Weekly Short Stories: 1961 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here are my review of the next four tales appearing in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 23 (1961). One's a mystery, one's a satire, one's a "short-short", and one's a love story of sorts: nice mix...

HIDING PLACE by Poul Anderson
In interstellar space, a spaceship owned and staffed by an eccentric wealthy entrepreneur is racing to avoid being nabbed by brutal space pirates.  They hone in on an alien ship and occupy it, only to find that all the life forms...including the intelligent beings who run that ship...are in cages as it seems to be a zoo of sorts.  The human occupiers desperately need those beings' cooperation to be able to run this ship and escape the pursuing pirates, but how can they distinguish them from the other life forms they are hiding among?  It's a mystery worthy of a Sherlock Holmes tale, and Anderson adds color to the story with the characters' salty language and behavior...nothing like mixing metaphors...

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE? by Isaac Asimov
The story behind this humor piece is that back in '61 Playboy ran an article deriding modern science fiction as being a lot of campy, lurid tales unworthy of readership.  Asimov turned the tables on the popular men's magazine with a story involving aliens abducting to their spaceship an unrelated couple standing in the New York subway, trying to coax them into mating...only the aliens are really clueless as to what actually constitutes mating among animals from Earth.  Surprisingly, I thought the story was funny, too...

A PRIZE FOR EDIE by J.F. Bone
This was a very short story about someone named "C. Edie" being awarded the Noble Prize after being credited as the responsible party for discovering the cure for cancer.  But who is C. Edie...the answer made me groan with dismay, but then I realized that this story came out before all those subsequent others from shows like Twilight Zone, Star Trek and The Prisoner with episodes treating the same subject.  Nowadays you read A Prize for Edie and say to yourself "So what?"...

THE SHIP WHO SANG by Anne McCaffrey
This provocative story is a forum on how to treat the severely disabled from birth and offers a science fiction solution: from infancy have them adapted to pilot and run spaceships...from the inside, with their neural networks tied into the ships' systems.  Helva was one such child, now grown...deformed beyond any ability to function independently and now only with memories of her altered, destined role.  She selects her partner for their ship: a young man who shares her love of music...and the adventures ensue.  The dilemma here is that humans like Helva are altered and adapted long before they are of an age to consent or dissent, but waiting that long in her life would be impossible. In today's world of robotics and advanced prosthetics, I wonder whether anyone could have written this story.  McCaffrey would expand it into a full novel with the same title, published in 1969...

Next week I continue with this anthology of selected science fiction short stories from 1961...

Managed to See Comet NEOWISE Sunday Evening

Sunday at twilight I dragged a folding chair across my backyard, bringing with me a cup of coffee, and then sat there as the blueness gradually receded and the darkness began to reveal one star after another.  My purpose in this venture was to catch a glimpse of Comet NEOWISE, only discovered less than four months ago, and which is visible to the naked eye...if you're at the correct latitude, that is, and clouds aren't obscuring the sky.  Sunday it was wonderfully clear and I first noticed the star Arcturus high in the sky, followed by Vega in the east, the north star Polaris, and the stars of the Big Dipper, a popular asterism within the constellation Ursa Major...in which Comet NEOWISE was to be located on its western side.  As the sky darkened and more stars became visible, I was frustrated at not being able to make out the comet.  Melissa then came outside and joined me in looking for it...she found it first and eventually so did I, around 9:30 pm.  The Big Dipper was turned on its side in the northwestern sky with the pan in the bottom and the handle on top.  I went down from the Dipper about halfway to the horizon, and a little to the left...and there it was, a faint smudge in the sky trailing off to the upper right: I could see it better if I looked a little to the side, not directly at it.  Okay, good, I saw it in person...and frankly, noting how the summer skies here in northern Florida tend to get overcast lately in early evening and that I'm going to be indoors at work this time of the day until next Saturday, this may have been my final opportunity to view it...glad I did.  I first heard of this comet on a Tweet by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, whom I follow, and then kept up with it through some posts by Julie, a Facebook friend.  A few days ago it was in the constellation Auriga, then drifted eastward to Lynx and is now in that far western section of Ursa Major: its position among the starry background changes due to the comet's own motion as well as the Earth's revolution around the Sun.   By the way, the reason the name is in all capital letters is that the discovery came about under a project (NEOWISE) using the space telescope WISE, which stands for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer...at least that's what Wikipedia said...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #65-61

Here are my reactions to the next five songs on my 500 all-time favorites list.  You probably know two of them very well and never heard of the other three...why not give them all a listen, you never know: one or two of them might eventually find their way onto your own "list"...

65 STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN by Led Zeppelin
Stairway to Heaven, which was released in November, 1971 along with the rest of the band's untitled fourth album, was being heavily played on my favorite Miami rock station in October, 1973 when I underwent my only open surgery to date at age 17...a hernia correction.  I remember a lot about that Hollywood Memorial Hospital experience: maybe too much, and it did little to improve my opinion of human nature...I think I might write about that some other time.  But I was able to listen to the radio during my stay and loved hearing this fantastic song.  My favorite part, aside from the instrumental acoustic guitar/flute opening fanfare, is singer Robert Plant's line "There's a feeling I get when I turn to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving"...

64 RED BARCHETTA by Rush
Back in 1993 we in Gainesville were blessed with a great alternative rock station on 97.7...late Saturday nights they had a show called "Saturday Night Six-Pack" on which they'd play six complete CDs one-by-one, on into the early morning hours.  This is how I was introduced to the Canadian band Rush's 1981 masterpiece Moving Pictures, on which Red Barchetta is the second track.  Great guitar riffs by Alex Lifeson accompany drummer Neil Peart's compelling lyrics...sung by Geddy Lee...about his youth experience driving his uncle's antique Italian sports car in the countryside at breathtaking speed. Peart, both a terrific drummer and songwriter, sadly passed away this past January, I'll miss him...

63 UNDER PRESSURE by Queen with David Bowie
Also sadly, neither David Bowie nor Queen front man Freddie Mercury are with us any longer, but this collaboration from 1981 was special...the video contained classic silent screen film clips.  And the background bass beat was shamelessly exploited by dubious rapper Vanilla Ice, which more than anything probably made the original more popular.  Under Pressure's lyrics are great...such as "Turned away from it all like a blind man, sat on a fence but it don't work, keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn".  Yeah, that pretty much expressed how I felt about it all.  This was a song that I ignored when it first came out but which grew on me over the decades...

62 IN LIMBO by Radiohead
One of the most mind-blowing pieces produced by a band already widely acknowledged for its creativity and innovation in the studio, In Limbo is from Radiohead's terrific 2000 album Kid A...with another track from it ranked even higher up on my list of all-time favorites.  It's a drifting, very dreamy and sometimes jazzy mood piece that bears little comparison to anything else I've heard.  And the lyrics are a haunting jump down the rabbit hole: "I'm on your side, nowhere to hide, trap doors that open...I spiral down".  Beats anything I ever heard from the sixties' psychedelic era.  Sometimes In Limbo is played together with its preceding track, Optimistic, another great song...

61 TREAT by Kasabian
The British alternative rock group Kasabian's 2015 album 48:13...named after its duration...was generally a disappointment to me, especially in comparison to their first four albums.  But one track, the 8-minute Treat, stood out and would became my 2015 "song of the year".  I still like it a lot...it has that old Beatles kick to it with a little Led Zeppelin/Jimmy Page kind of guitar riff thrown in for good measure.  And on top of that, it sounds pretty danceable...if you're into that type of thing, which I'm not. Unfortunately, I recently discovered that the band just fired their lead singer Tom Meighan, who got into hot water over a domestic assault against his fiancée.  I felt a bit betrayed by Meighan upon hearing that because I'd become a big fan of his singing and the band as a whole.  But Treat is still great...

Next week: #60-56...

Just Finished Reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Marcus Zusak's 2005 novel The Book Thief is one title I found myself repeatedly coming across as I recently surveyed the Internet for recommended fictional books...so I naturally checked it out from my library and read it.  It's set during the Hitler era during the late 1930s and early 1940s as Liesel
Meminger is a little girl who grows up in the midst of all the turmoil, persecution and tragedy under that heinous regime.  Death himself narrates the story and does a pretty good job...here he doesn't cause death but always promptly arrives to gently gather up the souls of the newly deceased, reminding me somewhat of how J.K. Rowling portrayed him in the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which came out in '07.  Liesel's father, a communist, has disappeared, presumably snatched and killed by the Nazis, while her mother plans to take her to friends to foster-care her and her little brother as she expects to soon be arrested as well...but little brother dies on the train and little Liesel is left alone, presented to Hans and Rosa Hubermann in a modest home in a Munich suburb.  Her new "parents" are loving, each in their own way, and Liesel gradually adapts to life in her new home.  Starting with that ill-fated train ride, she has begun to snatch books...usually at random...from various sources even though at the start she is unable to read.  But Hans, and later others, will teach her and she becomes quite a reader.  I'm a little hesitant about going any further in describing the plot and characters because I'd like you to read The Book Thief for yourself and provide some feedback on it.  It's a very sobering look at how Jews were persecuted and killed under Hitler's brief (but still much too long) reign, as well as how the German people in different ways responded to the pressures and sacrifices placed upon them.  I became quite attached to the various characters...Zusak was excellent in developing them, making the book seem very real.  I'm not surprised by this novel's popularity...oh, it was made into a movie in 2013, although I'm not sure I want to see it: sometimes the visual images from the big screen displace what my own imagination conjured up while reading a story, and that's a loss...

