#note that a butt is distinct from a troy butt

[sufficientlylargen]

Hmmm. A finger is a unit of volume, as in "two fingers of whiskey". A hand is a unit of length (most commonly the heights of horses).

So fingers per hand is actually a measure of area.

A beard-second is defined as the length a beard grows in one second (generally held to be 5 nanometers), which implies that a beard is a unit of velocity (5 nm/s).

Hands per beard is thus length per (length per time), i.e. a unit of time; conceptually one hand-over-beard is the amount of time it takes to grow a beard that is one hand long.

It follows that we can measure flow (which is change in volume over time) in fingers per hand/beard, or fingerbeards per hand (the number of fingers of fluid that pass through in the time it takes to grow a beard one hand in length).

Of course, fingers measure cubic hands, so we can cancel a hand and express flow in terms of square-hand beards - conceptually a flow of one square-hand beard means that a volume is increasing at the same rate as the volume of a one-hand by one-hand patch of beard.

Acceleration is length per time per time, so hands per square hand/beard, i.e. square beards per hand; this makes intuitive sense as the acceleration that will increase your speed by one beardspeed in the time it takes to grow one-hand beard.

There doesn't seem to be a unit of weight that's derived directly from a human body part, but we can take our cue from the ounce and use a unit of volume of a standardized substance (one ounce of water by weight is also one ounce of water by volume, modulo some details we don't care about). Using finger or hand would get confusing, though, so we should measure mass using a body-part unit we haven't used yet, the butt. One butt is therefore the mass of one butt (volume) of pure water.

Force is measured in mass * distance / square time, which for us means butt-hands per square handoverbeard, but we can cancel some hands to measure force in butt-squared-beards per hand.

The intuition for this is that one butt*square beard / hand is the amount of force necessary to accelerate a butt of water by one beardspeed over the duration of growing a handlong beard.

I think having units tied to approximations of actual human features will greatly help scientific literacy, so this units system should be adopted immediately.

[raidbossmadi]

People Like Us : Chapter 7

7. The parts we play

Previous Chapter : Here 

“I just don’t get it.” Troy huffed taking a drag of a blunt as he sat at a grungy table in the engineering garage. His hefty prosthetic arm resting on the table it’s forearm panel open as Lydia diligently looked over the circuitry and mechanics inside. 

“Don’t get what?” She asked as she worked. It was commonplace for Troy to rant about the things that were frustrating him while he was getting his arm serviced and the engineering team were all well equipped to deal with their gods problems, after all they were his loyal children. Tyreen might be the favored of the cult at large but here in the garage everyone preferred Troy. 

“Why I feel like this, I don’t really know what to call the feeling either. I’m not sick...at least I don’t think I am.” He sighed, he knew what being sick felt like and this was something different entirely. It felt like his heart was being held in a fist that was tightening ever so slowly, that his head was swimming in a sea where all he could think about was one singular thing; the new siren. 

Lydia let him talk as she continued prodding at various components in his arm and testing their reactivity then loosened a few wires. “That feel any better, boss?” 

Troy stopped his rambling and rolled his shoulder back letting the weight of the arm rest on his shoulder plate.  A hiss of pain exited his lips as the shoulder plate dug back into the already bruised ribs beneath it, the reason for his coming down here in the first place. 

“Nope! That’s not it.” The arm thudded back onto the table which creaked under the sudden weight. He chewed his lip as a distraction from the protesting soreness in his already delicate damaged side. It was just his luck this was all piling up on him like this, the strange feelings, his arm not cooperating, Tyreen increasing his work load. He never could catch a break could he?  

“Not since the day Ty and I were born.” He thought, taking another drag hoping it would take the edge off his soreness. 

“You ought to be checking the counterweight Lyd.” A gruff voice came from behind the male siren and Tink dressed in welders gear hopped up onto the table. “The plate’s not shifting down far enough to be caught by his implant so it’s not shouldering the weight the way it should.” 

“You wanna take it over from here then Hephaestus?” Lydia asked. “I can head out if you two just wanna you know, have guy talk?” 

