Serendipity Strikes Again

Which Makes A Pleasant Change -
From it being the Coincidence Hydra with it's teeth in my nethers -
     Dog Buns!  From my position here at the window in The Incredibly Comfy Chair, I can tell that's TWO 409 buses gone by within a minute of each other: so much for "Better than every ten minutes", eh, First Bus?
     - sorry, where were we?
     Ah, yes: "Serendipity".  Not to be confused with "Serenity", which I personally found to be rather confusing as a film because I'd not seen any of "Firefly", and which I haven't re-watched since seeing the series.

Heh.  Potential clickbait ...

     Now, since I have my trusty Collins Concise to hand, I can inform you that "Serendipity" as a word did not exist until Horace Walpole invented it in the 18th Century.  It means to have the fortunate power of making discoveries by accident, and is in fact derived from a Persian folk-tale, "The Three Princes of Serendip".*
     There.  We have learned at least one new thing today.
     Oh, apparently "Serendipity" is also a 2001 film starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.  Haven't seen it.  Rom-com type of thing, so may never.
     Anyway, back to Mercury Rev, who - no, I'm getting ahead of myself there, first we have to go to -
     Saugerties!

Sugerties' night-life in full swing

     This is another of those words that bubble up from my subconscious every so often, in this case whilst traversing the Upper Mall of the Arndale Centre en route to the Dark Tower.
     Saugerties is a small town in the Ulster County of New York State.  About the only thing you could call it famous for is that The Band used a house there whilst recording in 1967, dubbed "Big Pink", which is where the title of their debut album "Music From Big Pink" comes from, although they didn't actually record it there.
     Oh, and it has a lighthouse.
     And, most pertinently, a huge 'environmental sculpture' dubbed "Opus 40" by it's creator, Harvey Fite.  It covers over 6 acres in a former bluestone quarry.  Art?

Opus 40 in stone

     Once I discovered this, that Mercury Rev connection sprang to mind.  Their seminal "Deserter Songs" (terrifyingly now over 20 years old) contains a song titled "Opus 40", with the following line:

              Stuck on the rocks inside opus 40 stoned

     I'm sure that reference to "stoned" is merely about the bluestone nature of the artwork, as BOOJUM! could never condone illegal things.  Well, I begin to appreciate what they were hinting at, though the rest of the lyrics make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  We may come back to them.
     Well, Steve (my subconscious), thank you for providing the means with which to better inform myself about song lyrics.

That lighthouse I mentioned

     Time, one feels, to pad silently downstairs and put the oven on, prefatory to lunch.  Don't go away, I'll be right back -

"Martin Chuzzlewit" By Charles Dickens
Finally, I have finished it!  Not bad going, considering I left off reading it probably at this time last year, having got no more than 139 pages into it, out of 919 (earlier statements of 915 being a little short of the mark).
     Well, I feel one reason for it being so long was the method Ol' Chas used for publication: done monthly in the papers of the time.  Thus, if he felt like padding it out, he could, and did - in one scene it takes five pages for Sarah Gamp to say anything of consequence.

|Mrs. Gamp, in drink.
(When was she not!)

     Okay, I warn you that there are SPOILERS that follow, which is a sign of how considerate I am, given it was published 180 years ago.
     All comes right in the end, in case you were worried.  Martin Junior is reconciled with Martin Senior, and gets to marry Mary.  John Westlock, having fallen heavily (or, as Ol' Chas would have put it, "pierced many a time by Cupid's darts" or something)**, marries Ruth Pinch.  Montague Tigg has been horribly murdered by Jonas Chuzzlewit, who commits suicide when discovered.  The odious Pecksniff had been completely swindled by Tigg's fraudulent company, and ends up a dishevelled, penniless drunkard, reduced to begging for his income.
     There is more, but I'll spare you the details.  Suffice it to say that I feel proud of myself for finishing it.

A post-pummelling prostrate Pecksniff

     And now for another Dickens brick-sized volume, "Nicholas Nickleby"!***

From Out Of The Deeps
No!  Nothing to do with the South Canadian edition of John Wyndham's magnum opus (do you see what I did there?) "The Kraken Wakes".  I refer - obviously! - to the volcanic island Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai, which I believe we mentioned last year.  Art?

Thus

     The island has recently been checked over by scientists, including some from NASA.  Yes, I wondered at that, too: it seems they are looking into insights that this island will give them into Martian terrain.
     The new island is, again obviously, the peak of a submarine volcano, and is unusual in that it has persisted over time.  Islands like this are not unusual, but they tend to erode away very quickly and have short lifetimes (I may come back to this later as I've got stuff in the oven, intend to walk into Royton, need to walk Edna and tackle that jigsaw; competition for my time, you see).

Aerial shot

     The nature of the volcanic ash that constitues HTHH is one reason it's survived this long; it formed a far more resistant substrate than normal.  Still, those scientists say it's still eroding, and faster than expected, so it may not be with us for more than a decade, instead of the 30+ anticipated.  You can see how one side of the caldera has gone, which leaves it more vulnerable to wave and tidal action.


     And now for my lunch!


*  Those wacky Persians, eh?  Although nowadays, as the Iranians, they are TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, which is competition I can well do without.
**  You see?  I can pad things out, too.
***  932 pages loooooong, egad!