Tag Archives: Math

Strange Attractors

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Living things, like certain mathematical systems, are attracted (or not) to each other in a wonderful variety of ways. It’s pretty hard to predict what will constitute an individual’s attractors. Some people might say that a warthog, for example, could only be attractive to another warthog, but that’s a very limited notion, because we all have different definitions of beauty and those definitions can be strictly visual but can easily also include appeals to our other senses, not only the standard receptors of touch, sound, taste or scent but also our sense of curiosity or contentment or spirituality or a whole range of other concepts.photoIf I were a little tiny Texas Spiny Lizard, for example, I might be interested in mating or procreating only with a similar little tiny lizard, but I could also very easily be attracted for other purposes to the warmth of a sunny concrete slab, the smorgasbord of yummy insects that visit a group of potted plants, or the shady shelter between the bricks on which the pots are perched, where I can hide from the patrolling cats of the neighborhood. If I were one of the cats, I can imagine I’d be very attracted to the lizard, not just out of feline curiosity but because cats apparently like Texas Spiny Lizards, I suppose because they are small, moving targets for the hunt and possibly just because a cat might enjoy a good set of lizard drumsticks or baby back ribs or tenderloin on occasion. Do cats analyze their dining on a basis of whether or not a meal ‘tastes like chicken‘? I don’t know, but I do know that small, moving objects and food are both common cat attractors.photoI’m sure it’s also safe to assume that others are attracted to these little reptiles. Most likely that’s the main reason I’ve rarely seen one on our patio or porch any larger than this three-inch/10 cm specimen. If one of the local hawks swoops close enough to notice them, such dainty critters would logically look like the animal equivalent of fast food, and some of the smaller but reasonably aggressive birds (I’m looking at you, bluejays) might compete for such a snack. Snakes, if any of those nearby are larger than my typical garden snake visitor, would find them delectable. So it goes. We are attracted to partners and friends, but also to that which will sustain our progress toward finer dining or just plain survival.photoMy admiration of Texas Spiny Lizards, tiny or not, is based on several of these elements. There’s the simple appeal of the handsome patterning on and sculptural shapes of their infinitesimal-alligator bodies, of course. Those zippy dashes they make from one spot to another first catch my eye and then intrigue me, especially when one of them stops to practice his pushups for a while. I like the way they hold very, very still in between moves, moving only their eyes as they seem to scan for bugs to eat or new heights of patio slab or plant pot-dom to conquer. And very often, I like to contemplate them at equal leisure, attracted most of all to their very differentness from me.

Dollar Signs on My Mind

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While I am busy preparing to open an online store to offer some of my creative output for sale as prints, T-shirts, book material, and so forth, naturally my brain is calculating how many itty bitty royalty payments it will take to, say, pay off an eensy-weensy portion of the hours-days-years spent producing said items. Fortunately for me, y’all know I’m a terrible mathematician, so there’s obviously no point in delving so very far or seriously into that topic or tragedy will surely ensue. I’m not fishing for compliments here, just stating the cold hard facts of the rarity of cold hard cash when it comes to art. Many of you friends of mine are fellow artists, so I know that you know just what I mean. Nothing particularly fishy about it. So instead of whimpering needlessly, I will just share one of my silly little verses with you and call it a day. A much cheerier way to close St. Patrick’s Day than worrying about the Bankin’ o’ the Green. Goodnight, my fine friends! Smooth sailing ahead for all of us!digital artwork

The Gifts of True Love

In lieu of parties, holidays

And feasts and fests, vacation days

And celebrations—rather, heck,

Than all together—send a cheque!

A party lasts mere days or hours

And Wilts like last September’s flowers–

Festive events and gifts all fade—

No joy compares to getting paid!

So if you want to be recalled

And loved as one who has enthralled,

Forget the cakes, balloons and flash—

Just send me some heartwarming cash!

Arithmetic, Thou art No Friend of Mine

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photoAnd lo, how my thoughts go round and round upon the subject.