On the Day of John Lewis' Passing, Georgia Governor and Mayors Need to Negotiate

On this day in which the great civil rights advocate and long-time Atlanta congressman John Lewis died after a seven-month struggle against pancreatic cancer, his home state of Georgia...where I was born...is in the thick of a legal and political struggle concerning how the COVID-19 pandemic is handled there.  The governor, Brian Kemp, has proclaimed a statewide mandate that opens businesses and encourages (but doesn't require) masks in public settings...the recent sharp resurgence in cases has caused several local mayors to enact public face covering mandates in violation of Kemp's rule.  And now he is suing the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, to rescind that locality's law.  The Georgia governor has been thoroughly trashed in the media for this policy of his in the middle of a public health emergency, but I think he has a point that most media pundits have conveniently chosen to overlook.  You see, these cities that are mandating masks are also considering shutting down their businesses again, like what happened earlier this spring across the country.  Kemp is making it clear in his speeches that he is determined to keep Georgia's economy running and feels that the mayors choosing to defy his policy about masks will...if not checked...then proceed to once again close their city's businesses.  This is what totally frustrates me about this political wrangling: many people at-large automatically associate mask wearing with economic shutdown while in actual policy the former, if universally practiced, will enable businesses to flourish at close to maximal capacity.  Governor Kemp wants Georgians to wear masks but he does not want his state to go into an economic depression with mass-ordered shutdowns...it seems that there should be room for negotiation here: grant the mayors and counties the right to impose and enforce mask mandates while they agree that they will not close down businesses.  Georgia businesses staying open and everybody wearing masks isn't going to make a lot of people happy but it's the obvious solution to this standoff...

Quote of the Week...from Pelé

Success is no accident.  It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.                       ---Pelé

Pelé, from Brazil, is one of the greatest...and most beloved...soccer players in history.  His above quote not only accurately describes his own approach to the game he excelled in, but goes beyond it to apply to me in any challenging area of my life for which I want to achieve success.  The truth is that it's easy to get excited and motivated when starting new projects, and equally easy to coast on successful outcomes.  But when the going is rough, when I am discouraged, anxious or distracted and cannot enjoy or even envision my direction and progress properly, this is precisely when it is important to work, persevere, and sacrifice...to get through those hard times and back on the positive side.  Most people give up in those dark times, but the ones who ultimately succeed and become skillful and accomplished in their chosen areas are the ones who are always working to take things to a higher level, with an ultimate prize envisioned ahead of them.  Above everything, though, as the great Pelé concluded, it is crucial to love what I'm doing or learning to do...beyond what society may say about my current level of competency.  I think a lot of people are hesitant to try anything new for fear of failing before others...it's important that one's interest in an area surmounts that resistance.  As the Desiderata stated, "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself".  It's always been my experience, no matter what I do and how hard I work at it, that somebody will inevitably come along who exceeds my skill and accomplishment, often taking great pains to inform me of this.  So you gotta love what you're doing for its own sake and don't get hung up by the noise coming from others...

Tuberville Defeats Sessions in Alabama: Should Conservatives Rejoice?

Tommy Tuberville defeated Jeff Sessions in this past Tuesday's Alabama primary for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Democrat Doug Jones.  It marked the final nail in the political coffin of Sessions, a long-time popular conservative senator for that state before he avidly supported Donald Trump in their 2016 presidential primary and was later rewarded with the post of Attorney General in the new administration.  Because Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Trump never forgave him and often publicly berated this crucial campaign supporter before he was finally pushed out of office.  Seeking his old Senate seat, which Jones had won in a 2017 special election upset in this strongly red state, Sessions was thwarted by Trump's hearty endorsement of former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, who has consistently led in the polls over both Sessions and Jones.  So in all likelihood, next January we'll see that seat return to the Republican side...but if you're a conservative you shouldn't be rejoicing...

Jeff Sessions to me was the great, articulate spokesman in the United States Senate for the conservative positions on the various issues coming before it.  Ever since C-Span2 began live floor coverage of this body nearly twenty years ago, I enjoyed watching him get on the floor with his polite, soft-spoken demeaner and then proceed to thoroughly thrash in the most civilized way the other side's arguments, and he was a powerful voice on the Judiciary Committee...conservatives should mourn that he won't get a chance to return.  Instead we have a good ol' boy political neophyte who is totally in the pocket of the current president and won't express a single independent thought that doesn't have the White House's seal of approval stamped on it preapproved.  The only problem with this is that as things now stand, Trump's probably going down in November and we'll have a Democrat as president two weeks after Tuberville gets sworn in.  And poor old Tommy will be standing there all alone without anybody besides the typical radio and TV hacks to tell him what to say...that's what I mean when I said conservatives shouldn't be rejoicing: Jeff Sessions would surely know what to say and how to say it.  I was sadly shocked in '16 to seem him so whole-heartedly supporting and campaigning for Trump in Alabama when that primary campaign was still up in the air and Ted Cruz, a true, consistently conservative standard-bearer, had performed so well on the trail.  Cruz was Sessions' natural choice but he instead made a political mistake that later came to haunt him, and he's paying for it now...maybe FoxNews will hire him on as a political analyst, though.  I often disagreed with Jeff Sessions' opinions as a senator and some of his actions as Attorney General, but felt that he was treated very disrespectfully during the Senate hearing for his confirmation as well as by Trump when the President decided he was no longer useful to him and openly turned against him, a pattern that this individual has repeated with many, many others...

Weekly Short Stories: 1961 Science Fiction, Part 1

I begin my look at science fiction short stories from the year 1961 with the opening two tales from the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 23 (1961).  Just two stories here because they're both pretty long and each one gets a high recommendation from me to read.  In 1961 my family spent its first full year at our new home in the brand-new Boulevard Heights subdivision in West Hollywood, Florida.  I was four going on five...my sister Anita, four years older than me, went to Boulevard Heights Elementary School, which was a couple of blocks from our house.  I had my neighborhood friends Danny and Stevie and Jimmy I hung out with back then.  But enough of the personal stuff: here are my reactions to those stories...

THE HIGHEST TREASON by Randall Garrett
I was impressed by this story the first time I read it a few years ago, and still am after going through it again.  Set in a future interstellar space war between Earth, its colonies and outposts, and an alien humanoid militaristic society, an Earth military officer decides to desert his decadent, weak and complacent homeland to join the Kerothi as they are steadily and consistently winning the war.  His motivations at first seem despicable...but as the story goes on and especially at the end, the plan is entirely different.  Let's just say that some alternate histories of Judas and Jesus paint the former, almost always portrayed as the worst of all traitors, in a more sympathetic light.  The meaning of personal sacrifice in the pursuit of the greater good is the overriding theme here...

HOTHOUSE by Brian Aldiss
Aldiss meticulously created a scenario far off into Earth's future, billions of years from now, when the Sun is dying and the Earth always keeps one face to it while the moon is fixed sharing Earth's orbit.  Plants have taken over the biosphere and only five species of animals remain: humans and four insect forms.  The story takes place in a banyan forest (one giant banyan tree on the planet remains) as the various carnivorous plants prey on the small tribe of remaining humans, who struggle to survive until the next generation against the heavy odds stacked against them.  This story you probably want to take slowly and sit back from time to time, close your eyes, and visualize the environment and strange creatures the author imagined.  At first glance, Hothouse is a bleak look into the future, but upon reflection I have to admit that for a species such as our own which has only been around for less than a half million years, projecting its survival for another two billion years is actually a pretty doggone optimistic assessment.  The ending is fantastic...begging for a sequel...and uses cosmic radiation, plus the fact that it was early plant life on Earth that originally permeated its atmosphere with oxygen...

Next week: more science fiction short stories from 1961...

Constellation of the Month: Scorpius (the Scorpion)

If you happen to be a follower of that nonscientific field of soothsaying known as astrology, you already know that Scorpio is a sign of the Zodiac, representing people born October 23-November 21...guess what, I think horoscopes are a lot of hooey.  Astronomically speaking, I learned about the celestial Zodiac constellation Scorpius early in life at the age of seven...I remember that late spring night 56 years ago when I got permission to stay up late enough to watch it rise in the southeastern sky, leading with the scorpion's claws (three stars) followed by its highlight, the bright red giant star Antares.  In the United States Scorpius passes low in the southern sky during summer evenings and actually does resemble a scorpion when you connect together the dots (its stars, that is).  It also lies on the elliptic, meaning that our sun, moon, and the planets are seen from our vantage point on Earth to travel through it (and the other 11 Zodiac constellations).  Now to call Scorpius a "July" constellation only means that round 9-10 pm in the evening of that month it crosses the meridian (the imaginary line in the sky that divides east from west).  I could technically call just about any of the 88 official constellations as belonging to July since they all likewise cross that meridian line, most of them at other times of the day or night, however.  So for convention's sake I do as others do and take a mental snapshot of the sky at mid-evening during a particular month...

