Network

Scarlatti and dodecahedrons

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73496&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=scarlatti-and-dodecahedrons

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73496

On May 9, M. Paul Shore sent this note to me:

A belated thank-you for the April 22nd Galuppi (1706-1785) link*. I’d never heard of him. That whole Baroque-to-Classical transition phase is a fascinating and enjoyable but underappreciated one. The composers from that phase who get the most attention (and deservedly so) are two of J.S. Bach’s sons, J.C. and C.P.E.

*"A bridge between Baroque & Classical"

Here, for your entertainment, are YouTube links (legally posted, by the recording company itself) to the great harpsichordist Scott Ross’s recordings of two of my favorite Scarlatti sonatas (I’ve listened, bit by bit, to all 555 of them):

Keyboard Sonata in F Major, Kk. 438

Keyboard Sonata in D Major, Kk. 435

To my mind, it’s always a sunny day in Scarlatti-land: even the moments of particular seriousness or slight gloom are just the result of swiftly passing clouds.

What blew my mind away about the Scarlatti-Ross album covers is that they prominently feature the dodecahedron. That made me wonder why the cover designer chose that particular complex, abstract figure to illustrate the Scarlatti albums. Was it because of the geometricity or cosmogonic nature of Scarlatti's sonatas?

When I mentioned the dodecahedron to M. Paul, he replied:

Ah, the dodecahedron! I’ve known that cover design for decades (I have the full Scott Ross CD box set of the sonatas), but never gave the dodecahedron in it any fully conscious thought, let alone relate it to the extensive discussion of the shape on Language Log.

Scarlatti was a Neapolitan who spent his young adulthood in Venice and then Rome, and then his middle and old age in Portugal and Spain, where he absorbed lots of Iberian musical influences. The sonatas are the product of that latter period. I don’t know why the CD cover artist chose that particular design.

The largest part of my listening to the 555 sonatas has been while driving. In addition to their just being a great listening pleasure, they have the virtue that their spiky sound, with almost no volume variation, stands out clearly above the road noise just as it does above MRI noise.

Here’s another of the sonatas:

Keyboard Sonata in C Major, Kk. 86

I think we will never be done with the dodecahedron. There's something mathematical and ethereal about it.

Selected readings

"New revelations and declarations about dodecahedrons" (3/17/26)
"Dallas Dodecahedron Daze Days" (1/28/26) — with many references to previous posts on dodecahedra

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73496&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=scarlatti-and-dodecahedrons

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73496

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Next Sunday, See You at the Shirt Factory in Glens Falls!

We’ll be at The Shirt Factory again on May 17th, joining an A Big Gay Market pop-up market that will be set up in the parking lot! You learn more about The Shirt Factory, the market, and the vendor list by visiting abiggaymarket.com. See ya in Glens Falls!

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channel islands

We did it! Also, OOF

Today the weather was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and mildly warm and a steady wind from the north -- and that last was important because today was our day to do a challenging hike along the north coast, and the last thing you want is a wind blowing you off the cliff!

Spoiler: we did not get blown off the cliff.

We had another huge breakfast at the guesthouse -- honestly, I'm becoming less able to eat them as the week goes on. I'm just not used to either that much volume of food at breakfast, or that much dietary fat; fat is very filling! And today's omelet/scramble included the bacon I didn't eat yesterday. We asked for vegetables tomorrow, lots of veggies please. After that I think I may opt out of cooked breakfast entirely for a day or so, and just have muesli with fruit and milk; it's still got a lot of nuts, but that fat doesn't gorge me the way eggs and bacon do.

