history


27
Jun 25

Across from the Matterhorn

We walked from our hotel through Zermatt, 5,310 feet elevation. We boarded a train to go up. Up to the Gornergrat ridge, which sits 10,285 feet above sea level. There are two stops, and then you’re there, at the top of the world, it seems like, except for what you can see opposite.

It ain’t bad.

The high mark, of course, is the iconic Matterhorn summit, just over there.

Mountains, being great skewers of time and space and distance, are always misleading. The Matterhorn is actually six miles from where we are standing.

Here’s a broader view of the view. This is a panoramic shot of sorts, so you know what to do.

(Click to embiggen.)

And here’s a slightly better closeup. Doesn’t look like anyone is climbing it today. At least on this side.

Tomorrow, Europe’s highest open-air theater (really, a flat spot with a screen and several rows of chairs, which we passed on the way up) is opening for the season and they are showing “The Matterhorn Story,” a play that depicts the first ascent of the mountain, in 1865. It debuts tomorrow. We’ll be gone by then.

Where we were today was above the tree line. But there were a few things growing that high up.

Oddly, I didn’t have most of the same thin air effects I was complaining about on our visit to Jungfraujoch. I must have acclimated in the last 48 hours.

(I did not.)

Way up there is a humble little chapel, dedicated to St. Bernard — patron saint of the Alps, skiing, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking, and mountaineering, if you go in for that sort of thing.

I’m not Catholic, but I’d like to find out how a person who lived in the 11th century and canonized in the 17th century picks up snowboarding as something to protect. Snowboarding just dates back to 1965, after all.

Anyway, the altarpiece is carved wooden figures in a relief-style with alpine flowers above the altarpiece. The tabernacle is decorated with grapevines, the altar table is made of stone slabs with a cross.

There’s also a little hotel and restaurant and gift shop up there. A development waiting for other developments, unless it’s a one-night novelty, I’m sure. As a guest, your options are the views, the observatory, two short tourist experiences and going back down the mountain. One of the tourist things is a beautiful 10-minute movie that shows you the four seasons on the mountain. The other is a three-minute VR presentation of paragliding over the Matterhorn. We’ve seen people doing this all over, and made jokes with the in-laws about getting them in one of those rigs.

We got close.

I sat in one of those chairs, too. (Not pictured.) I joined the flight in-progress, so I went through it again, just to see everything. It was shot on a nice 270 degree camera, so you can see a great deal. Almost just like doing it! I was hoping my mother-in-law would stick her arms out and soar through the sky …

There’s also a nice display of a first-generation engine at the Gornergrat summit. (There are two others a bit further down, as well.) These are historic and legendary pieces of the Swiss railway system — albeit “reinterpreted” for their installment in 2023. The signs don’t tells us what was reinterpreted, but I’d like to think they looked exactly like this when they first took on their job of going up and down the mountain in 1898, when they opened this system. Today, it is the oldest, still-operational, electrical cogwheel in the world.

Even still, these engines had a shorter trek than their modern descendants. The original rail station was about 230 lower than today’s peak spot. Regular folks did the walk. Others, of means, were carried up in sedan chairs.

Hopefully they felt self-conscious about that.

Mark Twain said “Nowhere is there such a display of grandeur and beauty as can be seen from the Gornergrat summit,” but he got up there some other way. He wrote that in 1878, before this railway was completed, which wasn’t too long after the place started appearing in the travel guides (1856) and topographical maps (1862).

Cogwheel rails work on a rack and pinion system, which allows them to shorten the distance by mastering steep inclines. Static friction of the wheels provide the propulsion. The part in between the rails is the key, and in this case a setup like this handles inclines, the sign says, of 200 percent. Carl Roman Abt was the engineer that developed this setup, which has some clever ingenuity in design and reusability.

This is how it all connects together. It’s powered by a 275 volt three-phase current. TO save power, the engines act as generators when braking, so when it is descending, the engine is producing electricity. Recuperation allows that energy to be used on the next ascent. Today, three trains going downhill produce enough power for two trains heading up. (There are two trains an hour up here, too.) The rest of the power comes from Zermatt’s power grid.

If you look closely, you can see the teeth from the cogwheel system here. Since its earliest days, this has been an electrical system. The only steam engine that ran on these lines was the locomotive that helped in the construction. When it’s task was completed, they sold the thing to Spain.

Twelve photos, a history lesson and 900-plus words, so let’s call it here. In the next post, I’ll share some video from the Gornergrat summit. Don’t miss it.


19
Jun 25

It is dangerously hot

It is very hot. It was 91 degrees throughout the afternoon. We were outside. Conceding the sweat. Seeking out water where we could. (We could not find enough of either.) Trying to hide in the shade. Have you figured it out yet? Where we are? Here’s one last hint. This is the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie.

So, if you haven’t guessed, we are in Milan, Italy. (But only until tomorrow.)

We took a Tesla Uber to get there. The basilica, of course, not Milan. No way I’d stay in that car long enough for a real trip. What a stupid car on the inside. Just a blank interior and a giant distracting screen with a UI that looks like it came from a cheap Canadian dystopian sci-fi show.

Both the car and this church are places I hadn’t ever thought of experiencing — some things you just don’t ever contemplate. For the former, I was grateful we only went a short distance and not over water or that the driver didn’t use the self-drive murder mode in our short trip. For the latter, it just didn’t seem a place I’d ever get the chance to see. Never something I’d considered trying. Not a goal. It was not unobtainable, just never on the radar.

Sort of like pedestrians, to the famous Teslers sensors.

Outside the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, we were given tickets. Inside, we had to display our passports. Then we went through an air filtration system — or so they said. And then, in another room, there it was, The Last Supper.

Leonardo da Vinci painted it from 1495–1498, in the refectory of the Convent, using a tempera fresco technique as both an experiment and an expediency to logistics. It is a fast-drying style, permanent in the sense that it doesn’t allow for alterations, but temporary as it relates to time. (Two early copies of The Last Supper are known to exist, thought to have been done by Leonardo’s assistants. The copies have survived with a lot of their original detail. One is in Switzerland, the other in Belgium.)

Today’s venerable works were once just things on walls. The room has been used as a stable, a hospital (during WWI) and a dining hall. At one point, in 1652, they cut a door in that wall, and through da Vinci’s representation of Jesus’ feet, to create a direct path to the kitchen. Late in the 16th century, the painting was considered all but ruined. The first restoration was attempted in 1726. However that went, a few decades later a curtain was installed, meant to protect the painting. Instead, it trapped moisture, and whenever the curtain was pulled, it scratched the flaking paint. Because of the way da Vinci painted it, much of what we see today is not original.

So the filtration process is amusing. But there you are. You walk through that one glass door from the filtration room and suddenly you’re confronted with the work of a master.

There’s also a display for the visually impaired.

The mural has gone through a series of more successful restorations over the years. A man named Luigi Cavenaghi was an innovator of his time. He worked on it from 1903 to 1908. At the time, apparently, addressing external factors (like the room, or the building) was a revolutionary idea.

One of Cavenaghi’s students, the self described failed painter Mauro Pellicioli, updated the restorations after World War II. He, again, updates the methods used for work on the famed wall. (During the war it was covered in sandbags as a precaution.) Pellicioli would become one of Italy’s most important restorers. Some of the most famous works you can see have experienced his work.

Later, Pelliciloli’s student, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon was tasked with the most recent restoration. It was the 1980s by then, and the art of restoration had become a science. She removed older glazes, and did much of the work that we see today.

On the wall, opposite is a painting by Milan native Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, descendant from a family of painters. His depiction of the Crucifixion (1495) is his best known work.

This fresco is believed to have some figured painted by da Vinci, as well.

We left Renaissance Milan, taking a bus from the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie (which was constructed between 1465 and 1482). Here’s our parting view.

In retrospect, we could have taken those scooters.

We went over to La Scala, but the famed 18th century opera house wasn’t accepting tours. Odd, considering the many, many, tourists milling about. So we sat in the shade of the piaza until it was time for our tour of the Duomo di Milano.

The Milan Cathedral is beautiful, if you like the gothic renaissance style.

They started work here in 1386, and just finished the work in 1965. It supposedly seats 40,000. I wouldn’t know. The tour turned out to be a bust. We started on the roof, which was unimpressive. We came from the back left, across the front and down on the right side. When we got inside the cathedral told the tour, “Non oggi.” Not today. It seems there was an event scheduled for the afternoon, and our tour company can’t or didn’t check the cathedral’s event calendar.

What you can see from the back of one of the large parts of the church hinted that we missed a lot.

Someone else who was on the tour said he’d been on it before. He said we saw nothing compared to what we should have been able to see.

We’ll be getting a refund.

Took a cab back to the hotel. Cooled down in a restaurant that was conveniently located across the street. Settled in early, hoping that, this, day two, would be the end of the jet lag. Tomorrow, we are traveling by train.


11
Jun 25

If you’re hung up on wind chimes, Smiley Smile

It was coincidental timing that we saw Barenaked Ladies on Sunday. They were the headliner of the concert I’ve been touching on this week. And they, of course, did their modern version of Brian Wilson. Today, of course, came the news that the legendary musician Brian Wilson had died. It was not BNL’s best sound of the night, frankly. Then again, it’s not Ed Robertson’s song. (Every time I see them I think, Maybe this will be the night Steven Page strolls out from stage left … )

BNL is still a fine band, and they put on a nice show, that one is just off a bit. The live shows were always better with Page, but you understand why they parted ways in 2009. Anyway, here’s Page fronting Brian Wilson for BNL.

As a gag, Brian Wilson covered BNL’s song about Brian Wilson.

Some years back, Wilson talked about a song, and a sound, to which he aspired:

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys estimates that he’s heard “Be My Baby,” by the Ronettes, more than 1,000 times. The very first listen, 50 years ago this month, still haunts him.

“I was driving and I had to pull over to the side of the road — it blew my mind,” Mr. Wilson said, repeating a story that has become something of a legend. “It was a shock.” Just 21 and already frustrated with his band’s basic surf music, he bought the single and set about deconstructing its arrangement and production.

“I started analyzing all the guitars, pianos, bass, drums and percussion,” he said by telephone. “Once I got all those learned, I knew how to produce records.”

Those records, many fans would contend, weren’t half bad, but if you ask Mr. Wilson, they still don’t stack up.

“I felt like I wanted to try to do something as good as that song and I never did,” he said. “I’ve stopped trying.” Mr. Wilson added: “It’s the greatest record ever produced. No one will ever top that one.”

You know it; it’s Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. It’s the Wrecking Crew, a wall of sound. It’s 18-year-old Veronica Bennett in those resonant Gold Star Studios.

My favorite will forever be.

Another bit of coincidental timing: as I write this, there’s an insurance commercial on using a brassy instrumental version of Good Vibrations as bed music. That song turns 60 next year.

Update: Some years back, BBC radio brought together a tremendous sequence of performances to celebrate another of Wilson’s brilliant pieces of art, and a classic song of our era.


28
May 25

Charming, unseasonable, rain

It’s rained all day. It started last night. A nice, light, mild rain. It was almost polite, this rain. And it’s continued like that. Presumably it fell overnight, politely. And it has done so all day today, a considerate guest, happy to entertain and also to leave the soil damp, and the grass greener.

It has also cooled everything considerably. We didn’t hit the 60s today … that’s company for ya. We’re due more rain the rest of the week, but it starts warming up a bit tomorrow. And, next week, summer arrives.

But, today, I’ve spent some of the time enjoying the view. And drawing up plans for the fall term. (I now have two weeks of one class mapped out in my mind!)

Also, I made a few more cufflinks today. I have all the materials here, but have been holding off for the summer time. I figure I’ll do a few at a time.

Also, I have a lot of cufflinks.

In a few minutes, I’m going to iron some pocket squares. (So, by Friday, I’ll be on to cleaning closets. I really need it to warm up, and/or to get my bike back on the road.) I have even more pocket squares.

But, first, let’s check in on the kitties, since they are the stars of the site’s most popular regular feature. It is pretty easy to see why. Phoebe is just posing it up on the stairs.

Poseidon has no time to pose, he’s too busy using his nose.

Yesterday afternoon, this was on the porch. Ordinarily we buy this at the store, but my lovely bride told me she found a great deal online. Then she told me the details and the prices were so low they must have been ~INSANE!~ Or something. That’s all great, but every one of those things is 42 pounds.

Someone had to carry those around the corner to the porch. I love saving money, and I’m happy when we buy in bulk. But, as I moved those bags in from the porch, and then through the hallway, laundry and into storage in the garage, I was offering silent apologies to the delivery person.

This weekend I finished Molly Manning‘s War of Words. She’s the law school professor and best selling author of three mid-century histories. I bought this one in 2023, and finally opened it on the Kindle on Friday night.

It is a well researched, and very breezy look at the efforts of giving reading materials to the citizen soldiers of World War II.

Perhaps the most important letter to the editor that Yank dared publish came in April 1944, when Corporal Rupert Trimmingham shared a story about a cross-country trip he took with eight other Black soldiers on army business. They traveled from their home base of Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana.

In Arizona, Fort Huachuca was a source of pride. As the Arizona Republic reported in 1942, the fort was “home of the splendid 93rd Infantry Division, [the] first all-colored division to be organized in World War II,” and “one learns in a hurry at Arizona’s Fort Huachuca” that “America’s colored citizens . . . make some of the nation’s finest and most efficient fighting troops.” Trimmingham, used to Arizona’s customs and attitude toward Black troops, was amazed by how differently he was treated by the Camp Claiborne community.

According to Trimmingham, after a one-night layover in Louisiana, he and his fellow soldiers discovered that “we could not purchase a cup of coffee at any of the lunchrooms” because, “as you know, Old Man Jim Crow rules.” Trimmingham continued:

The only place where we could be served was at the lunchroom at the railroad station but, of course, we had to go into the kitchen. But that’s not all; 11:30 A.M. about two dozen German prisoners of war, with two American guards, came to the station. They entered the lunchroom, sat at the tables, had their meals served, talked, smoked, in fact had quite a swell time. I stood on the outside looking on, and I could not help but ask myself these questions: Are these men sworn enemies of this country? Are they not taught to hate and destroy … all democratic governments? Are we not American soldiers, sworn to fight for and die if need be for this our country? Then why are they treated better than we are? Why are we pushed around like cattle? If we are fighting for the same thing, if we are going to die for our country, then why does the Government allow such things to go on?

And so Trimmingham closed his letter to Yank by asking a question that “each Negro soldier is asking. What is the Negro soldier fighting for?”

When Yank published Trimmingham’s story, a flood of letters poured into Yank’s mailbox. Nearly every message to Yank spoke to the indefensibility of treating enemy combatants with greater respect and courtesy than a fellow American. “Gentlemen, I am a Southern rebel,” a letter by Corporal Henry S. Wooten Jr., began. “But this incident makes me none the more proud of my Southern heritage!” Wooten continued:

Frankly, I think that this incident is a disgrace to a democratic nation such as ours is supposed to be. Are we fighting for such a thing as this? Certainly not. If this incident is democracy, I don’t want any part of it! … I wonder what the “Aryan supermen” think when they get a first-hand glimpse of our racial discrimination. Are we not waging a war, in part, for this fundamental of democracy? In closing, let me say that a lot of us, especially in the South, should cast the beam out of our own eyes before we try to do so in others, across the sea.

Hundreds of letters agreed with Wooten’s sentiments.

Sergeant Arthur Kaplan complimented Yank for printing Trimmingham’s letter and said, “It seems incredible that German prisoners of war should be afforded the amenities while our own men—in uniform and changing stations—are denied similar attention because of color … What sort of deal is this?”

“I’m not a Negro, but I’ve been around and know what the score is. I want to thank the YANK . . . and congratulate Cpl. Rupert Trimmingham,” wrote Private Gustave Santiago.

One missive, signed by an entire outfit, laid bare the hypocrisy of the army’s policy on racial segregation and the government’s claim that this was a war for freedom. The unit explained, “We are white soldiers in the Burma jungles, and there are many Negro outfits working with us. They are doing more than their part to win this war. We are proud of the colored men here,” they said, and “it is a disgrace that, while we are away from home doing our part to help win the war, some people back home are knocking down everything that we are fighting for.” Ironically, this letter remarked that soldiers from other Allied nations had marveled at the racial diversity of the United States Army and how all troops worked cohesively together. Were they masquerading a lie? It angered them to know that German soldiers were being treated better at home “than the soldier of our country, because of race.” The letter closed by stating, “Cpl. Trimmingham asked: What is the Negro fighting for? If this sort of thing continues, we the white soldiers will begin to wonder: What are we fighting for?”

Trimmingham’s letter provoked such outrage that it commanded the attention of the home front. The New Yorker published a fictionalized account of Trimmingham’s story in June 1944, which was reproduced repeatedly in the New Yorker’s books of “war stories” over the following decades. A dramatic skit about Trimmingham’s story was aired on national radio. And when Yank produced a volume of its best stories, Trimmingham and the letters responding to Trimmingham’s letter were included.

Months after his original letter was published, Trimmingham appeared in the pages of Yank again. “Allow me to thank you for publishing my letter,” he began. Every day brought a fresh batch of letters from fellow soldiers, many from “the Deep South,” who condemned the treatment he had received. “It gives me new hope to realize that there are doubtless thousands of whites who are willing to fight this Frankenstein that so many white people are keeping alive.” If white allies would “stand up, join with us, and help us prove to their white friends that we are worthy, I’m sure that we would bury race hate and unfair treatment,” Trimmingham said.

Here are Trimmingham’s letters, which are often held up as important sequence of events in the eventual integration of the United States military. As a soldier, Trimmingham served as an electrician in the Army Corps of Engineers. Born in Trinidad, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1925. After the war he went to work for Singer Sewing in Indiana and became naturalized citizen in 1950. He lived the last 30 years of his life in Michigan, where he died in 1985.

There’s a part of one chapter covering publications initially aimed at WACs. It seemed that two things were true, a lot of people resented WACs serving in a time of war. And a lot of male soldiers were reading women’s magazines.

Given male troops’ appetites for women’s periodicals, it was a sound conclusion that WACs would not be the only ones reading the magazines and newspapers that were being printed by and for them. And if more men read serious articles about the important war work the WACs were doing, the animosity most male soldiers felt for the WACs might dissipate.

And thus, in lieu of the Stars and Stripes, there was the Service Woman newspaper, which covered stories about women serving in the army, navy, marines, coast guard, army nurse corps, and navy nurse corps. Its coverage was comprehensive and showcased the importance of the work being done by women—from saving lives in combat zones to enduring long periods of captivity as prisoners of war. Those in the European theater replaced Yank with Overseas Woman. This magazine reported on WAC scientists, female doctors, and women who were test pilots for the Army Air Corps. Articles explored what work might be available to women after the war and how the war might change traditional gender stereotypes. Rather than read what men thought women should do, Overseas Woman was an empowering periodical that did not underestimate the intellect or ambition of its readers.

There were also smaller-scale newsletters for individual posts, like Fort Des Moines’ WAC News, which confronted the “malicious and untruthful reports about the Wacs.” One issue included an interview with a civilian correspondent in Algiers, who insisted that “one Wac was doing as much work as two or three men soldiers could do,” and that the correspondent was told by “General Eisenhower and various other officers … that the Wacs were so valuable to the American Army in North Africa that they wished they had ten times as many as were there.” WAC News also had some fun with the army’s double standards, reporting how WACs proudly hung photographs of “pin-up boys” in their bunks. And when the WAC News celebrated its second anniversary in print, Milton Caniff and Sergeant Sansone joined forces to create a congratulatory cartoon featuring their famous characters, Miss Lace and Wolf. Over six thousand copies of the paper were printed, and one thousand were mailed to posts across the world. If anything would lure male readers to this servicewomen’s newsletter, seeing their favorite cartoon characters emblazoned on the front cover was an ingenious ploy.

Here’s a bit more on Miss Lace, which was a big hit with service men, and more on The Wolf.

Another thing you get out of this book is some nice overviews of specific unit newspapers and newsletters. You’re only as good as your source material and in this Manning really proves her work. There were a few thousand publications for the people in uniform, most of them stateside and in Europe (because MacArthur was a thin-skinned egoist). So I looked up the newspaper for the 35th Division, which was where my great-grandfather served, in the 137th Infantry Regiment as a combat medic. I saw a few examples online, and it’s interesting to see how the paper evolves and improves as their circumstance changes. Here’s a rag they put out in December of 1944, just days before the Battle of the Bulge began.