Although Scorpius is traditionally represented by that scorpion pattern from its brightest visible stars, the constellation is actually a sector of space projected outward from Earth to the farthest regions of the universe, comprising untold numbers of galaxies.  There are four Messier "objects" with Scorpius, all star clusters.  Scorpius lies the furthest south of all the Zodiac constellations, passing low in continental American skies.  It's usually a lot easier to notice the three prominent "claw" stars at the constellation's western end, followed by spectacular Antares.  The upper two claw stars are Graffius and Dschubba, respectively.  Other notable stars in Scorpius are Sargas in its tail and Shaula at the tip where the "stinger" is...

I have a memory from childhood of being with my family at the Golden Glades Drive-In theatre in northern Dade County, between Opa-Locka and Carol City near the Palmetto Expressway.  We were walking outside and I happened to look up toward the south and saw Scorpius in its completeness...it's one of the more spectacular constellations in the sky, definitely the highlight of the summer season...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #70-66

Once again I dip way back into the distant past with the next five songs on my list of all-time favorites: four are from 1964 to 1970 and the "new" one is from 1983...37 years ago.  Don't worry, some considerably more recent songs also appear on my list down the line: you might have even heard some of them before...

70 TWIST AND SHOUT...the Beatles
Back in early 1964 after the Beatles made their triumphal entry to the United States with their Ed Sullivan appearance and tour, at one time enjoying the top five singles hits (never happened before or since), we went together as a family to W.T. Grant in Hollywood on US 441 to look for Beatles records, among other things.  One of the items purchased was the single Twist and Shout...one of those aforementioned top five hits...with the flip side being There Is a Place.  I was a little seven-year old kid at the time and loved Twist and Shout, especially John Lennon's hoarse screaming and the "aah-aah-aah" harmonizing.  I still think it's an amazing song, recorded back when the Beatles covered a lot of other artists' material, this one originally by the Isley Brothers.  Word has it that on the day they recorded all of the tracks on their debut album they saved Twist and Shout to the very last, knowing that John wouldn't have a voice left after it was over...

69 IN A BIG COUNTRY...Big Country
In the fall of 1983 this was a big MTV video hit, although I greatly preferred the music by itself.  Big Country was a Scottish rock band with the uncanny ability to emulate the bagpipe sound on electric guitar.  I would eventually crown In a Big Country as my song of that year...ironically, although it was the band's signature hit with their own name in the title, Big Country would steadfastly refuse to play it for the crowds during their concerts...which might partially explain why you haven't heard much else from them.  In a Big Country is a positive, energizing song that makes me want pump my fists in the air and believe anything's possible...

68 FEARLESS...Pink Floyd
Although Fearless is a track from Pink Floyd's 1970 Meddle album, I didn't first hear this song until more than twenty years later when I started exploring their backlog of works.  Fearless is a curious mishmash of positivity, political satire, and the Liverpool-based band's adoration of their local soccer team as expressed by traditional stadium chants.  Climbing the mountain is a strong theme in this song...both literally and figuratively, and the instrumental breaks with the background sports chants provide an eerie effect...definitely a one-of-a-kind song, better in my opinion than anything they produced on their following landmark Dark Side of the Moon album...

67 THE LITTLE BLACK EGG...the Night Crawlers
This song was a local hit in South Florida during 1967, it's a Floridian band and yes, the words are a little weird...but I loved it anyway.  We must have had a radio with us on our nightly family dog walks around the neighborhood, because The Little Black Egg transports me back to that time and place, when our little cockapoo Michelle pranced up and down the streets with us while all the stray dogs in the vicinity would escort us along in a most friendly manner...yes, back then dogs ran loose like cats do and were mostly pretty sociable.  Looking back on my life, 1967 was a rather strange year...maybe I'll get into that a bit should I write down my memories down the line on this blog...

66 NO SUGAR TONIGHT/NEW MOTHER NATURE...the Guess Who
This Canadian band sadly had a name too much like England's The Who...they should have come up with something a little more distinct, although their music was very creative and original.  In the years following the 1970 release of American Woman, on which this two-part track appears, I grew to greatly like it when it became an album rock radio staple.  I originally preferred the first part, No Sugar Tonight, which then morphed into New Mother Nature...that part, I think, required a more cultivated taste.  Ultimately these two seemingly clashing sections are brought together in the concluding verse when they're played and sung concurrently: brilliant...

Next week: #65-61...

Visited Local Gym for a Hot Summer Day Treadmill Distance Run

It's been several months since I've visited my local gym, which happens to be Gainesville Health and Fitness.  I was planning to try out a long training run this weekend around the neighborhood but the temperature was too high...and since GHF has been opened back up I decided to give it a try as it got up to 94 degrees with a three-digit heat index.  I got there at one this afternoon and was a little taken aback about how busy it was, although upon reflection the parking lot was a lot emptier and there were fewer people there.  Their website discouraged members from using the locker rooms in the interest of safety from the coronavirus...I had already figured that out and don't plan to use them until the pandemic has subsided.  Wearing a mask upon entry and exit as asked (and all the employees wear masks), I scanned my membership card on a machine they had installed on the counter, to reduce any proximity to workers holding scanners.  Once in, I went upstairs to the row of treadmills I was accustomed to using, surprised that none had been roped off...they stated that members needed to work out six feet apart and I suppose they just expected us to abide by it: fortunately, everyone there seemed considerate of each other.  On the cardio equipment like the treadmill, users removed their masks but I noticed that those training with weights tended to keep them on.  My treadmill worked great and I was able to slog out eight slow miles on it while listening to a shuffle of some of my favorite songs on my MP3 player.  Afterwards I just walked out and back to my car and drove home...a successful venture.  But I still didn't like that many people there and know there are better times to visit when it's emptier.  The staff there was very friendly and professional as usual, and naturally were taking extra steps to keep the equipment clean and disinfected.  I don't know what it's going to look like there, however, when the University of Florida students pour back into town in a few weeks...heck, I don't know what it's going to look like anywhere, for that matter...

Just Finished Reading Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The other day I checked out, from my local public library's online source Libby, an audiobook version of William Shakespeare's longest play, the tragedy Hamlet.  The version I listened to was by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was pretty powerful, even though they stuck to the original archaic language...which was a great mental exercise in concentration and listening as I struggled to follow it.  Still, I somehow managed to keep up with the story's general flow as the fictional Danish Prince Hamlet, distraught over his father's recent death, discovers from his ghost its true cause...which leads him down a path of vengeance and disaster.  Hamlet, the Ghost, Horatio, Ophelia, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Laertes, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern...quite an unforgettable list of characters as well as memorable lines, plot twists, and that ending: ouch!  I liked hearing the play instead of visually reading it, but unfortunately since I wasn't actually watching a stage play in the way it is supposed to be experienced I was often confused as to which character was doing the speaking...and the climactic duel scene was pretty much indecipherable just listening to it, necessitating some reference to the written script, available free online: here's a link to the Gutenberg site: [Gutenberg Hamlet].  I'm not yet finished with Hamlet: I'd like to see some film versions, the 1948 Lawrence Olivier movie being the most celebrated one...although I understand it considerably altered Shakespeare's written play.  Libby offers some other plays of Shakespeare on audio, and I'd like to try them out as well.  I had a lot of fun with Hamlet, something that greatly surprised me.  Back at Nova High I had a classmate named Frances who was crazy about Shakespeare...I'm beginning to see why.  I suggest that if you're having trouble reading a play of his, try like I did and see how much you can follow on audio, or find a quality stage presentation to watch...sometimes you can pick up some good stuff from YouTube, and then there are the modern language versions on the market as well...

Quote of the Week...from William Shakespeare

This above all: to thine own self be true.      
                                    ---Polonius to his son Laertes, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Be true to yourself would be the commonly used modern-day version of this famous line...never before is it more important and applicable to people's lives.  In the beginning of the Shakespearian play Hamlet, the Danish usurper King Claudius' advisor Polonius is bidding farewell to his son Laertes, who is going off to study at Paris...and runs off a list of maxims designed to remind him how to behave around others while abroad.  This line seems to have stuck the most over the ensuing centuries, and why not: it is crucial that we stay true to our own conscience and respect our own ability to perceive and process information to the logical conclusions that they lead to instead of simply bending with the social and political winds around us and subverting our own integrity to the whims of others.  If others are espousing a narrative that I believe is either too narrow or false, then it does me no good to go on social media or in person and deliver my differences...they'd sooner die than to admit they were wrong and would only treat me as an enemy.  So I look around me, on social media and on television and see different narratives being pushed about different issues...one of these carries the mantras "necessary conversation" and "silence isn't an option" while its adherents ostracize and condemn anyone brazen enough to diverge from its politically correct line.  I see the essence of this particular narrative's main argument as being legitimate...although incomplete...but bringing up a bigger picture that puts it into a broader perspective would doubtless peg me as "tone deaf" and "insensitive" as I have seen done to others.  Seeing the risks involved in delving into this issue right now, I'll bide my time until heads around me are clearer...if that ever happens.  But I will in the meantime be true to myself and refrain from saying a lot of claptrap that sounds good but carries little meaning...