Anyway, after that we caught a bus up to the northwest corner of the island, to a ruin called Grosnez Castle. We weren't quite sure which way it was from the bus stop, but we got to chatting with a slightly older couple who had also gotten off the bus, and they were confident it was thataway, so off we all went. Except that we walked faster than them, and anyway they were going to be turning left/counterclockwise at the edge of the land to go geocaching, while we were turning right/clockwise to pick up a coastal trail. A few days ago we overheard a woman complaining to a group of friends that the trail she'd tried to follow had been really poorly marked and she'd ended up walking several kilometers further than she should have had to, but we found it pretty clear throughout the day; the path was always obvious, and there were occasional signs. The only problem was that sometimes there were a couple of possible paths and we weren't sure which one was best -- but I had downloaded a GPS app and loaded into it a trail from I think it was a Jersey Heritage site? Anyway it kept us on the extremely curvy and narrow.

We didn't bother exploring the castle ruin, because we wanted to get walking; we knew where we were hoping to end up but really weren't sure how long it would take us to get there. So off we went!

The trail was much like the cliff trails we were on in Wales last year: narrow, often only a yard or so from Certain Death but safe enough if you weren't stupid about it, with absolutely gorgeous views along the cliffs and out to sea, where we could see Guernsey and Sark (and probably Herm too) in the distance. And also France, but that's old hat to us by now. (I was amused to get a text from our mobile-phone provider informing me that I was now roaming on a French network, though!) We tromped along happily, admiring everything including our own stamina. There was a lot of up and down, as the trail wended its way through and around and down into the places where the sea has cut deeply into the land.

There are supposed to be a few puffins in that area, a small colony, but we didn't expect to see them, and indeed we did not. We did, however, see the giant statue of a pair of puffins that has been put up to mark their presence!

We had caught a 10:30 bus and started walking at 11:30, and at about 1:30 we arrived in the town of Grève de Lecq, which greeted us with perfectly salubrious public toilets, and a beautiful curving stretch of sand beach, and a very nice beachside cafe with outdoor seating. As I said to Geoff, that's my kind of hiking: rugged terrain, gorgeous views, crashing ocean waves, and a pub every two hours! We split a pint of Liberation ale (unfortunately no longer actually brewed on Jersey) and a piping hot plate of chips with a sort of chili mayo dip, and Geoff also bought me a bottle of water, because I hate the taste of the tap water at our guesthouse and had meant to bring an empty water bottle to fill along the way but forgot. (Look, I was managing all the logistics of getting us to the start of the hike, and keeping us on the right trail, and keeping an eye on the bus times to get us home again from various possible bailout points, and I did remember to bring the bag of trail mix. I dropped one stitch. And then I had a bottle of tasty water anyway!)

We headed out again at two, but fortunately only got about five minutes down the road before Geoff realized he'd left his camera on the table! So I waited while he went back for it; the waitress had kindly set it aside when she saw it had been forgotten. So Geoff ended up walking a bit further than me today, and accordingly has slightly greater bragging rights 😀

Anyway, from there we continued on the same kind of cliffside trail (and occasionally road), except that we made a small detour around a recreational shooting range that was flying the red flags that meant, according to all the signs, ACTIVE SHOOTING IN PROGRESS, DO NOT ENTER. We did not enter! We did see a couple of guys with bows as we skirted the edge of the restricted area, and a little further on we heard a fair amount of gunfire.

Right at the point where we detoured, we also stopped to look at some odd-looking sheep grazing in a field beside the road. Another couple of hikers were already there, looking at the sheep and chatting with the shepherd, a young man who was happy to tell us that they were an unusual breed called Manx Loaghtan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_Loaghtan); he said, and we could see, that they often had four horns, but Wikipedia says they sometimes have six! We definitely didn't see any six-horned ones. And a signpost next to the field he and they were in told us that the conical hill in the center of the field, on the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean, was an ancient hill fort, which had been fortified in various ways by multiple succeeding cultures and forces. So much history, just lying around everywhere!

We walked past many many potato fields, and startled several grouse out of the gorse as we walked by, and saw a tractor moving through a field and followed by a flock of hopeful gulls (or similar), and encountered a fair number of other walkers, either coming the other way or overtaking us. We don't generally overtake others, except for one older couple whom we leapfrogged a few times as we and they alternately stopped to rest, snack, or don or doff layers. Strange to think that we also qualify as an older couple now!

