Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 6

Here are four more selections of 1989 science fiction short stories I'm reviewing from the late Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  Let's see, back at that time I was working at the Gainesville Post Office Downtown Station mail processing facility, on the graveyard shift keying letters on the letter sorting machine (LSM) and then later switching over to the newly installed flat sorting machine (FSM) for magazines and mail of that size.  While doing this I would listen to music on my Sony Walkman. My "Song of the Year"? Handle With Care by the star-studded supergroup Traveling Wilburys, with Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears a close second.  But back to those stories...

LOTTERY NIGHT by S.P. Somtow

In Thailand a family feels it needs to win the local lottery to keep their financial heads above water. The son teams up with a friend to visit a nearby graveyard where his great aunt's ghost just might cough up the winning number for him.  Full of Thai culture, ancestor worship, Buddhism and superstitions...maybe not so much science fiction, although entertaining...

A DEEPER SEA by Alexander Jablokov

In a future Earth, whales and dolphins have achieved civil rights with the human community, even to the point of becoming space explorers, their bodies modified and shielded as they become essentially cyborgs in space and on environmentally hostile worlds. A Russian scientist familiar with them has to make grave decisions of conscience as he confronts his past abuse of these highly intelligent mammals during wartime...

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Michael Swanwick

On an alternative Earth, the world abruptly ends somewhere in the Middle East. Three American teens whose parents are stationed there during tense times decide to go down the often-treacherous steps over the steep cliff and edge.  In the process they reveal their true selves to one another...quite a chilling ending that reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode And When the Sky Was Opened...

SILVER LADY AND THE FORTYISH MAN by Megan Lindholm

In today's time a young woman, a would-be professional writer, tries against hope to keep up with her bills while working underpaid in a big city department store.  One evening an ordinary-looking "fortyish" man enters and ultimately reveals himself to be Merlin.   This is a very funny story, full of odd, awkward predicaments, and should capture the hearts of anyone who has a writer's block and is struggling to make it in the literary world...

Next week I conclude my look at 1989 science fiction short stories...

Constellations of the Month: Canis Minor and Monoceros

I had originally intended to just make Canis Minor ("Little Dog" in Latin) my "constellation of the month" for February, but since, as you can see, it's only represented on star maps by two stars connected together: I thought that might be a little boring.  So, I added Monoceros (supposedly representing a Unicorn), sandwiched between Canis Minor and, to the south, Canis Major.  Monoceros is basically a sector of the night sky marked by dim stars...good luck making it out in the city.  But both stars in the Little Dog are easily visible, and Procyon is a bright, first-magnitude star, a nearby one only some 11 light years away (just 67.4 trillion miles!).  The drawing of Monoceros connects the faint stars to resemble a unicorn...just barely, but none of its stars are brighter than fourth magnitude. The Rosette Nebula is in its "head", at 6.0 magnitude just barely visible to the unaided eye if there are no earthbound lights to interfere with viewing.  There is also a Messier object in the constellation's south part, M50, which is a star cluster. Out of this whole picture I am used to easily finding Procyon against the background patterns of other constellations, most notably Gemini to the north, Orion to the west and Canis Major (with Sirius, the night sky's brightest star) to the south.  Next week I'll try out figure out another constellation (or two) to discuss...

The "Four" and My Imaginary Double Album

Last year Radiohead members Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke collaborated with other musicians to form a side project called The Smile and released the album A Light for Attracting Attention.  Unlike with Regina Spektor, whose "next" album I had been waiting for since 2015, this was something unexpected. I bought the CD (along with Regina's new one titled Home, Before and After) and have it in my car, ready for play at a moment's notice.  Of late, I have focused on tracks 1,2, 10 and 11 of the Smile album: The Same, The Opposite, A Hairdryer, and Waving a White Flag...yes, the titles sound a little strange, especially that third one.  That's what I listen to when driving to and from work.  As for what I listen to while working out at home, I turn my TV/Roku on YouTube and play an imaginary "double album" loaded with favorite songs that I think go together: here they are (think how "vinyl" LPs are structured):

RECORD ONE

Side 1

1-HELD by Spoon

2-FORTUNES by Metric

3-TIMEBOMB by Beck

4-RAINDROPS by Regina Spektor

5-WILD by Spoon

Side 2

1-THE SAME by The Smile

2-THE FACE, PT.1 by Metric

3-RABBIT HOLE by Arcade Fire

4-THE OPPOSITE by The Smile

5-LOVEOLOGY by Regina Spektor

RECORD TWO 

Side 1

1-SPACETIME FAIRYTALE by Regina Spektor

2-EVEN FLOW by Pearl Jam

3-TIME TO PRETEND by MGMT

4-E BOW THE LETTER by R.E.M.

Side 2

1-TREAT by Kasabian

2-US by Regina Spektor

3-THE WRONG CHILD by R.E.M.

4-MORNING BELL by Radiohead

5-CALCULATION (THEME) by Metric

I am a creature of routine and habit...I tend to stick to the above order in my listening, go figure.  I put this out here in the blogosphere just in case you, my valued reader, might already know of some these acts and their music or, perhaps might be inspired to give them a listen.  In any case, I got a kick out of writing this...

Strong, Accurate Drives Crucial to Pro Golf Success

I've been watching professional golf on TV pretty regularly for about a year now, and although my experience of hitting a stationary ball with a stick is confined to the games of croquet and miniature golf, I think I have a handle on what it takes to succeed in the major sport.  I say this because it has been obvious while watching these PGA tournaments that leaders tend to either prevail or choke because of one aspect of the game that is completely absent from that which I have been used to: the drive from the tee.  It's the main reason why back injuries affect golfers' performances more than just about anything else...a real career-squasher for golfing superstar Tiger Woods (his horrible car accident didn't help either).  Speaking of Woods, this past weekend he hosted the Genesis Invitational, held annually just outside of Los Angeles, California.  Although Woods wasn't in contention at the top of the leaderboard, he did acquit himself well in spite of his past injuries, age and physical limitations.  It was Jon Rahm, already ranked number one in the world, who held off Max Homa at the end to win by two strokes...and it was his drives, contrasted with those of Homa, that ultimately won it for him.  To win at golf you not only have to have great overall strength to send the ball far down toward the hole, but you need to have the form and coordination to be able to direct it to stay on the course while at the same time you are giving it all you have.  Even in pro golf, I'm always seeing drive shots veer way off the course into the trees or spectators...I think this was Homa's undoing, as before his drives began to stray, he was leading Rahm.  When I was a kid watching golf on TV, I was more attracted to the putting green, but now it's the teeing off at the start that fascinates me...

Just Finished Reading Fit to Die by Ellery Adams

Ellery Adams is the pen name of prolific cozy mystery novel writer Jennifer, or "J.B." Stanley, who has produced a number of series of different-themed books since 2006.  One of her earliest is the Supper Club Mysteries...I just finished reading the second installment, from 2007, titled Fit to Die.  As in the opening book, Carbs and Cadavers, the setting is the fictional west Virginia town of Quincy's Gap as James Henry, a former college literature professor and now head of the area's public library, finds himself in need of shedding a few pounds due primarily to overeating...especially those pesky cheese puffs he just can't seem to resist.  He befriends a circle of like-minded people, and they create an informal group called the Supper Club in which they encourage one another with their eating habits...not easy to do when temptation is all around!  In Fit to Die, two opposites spring up suddenly in the form of two businesses.  One is an ice cream shop and the other is a fitness studio...their owners, respectively Willy and Ronnie, both have their appeal to James and his friends...but one night Willy's store burns down, with a fatality, which is attributed to accident although the circumstances seem suspicious.  As for Ronnie Levitt, her enthusiasm and energy convince the Supper Club to join her program, which is a mixture of purchasing special meals, abstaining from the "bad" stuff like sweets and fats, and painfully exercising their buns off.  The author's descriptions of their travails in this regard are both funny and sad...the latter because I, too, tend to go for foods that tend to lean to the "junk" side.  As in the first novel, this one contains a murder mystery that gets satisfactorily solved at the end.  Add to this the subplots of James' slowly developing romance with Lucy, another Club member, her attempts to get promoted within the police department, and the emergence from bitterness of his widowed father Jackson, and you have a good formula for a developing series with compelling characters.  Also, Ellery Adams has a penchant for hilarious book titles...the next one in this series is Chili Con Corpses...

Quote of the Week...from Marcus Aurelius

You have power over your mind...not outside events.  Realize this and you will have strength. 

