My July 2021 Walking Report

As I reported a month ago, I am taking a season or so off from running due to surgery and recovery...this does not mean, however, that I stopped walking.  For the first couple of weeks in July I racked up some miles in that regard, mostly at my workplace.  But starting July 15th when I had the operation, my walking mileage naturally nosedived...still, July is a walking month and during it I accumulated about 57 miles.  As recovery progresses in August my walking mileage is sure to increase as well, but I'm looking forward to the day when I resume running and these month-end reports once again include this activity...

Quote of the Week...from Charlie Dent

This CPAC has always been kind of an odd gathering and now it's been taken over by a bunch of radicals, anti-vaxxers.  It's a land of misfit toys, it's a political freak show, it's like the Star Wars bar.  This is just bizarre.                                                            --Charlie Dent

Regarding the much-ballyhooed meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas earlier this month and which was aired extensively over some of the right-wing TV news & opinion channels, former Pennsylvania Republican Representative Charlie Dent had a few choice words describing his reactions to what he saw there.  I love the analogies to Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Star Wars...it puts these people right in their place.  I've stated before on this blog that I have conservative views on some of the pressing issues facing us, but I am revolted and appalled by the bonkers denialism (of climate change, Covid, Biden's 2020 election win), idolatry (of Trump and media figures), conspiracy theories (FBI involvement in 1/6 riot, QAnon, vaccine apocalypse)...and worst of all, the fascism spreading in our country due to Trump's (and his political worshippers') attempts to overthrow the 2020 election results.  Fascist politicians and media people abounded there, including sadly my own senator from Florida, Rick Scott, who was one of the few in the Senate to vote to NOT certify the Pennsylvania state election results.  But the 800-pound gorilla in the room was plainly Donald Trump, even cockier and more unhinged than ever, and feeding off the unquestioning adoration of the groveling people around him: could it get any more disgusting?  There are other real conservative voices out there, besides Charlie Dent, who don't want to be any part of this spectacle: it's high time they emerged from the trees that they're hiding behind...

Just Finished Reading Cosmic Queries by Neil deGrasse Tyson and James Trefil

In 2021 Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, science popularizer, host of the television series Cosmos and ongoing podcaster with his audio show StarTalk, published a new book that he co-wrote with physicist James Trefil titled Cosmic Queries (subtitled StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going)...I just finished reading it.  It's great popular science reading, exploring the current state of research in just about any area you can imagine: quantum mechanics, the universe's origin, fundamental forces and particles, the nature of life, computer science, basics of astronomy, all about planets, stars, and their births and deaths, the history of scientific inquiry and investigation, the different theories concerning life elsewhere in the cosmos, multiverses, supervolcanoes (there are 20 in the world), mass extinctions and the end of the universe, to mention a few items.  What really got to me was the more detailed exposition of quantum mechanics and its bizarre depiction of fundamental forces in terms of exchange of "virtual" particles, as well as two completely different, well-documented versions of the universe's age...12.5 or 13.8 billion years, each conclusion backed by accurate experimental data: how can this be?  The topics hop around from chapter to chapter in no discernible pattern, but that worked for me: I was happy to just sit back and let the information rain down.  The book is also loaded with many useful illustrations and diagrams to help with understanding the various concepts presented.  Also, interspersed with the text are pithy, witty Tweets from Tyson relating to the ongoing content...in books like this you don't know how much the headline author wrote and how much his collaborator, in this case James Trefil, contributed...but it all fit together seamlessly.  I thought Cosmic Queries was both entertaining and informative, and it introduced me to the StarTalk podcast hosted by Tyson, which I can listen to on my smartphone's TuneIn Radio app.  I don't intend to become a physicist anytime in the near future, and you most likely won't either.  But deliberate and regular exposure to scientific thought processes is one thing we can do to inoculate ourselves from the onrush of really bad ideas currently infecting our society through social and mass media...

Weekly Short Stories: 1974 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today I review the final two stories from the anthology The 1975 Annual World's Best SF, presented by Donald A. Wollheim with his selections for the top science fiction from the previous year.  In the fall of 1974 I began college at Broward Community College, just a few hundred yards from both Nova Blanche Forman Elementary...which I attended from 1965-68 and Nova High School, where I studied from 1968 to 1974: I have my own strong opinions about each of these three educational institutions and their respective approaches to teaching and learning...for now, let me just diplomatically say that I was generally pleasantly surprised at the much more reasonable and professional level of instruction at BCC.  But I stray with the personal memories...here are my reactions to those two final tales... 

THE BLEEDING MAN by Craig Strete

Written by a Native American with a Native American take on life and death, this is a remarkable story about a young orphaned man who has bled from a horrendous gash in his chest his entire life, but only stands there grinning and staring.  The government with its secret research operations has "bought" the uncommunicative individual from his caretaker uncle, and now the physician in charge finds himself in conflict with a cold-hearted, dismissive official over the bleeding man's future.  This story has more of a horror feel to it than science fictions: readers beware...

STRANGER IN PARADISE by Isaac Asimov

I enjoy reading Asimov's writing in the same way I like Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King...all three deliberately write in plain language without cluttering the page with a lot of crap intended to look artistic or trendy.  In this story, it is several centuries after the "Catastrophe"...presumably a nuclear holocaust...and the worldwide society has transformed into a utilitarian kind of "utopia" that stigmatizes close family relationships to the point where two scientists find it awkward and embarrassing to discover that they are brothers with a strong mutual resemblance.  They have a collaborative assigned project: to figure how to operate a research robot on Mercury from Earth using a melding of human thinking with computers.  One of the brothers has saved an autistic man from euthanasia by making him a research subject...this leads to an interesting ending that seemed a little derivative to me nonetheless.  Stranger in Paradise is definitely NOT a part of Asimov's fictional universe tying together most of his science fiction...

Next week I begin looking at science fiction short stories from the year 1975...

