My Favorite Songs of 2021 As I Lived Through It

Below is my top ten list of favorite songs from 2021 as I have lived through it.  Each entry lists the song's title, artist, and year of release.  It shouldn't take long to notice that nine of them are from earlier years...I just don't listen to broadcast radio with their present-day song rotations except for Gainesville's alternative rock station WHHZ/100.5 (which accounts for #6).  Five of the ten songs on the list I heard listening to the Music Choice Soundscapes channel on my Cox Cable TV service...they're all instrumental pieces, including the piano masterpiece standing at #1.  As for The New Pornographers, I wish they'd named themselves differently...it's tough telling folks that this is one of my favorite bands.  Regarding Twenty One Pilots, I think The Outside is my current favorite song and predict it will feature prominently on my list of 2022's favorites.  But for 2021, Lady's Grace is a spectacular piano piece with an enchanting flute accompaniment.  Whiteout Conditions is a brilliant description of someone struggling daily with depression...I've experienced it as well.  Palomatronics is an Eastern, Indian-sounding mood piece that reminded me both of some of George Harrison's sitar-based Beatles works and the eerie beginning and conclusion to the Doors' monumentally disturbing-but-beautiful 1967 song The End.  You can hear all these songs on YouTube...why not give them a listen?  As I usually do when suggesting this, I recommend you listen to the original studio recordings and not concert renditions....

1 LADY'S GRACE...Kerani (2015)

2 WHITEOUT CONDITIONS...The New Pornographers (2017)

3 PALOMATRONICS...Green Isac (2014)

4 PLAY MONEY...The New Pornographers (2017)

5 LADY LABYRINTH...Ludovico Einaudi (2009)

6 THE OUTSIDE...Twenty One Pilots (2021)

7 PILLS...St. Vincent (2017)

8 NIGHT...Ludovico Einaudi (2015)

9 SVANIRE...Angèle Dubeau (2015)

10 ILLEGAL FIREWORKS AND HIDING BOTTLES IN THE SAND...Jeff Rosenstock (2020)

Weekly Short Stories: 1980 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here are my reviews of three more 1980 science fiction short stories as they appear in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1981 Annual World's Best SF, featuring the editor's picks from the preceding year.  1980 was a rough time for our country, with the Iranian hostage drama dragging throughout the year, relations with the USSR turning icy cold, and the economy tanking at year's end. But saddest of all, in the evening of December 8th, just as I was rejoicing at the Miami Dolphins beating the New England Patriots with a closing field goal, I received the news that John Lennon had been shot and killed at his Dakota Apartments residence in Manhattan...the murderer was a deranged stalker whose name does not merit mention.  Lennon was enjoying accolades from his recently released Double Fantasy comeback album, on which he split the tracks evenly with his wife Yoko Ono...Watching the Wheels was my favorite track from it.  But back to the stories... 

ELBOW ROOM by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Set off in the future at the entrance (or exit, depending on your point of view) of a vortex...corresponding to our notion of a wormhole...a very introverted young woman is stationed there as a manual backup to the automated computer system processing spaceships going through it to and from distant points.  Isolated from her crew, she begins to wonder if they're really there at all or rather just computer projections.  I can relate to her introversion, but not to her sense of reality unraveling with such an extended period of isolation. I think I would come out of it all just fine, thank you...

THE UGLY CHICKENS by Howard Waldrop

This is a "what if" tale about the extinction of the dodo bird, native to Mauritius and neighboring Indian Ocean islands but soon killed off by colonizing Dutch and French by the mid-1700s.  The narrator has discovered a trail leading to a rural northern Mississippi farm...could there have been real dodos there, and if so what happened to them?  The scene at the end depicting the dodos' fate is one of the more vivid, unforgettable ones in my own reading history, but probably not all that far removed from what happened to other extinct species, notably the passenger pigeon...

PRIME TIME by Norman Spinrad

This is a disturbing story about virtual living.  People can buy their own personal movies and experience them first-hand, going through adventures, parties, history, even orgies if so desired...the real world has become a throwaway, trivial existence.  A married couple is mired in this vicarious lifestyle, but the husband has reached the breaking point, his efforts to reach his complacent wife in vain.  Sad, but I fear we're miring ourselves more and more in fake life as we depend more and more on social and mass media for our reference points and less and less on what and who are actually all around us.  Unlike the couple in this future dystopia, though, we can still step outside our artificial constructions and experience the world as it truly is...go ahead, finish reading this article, and then turn off that smartphone or computer! 

