My #25 All-Time Favorite Album: The Stranger by Billy Joel

My #25 all-time favorite album is THE STRANGER by Billy Joel, the great piano troubadour from Long Island.  Released in 1977 in the middle of the horrid disco era, it was a bright spot in a desert of popular music back then.  Just the Way You Are was Joel's big Grammy-winning hit song...not exactly my favorite track from the album, and as it turned out, not his, either.  Still, all the songs on The Stranger were pretty damned good...here's my listing of tracks by my preference:

1 Scenes from an Italian Restaurant: an album rock radio staple in 1978, it's a whimsical look back at high school with Joel's trademark piano virtuosity and a killer saxophone...

2 The Stranger: the title track features beautiful whistling and a message similar to The Doors' People are Strange from ten years earlier...

3 Movin' Out: the opening track lays out Joel's disgust with the rat race and its disciples, and he's splitting the scene (on his motorcycle).  This song goes well with My Life from his following album 52nd Street...

4 Only the Good Die Young: some didn't like this tune because of its irreverence toward organized Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church. But that's exactly why I like it, plus the beat's awfully catchy and it's funny, gosh darn it...

5 She's Always a Woman to Me: what I liked about this one is the way Joel's lyrics paint the picture of a complete human being from anecdotal descriptions about her.  As I mentioned in an earlier article each of us is a complex tapestry of both good and bad...

6 Get It Right the First Time: I enjoy this song, but ultimately disagree with its message.  After all, it's the fear of NOT getting it right the first time and risking making an ass of yourself that prevents many of us from trying anything new...

7 Just the Way You Are: I probably would have liked this song more had it not been overplayed on the radio. The perfect lounge act song. Years later it stands up well...

8 Vienna: a slower piano ballad as Joel exhorts someone to slow down and realize "Vienna waits for you" and "Dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true"...lots of cool lyrics here...

9 Everybody Has a Dream: not a bad song per se, it just seems to drag a bit...maybe Joel should have kept it short.  I really liked its ending, when the whistling title theme closes out the album...

The Stranger is one of those special albums that is thoroughly listenable...no need to skip any tracks. For me it marked a passage of time as I entered into early adulthood and began to haltingly establish myself away from home for the first time...

Next week I discuss Album #24...

Get Off Your Asses and Vote in Every Election

I've been carefully avoiding immersing myself in the news over the past few days, but still I've been informed enough to know that the United States Supreme Court has finally overturned the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion...with restrictions...for some 49 years after making another ruling pertaining to carrying concealed guns.  There are several protest march demonstrations either ongoing or in the works...sigh, I recall a couple of years ago a liberal U.S. senator praising the marches back then as "democracy in action".  No, Ms. Senator, that is NOT democracy in action.  Democracy in action is for the people to get off their collective asses and VOTE IN EACH AND EVERY ELECTION.  Conservatives/Republicans tend to understand this and view voting as more of a civic duty than a right. Unfortunately, enough Democrats (resulting in loss after election loss) seem to think they only need to vote for president every four years (if they're excited by the candidate, that is) and that's supposed to fix everything.  No, we have an elected national Congress with the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as state legislatures and governorships that need to be addressed...on top of local elected offices.  You need to VOTE IN EVERY AVAILABLE RACE and prioritized your voting decisions by where the candidates stand on the issues most crucial to you.  I say this because that's not been happening...which goes a long way toward explaining why we have such a Supreme Court today that has just ruled the way it has...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen King

Let's face it.  No kid in high school feels as though they fit in.                  ---Stephen King

I remember conservative "no-spin" spinner Bill O'Reilly once making a similar comment to Stephen King's above quote when he said that kids were naturally awkward.  I think both of them speak mostly truth here, but I need to make an important distinction between what someone was feeling during that period in their life and his or her actual outward demeaner.  When I was going through junior and senior high school (I just missed out on the "middle school" experience), I was continually baffled by the confident, sometimes even arrogant composure of my fellow classmates.  Surely as humans we shared the same biological processes: weren't their changing bodies also wreaking the same havoc with their minds as mine was?  In retrospect, I'm sure they were going through a lot of the same stuff I was, but they had learned to cover it all up...a mask I think many have never gotten around to taking off.  As for me, I don't think I ever got over adolescence...when I was a little kid, I thought I already had everything figured out by the time I was nine.  And then the big change came and screwed everything up. Like most of us, I have both good and bad memories of that period in my life, but unlike the movies I can't go back in a time machine and change it all...nor should I: like that great old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Tapestry, it's all crucial in making me what I am now, for better or for worse.  And if there is a specific regret about something I may have done wrong back in those bygone years, then I can still see whether I can apply what I learned to my life in the "now", where all of reality exists anyway...

Special Events and Drama vs. Daily Routines

A Zen master once wrote that the practice of his philosophy was not based on mountaintop special experiences but rather in practicing and consistently adhering to daily routines.  I'm not Zen...although I did enjoy Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance...but different creeds contain their own truths, and this individual expressed a major one.  One group of people that I studiously avoid is the special event addict...someone who thinks of everyday existence as "boring" and is continually conjuring up ways to spice things up.  That includes drama queen behavior, overt flirting that draws in other people, malicious gossip, demeaning the value of mundane assignments in the workplace ("it's easy so therefore it's worthless"), overreacting to the often-manipulated news they hear...and especially thinking that special events such as parties and social gatherings define their joy and social belonging.  Never do I see some people behaving more seriously than when they are getting the food together at a workplace party...some of these on the floor seem to spend much of their energies spewing out unnaturally loud, forced laughter across the building at something or someone, most likely the target of their ridicule.  But with these special events, they're sacred and serious: don't mess with the food!  I also think a lot of folks are deeply into this career networking trap where they have been coached to believe that their social acquaintances (including, sadly, me) are little more than nodes in their networks to achieve greater prosperity and prestige.  Get-togethers with them aren't fun at all...no, it's more like going to the dentist for a really painful procedure.  I'm realistic to know that we all need breaks from routine every now and then, myself included: nothing like a wonderful weekend on the beach with my sweet wife!  But in order for that to happen, there has to be routine in the first place...I vote for the routine, and you can get your fix with parties and high drama...

Weekly Short Stories: 1985 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin looking at science fiction short stories from the year 1985, as featured in the anthology The 1986 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and featuring his picks from the previous year.  In 1985 I was still living in the southwest part of Gainesville, living frugally as a cook working in a nearby Chinese restaurant and studying foreign languages as a hobby.  I would experience a hurricane scare in August (Elena) and in December observe Halley's Comet (with binoculars, standing in the field that would later be the site of Wal-Mart and now Cheesecake Factory/Whole Foods) and then meet my beautiful future wife Melissa...who had been living in my own apartment complex across from me for months.  But enough of my autobiography...here are my reviews of the first stories in Wollheim's book...

EARTHGATE by J. Brian Clarke

This is one of those classic "old school" sci-fi tales that came out from the 1940s through 60s, with a sense of human progress and optimism for the future.  It is discovered that on a distant world called Sounder exists platforms...portals if you will...for instantaneous entry into other distant worlds, placed there who knows how long before by an advanced civilization. but Earth...and the only other known intelligent life, the Phuili...are not accorded their own Gates.  But two Gates on Sounder don't seem to go anywhere, and a specialist is dispatched there to investigate whether one goes to Earth.  I liked the story's premise as well as the background intrigue of someone trying to sabotage everything...

ON THE DREAM CHANNEL PANEL by Ian Watson

Thirteen random people in a small radius of a community have discovered that their dreams are being interrupted by bizarre commercials of completely exotic but mouthwatering foods.  A high school teacher decides to get everyone together to investigate and solve this mystery.  The results are hilarious, and the teacher's fate leads to an even more hilarious ending to this imaginative tale...

THE GODS OF MARS by Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick

When I read a relatively brief tale this tight and focused...and then see that three authors collaborated on it, I wonder exactly where each of them made their contributions.  Regardless of the authorship, though, this story was thoroughly brilliant in speculating about the strange observations of Martian canals from telescopic examinations by nineteenth centuries astronomers Percival Lowell and Giovanni Schiaparelli...and why they all seemed to disappear in subsequent observations by others.  What an ending, it freaked me out...

THE JAGUAR HUNTER by Lucius Shepard

Reading more like a Twilight Zone or Night Gallery episode than standard science fiction, a native of a poor Caribbean Island has agreed to hunt down a ferocious jaguar that has killed a few people there...and it has to do with plans to develop the area as a tourist magnet.  What is this jaguar really, and is there something a bit supernatural about it all?  This story, as with the two others I've read from Shepard, is really detailed about describing what life is like in this part of the world...from the viewpoints of the people actually living there...

