Just Finished Reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

An Abundance of Katherines, from 2006, is yet another quirky young adult novel by John Green focused on adolescent self-discovery.  This time the protagonist is Colin Singleton, a very intelligent high school student obsessed with that intelligence...as well as the conundrum of why he has been repeatedly dumped by all his girlfriends: they are 19 in total and all named Katherine.  After Katherine the Nineteenth breaks up with him, Colin decides to develop a mathematical formula, based on his own experiences, for predicting how long a relationship will go...of course, this is preposterous.  Known as the nerdy smart geek in his class, he has but one friend, Hassan, who serves as a reality check for him as well as for those of us who tend to see young Muslims in a negative, even fearful, light. One day Colin and Hassan...with Colin's permissive parents' blessings...set off on a road trip from their hometown of Chicago into Tennessee, where they stop at a hole-in-the-wall town called Gutshot.  There they befriend Lindsey...whose boyfriend is also named Colin...and Lindsey's factory-owning mother Hollis, at whose house they stay.  They are hired by Hollis to interview the locals for an oral history of the area she is compiling.  Colin, assured of his prodigal intelligence, is nonetheless concerned that he will never attain the status of "genius", which in his definition involves producing something new, something that matters.  This reminded me of the movie A Beautiful Mind from four years earlier in which mathematical genius John Nash tells his Princeton roommate Charles essentially the same thing.  The story is funny and easy to follow, and I enjoyed the good-natured verbal sparring between the characters, especially Colin and Hassan.  However, I don't know that this story accurately portrayed the state of adolescence, at least as far my own recollection of this period of my life is concerned.  The kids all seem to be level-headed and reasonable, traits that I noticed were generally lacking in many of my classmates (and in retrospect myself as well)...these are all very strong, self-assured personalities.  Maybe Green deliberately wrote them that way to point out a positive direction for all his young insecure, awkward readers. He has done something like this with his other books I've read: Looking for Alaska and Turtles All the Way Down...click on the titles to read my earlier reviews.  I don't think you can go wrong with An Abundance of Katherines, but be prepared to read through some extreme silliness...

Omicron Covid Variant Reported

Surfing around the TV this morning I hit upon CNN...the big news story there is the Omicron Strain...no it's not a Michael Crichton novel or movie, but the latest mutant Covid-19 variant, apparently arising out of South Africa, where the vaccination rate is low because it's not widely available, unlike here where millions upon millions of people willfully perpetuate the virus by refusing it although the vaccine is convenient, free, safe and effective.  Omicron is definitely more contagious then the other Covid strains and has already spread throughout Europe and is expected to hit the U.S. soon.  But as it is newly discovered, not enough is yet known as to whether it is more virulent than its horrid predecessor, the  Delta variant.  Neither is there yet sufficient information about how effective the current vaccinations are against it: the major companies are engaged in testing as I write this and we should know in a couple of weeks.  In any event it's clear to me that Covid-19 is here to stay, both because of the worldwide vaccine production, distribution and inoculation logistics and because so many of us seem to have decided that they kind of like having this scourge around, as perverse as that may sound... 

Our Recent Visit to Asheville, North Carolina

 

Last month Melissa and I went on vacation to the Carolinas, first in Asheville, North Carolina for a few days and then on to Charleston in the South...I've written about the latter in recent articles.  As for Asheville, we stayed at a hotel on the city's east end, near the Billy Graham Training Center which we visited.  It was a pretty, pastoral setting perfect for retreats...I always felt a special respect for Christian evangelist Billy Graham, whose worldwide ministry rejected partisan and Cold War politics in favor of focusing on spreading the Gospel throughout America and the rest of the world.  He always avoided openly siding with one political party over the other, befriending a long succession of both Republican and Democratic presidents, and even sat with atheist authoritarian rulers like the Soviet Union's Nikita Krushchev and North Korea's Kim Il-sung.  Sadly, one of his sons, Franklin, has plunged himself deeply into fractious, divisive political partisanship, first publicly and repeatedly criticizing President Obama even to the extent of questioning his faith and then unquestioningly siding with Trump during his tenure, even going so far as questioning the 2020 election's outcome...very sad indeed.  But as for the retreat center, I loved it and recommend it for visitors, along with the tours they offer.  That visit we did the second day.  On the third we took the train ride on Great Smoky Mountain Railroads, which starts at Bryson City west of Asheville and goes through the surrounding country, stopping off for lunch at a little town called Dillsboro before returning...that was fun.  While in Asheville we ate a couple of times at an excellent locally-owned eatery on Tunnel Road called East Village Grille and did some grocery shopping at a nearby store called Ingles...I wish this chain were in Gainesville, too.  In our previous visit to this area in 2006 we toured the Biltmore estate south of town and also drove through the Smoky Mountain National Park on to Tennessee, stopping off for a few hours at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge before heading back... but not this time around. We did stop off at the Arts and Crafts Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway about a mile from our hotel, though...I got an excellent 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle there (see photo). I liked Asheville, although when walking around I quickly learned to keep a cautious eye on the ground since there were a lot of steep drop-offs everywhere, something that a flat-lander Floridian like myself isn't accustomed to dealing with...

