User talk:JackofOz: Difference between revisions

HISTORY

• Archive 1: up to 30 June 2005
• Archive2: 1 July 2005–31 January 2006
• Archive 3: 1 February–30 June 2006
• Archive 4: 1 July 2006–28 February 2007
• Archive 5: 1 March–31 May 2007
• Archive 6: 1 June–31 October 2007
• Archive 7: 1 November 2007–29 February 2008
• Archive 8: 1 March–31 July 2008
• Archive 9: 1 August–31 October 2008
• Archive 10: 1 November 2008–31 January 2009
• 1 February 2009 onwards, see below

cf. this edit. Just FYI, the full stops were there because the character list came under fire for not being in complete sentences; so the original "Foo - Bar" list was rewritten to be as close to prose as a list can be made, and full sentences should be terminated by a full stop or other punctuation. I don't really have the strongest of opinions on this issue, but it might be worthwhile if you took the above context into account when deciding whether or not you think the full stops stay or go. Either way I won't be reverting there. --Xover (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jack of Oz,

I have noticed that you have made a lot of edits towards the Order of Australia article. I was wondering whether you could put an actual picture of the Queen wearing the sovereigns badge like on the order of Canada's article. I would do it myself but don't know how.

Here are the pictures of the badge that I have found:

http://www.theorderofaustralia.asn.au/about_us/awards_and_insignia.php

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33183728@N00/2427149864/sizes/o/in/set-72157603922788936/

http://www.statusquo.org/aru_html/html/orderofaus.html

http://www.royalinsight.gov.uk/output/Page5159.asp?GalleryID=9&ImageID=238&Start=0

http://www.theorderofaustralia.asn.au/

If you could that would be great. I think it would improve the article and bring it in line with Canada's.

58.169.193.117 (talk) 04:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)Cheers from Alex[reply]

Hi, Alex. I'd gladly do that, but I don't want to breach copyright. Some of these images may be OK, but I'm a complete dummy when it comes to determining whether images are copyrighted. Can you (or anyone else reading this) assist? Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree absolutely that the surname is de Beer, but wonder if deBeer is not a better solution to sort? Or DeBeer if first letter must be cap. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I guess it depends on what outcome is desired. In some protocols, all the de Beers, de Havillands etc appear as if the surname was just "de", that is, all the "de ..." names appeared grouped together, before the Deans, Dears etc. In other protocols, all the letters of the surname count, so it's as if the surname was Debeer, Dehavilland etc. So, de Beer would be followed by the "Dec...", "Ded...", "Dee..." names, then de Havilland would take its place in the "Deh..." names, and de Zilva would be at or close to the end. That seems a more logical and intuitive system to me. Maybe WP has a preference, I don't know. If it's up to editors to choose, I prefer the latter protocol. -- JackofOz (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This category is used by the Classical music project and all articles within it are bannered by that project. It's used for instrumentalists. Opera singers on the other hand are within the scope of the Opera Project so they have Opera banners. Hope that's clear. Best. --Kleinzach 07:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that info. Having managed to avoid categories for most of my time on WP (5+ years), I've recently been getting into them in a big way, and learning as I go. One issue I'm encountering is the general lack of information about who goes where, and what consensuses have been reached about this. If, for example, I think "Hmm, Category X looks like it might be appropriate for this person", what tells me that my feeling is right, or wrong? The category pages themselves give no guidance about who should be included and who shouldn't be. I hope you understand my concern. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I've reverted your addition of this category to the Ariadne auf Naxos and Königskinder article because neither of them are incidental music; they are both operas. The incidental music for Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, i.e. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Strauss) is only peripherally related to the first version of Ariadne, and the proposed incidental music for Königskinder was never composed. The mere presence of the expression "incidental music" in an article doesn't entitle it to this category. I'm going to have to look through the cat to see if anything else needs to be reverted. Best wishes. --GuillaumeTell 22:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC) (PS Was it General Bennigsen that you are related to?)[reply]

Hi. No, it was General Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov - see User:JackofOz/Family connections. (If you already knew that, and Bennigsen was a coded reference to something else, it went over my head. Sorry.)

