@Robusto well it wasn't stored in the silo, it was stored in the thingie that's been replaced with the crater.

And before that, originally, it came from Russia by the looks of it. At least the ship it was on belonged to some nouveau riche from Russia, living in Cyprus.

The ship was originally on its way to I forget where. But it started leaking fuel or some such, or otherwise disintegrating. So they steered for the next harbor, which happened to be this one.

They've made Jonathan Swann a meme

And then they couldn't reach the owner of the ship. He stopped paying the crew, and couldn't be reached.

So the crew basically sat there for years and nobody knew what to do with them. One Russian, three Ukrainians.

They got released like six years later or something. After lots of politicians tugging back and forth every which way for all kinds of reasons.

Or was it just Swan?

Meanwhile the load of ammonium nitrate was stored in that warehouse, made of sticks and bubble gum, and with no air conditioning in the blazing sun.

So for like twelve years there'd be alarming reports to at least move it somewhere else. But everyone ignored those of course.

Well they won't need to write a thirteenth report now.

Like, as I said, it's the same thing that destroyed Texas City. The same thing Timothy McVeigh used. And he only used like half a gallon of it, and didn't use the pure thing but diluted it with just as much gasoline.

In Germany in 1927 BASF had like 500 tons of it explode. Also killing a couple thousand I believe.

We've known forever it was dangerous. Heck, I learned that in chemistry class in school.

In Germany it's actually not classified as a chemical, it's classified as a WMD.

You have to move or store it anywhere, weapon laws apply.

And you can't even store or move the pure substance. I think you have to mix it with at least 50% chalk or other suppressant.

@RegDwigнt He used 5,000 gallons of it.

That's the kind of shit we're talking about.

@Robusto I see.

Well, the point still applies.

He killed like what, 132 people? 182?

Yeah, it wasn't 2,700 tons.

I'm bad with numbers.

@Robusto Exactly.

A one-kiloton explosion is not a squirrel fart.

Oh and at any rate, he did have a mixture of 50%/50% gasoline and ammonium nitrate.

This here had 99.9% nitrate, and 0.1% warehouse made of spunk.

Wikipedia says McVeigh had 7,000 pounds. Whatever.

I have no idea how that translates to gallons. I don't know the molar weight by heart. And I also don't know how much a gallon is.

A gallon is 3.9 liters.

Yeah I would have guessed either 3.5 or 5.3.

As I'm reminded whenever I take a piss in a public restroom.

Now you do have to explain that.

Wut.

The urinals always say "Low flow 1 gallon (3.9 liter) flush."

That's hilarious.

I've never been talked at by a urinal in my life.

Sometimes they will paint a fly on it.

It's written, not spoken.

@RegDwigнt That's to keep you from pissing on the floor.

So anyway. Now all the governments of the world are rushing to help, and will be spending billions to help. When they could have achieved the same result for a fraction of the cost simply by buying the chemical in any of the twelve years prior.

The owner disowned it. And anyone can use it as fertilizer.

And it's not like hindsight 20/20. We had foresight 20/20 here.

Imagine how many more ticking time bombs there are girdling this world.

You have to.

And, like, most of them you can't even just take and spray over a corn field.

If this kind of shit can happen to a valuable consumable that everyone uses all the time, what can be said for all the stuff that can't.

Lebanon had it real tough for the last ten-twenty years like. Wars and terror and unemployment and lack of perspective even in peaceful times. The economy is in the shitter. And now Covid.

They could've used every cent they could get. But instead of turning this asset into a profit, however minor, they've turned it into a terrible loss.

I've heard the closest hospital was like half a mile away from the scene. Full to the brim with corona patients and lots of visitors on that day. The explosion killed at least four nurses there.

Who dealt this mess anyway?

In one interview some blood-covered person on the street said, "I feel sorry for our people. But I don't feel sorry for our politicians. They deserve this."

It was quite chilling. Just hear them say that.

Now imagine actually being in their place. Having to arrive in their place. Having to come to that conclusion.

I've come to that conclusion about politicians quite some time ago. Maybe 50 years?

@Robusto and then it got worse.

Ayup.

Ramses II is dead, my love.

So you're familiar with The Fugs.

No I'm just pretending as per usual.

It's the next song on the list on the right.

Well.

They do sound like something I've heard many times before.

Probably in a Coen movie.

Oh we're yodeling now. Good, good.

@Robusto I'm not done with the yodeling.

A'ight.

> My friends always looked at me weird when I would break out in this song every now and then over the last 40 years.

I wouldn't know why. I do that all the time. After 40 years, your friends get used to it.

@Robusto those shoes look mighty uncomfortable.