Quote of the Week...from Sheryl Sandberg

Motivation comes from working on things we care about.                 ---Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg is a billionaire business executive, a key player in Facebook's dramatic rise within American society...you can take that as a compliment or criticism depending on your views about this pervasive company (to which I'm posting a link for this blog article that is hosted by Google...another pervasive company for which she also worked).  Sandberg's above statement at first glance seems so obviously self-evident that you might question why I even bothered to post it.  But in our daily lives there are a lot of different things tugging at our attention and most of them concern areas for which we personally hold little interest but still dutifully invest our time and efforts to deal with them.  I can always get around disinterest in a project by framing it in the context of another project: I don't like certain classes in school, but the "bigger" goal is getting good grades...or taking on tedious or stressful aspects of my job: a strong work ethic and consistency through all areas, interesting or not, are pillars of success.  Still, once I'm away from the classroom and workplace I can see Sandberg's point.  On the other hand, my interest in different things tends to fluctuate pretty dramatically over the course of even a single day, much less over longer spans of time.  So I guess the lesson I draw from this quote is that I need to find stuff I care about 24/7 in order to be motivated about it 24/7...

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody

I wish you all a most happy Thanksgiving.  If you're working today I hope it's because you want to. For the many who traditionally spend it with family, best wishes that everyone shares positive, memorable moments together with lots of good stuff to eat, hopefully not in too much excess.  And if you're one of those who can't wait to go out on shopping sprees later today and tomorrow...well, I'm not quite sure what to say except to stay safe and that I never was into that Black Friday sort of thing.  As for me, my wonderful grown kids are having Thanksgiving dinner at my home with Melissa and me...that's definitely something I am most grateful for, along with the blessings of our health and positive outlook on life...

Weekly Short Stories: 1979 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin looking at science fiction short stories from the year 1979, as they appeared in the anthology The 1980 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and featuring his picks from the previous year.  1979 was a big year in the news as Iran culminated its Islamic revolution early on and later took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, precipitating an international hostage crisis that lasted until the end of the Jimmy Carter administration.  In the same year the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in order to sustain a friendly puppet government there it installed in a coup d'etat the previous year.  Meanwhile, science fiction did well with a number of good stories...here are my reactions to the first three from that book...

THE WAY OF CROSS AND DRAGON by George R.R. Martin

Martin obviously had a hang-up with organized religion, perhaps stemming from his childhood experiences,, for all I know.  In his ongoing fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire he has an intolerant fundamentalist group descend upon the capital city of King's Landing.  Here we have an interstellar group of inquisitors bent on upholding the orthodoxy of the brand of Christianity that has spread throughout the galaxy.  There is a planet that holds to the heresy of Judas being a savior/hero, and the story's inquisitor is assigned to rectify the situation.  He meets a man who revels in being a "Liar", that is he acknowledges the falseness of his Judas preaching as something he entirely made up...yet the revelation places further doubt in the mind of the inquisitor about his own beliefs....

THE THIRTEENTH UTOPIA by Somtow Sucharitcul 

Another (groan) tale about inquisitors and religious intolerance, here we see the enforcer of the orthodox faith with a new assignment regarding his specialty: the sabotage and destruction of societies across the cosmos that have claims to being utopias.  In this one, they seem to have conquered gravity and hold a special reverence toward their sun...the extent of this is revealed at story's end and also shows the author's own possible philosophy...that self-awareness and identity transcend biological life, a very heretical notion in the mind of this story's inquisitor.  But he gets sucked into what they call the "initiation", and is forever changed...

OPTIONS by John Varley 

Off into the future, this time solidly on Earth, gender identities are no longer as solidly differentiated as they were, with a "simple" medical procedure available for the masses that "only" involves creating a near-identical clone body of one's own...albeit in the opposite sex...and then having one's brain and nervous system transplanted into it.  I had to put down the book for a couple of minutes and laugh after reading that! Varley focuses on a married couple with three children and has the wife consider and then undergo a sex-change procedure...he then examines its effect on the husband and family.  A little ahead of its time this story is, although I have a feeling that transplanting brains into cloned bodies isn't going to be in our immediate future. Then again I had no idea a few years ago that people would be walking and standing around everywhere staring at little boxes in their hands...

