So it’s mid-December, Hanukkah has been and gone, and the radio is playing a lot of Christmas music. It gets tiresome. To explain why, let me try an analogy, which is not meant to be offensive to anyone of any Christian confession, but to illustrate how someone who is decidedly not Christian can feel at this time of year.
Christmas music is a deep catalog of advertising jingles for hair spray.
Music has been associated with religion, pretty much all religion, since the get-go, and for good reason. If nothing else, it helps you remember words; if well done, music makes the words more appealing; better, words and music can act synergetically to poke at the parts of your brain that generate strong emotional responses. There’s large chunks of the Jewish liturgy that I remember only with music, and that the music and words together can make me feel the presence of the ineffable. Music sells religion like nothing else.
If you want to sell anything, whether Jesus or Jeeps, you’re going to want to hire the best tunesmiths, and you are going to want to really make a strong association between your product and the jingle. And really, in the case of religion, that’s been done. I can’t think of the words of the Kyrie without thinking of Bach, the Dies Irae without Verdi, and so on. Similarly, I can’t think of the music of Mozart’s Requiem without thinking of the words, and then thinking, at least on some level, of confutatis maledictis and other bits of Catholic dogma. Mostly, though, the music is good enough that I can tune out the dogma and focus on the music—it’s good enough to cast shade on the dogma.
Christmas music, though, is more like pop—catchy, sometimes very good, but by no means great or profound. Which means that it’s harder to ignore the words, and thus harder to ignore the message. Go ahead, try to think about “I’d like to teach the world to sing...” without having Coke come fizzing up in your head. I’m not a big fan of Coke, but it’s not irrelevant to me. I drink it, rarely, and in small amounts, and actually derive some pleasure from it. And that jingle is a perfect catchy pop song.
What drives me batty about Christmas music is that there are scores and scores of nearly perfect pop song-jingles; they have been played more relentlessly than any advertising jingle ever; and, they are all selling a product that is irrelevant to me and that I kind of don’t even like and think may be doing some harm in how it is used—let’s say, hairspray.
Both for philosophical and historical reasons, I have problems with Christianity (and I really don’t care for the artifice of beehive hairdos, and how historically half of humanity has been taught that it needs to value itself for its appearance). I find the concept of the Trinity kind of absurd (not to mention the idea of hair glued into weird shapes). True, it may work and provide meaning for some people (and the right hairdo may be instrumental in finding Mr. Right), not me. I can’t damn all of Christianity, but in the present the rise of fundamentalism is doing serious social and environmental harm (And aerosols contributed to the hole in the ozone layer, not to mention how spray cans contribute to pollution).
So this is why I am frustrated by the flood of Christmas carols. By living in this society, these incredibly catchy songs are burned into my brain. I don’t like their message, but I can’t help but have it playing in my head when I hear them. They are perfect jingles. I would really be OK never hearing them ever again.
Monday, December 17, 2018
Friday, November 16, 2018
Monday, November 5, 2018
Monday, October 29, 2018
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Wednesday wordage, neologism proposal.
Frustratisfaction? Satisfrustration? What’s the word for when your schemes succeed beyond your plans, and you have some new issue, not entirely bad but time-consuming, to deal with?
Over the years we have acquired some animals that have been damaged, whether deliberately or innocently, and have all the signs of PTSD. And, over the years, we have worked patiently to cawlm them down, win them over, and develop trust and tranquility that had been lost. It takes effort—when we first got T., I feared that I would never be able to catch her at all. Trying to touch D like trying to bring together the north poles of two magnets. The first time I tried milking L it took 45 minutes. But, there’s things you can do, if you are patient (and if you have someone like the Real Doctor show you how to do them) and can bring some measure of peace to these animals’ troubled minds.
And now, after a few years of work, here we are. T, even though she is not being milked, gets in the way of the animals coming off the milk stand because she wants attention; I can braid her beard, and she’s fine with it. D will do anything for a peanut, and has taken to blockading the exit of the milk stand until I give her a good scratching. L is still a little nervous on the stand, but is mostly just one of the herd. She will not move off the stand at all until she gets that spot on her shoulder scratched; her eyes, even now open wide most of the time in a look of extreme alertness and timidity, start to close a little, and then almost shut, as her head slowly arches back and her tongue starts to loll out of her mouth, as for a brief moment, from the demons in her head that torment her, she gains respite...
...but it kind of holds up the progress of getting the milking done.
Over the years we have acquired some animals that have been damaged, whether deliberately or innocently, and have all the signs of PTSD. And, over the years, we have worked patiently to cawlm them down, win them over, and develop trust and tranquility that had been lost. It takes effort—when we first got T., I feared that I would never be able to catch her at all. Trying to touch D like trying to bring together the north poles of two magnets. The first time I tried milking L it took 45 minutes. But, there’s things you can do, if you are patient (and if you have someone like the Real Doctor show you how to do them) and can bring some measure of peace to these animals’ troubled minds.
And now, after a few years of work, here we are. T, even though she is not being milked, gets in the way of the animals coming off the milk stand because she wants attention; I can braid her beard, and she’s fine with it. D will do anything for a peanut, and has taken to blockading the exit of the milk stand until I give her a good scratching. L is still a little nervous on the stand, but is mostly just one of the herd. She will not move off the stand at all until she gets that spot on her shoulder scratched; her eyes, even now open wide most of the time in a look of extreme alertness and timidity, start to close a little, and then almost shut, as her head slowly arches back and her tongue starts to loll out of her mouth, as for a brief moment, from the demons in her head that torment her, she gains respite...
...but it kind of holds up the progress of getting the milking done.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Wednesday Words, pictures edition
Well, it looks as though Prince Valiant has joined the resistance.
I am no longer ashamed to admit that Prince Valiant is perhaps my favorite cartoon in the Sunday Papers, jostling out Frazz and Doonesbury (this ranking is only for newspaper comics, not web comics). When I was a wee lad, I thought it was just soooooo hokey and dumb and unhip. It might have been—it was kind of a fossil, going back to the 1930’s or so, and preserved in amber by successors to the original creator. Heck, it was the favorite strip of the exceedingly callow, Nazi-curious Edward, Duke of Windsor. But the more I look at it today, the more I like it. It’s anachronistic, but it is original—every other strip in the paper adheres to more or less the same aesthetic formula, but Val stands alone.
Not only does Prince Valiant follow its own aesthetic muse, but it does so brilliantly. People talk seriously about graphic novels as art, praising the layout of panels and the interplay of art within panels that drives the story forward or makes a larger point—and Valiant does exactly that, week after week. The artwork itself is formidable, the colors vivid. Look at the Sunday Funnies page from a distance, Valiant will stand out. Look at it a little closer, the panel layout (which is never the same) flows. Look at the text and the story, it matches the layout. Look at the details, and they are rich.
Now, thanks to the n-th generation heirs of Hal Foster, Prince Valiant is woke. The cast of characters is pretty diverse for medieval Europe, and people of non-Euro ethnicities play key roles in the stories. Women do a whole lot more than faint and wait for the prince—they drive stories, are warriors, are politically savvy rulers of their own kingdoms. This is the Dark Ages for the modern, multi-cultural world.
