My #20 All-Time Favorite Album: L.A. Woman by the Doors

My #20 all-time favorite album is L.A. WOMAN by The Doors, their sixth and final album, which was released in 1971 around the time of the tragically premature death of their 27-year old lyricist and singer Jim Morrison.  Although Morrison captured the public spotlight with his often-drunken antics and provocative comments, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore were to me the musical foundation of the band. Why they quickly withered from the public eye after Morrison's demise will always be a mystery to me: look at what Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl was able to do with the Foo Fighters after Kurt Cobain's death. After all, it was Krieger who composed their biggest singles hits, Light My Fire and Touch Me. Like other kids growing up in the 60s and early 70s, I got to know the Doors mainly through their singles releases...and they were mostly very good, the ones just mentioned being among my favorites of theirs.  I didn't get around to listening to their full albums until the mid-nineties, though, when I was in my late thirties.  Although I liked them all, I believed that L.A. Woman represented a new, higher level that the band had reached. Three of the tracks, Been Down So Long, Cars Hiss by My Window, and Crawling King Snake are pure blues...sung convincingly by Morrison and likewise accompanied by the other three although I admit that it isn't exactly my preferred musical genre.  For the rest of the album, it's a mixture of mood rock, romance, cynicism and high testosterone.  The following is my rating of the album's songs...

1 The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)...I first heard this quirky masterpiece, largely spoken, decades after its release, very mystical in a matter-of-fact way...now an all-time favorite...

2 Love Her Madly...my favorite Doors song for decades after its singles release in early 1971...

3 The Changeling...brash and confident, perfect opening track, striding right out there...

4 L.A. Woman...album rock radio staple epic, Mister Mojo risin' the unforgettable line...

5 Riders on the Storm...dreamy classic with amazing keyboards by Manzarek, reminds me of their first album's epic The End...

6 L'America...blunt and brutal about the good ol' USA, has a dystopian feel to it...

7 Been Down So Long...powerful blues track, one of the best with Krieger strong on guitar...

8 Hyacinth House...sad and cynical about friendship and regret...

9 Cars Hiss by My Window...subdued, lazy blues, yaw-w-w-n...

10 Crawling King Snake...overly long: two blues tracks on an album are enough for me...

So that's my #20 album...#19 is next week...

Just Finished Reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

I just finished reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon, a 2016 children's novel by Kelly Barnhill.  There's a lot of magic here, and as is typical of such stories, all kinds of rules and consequences involved in its use that the author created, and which don't have any relevance to other stories about magic.  For some readers I think this differing take on magic with each new book appeals to them...for me it kind of detracts from the flow of the story.  The setting is a fantasy land near a volcano where the population mostly lives in country towns.  One of these is isolated by the woods from the others and is full of sorrow with its people convinced that an evil witch would curse them if they don't regularly offer up the youngest baby, leaving it in the woods for her.  But unknown to them, there is an elderly woman, Xan, living out there...and she does possess great magic: but she saves the abandoned babies, taking them in and placing them in the other towns within loving families.  There is a witch in this tale, but it's not who everyone thinks.  The story focuses on one of the children, a girl, whom Xan accidentally feeds moonlight...this gives her magical powers as well.  It goes on from there, with subplots dealing with the girl's grief-stricken mother, a benevolent and poetic bog monster, a pipsqueak dragon, and a young man and woman destined to become a couple.  This stew of characters and circumstances mixes together well, leading to a satisfying resolution at the end.  The novel won its author critical acclaim and the Newbery Medal for children's literature.  The themes of forgiveness and social manipulation through deliberate misinformation are strongly presented here. I liked The Girl Who Drank the Moon and think readers of any age would as well...

Quote of the Week...from Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. 

                                                                        ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Note that the great nineteenth century essayist, philosopher and poet didn't say to conquer all fears.  Fear is an important survival emotion and must be respected.  The problem is that in our Western society of insulation from nature's dangers, much of what we process as fear is now based on our social lives.  Fear of rejection, failure, embarrassment, and humiliation are some of the "replacements" for wild animal attacks and natural calamities.  It is these fears, I think, along with phobias based on things such as heights, inversion, closed spaces and the like, that Emerson is referencing.  His suggestion is to focus on conquering a fear on a daily basis...to me this may mean working on the same fear for a number of days if necessary.  One of the coolest days in my life happened on March 22, 2003, when I took our two kids Will and Rebecca to a nearby theme park to go on its thrill rides for the day.  Over the course of my lifetime, I had a strong fear of rollercoasters and any ride that went upside-down or played around with my sense of gravity.  That day, though, after being thoroughly shamed by the boldness of my children in going on all the rides on previous visits, I resolved to "face the fear" and went on every single ride in the park that even remotely challenged me.  After that, I went on a thrill ride spree at other theme parks for the next three years...what fun!  That's just one obvious example of what Emerson was saying...unfortunately, once I conquered those particular fears at the park, I didn't continue in other needed areas of my life.  But there's no better (or possible) time to change than in the present moment, so it looks like some more "face the fear" opportunities are in the works for me.  As a corollary to his above quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson also said, "You can conquer almost any fear if you only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere but in the mind."  Okay, dude, I'm holding you to your words....

Let's Talk about Math

 Let's talk about mathematics...with apologies to Salt-N-Pepa...

---What do you think about mathematics?  

---Do you still do any math, and if so, what?  

---Does your job/career involve doing math?  

---When you went to school, what mathematics courses did you take?  

---What do you think about how they were taught?  

---How easy or hard were they?  

---How hard did you work in them?  

---Was/is mathematics interesting to you? 

---What is your favorite area in mathematics? What is your least favorite?

---What was the most "advanced" course of math that you took?

---How much of the mathematics you learned in school do you still remember?

---How much of it have you used since leaving school?

---Do you think that mathematical proficiency puffs up some people's egos while difficulty in the field deflates others?  

---Do you believe that there is absolutely no ego within mathematics itself?  

---Do you see people who bring up mathematical ideas as trying to impress others?

---Can you "speak" math, that is express concepts, equations and diagrams verbally with a fair degree of approximation?  

---If you spotted somebody out in a coffee shop studying math and the two of you struck up a conversation, would you automatically ask them what it was for?  

---Do you think people have to be studying "for" something when they study something like mathematics?  

---If people respect the etiquette of not interrupting someone when they are watching a two-hour movie, should they also respect the wish of that same person to be left alone for a half hour studying mathematics? 

---If you randomly brought up mathematics in conversation with others, would you feel awkward?  

---Do you feel awkward reading this article about mathematics? 

---Do you think this is too provocative a topic for Salt-N-Pepa to sing about?

Of course, I have opinions about all these questions and more and plan to give my own answers sometime down the line...

Weekly Short Stories: 1985 Science Fiction, Part 6

Here are some more reviews of sci-fi short stories from the Gardner Dozois-edited anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection, featuring tales first published elsewhere in 1985.  Let's go straight to those stories...