Next week: more about short science fiction from 1979...

Just Finished Reading Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 history book by John F. Kennedy while he was still a United States senator...it won him the Pulitzer Prize the following year, after which it was revealed that his speechwriter Ted Sorenson wrote the bulk of it.  Regardless who actually put the pen to paper, it was Kennedy who placed his stamp of approval on it, and for the sake of simplicity I'll refer to it as his book.  It is comprised of a set of short biographies of eight men who served over the span of American history as U.S. senators: John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, George Norris, and Robert A. Taft.  Kennedy was careful to spotlight members of differing parties and ideologies...his main thrust of argument was that at crucial points in their Senate careers they made principled decisions that went against the passions of their constituents, ending their political careers or at least delaying their fulfillment (Adams would later become president and then a representative in the House while Lamar would make it to the U.S. Supreme Court).  I don't think this book could (or should) have been written today since some of those profiled were on the pro-slavery side in the nineteenth century, even to the extent of owning slaves themselves.  And there were also a number of historical figures around these eight that the author criticized perhaps a bit unfairly.  Still, I think Profiles in Courage makes a couple of significant points applicable to today's political setting and the Senate in particular.  One, our national legislative bodies operate on the premise that we are a representative republic whose leaders are either directly or indirectly elected by the people...this gives them accountability to the population while acknowledging that they are in a better situation than most of us to get the needed information, expertise, and wisdom for the often difficult decisions that go with their positions. And two, the fact that Kennedy felt the need for this book to highlight just eight senators for their political courage demonstrates that in the vast majority of cases senators and other politicians...when push comes to shove...will usually abandon their principles and succumb to popular prejudices and pressure from their colleagues on important, divisive issues.  You don't have to look around very far today to see this going on with too many of our elected national officials, sadly... 

Dan Mullen Fired from Coaching Florida Gators Football

Back in 2018, when Mississippi State head football coach Dan Mullen was sought and hired to replace erratic Jim McElwain at the University of Florida, trumpets were practically sounding that he was a Spurrier/Meyer-caliber coach that would lead the Gators back to their glory days of Southeastern Conference titles and National Championship contention.  The first two seasons, in which Mullen capitalized on players recruited by his predecessor, were great successes and last year's was as well...until the season's end when UF lost three straight games (although in two of them they were playing for the SEC championship (46-52 against Alabama) and in the Cotton Bowl (20-55 against Oklahoma).  This year their roster reflected Mullen's recruiting efforts for Florida, but it became clear early on that the wide-open passing attack and a fast, aggressive defense that defined the Gators in its recent history would be lacking.  Their games in 2021 were marked by inconsistency from week to week, with the offense and defense alternating between good and awful.  For me, I am more supportive of a head coach being given more time to develop his team, and sometimes the season just doesn't go your way.  But with Dan Mullen, although I give him credit for promoting Covid-19 vaccination recently, I can't get it out of my mind that last fall he, in the middle of a deadly upsurge of the virus in the general population...and no vaccines yet available...advocated that Florida "pack the Swamp [its home stadium]" for a game after losing a close road contest at Texas A&M where the home school practiced lax safety protocols for its own stadium.  Until that moment I had been a supporter of Mullen...afterwards I realized that winning was his only yardstick for success.  Well, you win by your yardstick and in turn lose by your yardstick: his team has lost four out of their last five games and in their only victory over that span they gave up a record 42 points in one half (at home) against a small college.  Running and special teams coach Greg Knox will fill the Florida head coaching vacancy against Florida State this week...if the Gators win then they will be bowl-eligible.  I'm not one of those Florida fans who expect them to compete for the National Championship every year, and sometimes you have years like this one and have to shake it off and move on to the next.  Normally I'd say that the coach should be given more time, but after Mullen's tone-death pandemic denial last season my patience with him was gone long before 2021...

