking at our 4-by-4 array of letters. While we saw a few common words, it was astonishing how many I saw that she didn’t see, and vice versa.

ESPECIALLY vice versa, for she ALWAYS did better than I, even though we’re looking at the exact same array. OK, we’re 90 degrees from each other, but still…

Rashomon is “a 1950 Japanese period film directed by Akira Kurosawa… The film is known for a plot device that involves” four “characters providing subjective, alternative, self-serving and contradictory versions of the same incident,” i.e., a murder.

But you do not need to have seen the film – I’ve only watched parts of it, and none of the 1964 remake, The Outrage – to understand the Rashomon effect, which “addresses… the existence of disagreements regarding the evidence of events, and the subjects of subjectivity versus objectivity in human perception, memory, and reporting.”

So, if a jury seated for the Bill Cosby rape case in 2017 fail to either convict OR acquit the actor, it’s clear that the folks are seeing very different interpretations of the very same facts.

Facebook has a Rashomon effect: “various user groups interpret the experience of using it very differently, according to a new study.”

On the way home one Sunday this summer, I saw a young woman (14? 18?) being followed by these three young adults. Were they her caretakers or was she being harassed by them – or both – as she barked out obscenities towards them? I watched this standoff, then ran into a friend, asked for her cellphone and called the police, hoping they could sort it out.

Yet others on the street seemed unconcerned. “She’s just a kid,” one offered. Yeah, but it doesn’t preclude a problem. (Arthur had a somewhat similar situation.)

I try to think of Rashomon anytime I’m in a political discussion, desperately trying to remember that they can see the behavior of an elected official and come to a very different conclusion. I can’t say I always understand at all, but that this different interpretation is occurring is indisputable, rather like blindfolded people trying to describe an elephant.

For ABC Wednesday

Len Wein, egg salad and other things

Arthur wants to know:

Have you ever run across anything about YOU that you didn’t know about?

Nah. I get Google alerts for Roger Green but it’s usually some Brit or another, although it might be a Denver musician or a high school teacher in Texas.

Just recently, someone told me there used to be a New York state assemblyman named Roger Green, as if I didn’t know. I started adding my middle initial or name to distinguish myself from him, for he, like so many other state legislators, got into legal and ethical problems.

There was a time I used to write more regularly a blog for the local newspaper. Since I was usually behind in my reading, I’d discover that the paper had excerpted part of my post, not from reading the paper, but from people telling me they saw it.

Jaquandor inquires:

Favorite Len Wein character?

#1 would have to be Swamp Thing. I know it better from the Moore-Bissette-Totleben period that Wein edited. But I discovered the Wein-Wrightson origins after that.

#2 is probably Storm, which he and Dave Cockrum developed in Giant-Size X-Men #1.

Interesting that you asked the question on the very day there was a Final JEOPARDY! answer about Len Wein.
Only the defending champion, who had been in third place, got the correct answer, which got her the win.

So Wolverine is probably #3.

But I also liked the characters he wrote that he didn’t create, such as Spider-Man in Marvel Team Up.

What do you think of egg salad? (I thought it was gross for years but I’ve recently converted.)

I ALWAYS liked egg salad. You NEED mustard if it’s to be any good.

When I was a kid, I ate it on white bread, or as we called it in those days, bread. As an adult, I developed a preference for it on seeded rye.

I like almost anything with eggs, BTW. When I’m eating out, I often order an omelet, not because I can’t make one myself – I surely can, and have since I was about 10 – but because I usually don’t have the variety of ingredients I’d need to keep fresh on hand.

Voting for coroner; turn over the ballot

The possibility exists of one bill bundling “amendments into ‘the big ugly’ which is what many call the annual end-of-session bill. It lumps scores of often-unrelated legislative compromises into one up-or-down vote.

If you live in Albany, NY – heck, in most of the country, the election polling places this week will experience the sound of crickets, despite the fact that the mayor, president of the common council, and several other positions will be up for the vote.

Including two county coroners. Albany County is among 35 counties in NYS that have an elected coroner. “Although two-thirds of all New York counties follow a coroner system (including counties where the district attorney is the elected coroner), most of the state’s population resides in counties with medical examiner systems. Many major metropolitan areas — including Buffalo, Long Island, New York City, Syracuse, and Westchester — are overseen by medical examiners.”

And coroners are party affiliated, at least here. As a registered Democrat who hates the one-party Democratic party system here, I have traditionally voted for the Republican candidates, pretty much out of spite. For the first time since I’ve lived in Albany County, and that goes back to 1979, I’m voting for one Democrat, the guy I voted for in the Democratic primary in September, albeit on the Working Families line this time. (New York State allows for cross-endorsements.)

I’m HOPING, though, that there will be a larger than average turnout because of the statewide Constitutional Convention vote, one of three items on the back side of the ballot. I went to a debate about the issue last week between women from the League of Women Voters (pro) and the NYCLU (con). Even the LWV advocate admitted that the organization’s support is a combination of hope and frustration with the status quo.