“Yeah leave it to me, I think I got the solution for our boss’s head problems too.” He said with a smirk that made Troy squirm a little, he didn’t handle confidence in other men well and it seemed that extended to his mechanic as well.  He tried to put it behind him, after all these were his inner circle members; people he could and did  trust with his life. 

“ So what do you think is wrong then Heph?” Troy leaned back in the chair staring up at the sheet metal ceiling and wondered how many bolts he could count before he got bored of it. 

“Told ya, your counterweight is screwy…Oh! You mean the other thing.” The Tink snorted, of all the smarts the man made god that sat before him possessed, he sure didn’t know anything about his feelings.  

Troy leaned forward again, his hair falling in front of his eyes yet the icy blue glare was still just as effective. “Yes the other thing. Jeez.” 

“Alright, alright don’t go bearing those fangs at me Troy. So this feeling you get, does anything in particular trigger it?  Are you walking out to do whatever bullshit you're up to when you ain’t here and seeing a particular person that gets you all dizzy? does this certain person cross your path and you just feel like you don’t know why the planet's gravity turned off for you alone?” Hephaestus didn’t look up from Troy’s arm as he talked gingerly tucking wires out the way to get to the forearm counterweight.  Troy seemed to handle things better when he wasn’t being talked to directly, something about making it seem like he was still in complete control of the situation kept him docile enough to ask hard questions. 

“Uh..ye..yeah that’s it exactly. But it doesn’t make any sense does it?” Troy huffed annoyed at himself “After all-”

“Lydia didn’t give herself that bite mark, nor did half the people here. I know, and I know if I  were a few feet taller I’d likely have one myself. But there’s a big difference between your little flings and what you’re feeling right now Troy.” 

“Then what is it? I don’t understand.” Troy ground the butt of his blunt into the table flicking it and the pile of ash it left onto the floor. 

“I know you don’t, and that’s why you’re angry, but I want you to think long and hard about this Troy. What makes this person different from any of your little flings? No one can answer that but you and you’d better figure it out before you go hurting them and yourself and everyone else around you because you couldn’t figure it out.” Hephaestus knew he was treading dangerous ground; Troy’s temper was nothing to play with but it was clear to everyone close to the male twin that he lacked a level of emotional maturity that, if he did not figure out for himself would continue to destroy every close relationship he tried to have. 

“Why can’t you just tell me? Clearly you’ve got it all worked out.” 

“If I tell you, you won’t learn anything and that’s the real hang up here. You think you’ve got it all figured out and because of that this new situation’s got you all confused. So all I can tell you for now is think long and hard about what’s different and only then will you understand why you’re feeling this way.” Hephaestus finally looked up from his work on Troy’s arm in time to catch him rolling his eyes in annoyance, he would get it in time. 

“Anyway, your counterweight was all tangled up with leaves’n’shit.” He said, pulling the aforementioned clump of vegetation onto a pile on the table. “Gimme a minute and I can get it recalibrated.” 

Troy stared at vegetation, his lip curling slightly, all of this led back to Eden-4. It just didn’t make sense, ever since he’d fed on Sloane everything had been so strange.  He liked the idea of not being so reliant on Tyreen and there had been something soothing about the energy he’d taken from the nature siren. But he didn’t want to harm her, when she had fainted in his arms he had felt genuine concern that he had harmed her irreparably and that had scared him on a level he hadn’t felt since the day Tyreen killed their mother.  

It hadn’t been until that moment that he understood the look of sadness that his sister wore after feeding sometimes. He had thought that she relished in taking the life from those less important than her to feed the ever growing image of a Goddess. 

He was taken out of his thoughts by the sound of the panel being closed up, looking down at the table to see Hephaestus watching him expectantly. “Well give it a try.” 

“Oh right.” He pulled the arm off the table more gingerly this time cautious of if it was really fixed. It sat back in position at his side with little protest of his sore ribs and he sighed in relief. “Much better. Thanks I guess I owe you one.”  

The tink shook his head. “Just doin’ my job Troy. You just go back up to your place and get that thing off while those bruises heal. And tell your big mouthed sister to lay off for a couple days why don’t you?” 

