Quote of the Week...from Frank Zappa

 Without deviation progress is not possible.                             ---Frank Zappa

The late Frank Zappa, whose avant-garde music stretched the limits of the art and was fervent in his campaign against censorship, made the above quote which I find pertinent.  Rush's drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, who sadly has also left us, explored it more deeply in his band's important Moving Pictures final track Vital Signs: "Everybody got mixed feelings about the function and the form: everybody got to deviate from the norm".  Although as sentient creatures we tend to fill out a normal statistical bell curve, clumped together in conformity with the general population in specific areas, it is the combination of how we see and do things that often make us stand out against the flow of society and incur notice and even opposition. You can be a Republican or Democrat with much mutual agreement within your own caucus yet pointedly disagree with your own party's stand on certain issues...your expression of opinion can elicit anger from those usually politically aligned with you. Look at the flack that conservative Liz Cheney and liberal Bill Maher have attracted, the former for accepting that Biden legitimately defeated Trump in the 2020 election and the latter after his several statements critical of the "woke" culture on the political left...that's deviation but also an invitation to openly discuss an issue on its own merits...a sign of progress...instead of clinging in fear with same-minded individuals and ostracizing those who stray.  The little boy in the story The Emperor's New Clothes did not practice conformity for conformity's sake, and because he called it the way he saw it and "exposed" the emperor's nakedness after everyone before him had timidly pretended their ruler was immaculately dressed, it was possible to return to reality while at the same time providing a lesson about going overboard trying to fit in with others.  Zappa made deviation a career, but also recognized that others can be different from himself.  I say use the mind that you were given to discern truth and express that truth in your art, writing, speech, and deportment around others, not necessarily trying to be different but recognizing that deviation in itself is neither good nor bad but rather that its quality and truth value are...  

About Marginalization

The other day I wrote a long blog article about feeling marginalized...and refrained from posting it.  After reading it a couple of times, I had felt it had a kind of whiny sound to it...as if I were bemoaning being a kind of victim.  Well, I guess that factors into it all a little, but truth be told I don't particularly enjoy being the center of attention with the spotlight trained on me...better to be a little off to the side of the picture...while still being in it.  And if that inclination of mine communicates to others that marginalization is their best option in dealing with me then I suppose I bear some responsibility in that.  But in situations where no one knows me, or over long periods of time in the same place, there should be a least some kind of acknowledgement of my existence if not participation.  Let me give a couple of personal examples regarding photographs.  If you've read this blog over its existence, you'll know that I'm into distance running...going back to 2007 when I resurrected this activity after a hiatus of 31 years. I've engaged in many races over that period, my finishing times unspectacular-but-fulfilling experiences.  Since we now live in the Internet age, almost all of the races I've run in have had websites with posted results...and some of them show pictures taken during the race of the different runners.  In all the years I've engaged in these races, I have seen myself in only two pictures, both as an unrecognizable figure among many others, one with me partially hidden and the other showing my back from a distance.  Yet over and over again, while running different races, I see folks who I know are volunteers or officials standing there snapping photo after photo of runners passing by, including of me...yet my picture is consistently rejected when it comes to posting it with the others online.  Now go back much further in time, to the six-year period when I attended my junior/senior high school.  Each year they came out with a yearbook, featuring the perfunctory individual studio shots for each class year, arranged in alphabetical order.  But sprinkled throughout each yearbook's pages are also assorted cameo shots of different students.  You'd think that the law of averages alone would dictate that I'd be in at least a handful of them, considering the many photos displayed over a six-year span.  But of course, you probably already guessed it...no photos of me anywhere, even though like with the running races I would see yearbook staff from time to time taking pictures that I knew I'd be in. It all seems a bit whiny of me, doesn't it?  Oh well, we all have areas in our lives to complain about and in the grand scheme of things, griping about being marginalized around others is probably a relatively minor issue, especially considering that I'm an introvert to begin with.  On the other hand, I'm often pressed upon to engage in community relationships with others, but when in those situations, discover that they don't particularly want to engage in community relationships with me...

Before writing this article, I checked the Internet to see if others were like me in feeling unduly marginalized, only to discover that the term "marginalized" had been coopted by the PC/Woke crowd to designate people belonging to demographic groups from which I am excluded...great, even the marginalized marginalize me!

Weekly Short Stories: 1983 Science Fiction, Part 8

Here are my reactions to the four remaining stories from the late Gardnois Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, First Annual Collection, which spotlighted the editor's picks from 1983.  I generally like the stories in this book, although they tended to cross over at times into other genres such as fantasy, horror and even historical fiction...I welcome it all.  So, without further ado, let's discuss these works of short fiction...