OK, I'll cop it sweet about Königskinder. I read it too quickly.

However, I'll take you up on Ariadne auf Naxos. We're told:

• As well as composing the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera occupied ninety minutes, and the performance of play plus opera occupied over six hours. ... Hofmannsthal proposed to Strauss that the play should be replaced by a prologue ... Strauss was initially reluctant, but he composed the prologue ... This is the version that is normally staged today, although the original play-plus-opera is occasionally performed (for example, at the 1997 Edinburgh International Festival).

That says that incidental music was composed, performed once, put aside, but now occasionally revived. When that does occur, the incidental music is quite distinct from the music for the opera that follows the play.

Btw, I haven't used "the mere presence of the expression 'incidental music' in an article" to put it into the Incidental music category. There are many hundreds of articles containing this expression, and I chose only those ones that seemed directly relevant. I felt I was being quite judicious, actually. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but the incidental music for the adaptation of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme which formed part of Ariadne I has its own article which I linked to above, and you have correctly applied the category there. It is therefore unnecessary to apply it to the opera (or, I might add, to the play).

Except that Ariadne auf Naxos is not just about an opera. OK, it starts off "Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne on Naxos) is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal" - because it's normally performed as an opera only. But it then goes on to explain its history, and its original conception as a play (4½ hours!! with incidental music) followed by an opera (only 1½ hours of different music), which is the way it's sometimes presented up to the present day. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yermolov, right - I remember you helped me out over a wikitable when I was dealing with the versions of Prokofiev's War and Peace. I meant to mention then that I had a slight acquaintance with a descendant of General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly! --GuillaumeTell 22:55, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that makes us almost cousins. I still have a slight acquaintance with Yermolov's descendant, my ex-wife (joking, we're good friends, actually), but a stronger relationship with our children. Yermolov and Barclay fought together at Borodino. I must put on my CD of the 1812 Overture in celebration. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More from me, now that I've slept on it. The thing about Categories is that each category for any article should describe that article in some way. So, for example, Otello (seriously, this is just a random example off the top of my head) has the following categories:

• Operas by Giuseppe Verdi
• Italian-language operas
• 1887 operas
• Operas
• Adaptations of works by William Shakespeare

You'll agree that all these things are true of "Otello". Now consider Ariadne auf Naxos. Its categories are:

• Operas by Richard Strauss
• German-language operas
• Operas
• 1916 operas

Again, all these are true. But if you add the category "Incidental music", you're adding a category that isn't true.

It seems to me that the category "Incidental music" should only apply to articles of which that is a description, such as Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Strauss) or Peer Gynt suite or A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn). If you want to create a category such as "Plays that have had incidental music written for them", you can indeed add that to A Midsummer Night's Dream or Le Bourgeois gentilhomme or Peer Gynt or The Tempest, and I would have no objection.

Any questions? --GuillaumeTell 22:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You make good sense, cousin Tell, so we'll leave it at that. But I might just take you up on creating a "Plays that have had incidental music written for them" category. That will, if nothing else, in some cases promote the creation of articles about their incidental music, which can in turn go into the "Incidental music" category. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Be my guest! I was actually making a serious suggestion - I would welcome more articles that are about incidental music written for particular plays, so long as the articles for the plays themselves aren't given the "incidental music" category. Result!

