Just Finished Reading Carbs and Cadavers by Ellery Adams

A while back I delved into the literary subgenre of "cozy mysteries", that is, short novels...usually combined into different series...that are relatively light reading and usually carry some sort of theme appealing to various tastes.  I wasn't too impressed with what I read back then but decided to give it another try with a new author.  Ellery Adams is the pseudonym of prolific cozy mystery writer Jennifer Stanley, also writing under the name J.B. Stanley.  I just finished reading the first book in her Supper Club Mystery series, titled Carbs and Cadavers. After his divorce, college English professor James Henry has returned to his small (fictional) hometown of Quincy's Gap, in western Virginia, to assume head librarian duty there and live with and care for his recently widowed father Jackson.  James feels he has a problem with food, chiefly cheese puffs, to which he seems addicted.  He becomes acquainted with and befriends others in this small community, and they decide to start an informal weight loss support group called the Supper Club, in which they would encourage one another and hold themselves accountable for eating better.  Thet's one side of the story...the other is a murder mystery when an arrogant young man is found dead with a suspicious prescription drug in his system...from there the police hastily jump to conclusions and arrest the wrong suspect.  This involves James, his potential love interest Lucy, and the rest of the group in the mystery...which naturally ends up as a perilous climactic situation.  I felt that Stanley (or Adams, if you will) had her heart in the story and did a great job of developing its characters.  And she exhibited a lot of good-naturedness as well...but if you're particularly sensitive to "body shaming" you might not like this tale about people possessing the virtues of humility and humor working together to make each other's lives better. Since I've done my share during my adult life of yo-yoing up and down the scales, I identified with the characters and enjoyed Carbs and Cadavers...and plan to embark soon on the second Supper Club Mystery installment...  

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 4

Today, as I look back at the year 1989, I switch over from the final Donald Wollheim "year's best" sci-fi short story anthology in his series to the continuing one edited by Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection.  There is very little overlap between the two anthologies: only Gregory Benford's Alphas and Brian Stableford's The Magic Bullet...already reviewed previously...appear in both.  Below are my reactions to the first six stories...

TINY TANGO by Judith Moffett

This 1989 story about AIDS/HIV projects into the future a few decades, making some predictions that didn't come true...thankfully...but ultimately presenting some insight as to how different people afflicted with chronic medical issues adjust their lives to accommodate their conditions...and search for new ways to fulfill themselves: a hopeful message.  A young woman caught AIDS and has become a long-term survivor, in more ways than one...

OUT OF COPYRIGHT by Charles Sheffield

Cloning past scientific and inventive geniuses from the past gets the treatment here as figures like Einstein, Fermi, Newmann, Bohr, and the like work for different companies competing for fat space development contracts: Al, the story's narrator, heads such a team as they attempt a difficult problem on one of Jupiter's moons.  The story's punchline is when we discover at the end who Al really is...

FOR I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY by Mike Resnick

A few weeks ago, I reviewed the story Kirinyaga by the same author, creating a traditional Kikuyu (from Kenya) society on another planet.  The thread continues with this tale for a girl whose thirst for knowledge and enlightenment directly conflicts with the authoritarian ruling witch doctor's insistence on traditional roles, which he believed would be threatened by the girl's explorations.  A disturbing but thought-provoking story that has analogous ties about the ethical limits of knowledge and the rights of people to pursue it...

AT THE RIALTO by Connie Willis

Dr. Ruth Baringer is a physicist attending a convention of quantum physics at a Hollywood hotel. It isn't long before she discovers that her surroundings begin to imitate the uncertainty and frustration involved in making sense of quantum theory itself.  It's a funny tale and made me want to go a little deeper into the field myself...think I'll steer clear of L.A., though...

SKIN DEEP by Kathe Koja

This is a completely different "Skin Deep" story than the one I discussed a while back. This one read more like a Stephen King horror tale as an obviously alien, hideous blobby creature has a penchant for somehow luring people...men and women both...to its squalid apartment room where they sexually expend themselves on it and become addicted to the experience.  The horror becomes magnified by what happens at the end...not for the faint at heart...

 

THE EGG by Steven Popkes

In a far future Boston, the sea level has drastically risen, submerging large parts of the area.  And human contacts with other races in the cosmos has flourished, with a robust alien presence all around.  An orphaned boy lives with his cynical aunt and her son...he has as a guardian companion an alien being named Gray.  The circumstances of his parents' deaths weigh heavily on them all...this story treats relationships and reveals that some of the strongest and most loyal can transcend family ties...even those of home worlds...