Game(s) of the Week: Bombardment and Prisonball

To discuss my old elementary school recess games of bombardment and prison ball, both played on a full-court outdoor asphalt basketball court with those red inflatable bouncy balls and two bowling pins and involving the entire class at once, I read back on this blog and discovered I had already written an article covering it all...so with the author's (my) permission, I have copied that August, 2007 piece and pasted it below:

When I was going to elementary school from the fourth through sixth grades, we had our customary recess/physical education period. And one of the games we used to play was Bombardment. This game used the typical outside, asphalt-surfaced, full basketball court, but instead of using the baskets, a bowling pin was placed underneath each basket on opposite ends of the court. The class was divided into two sides, each side relegated to one half of the court. The object of the game was to knock down the opposing team’s pin using those red, lightweight basketball-sized balls (usually with about four or five used per game) that were commonly used in elementary schools. In the process of the game, if someone got hit by a ball thrown by the other side before it bounced, they’d be out of the game (until the next game started). Unless they caught the ball, in which the opponent who threw it would be out of the game. So, as a game of Bombardment went on, fewer and fewer players would be actively involved, while more and more would be off the court. While “out” of the game, students would often make up their own games, talk with each other, or play on the monkey bars nearby. Apparently, to the faculty involved in overseeing this, that meant too much student freedom and not enough control, so a new game was later devised and called Prisonball. It was exactly the same as Bombardment, except that when you were “out”, instead of leaving the game, you had to stand in a small square inset on the opponent’s end of the court and wait for a ball to come to you (which rarely happened). If you were lucky and got hold of a ball, you then had to hit one of the opposing players with it to be “redeemed” and go back to your end to play. Can you guess what happened? As the game wore on, more and more players became “prisoners” and were cramped together, sometimes resembling “Black Hole of Calcutta” conditions, in the respective “prison” squares (with the more aggressive students jostling with others for positions on the outside). But this misery for the students was joy for the faculty, who once again had the students all under their thumbs. And it got to be that, at the beginning of a game, a teacher would loudly proclaim that it was to be Prisonball, not Bombardment. So one of my favorite games at school quickly turned into my most hated game there. Those responsible for this could control my participation, but they couldn’t control the contempt I felt for them then. It just made me, in the long run, less trusting of any school authority and more likely to go down my own paths, for better or for worse.

More Jigsaw Puzzles I've Done Recently

 

For the few days preceding my admission to the hospital I returned to my old pastime of putting together jigsaw puzzles...from the above pictures you can see that I'm pretty flexible with the pictured images.  The top puzzle shows international postage stamps depicting native bird life, which I got as a family gift.  Next comes "Ralph Breaks the Internet", a Pixar movie that I haven't yet seen: I picked up the tiny-sized 300-piece puzzle at Dollar Tree.  Number Three is an interesting arrangement of fruit...looks like I'll be increasing my consumption of them in the future.  And finally...and the most striking...is a view of Arizona's Glen Canyon National Recreation Center: specifically Horseshoe Bend.  As I recuperate from my surgery I've got a few more ready to open up, lay out on the table, and assemble.  The other day I went to Books-a-Million where I bought the Horseshoe Bend puzzle.  They have some exceptional jigsaw puzzles, even one with 3000 pieces!  For now, though, I have a difficult-looking 1000-piece puzzle showing purple plants (another gift) and a multi-pack (purchased from Wal-Mart around the corner).  Looking forward to doing them...

Great Old TV Episodes...from Seinfeld

 

THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW is easily my favorite episode of the nineties comedy series Seinfeld...the fact that it's the ONLY one I've seen in its entirety is probably a major contributing factor.  From time to time I tried tuning in to this series that everybody else seemed to be going bonkers over, but the gags and tone just didn't hit me right. Still, I like the New York urban setting and the intertwining subplots involving main characters Jerry Seinfeld, Elaine Baines, Kramer, and George Costanza.  In the Merv Griffin Show episode, originally aired in 1997, Kramer has managed to get the set of the 60s/70s TV talk show into his apartment and has totally submerged himself in Merv's old host role.  Meanwhile, Elaine has a very annoying, dorky coworker who is constantly sneaking up on her and putting her on worse terms with her already-obnoxious boss.  George feels betrayed by the pigeons, who let him run over them ("they broke the deal!"), thereby infuriating his passenger girlfriend.  And Jerry discovers the incredible old toy collection of his new love interest, scheming how to play with them behind her back (she won't let him touch them). The episode mixes all these stories perfectly, and the climactic ending...featuring animal handler Jim Fowler...is side-splitting, a truly classic moment in TV comedy. Several years ago my father was discussing how much he liked the Seinfeld series and I mentioned this particular episode as the only one I saw. "Billy", he said, "You just named probably the funniest one in the series." Should I watch some more Seinfeld to see if there are any other gems?  I could...after all, the reruns are still being shown on the CW channel 10-11pm...

Just Finished Reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

A few days ago I reviewed Malcolm Gladwell's first book, The Tipping Point, which came out in 2000.  Five years later he published his second book, Blink (long title Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking), which I just finished reading.  In it he examines a number of levels for which much of our behavior and notions of what is true are based on snap judgments unconsciously determined by intricate cues in our environment, quickly picked up by our senses and mentally processed without any kind of rational analysis...he calls this "thin-slicing".  Gladwell claims that if done with the appropriate background skill and context, this "thinking without thinking" can produce better results than belabored reasoning and investigation, while when done wrong it can produce negative...even dangerous...results.  He gives many examples over a cross-section of human experience, starting with the purchase of a fraud sculpture by the magnate Getty after extensive analysis to prove its authenticity...while individuals intimately acquainted with the work's genre (that is, those equipped with the skill to place their impressions in the proper context) instantly detected something wrong with it, one of them reacting that it was "fresh" but unable to put his finger on exactly what the problem was.  Another example was a tennis pro who had an uncanny ability to determine when a player was about to double-fault in the next serve...he just knew what would happen but not why.  On the other hand...and this dominated the book's ending...the tendency of police to abandon the cues of person-to-person interaction when confronted with an emergency situation that causes their stress levels to spike has resulted in tragic misjudgments of suspects' behaviors as those instant determinations made them "mind-blind" as to what those actions really meant.  That resonated with me as I have seen video after video over the past few years in which cops seem to go into "combat mode" around what they perceive as dangerous suspects, treating them more like enemy terrorists with their voices rising to terrifying falsetto screams and their words virtually incomprehensible, often signaling that they're about to shoot at the slightest cue.  Blink is an information-heavy book, and it made a bigger impact on me than Gladwell's debut Tipping Point.  He also sheds light on how autistic people see the world, ignoring many of the facial cues and body language that "normal" people are attuned to. I highly recommend Blink...you're bound to find something in it that resonates with you, too, and I plan to frequently return to it in order to refresh myself... 