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM by Robert Silverberg

Back in my May 4th article about 1984 science fiction short stories I discussed the Ian Watson tale We Remember Babylon, which appeared in Donald A. Wollheim's year's best anthology. The same editor the following year picked this suspiciously similarly based novella by Robert Silverberg.  Suspicious because both stories are based on the idea of a future society recreating ancient locales for study and/or entertainment.  In Silverberg's version it's way, way off into the future as humans have settled on other worlds while depopulating Earth to the point where the few remaining are served by myriad robots that do the construction and maintenance of five special "old" cultures worldwide.  A man from our present time finds himself suddenly in the midst of these future people as he tries to find his bearings while falling in love with a woman who, unlike the others of this era, seems to be slowly aging. Of Watson and Silverberg's stories the latter is clearly the better, as there are some intriguing ideas brought out in the conclusion that lean toward speculation about the true nature of personal identity, immortality and what it entails to possess essence...

Next week I continue my look at 1985 science fiction with more stories from Wollheim's anthology...

Changing Voting Registration over Crucial Issue

Yesterday I wrote here about how it's pointless to get all riled up about things I have no control over.  Politics is largely a part of this, although in a limited way I do have at least a say in things...I can write about my opinions and go vote.  And with that voting I decided to do something that to many may seem completely counterintuitive.  You see, I've come to believe over the past two years that the most crucial, immediate issue facing us right now is the danger of our country slipping into authoritarian fascist rule...previous president Donald Trump bears a great deal of responsibility for this.  I consequently had decided to avoid voting for any Republican as long as this was a viable danger...but I've been reconsidering this stance.  Although public opinion polls seem to indicate that a majority of Republican voters have gone over to the fascist side, there are many of them who are still willing to accept the results of elections when their side loses.  To this end I think it would be a waste to be registered as a Democrat and thus be barred from voting in the many Republican primary elections that will be pitting Trumpist fascists against traditionally conservative supporters of democracy.  To that extent I intend to change my party affiliation to Republican...this isn't new with me since I did it back in 1994 and remained "in" that party for eight years.  We need a viable two-party system in America where each side respects election results and rejects those who would set up dictatorships based on cult personality worship. Of course, my one vote is just a single drop in the bucket...but it is something over which I have a degree of control, though miniscule.  Not that I'm telling you or anyone else what to do...I'm no campaigner: you have to figure things out for yourself...

Podcaster Talks About Things We Cannot Change

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast, personal development coach Rob Dial explored the notion of things we have no control over, and why reacting to them as if we did is counterproductive to what we're trying to accomplish in our lives.  He cited some personal examples, such as someone stealing a TV set from his office years earlier or a harrowing plane flight he was on in which one of the engines caught fire.  In both situations he noted that ultimately, his control over them rested in the responses he made, giving the Victor Frankl quote about the space in time between a stimulus and response being the opportunity for personal growth, depending on the choices we make therein.  For me it's important...after considering a particular situation as to its actual possibilities for change...to come to a conclusion about the elements that are beyond my powers to influence and then be at peace with it other after doing what I can do to make things better.  I couldn't change the fact that significant issues were discovered about my heart back in 2012...after nine years of annual testing my physician finally, strongly recommended corrective surgery: I couldn't change the situation but decided to be at peace with it and undergo a pretty involved procedure.  I see the way many people around me reacted to the recent (and still ongoing) Covid-19 pandemic as they refused to wear masks or even socially distance, some of them (including a wonderful couple I had worked with for many years) succumbing to this horrid pestilence...but other than protecting myself around them and practicing my own consideration for others by masking up, to continually browbeat others about what I perceived to be their utter callousness on the subject would not have done myself, them, or anyone else any good.  I could go down a list of grievances about this issue or that and ultimately conclude that I have little to no control over them, beyond public protests (I'm skeptical about the value of that strategy) or casting my one single vote among millions.  Think of the ongoing news stories about war, mass shootings, the price of gas and the upsurge of fascism...other than writing some criticisms about them and expressing my opinions to others from time to time, there is little point in me allowing them to destroy my composure and react as if everything in life is horrible.  Life is wonderful and precious...let's honor it by making choices of love and encouragement in the midst of the pandemonium...

My #26 All-Time Favorite Album: Violator by Depeche Mode

My #26 all-time favorite album is Violator by the British electronic/rock band Depeche Mode.  It came out in early 1990 with singles releases throughout the year, the most prominent being Enjoy the Silence and Policy of Truth.  The former became a top ten hit here in the USA and its accompanying video, featuring lead singer David Gahan dressed as a king in Shakespearean garb hiking alone across country vistas carrying a folding chair to rest on, captured my imagination.  There's something dark and at the same time romantic about the often-morose music of this band with David's deep voice, all songs composed by their genius keyboardist Martin Gore and featuring creative arrangements using synthesizers.  The first Depeche Mode song I ever heard was back in 1984 on MTV with their Everything Counts video...back then I knew this was a group to watch out for.  On Violator, here is a ranked list of the tracks in the order of my liking:

1-Enjoy the Silence

2-Policy of Truth

3-Halo

4-Personal Jesus

5-World in My Eyes

6-Blue Dress

7-Clean

8-Waiting for the Night

9-Sweetest Perfection

The only song I dislike is Sweetest Perfection...the others have beautiful lyrics, melodies and arrangements.  Culturally, I think that Depeche Mode, as it presented itself during the late 1980s and early 1990s (it's still around today), was more in sync with what I was feeling back during my high school and early college years...a kind of socially skeptical, dark gothic-tinged band with a healthy dose of romantic foolishness thrown in for good measure.  All of this is in great evidence on Violator, which I consider as their best work.  When I listen to their music I wonder if I might not have had a more enjoyable and meaningful adolescence had I been able to fit it with a group of this kind of disposition...but I don't think there was such a thing as goth culture back when I was growing up.  As with all of the albums on my favorites list, you can at least for now hear Violator on YouTube.  I recommend, however, getting the album and enjoying its totality without any annoying ads...

Hot Weather, Congratulations to Golden State Warriors

I'm sitting here at home late at night on a Saturday after work a shift on my off day...man, what hot weather we've been having here!  I remember, though, not too many years ago when the afternoon temperature would get into the low 90s, but I would out and do ten-mile-plus training runs and then clean up and go to a physically demanding job.  Now when I take Daisy our new puppy out into the backyard to do her business, I feel like I'm stepping into an oven...no running needed for the effect.  I'm afraid we're in for more of the same not only in the next few days but for the entire summer.  On a completely different note, I'd like to congratulate the Golden State Warriors for their great comeback from injuries and winning another National Basketball Association championship, this final series over the Boston Celtics four games to two.  Although I like Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole on the Warriors side, the Celtics' Al Horford, who starred on the last major college basketball team to win two consecutive national championships in 2005-06 and 2006-07, has been a long-time favorite of mine and his play during the entire playoffs has been extraordinary.  One thing that bugged me during the Golden State-Boston series was how the Warriors on offense often seemed too cavalier and careless with their ball handling, dribbling and passing...I wish they'd get all that together.  Still, they made the shots they had to make and are the champs...hooray!

Quote of the Week...from Brian Tracy

Imagine no limitations; decide what's right and desirable before you decide what's possible. 

                      ---Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is a motivational speaker and author who at some point decided to make a hard right turn into politics...fine for him but I'm guessing that it diluted the positive effect of everything else he was trying to do, whether or not you happen to agree with his conservative positions.  As for me, I never heard Tracy until I came across a quote of his on my Soundscapes music TV channel...I checked him out on Brainy Quotes and it seems his personal development philosophy is similar to that of Rob Dial, whose podcast I regularly consult.  In the above quote, Tracy isn't implying that there are no limitations to what's possible for you...he's just saying that before the calculations about what isn't possible are done you should decide the direction you think is best for you in life.  I think that's pretty profound and is applicable to anyone in any situation or stage in their life.  Of course, this is an individual thing and each of us are different in our experiences and outlooks...and where we might want to go, others may disagree or even vehemently oppose.  But that's a later step to deal with, right? For those barriers need to first give way to the endless depths of the imagination.  As for Brian Tracy's dual life as a self-improvement guru and political activist, I'm okay with it as long as he hasn't developed a persecution complex about it in the way My Pillow huckster Mike Lindell has been carrying on after he took an active interest in overthrowing the 2020 presidential election and keeping Trump in there as a fascist dictator. Another figure, Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, comes to mind as well.  One minute I'm seeing him elegantly laying out the salvation gospel of Jesus Christ in a TV ad...great...but the next I'm seeing him loudly and consistently siding with Trump as a personality cult idol and steeping himself deeply in partisan politics.  Dude, make up your mind who you're worshiping.  Don't get me wrong: each of us...myself included...has the right to express ourselves through the First Amendment.  But if one's primary message, be it promoting personal development, religious faith or lumpy pillows, is getting confused from sidetracking into more divisive areas and this causes their money-making capacity or image to diminish as a consequence, that's freedom in action as well...

