Nitrates really are good for the heart, and Jonathan Coulton’s coming back
Posted by Angela Brett in News on June 10, 2008
It’s not often that something I say metaphorically ends up on the front page of the newspaper as the literal truth less than 48 hours later. This is what I saw when I got home this evening:
Or if you’re French, Surprise: Nitrates are good for the heart! Isn’t that what I said in last week’s Thing? Clearly I chose the right suit to post that poem in. And the right deck as well — this is indeed an intriguing development.
And as if that weren’t enough, while I was still downloading that image from my camera, I found out that Jonathan Coulton is coming Over Here again, for concerts in London and elsewhere. I booked a ticket in the panic, hopefully I’ll be able to go. Perhaps I should self-publish the spades already so I’ll have a nice shiny book to give him.
Ace of Hearts: Nitrogen
Posted by Angela Brett in Intriguing Development, Writing Cards and Letters on June 8, 2008
Nitrogen, we breathe and we ignore.
We do not know what we are breathing for.
A large part of the air, the human race
is there to simply breathe, and nothing more.
Hot air, without reaction or a face,
with nothing more to do than take up space
continue, as today, and as before
breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, keep up the pace.
Should lightning strike, your senses to alert
And nitrogen to nitrates to convert
you’ll breathe with force of will and not cuirass
The air, the breath, the life, no more inert.
Your heart is not a mere ignoble mass.
Take nitrates, and create some biomass.
Take hold of the inertia, and invert:
Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in this noble gas.
King of Spades: My Favourite Strings
Posted by Angela Brett in CERN, Writing Cards and Letters on June 1, 2008
The following is to be sung to the tune of ‘My Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music. For those of you who either don’t know the tune, or prefer to listen to something being sung badly than to imagine it being sung well, here is a hastily recorded demo.
Leptons and sleptons and quarks and gluinos,
positrons, Higgs bosons, muon neutrinos.
Some folks will tell you that all of these things
are just vibrations in closed loops of string.
D-branes and p-branes and strings heterotic,
worldsheets and nerd feats and mesons exotic,
Scores of false vacuums and questions they bring,
many more concepts that I can not sing
All existence
from Planck distance
strings can well explain,
and if you don’t think that 1D is enough,
then gen’ralise to membrane.
Don’t tie your strings into everyday chatter.
Don’t tell the truth when they ask what’s the matter.
Ordin’ry people just ask on which fing-
er they should put your new synchrotron ring.
Start off by getting all Klein-and-Kaluzy.
Add more dimensions and then you’ve got SUSY.
Have fun with spinors and Lie groups and rings,
call it a theory of everything.
When they mention
your dimension
doesn’t seem to show,
you simply remind them they’re all curled up small,
and that we will never know.
Queen of Spades: Les Éléments
Posted by Angela Brett in The Best of Switzerland, Writing Cards and Letters on May 25, 2008
Ceci est en quelque sorte une traduction de “The Elements” de Tom Lehrer, à chanter sur l’air de “Je ne suis pas bien portant” de Gaston Ouvrard. Je cherche quelqu’un qui pourrait la chanter, je chante encore plus mal que je prononce le français.
The following is a French translation of Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements“, to be sung to the tune of “Je ne suis pas bien portant” by Gaston Ouvrard. Sorry, no recording yet, I can neither sing nor pronounce French well enough. You’re welcome to try.
Y’a nickel, bismuth, tantale, gallium,
osmium, carbone, aluminium,
azote, terbium, platine et hafnium,
et les états d’américium.
N’oubliez pas praséodyme,
c’est juste avant le néodyme.
Y’a phosphore
sodium, bore,
plutonium
nobélium
béryllium
samarium
dysprosium
europium
puis calcium
et rhénium,
or, lanthane
et titane
et radon
sur Krypton
molybdène
oxygène.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
Chimie c’est la galère.
Manganèse, antimoine, silicium
rutherfordium, gadolinium
astate, thulium, césium, ruthénium
m’a dit Dmitri Mendélévium.
Seaborgium, dubnium protactinium
cobalt, arsenic, californium.
Y’a scandium
polonium
rubidium
ytterbium
baryum, brome
et le chrome.
Fer, tellure
zinc, mercure
et radium
potassium
argent, plomb
et argon.
Soufre chlore
et fluor
puis néon
et xénon
hydrogène
et tungstène.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
C’est la croix, la bannière.
Il y a hassium bohrium curium
iode, thorium, étain, actinium
et cuivre, indium, holmium, fermium
et meitnérium et magnésium
et aussi thallium et francium
les gaz à effet de cérium.
Y’a strontium
einsteinium
lawrencium
technétium
puis niobium
et rhodium
berkélium
et yttrium
germanium
et erbium
vanadium
uranium
et lithium
et cadmium
sélénium
zirconium
prométhium
trop d’hélium
neptunium
iridium
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
Chimie c’est la misère.
Jack of Spades: ɘloЯ
Posted by Angela Brett in St James's Gate, Writing Cards and Letters on May 18, 2008
One ev’ning I went to the pub for a beer
and later went home to my bed.
As I went off to sleep I was feeling quite queer,
and the world turned around in my head.
The pieces of bread dipped us humans in cheese,
the cheese made by cows from our milk.
Early worms got the birds, while they made their pongees
from our swaddling, and christened it silk.