Quote of the Week...from Neil deGrasse Tyson

Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy.  Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were "reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy."                                                               ---Neil deGrasse Tyson

What kind of world would we have today if empathy were a highly-stressed element of children's upbringing, with parents, teachers and other adult role models consistently exhibiting it in their relationships with them and each other?  Neil deGrasse Tyson hit it right on the head with his above quote...and the fact that he even felt a need to express it says something about the sad state of affairs today regarding this crucial virtue's lacking in society. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you...that's empathy: put yourself in another's place and try to picture the world (and yourself) as they see it (and you) without prejudgment...this is a skill that with our inherently self-centered natures does not come naturally: it does have to be taught! And teaching it comes in two forms: (1) you make it a topic for deliberate instruction as Tyson suggests, and (2) you present yourself as an living example for others to emulate.  That's a powerful combination... 

Just Finished Reading How Music Works by John Powell

John Powell is something of a Renaissance man, with his online bio showing him to be a scientist...in particular a physicist with a "focus" on lasers, an entrepreneur with his laser firm, a musical composer, and of course a writer.  The Englishman's 2010 book How Music Works gives an overview on many different levels about the nature of music, including the science of acoustics as they pertain to pitch and loudness and how different musical instruments accomplish their production of music and differ from one another.  I was surprised to read that musical notes did not actually become universally standardized until the mid-twentieth century.  He also delves into how people perceive pitch (including the notion of "perfect pitch"), and how a heard note's pitch is often simply a recognition of its base note even though higher-octave versions of it are present (and sometimes that base note isn't).  Although these things were all interesting, in my opinion the book took off when Powell began discussing the history of music, especially as it pertained to the development of different types.  Although we in the West are used to the Major and Minor scales, it is the five-note Pentatonic scale that has prevailed over much of the world, in very disparate and diverse cultures over the course of time.  And besides the Major and Minor scales there are others that in centuries past were more commonly used...even recently the Dorian scale was employed in songs like Scarborough Fair and Eleanor Rigby.  Most of all, the author stressed that in all music the composer and performer have as one of their main goals the aim of keeping the audience interested in what is going on...to that end much of the structure of songs (including key changes and note diversions) and classical music has evolved into more or less standardized forms: just to keep folks from zoning out.  Toward the end of the book he discussed the various pros and cons of learning to play different musical instruments: for beginners, guitar and piano are good and violin and trombone, the latter two without specific note settings, are much more difficult to start with.  Yet he also pointed out that violins can play only one note at a time while piano learning can get pretty complex, what with all the chords and the ability to simultaneously hit a number of keys...so down the line it all evens out.  And some composers...at least the good ones...will write their music for different instruments with the recognition that some keys are easier to play on them than others.  Powell went deeply into how music evokes different feelings, such as ascending notes, loudness, and the type of key.  Yet he also disputed the claim that one of the twelve keys within a Major or Minor system is essentially different in imparting emotion than another, a belief that even greats like Beethoven subscribed to.  I've only scratched the surface with this amazing book that does a great job of introducing someone like me to music: I've always loved listening to it, but in the production end of the art such as playing an instrument, singing or composing I've never truly engaged.  John Powell asserts that most of us can learn to play an instrument to basic competency level...it's those extra ten years + natural talent which exceptional musicians require that often intimidate the rest of us into never starting...

Weekly Short Stories: 1974 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are my reactions to the next two science fiction short stories as they appeared in the anthology The 1975 Annual World's Best SF, covering what editor Donald A. Wollheim deemed to be the greatest tales from 1974.  That was a great year for me with music, with my favorites being Time in a Bottle (Jim Croce), Sunshine on My Shoulders (John Denver), Rock Your Baby (George McCrae), Number Nine Dream (John Lennon), Arabesque No. 1 (Isao Tomita), and You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)...really good stuff.  But enough of that for now...below I discuss those two tales... 

TWIG by Gordon R. Dickson

Twig, like many sci-fi short stories, carries a lot of allegory with it, as on a distant planet the human settlers choose selfish expediency over the respect and preservation of the indigenous life.  

Farmers want to burn the native plants off the fields they want to plant, but their elected representative Hacker has been blocking them...based on the words of an orphaned girl named Twig who, raised in the planet's wilds, knows that there is an intelligent plant-spirit named Plant-Grandfather who unites all native plant life there and converses mentally with her.  Once Hacker's term ends, though, the settlers send out a hit squad to eliminate him and capture Twig, who they hope will reveal Plant-Grandfather's physical location deep under the surface.  This story also examines the nature of life and death...can't get any heavier than that, I guess...

CATHADONIAN ODYSSEY by Michael Bishop

Another allegorical tale about human expediency and short-sightedness on another world.  Here a spaceship stops off at a planet resembling a paradise, with the only visible animal life being armless monkey-like creatures with three legs...so what do the humans do? They massacre every one of them they see for sport, then leave (while conveniently omitting this life form in their reports).  A later three-person craft to this planet will unknowingly pay the price for their brutality...the only survivor of the strange crash landing, a woman, befriends the only one of these creatures she sees.  The story's ending is beyond surprising and makes a big point about the unintended consequences of one's careless or even cruel actions...

Next week I finish my look at science fiction short stories from 1974...