Next week: more about science fiction short stories from 1980...

Paul McCartney's Erroneous Assumptions in the Get Back Movie

As I continue to watch...a few minutes at a time...the Beatles' Get Back movie that Peter Jackson coproduced and is airing on the Disney Plus streaming channel, I've reached a scene in which the four are sitting in a rough circle in their makeshift studio along with various staff.  They're just throwing out thoughts to one another, but it's clear that Paul McCartney has taken center stage as he prattles on about how, since manager Brian Epstein's death in 1967, the band has been leaderless and without discipline.  McCartney here seems to think his bandmates are unmotivated and wants to whip them back into shape...but openly disclaims the role of leader in doing so. Finally, one of the staffers suggests the band go back to playing their music, which is why they came here in the first place.  So they work on the later Abbey Road track Maxwell's Silver Hammer, not exactly one of my favorite Beatles songs..I think I would have preferred they continue talking instead...

The notion that the Beatles...and presumably other acts of this time in the late 1960s...felt that they were under constant pressure to record a new album at least twice a year stands out to me in 2021 when my current favorite recording artist, Regina Spektor, hasn't come out with a studio album for six years and running and others in our era space out their releases similarly. McCartney was also railing that in the previous year, '68, the Beatles weren't as coherent a band as before, with the different members essentially writing and recording their own songs apart from the others...using their bandmates strictly as accompaniment without collaborative feedback and bringing in outside musicians.  Hindsight is very convenient, I recognize, but looking back on their emerging domestic lives and distractions at that time, the very things that McCartney was criticizing in this discussion...if implemented regularly...might have kept the band together for much longer instead of their dissolution just a few months later.  John, Paul, George...and even Ringo...could have put out their own solo albums at their own convenience while at the same time coming up with material that could be used for upcoming Beatles albums...which would be recorded every two or three years using the 1968 so-called White Album as a model without the bandmates getting on each others' nerves too much.  Everybody'd be happy with the band remaining intact, especially the fans although a few would be miffed...like me about Regina Spektor's few-and-far-between albums. And if Paul, George or Ringo wanted to go on tour while John didn't, then those three could still do so while promoting their solo albums...which is what happened anyway but with the Beatles split up. Ain't hindsight wonderful?

Rob Dial's Five Keys to Have More Energy Podcast

Rob Dial is a young entrepreneur and motivational coach who has a regular free 20-minute podcast called The Mindset Mentor, in which he lays out different ways the listener can change his or her life to the better...as you might have guessed, mindset is everything.  His show three weeks ago centered around what he considers five important areas in which your energy level can be enhanced (or hindered if you ignore them): the music you listen to, the people you surround yourself with, the information sources you use, the food you consume, and whether (or not) you "force motion", i.e. deliberately maintain a state of physical activity.  Now with music, most of us have our different individual tastes...Dial stresses that we should focus on music with uplifting moods and lyrics.  With people, he divides the human race into "batteries" (energy enhancers) and "black holes" (energy drainers)...like with music, people who emit positives vibes are the ones to hang with.  As for information, once again Dial stresses sources that give empowering news...he doesn't like to tune in to the standard newscasts since they're usually so negative.  With food, it's clear that unhealthful diets loaded with sugar, salt and fat will keep the fatigue level high, as will excessive dependence on mind-altering chemicals such as alcohol.  And his idea of "forced motion" promotes not only regular exercise but also a state of mind that emphasizes activity...walking and standing over sitting whenever the choice is available, for example.  As for my reactions to these five areas Rob Dial emphasizes, I'm in general agreement while differing on some specific points.  With music, I love beautiful hymns, instrumental classical music, and light ambient pieces...but I also like some pretty heavy, harsh-sounding hard rock stuff as well, and the lyrics can sometimes be a bit brutal.  With people I agree that it's important to have positive, supportive folks around while also recognizing that for some other souls who may be missing out on that positive mindset, I may be in a position to play a supportive role in their lives...in other words, spread the faith. With information, I don't think I should just sit there for hours ingesting bad news off the cable news channels, but on the other hand I'd be deliberately delusional if I only cherry-picked news sources that omitted true-but-unpleasant important information.  I don't exactly know of Rob Dial's dietary practices, but I can't think of anything I disagree with what he says about ingesting good vs. harmful substances...except that for some reason he's a big advocate of nicotine (the chemical, not tobacco).  But I'm completely on board with his notion of "forced motion" and have practiced that principle long before I ever tuned in to this podcast.  So in summary I'm generally in agreement with Dial's five principles of energy, with a few caveats.  Oh, at the end of his presentation he mentioned that as a sixth energy source he sometimes likes to immerse himself in 45-degree (Fahrenheit) water...no thanks, dude...