Constellation of the Month: Libra (the Scales)

 

Libra, representing measuring scales, is a zodiac constellation, crossing the meridian during mid-evening in June and bounded by Scorpius on its east and Virgo to the west.  In fact, the two brightest stars in it...and with the coolest names out there...are Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi, respectively meaning the "northern claw" and "southern claw", presumably of the neighboring scorpion.  Other than them, though, Libra is pretty nondescript as constellations go, with star maps usually just showing an irregular quadrilateral of faint stars...even the two I just mentioned are only of third magnitude brilliance. Libra doesn't have any Messier objects (usually star clusters, galaxies or nebulae) but in May there is the Librid meteor shower centered here. Although easy to miss in the night sky, Libra is still more conspicuous than other zodiac constellations like Cancer and Pisces, more on a par with Aquarius and Capricornus.  For me personally, besides Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi's ushering in of the much more interesting Scorpius in the southeastern sky, Libra is my birth sign although I thoroughly reject the validity of astrology as a personality indicator or soothsaying device. Next month I'll pick a constellation from the July evening sky to discuss...

Weekly Short Stories: 1984 Science Fiction, Part 7

Today I finish reviewing 1984 science fiction short stories I read from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection.  As years go, 1984 wasn't at all like the 1984 in the George Orwell dystopian novel of the same title...but I fear we're sadly getting closer to that scenario here in 2022.  I was still a young man at 27-28 years back then, but I felt old.  As a matter of fact, I've always felt that way, even when I was a little kid. In some ways I feel younger now at 65.  As Dylan once sang, "Oh, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." Here are my reactions to those final six stories...

BLACK CORAL by Lucuis Shepard

Like the author's short story Salvador...also from this year and which I reviewed a few weeks ago...the protagonist here is a young man made cynical by his war experiences.  In this story it's Vietnam and after his tour there he has settled on a small Caribbean Island that he knew before, only now he only sees contemptible weakness and laziness among the population.  He treats everyone wholesale with that contempt and does a lot of local folks wrong.  Outwardly they seem to tolerate it all, but one day three of them get together with him and have him smoke the local drug: black coral, which causes hallucinations of fiery, malevolent spirits long afterwards.  A "jerk gets his comeuppance" kind of tale...

FRIENDS by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel

A psychological drama set in a spaceship shuttling between planets in a distant system and then onward to Earth, the space passenger fleet employees Friends, that is specialists in making sure that the flight goes smoothly among the passengers, ensuring peace and tranquility...and good reviews from them.  One such Friend encounters a dilemma when he finds himself personally torn between aiding a dancer to smuggle herself to Earth and reporting her as a stowaway, a major offense.  Complicating matters is a former Friend whom he detests...and suspects that he is being put to the test regarding the dancer.  What I got out of this story is that sometimes the ones playing the role of keeping others sane and together are in the greatest need of a "friend"....

FOREIGN SKINS by Tanith Lee

Hardly a science fiction story and more a mythical fantasy based on Indian religion, Foreign Skins explores the cultural rift between the English occupiers and administrators of India as a colony and that great land's diverse people. One of these administrators is a very unlikeable man who tyrannizes his family and those he comes in contact with over the course of his day...including his little son David.  He takes on a mysterious woman to tutor David...and she turns out to be someone much more than how she presents herself.  David's subsequent adventures constitute the bulk of this story...very much like a fairy tale, with a little "wardrobe" Narnia twist at the end...

COMPANY IN THE WINGS by R.A. Lafferty

The premise of this story takes the musings of writers like Stephen King...who sees his creativity as something derived from what is already out there...and make them literal: the imagining of "fictional" characters and places are only the mind's recognition of them as they already exist...albeit in a different plane of reality.  The story is very funny and introduced me to a new word: obulus, here a magical coin as the key to entering these other worlds...

A CABIN ON THE COAST by Gene Wolfe

Another not-so-science fiction story, a young man under the sway of his powerful political father escapes to a tropical beach cabin with his girlfriend.  All is well, except he keeps seeing a ship off shore and it mysteriously goes in and out of his vision as if it isn't quite all there.  One morning he awakes and she has disappeared...and he knows she has been taken by whoever is on that boat.  So he swims out to it and his life forever changes.  Yet another tale, interesting enough, that Dozois has included although it is outside his stated genre...

THE LUCKY STRIKE by Kim Stanley Robinson

An alternative history story about the closing days of World War II, particularly in regard to the events leading up to the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima, Japan in August of 1945.  Just a minor change in the chain of events drastically changes everything...but is it for the better or worse?  Stephen King explored a similar scenario in his novel 11/22/63: sometimes a better alternate outcome of a specific event can create a bleaker future...or maybe things will be better.  The Lucky Strike deeply explores the role of personal conscience in the face of strict orders to do something ultimately immoral...

Next week I begin my look at short science fiction from the year 1985...

Just Finished Reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

I already knew science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin from her Earthsea fantasy series as well as a number of sci-fi short stories I've read in "year's best" anthologies.  Her 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, which I just finished reading, was a great critical success probably mostly due to its examination of gender roles in an "ambisexual" society and its analogous use of Eastern religious concepts in the setting of a distant planet in the far-off future. On the remote planet of Gethen exist two competing human societies, with its population simultaneously male and female...at least potentially, since sexual characteristics and behavior only arise during a short period called "kemmer".  The federation of planets, a.k.a. the Ekumen, has sent Genly Ai to investigate the situation on Gethen and invite their leaders to join this organization of worlds...sounds kind of like the Federation in Star Trek.  But first Ai has to not only overcome the political infighting present in both nations of that planet, but he also has to see past his own biased assumptions about sexuality and how he is inaccurately judging the people there, whose physiological makeup and social customs are vastly different.  On top of this are complex ritual systems of communication and interaction that the envoy can't seem to help violating every time he opens his mouth.  This seems a pretty relevant story in the context of today's discussions about gender identity and many regard it as a significant, early feminist science fiction novel.  The narrative goes back and forth between Ai and the nation of Karhide's disgraced and exiled prime minister Estravan, whom Ai cannot bring himself to trust in spite of every indication to the contrary.  Le Guin is very detailed with her descriptions of Gethen's geography and the dominant philosophies there.  I think I may have rushed reading through it...I have a feeling that I'll be giving it a second reading before long and can understand how it received such acclaim.  I became aware of this story of Ursula K. Le Guin while reading Gardner Dozois' introduction to one of her short stories in his anthology series.  I'd be interested in reading any of your reactions to it should you decide to take it on...

Podcaster's Tips for Increasing Confidence

The other day on his Mindset Mentor podcast, personal development guru Rob Dial discussed how to increase confidence, listing six ways.  He stresses that confidence is a learned thing and can be enhanced...or destroyed.  He also points out that results will build up confidence over time...but that what he calls "results" differs from how the world at large defines them.  But back to those six tips: the first is simply to take action and not overprepare or overthink. Two, visualize the result as you would like it to be. Three, practice positive, affirming self-talk instead of the negativity we often succumb to. Four, fail! That's right, for failure is a type of result that Dial encourages...you learn the most from your setbacks. Five, step out of your comfort zone, doing things you are not used to doing.  And finally, do what you don't want to do, combatting the resistance you have in some directions is a great growth tool.  So according to Rob Dial, following these six suggestions of his will help to increase confidence...sounds reasonable to me. Of course, all of this involves changing personal habits, one little bit at a time.  This was one of those "easier said than done" episodes...

