Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 4

Once again, it's Wednesday and time for me to continue with my look back at the year 1991 as I review three more sci-fi short stories appearing in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois and featuring his picks from that year. In '91 Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, an icon in the civil rights movement, after 24 years on the bench, announced his retirement.  The Republican president at the time, George (H.W.) Bush, nominated very conservative judge Clarence Thomas, another African American, as Marshall's replacement.  Although the Democratic majority in the Senate wasn't enthusiastic about a conservative justice replacing a liberal as it would change the dynamics of future cases and rulings, unlike Republican Mitch McConnell with his more recent stonewalling of Merrick Garland, they processed Thomas' nomination. And even though Anita Hill accused Thomas of past sexual harassment, he was narrowly confirmed...and is now the senior justice on the Court.  But as I like to say, back to those stories... 

DISPATCHES FROM THE REVOLUTION by Pat Cadigan

This is another of those tedious "what if" alternative history stories, focusing on the 1968 Chicago anti-war protests during that tumultuous election year.  The lefties are the good guys here and the righties...especially Ronald Reagan...are portrayed as the evil villains.  I think the author was saying here that even if the tragic assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King that year turned out differently, horrible things would still have happened as they were all symptoms of an underlying sickness in the country.  It's up to the reader to agree or not with that premise...

PIPES by Robert Reed

There's a project in the future, kind of like Jurassic Park, where extinct prehistoric animals are to be brought back into existence and set in a vast reserve in the American plains, accessible to the wealthy and elite for study and entertainment.  The scientist spearheading it all has everything down about the needed genetic codes down on his computer in his apartment, when a Native American plumber pays him a visit to fix his pipes.  The point of his appearance soon becomes clear when he, apparently already aware of the project, proposes that the Indians also be returned their land that was taken from them.  A thoughtful and funny ending...

MATTER'S END by Gregory Benford

Trying to prove the decay of protons is a formidable task, especially in India of the future where much of the population has grown hostile to science and technology after biological "innovations" have unintentionally decimated their agriculture and even bred tiny predatory fish that lodge themselves in people's urinary tracts...shudder!  But deep beneath the surface near Bangalore is a facility that reports to have evidence that the world's scientific community has been waiting for...a western scientist is there to ascertain the experiment's validity and report on it.  The result: let's just say that once again here is a tale that pretends that religious dogma...in this case of India...rings of literal truth.  And that perceptions of truth...even greatly exaggerated...can create new truths, if you can wrap your head around that.  By the way, Benford is an astrophysicist as well as a sci-fi writer: he knows his science at least...

Next week: still more stories of 1991 discussed from Dozois' book...

2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season Begins on Thursday

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season is set to officially start this Thursday, June 1, but already there is a low-pressure disturbance...albeit not yet tropical in nature...in the Gulf of Mexico that is slated to pelt the central part of Florida this week with much rain and storms.  The forecasters say that this year should be close to normal in the quantity and intensity of named tropical storms and hurricanes.  But all it takes is one big hurricane coming right at your home area to make a monumental mess of things, and I'll be keeping an eye a little more on those daily forecasts and tropical outlooks on the TV weather stations.  Gainesville has been almost providentially spared the head-on wrath of a major storm, although in recent years it has been sideswiped on a number of occasions.  My major concern is a Category Four or Five hurricane strengthening in the Gulf and coming ashore around Cedar Key, heading straight for my hometown.  It's not a high probability for a single year, but over a span of decades the likelihood of that occurring is drastically increased.  But for now, all seems normal...

On Memorial Day

Nobody I know ever says "Happy Memorial Day" like they would on a different holiday, for today is the time to somberly and gratefully reflect on those brave and dedicated people who in our past gave their lives in combat to protect our freedoms and way of life here in America.  People can argue...and rightly so...about the wisdom of our civilian leaders in various conflicts over our history, but the soldiers who carried out those policies with courage and the ultimate sacrifice deserve the greatest honor.  God bless them all...

Funny Old British Comedy Skit Sticks with Me

I was just recently mentioning to a friend a very funny British comedy skit I once saw back in the '80s on one of the many good shows my local Gainesville PBS station used to broadcast back then.  In it, a frumpy late-middle-aged couple is going off to bed, but first the wife insists that the reluctant husband take out the garbage.  Grumbling, he trudges outside and then, after looking around him, suddenly rushes to his car...still in his pajamas...and heads to the airport, where he takes off in a jet, super-high speed, to go partying and gambling in some far-off resort.  The jet zooms back in and he quickly gets back to the garbage cans, when he slowly makes his way back to his room.  Then his wife asks him if he got all the trash...and he's off again!  That skit stuck with me because, one, it was so damned funny and, two, it opened up the possibility of having a wacky, self-contained adventure during a weekend...and then getting back to "business as usual".  In particular, I think of various marathons and half-marathons scattered each weekend across America...and even in other countries of the world and wouldn't it be cool to pull off something like that dude emptying the garbage...except that I wouldn't be secretive about it.  I wish I remembered which series that skit came from: I've narrowed it down to Dave Allen At Large, Not the Nine O'Clock News, and Monty Python's Flying Circus... 

Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

In recent days I've been embarking on a more strenuous training regimen for walking, as my schedule permits.  To this end I decided to use the free Depot Parkrun 5K event, held (almost) every Saturday morning at 7:30, to try at least once a month walking an entire race.  Today was my first complete walk, but the temptation just before race time was to go ahead and run it, the weather being an unseasonably cool and pleasant 58 degrees with 84% humidity.  But no, I had made up my mind and decided to hike that distance.  I do feel the need to mention that for the previous couple of weeks I had periodically been walking at incrementally faster paces on my gym's treadmill after work late at night, stepping off each time after one mile: yesterday I got my sustained walking speed up to 4.5 mph.  Today's race involved lots of runners naturally passing me...you need a certain degree of humility to speed-walk races.  Of course, I was also trying to go fast while maintaining foot contact with the path.  My goal was to break 50 minutes, but I was surprised not only to finish the 5K without breaking a sweat, but that my finishing time was 45:14, a pace just faster than 4.2 mph.  You can see today's results by clicking HERE.  I'm becoming more convinced that the treadmill, used wisely, can help to automatically improve the user's walking form by progressively increasing their speed at a manageable distance from workout to workout.  I'm thinking of expanding this principle to running, which in retrospect is what I did back in 2007 when I began training for races after a more than thirty-year hiatus.  Depot Park, site of this event, is about eight blocks south of downtown Gainesville... 

Quote of the Week...from Lenny Kravitz

We're getting so pulled in by computers and technology, and our kids have their face in computers all day. The human relationship is being diminished by this.                 ---Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz is an American solo rock artist who I've always considered as one of the most musically talented in the profession.  His singles hit Fly Away was my personal top favorite song for the year 1998, and he shined portraying Katniss' stylist Cinna in the movies The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.  Although I like his music and acting, I'd like to focus on Lenny's above quote.  Sixty-six years old now, I grew up and spent my early adult years free of the then-fledgling digital revolution, whereas it's the only thing that younger generations know of in life.  Fifty years ago, people would be astonished at a picture of a typical city street of today with half the people quizzically staring down at their hands as if in a trance.  When I went with my then-eighteen-year-old son Will to his college in Jacksonville fifteen years ago, we went to see what the main library looked like...the tables were full of students, without books, eyes glued in on their laptop computers.  Whatever happened to that "cognitive reverie" of hanging out at the stacks there, surrounded by books, which is what I used to do as a student?  And the video games...don't get me going with that.  Of course, I, too, have my head in computers all day as well...especially considering my "smart" phone.  And it's not all bad, don't get me wrong: I'm taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity to write this free blog for anyone (in a free country) in the world to read!  Kids do get outside and play and interact...at least some of them.  But computers have this instant feedback and reinforcement trait that can be addicting.  In generations past, children had their heads in books...with mine it was television all the time...and now with the young it's computers.  I wonder what the snare will be a couple of generations from now.  There is one glaring difference between computers and TV/books: people...not just young...find their personal validation through social media and the Internet, and that makes it much more likely that they can be manipulated by the ones pulling the strings on the other side, often hidden...

Just Finished Rereading The Long Walk by Stephen King

Before I began writing this blog back in April of 2007, I had already read most of Stephen King's published novels.  Since I tend to review books here that I just read, this means that I never got around to discussing those earlier books.  King early on liked to publish come of his works under the pseudonym Richard Bachman...The Long Walk, from 1979, was one of them.  And I just finished reading it...again. The setting...as in so many other Stephen King stories...is Maine.  America has turned into an authoritarian, militaristic state and the big sport on the day of the story is the annual Long Walk, where everyone wagers on who will survive the grueling ordeal...and only the last one left walking will.  Survive, because any participant who dips below the four miles per hour threshold will be warned three times and then shot dead by the soldiers patrolling the route.  Yet many young men volunteer for this "race", because if they do survive, they will pretty much have anything they want for the remainder of their lives.  Ray Garraty, a native of Maine, throws his hat into the ring and, along with 99 other boys, sets off.  The tale is about surviving, giving up, the limits of human endurance and the meaning of friendship and honor while the walkers all know that the others must die in order for them to continue living.  Ray has his friends and foes, and the story gets pretty worked up as you might imagine whenever a boy cannot physically go on any further...and here come the soldiers.  I picked The Long Walk as the first of a series of rereads I plan to continue with because, well, although I'm not going to go out on such a race myself, I have been working on my walking speed both around the neighborhood and at my gym on the treadmill.  The plan is to develop an athletic level of performance with walking, past the 4-mph standard of King's novel.  Oh, although the author was depicting a cruel American society that didn't exist, I might add that it doesn't exist yet: it will happen, though, if its people allow it to happen...

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here is another installment of my weekly review of science fiction short stories I have just read. I am currently going at a crawling pace through the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection, featuring his picks from the year 1991. This was the year that my workplace moved to its new location in far southwestern Gainesville: still there...as a matter of fact I'm sitting in their employee parking lot right now typing this. I've enjoyed my work over the years...definitely a plus in my life with lots of good people around me as well.  But as I usually say at this juncture, back to those stories...

THE DARK by Karen Joy Fowler

A very curious story this is, weaving together three improbable narratives: a missing little boy in Yosemite National Park, the cyclic rises and falls of the plague over the centuries, and tunnel fighting during the Vietnam War.  Yet it works well in this tale worth rereading...

MARNIE Ian MacLeod

A man with a singular, horrible event in his past keeps coming back within his body from the future (presumably with the aid of a time machine) to avert the tragic event...but can't seem to get past himself as the time draws near. To me this story shows just how much folks go through their daily lives on autopilot, usually reacting without thinking to what happens around them. And also, that it's our own inner resistance keeping us from change, not always that which we think the world imposes on us...

A TIP ON A TURTLE by Robert Silverberg

A woman taking a vacation break following the breakup of her marriage finds on a tropical resort romance...and turtle races in the pool as a mysterious man she's attracted to has a gift for picking the winners.  It's all about the gift of foresight...or is it a curse?