                                                                      ---Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from 161 to 180.  He adhered to the Stoic branch of philosophy that emphasized personal accountability and freedom in getting through life.  His reign was marked by an unusual peace in the empire, although he has also been accused of persecutions against the growing Christian religion there.  Today I'm just focusing on his above quote...probably looked really cool in the original Latin...and juxtaposing it against my article from yesterday deploring the times we're currently living through.  In spite of all the lunacy, selfishness, bigotry and violence around me, I can still make my own personal choices...a notion that Nazi concentration camp survivor Viktor Frank promoted in his book Man's Search for Meaning.  One of these choices is to feel and express gratitude for all the wonderful blessings I see for myself and my loved ones.  And that includes the remarkable vaccines we now have, not just for Covid, but for so many other ailments that have plagued humanity over its history.  Although it was threatened in January 2021, we still have a nation of law that has continued our sometimes-bumpy road here in America with our ongoing experiment of freedom and representative democracy.  With bigotry, I can be accepting of those who are different from me whether or not others follow suit.  As for gun violence, I'm not sure what attitude to take other than personally trying to avoid inadvertently setting off unstable people.  And I can place confidence in my own country's leaders enough to allow them the responsibility for working to bring about an end to this fighting in eastern Europe and pave the way for a more peaceful future.  I can't control any of these situations since I, as one individual, cannot change the news I hear, but at least I can be a part of the solution and live my own life with a sense of dignity and appreciation.  Still, it doesn't mean that I won't comment on the negative trends I see going on around us in the world and our country.  My power over outside events is limited, as the old Roman despot said.  But I can still be at peace with myself...

The Times We Live In

This decade in our nation's history has not exactly been one to inspire my confidence in its future.  The COVID-19 pandemic was one of those crises that hit us from time to time, testing the resolve of our people to confront it. Sad to say, in much of the country it was a failed effort, with folks flipping out over the notion of simply wearing a mask around others and refusing to accept freely given, safe and potentially life-saving vaccines.  Then there was the 2020 presidential election, when a sitting president, for the first time in United States history, adamantly refused to acknowledge the results of his defeat and encouraged a violent insurrection against Congress to prevent the electoral votes from being officially counted.  Worse, two thirds of his party in the House of Representatives...including its current Speaker...supported overturning a free and fair election, and a majority of Americans polled in the same party agreed that the losing incumbent president, who recently said he wants to institute firing squads, guillotines and mass executions, should have stayed in office.  Rabble-pandering politicians like my own state's governor are tripping over each other in a race to see who can seem the most reactionary and intolerant with their edicts and laws.  Mass shootings claiming innocent lives have become commonplace in America...but don't offend the gun-worshippers by suggesting any meaningful firearms regulation laws. And now, for nearly a year in running, another fascist leader...this one in Russia...is threatening nuclear war as his military seems hopelessly bogged down in neighboring Ukraine, a country that, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, gave up its own nuclear weapons in exchange for an assurance that Russia would never invade it.  So, these are the times we live in...can't wait to see what happens next...

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 5

I continue my look at the year 1989 in the world of short science fiction, examining Gardner Dozois' selections for his anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  In August of '89, Melissa and I would move from our south Gainesville apartment to our house in the northern fringe of the city...the next month we found out she was pregnant, and Will was born the following spring.  Also, in December of 1989 we experienced snow for the last time in Gainesville...and it was quite a bit, following an early morning of freezing rain, treacherous roads and icicles hanging everywhere.  Ah, memory lane...but how about those stories?  Here are my reactions to the next ones in the book...

TALES FROM THE VENIA WOODS by Robert Silverberg

In an alternative history world in which the old Roman Empire endured over the millennia and finally reverts to a Republic, a teenage boy and his little sister discover the heir to the throne of the banned empire after wandering deep through the woods near what we would in ours call Vienna, Austria.  This story is another venture in cognitive reverie with the author doing a lot of speculating on "what if", as these alternative history stories tend to do...yawn. Not one of my favorites from Silverberg, whose writing I generally like...

VISITING THE DEAD by William King

An intriguing look at a possible future when humans living through generations in outer space need artificial exoskeletons to support their fragile bodies when visiting Earth...and the native population there has become passive and complacent, addicted to simulations that duplicate the effects of reality.  And there are the Greys, humans genetically modified to WANT to be servants and do menial work that the jaded rest of the population deems beneath themselves.  Kinda scary, actually...but that part about "simulations" seems to be coming true in my own lifetime...

DORI BANGS by Bruce Sterling

This is a counterculture alternative history tale of a rock critic and his eventual love who bypass their respective premature deaths...and then just go on stumbling through life without seeming to have learned anything. I wasn't quite sure what the point of this story was: you live and then die OR you get to live some more and THEN you die...

THE ENDS OF THE EARTH by Lucius Shepard

A novelist, rebounding from a traumatic affair, becomes an expatriate American living with expatriates from other countries in a secluded Guatemala coastal town.  His rival there is an Englishman who has been playing a mysterious and ominous board game that goes back to ancient Mayan times.  There are a lot of dream interludes as the game takes over our protagonist's mind, and reality becomes blurred as to whether he is himself or the grotesque and violent character his game piece portrays.  This novella goes deeply into people's outer masks and the hurts and drives hidden behind them...the ending was pretty interesting considering what all happened...or did it happen...as the story reached its climax.  In this it reminded me a little of that 2000 Christian Bale movie American Psycho, truth be told. Shepard is an incredible writer...

THE PRICE OF ORANGES by Nancy Kress

An elderly man living in a big city has a secret he shares with his friend: his apartment contains a portal into the past, going back 52 years to the year 1937.  Seeing no suitable prospects for his rebellious granddaughter to marry, he goes back then in search of potential husbands...with surprising results.  I've always liked the notion of a secret time portal...it's one of the main reasons I liked Stephen King's novel 11/22/63 so much...

Next week: more 1989 stories reviewed from the Dozois anthology...

Happy Birthday, My Dear Melissa

Today I'd like to wish a very, very happy birthday to my wonderful, beautiful, darling wife Melissa...and of course a happy Valentine's Day to you as well.  I love you so-o-o-h, so much, Sweetheart!

Podcaster Discusses Ways to Increase Energy

On his Mindset Mentor podcast last Friday, personal development coach Rob Dial listed five suggestions to increasing energy throughout one's day.  I liked how he personalized his presentation, giving examples from his own life while encouraging the listener to follow their own experiences and what they have learned from them.  The first item was to select and listen to music that serves to energize...this to me makes a lot of sense because, for example, when I am doing long distance training runs I do better when listening to rousing music...in my case usually alternative rock...that does seem to energize me more.  Dial's second idea is about the people surrounding him...some are energizing ("batteries") while others are draining ("black holes").  He suggested hanging out with the former while diplomatic putting distance between oneself and the latter if possible.  While understanding his point, even though I tend to have a reclusive personality, I also acknowledge that we all live in community with one another and the diversity of "people types" is something that is a given and not necessarily open for much manipulation...nor should it be.  Thirdly, Dial emphasizes the need to control one's sources of information, and that includes social media like Facebook.  He claimed that recently he unfriended more than three thousand people...I've gone through some pruning in that regard as well while recognizing that my notion of "friends" differs from the shallower interpretation that Facebook gives it.  Dial avoids the news and all that opinion-piece blather plaguing cable news networks and social media...me, too, bro!  Number four on Dial's list is to pay attention to the food one eats...he recognizes that we have our own notions as to what's good or not, for himself he avoids processed foods and extolls occasional fasting.  Finally, he urges listeners not to depend too much on their own feelings when setting out on something, instead taking action up front in order to give themselves a chance to be motivated as well as summon up that energy that they may initially think is lacking.  Sometimes I think Rob Dial is right on target with his podcast message and sometimes he seems to be a little off the mark...this one worked for me...

Super Bowl and Phoenix Open Headline Arizona Sports Today

Today the Super Bowl for the 2022 National Football League season will be held in Glendale, Arizona.  The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, two teams I actually rooted for (once the three Florida teams were eliminated in the playoffs), are facing off in a battle between Chiefs head coach Andy Reid's present and former teams.  For some reason I'm usually not all that into the Super Bowl and its hype...this year's no exception.  But I'll probably watch at least some of the game this evening...maybe with the sound down...and also probably completely avoid the halftime show, this year featuring recording star Rihanna.  Apparently, she's in some kind of social media feud with extreme narcissist Donald Trump because an old Tweet of hers from 2020 panning the Orange Man in profane terms resurfaced, and he read it and responded in his typical manner of belittling her and her talent.  I think Rihanna is definitely talented...I'm just not into the celebrityhood angle or the type of music she is involved with, so I'm skipping the show.  Down the road a few miles in the same state, the WM Phoenix Open in golf, with its strange stadium-bracketed 16th hole, is playing its final round with the leaderboard currently showing Scottie Sheffler with a two-stroke lead over a crowded field at the top...I'm more interested in how that turns out than the Super Bowl.  The game is supposedly evenly matched, but I've seen my share of Super Bowls that quickly went one-sided in spite of the surface equality between the two contestants.  Let's just hope that everyone gets out of it all in one piece...