As for Shakespeare, I'm "reading" Hamlet right now...or more precisely, listening to an audio recording of a performance of it.  Although Shakespeare's plays are a standard staple in high school English class reading assignments, they are meant to be watched and listened to as the actors bring to life the often archaic language of four centuries ago.  I plan to watch as many of his works as possible in the next few months, and of course I'll be reporting about my reactions on this blog...

Starbucks, Masks, and Narratives

Back on June 28th I wrote about sitting in my nearby Starbucks and enjoying the resumption of an old tradition of mine, sipping on an iced coffee with my laptop and writing and studying.  At the time I wondered whether, with this resurgence of the coronavirus in my home state of Florida and others in the country, Starbucks might close its indoors areas again.  But I've been in here a number of times since and have always found the dining room relatively empty with no trouble finding a "distant" place to sit.  Although it's acceptable to take off my mask once I'm seated, I find it more comfortable to keep it on and momentarily lift it while taking a sip...I've noticed some other fellow customers likewise keeping theirs on as well.  One day a young couple that had been sitting across the store from me without masks (which was fine with me) turned toward me as they were walking out with bug-eyed, hostile stares...no doubt directed at me for wearing a mask: they were complete strangers and I was doing nothing to them, yet they felt somehow justified at throwing civility out the window over this one issue. I keep seeing Facebook posts by deniers who act offended if others expect them to wear a mask around them and who NEVER acknowledge that their usefulness is not so much to protect themselves from others but rather to protect others from themselves.  These people have doubtless heard this point repeatedly but simply refuse to receive it because it doesn't fit their bias and narrative. So instead they keep pushing this bogus "it's my body and I'll do what I want with it" victim-complex argument which avoids the fact that they are in truth demonstrating callous disregard for the health of others around them.  But I've discovered a major truth, which is that once people get a particular narrative stuck in their brains, then no amount of facts, logic, or mitigating input will ever convince them to either dispose of it or even to expand upon it a little: they'll accept information, no matter how spurious, that props it up...and either reject or ignore anything broadening or contradicting it...

Weekly Short Stories: 1960 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here I conclude my look at science fiction short stories from 1960 as they appeared in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 22 (1960).  Two were very brief and two were pretty long...I preferred the former although the longer ones did each make me reflect a little on the nature of our reality.  Here are my reactions to these four stories...

CHIEF by Henry Slesar
In this very short tale, a party of "whites" following a nuclear war land on a isolated, primitive society's shores, hopeful that here they can escape the dire effects of the holocaust...as well as impress the native population with their "superiority", as expressed by the strange machine they display that emits many clicking sounds when held up to themselves. (but not the natives).  You just know this tactic is going to backfire, but the last sentence makes it all worth reading anyway...

MIND PARTNER by Christopher Anvil
This is one of those stories that play with the reader's sense of what is real and what isn't...at its conclusion I still wasn't clear.  There is a new drug floating around that gives makes its users strongly dependent...but the addiction isn't for new heightened experiences but rather to forget them.  Intrigued?  A man is hired to infiltrate the gang pushing the drug from their mansion...and right off the bat the illusions ensue.  Hold onto your hat with this story: it's quite a ride...

THE HANDLER by Damon Knight
The Handler is also very short, but like Chief its message packs a big punch...and in today's world of shallow, narcissistic celebrities and politicians that millions idolize it is also very relevant.  One of those shallow celebrities has just finished a performance and is backstage congratulating the various people responsible for propping him up...and everyone around thinks he is the greatest.  Then he mentions his Handler...and the absurdity begins.  The message here is that even when people know someone is a complete phony, they'll still uncritically hinge on every word he or she says: you don't have to look very far on the news or Twitter to see this...

THE VOICES OF TIME by J.G. Ballard
Powers is a research neurologist in the not-too-distant future...life is running down, with terminal sleeping comas increasingly affecting the population: his own waking hours are dwindling down as the days rush by and he tries to finish his business before the end.  An associate leads him to the underlying reason for the sped-up entropy pervading the world: the entire universe is dying, and much quickly than ever thought.  In a story where there's not much to be done, instead the author lays it out differently, creating a mood piece that accentuates the hopelessness and resignation.  It makes reading it more challenging, and I'm not sure it couldn't have been just as effective if written in a more plain style...but that's just my opinion for what it's worth...

Next week I begin my look back at the year 1961 in short science fiction...

Just Finished Reading The Pearl by John Steinbeck

It was either late 1970 or early 1971 when my ninth grade high school English teacher Mrs. Hagadorn assigned us to read John Steinbeck's 1947 novel The Pearl...I dutifully went down to my school's tiny bookstore at the southwest corner of campus and purchased a copy: it was pretty small and looked like a quick, easy read.  Unfortunately, the story itself was so overwhelmingly negative that I found the reading experience exceedingly unpleasant...to the point where I "studiously" avoided reading anything else by Steinbeck for decades.  Well, after three relatively recent positive reactions to three of his novels...Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and Cannery Row...I decided to take on The Pearl once more to see if the passing years might not have blunted some of my critical attitude about it.  Nope, turns out that I wasn't reading it back then with an immature mind...I found it just as distasteful as before, but nevertheless came out of it all with some reflections...

As in Grapes of Wrath from eight years before, society is depicted in The Pearl as dog-eat-dog and full of bigotry and racially-based class distinction...if you happen to be born into the "wrong" group then you can just forget about getting a fair shake in life.  A poor fisherman living on the Baja Mexico peninsula with his wife and infant makes a paltry income diving for pearls...one day he finds the ultimate prize, a giant beautiful specimen...and foolishly lets the news spread like wildfire.  Because he now possesses "wealth", Kino believes that he will be able to move up the social ladder and partake of the benefits that society offers to those with financial means.  Instead he is despised by his own people, swindled by the doctor and purchasers, and attacked for the pearl...ultimately becoming a hunted outcast.  It's a tragic tale...but which is evil, the pearl or the disease of covetousness infecting all the people who encounter it?  Kino himself gets carried away by his discovery and his dreams of capitalizing on it...ultimately, the "solution" is not to change others but his own attitude about material wealth. But if you're very poor and are struggling just to feed and shelter your own family, you have to grab on to anything that can guarantee at least some semblance of a future, so I was disappointed in how the story ended.  Maybe you'll arrive at a different reaction: The Pearl is "0 for 2" as far as my readings of it are concerned: I'm done with it...with a bit more respect for my old ninth grade ability of discernment...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #75-71

Here are my reactions to five more songs on my 500 all-time favorites list as it gradually approaches the very best...these here, though, are all "champions" as far as I am concerned...

75 EIGHT MILES HIGH...the Byrds
By early 1966 I already knew of the Byrds from the previous year with their big hits Hey Mister Tambourine Man and Turn Turn Turn that they performed on the Ed Sullivan show and which my local station WQAM would play...still, I kind of felt, even back then in my nine-year old mind, that they seemed too preachy.  But then Eight Miles High came out with its out-of-this-world guitar jamming and spaced-out lyrics and I was pleased to finally come across something of theirs I liked a lot.  Looking back, this was one of the very earliest psychedelic songs to come out, a year before the movement took off with the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album and the ensuing Summer of Love.  But although imitators of this genre now sound stale, Eight Miles High is the "real McCoy" and is as fresh today as it was 54 years ago...

74 TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME...Supertramp
This song of personal desolation appropriately was popular at the exact time of my own personal desolation: late in 1979, the worst part of the worst year in my life...sometimes you go through valleys, and then there are trenches.  It's from their wonderful Breakfast in America album and features Roger Hodgson's high-pitched, plaintive lead vocals and a killer harmonica and piano interaction.  The intro and closing to Take the Long Way Home are among the best ever that I've heard, and the lyrics tear at the heart: "When the day comes to settle down, who's to blame if you're not around...you took the long way home"...a truly chilling song...

73 STRANGLEHOLD...Ted Nugent
No, I don't dig Ted Nugent's politics...if others do then good for them, leave me out of it all.  Stranglehold, from 1974, is Nugent's signature masterpiece...although while the guitar magician works numerous wonders on it the lead singer is Derek St. Holmes.  Still, Nugent contributes his own singing as well in the unforgettable line near the end: "Sometimes you want to get higher, and sometimes you gotta start low...some people think they're gonna die someday: I got news, you never got to go".  When Stranglehold first came out I didn't like it...only years later did I learn to appreciate how it built up musically...

72 AMERICA...Simon and Garfunkel
In retrospect, Simon and Garfunkel's 1968 album Bookends to me was their best and one of the greatest in history...although at the time I knew little of it.  It wouldn't be until seven years later that I really took to America, one of its tracks.  The lyrics describe a Greyhound trip a young man and his girlfriend are taking cross-country, my favorite line being "Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces, she said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.  I said be careful, his bowtie is really a camera". Although it came out years earlier, I closely associate S&G's America with what was going on with my life in late 1975...

71 BE GOOD JOHNNY...Men at Work
Men at Work was a talented Australian band from the early 1980s who came out with funny hits like Who Can It Be Now? and Down Under and even goofier videos to accompany them.  Be Good Johnny was a minor hit between their bigger ones, and although they also hammed it up here both in the song and video, it contained an underlying theme that strongly resonated with me then and still does: we're all different and each of us has a right to our own individuality...and furthermore it's up to each to us to assert that individuality without having to wait for anyone else's permission.  Pretty heady for a group that at the time was often derided as being too shallow.  Be Good Johnny's music was pretty awesome, too...