¨

ÜBERMENSCH! by Kim Newman

What if Superman didn't crash land as a little child in Kansas, but rather in Bavaria, Germany during Hitler's rise?  This story is an exercise in speculation on that "what if" premise, peculiar since, after all, there was no Superman to begin with from which to create an alternative "history"...or is this just a spoof of the whole alternative history subgenre? Read it for yourself and get back to me...

Next week I will continue discussing short sci-fi from 1991...

Podcast Discusses Regret and How to Avoid It

Yesterday's Mindset Mentor podcast had host Rob Dial cover a topic he's covered before: don't be full of regret when approaching death.  Yes, this sounds like an inherently morbid topic, but it's also one of Stephen Covey's principles of highly effective people: begin with the end in mind, looking back from the grave after one's life is completed.  So, we're dying (or have died, looking back) and see our lives before us.  Dial says that to avoid regret, the first thing we need to have done is to kick the bad habit of having acceptance by others as a priority in our relationships and behavior.  He cited part of the Jim Carrey quote I discussed last June: "Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world."  Then he quoted a fellow podcaster on the same subject: "I don't need you to like me.  I want you to like me.  But I won't change myself for you to like me." Dial goes further to stress that it takes certain life skills to be able to break out of the mold of living just to please others when he cites his own late father, who in a letter written to Rob's sister said, "I hope you live your life with courage, love and laughter." Dial was so impressed that he had that tattooed on his arm.  One other point from this podcast: it's never too late in life to change direction in life and be true to oneself.  Much of our early life is involved with creating a false personality that "fits" with those around us in society...and then later in life shedding that and discovering our true selves and purposes...according to Rob Dial.  Of course, I would add that one person's purpose and true self might be another's drudgery and false face...so it's also important not to get "sideways" in trying to tell others how to live their lives: each of us has our own path to follow...

Check Facts Before Going Off on Conspiracy Theories

A couple of people, whose identities I would rather protect but can say that I care for both of them, recently lowered a bomb of a news story on me.  In it apparently our own state government has a special agenda for persecuting and even eliminating their identity group, based on two news stories, one about paramedics and the other a piece of legislation signed into law a few days ago.  Upon hearing their narrative, I expressed empathy with them and outrage as to what was going on.  Then, later on in the day I got on my computer and investigated both stories, which these two had tied together into a sort of conspiracy.  The stories were completely unrelated, with the event about the emergency medical services having taken place long ago back in 2012, and in a distant state, just to begin with...along with other mitigating factors.  As for the bill in question, I read its official summary in detail and concluded that my friends' fears were completely unfounded...albeit with a possible hidden reason for their group's underlying concern that they probably didn't want out in the open.  Let me just say that all of this drama and rushing to judgment with sinister conspiracy theories doesn't just afflict right-wingers like MyLumpyPillow boss Mike Lindell...anyone can go bananas over absolutely nothing if that's what they feel led to do and are too lazy to perform just a little honest fact-checking and refuse to allow for the possibility that their initial hunch was wrong...

No Thanks, So-Called "50th" Class Reunion

This isn't going to be a very upbeat article, so you're welcome to pass on it if you would prefer. During the past few years, from time to time I wondered whether I would attend my high school's "Class of 1974" fifty-year reunion, should they decide to hold one.  I had avoided the previous reunions, thinking that maybe it would be better to let maybe just a little more time to separate me from those largely nightmare years of being "institutionalized" in a large public school ruled by bullies, snobs, and mostly indifferent teachers.  It was supposed to be the premier high school in my county with a higher number of wealthy families sending their kids there, so I'm assuming that the other places were probably higher in their percentage of bullies and lower with the snobs.  Don't get me wrong, I believe in forgiving although not necessarily forgetting the treatment I got back then as a kid just trying to get through each day.  I even picked up a few Facebook friends from there, although the only ones who ever responded to my posts on it were hard-right Trump kooks, full of venom whenever I wrote something they opposed...especially when I wrote some pieces urging gun regulation following mass shootings.  Finally, one of them put out a racist posting and I unfriended him...one night a few months ago I finally saw the writing on the wall and unfriended the entire lot of fellow alumni and haven't regretted it one bit.  So back to that upcoming reunion in 1974...I just got an email asking me for an RSVP on it...which was to start yesterday!  Uh, it's 2023 and unless my arithmetical skills are failing me, that's 49, not 50 years.  But wait, reading on I discovered that they decided to combine the classes of '73 and '74...guess they won't be holding one for my group next year after all.  In the email were listed those who had replied that they would be attending...one of them was the biggest, meanest bully of that class above me, a trained boxer no less, who I was stuck with for years at my own bus stop and who actually resembled the Scut Farkus bully character in the movie A Christmas Story: yeah, like I want to party with that dude!  They say the years can effect great changes on people...I know that's true in my own case, hopefully for the better.  But unless I see my old "buddies" from school show some of that change within themselves, I think I'd instead just rather keep my distance from them: better to just pick 100 strangers at random and have a wingding with them. Sadly, I feel that even holding a 6oth reunion wouldn't change anything...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