YouTube and YouTube Channel Both Good Resources

Lately I've been exploring different YouTube channels and video series that teach and review mathematics and foreign languages...it's pretty amazing how you can choose just about any topic you want to learn about and get instruction on this excellent site.  In our household, we also switched from our cable-based television service to the YouTube Channel...different from YouTube itself...to provide at a much cheaper rate the same channels we were previously receiving, using Roku.  To supplement them we purchased an inexpensive indoor antenna and through it pick up all the local stations as well as spinoff channels like MeTV and Comet.  And, of course, I like to listen to the music that YouTube provides...sure, I get a lot of commercials but that's cool.  Maybe in some future article I'll discuss some of the things I'm studying in greater detail...

Quote of the Week...from James Clear

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.  No single instance will transform your beliefs, but, as the votes build up, so will the evidence of your new identity. 

                                                                    ---James Clear

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear spells out a philosophy of daily living that elevates becoming someone new over goal setting.  According to him, personal transformation comes about over the course of time as small habits are accumulated, the whole process being an incremental one.  While I don't discard the usefulness of establishing goals and personal milestones for the future, I fully recognize Clear's emphasis on taking hold of my present moment and living it fully according to my own sense of personal identity...that is, the person I am becoming.  Being aware continuously of my own attitudes and behavior in the now does not automatically entail me being perfect...who is...but it does establish a system of personal feedback and evaluation that can steer me back on the right course should I stray from who I am becoming. Just as in an election the winner usually has many who vote the other way, the victory comes, as James Clear maintains, in the amassed effect of positive, productive, healthful and loving small actions.  Do I screw up? Lots of times, but as I grow, I am more quickly and acutely aware of those moments, while equipped with the truth that I can use them for correction and enlightenment...

Just Finished Reading Carbs and Cadavers by Ellery Adams

A while back I delved into the literary subgenre of "cozy mysteries", that is, short novels...usually combined into different series...that are relatively light reading and usually carry some sort of theme appealing to various tastes.  I wasn't too impressed with what I read back then but decided to give it another try with a new author.  Ellery Adams is the pseudonym of prolific cozy mystery writer Jennifer Stanley, also writing under the name J.B. Stanley.  I just finished reading the first book in her Supper Club Mystery series, titled Carbs and Cadavers. After his divorce, college English professor James Henry has returned to his small (fictional) hometown of Quincy's Gap, in western Virginia, to assume head librarian duty there and live with and care for his recently widowed father Jackson.  James feels he has a problem with food, chiefly cheese puffs, to which he seems addicted.  He becomes acquainted with and befriends others in this small community, and they decide to start an informal weight loss support group called the Supper Club, in which they would encourage one another and hold themselves accountable for eating better.  Thet's one side of the story...the other is a murder mystery when an arrogant young man is found dead with a suspicious prescription drug in his system...from there the police hastily jump to conclusions and arrest the wrong suspect.  This involves James, his potential love interest Lucy, and the rest of the group in the mystery...which naturally ends up as a perilous climactic situation.  I felt that Stanley (or Adams, if you will) had her heart in the story and did a great job of developing its characters.  And she exhibited a lot of good-naturedness as well...but if you're particularly sensitive to "body shaming" you might not like this tale about people possessing the virtues of humility and humor working together to make each other's lives better. Since I've done my share during my adult life of yo-yoing up and down the scales, I identified with the characters and enjoyed Carbs and Cadavers...and plan to embark soon on the second Supper Club Mystery installment...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today, as I look back at the year 1989, I switch over from the final Donald Wollheim "year's best" sci-fi short story anthology in his series to the continuing one edited by Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  There is very little overlap between the two anthologies: only Gregory Benford's Alphas and Brian Stableford's The Magic Bullet...already reviewed previously...appear in both.  Below are my reactions to the first six stories...

TINY TANGO by Judith Moffett

This 1989 story about AIDS/HIV projects into the future a few decades, making some predictions that didn't come true...thankfully...but ultimately presenting some insight as to how different people afflicted with chronic medical issues adjust their lives to accommodate their conditions...and search for new ways to fulfill themselves: a hopeful message.  A young woman caught AIDS and has become a long-term survivor, in more ways than one...

OUT OF COPYRIGHT by Charles Sheffield

Cloning past scientific and inventive geniuses from the past gets the treatment here as figures like Einstein, Fermi, Newmann, Bohr, and the like work for different companies competing for fat space development contracts: Al, the story's narrator, heads such a team as they attempt a difficult problem on one of Jupiter's moons.  The story's punchline is when we discover at the end who Al really is...

FOR I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY by Mike Resnick

A few weeks ago, I reviewed the story Kirinyaga by the same author, creating a traditional Kikuyu (from Kenya) society on another planet.  The thread continues with this tale for a girl whose thirst for knowledge and enlightenment directly conflicts with the authoritarian ruling witch doctor's insistence on traditional roles, which he believed would be threatened by the girl's explorations.  A disturbing but thought-provoking story that has analogous ties about the ethical limits of knowledge and the rights of people to pursue it...

AT THE RIALTO by Connie Willis

Dr. Ruth Baringer is a physicist attending a convention of quantum physics at a Hollywood hotel. It isn't long before she discovers that her surroundings begin to imitate the uncertainty and frustration involved in making sense of quantum theory itself.  It's a funny tale and made me want to go a little deeper into the field myself...think I'll steer clear of L.A., though...

SKIN DEEP by Kathe Koja

This is a completely different "Skin Deep" story than the one I discussed a while back. This one read more like a Stephen King horror tale as an obviously alien, hideous blobby creature has a penchant for somehow luring people...men and women both...to its squalid apartment room where they sexually expend themselves on it and become addicted to the experience.  The horror becomes magnified by what happens at the end...not for the faint at heart...

 

THE EGG by Steven Popkes

In a far future Boston, the sea level has drastically risen, submerging large parts of the area.  And human contacts with other races in the cosmos has flourished, with a robust alien presence all around.  An orphaned boy lives with his cynical aunt and her son...he has as a guardian companion an alien being named Gray.  The circumstances of his parents' deaths weigh heavily on them all...this story treats relationships and reveals that some of the strongest and most loyal can transcend family ties...even those of home worlds...

Next week: more reactions to 1989 science fiction short stories from the Garder Dozois anthology...

Warmer Winter Than Usual Continues

I don't have the statistics at hand, but it seems to me like this has to be one of the warmest winters in my memory since I moved here in northern Florida in 1977.  Sure, we've had a small number of dips into the 30s with a few freeze warnings...even a few consecutive days once of below-thirty temperatures.  But the trend has been much warmer, and my lawn, with the explosion of native weeds all over it, reflects this. It's funny that my half-marathon run back in mid-January just happened to coincide with the deepest temperature dip...since then there haven't been many opportunities for me to wear my sweater or jacket outside.  I'm considering running the Florida Track Club's Micanopy Ten-Miler this coming Saturday morning, but it looks like rain...might run it anyway as it looks like a relatively wet winter, to go along with the heat...

Just Finished Reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Andy Weir is a science fiction writer best known for his novel The Martian, adapted to the blockbuster movie hit starring Matt Damon.  Last year he published another space-based book, titled Project Hail Mary: my sister gave me a copy this past Christmas, and I just finished reading it.  I haven't read anything by Weir before, so I was pleasantly surprised at his deft, personable writing style.  After all, this is a "hard" science fiction story, meaning that an enormous amount of the narrative is spent describing often technical concepts that one would need to take advanced courses for in order to fully understand...yet the author made the narrative flow easily as the protagonist, a young middle school science teacher named Ryland Grace, takes the reins recounting his experiences in resolving a debacle of truly cosmic proportions.  It has been discovered that the sun is suddenly dimming, with its heat output projected to cause mass extinctions on Earth at an unprecedented rate...including possibly the eventual extinction of all life.  The cause appears to be a cosmically borne microorganism that thrives in a carbon dioxide environment and draws its energy directly from whatever star it has infected.  Grace, earlier in his career a biology professor having written on potential extraterrestrial microorganisms, is recruited by the hastily assembled international research and rescue team to plan a mission to another star system where a similar phenomenon is not causing the same effect as here...why the difference?  Weir toggles with Grace's narrative back and forth between the flight preparations and Grace's experiences on his largely automated spaceship after he is resuscitated from an artificially induced coma.  It's a mystery how he might solve the enigma of the Astrophage, as the organism causing all the harm is called.  And it brings into play the notion that we are not alone, and wouldn't it be a cool thing to make common cause with other life in the cosmos.  In spite of the technical material covered, I think you'd like this book even if you weren't a scientist or engineer...I'm certainly not, and I plan to check out The Martian (never saw the movie) and Artemis, which he wrote in between the other two books.  Thank you, Anita, for a thoughtful gift...