Just Finished Rereading The Shining by Stephen King

The Shining is a 1980 horror novel by Stephen King, one of his big early successes in his long, prolific career as a writer of popular fiction.  I first read it about fifteen years ago, a little before this blog began, so I don't have a review of it...until today, that is.  I was prompted to pick it up again after reading King's latest novel Billy Summers, which mentions the earlier novel's central Overlook Hotel and its topiary of shrubs shaped to look like real animals.  Now I've finished reading The Shining...and have a few things to say about it.  It is about a family of three, the Torrances: Jack, the father, is an alcoholic writer/teacher with a short, violent temper that has stood him poorly in recent times, and Wendy, his beautiful wife, tends to see him as a troubled man and a danger to their five-year old son Danny.  Danny has the special gift of "shining", that is to read others' thoughts and see into the future.  Jack is giving winter employment by his old reformed drinking buddy as caretaker of Colorado's Overlook Hotel and he takes his family with him for the bleak, snowed-in months.  Danny is warned by his "imaginary" friend about the hotel's dangers and befriends the chef Dick Halloran, who is psychically sensitive as well and quickly picks up on the boy's talents.  Halloran is leaving for Florida for the winter, but tells Danny he'll come back if called.  Although on the wagon for several months, Jack finds himself craving alcohol...but the hotel is bone-dry, or is it?  The Overlook seems to have a mind of its own and sees in Danny the means to bring itself power and presence...it intends to use Jack and his addiction to that end.  The rest of the story spirals into a mix of ghosts, violence, and soul possession as the three struggle to survive their experience in this clearly-haunted establishment.  Like several of Stephen King's earlier stories, The Shining deals with demonic forces that invade and possess people...in this sense his writing mirrors the attitudes of many religious people who see demons and evil spirits all around themselves while interpreting others' perceived wayward behavior in terms of demonic possession.  Also, as in the case with many of his works around this time, the narrative often slips into stream-of-consciousness mode...I don't notice this literary device used nearly as much in King's more recent novels.  When I first read The Shining, I misinterpreted the book's ending as to what happened to Jack Torrance...this time around I saw it all in a much different light.  As to the Jack Nicholson movie adaptation, what I saw of it diverged too much from the book, with Nicholson as Jack and Shelley Duvall as Wendy, both roles seriously miscast.  Finally, one message I received from this intriguing story is that people have a tendency to think they are in control and masters of their own lives' destinies while in reality they are often pawns manipulated by forces unseen and beyond their control: welcome to the universe of Stephen King.  Doctor Sleep is a 2013 sequel novel to The Shining, with Danny Torrance grown up and suffering from the same weakness to alcohol as did his father...and having to contend with creatures that prey upon psychics...

Recent Visit to Charleston Harbor and Downtown

 

During our brief visit to Charleston, South Carolina last month, Melissa and I decided to explore its famous harbor and downtown.  We went on a tour boat and were treated to various historical and geographic aspects of the area, including Fort Sumter (see bottom picture), the site of the start of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861.  The U.S.S. Yorktown...not the famous aircraft carrier of the Battle of Midway fame (it sank in the Pacific)...but the new ship commissioned to replace it in 1943...is also in Charleston Harbor on the eastern Mount Pleasant side.  Both Ft. Sumter and the Yorktown have tours, but we were pressed for time and let the harbor ride work for us.  Afterwards we walked the streets of downtown Charleston.  The sidewalks around the harbor and immediate surroundings were often blocked by construction and barricades, but once we got further south and west to Market Street, things became easier.  All along Market Street are long brick buildings that provide a flea-market type of people's marketplace (2nd photo from the top).  We turned south at Church Street, on which is located St. Philip's Church...its steeple makes it the tallest in the city, which has prohibited any building from being taller than it.  Down the road on the right side is a special coffee shop, Bitty and Beau's, a chain with 23 stores (one to open soon in Jacksonville) that distinguishes itself by employing those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  When we got there the store was about to close, but I managed to get a decaffeinated caffè americano to go...click HERE for the company's website.  Eventually we looped around on our downtown walk and made it toward the garage where we were parked...on the way we were passed by horse-drawn carriages, one of which was followed by a car whose business specializes in cleaning the streets of horse poop.  At the end of our walk we cut through the beautiful Gaillard Center to get to our parking garage.  I would have preferred a little more time to explore the area...I was disappointed that the Slave Market Museum had just closed when we passed by.  Still, I'm glad we visited...maybe at a future time we'll get to explore a little more deeply, and maybe even sit a spell at Bitty and Beau's...