New Omicron Covid-19 Outbreak

Amid reports that COVID-19 cases are spiking, both in seasonal terms and due to the rise of the highly contagious Omicron variant, I'm getting two diametrically opposed narratives from the media.  One is that hospitals are filling up and we're entering another period of sickness and death through mass infection, with the voluntarily unvaccinated suffering the worst effects of the disease...just as it happened this past summer with the Delta variant.  The other narrative states that we're over Covid and are returning to our pre-pandemic lifestyles.  And then there is the third narrative: yes, here comes a new sweep of the virus through our population, both vaccinated and unvaccinated...but that this will bring about the "herd immunity" that had been the distant dream of just about everyone.  Not being an expert in the field, I have to react to all this noise by staying current on my Covid-19 vaccines (the first two Pfizer shots and the later booster) and avoid mass assemblies.  My mask usage had gone down, but with this flu season and the Covid resurgence I intend to go back to earlier adherence.  The reason is not to protect myself...I have the flu shot as well...but to protect those around me who for whatever rational or irrational reason have refused the Covid-19 vaccination, in spite of the fact that it's free, safe, effective, and convenient.  I wonder whether we'll start seeing shutdowns and event cancellations if the Omicron outbreak is as strong early in 2022 as some suggest.  I suppose the most bizarre thing I take from the media is how pandemic denial and the anti-vaccination movement has become a conservative political cause, with former president Trump even being criticized by his own fans for supporting vaccination...are you kidding me?

Merry Christmas to All

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a joyous holiday season in this month that also features Chanukah and Kwanzaa.  Besides celebrating the birth of Jesus, Christmas also marks the close to another calendar year. It seems that too much serious and somber stuff has happened to me, my colleagues, and loved ones in 2021...more than perhaps any single year I can remember, even including 2020.  I think I could stand a more light-hearted, fun year for 2022, how about you?  Season's greetings...

Quote of the Week...from John Lennon

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.                  ---John Lennon

Unforeseen circumstances are commonplace, even after the most elaborate plans have been made...the Beatles great John Lennon tersely and accurately spelled it out.  That doesn't mean that life shouldn't have a structure to it since things don't turn out as anticipated...when that happens you either go back to the plan or use the new information to set up new ones.  There is a continual dance in our lives between chaos and order...the former must be recognized while the latter is emphasized, a kind of duality, one element of which describes the world in general and the other our subjective being and proactive role in it.  Seeing in advance how overly-specific plans can fall apart, I've tended of late to make my plans based on my own behavior and routines...with options to participate in certain future events instead of hinging everything on that participation.  For example, I like to run and train a number of miles daily.  There are certain local races I want to run in, including a half-marathon planned for February 2022.  I "plan" to enter it, but I also recognize the current fidgety social climate about the ongoing Covid-19 resurgence with the Omicron variant and how different parties are reacting to it, some canceling or postponing their public events.  That's "life happening", but it doesn't affect my more primary plan of daily running with occasional long runs...race or no race.  Besides, even if it goes as planned I could still have a sore foot or feel under the weather on race day...or it could be stormy outside: that's life, and it tends to be chaotic.  Still, plans are good guides and worthwhile to make and execute...    

Just Finished Reading The Ten Equations That Rule the World by David Sumpter

David Sumpter is a professor of mathematics at a Sweden's Uppsala University, born and raised in Great Britain. His The Ten Equations That Rule the World, from 2020, is about the secret society of TEN, a loose group over the course of modern history comprised of mathematicians and those who have capitalized on ten fundamental formulas that describe aspects of our world and social organization. Sumpter goes chapter by chapter in laying out each equation, its history, and applications while inevitably slipping into rather technical mathematics. Still, he always returns to straightforward nontechnical prose illustrating principles that even those not inclined toward mathematics can understand and use to analyze the world around themselves and draw some benefit. If you're not well-versed in mathematics...and I certainly fit the bill here...you may feel a little lost in some parts of this book. But I'm confident that you'll come away from the reading experience with a greater respect for how things work and how to assess one's situation in diverse settings more reasonably and accurately. I wrote out the ten equations in the above picture...below are their corresponding names... 