Next week: more reactions to 1989 science fiction short stories from the Garder Dozois anthology...

Warmer Winter Than Usual Continues

I don't have the statistics at hand, but it seems to me like this has to be one of the warmest winters in my memory since I moved here in northern Florida in 1977.  Sure, we've had a small number of dips into the 30s with a few freeze warnings...even a few consecutive days once of below-thirty temperatures.  But the trend has been much warmer, and my lawn, with the explosion of native weeds all over it, reflects this. It's funny that my half-marathon run back in mid-January just happened to coincide with the deepest temperature dip...since then there haven't been many opportunities for me to wear my sweater or jacket outside.  I'm considering running the Florida Track Club's Micanopy Ten-Miler this coming Saturday morning, but it looks like rain...might run it anyway as it looks like a relatively wet winter, to go along with the heat...

Just Finished Reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Andy Weir is a science fiction writer best known for his novel The Martian, adapted to the blockbuster movie hit starring Matt Damon.  Last year he published another space-based book, titled Project Hail Mary: my sister gave me a copy this past Christmas, and I just finished reading it.  I haven't read anything by Weir before, so I was pleasantly surprised at his deft, personable writing style.  After all, this is a "hard" science fiction story, meaning that an enormous amount of the narrative is spent describing often technical concepts that one would need to take advanced courses for in order to fully understand...yet the author made the narrative flow easily as the protagonist, a young middle school science teacher named Ryland Grace, takes the reins recounting his experiences in resolving a debacle of truly cosmic proportions.  It has been discovered that the sun is suddenly dimming, with its heat output projected to cause mass extinctions on Earth at an unprecedented rate...including possibly the eventual extinction of all life.  The cause appears to be a cosmically borne microorganism that thrives in a carbon dioxide environment and draws its energy directly from whatever star it has infected.  Grace, earlier in his career a biology professor having written on potential extraterrestrial microorganisms, is recruited by the hastily assembled international research and rescue team to plan a mission to another star system where a similar phenomenon is not causing the same effect as here...why the difference?  Weir toggles with Grace's narrative back and forth between the flight preparations and Grace's experiences on his largely automated spaceship after he is resuscitated from an artificially induced coma.  It's a mystery how he might solve the enigma of the Astrophage, as the organism causing all the harm is called.  And it brings into play the notion that we are not alone, and wouldn't it be a cool thing to make common cause with other life in the cosmos.  In spite of the technical material covered, I think you'd like this book even if you weren't a scientist or engineer...I'm certainly not, and I plan to check out The Martian (never saw the movie) and Artemis, which he wrote in between the other two books.  Thank you, Anita, for a thoughtful gift...

British Alternative Virtual Band Gorillaz Keeps Chugging Along

Earlier this week I hinted at a weekly Sunday blog feature here, in which I would discuss various music studio albums by acts I like...and here we are on the first Sunday afterwards and I've only listened to one album instead of the at least three I had planned.  Being a fan of traditional rock n' roll artists from the previous century as well as some of the 21st century's more prominent alternative acts, my plan was (and still is) to take the later albums they produced following their peak periods of popularity and search for noteworthy tracks on them...I did something like this with David Bowie and Prince following their respective deaths in 2016.  The British alternative "band" Gorillaz is the brainchild of Blur front man Damon Albarn...responsible for the musical and lyrical side of the act...and animation artist Jamie Hewlett...creator of Gorillaz's imaginary four characters that perform and dramatize the music on videos.  Gorillaz recorded four hit albums from 2001 to 2010.  Then they broke up for several years, with Hewlett's complaints about his diminishing role in the act's success fueling the dissention.  They got back together, though, with the release of the album Humanz in 2017 and, subsequently, three more since.  I listened back in '17 to Humanz and didn't care at all for it...this past week I gave it another chance and realized that some tracks are actually pretty good.  Most of them...as with Gorillaz's previous albums...feature guest artists, many of them in the hip-hop genre.  I am partial to the songs Ascension, Submission, She's My Collar and We Got the Power...a special bonus CD contains Out of Body, which I think is the best track of all (with Submission a close second).  Listening again to Humanz reminded me of why I came to like Gorillaz so much in the first place: back in 2010-11 I had put those first four albums on my MP3 player and listened to them in shuffle mode while out on long runs: it's great music to move to!  Humanz is similarly very dance-oriented...I have the sneaking suspicion that the more I listen to it, the more I'll like it.  As for the other, more recent Gorillaz albums, I'll just need to find the time to listen to them...as well as to the enormous number of more recent albums by other artists I like that I've never heard...

