Memory, or the Failure Thereof

I recently thought that I should add some photos from the time I spent at the Universally of Alabama to introduce some of my fellow music students and faculty. The problem is that I don’t remember how to do this. I found a way to place photos on a page back in May 2014, but only after many trials.  So I can’t remember just how I finally succeeded. So, until I get over my ‘fear of failure’, anyone interested in a few photos from 67 years ago can find them on my U of A page on my website:  http://henrywarner.info

Chocolate & Sound

Today I’m gorging on loot from my 91st Birthday last week. Chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, dark chocolate almonds, milk chocolate walnuts and a box of Peterbrooke Chocolates … along with a book, Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee. Parts I & II were very pleasant and exposed again the enormous talent of the author [who is 2 years younger than I]. I expect Part III will begin the saga to match the trial and after effects in To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Up until today I have managed to reduce my weight by 17 lbs in the 2 months that I have been off of prednisone, so my nemesis, chocolate, will make this crusade a little more difficult. But … walking without carrying 2 ten pound bags of flour is noticeably easier and thereby provides incentive to continue the quest for weight loss.

My deafness deepens. I can hear noise better with my 2 hearing aids, but the strange changes in the way my ears [and brain] analyze sound have resulted in a condition now where all the notes in the octave below Middle C sound pretty much the same … thus, harmony is gone! Harmony … the noblest part of music!

Yellow Flies

This morning on my walk, I was greeted by a yellow fly. Remembering a long ago observation I made on a yellow fly in my computer room, I later did a brief Google search to see if anyone had made the same discovery as I.  My finding was that the yellow fly ignored me and was completely captivated by a very warm transformer which powered my soldering iron. So it would seem that they search for prey using infrared sensors.  This is evidenced further by observations of other researchers that the fly operates mainly within shady areas and avoids direct sunlight … which would saturate its sensors.

This suggests that a good yellow fly trap would be a warm item surrounded by fly paper.

Artists, musicians, and poets

How does the artist show the passage of time, show the effect of pain, of love, of loss, of lust, of hunger, and even peaceful oblivion? The Scream? Jagged splashes of vivid pigments fading into oxy blurs. The composer has a direct link to his listener through the learned connections between melody, harmonic progressions, rhythmic and tempo patterns to lead his listener through time from chaotic crashes to the serene high-pedal note of muted strings into oblivion. The poet, however, can best both the artist and the composer by skillfully combining words of the reader’s language into patterns that immediately convey the feelings and emotions of the poet. A fortunate few can combine all these talents!

The Mocking Bird

I can still hear the mocking bird. [Meniere’s removes the low pitched sounds, age the high.]

Each morning that I summon the courage to walk slowly up that slight rise in the road to where it crests at Star View Lane, I can hear the mocking bird with my tired right ear.  One can easily recognize other birds by their limited repertoire of songs, and while the mocking bird may occasionally repeat a phrase it finds interesting, it soon tires and begins a never ending, rarely repeating song … full of melodic and rhythmic invention unmatched by the best human composers.  It is then we know it is a mocking bird.  We must resort to violins, trumpets and tympani to enhance our performances!  But … to us the most evocative sound is still the human voice …. singing of life, love, lust or loss … 

Watch out for scare %ages!

According to a new study, regular use of benzodiazepines -- which include medications such as Valium (diazepam), Ativan (lorazepam), Xanax (alprazolam) and Klonopin (clonazepam) -- is associated with as much as a 51 percent increased risk for Alzheimer's among people who use the drugs for three months or more.

This is not the first study to suggest a link between use of this class of drugs and increased dementia risk. Another study published in 2012, also in BMJ, followed 1,063 elderly individuals for 20 years. The researchers in that study determined that the risk for dementia was 4.8 per 100 person-years among people who took benzodiazepines versus 3.2 per 100 person-years in the group not taking the drugs.

Here, if one increases the number 3.2 by 50% (1.6), they get 4.8.   However, the real increase is just 1.6 (100 person-years), 1.6%.

Another study reported on by a reviewer said that an increase of 1 person in 10,000 to 3 persons per 10,000 was a threefold increase, or 300%! Wrong! The correct increase is 0.0001 to 0.0003, or an increase of 0.02%.

Prednisone tapering.

None of the on-line articles about prednisone tapering list narcolepsy-like experiences. However, there are many testimonials by people suffering these effects, to which I can also testify. I also wonder about the cause. Could it be that as the body’s hormonal system tries to restart, the gland that normally creates melatonin kicks into high gear ahead of the rest?