1. Friday night, for the first time in about 20 years, I read, in public no less, to someone other than my kids. Although I may or may not have appeared to, I enjoyed myself greatly and things went fine, but for a bit of hoarseness (mostly sore throat) even though my brain tends to fall asleep around 9 PM. Thanks Horst, for inviting me to take part.

2. Saturday, accompanied Gamma to a great workshop on composing at our music school. The teachers were so wonderful, so knowledgeable and so able to communicate that to an audience ranging in age from about 7 to about ahem 47. Gamma was cracking John Cage jokes when we walked back to our car that evening, is how good it was. “Now I have an earworm,” she said, referring to his composition “4.33”. Also, she wants to play it at her next piano recital. “At least the first movement.”
   Beta wants to accompany her on harp. Or at least sit at the piano with her, turning pages.
   They are going to have a 3-month composition program at the school. Gamma and I are discussing whether to take part.

Oh yes that reminds me, my wife said the evening before last.
(Have I mentioned that, right after I arrive home from work, I am generally in a disoriented state of mind and need, usually, ten minutes in a sensory deprivation tank, which I never get?)
So I said to my wife, whatever the question is, the answer is Yes.
She and Gamma, who was in on the question, both laughed. So we can take the hedgehog over the winter?
I sighed. After the last ones, I had sworn off hedgehogs. They made a big mess in our cellar, see, with their feces, marking their territory as high as they could reach. Also, their live mealworms all got away and infested our cellar.
I thought about it. I released those two into the woods the day Gamma was born.
Meaning this would give her an experience her big sister had enjoyed. So, yeah, sure, okay, why not.
They bought hedgehog supplies yesterday and picked it up at a friend’s house and brought it home.
It was curled up, motionless, in a shoebox full of maple eaves on our kitchen floor when I got home.
There had been some disagreement on the hedgehog’s name, and even on whether our friends wanted to give it up after all. They had kind of fallen in love with it. It was very cute and my wife’s friend’s husband had prepared a large box for it and written “Hamster!” on the side of the box, which I guess he thought was a cute name for a tiny hedgehog.
Did you know that there seem to be two types of hedgehogs (at least)? Some with black faces, and some with lighter-colored faces?
This one had a black face, so Gamma had renamed it Blacky.
She had to think about it for some time; something with Black, she knew that.
She finally settled on Blacky.
We cut some newspapers into strips, Gamma and I, and fluffed them in the big box and carried animal and box upstairs. It has to be light and warm, Gamma said, the room where we stow Blacky. I finally convinced her that “light” meant during the day, and that it was okay to let it sleep in a dark room at night.
We put dishes of food and water in its box and left Blacky alone.
I know hedgehogs are supposed to be wild and curl up when threatened, but it sort of bothered me that not once did I see Blacky move.
And I looked close. I put on my reading glasses and sat there watching for the rise and fall of a tiny ribcage.
Hedgehogs should weigh over 500g if they want to hibernate outside. Under that, you’re allowed to help them survive the winter. Blacky looked like it weighed 150g at most. It looked under 2 months old.
Blacky is tired, I told Gamma.
When she got up this morning, she went straight to our office where Blacky was, and checked on him.
According to Gamma, Blacky was breathing.
We might have to take Blacky to the vet, I told her. Blacky’s not looking that great. Now let’s go have breakfast and let him rest.
After breakfast she was straight back up watching him again. I dunno. She had a big German test at school today, I didn’t want to upset her with my suspicions. In fact, I was under direct orders from Alpha not to upset her with my suspicions. Like, the fact that Blacky didn’t move at all during the night and was still in the same position doesn’t bode well.
We’ll check him over this afternoon, or this evening, when I get home, I told her. Maybe he’ll have to go back to the vet, I said. Maybe he’s already hibernating.
She is so happy to be saving a little hedgehog, you see.

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Any advice for me before I leave on my trip with school?
Why you asking me?
Everyone else has been giving me advice, I just wanted to give you a chance, too.
“Have fun,” I guess.
Dad, we’re going to Auschwitz.

Alpha and I went hiking with friends in Southern Styria last weekend, along the border with Slovenia, and bought a few cases of wine. The weather was a bit foggy the first day, and clear the second. Perfect, in other words.

According to Albert Einstein, time passes faster when you spend the day watching theremin videos on youtube and google video.

Baby, baby, baby. Something has displaced

1. A carbon-fiber cello case

2. A carbon-fiber cello bow
3. A carbon-fiber cello

from the first position on my wish list. This is a Theremincello (more here, which is where I grabbed the image from). Leon Termen, the inventor of the theremin, was a cellist before he was a physicist. He invented this instrument, some think because it would be easier for him to play. He played it for a while I guess. Some were produced. This would be back in the 1930s or thereabouts. They even produced a lower, bass version, but it was abandoned because the subsonic sounds (or whatever you call them) it produced made bass players nauseous.
There are not many of these around anymore. I may look into having someone help me build one. Then I could finally play in a band. Imagine. Looks like a cello (sort of) and it’s a theremin. Meaning: you can’t play it badly!

• Remoras are brown, belong to the family Echineidae and can grow to three feet long.

• It’s famous dorsal fin is an oval sucker organ with which it can hitch rides on larger fish, and sometimes boats. It increases the suction by sliding backwards.
• Depending on their favored hosts, remoras are also sometimes known as sharksuckers or whalesuckers, although not to their face, as this is a good way to piss them off.
• Parasite is also a good expression to avoid around remoras. It’s not parasitism, it’s a niche. And it’s not commensalism or phoresy it’s mutualism, or, if the remora is not prone to cleaning bacteria from the host, it’s who cares about a stupid shark anyway
• Remoras sometimes have bad, bad weeks where they totally can’t focus and are totally miserable; but they don’t despair, because they know from experience that eventually something will click, they will write something, for example, or it will write itself, and the clouds will clear and, man, what a nice fall morning!
• Remoras have a great capacity for more or less stoic suffering, but they can also be so full of love they could burst.
• If you’re ever at a cocktail party with a remora and are at a loss for something to talk about, ask it what it does for a living (if it is a nuclear scientist or something along those lines) or about its kids, and all you’ll have to say for the next couple of hours is, “is that so?” and “uh-huh, gee.”
• Marine biologists argue over whether a remora’s primary diet is fragments dropped by the host, or the host’s feces, which is why marine biologists are rarely invited back to dinner parties.
• Remoras lack a swim bladder.
• A remora’s favorite season is autumn, at least if you ask it in autumn.