Podcaster Spells Out Some Steps for Success

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast, personal development coach Rob Dial listed six keys to success.  There's definitely overlap here as I've heard all of them. Maybe this is a recycled message and possibly even an unwittingly recycled blog article.  But since it makes sense to me, I'm going to tackle it...here are his steps in a nutshell.  By the way, Dial strongly suggests taking a pen and paper as a worksheet for this...

1-Define what success in a particular area means to you personally. Since we're all different, then different things motivate us.  Dial says that he's had discussions with many people who express dissatisfaction that they aren't meeting their standards of success, but when pressed can't precisely express what they are.

2-Make a plan, as specifically as possible, to realistically meet those standards for success.  From my perspective, I tend to make plans in order to deal with problems that arise, but not so much as with fulfilling my own dreams or bettering myself.

3-Plan out your pitfalls.  What are the obstacles that tend to arise, both inner and external, standing in your way to interfere with your success in an area?  Again, Dial suggests pen and paper...and patience to figure them out.

4-Have accountability relationships.  Dial says these can come in many forms, but the main goal is to make the endeavor more of a commitment by sharing it and your progress (or lack thereof) with another.  If the area is sensitive, the accountability partner should be a trustworthy person.  Regardless, there should be someone to be answerable to, according to the podcaster.  I tend to flinch at this step...then again, I often make public statements on this blog about my own goals...although the reins of accountability here are admittedly very loose.

5 Take action, despite how you feel.  Feelings follow action, not the reverse as most people practice.  But I think we all know this deep down inside whenever we do perform an obligation like going to work (or jury duty, etc.) when we sure as hell don't want to.

6-Do a weekly review of your own progress toward success in your area(s).  Dial cited a famous hip-hop star's "stop-start-continue" method whereby you write down things you feel you should stop doing, those that you want to stop...and those that are "just right" and should continue.  

Of course, all these steps are easier said than done. That accountability Step #4 is my own sticking point...

Constellations of the Month: Sagitta (the Arrow) and Delphinus (the Dolphin)

Sagitta, which really does resemble an arrow, and Delphinus...which does not resemble a dolphin...are tiny constellations situated between the larger Cygnus and Aquila in the summertime evening sky.  Altair, in the neighboring constellation Aquila, is the southernmost of the prominent three first-magnitude stars commonly referred to as the "Summer Triangle"...I included it in the above illustration to show where these two pipsqueak constellations are located in the night sky.  Their stars are all dim, but they do form distinct patterns...you should be able to easily make them out in a setting without city light interference.  The Milky Way cuts through them, so this region of the sky is pretty as well.  As for deep space objects...besides the Milky Way galaxy background itself...there is within Sagitta M71, which is a globular star cluster.  Delphinus is also referred to as "Job's Coffin", but it doesn't resemble one any more than a dolphin.  Since this time of year around 10 pm these constellations in northern temperate latitudes pass nearly overhead, as long as it's not cloudy or you're not in the middle of a metropolis, then spotting them might stand as a reasonable test of your vision...

Next month, I'll pick another constellation to discuss...

My #12 All-Time Favorite Album: In Search of the Lost Chord by the Moody Blues

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD, from 1968, is the Moody Blues' follow-up to their highly acclaimed Days of Future Passed and is my #12 all-time favorite album.  Yet it wouldn't be until the 1990s when I finally got around to hearing it in its entirety, although I was vaguely familiar with two of its tracks, Ride My See-Saw and Legend of a Mind, from album rock radio in years gone by.  That first song I mentioned, coupled with the preceding track Departure, would become a common bumper music feature of the late Art Bell's wildly popular late-night paranormal talk radio show, but it stands well on its own.  In Search of the Lost Chord is very thematic, focused on Eastern philosophy and religion, particularly that of India. That's cool with me since I tend to be a sucker for mystical stuff...just lay off the dogmatism, please. And all five band members not only had strong creative roles in the different songs, but they also sang (or spoke) on them. Here are my takes on the tracks as they appear on the record...

DEPARTURE--drummer Graeme Edge composed several spoken pieces for the Moodies...this one muses on the possibility of transcending our usual senses to perceive reality on all its levels... 

RIDE MY SEE-SAW--John Lodge's song expanding on Edge's prose poem, very enthusiastic and a rocker as well...

DR. LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME--Ray Thomas, my favorite from this group, sings about the idea that we're all searching for something...not just the famous discoverers from the past...

HOUSE OF FOUR DOORS--I interpret this four-part composition by Justin Haywood as doors leading to various stages of personal enlightenment...leading into one of the trippiest songs ever recorded...

