Daily Slow Chat

6 comments

1. One of the most satisfying things about commuting by bike is racing past cars on a traffic jam and feeling very smug about it. But today, as I saw the traffic brought to a halt by Mr and Mrs Duck, who were walking left and right in their confusion but wouldn’t leave the road, I had to stop and shoo them away. I even got a few cordial waves from the poor drivers who were taken hostage. It was funny. 

   Speaking of biking, one of the most confusing traffic rules is “right before left”. I mean it’s not confusing when you are driving. It also shouldn’t be confusing when biking, if a car comes from the right and there’s no sign that says otherwise, you stop. The problem is, 9 out of 10 times, the car will wait for you to pass instead (except that one time you decide to not wait, you will get angry looks and honks). So you have to go through the whole “There you go my good sir, the road is yours” “Oh, please, do go ahead. It’s my duty to enable bikers to feel comfortable on the streets.” “Well, if you insist. Thank you and have a wonderful day”. I mean it’s kind of adorable but also annoying to have to stop because of nothing.

2. How often do you talk to your parents (assuming they’re not dead or you live at home of course)? Sometimes Indian people ask me this question and they’re utterly shocked when I say about once every two weeks or so. For them it’s almost inconceivable not to talk to your parents every single day, no matter how inconvenient the time zone. It really seems to shock people from a lot of countries how weak family ties are in the UK.

   I personally like a bit of distance as my parents absolutely drive me up the wall sometimes and I need to prepare myself mentally for whatever two-hour long monologue my mother’s going to launch into down the phone. But sometimes I see threads on UK subs talking about parents charging their children rent, and honestly that seems a bit much even for me.

3. March always inspires me to listen to the album Elis & Tom by Elis Regina and Antônio Carlos Jobim, since it starts with Águas de Março, the Waters of March. While the flowing little streams it is about are from autumn rains, given Jobim was Brazilian and lived in the southern hemisphere, March is also the month when Finland is filled with little streams all over as all the snow starts to melt.

   Anyway, on this album there is the best recording of a bossa nova song ever, [Triste](https://youtu.be/pNWpquMzJSY?si=hx4PcaSeO9bKC1LH). The song is so good, and this recording sounds awesome. I love the woody bass tone and the way the sounds of the flamenco guitar and the electric piano blend together is so sweet.

   A while ago I was reading a paper that had a section on the sonic buildup of The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 by Neutral Milk Hotel, which was very interesting. I wish there was more written of the actual sounds you hear in music, not just the theory and its structure. Because a lot of the time you can write out the harmony of a song out and it’ll only tell half of the story.

4. Did anyone notice that English has a lot of words for “stuff inside the fruit from which another tree can grow”? There’s cherry “pit”, peach and plum “stone”, grape “seed”. Why aren’t they all called “seed”?

5. Yesterday at the pinball parlor they were showing How It’s Made which was a nice bit of nostalgia and also begged the question of how the machines that made all the stuff were made? It’s especially odd to ponder on how the idea of fiber optic cables even came to be; who thought of the idea of making thin glass tubes spanning oceans to transmit data?

   The bartender also brought up one of the most grisly industrial accidents I’ve ever heard about: he has a friend who used to work in a crossbow factory, and there was a machine that imparts the tension in the bow that malfunctioned and reduced one of her coworkers to human salsa.

6. It’s moderately sunny today, which is great! But it also hurts my eyes because it has been very grey for a very long time.