Hybrid Vigor

By Ben |

The following lyrics were written to be background music (by imaginary band Mendelion Seeds) for my 1992 novella "First Person." They were meant to be a synthesis of "Your Wildest Dreams" by the Moody Blues, "Portrait of the Lady as a Young Artist" by Sea Train, and "Perfect Lover" by Kansas. I intentionally chose a very tricky rhyme scheme (ABCBDDDEBE) and rhythm (trochaic for the first four lines of each stanza alternating 8 and 6 feet, then anapestic quadrameter for the rest), and I found the structure helped.

The Debator

By Ben |

In 1993 I was a junior in high school, studying The Canterbury Tales. We were given an assignment to write a Chaucerian sonnet from the point of view of an elevator operator whose elevator gets stuck between floors while a group of high school students is on a field trip. I chose to write about a debate student, and I had a specific senior in mind. I chose to spell debater with an -or because I felt that made it seem more a part of his identity.

Belarusian Chocolate

By Ben |

Sometime around the turn of the century, my parents and I met up at my sister's house in Pittsburgh for Christmas. 'Becca lives in Squirrel Hill, a very ethnically diverse neighborhood, and just a block from her house I found a Belarusian import store. I was unfamiliar with Belarusian imports, so I took my time looking at them and trying to identify whether the customers were speaking with the proprietor in Russian or some other language. It sounded close enough that I thought I could put my college Russian to use.

Roadside Bottles

By Ben |

When I was a teenager, for whatever reason one of my favorite summertime activities was to go out on the country roads east of Bartlesville and pick up recyclables. I called it "canpicking."  I would generally do this on a bicycle, and usually alone, but sometimes I brought friends. We'd hang bulging bags of cans and bottles from the handlebars, and if we crushed the cans tightly enough, we could sell enough at the recycling center in Dewey to afford a can of pop for the return trip. (We rarely brought any water with us, even in the peak of summer.)

Rainbow Connection

By Ben |

Music & lyrics by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. Autoharp arrangement by Ben Stallings.

Note: The final verse of this song is supposed to be a half-step higher than the first two. However, the only major keys my autoharp has that are half a step apart are E and F, and I don't have all the necessary chords to play it in E. So what I have notated instead is F to G, going up a whole step on the last note of the bridge.

The hole-in-the-wall bike shop

By Ben |

When I worked for the Friends of MPL, I rode the bus most of the time. Bicycling through downtown was always a little nerve-wracking, and although I had a pass to park in the employee bike parking complete with locker room and shower, in the library's temporary location that was down in a sub-basement of the heavily fortified former Federal Reserve building. Biking down the steep ramp through the giant motorized blast-resistant doors (4" solid steel!

Graph of X to the X

By Gordon Stallings |
3-D print of X to the X

This shape represents the mathematical function y = x raised to the x power, where x is a real number but y is complex.

The model was printed on the Dimension 3-dimensional printer.

For further information about this shape, continue reading below.