From steve@central.starport.com Mon Aug 4 01:48:57 1997 Path: central.starport.com!news From: steve@central.starport.com (Stephen R. Savitzky) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: TOAST/return: Amy at 7 Date: 04 Aug 1997 01:48:15 -0700 Organization: Grand Central Starport Lines: 68 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: central.starport.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 For about the last week a shadowy figure has come into the bar unseen, to sit briefly in a dark and cob-webbed corner and listen to the conversation. It nodded from time to time, chuckled occasionally, but said nothing. Sometimes it glanced through an X-window at a distant desert encampment, now empty and windswept. Finally it gets up, and walks toward the bar. It has been -- what, perhaps two years? since this figure has been seen hereabouts; a few old-timers recognize the vaguely ursine, infinitely fuzzy form of the MandelBear. As a three-dimensional cross-section of a four- dimensional fractal, it is naturally somewhat difficult to describe, but those who have plugged z^3 into the formula for the Mandelbrot set instead of z^2 will have noticed the shape, remarkably like a teddybear with a heart-shaped face and two branched antenae, that appears in the positively imaginary half-plane. It seemed appropriate at the time. Passing under the Light of Reality, the MandelBear becomes a slightly tubby, still vaguely ursine man of fifty, with grey hair, a longish beard, black-rimmed glasses, a slightly abstracted expression, and a black T-shirt depicting a large, scowling bald eagle under the words ``I am smiling.'' He does not appear to be. In this form he walks up to the bar and deposits a wrinkled US dollar on it. Mike has already poured a glass of greenish genever gin. He plops a couple of Greek olives into it. ``Been a long time, Steve. How are things?'' ``Well, I've been throwing lots of money at my home computers -- had to have the printer serviced and lost two monitors and a disk. Not to mention the cars. And of course you know what day this is... But the job is fun -- maybe too much fun -- the kids are growing, and Colleen's doing well, so I'm not complaining.'' He quietly sips his genever and eats the olives. After a while he tilts the glass to peer at the fluid level -- it's about a quarter full, which is about right. He walks up to the chalk line and raises the glass. ``Amethyst Rose!'' he says, and launches the glass at the fireplace, where the remaining gin makes a satisfying burst of blue flame around the fragments. ``We have three children, all girls,'' he says in explanation. ``The oldest is 12, the youngest 5. Amy was stillborn, seven years ago today. We're not grieving anymore, but it seems right to honor her somehow, and the August 4th post has become a sort of tradition with me. I still think about her, at odd moments, and wonder what she would have been like.'' He walks back to his corner and brushes away the cobwebs from an X-window. Outside it is twilight; in a glade in a petrified forest a rosebush stands. Its leaves are jade; its thorns are made of obsidian, sharp as knives. It bears seven flowers this year, the pure translucent purple color of amethyst. They glitter like crystal in the waning light. The girl is hard to see. Her hair is dark brown, perhaps, her skin tanned; her face is mostly in shadow. One cannot tell the color of her eyes. She looks over her shoulder as if someone were calling, then reaches out and snaps off the topmost rose. She puts it in her hair with a swift gesture, and sucks her finger where a thorn has pricked it. Then she is gone. In the glade all things are still again; the twilight deepens and the forest sleeps the silent sleep of stone. Where a drop of blood has fallen, a tiny crystal of amethyst has begun to form. As he turns away from the window he hears a guitar played softly, a tune that he wrote seven years ago as a setting for Yeats' poem, ``The Stolen Child.'' He sits, staring into the fire and sings alone, a murmer so quiet that no-one hears at all. Most likely he'll be back. -- / Steve Savitzky \ Cyberspace: an alternate universe where magic works /__ / h:steve@starport.com \ http://www.starport.com/people/steve/ /___ \ w:steve@rsv.ricoh.com/ http://www.crc.ricoh.com/~steve/ \___ \____ Kids' page: ___/__ http://www.crc.ricoh.com/~steve/kids.html ________\__ From tjl9@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu Mon Aug 4 07:29:08 1997 Path: central.starport.com!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!ultra.sonic.net!jupiter.dnai.com!vncnews!HSNX!newsfeed.direct.ca!europa.clark.net!