After skipping a week, I had planned to once again get on down to Depot Park a few blocks south of Gainesville's downtown section and run the free, volunteer-organized Saturday morning Depot Parkrun for another go at 5 kilometers (3.1 miles).  I almost missed it, though, when my alarm failed...but Melissa woke me just in time to get there for the 7:30 start.  Outside the fog, which was strong at the start of my drive there, suddenly lifted and the sky was totally clear.  The temperature was 70 degrees with an excruciatingly muggy 96% humidity...not good!  Once again, I ran the event trying to settle into a running groove, which I probably mistakenly set at too high a pace due to that humidity.  I noticed that a number of fellow runners may have miscalculated as well, for they found themselves having to walk after a time on the course.  I finished at 31:46 without needing to slow to a walk...you can see the results by clicking HERE.  It was one of my faster efforts recently at the Parkrun although I should have run a little slower, truth be told.  Some 99 people crowded today's run...unfortunately a small number of them didn't get their times properly recorded with their names: either they didn't preregister online (it's how you get the barcodes for your results to be recorded) or there was some sort of glitch.  As for future Parkruns, I can see that the weather conditions here in Gainesville are only going to get more unbearable in the weeks to come.  My plan, at least right now, for June is to walk one Saturday, run another, and volunteer a third...on the 17th the run will be cancelled due to the park being used for the Freedom Walk during Juneteenth weekend.  As for next week at Depot Park, maybe I'll try walking that one, too: I've been practicing speed-walking both around my neighborhood and at the gym on their treadmill...

Quote of the Week...from Keanu Reeves

It's easy to become very self-critical when you're an actor.  Then you get critiqued by the critics.  Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

                   ---Keanu Reeves

Although he's been the star of many successful movies by now, I strongly identify Keanu Reeves by his role of Neo, aka "Mister Anderson", in the outstanding and profound Matrix science fiction trilogy. I think he fit that role superbly...I probably should check out other flicks of his.  Not being an actor myself, I won't speak to that specific profession, but rather in a more general sense.  As a simple human being grinding out my own life on this planet at this time and place, I feel that I am continuously under the judgmental gaze of others.  It's disconcerting when I go to a simple men's breakfast at my church and all everyone wants to do is play pecking order games about their respective careers and accomplishments...guess who gets to be at the bottom of the social status totem pole with my steady union job (and what does any of this have to do with Jesus)? But then again, I...and most probably you as well...have had times in my life when I was considered at the top of whatever it was that I was involved with.  During those occasions I discovered that while most people didn't treat me any differently during those periods, there were also those who exaggerated whatever success I had experienced while others would explain it all with comments that I had some kind of unfair advantage. I believe that too many people create prisons for themselves by imagining judgment coming down on them from others if they don't dress, look or speak a certain way or have the "correct" associations.  Like Keanu, I recognize nearly universal judgment going on around me while at the same time deprecating its importance in the grand scheme of things. In truth, that judgment is vastly dwarfed by another social syndrome: being generally ignored and eventually forgotten. And that, I'm afraid, is something which is so much worse that few want to face it head on, although even with all of our social media and instant communication it is the sign of our times...   

Podcaster's Show about Worry Spurs My Own Reactions

On yesterday's Mindset Mentor podcast, personal development coach Rob Dial laid out a simple strategy for dealing with worry.  Worry is an insidious feeling that can eat away at happiness, but Dial claims that studies have shown that some 85% of what people worry about never happens, and of the remaining 15%, fully four out of five aren't anywhere near as bad as imagined...leaving 97% as a figure of probability weighing against worry.  No, I don't know where he got those figures, but I'm flowing with the podcast to see where he leads.  Dial's prescription for worry IS something that I wholeheartedly agree with: action!  Of course, if you're worried who the next president will be or how the Russian invasion of Ukraine will end, your action against the massive scope of the situation isn't necessarily going to alleviate it or even end your worry.  So, I'd qualify Dial's suggestion and say that if you're worried about something going on in your own personal life, then of course action accompanied by a resulting sense of progress in dispelling the problem is a sensible road to go down.  Otherwise, it's like the Serenity Prayer (written by Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr), with serenity being the polar opposite of worry: "God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed; Give me courage to change things which must be changed; And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other." I can guarantee that the world will never run out of things to worry us about, but we do have a choice in how we react to them... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here are my reactions to three more tales from the year 1991 as they appeared in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection.  Last week I mentioned 1991's significance in international events by citing the Persian Gulf World that happened early in the year.  But a few months later something else occurred that dwarfed the drama of that conflict: the coup d'état in the Soviet Union, leading to the downfall of Communist Party chief Mikhail Gorbachev and the breakup of its fifteen constituent republics after a resistance movement spearheaded by Boris Yeltsin, who would become the new Russian Federation's first president.  Wow...but back to those stories...

SKINNER'S ROOM by William Gibson

I've read stories like this one set in a decaying, crumbling dystopian future where people get by living in the ruins of their ancestors.  This time it's San Francisco and folks are somehow making ends mean with makeshift homes they can put wherever they can...even high up on the Golden Gate Bridge, where our protagonist ventures to pay a visit...

PRAYERS ON THE WIND by Walter Jon Williams

Tibetan Buddhism has swept humanity through the cosmos. One planet they rule over gets a visit from the representative of a warlike species complaining about human settlement on what they claim to be their own planet.  In the middle of this the ruler (both in a spiritual and political sense) suddenly dies and the search is on to find which fetus his reincarnated spirit has entered.  This story takes that religion's dogma and treats it as literal truth...with some frightening imagery resulting.  But the author brings it all together with a pleasing, kickass ending... 

BLOOD SISTERS by Greg Egan

In a future world contaminated by pathogens developed in a supposedly secure laboratory and then...ahem...accidentally released (sound familiar?), a woman has come down with a cancer caused by her infection from them.  Given newly developed medicine to treat it and possibly cure her, she remembers that susceptibility is largely genetically based, so she calls her identical twin sister now living in Africa to be tested as well.  What follows is an indictment on the cruelty inherent in scientific testing...but what can be done about it if you want the best information?

Next week: more stories reviewed from 1991...

