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

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

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

Sat in a Starbucks for First Time in Three Months

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

Weekly Short Stories: 1960 Science Fiction, Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

About Constellations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next week: #80-76...

Enjoyed Father's Day With My Family

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

Herd Instinct Trumps Common Sense and Responsibility

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

Quote of the Week...from Max Ehrmann

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Short Stories: 1959 Science Fiction, Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Televised Presentations with Compelling Narratives about Reality

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

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

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

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

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #90-86

As I continue gradually getting closer and closer to the top of my 500 all-time favorite songs list, the songs I review provide for me old memories I've associated with each of them.  Does old music do that for you as well?  Anyway, here are the next five songs...

90 ELI'S COMING...Three Dog Night
From 1969, this was one of Three Dog Night's earliest hits, initially popular during a year when I didn't follow popular music very much, for some reason.  Later on I grew to love the passionate, urgent singing and flow of the song...and the introduction is brilliant.  Three Dog Night, like some other bands, suffered under the eyes of many critics because they used others' compositions instead of writing their own songs: Eli's Coming was by Laura Nyro...

89 LIVIN' THING...Electric Light Orchestra
Back at the close of 1976 I would deem this hit by ELO to be my song of the year...it came off their greatest album, A New World Record, and was played a lot on the radio during the fall of 1976...the last fall I ever spent in my childhood town of (West) Hollywood, Florida.  Listening to Livin' Thing also brings back memories of the then-ongoing presidential campaign between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter...and how my mother got so excited about finally going to vote (as did I, both of us for the smiling peanut farmer/nuclear engineer)...

88 SOFT ROCK STAR...Metric
I often like to compare Metric with Blondie from the '80s New Wave movement...with Emily Haines' more current band usually winning out.  Soft Rock Star comes off their 2007 release Grow Up and Blow Away album...originally recorded in 2001...that features two versions of this song.  There's the main track, which I prefer, and then the acoustic "Jimmy vs. Joe Mix" version...listen to both and see which one you like, they're both good.  I remember seeing the late Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live doing a skit on "sassy"...this song takes sassiness to a high art form...

87 SHOCK THE MONKEY...Peter Gabriel
I heard 1982's Shock the Monkey by the former Genesis front man for about a year on the radio before I first viewed the shocking and haunting video...the song seems to describe a man in desperation, fleeing from something pursuing him or maybe something he has hidden within himself.  So much cryptic symbolism...yeah, I like my music full of that kind of stuff.  The video is fantastic, but you probably want to hear the full, uncut version, too...

86 SHAPES OF THINGS...the Yardbirds
Two seminal psychedelic rock songs came out in early 1966, just weeks apart: Eight Miles High by the Byrds and Shapes of Things by the Yardbirds.  Where I lived in south Florida (I was nine at the time) the former got more radio play and dang it, although I loved this Yardbirds song back then I never could find out its name or who did it until years later...I always called it "Come Tomorrow" for that recurring line.  Shapes of Things is not only worthy due to the guitar and drum work, but is also a great piece of introspection, with lyrics like "Fallin' into your passing hands, please don't destroy these lands, don't make them desert sands"...

Next week: #85-81...

Constellation of the Month: Boötes (the Herdsman)

Boötes is one of the most prominent constellations in the spring evening sky of the northern celestial hemisphere, crossing the meridian around 10 during the month of June...hence I've selected it as my first "constellation of the month".  It's also one of the earliest I learned and observed during the spring of 1964 when my father introduced stargazing to me one evening.  There's obviously some story behind its designation as "herdsman", but to me it looks more like a kite than anything...once you connect the dots between the brightest stars, that is.  At the kite's base is the constellation's main attraction, the first-magnitude star Arcturus, clearly visible even in lighted city skies.  Since I live near latitude 30 degrees North and Arcturus's declination is about 19 degrees North, this red giant that is 36.7 light years away passes just a little south of the zenith (overhead) right about the time this month that I'm pulling in front of my house (I get off from work at 10).  Unfortunately, June this year where I live has been marked by predominantly overcast night skies...even when stars are visible there has been fog to obscure the sky.  One rule of thumb for locating Arcturus: take the stars of the Big Dipper's handle and project them southeastward: they roughly point to this fourth-brightest star in the night sky.  Of course, you can get much more background information on Arcturus and various aspects of Boötes simply by clicking on the Wikipedia article.  When I think of different constellations I tend to view them in relation to those surrounding them...with Boötes the immediate neighbors, starting at the north and going around clockwise, are Ursa Major (with the Big Dipper embedded), Canes Venatici, Coma Berenices, Virgo, Serpens Caput, and Corona Borealis.  When Boötes is high in the sky, look toward the southeast and you'll see the "front" end of Scorpius rising...that should clue you in to my "constellation of next month".  The above representation of Boötes is courtesy of astronomytrek.com...