Next week: #70-66...

Lookin Forward to Resumed Pro Sports...If That Happens

I've enjoyed this Fourth of July weekend, but I'm getting a little tired of listening to sports talk or watching reruns of ancient games as substitutes for watching live major league sporting events.  Sure, there's still premier professional soccer going on in Europe and Mexico, and sometimes that's fun to watch...I got into yesterday's English Premier League match between Chelsea and Watford, peculiar in that although the Chelsea home stadium was empty of fans, they piped in recorded spectator noise to give the audio illusion that it was packed.  But not seeing anyone in the stands doesn't detract in the least from my enjoyment of a game...just bring it on!  On July 8th, America's Major League Soccer is planning to start action with all 26 league teams in a format similar to the World Cup...a few early matches followed by knockout elimination rounds until a champion is crowned.  But whether I follow them or not depends on whether I get to see their matches on TV.  Major League Baseball is supposedly going to begin a much-curtailed, 60-game regular season starting on July 23rd or 24th with games taking place at the various cities' home fields although they, too, will be empty of fans.  The National Basketball Association on July 30th is set to try and close its 2019-2020 season with some 22 teams playing for the final playoff lineup with the playoffs following...while everyone involved plays and resides within an isolation bubble at World Disney World near Orlando: good luck with that.  Similarly, the National Hockey League plans to hold its season-ending playoffs with the teams playing in centralized locations away from their home towns...both basketball and hockey will be playing to empty arenas.  And the National Football League plans to start its 2020 season on September 10th, although the number of scheduled preseason exhibition games has dwindled from four to two...and may be zero before we get there.  And there's no telling what will happen with college football, as decentralized as the sport is with certain conferences and states holding a relatively high degree of decision power here...

I like watching soccer, baseball, basketball, and football when the games count...even ice hockey when it's the Stanley Cup playoffs.  I don't want to see packed stadiums and arenas anytime soon, and some of the reports about different teams' players testing positive for COVID-19 don't sound encouraging.  The recent resurgence of coronavirus in many states...especially Texas, California, Arizona and my Florida...has thrown a monkey wrench into the various plans for reopening the different leagues.  As of now, they're still planning to resume play on the indicated dates, but we all know that things can drastically change over the course of just a few hours...

Just Finished Reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

As I continued on my personal tour of some of American writer John Steinbeck's more famous works, I came across his 1945 Cannery Row, a lighter story than his usual deep social commentary.  It's about a street...hence the title...in Monterrey, California, a location intimately known by the author.  Sardine canning companies line it, and other residents live there: Lee Chong, the parsimonious local grocer, community-minded Dora and her brothel, a group of derelict men led by Mack...and then there's Doc, a marine biologist running his own business and who collects and sells samples of the local Pacific fauna from his laboratory there.  It's the interaction between these various characters that dictates the story's flow, highlighted by Mack's desire to do something nice for Doc and the mischief that follows this initial burst of good will.  Mack reminded me with his philosophy of life of Eliza Doolittle's vagrant father in My Fair Lady, the movie adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.  Initially when I read Cannery Row I felt that Steinbeck wrote Doc's character based on himself, but later I discovered that he based it on a friend who also had a biological laboratory there.  There is some drama in the story, but it's mostly a tale about many clearly-flawed, very different individuals bound together within a community by their affection for one another and sense of belonging...and that's not so bad, is it?  I remember back in the early 1980s a Cannery Row movie starring Nick Nolte and Deborah Winger but I never got around to seeing it.  Cannery Row hops from character to character...the temptation is for me to crown Doc as the story's protagonist, but this novel really wasn't constructed that way: it was more a portrayal of this quirky, special town at a snapshot in history.  I thought it was pretty good reading...

Quote of the Week...from Les Brown

 You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.                 ---Les Brown

Les Brown is an American motivational speaker who has appeared in the past on Public Television fundraising drives...that's how I got impressed with his rhetorical skills.  Being in my sixties, I'm not getting any younger but still need to believe in progress and self-improvement.  It's important to look at the future and see possibilities and opportunities for personal advancement and new experiences.  I want to continue to learn foreign languages, learn to play a musical instrument or two (or more), write a book or two (or more), travel a bit, keep up my health even to the point of continuing running races for years to come, and develop my interpersonal communications skills...the area I probably need work on the most.  And I want to do this all while encouraging my wonderful wife Melissa to do likewise with her goals and dreams, the two of us sharing our joys and experiences...the same goes for our children Will and Rebecca as they stake out their respective futures as young adults...

Just Finished Reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is one of those books that I should have been assigned during high school English class...how I missed it is beyond me.  In the ninth grade, I did get assigned The Pearl, another novel by John Steinbeck, one I intensely disliked at the time and which kept me from approaching this great author's other works for many, many years.  But a few years ago I read his Of Mice and Men, a brilliant work, and just now finally tackled what is probably his most famous novel, which came out in 1939 and just the following year was made into a classic movie starring Henry Fonda.  Fonda's character, a young man named Tom Joad, has just been released from prison and is returning home to his family of tenant farmers in rural Oklahoma...only to discover upon arriving that they have had "their" farm seized by the bank after Dust Bowl failures in crop yield had placed them behind in payments.  Many of the Joads' neighbors are likewise pulling up stakes and heading to California, where handbills flooding their area are proclaiming jobs abounding in that state's diverse agricultural community.  It is the ordeal of the Joads...with Tom's blunt, common sense take on the proceedings, that defines this story of greedy exploitation by the wealthy, irrational prejudice by those feeling threatened by the incoming "Okies", and the bonds that develop among the poor families desperately searching for work to feed and shelter themselves.  The Grapes of Wrath is an exposé story of this dark period in our country's history...I haven't yet seen the movie but plan to soon: I've read nothing but good things about it, although I suspect that some of the book's rawness may have been smoothed over for the big screen.  But first I recommend you read the book: Steinbeck makes you feel like you're right there with the Joad family, alternately suffering and rejoicing with them along their troubled journey.  As for other John Steinbeck novels, I'm currently reading his more lighthearted Cannery Row and look forward to East of Eden and a hopefully more mature rereading of The Pearl...

Weekly Short Stories: 1960 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here are four more science fiction short stories from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 22 (1960).  This paperback anthology series, compiled during the 1980s and early 90s up to Asimov's sad death from kidney failure in 1992, covered the years 1939-63 in the genre.  For 1964 through 1990, I've also collected the ongoing "year's best" science fiction short story series edited by Donald Wollheim...so you see I've got a long way to go just to get to thirty years ago...

MINE OWN WAYS by Richard McKenna
This is a story of allegory, as are many science fiction tales, about how one's own cultural centeredness can cause judgmental conclusions about another society and its norms and laws.  Set on another planet, Earth travelers are repelled by the killing they see within an indigenous humanoid society there...their eyes are opened when the "priest" in charge of the barbaric rituals reveals his true identity and the underlying cause of the "tests" the young initiates are required to perform...with violent death as the penalty for failure.  An interesting theory contained within about the origins of our own humanity...

MAKE MINE...HOMOGENIZED by Rick Raphael
A deliberately funny and satirical take on the arms race, nuclear testing, and genetic manipulation as a hokey ranch woman living near one of those western testing sites discovers one day that one of her cows' milk is high-powered fuel of a kind no one has remotely developed...and that her rooster produces golden eggs with equally strong detonator powder inside.  Of course, the secret gets out and the author has fun describing the reactions not only of the defense bigwigs, press, and politicians, but also of the Soviet Union with its propensity for ridiculous propaganda.  A long story, but enjoyable with a very silly, campy pun stuck at the very end (in our age it would be called a "dad" joke)...

THE LADY WHO SAILED THE SOUL by Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith was the pen name of Paul Linebarger, a college professor who as his alter ego created a special, unique future history of space exploration...my favorite story of his is The Game of Cat and Dragon from 1954. The Lady Who Sailed The Soul is a sci-fi love story about Cordwainer's imagined space pioneering vision of star-travelers on spaceships powered by vast light-sensitive sails, the passengers in suspended animation and the pilots medically modified to stay always awake with their sense of time passage drastically slowed. On such a voyage to "New Earth" light years distant the pilot perceives that one month has passed but physically ages forty years.  A woman and man, the former about to pilot her first mission and the latter, physically old but mentally still young, have a romantic affair but then part company...and then she embarks on her own piloting assignment on a ship called The Soul.  I liked the story, but preferred others by this author...

I REMEMBER BABYLON by Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke is best know for his 2001: A Space Odyssey movie that he co-created with Stanley Kubrick in 1967 and later wrote a four-part book series about.  In 1945 he predicted the rise of communications satellites stationed in stationary spots around the Earth...twelve years before Sputnik, the first satellite, was ever launched! I Remember Babylon is a semi-fictional essay in which Clarke encounters a man working for America's adversaries...and their new satellites will broadcast unrestricted pornography and violence into American homes 24/7 (to supposedly weaken the population) interspersed with propaganda while our government will be able to do nothing about it.  In 1991, when the anthology's editors picked this "story" for inclusion, they were glad that Clarke's vision didn't come about. Unfortunately, they were clueless about the soon-to-be advent of the Internet, which produced the exact same effect as warned in this story...

