A better yodeling contest

My lady loved his poems first
then him, a little less;
then finally she loved me worst
of those she loved the best.

Her vision was to him more dear
than all the many days
his spine spent bent above his desk,
his hand crabbed words of praise.
But though in love with him her fear
was that his wording power
would flee should she choose him to wed,
would end at such an hour.

My lady to her lover: "never"
and he, to her: "always".
I had a thought I thought was clever,
but had no time to waste.

For perfect words she could not marry
For good ones could not care.
At last my skill would be of use
My skill with words which err.
And so I wrote some songs so hairy
so listless in their time
so poor, so lost, and so confused
so banal every rhyme:

My lady hated them enough
she gave her hand to me
And then he wrote his greatest stuff
(to last eternally).

She knew that if his love denied
aroused such verbal feast
then certainly my love returned
would make my crooning cease.
At last she lies with me and sighs
for beauty and for pain
At last I lie with love unearned
never to sing again.

"Our road gave up on sitting here
It did not like our town
So with a shout and with a cheer
Twas California bound.

"The tollway screamed "Get out, get OUT!"
So our poor highway cried
And with a tear and with a pout
Returned without its pride.

"And that is why our road has holes,
O silly brother, mine."
But I told her what I'd been told,
Recalling every line.

A troop of migrant elephants
Long languished on the way.
We were all pitted with their prints
And shuddered as they strayed.

For being pleased enough with strife,
their souls too restless for
the dreamlike mammoth afterlife,
they must denounce the world.

(adapted)

The ruddy robin sings some songs deranged
To Lisa lost in winter's icy pines
In wonder that the frost persists unchanged.

The youthful bird believed the world's arranged
According to the seasons' special signs;
The ruddy robin sings some songs deranged.

And Lisa hearing, knows it's truly strange
When even birds become to cold resigned,
Though wonder that the frost persists unchanged.

Confused the memories of warmth that ranged
Until these fallow feelings lined the skies,
The ruddy robin sings some songs deranged.

"The rightful joy is lost and lies exchanged
For dreary winds which soak these wings of mine.
No wonder that the frost persists unchanged.

"May those who feed in darkness be afraid
And dayspring's creatures shame the sun to shine,"
The ruddy robin sings some songs deranged
In wonder that the frost persists unchanged.

This morning I was very late for church. This is not unlike me, but it is unlike me to come in sorely and conspicuously late, even after the sermon. But that's how things have been going recently–I'm often so late to events that I just decide to turn around and drive home.

I think back to school, when some professors actually addressed the subject of lateness in the syllabus, or mentioned it on the first day of class. They would say something like, "If you don't have enough respect to arrive on time, I would prefer you not come at all." And I would instantly see where they're coming from, because I don't respect people who come in halfway through class either. I mean, how would they feel if they were the professor? The early bird gets the worm, you know? If you snooze, you lose.

So this morning I was really thinking about leaving, but instead I decided to pull up a chair in the narthex and look in through the sanctuary doors. The only thing left was communion, and I decided I'd better not even bother. I hunched down in my chair, listening to the organ and thinking about how pointless it was to come like this.

But halfway though the song I heard one of the sanctuary doors swing open and one of the ushers suddenly emerged to serve me the bread and quickly went back in. It seemed really bizarre to me, like some kind of fluke or mistake. If the ushers had served the late narthex people in the past, I hadn't noticed it. I didn't think I particularly deserved being served, and I hardly knew the particular usher, so (whether logical or not) I was thinking he would forget me the second time. But a few minutes later he came out again.

I was sitting there thinking about this, when I saw something else I'd never noticed before. At my church the narthex and the sanctuary are divided by ancient-looking oak panels that come together in what looks like a rather imposing permanent wall. I don't usually pay attention to this, but the panels are actually removable.

As the communion music ended, the ushers quietly began changing the scene like experienced stage workers. One by one, the oak panels were carried away. Even a portable screen, which had been set up for a presentation before the service, was folded up and pushed aside. In less than a minute I could see straight into the sanctuary.

First, I upload a file using the dialog just below the composition area, and give it a title and description. Then, that area switches to "browse" mode. I drag and drop the link into the composition area, and behold!

Trumpet Marine

(Taken from trombamarina.com)

Nobody denies Jesus said it, but everyone wants to qualify the sentiment and distance themselves from the presentation of the sign.

via Radical Congruency.

On Sunday I had a blast cross-country skiing for the first time, with Richard and Louise Guy (noted mathematician and his wife) and Chic Scott (noted outdoorsman and author). We skied along the road to Lake Moraigne, which is closed to motor vehicles in the winter. Going slowly, it was easier than I thought it might be. I generally took the front, with the Guys following far behind, and Chic skiing back and forth between us to make sure everyone was doing okay. We did not make it to the rockpile at the end of the road before we had to turn back; it would be fun to see how it looks covered in snow and ice.

I fell at the end because I could not remember how to stop.

I think it's a good idea to pick sports that you see old people doing. No one gets old playing football, or jumping off of cliffs, but I see many venerable cyclists, and now cross-country skiers as well.