FLYING SAUCER ROCK & ROLL by Howard Waldrop

A nostalgic science fiction story...if you think urban gangs of doo-wop singers to be nostalgic.  It's the fall of 1965 and two rival New York gangs...each with their own doo-wop singing group...vie in a "loser drinks the winners' pee" contest for best performance.  Along with them disrespecting the Beatles and other British acts I liked, I have to say I didn't dig the nostalgia...whenever these old doo-wop songs came on the radio, I would switch the station, yuck.  What does this have to do with sci-fi? Well, there's this flying saucer that swoops down just as the final act is going on...and then there's that famous blackout...

A SPANISH LESSON by Lucius Shepard

This is a really scary science fiction story...take that genre and fill it with imagery from one of H.P. Lovecraft's amazing short stories and we're talking nightmare territory.  It all starts out innocently enough, on a Spanish coast where obnoxious expatriates from various countries hang out acting cool.  But there are new neighbors, a strange-looking couple, ostensibly brother and sister, who are starting to creep out the others.  But they don't know the half of the story.  This would be a great movie adaptation...

ROADSIDE RESCUE by Pat Cadigan

In a near future when aliens have assimilated on Earth to the point where they've become rich, a human motorist's car breaks down in the desert.  Before his called-in help arrives, a limousine pulls up to him and the chauffer offers to help.  But there's a price.  You see, there's one of those aliens in the back seat and all the motorist has to do is talk to it continuously for a few minutes.  The anger and frustration build up...and well as the laughs for the reader in this humorous tale... 

PAPER DRAGONS by James P. Blaylock

"Mechano-vivisection" and "mutability of matter" are concepts allowing for the mechanical construction of living things in this quirky story of a future in which there seems to be alternative realities fogging around.  It takes place on the northwest American coast as a dragon is being constructed from mechanical parts...but the tinkerer creating it needs help from an elusive craftsman.  Much about this story I didn't get, but I just saw on the news that a Google engineer was just fired for claiming that AI has reached a state of sentience, so maybe we're not that far off from this sort of thing.  Just watch out for Arnold Schwarzenegger on a motorcycle...

Next week I conclude my look at science fiction short stores from 1985...

Just Finished Reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

I just finished reading Assassin's Apprentice, a 1995 fantasy novel by Robin Hobb, pseudonym for Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, a good enough name as far as I'm concerned although shortening it a little might have helped.  This book is the first of the Farseer Trilogy, which in turn is the first trilogy in her Realm of the Elderlings "superseries" of series.  I checked out this book because my son Will had read it and I hadn't been reading much of the fantasy genre for a few years besides rereads of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.  I had tired of the utter misery that most of the characters were living in as well as the extreme disparity in rights and privileges of the different classes.  And whenever someone in "nobility" wanted to come down on a commoner, there was never any due process and brutality reigned supreme.  And yes, there were always special secret mental abilities such as telepathy and other magic as well as exotic, fantastic creatures.  I havn't yet encountered any strange beasts yet while reading Assassin's Apprentice, but my somewhat cynical depiction of fantasy literature pretty much rules this first book as well...sigh.  FitzChivalry, or Fitz as he is usually called, is the young illegitimate "bastard" son of a prince he never met.  Half into nobility and half out of it, he is accepted by neither class while kept by King Shrewd to be trained for various roles of royal service within the family...including that of assassin, taught by Chade, probably the most interesting character in the book to me.  Fitz has a close bond from childhood with Burrich the keeper of the royal dogs...it is here that he discovered the ability to mentally bond with them, something that Burrich rejects as an abomination.  There is also a "higher" mental ability to project and perceive thoughts that the King wants Fitz to learn...much of the plot deals with his efforts in this as well.  As with most fantasy epics we have bad guys, especially conniving Prince Regal, and much murderous castle intrigue, along with a little romantic interest.  The narrative is told from Fitz's viewpoint, and he is a compelling character as he struggles to find a place for himself in a society that seems hell-bent to reject him no matter where he goes or what he does.  Naturally, I'm not going to give away the story, but it has to do with marauders from the sea who have the ability to turn the people in the conquered coastal towns into nothing more than predatory zombie-likes.  I'm sure that, down the line in the series, this subplot will be more deeply explored.  The reading in this book flows well and I enjoyed it in spite of all the general objections I have expressed regarding fantasy epics.  While waiting for Martin's The Winds of Winter...and waiting and waiting...I think I'll try out this Farseer Trilogy and then see where I want to go from there.  For now, though, I've begun reading a completely different book, one for young readers by Kelly Barnhill...

Podcaster Rob Dial Discusses Overthinking

On his personal development-themed Mindset Mentor podcast, host and creator Rob Dial touches on a wide range of topics over the course of each four-program week.  One of his shows last week focused on the problem of overthinking and a technique that Dial has development to combat it.  I agree with him that a problem many people have...more for some of us than for others...is to overanalyze and prepare for things instead of just going out and doing them, as well as allowing distracting thoughts to dilute what we're trying to accomplish.  An example for me is whenever I'm starting to immerse myself in a swimming pool whose temperature is on the unpleasantly cool side.  No point in halfway measures...I make a split decision and get all the way in.  Afterwards I can assess the situation and act accordingly, but I'm not wasting my time trying to outthink the pool!  Lots of folk overthink just about every kind of activity imaginable...Dial asserts that this kind of preparatory extremism may have boded well for people's survival hundreds of thousands of years ago against wild beasts and other dangerous natural occurrences, but in today's environment overthinking can be a burden dragging us down.  His one tip is to get in a state of quite medication somewhere, removing distractions and closing his eyes while keeping at his side a blank sheet of paper and pen.  Inevitably all those stray thoughts start pouring on into conscious awareness and he writes them down as best he can while keeping his eyes closed.  After ten minutes or however long circumstances allow, he stops his meditation and looks at what he has written, prioritizing the thoughts he has jotted down (if they are legible enough, that is) and making an action plan for them, one thought at a time.  Rob Dial says that this has worked for him and by doing this he has been able to reduce his overthinking and enhance his ability to concentrate on whatever happens to be before him at the moment.  I once tried this kind of thing a few years ago while sitting in the car after work in the night darkness and couldn't make out a lot of what I had written...maybe cheating a little by opening my eyes for a peep or two with a hint of light might help, you think?  But don't think too much... 

My #21 All-Time Favorite Album: Out of Time by R.E.M.