“She’s not gonna like that.” Troy hazarded though a few days to rest and figure things out without Tyreen jumping down his throat sounded like exactly what he needed.

“Does she ever? Doesn’t change the fact you’re not her workhorse. Now get outta here and don’t let us see you for a bit.” Hephaestus teased  and shooed the male siren away. 

Lydia approached him as Troy made his exit and quirked a brow noting that there had been a distinct lack of yelling which she had not expected. “Your talk went well then?” 

“Yeah, I gotta let Iris know I owe her fifty bucks though.”  Heph said with an amused snort.

“What? Why?” 

“Made a bet with her a while back, told her I didn’t think that  angry boy there had it in him to truly love anyone. She disagreed. Didn’t think I’d ever actually have to pay up, but, here we are.” 

—-

“You cannot be acting like this, you need to settle down.” Tyreen hissed. The God-Queen grabbing an errant vine that had erupted from the ivy plant she kept in her room, the plant shriveling as she leeched it back into submission. 

She could understand the other siren being a little upset about the things that had occurred the night prior but lashing out was unacceptable behaviour for anyone with powers like theirs, Sloane might not be able to husk anyone but she sure could if her emotions got out of hand . With the plant taken care of there was little threat for the both of them and Tyreen while still keeping her distance folded her hands in front of her to show she wasn’t going to lash out in kind. 

“Are you feeling calmer now or do I need to have Mouthpiece put you in time out?” She asked. 

“Yes, fine,whatever,I'm good. How about you start explaining what the fuck went on last night.” Sloane asked huffing through her nose, she had not planned for things to be aggressive but her powers had other ideas when she had originally started this conversation.  

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this.” Tyreen started, sounding equally annoyed. To her none of this was worth getting upset about. 

“You don’t? Really? Tyreen your brother did something to me and I don’t know what he starts freaking out I start freaking out , then the next thing I know I’m in the fucking hospital and you don’t think that that’s a big deal?” Sloane exclaimed honestly not sure what even to say at this point. 

“Fine alright maybe it’s kinda a big deal. You might want to have a seat, I don’t know how long this’ll take to explain so we might as well get comfy. I’ll grab drinks you want alcohol ooorrr?” 

“I’ll just have a soda Tyreen.” Sloane gave an exasperated sigh before walking over to the couch and sitting down. A million thoughts were swirling in her mind, why was Tyreen so chill about this like it was normal, even if it was normal  for her surely she must understand that not everyone would think that. She was brought out of her whirlwind of thoughts as Tyreen placed the soda can on the table in front of her before taking a seat in the arm chair. 

Tyreen popped the top of her own drink, a beer and took a sip before she sighed again. “So we lied, well kind of. Troy is a siren, but he’s also not a siren, confusing  I know just stay with me here alright? Our dad always called him freak, a parasite, he said he was a broken siren that shouldn’t even exist. He told us that if anyone knew Troy was a siren they’d take him away and study him, I mean he told us a lot of things about the world outside that wasn’t true but I don’t doubt that that was the one thing that was.” 

“Wait wait, I’m lost already, what do you mean your dad lied to you?”  Sloane tilted her head in confusion, the twins in the time they had been together had barely talked about where they came from and she had never pried despite her curiosity. 

“Our father raised us in a cage, he told us the rest of the universe was full of bandits and corporations that would tear us apart. When we got out we saw he was right, but he never accounted for the fact that we would tear them apart first. But that’s not what matters, this isn’t entirely my story to tell so when you do see Troy again you’ll have to coax the rest out of him. The important part is, Troy’s sick, he always has been. He needs a real siren like me to feed him energy or else...well he withers away. I don’t have the time to babysit him constantly with the Children of the vault expanding at an exponential rate, I can’t always stop what I’m doing or even be on the same planet as he is.  So when we realized we were going to be near another siren we thought…” 

“You thought that it would be ok to just grab another siren and not tell me the truth. That you just wanted to use me?” Sloane asked, her voice pitched up as she put the pieces together. 

“Not exactly…” Tyreen started. “We were going to tell you, but Troy instead of topping off on me decided to let his reserves run low and test it himself. If it had been up to me I would have sat you down with the rest of the inner circle and explained the part you’d play.”  

