Chalk

Today, some thoughts about chalk.

Chalk, though not modern blackboard chalk, is limestone, calcium carbonate. It is found in abundance in the downs and wolds of the UK. Think of the chalk cliffs of Dover. And the Needles. Of course, it's found elsewhere too - in fact, where isn't it found! 

The colour (or lack of colour) of chalk comes from the bones and skeletons of ancient sea creatures and fossils are abundant in any limestone. I remember the excitement of finding fossils in a rocky hillside near the train track where I lived in suburban Montreal as a child.

The Channel Tunnel between the UK and France actually goes through one particular layer of chalk called Chalk Marl because it was relatively drill-able, yet strong enough to support a tunnel and its contents.

If you look at chalk, not modern blackboard chalk, but Dover cliffs chalk, under a powerful microscope, this is what you see.

@ferrisjabr

Classroom chalk used to be made of calcium carbonate but is now made from gypsum, which is calcium sulphate. Does anyone even use chalk in the classroom anymore?

Thinking about chalk triggered some thoughts about using the word "chalk" in our language. 

• by a long chalk
• chalk it up to experience
• ?

Octobass

I've been browsing music videos lately, my kind of music videos that is, and there are some amazing instrumentalists out there. How odd is this!

As a former bassoonist, I found the following video interesting.

This was pretty interesting too...

Photography by David Burdeny

Recently an extraordinary photo turned up in my Twitter feed that I just have to share with you.

What we see is quite simple, an iceberg with its shadow. But the way the iceberg's rigid vertical surface divides the photo into 4 quadrants of blue-ish colour really attracts the eye. 

As so often happens, a random photo on Twitter led me to find out more. The photographer is David Burdeny, a Canadian, educated in architecture, whose photography has won awards and been shown in galleries around the world for the last 25 or so years. 

I spent an enjoyable time looking through his online gallery and picked out a few other photos to share here. Of course, his work is for sale so I urge you to both visit his website and contact him if you want more. 

Vanity Cards

Chuck Lorre is an American TV producer, best known for popular shows such as Grace Under Fire, Two and a Half Men, Dharma and Greg and Big Bang Theory, among many others. I am unfamiliar with the first three - well I recognize the names, but I never watched them. I have, however, enjoyed Big Bang Theory quite often. It reminds me of Three's Company.

Chuck Lorre

Early on I noticed and was intrigued by the panel inserted into the closing credits of Big Bang Theory (and apparently this panel was also part of other earlier series). The panel is numbered and has a page of writing on it, impossible to read since it's on the screen for only a second or two.

Finally, I watched a recorded episode and was able to freeze that frame on the screen. Each panel, one per show, has an essay of varying length, usually an observation about life but sometimes is a tribute or a criticism. The panels are called Vanity Cards and, I've since found out (thanks to Google) that they appear on Lorre's website. They are fun to browse through. CBS censored some of the cards for their TV airing but the uncensored version of those is available on the website if you're curious. 

This is the one that was on the Big Bang Theory re-run I caught the end of the other night:

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #472

I believe in reincarnation. Not in the traditional sense. My feeling is that I have lived many different lives within this lifetime. I've also observed that each new incarnation came about after a period of intense physical and/or emotional pain. In other words, just like childbirth, it hurts to be born. Or reborn. A lot of crying happens. Death, illness, poverty, divorce, giving up a dream, waking up from a dream, getting fired, divorce again, substance abuse, being publicly ridiculed by a former friend - all these things have led to rebirth. To new lives.

The Buddha taught that change and impermanence is a fundamental fact of existence. He further pointed out that this fact made suffering inevitable. He didn't mention that sometimes, after the pain is gone, you open your eyes to a life beyond your wildest dreams. That's what happened to me. But I know that this too shall pass. There's a cosmic uterus up ahead, I just can't see it yet.



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1st Aired: 20 Nov 2014

Here's another, with an image:



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CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #305

For Your Emmy® Consideration

Suzie Q for her startling, gender-bending performance as "Jim"

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1st Aired: 25 October 2010

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #489

I start most of my vanity cards without knowing how to end them. I purposely write myself into a corner and then try to wriggle out of it. Which, I now realize, is the story of my life. Over and over, I have consciously entrapped myself in difficult situations and relationships and then struggled to get free. Which leads me to wonder, is this cycle the very essence of existence? Are we destined to live out an endless, self- imposed drama entitled "stuck, free, stuck, free"? Or, with a bit more flourish, "woe is me, hallelujah, woe is me, hallelujah"? And if this is the case, is life and death just one more variation on the theme? And is it the last? Does the pendulum swinging between entrapment and freedom continue beyond the grave? (Perhaps on a quantum level?) Which poses a new question. If we exist in an eternal loop of suffering and escape, why bother escaping? Why not just embrace the prison we're in? The answer, of course, is that surrender is its own form of freedom. Which is why I've given up on writing my way out of this vanity card. I intend to remain here, happily trapped in a weak premise.

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1st Aired: 12 Feb 2015

Intrigued? Want more? Visit Lorre's website and lose yourself! Might be the best part of the TV shows ;)