The most recent story arc highlights this hipness (the strip still moves in multi-month long stories) It features the Queen of the Misty Isles (Valiant’s spouse, but a queen in her own right, and on her own in this story) facing down a treasonous senator. The senator, motivated by a hatred of foreigners, attempts to whip up popular support by demagoguery. He colludes, treasonously—that’s the language in the strip—with a somewhat hostile foreign empire to try to seize power from the rightful queen. He is thwarted, in part, by the Queen’s political savvy, an Amazon warrior, a boatload of immigrants, and his own two ne’er-do-well nincompoop sons. Very, very with it!
So, all I have to say is, Rock on! Prince Valiant, Queen Aleta, and the rest of y’all. Stay woke! You GO! And, hey, maybe could you come into our century and get medieval on somebody’s ass...
I am no longer ashamed to admit that Prince Valiant is perhaps my favorite cartoon in the Sunday Papers, jostling out Frazz and Doonesbury (this ranking is only for newspaper comics, not web comics). When I was a wee lad, I thought it was just soooooo hokey and dumb and unhip. It might have been—it was kind of a fossil, going back to the 1930’s or so, and preserved in amber by successors to the original creator. Heck, it was the favorite strip of the exceedingly callow, Nazi-curious Edward, Duke of Windsor. But the more I look at it today, the more I like it. It’s anachronistic, but it is original—every other strip in the paper adheres to more or less the same aesthetic formula, but Val stands alone.
Not only does Prince Valiant follow its own aesthetic muse, but it does so brilliantly. People talk seriously about graphic novels as art, praising the layout of panels and the interplay of art within panels that drives the story forward or makes a larger point—and Valiant does exactly that, week after week. The artwork itself is formidable, the colors vivid. Look at the Sunday Funnies page from a distance, Valiant will stand out. Look at it a little closer, the panel layout (which is never the same) flows. Look at the text and the story, it matches the layout. Look at the details, and they are rich.
Now, thanks to the n-th generation heirs of Hal Foster, Prince Valiant is woke. The cast of characters is pretty diverse for medieval Europe, and people of non-Euro ethnicities play key roles in the stories. Women do a whole lot more than faint and wait for the prince—they drive stories, are warriors, are politically savvy rulers of their own kingdoms. This is the Dark Ages for the modern, multi-cultural world.
The most recent story arc highlights this hipness (the strip still moves in multi-month long stories) It features the Queen of the Misty Isles (Valiant’s spouse, but a queen in her own right, and on her own in this story) facing down a treasonous senator. The senator, motivated by a hatred of foreigners, attempts to whip up popular support by demagoguery. He colludes, treasonously—that’s the language in the strip—with a somewhat hostile foreign empire to try to seize power from the rightful queen. He is thwarted, in part, by the Queen’s political savvy, an Amazon warrior, a boatload of immigrants, and his own two ne’er-do-well nincompoop sons. Very, very with it!
So, all I have to say is, Rock on! Prince Valiant, Queen Aleta, and the rest of y’all. Stay woke! You GO! And, hey, maybe could you come into our century and get medieval on somebody’s ass...
Monday, September 10, 2018
Monday Musical Offering, Wordy edition
Apparently, our president* thinks he is the equal of Lincoln. I look forward to some latter-day Copland composing “A Trump Portrait.”
“When standing erect, he was...hey, cut that out! This is serious!...[ahem]. And this is what he said...this is what Donald J. Trump said. He said, ‘ When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.’”
And so on.
I expect the music would be thoroughly noxious and banal at the same time. The most disjointed serial music, and wall of noise, and minimalism, and industrial, the Horst Wessel lied, and Varese’s America, all played as loud as possible and all at the same time.
Ugh.
“When standing erect, he was...hey, cut that out! This is serious!...[ahem]. And this is what he said...this is what Donald J. Trump said. He said, ‘ When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.’”
And so on.
I expect the music would be thoroughly noxious and banal at the same time. The most disjointed serial music, and wall of noise, and minimalism, and industrial, the Horst Wessel lied, and Varese’s America, all played as loud as possible and all at the same time.
Ugh.
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Wednesday Words, odds ‘n’ ends
Got some of that Prairie Dog Food again, and did a double take on the receipt.
Passed a musical instrument store that was advertising “Amp blowout sale.” No thanks. Reminds me of a sign I saw in Madison for a “Vacuum cleaner blowout sale.” Could be worse. Handkerchief blowout sale? Tire blowout sale?
Passed a marquee outside a business that said “I look forward to a day when a chicken can cross the road and not have its motivations questioned.”
The Salvation Army store had a sign advertising:
I’m getting increasingly irked by people using “horde” for “hoard” and vice versa. I guess I should be grateful that they are not using “whored.”
Passed a musical instrument store that was advertising “Amp blowout sale.” No thanks. Reminds me of a sign I saw in Madison for a “Vacuum cleaner blowout sale.” Could be worse. Handkerchief blowout sale? Tire blowout sale?
Passed a marquee outside a business that said “I look forward to a day when a chicken can cross the road and not have its motivations questioned.”
The Salvation Army store had a sign advertising:
LADIES
BLOUSES
AND
BOOKS
I’m getting increasingly irked by people using “horde” for “hoard” and vice versa. I guess I should be grateful that they are not using “whored.”
Monday, August 27, 2018
Monday Musical Offering Odds and Ends
100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth—Huzzah! Bernstein is somebody I have come to appreciate more and more, the older I get. My first exposure was in high school, where I was supposed to play the piano part in the pit band of West Side Story. I had been in the pit band for a couple of other high school musicals, and they were nothing but oom-pah reductions of pretty un-challenging music. I approached WSS the same way, which was a grave error which I have come to regret terribly. Every time I listen to the music now, I hear those piano cues—those critical, essential cues that I completely missed because I didn’t take it seriously—and I feel bad for Mr. Lish, the director, and for the music. And every time I listen to the music now, I get weepy.
Bernstein wasn’t on my radar in particular for a long time after that, as what musical energy I had tended to be focused in other places than the orchestral canon. I did hear, and really loved, Candide. I played a little bit more Bernstein during my first teaching gig, when I accompanied a student playing the early clarinet sonata at a talent show. Good stuff, and I was wishing there was more like it.
Now I am listening more closely to the canon, and listening more to Bernstein the composer. There’s still stuff I have a hard time with—sometimes just a little too freshman-earnest or didactic or studiously pop—but most of the time, wow.
———————————————————————
Not naming names, but you may need to rethink your approach to composition if the radio announcer says something like “despite being written in his characteristic 12-tone style, parts of the piece are quite listenable and almost melodic.”
———————————————————————-
Trying to play the piano a bit more as the year winds down. It’s hard to find the energy and time, but it is good to do. I’m working on memorizing, which is a new thing. It’s rough going.
Bernstein wasn’t on my radar in particular for a long time after that, as what musical energy I had tended to be focused in other places than the orchestral canon. I did hear, and really loved, Candide. I played a little bit more Bernstein during my first teaching gig, when I accompanied a student playing the early clarinet sonata at a talent show. Good stuff, and I was wishing there was more like it.
Now I am listening more closely to the canon, and listening more to Bernstein the composer. There’s still stuff I have a hard time with—sometimes just a little too freshman-earnest or didactic or studiously pop—but most of the time, wow.
———————————————————————
Not naming names, but you may need to rethink your approach to composition if the radio announcer says something like “despite being written in his characteristic 12-tone style, parts of the piece are quite listenable and almost melodic.”
———————————————————————-
Trying to play the piano a bit more as the year winds down. It’s hard to find the energy and time, but it is good to do. I’m working on memorizing, which is a new thing. It’s rough going.