We made it to our ultimate goal, the evocatively named Devil's Hole, a deep crater and blowhole in the oceanside cliff, at about 3:15. Except that we weren't actually there yet; we had arrived at the Devil's Hole bus stop, from which we could get home, but the Devil's Hole itself was a ten-minute walk further on, steeply down through woods as we approached the edge of the water. Climbing back up was not fun ("ten minutes there, fifteen minutes back"), but the Devil's Hole itself was worth it: a wide and dramatically deep and dangerous hole in the rock, and fascinating to stare down into. A signboard warned onlookers that the ground beyond the constructed path and viewing platform was crumbly and unstable, adding, almost but not quite in these words, "Jersey Fire and Rescue rescues twenty or thirty people a year who try to climb down there and can't get back up, don't be a dumbass!" It was indeed sooooo tempting to hop the fence just to get a better look down the throat of the crater, but we generally try not to be dumbasses, so we did not. Sadly it was low tide, so the seawater was not crashing in the crater, but we could see it ominously slapping around at the bottom, as the waves washed the outer side of the rock.

There was also a big statue of the devil beside the path down, mostly cheesy but fun to see.

We slogged back up the path to the parking lot where the bus would stop, had about twenty minutes to sit and rest, and then the bus arrived that would take us back home! Excellent timing. Well, first it took us five or six stops further out, to the end of its route, and then it turned around and took us home.

You could not pay me to drive on these roads. The roadway was often barely six inches wiser than the bus, and yet was a two-way road; several times either the bus or the oncoming vehicle had to brake hard, back up, and pull into some invisible but marginally wider spot -- or just into someone's driveway -- so that we could squeeze past each other. Truck drivers and oncoming buses often flipped their rear-view mirrors in to make more room. In the more rural northern part of the route, the bus driver often honked several times as he approached blind curves. If there was a bicyclist in the road, there would often be a line of several cars creeping along behind them, since it was rarely possible to get around them (and you couldn't pay me to bike these roads either). As an admiring and occasionally freaked out passenger, though, bus rides like that are pretty cool! Also, the bus we took home was a newer one, and it actually announced every upcoming stop both aloud and on an electronic screen, which was remarkably civilized compared to the way I'd had to carefully track our progress on previous bus rides so as to know where we were and when we should get off. It wasn't actually helpful, though, since we were going to the end of the line, the big main bus station in the center of town, so we didn't need help identifying it. But it's good to know that some buses, at least, have that system!

Rather than get home and then drag ourselves out again for dinner, on our way home from the bus station we stopped at a likely-looking pub that had outdoor seating and split a big order of fish and chips; a "coronation chicken tart" that turned out to be curried chicken salad on top of a flaky pastry, garnished with salad greens; and another pint of Liberation Ale. Then back to the room for collapsing, showering, and blogging. And here we are!

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Drabble Series: Whipping Girl (Harry/Pansy)

Title: Whipping Girl
Rating: NC-17
Characters & Pairing: Harry Potter/Pansy Parkinson
Word Count: 5 x 100
Content: Infidelity, maledom, dubcon, bondage, spanking, verbal abuse, rough sex
Disclaimer: The characters, settings and HP Franchise as a whole are owned by JKR and not by me. I make no profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.
Summary: Harry is an entirely different person with Pansy.
A/n: Written for the

harry100 prompt "After dark". Went a little... dark, lol, heed those warnings.