Game of the Week: Cash Cab

 

Cash Cab is a TV game show, currently shown on Bravo, originally aired on the Discovery Channel.  The host, Ben Bailey, drives his taxi through the streets of New York...usually Manhattan...just like any other cab until the passengers step in and then the lights start flashing above and recognition dawns upon them: the game is on!  Each destination is different, of course, but the rules are the same.  It's a trivia game and the passengers have three strikes (missed answers) before they are ejected from the cab.  Each correctly answered question awards them more cash and if they get to the end still in the game, Ben gives them the chance to go double-or-nothing with a final video quiz.  They can also call someone on their cell for help or do street-side or social media "shout-outs".  Having visited Manhattan in 2010, I enjoy the different routes and street photography showing the throng and surrounding buildings.  I also like the fact that although the contestants tend to be tourists or residents, they don't have to pass auditions to get in on the action as is the case with other game shows.  Cash Cab isn't always filmed in New York, but the overwhelming majority of episodes are.  Ben Bailey is a great host and I admire that fact that he can deftly pilot his taxi through heavy New York traffic without missing a beat with his questions and the guests.  And if you want to see diversity with the contestants on many different levels, you won't do any better than this series...   

Just Finished Reading The Witches by Roald Dahl

The Witches, which I just finished reading and discovered was made into a movie last year starring Anne Hathaway, is my sixth Roald Dahl book (all for children), published in 1983.  A boy stays with his Norwegian grandmother after his parents are both killed in an accident...she wastes little time in enlightening and warning him about the danger of witches in the world.  They all hate children and have as their main goal in life making as many "disappear" as possible, through different applications of their dark magic...often turning them into different animals.  They all go in disguises to blend in with the rest of the population...you can tell witches by their wearing gloves at all times (to cover the claws they have on their fingers), wearing itchy wigs (to cover their baldness), and a slight limp in their walk (none of them have toes), to mention some of the more striking clues.  They can stiff out a child from great distances...the cleaner the kid, the worse they smell to the witches.  After staying with his grandmother, the news arrives that the boy's father had willed that she be his legal custodian...but that he would go back to England where they had lived before the accident and finish his education there.  Well, you just know that the boy will encounter the witches, and the author doesn't disappoint...I'll just leave what happens at that so that I don't spoil the ending.  My reaction to the story is that it can make kids really, really scared of strangers and put into their little minds the notion that people at-large are out to get them: I believe children should be trained to be cautious around strangers but not like this.  But if you're setting out to tell a scary story in this genre, then I guess if you're successful you're going to end up with a lot of frightened children.  And I think of all the over-the-top, gruesome fairy tales I heard and read when I was young.  I thought The Witches was interesting reading, but it probably ticked off a lot of people...especially, I imagine, many in the Pagan movement...

Great Old TV Episodes...from Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

I was dismayed three years ago when I found out that internationally renowned chef Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide in France while filming a new episode for his acclaimed CNN series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.  The episode I'm discussing today, PUNJAB, is from the series' third season, originally aired in April, 2014. Bourdain examined the northwest Indian state's cuisine...which he said is what most the West think of when considering "Indian food"...by eating from street-side stands (Bourdain loved these wherever in the world he traveled) as well as restaurant food and "high dining".  He went into geography, politics, history and religion: the area is predominantly of the Sikh faith and borders on Pakistan, which was artificially divided from India in 1947 to reduce mass casualties...which happened anyway when mass migrations of Muslims and Hindus across the new border drawn by a British official produced essentially the civil war that they wanted to avert when Britain granted independence. The border between the two fiercely belligerent neighbors is tight and strict...yet farm-owners on the Indian side are allowed to work their fields on the Pakistani side! After showing the Punjab's capital city of Amritsar, he took a train eastward (and upward) to the base of the Himalayas, ending in the old British colonial outpost of Shimla, where the buildings look more as if they belonged in England than India.  Bourdain also showed that dancing is a very big deal in India...there was plenty of that, too, in this episode. And other than the dinner he ate at Shimla when he tried their mutton and a chicken meal at an Amritsar restaurant, all the food in this episode was vegetarian...Bourdain, more a meat-eater, nevertheless stated that were Western vegetarian menus like that he which experienced in Punjab, he would be much more conducive to it.  Every single episode of this Parts Unknown series was interesting to me, although at times I felt Bourdain got a little too political with his emphasis (as, for example, in the Russia episode).  Still, it was a personal journey, and to each his own, I say.  I'm still sad over Bourdain's death, which apparently was due to long-standing recurring bouts of severe depression... 

Constellation of the Month: Ophiuchus (the Serpent-Bearer)

 

Ophiuchus, representing a serpent-bearer, is a large constellation in the summer evening sky, situated just north of the more prominent Scorpius and south of Hercules.  Although Ophiuchus possesses two second-magnitude stars (Rasalhague and Sabik) and Hercules has none brighter than magnitude three, the latter is easier to identify in the sky due to its more distinctive pattern.  On the western and eastern ends of Ophiuchus are, respectively, the two constellations Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, representing the snake/serpent he is holding.  Ophiuchus technically lies in that belt of the sky known as the Zodiac...the sun, moon, and planets pass through it between Scorpius and Sagittarius.  In fact, it is believed that in ancient times it was the thirteenth Zodiac constellation, but that it was kicked out of the "club" when the formerly sacred number "13" was relegated to taboo status with a change in religion.  My take on it is that if you go back thousands of years, you're going to observe a vastly different configuration of stars in the sky, due to their motions relative to Earth over that span...so how could anyone come to that conclusion about a current star pattern?  Anyway, Ophiuchus contains several Messier objects: M9, M10, M12, and M14, M19, M62, and M107...all of them globular clusters.  I have a telescope that I try to take outside to observe the night sky when I'm off from work, but I'm kind of clumsy in getting it properly trained on specific objects smaller than the moon.  And it seems that in recent weeks the night sky here in north-central Florida has been consistently cloudy and I've either been working or tired when at home...but the heavens can wait until my Earthly conditions improve, I suppose...

Next month I highlight another constellation... 