My #27 All-Time Favorite Album: A New World Record by Electric Light Orchestra

A NEW WORLD RECORD, by the British band Electric Light Orchestra, is my #27 all-time favorite album.  ELO in its early years was much more popular in America than Britain.  Its founders were Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne...Wood would leave in 1972 after only a couple of years and guitarist Lynne took over the band's creative direction while serving as its lead vocalist.  Other regular members of this group that tended to take on (and shed) different musicians over the years were drummer Bev Bevlan and keyboardist Richard Tandy.  A New World Record, their sixth studio album, came out in 1976 and is widely regarded as their best.  Continuing with ELO's tradition of fusing rock and classical orchestral music with a not-so-subtle tribute to the Beatles and their producer George Martin's arrangement skills, this record is loaded with beautiful and compelling songs.  The only song on it I dislike is Telephone Line, and that's most certainly because the radio mercilessly overplayed it to the point that I became sick of hearing it.  My favorite song of 1976...as I lived through that year...is the track Livin' Thing, and the two sides' respective opening tracks, Tightrope and So Fine, represent my next two favorite songs from the album.  Do Ya, on the second side, is the heaviest rocker on the album, while the closing track Shangri-La is very dreamy and reflective.  Rounding out this album are the songs Mission: A New World Record, Above the Clouds and Rockaria...it's all less than 37 minutes in length, two of them easily fitting on a compact disc.  Electric Light Orchestra's follow-up work Out of the Blue, a double album, is also loaded with good songs...but afterward they began to slide into a pop/disco act that I felt detracted from their earlier appeal.  Different incarnations of ELO have sprung up over the years...Lynne is still out there performing the old hits.  He's also well known as a member of the supergroup Traveling Wilburys, along with his old idol George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison.  You can hear A New World Record off YouTube if you like.  Although Jeff Lynne has expressed his affection for the old Beatles music, in my opinion much of the harmonic singing on his group's records reminds me more of the Beach Boys...and that indeed is a compliment... 

Belmont Stakes Horse Race on NBC Later Today

Later today will be the third race in the Triple Crown of three-year old thoroughbred horse racing: the Belmont Stakes, taking place on Long Island in New York around 6:44 pm, broadcast on NBC.  The Kentucky Derby's improbable longshot winner Rich Strike is part of the eight-horse field after skipping the Preakness in order to protect his health...but he's not the favorite: We the People is.  This horse didn't run in either the Derby or Preakness, and the favorites from those two races...including the Preakness winner Early Voting...won't be running this year's Belmont.  There will be a couple of familiar names, Mo Denegal and Skippylongstocking.  Creative Minister, Nest, Barber Road and Golden Glider round out the lineup.  If I only went by names, I'd be pulling for Nest...but Rick Strike is my sentimental favorite for this race.  There won't be much pre-race television hype for the Belmont like there was for the Kentucky Derby, and that suits me fine.  The trainer of Rich Strike, after the announcement that his horse wouldn't be competing in the Preakness, explained that these races are held too closely together, exhausting the horses and placing their health and future in jeopardy.  If they'd only space these major events a couple of weeks further apart, then I believe we'd see more horses going for the Triple Crown instead of selectively entering just one or two races.  After all, in tennis the four major Grand Slam tournaments are spread throughout the year...can you imagine what Nadal and the others would say if they were all crammed together during the spring?

Quote of the Week...from Viktor Frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.                       ---Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish concentration camp survivor during Hitler's Nazi-instigated Holocaust who became a renowned psychologist and author of more than 60 books.  His most famous, Man's Search for Meaning, focuses on the notion that as humans we always have choices in life...even during times of extreme limitation and suffering, such as in a concentration camp.  It is this enhanced capacity for choice that distinguishes us in our humanity from other animals, who are much more tightly controlled by stimulus and response.  But as Frankl says, no matter the provocation or brief the time for reaction, we still have that moment to determine our own destinies and select which response to make.  Of course, we can also cop out and let habitual reactions run our days as well...but that is also a choice, isn't it?  I first heard of Viktor Frankl and his approach late in high school English class...a rare learning experience for me there.  And this past week, podcaster Rob Dial used the above quote of his to hammer home important points. Sometimes I think we have to chisel out new "shortcut" personal habits that allow us to recognize our ability to choose when those provocations inevitably arise.  For me I'm working on automatically speaking the work "choice" when such adverse things happen in different settings and circumstances...I'm thinking of traffic and the workplace as prime locales to implement this.  And then, of course, I choose, hopefully, a higher path...

Democrats Should Become a Big Tent Party Again

I am certain that this article is bound to tick off a few of my more progressive friends, but here goes anyway.  I think it's time for the Democratic Party to once again become a big tent party that welcomes a wider range of ideological beliefs. Not the segregationist Dixiecrats of the distant past, but those with a more pragmatic and centrist belief system (myself being one of these) should be accorded more acceptance and respect.  When Joseph Biden was running for president, he distinguished himself as the more moderate, centrist candidate...you would think that senators like West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema were right up his political alley.  Instead, he has largely sat back and let his party's dominant progressive wing...the very group to which his primary opponents like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren belong...run the legislative agenda.  Although Biden is far, far better than his fascist predecessor (who wouldn't be) and I'll probably vote for his reelection should he decide to run again, I am disappointed in our president's performance in office so far.  His promise to be more collaborative in working out compromise bipartisan solutions to our nation's problems has never materialized...I had been expecting more of an open-door policy at the White House than it was during the previous three administrations, where the president would not only be regularly conferring with elected representatives from his own party but also with Republicans...including of course Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Instead, you see the House of Representatives marginally pass highly partisan legislation that they know in advance hasn't a prayer of getting any Republican support in the Senate...it seems that President Biden could exert some effective influence on Nancy Pelosi and the House to go in a more practical direction, but for some reason he won't.  If I were a Democratic candidate for the Senate or House in a traditionally "red" or "purple" state, then I would be embracing Manchin and Sinema's politics...we need more of them, not less.  And I get the frustration with obstructionist, manipulative partisan politicians like McDonnell...but I wonder how much I'm feeling is from media manipulation while also realizing that he stands on the side of democracy and against the scary fascist trend enveloping his own party, as well as against senators with their wacko plans like "my" Rick Scott here in Florida.  We need to help old Mitch stay in control of his party...as much I as resist saying it...by throwing some success stories out there he can use to support himself.  And we need more stable laws that aren't going to automatically be overturned every few years when the other party inevitably takes control. But that's just the way I see it and you're entitled to see things differently...

Weekly Short Stories: 1984 Science Fiction, Part 6

This week I have more 1984 science fiction short stories to review from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection. 1984 for me was one of personal growth in the area of financial management. I was already living on relatively meager resources when that April I developed and implemented a plan and mindset of frugality and wise economic choices. It was here that I developed within me the notion that there was such a thing as "enough" and that I would never be personally susceptible to ad campaigns that tried to manufacture a want for a product I didn't want in the first place.  But back to those stories...

ROCK ON by Pat Cadigan

This story is a play on the notion that rock n' roll music is based on the rhythm of sex...the setting is into the future a few decades (around now?) when rock stars record their music while connected to "sync-ers"...people with a special ability to transmit the essence of a hit while hooked up electronically...and hooked up sexually as well.  The narrative is about one such sync-er...or "sinner" as the common parlance goes among them...who decides to leave the artist she's under contract with.  And how once she's on the loose she then becomes a target for other acts.  To me this story was a commentary about the demeaning and degradation of popular music in our time...not just in a moral sense but also in that less and less personal talent and creativity factor into stardom nowadays in favor of technology and production...give a listen to local pop mx station Kiss-105 for a little while to see what I mean: yuck....

SUNKEN GARDENS by Bruce Sterling

Another (groan) futuristic short story taking place in Sterling's fictional universe (that the editor seems to love) where Shapers and Mechanists vie for control of the solar system, here the focus is on Mars and its ongoing terraforming.  The organization controlling the project has settled various outcast subgroups of Shapers on its surface and is holding a contest between them at a site called the Sunken Gardens to see which has the best terraforming ideas.  But those in charge, while communicating the fact that the previous ecology there from an earlier project must first be cleared, don't tell the whole story about the life they will be obliterating...

TRINITY by Nancy Kress

This novella is a combination cloning/sibling rivalry/search for God tale.  A woman's seeker sister is staying at an institute where siblings are paired in a machine to generate a strange entity that the scientist running it suspects may be God him-it-her-self.  Knowing from her own past in research that such a study has produced an unusual number of deaths among the participants, she tries every trick she knows to dissuade her sister from participating and to get her out of there.  Complicating matters is the clone her now-late father had made of her sister and the efforts to bring him into the project.  I think my problem with this story is that it had too many different areas of focus...

THE TROUBLE WITH THE COTTON PEOPLE by Ursula K. Le Guin

Set on a future Earth or may another world...the author doesn't reveal this...society is rather primitive with the northern area trading their wine across the Inland Sea for the cotton grown and provided by the southern people.  Only one problem: the cotton they are receiving is starting to be inferior quality...should they send it back, cut back on their wine exports, or do something else?  Finally, they decide a combination of all three, choosing to send a small delegation to the south to ascertain the problem and negotiate a solution.  It is their experiences with the "cotton people" of the south that seem to form the moral of this quizzical tale about how to get along with those one has a dispute with...