“They all know?!” 

“Of course they all know, I don’t take anyone into the circle  without first consulting with the others. The circle is a system of give and take, we all have things to offer each other and while Troy and I sit at the top of it all we still give back to the rest. And to be fair, serving Troy isn’t the only thing we wanted you for, you’ve seen the Cathedral garden and the garden on the Centurion, we have another one as well we’ll be visiting soon. Your siren abilities are perfect for maintaining them and we’ve been looking for a caretaker for awhile.” 

Sloane swallowed, unsure of what to think about all this. She knew the twins hadn’t taken her in on pure altruism alone and that she would have to earn her keep among them; she hadn’t expected this. She hardly knew anything about them save for the facets they allowed people to know and just like that this conversation had shattered the public facing facade. 

They weren’t perfect, they weren’t the righteous gods they hoped to become. They were people, broken scared people who had been raised in some sort of backwards way, told that the world outside of their bubble was dangerous and against them. Who wouldn’t want to rise above that, to remake a better world as a god. It all made sense now and the realization that the people who seemed to have the universe under their fingers were just as deeply flawed as anyone else was comforting. They weren’t the wolves that she thought they were, they were just as scared and frightened as she was, they just knew how to spin that fear into power. 

Now with Tyreen’s sins laid bare she couldn’t bring herself to feel the anger she had when she’d walked into the room. There was still a touch of fear that she couldn’t shake at this moment though, she still needed to process everything she had just learned. She couldn’t string together the words to explain what she was feeling she needed time to think about what she wanted to say. 

“I… I’m not angry anymore but I need some time to think, Tyreen. I’m gonna go take a walk around the Cathedral, yes I’ll bring a priest for safety don’t worry. I think I might go spend the night with Iris though, just to have some thinking time.” She said and hoped Tyreen would allow her to leave without much fuss. 

“That’s fair, I'll give you the time to collect your thoughts.” Tyreen sat back in the armchair watching Sloane rise and leave. When the door clicked shut she crushed the now empty beer can in her hand and chucked it at the wall. 

“You’re so fucking stupid Tyreen!” She berated herself. “Of course laying out you stupid sob story wasn’t going to just magically fix everything and have everything go back to normal. So fucking stupid.” She picked up her echophone with the same amount of fury and double checked the time of her afternoon appointment with the marketing heads. Enough time to let her feelings out. 

“You shouldn’t deny yourself these feelings.” A familiar voice that was not her own spoke up in her head. Nyriad, the siren that had wielded her powers before her waking to share her wisdom as she often did when Tyreen was upset. 

“I don’t even know why I’m upset though, she’s not obligated to thank me or even understand me.” Tyreen snorted. 

“Perhaps you should reflect on why she makes you feel this way. I know you long for another to be as close to you as your brother. Do you know what that feeling is called Tyreen?” 

Tyreen was admittedly stumped at first but the longer she thought on Nyriad’s words and her own thoughts and feelings it all started to fall into place. The truth she always knew she’d inevitably have to face and how she would have to decide if she would act on it or continue to keep buried like everything else she was afraid of. 

[minipliny]

oh my GOD i hope readmore mobile doesn’t break again because i wrote more ??? moby dick ??? fanfiction??? aka pequod office comedy and i c a n n o t consign it yet to the open waters of AO3

It is an ironic circumstance, that men often receive the pleasures of life when they are least positioned to enjoy them; thus the Marquis de Lafayette, in the flourishing of his fortune and with an overladen table, received an abounding Nantucket cheese for lighting up the streets of Paris with whale oil, and was only inconvenienced by it. 

This was mighty bad timing; had but a crumb of that monstrous cheddar been lowered down to him in his prison-cell, that poor Frenchman would have wept! - and just the same, the fine cheese laid before Ahab at table could have been vermescent hard-tack; it penetrated him mechanically, but that inward Bastille of the heart received no provision. 

And so Ahab left his fare half-tasted, and his officers under the still spell of that silent glance no more thought of eating the remnants than of seizing the sextant from him.

