Klarinet Archive - Posting 000232.txt from 2011/01

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Food for thought
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:52:58 -0500


Peter Gentry wrote,
>I would imagine that all references to Mozart
>as helping plants grow or students struggle
>with mathematics are unsupported by reliable
>observation. They come under the general heading
> things "they say that" or "it has been proved
>that" without any foundation whatsoever.

Testing the plant growth theories with acceptable scientific method would
require laboratory conditions to reduce the many variables such as genetic
makeup of the plant stock (would have to be cuttings from one parent plant,
and even then you'd get arguments if some but not all of the cuttings came
from the side that got morning sun...), exact soil composition, time of
year, time of day, humidity, air temperature, soil temperature, amount of
water to the roots, amount and type of fertilizer, length of time between
watering and fertilization, and so forth. Would plants like baroque better
when slightly dry at 11 a.m. and mumblecore better at 11 p.m. after
overwatering?

Lelia Loban
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/Lelia_Loban

------------------------------

Message: 0.5
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:53:45 -0800 (EST)
From: Jane Feline <janefeline@-----.org>
Subject: [kl] Food for thought
To: klarinet@-----.com
Message-ID: <666.666.666devilcatfromhell>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-sss666

Jane Feline here, borrowing Lelia's brain for a moment. I'm sure she won't
mind. She doesn't seem to be using much of it. Now then, before I was born
last year, Professor Shadow Cat assured me, in the mandatory Afterlife
Kitten Classes, that the clarinet (she called it a screech-stick) was a tool
of the Vacuum Cleaner Demon and that it would attract rats and mice. When
the humans from this house went to the Animal Shelter, aka the Jail, where I
was an inmate, I flirted with them shamelessly, not in spite of Prof. Shadow
Cat's warning but because of it. I had hoped the clarinet would give me
access to large numbers of delicious rodents.

Sure enough, these humans she'd warned me against brought me home, but the
fact is, Lelia practices her clarinet frequently and yet I haven't seen even
one rat or mouse in here! How disappointing! I don't miss having to dodge
the dogs and the coyotes and the foxes, don't get me wrong - I much prefer
living in a house with human servants to do my bidding - But I've missed the
yummy wild rodents since my days of wandering around on a construction site.
I'd like to chase and kill a fat rat now and then, or some of those tasty
little cockroaches and grubs and things.

Prof. Shadow Cat disdained eating what she called vermin, but I don't see
why. She must've been a food snob in the breathing world. I'm more of a
gourmet, meaning I'll eat anything that doesn't eat me first. I don't know
why the humans wouldn't let me sample the sawdust or metal shavings during
the recent construction. The metal shavings in particular looked as if
they'd make a lovely garnish. But I digress.

Screech-stick, my tail-fur - the clarinet yowls beautifully and I like to
stick my head right up the bell. It hasn't hurt me a bit and as for it
inviting the Garbage Truck Devil into the house: nonsense. The Garbage
Truck couldn't fit through any of the doors. And the Vacuum Cleaner is no
demon at all. It's a mechanical object, a tool, an inanimate object, and
when connected to an electrical socket, it makes the most thrilling rattle
and howl and rumble! I like to ride around on it. But none of these tools
attracts rats or mice, and that's a fact. Ms. Shadow Cat pretended to be
such an authority, and yet as far as I can make out, she had no empirical
evidence for any of these assertions. Either she'd succumbed to rumor and
superstition or she was a pedantic old liar! I meowed so in plain Feline
last year and got myself expelled without completing the class, and a good
thing, too - what a bore those classes were. So as far as I'm concerned,
anything anybody says about clarinets might be rubbish.

Prrrrt!
Jane Feline

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