TWILIGHT TIME by Lewis Shiner

For me the best story of the five I'm reviewing today, it does use time travel to alter the past...not necessarily the best premise for a story although H.G. Wells and Stephen King have used this device to perfection.  In a near future America...and world, I presume...where proctors have been voted into permanent control of society, a couple of scientists perform an time travel experiment in their rural Arizona town.  The one "going back" discovers evidence of an extraterrestrial craft tearing up a road...and a couple of frightened children convince him that something amiss is happening here.  The story is a puzzle of different pieces that all come together nicely at the end...bravo, author!

Next week I continue with comments on stories from Dozois' anthology covering 1984...

June Features Five Planets Aligned in East Before Sunrise

I don't watch Lawrence O'Donnell's opinion show on MSNBC, nor do I follow him on social media.  However, for some reason I probably would rather not know, a posting of his appeared on my Facebook newsfeed page with a topic I wouldn't normally associate with him and his politically oriented output: astronomy.  It revealed that sky-gazers in this month of June 2022 are getting a special treat...if they are early-risers, that is.  The five planets visible to the naked eye...Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn...are strung out close to each other in the eastern predawn sky along the elliptic, in that order starting from the horizon in the constellation Taurus near the Pleiades (Mercury) and extending westward (up and to the right) in Aries (Venus), in Pisces (Mars and Jupiter, visually close together) and Aquarius (Saturn) on the far west end of the planetary spectacle.  The most difficult planet to spot will most definitely be Mercury, for while it will have enough brightness to be visible, to observe it I'll have to catch it just after it rises but just before the sun...and it'll be just above the east horizon so there can't be any impediments like trees or buildings.  I'm going to bravely try to get up early...totally against my current habits...and see whether I can't get a glimpse of our innermost planet: it will be down and to the left from very bright Venus.  Of course, if it's cloudy or foggy I'll have to try another morning.  But this planetary alignment phenomenon will be out there for most of the month.  By June 24th the moon will even be a part of it... 

Podcaster Distinguishes Between the Journey and the Destination

Recently I've been writing weekly posts about a personal development podcast, called The Mindset Mentor, and hosted by Rob Dial.  Some shows are better than others, and while I don't always agree with Dial there is usually at least one episode that resonates with me.  Such was the case this past week when he discussed how people who are trying to improve their lives find themselves stymied and discouraged because the problems they thought they were overcoming keep coming back.  To this he replied that it's all a journey and that there is no destination...and that whatever bad habits you overcome you never completely rid yourself of them.  So ten years ago something might have made you mad for a week...five years later the same kind of thing would only set you back a day, and now maybe five minutes...but the potential for relapse is always there.  And if you screw up, then realize that the journey is what matters.  I'd only add to what he said by mentioning that while life is definitely a journey...or process...it's still important to have direction to it.  Just stop beating yourself up whenever you come up short...that's a necessary part of it all: I call it a "growth opportunity"...  

My #28 All-Time Favorite Album: Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? by Metric

#28: OLD WORLD UNDERGROUND, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?  by Metric

Metric is a longstanding Canadian alternative rock band, in existence since 1998 with several albums out between then and now.  Emily Haines is their lead singer and, with guitarist Jim Shaw, created the band.  Later came bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key to complete the lineup.  All of them take songwriting credits on their tracks, which over the years have come to more heavily rely on the synthesizer and less on the harder guitar riffs epitomizing their earlier works.  Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?  in 2003 was their second recorded album but the first one actually released...it spawned the catchy anti-war single Combat Baby, which I heard played the following year on my local alt-rock station WHHZ on 100.5.  That's all I knew of this band until 2009 when I explored some of their music on YouTube, eventually getting a copy of this album.  If you liked Debbie Harry's new wave Blondie group from decades earlier, then Metric in their early years was a more hard-rock version of them...both Harry and Haines are very good, emotionally expressive singers.  Of Old World Underground's tracks, here is my ranking of my favorites, with a brief comment following each:

1 Calculation (Theme)---A cryptic song with pure synthesizer background, Haines sings from the viewpoint, it appears, of a computer.  The ending is chilling and poignant.

2 Love is a Place---The album's short closing track is a combination of Haines' soothing voice and one of the most wicked guitar accompaniments I've heard in a while.

3 Combat Baby---One of a couple of songs on the album hinting at protest against the Iraq war, its music stands on its own as a melodic, catchy mainstream pop/rock hit...which is probably why they chose it as their first single.

4 The List---An anthemic track that seems a bit autobiographical, I loved the musical flow.  Plus, I'm partial to lists if you've known me for a while...why, look, here's one!

5 Hustle Rose---A sad, beautiful exposé of the lifestyle of someone who derives her livelihood from "hustling".  It's a story in itself as well an extremely danceable song (so are #3 and #4).

6 Succexy---Harshly critical of the military and the pro-war spirit dominant during this era, this is probably the most political of all their music...

7 Wet Blanket---I can't help but think that Metric deliberately set out to pay a musical tribute to The Knack for their monster 1979 hit My Sharona and that unmistakable, singular guitar riff that permeated it, copied here.

Other album tracks were IOU, On a Slow Night, and Dead Disco...I didn't care too much for these, but it's nearly impossible to listen to an album and like every song.  Old World Underground, Where Are You? is primarily a rock album, with some slow ballads and several danceable tracks.  And you can't beat the voice of Emily Haines...

Tropical Disturbance Floods Out South Florida

After eastern Pacific tropical storm Agatha crossed Mexico and dissipated into stormy weather after emerging in the Gulf of Mexico, it headed quickly toward South Florida, this morning dumping 6 to 9 inches of rain in just a few hours' span.  The Weather Channel thankfully suspended its usual boring late-night programming to cover the storm...but their repeated warnings didn't prevent locals from driving their vehicles through flooded areas, stranding themselves and most likely ruining their cars.  When you see water on a road, all you're seeing is the surface and not how deep it goes. Even if you've gone down the same street repeatedly, you may not be aware how it dips in elevation from one place to another...and that's causing a lot of the turmoil in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area.  By the way, this storm has no official name because the meteorologists don't detect adequate tropical circulation in it...they simply call it "PTC 1" (Potential Tropical Cyclone 1) in spite of the fact that the Weather Channel routinely gives names to winter frontal storm systems and even heat waves.  As for South Florida, I haven't been back down there since 2013 when my father died, living in the northern part of the state since 1977...even long-established sports franchises like the Miami Heat, Florida/Miami Marlins and the Florida Panthers came into existence long after I had departed the scene.  The last times I was there we walked along Hollywood Beach, but it felt more exotic instead of a homecoming...the numerous Russian-speaking people there probably added to this effect.  I can't think of any compelling reason for a return visit, unless they finally get around to establishing a decent theme park with real roller coasters.  Even the earlier quaintness of the western fringe of the populated area with many rural pockets that I remember when growing up in the 60s and 70s (I lived two blocks from a cow pasture and went to school in a town with horses on the street and rodeos) is largely gone with the unrelenting expansion of urban and suburban sprawl...it's now all just one huge, ugly unnamed city going on for miles north, south, and west....

Quote of the Week...from Jim Carrey

Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.            ---Jim Carrey

I've noticed that comedic actor Jim Carrey has become something of an armchair philosopher, and I find myself in agreement with a lot of what he has to say.  The above quote of his struck me in particular since for much of my life my unconscious strategy to get by was to make myself as invisible to others as possible...not so much because I craved acceptance from them, but rather so that they would stay away and not bother me.  In being like this I missed out on an important principle: like people attract like people, and for the things that mean the most to me, loudly broadcasting them to others...while possibly generating opposition and even persecution, also lets those with the same outlook and interests as me know that I'm one of them.  Eventually I would find myself in a circle of like-minded souls...no longer any need to be "invisible".  That's not exactly what I think Carrey meant...his message is that if people don't risk standing out before others, then their lives diminish as a consequence, invisible to others and, worse, invisible to themselves.  But old habits are hard to break...fortunately I think I have some keys to breaking this one, one "atomic habit" at a time...