The Athens, Georgia based alternative rock band R.E.M. may well be my all-time favorite American rock band, based not only on their better efforts but also on the breadth of their quality work over three decades.  In the early nineties they temporarily emulated the Beatles' late sixties withdrawal from giving concerts when they produced their two greatest albums: OUT OF TIME, from 1991 is one of these and is #21 on my all-time favorite album list. The release of the single Losing My Religion preceded that of the album...the song on their video seems to signify someone's loss of religious faith, but according to lyricist/lead singer Michael Stipe, the expression in the title simply refers to a state of extreme frustration and the rest of the song's lyrics support his claim.  It wasn't my favorite song from the album by far, but the opening line has resonated with me over the years: "Oh, life is bigger, it's bigger than you and you are not me".  My sister Anita sent me the album in the mid-nineties, when I first heard it in its entirety.  Her favorite track was Belong, and it's one of mine as well.  But my supreme favorites are the wistful, sad Half a World Away and the mainly instrumental Endgame...lots of great orchestration here with beautiful strings accompaniment.  There are a couple of really "down" songs on the album that I've taken to as well: Low and Country Feedback.  Kate Pierson, singer of another Athens alternative band, the B-52s, sang on Shiny Happy People and Me in Honey.  The former is another singles release whose title was translated literally to a buoyant, bouncy video, but Stipe's real meaning was to satirize Chinese government propaganda that portrayed its people always having a rip-roaring good time under their perfect system.  Out of Time opens with a lament for the state of radio (I concur) with a sizeable contribution from rapper KRS-One...not normally a fan of rap/hip hop, I often like it when combined with rock in a song.  The remaining tracks from Out of Time, Near Wild Heaven and Texarkana, while likeable and listenable, just didn't click with me...as didn't the closing song Me in Honey.  But Out of Time is a brilliant work, and Stipe, lead guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry have a lot to be proud of with it.  By the way, the theme of the world collapsing was addressed in a couple of tracks...it eventually led to the band's final album Collapse into Now from 2010...

Next week I'll reveal and discuss my #20 all-time favorite album...

Wishing All an Enjoyable Late July Weekend

I hope you have a good weekend, whether or not you're working and wherever you happen to be living.  Here in Gainesville, Melissa and I enjoy the convenience of having a reasonably short drive to "our" beach, which is a short stretch on the Atlantic coast connecting Ormond Beach to northern Daytona Beach.  Having relatives staying with us to watch our rapidly growing puppy Daisy while we're gone, we're making an overnight venture out there to relax and enjoy the surf, pool and other surroundings. Hopefully, Daytona won't have a theme going on like "Truckers" or "Bikers" week. Nothing wrong with that, per se, or those participating in those events...but I like things a little bit more in the "peace and quiet" zone...  

Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.                 ---Albert Einstein

If there's anyone who dealt with extreme complexity in terms of mathematical equations, it was Albert Einstein.  Yet he realized that in order to communicate his results effectively to others...even those in his own academic community...he needed to be able to express his findings in terms that they could understand.  And this entailed simplifying his message, with the implication that anyone who was willing and able could check out his points on a more detailed and complicated level.  I once saw a Big Bang Theory episode in which Sheldon the physicist derided a visiting popularizer of science who was giving talks about the nature of the universe...without the difficult mathematics that underpins the theories. I thought that Sheldon was in the wrong here, and I think that a lot of people in arcane professions are lacking in the ability to effectively convey their fields to people at large...and don't even try.  I'm also convinced that, with some of these, that is a deliberate choice as it allows themselves the ego-swelling feeling of being exclusive and apart in their specialties. I also believe, from experience as a student over the years of my youth, that many teachers don't properly know their own area of instruction.  How much effort really is involved in giving a short introductory lecture to the new class on the course they are beginning in general terms that captures the essence of what the students are about to be studying?  Yet I can't recount a single time in all my years at school in which this was done, sadly...even vindictive, fictional Snape managed to accomplish this in the first Harry Potter movie.  Stephen Covey once wrote that one of the first things you should do after learning something new is to turn around and teach it to another.  I think his point was that by teaching another, it is forcing you into understand that essence, since you will need the other to be able to receive it.  For me, this all makes since...yet I'm not so confident that, after studying the binomial theorem, matrix algebra or techniques of integration, I'm going to be able to turn right around and FIND someone willing to listen to me explain it, simply or not...

About the Divided World of Professional Golf

The professional golf world has been split apart by a new league, LIV, whose name represents the Roman numeral for "54", which is the score if every hole on an 18-hole golf course is birdied and is also the number of holes played in the new league's tournaments.  It is funded by the Saudi government and has lured many big-name golfers by giving them millions of dollars up front, just to sign up.  The established Professional Golfers Association is openly opposing this new rival league by banning "rebel" golfers from participating in their own tournaments.  Where do I stand on all this?  My entire life experience playing golf is on the miniature level, if you call it "golf" when you always hit the ball at close range with a putter and regard ricocheting it against walls and obstacles to be a standard element of the game.  I am not at all into the sport's culture and the different traditions and rules.  Nor am I into automatically condemning by association people and organizations who work on different levels with countries accused of human rights abuses as Saudi Arabia has been.  For example, I think it was wrong in tennis for Wimbledon to have banned players from their tournament this year if they were from Russia or Belarus. And I think that sometimes established leagues (I'm thinking of the NFL in particular) can unfairly squelch fair competition in the interests of keeping their own product expensive enough for higher profits and practicing control over their own players.  So, although I don't necessarily plan on watching any LIV tournaments (should they ever be shown on TV) I also don't have a problem with players jumping over to it...that's their free choice.  Sure, I would like countries to behave themselves more compassionately toward their own people and other countries with whom they have disputes, but this banning and boycotting isn't going to make them nicer, in my opinion.  I want different nations to invest in the welfare and prosperity of other nations and make the world more interrelated and interdependent. Still, you're going to have corrupt and autocratic figures running some, if not most of these countries.  It doesn't take diplomacy to get along with your buddies, it's the jerks of the world you need those skills for.  And I don't dig a wealthy monopolistic sports organization playing the human rights card as a smokescreen to conceal their real motive, which is to preserve their tight hold on a sport.  I am no fan of the Saudi government...it's brutal toward dissenters among its own population, is starving out a neighboring weaker Arab country in a siege war and is one of those American "allies"...like Pakistan...that seem to be the spawning ground for international terrorism.  The fact that they are behind this new pro golfing league to me weighs against its eventual public acceptance.  But the PGA can take their monopoly over professional golf, along with their high-sounding pronouncements and punitive actions, and ...

Weekly Short Stories: 1985 Science Fiction, Part 5

Today I'm reviewing more 1985 science fiction short stories as they appear in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection, as selected by editor Gardner Dozois.  These anthologies are humungous books, in contrast to the Wollheim anthologies I had been reviewing...and the Asimov ones covering earlier years.  Although I think the stories are worthy, by and large, a few of them really don't fit the genre of science fiction.  It's kind of like the old Rod Serling TV series The Twilight Zone, which mixed science fiction tales with psychological dramas and alternative history stories.  But that series didn't make the claim of being science fiction, and this anthology series does.  Nevertheless, I'm plodding through it all, with my following reactions to the next four stories in this volume...

SIDE EFFECTS by Walter Jon Williams

This story is a brutally satirical indictment of the pharmaceutical industry and how money, not health, is the bottom line as a morally compromised physician tries to game the system by taking money from drug companies to test their products on financially vulnerable patients, sometimes simultaneously testing two different drugs on the same person.  A New York City secretary and a grave robber have their stories here, too...and they all come to a crescendo at the end...

THE ONLY NEAT THING TO DO by James Tiptree, Jr.