Just Finished Reading Son by Lois Lowry

I've been reading Lois Lowry's four-part young adult science fiction/fantasy Giver series...I just finished reading the final book, titled Son, from 2012.  In it Claire, a young teenager in a rigid future society where the concept of "love" is unknown and babies are born to artificially-inseminated workers selected for carrying and bearing children, has her baby, which she is denied access to as its mother.  The rest of the story is devoted to her quest to reunite with Gabriel after she secretly finds out his identity but loses him after he is spirited away...the story of Gabriel's escape is told at the end of the first novel, titled The Giver.  In pursuit of her little boy, Claire undergoes her own adventures and trials...including meeting up with an evil entity called the Trademaster, introduced in the preceding book Messenger.  I thought the story was compelling and glad to see the author tying together the various lead characters from each of the series' books.  Jonas, Kira, Matt...and of course Claire and Gabe...figure into how the story develops and is resolved.  You may like it, too...one of the features I liked of each story is how different people discover their own special gifts and use them for bettering the lives of those around them...

Quote of the Week...from Malcolm X

The media's the most powerful entity on earth.  They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that's power.  Because they control the minds of the masses.

                                                                      ---Malcolm X.

Malcolm X was a famous American civil rights activist, known for his forthright and clear language, who was assassinated in 1965 at the age of 39.  I picked the above quote of his because it is so pertinent...not only for back then but especially for today...I wander what Malcolm would say about what's going on in 2020...he would be 94 now had his life not been cut off so tragically.  We are in a presidential election year, and this particular race stands to be the most bitter one ever fought.  We are also in a year of pandemic when controversial measures have been taken to shut down the economy and then gradually reopen it, in the process throwing millions out of work, ruining many businesses, and keeping schools and churches from assembling.  And racial injustice, focusing on the recent murder in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has spawned mass demonstrations across the nation.  All of these factors...and more...contribute to a danger of media manipulation and we "of the masses" had better start protecting our own minds with some overdue critical analysis before we're all swept away.  I would warn my readers to stand guard against being manipulated by conspiracy theories, political correctness run amuck, hindsight analysis specifically designed to make one "side" look bad, comments taken out of context...and just shear emotional diatribes designed to inflame people's negative passions.  I'm already seeing all of these on television...just magnify it all by several degrees and you have what's going on in social media.  Readers and viewers beware...let's all step back for a moment, take a break from our cherished personal and political narratives, and start using our own minds for a change instead of letting others do it for us...

Starbucks Not Yet Ready for Me to Sit There

Yesterday before work I decided to try out my local Starbucks...visiting for the first time in nearly three months...to see what their new seating/distancing arrangements were and maybe in the process come up with a new topic for a blog article.  Also, I wanted to finally return to a sense of normality: sitting out in public in coffee shops has been something I've enjoyed doing for many, many years and I get a lot of studying and writing done there.  So I got on my phone and did a remote mobile order for my Venti iced coffee with cream, drove on down to the location on NW 43rd Street...and discovered that despite other businesses opening up around Gainesville, Starbucks (at least the one nearest my home) still does not seat people, only selling their products drive-through or take-out.  I did get my coffee at least...no money lost, I used my Starbucks "points" to order it.  I had been looking at the reopening of Starbucks as a bellwether to resuming life as before the coronavirus...not yet, and quite frankly we may be in for a rough road ahead with mass noncompliance of restrictions due to various factors that may be beginning to cause an uptake in cases reported.  Let's all hope and pray that doesn't grow into another spike in COVID-19.  Back in November 2017, long before the current strain of COVID made its entry into our world, I came down with a severe virus that caused painfully deep coughing fits for three days, along with a few more needed for full recovery...it was no flu, I could tell that much. But in retrospect I'm certain that it was something similar to the virus going on around the world today, another one of the coronaviruses on "steroids'". I totally get the trials that some people who are infected with COVID-19 have to go through and don't wish it on anyone, not even the deniers who proudly refuse to cover their faces or practice social distancing around me and my loved ones.  In the meantime, here I go again writing my blog articles at my home desktop computer, next to my Smithsonian Air and Space Museum mug of home-brewed hazelnut coffee...hey, that's not so bad, is it?