Just Finished Rereading Song of Susannah by Stephen King

Song of Susannah is the sixth of seven books in Stephen King's Dark Tower fantasy/science fiction series, published in 2004...just a year after the sixth book, Wolves of the Calla and in the same year as the very lengthy finale, The Dark Tower.  The series' premise continues, with the "ka-tet" of Roland Deschain, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, Jake Chambers and Oy the billy-bumbler as they seek the Dark Tower, which binds all of reality together and is threatened by the evil, powerful, and most probably insane Crimson King.  Here Susannah is going through her pregnancy induced when having sex with a demon while trying to save Jake from captivity in an earlier book. An alternate personality in her own body, Mia, takes control of it and steers the "two" of them to where the bad guys are preparing for what is most likely a demon child's birth.  Meanwhile the rest of the heroes, along with Father Callahan from the previous book and King's early novel Salem's Lot, seek to buy a crucial empty lot in east Manhattan where a single red rose seems to hold the key to the Tower.  To this end they end up in Maine, where they discover King...which starts a curious mirror effect in the series where readers are reacquainted with his earlier works as well as his personal life history and habits.  Even reading through all this a second time around, I found the book to be a bit confusing to say the least...but I think its main function was to serve as a link to the series' final volume.  And with this I think it succeeded, and now it's onward to that amazing ride in King's massive conclusion to the Dark Tower series...

Weekly Short Stories: 1984 Science Fiction, Part 5

Today I continue reviewing 1984 science fiction short stories I read from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection.  Although for much of the 1984 I owned two (shabby) used cars, my preferred mode of transportation was the bicycle, and the kind of bicycle I preferred you'd never see in a race: strictly basic Wal-Mart material.  Nowadays I don't even own one, and if I did, I'd be a lot more concerned sharing the road with motorists distracted by their gadgets than I ever was about drunk drivers.  And now my reactions to the next eight stories in the book...

NEW ROSE HOTEL by William Gibson

Brutal cutthroat industrial espionage of the not-so-distant future reigns here as the narrator, one of the "spies", flees death from the opposition after his team's attempts to lure a crucial geneticist from one company to another go disastrously. His description of discount hotels as "coffin racks" with the "rooms" being "plastic capsules a meter high and three long, stacked like surplus Godzilla teeth"...oh yeah, sign me up, I want to live there!   

THE MAP by Gene Wolfe

Gardner Dozois is very big on Gene Wolfe, but his stories just don't resonate with me...here's another one. On a fantasy world of the distant future, there is the river Gyoll and the decaying, dead city of Nessus...and a map. The quest is on to find whatever it leads to, but betrayal, murder and frustration are its only fruits.  I see nothing science fiction here, and frankly, not much of a story...maybe you'll have better luck with it...

INTERLOCKING PIECES by Molly Gloss

A woman with a dire medical need of a cerebellum transplant (needless to say we're speaking of the future) uses her high position to gain access to the donor, a man with a certainty of death after he voluntarily rejects another heart transplant.  It is this need to contact and bond between donor and recipient that stands out in this brief tale...

TROJAN HORSE by Michael Swanwick

Elin is a scientist whose brain was damaged during an experiment done in Earth orbit.  She has received a personality transplant...yes, I know this sounds weird...and is recuperating on the moon in a terraformed area under a dome, complete with a lake.  There is a woman, Cleo, living there and she had a similar transplant...and now she thinks she's God.  How she, Elin, and their mutual acquaintance, Tory...a "wetware" surgeon who is involved in both of their cases...relate forms the core of this story in which I, the reader, had some trouble discerning what was real and what wasn't, not always a good sign... 

BAD MEDICINE by Jack Dann

One of my favorite pieces so far from this anthology, this story is all about Native American traditions and religion, with Stephen, a white "seeker" kind of dude dabbling in different projects, agrees to go with his Indian friend John to where one of John's friends is undergoing a special ritual.  Part of the preliminaries involves everyone sitting in a confined, painfully-hot place called a sweat-lodge...it is here that the resentments and grudges building between some of the participants come to a head. An interesting story, but more along the lines of Stephen King's horror genre than standard science fiction...

AT THE EMBASSY CLUB by Elizabeth A. Lynn

This is a brief tale about caste systems, racism, and misogyny...especially toward young women, a clear analogy to some present-day regions in the world and their social structures.  A diplomat from Earth falls in love with a girl on Tanderai...one of those brutally stratified societies...and the two each undergo the consequences of their romance. Great ending, although crossing forbidden class lines between lovers isn't exactly a novel idea for a story...

PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE by Rena Yount

A few weeks ago I wrote a generally unread blog article titled "People Magnets" that describe how certain folks seem to automatically be set apart from others in terms of their looks and opportunities...this story transfers it all to a dreary science fiction future in which people pay through the nose for their offspring to be genetically engineered for looks, intellect, athletics, or whatever their interest is for them.  In turn, the bioengineered get all the good jobs and run society over the "norms", like Evelyn who wants her planned daughter to be bioengineered and neglects her own bright-but-normal son in the process.  Aside from another story about the "beautiful people", this is a disturbing study about how parents can become excessively obsessed about what they want their children to become...

THE KINDLY ISLE by Fredrick Pohl

On a Caribbean resort island, a large hotel has been shut down for years...a company has sent a representative to assess the place for purchase and renovation possibilities.  While there he discovers the presence of a missing scientist formerly involved in biological warfare research.  How these two stories come together steer the course of the story to the ending...for which its title is quaintly apt: another plate of lobster, please, for the sake of humanity...

Next week: more about 1984 stories from the Dozois anthology...

My May 2022 Running and Walking Report

I've been doing these monthly reports on my blog for years summarizing my running activity.  Usually, I reveal how many miles I ran for the month, my longest single run, and how many days I ran.  But in April I decided to stop that, only because my running tends to now be indoors in my own house, running up and down the long hallways and through rooms.  I know I get good training workouts this way...I completed a half-marathon and a ten-mile race earlier this year...but it's next to impossible to accurately translate what I do into actual miles run.  So let me just say that my running is as good as ever and that I will continue doing it primarily indoors with the air-conditioner blasting full force.  If I decide to go outside, then I have a relatively large back yard to run laps around as well.  I had opportunities in May to run on Saturday morning in one of the weekly, free Depot Parkrun 5Ks that Gainesville is fortunate to have. But then something else comes into play to work against that...which is that my evolving emphasis with my running is in pacing, not racing.  And my experiences in that race...I think I've run it some six times so far...are that they tend to stress fast finishing times and personal records, and for good reason: it's a race, after all!  But my vision of where I want my running to go is more oriented to covering longer distances at what I personally regard as a reasonable pace for me...I frankly don't care how my speed stacks up against other runners.  And, with this in mind, I'd like to participate in races of at least 10K in length...since none are on the agenda around here then I'm content to run around the house instead and generally avoid the sweltering summertime heat and humidity.  As for my walking, I just measure my mileage on my Fitbit and record it, most of it coming from the extensive walking I do over the course of the week at my job...   

On This Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day I honor those courageous fellow Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the armed forces.  We are such a blessed nation, and sometimes I feel that not only others, but myself as well, sometimes lose sight of the many things we have to be thankful for.  Included in that are our precious liberties...which brings me back to remembering those wonderful men and women who died protecting them. 

My #29 All-Time Favorite Album: Let It Be by the Beatles

 #29 LET IT BE, by the Beatles, in the summer of 1970 was the final studio album released by them...although it was recorded in January of 1969 and followed by Abbey Road that summer.  It is famous for the two documentary movies made from the sessions...the earlier one focused on the conflicts between the four members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.  The track Get Back, featuring Paul and a wicked guitar riff, was released ahead of the album in 1969, becoming a major hit (and one of my favorites during that year).  The song Let It Be, another of Paul's and one that I didn't care for, came out as a single in the winter of '70.  Then came The Long and Winding Road along with the full album release later that year...yet another McCartney work although he strongly objected to how producer Phil Spector doctored up the track to include an orchestra and female choir.  I loved The Long and Winding Road, though...and still do.  The finished album contains several wonderful pieces...I remember hearing the first track, The Two of Us, featuring Paul and John in great harmony, way back then on the radio and thoroughly adoring it and its wistful spirit during a pretty gut-wrenching period in my life. John's mystical Across the Universe and George's catchy, light-hearted For You Blue were other album favorites as was the Lennon and McCartney collaboration I've Got a Feeling, Side Two's opening track.  They included on this album One After 909, an old Lennon/McCartney rocker from their earlier years.  Tracks that I grew to marginally like were Lennon's I Dig a Pony, Dig It, and Harrison's I Me Mine...but I never was able to make anything of Maggie Mae.  I'll never forget looking at the jacket of my then-new Let It Be album...bought after the Beatles had already broken up, and reading on it the words "This is a new phase Beatles album"...whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, I don't think the person who wrote it envisioned the band dissolving so soon.  Still, it was a great album for all the trouble that went into creating it...   