( Whipping Girl )

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Éalú (2025)

Éalú (Irish for "escape") is a puzzle game where you play as a mouse trying to find a way out of a diabolical maze. What caught my eye about it is that it's stop-motion animated—not digital art in the style of stop-motion, but actual video clips of physical hand-built rooms and models made of wood and wire.

wooden mouse with a wire tail examines a wooden puzzle box with three symbols and three buttons, with closed doors beyond

wooden mouse with a wire tail examines a wooden puzzle box with three symbols and three buttons, with closed doors beyond

It's a simple one-click interface where you just interact with things. The puzzles are, unsurprisingly, of a very concrete physical nature: Turn a handle in this room to change something in another room, or press buttons on a box to rotate a mechanism until things line up. Successful puzzle solves unlock doors to new areas. Thorough exploration is rewarded, as you may find clues to puzzles in distant rooms—but also punished, as seemingly innocuous and even attractive objects may instantly kill you and send you back to the start of the maze. (If you cannot handle the thought of the cute wooden mouse dying, do not play this game.) But you get unlimited second chances, armed with new knowledge each time you venture out again.

( cut for length )

Éalú is on Steam for $14.99 USD. It's advertised as taking 2-4 hours, which is probably about right. I completed it with all achievements (well, except the one achievement that's currently bugged) in a little under three hours, but I've played a lot of puzzle games. The price may seem high for the duration, but on the other hand, stop-motion animation is incredibly laborious, so I feel like it's fair to give some leeway for that, and I don't think it feels incomplete or needed to be more than what it is.

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3 weeks 4 dreamwidth 2026: Day Nine

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Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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music,
music monday

Music Monday - C

Third week of music.... Another mixed bag, starting with one of my favourite tracks from one of my favourite bands, Highway 101. I love Paulette Carlson's voice, and this track is only on the Greatest Hits album. I finally managed to get hold of a copy about a month ago, and every track is brilliant.

( Music... )

huh?

Somewhere along the last few years my Introvert/Extrovert balance must have shifted to the left.

My doctor ordered a blood test that requires a 12-hour fast, so I did the fast, went to get the test first thing after I woke up, then went with the SU to our favorite deli, which was normally busy, and got home -- and I am completely exhausted. Too many people in too little time, also in too small a space. Yet this is the deli we've been going to since 1989, except that we weren't there for the last six years. The food is great, the wait staff is friendly and longterm -- I saw a couple of people who've worked there for more than a decade -- and it's a good place.

Yet I am feeling radically overpeopled, as if I'd had to sing an opera in the round, with no wings at the side of the stage to rest in.

Next time, one or the other; clinic or deli. Not both.

ETA: Also, I am having trouble with Etsy. It won't let me sign in with my always-used email, kitmason@gmail.com. And I can't contact Customer Service to ask them why this is happening because they are only contacted once you've signed in. Suggestions, anyone?

Elon Musk and Tim Cook among CEOs expected to accompany Trump on China trip

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx757w048o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx757w048o#0

A total of 17 US executives are set to join the president on his visit, where he will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx757w048o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx757w048o#0

Trump says Iran ceasefire is on 'massive life support'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgznxn18zgo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgznxn18zgo#0

The US president criticises an Iranian counteroffer to end the war, and says the month-long ceasefire is "unbelievably weak".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgznxn18zgo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgznxn18zgo#0

US passengers being monitored for hantavirus as officials say public risk 'very low'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2e9e1g0wo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2e9e1g0wo#0

Two people are being monitored in Atlanta, while 16 others are in Nebraska at the nation's only national quarantine unit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2e9e1g0wo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2e9e1g0wo#0

Dozens of Nigerian fishermen feared dead after Chad air strikes on Boko Haram

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5p85v446ro?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5p85v446ro#1

A fishermen's leader tells the BBC that 40 people are feared dead - either in the strikes or drowning as they tried to flee.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5p85v446ro?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5p85v446ro#1

Philippine VP Sara Duterte impeached for a second time

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlp21q4yq4o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlp21q4yq4o#1

If convicted in a Senate trial, which is uncertain, she will be disqualified from running for president.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlp21q4yq4o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlp21q4yq4o#1

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Well, minuses and pluses I suppose

Having spent a fair amount of time last week finally doing some prep for forthcoming talk on condomz - well, at least pulling together existing visuals from former presentations and digging up a few fresh items to create suitable slides - get message that advance bookings are being very laggardly (apparently a problem with event programme generally?) and they may have to cancel.