Just Finished Reading Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

A few days ago, while browsing through Books-a-Million with Melissa, I noticed some young adult fantasy series on a table display.  One of them was Graceling, by an author named Kristin Cashore.  Being a fan of young adult books, I nevertheless didn't want to get myself committed to a long fantasy series, so I investigated this young writer's still-brief bibliography and discovered that she published in 2017 a standalone book titled Jane, Unlimited.  I just finished reading it, and, sad to say, discovered that it belongs to a category of works that I have put down in frustration after only partially reading them.  Yes, I did pick it back up again for the sake of attaining some closure to this reading task, but it was an overall unsatisfactory reading experience for me.  I then checked Goodreads and discovered that readers either thought this novel was a masterpiece or they likewise quit reading it long before the finish, panning it unmercifully.  For me, I'm somewhere in between the two extremes, deciding to go ahead and give it the old college try...oh well, now that I read it, I can now check it off my reading list!  I liked Cashore's writing style and she created a very compelling character in Jane, a young college dropout orphaned twice, first from her parents and then her Aunt Magnolia, who was mainly responsible for her raising.  Jane's friend Kiran invites her to stay over at Kiran's mansion of a home, called Tu Reviens, and Jane remembers her aunt once imploring her to accept any such invitation to that place.  It's a strange house with a lot of strange people, and soon after Jane arrives a stray dog decides to adopt her...it seems to have a sense of wisdom about guiding her around.  I liked the novel's setup with the mysterious house and characters, but the author decided to have the narrative split off into alternate stories that left me confused and, at times, angry.  Yet I have to admit that writing unhinged books isn't a new thing, and James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut and Jonathan Swift achieved great renown for some of that kind of stuff...maybe Kristin Cashore was looking at them when she wrote this, who knows.  The problem I had with the alternative narratives was that sometimes the previous narrative "counted" and sometimes it didn't as the book progressed...there was no sense of the main character, Jane, achieving any sort of peace about her own life because before too long there would be a "reset" and it would all start over, with a completely different emphasis.  I didn't care for that, but you just might.  In any event, I greatly respect the author for writing this book and presenting some pretty interesting characters along the way...Jane's talent for creating artistic umbrellas was a good example...

Quote of the Week...from Alan Watts

I owe my solitude to other people.                                  ---Alan Watts.

Alan Watts (1915-73) was an English philosopher and author who tended to focus on Eastern thought systems and spiritual outlooks.  So, it might not be surprising that the above quote of his might seem a little bit Zen in its overt sense of paradox.  I, on the other hand, am in no ways bound to his training or possibly poetic tendencies, seeing his statement instead perhaps more literally than he had intended...I guess I'd have to resurrect the dude and ask him to his face to make sure, in any case.  Not exactly known for being a gregarious lover of people and their company, sometimes their manipulation and annoying presence that messes with my mental, emotional and spiritual equanimity just gets to be a little bit too much and I feel the strong urge to retreat a few steps.  If you're one of those aforementioned annoying gregarious manipulators, then you might condescendingly say that I'm going into a shell and hiding, but then again, I've already described you as annoying and manipulative, haven't I?  Besides, I'm not saying I want to be a hermit, as I have a small circle of loving family and friends that I find reassuring and supportive...God bless them all.  I simply find much human interaction as tedious and draining...and some days, like yesterday for example...severely test my ability to withstand all the bull thrown my way.  May today go better...I'm being proactive in that regard by bracing myself against more social aggression and manipulation...