Last Public Phone in NYC Removed

I was watching Good Morning America this morning and saw that New York City's last public payphone station...the enclosed booths disappeared long ago...has been removed, to be placed in a museum.  I remember in the old Superman fifties TV series how the Man of Steel would use telephone booths as a convenient changing station from his alter ego Clark Kent whenever a need for his superhuman heroics arose.  Then, in the 1978 Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve the first time Kent needed a phone booth he looked at an open-air phone station...like the one they just removed...and realized that it just wasn't going to work.  The old movies are full of folks using those good old phone booths...Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest and The Birds, James Bond's Doctor No, and the classic spoof Airplane! instantly come to mind.  Oh, and the 2002 Colin Farrell thriller Phone Booth naturally puts the outmoded old structure center stage.  And there's that old Gomer Pyle episode where Jim Nabors tries to put coins back into the phone that had earlier released them all...and gets arrested for theft.  Just think, back in those primitive bygone years people used to actually go outside without any phones to serve as a lifeline to whatever services they might need to access...scary times, scary times.  I guess it's our era's version of the old cliché where the wise old man would tell the spoiled young'uns that, in his day, he used to have to walk five miles in the snow to school.  Sadly, a smartphone is nowadays often deemed so crucially essential that some even feel hesitant to leave it behind them when they go into another room in their own home.  It's the real-world version of Bilbo Baggin's "precious" ring when one day he realizes he misplaced it and goes into a panic...

Quote of the Week...from Jean Yoon

If every time men had sex, they risked death, physical disability, social shunning, a life altering interruption of their education or career, and the sudden life-long responsibility for another being, I think they'd expect a choice in the matter.                                    ---Jean Yoon

I only know of the above quote by American-born Canadian actress/writer Jean Yoon because I've seen it reposted on Facebook a number of times in recent days...I haven't seen anything she acted in or read her writings before.  But her statement concerning too many men's attitudes regarding a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices to me expresses their fundamental hypocrisy on the subject when they justify their pro-life/anti-choice stance on "principles".  Principles, I might add, that don't apply to them since, as expressed in Yoon's quote, they aren't subject to the physical, social and economic consequences of pregnancy that the woman must endure, "chosen" or not. I recognize that this is a very sensitive issue and that well-meaning people, men and women both, have wide-ranging and often very passionate opinions about it.  But as I have stated before in earlier blog articles, it would be a good thing for everyone concerned if each of us showed a little compassion toward those with whom we disagree and at least tried to empathetically see things from their viewpoints...Jean's quote stresses this point.  But I see where our society is going right now and sadly doubt that my suggestion will be widely practiced anytime soon...

Taking in Daisy as Our Newest Family Addition

 

Back in 2019 our family dog Freckles, a mixed-breed rescue dog we adopted as a puppy, passed away after 14 years with us.  It's been a while, but the Saturday before last, PetSmart on Archer Road here in Gainesville was holding a pet adoption fair through one of the non-profits and we went...and little Daisy was the result.  She is also a mixed breed rescue dog, two months old and very motivated to bond with us while establishing her supremacy throughout the house.  Naturally, the first few weeks are a bit tedious, with us laying down the rules and (trying to) train her to wait to do her "business" outside...crate training seems to be helping with this although she tends to whine and howl sporadically as you would expect.  As for me personally, although everyone else in my childhood and adult nuclear families are very keen on pet ownership, I have never felt the inner urge to go out and get some critter to hang out with and give me some kind of psychological lift.  Not criticizing those who "have it"...just about everyone in my family is crazy about dogs and cats.  I like them, too, but in all the years I was single and on my own I never once had the remotest urge to take in one as a pet.  Still, I love other people and through them I bond with the pesky little animals.  Daisy is a real sweetie, no doubt about it... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1984 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today I start reviewing 1984 science fiction short stories I read from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection. Among the first seven stories in the book are three from Donald Wollheim's series that I already read and discussed: Salvador by Lucius Shepard, Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler and Press Enter by Varley.  Each of them is remarkable and unforgettable in its own way...don't forget to read them.  Of the other first four stories, here are my reactions...

PROMISES TO KEEP by Jack McDevitt

Set in probably our own times (sci-fi writers tended to be wildly optimistic about our space progress), a group of astronauts...along with a journalist...are on Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons.  Humanity is out here exploring while enthusiasm at home on Earth has dwindled with funding for future missions and innovation seriously in doubt.  As the group's lander ship makes a rendezvous with the main ship before returning home, a crisis happens...this story reminded me a lot of those I read from the 1940s and 50s, especially the ones penned by the great Robert Heinlein...  

BLUED MOON by Connie Willis

When I discovered the gimmick in this story early on, I just groaned to myself, sucked it up and read on to the end. Out in the western desert a company is testing whether hydrocarbon wastes launched into a strategic part of the atmospheric would have a beneficial effect on protecting and restoring the crucial ozone layer.  When folks discover that the moon has turned blue, then all sorts of hijinks result (along with my groaning).  I take it as nothing more than a light-hearted tale capitalizing on a worn-out cliche...

A MESSAGE TO THE KING OF BROBDINGNAG by Richard Cowper

An altruistic agricultural scientist has discovered the means for a crop plant to generate its own fertilizer, giving it independence from the soil in which it is nurtured. The test sites for his project involve one in Australia, which he visits and which occupies the story's ominous, nightmare ending...one that I fear could actually happen.  What a shockingly scary and effective story!

THE AFFAIR by Robert Silverberg

In this story telepaths exist, and it's possible for them to communicate over long distances with each other.  The problem for Chris, a secret telepath himself, is that he discovers that most of them are insane.  But one day in his mental wanderings he encounters a woman, living hundreds of miles away...and she is very, very sane.  The two, both married, begin to develop a telepathic romantic affair...eventually Chris insists on a personal meeting.  They go back and forth about the guilt of seeing one another...how it resolves itself is up to you, the reader, to find out. Of course, things like telepathy, time travel, and faster than light speed travel are staples of so-called "science" fiction...but I think this story of Silverberg does lend itself to non-telepathic analogies...  

Next week: more from Dozois' anthology....

About the Primary Results Last Tuesday

We're now thick into the 2022 election season now, albeit in the "preliminary" party primary phase.  This is when fringe candidates often snatch up nominations by attracting more fanatical voters than more traditional politicians, sometimes leaving poor choices on the November ballot.  I was interested particularly in the Pennsylvania seat of the US Senate being vacated next January by retiring Republican incumbent Pat Toomey.  Television doctor Mehmet Oz was running to replace him, with the full support of Donald Trump.  As the results started coming through that evening for last Tuesday's primary election, it became clear that it would be very close between Oz and Dave McCormick...at this writing a week later it is still undecided.  I deliberately chose to watch Newsmax and Fox News for the results for how their favored "guys" were doing in the spotlighted races. I found myself further resenting how dictator-wannabe Trump has managed to coopt conservative politics, some of which I'm in agreement with, to the point where it is little more than a personality cult where politicians compete to seen as the most loyal...not to the people they claim to want to represent...but rather to just one sorry, self-absorbed man. Pathetic. Georgia...along with Alabama and Arkansas...will be holding their primary elections today.  On the Republican side in my birth state of Georgia, football hero Herschel Walker, endorsed by Trump, is running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Raphael Warnock while incumbent governor Brian Kemp is facing a number of opponents in his party's primaries, including former U.S. senator David Perdue...Trump's stooge in this race. To align himself with the Orange Man after that earlier endorsement, Perdue had joined the crowd of 2020 presidential election deniers in order to curry his favor. Should be interesting to see the results from Georgia tonight: I think I'll just skip the propaganda channels, though (all of them, left or right-leaning) ...or at least mute the sound.  Better yet: skip the TV and get the results off my smartphone...