Quote of the Week...from Winston Churchill

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

                                                                            ---Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was perhaps the most famous British prime minister in history, presiding first over the course of World War II and later in the early-to-mid 1950s...let's just assume for the sake of argument that his above derisive quote about the "average voter" was only directed at his own fellow countrymen.  Still, I have issues of my own about American voters...or those from any country where people can freely vote for their leaders, for that matter.  In the election my city of Gainesville just held this past Tuesday, there was a vote turnout of 13%,  meaning that 87% of fully registered voters chose not to participate in the election of one of our city commissioners.  The election, among five candidates, was split evenly enough between the top two finishers so that no one received a majority of votes and the runoff will be held January 25th.  In this digital information age it is only too easy to just speak into the Google search engine and all kinds of sources of candidates' records and viewpoints can be found...but only 13% voted.  And during a time when all I hear is how voting is being suppressed.  I know enough about how people who do vote will make their voting choices according to asinine reasons like how their friends and family voted, the symbols the candidates embrace, innuendos, mudslinging...and the like: anything but how, once elected, the officials will affect their lives and futures by their actions on relevant issues.  Add to this the numerous crank news sources, hack media ideologues and conspiracy theories that too many in our Internet and mass media age have embraced to formulate their political orientation.  Finally, there is always the wishy-washy last-minute undecided voter who will hinge their vote on some sensational news story planted just before the election.  But at least these people are taking the responsible action of casting a ballot...I think I'd modify Churchill's quote to read "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average registered voter"...   

Constellation of the Month: Cetus (the Sea Monster)

 

Cetus is a large autumn evening constellation, nearly all of it lying south of the celestial equator, just south of the faint Zodiac constellation Pisces.  The stars in Cetus tend to be brighter than some of those constellations surrounding it, although that's not saying much.  To me the standout star is Beta Ceti, better known as Deneb Kaitos, situated at Cetus' southwest corner at magnitude 2.04, a clear marker in the night sky, especially in juxtaposition to its dim setting.  Mira is a noted variable star whose magnitude dramatically and periodically changes from easily-visible 3 all the way to 10, only viewable through telescopes.  There's a Messier object, M77, on the constellation's northeastern end...it is a spiral galaxy some 50 million light-years distant.  Cetus represents the sea monster that mythical Greek heroic character Perseus had to battle.  Its nearby constellations in the fall sky are elements of Perseus' story: Pegasus, Perseus himself, Andromeda and Cassiopeia.  Sometimes Cetus is referred to as a whale, and Curious George creator H.A. Rey's redrawn constellations from his children's book Find the Constellations (which I used to check out a lot as a kid) depict it that way.  Next month I'll discuss a constellation from December's evening sky...

Weekly Short Stories: 1978 Science Fiction, Part 4

With today's article I reach the final three science fiction short stories from 1978, as presented in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1979 Annual World's Best SF...providing the editor's selections from the previous year.  If you know me well, then you might have noticed that I have a propensity to memorize long lists of things of diverse topics...this was the year that all that got started.  I haven't written very much on this blog about that aspect of myself since for some reason I feel it's a bit personal, but since this IS a record of my thinking for the general world's reading pleasure and "enlightenment", I might just share some of my experiences with lists in future articles.  For now, here are my reviews of those last three stories....

WE WHO STOLE THE DREAM by James Tiptree, Jr.

Told from the point of view of the aliens, a humanoid race is oppressed on a distant planet by colonizing humans, but they have over the years furtively and meticulously plotted their escape by commandeering a human spaceship. They also are aware of the existence of their own kind living on the other side of the galaxy and set out to meet them...the resulting encounter sadly reveals the author's position that human nature can transcend even humanity...

SCATTERSHOT by Greg Bear

An alien enemy has hit an Earth spaceship with a device that explodes it through many dimensions. The only known survivor, a woman named Francis Geneva, explores the resulting strange new conglomerate ship with different survivors of the same attack in other dimensions.  Now to get everyone...and they're quite different from one another...back to where (and when) they belong.  A mind-stretching but ultimately frustrating story with its numerous demands on the reader's ability to imagine the author's strange new world with its strange new creatures and rules about time and space...

CARRUTHERS' LAST STAND by Dan Henderson

Carruthers is an anthropologist selected to initiate meaningful communications with a lizard-like alien race 500 light years distant.  He's stationed on the moon, delighting in times when he, pretty much a loner, can get away from the annoying bureaucrats pressuring him with their agendas.  Technologically-generated psychic contact is made between Carruthers and Hun, his alien counterpart. According to the social norms of Hun's world, the two have to constantly exchange colorful insults (very funny), and new technologies are subsequently revealed to humanity.  But joy turns to fear as the Earth bigshots are now worried that they could be attacked by the others.  Carruthers, though, has learned something he realizes he'd better keep from his superiors.  The story's a bit murky toward the end, but redeemed by the ending...

Next week I begin my examination of short science fiction from the year 1979...