As letters sent men they would each seal a kiss,
which itself stole a beau, what a turnoff.
And Soviet Russia was in all of this,
poking fun at our man Yakov Smirnoff.
The horses on knightback were chased by the steeple,
convinced they should set the truth free.
And wars fought in soldiers then started the people,
till their shoes walked a mile in me.
Then science was checked by remains prehistoric,
The reptiles who warmed up the air
and caused the extinction of things meteoric
while the common were sought by the rare.
At some point, I think I awoke my alarm,
but I’m not at all certain of when.
For certain events have a true-to-life charm.
I should never drink lager again.
Ten of Spades: The Fungus Who Ruled the World
Posted by Angela Brett in Pilze, Writing Cards and Letters on May 11, 2008
I am the master of my environment. The king of the fifth kingdom. My sweet chestnut tree delivers all the nutrients I need. I have no need for even a brain to live in this paradise on a lesser creature. Nothing needs to change; even in the far future, if my tree dies, my descendents can continue to feed on it. This forest belongs to us.
With food security like this, it does not matter that I am incapable of surviving without my host. I have everything I need. I do not need to move, I do not wish to move, and, because a perfect design has no superfluous features, I have no ability to move.
And yet, I am moving. I am being pulled from my life source. Pulled by something even more powerful than myself.
I can no longer pretend that I am the master of my environment, above the rest of the animal kingdom. I can not go on as a parasite on less fortunate creatures, raising and killing them just because I have a big enough brain to know how. Something has to change. There are simply not enough resources to continue transforming large amounts of food into small amounts of meat. I want something to be left for my descendents. This forest belongs to nobody, and we have no right to destroy it for pasture.
I’m perfectly capable of surviving without meat. I can get all the nutrition I need from fruits, vegetables, chestnuts from the forest, mushrooms… ah, now here’s a beef steak I can eat without troubling my conscience.
I pull the beefsteak fungus from the treetrunk and take it home for dinner. I need not exercise my power over nature tonight.
Nine of Spades: 0.5|1〉+0.5|0〉+8i Lives
Posted by Angela Brett in Flowers and Animals, Writing Cards and Letters on May 4, 2008
The first, I landed right-side up,
The next, I saved my skin.
The third, I won at cat and mouse,
The fourth, I dragged me in.
The fifth, I wasn’t curious.
The sixth, I wasn’t swung.
The seventh, I escaped the bag.
The eighth, I got your tongue.
So of my deaths, I’ve sidestepped eight
with guile and movements deft.
And while I’m in a quantum state,
I’ve still a half-life left.
I: Reflections in the imaginary axis
Posted by Angela Brett in Writing Cards and Letters on May 4, 2008
I see ruthless enemy
The devil, I know,
The negative one.
I saw the root
of evil
Axis
of evil
I was the root
of the negative one.
The devil that I know:
Icy, truthless inner me
Eight of Spades: Fork and Tongs
Posted by Angela Brett in The Best of Switzerland, Writing Cards and Letters on April 27, 2008
You’re not like all those other tools,
fond only of their wieners.
Yet even as your fire cools,
I see a snag between us.
Why won’t you be my Montague?
I’d be your Juliet.
I see you at the barbecue
embracing Andouillette.
That pig, I’d like to pierce her through,
and feed her to the cat.
She’s full of tripe, she smells of poo,
The wurst, a spoiled brat.
She sizzles near your tenderloins,
that visc’ral vivisection.
My tines vibrate as she purloins
the flames of your affection.
I come in closer, she’s dead meat.
I touch you with a tine.
You see my points, I feel your heat,
and briefly, we entwine.
And then I see the sausage roll
to ashes in disgrace.
It’s my turn now, I’ll take control,
I vow, I’ll take back space.
We’re stronger than the sausage link,
I’ve seen our stars align.
And later in the kitchen sink,
I know that you’ll be mine.
Seven of Spades: Happy, Ending
Posted by Angela Brett in Flowers and Animals, St James's Gate, Writing Cards and Letters on April 20, 2008
This is the story of the happy ending,
where Mary and her little lamb play.
Of lamb, from human girl befriending,
to lessons in happiness stray.
Where Mary and her little lamb play
it’s tiring, so Mary would take it
to lessons, in happiness, stray.
A lamb, what a day it would make it!
It’s tiring, so Mary would take it
Said Father that very same night.
A lamb! What a day. It would make it?
That it would just wake, be alright!
Said Father that very same night
“You’ll bury what’s left.” No impression
that it would just wake, be alright,
its grave but a little depression.
You’ll bury what’s left no impression;
the sick one had not been her friend.
It’s grave, but a little depression
would not bring her world to an end.
The sick one had not been her friend,
she prayed in her panic that he
would not bring her world to an end.
He slaughtered the neighbours, not Mary.
She prayed in her panic that he
would not murder, hurt a loving soul mate.
He slaughtered the neighbours, not Mary.
The friends survive, rejoice, and ruminate.
Would not murder hurt a loving soul, mate?
No matter if a stranger, or a roast?
The friends survive, rejoice, and ruminate
why it’s okay to lose the farthermost.
No matter if a stranger or a roast
of lamb. From human girl befriending:
Why, it’s okay to lose the farthermost.
This is the story of the happy, ending.
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