British Alternative Virtual Band Gorillaz Keeps Chugging Along

Earlier this week I hinted at a weekly Sunday blog feature here, in which I would discuss various music studio albums by acts I like...and here we are on the first Sunday afterwards and I've only listened to one album instead of the at least three I had planned.  Being a fan of traditional rock n' roll artists from the previous century as well as some of the 21st century's more prominent alternative acts, my plan was (and still is) to take the later albums they produced following their peak periods of popularity and search for noteworthy tracks on them...I did something like this with David Bowie and Prince following their respective deaths in 2016.  The British alternative "band" Gorillaz is the brainchild of Blur front man Damon Albarn...responsible for the musical and lyrical side of the act...and animation artist Jamie Hewlett...creator of Gorillaz's imaginary four characters that perform and dramatize the music on videos.  Gorillaz recorded four hit albums from 2001 to 2010.  Then they broke up for several years, with Hewlett's complaints about his diminishing role in the act's success fueling the dissention.  They got back together, though, with the release of the album Humanz in 2017 and, subsequently, three more since.  I listened back in '17 to Humanz and didn't care at all for it...this past week I gave it another chance and realized that some tracks are actually pretty good.  Most of them...as with Gorillaz's previous albums...feature guest artists, many of them in the hip-hop genre.  I am partial to the songs Ascension, Submission, She's My Collar and We Got the Power...a special bonus CD contains Out of Body, which I think is the best track of all (with Submission a close second).  Listening again to Humanz reminded me of why I came to like Gorillaz so much in the first place: back in 2010-11 I had put those first four albums on my MP3 player and listened to them in shuffle mode while out on long runs: it's great music to move to!  Humanz is similarly very dance-oriented...I have the sneaking suspicion that the more I listen to it, the more I'll like it.  As for the other, more recent Gorillaz albums, I'll just need to find the time to listen to them...as well as to the enormous number of more recent albums by other artists I like that I've never heard...

Just Finished Reading Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

A few days ago, while browsing through Books-a-Million with Melissa, I noticed some young adult fantasy series on a table display.  One of them was Graceling, by an author named Kristin Cashore.  Being a fan of young adult books, I nevertheless didn't want to get myself committed to a long fantasy series, so I investigated this young writer's still-brief bibliography and discovered that she published in 2017 a standalone book titled Jane, Unlimited.  I just finished reading it, and, sad to say, discovered that it belongs to a category of works that I have put down in frustration after only partially reading them.  Yes, I did pick it back up again for the sake of attaining some closure to this reading task, but it was an overall unsatisfactory reading experience for me.  I then checked Goodreads and discovered that readers either thought this novel was a masterpiece or they likewise quit reading it long before the finish, panning it unmercifully.  For me, I'm somewhere in between the two extremes, deciding to go ahead and give it the old college try...oh well, now that I read it, I can now check it off my reading list!  I liked Cashore's writing style and she created a very compelling character in Jane, a young college dropout orphaned twice, first from her parents and then her Aunt Magnolia, who was mainly responsible for her raising.  Jane's friend Kiran invites her to stay over at Kiran's mansion of a home, called Tu Reviens, and Jane remembers her aunt once imploring her to accept any such invitation to that place.  It's a strange house with a lot of strange people, and soon after Jane arrives a stray dog decides to adopt her...it seems to have a sense of wisdom about guiding her around.  I liked the novel's setup with the mysterious house and characters, but the author decided to have the narrative split off into alternate stories that left me confused and, at times, angry.  Yet I have to admit that writing unhinged books isn't a new thing, and James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut and Jonathan Swift achieved great renown for some of that kind of stuff...maybe Kristin Cashore was looking at them when she wrote this, who knows.  The problem I had with the alternative narratives was that sometimes the previous narrative "counted" and sometimes it didn't as the book progressed...there was no sense of the main character, Jane, achieving any sort of peace about her own life because before too long there would be a "reset" and it would all start over, with a completely different emphasis.  I didn't care for that, but you just might.  In any event, I greatly respect the author for writing this book and presenting some pretty interesting characters along the way...Jane's talent for creating artistic umbrellas was a good example...

Quote of the Week...from Alan Watts

I owe my solitude to other people.                                  ---Alan Watts.

Alan Watts (1915-73) was an English philosopher and author who tended to focus on Eastern thought systems and spiritual outlooks.  So, it might not be surprising that the above quote of his might seem a little bit Zen in its overt sense of paradox.  I, on the other hand, am in no ways bound to his training or possibly poetic tendencies, seeing his statement instead perhaps more literally than he had intended...I guess I'd have to resurrect the dude and ask him to his face to make sure, in any case.  Not exactly known for being a gregarious lover of people and their company, sometimes their manipulation and annoying presence that messes with my mental, emotional and spiritual equanimity just gets to be a little bit too much and I feel the strong urge to retreat a few steps.  If you're one of those aforementioned annoying gregarious manipulators, then you might condescendingly say that I'm going into a shell and hiding, but then again, I've already described you as annoying and manipulative, haven't I?  Besides, I'm not saying I want to be a hermit, as I have a small circle of loving family and friends that I find reassuring and supportive...God bless them all.  I simply find much human interaction as tedious and draining...and some days, like yesterday for example...severely test my ability to withstand all the bull thrown my way.  May today go better...I'm being proactive in that regard by bracing myself against more social aggression and manipulation...

Podcaster Discusses Sensitivity to Incompleteness

Podcaster Rob Dial recently presented a topic very worthy of my consideration, and timely in today's world of media manipulation. People are instinctively sensitive to things in their life that are incomplete, with the lacking element(s) tending to gnaw at their consciousness until closure is attained.  That's why they give sly little teasers on the network news shows just before commercial breaks, hinting at some major revelation that usually fizzles...the same thing applies to Internet news feeds, the lead-in statement usually sensationalizing the often-trite "deeper" story, once you commit and click on it.  With our personal lives, loose ends of unfinished business similarly gnaw at us, robbing our ability to be at peace and concentrate our attention on specific tasks. Dial suggests we make a list (he's a big advocate of sitting down with pen and paper) of the things we want to accomplish in a given day and then prioritize them as to the most important.  Then further break those down to more "bite-size" time-consuming units that allow a sense of completion. He also recommends the Pomodoro Technique of cycled, complete focus for 25 minutes, followed by a break for 5 minutes...then resume.  At day's end, review the list, noting what's been completed (celebrate this) and then put what's left over, in order of priority, on the next day's list.  This helps to clear the mind of those creeping feelings of failure that incompleteness can instill. I know that for me there are several ongoing projects I'm working on, and a few that I want to start.  Conceptualizing them by blocks of time spent working on them...and recording my progress on paper...helps me to feel...for the given day...that sense of completion that helps me meet the next morning with a more positive outlook.  Of course, if you're Bill Murray's alter ego Phil Connors on this calendar date you can just relive the same day over and over and over again, taking your sweet little time getting better... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are my reviews of the final four science fiction short stories from 1989 as they appeared in Donald A. Wollheim's The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, featuring his selections from the previous year.  Wollheim would die later in 1990, so this concludes his excellent anthology series.  Henceforth I will be only using another worthy annual science fiction anthology series, The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois and going all the way through the year 2018: plenty more to come!  But for now, let's look at those final four tales in Wollheim's book...

NOT WITHOUT HONOR by Judith Moffett

This is a nostalgia-soaked story focusing on the old fifties Mickey Mouse Club television series, especially Jimmie Dodd as its mature, mentoring figure.  Set in the future, a biome scientist on Mars meets with alien travelers who picked up the old series' signals over the light years of space and are here to meet Mr. Dodd, their idea of honor and goodness.  Only how to break it to them: Dodd is dead and so is a lot of what he exemplified...

