distorted reflections

During my short visit to New York City last August, I left the conference to stop back at my friend‘s hotel room to collect my luggage. (She had been kind enough to put me up the night of my arrival.) The room was up on the 16th floor of the hotel, high up but still deep within the canyons of the tall buildings. I looked out the window, admiring the view, and was struck by the reflections on one of the buildings opposite. The glass of the windows revealed its subtle curves in the shapes reflected back to me. The hotel I was in, as straight-laced and straight-lined as you might expect from a Manhattan hotel, was rendered in improbably wavy and curving lines. It looked as if the building had been designed by Gaudí.

As the late afternoon sun lowered, the light reflected through the mazes and canyons of tall buildings shifted. The scene reflected before me changed, offering more and more architectural reinterpretations. I stood at the window taking photos, barely noticing the passage of time. (Though later I realized that I had been watching and photographing for at least 20 minutes.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As with many things that I really like, it’s hard for me to pin down why they appeal to me so. In the case of distorted reflections, I like the way reality is visually reinterpreted. I find it fun to recognize the lines and the forms, but rearranged. Depending on the nature of the distortion, the effect can be beautiful or ridiculous. Human forms are typically redrawn in ways that are both amusing and unsettling. Landscapes are often abstracted in pleasing ways, such as the look of bold brushstrokes from rippled water. The reflection on a small, smooth curved surface can show an intriguing miniature world.

I also find the term distorted reflections to be appealing in its own right, as it carries a double meaning. It reminds me of how our thoughts and perceptions of the world are always filtered through our own experiences and personalities. If you and I both witness the same event, we likely will both interpret it differently, as we each see it through our mind’s own lens.

Interestingly, I hadn’t listed distorted reflections on my working list of topics “40 posts on things I like,” which is surprising given that I had considered making it my theme for an entire year of project 365 photos. (I decided instead to spend only the first month working with reflections, and didn’t stick to distorted ones at that.)

However, I like distorted reflections so much, and have amassed such a large collection of photos with that theme, that I was compelled to finally start a Tumblr. If you are so inclined, please go have a look at distorted reflections.

(This post makes #3 in my planned series of “40 posts on things I like.”)

eat or be eaten

This afternoon, when I stepped out on my front porch, the glint of a new spiderweb caught my eye. (I knew it was a fairly new web, as it was connected to some things I had moved around in the last week or so.) I looked at it admiringly, and saw that the spider appeared to have caught an insect. They hung there together in the center of the web.

As I looked again more closely, I saw that my first impression was wrong: It was not the spider who had captured the insect.

What looked to be shaped like a rather large mosquito, with a body perhaps a centimeter long, was affixed to the abdomen of the small green spider. I could see slight movement from the pair, and as I looked closer, I could see fluid moving and pulsing in the insect’s translucent abdomen as it drained the spider.

Upon further examination, I saw that the insect looked rather like a small dragonfly, but with wings lying down flat along its abdomen. (I have since decided that it must have been a damselfly.)

I’d never seen anything quite like it, this tiny drama of life and death. The embrace of the two creatures looked intimate, their bodies pulsing slightly and glowing in the late afternoon light. (Ever the voyeur, I naturally ran inside for my camera.)

I watched (and photographed) for a few minutes before I tore myself away to run an errand. When I returned, perhaps an hour later, I found the web empty. It was remarkably unscathed from the recent drama. The damselfly was long gone.

I looked around for the spider, so obviously not on the web. I found its little body just below the web. I nudged it out into a patch of sunlight with a straw that had broken off a nearby broom. The body was stiff and very light, drained as it was of fluids.

Sometimes things really don’t turn out how we expect. The spider had built such a lovely web only to be caught in it itself. It met an insect that was rather more than it had bargained for.

portrait of girl with violin

Phoebe and I have now had 7 violin lessons together, and things are going a bit better than the first lesson. We managed to switch to Monday evening, which is much easier, as Phoebe doesn’t have a karate class on Mondays. It’s still been a bit rocky, though. Really, the early stage of learning the violin is not all that exciting. (Well, I suppose there might be different ways of teaching. But Phoebe is learning to do things right. In fact, she’s learning to do them better than I do. I have learned that the way I hold my bow is not entirely correct. ) At this point, the focus is still on how to properly hold and position the bow and violin. It’s been pretty hard to figure out when and how to get Phoebe to practice. The novelty has worn off a bit, and she gets pretty loopy at the end of the day. Plus it’s hard to fit in one more thing to do before bedtime.

