MuseBlog

MuseBlog dedicates the rest of this month to the quietest, most graceful, and possibly geekiest of the Muses. (Thanks for your patience. We were held up by, er, software problems.)

Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!

If you’re new on the blog, please stop by this thread and say pie — er hi.

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Use the comments here to swap tips about outstanding, little known, and/or underutilized parts of MuseBlog. (In four years, we’ve accumulated an amazing number of chasms, subterranean passages, sunken cities, and fossiliferous formations.) Be sure to include the URL (Web address) so others can share your finds.

This time capsule was inspired by Choklit Orange’s recent encounter with sculptures by the French artist Auguste Rodin, which she said she would like to pie. As it happens, Robert also had a Rodin experience once upon a time — one that involved a different kind of food. Over to him:

It was when I was in my 20s and sharing a house with some high-school buddies near Washington, D.C. My friend J. J. Martindale, whose name some of the older MBers will recognize, was working in New York and came down for a weekend to sleep on our couch and see some sights. She was feeling mischievous, as usual, and I was delighted when she and my housemate John agreed to try something I’d been pondering for a while.

It involved “The Burghers of Calais,” a bronze sculpture by Rodin, one cast of which stands in the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. The sculpture, a larger-than-life representation of half a dozen mournful-looking men with ropes around their necks, commemorates something that happened in France during the Hundred Years War. When the city of Calais surrendered after a long and miserable siege, the victorious English army demanded that six prominent citizens come out in their underwear, with nooses, to be executed. The English changed their minds at the last minute and spared them, but it was a close call.

J. J. and John and I went to an upholstery store and bought some large cylinders and thin sheets of foam rubber, which we took home and carved into the shapes of oversized buns, meat patties, and leaves of lettuce. We glued them together to look like hamburgers, stuck some watermelon seeds on top to approximate scaled-up sesame seeds, and spray-painted the foam murky green and black to resemble weathered bronze. Once the hamburgers were dry, we stuffed them into knapsacks and drove to the Hirshhorn.

J. J., who hailed from Surrey, England, by way of Cambridge, distracted the guard by pretending to be a confused tourist. (“Excuse me, could you tell me whether that large building over there is the White House? Oh, it’s not? Are you sure? The Capitol, you say? What do they do there?”) Once we were in the clear, John and I unzipped our own foam mini-sculptures and slotted them into place. Voilà:

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Swedes, it appears, love to tinker with their language. A few decades ago, they decided that their formal pronoun Ni (the equivalent of Spanish usted, German singular Sie, and French singular vous) sounded too stuffy, so they abolished it. Just like that, the Swedes became knights who formerly said “Ni.”

Now reformers there are trying to introduce a gender-neutral pronoun to supplement the standard han (he) and hon (she). A couple of writers have produced a children’s book that uses it exclusively to refer to all the characters.

The pronoun is hen.

Hm… Why does that sound familiar? Have the Swedes been reading MuseBlog?

Fiddler turns 20 today (Friday, May 18). How about a cadenza of musical pies on the May birthday thread?

Axa, who has been posting on MuseBlog for six years and almost nine months*, turns 20 years old today (Wednesday, May 9). If that doesn’t call for a celebration on the May birthday thread, we don’t know many things that do.

*About 33.661875% of her life, by our calculations — but who’s counting?

Robert recalls:

Throughout primary school, I read superhero comic books with an obsession verging on addiction. I was fiercely loyal: Marvel was my brand, first, last, and (I vowed and believed) forever.

I started buying them in second grade, in the PX of the long-since-dismantled Hunter’s Point naval shipyard in San Francisco, where my family spent a year living in a quonset hut while my father’s ship was in drydock. My first comic book was the Avengers; their colorful costumes caught my eye, and the confusion of characters inside posed a puzzle I had to solve.

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ToL is 5,000 days old on Monday, May 7).

Cat’s Eye turns 17 today (Friday, May 4. May the Fourth be with her! And may the May birthday thread be replete with congratulations.

Off with your coats!

Muse Academy’s spring formal is now in progress!

Details can be found on the planning thread. Here’s how Cerulean Pyros summarizes them:

Entry hall: furniture attached sidelong to the walls and ceiling and floor, to look like the rabbit-hole turned on its side.

Ballroom: Indoor garden; large mushroom-shaped seats; chess; lion and unicorn archway to roof; tea party; holograms.

Rooftop: Tent, to turn it into an interior; croquet; clever and complicated mirror maze, as described extensively above.

Dancing will be: Lobster quadrille, and an assortment of interesting music. Food extant according to guests’ imaginations. Attire to be formal, comfortable, stylish, and individual. Interactions not relegated to fellow MBers, due to the infinite range of Mysterious Strangers who attend the ball.

The rest is up to you.

Name and Theme: To Be Announced.

Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!

An adjunct to the May Ball, this year’s rooftop garden features a tent, to turn it into an interior; croquet; and a clever and complicated mirror maze full of optical illusions, all described extensively on the planning thread.

It is warm and well lighted inside the tent; outside, for those who need it, there are cool fresh air and moonlight.

Known MBers’ birthdays and “K Days” this month.

05-01 Pentatonikk’s birthday (1992)
05-04 Cat’s Eye’s birthday (1995)
05-07 Nancy Kangas’s birthday
05-07 Thief of Light’s 5K Day
05-09 Axa’s birthday (1992)
05-15 Thanks For All The Fish42′s birthday (1996)
05-18 Midnight Fiddler’s birthday (1992)
05-28 MissSwann’s birthday (1996)
05-28 gradster’s 7K Day
05-29 Selcothe Sikaria’s 6K Day
05-31 Tesseract’s birthday (1994)

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between August 24 and September 23, 1998.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between November 28 and December 28, 1995.
You turn 7,000 days old this month if you were born between March 3 and April 2, 1993.
You turn 8,000 days old this month if you were born between June and July 7, 1990.

*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.

Oxlin, the second person to post on MuseBlog, turns 22 years old today (Monday, April 30). The April birthday thread awaits your congratulatory wishes.

Mika turns 5,000 days old on Sunday, April 29.

A perfect number for staying focused.

See the previous thread for guidance.

Matthew Arnold was suitably awed:
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Amid all the talk of IRL proms, don’t forget that the Academy’s spring formal is coming up soon and needs planning, too. It’s the high point of the academic year, so let’s make it a good one.

For inspiration, you might want to consult the proceedings of May Balls held in 2011, 2010, 2009, and
2008.

Tell us when your magazine arrives and/or what you think about it.
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For times when you need HELP!!!

(You can read the 2011 edition here.)

Newcomer Catwoman presents this playlet for your enjoyment.

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A place where people applying to college can ask questions of college attendees, and college students can ask questions about grad school.

Continued from v. 2011.

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May the odds be ever in your favor.

Tell us about it, won’t you?