Next week I conclude my look back at the year 1960 in short science fiction...

My June 2020 Running Report

In June my total running mileage dropped down to 128 miles...substantially lower than the previous two months' figures but overall higher than before.  My longest single run was 5 miles, accomplished on a number of days.  The very muggy, rainy...and this past weekend, dusty conditions...kept me from my planned weekend "long" runs, as well as a couple of occasions in which I simply did not feel well and rested: I skipped running two days in June.  As for July, my main obstacle with going out on longer training runs will be the weather as the temperatures continue to surge and the typical humidity for this part of the country remains high...as well as possible rain.  If I do go out on a long venture, I plan to mix my running with walking breaks, as marathon guru Jeff Galloway has taught...a strategy that has worked well for me in the past.  As I age (I'm 63), I'll probably be increasing my walking-to-running ratio but would still want to participate in races like half-marathons and 10Ks and 15Ks, assuming we ever get around to holding them again.  I'm hoping that by November 11th, conditions with this pandemic will have alleviated enough for the Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon to take place here in Gainesville, but I'm prepared to wait until next year for a race if it's canceled.  In any event, staying healthy and fit is my main goal for the immediate future...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #80-76

Here are my reactions to five more songs from my 500 all-time favorites list.  As with other segments, there is a diversity of musical styles here...one of them is actually an arrangement of a classical work.  I naturally recommend them all, although one of them I'm reasonably sure you've never heard, two you might have heard, and two were big singles hits in their time...

80 CASIMIR PULASKI DAY...Sufjan Stevens
Have you ever heard of Sufjan Stevens?  Probably not, so in all likelihood you don't know of this very talented and inspired artist's outstanding 2005 album Illinois, ostensibly a tribute to this midwestern state in which he lived for a time but actually a much more introspective and spiritual work. Casimir Pulaski Day exemplifies this: the title refers to an Illinois state holiday at the beginning of March commemorating the Polish military officer who joined the American Revolutionary War efforts against the Brits.  But the song's narrative is really about a teenage girl who is dying of bone cancer, and the struggles with faith that Stevens, overtly Christian in his beliefs and songwriting, undergoes here.  My favorite song of 2009 when I first heard it, this is real Christian music that you'll never hear played on "Christian" radio because, well, as I said before it deals frankly with real struggles that Christians go through regarding their faith...

79 FLY AWAY...Lenny Kravitz
For most of 1998 I thought it was a very good year in music, with many great songs to choose from to crown my "song of the year"...and then Fly Away came along in the fall and blew them all away with its energy and wistfulness.  This song makes me want to yell along with Lenny, pump my fist into the air, and slam into that air guitar of mine...and fly away, too...don't forget that.  "Let's go and see the stars, the Milky Way or even Mars...where it could just be ours"...YEAH!  I think that, along with the other Fly Away on this favorites list of mine (by John Denver and Olivia Newton John) you couldn't come up with two more different-sounding songs with the same title and same general theme, each beautiful in its own way...

78 TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS...the Beatles
When my parents heard this closing track from the Beatles' greatest (in my opinion) album, their 1966 Revolver, I think that was when they began to drift away from being fans of the Fab Four (the Strawberry Fields Forever video on the Ed Sullivan Show didn't help either)...Tomorrow Never Knows is about as spacey as it gets.  I, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of listening to it, funny bird/animal sounds notwithstanding.  And the opening words..."Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it is not dying" through "But listen to the color of your dreams, it is not living" reveal some pretty deep, cryptically expressed philosophical stuff...not my parents' "cup of tea" but definitely mine...

77 DEBUSSY'S ARABESQUE NO. 1...Isao Tomita
Back in late 1974 my local Ft. Lauderdale progressive rock station, WSHE/103.5, began regularly playing this track from Isao Tomita's Snowflakes Are Dancing album, comprised of a number of instrumental songs written by French classical composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and arranged and produced completely electronically.  I bought the album and for weeks was entranced by its music...Arabesque No. 1, which in Tomita's version (not the original Debussy score) contains segments of eerie, bizarre "whistling" and "singing", you may recognize as the long-time theme music for the late Jack Horkheimer's weekly five-minute PBS Star Hustler TV show that provided timely skygazing information and brief teachings on astronomy. But listen to Isao's whole album...it's stupendous!

76 SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS...John Denver
This is one of those songs that I associate with a specific personal memory...in this case one morning in February, 1974 I decided to leave the house early and walk the 5½ miles through back roads to my high school.  I had been listening to this then-new release by John Denver and played it in my mind the whole way...ever since then whenever I hear it I recall the very pleasant experience and wish I had walked to and from school more often: the distance wasn't that far and I'd already run much longer distances.  I think this song was Denver's best singing performance...it always amazes me whenever a singer can hold notes as long as he repeatedly did with this hit.  He referred back to Sunshine on My Shoulders in a later song, Back Home Again...

Next week: #75-71...

Another Strange Starbucks Experience

It's mid-Sunday morning and I'm sitting here...perhaps for the last time in a while...in my northern Gainesville Starbucks with my iced coffee and two other dine-in customers sitting across the large room.  Looks like they've cut down further on the available seating, which isn't surprising considering the sharp upward spike in reported coronavirus cases both in the state of Florida at large and in my home Alachua County.  The population seems to be reacting to the upsurge by shunning reopened places like this in favor of drive-through ordering...this is ironically why I'm sitting here now: fewer people to contend with as well as my previously stated hunch that I may be avoiding sitting in here until things clear up, whenever that might be.  It also looks as if my church, which had been holding in-person services for the past three weeks along with careful measures taken with distancing and face covering, may be considering going back to online services as it considers the COVID-19 resurgence in our area.  As for me, I'm wearing my mask in here, only lifting it momentarily to sip my coffee. Stay safe and please follow the local mask ordinance if only out of consideration for others, even if you don't care about your own health or think this is all a political hoax: I won't tell the president you idolize unquestioningly that you're wearing one, it'll be our secret...

Watching CNN 1968 Documentary, Evoking Personal Memories

I'm watching right now a documentary show on CNN about the year 1968...were you alive back then and if so, do you have your own memories of that turbulent year in our country's history?  I was eleven going on twelve, and the year was divided between my last year in the sixth grade at Nova Elementary School in Davie, Florida and the start of the seventh just across the field at Nova High...quite a culture shock in more ways than one.  They're trying to stress similarities between 1968 and our own current troubled year of 2020...in my own personal life I missed the final, glorious days of elementary school in June 1968 with a severe case of the flu.  I followed the news that year, and '68 was the first presidential election campaign I ever paid attention to...I remember my mom being a strong Eugene McCarthy fan and being disappointed that neither of my parents were voters.  While riding home on the school bus just before the November election I discovered a few of my friends were behind George Wallace's independent bid...I bet most of them are ardent supporters of Trump now.  While watching CNN's presentation, I realized that there are different histories going on here: the society's history and my own personal one.  You can take notes from the TV broadcast and look up interesting topics on the Internet and learn a lot, but with personal memories digging them out of the past can be much more challenging.  I am 63 going on 64 in October...I'm thinking of starting something I call "Life Memory Project" in which, like an archaeologist digging up fragmentary clues from a culture's past, I try to assemble my own personal relics from the vast recesses of my tangled memories.  I get the fact that with many people the idea of digging back into their own pasts can be a traumatic experience...to each his or her own, I say: maybe this is something you'd like to undertake for yourself, though.  I'm also thinking of rehashing years and topics of my past on this blog at times, although what the exact format will be I'm not sure of right now.  One idea that might work is for "memory" articles to be written in a stream-of-consciousness style.  Yes, 1968 was an interesting, memorable year both in the nation, the world...and my own life.  But even with this documentary I can see that they're glossing over some important stories, but you can't cram an entire, very eventful year into a four-hour documentary...

Quote of the Week...from Gandalf in Lord of the Rings

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.            
                                               ---Gandalf the Grey from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

In J.R.R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of his Lord of the Rings fantasy series from the 1950s, protagonist Frodo is bemoaning the horrible succession of events after his uncle Bilbo Baggins gave him the "Ring of Power".  The good wizard Gandalf's reply is sympathetic, and he concludes it with the above quote.  Storms and trials will always be with us and at times will seem turbulent and painful.  But through all of them...as well as the good times...each of us has the authority, as well as responsibility, to be stewards of the time allotted to us in our respective lives.  I think of some tough times I've gone through in years gone by and have come to the conclusion that it wasn't the difficulty of the crises I passed through that I had grounds to grieve over, but rather my responses to them.  All of these things currently going on around me in the news are bigger than me, and I am just one person.  Granted this fact, I still live in these times and have the authority to act in a positive, constructive way that...at a future time looking back...I will not be ashamed of.  May I just humbly suggest that others take this advice to heart as well for themselves?