One of these days I may get to visit the Merry Old Land of Oz - I have old school-friends in Sydney and Perth, and a genealogically-inclined second cousin once removed (I think) in the ACT. It's the travelling time that is daunting. Best. --GuillaumeTell 00:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In case the new cat isn't on your watchlist, you might want to say something at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_February_7#Category:Plays_that_have_had_incidental_music_written_for_them --GuillaumeTell 18:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"What people think of me is none of my business" is now on my User page. Nice one. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome, Milkbreath, but I can't claim credit. It was virtually a mantra among the personal development crowd I hung around with for a while back in the '90s. It's a good way of thinking about disassociating oneself from the opinions and expectations of others, which, if you let it, can be a dreadful burden. Best. How's that lactohalitosis going, by the way?  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 22:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Funny you should ask. That's not mine, either. A newsgroup I used to frequent got into an examination of international ethnic insults one time, and "milkbreath" was part of a string of abuse levelled at white folks by an Indian gentleman. I remember it ended with "monkeyboy". Very funny, it was, the whole thread. (One year and counting since my last cigarette. Chantix roolz!) --Milkbreath (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jack, some fun for you. On my travels I came across this: Horse manure, $x, chicken manuare, $x.50. I'm waiting for "x manuer" even more valuable! Julia Rossi (talk) 23:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, how lexically gruesome, Julia. We should create a new adjective: manue, manuer, manuest. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We know about the "sunburned sunburnt land" and Bryson's "sunburnt"" sunburned" one, too; however, Victoria, though not a lady in this case, is still not for burning, I hope. And what about all those lovely vineyards? Can't we devise a "beam me up" for water from Townsville and Darwin down to you? I hope you and yours are not under threat. Regards, from a new signature, designed in a fit of boredom on a very cold February morning. I will likely go back to the original soon; winter can't last forever, can it? ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 03:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for being concerned, Bielle. Yesterday (7 February) was the hottest day in the recorded history of most places in Victoria. It got to 48 degrees in one place (= 118.4 Fahrenheit; that's in the shade, of course). It was 50 outside our place, but a lot cooler inside, so we stayed indoors with the doors and windows shut. There are massive fires all over the state, and the latest official death toll as of half an hour ago is 35, but expected to go higher. We're about 100 km from the nearest fire, so no danger, but we got a huge cloud of smoke yesterday that turned day into night from 2:30 pm onwards. The winds were extreme, even for a normally very windy place like Maffra. We got some light drizzle last night, and today is much more comfortable, but the house, the cars, and anything outside are covered in dark brown sludge. Most radio stations in Gippsland are off the air, but the ABC is still functioning (on reduced power) so we're getting constant reports about what's going on. Television reception is gone, except for Channel 10 (the station I watch least, unfortunately; and, dammit, I was going to tape a broadcast of my favourite opera La bohème on ABCTV this afternoon, but that will have to wait for another time). That's the least of our worries, though, when we reflect that 35+ people are dead. Up north, Ingham, Queensland is totally inundated by flood waters. Such is life on the land of Oz at the moment. Dorothea Mackellar was on the money when she wrote of a land of droughts and flooding rains. Cheers, Bielle. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! I never thought I would say this, but . . . I'd rather have winter, even winter as we know it, than what you are experiencing. The hottest place I have ever been was Ayers Rock about 10:00 am of a January morning: 52 degrees F. I went straight back into the air-conditioned bus. The flies and then the heat were just too much. The coldest I have ever experienced was -53 degrees F at Lake Louise in Alberta. 100 km (or even miles) is not that far away where high winds, drought and fire are concerned. How do you keep breathing in that temperature if your electricity goes off? We are out in the country so we have a generator that can run the a/c, but not for long, and not if we want to do anything else, like read or cook or shower. (And, now that I think of it, a generator needs fuel, and I wouldn't want to be thinking about a forest fire raging through my bright yellow canisters of back-up supply.) Do keep alert, whether you hate the station or not; we need you. ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, thanks, I feel needed. Never been to Uluru (and I assume you meant 52 C, not 52 F), but you're talking about external, not shade, temperature, aren't you? That's pretty much what it was like here yesterday - I measured it at 50 C outside, but for the places that got 48 C in the shade, that would have been about 60 C outside. Global warming - suddenly it seems very real and very relevant. Our electricity has not been affected (hence I can still go online), but 30,000 homes have no power at the moment. Unlike 2 weeks ago, when our phone line was down for 5 days, for some technical reason that was never explained to my satisfaction, so for 5 days I was unable to access WP - I almost died! Breathing - not a problem for a committed smoker like me.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 04:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am constantly getting my "degrees C" and "degrees F" mixed up; how about scorchingly hot and tearingly cold instead? It was still Ayers Rock when I visited (1985) though I know it is Uluru now. I was talking about out in the sun. In the shade of the rock in the half hour before we were in full sun, it was not unpleasant, except for the flies, the flies, the flies. Still, you should go and take the guided tour around. It was very good. Just pick a winter's day for it. If it keeps you alive, keep smoking until the fire season is over. ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 04:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The official death toll is now 50, and will get worse. In terms of lives lost, it's the worst natural disaster in the state's history, worse than the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They keep on finding burned bodies in cars. It's now 65 dead. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am appalled and terrified for all those in the path. If you are advised to evacuate, please leave, though at the risk of inappropriately black humour, perhaps not by car. There is nothing you own more valuable than your lives. ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 06:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, don't worry, we know what to do. We went through a personally much closer call 2 years ago; this time, the fires that are closest to us are under control and will not get anywhere near enough to us for us to have to consider evacuating. (He says with crossed fingers; the people who died yesterday thought they'd be safe, too.) -- JackofOz (talk) 07:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just heard the 5:00 news on CBC radio. The report said the death toll is now at 100 and expected to keep rising. What a dreadful day! Keep safe, please! ៛ BL ៛ (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC) P.S. Can we email you water? BL[reply]