In a star-faring future where humans are settling across the galaxy, there is one dark zone of space where a ship has recently disappeared.  A precocious, spunky little girl takes her ship into that zone and gets more than she expected when a new, intelligent, and ostensibly benevolent life form establishes mental contact with her.  There's the innocent way she thinks and speaks, and there are the very serious consequences of the predicament she finds herself in with her newfound alien friend. A pretty neat story...

DINNER IN AUDOGHAST by Bruce Sterling

Not in the least bit a science fiction story, Sterling nevertheless wrote a gem of a tale here about the real very prosperous and powerful western African city of a thousand years ago, expressing in detail its government, social structure (slavery runs rampant), the international situation, trade, architecture, cuisine, and fashion...in the framework of a rather brief, interesting story involving a poor, itinerant prophet whose words disturb those eating a sumptuous, extravagant meal.  I get it: Gardner Dozois likes Bruce Sterling, but this is historical fiction, not sci-fi...

UNDER SIEGE by George R.R. Martin

This is a deftly told time travel story, where those in a bleak future suffering the consequences of nuclear holocaust between the Soviet Union and the West send the consciousness of one of their own specialized, talented mutants into the mind of a Finnish officer back in 1808 as he is on the Swedish side in a war against Russia. The narrative toggles back and forth between the horrible future and crucial moments in that past conflict concerning the unnecessary surrender to the Russians of a Swedish fortress, when certain decisions made differently could alter the course of history and steer it away from there ever being a Russian Revolution.  Years before he began work on his A Song of Ice and Fire ("Game of Thrones") saga, I could see what a compelling, incisive writer Martin was and how he made his characters come to life as few can.  I thought the ending was pretty cool, too...

Next week: more reviews of 1985 sci-fi short stories... 

Is LifeSouth Finished Holding Half-Marathons in Gainesville?

From what I can gather at this time, LifeSouth, which is the main nonprofit blood donor organization here in Gainesville, isn't planning to stage their annual Five Points of Life race weekend in February any more...I hope I'm wrong.  I keep checking the race calendars on the Internet and, while other races are scheduled in February, Five Points is nowhere to be seen.  While waiting for me at the finish line this past February at their last half-marathon, Melissa heard one of the volunteers express that this may well be their last race.  I hope it isn't so, as since 2010 I've run the Five Points Half-Marathon six different times.  Before this year and last (canceled due to Covid) they also staged a 26.2-mile marathon event, something that I've played around with doing ever since I hobbled to the finish line with an IT-band injury in the only marathon race I ever ran, in 2011 in Ocala. By the way, that event, the Ocala Marathon/Half-Marathon, has already been relegated to the past...I ran one of my best half-marathons in it in 2013.  I wonder if we're entering a different social climate that is more hostile toward these open, public running races...I'm guessing that there had to be a considerable expense involved in just having the police regulate traffic during the Gainesville and Ocala races, and most likely many folks were unhappy at the traffic interruptions.  Also, the Covid-19 pandemic turned the public away from crowded events and many are reticent to resume things as before until it's over...which may never happen. The 10K Turkey Trot Thanksgiving run at Tacachale here in Gainesville, which I've enjoyed participating in a number of times, may be a permanent casualty of the disease. I see on Facebook where a number of informal running groups have sprung up and have runs in various locations...but I'm more of a solitary than social runner unless there's an actual race involved.  The Florida Track Club is still involved with two long-distance runs: the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon in November and its own marathon/half-marathon event along the Hawthorne Trail in January.  Plus, there is something called the Cupcake Run that takes place along the same trail but originates from nearby Hawthorne.  There are still plenty of racing opportunities, but I'll miss the Five Points half-marathon if it is truly at the end of its "run"... 

Rob Dial Discusses the Greatest Fear People Have

Podcaster Rob Dial, who calls himself a personal development coach, on one of his shows last week discussed what he discovers is one of the biggest fears people have: spending time alone with themselves without outside stimulation.  When he began the program and asked the listening audience what they thought the number one fear was, I was certain he would say "public speaking" since that is the one thing that...while not necessarily terrifying me, does cause a strong negative reaction.  But no, according to Dial's source, it's just sitting by yourself and doing nothing.  He came up with a survey result where 30% of the women respondents and 60% of the men answered that they would prefer to be administered a moderately strong electric shock than to be subjected to only 15 minutes of quiet time.  To me these results are nothing less than bizarre, yet upon further reflection it does make a kind of perverse sense.  Many if not most of us walk around nowadays with a ready-made mental stimulation device, the smartphone, that is ready to instantly fill in any gaps in our busy days and eliminate the need to quietly sit and get in touch with our own feelings.  Dial pointed out that this aversion to doing nothing is probably the main reason so many have trouble with meditation, which gets the reputation for insisting that those doing it eliminate their thoughts when, in truth, the point of it all is to let different thoughts arise in the atmosphere of stillness and non-distraction and deal with them without covering them up...that's probably what causes the biggest fear of being alone and still.  From my experiences it's clear that folks are generally stimulation addicts, which to me skews the kind of relationship they seek in favor of gossip and drama, two areas that I usually find loathsome.  The same people also have a distinct sensitivity to situations they find boring and often vehemently complain whenever they experience boredom: Must! Have! Stimulation! As for me, I am totally cool being quiet and still...and boring...and not just for 15 minutes: doesn't scare me one bit...

My #22 All-Time Favorite Album: Far by Regina Spektor

FAR, by Regina Spektor, my #22 all-time favorite album, is the Soviet Union-born alternative/indie musical artist's fifth studio album, coming out in 2009.  Eventually I would get around to hearing it, but I first had some catching up to do after hearing her song Us, from an earlier album, around this time.  Eventually I would possess all eight of her albums...including Home, before and after which was just released last month.  On most of them there are a small number of spectacular tracks with the rest, while enjoyable, not as much to my liking.  Far, on the other hands, is loaded with very good, memorable songs...13 in all, and I very much like most of them.  Regina Spektor is a classically trained pianist and singer who emigrated with her family from the U.S.S.R. as a child in the late 1980s and since early adulthood has steadily built up her career as an alternative/indie recording artist and performer, composing all her material, which is full of beautiful melodies and arrangements combined with often quirky, funny and very incisive lyrics. After reading up on it I was surprised that Regina had four different producers on it besides herself...including Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra fame.  Here's a ranking of the songs from Far according to my own liking: 

1 Man of a Thousand Faces

2 Folding Chair

3 The Calculation

4 Dance Anthem of the 80's

5 Human of the Year

6 Eet

7 Wallet

8 Laughing With

9 Genius Next Door

10 One More Time with Feeling

11 Blue Lips

12 Machine

13 Two Birds

If someone asked me which was the first Regina Spektor album they should listen to, I would recommend Far...there is a lot of very diverse stuff here: the music is beautiful and if you don't find yourself laughing or crying to some of the songs, then you just ain't got no soul...don't blame it on Regina.  By the way, I had already composed this list I'm doing of my all-time favorite albums before Home, before and after came out last month.  I think so highly of this latest work by her that I would most likely have to alter that list to accommodate it...

Next week I discuss my #21 all-time favorite album...