DOGWALKER by Orson Scott Card

Hi-tech medical implants combine with street-wise criminals working for organized crime in this scary tale of a "vertical" young man whose brain was altered after being nearly fatally shot...to some he is dead anyway. Although the criminals here are ruthless, the scariest part is the notion that drastically altering the human brain and essence through medical procedures in order to achieved specialization isn't that far beyond our present capabilities...

SURRENDER by Lucius Shepard

In one of the most vicious polemics I've read against war, especially of the proxy sort staged in poor third world countries, a genetically modified food has caused severe mutations over generations of a native population in Central America...they are now the immediate enemy for an American correspondent and his colleagues.  But he knows the real enemy behind it all and doesn't hold back on his wrath...

WAR FEVER by J.G. Ballard

As in the previous story, the ongoing enemy in the intense narrative isn't the ultimate one. Here it's perpetual urban war in Beirut with no end in sight...but what about those UN peacekeepers...

Next week: more sci-fi stories reviewed from 1989, using the Dozois anthology... 

My January 2023 Running and Walking Report

In January '23 I continued running and walking on every day of the month, often jogging more than ten miles per day...although I did slightly strain my back toward the end of the month and had to reduce my efforts a bit.  I ran two races, the Depot Parkrun on New Year's Day and Florida Track Club Mary Andrews Half Marathon (in Hawthorne) on the 15th...that latter one started under sub-30 temperatures: click on the titles to read my recaps.  I had thought of trying the Newnan's Lake 15K at month's end, but as I said I had that back soreness and decided to forego it.  Besides, on February 11th, the Florida Track Club is holding a ten-mile event in Micanopy...I ran it last year and think it's a possible traditional annual run for me, especially since LifeSouth no longer holds the February Five Points Half Marathon here in Gainesville.  On February 4th, as I have written previously, a local beer company is staging a 4.2 mile race centered around its facility, Depot Park and the western end of the Hawthorne Trail...I'll need to get up early Saturday morning after getting off from work late Friday night for that one (as well as for the Micanopy race, for that matter).  I'm still trying to figure out which kind of shoes I should best wear for road running, which tends to jar my feet more and cause more aching.  Maybe with this coming "beer run" I'll check out my more padded Nike Air Monarchs, which I used to regularly employ for races around 2013-18.  As for walking, it's still the same pattern as for the past few months: lots of mileage that comes naturally in my workplace, which involves walking back and forth to numerous locations within the huge facility there.  My strategy in races is to start out with "old man steps", not trying to set any speed records but covering the distance as a primary goal...then, later on, I can ramp it up if it looks like I've "got the power" on that particular day.  That strategy, which I had abandoned in October's Tom Walker Memorial Half Marathon, served me well with this past one as I finished in 2 hours 34 minutes and won my age group somehow.  I'm 66 and not getting any younger, and although I want to run fast in the future I also am realistic and accept that, as long as I run, my finishes will tend to taper slower as I progress.  My fastest half marathon ever was 1 hour 50 minutes in March 2013...never going back there again...

Upcoming Blog Feature on Album Reviews

The other day on my Disney+ channel, I watched Mary McCartney's special If These Walls Could Sing, about Abbey Road Studios in London and its great history, including that, of course, of her father Paul's group the Beatles.  It made me consider how much I have missed by skipping over recorded albums from other groups and solo artists over the years.  So, I'm setting out early in 2023 to catch up on my album listening with various recording artists of the past 50-plus years.  I'm thinking of setting up another of my famous weekly blog features, this one going over various albums I hear and my favorite (and least favorite) tracks on them.  I don't know that I'll necessarily devote a whole article to reviewing each album, instead using a format like I do on Wednesdays when I discuss different short stories I've read.  Since I now have listening access to so much, this is a feasible project...who knows, maybe I'll come up with some new all-time favorite songs from this.  I also have some catching up to do with some of my favorite acts that are currently out there, like Kasabian, Metric, Gorillaz, Arcade Fire, Spoon and the Strokes, for example.  Let's see, how about doing this on Sundays?  Looking forward to it, now let's get listening...

Watching NFL Conference Championship Games Today

Today the National Football League decides who will face each other in the latest edition of the Super Bowl, to be played in a couple of weeks in Glendale, Arizona.  The Philadelphia Eagles, my favorite in the National Conference once Tampa Bay and Seattle were eliminated early on, advanced with a convincing 31-7 home win over the San Francisco 49ers.  Now it's Kansas City at home against last year's American Conference Champion (and Super Bowl loser) Cincinnati.  After Jacksonville lost to them last week, I'm rooting for the Chiefs to win it all, so naturally I'm favoring them over the Bengals tonight. Today's first game showed how injuries can completely change the complexion of a contest as the 49ers rookie star quarterback Brock Purdy suffered an elbow injury that removed him from much of the game and thoroughly hampered his ability to throw the football effectively when he did return.  But I don't think it would have altered the final result had he stayed healthy...Philadelphia was clearly the better team.  Jalen Hurts is an outstanding quarterback for the Eagles, but he's backed up by an equally excellent offense...and the defense was suffocating today.  Regardless of who wins between KC and Cincy this evening, I'd have to consider the Eagles as the Super Bowl favorites.  I'll root for them if the Bengals win and against them if the Chiefs prevail.  I happen to like both starting quarterbacks in the ongoing game, but once again injuries may be a big factor: in his last game, Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes strained his ankle and his movements may be more limited than usual against Cincinnati, whose quarterback Joe Burrow is perhaps the league's best right now.  Regardless of what happens between these two teams, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Super Bowl...the game, that is, not the pre-game hype or the often-ridiculous halftime show...

Looking Ahead to Upcoming Running Races in 2023

Ha-ha-ha, I had just told Melissa that I had decided to pass up on running tomorrow morning's Newnan's Lake 15K when I discovered that the dang thing was already held this morning!  No matter, more races are forthcoming, and I was recovering from a slight back strain anyway.  It all did inspire me to look on my dependable Running-in-the USA website to see what exactly was available in the upcoming months, and I thought of a nifty little goal for myself with race running. Every Saturday morning there is the free Depot Parkrun 5K...that covers almost any time I might feel like running that distance in an event...I can pick and choose whichever weeks I feel like running them (or NOT running them).  For longer races, I have decided to try and run at least one of those per month.  How can I accomplish this in 2023? First of all, the traditional Gainesville long-distance event of the Five Points marathon/half-marathon has been discontinued, so I'm happy that I was able to run the Florida Track Club's substitute race two weeks ago on 1/15...that takes care of January!  In February we have a 4.2-mile run sponsored by a local beer company on the 4th and the FTC Micanopy 10-miler on the 11th...check off this month for "mission accomplished" as well if I run one or both of them.  In mid-March, Melissa and I are on vacation and may spend some of the time out-of-state: maybe there's a possibility there. If not, on the 25th is the traditional Trail of Payne 10K that I have never run...maybe in 2023 I will.  On Saturday April 9 is the Run Your Buns Off marathon/half-marathon/10K on the same Hawthorne course, it seems, as the FTC race that I just ran.  And now we've come to May: in the Jennings State Forest to the NW of Middleburg they have a cool-sounding half-marathon trail race...intriguing.  And I discovered that off SR35 in southeastern Ocala is a monthly 10K run on Saturday mornings...bit of a drive, but it does fill in that gap nicely during the warmer late-spring-to-early-fall months should I find it a feasible venture.  I'm considering bidding at work to a different position should such an opportunity arise, preferably reporting at noon instead of 1:30 as I currently do if I can get weekends off...I think getting up early in the morning is a good habit to incorporate, plus races tend to start at that time of day on Saturday and this way I would have extra time after getting off work Fridays to sleep for the next day's race.  I'm also becoming fed up with my current specific assignment at my workplace that demands from me a careful attitude that I find lacking in other facilities that I depend on to do my job effectively...this is causing an undue amount of frustration and anxiety that I feel unjustly inflicted upon me: perhaps it's time for a change as I spend the remainder of my working days and approach retirement...