As I Age, Medical Interactions Increase

For the most part...until the last decade or so...I have lived my life relatively free of doctors, medications, hospitals and "procedures".  Never having suffered a serious enough illness or injury...not even a single broken bone...to be hospitalized other than inguinal hernia surgery in 1973 when I was 17, I tended to avoid anything resembling the medical establishment. After getting married I finally got around to visiting the doctor from time to time, but always breathed a sigh of relief when exiting the office.  But in late 2011, after visiting an after-hours clinic because of a sinus infection, the attending physician detected a heart murmur and strongly recommended I see my regular doctor about it. She in turn had me examined and it was discovered that not only did I have an aortic aneurism, but that I had a serious birth defect: a bicuspid (instead of the normal tricuspid) heart valve that was responsible over the years for the swollen aorta.  From 2012 through 2021 I underwent annual exams with a UF Health specialist surgeon to see if the aneurism had expanded: beyond a specified threshold he would recommend surgery. But the aneurism remained the same size even at the last exam this past April...still my physician decided I needed to undergo the surgery because my valve had a worsening calcium buildup.  On July 15 I underwent open heart surgery to replace the valve and repair the aneurism...successfully done although there was the complication of atrial fibrillation based on my heart's initial reaction to the operation. This was resolved with the Cardioversion procedure just before I was discharged from the hospital.  Recovery lasted several weeks, primarily to allow my sternum, sawed apart to allow access to my heart for the operation, to fuse back together..as well as strengthening my body, especially the upper part.  Still, at this point with me back at work for more than a month and exercising to the point of running at pretty much my pre-operational level (but more slowly), I am now entrenched in the medical system with two cardiologists, a thoracic surgeon, a gastroenterologist, potentially a urologist, and of course my primary physician, their office and examination appointments strung out into the future.  Besides issues related to my heart concerning continuing recovery and maintenance, there are three areas of my health/body unrelated to what I just went through that have to be addressed...groan!  I suppose this sort of thing just naturally happens when one gets to my age (65)...all kinds of screenings are recommended, usually to detect cancer in different parts of the body.  Well, I think I'm long finished with the part of my life when I avoided doctors and hospitals and pretty much freelanced it with my personal health.  The trick now is not to succumb to the temptation to "self-enfeeble" because of doctors' overactive concerns, while at the same time following the gist of their advice and availing myself of their prescriptions and procedures. I have a very strong instinct that a physically active lifestyle, to which I am accustomed, is important to both physical and mental health, regardless of my age, and I don't have any intention of fearfully tiptoeing through the remainder of my life...

Our Visit to the Charleston Tea Plantation (Garden) Last Month

On this past October 25th, the morning after driving in to Charleston, South Carolina from Asheville, North Carolina, Melissa and I decided to go west and explore two of the area's features: the Angel Oak Tree on John's Island (click HERE for my article) and the Charleston Tea Plantation, which seems to be in the process of being renamed Charleston Tea Garden most likely because "plantation" carries with it connotations of slavery.  In any event, we managed to get past the morning precipitation by the time we arrived there, beyond the aforementioned Tree and onto sparsely populated Wadmalaw Island.  The first thing you notice driving into the place are the rows upon rows of shortly and very evenly-cropped hedges of tea plants.  This is because the choice leaves are cut from branches grown past a certain height by a custom-designed harvester they call the Green Giant (which is in the above pics)...this machine drastically cuts down on the labor formerly needed to tend and harvest the plants.  We parked and went inside, just in time to go on their trolley tour around the farm, with the driver and a recorded tour guide giving out probably more information about tea farming history and its cultivation than I needed to know.  When we got back to the main gift shop area we sampled some of their teas, browsed around, and then went into the back on a walking tour of the facility's tea processing machines.  I hadn't been aware that different kinds of tea didn't necessarily grow on different types of tea plants, but were rather the products of different stages in processing.   At the end, we naturally bought some of their teas and left with a sense of tranquility from our visit...everyone there was friendly and obviously enjoyed their work.  During the tour it was claimed that this is the only substantial tea farm in the continental U.S. and that the site was selected because of the soil quality here as well as the location in a wet lowland area at this latitude.  Bigelow Tea Company now owns it...I enjoyed the experience but most definitely would have enjoyed it more if it were instead about my preferred drink, coffee...

