Quote of the Week...from Melody Beattie

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written.  We can help write that story by setting goals.                                                            ---Melody Beattie

Melody Beattie is the author of several self-help books, largely about overcoming and preventing codependent relationships.  Although I've never read anything of hers, I think her above quote is very appropriate for this beginning of 2022.  Each of us is the author of our own book of life, and for me setting and working to fulfill goals I have created is essential to making this year one of success and happiness.  That's important, because goals...written down...can serve to keep me focused on what is important to me throughout all the many times that obstacles and distractions inevitably arise to curb my self-improvement in this often complicated existence. Goals provide structure and meaning to the days of my life...because of this, it's a good idea to think them out realistically. Where am I at right now with the areas I want to work on, what are my ultimate goals with them...and what steps can I be taking right now toward those ends?  Changing bad habits into good ones is a part of this goal-setting...ultimately my goals should lead to me living out my daily life in a more healthful, fulfilling way...  

About the January 6th Insurrection, One Year Later

Today the major media outlets are commemorating the violent attack on our nation's capital and democracy a year ago on January 6th, focusing on the mass assault and occupation on the Capitol building, fomented and praised by sitting-and-defeated president Donald Trump.  Unfortunately, that attack on our cherished freedoms to peacefully and duly elect our leaders didn't end there, though.  After the attack and Congress reassembled to officially count the electoral votes, two thirds of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and seven in the Senate voted to overturn the people's will in the election...for the first time ever in our country's history: pure authoritarian fascism.  Sadly, one of my own state's senators, Rick Scott, and my own representative, Cat Cammack, joined in this travesty...I will always regard them both as fascists, along with the others including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and, of course, the instigator of it all: Donald Trump.  In 2016 I was disappointed in Trump's election but noted...on this blog...that he won it fair and square.  His opponent Hillary Clinton promptly acknowledged her defeat and Trump's win, and sitting president Obama the next day invited the victor to visit him at the White House in order to plan a speedy transition.  There was no sense of return to this graciousness on Trump's part in 2020 as he launched more than 60 frivolous lawsuits against various states that went for his opponent Joe Biden, and even tried to get the Georgia Secretary of State to manufacture more than 11,000 votes for himself...this action alone should have him in prison right now.  Yet Americans by the millions within the Republican Party cannot disengage themselves from this strongman fantasy they're attached to about this dictator-wannabe, and their leaders for the most part are too frightened to speak up against him.  The 2022 elections to me won't be as much a referendum about Biden and his presidency as it will be about whether our country is capable of sustaining its own highly cherished status as a democratically elected republic... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1980 Science Fiction, Part 3

Below are my reactions to two more 1980 science fiction short stories appearing in the anthology Donald A. Wollheim Presents The 1981 Annual World's Best SF, showcasing the editor's picks from the previous year...you may recognize the first author, whose featured work is actually more of a novella than a short story.  Back in '80 I was living a reclusive, frugal existence in Gainesville, making the move from a shared apartment with three roommates (ugh) in May to a single apartment in then-quiet and uncrowded southwest Gainesville within easy walking distance to my workplace (hooray)...that was fortuitous, since it would be at this residence some five years later where I ended up meeting Melissa, the love of my life, who has been my wife now for 35 years.  But back to those stories...

NIGHTFLYERS by George R.R. Martin

On an interstellar quest to find and learn about a mysterious race of space-traveling beings called the volcryn, the captain of the hired ship knows he must keep himself apart from the passengers.  The mystery of Royd Eris' circumstances, the burgeoning fears of his assorted passengers about his intentions, and an unsettling string of grisly shipboard murders set the stage as the ship plods on through space toward its rendezvous with the volcryn.  There's a lot in this story for the reader, drawing both from the ancients' deification of barely sentient animals and different sci-fi themes, most notably the predicament in which astronauts Dave and Frank find themselves in Arthur C. Clarke's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey...

A SPACESHIP BUILT OF STONE by Lisa Tuttle

On Earth it's been established that survival strategies by different species can be very similar...why not stretch the application to settlers from other worlds who seek that same survival?  This is an intriguing story that uses the common fictional device of dreams that not only reflect the truth but are also present among a number of people.  Being skeptical myself, largely because of my own sorry-ass dreams, I still thought the premise was original, with the story's ending top-notch and unexpected...

Next I finish looking at sci-fi short stories from 1980...

How About an "Automatic Passenger" for My Car

 

They say that children grow up imitating their parents, either deliberately or unconsciously.  I do know that with driving, both my mother and father have had their influence on me.  For example, I tend to think out my itinerary in advance, getting myself strategically in the correct lane sometimes miles down the road...that's my mother speaking to me.  My father, although a careful driver, had one particular less praiseworthy influence on me.  Picture Ralphie's "old man" in the TV holiday staple movie A Christmas Story, down in the basement cursing endlessly at the furnace...transfer that setting to the road and you have someone reacting to every provocation he perceives from others.  And I picked up on it and carry that habit with me...but when I get a passenger in my car I tend to go more into "Uber driver" mode and generally keep my verbal reactions down.  Now I can pretend that I'm driving an imaginary passenger in order to work on dampening my verbal reactions to the nincompoops I encounter on the road...but why not instead get an Automatic Passenger, much like the above-pictured Automatic Pilot from the classic 1980 comedy film Airplane! It can be situated in the middle of the back seat, and I can press a button up front which will inflate it into the shape of a comical person much like our friend from the movie...with its presence clearly visible through my rear-view mirror. On the other hand, I could get a poster-sized representation of a passenger and prop it up back there.  Or just tape the words "Automatic Passenger" or "Uber Driver" on the dashboard as an instant reminder to behave myself.  In case you're wondering about this silly article, I wrote it while making "dignified driving" a personal goal for the next hundred days...no, most likely I'll settle for just pretending I have a passenger with me...