Quote of the Week...from Isaac Asimov

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.                     --Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov (1920-92) was a very prolific writer, not only with his more recognized accomplishments in science fiction, but also with mystery fiction and non-fiction...the latter widely ranging from science to history to the Bible.  He wrote on a fanatical level and was also an accomplished speed typist, something that I am not, my past efforts with the excellent Mavis Beacon program notwithstanding.  As for the above quote, let me first say that it doesn't mean that Asimov wrote down everything he thought...I certainly wouldn't either, for some thoughts are better left guarded.  But the act of writing necessarily demands a direct bond between one's thought processes and what gets presented on the screen (or paper).  And this, I believe, also means that since I tend to think in plain, not overly flowery or literary ornate, terms, my writing will also...like that of Asimov...present itself in that simple, plain language.  He always maintained this style of writing no matter what genre he was producing...makes it a lot easier for the reader to understand and relate, I assure you of that!  As a result I am confident that I can pick up any book by Isaac Asimov...from fiction to Shakespeare to physics...and comprehend just about everything I read, no matter how unfamiliar I am with the subject material.  I also understand that there are certain writers who appeared to deliberately obfuscate their writing and made following it an exercise in decryption more than reading...James Joyce to me is a prime example, but not the only one.  Yet his contemporary, Ernest Hemingway, on the other hand, wrote in plain, terse language...and that style contributed to his stories' effectiveness by strengthening that bond between writer and reader, emulating how people generally think.  While not claiming to be a Hemingway or Asimov, I follow their examples in writing this blog...  

Just Finished Reading Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

Science fiction writer Kate Wilhelm's 1976  novel Where the Sweet Birds Sang, which I just finished reading, examines the notions of cloning and social division in the context of a post-apocalyptic world where the population has been decimated by pollution and disease...and sterility.  The setting is an isolated part of the Shenandoah Valley and the story takes place over three generations. Facing extinction, David's family...featuring brilliant scientists such as himself...undertake the task, first of cloning livestock that wasn't reproducing normally and then, of humans using himself and other family members as models.  The gambit works in that the clones survive...but since clones of a person seem to have a sort of telepathic link with each other, they develop a completely different worldview than normal humans and even come to see themselves as a separate species.  The clones take over the family estate and condemn individualism, which they see as an abomination.  But with the story's final two main protagonists, clone Molly and her naturally-born son Mark, the author demonstrates that while a sense of social cohesion has its advantages and is even necessary, it is also crucial that each person's individual worth is recognized and valued.  Will the community survive, and what about the rest of the world?  A nightmarish look at a future world that may not be as distantly ahead of us as we would like...

Weekly Short Stories: 1974 Science Fiction, Part 2

Below are four more reviews of short stories as they appeared in Donald A. Wollheim's The 1975 Annual World's Best SF, presenting the editor's selection of his favorites from the year 1974.  This was the year that started off with the Miami Dolphins' second straight Super Bowl championship when they ran roughshod over the Minnesota Vikings...and traumatically ended that December in the next season's playoffs when Ken Stabler of the Oakland Raiders threw an impossible, off-balance fourth-down touchdown pass at the game's close to knock out Miami: I'm still trying to recover from that vicarious sports disaster 46 years later.  But the year in between those two games for me was wonderful, one of my favorites to muse back upon. I spent a great amount of time outdoors then, and in my "earlier" life it represented my peak time of running and biking.  Fond memories...but once again I digress: here are my reactions to those four tales...

A FULL MEMBER OF THE CLUB by Bob Shaw

Seedy entrepreneur Philip Connor is devastated by his girlfriend Angela breaking up with him after she has suddenly inherited millions...upon visiting her new swanky estate he discovers she has several products...among them televisions, coffee, and cigars...that are "perfect" in quality and have on them the trademark label "P" (for perfect).  Wanting these items for himself, he discovers that the party making and distributing them enters into exclusive, discreet agreements with their buyers...now he's become fanatical in finding who they are.  The story demonstrates how wealth goes to people's heads and they feel the need to distance themselves from the rest of us, as if we were somehow "tainted"...reminds me of some folks I knew from my past...

THE SUN'S TEARS by Brian Stableford

A brilliant story with an embedded moral, an rather uninspired spaceman named Colfax finds himself on a quest that many others in his profession succumb to: to go off by himself deep in the cosmos in search of ultimate meaning and fulfillment. Along his complicated path he tries on one planet to win the father's permission to marry a beautiful woman but is faced with one condition: bring back the "sun's tears".  Now Colfax is faced with another task: first he must find out exactly what that is, much less where it is...but he eventually finds out both.  In the process of seeking his quest he experiences an exile for several months...and in the end regrets ever having left it.  Sometimes you can't recognize paradise when it's all around you...  

THE GIFT OF GARIGOLLI by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth

Pohl and Kornbluth had teamed up to write sci-fi before, but this story is special: Kornbluth passed away back in 1958 and Pohl adapted his fragments for a story and finished it. Two concurrent narratives are going on, one by aliens trying to escape Earth and the other by a plastics corporation executive suddenly stuck with a gargantuan debt left by his deadbeat brother-in-law.  Pohl and Kornbluth were both known for their acerbic wit and social satire...this one is right up their alley, very funny...

THE FOUR-HOUR FUGUE by Alfred Bester

In a future world marked by social disintegration and overwhelming pollution...to the point where potable water is so rare that no one ever takes baths...the fragrance industry is booming.  And one company's gifted expert in the field has a creative block...investigations show that he often has late-night four-hour fugues for which he has no memory.  A woman with telepathic skills is hired to trail him...well, it gets a little convoluted from here on.  Still, entertaining reading with a twisted ending...

Next week I conclude my look at science fiction short stories from 1974...

Game of the Week: Minesweeper

 

For years Minesweeper was an embedded game in every desktop or laptop computer, usually along with Solitaire representing the "free" games.  How many of us have gotten sucked into playing this game over and over again when we instead should have been tending to what we were SUPPOSED to do on the computer...or, better, "just say no" and switch off the contraption?  The premise of Minesweeper, which can be played on different-sized game grids with variable difficulty, involves filling up the squares with "steps"...if a number appears, you're safe, but if you just stepped on a mine, then "game over".  Each number indicates exactly how many mines surround it vertically, horizontally or diagnally...so the highest number theoretically would be "8"...if such a "safe" square has no surrounding mines, the game automatically compensates for it so that you are always presented with choices.  There is some strategy and skill to Minesweeper, but luck sometimes is involved whenever no clear safe move is available and you just have to make your best guess.  The program usually keeps account of how quickly you successfully get through a game...I always got a kick out of playing it.  It also makes me feel a bit old in that there is probably an increasing number of people on this planet who have never heard of Minesweeper, much less having experienced playing it since computers nowadays tend not to include it in their packages...