Plan to Enjoy Our Long, Hot Summer

I'm gearing up for a long, hot summer, briefly interrupted by a planned Alaskan cruise with Melissa late in July...assuming they don't cancel out.  I say that because two of the excursions within Alaska that we signed up for were canceled on us, and I have yet to set foot on foreign soil after our last cruise in 2020, which featured a stopover in the Bahamas, that excursion unceremoniously canceled as well.  This time around the foreign country in question is Canada, which I am frankly more enthusiastic about visiting.  In the meantime, my intention during the grueling Florida heat in the weeks ahead is to get outside a lot, stay hydrated...and get a lot a walking in, mixed in with a little running.  I heard that the pool at Westside Park here in Gainesville has reopened after a year of renovation...maybe a little stopover there with my senior discount would be a fun thing to do as well...

Musing About Race Virtual Videos and Someday Running in "Real" Ones

Of late I've been watching quite a few running race videos on YouTube from the runner's perspective...but if you've been reading this blog, you already know this.  At this juncture in time, I'm pretty confident that not only can I run pretty much any low altitude half-marathon (I'm a perennial sea-level Floridian) but can also cover the distance in marathon races by splitting my running with walking.  So, when I watch (and run with) the Cardiff, Paris, Toronto, Brooklyn, Hartford and Boulder half-marathons along with the NYC, Disney World, Flying Pig (Cincinnati) and Boston marathons, I can easily picture myself there within the pack, albeit in reality the runners I'm "with" in those videos would have (with the exception of one race) left me behind in the proverbial cloud of dust. No, it's not what goes on between the starting and finishing lines that holds me back from participating in these races in the "real world".  It's more that with some, like Boston, you have to be pretty damned fast just to be eligible to run, and with others, like NYC and Brooklyn, it often comes down to lotteries and connections in order to get into them.  And then there is the transportation issue of getting to these places (and back home). Once there, I'd still need to find a place to stay and plot out transportation to the race site...New York City looks like a monumental nightmare in this regard.  I'm a bit miffed of late that my hometown of Gainesville has turned its back on city-based long-distance races with the demise of the LifeSouth Five Points of Light Marathon/Half-Marathon annual events, which went on from 2006 to 2022...I ran in its half-marathon six times. You can still run races in these distances, but they're all way the hell out in the boondocks on the remote Hawthorne Trail, with basically trees as your cheering spectators...oh joy. "Out of the way" races...sometimes the organizers are even ashamed to call them "races"...seem to be on the upsurge with the many 5K Parkruns sprouting up in parks across the land and "Run Your Buns Off" and "Medal Madness" remote races, all off the city streets and tucked away in parks, requiring multiple there-and-back laps among the disinterested flora and chirping birds to attain their races' distances.  This just doesn't fit it with my vision of engaging in races as a form of running tourism, although I do appreciate and participate in my local Depot Parkrun (gotta love them red-winged blackbirds).  So, although I'm thinking of trying out a special weekend during which I fly out to some distant race site where city streets are still an important part of the course, run it and then be back in town in time for work the next week, it's right now just a fantasy...but one that might someday be realized...

Constellation of the Month: Crux (the Southern Cross)

Crux is a striking little constellation in the celestial southern hemisphere...if you're located in a southern-enough latitude to be able to see it, that is.  I have lived most of my live in Florida, which if you happen to be in the Keys or southern Dade County is just far enough south to see Crux barely scrape the southern horizon at its apex.  Perhaps from my old house where I grew up at 26 degrees North latitude, I might have been able to see it were it not for the trees and city lights obstructing my view.  No, instead it wouldn't be until 2 AM on our cruise ship in February 2020 when it was near the Virgin Islands that I (and Melissa) saw it for our first time looking out at the beautiful seas over the rails...pretty romantic, right?  Yet I could accurately draw this constellation and its position in the sky ever since 1964, when I was first introduced to it at seven years age. The four brightest stars, two of them first-magnitude, can form either a cross if you connect just the opposite ones, or a rough diamond if you connect the adjacent ones...the former pattern is what stuck through the ages. The Coal Sack Nebula occupies a large part of Crux, along with parts of adjacent Centaurus and Musca...it's reported to be a very visible "dark" patch in the already dark sky, if you can wrap your head around that.  Anyway, someday I'd like to be south enough on a clear night to be able to clearly make out Crux...along with the many other southern celestial constellations I've known of for decades. I call Crux my "constellation of the month" for this May because it is during this month that it crosses the Meridian during the mid-evening hours...even though my only time seeing it was that February in the early morning hours. Next month I'll pick another constellation to discuss...  

"Stepping Out" Today into Long, Brisk Walking

This morning I skipped Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K, which I had participated in for the previous three weeks in a row...I don't think I had ever raced for three straight weeks.  Instead, this morning I ran indoors to the NYC Marathon on YouTube and, just now, went out on a brisk 3.2 mile walk in my neighborhood as the storm clouds with their thunder and lightning quickly gathered to threaten my excursion's last mile or so.  I like working out indoors and also appreciate that here in Gainesville we have a Parkrun (check their website HERE to see if they have one in your area), but I miss getting out on my old neighborhood courses as well.  Since I have the Runkeeper app on my phone, I can pretty much walk anywhere and at any time...no need to change clothes, either, as I would if going out on a jog.  As the northern Florida weather deteriorates over the rest of spring and through the summer with scorching temperatures well into the nineties, I think long, fast walks are going to be the theme in my exercising for 2023.  I even plan to do pure walks during some of my future Depot Parkrun races, with two sets of personal records there to work on: one for running, and one for walking...