Weekly Short Stories: 1959 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are my reactions to the next three science fiction short stories from the year 1959, as they appeared in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 21 (1959).  The three authors Sheckley, Sturgeon and Simak are sci-fi greats, each one gifted with the ability to humanize what is often a very technical genre of writing...their stories tend to outlast by far the era in which they were written...

THE WORLD OF HEART'S DESIRE by Robert Sheckley
Post-apocalypse, different rates of time passage, and alternate reality are three themes dominating this story about a man on the outskirts of town who offers a special injection to his customers.  Beforehand, though, although the treatment will give them their "heart's desire" for a year of felt experiences it will take off ten years off their natural lives.  As a potential customer, Mr. Wayne knows the experience he wants but has his doubts about the "service"...the progression of this story was ingeniously unraveled...

THE MAN WHO LOST THE SEA by Theodore Sturgeon
There are many mysteries embedded in this tale of a man, fully dressed in a spacesuit, immobile and mostly buried in sand on a beach, who seems to encounter a little boy running around him with a toy helicopter.  It's more a stream of consciousness piece, something that you probably have to cultivate a taste for as a reader.  Beyond that, all I can say without giving it all away is you have to read it for yourself...

A DEATH IN THE HOUSE by Clifford Simak
An isolated, reclusive farmer encounters a completely alien being that appears to be dying...he takes it home and tries to nurture it, all to no avail.  This is a story about basic compassion and respect for the dignity of all life, no matter how frighteningly different it might be...and the subject of loneliness gets its due consideration here.  Old Moses, the farmer, reminded me greatly of Hiram, the protagonist in my favorite Simak story The Big Front Yard...

Next week I conclude my look back at 1959 science fiction short stories...

Just Finished Reading Messenger by Lois Lowry

Messenger is the third book in Lois Lowry's four-part The Giver young adult dystopian fantasy series...it came out in 2004.  It is a more direct follow-up to the previous book, Gathering Blue, in that one of that book's characters, a young boy named Matt, is now older and the main protagonist.  I might warn you that simply discussing the setting of Messenger would be something of a spoiler for the previous book if you haven't yet read it since the ending of one book leads to the start of the next...read on if that doesn't bother you.  Matt lives with a blind man, the father of Kira (the protagonist of Gathering Blue) in a different village.  It's all set on a far-off future Earth following a devastating planet-wide disaster called the Ruin.  Their home community provides refuge to the various physically handicapped and rejected people from the often brutally oppressive surrounding areas.  As in the first two novels of this series, the lead character has a special gifting revealed during the course of the story, which focuses on a mysterious kind of creeping social sickness infecting the community whereby people become less humane and more selfish...the surrounding woods likewise undergo a similar transformation.  Although Messenger is pretty short, it is loaded with suspense at the end: so far it is my favorite of the three books.  And now I'm about to start reading the final book in the series, titled Son...

My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #95-91

Two of the five songs I'm discussing below are by the Beatles and two more reminded me of songs of theirs...the other one stands in a category of its own.  They're all fantastic, though, and mean a lot to me...of course, that's obvious since they are high on my list of 500 all-time favorite songs.  Here they are...

