Where there's never a boast or a brag

[austin_dern]

Another week, another nicely busy one on my mathematics blog. You can add this to your Friends page, or if you don't keep up with friends, to your RSS page, which surely is a thing, right? Well, run since Sunday were:

• Reading the Comics, November 12, 2016: Frazz and Monkeys Edition, with a bunch of topics that let me have a lot of fun writing.
• The End 2016 Mathematics A To Z: The Fredholm Alternative and I don't even care if you read it because I love that title.
• The End 2016 Mathematics A To Z: General Covariance so you can watch me struggle with tensors! No tensors necessary.
• The End 2016 Mathematics A To Z: Hat so you see some mathematics you can wear.
• Reading the Comics, November 16, 2016: Seeing the Return of Jokes, which isn't a crack about my foul mood but just that a bunch of stock jokes reappeared is all.

Now back to the eve of the 4th of July, and fireworks with bunny_hugger's parents.

Well before the town's fireworks got going we found a good comfortable spot to watch. bunny_hugger enjoys a sparkler. This is the same spot we overheard frogs the previous year, until the fireworks show stunned them into silence. Didn't notice any frogs this year.

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Closer to the show bunny_hugger's father (seated) enjoys a sparkler too, and incidentally poses for the cover of his acoustic-guitar CD album.

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Land Of Free, one of the (few) fireworks sets bunny_hugger's father bought to set off at their home. He only got a couple of fireworks this year although this was certainly the biggest I could imagine setting off. I'm not a natural firework-setter. I credit growing up in a state where they've been illegal for nearly a century and working in a gunpowder plant summers through college.

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And then one of the fireworks set off in the driveway. I suppose this can't have been Land Of Free but I don't really know. I like that it's blurry and unfocused; that seems to give it more power to my eye.

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And a more conventional shot of one of the fireworks tubes going wild. bunny_hugger's car is visible in the background, lit across the street by these goings on.

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Trivia: The rare-earth metal tellurium has a garlicky taste. Source: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales Of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From The Periodic Table of the Elements, Sam Kean.

Currently Reading: The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel, Jodie Archer, Matthew L Jockers.

Comments

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

We only buy the legal fireworks now, the ones that fizz and pop and look pretty without explosions. I miss having the rockets, but they scared the dogs too much.

Some of our neighbors, otoh, invest hundreds of dollars in (illegal) aerial displays.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Fun fact: everything shown in this picture is now legal in Michigan. You used to have to drive to Ohio to get stuff that shot into the air, but not anymore.

Fountains and sparklers were always legal in Michigan. Based on interrogating Austin incredulously, I infer that no fireworks at all are legal in New Jersey, including the ones so mild that no one really thinks of them as "fireworks." Here's an approximate transcript...

ME: Why don't you like sparklers?
AUSTIN: I'm just not comfortable with fireworks, since I grew up in a state where they're illegal.
ME: What, even sparklers?
AUSTIN: They're fireworks, aren't they?
ME: [incredulously] ALL fireworks are illegal in New Jersey?
AUSTIN: Yes.
ME: What about snakes?
AUSTIN: I don't know what that is. Is it a firework?
Me: I guess so, yes...
AUSTIN: Then yes.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

My dad grew up in New Jersey and loved fireworks, but they were probably legal then.

Snakes are such a strange thing. Fireworks were illegal in Rhode Island when I was growing up, but I have vague memories of buying those at little mom-and-pop type five-and-dime stores. As for the household there was always some store or another with a backroom full of delights for the holidays.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Only if he goes back a ways! New Jersey banned fireworks in 1936, it turns out, after a surprisingly bloody summer. Anti-fireworks activists pointed out that more Americans had died celebrating Independence in the first third of the 20th century than had died fighting for Independence in the last third of the 18th. I'm skeptical of the claim, since I have a hard time believing fireworks-injuries were collected that systematically in the early 20th Century, and I understand the Revolutionary War is taken to be bloodier than it was back then. But it does make a compelling point.

Of course anyone wanting fireworks can just go to Pennsylvania, which is never more than 40 miles off and is a solid wall of fireworks superstores by all evidence and it's not like there's customs barriers. But it does reduce the racket.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

My dad was 16 in 1936 and lived in Upper Montclair.

As a side note, thinking of those responsible old times, he used to tell me how he'd sit by the furnace in his parents' home making the lead balls for his muzzle loader. He'd fill the mold and then pour it out to form a hollow projectile. Into this ball he'd pour black powder and then tap the opening shut with a hammer... he says he was probably lucky not to have gotten blown up (you think?).

The exploding bullets were fired off in a local quarry. He said it was fun to watch these hit/detonate on the stone walls across the way. He was 10 or 11 at the time :D

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's how I remember the exchange. I remember it as one of my favorite little exchanges, the sort that's nice and punchy and well-timed.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I imagine the dogs appreciate the lack of rockets. Or at least having them off at the neighbors'.

I don't know that I'll warm up to buying fireworks myself, even if they are legal. I was forty before I ever even ate at a Taco Bell, after all.