A Year After Surgery

A year ago, yesterday I was lying in the hospital...Shands Cardiovascular to be more precise...recovering on the intensive care floor from the previous day's open-heart surgery.  It was elective: I walked right on in there, knowing in advance I was in for some pretty deep "stuff" for the ensuing weeks.  Nine years earlier, the problems leading to this event were diagnosed: a defective heart valve, bicuspid and congenital, most likely leading up to the adjacent aortic aneurism.  But my thoracic surgeon wasn't ready for surgery then, but rather had me returning for annual echo cardiograms and CT scans to measure the aneurism's width.  It wasn't until 2021 that he decided to go ahead with the procedure, not because of the aneurism, which had not grown over this time span but rather because the valve looked "chunky" with some deposits.  That was in late April and, after some hemming and hawing around, I decided to go ahead and get it over with.  The stay at Shands was ultimately a positive experience although the heart did go into atrial fibrillation post-surgery, a common enough occurrence. The recovery period focused on allowing my sternum to fuse back together and for me to regain motion and strength in my upper body. In August I began to run a little on my own, but it wasn't until late October after my return to work that I was able to circuit my .7-mile home block...in December I ran a 5K race and, in February this year, ran Gainesville's local half-marathon.  Although I am taking daily medications chiefly from my cardiologist's concerns about potentially recurring a-fib, my life seems to going on fully normally without restriction.  I'm blessed and grateful, both for living in such a time and place to be able to undergo such complicated and delicate surgery and postoperative care and to have the means to pay for it...as well as the loving support of my family and friends, most especially Melissa.  So, I'm back to living each day one day at a time...let's see what the rest of today brings! 

Quote of the Week...from Xander Schauffele

I put little goals in place every day, and I think if you can kind of keep to the small things it's easier to capture the big picture at the end.                                                 ---Xander Schauffele

Xander Schauffele is a PGA golfer who is on a bit of a roll: not only did he win a gold medal for the USA in the Tokyo Olympics last year, but he has just won his second straight tournament, following up his Travelers victory with the Scottish Open title this past weekend.  In both tournaments he employed a careful, methodical style, rising to the top of the leader board and remaining there throughout the final two rounds. In interviews he is unassuming and cordial, no prima donna here.  Xander's above quote captures the essence of a lot of what I've been learning about self-improvement in whatever area of my life that I'm tackling.  Do small things better, a little at a time and change those bad habits into good ones.  In the course of just one year a marked improvement will be evident and in the long run, greatness can be attainable.  But first the little things.  Thanks, Xander, I'll be rooting for you...

Constellation of the Month: Hercules

 

Hercules is probably, of the 88 official constellations, the most prominent one that lacks any first magnitude or second magnitude stars.  For one, it's rather large.  For another, it's at the celestial latitude such that in temperate areas (like the continental U.S.) it crosses the meridian at the zenith, thus avoiding those pesky lighted up skies at the horizon.  Also, the constellation's pattern is conspicious, with a quadrilateral of stars in its center, commonly referred to as the "Keystone".  There observers can find the M13 globular cluster...M92, another globular cluster, is located on the constellation's northern side.  Hercules is juxtaposed between Ophiuchus on its south and Draco on its north, with Lyra's bright star Vega just to its east. As earlier noted, it has no first or second magnitude stars, but plenty of third and fourth magnitude that are easily visible to the naked eye.  Of course, Hercules represents the mythological Greek hero...and it's one of my favorite constellations to observe.  Next month I'll continue this series with another constellation...

Weekly Short Stories: 1985 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today I move on to examine four more 1985 short stories in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois, a sci-fi writer in his own right. In 1985 I was living in Gainesville and in August one Saturday morning I woke up to find my town in a panic as powerful Hurricane Elena had abruptly changed course and was sitting in the Gulf of Mexico just past Cedar Key, poised to strike us.  I hurried to my nearby Publix...it was overrun with folks crazily buying up everything and I just turned around and went home.  Turns out Elena did another about-face and ended up striking the Gulf Alabama-Mississippi coast instead, completely missing us.  But back to those four stories... 

SOLSTICE by James Patrick Kelly

This is a rather disjointed novella set in the future when the solar system is being explored in person. People can be regularly placed in suspended animation for decades and developers of novel mind-altering drugs are treated as rock superstars.  One such "drug artist" is Tony Cage, or Cage for short.  His ongoing story is his concern for the welfare and happiness of his clone, a young woman named Wynne.  She's falling in with a man to whom Cage, an unlikable manipulative sort, objects...does any of this interest you? Funny, it didn't me...neither did the strange sections scattered throughout the piece describing the history of Stonehenge in England and various theories about what it was for.  Sometimes with short stories I come across an unsatisfactory one, but when it's a novella I feel as if I just wasted a lot of time...

DUKE PASQUALE'S RING by Avram Davidson

Another novella in this very fat anthology of stories, it's set in Europe late in the 19th century as a would-be minor nobleman, a pauper with his wife in their hometown, is still accorded the respect of a king by others...at least nominally.  But the story is really about how one of the author's recurring characters, a kind of Sherlock Holmes of this time and place, encounters an evil individual and thwarts his designs on the king and queen.  Not exactly science fiction unless you consider shapeshifting as a qualifying element of that genre.  I liked the tongue-in-cheek, humorous way this story was written...

MORE THAN THE SUM OF HIS PARTS by Joe Haldeman

In the future, an engineer suffers a horrible accident in space near the moon and is quickly operated on, most of his body replaced by parts making him primarily a cyborg...and much stronger and invulnerable in many respects than everyone else.  It all goes to his head...reminded me of one of the first original Star Trek episodes...

OUT OF ALL THEM BRIGHT STARS by Nancy Kress

An alien walks into a country diner...sounds familiar if you've seen the old Twilight Zone episode.  But in this brief tale the alien is the normal "person" as the diner's employees and patrons display the full gamut of knee-jerk and bigoted reactions to this polite and reserved individual dressed in a nice suit with a blue head under his hat.  I didn't get what the author was trying to say except that maybe that she thought country folk were a bunch of ignorant hicks...

Next week I continue reviewing 1985 sci-fi stories from the Dozois anthology...

Just Finished Reading Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay

Survivor Song, published in the late spring of 2020, is a horror novel about the outbreak of an especially virulent strain of rabies in New England and the reactions of the government and surrounding community.  The author, Paul Tremblay, wrote the entire story before the Covid-19 outbreak, yet it reads in sections like a primer on the real scourge that swept across the world.  This is true especially with regard to the book's depiction of right-wing conspiracy/militia nuts.  The protagonists include Natalie, a woman in the last stage of pregnancy, whose husband is attacked and killed in their rural Massachusetts home by an infected man: the intruder succeeds in biting and infecting her. Natalie contacts her old college friend Ramola, now a physician, and the two embark on a harrowing journey to find a hospital or clinic to treat her dire condition.  This is hampered by the region-wide quarantine with armed forces patrolling the roads and restricting traffic.  Also, the area they must traverse is full of wild, infected animals and a few humans who transform into zombie-like, biting monsters when they are infected.  That's the background...what I liked about this novel, which I read through a recommendation by Stephen King on Twitter, is the relationship between Natalie and Ramola and the personal life stories of each woman: very compelling and heartbreaking.  Three years ago, I read A Head Full of Ghosts by the same author...click on the title to read my review.  Tremblay is an excellent writer in this genre, and I might as well check out his other works...