Podcaster Discusses Sensitivity to Incompleteness

Podcaster Rob Dial recently presented a topic very worthy of my consideration, and timely in today's world of media manipulation. People are instinctively sensitive to things in their life that are incomplete, with the lacking element(s) tending to gnaw at their consciousness until closure is attained.  That's why they give sly little teasers on the network news shows just before commercial breaks, hinting at some major revelation that usually fizzles...the same thing applies to Internet news feeds, the lead-in statement usually sensationalizing the often-trite "deeper" story, once you commit and click on it.  With our personal lives, loose ends of unfinished business similarly gnaw at us, robbing our ability to be at peace and concentrate our attention on specific tasks. Dial suggests we make a list (he's a big advocate of sitting down with pen and paper) of the things we want to accomplish in a given day and then prioritize them as to the most important.  Then further break those down to more "bite-size" time-consuming units that allow a sense of completion. He also recommends the Pomodoro Technique of cycled, complete focus for 25 minutes, followed by a break for 5 minutes...then resume.  At day's end, review the list, noting what's been completed (celebrate this) and then put what's left over, in order of priority, on the next day's list.  This helps to clear the mind of those creeping feelings of failure that incompleteness can instill. I know that for me there are several ongoing projects I'm working on, and a few that I want to start.  Conceptualizing them by blocks of time spent working on them...and recording my progress on paper...helps me to feel...for the given day...that sense of completion that helps me meet the next morning with a more positive outlook.  Of course, if you're Bill Murray's alter ego Phil Connors on this calendar date you can just relive the same day over and over and over again, taking your sweet little time getting better... 

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are my reviews of the final four science fiction short stories from 1989 as they appeared in Donald A. Wollheim's The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, featuring his selections from the previous year.  Wollheim would die later in 1990, so this concludes his excellent anthology series.  Henceforth I will be only using another worthy annual science fiction anthology series, The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois and going all the way through the year 2018: plenty more to come!  But for now, let's look at those final four tales in Wollheim's book...

NOT WITHOUT HONOR by Judith Moffett

This is a nostalgia-soaked story focusing on the old fifties Mickey Mouse Club television series, especially Jimmie Dodd as its mature, mentoring figure.  Set in the future, a biome scientist on Mars meets with alien travelers who picked up the old series' signals over the light years of space and are here to meet Mr. Dodd, their idea of honor and goodness.  Only how to break it to them: Dodd is dead and so is a lot of what he exemplified...

DOGWALKER by Orson Scott Card

Hi-tech medical implants combine with street-wise criminals working for organized crime in this scary tale of a "vertical" young man whose brain was altered after being nearly fatally shot...to some he is dead anyway. Although the criminals here are ruthless, the scariest part is the notion that drastically altering the human brain and essence through medical procedures in order to achieved specialization isn't that far beyond our present capabilities...

SURRENDER by Lucius Shepard

In one of the most vicious polemics I've read against war, especially of the proxy sort staged in poor third world countries, a genetically modified food has caused severe mutations over generations of a native population in Central America...they are now the immediate enemy for an American correspondent and his colleagues.  But he knows the real enemy behind it all and doesn't hold back on his wrath...

WAR FEVER by J.G. Ballard

As in the previous story, the ongoing enemy in the intense narrative isn't the ultimate one. Here it's perpetual urban war in Beirut with no end in sight...but what about those UN peacekeepers...

Next week: more sci-fi stories reviewed from 1989, using the Dozois anthology... 

My January 2023 Running and Walking Report

In January '23 I continued running and walking on every day of the month, often jogging more than ten miles per day...although I did slightly strain my back toward the end of the month and had to reduce my efforts a bit.  I ran two races, the Depot Parkrun on New Year's Day and Florida Track Club Mary Andrews Half Marathon (in Hawthorne) on the 15th...that latter one started under sub-30 temperatures: click on the titles to read my recaps.  I had thought of trying the Newnan's Lake 15K at month's end, but as I said I had that back soreness and decided to forego it.  Besides, on February 11th, the Florida Track Club is holding a ten-mile event in Micanopy...I ran it last year and think it's a possible traditional annual run for me, especially since LifeSouth no longer holds the February Five Points Half Marathon here in Gainesville.  On February 4th, as I have written previously, a local beer company is staging a 4.2 mile race centered around its facility, Depot Park and the western end of the Hawthorne Trail...I'll need to get up early Saturday morning after getting off from work late Friday night for that one (as well as for the Micanopy race, for that matter).  I'm still trying to figure out which kind of shoes I should best wear for road running, which tends to jar my feet more and cause more aching.  Maybe with this coming "beer run" I'll check out my more padded Nike Air Monarchs, which I used to regularly employ for races around 2013-18.  As for walking, it's still the same pattern as for the past few months: lots of mileage that comes naturally in my workplace, which involves walking back and forth to numerous locations within the huge facility there.  My strategy in races is to start out with "old man steps", not trying to set any speed records but covering the distance as a primary goal...then, later on, I can ramp it up if it looks like I've "got the power" on that particular day.  That strategy, which I had abandoned in October's Tom Walker Memorial Half Marathon, served me well with this past one as I finished in 2 hours 34 minutes and won my age group somehow.  I'm 66 and not getting any younger, and although I want to run fast in the future I also am realistic and accept that, as long as I run, my finishes will tend to taper slower as I progress.  My fastest half marathon ever was 1 hour 50 minutes in March 2013...never going back there again...