Monday, July 16, 2018
Monday Musical Offering Thirsty Edition
It’s hot, or as a relative of mine would say, hooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwt. It’s ridiculous to try to get anything done after, say, 2 in the afternoon. You go outside and do things for just a few minutes and then stagger inside and drink a half-liter of water with electrolytes. The effort of doing that leaves you kind of thirsty, so you drink another. It’s then time to get up and rinse out your glass, and the effort of that leaves you thirsty again, so you drink another. And so on. It’s supposed to be better tomorrow.
Meantime, here’s something from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann—a drinking song sung by the students who are very thirsty.
Meantime, here’s something from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann—a drinking song sung by the students who are very thirsty.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Friday Flora Farewell Edition
Today’s pic is of a Clarkia, unknown spp., up at the graveyard near our house. There’s some good spring wildflowers on the walk there, camas, trillium, rue, calichortus, and such, but spring is pretty well over—so appropriate to have a Clarkia, commonly known as “Farewell to Spring.” This is the smallest Clarkia I’ve ever seen.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
I protest
There was a sign at one of the many, many marches and protests against our current regime that read something like “It’s so bad that even the introverts are here.” Well, that was me this last weekend. I am not fond of crowds. I am especially not fond of crowds of people that have strong feelings, and all agree. I am also extremely reluctant to loudly express my own political opinions. But, things were so bad that I was there.
What has taken me by surprise in this era is just how comfortable racism has become. It used to be something to be kept private, maybe the object of some uncomfortable shame. Now we have a racist president, a racist administration, and people are letting their racist flags (literally) fly. Things are being said by our leaders that are immoral; things are being done by them that would be crimes if we were sane. So we have the racist Attorney General instituting a policy that amounts to torture of children, and the racist president legitimizing this by calling humans “animals” and using words that make it clear that these people are not to be treated as human.
So, it’s bad enough that this introvert woke up early so he could finish the milking and chores, scrawl up a cardboard sign, and drive to town to join about 200 other people along Roseburg’s main drag, where we waved signs around at the passing crowds and tried to be seen and heard, to maybe prick the conscience of our neighbors.
Roseburg is Trump country. It’s very white, it’s tied to an extractive industry that is past its peak, it has a lot of unemployed labor that has fond memories of when things were really good, it has a lot of guns, and it went for Trump by two to one in 2016. Roseburg itself boasts some 20,000 residents. So it was heartening to see that somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of Roseburg was also upset enough to be there. A lot of people driving by honked and waved enthusiastically (and, yes, there were two older white men who made rude gestures). There are apparently things this president can do that are bad enough that they don’t get much support, even here.
Did the protest really do anything? Did I, with my sign, have an effect? Why was I there?
To be sure, I felt personally threatened and insulted. People were, and still are, being tortured in my name, and I sure as hell don’t agree with that, and until the situation stops, I think every American citizen should be reminded, daily, rudely if need be, that children are being tortured in their name. But I felt something beyond that. My sign, which was really not well designed for getting the attention of a passing motorist, read
America took in
“swarming vermin,”
“Scarcely above apes”
“Unlikely to assimilate,” and
“Probably loyal to a hostile foreign power”...
And made THIS American.
Why not make more Americans?
One of the other folks there asked me about my sign, and to my surprise, I got kind of choked up. Although the language is all from the current racists objecting to immigrants, the sign was all about my grandparents and great-grandparents. My dad’s father was a refugee from pogroms in the Ukraine; he and his family were described as swarming vermin and much worse. He married a woman who was the daughter of Scotch-Irish and possibly First Nations ancestry. The Irish were routinely characterized as apes, and First Nations as something worse. On my mom’s side, her mother’s family was from Germany. Many Germans in the late 1800s were fleeing wars, political instability, (or conscription), and many held on to their language; in some places, schools were taught in German, and people complained that they were unlikely to assimilate. Came the Great War, and my great-grandfather was hounded out of his job and died shortly thereafter. Somehow, these terrible threats to America produced...an American. So, when I hear people using this language about the desperate people who cross our southern border, I feel it deeply and personally.
But, again, did it do anything? Will anybody’s mind change? At the rally, we asked each other these questions. One answer we all agreed upon was that we all felt better knowing that, in this place that is so deeply enamored of the racist president, there were other people who were also not OK with things. Many of the passing motorists reminded us of this; and maybe, some voted for Trump but felt that the torture of children was too much to swallow.
Or, maybe not. The Real Doctor has a colleague, a surgeon, so at least formally not a dimwit. He voted for Trump in 2016, rationalizing that Clinton was “just as bad.” Now, many surgeons are bad at admitting human flaws such as making mistakes, so perhaps that is the reason that his support for the president seems to have solidified. I’d rather believe this than believe that he has embraced racism. At any rate, when the Real Doctor asked him, obliquely, about events on the southern border, he suggested that the images in the news were probably those of actors. I suppose that it is more comforting to believe that, however far-fetched it may be, than to believe that you voted for torturing children.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Wednesday Words, uncomfortable echoes edition
Ok, so if you’re a Jew, then certain words or phrases can make you a little uncomfortable. And when these words get used, in an offhand, unconscious way, especially by or about government types, then it gets worse. So, just from the last week:
The president* talks about a class of people “infesting” the country.
A radio reporter talks about the head of the Department of Homeland Security “making the trains run on time.”
The president* wants a new branch of the armed forces, which will be “separate but equal.”
Update, OK, I am now in shock. The Department of Homeland Security has issued a press release headlined with Fourteen Words beginning “We Must Secure...”. They’re not even trying to hide it any more.
The president* talks about a class of people “infesting” the country.
A radio reporter talks about the head of the Department of Homeland Security “making the trains run on time.”
The president* wants a new branch of the armed forces, which will be “separate but equal.”
Update, OK, I am now in shock. The Department of Homeland Security has issued a press release headlined with Fourteen Words beginning “We Must Secure...”. They’re not even trying to hide it any more.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Seriously, SCOTUS?
I am upset, but not entirely surprised, by the decisions that came out of the Supreme Court today. To paraphrase a saying about Jewish law, where there is a judicial will, there is a legal way. A majority of the Supreme Court is A-OK with the Republican slide towards fascism, so they will find a legal way, however crudely and illogically and inconsistently argued, to make it happen. And so we have an executive order that is completely inspired by religious bigotry being declared constitutionally acceptable—because the third revision had scrupulously neutral language—and using the overruling of Korematsu as justification!
When this presidency started, I was alarmed at the regulatory/executive and judicial mischief that it promised. What I was not prepared for, and what gives me increasing agony, is the deep and blatant racism and bigotry that it has made publicly acceptable.
When this presidency started, I was alarmed at the regulatory/executive and judicial mischief that it promised. What I was not prepared for, and what gives me increasing agony, is the deep and blatant racism and bigotry that it has made publicly acceptable.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Play, memory
I am good at sight-reading music. You can plop a relatively simple piece of sheet music in front of me, and I can stumble through it at the piano. (Mind, I am not great at sight-reading; I can’t do like Saint-Saens, and sit down and play from the score of a Wagner opera that I’ve never heard before). This ability has stood me in good stead for most of my life, allowing me to fake my way through lessons I should have practiced harder for, and letting me accompany far more worthy musicians than myself. But, I have found that it has shaped my musical abilities in ways that I don’t entirely like.