Surgery for Me on Thursday

In three days, on Thursday July 15th, I will be undergoing some pretty involved surgery, centered around replacing a defective heart valve that I was born with and repairing the lifelong damage from that defect.  I am confident that all will go well and I will make a full recovery and be able, before too long, to return to my active lifestyle.  But in the meantime I've been told that following the procedure I will be in intensive care about two days and in the hospital a week...if all goes according to plan.  After that it will be me at home recovering for a few weeks, with physical therapy naturally involved in the process.  For that hospital stay at least I will not be writing anything for this blog. But if you keep checking in during that period, you'll still find articles here: I've written them in advance! Hopefully, once I'm back home I'll be able to resume writing and posting.  It was late 2011 when, after going to an "after-hours" doctor for a sinus infection, he detected a heart murmur and recommended I see my regular physician...whose tests began to uncover the problem. Subsequent tests the following January revealed the scope of the situation, and since then I've had annual exams and consults with my thoracic surgeon over whether to go ahead with the prescribed corrective surgery...this past April he finally came out in favor of it.  So here I go...

Great Old TV Episodes...from The Addams Family

 

LURCH LEARNS TO DANCE was from the first season of the two-year run of the ABC sitcom The Addams Family, first airing in December, 1964.  Lurch, played by Ted Cassidy, is the eccentric family's imposing butler, pictured above on the left of Gomez (John Astin) and Morticia (Carolyn Jones)...in other episodes his one line was "You rang?" after being summoned by the pull of a hangman's rope.  The show's general tone is like the concurrent family sitcom The Munsters, making light of the traditionally morbid and gruesome elements of our history and popular culture...like a TV version of that old funny single The Monster Mash.  Yet with both The Addams Family and The Munsters, they are engaged, loving families...with the latter the Frankenstein-monster-resembling Herman goes off to work while with the former Gomez is apparently independently wealthy, always staying at home like the father in the movie You Can't Take It With You. Each episode usually has someone from the outside encounter them at their house and get utterly freaked out over the surroundings and residents...this particular episode is no exception as Lurch, naturally shy, gets an invitation to the Butlers' Ball and admits to Gomez and Morticia that he doesn't know how to dance.  Concerned, they first arrange for a visiting dancing instructor and, when that doesn't work out, various family members try their hand at helping Lurch...to hilarious results.  Like all the other Addams Family episodes, there is a profound sense of sweetness in this household which otherwise embraces the grotesque...I found that very appealing.  When I was an 8-9-year old kid during the series' run, they actually sold Addams Family trading cards at the U-tote-M convenience store on Taft Street near my home...I collected these at the time along with Beatles and Outer Limits cards.  Besides Lurch, Gomez and Morticia, the family includes the children Pugsley and Wednesday, Uncle Fester, Grandmama, Thing (a disembodied hand that can go anywhere on the property), and later...Cousin Itt.  The unkempt, creepy-looking yard in front of their house has inspired me to engage in the rhythmic finger-snapping of their theme song whenever I'm out walking and pass by a really weedy place that appears abandoned or neglected.  Duh-duh-duh-DUH, snap-snap...

The Moon is a Puzzle

 

Of course this article's title is a play on words: as you can see by the above photo the Moon is literally a puzzle, specifically of the jigsaw variety.  I got it as a gift last year and thought it was a bit challenging, although it was only 500 pieces.  Usually when I'm doing a jigsaw puzzle I start out looking for special standout parts to first assemble...the monochrome Moon, though, is largely an image of different types of black and white shading...but it was fun doing it!  One notable difference between the pictured final product and the real image I see through my telescope is that on the edges it isn't purely curved, but rather you can see the canyons and ridges poking out on the side.  As for the title's figurative meaning, astronomers were puzzled by a relatively small planet as the Earth having as its natural satellite such a massive object, much larger in proportion to the planet it revolves around than with any other...just look at Mars with its small, irregular "rocks" Phobos and Deimos...and same-sized Venus has no satellite at all.  But it has been widely accepted now than billions of years ago, while Earth was still extremely hot and molten on the surface, a dwarf planet collided with it, not directly enough to shatter it but at just the right point to where the two objects violently combined with the particles emitted from the Earth's surface thrown into space, eventually coalescing into what we now know as the Moon.  Such an unlikely accident in space has caused some to speculate that the subsequent development of life on Earth is much rarer elsewhere in the cosmos.  But each situation on each planet, in whichever stellar system you consider, will bring up special unlikely events that determine its present likelihood for life.  In any event, just about every time I look up at our Moon, it bugs me that folks were walking on it during my adolescent years...I'm becoming eligible for Medicare soon and nobody's ever gone back: I firmly believe that future historians will look back on this gap...more than 48 years now and growing...as evidence of the beginning of Western civilization's decline...

Quote of the Week...from Robert Frost

The best way out is always through.                                ---Robert Frost

The renowned American poet Robert Frost is probably best know for the line "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I...I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" from his poem The Road Not Taken.  With the above quote he emphasizes the need for people to face up to the challenges and problems in their lives and not, I believe, to seek confrontation or trouble.  Everybody has problems, and each of us should recognize our own individual ordeals and shortcomings and deal with them...this requires a bit of courage, though, as well as a recognition that we sometimes cannot surmount our troubles on our own but need to rely on the community around us, starting with our loved ones.  I have entered such a season in my own life when I need to deal with substantive medical issues, and for me the best way out is through some pretty extensive surgery, which is scheduled to take place next week.  But I am looking forward to getting on the other side of all this and resuming my regular life and routines while planning for great things in the future.  In the meantime I wrote out some blog articles in advance, which will be appearing here daily while I'm in the hospital...