Election for Gainesville City Commission At-Large Seat This Tuesday 11/16

This Tuesday, November 16 the Gainesville City Commission is holding its election to replace Gail Johnson for the At-Large Seat B, from which she resigned a few months ago.  Residents of Gainesville have the opportunity today (until 6 pm) to vote early, either at the Millhopper Library on NW 43rd Street or the Supervisor of Elections office on NW Main.  Both Melissa and I voted by mail-in ballot a few days ago.  I know this election is not for the presidency and has just a one item on the ballot, but I suggest that this is the perfect opportunity for anyone to get started with the self-discipline of consistent, informed voting.  I am sick and tired of people in my party (Democrats) complaining that the other side is robbing them of the right to vote when they themselves won't avail themselves of this right (which I regard as more of a RESPONSIBILITY)...after all, the previous commissioner, Gail Johnson, won with only an 11% voter turnout in this predominantly Democratic city. If you're perplexed as to why so many "blue" states have Republican majorities in their legislatures and even some Republican governors, the answer is partly due to the fact that conservative voters tend to display that self-discipline when those off-year elections come around while too many Democrats seem to be of the mindset that once a president in their own party is elected then that settles everything for the next four years...folks, that ain't how it works.  In Clinton's second year, 1994, and Obama's in 2010, Democratic voters sat on their hands and allowed the Republicans to win back the House of Representatives in Obama's case and both houses of Congress in Clinton's.  And in 2014, two years after Obama had been reelected, they stayed away from the polls again and let Mitch McConnell's party take control of the U.S. Senate, thereby enabling the new Senate Majority Leader to steal a Supreme Court seat by refusing to consider the duly-elected president's nominee, Merrick Garland.  But sadly, I expect more of the same ignorant complacency from my party in 2022...if there's anything I've learned over the past few years it's how precarious of a situation I am in with this "representative democracy" of ours, considering the gullibility and foolishness of much of the electorate: sometimes it feels like I'm on a runaway train with no one at the controls...

Just Watched the Movie Hamilton

Hamilton is a 2020 movie of the same-titled Broadway musical, filmed at its Richard Rogers Theatre on 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan, just a block or so from where I stayed at the Marriott Marquis while visiting with my family in 2010.  At that time we saw the Broadway production of South Pacific at the Lincoln Center...today it was Melissa, Will and I sitting in our living room watching my second Broadway play on our television screen, thanks to Disney Plus which carried it in their listings.  The first few minutes quickly knocked me off my feet with the diverse cast and fast-paced rap, music and action...at first I had to ask if this show was about the same Alexander Hamilton I knew from studying American history.  An immigrant from the Caribbean West Indies, Hamilton was a patriot during the American Revolutionary War and served under General George Washington, a role which would later lead to his appointment as the first president's Secretary of the Treasury.  Along the way he got to know others like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Aaron Burr...the Broadway play makes his relationship with Burr much more extensive than it apparently was in real life.  Those at all familiar with the real Hamilton know of the tragic end of his life, but I felt the show did an admirable job of presenting it and the aftermath...well, the ending was a real tearjerker!  It's a pretty long film at 2 hours and 40 minutes, so plan in advance some free time to watch it.  I felt that the music was incredible, and may be the first time ever that I had experienced rap on such a high artistic level...amazing.  Later on I read up on Hamilton and found the the Broadway play, which debuted in 2015 and won numerous awards, was not only coproduced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who portrayed Alexander Hamilton, but he also wrote it and composed its music and lyrics: what an incredible, daunting accomplishment!  All of the acting was fantastic, but I especially appreciated that of Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr.  If you're interested in history, then I would suggest this movie as a point of departure and not the final word on what really transpired.  I would rather have been there in person to see Hamilton performed live on stage, but still feel very privileged to have been able to experience this beautiful work of art even if only at home on a wide flat-screen TV.  Why not try it out for yourself?

Quote of the Week...from Alex Roe

Everyone deals with grief in their own way.                         ---Alex Roe

A couple of days ago, while in the midst of my own health issues, I was informed within the span of 24 hours that four dear, sweet people whom I personally knew had passed away. I would be saddened by any of these deaths, but four at one time?  And there are others in my life who are undergoing their own personal health crises right now...I'm not sure I'm liking this new trend, if trend is what it really is instead of an aberration. But as George Harrison titled his landmark 1970 album, all things must pass, and I knew a long time ago that all living beings will indeed pass from this world, including eventually all my loved ones and even myself. Still, knowing this doesn't make it hurt any less when it happens, especially at this level.  By the way, I picked the above quote by Alex Roe although I've yet to see any movie or show this young actor has been involved with...but he was right on target with his statement...