When I was a youth, my piano teachers didn’t particularly press me to memorize music. I made a few efforts, because it was a thing people did, but I found it to be far more work than I was willing to put in. When I did try to memorize, it was largely kinetic; my memory was a series of motions, and it would have to be uninterrupted. If I were derailed, I would have to go back to the beginning and start over. Perhaps “kinetic” isn’t the word—perhaps “ballistic” is more accurate, in that I would launch and from that point on the trajectory of things was set. At any rate, my ability to memorize was never developed.
Now, in my 50’s, I am trying to learn to memorize music. Partly it is a desire to keep stretching out my brain, maybe spurred by watching my parents succumb to Alzheimer’s disease. Partly, it’s that I have a harder time reading music without my glasses on. But there I am, struggling with memory.
My approach is somewhat different from what I formerly tried. I am trying to pay more attention to the music, and why this note follows that note. I try to shake myself out of a kinetic memory, by playing the same notes using different fingering, and by starting at different points in the music. I try to pay greater attention to the landmarks, and how the composer gets from one place to another. I see myself, as if I am walking through a landscape. At the first, I can only see the most obvious features—a pass, a huge tree, a river—and I can’t see the trails from one to the other. Learning the music is learning the trail from one landmark to another. At first, I stumble around, sometimes on the trail, sometimes lost in the weeds, but as I get better, I can stay on the trail; as I learn and memorize the trail, I find myself paying less attention to the trail, and more attention to the landscape as a whole and the beautiful flowers and features that fill it. Now, while I play far less music than I used to, I feel that I am playing far more musically than I did while reading music.
The experience is similar to a mindfulness practice. I have become much more aware of what’s going on inside of the music; I am able to pay attention to the things that need attention, and more critically see what I need to work on. I am seeing longer lines, rather than isolated notes. While I am nowhere near a great musician, I think I am better—and while I don’t feel that regret is a useful emotion, I do wish that I had spent more of my time properly memorizing music back when I could move my fingers to play Chopin etudes and such. But, I won’t complain. I am learning the Bach Partitas. Learning and memorizing and polishing a page of music takes me a month, and it’s good.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
What’s my pre-Cambrian rabbit? What’s YOUR pre-Cambrian rabbit?
I try to be honest with myself in how I think about things. It is hard to be aware of one’s blind spots, and it is tiring to be suspicious of ideas that make one feel better. I may have picked up the habit of self-skepticism from an early exposure to Karl Popper, or a lot of training by curmudgeonly old-school molecular geneticists, but however I got it, I’m stuck with it. Popper taught us all about falsifiability, and my post-doc advisor taught me to have an adversarial relationship with my own ideas, but my favorite formulation is from the evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane.
Evolution is a big, big concept, with ramifications that permeate the entire world of biology, geology, and astronomy, and more. But, to be honest about how one thinks, one must be aware that it’s still only an idea, a view of the world that may be wrong. Haldane was (according to the story) asked what would cause him to change his mind about evolution as an explanation for life on earth. “A fossil rabbit in the pre-Cambrian” was his reply. Pre-Cambrian rocks are over 500 million years old. There are pre-Cambrian fossils, but only of simple invertebrates and mysterious life forms long extinct. But, significantly, there are fossils; if there were rabbits 500 million years ago, they could have been fossilized, so it is in principle possible that Haldane’s reliance upon evolution could have been shaken.
Any responsible thinker should have a pre-Cambrian rabbit for their beliefs. The people who study climate change, if they were honest, would reconsider everything if it were found that carbon dioxide did not in fact help to trap heat, and that hundreds of years of data were in fact due to an easily overlooked artifact. Cancer researchers, if they were honest, would re-evaluate a lot of their beliefs if the apparent connection between smoking and lung cancer were shown to be the result of some chemical in the packaging of cigarette boxes. Furthermore, for an honest thinker, it’s not a matter of simply recognizing falsifying evidence when it appears. Rather, like Haldane, the honest thinker must be aware enough of their thinking that they can imagine and define things that would falsify their beliefs before encountering them.
The news recently has really been getting me down. I have become convinced of a theory that our president is a racist, and that his presidency will be severely detrimental to this country. This theory is based on observation of facts and informed by historical parallels. But, while it is consistent with all facts, it is a theory. It is, and must be, falsifiable. The president could decide to fire his Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller and General Kelly and all the other people who have pushed him in the direction of racism, and renounce many of the claims he’s made; despite rigorous fact-checking, many of the claims he’s made about immigrants could be shown to be true (somehow); he could actually do things to promote racial harmony—these would all be possible but unlikely. They would falsify my theory, and elevate my mood.
But, I have noticed something more disturbing in the mirror world inhabited by those whose sympathies lie with the president. For them (and those who insist that anthropogenic climate change, vaccines, and evolution are bunk), there simply is no pre-Cambrian rabbit. There is no possible fact or observation that will change their position, and whether this is bad faith or just simple-mindedness, it makes rational argument impossible. When a Trump supporter at one of his tinpot “Triumph of the Will” rallies was asked about some of the images and recordings of children torn from their parents, they admitted that they were disturbing, but ultimately opined that they were probably faked. I’ve also heard dodges about how Trump is accomplishing great (but unspecified) things and how everybody is out to get him; and, finally, fake news, fake news, fake news. Even the most reliable, scrupulously reported pre-Cambrian rabbit is fake.
I don’t know a way beyond this impasse to civil discourse, although I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve Facebook memes or using InfoWars as a reliable source. Perhaps any real attempt at discussion must be made one-on-one. Before attempting conversation, we have to tell each other about our pre-Cambrian rabbits. Acknowledging that our beliefs are falsifiable is the opposite of a sign of weakness; rather, it is a sign of honesty, like duelists of old showing each other that they are only using the prescribed weapons. Also, if you showed me a rabbit skull and told me it came from, say, the Laurentian Shield, I’d want to see some acceptable proof—and, like the rabbit itself, proof that I would be willing name as acceptable before it is produced.
I really doubt that a fossilized rabbit will ever be discovered in pre-Cambrian rocks. But, to be absolutely sure, I would be thrilled and excited to hear that a truly, completely verified rabbit fossil had been found in the basement sediments of the Grand Canyon. It would show me that I was working under an erroneous view of the world, and it would be fascinating to try to understand this newly illuminated world. And, while I would love to be wrong, I think that rabbit is more likely than finding that our president is not a racist.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Not a midlife crisis
I think what may have prompted this rumination on my part was my brother E, who is having his own late midlife crisis, and is worried that if he changes direction to avert personal destruction, he will be wasting thirty years worth of work. I don’t see it his way, and I have tried hard to persuade him. I worry that he will destroy himself through attachment to such folly. I used my own example, which he chose to ignore.
So I carry on with my life as a farmer. Today was just another day on the farm. In addition to the usual spring business of feeding kids and milking and cleaning and cheesemaking, I did some mowing in my pastures to try to keep up with the grass where the animals could not. And, before I hit the bed, I still have to give the kids their evening feed. It’s late spring, the working day is eighteen hours long. I’ll be tired. But, to be sure (as the Real Doctor points out), my experience is uniquely rich because I see farm life through the eyes of a research scientist and educator.