The LWV rep said that, at 55,000 words, far longer than the US Constitution or most state constitutions, the New York State constitution could lose about 20% of its content and have zero impact on anything; regulations superseded by others but the old rules were never removed, for instance.

Watch Constitutional Convention 2017 Explained. A YES vote means that candidates, three per state senate district plus 15 statewide delegates – (63X3)+15= 204 delegates – will be chosen in November 2018. The legislature could theoretically pick the 15 themselves.

Anyone, theoretically, could run, but it would be much harder, as it now stands, for someone not affiliated with a political party to get on the ballot. In the first three months of 2019, the state legislature could theoretically change some of the rules – make three districts within the state senate districts, instead of three at large seats, e.g.

Will state legislators run? They could, but they would be on the ballot twice, once for their legislative slot and one as a delegate, and quite possibly get paid for both. How would the voters feel about that?

Here’s an NYCLU piece against ConCon. Because whatever gets passed in the ConCon ultimately has to be ratified by the voters in 2019, I’m only slightly concerned about some large disruption of rights.

However, the possibility exists of one bill bundling “amendments into ‘the big ugly’ which is what many call the annual end-of-session bill. It lumps scores of often-unrelated legislative compromises into one up-or-down vote. It is the epitome of the worst Albany horse-trading.” That happened at the 1967 convention, which is why it was shot down by the voters.

Presumably the delegates will be more savvy and put up a half dozen packages on different topics, such as election reform and ethics. That is if ConCon passes, which I still hope it does not.

Fats Domino: Ain’t That a Shame

Commercially, he outsold all of his contemporaries except Elvis.

“Before Elvis, Jerry Lee and Chuck Berry, there was Fats.” That’s what Greg Harris, Rock Hall President and CEO, said of Fats Domino, born Antoine Domino Jr. “His sweet voice, rolling boogie-woogie piano, and delightful charisma made him a top-selling artist, a worldwide rock star and an inaugural member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

I think the Pitchfork headline is true: “A Rock’n’Roll Pioneer Too Often Overlooked.” He didn’t run hot, like Little Richard or the artists Harris mentioned. Fats was cool, in control.

“Fats Domino may not have been the most flamboyant rock and roller of the Fifties, but he was certainly the figure most rooted in the worlds of blues, rhythm & blues and the various strains of jazz that gave rise to rock and roll.”

Commercially, he outsold all of his contemporaries except Elvis. The Guardian noted that he “shaped the course of popular music over and over again.” In fact, “You could argue for the rest of your life about what constitutes the first rock’n’roll record… But Fats Domino’s 1949 single The Fat Man has a stronger claim than most.

The first time I ever heard Lady Madonna, I was not 100% sure it was by the Beatles. Indeed, Paul McCartney made it clear that he was trying to do Fats Domino. And Fats covered the song, which I have on some compilation album of black artists performing tracks by the Beatles. “Ain’t That a Shame was the first song John Lennon learned to play.”

Some declared Fats Domino dead during Katrina. He lived to laugh about it. “His grand piano was destroyed. Many of his two dozen gold records were carried away by floodwaters, NOLA.com reported. But he was okay.”

Listen to Fats Domino (piano, vocals; born February 26, 1928, died October 25, 2017):

Blueberry Hill on Austin City Limits

Ain’t That a Shame

I’m Walkin’

Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey

Family Health Report: October 2017

The Daughter missed three days of school in September

Chuck, Heather, Fran, this blogger. (c)2017 Chuck Miller
Early in October, my wife slipped on some stairs, getting a nasty bruise on her hip . It turns out there was moss growing on the top step. We would have probably sued the property owners, except they were us.

Yeah, we replaced our front steps when we redid that porch. But the back steps are in dire need of repair, something that might have made this year’s list of things to do until the boiler conked out.

The Daughter missed three days of school in September, until we found medicine that could help her with what ailed her. When she got ill the week of Columbus Day, I was home with her and called her primary physician’s office.

The person, not the doctor, who treated her last time said I COULD bring her in again. But her lungs were clear last time, so she wasn’t sure what they could do for her. She expressed ta theory she was stressed about homework; well, she wasn’t before she got sick again, though she sure is now.

More than being irritated, I’m frustrated that I don’t know what to do for my child. My wife took her to the allergist the next day, who tested at 25 – 25 what, I don’t know, but it was extremely low. The allergist gave her a combination of meds the primary’s office told her not to take together. A week later, her breathing score was 100, which is good.

I’m just tired. Stayed up talking to an old friend until after midnight one day, and the next met with some Times Union current and former bloggers, then worked on the Albany Public Library Foundation’s gala for some hours, planning Black History Month at church, extra choir rehearsals for our Randall Thompson performance, et cetera, et cetera,, et cetera.

I have probably more topics I want to write about but don’t have the time than any point in this blogging. Writing relaxes. Not writing gets my subconscious mind working in overdrive.

I WILL have days off on Election Day and the day before Veterans Day. Any port in the storm.

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