1 JUDGMENT EQUATION (Baye's Rule)

2 BETTING EQUATION (Logistic Regression)

3 CONFIDENCE EQUATION (Confidence Intervals)

4 SKILL EQUATION (Markov Assumption)

5 INFLUENCER EQUATION (Stationary Distribution)

6 MARKET EQUATION (Stochastic Differential Equations)

7 ADVERTISING EQUATION (Correlations)

8 REWARD EQUATION

9 LEARNING EQUATION

10 UNIVERSAL EQUATION

Weekly Short Stories: 1980 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin my look at science fiction short stories from 1980, as presented in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1981 Annual World's Best SF, featuring the editor's picks from the previous year.  1980 was marked by two major ongoing news stories: the 1980 presidential election and the Iranian hostage crisis.  I remember living at La Mancha Apartments back then, about three blocks from the University of Florida campus. Just before the contentious Florida Primary between Ronald Reagan and then-surging George Bush, Bush's son Neil gave a speech for his father at nearby Norman Hall.  Putting down "Voodoo Economics" and the former California governor's politics in general, Neil did a pretty good job...but his dad lost the pivotal primary anyway and Reagan rode a surge of disaffection about the hostages and slumping economy to an easy November victory while picking his former primary opponent as his running mate.  But back to those stories...here are my reactions to the first two...

VARIATION ON A THEME FROM BEETHOVEN by Sharon Webb

Humanity, through its advances in medical science in a future era, has conquered disease and aging, giving people their cherished dream of immortality.  One catch, though: without the pressure of eventual death, the arts have suffered.  The remedy is to take a tiny portion of the population from birth and take away the immortality treatments, allowing those few chosen to excel in their chosen field.  A boy is selected and taken to a rural location where he can grow in music, with the company of others selected for their talents.  They are given the option, though, at a certain time of deciding to return to immortality if they so with...the boy decides against what I would do, given the recent number of people I know who have died recently...

BEATNIK BAYOU by John Varley

Humanity has been exiled from Earth after an alien invasion...for generations the small remnant live within the moon, and their science has advanced tremendously, allowing for people to change their own sexes on whims...as well as their biological age...while living very long life spans.  In this setting a young teenage boy receives his education through teachers who live alongside him, chronologically much older but whose bodies have been regressed to his level.  This story plays a lot with your mind and what it means to be an individual with a specific identity.  H-m-m, maybe life under the aliens wouldn't be so bad after I read about the moon society's capital punishment for what we would consider as minor crimes...

Next week: more about 1980 science fiction short stories...

Just Finished Reading Tar Baby by Toni Morrison

Tar Baby is a 1981 novel by Toni Morrison. Set first on a small Caribbean island before it moves to the U.S. mainland in places like rural impoverished Florida and bustling Manhattan, the story examines the relationships and self-identification of several people, black and white, male and female, educated and unschooled, rich and poor, and young and old as they work, love, and fight together (and apart).  Jadine is a young successful model whose adoptive aunt and uncle have raised her following her mother's death.  They work as cook and servant to a wealthy white retired Philadelphia businessman, Valerian Street, and his wife on that Caribbean island at their estate.  Valerian has sponsored Jadine's education and budding career, and she in turn feels a sense of loyalty and obligation to him.  Jadine's family is black, and throughout the story you can read how race pops in and out of the narrative and exchanges between the various parties as they work out among themselves their often divergent takes on reality and their relationships.  A young black man who goes by the name Son has jumped ship and escaped to the island, where he has secretly stayed at the Street's home until discovered one day.  Instead of throwing him out or having him arrested, though, Valerian treats Son as an honored guest...Jadine, her aunt, uncle, and Valerian's wife on the other hand see him in more of a negative light.  Eventually Son and Jadine become romantically involved, and while the working and spousal relationships at the Street estate undergo some serious testing, the two young lovers leave for America to rediscover Son's home roots in a small poor northern Florida town and start a new life together in New York...where they undergo some serious testing of their own...

I love stories written to probe into the various characters' thought processes and choices as they struggle to relate with one another.  Racial division is spotlighted here as well as conflicting notions of what it means for a black man or woman...with a history of persecution and discrimination over centuries...to engage fully in the present-day opportunities society now offers them.  To Son this participation is a sellout while Jadine accepts it as a mature reckoning with the reality of the world and the need to be responsible for herself and her loved ones as she pursues her career while prodding Son, in vain, to capitalize on his own talents.  Toni Morrison was brilliant here in her use of dialogue to draw out the essence of her characters...pretty amazing. Sadly, she passed away two years ago at age 88 from pneumonia. Tar Baby was her fourth novel...the next one I'm reading was her first, titled The Bluest Eye...