It’s not what I trained for and did for a while, but it’s good. The kids are a hoot. The young doe that was having conniptions about getting milked is calming down. The leftover curds from today’s cheese, a Colby, were delicious, and I thanks to my background, I know some ways I can make it better. It was a warm, sunny day, and the blue dicks have started blooming. My pastures are not as good as they will be, but they are better than they were, and despite the weather being uncooperative this year, they should feed the animals through summer—and, I have some insights from my training that will help things be better in the future. Before I started milking in the evening, the sun on the neighboring hills was amazing; after I finished, the stars and Venus and Jupiter were dazzling. I did not have the real pleasure of learning a new metabolic pathway and savoring its evolutionary implications. Nor was I present as a student finally achieved an illuminating clarity about redox potential. However, I received many, and sufficient, other rewards.
And, I know that at some point (hopefully many years from now), I won’t be a farmer. What I am doing now won’t be wasted. What I’ll be doing then will be different—and I will see whatever it may be with the unique eyes of a former microbiologist AND former farmer.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Political inactivism
I'm not at a march today. Would that I were, but farm life is like that.
There's a lot in this world that can point me towards despair. Around here, a trip to the grocery store can do it--as I walked through the parking lot yesterday, I looked at the bumper stickers showing the political views, and by extension, the moral values of my neighbors. There was the all too common "ORY GUN" logo. There were all the NRA logos. There was the "Protected by Smith & Wesson." There were the braggarts with "Molon labe" and III%. There were salutes to the second amendment. There was one truck that had, instead of a stick-figure family, a similarly arranged collection of semiautomatic rifles and handguns. There was another that had a silhouette of an AR-15 captioned "BLACK RIFLES MATTER."
The unifying morality behind all of these stickers and mottoes is that these people believe that their personal right to end your life (if they feel it necessary) supersedes your right to live. Those last two stickers really betray moral depravity, and make it explicit that they believe that their right to own weapons designed to kill humans is equal to or greater than other people's right to exist. I mean, how do you charitably interpret them? The owners of these stickers didn't seem to be motivated by a desire to hunt--a legitimate use for a single-action rifle. They certainly didn't seem to want to be involved in a "well-regulated militia" intended to be the defense of a free state. It seems almost entirely about the right to own weapons designed to kill others, to hold capital power over one's fellow human.
The most common sticker around here, though, is one with the date of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College. Roseburg is not a big town, and I am not well connected, but I am two degrees of separation from somebody who was there. Most of the town is similarly connected. There's no shortage of evidence that if we wanted to make events like the UCC shootings rarer, if we wanted to make murders rarer, if we wanted to make suicides rarer, we would do our utmost to purge our society of all firearms (I'd be fine with a concession for single action hunting rifles). But we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to believe that we are the responsible gun owners; that we are the bulwark between freedom and tyranny; that we are the good guy with the gun who will save the day; that if we just keep doing what we've been doing, only harder, things will get better. This is not a mature, adult attitude. Until we grow up, things will get worse, and I despair.
But--I watched some videos of today's rallies across the country, in which young people asked the "adults" to grow up. The refreshing thing about youth is that sometimes they haven't learned to look politely away from truth, and they haven't learned that they shouldn't respect stupidity in a suit. It is stupid to suggest that the solution to gun violence is more guns, and they don't hesitate to point that out. So, I look at the kids, making politicians squirm with impolite truth, making us uncomfortable while waiting for an answer, asking us, "why?"...and I have a little, little hope.
There's a lot in this world that can point me towards despair. Around here, a trip to the grocery store can do it--as I walked through the parking lot yesterday, I looked at the bumper stickers showing the political views, and by extension, the moral values of my neighbors. There was the all too common "ORY GUN" logo. There were all the NRA logos. There was the "Protected by Smith & Wesson." There were the braggarts with "Molon labe" and III%. There were salutes to the second amendment. There was one truck that had, instead of a stick-figure family, a similarly arranged collection of semiautomatic rifles and handguns. There was another that had a silhouette of an AR-15 captioned "BLACK RIFLES MATTER."
The unifying morality behind all of these stickers and mottoes is that these people believe that their personal right to end your life (if they feel it necessary) supersedes your right to live. Those last two stickers really betray moral depravity, and make it explicit that they believe that their right to own weapons designed to kill humans is equal to or greater than other people's right to exist. I mean, how do you charitably interpret them? The owners of these stickers didn't seem to be motivated by a desire to hunt--a legitimate use for a single-action rifle. They certainly didn't seem to want to be involved in a "well-regulated militia" intended to be the defense of a free state. It seems almost entirely about the right to own weapons designed to kill others, to hold capital power over one's fellow human.
The most common sticker around here, though, is one with the date of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College. Roseburg is not a big town, and I am not well connected, but I am two degrees of separation from somebody who was there. Most of the town is similarly connected. There's no shortage of evidence that if we wanted to make events like the UCC shootings rarer, if we wanted to make murders rarer, if we wanted to make suicides rarer, we would do our utmost to purge our society of all firearms (I'd be fine with a concession for single action hunting rifles). But we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to believe that we are the responsible gun owners; that we are the bulwark between freedom and tyranny; that we are the good guy with the gun who will save the day; that if we just keep doing what we've been doing, only harder, things will get better. This is not a mature, adult attitude. Until we grow up, things will get worse, and I despair.
But--I watched some videos of today's rallies across the country, in which young people asked the "adults" to grow up. The refreshing thing about youth is that sometimes they haven't learned to look politely away from truth, and they haven't learned that they shouldn't respect stupidity in a suit. It is stupid to suggest that the solution to gun violence is more guns, and they don't hesitate to point that out. So, I look at the kids, making politicians squirm with impolite truth, making us uncomfortable while waiting for an answer, asking us, "why?"...and I have a little, little hope.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Monday Musical Offering, Spring edition
OK, a day late...
Kidding and lambing has started here at the farm, both scheduled and otherwise. We have a kidding parlor, which took months of work (almost all by Duva's brother & his family), and which was actually ready within hours of the first kids being born. The other five does scheduled for this weekend waited to pop until their appointed times. It went fairly well--relatively little assistance was needed by the does, and of the 13 kids, only one didn't make it (which sucks, but it happens--their on-board systems just don't fire up, they lose body heat, which shuts down appetite, and so on. We have saved some like this, with warm baths, tube feeding, vitamin shots, and so on, and we did all that and more for this little kid, but nobody bats 100% on these cases). The score so far:
Boadicea--buck and doe
Opera--three bucks
Mocha--two does, one died
Zephyr--single buck
Karuna--single doe
Cavatina--two bucks, two does
The weather for the entire show was grand and glorious and springy. The fact that the kidding parlor worked so well and that the deliveries were mostly textbook made me feel better. This was the music running through my head--the first movement of Rachmaninov's symphony/cantata The Bells, based on a translation of Poe's poem.
(Performance by Kiril Kondrashin, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, RSFR chorus, soloists. Meh sound quality but the performance is like burning magnesium.)
Kidding and lambing has started here at the farm, both scheduled and otherwise. We have a kidding parlor, which took months of work (almost all by Duva's brother & his family), and which was actually ready within hours of the first kids being born. The other five does scheduled for this weekend waited to pop until their appointed times. It went fairly well--relatively little assistance was needed by the does, and of the 13 kids, only one didn't make it (which sucks, but it happens--their on-board systems just don't fire up, they lose body heat, which shuts down appetite, and so on. We have saved some like this, with warm baths, tube feeding, vitamin shots, and so on, and we did all that and more for this little kid, but nobody bats 100% on these cases). The score so far:
Boadicea--buck and doe
Opera--three bucks
Mocha--two does, one died
Zephyr--single buck
Karuna--single doe
Cavatina--two bucks, two does
The weather for the entire show was grand and glorious and springy. The fact that the kidding parlor worked so well and that the deliveries were mostly textbook made me feel better. This was the music running through my head--the first movement of Rachmaninov's symphony/cantata The Bells, based on a translation of Poe's poem.