Upcoming Blog Feature on Album Reviews

The other day on my Disney+ channel, I watched Mary McCartney's special If These Walls Could Sing, about Abbey Road Studios in London and its great history, including that, of course, of her father Paul's group the Beatles.  It made me consider how much I have missed by skipping over recorded albums from other groups and solo artists over the years.  So, I'm setting out early in 2023 to catch up on my album listening with various recording artists of the past 50-plus years.  I'm thinking of setting up another of my famous weekly blog features, this one going over various albums I hear and my favorite (and least favorite) tracks on them.  I don't know that I'll necessarily devote a whole article to reviewing each album, instead using a format like I do on Wednesdays when I discuss different short stories I've read.  Since I now have listening access to so much, this is a feasible project...who knows, maybe I'll come up with some new all-time favorite songs from this.  I also have some catching up to do with some of my favorite acts that are currently out there, like Kasabian, Metric, Gorillaz, Arcade Fire, Spoon and the Strokes, for example.  Let's see, how about doing this on Sundays?  Looking forward to it, now let's get listening...

Watching NFL Conference Championship Games Today

Today the National Football League decides who will face each other in the latest edition of the Super Bowl, to be played in a couple of weeks in Glendale, Arizona.  The Philadelphia Eagles, my favorite in the National Conference once Tampa Bay and Seattle were eliminated early on, advanced with a convincing 31-7 home win over the San Francisco 49ers.  Now it's Kansas City at home against last year's American Conference Champion (and Super Bowl loser) Cincinnati.  After Jacksonville lost to them last week, I'm rooting for the Chiefs to win it all, so naturally I'm favoring them over the Bengals tonight. Today's first game showed how injuries can completely change the complexion of a contest as the 49ers rookie star quarterback Brock Purdy suffered an elbow injury that removed him from much of the game and thoroughly hampered his ability to throw the football effectively when he did return.  But I don't think it would have altered the final result had he stayed healthy...Philadelphia was clearly the better team.  Jalen Hurts is an outstanding quarterback for the Eagles, but he's backed up by an equally excellent offense...and the defense was suffocating today.  Regardless of who wins between KC and Cincy this evening, I'd have to consider the Eagles as the Super Bowl favorites.  I'll root for them if the Bengals win and against them if the Chiefs prevail.  I happen to like both starting quarterbacks in the ongoing game, but once again injuries may be a big factor: in his last game, Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes strained his ankle and his movements may be more limited than usual against Cincinnati, whose quarterback Joe Burrow is perhaps the league's best right now.  Regardless of what happens between these two teams, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Super Bowl...the game, that is, not the pre-game hype or the often-ridiculous halftime show...

