Religion and me

In my series of posts of interest to members of the Australian Skeptics, I intend to include some issues pertaining to religion. To pave the way for whatever I decide to post on that subject, I think I should summarise the role that religion has played in my own life. This is not a biography; it’s just enough of a summary to give readers an idea of where I’m coming from.

I was raised in a Christian family and a Christian community. Mainstream ones, not at all fundamentalist. However, as a child I converted to atheism. My parents insisted that I still had to go to church, and I remember that sometimes during a sermon I would read the Bible critically, looking for the flaws.

Olivigne photographs

I am currently staying at my parents’ place while my own home is being renovated by professional painters. To entertain readers of this blog while I’m away from home, I thought I’d post a few photographs. I intend to take more photographs over the rest of the week, and will probably add them to this post rather than starting a new one, so watch this space.

Some of the photographs from around here that I’ve posted to this blog before include:

• Guten
• Pet pictures
• Painted swing
• Crocodile tree
• Shearers dam

There are 16-17 new photographs below this line.

The man in the moon

Wikipedia has the audacity to tell us what the man in the moon looks like (at the time of writing, at least). In truth, of course, the man in the moon has many interpretations, none of which can really be called official. It is reinvented over and over again. Various sweeping claims in the Wikipedia article ought to be prefixed with “One popular interpretation is …“.

A quick Google lead me to a blog post where someone’s illustrated the man in the moon as it is seen from here in Australia. I agree, broadly, with this interpretation (that is, it approximately conforms to the man in the moon as I have seen it since I was five years old). “Broadly”, however, is all very well but I wish to be pedantic about the details.

Recent family losses

Two of my relatives died during the last few months. Uncle Max (my mother’s father’s brother) died on Anzac Day (25 April), and my grandmother (my mother’s mother) died on 11th May.

Religious compositions

It’s time to continue the theme about music that I have composed over the years, which I started here and followed up in a couple of other posts since. I’ve already described several compositions from my childhood and one example from my mid teens, so this installment picks up the story in the late nineties, as I was approaching twenty.

This post looks at music that I composed on a religious theme using the Yamaha keyboard that I inherited from Grandpa. It reflects the Christian faith that I had at the time that I wrote them (I am more of an agnostic now).

Dumbo’s Chess

Among the various things in the book, “The Coodabeen Champions take a Good Hard Look at Australia” (Copyright 1992 Coodabeen Champions Pty Ltd, published Penguin Australia) are the rules for a game called Dumbo’s Chess.

DUMBO’S CHESS

(two players)

Equipment: 1 cheapo plastic chess set + 1 ping pong ball

The chess set is placed in the middle of a room, set up as for a normal game. The two players stand on opposite sides of the room and throw the ping pong ball at the chess board. The first player to have all their pieces knocked over loses.

Note that unlike regular chess, you have to knock down all the other player’s pieces, not just the king.

I have played this game in Real Life, but the most memorable tournament took place via email with Marian Rosenberg in 1998.

(I’ve had the transcript on my website for some years, but getting a blog is like getting a new chest of drawers - sometimes it’s nice to be able to redistribute things into it.)

Composing with modes

This post continues the series about music that I have composed over the years; previous installments can be found here and here.

The composition under discussion today is one that I wrote in my mid teens. Melinda, my music teacher at the time, introduced me to the musical modes - those exotic scales that can be obtained by using the notes of the C Major scale but with a note other than C as the root. She set me the task of composing a tune that exploited the concept, and I came up with something that used several modes within the one piece.

Hitherto, this piece of music has never been written down, but as of today it can be found on my website. It did have a name, but not a very good one. Feel free to suggest a new name for it.

I didn’t have Melinda as a teacher for very long, because she left the area after she got married. I remember this well because I helped to mix the drinks at the reception.

Suitmatch

In an earlier post, I made the following comments about Suitmatch, a card game I once invented.

I was quite young when I invented Suitmatch, and (although I think the underlying concept is sound), I would advise that anyone wishing to give it a go should bear in mind that it was invented by a child (teenager, really, but the point stands).

I am now going to elaborate on those comments.

Pink elephants and black taxis

I’ve already mentioned Popeye, the toy monkey that Grandma made for me, and now I’d like to introduce you to a couple of other toys that I’ve owned for a very long time.

Firstly, meet Hamrose, my pink elephant. This elephant is the same colour as ham and has roses on its ears. I think it was given to me by Grandnan, but it was a long time ago. Rebecca has another elephant in the same style - a blue one with daisies.

Ancient piano compositions

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about music, and is about the songs and tunes that I composed on the piano between approximately six and ten years of age.

The catchiest tune I wrote back then (from one of my earliest compositions) was probably this: