Ten – An Occasional Story or Magazine

Another October Magazine (this time featuring a Commemorative Salute to the Number Ten. What, again?)

Welcome to October, the tenth month, the glorious Autumn month in our beautiful, albeit beleaguered, northern hemisphere. October is likewise a beautiful Spring month in the beautiful, not to be downhearted, Southern Hemisphere -where I heard everybody walks around upside down. I suppose they get used to it after a bit.

Now October, just like its calendar mate August, is named after that Octavius/Augustus guy! The emperor of Rome back in the day. The founder of the empire. As a result we use the Gregorian/Julian calendar to keep track of the days – named after Julius Caesar, the head honcho himself, the guy that terminated Roman democracy. Glorious Caesar. Hail Caesar! Oh boy.

I confess I don’t know much about Caesar except that they named a salad after him. I have no idea what they named the salad before him, unless it was appetizers.

I also confess that most of what I know about Roman emperors comes from movies. The Robert Graves I, Claudius books are purportedly fairly accurate accounts, though. The wonderful BBC I, Claudius series comes to mind (Hats off to the BBC, who used to do some tremendous stuff inthe past, not to mention the scholarly Robert Graves, who is definitely passed). Anyhow, getting back to old Octavius, I can’t say I know much at all.

Regarding the number 10 (October is the tenth month. Don’t forget this is the October Magazine), the magnificent Pele wore number ten.

Ten completes the number count. After ten the same 9 numerals are used again. Again and again – and in groups of ten! It’s our decimal system! One of many, though. Over the years, different cultures have used a variety of counting systems – the twenty, and the sixty work just fine. The ten is not the only way to do it. Computers count by twos, the binary system. But counting by tens is the predominant system. After all, we humans have ten fingers, so it’s kind of a natural – unless you enjoy taking off your shoes all the time. Logarithms are expressed in powers of ten. The decimal number system seems to work pretty good. It’s taken us to the moons of Saturn. Now wasn’t/isn’t that something amazing? All by using a base-ten number system. The math and the science go hand in hand, and take us to some beautiful places.

Anyway, getting back to Pele, I did see Pele play at Randall’s Island when he came out of retirement to play with the New York Cosmos. Pele scored a goal, a header, that night.

Speaking of sports, October used to be the time of the World Series, but now we have the division playoffs – which are usually just terrific. Personally, I’m looking forward to some excellent baseball. Baseball, of course, is played in nines. Nine innings, nine players. Ten in baseball would be extra innings.

Ten years ago on a cold dark night

Someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light

(Scroll down to click on song at bottom of page)

Thus begins one of Maybanks’ and Bumba’s favorite songs. As you can see the first word of the song is ten. So, there you go.

OK. More about the ten. A regular ten-sided figure is a decagon. To inscribe a regular decagon in a circle, the golden proportion is used.

The tetractys, the triangle of ten formed by the first 4 numbers, was considered holy by the Pythagoreans. Numbers were sacred to the Pythagoreans, since whole numbers, they thought and fervently believed, could describe everything under Creation. Everything, that’s to say the underlying reality that underlies the physical world, Pythagoras said, was numbers and the “rational” relationships or proportions between those numbers. Those early mathematicians and philosophers were very interesting fellows. Not clear why, but the Pythagorean Brotherhood quickly became a secret society that guarded their precious knowledge. Kinda like the Masons or Knights of Pythias, but without the fancy handshakes. Anyhow, they used the tetractys, that construction of ten pebbles in the sand, in their swearing-in ceremony. Ten was the holy of holies for the Pythagoreans, a tradition pre-dated by the Hebrews who still enjoy ten High Holy Days (And a Happy New Year!) as well as Ten Commandments. Ten is double the five books of the Torah. The Kabbalists later lionized the ten as well. Bowlers also lionize the ten pins. It’s a pleasure to knock ’em all down, ain’t it?

Not to put too rosy a cast on the ten, ten was also the number of years that poor Odysseus, brave and resourceful Odysseus, or Ulysses if you like, had to endure before returning home to Ithaca from the Trojan Wars. There were also ten plagues, don’t forget, and ten little Indians, a rascist nursery rhyme that we recited to learn our numbers when we didn’t know any better. Ten Years After was a fine blues band featuring Alvin Lee. And Elvis himself sung “Love Me Ten Dear”. Or was that “Loan Me Ten, Dear”?

Anywaze…..There’s a lot to do this October. We have to Dump Trump! Again!@!!! Let’s get going. Happy October!

Semi-Annual October Magazine

Semi-Annual Bumbastories October Magazine

October being the tenth calendar month, we present yet another salute to the number ten.

Ten

Ten. It’s the number of fingers on our two hands. Count ’em. Ten is also the basis of our number system – which only uses nine numerals after all, plus a zero. Once we reach ten, we need to re-use the nine numerals, always counting up to the next ten: 20, 30, 40 etc. And then we count by tens of tens, by hundreds, and tens of hundreds, and hundreds of hundreds, and thousands of ……well, up to 10 to the googleplex number of tens, which they say is as far as you can reasonably go. Ours a ten-based number system, and it works just fine, as long as you don’t ask me what a googleplex is.

The logarithmic scale is customarily ten-based. And if you really want a decent perspective on the physical world/universe/what’s really out there, you need to think of in terms of logarithmic scales: powers of ten: orders of magitude. How else can you compare the size of a water molecule (which is already millions of times larger than an electron) with the size of a galaxy? You can only talk in orders of magnitude. Scientists now measure objects that range in size from the sub-atomic to the intergalactic. It’s definitely hard to wrap your head around these sorts of things. In fact, just the idea of wrapping my head around anything else is a definitye turn-off. To wrap something around my head, like a turban, now that would be something else.

People like the number ten. Ten out of ten is a good score. In bowling (or ten pins) the goal is to knock down all ten pins, preferably with just one ball, which is called a “strike”.

Lots of things come in tens. The good Lord gave us The Ten Commandments. However, the Ten Commandments followed on the heels of the Ten Plagues (He giveth and he taketh away). There’s #10 Downing Street, 1010 WINS NY news radio, and apparently there are ten space-time dimensions. The Trojan War took ten years, and so did Odysseus’ exile. The basketball hoop is ten feet high!

Ten-fold symmetry is employed by the DNA molecule, which means that all of us, whatever your species, need to hold on to life tenaciously. (Sorry ’bout that one)

Click below to hear a song that starts with the word ten.

Ten years ago on a cold, dark night

Someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light

There were few at the scene but they all agreed

That the slayer who ran looked a lot like me

She walks these hills in a long, black veil

She visits my grave when the night winds wail

Nobody knows, nobody sees

Nobody knows but me

*****************************

Semi-Annual October Magazine

Semi-Annual Bumbastories October Magazine

Yet another salute to the number 10, October being the tenth calendar month.

Ten

Ten. It’s the number of fingers on our two hands, and the basis of our number system – which only uses nine numerals after all, plus a zero. Once we get to ten, we need to re-use the numerals, always counting up to the next ten: 20, 30, 40 etc. And then we count by tens of tens, and tens of hundreds, and hundreds of hundreds, and thousands of ……well, up to 10 to the googleplex number of tens, which is about as you can go. It’s a ten-based number system and it works just fine, as long as you don’t ask me what a googleplex is. The logarithmic scale is customarily ten-based. And if you really want a decent perspective on the physical world/universe, you need to think of in terms of logarithmic scales: powers of ten: orders of magitude. How else can you compare the size of a water molecule (which is already millions of times larger than an electron) with the size of an asteroid or the dimensions of a galaxy? You can only talk in orders of magnitude. Scientists now measure objects that range in size from the sub-atomic to the intergalactic. It’s definitely hard to wrap your head around these things. In fact, just the idea of wrapping my head around anything else is a turn-off. To wrap something around my head, like a turban, now that would be something else.

People like the number ten. Ten out of ten is a good score. In bowling (or ten pins) the goal is to knock down all ten pins, preferably with just one ball, which is called a “strike”. To get a high score it’s highly advised to keep the ball in the middle of the lane and to stay out of the gutter – which is good advice all around.

Ten-fold symmetry is employed by the DNA molecule, which means that all of us, whatever your species, need to hold on to life tenaciously. (Sorry ’bout that one)

Click below to hear a song that starts with the word ten.

Ten years ago on a cold, dark night

Someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light

There were few at the scene but they all agreed

That the slayer who ran looked a lot like me

She walks these hills in a long, black veil

She visits my grave when the night winds wail

Nobody knows, nobody sees

Nobody knows but me

*****************************

Semi-Annual October Magazine

Semi-Annual Bumbastories October Magazine

A salute to the number 10, October being the tenth calendar month.

Ten

10. The final number in our number system. The end of the line. After ten we start counting again. By tens! And then by tens of tens, and tens of hundreds, and tens of thousands —- up to 10 to the googleplex, which is as far as I, or anyone else, is willing to go. It’s a ten-based number system and it works pretty good.

People like the number ten. Ten out of ten is a good score. In bowling (or ten pins) the goal is to knock down all ten pins, preferably with just one ball. In bowling it’s highly advised to keep the ball in the middle of the lane and to stay out of the gutter – which is good advice all around. Lots of things come in tens. The good Lord gave us The Ten Commandments, which followed on the heels of the Ten Plagues (He giveth and he taketh away). There’s #10 Downing Street, 1010 WINS NY news radio, and apparently there are ten space-time dimensions. The Trojan War took ten years, and so did Odysseus’ exile. The basketball hoop is ten feet high, which is very significant spiritually, but I haven’t time to explain why. Ten-fold symmetry is employed by the DNA molecule, which means that all of us, whatever our species, need to hold on to life tenaciously. (Sorry ’bout that one)

Click below to hear a song that starts with the word ten.

Ten years ago on a cold, dark night someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light

There were few at the scene but they all agreed that the slayer who ran looked a lot like me

…..uh oh, this doesn’t look good…..

*****************************

The Tenth Bi-Quaternary October Magazine (featuring Commemorative Salute to the Number Ten)

Welcome to October, the tenth month, the beautiful Autumn month in our beautiful northern hemisphere, and likewise the beautiful Spring month in the Southern Hemisphere -where I heard everybody walks around upside down. I suppose they get used to it after a bit.

Once again, just like our situation in August, we again have a month named after that Octavius/Augustus guy! It doesn”t seem fair that anyone, even a Roman emporor, should have two months named after him. But what can you do? It’s because we use the Gregorian calendar, which was originally named after Julius Caesar, the head honcho himself. If you remember, Julius Caesar was the fellow who ended the young Roman democracy, and who started that whole Roman empire thing. Glorious Caesar. Hail Caesar! Yikes! What heroes! What history! Yikes again.

I confess I don’t know much about Caesar except that they named a salad after him. I have no idea what they named the salad before him, unless it was appetizers. I also confess that most of what I know about Roman emperors (and nearly everything else) comes from movies, and most of those were based on Shakespeare’s plays, which in turn were probably based on very little. The Robert Graves I, Claudius books, though, are, I believe, fairly accurate. Graves was not only an excellent writer, but a historian to boot. I remember getting hooked back in the day by the wonderful BBC series of I, Claudius. (Yeah, the BBC used to do some tremendous stuff) Anyhow, regarding old Octavius, I can’t say I know very much at all. So I won’t.

Regarding the number 10 (October is the tenth month. Don’t forget this is the October Magazine), the magnificent Pele wore number ten.

Ten completes the number count. After ten the same numerals are used again. Again and again – and in groups of ten! It’s our decimal system! Over the years, different cultures have used a variety of counting systems – the twenty, and the sixty work just fine. The ten is not the only way to do it. Computers count by twos, the binary system. But counting by tens is the predominant system, the decimal system. After all, we humans have ten fingers, so it’s kind of a natural. Logarithms are expressed in powers of ten. The decimal number system seems to work pretty good. It’s taken us to the moons of Saturn and beyond. Now wasn’t/isn’t that something amazing? All by using a base-ten number system. The math and the science go hand in hand, and take us to some beautiful places.

Anyway, getting back to Pele, I did see Pele play at Randall’s Island when he came out of retirement to play with the New York Cosmos. Pele scored a goal, a header, that night. He had already lost much of his speed, but he was still a superior player, clearly the best on the field.

Speaking of sports, October used to be the time of the World Series, but now we have the division playoffs – which usually are terrific. Personally, I’m looking forward to some excellent baseball. Baseball, of course, respects the nine. Nine innings, nine players. Ten in baseball would be extra innings.

Ten years ago on a cold dark night

Someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light

Thus begins one of Maybanks’ and Bumba’s favorite songs. As you can see the first word of the song is ten. So, there you go.

OK. More about the ten. A regular ten-sided figure is a decagon. To inscribe a regular decagon in a circle, the golden proportion is used.

The tetractys, the triangle of ten formed by the first 4 numbers, was considered holy by the Pythagoreans. Numbers were sacred to them, since whole numbers, they thought and fervently believed, could describe everything under Creation. Everything, that’s to say the underlying reality that underlies the visible, physical world, Pythagoras said, was numbers and the “rational” relationships or proportions between those numbers. Anything else was ….irrational. Those early mathematicians and philosophers were very interesting fellows. Not clear why, but the Pythagorean Brotherhood soon became a secret society that guarded their precious knowledge. Kinda like the Masons or Knights of Pythias, but without the fancy handshakes. Anyhow, they used the tetractys, that construction of ten pebbles in the sand, in their swearing-in ceremony. Ten was the holy of holies for the Pythagoreans, a tradition pre-dated by the Hebrews who still enjoy ten High Holy Days (And a Happy New Year!) as well as Ten Commandments. Ten is double the five books of the Torah. The Kabbalists later lionized the ten as well. Bowlers also lionize the ten pins. It’s a pleasure to knock ’em all down, ain’t it?

Anywaze…..There’s a lot to do this October. We have to Dump Trump! Let’s get going. Happy October!

The Bi-Quaternary October Magazine (featuring Commemorative Salute to the Number Ten)

Welcome to October, the tenth month, the beautiful Autumn month in our beautiful northern hemisphere. October is likewise the beautiful Spring month in the beautiful Southern Hemisphere -where I heard everybody walks around upside down. I suppose they get used to it after a bit. But just like in August, we again have a month named after that Octavius/Augustus guy! Gee whiz. It’s a tough life. But what can you expect? It’s because we use the Gregorian/Julian calendar, which is named after Julius Caesar, the head honcho himself, the guy that terminated Roman democracy, and who got that whole Roman empire thing started. Glorious Caesar. Hail Caesar! Yikes. What heroes! What history! Yikes again.

I confess I don’t know much about Caesar except that they named a salad after him. I have no idea what they named the salad before him, unless it was appetizers. I confess that most of what I know about Roman emperors (and nearly everything else) comes from movies, most of which were based on Shakespeare’s plays, which in turn were based on very little. The Robert Graves I, Claudius books and the wonderful BBC series come to mind (Yeah, the BBC used to do some tremendous stuff, not to mention the scholarly Robert Graves, who was a tremendous writer too). Anyhow, regarding old Octavius, I can’t say I know much at all. So I won’t say anything. Sorry.

Regarding the number 10 (October is the tenth month. Don’t forget this is the October Magazine), the magnificent Pele wore number ten.

Ten completes the number count. After ten the same numerals are used again. Again and again – and in groups of ten! It’s our decimal system! Over the years, different cultures have used a variety of counting systems – the twenty, and the sixty work just fine. The ten is not the only way to do it. Computers count by twos, the binary system. But counting by tens is the predominant system. After all, we humans have ten fingers, so it’s kind of a natural – unless you enjoy taking off your shoes all the time. Logarithms are expressed in powers of ten. The decimal number system seems to work pretty good. It’s taken us to the moons of Saturn. Now wasn’t/isn’t that something amazing? All by using a base-ten number system. The math and the science go hand in hand, and take us to some beautiful places.

Ten years ago on a cold dark night

Someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light

Thus begins one of Maybanks’ and Bumba’s favorite songs. As you can see the first word of the song is ten. So, there you go.

OK. More about the ten. A regular ten-sided figure is a decagon. To inscribe a regular decagon in a circle, the golden proportion is used.

The tetractys, the triangle of ten formed by the first 4 numbers, was considered holy by the Pythagoreans. Numbers were sacred to them, since whole numbers, they thought and fervently believed, could describe everything under Creation. Everything, that’s to say the underlying reality that underlies the physical world, Pythagoras said, was numbers and the “rational” relationships or proportions between those numbers. Those early mathematicians and philosophers were very interesting fellows. Not clear why, but the Pythagorean Brotherhood quickly became a secret society that guarded their precious knowledge. Kinda like the Masons or Knights of Pythias, but without the fancy handshakes. Anyhow, they used the tetractys, that construction of ten pebbles in the sand, in their swearing-in ceremony. Ten was the holy of holies for the Pythagoreans, a tradition pre-dated by the Hebrews who still enjoy ten High Holy Days (And a Happy New Year!) as well as Ten Commandments. Ten is double the five books of the Torah. The Kabbalists later lionized the ten as well. Bowlers also lionize the ten pins. It’s a pleasure to knock ’em all down, ain’t it? images-2

Anywaze…..There’s a lot to do this October. We have to Dump Trump! Let’s get going. Happy October!