It must come as no surprise whatsoever that I am among the multitudinous math-phobes peopling (pimpling?) the world of the creative soul. Why do you think we really all took those arty, wondrous, supposedly “Easy-A” classes, eh? Escape Route, we thought, freedom from the horrors that lie between the covers of every arithmetic text known to humankind. Only to find out we’d been hoodwinked and were expected to know how to disassemble and reassemble an ellipsoidal reflector in under ten minutes and with fewer than two “nonessential” parts left over after completion (what is this word “two”?), or whether one could type 200 words of dazzling script per minute while trying not to be hopelessly hypnotized by Mr. Young’s* blindingly mustard-colored toupee. I was able to accomplish the former task, by the way, but the latter, not quite so fully. However, I only lost consciousness for a split second and did not actually fall off of my chair.

*Name has been changed to protect someone vain’s glabrous secret.

In fact, by taking uni-approved ‘alternative’ courses (“I’ll take the class behind Door Number, uhhh, B, Dave!”) I managed to go all the way from 9th grade algebra, passed mainly by babysitting for the teacher’s kids on the weekends, to grad school without having taken a single other mathematics class. Then I got stuck: first those lousy entrance exams, which are now a blissful blank in my memory bank, followed by Graduate Statistics for Pedagogy, or whatever they called it. Hell, I tells ya! The only thing that saved me was that my older sister had survived the same course with the same prof a year earlier and coached me every cotton picking minute of the way through it. While I wept copious and bitter tears. I squeeeeeeeaked by with the B grade needed to pass the course and ran screaming all the way to graduation. Which commencement ceremony I skipped to go to Mt. Rainier with friends from Australia, because once you’ve paraded down the catwalk in those hot mortarboard and gown get-ups, never mind adding a hotter yet academic hood, on a sweltering summer day, in an auditorium full of people you don’t care to know, to grip that rolled-up piece of parchment that says “Redeem for Actual Diploma at Registrar‘s Office on Tuesday after 4 pm or for a Free Pizza at Gianni’s on Main after 5 pm”–well, once you’ve gone that route there’s really no need for a repeat, is there.

Although come to think of it, skipping The Forced March may mean that I didn’t in fact officially graduate and so taught college for two decades under false pretenses, and what’s not to like about that! In any event, I did finally, truly knock down that last class on the looming list, if without particular distinction or panache.photoMath, though, remained a bane. It was hideously disappointing to realize that a grasp of basic functional math was the only thing that stood between me and, say, a growling, slavering pack of credit card representatives or perhaps the growling stomach of starvation after having demolished the pantry stores by reversing the quantities of salt and sugar in yet another foolproof recipe. On the other hand, it was something of a relief when I finally realized that I was worrying needlessly about something I could never, ever fix. Between my dyslexia (or more accurately in this instance, dysnumerica) and my utter disinterest in getting better at math for the sheer unfathomable pleasure of it, I could see that this was something I should learn to put aside and compartmentalize safely to keep it away from unnecessarily pestering me in my everyday Happy Place.

Not to say that I didn’t have to find some truly inventive ways to do a (cough!) number of things. Balance my bank accounts. Figure out the current time/date in another time zone. Calculate the distance and ETA to work locations. Without GPS and Google Maps, because I do predate plenty of Modern Miracles by a significant margin. Teach drawing students how to draw in two-point perspective. Memorize ridiculous chains of randomly generated numbers to have even the remote hope of regaining access to umpteen kinds of personal accounts, not least of all ones containing personal information or money.

That is where you find me today, where numbers serve only the most rudimentary decorative purposes in my quotidian existence, for the most part (some of them being visually pleasing as abstract shapes, at least), but still occasionally rising up to help me remember my home telephone number so that I can call my more numerically astute husband to solve all of my more knotty mathematical problems. Because no matter how crummy my skills and how limited my knowledge when it comes to things numerical, I have what is for me a far more useful piece of wisdom, which is: one should always have great resource persons to call upon when one lacks the required smarts, information and/or tool handling artistry to accomplish the task of the moment. Stand ready, y’all.photoThe only sort of geometry at which I am expert, apparently, is circular thinking. But look where it’s gotten me thus far!