Month: September 2006

October “Happy Birthday” Thread

Details inside.

Known MuseBlogger birthdays so far:

10-01 kiki_the_great’s birthday (1995 – bright purple)
10-07 TOPFOT’s birthday (1992)
10-12 Ebeth’s birthday (1991)
10-13 Paul Baker’s birthday
10-14 Isabella’s birthday (1994)
10-16 Bannaya’s birthday (1996)
10-20 Dark Lord of Darkness’s birthday (1993)
10-23 kokopelli #13’s birthday (1992 – camouflage)
10-24 hotstuff trinity’s birthday (1992 – lime green)
10-26 Calla Lily’s birthday (19??)
10-27 a tap dancing elephant’s birthday (1992 – pink, teal/agua blue and raspberry)
10-29 Eccentric the Afterthought’s birthday (1990 – black and/or dark red)

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between January 22, 1993, and February 21, 1993.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between April 28 and May 28, 1990.

Robert’s Journey to the Heart of Musery

In mid-September, one of your Administrators spent a week hatching mischief at the Muse offices in Chicago. He took pictures.


The stately Marquette Building, home of Carus Publishing until it moves a few blocks away in January.


The entrance leads into an elevator lobby decorated with bronze images of Midwestern explorers.


Each elevator cab bears this seal and contains speakers that play Mozart. As you may have guessed by now, the Marquette Building is rather full of itself.


Muse‘s offices are on the fourteenth floor. Among many other treasures there, the archives contain copies of every issue of the magazine.


Here’s the temporary cubicle where I worked on a top-secret project you’ll see next year. To the left of the keyboard sits a copy of the very first Muse.


Samantha Sordyl (a.k.a. Samablamablous, a.k.a. Samblam, a.k.a. Sam) confers with art director John Sandford and layout guru Walter Mendoza about the November/December issue.


One night Sam and her husband, Mr. Sam, took me to a great Italian restaurant in their neighborhood.

And that’s the story, or as much of it as I’m allowed to talk about at this point.

Coy Woodnesse, v. 2006.2

A forum for practicing archaic English, foreign languages, and other off-the-beaten-track forms of communication.

A forum for practicing archaic English, foreign languages, and other off-the-beaten-track forms of communication.

(Coy woodnesse means “quiet madness” in Middle English, the version of our language spoken about 600 years ago.)

Useful resources (additions welcome!):
The original Coy Woodnesse thread
Coy Woodnesse, v. 2006.1
Accents to paste in: à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ ò ó ô õ ö ù ú û ü ¿ ¡
“Chaucer’s Middle English” site at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Librarius has another Middle English glossary and a load of information about Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales

New GAPAs on Board / Pie Wars

With Rosanne touring Europe, Robert has felt the need of some help in moderating the blog. So he’s sworn in Paul Baker and Rebecca Lasley (Lady Bunniful) as co-administrators. Please welcome them in traditional MuseBlog fashion and treat them with all the awe and reverence a GAPA usually inspires.

September 27–
ATTENTION: Hostilities have broken out. Pie war advisory. Proceed with caution!

Happy Equinox!

It’s on Friday or Saturday, depending on where you live.

Technically, autumn arrives in the Northern Hemisphere on Saturday, September 23, at 4:03 a.m. Universal Time (UT). That’s 5:03 in the morning British Summertime; three minutes after midnight U.S. Eastern Daylight Time; 11:03 p.m. on September 22 U.S. Central Daylight Time (=blog time); and 9:03 p.m. on September 22 on the American West Coast.

You’ll have to make adjustments if you’re in Arizona, which doesn’t observe Daylight Saving Time. And, of course, for New Zealand and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, this is the spring equinox. Whew.

Rosanne is Away for a Month

She and her husband are visiting Europe. She sent Robert this e-note:

Subject: Drat, can’t get on the blog to say bye for a while

tell them i’ll miss them and that they shouldn’t be too unruly because you’ll have a lot to handle as a one GAPA show.

have fun!

i’ll be back in regular blog contact on Oct. 26.

Rosanne

World Religions, Part 4: Judaism

Thread reopened for business, without prerequisites. Now that everybody’s back in school, it seems unrealistic to require reading.

You may also discuss religions on MBers’ Religions, v. 2006.2.

Many Musers have first-hand knowledge of this faith. Even so, let’s at least start the discussion by reviewing what Huston Smith says about it in his book The World’s Religions (known in earlier editions as The Religions of Man) before starting in on our personal experiences.

Continued from Part 3: Buddhism and Part 2: Hinduism.

MBers’ Religions, v. 2006.2

While people finish the required reading for the World Religions: Judaism thread, here’s a place where MuseBloggers can talk about their own religions or other religions they’ve experienced. The Judaism thread will be closed until someone is ready to summarize the relevant chapter of Huston Smith’s book.

Continued from the MBers’ Religions thread that started in May.

Xena = Eris; Gabrielle = Dysnomia

The International Astronomical Union has announced an official name for the larger-than-Pluto object that briefly looked set to become the tenth (or maybe twelfth) planet. Press release follows the cut…

IAU names dwarf planet Eris

14-September-2006, Munich: The International Astronomical Union
announces the names (136199) Eris for the dwarf planet provisionally
named 2003 UB313 and Dysnomia for its moon.

The dwarf planet formerly known as 2003 UB313 received the official
designation (136199) Eris, or Eris in short, from the International
Astronomical Union on 13th September 2006. The name was accepted almost
unanimously by the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
(WGPSN) and the Committee for Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN).

Eris is the second dwarf planet in a sub category of objects of which
Pluto is the prototype.

The name Eris was proposed by one of the discoverers, Michael Brown
(Caltech, USA). (136199) Eris was discovered on 5th January 2005 by M.
E. Brown, C. A. Trujillo, and D. Rabinowitz at the Palomar Observatory.

Eris is a the Greek goddess of discord and strife. She stirs up jealousy
and envy to cause fighting and anger among men. At the wedding of Peleus
and Thetis, the parents of the Greek hero Achilles, all the gods with
the exception of Eris were invited, and, enraged at her exclusion, she
spitefully caused a quarrel among the goddesses that led to the Trojan war.

Eris is pronounced ee’-ris (see link 4).

Eris¹ moon, formerly known as S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 and now known
technically as (136199) Eris I, has been named Dysnomia.

Dysnomia is the Daimon spirit of lawlessness. She is the daughter of
Eris, goddess of chaos and strife, and the counterpart to Eunomia who
puts an end to the anger of grievous strife.

The name Dysnomia was accepted unanimously by the members of the WGPSN.
The name was proposed by Mike Brown, a member of the discovery team.

The new designations have been approved by the IAU Division III
Organizing Committee and by the IAU Officers and have been announced in
IAU Circular 8747 13 September 2006.

Robert @ Muse H.Q.

That’s right: this week, one of your GAPAs will be visiting Muse headquarters in Chicago to help cook up diabolical surprises for future issues. (His Pwt-mobile, however, will be staying home in Virginia.) Blog moderation may slow down a bit, especially at night, so be warned.

[We’ve opened this thread up to comments, because some people seemed to want them. Beats us why, but you know what softies we are. –Admin.]