That’s Sgt. Junior Spurrier, who, the next March, would receive the Medal of Honor for what he did in November 1943.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy at Achain, France, on 13 November 1944. At 2 p.m., Company G attacked the village of Achain from the east. S/Sgt. Spurrier armed with a BAR passed around the village and advanced alone. Attacking from the west, he immediately killed 3 Germans. From this time until dark, S/Sgt. Spurrier, using at different times his BAR and M1 rifle, American and German rocket launchers, a German automatic pistol, and hand grenades, continued his solitary attack against the enemy regardless of all types of small-arms and automatic-weapons fire. As a result of his heroic actions he killed an officer and 24 enlisted men and captured 2 officers and 2 enlisted men. His valor has shed fresh honor on the U.S. Armed Forces.

Spurrier lost a brother in the war, and had his share of struggles when he returned to civilian life. But there’s no getting around what he did when the push was on.

Manning, the book author, has it that there were 4,6000 unique newspapers created, produced and published by soldiers during and around the war. Some of them were made with great skill, and sometimes they were made on the backs of old reports, or with whatever resources they could scrounge together. (It was a war.) She didn’t have them all, of course, but imagine everything we could learn, big and small, if we had copies of all of those little publications. That’s what her book is trying to allude to, and it’s a good read of overlapping interests. And I’ve got another of her books on my Kindle, too. But, first, a funny memoir.


3
Apr 25

Talked on a panel today

In the midst of catching up with friends, I did speak on a policomm panel at SSCA today. The topic was the 2024 presidential election. I spoke a bit about about the campaign last fall.

Do you know that feeling where everyone at the table is a considerable expert, and most everyone else in the room is an expert, too, and someone looks at you and expects you to say something insightful? It was that feeling, for 75 minutes.

My main point was about how no one, pollsters, campaigns, media, really understand how things are evolving around us in terms of the modern election cycle and that’s going to eventually spawn some sort of reckoning. Also, I touched on how the Democrats changed their tone midway through their shortened run-up, and that might not have been a good thing for them, because they did not get the result they’d hoped for. This, by the way, is how analysis is done. Everyone else said much more thoughtful things than I did, I assure you.

We also got to remember Dr. Larry Powell, a friend and mentor to many of the people there, who passed away last summer. Powell was on my grad school committee, and my lovely bride’s, too. We met in that program, bonded over the lesser experiences there, but also over the genius of one of the giants of political communication. His was my favorite class in the curriculum. He was helpful, kind, patient and giving. He solved problems for me he probably didn’t have to, and he was able to do that with ease.

In 2013, he was the respondent in a session at a conference where she and I presented a co-authored paper. Powell offered everyone that presented “a gift” to signify their works. He worked his way through the presenters a Reagan reference for this presenter, an obscure thing for the next one, and so on. Finally, he came to us.

He pointed out that she and I met and cemented our friendship in his class. He noted that he served as advisor on both of our comps committees and now we are married.

“I think I’ve done enough,” he said.

Just a delightful man.

He’s the fourth of my grad school professors who has died.

Between the conference and our hotel is the berthing slip that is the home for the former USS Wisconsin, an Iowa-class battleship, which is now a museum ship. She put to sea in 1944, sailed the Pacific, in the Philippines and at the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. During the Korean War, the Wisconsin was on duty again, then decomissioned. But a modernization project in the 1980s brought her back into active service, and took part in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, which was the end of a 14 year active duty life. The sailors of the Wisconsin helped their battle ship earn six battle stars for service in World War II and Korea, as well as a Navy Unit Commendation for service during the Gulf War. She’s been a museum ship now since then.

You can, in the middle of the night, walk pretty close to it. But you can approach most museums with relative ease. There are some active duty vessels, or soon-to-be ships, in the waters around Norfolk. The security around those would, I’m certain, be more stringent.

We had Korean friend chicken for lunch today. Everything we tried tasted great, and I’d go back for that again. For dinner we went to a place we visited on our first trip to Norfolk in 2009, the Freemason Abbey. Some places are worth visiting over the years.

Tomorrow, I’ll sit on a panel about mediated fandom, and see a lot of other great work, as well. Conferences are fun!