Podcaster Discusses Changing Mindsets

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast, free to listen to on a number of different apps, life coach Rob Dial discussed how to go about changing our mindset (if that's what we want).  He divided the issue into two groups: people who are generally satisfied with their current life but want to make some changes, and those who are fed up across-the-board with how their life is going and how they have been living it.  For the first he advocates we purchase a small memo notebook we can carry everywhere with us and use it to write down every time we come up short in our own perceived behavior.  With this he promotes the nightly habit of reviewing our notes and devising alternative, better actions the next time the opportunity arises.  This is completely in line with what Dial has been teaching from James Clear's book Atomic Habits, which I regard as pretty brilliant.  For those in the second group who are thoroughly disgusted with their lives he recommends radical action in the form of doing everything opposite to how they have been.  So, for example he says if they normally go up an elevator then they should instead walk up the stairs.  I see his reasoning in this, but even people who think their lives are miserable and going nowhere are most likely doing some, if not most things right, and automatically going into opposite mode for its own sake sounds a bit asinine and possibly dangerous to me...oh well, I've already acknowledged that I don't always agree with Rob Dial.  But his first suggestion about the notepad sounds spot-on, I think I'll try it...

My #23 All-Time Favorite Album: Quadrophenia by The Who

The first time I ever heard a Who song on the radio, it was 1965 and the song was I Can't Explain: I was certain that it was the Beatles and couldn't believe it when they said it was someone else.  Then I kept waiting for more songs by the British band The Who...and waited. It seems like this band, other than an occasional singles hit, for some reason didn't catch on in this country until they released their rock opera album Tommy in 1970...and then they became a "supergroup".  Songwriter/guitarist Pete Townshend then in 1972 decided to do a second rock opera, this one about a disillusioned and frustrated young man named Jimmy in his epic work Quadrophenia, a double album that, like Tommy, was made into a feature length film a few years later.  Although I was familiar with songs like 5:15, Dr. Jimmy and Love Reign O'er Me, I didn't hear the entire two-disc album until I purchased it in 1997.  By then, though, I was acquainted with the four-man band: Townshend, singer Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle, and (crazy) drummer Keith Moon.  As I listened to Quadrophenia a number of times, certain sections became more interesting and meaningful than others...I ended up greatly preferred the second CD.  Don't get me wrong: every track on the entire piece is good, including the first disc which features Daltrey belting out The Real Me and a curious concluding song, I've Had Enough, which seems to musically portend a later Who hit, Squeeze Box.  I also liked the early instrumental tracks like I Am the Sea and Quadrophenia.  The others you can have: Cut My Hair, The Punk and the Godfather, I'm One, Dirty Jobs, Helpless Dancer, and Is It in My Head? are all pretty decent, but to me forgettable.  But that second disc is what made Quadrophenia one of my favorites.  It starts with 5:15, which I've known since the album came out. "Inside outside, leave me alone, inside outside, nowhere is home" are just some of the lines that reveal protagonist Jimmy's growing disaffection with the world and his life as he struggles for acceptance by his gang and society.  From there Roger Daltrey, in the persona of Jimmy, continues with Sea and Sand and Drowned until we reach the greatest part of the entire album: the final four tracks.  In Bell Boy, Keith Moon sings the part of a former idol of Jimmy's who later became an ordinary bell boy at a hotel.  Then, the epic song Dr. Jimmy refers to Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde tale as Jimmy sings of his own split nature...and the very dark side to his often-raging personality.  Then it's on to The Rock, another instrumental track that ties in the many musical themes in the album.  Finally, against a stormy background, Daltrey screams out the classic Love Reign O'er Me.  I see the character Jimmy in this story as a kind of Everyman who is in a constant struggle between being true to himself, fitting in with his immediate circles, and surviving in a dog-eat-dog world that seems to present a different set of "rules" at each stage of life.  More than all this, I enjoyed the passion and musical skill these artists brought to this recording.  Nevertheless, Quadrophenia isn't my highest-rated album by The Who...stay tuned...

Current Music I'm Listening (and Planning) To

The other day I purchased Regina Spektor's new CD, titled Home, before and after...it's the seventh studio release from this highly talented and creative piano virtuoso, my favorite musical artist of this century.  I waited a whopping seven years from her previous album but was amply rewarded with this one.  Every track is good, and some are so emotionally engaging that I admit to a little crying while listening to them.  As is the custom in my life since 1964, I rank the music I hear for each year as I walk through it. So far in 2022 I haven't hinted about my favorites from this year because, well, I hadn't heard any. Not until now: as of this moment all ten tracks on Regina's new album represent my Top Ten, with Spacetime Fairytale, Loveology, Coin and Raindrops topping the list in that order.  Although I admit to scorning the sorry state of radio nowadays and their lamentable music, there are some acts I like that have either released new albums or are about to.  These include Metric (Formentera), Arcade Fire (We), Kasabian (The Alchemist's Euphoria), Spoon (Lucifer on the Sofa) and The Smile (A light for attracting attention), the last group a collaboration of Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood.  From these I'm certain to find some more songs to dilute, if only a little, Regina Spektor's dominance over my 2022 personal favorites list.  I'm currently doing a weekly all-time personal favorite album feature on this blog, presenting a new one in countdown form (I'm at #23) each Sunday.  It's too late to include Home, before and after on it, but it definitely could end up as a top favorite, too...

Quote of the Week...from Beck

I think you have to keep a childlike quality to play music or make a record.          ---Beck

Beck Hansen, or simply "Beck" as he is better known for decades, has been one of my favorite recording artists. Based originally in the Los Angeles area, he combined technical acoustic wizardry in the studio with offhand and sometimes off-base lyrics in many of his earlier songs like Loser, Deadweight and Novacane.  He has long said that anything goes with his music, and it reflects his fearless experimentation, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  His above quote struck me not for its specific application to his craft, but rather because it has universal relevance in everything we do. There is a substantial difference between immature childish petulance and the wide-eyed innocent wonder children have about life and the world around them...it's the second of these qualities I extoll. I also think that a large part of both what Jesus preached and today's mindfulness movement direct us to return to that early mind state of our lives and become more rooted in the present and in what is immediately around us instead of obsessing on past regrets or future worries and struggling through the morass of abstraction and overthinking.  The greatest music has those childlike elements of simplicity and repetition, whether it's a Beethoven symphony or a funny Beck track...the greatest of anything goes the same way, in my opinion... 