Just Finished Reading Billy Summers by Stephen King

In my reading I tend to use my public library system and check out the books.  With new releases from popular authors, this can take a while, though, and I had to wait several weeks before Stephen King's latest novel, Billy Summers, was available because of the large backlog of holds on it.  I was able to obtain it as an audiobook and read it while at work.  Billy Summers, naturally, is the story's protagonist and would fit the classification of an "antihero", that is someone who compels the reader's sympathy and loyalty but who is also involved in illegal or antisocial activity...you know, someone like Bonnie and Clyde, the Godfather or numerous characters Clint Eastwood has portrayed.  In Billy's case it's that he is a professional hitman, albeit one who only kills people he knows are bad...those hiring him are aware of this precondition and take care to let him know the full depravity of his next target.  He is met and driven to a mobster figure he's known and worked with to get his next assignment: another hitman, arrested on unrelated charges and who is threatening to turn state's evidence on some very important people.  They in turn want this dude vanquished before he can spill the beans, and so here's Billy Summers to solve the problem.  Convinced that the hitman is bad, Billy accepts the assignment and the story progresses from there, with him living for several months among others in a lower-middle class neighborhood and getting to know them more than he had intended.  There is a specific moment when Billy, whose value in the "trade" derives from his sharpshooting expertise at sniping, has to be at a certain window trained on a specific spot below.  That's all well and fine, but Billy...who has pretended to be a lot dumber than he really is...can put the pieces together and realizes that whoever put out the hit on the hitman would most likely want him eliminated as well to cover up the trail.  So he develops an elaborate escape plan involving a secret identity...how it all works out is something that you, the potential reader of this fine story, will have to discover for yourself.  I will say that King splits his narrative into two main sections: the ongoing hit job Billy is tackling and his earlier life, progressing from childhood through his military experiences in Iraq...and particularly "La-La-Fallujah"...as a sniper.  In the novel's second half the reader discovers that this story is a part of Stephen King's fictional universe as his earlier novel The Shining is indirectly referenced through the Overlook Hotel's burnt remains and another eerie phenomenon...I like King's propensity for doing this kind of thing.  And the novel's ending had a peculiar little twist to it, making the reader first think that it is going in one direction until the story's real conclusion is revealed.  I liked Billy Summers a lot and recommend it...Stephen King is my favorite author and this book just reinforces that sentiment...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1978 Science Fiction, Part 3

Today I examine three more science fiction short stories as they appeared in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1979 Annual World's Best SF, presenting the editor's choice of his favorites from 1978.  I was 21-22 at the time, struggling with difficult college classes and suffering from an overwhelming feeling of social alienation.  Nonetheless, I feel it was a time of personal growth and maturity, preparing me for what was to come in my life.  But enough of me, here are my reactions to those stories...

IN ALIEN FLESH by Gregory Benford

On a largely oceanic planet orbiting Zeta Reticuli dwells a huge, whale-like creature called the Drongheda.  It emits enormous quantities of mathematical images and insights, and a three-man expedition is there is record them...but first they have to enter the creature through a small opening.  Reginri, the protagonist, is reluctant for the mission but has been shamed into it by the other two, who had gone on earlier ones.  This time he experiences first-hand the flood of vivid imagery that the Drongheda produces, and it overwhelms him...it's not all mathematical after all.  The story begins with Reginri recovering on a neighboring planet with his wife and recalling it all...the ending reveals something about both the Drongheda's transmissions and human nature...

SQ by Ursula K. Le Guin

In this brief story society has "evolved" to the point where everyone has to undergo a examination to determine their sanity quotient, hence the title.  Before too long, the world's population becomes divided between the insane and the rest...and since there are so many crazies, then the sane remaining population is enlisted for the vast staff needed to care for them.  This leads to fewer and fewer people left to actually run the economy and provide for the rest.  This is obviously a clear case of literary satire and I got the message pretty much after the first page or two...

THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION by John Varley

Set about ten years ahead of the story's writing, Varley presents a world that has undergone at least one catastrophic nuclear disaster (in the Kansas area) and which has a violently fluctuating economy...it's on the downside now, late in the 1980s.  The protagonist, laid off from his financial urban job, has decided to hitchhike and experience the many communes of the American southwest.  He finally arrives at a stone wall-ringed establishment that is populated by deaf and mute people...these are the ones who were born that way to parents afflicted by the measles outbreak in 1964.  The story goes on to describe the commune's history, the protagonist's experiences in trying to communicate with them and assimilate, and where seeing and hearing children stand in relation to their parents in that peculiar society, where taboos are necessarily dispensed with and touching on many levels is developed to a level far transcending "normal" human communication.  The ending was intriguing and reminded me a little of my all-time favorite science fiction short story: Lewis Padgett's Mimsy Were the Borogoves from 1942...

Next week I finish my look at short science fiction from 1978...