The harpooners had a happier meal; they were all the brighter, for being at last in clean shirts upon a clean ship. To see the transformation wrought upon that oily deck, you should have thought our thirty hands willing and ready to take scrub-brooms to the Slough of Despond, and make light work of sixteen hundred years of filth. But something remained in their exhausted countenances of try-works ash; they looked fled from some new-fallen Troy, although, good Heavens! with an outlandish variety of household gods stowed in their trowsers-pockets. Besides, that narrow deliverance or delivery of Tashtego’s, from the whale’s case, had weighted a little on them; and Daggoo was doing what he could to make light upon it. 

“First I thought,” said Daggoo, “that’s an end to their infernal pipe-smoke belowdecks! How easy I’ll breathe; how sound I’ll sleep. But then I remembered, that they’d have to make harpooneers in your places - one of the boat crews, well! - and as soon as you’d hand them a harpoon, with their arm a-tremble, they’d dart it backwards and sideways, and I’d be stuck full of irons like a hedgehog.”

From the calm and straightforward way he voiced these grim imaginings, he seemed not to be skylarking at all; Tashtego said only - “It’s not that we smoke; it’s that the carpenter sneezes.”

“And why d'ye think he sneezes?” said Daggoo. 

Queequeg, having finished a trencher of salt-junk, expounded upon the excellence of tobacco for the constitution; as for being rid of Queequeg, they should have great trouble unless their captain became more inclined to social niceties, for the closest he had come to death was at the hands of a six-quart tub of molasses. This had been on his first voyage; he had been dispatched to row it over by way of sweetening a gam; a squall had blown up, the tub rocked on its bench, and pitching over had dashed poor Queequeg into the Pacific in its headlong rush. The other oarsman had made a grab for Queequeg, and disdained the tub, which wended on its lonely way.

“If I see a six-quart tub round Cape-Horn, I’ll sing out for molasses,” said Tashtego. “Hmm-mm-mm, so much for all this gamming and dancing. There was one of the crew missing when we were embarking from Honolulu - well - we thought, he’s deserted; diseased; died of dysentery; but the third mate said he’d declared a friend of his was aboard a Yankee whaler near us. He asked the captain if he’d seen the fellow - the captain turned pale - barged into the cabin. All right! there’s a muffled sound; the mate sprang open a sea-chest - there he is dead-drunk, that’s a way to recruit! More fool that captain, he was a slack fellow at the oar.”

“Oh, you don’t dance for you’re too busy yarning, Tashtego,” said Daggoo, “here! I don’t want any of this cheese.”

As for Tashtego, he had either made such short work of the salt-junk, or, having been made a harpooneer, was so relieved at being able to display any fastidiousness at all about his dinner, that he spurned that butt of cheese entirely; which left it to Queequeg, who contemplated it and then rolled the entire remnant in a pocket handkerchief and tucked it into his jacket. 

“You’ll burst, Queequeg,” Tashtego said, “just when we’ve scrubbed the decks clean again.” and he prodded Queequeg with his fork by way of emphasis. 

“O let him have it; when you are our Paul-Cuffe it will be a shame to be so exact about our provisions,” said Daggoo, “why, Tash! you’ll be summoned to meet the President, and he’ll say, what a dashing sort of whale-captain, but why d'ye starve your men of cheese?" 

"All right, oil your boat with it for all I care,” Tashtego said, blowing a spiral of smoke up to the heavens, though it stopped at the cabin-rafters, “there’s $200 advance on my pay sold already to an agent, for my wife in Gay-Head; there’s my ambition done." 

As for Daggoo, he slanted Queequeg a long look, but kept his own counsel. 

There, you may, say, what unprepossessing details of men who furnish forth such splendid feats for your narrative, Ishmael; what d'ye bother us with these for? Well, here are the Pagan harpooneers at rest, and therefore in miniature. I have seen the curious sort of theatre they have on the Java Islands, and the players for it. What possesses their makers, to paint their faces so intricately, and to adorn their clothing in queer chasings of gold and azure and vermilion, I know not; for, the stage being rigged in cotton cloth, the oil-lamps being kindled, what extraordinary, gigantic forms live and move before you! what supernatural shapes appear, from a little flat-leather puppet made by a mortal hand! but as for the detailing, you can’t see a scrap of it. 