On the other hand, I’ve managed to find time to practice, myself. And I’ve been really enjoying it. We have still been working on a book that I used before, from maybe a year or two into my lessons. It’s review, but it’s still challenging, and I’m learning (or relearning) from it. The pace has felt slower, and I like it. I’ve never really been in a hurry learning the violin, as I don’t have any particular goals. (I don’t expect, for example, to ever join an orchestra.) I just like making music. My teacher has had a tendency to push me faster than I really feel the need to, and I suspect that much of this is because most of her other students are eager to get to some sort of destination. I’m just along for the ride.

The lessons themselves have still been a bit of a mixed bag. We’ve figured out a system that works pretty well. Phoebe gets the first half hour lesson, and I wait out in the hallway (which is what other parents of students typically do) and have some time to myself. (It’s not quite peace and quiet, though, as the music store where we have lessons usually has a lot going on. People trying out instruments, and whatnot, and lots of people coming and going.) Then I go in for my half hour lesson, and Phoebe stays in the room and plays games or draws on my iPad. It’s been tricky sometimes as Phoebe will ask me questions, and sometimes talk to me when I’m in the middle of playing. And then tonight we had to interrupt my lesson to run to use the bathroom, because I noticed that Phoebe was bouncing. But overall things have worked enough such that I feel like Phoebe and I are both getting lessons.



Phoebe was being a bit of a goofball when I asked to take her picture after our lesson. An adorable goofball, though.

for want of some socks

I had another good day at the conference, and then an unanticipated dinner out with some lovely people, most of whom I just met. I only just got home a bit before midnight. (So, yeah. This daily posting business isn’t working so well right now.)

The definite downside to today was the unreasonably painful blisters I now have on my feet, which can be attributed both to Sox and lack of socks. You see, I neglected to check the Red Sox schedule before planning out my day at the conference, and realized too late that my planned arrival time to see a friend’s talk was right around the start of a game at Fenway. I rushed out as early as I could manage, hoping that parking would still be okay. However, I had to park about a mile away from the conference. That would have been fine, as I was early for my friend’s talk. However, I had foolishly chosen to wear newish shoes without socks, in a misguided attempt to look both somewhat presentable and somewhat summery. Had I been able to park close to the conference, I probably would have been fine. Or had I worn socks. As it was, my feet started to blister quite quickly, and by the time I purchased bandaids, and later even socks, the damage was already done. I was pretty much hobbling by the end of the evening, and even walked around without shoes for quite a bit. (I would like to note that while you may be imagining that I was wearing some sort of impractical girly shoes with heels or some such, those of you who know me in person probably won’t be surprised to learn that my shoes looked comfortable. They were deceitful shoes.)

Also, I forgot to bring my camera into town with me. I got a new iPod touch (with built in cameras) for my birthday, so I did at least take a few shots for project 365, but they were all pretty lame. I like this one from yesterday better.

Even though the conference is still going on the next 2 days, I’ve pretty much decided not to go in. I have a lot of things I need to get done, and I’m pretty wiped out from all the commuting.

Better late than never?

I managed to let a whole day go by without posting, going by calendar dates. (Not that anyone but me is likely to be keeping track of my goal to post daily this month.) I didn’t forget to post, but I was too tied up. Seeing I’m still up, what the heck, I’ll post something before I go to bed.

I had a great day at the conference today. (The parade, while not rained on, didn’t cause traffic or parking problems, so that was a relief.) I saw my friend’s talk, as well as another session with a whole bunch of cool talks on vowel mergers. (I bet you can’t wait to hear what that was all about!) This evening, I met up with a bunch of friends for dinner, most of whom I almost never see. (One of whom lives out of the country now.) We ate at a really great Afghani restaurant. (I’d never had Afghani food before. It was delicious.) After dinner, several of us headed to a pub across the street. I hung out and chatted with friends till after 11:00, which isn’t something that happens often these days. (Of course, I’ll probably regret tonight’s late hours in the morning when the under 6 set wants to hang out with me.)