LEGEND OF A MIND--you may know this one from its lyrics "Timothy Leary's dead" but Ray Thomas...this is his song...assures the listener the promoter of LSD was alive and well, at least back then.  A profound instrumental rabbit role experience in the song's middle with flute, guitar and mellotron is not to be missed.  I have mixed feelings about this masterpiece because of its pro-drugs stance...

VOICES IN THE SKY--a slow, sweet song by Justin Haywood...just the same, I'm not sure I want to hear "voices in the sky"...

THINKING IS THE BEST WAY TO TRAVEL--keyboardist Mike Pinder's song title sounds cool, but it also seems like he's promoting drugs as the way to go faster than light: not cool as far as I'm concerned...

VISIONS OF PARADISE--Lodge and Thomas collaborated on this somber piece with a lot of Eastern sounding instrumental background...

THE ACTOR--Haywood's best song on the album, in my opinion...he's introspective here about a lost relationship, very emotional and heartfelt...

THE WORD/OM--Edge wrote the spoken preamble The Word, Pinder provided the vocals both for it and his song Om, which is about the Hindu sacred word...a little too religiously dogmatic for my tastes, thank you...

Next week: my all-time #11 favorite album...

Ian Poses Threat to Florida as It Strengthens and Turns

After Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fiona flooded out much of southeastern Puerto Rico while the island suffered power loss after its center passed to the south, it struck the Dominican Republic straight on before passing through the Bahama and into the open Atlantic.  I get the fact that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States and definitely merits a lot of media coverage.  What I don't get is why I've heard virtually no information on how this storm affected the neighboring island of Hispaniola with its eastern nation directly struck.  Anyway, here in Florida we're now consumed with thinking about Ian, which for now is a weak tropical storm in the central Caribbean and heading west to pass south of Jamaica before turning more northward into western Cuba and, ultimately, the west coast of Florida.  In the process it's moving through very warm waters while the upper atmosphere is not expected to provide resistance to its strengthening.  So, Ian could very well become an extremely dangerous hurricane by the time it strikes the US mainland in Florida...the exact point of which they're uncertain.  But this morning...and it could change again...many of the computer projections have it passing very close if not over north central Florida where I live here in Gainesville.  So, I'm concerned about Ian, but not nearly as much as folks living on the west coast of Florida should be.  According to The Weather Channel's Greg Postel, the current "cone of uncertainty" for Ian over the state of Florida is very wide, meaning that meteorologists as yet do not know with a high degree of confidence exactly where it will make landfall.  They believe that it will make its impact here sometime next week around Wednesday and Thursday.  And almost as an afterthought, I heard one meteorologist mention that after passing through Florida, the storm may pose a direct threat to the Carolinas.  Guess I'll be toggling a bit between weather and sports on TV this weekend.  Time for The Weather Channel to send its reporters to the various Florida beaches, finally...

Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

 Knowledge is realizing that the street is one way; wisdom is looking in both directions anyway.

                                                                               ---Albert Einstein

The great physicist from the twentieth century made a lot of pertinent quotes that I've discussed on this blog...you can take his above one in different "directions".  Allegorically, I think he's stressing the importance of thinking outside the box, beyond the standard constraints of established norms and rules.  Literally, though, I think his example comes up a little short.  So I'm driving along and come up on a one-way street...let's just say it's going right. If I'm going to turn onto it, I'm naturally not just going to look to my left to see if any vehicle is approaching.  Simple knowledge of traffic requires me to also look to the right to detect any possible pedestrians or bicyclists coming from that other direction.  I say this (and include this quote) because of the number of times I've been driving around town and observed how too many other drivers virtually ignore pedestrians and refuse to yield to them when they clearly have the right of way, especially at intersections.  And even if they don't, the law requires motorists to yield to them.  Having said that, let's get back to Einstein's probably figurative meaning.  An initial perusal of any situation or issue may reveal a general structure governing it that can lead one to make certain initial conclusions. But that perceived structure may be incomplete or even contrived to mislead...as so many political arguments are being presented during this election cycle.  Looking in both directions "anyway" means that, while I may be predisposed to accept a particular truth or opinion, I'm still instinctively going to make myself look at alternative and dissenting takes on the situation in question.  And if it involves a one-way street, I'm looking in the other direction as well before I take any action...

Daisy in the Frame

 

We've had our little mixed-breed puppy for a little more than four months now...Daisy was only two months old back in May when we adopted her at PetSmart off Archer Road through a pet adoption non-profit group.  Then she weighed just seven pounds...click HERE for an earlier article (and picture).  Now she's 29 pounds but still a little puppy...I took the top picture above a couple of days ago while holding her in my right arm.  Melissa came up with the name, which I quickly took to, but didn't recognize the significance in "Toon World" as Daisy is also the Bumsteads' pet dog in their comic strip Blondie.  One thing tying the two together is that both Daisy's make it a point to make sure they're "in the frame"...check out an old one featuring Dagwood shirking his chores.  I've been walking Daisy around the block each morning in order to train her to follow me and not her own agenda...mixed results so far.  She loves standing on her hind legs and looking out the front window, watching alertly from the left to the right (and back) and huffing and puffing and growling...and occasionally barking at passing cars, people, and of course dogs.  She's very much bonded to both of us but much more so with Melissa...when she leaves the room for just a little bit Daisy turns into a big crybaby.  For a few weeks recently we took her to "puppy kindergarten" where she met up with fellow pups and practiced training Melissa and me to be better humans.  Her growth seems to have slowed down a bit, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.  We love Daisy and wish her a happy, well-behaved life...

Weekly Short Stories: 1986 Science Fiction, Part 7

Here are my reactions to four more stories from the year 1986 as they appear in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection.  To be perfectly frank, this week's entries didn't exactly set my imagination afire, and the first and third seem to have been written apparently to confuse me as to what was really going on.  Sigh...sometimes as a reader you come across weeks like this...

CHANCE by Connie Willis

This is a circular tale about a woman's regrets about her decisions a couple of decades earlier, with the narrative switching without warning between her present, unsatisfactory existence and that past time when different choices...at least in her present mind...would have led to a happier existence.  I don't know whether the author was making this point, but I thought that since everyone screws up along the way, then the truly regretful decision is for someone to be overly regretful about their past decisions...I did say this story is circular, didn't I?  I'm not sure what was science fiction about this tale, but the worms crawling everywhere outside kind of creeped me out...

AND SO TO BED by Harry Turtledove

Turtledove, later widely known as an alternative history writer, wrote this early tale set in 1661, and which speculates what would happen had the European explorers encountered in the New World of the Americas not Native American Indians, but rather Neanderthals...which they term as "sims".  A famous London diarist...a real historical figure...writes "alternative" entries that describe his relationships with the two new sims he has purchased as servants.  And comes up with a controversial theory predating Darwin by nearly two centuries...

FAIR GAME by Howard Waldrop

A man, Ernst, who has built his long life on big-game hunting and adventure has been called in to a small Bavarian country village, where he is hired to hunt and kill the Wild Man who has been raiding them and killing animals and people.  A Wild Man is a novelty, only in this story: they are hairy, eight-plus feet tall, descendants from "ordinary" people.  Ernst is tired and old, and the village people get him a hunting partner: Mgoro, his old friend from many years back in Africa.  Not spelled out directly, the nature of this hunt becomes more apparent toward the end...but it's still what I would call a "murky" story...

VIDEO STAR by Walter Jon Williams

Violent youth gang warfare only heightens in a a technology and drug-rich future.  Set mainly in Arizona, Cadillac gang member Ric has high ambitions as he involves himself in associations and networks with people and organizations, none of which he can trust.  On one international drug smuggling transaction he carelessly lets himself get nearly fatally poisoned and spends months in recovery.  A bleak picture of a breakneck-paced future in which technology, violence and drugs rule the social reality...are we really going there (or are we there already)?

Next week I look at more stories from 1986...

Podcaster Discusses His Tips on Learning

On one of his recent Mindset Mentor podcasts, personal development coach Rob Dial lists and describes four tips to learning better.  He's covered this material before...I like the reinforcement of the message.  First of all, he suggests the use of the "Pomodoro" method of studying hard and focused for 25 minutes and then taking a (non-cellphone) break for 5...and then returning to the studying.  He says that studies have shown that this periodic short rest period gives the brain the time it needs to properly assimilate the material. Second, he urges the student to try teaching the material just learned to another person, and in the simplest language possible that can adequately convey it.  Third, he says that the inevitable difficult areas that present blocks in the road are important to learning and to stress overcoming them...duh!  Finally, Dial suggests that once finished with this process, go back and repeat it.  He bases his tips on what he has learned can increase neuroplasticity, which enables learning to take place.  For me, I remember learning back in the fourth grade the "SQ2R" method of tackling a book or lesson: first SURVEY the material to be covered, without undue attention to detail.  Then pause and reflect on it, asking yourself QUESTIONS that come up about it. Next, READ the material in depth and do the assigned problems.  Finally, go back and REVIEW what you've just covered in the session.  I suppose it's a good idea to practice both lists of learning ideas.  I think I already unconsciously do that Pomodoro technique anyway since I tend to start zoning out after about 20-25 minutes of intense studying...