Just Finished Reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Back on Sunday June 27th I was watching Fareed Zakharia on CNN and he had on as a guest Malcom Gladwell, a podcaster/author who tends to focus on trends in society and his special take on history.  Intrigued, I checked out his 2000 first book, The Tipping Point, to get a better idea as to what his mindset was/is.  In it he claimed that in society there are movements whose "infection" mimic that of epidemics in that once they pass a certain threshold, i.e. the "tipping point", they explode among the population.  Citing numerous examples of different trends he thinks fit this model, Gladwell then goes on to outline the various parameters of such phenomena.  First he posits three rules: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.  From the first rule, his belief is that only a relatively small number of people are responsible for exploding a social "epidemic": Connectors (people who know people), Mavens (people who know information), and Salesmen (persuaders with great negotiating abilities).  With his second rule, Stickiness refers to the memorable value of something, that "sticks" with people and keeps the trend in conversation.  And with the third, it is essential that whatever movement or trend is being advanced must be relevant to the time, place and circumstance surrounding it.  The author cuts across many areas with his examples, from the drop of crime in New York City in the 1990s to a syphilis outbreak in Baltimore to Paul Revere's ride to John Wesley's evangelism to Rebecca Wells' bestseller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood...to mention only some of the more prominent cases.  The Tipping Point is loaded with a sense of scientific and statistical authority to its premises...which automatically sounds off warning bells in my head.  In the end, I regard Malcolm Gladwell's assertations as his own well-informed opinion, and think that in this day and age of QAnon, pandemic and vaccine conspiracy theories and election denial, belief trends also may follow this model he laid out...and clearly not for the better...

Weekly Short Stories: 1974 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I review the first two short stories...technically these are novella-length...appearing in the anthology The 1975 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim with Arthur Saha and covering their selections of short science fiction from the previous year.  In 1974 the Watergate scandal reached a breaking point in the summertime when the "smoking gun" tape of Nixon trying to cover it all up was released and he resigned the Presidency to avoid a Senate impeachment trial and conviction.  I also graduated from high school that year and began college.  There will be more about '74's history and my personal memories in the weeks to come, but for now here are my reactions to those first two stories, the first of which was written by a very well-known figure...

A SONG FOR LYA by George R.R. Martin

This was one of Game of Thrones creator Martin's early stories, and it deals (as does the next tale) with the theme of immortality.  Two telepaths are sent to a distant planet where humanity is beginning to engage in trade with the indigenous humanoid population which, although predating us with its civilizations by millennia seems in a state of stagnation.  The most disturbing part of their culture, though, is their practices of Joining and Union...voluntary joining with a horrible parasitic creature and then eventually allowing it to uttering consume them in "union".  From their perspective, though, the act brings them into close fellowship with all intelligent beings and guarantees immortality.  The task for our protagonists is to investigate this phenomenon, which has begun to entice humans into their fold.  Here Martin contrasts spiritual immortality with physical immortality in the starkest terms...a very thought-provoking tale... 

DEATHSONG by Sydney J. Van Scyoc

On another world, an exploratory party has discovered both a small number of humanoids, in a generally stuporous state and on the verge of starvation, who engage in a strange nightly practice playing their flutes within an elaborate, specially constructed temple as a living light show surrounds them.  The explorers, upon entering a special room in the temple, are also provided flutes and play them as well...by doing so they discover the very dark side of this planet's history and inhabitants.  As for those emaciated humanoids, a surprise is in store for readers at the story's end. The flutes and lights show deal with immortality, too, but with a completely different...and much more sinister...focus than what the previous story presents.  

Next week I continue looking back at the year 1974 in science fiction short stories...

Game of the Week: Parcheesi

 

Parcheesi is an old board game I used to play often with my family when I was growing up...it's dubbed a "Backgammon game of India".  From two to four players can participate, each one using four pieces...the pictured game has two players.  The pieces all start in the assigned circular "nest" and can only start out on the board's pathway after a dice roll of five.  Players can move their pieces according to their dice rolls, splitting them up according to the numbers...say you roll a "6" and "3"...then you can move one piece 6 spaces and another 3...or choose to move one of your pieces "9".  As in the mythical Jumanji, doubles gets an extra turn.  If you land on a white space occupied by an opponent's piece, you send it back to their "nest" and they must start over with it.  Each piece must make its way all around the board and then go up the red pathway to the center of the board, called "home".  The first player to get all their pieces "home" wins the game.  Part of the strategy of Parcheesi I liked was the "blockade", whereby two of one's pieces placed in the same space can prevent others from passing it...but I noticed that some of my family members back then tended to get angry if a blockade lasted "too long".  At this time I don't own a Parcheesi game, but am considering picking one up.  It's a mix of strategy and luck, so winning means something but only to a limited degree.  I wonder how Trump would react to playing it...I imagine the first time he lost he'd complain that it was all "rigged"...

Just Finished Reading Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark

Just Take My Heart is a 2009 murder mystery novel by the late Mary Higgins Clark.  There is more than one murder to figure out here, as stage actress Natalie is shot to death upon arriving at her New Jersey home after a brief excursion at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She is certain she saw there her old friend's boyfriend...whom she only saw in a picture...and who she suspects killed her friend in a feigned New York City mugging a few years earlier. So early on in the story we're confronted with this murder, and as fiction writers go Clark is good at introducing all the principals of the story early in the book...including the real killer. I figured it all out early on while Raines' estranged husband Gregg is charged with the murder and prosecuting attorney, who turns out to be the main protagonist, increasingly has doubts as to his guilt as the trial goes on.  In the meantime a very creepy mass murderer is stalking her from across her own home...did he also kill Natalie?  Throw into the mix that Emily had a heart transplant a few years before...this gives a special meaning to the book's title, doesn't it?  As I said, with some of the other characters the author introduced early on...and I had a lot of names to remember as she mentioned many...I was able to sort through them and nail the culprit, after which reading to the end was simply a test to see if I was correct. Just Take My Heart, like the other Mary Higgins Clark novels I've read so far, is escapist reading and relatively short.  I admire writers like her who stuck to a disciplined routine and churned out book after book, year after year.  Of course, it helps knowing that your publisher is sold on your writing and that your books will be seriously promoted... 