Wow, this is a really boring post. But what can I say? It’s after 1 and I’m tired.

Look, here’s a picture:

the one about a halfalogue with QQ about cherpumple

Today, at the ISLE conference, I treated myself to going to some talks that have nothing to do with my subfield. Particularly fun was the session on internet idioms:

Section A (CAS 203)
Internet idioms (Chair: Daniel Donoghue)
10:50-11:20 Jon Bakos, “QQ More”
11:25-11:55 Daphné Kerremans and Susanne Stegmayr, “Neologisms on the internet”
12:00-12:30 Ursula Kirsten, “Development of SMS language from 2000 to 2010″

Actually, while it was the title of the session, only one of the three talks was technically about internet-specific idioms. One was on finding and tracking neologisms on the internet, as in using the web as a corpus to track the appearance and usage of new terms, but the neologisms themselves need not have internet origins. The speakers described a tool that they have been developing for this purpose, and illustrated the utility of the tool with a couple examples of neologisms they have tracked: cherpumple and halfalogue. (Cherpumple, by the way, is a dessert involving layers of cake with pies baked in and which may give me nightmares, and halfalogue is a term coined by a researcher to label overheard half conversations when someone nearby is on the phone.) There was also the talk on SMS language, or texting.

I really enjoyed the talk on “QQ,” and learned some new stuff. Such as the meaning of QQ. It’s a generally pejorative term used primarily (or even exclusively?) in online gaming circles, mainly World of Warcraft, and means more-or-less “whining.” It has two competing etymologies, one of which is that it is based on an old game command to suddenly quit a match (Alt + Q + Q), the use of which caused annoyance to other players. The other possible origin is from an emoticon: Q_Q. It makes a little sad face, with the Q tails looking like tears. I’m really intrigued and amused by the idea of a term originating in an emoticon. It’s a strange new world. Or a strange new word. (Plus it’s so gosh-darned cute!) The talk was full of entertaining usage examples, showing (among other things) that QQ usage reflects productive morphology (use as different parts of speech, with affixes, etc.). People will toss around accusations of QQing or being a QQer, or call a discussion a QQ thread. But then it’s also sometimes used sort of self-mockingly or playfully. I found myself wondering whether this term will take off out of those circles, and whether it will make its way into spoken language.

I have to say, I find it more appealing than a cherpumple.

a few crusts of bread

Tonight was Phoebe’s pre-K graduation, and I signed up to make finger sandwiches for the party afterwards. (I’m still not sure I used the right number of fingers in the sandwiches. The recipes were all so vague.) Since we didn’t have time for a real dinner before heading out, and since the party with foodstuffs wouldn’t be until at least 7, it was clear we needed a snack. Seeing as I had just cut the crusts off several loaves of bread to make dainty-looking sandwiches, I offered up some bread crusts for a snack. They were received much more enthusiastically than I would have expected. I insisted that they should have some water with their bread crusts, though. Because I’m caring like that.

Theo’s few crusts of bread.


Bread and water: nothing but the best for my children.


Phoebe with her meager portion.


Here is Phoebe in her pre-K graduation regalia. She has been excited about this event for weeks. This is about as happy as she looked during the festivities though.

But lest you think that they are miserable, here are some photos of Phoebe and Theo looking happy on the playground after the graduation party…

(I can’t hold my eyes open now, so I’d better get to bed. Tomorrow I’m heading into Boston to attend a conference. I was concerned that the commute might not be reasonable, as there was a chance of parade, and such parades have in the past led to crowded trains, heavy traffic, and more-than-usually-difficult parking. However, I’m glad to see that the parade isn’t till Saturday. Of course, I’ve also been planning to attend the conference on Saturday, so may well have to deal with the same issues then, and may not be able to make it to some talks I’d hoped to go to, including one by a friend. And doesn’t that just rain on my parade.)

Caption, anyone?


Since this photo came up in the comments of my sort of non-post last night, I thought I would share it. Before I go and ruin things by explaining my motivations for this shot, does anyone want to have a go at giving it a caption or story?