The 100 Days, As Seen by Rob Dial

On his podcast show The Mindset Mentor, Rob Dial presents various ways to look at self-motivation and success.  Some of his angles work for me and some I have a little difficulty with.  I liked one idea he presented on his December 10th show in which he proposed that I decide what it is I want to take action on and do it for 100 consecutive days...no excuses.  This transforms whatever action goal I have into an established habit that I have internalized...I've heard that it takes fewer days to accomplish this, however. The point of making a big deal about "100 days" is that, sometime down the line, I'm going to be tempted to forego the designated activity because of my feelings or time constraints.  But having that rule already in plan will help me keep true to whatever I had made a commitment.  Dial says that success comes from consistency and failure from giving up...a lot of his presentation comes from notions that we all generally already know and accept, but he repackages and expresses them in a way that can be inspiring.  So step number one is to reflect on and write down what it is I want to incorporate into my life, and then with step number two set out on those 100 days.  Obviously it has to be something already within the scope of my ability to accomplish, at least at a basic level from the beginning: traveling to a new country or running a marathon each day wouldn't cut it!  It's also an invitation to be a little creative about myself: a reinvention of sorts...

Constellation of the Month: Eridanus (the River)

 

Eridanus is a large constellation in the southern evening December sky, starting at its northeastern end with its "beta" star Cursa near the star Rigel of the prominent constellation Orion and winding around, ending up much further south with the first-magnitude "alpha" star Achernar.  In spite of its size, Eridanus is rather devoid of bright stars besides Achernar, the rest being of third magnitude or dimmer.  Achernar, some 7 times the mass of our sun, is about 140 light-years away. Although technically it should be visible just above the southern horizon here in Gainesville when it crosses the meridian, in reality I cannot see it from this latitude because of trees and buildings almost inevitably blocking my view.  But growing up in south Florida...Hollywood to be exact...I was about 4 degrees further south and could see Achernar back then.  I don't recall having ever experienced a clear enough night when city lights or the moon didn't render Eridanus difficult to observe, but its occupation of a relatively large swath of the celestial sky qualifies it as my constellation of the month for December. The above drawing should make it clear why it represents a river...

Quarreling Among the Beatles in Get Back Movie

I'm about halfway through watching the first of three parts of the Peter Jackson-produced Beatles documentary Get Back, now airing on the Disney Plus channel.  In early January, 1969, they're a few days into rehearsing material at their makeshift studio for a new album (eventually becoming Let It Be) and a planned concert, place and time undetermined.  After Paul and George have a brief, rough-but-polite exchange, the four meet up the next morning...except John is late.  In the meantime, Paul, with George and Ringo backing him up, concocts the core elements of the future blockbuster hit song Get Back.  Later on John shows up, gamely trying to participate on a positive level with the band but appearing confused and out of it...something was definitely going on with him.  After some jamming, they sit around facing each other...along with the assistants...and Paul starts off on a lecture of sorts about how he doesn't want to be the leader of the band but seems to be forced into that role.  In both this scene and in the previous day's exchange with George, I felt that Paul was acting a bit like a drama queen and treating others with a patronizing attitude...and why not: every reality show...and this one certainly qualifies for that designation...seems to have someone who acts out on the others like this.  I just expected that John would have been the prima donna here...if Paul had just guarded his tongue and simply stuck with the incredible music he was producing, I think things would have gone a lot smoother in these sessions, as well most likely in the months to follow that culminated in John quitting the Beatles in September.  The documentary is already very, very long, but still had to selectively edit the Beatle's weeks-long sessions, each of which lasted all day for days on end each week: very, very grueling as I have said before.  I felt that George came into the studio with a great amount of enthusiasm and songs of his own to contribute, gradually becoming disillusioned about how he was being treated by both Paul and John.  Just a couple of days later he would walk out of the band with the other three trying to coax him back into rejoining during the ensuing two weeks.  As for the eventual final product, that Let It Be album, which was finally released in the summer of 1970 after McCartney had announced the Beatles' breakup, contained some very good songs like Get Back, The Two of Us, For You Blue, Across the Universe, The Long and Winding Road, and I've Got a Feeling (I never did care for the title song Let It Be)...pretty impressive coming from what I've seen and heard so far on this documentary movie.  So the Beatles quarreled among themselves...but this had probably been going on throughout their existence.  The idea of filming and recording their conflicts in January of 1969 may be informative and entertaining for us today in looking back on it all, but the rolling cameras themselves were active participants in shaping the individual bandmates' attitudes and behavior toward one another... 