Eight Things to Leave Behind for 2022, According to Podcaster Rob Dial

One of motivational coach/speaker Rob Dial's latest shows on his Mindset Mentor podcast had him listing and describing eight things to leave behind as I move into 2022: toxic relationships, negative self-talk, not following through on tasks and projects, reacting in the moment instead of taking time to breathe, people-pleasing, guilt about my past, doing things because I "should", and never asking for help with anything.  As with his other shows, I find his presentation loaded with good advice, but often with some important caveats.  As I had written in an earlier article, sure, I want to avoid those who always seem to be in a negative, critical, or manipulative frame of mind...but also recognize that perhaps me being around them could help them in their own lives as a counter-influence. It's true that I tend to take a cynical view of a lot around me, but I also tend to undersell my own abilities as well with what I tell myself.  Not finishing what I started has been a big sticking point...Dial's "hundred days" project whereby I list a small number of changes in my life that I prioritize for that period of consecutive days (click here my 12-20-21 article) is a good tool for dealing with this.  I could also work on not instantly reacting to various provocations I see around me...our "mentor" suggests setting a few moments aside when this happens and take a few deep breaths while doing a mental re-set. As for people-pleasing, since I'm already very sensitive to when others are trying to manipulate me, I tend to avoid trouble in this area.  With the irrational burden of past guilt, Dial quoted someone as follows: "The mountains you're carrying you were only meant to climb", meaning that mistakes are intended as a means to ultimately become a better person, not for self-condemnation.  I'm also somewhat immune to the guilt-mongering involved in "should" behavior: Dial puts it poignantly by saying we should stop "shoulding" all over ourselves.  And finally, that part about not asking for help is sadly a deeply ingrained part of my personality, going back as far as I can remember...even into early childhood.  So sometimes I have to pick and choose different Mindset Mentor podcasts, just as you probably have to go through some throwaway articles of mine to find something useful...hey, even my famous bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin have album tracks I regularly skip over.  But I respect Rob Dial's talent in verbal expression and his wisdom is usually spot-on.  I'll check in on another of his podcasts next week...

Just Finished Reading Calculating the Cosmos by Ian Stewart

Ian Stewart is a prolific popular science writer...he's a British mathematician and has also dabbled in science fiction writing.  I just finished reading his 2016 book Calculating the Cosmos, in which he goes through selected interesting topics concerning our solar system, galaxy, the universe...and their respective origins, laying out the different historical viewpoints as well as the current scientific perspective, including ongoing disputes.  Like the other popular science book I just read, David Sumpter's The Ten Equations That Rule the World, Calculating the Cosmos...while generally easy to follow...does dip into some rather technical jargon that loses me for a bit until I can regain my footing.  More than about math, though, this book is an excellent introduction to the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology, discussing interesting (to me) topics such as how Earth got its Moon, the various planets and their satellites, the Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud, the nature of black holes, the big bang theory, the cosmic radiation background, dark matter and dark energy.  Along the way Stewart surprised me by claiming that some of these concepts aren't necessarily established truths and that his colleagues are coming up with alternative theories to explain observations without involving them, especially dark matter and dark energy...I found that pretty provocative.  And, as was the case with Sumpter's book, I intend to reread Calculating the Cosmos...nonfiction that has a lot of technical content has to be approached differently than with regular fiction.  I'm also interested in checking out some of Stewart's other works...

My December 2021 Running and Walking Report

In December 2021 I ran a total of 148 miles, running on every day of the month with 14.4 miles being my longest single run...albeit accomplished very slowly.  I managed to enter and finish my first race since my July heart surgery: Gainesville's weekly Depot Parkrun 5K on the 4th.  With walking I didn't need to be as intentional as with running...my job automatically involves much of it, and I finished the month with 142 miles.  As for January, I'd like to continue with this level of running and walking while participating in two races: another Depot Parkrun early in the month and the Newnan's Lake 15K in far eastern Gainesville on the 29th...I've run both multiple times before.  This, of course, hinges on the new Omicron upsurge in Covid-19 and whether or not the event organizers follow through with holding them or decide to cancel out.  Regardless, I want to continue with my running and walking even if they are more or less solitary endeavors...

Quote of the Week...from Henny Youngman

I told my doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.           

                                                                                           ---Henny Youngman

Henny Youngman...who died at the age of 91 in 1998, was king of the one-liners in the stand-up comedy trade...his trademark line was "Take my wife...please!" Only Rodney Dangerfield with his "I don't get no respect" theme compares in stature.  I picked Henny's above one-liner because, well, this past year I've seen plenty of doctors...including yesterday's regular visit to my primary physician.  One of the problems many of us experience nowadays is that it's difficult to communicate one-to-one with your doctor and that appointments can sometimes take weeks if not months.  I do have the benefit of an online portal through which I can ask questions to one of my now-several physicians, usually getting a prompt response from a designated physician's assistant or nurse practitioner.  Still, when discussing some subtleties of a test or possible upcoming procedure there is nothing like direct give-and-take dialogue between patient and doctor, something I was able to accomplish yesterday. Otherwise it's like the Henny Youngman joke, with the two parties talking at cross-purposes.  Ironically, although his joke was funny, it also contains an element of truth...whatever you were doing when you broke your leg, stop doing it!  I checked up on a list of Henny's more famous short jokes and quickly found myself chuckling...

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...