Just Finished Reading The Stars Did Wander Darkling by Colin Meloy

Colin Meloy is the front man and chief songwriter for the Portland, Oregon based indie musical band The Decembrists...I remember hearing their songs played back around 2003-07 on my local alternative rock radio station WHHZ "The Buzz"/100.5.  That included The Engine Driver, which featured Colin's lyrics that he was a writer of fictions. I didn't take that literally, but he really is a fiction writer, having produced a children's series titled The Wildwood Chronicles.  He's just come out with a standalone children's novel, The Stars Did Wander Darkling, which I just finished reading. The title is a line from the Byron poem Darkness.  The setting is coastal Oregon in a small town with a dark history of the mass disappearance of its population a century earlier.  Thirteen-year-old Archie Coomes enjoys his life, including his close circle of friends with whom he goes camping, among other things.  His father heads a construction company excavating for a new hotel near the historic (but now rumored haunted) Langdon House but has stopped the project because the ground below is full of holes...like Swiss cheese...and presents a danger.  But not only is talk going on that they discovered something sinister down there, but people in town are beginning to change.  Archie suspects a conspiracy afoot, and soon finds himself on a dire race against time to discover the truth and fight off three sinister, strange men who seem to be involved.  For me, this novel was more appropriate for adult readers...in fact, its premise reminded me of the very dark Stephen King novel Desperation, as well as the equally dark movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  I liked how Colin Meloy wrote it, making the language simple with short sentences...I bet Hemingway would have dug that.  He made the characters very life-like and compelling, although some of the mystery and resolution at the end seemed a bit cloudy to me.  I recommend it nonetheless and am considering reading Colin's earlier series.  But for now, I'm about to start reading Stephen King's latest novel, Fairy Tale...

My #13 All-Time Favorite Album: Close to the Edge by Yes

My #13 all-time favorite album, CLOSE TO THE EDGE, by the progressive rock band YES, took a long time to reach my full conscious attention.  I was fifteen in late 1971 when I heard my first Yes song on the radio: I've Seen All Good People.  At first, I thought the singer was a woman, but soon learned that it was Jon Anderson, who had a naturally high, feminine-sounding voice.  No matter, that song, a melodious first half and guitar-rocking on the back end, become for me my "song of the year".  In 1972, this progressive rock band, heavy on the keyboards, came out with the hit single Roundabout off their Fragile album.  Later that year they released their follow-up to Fragile, a critically acclaimed LP titled Close to the Edge.  It continues Anderson's singing and includes some wicked guitar and keyboard jams, along with a prolonged descent through what I've lovingly called the "rabbit hole" of musical and lyrical chaos.  Side One's opening track is the album's title: Close to the Edge...it turns out to be the only track, eighteen minutes in length. Opening with natural sounds including birds, it suddenly transforms into a wild, dissonant guitar jam before leading into Anderson's verses.  The song goes from one stage to another...a little past its midpoint begin my two favorite parts: the dreamy, slow "I Get Up I Get Down", followed by perhaps the jazziest, most versatile rock keyboard instrumental segment ever recorded, before the closing verses and final return to nature.  Whew, the amazing thing is that although my friend Barry from high school introduced it to me back in '73, I never got around to hearing the entire song until some twenty years later: Close to the Edge is my "song of the year" for 1993 and to this day ranks up there among my all-time favorite songs.  Side Two of the album contains just two tracks: And You and I and Siberian Khatru.  The former is a slow-moving, contemplative ballad about ten minutes in length while the latter is a faster-paced rocker.  The lyrics on this album, I believe, are deliberately vague in order to allow the listener to fashion his or her own interpretations, but Anderson said he was inspired for the song Close to the Edge by Hermann Hesse's book Siddartha.  Yes has had many member changes over the decades, but during those productive and inspired early 1970s, it was Anderson on lead vocals, Chris Squire on bass guitar, Steve Howe on guitar, Rick Wakeman on the keyboard and Bill Bruford on drums.  In their next two album releases the band would continue with ultra-long tracks...including Close to the Edge this would make six whopping album-side-length songs!  But trust me: Close to the Edge is the best one, and the two songs on the album's flip side...especially And You and I...are pretty doggone good as well.  Today Yes still exists, with Howe the only member on it from when they recorded Close to the Edge.  Anderson, Bruford and Wakeman are still around while Squire died seven years ago...

Next week: my #12 all-time favorite album...

Just Finished Rereading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a largely autobiographical philosophical novel written by Robert Pirsig, who passed away five years ago at age 88.  Originally published in 1974, the narrative covers a motorcycle journey taken by Pirsig and his son Chris, along with another couple on the early stages, through the northwestern US.  The author weaves together a diversity of topics: his own life history as a creative writing professor in Montana, debates about the legacy of ancient Greek philosophy, most notably that of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, two conflicting modern attitudes toward technology as epitomized by the schism in approaching motorcycle maintenance, and his rocky relationship with his son, complicated by the mental breakdown he had earlier suffered along with the consequential memory loss caused by now-discredited electroshock therapy.   Pirsig discusses what he sees as two conflicting worldviews people today (and in the past) maintain about how they approach life: the Classical, which involves seeing things for their components and underlying form (expressed commonly in science and technology) and the Romantic, which involves seeing things for their whole essence (the arts).  I first read this book back in the late summer of 1990 and tend to associate it with working at the old downtown Gainesville post office where I read most of it during my breaks...I recall the Gulf War was heating up at the same time.  At this second reading, I tried culling all of the sometimes-challenging detail into something I could remember better, coming away with two key words Pirsig talked about: quality and gumption.  According to him, quality, very difficult to describe in technical terms, somehow became separated from truth in ancient Greek philosophy and needs restoration.  And he discussed gumption as something akin to motivation and confidence, a trait necessary for an effective life as well as, of course, for properly maintaining a motorcycle.  It's a great book, although the "zen" in it seemed elusive for me.   I see a third reading somehow down the line...maybe I won't wait 32 years next time...

Quote of the Week...from M in the Movie Dr. No

Miss Moneypenny, forget the usual repartee.  007's in a hurry.                  ---M, Dr. No

For a long-standing movie series' first installment, the James Bond spy series got a lot of things right from the get-go with Dr. No, from 1962.  Then again, you can see some unworthy, dated stereotypes as well.  But I've always enjoyed the brief interplay from movie to movie between Bond and Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary in the supersecret British spy agency M16.  M, in the early movies played excellently by Bernard Lee, is Agent 007's immediate superior and has a very quick, acerbic wit...he's probably the only character in the series to which Bond displays a respectful subservience.  In an early scene from Dr. No, Bond, played here by Sean Connery, goes to M's office for his assignment and naturally encounters Moneypenny (played by Lois Maxwell), where they engage in their typical light, flirtatious banter.  Then Bond goes in to see his boss.  As he is leaving, M presses his speaker and delivers the above quote to Moneypenny...and 007 promptly leaves, giving her the empty box from his new gun.  I recognized the brilliance and humor of inserting this exchange in the movie, but I see a deeper significance.  I can't begin to count the times of annoyance when I would be watching the news on TV or listening to a radio talk show or podcast and the people on it would waste time just gibbering around with one another on no topic in particular.  This naturally doesn't occur when there's just one person present.  I'm guessing that part of this is to make the audience identify with them as regular folks, and part is to fill in some dead airtime between the actual features that they're really there for.  But sometimes they just go on and on as if they are in on some private joke apart from the audience and even snicker and giggle...that really sets me off: it's one of several reasons I refuse to watch the Greg Gutfeld show.  As for podcasting, I have written regularly about one series I enjoy listening to: Rob Dial's Mindset Mentor, in which he gives some ideas about living better in a conversational but disciplined manner.  I thought that since I like running, I might find a podcast that addresses that activity and found one featuring a couple who seem to feel that doing the old "Sonny and Cher" verge-of-argument routine is a great way to present a show.  After trying them out more than once, I came to the conclusion that although they did get around to eventually addressing the subject for which they had the podcast, it was too frustrating plowing through all that "repartee", as M termed it.  If I'm watching or listening to anything, I can tell you flat-out that this kind of prolonged banter is a big turnoff.  However, real life is different, and I think that light, inconsequential conversation is the stuff that greatly helps to hold us together in families, workplaces, stores, schools, and anywhere else people find themselves to keep from going to war with one another.  A little of that in movies, TV shows, radio, and podcasts...like Bond and Moneypenny in their flicks...adds some welcome flavor to the experience, but as with spices added to a recipe, too much can ruin everything...