Some Musings on a Hot July Day

On yet another predictably miserably hot and muggy July day here in northern Florida I am in the morning at home, typing this on my desktop.  Melissa showed me a blank daily journal book she had just bought for herself...it features sections to fill in, among them things to be grateful for each day...great idea.  I thought that, although I did start this blog of mine back in 2007, more than fifteen years ago, it would have been cool to have continuously been engaging in personal journaling...with the extremely personal stuff wisely filtered out...going back decades earlier and into my childhood years.  I do remember back in 1973 starting a journal of sorts, summarizing with each passing month the more significant happenings back then in my life...but I didn't stick with it and, of course, we didn't have digital blogs or Facebook 49 years ago.  As a matter of fact, I recall at that time that my high school math department possessed a piano-sized very rudimentary computer in a set-off room where only the nerdiest of nerdy math addict students would hang out.  One kid I remember, Billy, who was practically blind without his ultrathick glasses, would actually stay there after school by hiding up in the ceiling until the building was closed and then come back down at night to play with the computer, which resembled nothing we have in our day.  Now you see, this is something you might think I would have written back in that time if blogging and the Internet had existed then, but you would have been wrong: I would have discussed the computer while leaving out Billy's role with it, for his sake.  Sometimes I think it would be fun to engage in what I call a "life memory project" and reconstruct my past out of my memories of it...but it would naturally be distorted in favor of the so-called lessons I now believe I have learned and have incorporated into my personal narrative...

Weekly Short Stories: 1985 Science Fiction, Part 3

Today, as I continue reviewing science fiction short stories from the year 1985, I switch to Gardner Dozois' excellent anthology series, this volume titled The Year's Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection, first published in 1986.  As with 1984 and 1985 there is little overlapping between his selection of stories and those of Donald A. Wollheim. For 1985 there are only two stories, which I have already reviewed, appearing in both books: Fermi and Frost by Frederik Pohl and Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg. Here are my reactions to the first (other) stories from the Dozois anthology...

THE JAGUAR HUNTER by Lucius Shepard

Set in a poor, rural tropical American country, a farmer with a carelessly extravagant wife finds himself unable to pay her bills, so in an arrangement with his creditor he promises to hunt and kill the wild jaguar that has been killing people in the area.  He knows what he's doing; he's successfully hunted jaguars before.  But this one's quite different and opens him up to a different reality, as well as to his creditor's ulterior motives.  Not so much a science fiction story as it is fantasy, but the anthology's editor has a penchant for blurring the boundaries between the two genres...

DOGFIGHT by William Gibson

In a near-future world where virtual games are played on tabletop, a man seeks to dethrone the champion game-player of a local community.  In doing so, he progressively becomes pettier and more underhanded as he deceives a young woman into providing him extra software advantages, ultimately betraying her.  And the champ he is challenging has his own compelling story, but no: it must be victory at all costs...

GREEN DAYS IN BRUNEI by Bruce Sterling

The small nation of Brunei is situated on the island of Borneo, which it shares with the much larger country of Indonesia.  Very wealthy for its oil reserves and production, this story is set after the wells run dry and Brunei officially reverts to a pretechnological economy.  But the government has hired an expert from the West to help them build a fleet of boats using robots.  He has to overcome the social and political obstacles hurled his way while at the same time courting the royal princess.  I guess the robots in this story make it science fiction, right?

SNOW by John Crowley

A brilliant little tale of how the passage of time eventually takes the essence out of all attempts to record people and events, as a young widow is bequeathed a tiny drone that follows here around everywhere for eight thousand hours, recording everything going on in her life for that span.  After her death, it is stored in a mausoleum for viewing by specially selected loved ones, including the protagonist.  A bittersweet and incisive look at how memories are bleached over time...

THE FRINGE by Orson Scott Card

In a post-apocalyptic near future, in Utah (where the author originates) attempts are being made to reinstitute agriculture and social and economic recovery in the years following the disaster.  But rules are rigid, and freedoms are limited, as simple survival is on the line. An agricultural scientist crippled by palsy takes on the task of teaching the rebellious and spoiled children in the area while at the same time considering turning in their parents, who are stealing food and provisions to sell to the black market for their own enrichment.  A good tale about ethical dilemmas and when one should take a stand and when they just might let things go...

THE LAKE WAS FULL OF ARTIFICIAL THINGS by Karen Joy Fowler

Miranda is using special vivid dream memory therapy to reimagine her old boyfriend Daniel, with whom she broke up just before he was sent as a draftee to fight (and die) in Southeast Asia.  It's a poignant look at self-inflicted guilt, what could have been and people's tendency to put words into the mouths of others that are reflections of their own desires and regrets...

Next week I continue looking at stories from 1985 that appeared in the Gardner Dozois series...

Podcaster Suggests Ways to Be More Disciplined

On one of his Mindset Mentor podcasts last week, personal development coach Rob Dial brought up the topic of discipline...specifically self-discipline...and discussed some methods he has used over the years to help himself stick to the tasks he knows he needs to accomplish.  He starts off by describing discipline as taking action even when you don't feel like it...to that I respond, "No kidding!" Then Dial goes down a list of seven points to follow: (1) focus on the opportunity, not the obligation...even though you're obliged to do the task, visualize more the positive effects doing it will produce down the line. (2) Do the small things well. In other words, master the fundamentals.  (3) Design your environment to make the right action easier, eliminating distractions and temptations around you.  (4) Make your body move...Dial suggests an easy five-minute movement routine of your own design.  (5) Count down and go. Dial acknowledges that another self-improvement figure, Mel Robbins, promoted this notion with her book The Five-Minute Rule, but that he had been practicing it longer, basically rehearsing difficult activities at least as far as their beginnings and then counting down 3-2-1 and plunging into them.  (6) Explore how to make taking the necessary action easier on yourself.  And finally, (7) get an accountability partner.  Suggestions #1-6 all sound painfully obvious when I write them down here, but #7 isn't quite so clear-cut.  An accountability partner is someone chosen to, well, hold oneself accountable in certain specified areas of his or her life.  I've never felt the need for one, thank you, and moreover, think some folks use the idea in a manipulative, hurtful way. If you decide to have an accountability partner, that person should not be involved in the immediate social/professional circle you are in, in order to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest...I saw this crucial principle badly violated last year with two good people losing their jobs as a result, largely due to badmouthing behind their backs.  Plus, as Rob Dial pointed out in his given example, the accountability topic should be limited to specific issues. The relationship should not degenerate to where the two sides...or maybe just one...cries on the other's shoulders about the difficulties he or she may be experiencing with certain people over whom that partner has authority: that is deceitful and unethical behavior on the part of both participants. So, I say yes to nearly all of Rob Dial's presentation about discipline, but regarding accountability partners I have some really deep trust issues...