HEARTS DO NOT IN EYES SHINE by John Kessel

In a future society in which marriages are a much looser contractual arrangement, Connie leaves Harry after discovering that he's repeatedly lied to her.  But Harry suggests that the two of them go to one of the companies that can selectively wipe out those pesky memories of betrayal and dishonesty from both their minds.  Connie reluctantly consents, and they begin their "cleansed" life together anew.  What happens next...guess you'll have to read it to find out.  Let me just say that this tale has a bit more psychological depth to it than I had expected...

CARRION COMFORT by Dan Simmons

Three telepathic psychic vampires who maintain their youth by entering the minds of others to perform murder by proxy are "friends" and meet one day in one of their hometowns...Charleston, South Carolina...to compare notes and renew their ties.  But one of them has decided to give up her lifestyle and has begun to noticeably age...leading to her fears that the other two might come after her.  I have recently visited Charleston and could visualize their boat tour to Fort Sumter, as well as the streets of the Old City.  I wonder if Stephen King got the premise for his novel Doctor Sleep from this story...

GEMSTONE by Vernor Vinge

You get a good sense of the geography of woody northern California from this story of a girl staying one summer there at her widowed grandmother's house.  It seems haunted, especially a strange skull-sized smooth stone with regular markings.  A violent burglary precipitates the story's climax, which I thought was pretty "cool" in spite of the heat.  Also, Antarctic exploration figures strangely in this tale, which reminded me of a certain 1982 blockbuster hit movie directed by Steven Spielberg...

BLACK AIR by Kim Stanley Robinson

Dozois regarded this story as his favorite of the anthology, yet I failed to discover anything science fiction about it...the fifth one in the book that, in my opinion, strays from the genre.  On the Spanish Armada in the late sixteenth century, a boy from a Franciscan monastery, impressed into sailor duty on one of the fighting ships destined to England, has spiritual experiences that directly affect his fate and that of his shipmates.  A great story...I agree with Gardner on that...but sci-fi?  Still, I got more knowledge about ships to add to what I picked up (and mostly forgot) from reading Moby Dick a few years ago...

Next week I move on to the year 1984 with my science fiction short story reviews, returning to Donald A. Wollheim's anthology series...

Need Patience at Start of New Projects (or Resumption of Old Ones)

After my operation last July, in which my sternum was cut apart to allow the surgeon access to my heart, I had a necessarily slow recovery to allow for the rib cage to fuse back together. Physical therapy for my lower body could proceed sooner while my upper body was healing. I was walking the day after surgery and a month later began light running in place. I was assigned certain body stretches to perform with my legs while waiting for the sternum restriction protocol to be lifted, afterwards allowing me once again to stretch my arms and upper body...that last stage didn't begin until September.  Being a runner, I was interested in seeing what my prospects in this area were...my surgeon, a runner himself, had given me every indication that once I had recovered from the surgery to repair my aortic aneurism and replace a congenitally defective heart valve, I would be able to resume this activity. The block I live on is relatively long...seven tenths of a mile, but short from a distance runner's perspective. In my weeks of recovery I would regularly attempt to run the whole lap around the block but would rarely make it to the halfway point before needing to stop and walk.  It wasn't until three months after surgery that I was able to run the complete circuit nonstop...and from that point my progress drastically improved.  I ran a 5K race in December and two months ago, a half-marathon followed by a ten-mile race in March. This article seems to be all about running but it can apply to anything I'm undertaking, either for the first time or after a period of interruption or decline.  It may seem at first to take forever to make any progress, and the temptation will be to throw in the towel and give up. That's why the standards at this stage have to be easier and gradual.  Getting started and not giving up are instrumental here...I need to cut myself a little slack when it comes to starting something new that I really want to accomplish. I'm embarking on an ambitious new intellectual project that eventually stands to dwarf my running, but right now I'm taking those slow and easy steps...

Discussion of Standards on Podcast

Standards was the topic on today's Mindset Mentor podcast, hosted by Rob Dial...I thought it was one of his better shows.  Instead of listing X-amount of pointers to better living in some specific area, he gave more of an impromptu monologue on how the quality of people's lives depend on the standards they set for themselves...and how they live up to them.  As I see it, on a collective level there are legal standards we need to meet in order not to get in trouble.  At work there are workplace standards, as is the case at school or for any other social institution.  Families collectively have standards, the crossing of which by different members not wanting to follow them probably causes the most inner turmoil.  But Dial was referring here to one's own personal standards for living, and they break down to numerous specific behaviors regularly performed (or not) over the course of time...and all which involve personal choice.  Do I prepare little things for the next day the night before, what time to I get up in the morning, do I always leave the house in a state of tidiness, do I exercise, read, write, engage with others, account for my money, etcetera.  Standards, habit, and goals intertwine, as setting a standard is a goal in itself to be fulfilled by the inculcation of a new habit, using baby steps to accomplish this.  This all fits in nicely with James Clear's notion of "atomic habits", based on his book with the same title.  The key here in improving one's standards and getting to adhere to them is to be as specific as possible while changing habits a little at a time...over time.  Good episode.  By the way, there are probably a number of ways you can pick up Rob Dial's podcast...on my Android I get it through Tune-In Radio while on my television I use Roku to listen to it on the My Tuner channel. Each episode, put out on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, only lasts about twenty minutes and the host has a friendly, conversational and practical presentation style...

Went to Alachua County Friends of the Library Sale Today

 

For the first time in years I was able to attend the Alachua County Friends of the Library book sale, which takes place at their warehouse in the 400 block of North Main Street in Gainesville.  As usual I parked a few blocks east of the place and crossed Main Street with police stopping traffic for us bookworms.  Once there, I was dismayed to see a long line of people waiting to get in...looks like they were wisely limiting the number of customers inside at one time.  Within twenty minutes, though, I was among the familiar tables loaded with cheap, used books.  I had a specific agenda, heading straight to the mathematics section, and quickly chose several excellent books, their prices ranging from 50 cents to $1.50.  Then I hit the express line, paid, and got back to the car.  The volunteers there wore masks, but nearly all the customers did not...I wore one, though: it ain't quite over yet, folks.  Still, I'm glad to see this great old hometown tradition back and I hope it won't be interrupted again anytime soon.  Because of the pandemic the sale was cancelled in 2020 and April, 2021, resuming in October.  Although I didn't like having to wait in line to go in, I think this is a better system...pandemic or not...as in the past it was way too crowded and sometimes I found it very difficult to maneuver around everyone as I tried to browse the sections.  The sale lasts through Wednesday, opening each day at noon and closing 6 pm...

Too Many Key Injuries in Pro Sports

I have been watching the National Basketball Association playoffs off and on so far during their first round and find the games usually competitive and interesting.  There is one problem, though, that starkly stands out: the tendency for there to be too many injuries, especially of star players.  I can't keep up with it anymore, and there's no telling how a series will go when a favored team, successful largely on the backs of its greatest talents and achievers, falls victim to their injuries during a series with an obviously inferior team.  This has been going on for years, but now it seems that we have the most fragile athletes ever.  The sport of basketball and others...not just football but also even tennis and golf...are played on such an extremely high level in our era with very little margin for error: everything has to be done all-out...every possession, down, point or swing...depending on the sport...must be tackled with the athlete expending all the energy they can produce and straining their bodies to the limit and beyond to avoid being beaten by the opposition.  Name me a series or tournament in which its complexion hasn't been drastically altered due to several key injuries...no, getting hurt is now the rule rather than the exception.  Although the games themselves may still be close and exciting to watch, the ultimate champion...due to the many injuries we're seeing...is often a team or athlete that essentially prevailed by default.  The result, I think, is a general cheapening of the sports and their championships... 

Quote of the Week...from Pearl S. Buck

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

--Pearl S. Buck

American writer Pearl S. Buck, probably best known for her 1931 novel about China titled The Good Earth (click HERE for my review of it from 2015), made the above quote about excellence in work.  I understand the truth contained within it...but like Melissa, who noted it on TV yesterday morning while we were eating lunch together, I don't completely agree with it either. Sure, it sounds reasonable that if you're really good at something then that fact should contribute to your enjoying it...after all, it's a self-esteem experience.  But there are a lot of jobs out there that people perform with the utmost excellence...I can offhand think of teaching, nursing, air traffic control and law enforcement...but by their nature and the demands and stress put on these workers, they often burn out quickly and suffer greatly in spite of their excellence.  Conversely, to identify oneself with a field of work does not automatically imply that they are highly skilled in it, but the process of getting to that stage...even at the start...can definitely be joyous.  And besides, it's probably a good idea not to get hung up on the word "excellence" anyway, although I frequently use it to compliment others on this blog.  I can be an excellent math student in one high school class...that is, until I get transferred to another class that is on a much more advanced level and then my skill level may suddenly seem to be seriously lacking. Be careful about basing your enjoyment of something largely on how excellent or not you think you are in it...you're liable to be susceptible to others' criticisms, right or wrong... 