Follow-Up about Rob Dial's Podcast on Hobbies

The other day I wrote about podcaster Rob Dial's tips about hobbies.  He suggested that we each have different types of them, one hobby that brings in money, one that enhances physical fitness, one that provides a creative outlet, one that improves memory and intelligence...and one that challenges the mindset.  The only of these that I had an issue with was the first one...and apparently, I'm not the only one.  Yet if I go to an art exhibit or craft show in town, inevitably I will see price tags next to the items on display.  Do I begrudge the creators of these objects their putting a price on their artistic expression, which by and large the greater part of them do as a hobby, a labor of love so to speak?   No, actually I think more of it as an expression of confidence and a statement of quality about their work.  I absolutely recognize the excellence of my favorite athletes, musicians and actors...yet I doubt that their acceptance of millions of dollars for their achievements has tainted their chosen field for them: they still love what they do.  But if I do charge money for some hobby I already love doing, doesn't that also imply that I am committed to the benefited party that my product meets a higher standard than if I were just dithering around?  It's this imposition on my sense of freedom as well as a possible sense of insecurity that I am not up to the task or am undeserving of what I might charge that, at least to me, presents the main challenges I have to this notion of Dial's.  Now one objection I heard about it was that if you're retired you don't feel the need to try to make more money...enough is enough: I totally get that viewpoint and think maybe charity or philanthropy might be viable alternatives.  But Dial, who is 35 with a work history in sales, wasn't just speaking to retirees.  Nor was he suggesting that people's lives are so pathetic that they need to wheedle others out of their cash in a petty manner.  As I said before, the emphasis is on quality and confidence, and receiving a little dough in some area...just one, not everything...can enhance life.  Plus, it's not a bad thing to feel a little challenged and confronted about something like this: it makes me work to examine my own life and that is a good thing...

Weekly Short Stories: 1986 Science Fiction, Part 6

I'm continuing to plod through the year 1986 in sci-fi short stories as I go through the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourth Annual Collection. As is the case with a number of Gardner's selections, not all the four stories I'm discussing today truly belong to the genre of science fiction, in my opinion.  Yet the middle two do fit quite well within the horror genre and are stories that Stephen King might be proud of.  Speaking of King, he has a new novel out now titled Fairy Tale...I'm getting ready to start reading it.  But for now, here are my reactions to those four stories from the anthology...

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME by Bruce Sterling

In a future society when machines have made everything pretty much automatic, the once lucrative fields of engineering and science have taken a back seat to the arts in economic power and social prestige. A well-to-do poet tries to win over the daughter of a technology firm magnate by sabotaging his rival's manually controlled flyer.  The impression I got from this story is that the author didn't think too highly of the arts and that society would become too soft if technology made everything too easy...

TATTOOS by Jack Dunn

A man with a heart condition, his wife and teenage son pay a visit in upstate New York to a country fair where he discovers an old friend who used to be a talented artist running the tattoo parlor.  But Nathan looks emaciated and has scars all over him.  His customers also seem to include, besides the regulars, people with special problems.  The idea of healing others' afflictions by taking them onto oneself isn't just an old Star Trek episode...it goes to the heart of the Christian gospel.  Yet Nathan is no Christ...

NIGHT MOVES by Tim Powers

Wow.  Being a night owl for much of my life and spending so much conscious time in those "graveyard" early, early morning hours, this story totally captures the essence of that time of day when most of us are in bed dreaming.  But what if those dreams...by means of a strange roaming essence...are transformed into reality and make their presence known on a city street?  Told from the viewpoint of a few different witnesses of such an occurrence around a city traffic circle, this story may cause the reader to reflect on who (or what) is really out there during those godforsaken wee hours...

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON by James Patrick Kelly

Part of this post-apocalyptic story is about history, part is about geography, and most of it concerns the struggle of a journalist to get her story out in one piece (both the story and herself) after covering a daring orbital theft of sensitive AI (artificial intelligence) data and following the surviving thief to the surface in Switzerland where they meet the man who is buying the info, living in the famous Chillon castle near Montreux.  I thought while reading it that many science fiction writers underestimated the progress that would be made in digital technology and AI in particular.  The story focuses on the characters of the thief, the journalist and the castle-dweller, who being almost completely physically incapacitated has surrounded himself with "smart" robots...

Next week: more about 1986 stories from the Gardner Dozois anthology... 