Quote of the Week...from Paul Simon

There are two sorts of people in the world: Those who listen and those who are thinking about what they are going to say next.                                                     ---Paul Simon

Over the years I've generally liked Paul Simon's music...especially when he was collaborating with Art Garfunkel earlier on.  Let's see, my favorite songs from them are Scarborough Fair, Fakin' It, I am a Rock, America, The Boxer and Cecilia.  With Paul Simon as solo artist, I liked his Duncan and Boy in the Bubble above the rest.  The above quote of his doesn't really have anything to do with music per se...it's more about folks in conversation or in small group settings.  From my experiences and perspective, it all comes down to the felt expectations within the situation.  Within the context of the conversations or group discussions, am I expected to be an active, talking participant? This is especially relevant in small groups where they go around a circle to focus on each person...groan, you can bet that I'm thinking of what I'm going to say before my "turn" in these scenarios instead of listening to others!  With any situation, listening is a skill that must be learned. And sometimes taking a little time before one speaks his or her mind to the other can go a long way to understanding more deeply the thoughts behind what is being said. Listening empathetically doesn't mean that I agree with what you're saying, but rather that I esteem you enough to want to understand the full message and intent behind it...and also implicitly invite you to show me the same level of respect when I am talking.  And sometimes, when the opportunity within a discussion does arise for me to speak, it might behoove me more to repeat and clarify what I had just heard...just to make sure I got it right...before I sound off about my own reactions...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Newton by James Gleick

Isaac Newton, more than any other individual, ushered in the revolution in science and technology that we so often take for granted today.  James Gleick, a noted science historian and author, decided to write a biography of Sir Isaac, who lived in England from 1642 to 1727, a prodigious life span for someone in his day.  Gleick traces elements of Newton's childhood including his family and their "in-between" social class status as modest landowners, going through his academic years and settling on the Great Plague of 1665-66, when his Cambridge classes were cancelled, and he studied in reclusion at his family's countryside home.  It was then that Newton developed many of his ideas that would later bring him fame and reward, such as classical mechanics, the nature of gravity as a universal principal both on Earth and with celestial bodies, and the invention of calculus...he tended to avoid publishing his results, however, which would later lead him into conflict with others claiming that they were the discoverers.  Gleick's biography is balanced between discussing Isaac Newton the person and the subject matter he tackled...you don't need to be a scientist or mathematician to appreciate this well-thought-out book.  I happened to check it out from my library using the Libby app...so can you if you're registered with a participating public library.  I haven't read too many biographies of late, although when I was a kid in elementary school, I must have read every single book in the children's biography series my school's library carried...and that was a lot!  I think that may have been one of the main catalysts in my lifelong interest in history.  One thing I appreciate about Isaac Newton is that he, like myself, tended to do better in seclusion than when stuck surrounded by a lot of people with their agendas, egos and tribalism.  Newton was an individualist who wasn't averse to arguing vehemently over his beliefs, and could be pretty hard on others, as when after assuming the role of standardizing Britain's currency he supported capital punishment for convicted counterfeiters.  Gleick also examined Newton's religious beliefs, including his privately held rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  You can't read this book without coming away with a greater appreciate of this giant of science as well as learning a few things about that science...and the different schools of thought about it in Newton's era...

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 2

Today marks the second week of my examination of 1989 short science fiction as it appeared in the Donald A. Wollheim anthology The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, featuring stories the editor picked from the previous year. Marking the climax of the collapse of communist regimes in central and eastern Europe, on November 9, 1989, celebrating Germans tore down the Berlin War separating East from West Berlin....the most visual symbol of the decades-long Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and allies.  It's sad to see how, over the past few years, the hopes for a truly peaceful and cooperative international community of nations have been squandered...but enough of that for now, here are my takes on the next four stories in Wollheim's book...

ABE LINCOLN IN McDONALD'S by James Morrow

Abraham Lincoln has in his hand a treaty, already signed by Jefferson Davis, that would prematurely end the Civil War and keep slavery alive in the South.  He steps through time into our own and discovers the ramifications of his inclination to sign that treaty: slavery and the accompanying racial prejudice not only survived, but it has spread to the entire country...while industrialization and modernization continued.  A specific event occurs that old Abe witnesses which makes his final decision for him...

DEATH SHIP by Barringtion J. Bayley

In a future Orwellian dystopian totalitarian state always at war, an official maneuvers himself to be on a time machine craft into the future in order to alter the life of his son, whose attitudes he disapproves of.  This story conjectures on there actually being a "future" independent of our present...it was a little difficult for me to understand, although I had no trouble grasping the final conclusion....while the "state" went on as if what was shown true really wasn't.  Reminds me of some of our politicians in the "present"....

IN TRANSLATION by Lisa Tuttle

An alien presence has established itself on Earth, and while humans are aware of them, they themselves are very unobtrusive, almost invisible. The visitors inspire a cult following, and man is willing to abandon his own wife while seeking their presence.  I can't help but think this story is an analogy to how some "good" people get totally carried away with religion and religious fantasies of interacting with incorporeal "good" spiritual entities to the detriment of their own lives and relationships...

A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING by Robert Silverberg

I wonder if the creators of the movie The Sixth Sense got their premise from this story about the discovery that centuries-old voices from the dead past can be heard from a probe around the planet Mercury...it seems the sun's gravitational pull warps time around it...hey, didn't the movie Star Trek IV about the whales follow this idea as well? But the protagonists are in for a rude awakening: the dead can hear them as well, and a disturbing character from the past is revealed.  Great old sci-fi tale from a great old sci-fi master...

Next week I conclude my look at Donald A. Wollheim's anthology...

Dreary Excursion to News on TV

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday morning in my nearby Dunkin' Donuts...sometimes I feel the need to get out a little bit in public in order to focus my mind on writing, which in the case of this blog is a personal discipline of habit more than anything else.  Sometimes it's hard for me to arrive at a topic...I just have to turn on the news on TV, though, to come up with stuff.  Okay, let's see, mass shootings sprinkled across the country, allegation of police brutality against a young black man, nutty, fascist election-denying politicians gaining seats of power in Congress, fascist warmonger Putin continuing to bomb apartments in Ukraine (by the way, most of those fascist American politicians seem to support him),..where do I stop?  I've already held from early on that the Russian president's decision to invade Ukraine (and continue this conflict) was more a matter of internal political conflict than from any beef with the neighboring nation, which voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in exchange for assurances against a later Russian invasion.  H-m-m... Raising the dubious banner of nationalist patriotism against enemies abroad...real or imagined...is a time-tested way of generating political support among the population, especially the unquestioning rabble.  Let's see how supportive they remain in Putinland when he demands young men be forcibly conscripted into the war...oh, wait, that's already happening.  I wonder how I can do anything about all this...it seems that when I watch the news...on any channel...I get the feeling that I am being manipulated to generate an emotional response...usually fear and/or anger...to whatever the topic is and how it is being presented.  I think I'll go back to printed news or, better yet, store up some extra blog articles to publish on days like this when I'm at a loss for something to write about...

Podcast about Other People's Opinions

Today's Mindset Mentor podcast, with Rob Dial as its host, has as the topic Other People's Opinions.  I pretty much assumed at the start that he would be discussing other people's opinions about oneself, not necessarily what they thought about the Dallas Cowboys blowing another playoff game or their loony notions about the world of politics.  And of course, that was the theme as Dial makes two substantive points about opinions and advice...which he unfortunately tends to blur together: they're not one and the same.  He emphasizes that we should sit down and write the names of those in our lives whose opinions of us really matter, stressing that the list should be short (he said "three" for himself).  For me, there are four: those in my childhood and adult nuclear families who are still here among us.  Yet to varying degrees, others' views of me matter as well...but only up to a point.  As for advice, Dial confirms what I already knew: just because someone may be on that short list, if he or she does not have the background or knowledge appropriate to their advice, then don't necessarily accept it...while being polite just the same.  This is a timely episode in our age of social media and the desire to be "liked" and popular.  Dial explains that the desire to fit in with a group goes back to our human origins when being accepted by the tribe was necessary for survival...rejection back then could be tantamount to a death sentence in the unforgiving wilds.  But today it's different and both the host and I are in agreement that while being a discerning individual can be challenging, especially when one feels he or she is isolated or an outsider, the reward of confidence in one's own ability to reason and act correspondingly far outweighs the negatives...