As for that Paul Cuffe, who was entertained by no other than James Madison, I myself have not met him; but his son entertained me very hospitably at his estate near Stockbridge, having a Nantucket-friend in common with me, and being desirous of some briny reminiscences of the Atlantic from which he was now barred.  

How curiously are traced out the paths of a man’s fate! for that son was a Quaker by birth and conviction, a sober merchantmen and whaler; but when but a boy, the hour of national fate came upon him, his love of country pressed him to service, and in 1812 he shipped upon a vessel, with a letter of marque. 

God only knows, if one of the Englishmen who jailed him so cruelly as a Yankee, had a father who had been outraged that the elder Cuffe be jailed in Massachusetts as a Black Indian. 

He afterwards set out again in his former professions; lived very peacably among Catholics and South-Seas heathens; and by reason of a crippling of his foot, had lately turned yeoman-farmer to the family estate.

Let us leave that much-travelled mariner under his own vine and fig-tree, and turn ourselves to Queequeg; who had ventured up on deck, and hailed me where I sat leaning against the ship’s furniture. He cut a good figure, whether or no bloody, blubberous and dishevelled; but let us say that his ablutions had served to gild that lily, and that we greet our fellow-man more joyfully when that joy is unmixed with fright. The same, I am sure, applied to my own proper person. 

As for what I had been employed in doing for some hours, the answer is - nothing, but lose a game of dominoes to a Portugese sailor. Three cheers, then, to the grand old customs of whaling! for what confusion, what seas of ink have been spilled, what astrological ransackings between calendars Babylonian, Hindu, Hebrew, Parsi, Julian and Gregorian, upon fixing a rest-day. But the Sabbath, to be enjoyed upon a whale ship, is simply and according to the laws of hygiene and common-sense, fastened upon the day after trying out. For, aside from the scrubbing here mentioned, and setting men to the mast-heads and the wheel, which is a work of necessity, no duties are assigned. And for men who have laboured night and day so ceaselessly and amid such smoke and heat, what could be sweeter than rest! what more reasonable! 

These laws of whaling-Sabbath, however, are not so strict, as not to be revoked, the instant a whale should be spotted. 

So there we sat, exchanging pleasantries, when Queequeg took hold of my hand, turned it over, and deftly palmed something in it in a pocket-handkerchief.

At that instant, he declared to me, that it was a relief to him that the spermaceti was decanted entirely into barrels; since if I took a fancy to cast myself into it, he should only have to haul me out by the ankles. 

This thought astounded and distracted me; so that my countenance certainly did not display any culpability in the matter of the cheddar-cheese. In fact, upon quietly unwrapping it, I was filled with a sort of unnameable awe. It struck me very forcibly that it had been carved already; and carved at the captain’s table, and thus by the captain’s fork; so that graven upon it, and perhaps magnified homeopathically a hundred- or a thousand-fold, were the gloomy impressions of Ahab’s teeth! 

Nevertheless, in all my reveries, upon the tabooed nature of this cheddar-cheese, I was rapidly taking a bite from it; and would have continued, had I not heard the distinctive tread of the first mate. I stuffed the cheese into my jacket as fast as the Spartan-boy in the fable; it seemed to burn there. 

Now, Starbuck being a thoughtful first mate, he had noted, that in the entire practical business of whaling, Queequeg had been my preceptor; and that I had submitted to his experienced judgement countless and perhaps supernumerary queries on this subject. This struck Starbuck as laudable, inasfar as the responsibility of the harpooneers to the oarsmen went; and excellent, as to the safety of the boat. For certainly as a boy-whaler he had dogged the steps of his own elders, and, the hands aboard a whaler growing greener, with every year he was employed in this business, that instruction grew ever more necessary. 

But as to Queequeg, in the second dog-watch, having collapsed almost to the point of insensibility in retrieving his colleague out of a sperm whale head - as to Queequeg, who would be about again at one o'clock in the morning to superintend the watch - as to Queequeg having to be a schoolmaster at this hour, this was an excess. 