Quote of the Week...from Noel Coward

Work is much more fun than fun.                             ---Noel Coward

The late playwright Noel Coward had it right, although he was probably a lot more fanatical about his work than I am about mine.  Although I enjoy unwinding and relaxing, what apparently many people think of as fun....social gatherings like parties, concerts and get-togethers...don't do anything for me. If anything, they cause me a lot of anxiety and I would rather be in a structured work setting...even one where the tasks are relatively menial and repetitive.  I like my personal projects like running, reading, studying, and writing this blog, all of which can be seen in more of a "work" perspective than "fun".  I know folks who are into gardening, cooking, knitting/crocheting, home improvement, musical performance, auto mechanics, charitable service and other pastimes that don't fit into the category of "fun" that you might see on beer commercials where the men and women are soaking in the enjoyment of their social throngs. I like to sit back and watch TV and listen to music, but it's more fun to be working on something, whether it's at my job for pay or rather as an activity I have consciously adopted for myself to pursue. One type of work I could do without, though...but know that I will need to do more and more in the future as I age: medical/dental appointments.  And I have one this afternoon, sad to say...

Miami Dolphins Still in Running for Playoff Spot

I tend to follow the National Football League...sometimes I wonder why with some of the controversy surrounding the sport in recent years.  But it's been a solid tradition for me since 1968, when I began rooting for my then-hometown team, the Miami Dolphins, in their third season of existence.  Since then I've ridden the roller-coaster of great-to-awful seasons this franchise has produced including their undefeated 1972 season and that awful year in 2007 when they went 1-15.  Currently, under third-year head coach Brian Flores after a near-playoff surprise 10-6 season in 2020, this year they got off to a horrible start at 1-7, culminating in a humiliating loss to lowly Jacksonville in a game played in London, England.  No, I don't know either why the NFL keeps staging games in a country where virtually nobody plays the game, much less demonstrating any degree of interest in watching it.  That said, the Dolphins under this inspiring coach never said die and has now won five games in a row to bring their regular season record to 6-7...and back into the playoff discussion.  This Sunday they play at home against their divisional rival New York and should beat the last-place Jets.  If they accomplish this they will have already merited special mention for coming back from so far to a .500 record.  Now I'm more keenly interested in how teams in the AFC with slightly better records in the Dolphins fare, creating the unusual situation where I'm pulling for hated New England to beat the Indianapolis Colts in their upcoming contest Sunday night...the Patriots are already too far ahead of Miami in the standings with just four games to go in the new 17-game regular season and the Colts sport a 7-6 record, making them one of the teams the Dolphins will need to hurdle over to get to the playoffs.  Of course, should Miami fail against the Jets then, oh well, that's how it goes sometimes.  But I've been impressed with this team coming together both on defense and offense, the latter highlighted by the marked improvement of their second-year quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.  I'm not one of those sports fans who expect their team to win the championship every year or it's all a disaster...just get me to this point in the season and if they're still in the hunt, that's all I ask for.  Go Dolphins!

Weekly Short Stories: 1979 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today I've reached the end of the science fiction anthology The 1980 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and featuring his selections from 1979. That was the year that the fledgling Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, after losing their first 26 games as a franchise in 1976-77, made it to their conference's championship game, bowing out to the L.A. Rams 9-0.  The Pittsburgh Pirates, with their theme of "Family" after Sister Sledge's ongoing hit We are Family, came from behind in that year's world series against the favored Baltimore Orioles for the second time in eight years.  President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics after the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan.  And the Florida Gators football team, under first-year coach Charley Pell, went 0-9-1.  That's sports...here are my reactions to those final three stories...

OUT THERE WHERE THE BIG SHIPS GO by Richard Cowper

The notion of humanity going out and conquering the galaxy gets a rude awakening here as an exploratory mission encounters an advanced alien culture already entrenched throughout it...and their unifying thread is in a special board game played throughout the stars.  Back on Earth at a Caribbean resort a boy notices the returning astronaut who has introduced the game to his home planet, where it has become the premier cultural attraction. Using games as devices for peaceful interaction and education among disparate societies reminded me of the ideals behind the resurrection of the Olympic Games in 1896...before they became nationalist propaganda tools and then completely professionalized...