Looking Ahead to Upcoming Running Races in 2023

Ha-ha-ha, I had just told Melissa that I had decided to pass up on running tomorrow morning's Newnan's Lake 15K when I discovered that the dang thing was already held this morning!  No matter, more races are forthcoming, and I was recovering from a slight back strain anyway.  It all did inspire me to look on my dependable Running-in-the USA website to see what exactly was available in the upcoming months, and I thought of a nifty little goal for myself with race running. Every Saturday morning there is the free Depot Parkrun 5K...that covers almost any time I might feel like running that distance in an event...I can pick and choose whichever weeks I feel like running them (or NOT running them).  For longer races, I have decided to try and run at least one of those per month.  How can I accomplish this in 2023? First of all, the traditional Gainesville long-distance event of the Five Points marathon/half-marathon has been discontinued, so I'm happy that I was able to run the Florida Track Club's substitute race two weeks ago on 1/15...that takes care of January!  In February we have a 4.2-mile run sponsored by a local beer company on the 4th and the FTC Micanopy 10-miler on the 11th...check off this month for "mission accomplished" as well if I run one or both of them.  In mid-March, Melissa and I are on vacation and may spend some of the time out-of-state: maybe there's a possibility there. If not, on the 25th is the traditional Trail of Payne 10K that I have never run...maybe in 2023 I will.  On Saturday April 9 is the Run Your Buns Off marathon/half-marathon/10K on the same Hawthorne course, it seems, as the FTC race that I just ran.  And now we've come to May: in the Jennings State Forest to the NW of Middleburg they have a cool-sounding half-marathon trail race...intriguing.  And I discovered that off SR35 in southeastern Ocala is a monthly 10K run on Saturday mornings...bit of a drive, but it does fill in that gap nicely during the warmer late-spring-to-early-fall months should I find it a feasible venture.  I'm considering bidding at work to a different position should such an opportunity arise, preferably reporting at noon instead of 1:30 as I currently do if I can get weekends off...I think getting up early in the morning is a good habit to incorporate, plus races tend to start at that time of day on Saturday and this way I would have extra time after getting off work Fridays to sleep for the next day's race.  I'm also becoming fed up with my current specific assignment at my workplace that demands from me a careful attitude that I find lacking in other facilities that I depend on to do my job effectively...this is causing an undue amount of frustration and anxiety that I feel unjustly inflicted upon me: perhaps it's time for a change as I spend the remainder of my working days and approach retirement...

Quote of the Week...from Paul Simon

There are two sorts of people in the world: Those who listen and those who are thinking about what they are going to say next.                                                     ---Paul Simon

Over the years I've generally liked Paul Simon's music...especially when he was collaborating with Art Garfunkel earlier on.  Let's see, my favorite songs from them are Scarborough Fair, Fakin' It, I am a Rock, America, The Boxer and Cecilia.  With Paul Simon as solo artist, I liked his Duncan and Boy in the Bubble above the rest.  The above quote of his doesn't really have anything to do with music per se...it's more about folks in conversation or in small group settings.  From my experiences and perspective, it all comes down to the felt expectations within the situation.  Within the context of the conversations or group discussions, am I expected to be an active, talking participant? This is especially relevant in small groups where they go around a circle to focus on each person...groan, you can bet that I'm thinking of what I'm going to say before my "turn" in these scenarios instead of listening to others!  With any situation, listening is a skill that must be learned. And sometimes taking a little time before one speaks his or her mind to the other can go a long way to understanding more deeply the thoughts behind what is being said. Listening empathetically doesn't mean that I agree with what you're saying, but rather that I esteem you enough to want to understand the full message and intent behind it...and also implicitly invite you to show me the same level of respect when I am talking.  And sometimes, when the opportunity within a discussion does arise for me to speak, it might behoove me more to repeat and clarify what I had just heard...just to make sure I got it right...before I sound off about my own reactions...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Newton by James Gleick

Isaac Newton, more than any other individual, ushered in the revolution in science and technology that we so often take for granted today.  James Gleick, a noted science historian and author, decided to write a biography of Sir Isaac, who lived in England from 1642 to 1727, a prodigious life span for someone in his day.  Gleick traces elements of Newton's childhood including his family and their "in-between" social class status as modest landowners, going through his academic years and settling on the Great Plague of 1665-66, when his Cambridge classes were cancelled, and he studied in reclusion at his family's countryside home.  It was then that Newton developed many of his ideas that would later bring him fame and reward, such as classical mechanics, the nature of gravity as a universal principal both on Earth and with celestial bodies, and the invention of calculus...he tended to avoid publishing his results, however, which would later lead him into conflict with others claiming that they were the discoverers.  Gleick's biography is balanced between discussing Isaac Newton the person and the subject matter he tackled...you don't need to be a scientist or mathematician to appreciate this well-thought-out book.  I happened to check it out from my library using the Libby app...so can you if you're registered with a participating public library.  I haven't read too many biographies of late, although when I was a kid in elementary school, I must have read every single book in the children's biography series my school's library carried...and that was a lot!  I think that may have been one of the main catalysts in my lifelong interest in history.  One thing I appreciate about Isaac Newton is that he, like myself, tended to do better in seclusion than when stuck surrounded by a lot of people with their agendas, egos and tribalism.  Newton was an individualist who wasn't averse to arguing vehemently over his beliefs, and could be pretty hard on others, as when after assuming the role of standardizing Britain's currency he supported capital punishment for convicted counterfeiters.  Gleick also examined Newton's religious beliefs, including his privately held rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  You can't read this book without coming away with a greater appreciate of this giant of science as well as learning a few things about that science...and the different schools of thought about it in Newton's era...