Thinking of 9/11/01

It's been a couple of days since September 11, now 21 years separated from the horrible events that transpired that morning in New York, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and those four doomed passenger jets.  I watched the History Channel Sunday night...they had a couple of good documentaries of ordinary citizens recording the events as they happened.  At the time I was working overtime on the flat sorting machine at the Gainesville post office and remember going on my final break where they had the TV on.  They were showing a gaping, smoking hole in one of the World Trade Center towers...this was a little before nine Eastern Time.  When I got back to the machine I told Timothy, my coworker, who rushed to the breakroom to see for himself. He returned with the news that the second tower had likewise been hit...we knew then that it was terrorism. Subsequent events that I would have assumed to be engrained in the American consciousness unfolded, among them the call to war.  Sometimes it's hard to calmly discuss options in the immediate aftermath of such a gut-wrenching disaster like this...I remember Washington senator Patty Murray being roundly attacked by the Republicans for daring to suggest that we seek to find out what actually motivated the terrorists. But it all gave certain elements of that party a justification to push their already-held agenda of invading Iraq, throwing out dictator Saddam Hussein and effecting "regime change" even though he was not involved in the plot.  I suppose that, depending on your political orientation and cherished narratives, our reactions to 9/11 were either well thought out, stumbling, or even devious...I'm guessing that elements of all three were involved.  As for now in 2022, I think we're in a "breather" period before more atrocities ensue, sad to say.  I wonder how we'll react to the next "9/11" if and when it occurs...

Podcaster Suggests Five Kinds of Hobbies

When I saw the title of a recent podcast of Rob Dial for his Mindset Mentor program, I was under the impression that he was going to reveal five different specific hobbies I should consider pursuing to enhance my personal development.  If he had really done that, I probably would be writing this article laying out my objections to this hobby or that.  Instead, he described five different kinds of hobbies: oh, yeah, I can dig that.  Here are his suggested hobby categories:

1--Hobbies that provide an income.

2--Hobbies that enhance physical fitness.

3--Hobbies that provide a creative outlet.

4--Hobbies that increase knowledge and intelligence.

5--Hobbies that improve one's mindset.

I believe that I am already engaged in hobbies that fulfill to varying degrees #2 through #5, but I'm wondering whether I can (or want to) tweak a couple of them to meet #1 as well.  Of course, since I'm approaching retirement, the free time on the other side of that transformation should open up opportunities for all five areas.  Also, there is some overlap between them.  But for an old geezer like I'm becoming, examining hobbies like this sounds like a pretty spiffy idea.  What are your hobbies, and do they fit in the above divisions that Dial delineated?  I know there are some that don't for me, such as watching TV and listening to good music, although there could be an argument made that if done thoughtfully, they could contribute to numbers 4 and 5. And of course they provide a good amount of material for my writing, a creative outlet (see yesterday's article)...

My #14 All-Time Favorite Album: Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, by THE BEATLES, is my all-time #14 album.  Although it came out in late 1967, when I was eleven, I didn't hear many of the songs on it until years later.  This is a strange album in its conception, with one side consisting mainly of popular singles hits and B-sides from that year and the other a string of tracks featured on their ill-fated British television special, patterned after the title track. It is that "singles" side that makes it one of my all-time favorites, for songs like Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, All You Need is Love and Hello/Goodbye are true classics.  Here's a listing of the album's tracks according to my liking:

1 Strawberry Fields Forever--I first heard it on Feb. 12, 1967 on the Ed Sullivan Show (along with Penny Lane)...pretty gutsy video that caused a lot of headshaking among viewers back then.  For a long time, I thought Ringo sang the lead on this song, but no, it was producer George Martin combining John's singing on two different takes by changing the speeds...

2 All You Need is Love--I first heard this one recorded live on the British Our World TV special on June 25, 1967.  It's a song I've loved from the beginning...

3 Hello/Goodbye--There were times I considered this one my favorite Beatles song...sometimes the simple lyrics are the best...

4 I am the Walrus--This is a special kind of song I term "rabbit role music" where the lyrics are exceedingly cryptic and the musical accompaniment breaks down into a kind of chaos: done well it's unforgettable, as it is here with John chiefly responsible...

5 Penny Lane--A nostalgic "Paul" piece about a street in his hometown of Liverpool...producer Martin added a wicked piccolo trumpet line to the recording at McCartney's suggestion...

6 Baby You're a Rich Man--a "John" contribution, heavy on psychedelia: "How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" The music belongs to an era we'll never see again...

7 Fool on the Hill--Paul's answer to Lennon's earlier song Nowhere Man: same general message about marching to your own drumbeat...

8 Your Mother Should Know--This is another of what I've grown to call Paul's "cutesy" repertoire of songs...another, Goodbye, he gave to friend Mary Hopkin; that may have been the best of them...

9 Blue Jay Way--Not to be outdone by Paul with Penny Lane, George Harrison wrote this one about a street he visited that year in Los Angeles.  Mysterious and gloomy...works for me!

10 Magical Mystery Tour--for some reason this song rubbed me the wrong way...maybe it just sounded too much like the band was trying to sell me on something they weren't too sure about themselves or maybe just trying to recreate the Sgt. Pepper hoopla...