CAN THESE BONES LIVE? by Ted Reynolds

A young woman on a future Earth when humanity has become extinct owes her own resurrection to an alien race that returns one specimen on from intelligent species on each planet to life, allowing them to plead the case for their own species' revival.  The woman struggles to justify why mankind should be given another chance...and then she discovers the answer.  And that alien race itself gets taught a lesson in humility and perspective...

THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGES OF AMÉLIE BERTRAND by Joanna Russ

The idea of a portal in reality that leads to other places and times isn't new.  Recently Stephen King has used this device in novels like 11/22/63 and The Talisman (with Peter Straub), Philip Pullman with the His Dark Materials series, and of course J.K. Rowling's Platform 9¾ from Harry Potter.  In this tale a traveler in France encounters such a portal at a train station, and the woman there who rescues him from accidentally falling through it tells her strange story about her exciting and exotic adventures.  This story was meant as a tribute to the great French science fiction writer Jules Verne...

Next week I begin looking at the year 1980 in short science fiction...

The Hierarchical Mindset: You Can't Take It With You

One morning about ten years ago I was sitting at the nearest Starbucks to my house, a small establishment at the end of a Publix strip mall...years later it would be relocated down the road in order to install a drive-through.  My table was at the front window just on the inside, putting me near customers standing in line.  At the time I was reviewing my old basic Vietnamese language vocabulary I had learned many years earlier while working at a local Chinese restaurant with several Vietnamese refugees when a church acquaintance whom I distantly knew walked into the store.  She turned, noticed me and my book, and asked me what I was studying...to which I replied.  Then, without missing a beat, she derisively asked "What are you going to do with it?"  Sounds on the surface like a reasonable question, but the fact that this was the one she chose to pose revealed something important about her personality makeup. She could have asked questions like how long I have been studying Vietnamese, what my background was with it, or more pertinently, what I thought about this east Asian language.  For some reason, though, when someone reveals they are pursuing any kind of academic endeavor they often get this "What's it for?" kind of response as if learning anything new must be justified in terms of material gain or climbing a social hierarchy...I call this type of person "hierarchical".  People who in their youth always had to be the star athlete or musician or have the teacher's favor and get straight A's or be at the top of a social circle grew up with a hierarchical attitude, a lot of it having to do with the fact that as humans we organize ourselves socially in packs like wolves, vying for who will be the "alpha" and continually sorting out our standing further down the line: this was especially prevalent at my bus stop with the biggest bully reigning as "top dog" and the most picked-upon and verbally abused kids stuck at the bottom. A few years ago, before the pandemic hit, I attended a monthly Saturday morning men's breakfast at my church, intending to establish a new, positive routine in my life and develop a little more sociability in my introverted existence.  It didn't take long for me to discover that too many of those attending were steeped in hierarchy, verbally jostling with one another about their academic, career and business credentials and accomplishments, all while comically feigning humility and spirituality...this was the single reason I finally gave up going to those meetings.  I am not hierarchical and as such find those deeply engrossed in the rat race and social standing to be tedious and boring to be around...but I also realize that each of them, too, has their own story and dignity, deserving respect and grace but instead too often expecting obeisance and servility, which ruins everything for me.  I study things because they are interesting to me...whose knows, maybe I'll find some material or social use for them later. But if you want to engage me in conversation about a project I'm pursuing then how about, at least temporarily, step down from your imaginary social ladder and ask me about the content of what I'm doing...or at least how I came about to it...instead of treating me like the low dog in a pack who has to justify himself.  No, I'm not judging people with a hierarchical mindset...I'm just sick and tired of them judging me.  The play You Can't Take It With You...I prefer the 1984 PBS Great Performances version starring Jason Robards...vividly illustrates what I've just been talking about...

About Rob Dial's 8 Things Successful People Do

Last Monday on this blog I referenced Rob Dial, a motivational podcaster whose almost daily 20-minute programs, titled Mindset Mentor, are very convenient to hear and insert into my daily routine. On one recent show he lists and discusses eight different things that successful people do:

1-Get up early and have an established morning routine.

2-Read regularly, preferably daily.

3-Exercise consistently.

4-Write goals down consistently.

5-Use mentors.

6-Engage in positive self-talk, avoid the negative.

7-Don't worry about failure, rather learn from it and move on.

8-Just don't ever stop...keep advancing.