Quote of the Week...from Yogi Berra

It was impossible to get a conversation going...everyone was talking too much.           ---Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra was the great Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees, known for his many funny sayings that seem to contradict themselves...with the above quote this seems to be an example, at least on the surface.  For it would seem that this is what a conversation is...people talking to each other, right?  The other day my TV unexpectedly found itself tuned in to the Dr. Phil show and, as usual, he was doing his best to manipulate the emotions of his viewers by having on guests with diametrically opposed views on a hot-button issue.  They never did have what I would normally call a conversation, that is the two sides patiently alternating between listening to the other and speaking.  No, each side had their own rock-hard position, and they not only would refuse to consider the other's viewpoint but also seemed determined to prevent it from being expressed, with continual interruptions as it all degenerated into a shouting match...of course with the "good" doctor playing the phony role of neutral intermediary when he in fact was the one who instigated it all.  But you don't have to be on a reality/exploitation show to see that folks in general have problems with simple conversation, rarely ever changing their views on anything and viewing such a change as a sign of personal weakness with their standing in relation to the other side in jeopardy of diminishing.  Conversation isn't just talking...it's also listening, and doing so in an empathetic way so that although the speaker might not say everything you agree with, you can at least see where they're coming from and demonstrate this in your reply instead of "doubling down", a trend that is sadly on the rise...

Funny French Running Race Goes Through Buildings and Tight Spaces

I've been watching YouTube of late with their many virtual treadmill running videos made by folks participating in various races across the USA and world.  The other day I came across a very funny one, 9 KM Inside The Race For Treadmill/ A la Décourverte de Dinard...click HERE to view this 55-minute piece (while it's still up).  It's a 5.4-mile race in Dinard, a coastal town in Brittany, northwestern France.  Runners start on a beach and then brush by onlookers and others just going about their daily business as they go upstairs and downstairs, around narrow walkways and even through schools, hotels and other buildings in very close quarters in perhaps the most convoluted, maze-like course ever devised.  You really get to know the town from the inside...looks like the actual people living there were completely caught off guard by the event!  I can't see doing this at home...here in Gainesville everything is separated too much: maybe we could have an on-campus University of Florida run involving running through various buildings, including the Reitz Student Union and Library West. Shands Hospital would probably be inappropriate.  I already did something a little similar during the old Five Points of Life half-marathon when we'd make a detour through the Gators' football stadium...a lot of fun, but in an event like the French one I just saw on YouTube requires a lot of volunteers standing at numerous strategic points to direct the runners and separate them from the rest of the poor perplexed souls who are just out there minding their own business...

Weekly Short Stories: 1991 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I'm starting on a new book in Gardner Dozois' anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction, this one subtitled Ninth Annual Collection and covering the editor's picks from the year 1991. I remember 1991 for a number of things...it certainly was a big year internationally, with the Persian Gulf War's Operation Desert Storm taking place as General Norman Schwartzkopf's Allied troops...primarily of American soldiers...drove Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and then deeply into his own country before the invasion stopped.  But back to that year's sci-fi short fiction... 

BEGGARS IN SPAIN by Nancy Kress

Scientists in the near future have discovered how to genetically manipulate children to be born without the need to ever sleep, and a small number of them are born in the USA and world at large.  How society reacts to them reflects the common roots of prejudice, built upon fear and envy of what is perceived to be others' unfair advantages in life.  Although the analogies from this important story could apply to different areas in today's world, I couldn't help but see the similarities to how Jewish people have been mistreated by different societies over the centuries...

LIVING WILL by Alexander Jablokov

A wealthy, aging man has programmed his computer to a high AI level, to the point where he can converse with it as it becomes more similar to his own personality...remember that this came out 32 years ago!  He is noticing that his mental faculties are quickly declining and soon Alzheimer's is diagnosed.  Now what does his computer have to do with his new strategy?  Disturbing and intriguing...

A JUST AND LASTING PEACE by Lois Tilton

Here is an alternative history tale about the aftermath of the American Civil War.  In this world the defeated South is subjected to long-term military occupation and oppressive rule, with the "rebels"...now generations distant from the original conflict...suffering degrading persecution and discrimination from the North, with the white population kept at a bare subsistence level.  It's basically Jim Crow flipped over, and the narrator, a white southern boy, describes the growing armed resistance movement.  In "our" real world, the Union victors were very mild with their Reconstruction by world historical standards...look at what would go down in former Yugoslavia among the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Kosovans in the ensuing 1990's after their previous centuries of conflict among themselves... 

Next week I continue reviewing science fiction short stories from 1991...

Enjoyed Our Brief Visit to Daytona Beach

 

Melissa and I just got back from a two-night trip to Daytona Beach, staying at our favorite hotel there.  Sometimes it's good to break the regular pattern and routine and get out of town, if only for a little while.  For the most part we rested and enjoyed the ambiance...although I did go out on a 4.5-mile beach run yesterday afternoon during low tide.  The temperatures during the day stayed in the seventies...unusual for this time of year...but the winds coming from the southeast were ferocious, as I discovered during my run when I turned around to go back to our hotel.  As is the case in my workplace, they're doing some renovation work at this hotel...some things I guess you just can't get away from...