Yeah, but then so is playing the violin.

Also, I've been to Paris at Christmas. It's nowhere as sunny or warm. He got lucky.

I froze all my body parts off. All of them. Over the course of just one night of six hours.

It is the coldest thing that I remember. And I remember going to school as a kid at -24 degrees Celcius outside. They'd only close down schools at below -25.

Heh, she plays a Picardy third at the end of the Chaconne in the Busoni transcription.

I'm only just starting with that bit.

They're still counting the Steinways.

Yeah, I should have such problems.

I don't know why Bach would leave out the third. Except as a prank.

You know it ends in major.

"Which Steinway Model D do I feel like playing today?"

I have that problem like twice a year when visiting the piano technician.

I should visit more often.

One time they did have that one Steinway there that I fell in love with. It knew exactly what I wanted. It was my instrument. The only one in the world. And it was 3/4 size. Would've fit this room here, and cost less, too.

A mere 100k instead of 150.

Alas.

Yeah.

They had a number of different grands in the basement of Orchestra Hall in Chicago. I used to noodle around when I was alone there. One time I was doing that and a man came in and asked if I minded if he practiced in there? I didn't know him, but I immediately surrendered the room. He turned out to be Alfred Brendel.

They also had the big Steinway from the main concert hall here. Decommissioned and for sale. Still in the most excellent of shapes even when it came in, and then fully refurbished. And God only knows who all had played it before.

I didn't have a 150k on me that day.

At least now with the choir I get admittance to all kinds of places and get to play all kinds of instruments when nobody's watching. Or indeed when everyone is.

All these people with golden flutes. I should be jealous.

Played a harpsichord for the first time in my life. Last October.

Saw a whole bunch of violas da gamba up close. And then sang masses to their sound. Baroque flutes. Oboi. Trumpets.

"I forgot to mention that my amazing wife is also a world-class flutist."

Oh poor you.

Totally forgot.

The art of the humble brag.

Inorite.

You apparently didn't notice my own humble brag involving Alfred Brendel.

And then the other guy commenting, "Yeah, nice one".

Why thank you.

@Robusto I did.

I thought the story would continue.

I'm not getting kicked out by no Brendels!

Nope. That was the end of it. At least until I saw the poster with his picture on it announcing the concert he was to play that evening.

I was like "holy fuck."

Six degrees of separation.

You're just three away from Vengerov even just through myself. And probably two through someone else. So why not just one away from Brendel.

Yeah. Also Stephen Sondheim. And Bill Murray.

And I am now just one away not just from Roger Ebert but from Brendel.

Oh yeah, Ebert as well.

Bring them on, I want to be famous.

Ich werde mich in ihrem Scheine sonnen.

And, uh, since we're talking movies, Caleb Deschanel and his daughter, Zoey.

Fuck me. Is she single?

Cuz I don't mind if I do.

She was like 8 when I met her.

I didn't think anything of it until I saw her 15 years later on screen.

@Robusto Oh I think you may have mentioned that before.

Indeed.

Only about 8 years ago.

Well whatever. I'll also take Emily Blunt or Rosamund Pike.

Oh so we're in Köthen now. Bring on the secular music.

We have to visit the mausoleum first.

It's amazing Bach would dedicate a full six years to that prince.

We wouldn't have the Brandenburg Concertos.

Some people will do anything for money.

Yeah. Such a despicable move.

I think I'll watch the Vivaldi one next. Also 50 minutes and I know absolutely nothing about him. Even though I know so much of his music by heart.

And I do mean by heart. There's those three concerti that I don't know the names of or anything. Heard them a million times as a teen. Have been trying to find them again ever since. No such luck.

He wrote like a thousand.

So all I have is the music stuck in my heart. And just one name to go with it, Vivaldi.

I seriously don't plan on dying until I've found those pieces again.

What a waste of a life that'd be.

Oh look he's using Finale on his Mac lol. Well at least it's no Dorico.

Must be nice to be able to globe-trot to solve musical puzzles with your world-class flutist wife.

Oh, I forgot to mention, her flute is made of gold.

Yes.

You solved the puzzle of my comment.

The harpsichord really is a weird thing to the touch.

Yes. It's like playing where every note breaks an eggshell.

It's like they went and invented a touch screen three hundred years too early.

Gah, my fair lady, but never this much rubato in the prelude in C. Ich bitte Sie!

If there's anywhere you could get away with 18th-century drag it's Paris.

It's like Mr Yoo himself half an hour ago. "Oh so this piece is based on a gigue. And a gigue is a dance! At last I know how to play this piece properly!" proceeds to play out of time.