11 Flying--Songwriting credits go to all four Beatles on this song, a rarity.  It's mostly a harmless, slow instrumental with some la-la-la's thrown in for good measure.  Good filler track, though...

Next week: #13...

Beach Instead of Football Planned Today

As Melissa and I head out of town to Daytona Beach on this stormy weekend, many other folks are pouring into Gainesville to partake of the festivities of the University of Florida Fightin' Gators football team as they try to beat Kentucky this evening.  Everyone's excited because they won their first game last Saturday...if only by the skin of their teeth.  But confidence morphing into cockiness abounds...sooner or later they're gonna lose and that will be tough for some to withstand.  I've been to three UF home games since 1977...all of them due to others inviting me or handing over their tickets due to other commitments.  The only time I "enjoyed" the experience was the time during Muschamp's last year as coach when it was homecoming and Missouri humiliated Florida...that was all right with me: I was sitting with Melissa in the front row in the end zone cushioned chairs instead of those bleachers.  With bleachers, you come to an early conclusion that you have a simple choice: either stay seated and only see the backs of the people standing up in front of you or stand up yourself and block the people behind you...no thanks!  No, we'll be out on the oceanfront, most probably ignoring the Gators and other sporting events.  Hope the truckers aren't out there...they really screwed up our Labor Day weekend visit there a couple of years ago...

Quote of the Week...from Queen Elizabeth II

Football's a difficult business and aren't they prima donnas.  But it's a wonderful game.

                                                                    ---Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II of England passed away at her family's Scotland home yesterday at the age of 96, having one of the longest realms in the history of nobility at seventy years.  It was interesting reading and hearing of the outpouring of emotional tributes coming from some sources you might not automatically think of, like for example the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger.  But most reasonable and mature people understand that she was born into ceremony and royal duty and had precious little actual political power...her life was one largely preprogrammed for her.  She still made the most of it with a lot of class and some refreshing candid humor, as the above quote about her country's (and most of the world's) chief sport of soccer.  I think the same about other sports, too...with the U.S. Open going on now, tennis comes to mind as player after prima donna player pitches fits on the court, breaking their rackets, bawling their eyes out and screaming epithets at the judges and spectators.  TV analyst John McEnroe has provided more humor by publicly castigating their excesses, although he himself was one of the worst offenders when he played...

I had the television on yesterday morning when the Weather Channel mentioned the Queen's deteriorating health and I switched to the three main cable news channels.  CNN and MSNBC had concentrated coverage of the gathering of her family and different aspects of her life and career, but FoxNews was completely ignoring this momentous story, instead focusing on key political races that "their" party, the Republicans, needed to win in November.  Apparently, boss Rupert Murdoch had given the order to snub her, but why? Well, maybe a clue is in another quote of hers, from nine years ago: "I don't like to badmouth people.  but I'm the head of a monarchy that began in the ninth century, and I'm apparently more modern than Chris Christie.  Look, I know he has to appeal to the crazy right-wingers in his party, but the fact is, he's not as forward-thinking as an eighty-seven-year-old lady who wears a crown on her head.  It's pathetic." Melissa later told me that Fox did finally start to cover Queen Elizabeth II's death, but their decisions yesterday morning were telling: "fair and balanced" my ass...

So now it's King Charles III in charge of things...I remember my mother telling me about him in the late 1960s and it's been a long wait, for sure.  I've never been one to care about the news within the English royal family or any others...dang it, didn't we shed all that when we declared independence in 1776?  Still, I always liked Elizabeth and, like many others, will miss her presence and often incisive and straight-forward humor...

Horrible Weather Continues, Here and There

Just when it looked like my poor lawn would finally dry up and stop resembling a rice paddy, the sky opened up today and its right back to where it was, a big, green saturated sponge.  And it looks like there's plenty more rain to come...good grief.  I'm looking forward to dryer times...if that ever happens.  But after watching the Weather Channel lately, it looks as if the rest of the country has its own weather issues.  I sometimes entertain a daydream of just getting on a plane and going to one of the many places further up north that hold half-marathons this time of year, because it's supposedly colder there, you see.  One of the places, Scottsbluff in western Nebraska, is holding one in a couple of weeks.  But according to TWC, temperatures have recently climbed to 99 degrees there.  And these heat waves have been horrible this summer, subjecting normally more temperate places like Oregon, Montana, Minnesota and New Hampshire at different times to horrendous conditions.  Maybe I'll just stick to an air-conditioned lifestyle for a while...