95 ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE...the Beatles
I first heard this song...which I would deem as my "song of 1967"...in June of that year when the Beatles performed and recorded it live on the BBC-produced television special Our World that educational TV showed in America (in Miami on Channel 2).  Mick Jagger, who was one of the invited guests there, recently remarked that his Rolling Stones were more of a performing band than the Beatles...but the spot-on poise and musical discipline they showed with this presentation indicates otherwise.  It would become a Number One hit single, later appearing on their remarkable Magical Mystery Tour album: my favorite part was at the end with Paul adlibbing "She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah".  When I saw them perform it on Our World back then I also remember being gratified that John and Paul had shaved off those annoying moustaches they had been sporting...

94 FAUST ARP...Radiohead
This short track from the English alternative band's 2007 In Rainbows album would become one of my favorites of theirs three years later when I obtained the backlog of their works and put them on my MP3 player in shuffle mode to listen to on long distance training runs.  There is an uncanny resemblance between Faust Arp and the Beatles' White Album song Dear Prudence, at least regarding the background music.  Singer/lyricist Thom Yorke has a curiously appealing cynical edge to his singing, and this song is no exception...

93 LITTLE GREEN BAG...George Baker Selection
In the early spring of 1970 I was thirteen and in a pretty negative period in my life...at the time the radio was playing this song by George Baker Selection, one of three musical acts from the Netherlands (the Tee Set with Ma Belle Amie and Shocking Blue with Venus were the others) with ongoing singles hits.  Its beat, similar to the Beatles' 1964 She's a Woman, was mesmerizing and the lyrics, although generally cryptic about "looking back on the track for a little green bag" (or was it "little greenback"?), did clearly express themselves with the chorus line "looking for some happiness when there was only loneliness to find". Little Green Bag ended up as my "song of the year" for 1970...George Baker Selection would come out six years later with another good song but with a different mood to it: Paloma Blanca...

92 HAPPY JUST TO DANCE WITH YOU...the Beatles
This song was my favorite track from the Beatles 1964 movie A Hard Days Night.  George Harrison sings the lead with John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who co-wrote it, in the backup chorus.  It reminded me in tone and spirit of their breakthrough American hit just a few months earlier, I Want to Hold Your Hand.  I remember going with my mom, dad and sister to the drive-in theater that summer to see the movie and of course, we got the album as soon as it came out...

91 MY WAVE...Soundgarden
This is a stay-in-your-lane, mind-your-own-business kind of angry song with singer/lyricist Chris Cornell laying it on the line about how he feels about busybodies imposing their values on him unsolicited...I couldn't agree more.  It resonated with me in 1995, a year following its release on the Seattle grunge band's Superunknown, easily my all-time favorite grunge album and high on my list of all-time favorites from any genre.  My Wave was also my favorite song of '95 as I lived through it...

Next week: #90-86...

Cristobal Spinoff Rain Bands, Cloudy Skies Lately for Stargazing

Not that I was planning to go anywhere anyway today, but the spinoff bands of rain from Tropical Storm Cristobal, the center of which is about to go ashore in southeastern Louisiana a few hundred miles west of Gainesville, have thoroughly soaked my home town and most of Florida.  We've been fortunate here...further south around Orlando yesterday there were several reports of tornados and much stormier weather.  I had expected some of that here today, but besides sporadic heavy rainfall we've been pretty much spared...still, the local flooding watch is until 8 pm. There might yet be some storms in store for us...but as I said, I'm not going anywhere...

A few days ago I thought I might add a new monthly feature to this blog in which I would discuss an interesting constellation in the night sky that is prominent during the month in question.  Unfortunately, ever since I came up with this idea the night sky has usually been overcast or foggy, and I tend to enjoy just standing outside in my backyard stargazing.  When I was a kid I got used to thinking of constellations by their "month", that is the time of year in which they would cross the meridian separating east from west at about 9 pm standard time (or 10 savings time).  For June constellations filling this criterium are Boötes, Corona Borealis, Libra, Ursa Minor, Draco, and Serpens Caput...and several in the celestial southern hemisphere not as visible for me at my latitude.  I think I'll pick one of the aforementioned for this month and write about it around mid-month on a weekend even if the skies never clear up...should be fun since I can tackle the subject from a number of different angles...