Personal Development Podcaster's Take on Technology Addiction

On one of his Mindset Mentor podcasts last week, life coach Rob Dial discussed how to get ahead of everyone else...quickly. It's not so complicated: while the population in general is becoming more and more dependent on their digital technology like smartphones, television and innovations like virtual reality and the Metaverse, he's decided to take a different path, trading in the time and effort put into entertainment for education and action...in the real world.  Dial maintains that studies show that (not necessarily a good lead-in line) people over the past few decades have much shorter attention spans, and he attributes this to their excessive use of media and digital devices.  For himself, he says that being around his cellphone too much makes him less focused and more anxious, and deliberately puts it away in another room when he has other things planned to do.  Dial is not opposed to using smartphones, social media, Netflix or other manifestations of the modern digital era per se, but the question becomes, who is the master, yourself or the technology to which he claims many are addicted.  Where do I stand on all this?  I agree with Rob Dial's suggestion that we all read and learn more instead...yet I use my Android both as a Kindle device and an audiobook.  YouTube in itself is an incredible teaching device...I recently saved a "load" of money replacing a simple worn-out part in my dryer by following a video on that platform.  Still, I admit that while I'm not anywhere near as attached to Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites as many others I know (as well as probably Dial himself), I do tend to engage in some game playing on it...but not all that much when I think about it. Still, I can see how folks can become addicted to all this stuff...being 65 with a lifetime of sitting in front of a TV set, I think that's probably the closest I come to being "addicted" to a form of technology...and yet in recent times I've become more discriminating in what I watch, often switching to a music channel or just turning the confounded thing off. On the other hand, as I related in my recent Saturday article, I get a big kick out of watching sports on TV...that ain't changing.  My big problem with people stuck on their devices is that they tend to be on them while driving, and that poses a direct danger to myself and my loved ones...not to mention that it makes me skittish about ever again riding a bicycle outside my neighborhood when in bygone years I used to bike all over the place...

My #30 All-Time Favorite Album: On the Threshold of a Dream by the Moody Blues

ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DREAM, my #30 all-time favorite album, is the British rock band The Moody Blues' third studio album after they regrouped following the departure of their founding vocalist Denny Laine and bassist Clint Warwick.  With guitarist Justin Haywood and bassist John Lodge joining original members drummer Graeme Edge, flutist/guitarist Ray Thomas and keyboardist Mike Pinder, they embarked in 1967 on a string of concept-based albums with a classical music-sounding background highlighted by Pinder's mellotron...definitely a turn toward progressive rock.  On the Threshold of a Dream is themed on, well, dreaming...especially Side Two, in my opinion one of the greatest ever album sides, back when there used to be such a thing as album sides.  Recorded in London in January 1969, not far from where the Beatles were at the same time recording their Let It Be tracks, it was released that April...but I didn't hear any of its songs until much later, in the 1990s.  This album, as with the Moodies' others, is a full creatively collaborative effort, with everyone contributing tracks.  Two of them, the opening, quirky In the Beginning and the beautiful, haunting The Dream on the second side, feature Edge, well-known for his beautiful soliloquy at the close of their hit Nights in White Satin (from Days of Future Passed).  Then the album progresses to pleasant tracks by Haywood (Lovely to See You), Thomas (Dear Diary), Haywood & Lodge (Send Me No Wine), Lodge (To Share Our Love) and Pinder (So Deep Within You).  Although the tracks flow without interruption from one to the next on both sides, the songs on Side Two end up seeming like a coherent, complete work.  Never Comes the Day, by Haywood is a sad, sweet lead-in to one of my all-time favorite songs, Ray Thomas' Lazy Day...a curious combination of quaintness and the sinister.  This in turn leads to another personal favorite, John Lodge's Are You Sitting Comfortably, a wistful fantasy piece reminding me of (vicariously) hiking through Tolkien's Middle Earth.  Then comes that intense Edge piece The Dream, leading into the finale: a combination of the Haywood song Have You Heard and a psychedelic, orchestral-sounding instrumental The Voyage.  Yes, that Side Two is always a special listening experience for me...

Now that this weekly unraveling of my thirty personal all-time favorite albums has begun, you might be interested in how I break them down.  Well, it's overwhelmingly weighted in favor of well-known acts, mostly bands and many from Britain and many leaning toward hard and progressive rock with other more recent ones in the alternative/indie rock genre.  I'm sure that if you've been into classic and alternative/indie rock to any degree you're probably going to be familiar with many, if not most of my picks.  My biggest problem in compiling this list, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, was deciding which albums to leave out as there are so many great ones.  At this writing the full On a Threshold of a Dream album is available on YouTube: check it out if you can...

Watching Golf and Horse Racing on TV Today

As I await the pivotal third game in the NBA Eastern Conference championship series between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat (go Al Horford and Jimmy Butler!) this evening, two more "minor" sporting events are going on this afternoon: the PGA Championship tournament (third round) in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland.  If I told you that the temperature at one of these events was 57 degrees and for the other it was 91, you might think the golfers were sweating it out while the horse racing attendees would be wearing sleeves...not so, there's a record-setting heat wave going on right now in the American northeast, while the weather has been wreaking havoc with the golfers in Tulsa, for the first two days blasting hot air with strong winds from the south and today abruptly switching to cool, strong winds from the north...the wildly changing scores are reflecting the tumult. As expected, Tiger Woods...and I wish him the best...received an excessive amount of attention even though he just barely made Friday's cut and shot a 79 today to go into the final round, at this writing some 22 strokes off the lead.  I expect the leaderboard to change a bit leading into an exciting final round...at this writing a couple of relative unknowns (Zalatoris and Pereira) are leading it while more recognizable names like Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson and Cory McIlroy are right behind them.  As for the Preakness, the "second leg" of the annual Triple Crown of horse racing for three-year old thoroughbreds, Rick Strike...the surprise Kentucky Derby winner...won't be running in it.  Still, the race should be interesting with Derby runner-up Epicenter the strong favorite and Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath the second favorite.  The field has only nine horses...other than Epicenter, Simplification and Happy Jack the entrants did not run in the Kentucky Derby.  The media fanfare is also much less than with the Derby, NBC televised pre-race coverage slated to start at 4 pm Eastern Time, with the race to take place at 7:01.  I think I'll go for Secret Oath.  The PGA Championship is being televised on CBS...wonder what kind of weather they'll get tomorrow...

Quote of the Week...from Regina Spektor

There's an artist I listened to for the first time, and I really didn't like them.  I had some kind of adverse reaction, and later, it became my favorite thing.                     ---Regina Spektor

I can relate to Regina Spektor's above quote, because over the course of my listening to popular music... going all the way back to the early 1960s....there have been several acts that I initially disliked...well, some I even despised.  Yet, a few of them redeemed themselves to me and I now regard them as favorites...some of them have made great albums that I have included in my Top 30 Personal Favorite Albums list that I will begin going through each week, starting in a couple of days this Sunday.  And Regina, one of my favorite musical artists of this current century, figures to be on it.  When compiling my list, it pained me to leave out many very worthy albums, but had I not done so then this project would have been too long...thirty albums over thirty weeks sounded more reasonable.  Speaking of Regina Spektor, her new studio album, titled Home, Before and After, is set for release next month: I can hardly wait!

Constellation of the Month: Virgo (the Maiden)

 

Virgo, the maiden or virgin, is the zodiac sign between Leo and Libra as well the constellation on that celestial belt, prominent in the south in the May evening sky (from the perspective of northern latitudes).  I'm inclined to believe it's also the biggest of the zodiac constellations, taking up a large section of that sector of the sky.  Virgo has one bright, first-magnitude star in Spica, a binary star some 250 light years distant, and which stands out starkly to the naked eye against its relatively faint neighboring stars. A funny, trivial event about Spica occurred when I was in high school...if I still remember it I guess it wasn't so trivial, though.  I was in my senior year sitting in the math library doing homework when a kid a couple of years younger, who attended the same astronomy club meetings as myself, approached me holding a book.  He pointed to the star Spica and asked me how I pronounced it.  I replied "spike-uh" and he triumphally responded "You're wrong, it's "spee-kuh" and pointed to the book's pronunciation guide, which turned out to confirm my version, not his.  Flustered, he just walked away, defeated.  I think I remember that weird, random event because it exemplified the general smartass, know-it-all attitude I encountered among my classmates back then...even decades later, after I began this blog, I got hit with the same hypercompetitive type of petty one-upmanship from kids...now supposedly adults...with whom I attended that high school: I never gave a hoot about how you pronounced something as long as we both understood what we were talking about.  But back to Virgo: this constellation does contain several deep-space Messier objects in a region (see above map for the Virgo Cluster), all of them other galaxies: M49, 58, 59, 60, 61, 84, 86, 87, 89 and 90...whew, that's a lot! But then consider that not only does this cluster contain some 1300-2000 galaxies, but that astronomers regard it as being "small"...I don't know about you, but that makes me feel really, really small in the grand scheme of things...  

When I step outside this time of year to view the night sky, the first star I look for, facing east, is Arcturus in Boötes (the first constellation I wrote about, in June of 2020)...then I trace a line south and west (down and to the right) and there's my old, far-away friend Spica.  And with this article, I've now gone around the sky twice, covering 24 different interesting constellations. Next month I plan to begin Year Three...