Old July, 1965 Newspaper Articles Revealing about Vietnam War

The other day I got on my Newspapers.com site to see...through the Fort Lauderdale News, which was my home Broward County's main newspaper back in the 1960s when I was growing up there...whether any mention was made of the new Nova elementary school that was to open in August of 1965.  I switched from Boulevard Heights to Nova that year when I entered the fourth grade...my sister Anita was already going to Nova Junior High, situated right across the field from the new elementary school in Davie on the site of a converted airfield (along with Broward Junior College).  I began by putting on my screen the front page of the paper's July 1, 1965 Main Edition, on which most of the stories were about the escalating Vietnam War with the U.S. increasing its presence in that troubled southeastern Asia country with armed soldiers on the ground increasing from around three thousand in March of '65 to two hundred thousand by year's end.  On July 1 the paper was reporting Viet Cong attacks against the American base in Da Nang, opposition in Congress to President Johnson's war policies, and  there was a piece describing how the Viet Cong operate in guerilla warfare.  In the Senate, Senator Wayne Morse, of the President's own Democratic Party but one of the two voting against his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution the previous August that authorized troop buildup in Vietnam, urged Johnson to end the war and instead go to the United Nations and build up collaborative relationships with other countries to bring about peace.  On the Republican side in the House, their leader, future president Gerald Ford, proposed that the President remove the ground troops and restrict the fighting there to heavy aerial bombardment in strategic locations...needless to say Lyndon Johnson passed on both of these, precipitating one of the most traumatic, divisive periods in our nation's history.  Malcolm W. Browne's article about Viet Cong guerilla warfare was haunting in its prescience as he describes one such warrior, stationed within an echo chamber in a hole in the ground, enabling him to detect distant helicopter sounds before any others: "The man, wriggling through a short tunnel to the surface, can yell an alarm.  Instantly, shadowy men lounging or cooking at the bases of the tall trees are on their feet and moving fast.  The heavy equipment from last night's battle has been stowed for future use in deep, camouflaged holes.  The bodies have been buried.  The men move rapidly, scattering in many directions in twos and threes.  This is their base area, and they know every feature of the dense jungle in the area...the hidden trails, the camouflaged bunkers and tunnels, the gun emplacements, the mines and booby traps."  You can easily see the wisdom from hindsight in reading this article and others and think of what might have been if information in plain sight, as well as alternative options, were taken more seriously by those with the power and authority to properly understand and use them...think of all the lives that could have been spared.  But hindsight it is, and in 1965 the American public was strongly behind Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam escalation policy...I wonder what information today, also in plain view as was the material in July of 1965, is warning us about where we're going...but of course nowadays we have to sift through all the false crap floating around.  As for my then-new little Nova school, I'm continuing to search for any reference to it...

Weekly Short Stories: 1983 Science Fiction, Part 7

Today I continue examining short science fiction from 1983 that were selected by the late Gardner Dozois to be in his anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection, published in 1984.  While reading it so far, I have found a number of tales...admittedly very good stories...that nonetheless don't seem to fit within the genre of science fiction.  I think Dozois may have included some of them on the science fiction-writing merits of their respective authors...the story below by George R.R. Martin is an example of this, although I also believe that Gardner was a little partial to fantasy fiction as well: Gene Wolfe's entry fits the bill with that.  The stories Blood Music by Greg Bear and Knight of Shallows by Rand B. Lee appeared in both this anthology and that of Donald A. Wollheim, which I already reviewed.  And now here are my takes on the next four stories from Dozois' book...

HER FURRY FACE by Leigh Kennedy

Douglas, a man with the duty of training orangutans to practice sign communications with humans on a sophisticated level, has gone a step further in his workplace, a special school to educate primates: his project, Annie, can write to the point where she has composed a book!  Unfortunately for Douglas, he is finding himself romantically smitten with her and starts to think and act like a complete dumbass...bad for him but good for the story and its very funny outcome...

THE CAT by Gene Wolfe

This story is an offshoot of Wolfe's Book of the New Sun fantasy series, so some of the characters and settings would be more familiar had I first read the four-volume series...which Dozois touted as possibly becoming as significant as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (I don't know about that, Gardner).  Father Inire, a sinister, mysterious and powerful advisor to the ruler, one day befriends a young girl, who has her pet cat with her.  While displaying some of his magic to her, the cat accidentally gets caught up in it...leading to the story's subsequent events.  It's a good story but I'm sure it would have meant more to better know its context within Wolfe's fictional universe... 

THE MONKEY TREATMENT by George R.R. Martin

A thoroughly brilliant, readable and hilarious tale much more reminiscent of Stephen King's horror fiction than of anything science fiction, it makes the notion of a "monkey on your back" vividly unforgettable.  I haven't yet finished reading this anthology, but The Monkey Treatment is my favorite one so far as it deals with an obese overeater's errant strategy for kicking his food addiction...

NEARLY DEPARTED by Pat Cadigan

Another story based on the author's series, this one Pathosfinder, future psychoanalyst "Deadpan" Allie uses the age's technology to enter the minds of others and mentally interact with them.  In this story it's a bit more problematic since the person she's probing, Kitta Wren...a renowned poet...has just died.  Her assignment: go in and retrieve any unrealized works the deceased had conceived of.  A major obstacle: Wren had incorporated through drug therapy a psychotic personality she thought would aid her creativity...not something to look forward to dealing with, dead or alive...

Next week I conclude my look at 1983 sci-fi short stories appearing in the Dozois anthology...

Enjoyed Watching Boston Marathon Yesterday on USA Channel

Yesterday morning America's premier annual long-distance race, the Boston Marathon, resuming its April running after 2020's event was cancelled due to Covid-19 and last year's was moved to October.  It started with wheelchair competition, and a little past 9:30 the professional men and women's races began following by a rolling start of the general field, beginning at 10...the spacing was done to keep the faster contestants from being bottled up by the slower.  The 26.2-mile course goes roughly west to (slightly north of) east, beginning in the town of Hopkinton and going through Boston, ending at the Public Library near Boston Harbor.  The race isn't open...there are qualifying thresholds to cross, depending on one's age and gender, and it's a fair assumption to make that I'm far from making the "cut"...I'm 65 and I would have needed to top a time of 4 hours 5 minutes.  Since my best marathon time (during a training run) was only 4 hours 23 minutes back in 2011 when I was 54 and I haven't even covered that distance since that year, I doubt I will be running in it anytime soon (even if I were 100 I would need to better 4:50:00 to qualify).  So although I haven't completely discounted running in a marathon again, Boston is purely for viewing.  Even so, I haven't followed championship running since 1976 when the U.S.A. had stars like Frank Shorter, Marty Liquori and Steve Prefontaine...the first two being hometown heroes where I live.  No, instead I like to watch the different runners and how they stride and carry themselves through the race, but also I enjoy the background geography with the streetside spectators cheering on the runners and the buildings and topography along the way.  Of course, as is the case with other sports like tennis and golf, what the runners are doing doesn't seem all that hard when watching them on the television screen, but in reality I'd have to push just to keep up with them on a bicycle.  I was able to see the winners finishing in each running race...the Ethiopian and Kenyan entrants dominated both the men and women's professional field with both races close to the end.  Naturally, of course, the TV coverage pretty much ignored the thousands of participants behind them.  The top runners for the men and women were Evans Chebet (2:06:51) and Peres Jepchirchir (2:21:01), both of Kenya.  Top rollers were Daniel Romanchuk from the USA (1:26:58) and Manuela Schär from Switzerland (1:41:08)...

Rob Dial's Podcast Discusses the Law of Attraction

Personal development coach Rob Dial has a podcast, titled The Mindset Mentor, on which he discusses different topics pertinent to his field in twenty-minute segments that come out each Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  On a recent show he brought up a recurring them, the Law of Attraction, which states that the universe will accommodate what I want if I consistently demonstrate my certainty that it will happen and work my ass off (his words) to achieve it.  As a matter of fact, Dial says he doesn't even like the word "want" because it implies, even if to a tiny degree, the possibility that it will not happen. I have to be absolutely certain that I will get what I want in life, he emphasizes, and decries that so many focus on what they don't want...this attracts failure, not success.  Instead of saying I "want", say "I will have".   Dial hammers home that I tend to get what I focus on.  Everything that isn't in line with that I "want" will not happen.  And finally, not only do I work my ass off, an integral part of the Law of Attraction that too many do not practice, but I also don't ever give up. It may seem counterintuitive, but I have to always believe I will win...even though sometimes I don't.  He attributes all of this to the Law of Attraction, meaning that the universe brings success to those who combine attitude with action in the present...I have to be convinced that the opposite of what I want cannot exist in reality.  For me, although I understand what Rob Dial's saying here, I don't think I'd phrase it exactly as he does...maybe instead I'd say something like I am wholeheartedly focused and committed to success in whatever it is I want...and I don't have a problem with the word "want".  Still, the main thing is to fervently believe in what I'm doing...sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it, yet how many actually follow this in their lives?

Temperatures Rising, Affecting Distance Running Here in Gainesville

I'm currently adjusting the focus with my distance running, seeing how the temperatures are turning upward in mid-April and destined to go into the 90s during the subsequent months of spring and summer.  Races in Alachua County where I reside, aside from the weekly Saturday morning Depot Parkrun 5Ks, have dwindled to a precious few...and none seem to go beyond that distance.  I had been wondering whether the May Day Glow Run was going to resume this year, after the lengthy Covid hiatus.  It's a 5K race held in Jonesville, a little west of Gainesville, in the Arbor Greens subdivision off Newberry Road.  The gimmick with it is that it is held at sundown, and plastic glowsticks are distributed to the runners to carry around them while racing.  At last look, it's scheduled for May 7th but with registration closed (!!!).  Seeing that proceeds from the race go to a local Gainesville private school, you might think they'd get things straight on the website to get the funds flowing and enthusiasm encouraged...then again, I might either be out of town or at work anyway on that day.  In any event, I intend to run at least one Depot Parkrun event per month and hold the long distances to slow training runs (with intermittent walking breaks if called for) until the fall, when both cooler weather and longer races return.  Florida Track Club, of which I am a member, is holding track meets from time to time during these hotter months...unfortunately, they are all scheduled at times during which I am at work.  They're planning on a 10K event in October and a half-marathon in November...looking forward to both of them.  In the meantime, I'll pretty much be running around home...

Old Twilight Zone Episode Presents False Choices

My daughter Rebecca reminded me the other day that the free Pluto channel (available on Roku...in that sense I suppose it isn't free) offers episodes from the old Twilight Zone series.  I watched one of my favorites with comedian Shelley Berman delivering a great, very funny performance in The Mind and the Matter.  He plays the frustrated Archibold Beechcroft, who is fed up with all the people around him in overcrowded New York City as he struggles against the tide of humanity to make it to and from his office job at an (overcrowded) insurance company.  A helpful and sympathetic young colleague gives him a book, titled The Mind and the Matter, which leads Beechcroft to employ its principles of concentration to get rid of all the people...after a day of being around no one he decides it's too boring and then makes everyone around him just like himself.  After seeing how negative and cynical he is in the faces and actions of the other "Beechcrofts", he decides to make everything the way it was before and resigns himself to his hassle-filled, harassed existence.  But from the first time I saw this episode I realized that he had made a false choice...Beechcroft could have made it so that there were only half as many people...and made them to be from a list of those he liked the most.  But I guess it would have made for a much longer story, and besides, the moral of this episode is that we should learn to be more content in our circumstances. Of course, the dude could have just moved somewhere else or picked a different line of work.  I'm getting a kind of deva vu feeling about this article...I wrote about this episode before: I guess the topic of false choices needed a little repetition.  I imagine, in fact, that most of the time it's the little things done differently that, over time, can have a profoundly major effect on our lives...

Quote of the Week...from Dick Clark

Music is the soundtrack of your life.                             ---Dick Clark

Dick Clark, of course, was the host of ABC's long-running Saturday afternoon hit show American Bandstand, on which young folks dressed in the era's attire got down and danced to the hits of the season, with a special guest act present to perform (or lip-sync).  Although I usually had better things to do as a little kid at that time on the weekend, I also kept up with the hits on the radio and, starting with the year 1964, tied them in with the goings-on in my life.  So when I hear a familiar old song on the radio, it invariably associates itself with its time of greatest popularity...and where I was and what I was doing then.  Music...particularly popular music...has been an important element of my life, although in the last two or three decades I've found myself having to be more selective in finding songs that mean anything to me.  I've bought quite a few albums over the years and listened to many, many more and have a mental list of my all-time favorites.  In a few days I'll begin discussing them, in countdown format, one by one...I'm not yet sure how many albums I'll be including in this blog project.  But I know, like most of the others I've done, that it will be fun...including the assembling of my list.  One caveat: they will be my personal favorites and not necessarily a statement regarding their level of artistic achievement, so music snob/critics be forewarned...

Constellation of the Month: Leo (the Lion)

 

Leo is one the more easily discernible constellations, high in the southern sky in temperate northern latitudes during the spring evening.  It has a first magnitude star, Regulus (a double star 77 light-years distant), at Leo's southwestern corner...Denebola (36 light-years away), at magnitude two, is on the east end, representing the lion's tail.  You can get a vague idea of what Leo is supposed to picture: a crouching or sitting lion facing the right (west).  Leo is a zodiac constellation, meaning that it is a section of background to the projection of the solar system's orbital planes through which we see the planets, our moon, and the sun...faint Cancer lies to its west and expansive Virgo to the east.  On its southern side are five Messier deep space objects: M65, M66, M95, M96, and M105.  They are all spiral galaxies.  In my memory Leo stands as one of the very first constellations I learned and recognized in the night sky long ago, when I was seven and my father introduced them to me one evening in April of 1964...

Weekly Short Stories: 1983 Science Fiction, Part 6

Today I continue my look at the year 1983 in short science fiction with six stories from the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, First Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois, first published in 1984, and featuring his picks from the preceding year...

CRYPTIC by Jack McDevitt

A physicist-turned-administrator is cleaning out the files left by SETI, the previous occupant of his new research facility somewhere in the American Southwest, when he discovers a computer disk containing cryptic data.  SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, a real organization that examines the stars for non-random radio signals indicating other life...I know of them from interviews on the late-night Art Bell radio show while at my then-graveyard shift job assignment.  After meeting with the former SETI director, now long retired, the physicist discovers the somber truth of the information...and why it was hidden away...

THE SIDON IN THE MIRROR by Connie Willis

On a human mining settlement on the thinly crusted surface of a spent-out star...a truly unique sci-fi setting...a man with the special gift (or curse) of being able (or compelled) to closely reflect and imitate others around him has been sent there by his uncle after trouble on his home planet.  Ruby is a Mirror, and is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by some of the locals, who fear this ostensibly mild-manned man may turn violent on them...like the sidon, a native predatory species.  There is a backstory here of what happened on Ruby's native world, and it seems the characters have been transplanted wholesale to this one...I didn't quite get that.  What I did get was that it isn't Ruby whom the folks around him need to fear...it is themselves as they manipulate him to their own sometimes nefarious designs...

GOLDEN GATE by R.A. Lafferty

A man at a bar sometime off in the future attends their nostalgic Melodrama show and gets a little too involved in hating the villain, who seems in real life to be just an ordinary actor, but for Barnaby is evil incarnate...he must kill him.  In the meantime, Barnaby flirts with the club's owner and her two daughters while planning out his deed.  The twist to this brief story at the end changes its entire complexion...while at the same time making me scratch my head a little in confusion.  Also, it didn't quite seem to be a science fiction tale although the author is well-known within that genre...

BLIND SHEMMY by Jack Dann

In a future, decadent post-apocalyptic and technologically-advanced Paris, gambling is taken to extremes as a compulsive gambler goes there with his companion to wager his own body's organs.  But what seems at the start to be gambling transforms into a telepathic chess game as he and his partner first work out their differences with each other and then face the formidable opponents sitting across from them.  I think in a way we are all gamblers...some of us just choose more creative ways to express it.  I liked the way the story ended...

IN THE ISLANDS by Pat Murphy

Nick, a biologist specializing in ocean life, has a friendship with Morris, a boy living on an offshore island from Honduras.  It goes back to the time years before when Morris saved Nick's life from a shark attack in the area...it was also when Nick discovered Morris's special adaptability to living in the water.  This is a poignant tale reminding us that people aren't necessarily what they seem on the surface...but that doesn't mean that their often hidden natures are bad: just different enough to present a danger to themselves should their secret be revealed...

NUNC DIMITTIS by Tanith Lee

Here's yet another story...the third one I've found in this one anthology so far, that stretches the bounds of what defines the science fiction genre.  It's about an immortal vampire woman whose devoted servant of many decades informs her of his impending death. He sets out to find a replacement for himself, and his chosen candidate reflects his own memories as to how he became devoted to his "Princess" so long before.  The story's title roughly means "permission to depart"...

Next week: more from 1983 and the Gardner Dozois anthology covering it...

Major League Baseball Finally Starts...Should I Be Happy?

After needless delay and posturing, Major League Baseball ended its owner/player contract negotiation standoff and finally began its regular season last week.  As is usually the custom during this brief initial period, some of the team-based baseball channels at the end of my TV dial are showing the games free as an inducement to subscribe.  Since I get off from work nights at 10, coming home gives me the only options of either watching western U.S.A. games or replays of one of our two Florida teams.  I happened to tune in one night to a San Diego-Arizona game that the Diamondbacks were hosting.  Through six innings I discovered that not only were the Padres blanking Arizona 2-0, but were in the middle of a no-hitter....how exciting!  I watched the seventh inning and sure enough, the San Diego starter put down the opposing batters easily...I couldn't wait to see what happened in the next inning.  But to my surprise the Padres manager had yanked his starter and replaced him with a reliever, one with some pretty mediocre stats at that.  And he promptly delivered a base hit, ending the prospects of even a combination no-hitter.  To my further surprise I discovered that the same manager had pulled his starter the previous game after six no-hit innings and replaced him with the same reliever, who had also quickly spoiled the no-hitter by giving up a hit.  I mention no names here because, maybe, that's the way the owners want it...capable but anonymous players they know can win them games, but without milestones and special accomplishments that might garner them more money during contract negotiation time.  And money seems to be what it's all about with Major League Baseball.  It costs an arm and a leg to attend these games in person and a pretty penny to watch them on TV, unless you're a Rays or Marlins fan.  And I have trouble, in this Internet area of widespread media access, even getting radio play-by-play.  The San Diego manager's rationale for pulling his two starting no-hit pitchers was that they didn't get enough spring training practice and he wanted to conserve their arms...I don't buy it.  These are special moments in a pitcher's career that they may never again recapture...the wear and tear they go through is over the course of a 162-game regular season in which they may get more than 30 starts...some many more.  No, I believe this was an underhanded attempt to suppress these players' resumes. But the manager's actions were also a slap in the collective faces of the fans, who need these special moments to keep their interest in the game strong. I totally get why complete games are so rare nowadays...but no-hitters? Are you kidding me?  So I ask myself: am I really happy that Major League Baseball is finally underway?

Power...and Limits...of Personal Affirmation, According to Podcaster

On his Mindset Mentor podcast recently, personal development coach Rob Dial discusses the idea of affirmations, that is, talking to oneself in positive terms and expecting this to become a major factor in their successful undertakings.  He starts out by bringing up that many of us go through our days saying to ourselves that we "have to" do this and "have to" do that, when the alternative (and better) saying is we "get to"...this allows us to explore ways to learn, grow, and benefit from what we had originally conceived of as a negative obligation.  Also, like Yoda in Stars Wars, we don't "try"...we either do or don't, there is no trying.  Think of the energy behind your words, he adds, along with the notion that how we fill out the powerful statement "I am ___" can go a long away to determining our direction and destiny.  Finally, Rob Dial emphasizes that statements of affirmation, while encouraging and positive, should adhere to reality.  The statement needs to be true, be in the present tense ("I am ___ing") and have an empowering aspect to it.  So I, a distance runner, wouldn't say "I'm so fast that I won the Olympic marathon in 2000" but rather something like "I am a distance runner, I am running several miles a day, and my progress is making me a runner who can handle the longer distances with more ease and speed".  You can apply this to anything...I thought Dial's ideas were pretty good, but of late, with him and James Clear's Atomic Habits book, my head is starting to really get crowded with self-improvement maxims. I probably just need to stick with a few and "run" with them...

Just Finished Reading Never by Ken Follett

Last year Ken Follett published his latest novel, Never, which quickly rose to the top of the best-seller list.  Stephen King, whom I follow on Twitter, highly recommended it and stated that it reminded him of what's going on in the world today, especially regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The characters...including the world leaders such as the American and Chinese presidents and others...are fictional but the countries and situations are painfully real, much of it taken straight from news of recent years.  The story's focus is triangular: (1) in Chad in northern Sub-Saharan Africa, the CIA has agents there to find the ringleader of a notorious international group of extremist Islamist terrorists, (2) a young top Chinese intelligence official in Beijing must maneuver between the hard-liners in his government and the wayward North Korean dictator to further his country's interests, and (3) the U.S. president, Pauline Green, must react in a measured but careful way to the escalating events falling like dominoes after a North Korean rebel military group seizes control of the country's eastern part, including its nuclear missile facilities.  The story is chilling: you can have rational people running different countries, folks who more than anything want to avoid nuclear war and the untold carnage and suffering which it would release onto the world.  Yet within each country, both democratic and autocratic, there are people and forces pressuring those leaders into conflict.  I know, at this time in early April of 2022, that no atomic bombs have been used in war since 1945.  Much of this I believe is due to the deterrence factor with the two main sides, the USSR/Russia and the United States, very much aware that either of them can destroy the other many times over.  But now with nuclear proliferation and regimes like North Korea and Pakistan in possession of nuclear warfare capability, the danger of one of them triggering a nuclear conflict has escalated.  And once something begins on a limited scale, can the escalation process be turned off...and who will take the first step in that direction without surrendering to their enemy?  A tough book to read with an even tougher ending...