Weekly Short Stories: 1989 Science Fiction, Part 2

Today marks the second week of my examination of 1989 short science fiction as it appeared in the Donald A. Wollheim anthology The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, featuring stories the editor picked from the previous year. Marking the climax of the collapse of communist regimes in central and eastern Europe, on November 9, 1989, celebrating Germans tore down the Berlin War separating East from West Berlin....the most visual symbol of the decades-long Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and allies.  It's sad to see how, over the past few years, the hopes for a truly peaceful and cooperative international community of nations have been squandered...but enough of that for now, here are my takes on the next four stories in Wollheim's book...

ABE LINCOLN IN McDONALD'S by James Morrow

Abraham Lincoln has in his hand a treaty, already signed by Jefferson Davis, that would prematurely end the Civil War and keep slavery alive in the South.  He steps through time into our own and discovers the ramifications of his inclination to sign that treaty: slavery and the accompanying racial prejudice not only survived, but it has spread to the entire country...while industrialization and modernization continued.  A specific event occurs that old Abe witnesses which makes his final decision for him...

DEATH SHIP by Barringtion J. Bayley

In a future Orwellian dystopian totalitarian state always at war, an official maneuvers himself to be on a time machine craft into the future in order to alter the life of his son, whose attitudes he disapproves of.  This story conjectures on there actually being a "future" independent of our present...it was a little difficult for me to understand, although I had no trouble grasping the final conclusion....while the "state" went on as if what was shown true really wasn't.  Reminds me of some of our politicians in the "present"....

IN TRANSLATION by Lisa Tuttle

An alien presence has established itself on Earth, and while humans are aware of them, they themselves are very unobtrusive, almost invisible. The visitors inspire a cult following, and man is willing to abandon his own wife while seeking their presence.  I can't help but think this story is an analogy to how some "good" people get totally carried away with religion and religious fantasies of interacting with incorporeal "good" spiritual entities to the detriment of their own lives and relationships...

A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING by Robert Silverberg

I wonder if the creators of the movie The Sixth Sense got their premise from this story about the discovery that centuries-old voices from the dead past can be heard from a probe around the planet Mercury...it seems the sun's gravitational pull warps time around it...hey, didn't the movie Star Trek IV about the whales follow this idea as well? But the protagonists are in for a rude awakening: the dead can hear them as well, and a disturbing character from the past is revealed.  Great old sci-fi tale from a great old sci-fi master...

Next week I conclude my look at Donald A. Wollheim's anthology...

Dreary Excursion to News on TV

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday morning in my nearby Dunkin' Donuts...sometimes I feel the need to get out a little bit in public in order to focus my mind on writing, which in the case of this blog is a personal discipline of habit more than anything else.  Sometimes it's hard for me to arrive at a topic...I just have to turn on the news on TV, though, to come up with stuff.  Okay, let's see, mass shootings sprinkled across the country, allegation of police brutality against a young black man, nutty, fascist election-denying politicians gaining seats of power in Congress, fascist warmonger Putin continuing to bomb apartments in Ukraine (by the way, most of those fascist American politicians seem to support him),..where do I stop?  I've already held from early on that the Russian president's decision to invade Ukraine (and continue this conflict) was more a matter of internal political conflict than from any beef with the neighboring nation, which voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in exchange for assurances against a later Russian invasion.  H-m-m... Raising the dubious banner of nationalist patriotism against enemies abroad...real or imagined...is a time-tested way of generating political support among the population, especially the unquestioning rabble.  Let's see how supportive they remain in Putinland when he demands young men be forcibly conscripted into the war...oh, wait, that's already happening.  I wonder how I can do anything about all this...it seems that when I watch the news...on any channel...I get the feeling that I am being manipulated to generate an emotional response...usually fear and/or anger...to whatever the topic is and how it is being presented.  I think I'll go back to printed news or, better yet, store up some extra blog articles to publish on days like this when I'm at a loss for something to write about...

