Journal of No. 118

essentialsaltes @ 2022-09-10T22:52:00

2022-09-11T05:52:50Z

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: Time Travelers Strictly Cash is their policy. Lay your money on the bar, name your poison, step up to the line drawn on the barroom floor, and after drinking make a toast and throw the glass into the fireplace.

/steps to the line

I tried to retrieve a memory worthy of retelling, but all I could see was my mental image of Shawn. A quick grin, a ready smile, a glorious mane of hair. Others spoke eloquently and accurately of his generosity and love for mankind. I could not and would not take a particle from those accurate praises.

But on my dime and with sazerac in hand...

I give you... Shawn's hair!

/crash

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Remembering Uncle Don

2022-04-26T20:30:03Z

I recently traveled by plane for the first time in 2 years. Unfortunately the occasion was not an altogether happy one. I attended the memorial in San Jose for my uncle Don. I'm glad cousin Jim included a bit of roasting in his own touching comments about his dad, so I don't feel too mean in making my own comments.

In my childhood, 3 of the Murphy sisters all lived in Sunnyvale/San Jose, so a bunch of us cousins (their kids) saw a lot of each other. We weren't quite raised in common, but there were lots of evenings with the aunts and uncles playing euchre, while the cousins all played together at one house or another. Or trips to the local lakes for waterskiing. Birthday parties and holidays. Uncle Don was a big part of all that. Even later when my family had moved away, many summers through high school included me staying with them for a week or two. Getting into trouble with Jim and Tom, of course, but also time with Aunt Fran and Uncle Don.

It's probably not literally true, but sometimes I think that I learned thriftiness from Don. Thrift is a bit of a left-handed virtue; I may have heard it said that Don could pinch a penny until it squealed in pain. And yet.

And yet what I remember most about Don was his generosity. He was generous in spirit. Generous with a helping hand. Generous with a listening ear. Generous with a good joke. Or a bad one (more likely). Generous with hospitality (that I availed myself of many a time). Generous with family. Generous with friends and strangers alike.

He was just a great fun guy and he'll be missed. I hope he serves as inspiration to those who knew him to emulate his giving spirit. I'm sure the world would be a better place for it.

--

The celebration went really well. My only regret is I didn't take more pictures, but it was great to reconnect with Jim and Tom and their families, and Aunt Fran, of course, and cousin Patty. To be amazed at how Jim's and Tom's kids have grown. And even hang out with some of Jim's and Tom's friends, some of whom I've known (a bit) since back in those high school summers.

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Five Strokes To Midnight - Tom Bombadil - Eye of the Beholder

2019-06-04T00:16:30Z

Five Strokes to Midnight is a World Fantasy Award nominated anthology of horror/dark fiction stories by five authors: Gary A. Braunbeck & Hank Schwaeble (which duo also edited), Tom Piccirilli, Deborah LeBlanc, and Christopher Golden. Each contributed two or three stories, loosely bound to a theme particular for each author. All pretty good stuff, many with a vein of deep personal emotion -- as a robot, this is not always my thing, but here it is handled generally really well.

The book starts out strong with Piccirilli's "Loss", as some out-of-left-field fantastic elements add some mystery to the regret. Tom's second story seems overlong, but now that he himself is gone, I'll take all the words I can get.

Leblanc's Curses gives us some vivid pictures of backwoods Louisiana - voodoo and worse.

Schwaeble's "Bone Daddy" is an agreeably nasty bit of work -- Lap dances for liches never turn out well.

Golden's Folklore stories take on Lost Miners, Goat Suckers and Ghost Trains. The last of which ends with a satisfying note that helps you close the book without shuddering.

---

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book collects a few of the longer verses Tolkien used in the Lord of the Rings, some related poems not in LotR, and others.

Many of them are rather somber in tone, while others are quite, well, Tom Bombadilly.

"The Mewlips" is delightfully creepy

The Shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink.
...

