In which work is work and workouts are also work, and I'm tired...

[flexagon]

Tonight's acrobalance was a bit discouraging. Z-dawg said I wasn't really built for handstand presses, and that I'm close but I'm in "a bad place" where I need either a more flexible straddle or else enough brawniness to muscle through a planche on the way up. Of course the details are all true, but sigh... am I really in such a bad place? :-( I felt good about the press he spotted me through, until he said all that.

Various upheavals are in progress, most especially a shakeup at work that is still underspecified but is likely to be good for my team and is likely to amount to a smackdown of someone two levels up and one over from me -- someone who's been a problem for a long time. People around me managed to act somewhat surprised and worried, which I can only look at with dull astonishment -- Zillian is a capricious place where big things happen overnight semi-regularly. If folks, and I'm talking about folks who have worked there as long as I have, haven't internalized that yet and are still freaking out about even the mostly-good changes, they might be beyond help.

On the up side, I got to listen to Tori Amos' new album Midwinter Graces today. Pretty. I still like a lot of the original songs better, but she changes a lot of the more religious lyrics in ways that are quite interesting and still pretty.

What child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary's lap, is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the king,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
This is winter's gift
This is what begins

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
born is the king of Israel
born this day anew.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

have you ever tried going into a press by bending your arms? that is how people i work with compensate for lack of flexibility or planche strength.

[flexagon]

No, Z-dawg doesn't teach them like that. Interesting idea! In that case do you people the elbows out, or toward the front of the body?

[nevers.livejournal.com]

elbows in (toward front of body), always always in acrobatics (at least the way we do it). rebecca has been doing them with bent arms for her whole life and only within the past 6 months has she been able to do them even occasionally with straight arms.

[flexagon]

ha, thanks, this is a strangely awesome thing to know. I'll definitely play with it.

[rifmeister.livejournal.com]

You are not in *such* a bad place. You can do an awful lot of very cool tricks. There are other cool tricks you can't do. Welcome to being a human.

[flexagon]

That's the point I was trying to make, yeah.

[kaigex.livejournal.com]

Ooo. I hadn't yet tried comparing Midwinter lyrics against the originals. Will have to explore further.

Staying in the spirit of midwinter remakes, will have to see Disney's new take on A Christmas Carol (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067106/). The story is told and retold so many times, and yet often so wonderfully. Watching what is emphasized or adapted in each telling is like looking at some core form of the story in a flickering flame. Scrooged (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096061/) might still be my favorite.

The comparisons of how texts are changed in presentation for a given cultural time and place are often rather interesting. In high school I compared the script of Romeo and Juliet (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063518/) from the 60s with the script for Romeo + Juliet (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/), and both against the original. Shame I don't still have the marked up scripts.

Eagerly awaiting Alice in Wonderland (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/). I'll surely have to read the book by then.

[flexagon]

Oh, definitely. You might want to consider The Annotated Alice if you want to "get" most of it in a single reading.

There are definitely some Midwinter songs that seem to be modifications of the originals, but I don't know the originals. Youtube will surely save me from my ignorance though. :)