Podcast about Other People's Opinions

Today's Mindset Mentor podcast, with Rob Dial as its host, has as the topic Other People's Opinions.  I pretty much assumed at the start that he would be discussing other people's opinions about oneself, not necessarily what they thought about the Dallas Cowboys blowing another playoff game or their loony notions about the world of politics.  And of course, that was the theme as Dial makes two substantive points about opinions and advice...which he unfortunately tends to blur together: they're not one and the same.  He emphasizes that we should sit down and write the names of those in our lives whose opinions of us really matter, stressing that the list should be short (he said "three" for himself).  For me, there are four: those in my childhood and adult nuclear families who are still here among us.  Yet to varying degrees, others' views of me matter as well...but only up to a point.  As for advice, Dial confirms what I already knew: just because someone may be on that short list, if he or she does not have the background or knowledge appropriate to their advice, then don't necessarily accept it...while being polite just the same.  This is a timely episode in our age of social media and the desire to be "liked" and popular.  Dial explains that the desire to fit in with a group goes back to our human origins when being accepted by the tribe was necessary for survival...rejection back then could be tantamount to a death sentence in the unforgiving wilds.  But today it's different and both the host and I are in agreement that while being a discerning individual can be challenging, especially when one feels he or she is isolated or an outsider, the reward of confidence in one's own ability to reason and act correspondingly far outweighs the negatives...

Achy Body Orders Me to Take It Easy This Weekend and Watch Sports on TV

From time to time in my aging life, my poor old body just gets a little too strained...this weekend my achy back had a conversation with me, telling me to take it easy and rest for the two days.  Sounded good to me...I've been watching TV, particularly the National Football League divisional playoffs, the Australian Open tennis tournament, and assorted soccer leagues matches in the Mexican and English Premier Leagues.  While resting my body I thought I'd give my brain a break as well...hence, another sports article!  Out of the four NFL contests, "my" teams won three...sadly, Jacksonville bowed out to the Kansas City Chiefs although they played them proud and tough.  Philadelphia thoroughly dominated the NY Giants in the other Saturday game and earlier today Cincinnati ended another Buffalo season with an impressive performance.  That game was played in the middle of a driving snowstorm at Buffalo...the Bengals (and myself) felt that the NFL offices were unfair in not holding the game at a neutral site since the two teams' earlier regular season game was cancelled because a Bills player suffered cardiac arrest on the field.  Had Buffalo won the cancelled game they would have had the home field advantage over Kansas City, so the league officials decreed that should those two meet in the conference championship, then the game would be held at a neutral site.  But likewise, had Cincinnati beat Buffalo in that cancelled game, they would have had a better seeding than the Bills...but the officials made them play on the road, anyway...NOT FAIR.  And just now, the San Francisco 49ers held off Dallas...ha, ha, ha...I can't wait to hear what Cowboys-basher Stephen A. Smith has to say about the losers tomorrow morning on his ESPN show!  As for the tennis, I found it all kind of boring, sad to say...ditto with the soccer.  Oh well, there have been plenty of sleeping opportunities for me this weekend...

Rainy Day Hunkering Down with NFL Playoffs on TV

Today I'm hunkering down at home on this miserably rainy, cool day in Gainesville, sleeping in late and watching sports on TV.  Later this afternoon and evening will be two NFL playoffs games: Jacksonville at Kansas City and the New York Giants at Philadelphia.  It bugged me a little that the Jags and Chiefs will be playing each other at this stage since they happen to be my favorites out of the remaining teams...oh well, that means that at least one of them (probably KC) will survive until next week's conference championship game.  Tomorrow the Buffalo Bills will host last year's AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals while my current pick to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers, will be at home against the Dallas Cowboys.  Who do I want to win these four games? Jax, Philly, Cincy and San Fran.  A few years ago, when Lamar Jackson began his stellar career as the running quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, I wondered how long that career would last before injuries caused by that aspect of his game caught up with him like it has done with others such as Robert Griffin III and, this season, "my" Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa.  Well, it seems that Lamar has become something of a fragile athlete like these, dooming his team to an early playoff exit and raising doubts about his future effectiveness in the league.  It's no accident that Tom Brady has made it to the ancient age of 45 in premier-level sports by adhering to a more traditional drop-back-or-hand-off quarterbacking style, with his running almost exclusively focused on scrambling from tacklers in passing situations or short yardage sneaks behind his offensive line.  It seems, though, that the trend is more for the young quarterbacks of this era to have a few short, explosive seasons before they soon become too hobbled to be effective...so sad.  Are you getting this, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes?  I didn't think so...but at least these two aren't quite as run-crazy as Lamar has been...