Podcaster Repeats Theme of Manifestation

Today's Mindset Mentor podcast featured host Rob Dial, a personal development coach, repeating a theme he's frequently discussed in the past: manifesting one's own reality by believing to the utmost degree the positive things he or she envisions...and then acting on it.  He cited an example back when he was a student at a crowded Florida university with parking shortages, but repeatedly convinced himself on successive occasions that an empty slot would just open up for him near the front, and presto! wouldn't you know it, but they did!  Oh, by the way, the same thing happened to me recently on a couple of occasions...people often come and go and it's perfectly reasonable to expect places to open up.  I think it's important to possess confidence when thinking of the future, and to have personal destinations or achievements ahead in as specific detail as reasonably possible.  This way my mind is working behind the scenes to direct me toward their attainment.  But I tend to look at it all with a double negative: if I DON'T employ a confident attitude about successful future outcomes, then they WON'T materialize...or at least to the degree that I had wanted.  I also think how well you get through life involves how well you react to disappointments and setbacks, which are inevitable.  I did appreciate that Rob Dial emphasized personal action and not just passively sitting back expecting everything to automatically come together...

'23 Kentucky Derby Exciting, Pre-Race TV Hype Not

Yesterday I watched on TV the Kentucky Derby horse race for three-year-old thoroughbreds, as usual picking my "favorites" from the list having the most interesting names.  Also as usual, there were nearly twenty in the field...actually down in number due to some scratches, including early favorite Forte.  The TV announcers went around and around doing pieces on the different horses, jockeys, owners and trainers involved...yawn.  Finally, the race began and I was taken by how today's video technology has greatly enhanced the viewing of these events, clearly showing the field racing in the backstretch and turns as the jockeys maneuvered their horses around and through their competition.  In the end it was a horse with middling odds, Mage, that edged out another non-favorite, Two Phil's. in what turned out to be a pretty exciting finish.  I'm not sure, though, that I want to sit again through all that pre-race hype.  And I'd be very surprised if this year's Derby winner will go on to win either of the other two races in the Triple Crown, assuming Mage will even be entered in them...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Parkruns have sprung up all over the country, having originated I believe in England.  Like their name implies, they occur in area parks...Gainesville has one that takes place at pretty Depot Park a few blocks south of downtown every Saturday morning at 7:30. You sign up in advance on their website and get barcodes that you can (like me) print out...some folks somehow get them put on their smartphones.  Then at the end of each event the finishers get a token that gets scanned along with their barcodes, the results to be presented later in the day online.  It's a pretty neat system and it's free...but since it is also totally supported by volunteers, volunteering is always in demand: won't be long, I think, before I throw my hat into that and see where it lands.  This morning I got up and out there to run my unprecedented third straight Depot Parkrun.  With the temperature at 67 degrees and humidity at 84%, I had originally planned on going at a much slower pace but discovered a hidden source of energy within me and picked it up with each lap (four of them equal 5K).  My finishing time was 33:08...you can see the overall results by clicking HERE. Now the question is: will I go for a fourth straight Parkrun next Saturday?  Guess I'll have to see how I feel then...

Quote of the Week...from Scut Farkus

What, you're gonna cry now?  Come on, crybaby! Cry for me, come on! CRY!     ---Scut Farkus

Scut Farkus was the big bad bully character in Jean Shepherd's immortal 1983 movie A Christmas Story, for which he compiled a number of already published short stories and wrapped them together within a holiday theme.  It's become a TV staple, with a couple of channels running nonstop marathons at Christmas.  I already knew Jean Shepherd in the mid-1970s for his late-night humorous monologue shows on my local talk radio station in Miami Beach, WKAT/1360, shows that originated from the mighty WOR/710, (50,000-watt clear channel) in New York City.  I also had read the short story he wrote to which the above quote pertains.  Little Ralphie, around eight I guess, is all excited as Christmas approaches...he desperately wants a Red Rider toy air rifle, but his mother says no, "You'll shoot your eye out".  And now his own teacher has just written the same thing on a homework assignment he wrote about it...and Ralphie is trudging home in the snow, tears falling from his eyes.  Suddenly Scut Farkus, the school bully...accompanied by his little, stocky toady Grover Dill...jumps in Ralphie's way, confronting him and ridiculing his crying.  And then our hero does something unexpected: he charges his adversary, pushing him to the ground, proceeding to beat him up.  The scene didn't look realistic to me and, besides, I knew from Shepherd's earlier short story that it was the more manageable Dill that Ralphie fought, not impossible Farkus.  I also had a problem with the bully in this story being a social outcast among the kids...where I grew up in South Florida during the sixties and seventies, it was the bully who was the popular kid on the block or at the bus stop.  I could take the above quote of an imaginary figure in different directions, but since I always remember this jeering taunt of Scut's, I decided to turn it on its head and make something sweet about it.  You see, we have a year-old mixed breed puppy dog named Daisy, and when Melissa ("Mommy" as far as Daisy is concerned) ever goes into another room in the house with the door closed, Daisy sidles up to the door and begins to whimper just like she did when she was very young and temporarily separated from her litter.  And every now and then when she does this, I go straight into my Scut Farkus routine, repeating almost verbatim the above quote...but with some good-natured affection thrown in...                                                                            

If I Were to Compile a Puzzle Magazine

If I were to publish one of those variety puzzle books you often see on supermarket magazine shelves, it would leave out much of the stuff already in them.  Right off the top, I would eliminate word searches...too easy.  And forget the "easy" to "medium level sudoku puzzles, and just about any kind of crosswords...except "codewords", which is kind of fun and which I would definitely include in my magazine.  Although I'm horrible at word logic puzzles, I'm still optimistic enough that maybe if I get to be 100, good Lord willing, I'll finally have figured out how to solve them.  Other logic puzzles based on numbers like kakuro (aka cross-sums), ken-ken and "hard" sudoku are among my favorites.  And I would definitely load up my publication with cryptograms...just can't ever get enough of them.  Oh, and I'd definitely have a few of the puzzles containing two pictures, with a specified number of differences I'm to discover...that's always fun! Mazes are also an entertaining carry-over from my younger years.  Although smartphones seem to dominate people's entertainment these days when they can't get around to plopping down in front of a TV screen to zone out or play video games, I'm still of that old school with my torn-out sheets of paper stuffed into my shirt pocket, containing the above kinds of cool puzzles and instantly ready for me to work on at a convenient moment... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1990 Science Fiction, Part 7

Below are my final reviews from 1990 science fiction short stories and novellas appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eight Annual Collection.  Can you guess which book I'm starting next week?  How'd you know...The Year's Best Science Fiction, Ninth Annual Collection!  But first I have to finish up with 1990...