Great Old TV Episodes...from All in the Family

 

ARCHIE AND THE COMPUTER, from the breakthrough 1970s Norman Lear sitcom All in the Family, originally aired in October of 1973.  This episode, which contains one of my all-time favorite comedic lines, is all about how computers had pretty much taken over society and were royally screwing up everything...and that was nearly 48 years ago!  The Bunker family, in case you've been living in a cave all this time and never heard of the series, lives in their suburban house in Queens, New York.  Archie is the breadwinner, working as a foreman on a dock...and is also a raging bigot, with disparaging epithets for just about every group he encounters.  Edith is his loving, loyal, but very honest wife, while their daughter Gloria lives in their home with son-in-law (and staunch liberal) Michael while he's studying in grad school.  In this episode Edith reveals that the quarter for which she had sent a coupon to a prune company came in...and then more and more quarters kept coming: she's now got more than $47 due to this computer error.  Then Michael points out the computer-run electricity grid causing brown-outs and the subway system's malfunctions.  But Archie finally gets his own fill of computers when the Veteran's Administration mistakes him for another veteran who passed away...he's now dead as far as they are concerned and all the concerned businesses around target Edith in light of the "news".  Finally, toward the show's end a real estate agent trying to get Edith to sell their house calls on the phone and Archie grabs the receiver from her, saying "This is Archie Bunker talking to you from the grave...wish you was here!"  When creating this series, Lear wanted to expose prejudice for what it was.  Unfortunately, although All in the Family was a great success, Carroll O'Conner's compelling characterization of Archie gave him appeal to millions...and folks tend to emulate those they like.  Also, the series tended to identify being conservative with ignorance and bigotry...I guarantee that many on the left side of the political spectrum have problems in those two areas as well.  Still, the acting was tremendous and there were several very, very funny episodes, especially in the earlier seasons...

Just Finished Reading Do Over by Jon Acuff

Jon Acuff is a motivational writer and speaker.  I've recently read two of his books, Finish (2017) and Start (2013), each one reflecting in its title advice about approaching projects and personal goals.  In his 2015 book Do Over (long title Do Over: Make Today the First Day of Your New Career), he tackles the subject of career change and the essential elements of success as he sees them.  Acuff structures his presentation around something he calls the Career Savings Account, broken into four areas: Relationships (who you know), Skills (what you do), Character (who you are), and Hustle (how you work).  He goes on with each of these, breaking them down further and tying them all together as they apply to the four different circumstances of career or life change: Voluntary/Positive, Voluntary/Negative, Involuntary/Positive, and Involuntary/Negative.  Along the way in his narrative he adds concepts like Attitude, Expectations, Grit, Chaos, and Flexibility.  He also is a big advocate of folks writing down their introspective insights, especially in regard to their fears and other negative feelings. I thought Jon Acuff did a much better job at organizing and presenting his message in a way that the reader can more easily reference in the future after reading the book...to this extent Do Over is more like his more recent Finish and I recommend them both over his earlier Start.  Personally, I am not contemplating a career change in the strict sense to which the author was referring, but I do plan to retire in a couple of years or so and realize that this will involve a great deal of change...and much of what Acuff was saying in this book was meaningful to me...

Quote of the Week...from Fictional Character John Mallory

Where there's confusion the man who knows what he wants stands a good chance of getting it.    

                                                                            ---John Mallory

The above quote is from the classic 1971 Sergio Leone "spaghetti western" movie A Fistful of Dynamite (alternate title Duck You Sucker), with James Coburn playing the Irish revolutionary explosives expert John Mallory, who made the above comment to his sidekick, Mexican bandit Juan Miranda (played by Rod Steiger).  Today the quote applies to how public opinion can be manipulated through both social and mass media with "alternative facts" and conspiracy theories, and how foreign adversaries like Russia are planting confusion and division within our society in this manner.  After all, if America is at war with itself over the simple notion of what is real, how effectively can it stand up to other countries who choose to challenge it?  It used to be that the political and social differences and disagreements among our population could be discussed between anyone, with a commonly-agreed-to set of facts forming the reality basis for the argument.  Nowadays, this side has its special facts and the other has theirs...I think one of the main problems is that many people have abandoned the traditional sources of information (the newspaper, the evening news) in favor of specialized Internet sites, Facebook and Twitter feeds, clearly agenda-driven "news" channels, and hearsay to get their information.  The sad truth is...and always has been...that those traditional news shows and newspapers have always had embedded bias within them. But one of the reasons we went to school is so that we could discern that bias and filter out the truth value of what others were expressing. Instead of recognizing this fact, though, and continuing to rely on these sources for their primary information, I see an increasing segment of our population abandoning this basic functioning of mature adulthood and instead latching onto media idols, automatically accepting whatever they say, no matter how ridiculous, and demonizing whomever they choose to demonize. I used to think that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter would provide effective forums for people to exchange their views with me on what I have posted on them. Well, I'm older and wiser now...the overwhelming majority of those old classmates...as well as contemporaries...never chose to interact with me on Facebook and I've become pretty intolerant (and correctly so) of those users who voluntarily allow themselves to be deluded by questionable information sources. This voluntary succumbing to disinformation, by the way, isn't just confined to those with conservative leanings.  Many on the political left stubbornly insist on their own narratives about the way things are, selectively including anecdotal events affirming them while rejecting or ignoring anything contradictory.  It's interesting in this time of very effective and...unlike in most of the world...universally-available and free COVID vaccines, both ends of the spectrum are engaged in wacko conspiracy theories that masses are following in refusing to get their vaccines...at least on the left (in general) those choosing against vaccination are still wearing masks to protect themselves... 

A Fistful of Dynamite is one of my all-favorite movies.  Being as self-indulgent as I am on this blog for listing my "favorites" of this and that, I'm working on a new weekly feature in which I review a movie that meant a lot to me...stay tuned...

My June 2021 Running and Walking Report

In June I ran a total of 83 miles and walked a little more than 100.  No super-long runs, and I missed 8 days running.  On June 12th I ran in the weekly Saturday morning 5K Depot Parkrun here in Gainesville under very warm and excessively humid conditions...not enjoyable at all!  This will be my last monthly running and walking report for a while since I am going to be undergoing some rather involved surgery in the near future and recovery will necessarily preempt any sort of athletic activity for a few months.  I do hope that eventually I'll be able to get back to running and walking once I've fully recovered...