At dinner afterwards, Richard announced to Louise that it was their 179th birthday.

(Their odd birthdays are in the winter, even in the summer.)

That's incredible. I have trouble even getting out of the house when it's under -15C out.

Mathematics is supposed to be fun.

Somehow this often gets lost in the over-wrought verbiage, dry explanation and royal "we". One reason I chose to come to Calgary to work with Dr. Guy is he often does without all that, unmasking the enjoyment at the heart of it.

So, today I presented the "book proof" of Dinitz' Problem. "Book proof" because Erdös was involved briefly with it, and Erdös once said that the best proofs were kept in a thick leatherbound book on God's nightstand. Every once in a while, someone would be blessed to discover a proof of such beauty and insight that it could only have come from "the book".

(Erdös meant this metaphorically; he was not a theist.)

The pure math graduate students have been presenting these "proofs from the book" to each other every Tuesday, under the guidance of the head of the department. Today was my turn; I chose the Dinitz problem because it had a very colorful proof and was tangentially related to some of the things I am working on now.

It is not only the proof that is colorful; the problem is actually about colorings of a square matrix. Suppose there is a $n\times n$ square matrix, and each cell of the matrix is associated with a set of $n$ colors - where not all color sets are necessarily the same. Is it always possible to pick a color for each cell from its color set so no color appears twice in the same row or column? It turns out the answer is "yes".

The proof is actually quite simple, consisting simply of putting together two older lemmas in graph theory. The one which leads into the finale of the proof is the "stable matching" lemma. This is understood most easily as follows: given some men and women, there is some way of marrying them off so that no couple prefer each other to their current partners.

This lends itself readily to humor.

The kicker is that applying this lemma back to the matrix, it turns out that rows are represented by men, and the columns by women. So, I drew a big stick figure of a man on the "Y-axis", and a stick figure of a woman on the "X-axis". "For the obvious reasons," I said, and then added the symbol "X" before the names of these axes.

By this point of the proof, the square has been numbered according to a Latin square. There are arrows from smaller to larger numbers in each row, and numbers from larger to smaller in each column. So, interpreting this according to the stable matching lemma, we have:

"Men prefer smaller, women prefer larger."

There isn't really way around stating the adolescent double-entendre without making the proof duller or harder to understand. Besides,

Mathematics is supposed to be fun.

So, I left it in. I had a back-up explanation if necessary: that the men are providing gifts to the women. Women prefer larger gifts, while the men prefer to give the smallest gifts they can get away with.

Most people seemed to think it was funny.

I was even ready for some of the expected questions, like what would happen if some people preferred others of the same sex. The beautiful thing is that this leads directly into an open conjecture! You no longer necessarily have stable matchings, but the generalization of the Dinitz problem still seems to be true!

Nobody asked.

Fortunately.

The head of the department came back afterwards and warned me that I was coming too close to "crossing a line", and that I should be more careful. I suddenly realized that I had got myself into a bit of trouble. The other students present noted that he seemed to be getting even grumpier lately.

After some reflection, I realize that this is actually somewhat of an improvement over my past conversations with the department head, most of which consisted of him asking me "Who are you?" and "What are you doing here?" even after I have been here for more than a year. I wonder if this upward trend will continue.

Anyway, now it is time for me to return to completing my PhD application. I don't know who ends up reading that.

From a Democrat, about her relationship with her Republican sister:

"I think she's stupid, and she thinks I'm immoral."

Today I was out driving in the bright sun, on a shopping errand, when something caught my interest on the radio. My perverse interest.

There was a radio preacher apparently advertising trips to the Holy Land. He wasn't just giving it a passing mention–there was more salesmanship than that. A significant portion of his airtime was being used. He even gave the mic to a middle-eastern-sounding tour guide, who said travelers would be eating fine cuisine, staying in some of the finest hotels in Israel (porters would be provided, of course), and riding in the most luxurious of tour buses.

In total luxury, they would hit all the hot spots: the cramped stable where Christ was born, the wilderness where He went without food, the hill where He died thirsty and bleeding, not to mention the location where Christ told us "blessed be ye poor," and "woe to you who are rich."

I thought it all sounded strangely medieval, maybe something to be pedaled by one of the more corrupt characters in The Canterbury Tales. Or maybe like something from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Celestial Railroad, in which the hard path to the Celestial City had been improved with a convenient train system.

It's the kind of thing that makes me want to sell all my stuff, including this silly laptop, and give graciously to the poor.

Because maybe then I could say someday, after much poverty and toil, not with a lot of outward arrogance, but softly to myself, "Now, Mark, you–as opposed to them–have lived an exemplary life."

I could maybe quote Robert Frost or something: "Two roads diverged in the wood, and I–I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." Yeah, all the difference, you opulent tax collectors.

Maybe, on second thought, I could just pray for the radio preacher and all those rich crusaders. Because, I believe in God, you know. At least I'm not like those heathens.

Or maybe I could just ask for mercy.