SIGH, though I feel this is not lost work and may very well come in useful at some time.

And of course they may not have to cancel, bookings may pick up I suppose.

In rather more cheery news, a little while ago I bopped off an enquiry to The Academic Press with which I published The Co-authored Volume, since I have not heard from them for many a year, and in spite of the fact that lo, 'tis over twenty years now since it burst upon the world, it is still in print. (And still getting cited, yay.)

And I must say their website was a bit of a nightmare to navigate and I ended up sending a plaintive message to a very generic enquiry email as I could not find any other relevant one to apply to.

Behold, I have heard from an Accounts person that they sent a cheque to Former Workplace in 2020 (hah!) which was never cashed, surprise - what between lockdown and the various staff upheavals I was not at all astonished to hear this - but they have now sent me a statement of the royalties accruing (a very modest sum) and asking for my bank details.

Which is better than a bat in the eye with a burnt stick, do admit.

(I am not sure whether the royalties match up to the amounts earned for the same work via the Authors' Licensing and Copyright Society over the same period, but I am not sure that I am massively motivated to check.)

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bundle of holding

Bundle of Holding: Atomic Robo (from 2021) & Atomic Robo New Era

Nine complete .PDF graphic albums of the Atomic Robo comic series from Tesladyne LLC, plus the 2014 Atomic Robo RPG tabletop roleplaying game from Evil Hat Productions.

Bundle of Holding: Atomic Robo (from 2021)

Eight more albums of Robo's continuing adventures for an unbeatable bargain price.

Bundle of Holding: Atomic Robo New Era

Current Mood: tired

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Last week's media, a bit belatedly

Reading: I had a pretty good reading week--I read both Role Model and The Long Game, so I'm caught up on the Game Changers books until whenever the new one comes out, and read Platform Decay once my hard copy finally arrived on Friday night. (Tracking info put it in the city by last Sunday and it got delivered around 8 PM on Friday. WTF.)

I also read The World Central Kitchen Cookbook: Feeding Humanity, Feeding Hope.

And tomorrow All Hail Chaos (Sarah Rees Brennan, sequel to Long Live Evil) comes out! So that'll be my next read. (I'm going to get it in hard copy and also in ebook, and doing so will only cost a few dollars more than buying Platform Decay did in hard copy alone. Fucking book pricing.)

I also need to browse my manga collection and decide what to read next from it.

Watching: A few more episodes of Justice in the Dark, and we also watched ep. 1 of Witch Hat Atelier. (I read a volume or two of the manga quite a while ago, and remember essentially nothing about it.)

Satire: My Application For A Job As Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Associate Speechwriter

Posted by Sumana Harihareswara

http://harihareswara.net/posts/2026/satire-application-mamdani-speechwriter-job/

Please enjoy the following satirical piece I wrote, entitled "My Application For A Job As Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Associate Speechwriter", inspired by a job listing posted at cityjobs.nyc.gov April 17, 2026:Associate Speechwriter, Office of the …

http://harihareswara.net/posts/2026/satire-application-mamdani-speechwriter-job/

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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The Fantastic Journey Quadruple Drabble: Into Darkness

Title: Into Darkness
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Willaway, Varian, Scott, Fred.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 500: Amnesty 50 at

drabble_zone, using Challenge 448: In The Dark.
Setting: After the series.
Summary: Just because it’s daylight in one zone doesn’t mean it will be in the next.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Quadruple drabble.

( Into Darkness... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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Ficlet: Barely Coping

Title: Barely Coping
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Owen, Katie.
Rating: PG-15
Word Count: 950
Spoilers: Fragments. Set pre-series.
Summary: Owen knows his coping mechanisms are unhealthy, he just doesn’t care.
Written For:

rionaleonhart’s prompt ‘Any fandom, any character, bad coping mechanisms’, at

threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.

( Barely Coping... )

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Fandom Empire - NEW Challenge

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