Hear the sledges with the bells--
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Minimum day, the calm before the storm
The day before yesterday was one of the hinges of the year, where we turn from one segment of the farm calendar to another. In the morning, I went up to the barn. I gave the elderly sheep a scoop of senior equine feed. To the does, I gave a feeder-full of orchard grass hay. For the ewes, I only had to fluff up the orchard grass that was in their feeder, for they hadn't cleaned it up, and as soon as I opened the door they bolted out into the pasture. I walked over to the bucks, filled up their feeder with orchard grass, and fluffed up the rams' feeder. I then walked over to the junior bucks, topped off their feeder with orchard grass, walked over to the junior does and did the same for them, and I was done.
That was the morning feed. The junior does and bucks had been getting supplementary grain and a little alfalfa, but they had outgrown their need for it. The senior bucks are coming out of rut, and no longer need extra calories from grain. The sheep are working the pastures down to nubbins before I spread seed, and are less interested in hay than they are in fresh grass. Those animals had just finished tapering off their feed requirements. Today, some of the animals are starting their increase--the first does are expected to kid in a week or less, so now they are getting a generous serving of alfalfa. Things will get more complicated as we have kids to bottle feed, milking does to nourish, and possibly a ewe or two with lambs--and that's not to mention the routine of milking. But, for a couple of days there, feeding everybody, including the chooks, the cats, and the dog, took only twenty minutes.
That was the morning feed. The junior does and bucks had been getting supplementary grain and a little alfalfa, but they had outgrown their need for it. The senior bucks are coming out of rut, and no longer need extra calories from grain. The sheep are working the pastures down to nubbins before I spread seed, and are less interested in hay than they are in fresh grass. Those animals had just finished tapering off their feed requirements. Today, some of the animals are starting their increase--the first does are expected to kid in a week or less, so now they are getting a generous serving of alfalfa. Things will get more complicated as we have kids to bottle feed, milking does to nourish, and possibly a ewe or two with lambs--and that's not to mention the routine of milking. But, for a couple of days there, feeding everybody, including the chooks, the cats, and the dog, took only twenty minutes.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
A modest proposal on gun control
A modest proposal for gun control.
There are very few consumer products that, when used as designed and intended, shorten or terminate human life. Cigarettes are one. There is a societal cost to cigarettes; every time a person inhales from one, society pays a price—the price is very diffuse, in minute fractions of years lived by inhalers of secondhand smoke. This cost is very hard to measure, but real. Society also pays by dealing with the expenses incurred by the diseases associated with long-term cigarette use. Society gets some compensation for these costs from cigarette users, in the form of heavy taxes imposed on the sale of cigarettes. Society also discourages further cigarette use with various advertising campaigns, and more recently, unofficial forces such as scorn and inconvenience.
Two more products that, when used as designed and intended, shorten or terminate human life are handguns and semiautomatic rifles (“assault rifles”). The societal cost of these consumer products is far more obvious than the cost of cigarettes, and per unit sold, these products do far more damage. Despite what the gun-makers’ lobby says about good guys with guns, there are numerous studies that indicate that more guns has the societal effect of more deaths and injuries from guns. The coefficient of the relationship has not been exactly defined, and varies regionally, but the relationship can’t really be honestly challenged. And, while cigarettes harm society at large but most severely harm their users, guns—especially assault rifles—cause far more harm to society at large (though the numbers are inexact, gun suicides account for something like half of gun fatalities).
The use of cigarettes harms society; society exacts some compensation from cigarette users. The use of handguns and assault rifles harms society; yet there is no equivalent penalty on the purchase of these guns. The price, as noted is gory, agonizing, traumatizing, and can upend lives in a way that cigarettes cannot.
There are various estimates for the number of excess deaths caused each year by handguns and assault rifles. Let us take the lowest of these estimates. There are a certain number of handguns and assault rifles purchased each year. Let us divide one by the other, to figure out the fractional number of deaths caused per year, on average, by such a weapon. Let us convert that into a probability—a probability of drawing a ticket in a lottery by which society claws something back. On purchasing such a weapon, the buyer is automatically entered into this lottery. If the buyer’s number comes up—such an unlikely thing!, the gun advocate says—but inevitable, the gun control advocate says—then, at some time that year, seemingly at random, someone near and dear to the gun purchaser, a child, a spouse, a favorite uncle, will be shot and maimed or killed.
“This is so unfair! The dear person did nothing wrong! You are a monster for suggesting such a thing!” I hear you say. Granted, it imposes some punishment on an innocent, but so does the gun purchaser anyway; the 17 who died this week in Florida, the concert goers in Vegas, the students just over the hill from me at Umpqua Community College, were equally innocent and undeserving. But, I didn’t mention the other price that the handguns and assault rifles impose on society—the tearing of societal fabric, the lasting trauma, the anger and hurt and pain that reverberates through a community for years afterwards. It’s hard to put a dollar valuation on that cost to society, and hard to extract that from the person buying the weapon. So, payment in kind. It may, have some deterrent effect on such purchases as well.
We are in a state where it is increasingly difficult to deny that the violent, terrorized deaths of children are the price that society pays for the freedom to have guns. I have even seen words to that effect from those that advocate for unrestricted access to guns. So, fine; they can maintain that right. All I ask is that those who want to exercise that right pay their fair share of the price.
There are very few consumer products that, when used as designed and intended, shorten or terminate human life. Cigarettes are one. There is a societal cost to cigarettes; every time a person inhales from one, society pays a price—the price is very diffuse, in minute fractions of years lived by inhalers of secondhand smoke. This cost is very hard to measure, but real. Society also pays by dealing with the expenses incurred by the diseases associated with long-term cigarette use. Society gets some compensation for these costs from cigarette users, in the form of heavy taxes imposed on the sale of cigarettes. Society also discourages further cigarette use with various advertising campaigns, and more recently, unofficial forces such as scorn and inconvenience.
Two more products that, when used as designed and intended, shorten or terminate human life are handguns and semiautomatic rifles (“assault rifles”). The societal cost of these consumer products is far more obvious than the cost of cigarettes, and per unit sold, these products do far more damage. Despite what the gun-makers’ lobby says about good guys with guns, there are numerous studies that indicate that more guns has the societal effect of more deaths and injuries from guns. The coefficient of the relationship has not been exactly defined, and varies regionally, but the relationship can’t really be honestly challenged. And, while cigarettes harm society at large but most severely harm their users, guns—especially assault rifles—cause far more harm to society at large (though the numbers are inexact, gun suicides account for something like half of gun fatalities).
The use of cigarettes harms society; society exacts some compensation from cigarette users. The use of handguns and assault rifles harms society; yet there is no equivalent penalty on the purchase of these guns. The price, as noted is gory, agonizing, traumatizing, and can upend lives in a way that cigarettes cannot.
There are various estimates for the number of excess deaths caused each year by handguns and assault rifles. Let us take the lowest of these estimates. There are a certain number of handguns and assault rifles purchased each year. Let us divide one by the other, to figure out the fractional number of deaths caused per year, on average, by such a weapon. Let us convert that into a probability—a probability of drawing a ticket in a lottery by which society claws something back. On purchasing such a weapon, the buyer is automatically entered into this lottery. If the buyer’s number comes up—such an unlikely thing!, the gun advocate says—but inevitable, the gun control advocate says—then, at some time that year, seemingly at random, someone near and dear to the gun purchaser, a child, a spouse, a favorite uncle, will be shot and maimed or killed.
“This is so unfair! The dear person did nothing wrong! You are a monster for suggesting such a thing!” I hear you say. Granted, it imposes some punishment on an innocent, but so does the gun purchaser anyway; the 17 who died this week in Florida, the concert goers in Vegas, the students just over the hill from me at Umpqua Community College, were equally innocent and undeserving. But, I didn’t mention the other price that the handguns and assault rifles impose on society—the tearing of societal fabric, the lasting trauma, the anger and hurt and pain that reverberates through a community for years afterwards. It’s hard to put a dollar valuation on that cost to society, and hard to extract that from the person buying the weapon. So, payment in kind. It may, have some deterrent effect on such purchases as well.
We are in a state where it is increasingly difficult to deny that the violent, terrorized deaths of children are the price that society pays for the freedom to have guns. I have even seen words to that effect from those that advocate for unrestricted access to guns. So, fine; they can maintain that right. All I ask is that those who want to exercise that right pay their fair share of the price.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Friday Flora Familial folio edition
Another from my Mom's garden, which was, and may still be, better than yours.
My Mom was a very good artist; she had some training, a mother who illustrated her own books, and an aunt who was a professional artist working in oils (Fera Webber Shear). Her chosen medium was acrylic, and her subject botanical illustration. I encourage you to click on that photo, see it as big as possible.
I spent half of a day this week going through old holiday greeting cards sent from all my parents' friends over the last couple of years. My task was to put together the mailing list for a belated holiday card, thanking my parents' friends for their kind wishes and telling them of my Mom's passing. There were certain generational trends in evidence. Among my parents' friends of longest standing, the themes of late retirement such as travel and grandchildren mixed with brushes against morbidity and mortality. There were also a number of cards from my Dad's students, and these showed the ripeness of latter working life, children married, thoughts of retirement mixed with the highest tide of professional and social attainment.
I need to get my own personal belated holiday cards out. Looking at the mailing list, I am seeing some stereotypical themes in my own age cohort. We are, mostly, in the endurance phase of our careers. Most, though not all have children, and some of those are starting to head off to college--but a few years and they will be entering the post-children phase of their lives. I, and a few others, are on different tracks. I have switched careers rather dramatically, and am starting from the bottom. We have no human kids. I'll be looking at a rather different set of milestones, but I have to say that I do like hearing about everybody else's. It gives me a good feeling to see my friends do well.
So. I'd better get to work on that card.
My Mom was a very good artist; she had some training, a mother who illustrated her own books, and an aunt who was a professional artist working in oils (Fera Webber Shear). Her chosen medium was acrylic, and her subject botanical illustration. I encourage you to click on that photo, see it as big as possible.
I spent half of a day this week going through old holiday greeting cards sent from all my parents' friends over the last couple of years. My task was to put together the mailing list for a belated holiday card, thanking my parents' friends for their kind wishes and telling them of my Mom's passing. There were certain generational trends in evidence. Among my parents' friends of longest standing, the themes of late retirement such as travel and grandchildren mixed with brushes against morbidity and mortality. There were also a number of cards from my Dad's students, and these showed the ripeness of latter working life, children married, thoughts of retirement mixed with the highest tide of professional and social attainment.
I need to get my own personal belated holiday cards out. Looking at the mailing list, I am seeing some stereotypical themes in my own age cohort. We are, mostly, in the endurance phase of our careers. Most, though not all have children, and some of those are starting to head off to college--but a few years and they will be entering the post-children phase of their lives. I, and a few others, are on different tracks. I have switched careers rather dramatically, and am starting from the bottom. We have no human kids. I'll be looking at a rather different set of milestones, but I have to say that I do like hearing about everybody else's. It gives me a good feeling to see my friends do well.
So. I'd better get to work on that card.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Wednesday Wordage--Ursula K. LeGuin
So, Ursula K. LeGuin died yesterday. I've read a handful of her books, and definitely need to read more; the ones that I've read were uniformly excellent and expanding--both literary and imaginative, and challenging.
I am a fan of the notion of "canon." I like the idea that there can be a body of work that is held in common, that everybody can refer to, and that any idea can be deepened by reference to a line or a character from canon. I can, for instance, complain that my brother is dumping a lot of responsibility on me with regard to my parents' estate--or I can do the same, and say "am I my brother's keeper" and tie in to the whole business with Cain and Abel and guilt and primogeniture and responsibility and sin.
The idea of canon has become a little bit frayed of late, and with some reason. Until just a few decades ago, canon was very white and very male and very straight and highly Christian. And, also, very dead. Whole new genres are out there--TV, movies, Pop music, propaganda posters--and some things really should be part of everybody's reference. They're not taught in a culture class in school, though they are getting to the point where maybe they ought to be. I've been a complete outsider in some conversations because of unfamiliarity with "Star Wars" or the works of Bob Dylan.
Science Fiction is another one of these new genres, and while there is no official canon, you can ask a hundred fans and there are some books that will be almost universally referenced. A lot of folks will talk about "golden age" sci-fi; Asimov, Doc Smith, Burroughs, and so on. Well, since I wasn't taught a canon, I approached science fiction all out of order. I read a bunch of Ursula K. LeGuin's stuff many years ago, along with some other more modern authors. That was what I accepted as sci-fi. Then, just a couple of years ago, I realized that people were getting worked up about "golden age" sci fi, so I decided that if I wanted to have a more complete view of the field, I ought to read it. So, with the help of the local library and Project Gutenberg, I read a bunch of The Classics.
I have to say that it was kind of a letdown. I remember thinking, all of the time, "where the women at?" Yes, there were some adventurous adventures and action-packed action, but if you have the impression that sci-fi has the intellectual and social daring of LeGuin and Lem and Ellison, then most of the Golden Age stuff is just pulpy fluff, and not necessarily all that well written.
So here's a fond ave atque vale to Ursula K. LeGuin, and sincerest thanks for making me believe that genre literature is actually literature, and making me disappointed when it fails to be such.
What should I read next?
I am a fan of the notion of "canon." I like the idea that there can be a body of work that is held in common, that everybody can refer to, and that any idea can be deepened by reference to a line or a character from canon. I can, for instance, complain that my brother is dumping a lot of responsibility on me with regard to my parents' estate--or I can do the same, and say "am I my brother's keeper" and tie in to the whole business with Cain and Abel and guilt and primogeniture and responsibility and sin.
The idea of canon has become a little bit frayed of late, and with some reason. Until just a few decades ago, canon was very white and very male and very straight and highly Christian. And, also, very dead. Whole new genres are out there--TV, movies, Pop music, propaganda posters--and some things really should be part of everybody's reference. They're not taught in a culture class in school, though they are getting to the point where maybe they ought to be. I've been a complete outsider in some conversations because of unfamiliarity with "Star Wars" or the works of Bob Dylan.