Sat in a Starbucks for First Time in Three Months

I recently got an email notice from Starbucks stating that if I don't use up my bonus points I've amassed from them by July, they'll start taking them away...I thought that was a bit shabby of them, to say the least.  Still, a free drink is a free drink and last Friday before work I went in the drive-through at my nearest (and favorite) Starbucks here in far-northern Gainesville to pick up a "free" iced coffee.  I'd tried a few days before to sit inside the store with my coffee like I was used to, only to be informed that the dining room was still closed and they didn't know when it would open again.  Yet Friday the barista at the window told me that they had opened the indoors area the day before and I made a mental note to try it out. So the day before yesterday I went there...again before work, around 12:30 pm, and sat down in a Starbucks with my laptop for the first time in more than three months.  The big rectangular table I like to sit at by the entrance was closed off, the cashier/pickup area separated employees from the rest of the public by extensive plexiglass, and there were confusing arrows on the floor pointing this way and that. There were about 6-7 of us customers in there...the maximum stated occupancy at this Starbucks is now 15...and the useless (to me) seats by the window were removed, along with some tables in the interior as well.  The outside seating area seemed the same as before...I would have gone out there but the sun at the time was beating down: difficult to see the computer screen like that.  I'm glad I could sit out in a Starbucks for a few minutes...gives me a sense, delusional or not, that at least in some places there's a return to normality.  Let's see whether it lasts or poofs out in a cloud of resurgent coronavirus.  By the way, speaking of that scourge, our state governor as well as our dubious president want to claim that the current spike in cases is due to more testing...but the increase in hospital visits and admissions indicate otherwise...

Weekly Short Stories: 1960 Science Fiction, Part 1

I begin my look back at the year 1960 in short science fiction with the first three stories from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 22 (1960).  During that year I was three going on four and spent almost the entire year living in an apartment with my mother, father and sister in Opa-Locka, a suburb northwest of Miami with a One Thousand Nights theme of oriental architecture and street names (we lived on Dunad Avenue).  Of course back then I wasn't aware it was "1960" or that Eisenhower was president...or what a president was for that matter.  But I do remember lots of things that went on that year, including the scary time when what I would later learn was Hurricane Donna swept through.  Anyway, here are those first three stories...

MARIANA by Fritz Leiber
A young woman living out on some far off planet one day begins to question the nature of her reality when she discovers in her own home a control box with labeled switches.  This very brief story reminds me of the scene in the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine when they are in the Sea of Green and encounter a sea monster that sucks in everything around...including, ultimately, itself...

THE DAY THE ICICLE WORKS CLOSED by Frederik Pohl
A planet whose economy depends totally on its one commodity, its unique natually multi-colored snow high in demand across the settled universe, falls into depression when an engineer elsewhere is reported to have copied the process, enabling anyone to produce it and consequently crashing the planet's economy.  Now the only way for the population to earn substantial money is the abhorrent practice of renting out their bodies to tourists who briefly inhabit them telepathically.  A lawyer uncovers something seedy going on when he defends some youths who had kidnapped the mayor's child for ransom.  This story has a similar theme to The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, which I am currently reading...

THE FELLOW WHO MARRIED THE MAXILL GIRL by Ward Moore
A rather wayward man is left the only surviving parent of six girls in a backwoods farm...one of them discovers in the nearby country a young man who cannot speak but only hum, has four fingers and toes instead of five, and possesses a remarkable ability to heal the sick and make plants grow and yield abundantly: he's obviously of another world.  Nan, one of the older girls, falls in love with him and eventually the two can converse and...well, you already know the story's title.  Once again here is a tale about someone whose extraordinary abilities, once know to certain parties, can place his freedom...and even life...in jeopardy...

Next week: more in science fiction short stories from 1960...

About Constellations

A few days ago on this blog I began a monthly feature highlighting one of the 88 officially recognized constellations in the celestial realm...Boötes started it off for June.  One thing that's important to note about constellations is that, while they are best learned and observed as patterns of the brighter stars within them that are visible to the naked eye, they are in essence sectors of three-dimensional space projected outward from Earth, so the moon, only about 239,000 miles from us, might one night be "in" one of the zodiac constellations, while elsewhere "in" it in lie billions of galaxies untold light-years distant.  The constellations also vary in size, with smaller ones more predominant in the Southern Hemisphere.  Boötes does not lie on the ecliptic, home of the twelve zodiac constellations, so therefore the sun, moon, and planets on that plane in our solar system do not pass through it...but just south of it is the constellation Libra where they do.  Sometimes the patterns you get from "connecting the dots" of a constellation's stars resemble its description...Scorpius truly looks like a scorpion...while some do not, as is the case of Corvus, supposedly a crow but coming across more as an irregular quadrilateral in the May evening sky.  The more precise way to locate a celestial object in the sky is by its declination and right ascension, corresponding respectively to Earth's latitude and longitude...the right ascension is expressed in hours, minutes and seconds with one celestial hour representing 15 degrees east or west.  But to me it's easier to locate something based on its constellation, just as on Earth it's easier to do likewise if you know the country.  I'm looking forward to discussing all this further next month when I select a new constellation...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #85-81 (and #240-231)

A funny thing happened regarding this "500 all-time favorite songs" weekly project of mine back in late February: I inadvertently passed over ten of the songs...the other day I thought, hey, Diary by Bread should have been on my list but I didn't discuss it and presto, there it was in the missing section.  "My bad"...here are the songs in that segment I accidently skipped four months ago:

240 RIDE...Twenty One Pilots...favorite song of 2017 with reggae sound mixed with rap, good current act
239 HURRICANE...Bob Dylan...passionate plea from '75 for justice about wrongly convicted boxer
238 DIARY...Bread...bittersweet, but ultimately gracious ode of a love interest who loves another, from 1972
237 THE GYPSY DAVEY...Arlo Guthrie...in '73 sings one of his dad Woody's great old pieces
236 THE GHOST OF YOU LINGERS...Spoon...sharp rhythmic piano highlights it, from 2007
235 SCAR TISSUE...Red Hot Chili Peppers...favorite song of 1999, great lead guitar play
234 WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?...Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield...Dusty's 1988 return to top forty hit parade with a resounding performance
233 THIS FIRE...Franz Ferdinand...from 2004, great rocking piece, guitar riffs abound
232 TIRED OF WAITING FOR YOU...the Kinks...guitar intro was unforgettable in this 1965 song
231 GET IT RIGHT NEXT TIME...Gerry Rafferty...the stage-shy artist's best song but just a minor hit, from '79

And below I continue the next five on my list, after double-checking to make sure I didn't skip any...

85 NO MILK TODAY...Herman's Hermits
An unusually moody song from Herman's Hermits, a group usually perceived as a cleaner, more proper alternative to the Rolling Stones or Beatles during the 60's British Invasion.  No Milk Today bemoans a love who moved away as the milkman, whom singer Peter Noone portrays, gets all dark and gloomy over it.  I loved the orchestral background production on this very minor late-1966 hit as the band found itself sinking into a popularity decline in America...

84 ONE STEP INTO THE LIGHT...the Moody Blues
When the Moody Blues reunited to record Octave in 1978, six years after they broke up to pursue solo projects, there were great expectations, largely deflated by the more mediocre content on it than with their previous works.  Mediocre until the album's final two tracks, that is: I've previously discussed the closing The Day We Meet Again, composed and sung by Justin Haywood...immediately preceding it is this song by founding member Mike Pinder, who gets about as spiritual as one can get in a song without being theological.  One Step Into the Light can sound a bit New Age, but you don't have to follow that movement to see the beauty in the lyrics: a wonderful song.  Mike left the band after Octave...I think he should get a lot of credit for their earlier great music...

83 NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN...Fleetwood Mac
One of the great solo guitar pieces of all time, Lindsay Buckingham sings and plays this often overlooked track from the band's celebrated 1977 Rumors album.  Once I timed its beat to running steps and calculated that with a specific length of stride while running to the music I could pull off a pretty damned fast marathon...but that was back in 1978 when I wasn't thinking too clearly.  Still, the subliminal connection to running remains with this song...

82 MAGIC BUS...the Who
To be honest I didn't care for this 1968 singles hit when it came out, but by the late 80s I thought of it as my all-time favorite song.  It has a unique sound among the thousands of songs I've heard. There's a curious mixture of rawness, virtuosity and good old rock and roll...as well as a thinly-veiled tribute to the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour BBC-TV movie from 1967.  I still love it, although there's another Who song now much higher on my list...

81 TINY DANCER...Elton John
Back in early 1972 Tiny Dancer was the first Elton John song ever that I took to, and I have loved it ever since.  Apparently, it has only increased in stature over the years with the listening public as I'm always hearing stations playing it, although back in the day my local Miami pop music station WQAM/560 refused to play it...I had to switch over to Ft. Lauderdale's WSRF/1580 to hear it.  Elton would follow up on Tiny Dancer with Rocket Man, which all the stations would play.  Like with song #82, I'm not finished with Elton John on this list, either...

Next week: #80-76...

Enjoyed Father's Day With My Family

I enjoyed a blessed, fun Father's Day at home today with my wonderful wife Melissa and our two grown children, Will and Rebecca.  Will visited for a while in the afternoon and the rest of us enjoyed watching our extended-version DVD of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring together this evening...after eating a scrumptious meal that Rebecca prepared herself.  I love my family and thank them for such a great day...