Now 108. No, water's ok, thanks. Drought per se is the least of our concerns right now. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Scuse me eavesdropping: just called in to see how things are for you. Fairly grim news from Victoria at large, even if you are well out of it. Thinking of you all. Gwinva (talk) 01:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Gwinva. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[Also eavesdropping:] Yes Gwinva, it's been dreadful for a lot of Victoria. NSW is affected too, but not nearly so drastically. I'm in the hills near Melbourne myself; driving to NSW soon. We have to check from hour to hour how things are with road closures and the like; but the problems of those contemplating travelling interstate are nothing, next to the devastation all around. The toll of lives lost keeps rising, and for every one of those there is a cluster of associated tragedies.

Stay in NZ for now! (And Jack, see my email.)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 01:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now 173 confirmed dead. 2009 Victorian bushfires has all the gruesome details. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should look this up. There is likely a very complex discussion on it in at least three places on WP, but I am hoping you can help me take a short cut as I see you were putting dozens of people into this category at one stage. If "posthumous" means "after death", how, except by being born dead, can one be born posthumously? ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 03:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen Posthumous birth? That tells you what the term means. Maybe I'm slightly more vocabularistically enhanced than some people, but I always thought it was a well-known expression. But others have had the same query as you, so there you go. I created that article (under a different name at the time) last year. Much more recently, I created Category:Posthumously born people, and put all the names that were in the article, into the category. Unfortunately, better minds than mine have decided it’s not an appropriate category, so it’s been deleted, but the discussion about it is here. Cheers again. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did work out what was likely meant by the term, but it has to be something of recent invention. I wonder where and when? Every other use of the word "posthumous" can only be applied to a person who is dead. Thus, someone can have a posthumous child, in the same way one can have a posthumous degree; that is, a child born or a degree awarded after one's own death. A mother can give birth posthumously in that she dies before the child is born, and the child is thus posthumously born but the baby does not have, except by this peculiar use of the term, a posthumous birth; it is quite alive when born. I am confusing myself now. If you look at the dab list for 'posthumous birth", the examples seem to suggest that this is a unique use of the term. It was new to me; I learn something at least once a week. (It used to be a more frequent occurence, but my brain is slowing down with age.) ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 04:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I never would have even thought of that as a candidate for a list, but it really sits well with me. How much info do you have? I have works lists of a large number of major composers and should be able to add quite a lot to this (more than Grove has for many of them). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I've got a fair bit of info in various places, much of it from Grove. Please feel free to add whatever you've got. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The poms appear to have been girding their loins for a stand against the odious suggestion by disaffected colonials that "Uncle Bill" might have been a kiddy fiddler. I see that you have weighed in with an opinion that the note on the allegations should stand. The Slimites however revert away. Is there some sort of arbitration process for this sort of thing? Albatross2147 (talk) 02:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]