"There, that’s duty done and more than done,” said Starbuck, “rest ye, man." 

Queequeg being very cheerfully engaged in what he was doing, did what he could to convey, that these southern stars below the Equator had a sweet smack of home for him - being not so distant from the arrangement of constellations, that were at once making their storied motions over his parents and married sister - and that he should rather then rest on deck.  

All this had once furnished material for a domestic dispute between myself and Queequeg on the subject of the Milky Way; for, try as I might, I could not convince him that this being a lactatious splattering of a Greek goddess was not some freak or hobby-horse of my own, and the general belief of the Christian world. We had to call in the old Manxman for arbitration. 

Besides the meaning, there are the specifics of that starry almanac, which marked out for Queequeg so precisely the flourishings of different crops - I should have made a very poor gentleman-farmer, as I was too saddened that the cultivation even of yam and taro was so exacting a science, rather than being furnished forth without the attendant curse of Adam, to pay a very profound attention. 

As for these ideas being conveyed, which between boat-header and steerer were more usually along practical lines, the married-sister did materialise a moment in the mind of Starbuck; but in a very plain sort of guise! and without the peace-treaty, that had attended her betrothal. 

"Here’s one man’s stars my own reversed - well, Starbuck, but familiar all; never has my heart misgiven me before, to see the Bears sink out of view; I traverse one Creation. And how low swung and sank that whale-head - nearly to the very deeps, if not arrested! Is’t too clear a sign, to see a man brought out from it? And yet those sweet assurances I might have had from this seem most invisibly bright, and dipped beyond mine own horizon.”

And seeing Queequeg still stood patiently at his station, said “As seems well to you, Queequeg; but rest.”

Starbuck went briskly then about the decks, with an inspecting eye, as of a man heedless of his own advice, and bent upon wresting out of the good condition of the tackles, the boats, the rigging, and all the sundries, some plank of certainty. Queequeg however, as a man will when recalled to his own exhaustion, lent his head upon my shoulder, and closed his eyes. The reader may be familiar with this mingling of sensations; how there steals over that one furnishing himself for a pillow a most loving, amiable, and sweet feeling, and at that self-same moment, over that shoulder and then that arm a gradual numbness, so that Queequeg dozed upon a marmoreate flank of mine. 

I remained ten more minutes awake, in the quiet consumption of the cheese, which was as a foretaste of paradise after months of forking down bits of duff. As to the implications to the law of property, let it be said it was fairly the harpooneers’ to dispose of, and if Aristotle is right that two friends are but one soul, that inhabit different bodies, then Queequeg in one this occasion pasturing me on cheddar, was only pasturing himself. 

I was half-awake, and happily replete, when Starbuck passed me by again; and gave myself and Queequeg a brief and desolate glance. He had not meant, I think, to embark upon an idle conversation, but if you picture Achilles, after his chariot-horses had spoken that once to him, standing with curry-comb in hand, and without reason or expectation, still hoping for another word - so Starbuck, standing in silence upon the forecastle deck.

[blewnotes]

Trombone Shorty, Parking Lot Symphony

Geo’s Jazziversary Ramblings

Troy Andrews, aka Trombone Shorty released a new album earlier this year. His first on the classic Blue Note label. I finally picked it up and here’s my thoughts:

This starts out with a real New Orleans homage, a funeral style trumpet led dirge that leads us down through the dusty streets and gets you leaning over the balcony to catch the parade passing by, then there’s the moment when we get that full on soulful bank of horns. Still with that distinctive bayou flavour and incessant chattering guitar before fading to that snare and there’s Shorty, nonchalant, leaning against that balcony, sliding beautifully above the growling horns before the angels join in to “ahh-ahh-ahh” him onwards. Shorty’s music combines funk and neo-soul with a heavy dose of rock slung in for good measure. But throughout the whole thing is in distinctive that New Orleans twang.