I'm not dancing to that, man.

(Also, I refuse to believe you didn't know about gigues before. But yeah, that's for the TV audience of course.)

Also, show us the fucking dance. Don't just cut away at every step to another view.

Oh well. The rules of public broadcast. It's hard to solve a riddle that does not exist. So you pretend it does.

Nice to hear Nadia Boulanger mentioned.

She's a baker, right?

Haha.

Why didn't I think of that before.

Out of context.

Ma baker. Put your hands in the air.

And I just learned that air is a dance! At last I know how to sing the song properly!

No way the wife's name is disclosed to be Alice while she's wearing that dress.

Who wrote this script, Tenniel?

Alice Pleasance Liddell?

Well yes.

With the hard greaves, too.

"Would you mind if I played Bach's Bourrée?"

What a silly question to ask at any time at all.

Nice theorbo tho.

I need one and I need it now.

@RegDwigнt "No. Get the fuck outta here."

Inorite!

So wait, they just stopped filming there and then or what.

How anticlimactic.

Well then, Vivaldi here I come.

Yeah, I'll have to pick up Vivaldi after dinner.

Buon appetito.

Gotta shop for it first, then cook it, and only then is it time for the buon appetito.

You really don't understand how slacking works at all.

Yes, I fail at failing.

#feelyou I always miss the podium in every mediocrity contest.

Ah, we're talking about music? I like music.

I just recently first listened to the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Or Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata. Whatever the correct punctuation and capitalization is.

And that's certainly a fun one.

@TerranSwett These two would talk about music for about two hours then suddenly stop for fuel

And then I try to join in, and keep talking, oblivious to the fact that the conversation has already ended.

@TerranSwett It never really ends, they'd respond to you tomorrow or a week later but they definitely will

So if you're making small talk it won't work but say something polarizing like Bach sucks and see how the conversation starts itself

Here's a chord progression: B - D - E - G. What is that? Let's see, that's I - bIII - IV - bVI, right?

I don't know the second thing about music

B major, that's a pretty nasty key. Everything looks nicer if you bump it up a minor second: C - Eb - F - Ab.

I know a lot about music, but none of the right stuff.

I'm just a consumer. And not a big fan of vocal music

I don't understand the lyrics often with all the instruments playing, and that's only for the good songs.

Yeah, I'm generally not a fan of anything with singing in it.

Also, if I hear music on the radio, I automatically don't like it.

Yeah it's often a guy or a gal being free from the world and celebrating being a jackass or similar? Haha

Or M&M proving how fast he can rap

A lot of it is all the same.

Song A: "I love you"

Song B: "I love you in a slightly different manner"

Song C: "I love you in a way which is pretty much halfway in between Song A and Song B"

Song C: "Why you so mean"

D: "I'm sick of world, I wanna be free"

E: "I'm sick of you, I wanna be free"

Song D: "I love you in a way which is significantly different from Songs A, B and C, but which is probably closer to Song A than to Song B if I had to describe it that way"

Anyway, people often ask me what kind of music I like.

Hmm, we should come up with a scientific hypothesis for this

I have no idea how to answer that question.

Me neither. Are you the evil clone or am I?

There's no difference, there is only evil.

That's F

Evil, and questionable pictures of cars.

Hmm, you're tingling my imagination

In a manner reminiscent of Chuck Tingle?

Who

I immediately regret Googling that name

Welp

For posterity, Chuck Tingle is an author of... specialty romance titles.

I'd remember those titles but I closed the tab too soon.

You have polluted my search history forever. You happy?

I'm starting to think you're the evil clone

I guess I am the evil clone after all.

Just you watch. I have planted a seed within you. A couple of years from now, you'll be a rabid fan.

That's just a Chinese scam

Fair.

And that's physically impossible because I don't have parts that rotate

Not that fast anyway

Okie dokie, time for me to locate the part of the room that has a bed

Where the heck was I, anyway?

G'night

All right, good night.

Right, I was thinking about how to describe what kind of music I like.

@TerranSwett questionable pictures of cars.

I'd check the pics tomorrow, I promise

If you regretted looking up Chuck Tingle, you'd definitely regret looking up the pictures I'm referring to.

So. The music I like.

I like video game music and music that sounds similar to video game music.

I don't mean chiptune music. If the phrase "video game music" makes you think of GameBoys, you're getting the wrong idea.

I think the London Philharmonic put out a couple of albums of the "greatest video game music". That's the sort of thing I mean.

I also like, say, Fox Capture Plan. They've put out a lot of great music. If I had to describe their music, I'd say it's soundtrack-style Asian math rock jazz fusion.