Herd Instinct Trumps Common Sense and Responsibility

People are social creatures, and they tend to pattern their behavior...and even beliefs...on how the groups they are most intimately identified with around them come down on what to do or think.  They can watch the TV and get all the pertinent facts on any issue, form their own initial independent opinions, and then go back to work or their circle of buddies and find out that the group in question is coming down completely differently from they've been informed...yet their social instincts will lead them away from sound judgment in the face of possible rejection from the group.  And groups themselves tend to be dominated and manipulated by aggressive "Alpha" personality types that have achieved what they want the most...to have people around them cowed and fearful of their disapproval and scorn.  I've seen this tendency in many scenarios throughout my life...from kids at high school bus stops pandering to the bullies among them to today's situation in which wearing a mask in public situations to fight the spread of COVID-19 is often regarded as taboo.  Well, I've never been one to strive for others' approval and at this stage in my life I'm not about to start.  But I do understand how most others are wired and pity them for feeling that they are so subject to pressure from peers...especially their aggressive peers...that they fear expressing their own thoughts or acting in a rational, socially responsible way.  I've heard during the past recent months about "herd immunity" regarding the ultimate decline of an invading pathogen.  But what I'm talking about here is "herd instinct"...which seems to be trumping common sense and responsibility...

Quote of the Week...from Max Ehrmann

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.  Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.          ---Max Ehrmann

Max Ehrmann was an American businessman who penned the 1927 prose poem Desiderata, a guide to living that was popularized in 1972 as a hit single by Les Crane and is the most quoted piece on this blog, full of wisdom.  The above quote, also from Desiderata, focuses me on my own humble little life with its various triumphs and setbacks.  If I compare myself with others of a more competitive nature than I will be playing their game and not pursuing things in the way that I believe they should be approached.  Be it the pursuit of hierarchical career advancement, public lauding, amassing great wealth, athletic or academic success, adventuresome travel experiences, or achieving perceived widespread popularity, each of these areas carry with it the temptation to be made into an idol...although success in them, either in the view of others or by my own standards, is not necessarily something to be looked down upon.  It's important to make goals and plans and to strive against the resistance of day-to-day living, with all of its distractions and trials, to achieve them...this makes life more meaningful and keeps me stronger, positive and proactive instead of weak, negative and reactive.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Whatever your life's work is, do it well".  It's not so much innate talent and exceptional accomplishment that go into it, but an attitude of self-discipline and personal dignity...and an attitude that says that here is a job and I will perform it to attain a quality result.  I've found that looking "sideways" at what other people are doing is an exercise in futility. Whether in the workplace or while working on a personal endeavor, others have their own approaches and motivations, not all of them honorable or in accordance with my own orientation: no, I'll stick with my own standards and follow it all through to the end...

Horse Racing's Belmont Race Begins the 2020 Triple Crown Quest This Saturday

It looks as if the Triple Crown in horse racing will finally begin...but much later and in a different order and time spacing.  The Belmont Stakes, run from Long Island, New York and originally set for June 6th, will take place this coming Saturday the 20th in an arena devoid of spectators with NBC beginning coverage at 3 pm.  The distance of this traditionally long race is being shortened from 1½ to 1⅛ mile, and more horses than usual are entered to run in this event, which like the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, is specifically designed for three-year-old thoroughbreds.  Speaking of those races, Churchill Downs' Kentucky Derby and Baltimore's Preakness, originally slated for May, have been postponed to September 5th and October 3rd, respectively...all, of course, due to the coronavirus pandemic.  I'm looking forward to watching the Belmont race this weekend, but first I'll take a look at the lineup and see if there are any particular horses I might want to root for...

As for the rest of the sporting world whose seasons have been disrupted so far this year, I'm taking a wait-and see-attitude since each league, be it Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association or the National Hockey League, has its own situation and issues to work out...with the latter two, though, I note that the year is moving on even if they aren't and pretty soon they'll be overlapping the 2020-21 season if they don't either quickly agree and implement an action plan or call an end to the 2019-20 season.  If they resume play in any of these leagues, I'll watch on TV but there's no way I'll pay for any premium channel...I'm a sports fan but not a sports fanatic...

Weekly Short Stories: 1959 Science Fiction, Part 4

Here are me reactions to the final four science fiction short stories appearing in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 21 (1959).  I was a little embarrassed by the inclusion of the second "story"...the last two are truly significant works of fiction and worth your reading.  Here they are...

THE PI MAN by Alfred Bester
A man seems to live a very impulsive existence, mixing high-stakes business deals, seemingly random violence directed at different people and extensive travel as he finds himself to be a "compensator"...that is, someone with a special sense of balance in the universe and who must compensate for that balance being thrown off.  A psychologist might see his behavior as extremely obsessive-compulsive and delusional...whatever it is, this story delves into the possibility that what may at first glance seem like a paranormal gift to someone may really turn out to be a curse.  On the other hand, we gotta be the people we are...

MULTUM IN PARVO by Jack Sharkey
"Multum in parvo" is Latin for "much in little"...this already very brief tale is actually a number of even smaller, unrelated stories.  They all hinge on puns and twists of words with supposedly (but not really) witty punch lines...you know, the kind of attention-grabbing jokes they published in men's magazines back in the time: actually, this story was originally published in a men's magazine: Gent.  For some reason anthology editors Greenberg and Asimov deemed it fit for their 1959 retrospective: I don't...

WHAT NOW LITTLE MAN? by Mark Clifton
This is a strong story about the abuse and exploitation by humanity of other sentient beings and the ethical conflicts that arise when trying to reconcile the victimized group's intelligence with their "usefulness".  On a distant planet human settlers have one source for food and manual labor: the biped native "goonies", an animal form typified by their compliance and complete submission to whatever they are directed to do.  Paul, one of the pioneers at discovering their utility both as a source of food and of work, discovers that they can be taught human language...even complex tasks like accounting.  The other settlers have a taboo against recognizing the goonies' intelligence and this leads to a climactic scene at the story's end, after which Paul finally understands why the goonies submit as they do.  Lots of applications not only to how people treat animals, but also how they treat others they regard as different...

ADRIFT ON THE POLICY LEVEL by Chandler Davis
This is an ultimately humorous story about how the top-heavy bureaucracies in big organizations function...well, maybe "function" isn't the most accurate word here.  Dr. LaRue is a scientist who has developed a new useful chemical that will preserve a large company's investments in three of their "colonies".  The problem, as he enters the large corporate building with his supposedly business-savvy assistant, is being shuffled around the different departments to find someone who actually has the authority to make a decision about his proposal.  To me this was barely a science fiction story...it too closely resembles the state of affairs today.  It also hints at the closed-society "circle-the-wagons" mentality present in different groups, whose original legitimate purposes and mission have been replaced by one of self-preservation...  

Next week I begin to look back at the year 1960 in science fiction short stories...

Three Televised Presentations with Compelling Narratives about Reality

A week or two ago I was sitting comfortably at home in my recliner, in a desperate search to find something worth watching on TV...finally settling on a funding drive show on Public Television featuring Dr. Steven Gundry, who was promoting his most recent book titled The Immortality Paradox.  I was intrigued enough by his presentation to check that book out online from my library...I finished it and plan to add it to my Kindle collection of books, I was that impressed.  Yet something in how the good doctor presented his thesis on how the "gut" bacteria in our bodies determine our state of health and longevity gave me pause: Point A logically led to Point B which logically led to Point C...and all led back to repeated affirmations of his main point.  I get the appeal to reason, but something inside me still rebelled because I don't think that reality is that well organized: it's a lot more chaotic and the systems described are much more complex.  Yet I recognize and accept several points Dr. Gundry made and am partially changing my diet to improve my health...

A while back I saw Al Gore's 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth, which warned in much the same manner as Dr. Grundy with his own topic about the dangers of global warning caused by man-made releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  The logic and reason with which Gore connected the difference sources of evidence for his thesis was very persuasive and compelling...yet once again after initially being swept away by the presentation, I thought that the system that he was describing contained many other factors that would counteract some of the predictions...just as chaos wreaks havoc with weather forecasting beyond a limited time span.  Still, as in Dr. Grundy's case, I do think it is advisable to take better care of our environment, and trying to restrict our carbon emissions is an example of good stewardship of the planet...

And the other night I watched the 2016 documentary movie 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay, which presented its own thesis that the 13th Amendment to our United States Constitution, long celebrated because it officially abolished slavery, is actually flawed in that it contains a clause that makes an exception for criminals...a loophole that has been used ever since against blacks to oppress and exploit them.  Seen in this light, as one piece of historical evidence supporting that thesis is followed by another...and then another, after the movie ended I thought that the conspiracy it exposed was real...yet once again I have to inject the role of chaos into complex ideas that sound true, and which most definitely contain many significant elements of truth.  Racism is a major problem in our society...but it is one of many factors and doesn't account for all the problems that affect us.  Yet the movie was an eye-opener for me and I highly recommend it...

The three previous examples The Immortality Paradox, An Inconvenient Truth, and 13th all deal with very important subjects immediately relevant to our lives here and now.  I'm inclined to defer within each of them to subject matter I don't completely understand...yet I am inherently skeptical of buying every conclusion they promote hook, line and sinker.  Instead I come away with an action plan from each presentation: be kinder to my own body, be kinder to my own planet, and be kinder to others different than myself.  Maybe that sounds too simple, but the way I see it our lives in the end break down to simple acts, one thing at a time...