Achy Body Orders Me to Take It Easy This Weekend and Watch Sports on TV

From time to time in my aging life, my poor old body just gets a little too strained...this weekend my achy back had a conversation with me, telling me to take it easy and rest for the two days.  Sounded good to me...I've been watching TV, particularly the National Football League divisional playoffs, the Australian Open tennis tournament, and assorted soccer leagues matches in the Mexican and English Premier Leagues.  While resting my body I thought I'd give my brain a break as well...hence, another sports article!  Out of the four NFL contests, "my" teams won three...sadly, Jacksonville bowed out to the Kansas City Chiefs although they played them proud and tough.  Philadelphia thoroughly dominated the NY Giants in the other Saturday game and earlier today Cincinnati ended another Buffalo season with an impressive performance.  That game was played in the middle of a driving snowstorm at Buffalo...the Bengals (and myself) felt that the NFL offices were unfair in not holding the game at a neutral site since the two teams' earlier regular season game was cancelled because a Bills player suffered cardiac arrest on the field.  Had Buffalo won the cancelled game they would have had the home field advantage over Kansas City, so the league officials decreed that should those two meet in the conference championship, then the game would be held at a neutral site.  But likewise, had Cincinnati beat Buffalo in that cancelled game, they would have had a better seeding than the Bills...but the officials made them play on the road, anyway...NOT FAIR.  And just now, the San Francisco 49ers held off Dallas...ha, ha, ha...I can't wait to hear what Cowboys-basher Stephen A. Smith has to say about the losers tomorrow morning on his ESPN show!  As for the tennis, I found it all kind of boring, sad to say...ditto with the soccer.  Oh well, there have been plenty of sleeping opportunities for me this weekend...

Rainy Day Hunkering Down with NFL Playoffs on TV

Today I'm hunkering down at home on this miserably rainy, cool day in Gainesville, sleeping in late and watching sports on TV.  Later this afternoon and evening will be two NFL playoffs games: Jacksonville at Kansas City and the New York Giants at Philadelphia.  It bugged me a little that the Jags and Chiefs will be playing each other at this stage since they happen to be my favorites out of the remaining teams...oh well, that means that at least one of them (probably KC) will survive until next week's conference championship game.  Tomorrow the Buffalo Bills will host last year's AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals while my current pick to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers, will be at home against the Dallas Cowboys.  Who do I want to win these four games? Jax, Philly, Cincy and San Fran.  A few years ago, when Lamar Jackson began his stellar career as the running quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, I wondered how long that career would last before injuries caused by that aspect of his game caught up with him like it has done with others such as Robert Griffin III and, this season, "my" Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa.  Well, it seems that Lamar has become something of a fragile athlete like these, dooming his team to an early playoff exit and raising doubts about his future effectiveness in the league.  It's no accident that Tom Brady has made it to the ancient age of 45 in premier-level sports by adhering to a more traditional drop-back-or-hand-off quarterbacking style, with his running almost exclusively focused on scrambling from tacklers in passing situations or short yardage sneaks behind his offensive line.  It seems, though, that the trend is more for the young quarterbacks of this era to have a few short, explosive seasons before they soon become too hobbled to be effective...so sad.  Are you getting this, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes?  I didn't think so...but at least these two aren't quite as run-crazy as Lamar has been... 

Quote of the Week...from Fareed Zakaria

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.          ---Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria is a CNN weekend host whose programs delve more deeply into international events and trends, placing his own stamp of perspective and opinions about his chosen topics...he is perhaps the best of his profession in this regard, in my opinion.  He also has had columns writing for the Washington Post and Newsweek. Since today happens to be his birthday, I thought I'd do a little delving of my own, checking out some of his past quotes...and found the above admission.  For some of us, writing is a blissful, wonderful experience...if there were more hours in the day then they'd just see it as more writing opportunity.  For others, there is no writing, just as there is no reading, either...that's true even so for a high percentage of the college-educated population.  And then there is the middle of the two extremes: people like me who like to write once I'm actually into writing something, but sometimes find it difficult getting started with a task or project.  Oh, and I suppose there's a fourth group as well: people, usually celebrities, who take credit for writing books that others have written for them...we'll just leave these phonies out of the discussion.  One thing I like about this concept of blogging, besides it being freely provided (thank you, Google), is that I can write about anything (although I try to be discreet and respectful in some areas) and not only express my opinions, but also explain them and elaborate.  I've written this blog almost daily since April 2007, with some 5,300 total articles...and they're all still there, for you or anyone else in the world who has free access to the Internet.  I know that blog writing is something that I like a lot, yet there still is that resistance to sitting down and starting...some days I don't know what I will write about until I open up a new, blank page.  Fareed Zakaria, on the other hand, as a renowned journalist probably feels that he must adhere to much higher standards with his writing and use impeccable research, knowing that pretty much anything he says will be scrutinized to small detail by not only his colleagues (especially those in disagreement with his views) and those whom he features, but by millions of his general readers...that's bound to throw a damper on anyone's enjoyment of writing.  But the finished product? Pretty good, Fareed...

Podcaster's Suggestion of Misogi Method Interesting But Incomplete

According to podcaster Rob Dial on a recent Mindset Mentor episode of his, the Misogi Method derives from a traditional Japanese spiritual ritual involving purification by immersing oneself...for as long as possible...in very cold water.  Dial says he does this regularly, and then expanded upon the ritual to encompass anything that one doesn't think possible...like climbing a long, steep elevation or running a long distance, for example.  It's not something to be done regularly...no, maybe once a year or, as the host suggests, once a month. The point here is that doing something beyond one's perceived abilities serves as a breakthrough of possibilities and self-awareness...as well as bringing out a lot of self-imposed negative beliefs and attitudes.  I dig this idea, but Dial seems to have forgotten his repeatedly expressed philosophy of gradual, incremental change over stretches of time, even belittling it in this podcast.  Truth be told, here is where the concept of duality...combining two seemingly contradictory ideas...comes into play.  Gradually changing habits, combined with the abrupt "big feats" of Misogi, do not conflict...if anything, they should build upon one another.  Each person has a different body as well as mind with their respective life histories building unique tapestries of both skills and flaws, with widely differing physical and mental limitations.  I've had a few "Misogi's" in my life without recognizing them as such...I suppose tackling half-marathon races in sub-freezing temperature during a time of the day when I'm usually in the last stages of morning sleep is one.  But I wouldn't have done it had I not, over a span of months and years, established a daily workout routine and healthier lifestyle habits.   And you have to be careful what you select if you try this method of facing acute, demanding challenges...the point is to be able to WALK away from them with a greatly improved perspective on things...

Weekly Shortly Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin reviewing science fiction short stories from the year 1989 as they appeared in the annual anthology The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and representing his picks from the previous year.  It would be Wollheim's final anthology as he sadly passed away at the end of 1990.  For the years 1983-88 I have been reviewing stories from both Wollheim's "year's best" anthologies and those of Gardner Dozois...after I finish with this book that I'm currently on, it'll just be Gardner for the ensuing years, at least through 2018 if I get that far.  But for now, how about those first four tales in Wollheim's book...

ALPHAS by Gregory Benford

Set in the not-so-distant future, first contact is made with aliens whose flippant attitudes about terrestrial humans reminded me of the Vogons in Douglas Adams' hilarious Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...at least these dudes aren't building an intergalactic highway through our solar system!  No, instead they've set their sights on our neighboring world Venus and seem to be drastically changing it to be able to host their own kind of life.  Being territorial as we tend to be, a miffed humanity sends a ship to check them out...one of the crew becomes an unwitting hero in what must be the ultimate ride for anyone to experience...

THE MAGIC BULLET by Brian Stableford

This is a short sci-fi mystery tale, where a scientist experimenting with mice and viruses is attacked and his lab burned down.  A former friend is the sleuth here...she learns of a special "magic bullet" virus that eventually inserts itself into the host's genome, with drastic consequences for humanity. Great story...

NORTH OF THE ABYSS by Brian W. Aldiss

I look at the lives of the protagonist, a successful businessman, and his wife, and wonder why they're both so miserable...I guess happiness does come from within.  Oscar North, totally discontent with his life, finds a source of enlightenment when they visit Egypt and he learns of that land's ancient religion centered around Isis, Osiris, and other gods.  A story that leaves you wondering what is real, what isn't, and how much of our "reality" is captive to our own beliefs...

CHIPRUNNER by Robert Silverberg

A brilliant young man is wasting away in anorexia while his therapist struggles to understand his motives, which seem to revolve around making himself small enough to be among the very atoms themselves. Complicating it all is that the therapist himself is starting to dream of the same things. I understood the story without getting the premise...

Next week: more of Donald A. Wollheim's sci-fi short story picks from 1989...