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.new-york.net!news.columbia.edu!not-for-mail From: tjl9@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu (Thomas J Lee) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: BOARD:Lamplighter's Almanac, 1997-08-04 Date: 4 Aug 1997 00:01:06 -0400 Organization: Columbia University Lines: 114 Distribution: world Message-ID: <5s3k62$27s@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: bonjour.cc.columbia.edu You didn't see the Lamplighter sneak in to do it, but somehow the Almanac has been updated. Today the sheet of paper tacked on the bulletin board says ... ------------------------Today's-Dates-------------------------- Gregorian date: Monday, August 4, 1997 C.E. Maya calendar date: 12.19.4.6.19 ; 12 Kawak (Storm Cloud) ; 17 Xul (Dog) French Revolutionary Calendar date: Sextidi, 26 Thermidor, 205 Y.R. Julian day (at midnight, the start of today): 2450664.5 Modified Julian day: 50664 RickDate: 1JH84 (http://www.yak.net/kablooey/RickDate.txt) Days until January 1, 2000: 880 Days until the third millennium (January 1, 2001): 1246 The moon is 0.590565 days old. Previous moon phase: New Moon on 8/3/1997 at 08:15 GMT Next phase: First Quarter on 8/11/1997 at 12:43 GMT Next equinox will be on 9/22/1997 at 23:57 GMT Next solstice will be on 12/21/1997 at 20:00 GMT ------------------------Today's-Almanac------------------------ *** Birthdays (and other important dates) of Callahanians *** 08/04 Mot the Sot (1959) 08/04 Ocelot (1971) *** Fixed holidays and events *** 08/04 USA:Coast Guard Day (1790) *** Birthdays of famous individuals *** 08/04 1792:Percy Bysshe Shelley 08/04 1900:Louis Armstrong 08/04 1900:UK's dowager Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) *** Today in history *** 08/04 1735:J. P. Zenger, New York newspaper publisher, acquitted of libel 08/04 1914:Britain declared war on Germany 08/04 1914:President Woodrow Wilson declared US neutral in European war 08/04 1916:US bought Virgin Islands from Denmark 08/04 1964:3 missing civil rights workers found buried in Mississippi 08/04 1984:Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso --------------------A-Look-at-Tuesday-------------------- *** Birthdays (and other important dates) of Callahanians *** 08/05 Brice Fleckenstein (1959) 08/05 The Bard (1963) *** Fixed holidays and events *** 08/05 Ancient Rome:Nones of August *** Birthdays of famous individuals *** 08/05 1850:Guy de Maupassant 08/05 1930:Neil Armstrong *** Today in history *** 08/05 1833:Village of Chicago (population approximately 200) incorporated 08/05 1858:First Atlantic cable completed by Cyrus W. Field 08/05 1861:US Pres. Lincoln signed the first Federal income tax into law 08/05 1962:Marilyn Monroe died, of a barbiturate overdose 08/05 1963:USA, UK, and USSR signed nuclear test ban treaty ---------------------------The-End----------------------------- The Lamplighter is currently away from email, so until he's back on the net it will avail you not to ask to be added to the Almanac. Sorry about that, but such are the ways of ABENDity. --------------------------Signature---------------------------- Take care, | Tom Lee (tjl9@columbia.edu) | Lamplighter (shortenable to LL) Warm fuzzies gratefully accepted| http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~tjl9/ "Right if you win, wrong if you lose Nobody listens when you're singing the blues" -- Supertramp -----------------Public-Service-Announcement------------------- Confused by Callahan's? Become more confused by reading any of the copious info that's out there ... World-Wide Web -------------- Shadowcat maintains the "official" alt.callahans and #callahans Web page: http://www.ice.net/~kwalsh/callahans.html Another "official" page, maintained by a number of folks, is at: http://www.callahans.org/ Leslie's home page has lots of Callahanian info (would this be Callahaniana?): http://www.vex.net/~leslie/ Kelly maintains the Patrons' Page, with pictures, email addresses and Web page links for a bunch of patrons' pages. Its URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/ceallach/patrons.html Anonymous FTP ------------- DangerMouse's old archive appears to still be up and running, as of this update (8/28/96). It contains the Allabouts, Cookbooks, his wonderful posts about the seasons in Sydney, etc.: ftp://suphys.physics.su.oz.au/pub/mar/callahans/ Although Leslie has a Web page as well (see above), lots of the information is also available via FTP. It seems to be a lot like DangerMouse's old archive: ftp://ftp.io.org/pub/users/deirdre Email ----- Or send email to one of these fine folks, asking for the Allabout: Kitten (kittent@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu) (any other volunteers?) -- -- Take care, Tom Lee (tjl9@columbia.edu)