WHITE CITY by Lewis Shiner

This is a speculative, fanciful tale about the electrical technology pioneer Nikola Tesla...and a demonstration he publicly performs aimed to dazzle everyone.  And dazzle it does, just as Tesla planned.  What is unplanned are the people's reactions...

LOVE AND SEX AMONG THE INVERTEBRATES by Pat Murphy

In a dying world poisoned by nuclear holocaust radiation, a woman has designed a special robot that will "survive" the impending extinction of organic life on Earth, including her own.  But can it reproduce?  With a twisted sense of humor, she "solves" the problem.  Funny and very sad at the same time...

THE HEMINGWAY HOAX by Joe Haldeman

A critically acclaimed, muddled mess of a novella this is, touching upon the often-tortuous topics of time travel, alternate worlds and questions of identity, mixing them all up until at the end you don't know which way is up. John Baird, an English professor with a penchant for writing, is approached by a con artist to forge Ernest Hemingway's early lost works.  This leads to a Hemingway look-alike...or is it Hemingway's ghost...materializing and killing Baird in various horrible ways while the con man is elsewhere sleeping with Baird's wife.  The rationale for the killings is that Baird's hoax will somehow lead to the end of the world...but to the ghost's astonishment, the writer keeps surviving them all until...until I don't know what the hell happens at the end.  If you're going to write about these topics, you'd better establish some ground rules about them beforehand to prevent everything from descending into chaos.  I did learn a bit about Ernest Hemingway, though...

Next week: that next book as Gardner's sci-fi anthology series moves to the year 1991...

Podcaster Big on Stepping Out of the Box

Podcaster Rob Dial, on a recent episode, promoted the idea of continual learning in fields extraneous to one's business or expertise in order to pick up useful information and principles that can cross over with their applications.  He cited examples of the person who transferred the then-innovation of banks offering drive-through options for their customers to the fast-food industry and the founder of Priceline, who observed that grocers would sell overripe bananas at a discount...so why not use this for unsold airline tickets as well?  Dial calls all this "thinking outside the box", an already well-worn cliche, I admit.  But he does have a good point: every field of endeavor and specialty contains within it elements that are transferrable to others.  The podcast host suggested that we take an hour each weekday...or five a week...to learn something absolutely new about an area that we're unfamiliar with. I'm "kind of" on board with this, with two caveats.  One, if you're rooted in your own specialty and only skimming the surface of the target subject matter just to pick up some ideas for your own use, then I'm afraid you're going to miss out on a lot of understanding pertinent to that area. And two, when starting to learn in a new field, the beginning is often deceptively easy, with the more profound lessons to be learned requiring more extensive study, an extra investment of time Dial perhaps wasn't considering: hopping around from one area to another is going to stymie many possible benefits.  And the elite in any field will tell you that while they like to see that field popularized, sometimes those who are accomplishing this aren't exactly on the money with their presentation, leaving out important stuff.  Still, I think...especially with Internet sites like search engines, Wikipedia and YouTube as good points of departure...that delving into unaccustomed areas can not only be lucrative, but also just plain fun...

Rural vs. City Long Distance Races

I was training in my living room, running to a YouTube complete video of the Mississauga Half-Marathon, from a runner's perspective.  The individual involved also recorded the Toronto and Oakville half-marathons this way...Mississauga and Oakville are nearby communities to Toronto (in Ontario, Canada in case you didn't know).   I was taken by the rural emphasis for the running courses in Oakville and Mississauga while Toronto had the runners go straight down the main drag into the city's urban center.  I guess if you live around there, you appreciate the diversity of the courses...the scenery in the more rural half-marathons was pretty and interesting.  But to me at least, running in the heart of a city is something that one doesn't experience every day, and I enjoyed looking at all the different kinds of businesses...especially restaurants and coffee places...that Toronto offers.  Let me go one step further: if I were out of town, even far away, I would definitely pick Toronto's race over those of the other two sites to hop on a plane to fly to.  Yet I'm guessing it probably costs more to run in it...and the organizers' expenses must be considerably higher.  That's why I don't hold it against our local blood bank charity here in Gainesville, LifeSouth, for ending their 2006-22 run of holding such an event here in my hometown.  Ten years ago, I could run their half-marathon, which went right through the heart of the city (and through the University of Florida, even its football stadium) and then opt for the more rural setting of the Ocala Half-Marathon, set along roads south of town where there are many horse farms.  Now, though, there are neither any Ocala nor LifeSouth events (if you discount the latter's much toned-down 5K race) and if you want to run a marathon or half-marathon anymore around here, you have to go to the Hawthorne Trail, which I like but is far away from anything other than a lot of boring trees...that wouldn't do for a YouTube video, especially since the last half-marathon I ran there repeated the same pathway four times...with the marathon event demanding runners go down the same monotonous stretch back and forth eight times.  C'mon, we can do better than that without necessarily having to pass by Tim Tebow's statue...