About Independence Day and Running

I'd like to wish all my readers a happy Independence Day...America's, that is...and may God continue to bless our great country and its people.  If you are a regular news junkie, regardless of your preferred sources, you're bound to get the impression that half of the United States is the mortal enemy of the other half, and that we are on the verge of terrible civil conflict, if not war itself.  I sincerely hope that isn't the case, but as Forrest Gump's mom often said, "Stupid is as stupid does" and it's been my experience over the years that there is no shortage of stupidity around me...maybe I need to go find a cave to hide in.  But before that happens, I notice that, apart from all the mass shootings going on, it still seems rather peaceful...if I can with a straight face describe the actions of my fellow motorists "peaceful".  But that's another topic for another time...today I am relaxing at home on my day off and avoiding running in a local three-mile race that is held annually on this holiday.  I don't know, it just seems that my motivation for involvement in running on any social level has dissipated and left it as a purely personal, individual activity.  The thought of shelling out more than thirty bucks to drive down to Westside Park and get bunched in with all these people, very few of whom I have any sense of connection or community toward, and then running in the middle of a stampede while trying to avoid getting knocked off my feet for some reason no longer appeals to me.  I'm still holding out hope of some longer distance races starting in October, but for now my maximum level of social involvement in the sport has me going to my local gym a couple of times a week to run on one of their treadmills...this I began doing last Friday and intend to make a regular activity.  And if some strange, unexpected urge compels me to run with others before autumn, there is always the weekly, free 5K race held every Saturday morning at Gainesville's pretty Depot Park... 

My #24 All-Time Favorite Album: Ghost in the Machine by The Police

GHOST IN THE MACHINE, my #24 all-time favorite album, represents the fourth of five albums by the reggae-inspired rock band THE POLICE and came out late in 1981, receiving much radio play the following year.  Every Little Thing She Does is Magic was a Top Forty pop singles hit and the opening track, Spirits in the Material World, was very popular on album rock radio.  Until the 1990s my exposure to The Police's catalog of music was limited to their radio songs and videos.  Then I bought all five albums and became deeply impressed with their music.  Ghost in the Machine hints at the generally serious themes of mysticism and dystopia, with some romance and a little optimism included.  Sting (Gordon Sumner) is the band's main creative force as well as its bassist and lead singer.  Andy Summer plays lead guitar and Stewart Copeland is on drums: since he's American the band is technically only two thirds British.  Here are my rankings of the album's eleven tracks, along with some brief commentary...

1 Invisible Sun--I first heard this pretty scary song watching its video on MTV.  Sting's portrayal of a world run down into anarchy and violence is chilling and, ominously, I fear, prescient: I can see it all happening.  One of my very top favorite songs for decades...

2 Darkness--I gradually caught on to this closing track of the album...the strong instrumental accompaniment reminds me of the trademark "wall of sound" that legendary (and, regrettably, homicidal) record producer Phil Spector used with the Beatles and George Harrison. Drummer Stewart Copeland wrote it: awesome!

3 Spirits in the Material World--When I first heard this song on the radio early in '82, it freaked me out.  I realized that the Police had taken a very serious lyrical turn in their music.  The beat to this song is nothing less than bizarre...it's the perfect opening track...

4 Secret Journey--Captures my imagination when I want to just get away from it all and have an adventure. It was a late singles release from the album...

5 Hungry for You (J'aurais Toujours Faim de Toi)--the words here are almost all in French.  It's a relentless, driving love song that reminded me a bit of their great long-titled track When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around from their previous album...

6 Too Much Information--Speaking of prescience, this song bemoans the omnipresence of information, true and fake.  It could have been written today and folks would say, "Yeah, and tell me something I don't already know"...

7 Omegaman--Maybe Andy Summers' most significant composition, he speaks of seeking a more perfect life as his tired surroundings fade away...

8 Every Little Thing She Does is Magic--On its merits this song should rank on this list much higher, but as with other albums I've been reviewing there are some tracks that are played so much on the radio that I get sick of them.  It's a great love song, though...

9 Demolition Man--Sting's the Demolition Man and he is determined to wreck everything he comes in contact with...it's all rather funny.  I liked it, but like with some other Police songs, it drags on way too long...

10 One World (Not Three)--A catchy, pleasant little upbeat song with an annoyingly condescending message: yeah, I know we're all on the same planet and should be more united and caring for each other, duh...

11 Rehumanize Yourself--Another Stewart Copeland song (along with Sting), it describes various people doing things he disapproves of and that they all should "rehumanize themselves": like #10 it's kind of preachy for my tastes...

Check out Ghost in the Machine on YouTube when you get a chance. Next week I reveal and discuss my #23 all-time favorite album...

Just Finished Rereading The Dark Tower by Stephen King

For the second time I've been reading through Stephen King's seven-volume fantasy series The Dark Tower, published over a period from 1982 to 2004.  I just finished the final book, also titled The Dark Tower, and am not exactly sure about how to write about it...much as is the case with any longstanding series.  Since the characters in previous books are usually in a state of dire danger, then even bringing up one of their names is liable to unduly tip off any interested reader, so I by necessity will be sparce in my description of this concluding book.  The series premise has Roland Deschain, a hardened noble gunslinger from Mid-World (an alternate reality from ours), on a quest with his diverse "ka-tet" (fellowship) to find the Dark Tower, which holds all of reality together in light through beams, and which is in danger of being taken over by the evil and probably insane Crimson King.  Since the book is titled "Dark Tower" and Roland is the main character, I don't think it will be giving much away to say that he reaches his destination.  But beyond that, I think I'll just let you, the prospective reader of this series, find everything else out for yourself.  I will mention, though, that it is a symptom of these long, drawn-out series to have, in my opinion, too many characters and subplots...this one is no exception.  But I don't recall reading one in which the author had the nerve to place himself within the story.  Stephen King's 1999 accident in which he was seriously injured by a van that veered off a rural Maine road while he was out walking, in our real world as well as the story's, prompted him to speed up writing this series, putting out the final three volumes within a span of two years.  That in itself is quite an accomplishment.  Yet I had a problem with the easy way that characters could even defy death by slipping into different realities, and the very ending of the series has never satisfied me either...although someone with ties to Eastern religions and philosophies might identify with it.  Reading the Dark Tower series is a big undertaking, but overall, I think the reader who ventures out with Roland on his adventures will be rewarded.  By the way, there is a later book in the series, titled The Wind Through the Keyhole, that came out in 2012 and features a flashback story from Roland's youth...it doesn't figure in the flow of the original series, though...

Quote of the Week...from Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead.  Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.  Just walk beside me and be my friend.                                                 ---Albert Camus

Albert Camus was a twentieth century French philosopher; his quotes are prolific.  The above is one presented on my Music Choice television Soundscapes channel.  It speaks to the hierarchical instinct some people seem to have.  Some have set themselves up in a personal narrative that has them the supreme authority on any subject and are more knowledgeable about the ways of the world than others, expecting as habit to be accorded the final word on whatever is being discussed.  Others have submerged their own identity and individuality to follow massively flawed figures in personality cults or have made the calculation at some point in their existence that meekly toadying up to bullies and adopting their often cruel and bigoted treatment of others is the way to go.  I know that in different social settings throughout my life I have encountered both types.  Nobody knows everything and neither do I.  I quickly discern when someone not only is incapable of saying "I don't know" but also pretends that my opinion is, by default, irrelevant and beneath their consideration.  And I also get a very creepy feeling when an individual goes to great lengths of outward obeisance and fawning toward me...what is their real game?  No, how about simple friendship and mutual respect, each of us recognizing that in some areas I'm superior and in others you are...hey, maybe we can even learn from one another!