Science Fiction is another one of these new genres, and while there is no official canon, you can ask a hundred fans and there are some books that will be almost universally referenced. A lot of folks will talk about "golden age" sci-fi; Asimov, Doc Smith, Burroughs, and so on. Well, since I wasn't taught a canon, I approached science fiction all out of order. I read a bunch of Ursula K. LeGuin's stuff many years ago, along with some other more modern authors. That was what I accepted as sci-fi. Then, just a couple of years ago, I realized that people were getting worked up about "golden age" sci fi, so I decided that if I wanted to have a more complete view of the field, I ought to read it. So, with the help of the local library and Project Gutenberg, I read a bunch of The Classics.
I have to say that it was kind of a letdown. I remember thinking, all of the time, "where the women at?" Yes, there were some adventurous adventures and action-packed action, but if you have the impression that sci-fi has the intellectual and social daring of LeGuin and Lem and Ellison, then most of the Golden Age stuff is just pulpy fluff, and not necessarily all that well written.
So here's a fond ave atque vale to Ursula K. LeGuin, and sincerest thanks for making me believe that genre literature is actually literature, and making me disappointed when it fails to be such.
What should I read next?
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Wednesday Wordage Euphemism of the year 2018 Already Decided!
Pegasus Airlines, a low-cost Turkish carrier, said in a statement that the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, flying to Trabzon from Ankara, the capital, “had a runway excursion incident” as it tried to land.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Tuesday Monday Musical Offering
Ok, a day late. But--here is a radio program that I have found that I like very much: The Piano Matters, hosted by David Dubal. (Link) Oregon's classical radio station, KWAX, plays it Tuesdays at 5 PM and Saturdays at, I think, 6. It's on other stations too. It's an hour of piano lover's delights.
So much of radio programming, not to mention concert programming and CD producing, is geared towards completism and Big Statements: all the preludes of so and so, the complete scherzi of X, the entire Opus 42 of Y. This show is mostly miniatures, morceaux de salon, obscurities by one-hit-wonders, or obscurities by big names who just aren't known for little snippets that can be played by talented amateurs. A space is carved out for one big thing per hour, usually a concerto movement, but the rest is a big box of bijoux that few have heard.
Not only that, but the host is content to play recordings that have sound quality that is...well, the suck. But if you want to hear Godowski or somebody who studied with Liszt, that's what you're going to get. And you'll like it.
The host is also worth listening to, because, as is rare these days, he has opinions about what he plays and he freely shares them*. To be sure, he comes by those opinions honestly, as a piano teacher at Juilliard. "That was pretty good...Maybe a little lacking in a certain majesty, but stylish in its own way." "Well played, a charming but negligible piece that is worth hearing, once." He name-drops, but he's entitled to do so by his own works. He throws in a few mottoes as spacers, which are sometimes worth thinking over and sometimes merely annoying. But, all in all, this is one of my absolute favorite shows. Give it a listen.
*Sean Bianco, of Sacramento's Capitol Public Radio's At the Opera on Saturdays at 8:00 is especially worthy in this regard.
So much of radio programming, not to mention concert programming and CD producing, is geared towards completism and Big Statements: all the preludes of so and so, the complete scherzi of X, the entire Opus 42 of Y. This show is mostly miniatures, morceaux de salon, obscurities by one-hit-wonders, or obscurities by big names who just aren't known for little snippets that can be played by talented amateurs. A space is carved out for one big thing per hour, usually a concerto movement, but the rest is a big box of bijoux that few have heard.
Not only that, but the host is content to play recordings that have sound quality that is...well, the suck. But if you want to hear Godowski or somebody who studied with Liszt, that's what you're going to get. And you'll like it.
The host is also worth listening to, because, as is rare these days, he has opinions about what he plays and he freely shares them*. To be sure, he comes by those opinions honestly, as a piano teacher at Juilliard. "That was pretty good...Maybe a little lacking in a certain majesty, but stylish in its own way." "Well played, a charming but negligible piece that is worth hearing, once." He name-drops, but he's entitled to do so by his own works. He throws in a few mottoes as spacers, which are sometimes worth thinking over and sometimes merely annoying. But, all in all, this is one of my absolute favorite shows. Give it a listen.
*Sean Bianco, of Sacramento's Capitol Public Radio's At the Opera on Saturdays at 8:00 is especially worthy in this regard.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Wednesday Wordage, Utopian Edition
Of course, Utopia was imaginary, situated (by its name) nowhere. Lately I've been attracted to a couple of modern, well-developed and well-imagined no-places. One, Night Vale, exists in the desert Southwest, in a parallel dimension; it projects into this dimension via a podcast, every two weeks. The other, Discworld, exists on the back of four giant elephants astride the back of the giant space turtle A'tuin who swims through the stars in an odd dimension of the universe, and was projected into this world by the late, great Terry Pratchett.
I've been trying to figure out what I find attractive in these imaginary lands. Neither of them is a paradise; both are haunted, both are plagued by some of the same ills--war, corruption, hatred--that plague our world. What's more, they are afflicted by demons, monsters, and evil of every sort. People do stupid, cowardly, or hateful things. Fate is capricious. People die (Death himself makes at least a cameo in every Discworld story).
Yet, I really like letting my imagination go to those places. Ultimately, they both have something that is very right, and that is sadly too rare in this less demon-haunted world. In both, at the end, there is a certain acceptance of the "other." People learn. In Night Vale, the mysterious Glowing cloud that controls human minds (All hail!) and rains animal corpses completes a story arc, and is a member of the school board. In Discworld, everybody of one species pretty much hates everybody of every other species--dwarves hate trolls, humans hate goblins, everybody hates vampires--but the bustling city of Ankh-Morpork is home to all of them, bumping shoulders but not coming to blows (very often). It's lovely to spend time in these places, if you feel at all different, or wish this world were more welcoming to the "other." It has become all the more so, since our government has been seized by a party that, for now, is based largely on demonizing the "other."
So, check them out. Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast, you can get it where you will. The Discworld is found in a whole series of, what, thirty-some novels; the first three introduce some recurring characters, but weren't really written with an eye towards establishing a whole series--but read the whole lot, they're good. Better than the news, for sure.
I've been trying to figure out what I find attractive in these imaginary lands. Neither of them is a paradise; both are haunted, both are plagued by some of the same ills--war, corruption, hatred--that plague our world. What's more, they are afflicted by demons, monsters, and evil of every sort. People do stupid, cowardly, or hateful things. Fate is capricious. People die (Death himself makes at least a cameo in every Discworld story).
Yet, I really like letting my imagination go to those places. Ultimately, they both have something that is very right, and that is sadly too rare in this less demon-haunted world. In both, at the end, there is a certain acceptance of the "other." People learn. In Night Vale, the mysterious Glowing cloud that controls human minds (All hail!) and rains animal corpses completes a story arc, and is a member of the school board. In Discworld, everybody of one species pretty much hates everybody of every other species--dwarves hate trolls, humans hate goblins, everybody hates vampires--but the bustling city of Ankh-Morpork is home to all of them, bumping shoulders but not coming to blows (very often). It's lovely to spend time in these places, if you feel at all different, or wish this world were more welcoming to the "other." It has become all the more so, since our government has been seized by a party that, for now, is based largely on demonizing the "other."
So, check them out. Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast, you can get it where you will. The Discworld is found in a whole series of, what, thirty-some novels; the first three introduce some recurring characters, but weren't really written with an eye towards establishing a whole series--but read the whole lot, they're good. Better than the news, for sure.
Monday, January 1, 2018
Monday Musical Offering Tired of Travel Edition
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