Dial is a big advocate of reading, especially in one's field of endeavor, and is generous with crediting others before him for many of the ideas he promotes.  On some of his above suggestions for success I do pretty well, but others...not so much.  I get up mornings usually between 8 and 9...but that's largely due to the fact that my work shift ends at 10 pm...and I'm pretty faithful to my morning routines. I read quite a bit, although of late I've been starting a string of different books and then putting them down for various reasons. I did find one on mathematics that seems to hold my interest, though. I exercise daily, that's good. Sometimes I write down my goals, but probably not to the extent that Rob Dial wants.  I have never had mentors except for the distanced, impersonal kind in the media and on the Internet such as podcasts like this with no opportunity for dialogue.  I could use a lot more positive self-talk than I'm accustomed to, that's for sure.  And I'm definitely sensitive to failure, tending to use it to judge myself negatively instead of letting it instruct me toward better outcomes.  Not stopping, the final point, is something I do well in some areas and not so well in others. This most probably has a lot to do with a topic that Rob Dial presents in another podcast, and which I'll discuss next week...seems like Mondays on this blog are turning into "Rob Dial Podcast Discussion Day", at least for a while...

Starbucks, Running and Math

Today promises to be pretty dreary weatherwise here in Gainesville...I'm sitting here inside the Starbucks in northern Gainesville on 43rd Street for the first time since early in the year.  Some Starbucks have a more intimate, welcoming quality to them, but this one is more like a mall food court with noises amplified by the acoustics of the spacious room...that's all right, the other Starbucks I usually frequent was off-line for my order and I've had it with standing in line anymore.  Once again I'm sitting along one side facing the electric substation just south of Talbot Elementary School...connected by a walking path I would traverse during my marathon training phase back in 2010-11 while on one of my many long runs back then: ah, those were the days!  I'd like to return to that wonderful era, and yesterday's measured run around my house totaling 14.4 miles was a good step in that direction.  There is a specific type of lifestyle that I am seeking which mixes family, a small number of friends, learning, occasional travel, and running/walking into a pleasant-yet-challenging routine combining interaction, growth, and new memories.  Part of it I am already living...much more is yet to come.  I have been stepping out tentatively into the vast, wild ocean of mathematics by watching special programming and reading books on the subject...my goal is to be in deep waters by this spring and then see where it all takes me.  The book I'm currently reading, The Ten Equations That Rule the World, by mathematician David Sumpter, illustrates the conundrum I find myself in whenever such an expert in the field introduces various concepts.  It starts out quite clearly as he lays out the basics, but then suddenly it's as if he has taken off with his discussion and left me lost, standing on land while he is frolicking way out there, far offshore.  This also happens with the Great Courses DVD set The Joy of Mathematics as Arthur Benjamin takes on the role there as teacher.  I don't blame either Sumpter or Benjamin for me falling behind their respective narratives, but rather see this as a challenge that is similar to that which getting back to running imposed itself on me in the weeks following my July surgery: at first progress is slow and I can clearly see my own inadequacy in the area and where I want to go for improvement, anticipating a breakthrough down the line if only I just stick with my efforts.  For me, whether it's running or mathematics or any other area, this is fun stuff to pursue...

Yoko Ono: the Woman in the Room

As I continue to watch the Peter Jackson recompilation of the Beatles' Let It Be sessions from January 1969...which he renamed Get Back and is showing on the Disney+ channel...I am puzzled by the so-called controversy and division that Yoko Ono, then John Lennon's girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, was causing: she was supposedly breaking up the band if you believe the numerous accounts and analyses.  Yet I just see her quietly sitting next to John, being supportive of him as well as respectful of the other Beatles.  She's not making any kind of waves or acting like the kind of diva you would expect to see on any of these nauseating reality series that nowadays plague the TV dial.  Often she's just reading a book or magazine. I did see her pat John's back and smile at him, and being pleasant and encouraging toward his bandmates....OH MY GOD SHE'S BREAKING UP THE BEATLES! And even though the other Beatles have had their own girlfriends in the studio before, Yoko's presence there at John's behest has been regarded as violating some kind of sacred "men only" arbitrary protocol in the recording studio that the Beatles maintained (when it was convenient for them, that is).  I see nothing in any of this but extreme male chauvinism, and without going into details in order to protect another individual, I am personally keenly aware of the nasty, irrational and patronizing behavior that men can exhibit when their expected all-male group finds itself graced with the presence of just one woman...regardless of her demeanor or behavior. And, sadly, scapegoating her as being divisive instead of them taking responsibility for their own sorry-ass behavior toward each other is one of the results.  Yoko, you're not the only woman who has had to go through this, and I'm afraid it's just going to continue...