The title track is a beauty. A funky harmonic groove that is destined to be classic neo-soul tune replete with driving handclaps, syncopated chorus and a downplayed ‘bone solo form the leader. The arrangement has an amazing downward flowing glissando vocal break that leads us out to the bar beside the parking lot, where there’s one of those classic white shirted pianists playing the chord intro to the next track. You can practically smell the Dirty Water.

Toussaint’s Here Come the Girls is a real foot stomper. Andrews' arrangements are never far from the dust and heat of New Orleans. It’s all over this album. You feel like you gotta blow it before you hit play. Trust me this is one dirty joint! You can feel those girls coming right on down the street. You just now they are heading for that Bar just off the parking lot.

Then it gets funky. I mean proper fatback style funky. Like how they used to do. Now we’re grooving. I haven’t heard horns this sharp and beats this heavy for a full thirty years! Tripped Out Slim is replete with twanging guitar covering the bar over four on the floor, hit the one bass and drums powering this over the line.

Familiar is another nod towards the Neo-Soul school, yet it’s got this menacing Tarantino horn arrangement hanging over it like something bad is surely going to happen any second. This song has some kind of menace woven through it. Shorty’s soulful joints are just that, truly soulful, but there’s a poignancy to his lyrics. Dude, nobody mightn’t learn nothing from No Good Times, but boy they surely will enjoy them. Especially when they orchestrated as soulfully as this.

You know you have got to come to a musician like Trombone Shorty open and ready to hear. I didn’t get his stuff at first. I thought he was this jazz musician and expected a standard type of trombone jazz album. My bad. Yeah, he’s a jazz musician, but he’s also a lot more. He’s an innovator, a chef of sound, with a love of his hometown. He stews neo-soul beats with Orleans horns and throws in some bare bones backbeats while he uses blue jazz chords to flavour the pot. We are so fortunate to have so many musicians willing to go somewhere new and to take us along for the ride. See Andrews has got something here that may leave the jazz purists scratching their heads, but once you get it, this is irresistible stuff. Grooves that go in a new direction leaving a dust trail behind that points firmly to their roots. With Shorty, you’re riding along in a fat Cadillac driving out of New Orleans and heading someplace new on his sonic adventure.

Check out the chattering guitar driven highway glide of Fanfare. If this was back in the day, you’d have been moving those platformed shoes, flares flying, shaking your butt, soul-training, but sadly we far too cool for this kind of raw deal. Shorty doubles on trumpet on this and the solo’s short and sweet before we back to gut wrenching funk and then the horns and drums tweet us out.

That highway vibe is continued as the slow-mo low-down police wail style horn arrangement introduces Like a Dog. Like Familiar this piece has an undeclared threat in its tone. It’s like when you see the cop’s lights in your rear-view kind of tension.

You know if I wanted to carry on this metaphor thing I could say that Laveau Dirge Finale has that clang of cuffs in its opening before it devolves to a beautiful little horn and vocal duet, but there’s still that chain-gang beat pounding behind it all. Shorty is an artist. I don’t know what he was going for with this album but I love it. That trombone choir duet thing evolves into a beautiful churchified chorus. You know you are standing at the side of that grave. The one the parade was going to at the start of the album, that had you looking over the balcony. We got there. This was an incredible little journey.

New, New Orleans from start to finish. If you haven’t got it and you looking for something to pick up, this one’s a doozy.

Personnel: Troy Andrews: trombone, trumpet, tuba, vocals, guitar, piano, Rhodes, Wurtlizer, Hammond B-3, drums, percussion, snare, tom-toms, glockenspiel, vibraphone; Dan Oestereicher: baritone saxophone; BK Jackson: tenor saxophone; Pete Murano: electric guitar; Tony Hall: bass; Joey Peebles: drums; Chris Seefried: glockenspiel, mellotron, sitar; Leo Nocentelli: acoustic guitar; Ramon Islas: conga, tambourine; viola, violin; Ivan Neville: piano; Juan Covarraubias: synthesizer; Wurlitzer; Tracci Lee, Ashley Doucett, Sabrina Hayes, India Favorite, Faith Mack, Chrishira Perrier, Remonda Davis, Raion Ramsey, Ashley Watson, Lonel Simmons: choir.