Constellation of the Month: Taurus (the Bull)

 

If you're looking at the above star map of the evening wintertime Zodiac constellation Taurus, representing a bull, the planet Mars stands out sharply.  But it's only in that position in the night sky if you happen to go outside and view it tonight or in the next few days...don't expect to see it there if you're reading this in, say, 2024...or even just a few weeks from now, for that matter.  Aldebaran is the standout first magnitude star in Taurus, in proximity to the open star cluster Hyades, represented by some of the constellation's fainter stars.  The famous cluster Pleiades is situated on the constellation's western end, at first glance a smudge in the night sky. But with more intense inspection the brightest stars within it can be visually detected...if you have 20/20 eyesight, that is.  Near the tip of the "lower horn" lies M1, aka the Crab Nebula, remnant of a renowned supernova explosion in 1054...you need a good pair of binoculars or a telescope to view it.  Taurus is one of the more prominent constellations in the winter evening sky as well as being one of the northernmost in the Zodiac, passing the meridian around 9 pm local standard time.  But to its immediate south is easily the most brilliant constellation of all, Orion, and sometimes Taurus gets unfairly passed over.  If the sky is clear, why not step outside and see if you can see the Bull?  My suggestion is twofold: either look for the "smudge" (the Pleiades) and go eastward from that or identify Orion and go northward.  Oh, and right now Mars is pretty prominent and red: that's a good "skymark" as well...

Happy Martin Luther King Day

Today is officially Martin Luther King Day, although the late American civil rights leader had his 94th birthday yesterday.  When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s, the popular perception of him was that he was a controversial figure, always challenging the established order and stirring things up.  By the time I was earnestly paying attention to the news...when Lyndon Johnson was president...Dr. King was active on a host of social issues besides civil rights for blacks, and he adamantly opposed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.  I've learned since then that the FBI had an extensive file on him, and he was suspected by some on the conservative right of being aligned with the Soviets.  I tend to dismiss this kind of allegation, especially considering the kind of scurrilous defamatory garbage currently floating around social and mass media about different people that others have chosen to hate.  Martin Luther King has been extensively quoted in this blog because his message has been one of equal opportunity, inclusion, the dignity of all work, tolerance, and, above all, love.  Everyone has a better nature to them, and may I suggest that we take a few minutes today to reflect on our own and how we can make it a more encompassing part of our lives...

Ran the Florida Track Club Mary Andrews Half-Marathon This Morning

 

Mary Andrews grew up in Gainesville and was a long-time running enthusiast, ably tackling the difficult marathon distance races.  She ran the Florida Track Club's first marathon held from Hawthorne in early 2021, but she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and died the same year at the tragically young age of 44...FTC now names this event in her honor.  Along with the marathon, originating and ending at the Hawthorne Trailhead right next to Hawthorne Middle/High School, they offered a half-marathon (13.1 miles)...more to my abilities.  This morning I ran that half-marathon, hoping to have a better race than last November's Tom Walker Memorial half-marathon, which I ended up walking the final three miles under unseasonably warm and humid conditions.  This morning the weather wouldn't be a hindrance, with the temperature dipping below 30 at race time and the humidity much lower.  I wore a warm zip-up jacket that I could open up as the race progressed and slide it down over my arms...worked for the first half, after which I shed it to retrieve later after the race. Before the race, starting punctually at 8 am, famous marathoners Frank Shorter and Jeff Galloway gave short speeches...I managed to get a photo of the popular creator of the Galloway Method of taking short regular walking breaks during long runs (see 2nd photo). The half-marathon consisted of two there-and-back laps along the eastern Hawthorne Trail...the marathon was, naturally, four laps.  The last pic shows the trail, clear of runners...reminded me a little of Frodo's hazardous trail to Rivendell (but I saw no mushrooms or sinister riders).   Everyone in both distances started at the same time and shared the course. My personal goal was simply to keep running and set for myself a 12 minute/mile pace, which I was gratified to be able to adhere to.  I ended up with a negative split for the race, finishing with a time of 2 hours 34 minutes 42 seconds and somehow managing to win my age group...click HERE to see the complete results.  I had no problems like I experienced with the previous half-marathon and had a lot of energy left over.  Still, my feet and legs ached too much as the race wore on, and I think that was because I was wearing shoes that did not provide enough cushion.  The next race...whenever that is...I'll definitely be using a pair that is better padded.  There was a very friendly, sweet spirit coming from the organizers and participants, and I appreciated the coffee, bagels, and doughnuts after the race.  I probably would have won a trinket award for my finish but wanted to get on home instead...that's okay, I run for the sake of the run, a true amateur...the medal in the top picture is given to all finishers.  Now my body is in the recovery stage, and I'm taking it easy for the rest of the day...

Cold Weather and Football

After generally warmer than usual temperatures this winter so far, the weather has turned frigid here in northern Florida. Tonight...and early tomorrow morning...Gainesville temperatures are slated to dip below freezing for several hours, and even reach the mid-20s.  Tomorrow it's only going to get up into the 50s...if you live up north where it gets much worse, you're probably laughing at this article.  But my plans are to be outside in the middle of all this and that's not exactly something I'm looking forward to.  Shifting the subject a bit, I see that the Los Angeles Chargers have scored early in their first round NFL playoff game against Jaguars, being played in much colder weather than usual in Jacksonville.  Although four teams I follow somehow managed to make the postseason playoffs in spite of their mediocre records, I wonder whether any of them will survive this first round.  A few hours ago, I was heartened by Seattle, one of those teams, coming out of their first half against heavily favored San Francisco with a 17-16 lead, but the 49ers stomped the Seahawks in the second half and ran away with a 41-23 win.  Tomorrow Miami travels to Buffalo and Monday Tampa Bay hosts Dallas...I'll count myself lucky if at least one of the Florida teams advance.  Hope you're keeping warm and if you like to watch football, that some of the games go your way...

Quote of the Week...from Gardner Dozois

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston.  And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section.

                                                                  ---Gardner Dozois

Gardner Dozois (1947-2018) is probably best-known for his anthology series The Year's Best Science Fiction...which I'm currently reading and reviewing (I'm up to the year 1989), as well as being the editor of the acclaimed Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.  He's also written science fiction in both novel and short story form, but his fame has been as the role of a collector and editor of quality stories written by others.  His above quote places him a decade ahead me, but I couldn't tell you very much about bookstores even during the sixties, other than the book and supply store at my public school.  Then again, I tended to go more for libraries in my early youth, and liked those old children's series they sold at my nearby G.C. Murphy like Power Boys and Bobbsey Twins (I read all my sister's Trixie Beldon and Donna Parker books, too).  But sure, once bookstores, both new and used, began sprouting in full force during the seventies, I caught the bug and began buying paperbacks, mostly nonfiction. I picked the above quote because nowadays bookstores sadly seem to be in a state of retreat, both new and used. And for those that are still around, it's funny that now the science fiction section is often the biggest one.  I'm not bemoaning the advancement of digitalized books like Kindle or audiobooks, mind you...I make liberal use of both forms. But I also know that for some reason book publishing...unlike with music or movies/TV...lags far behind in the availability of bygone and out-of-print works for digital reading, while much is unavailable in libraries as well.  Which means you go to a used bookstore to find them...assuming there are any used bookstores.  Gainesville's number has steeply declined in recent years, but we still have a couple of them, along with a crazy used book sale that happens every (pandemic-free) year in April and October.  I'd say take a train to Jacksonville, but you can't do that from Gainesville anymore, either...

Asimov, Wollheim and Dozois...and Their SF Year-by-Year Anthology Series

Isaac Asimov and Donald A. Wollheim, both significant science fiction writers of their era in the mid-to-late twentieth century, passed away in their seventies just two years apart: Asimov in 1992 and Wollheim in 1990.  In their later years they were both important anthologists with Wollheim's Annual World's Best SF Series covering the period from 1964 through 1989.  Asimov, during the 1980s, decided to go back and anthologized his own (and co-editor Martin Greenberg's) favorites in a year-to-year retrospective series titled The Great SF Stories...this covered the years 1939-63.  Asimov, a longtime friend of Wollheim, had his series published by the latter's company, DAW Books.  Over the years and especially recently, I have appreciated and enjoyed the efforts of these two writers who obviously loved their chosen genre of fiction to undertake this sort of effort involving sorting through the many quality stories that their colleagues (and, sometimes, they themselves) produced.  It's a shame that, in this digital age, I can't get either anthology series on Kindle or audiobook...if they were recording artists there wouldn't be a problem with their old works.  Starting next Wednesday, I will be reviewing Wollheim's final anthology, published in 1990 while he was already very ill and covering that last year of 1989.  After that I plan to continue reviewing science fiction short stories from another excellent anthology, that of the late Gardner Dozois and titled The Year's Best Science Fiction (which is available on Kindle and audiobook)..his will continue through the year 2018 so I'm not very likely to run out of material anytime soon, especially since his collections are much lengthier than those of Asimov or Wollheim...I'm very grateful for all three of these important figures of science fiction...