And how can I not love "Cat"?

The fat cat on the mat
   may seem to dream
of nice mice that suffice
   for him, or cream;
but he free, maybe,
   walks in thought
unbowed, proud, where loud
   roared and fought
his kin, lean and slim,
   or deep in den
in the East feasted on beasts
   and tender men.
...

His love of internal rhyme is on full display here, something I often find appealing.

The art by Pauline Baynes is amusing, hearkening to medieval illustrations, but it makes for a good segue into my last little review

----

Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons

This is a documentary film about the artists behind some of the iconic images of D&D. In many ways, it is exactly as nerdy as it sounds. As a documentary, it's maybe not the best, but there are some neat insights, and plenty of dragons (and dungeons) on display.

Once upon a time, a lot of fantasy art looked like Pauline Baynes work -- somewhat tame. And then Frazetta and Vallejo showed up and went bonkers. D&D artists all wanted to be Frazetta and Boris. And this is their story.

It's interesting to see some of the inside history of how TSR grew, and went from amusing (and sometimes somewhat crudely executed) B&W images done on the cheap, and quickly turned into big colorful professional works. And then (to my eye) it drifted into something very 'corporate'. Alas, I think this final phase has, as the film I think correctly points out, informed a lot of current fantasy art (from novels to film to videogames to everything) making it derivative of a particular TSR corporate look. I mean it's commercial art, so it is what it is. And the stuff I'm nostalgic for was commercial art as well. But that original Players Handbook cover, which is rightly lauded in the documentary, just sets you thinking in exactly the right way to explain the game.

What just happened? Who are these people? What are they doing? Some people are doing this, and other people are doing that, and then there's those people over there -- what is going on? Did the lizard things live here and worship here? What's going to happen when they pop that jewel out? What will they do then?

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The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert

2019-03-02T00:33:36Z

Subtitled An Unnatural History, the book looks into the effect that human beings are having on the extinction of other species on Earth. The title refers to the five established major extinction events that have happened over the course of Earth's history, where large fractions of the species living on earth have gone extinct. The sexiest one is the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.

It's hard to deny the overall concept that our influence on the planet is causing a similar extinction event similar in size to these. Kolbert focuses on a number of particular research groups studying a particular species or groups of species that is under threat. These are really great looks at how science operates, and what scientists do, and paints a vivid picture of the facts and conclusions. At the same time, I think that in addition to these embedded journalist pieces, the book could have used a better summary and conclusion to tie everything together to suggest the overall impact. But perhaps that's just too huge to tackle and loses some immediacy in its hugeness. People will care more about that adorable squeaking bat over there suffering from white nose syndrome than about "37% of all species on earth".

There's also good variety among the cases and causes. Ocean acidification affecting corals, predation of moas and other prehistoric fauna that isn't around any more, climate change shifting habitable zones -- if you live on flat land, and the climate warms up, you can move north to stay at the right temperature. But if you live on a mountainside, all you can do is go up in altitude. Not only does the temperate zone shrinks, but if your mountain isn't tall enough, it vanishes.

Now that humans have air travel and poke our noses all over the place, things come along for the ride. Species that never would have run into each other do so now. Sure, we know about how smallpox affected Native Americans, but this story is being played out many times over, including the white nose syndrome decimating some bat populations in North America, caused by a European fungus that doesn't much bother European bats.

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Pervy jerks in (and some out of) the skeptical movement

2018-03-08T04:59:31Z

There's been quite the confluence of events. Buzzfeed (don't laugh) ran a deeply researched article about Lawrence Krauss and a number of sexual allegations against him. None violent, but sleazy. Apparently enough to warrant being banned from a couple campuses where he used to work. While I was dimmmmmly aware, for me it was basically internet gossip about someone I don't really know.

I found the article convincing, and icky enough that it bothered me that I remembered that Krauss was a fellow of CSI (nee CSICOP). And I went to the trouble of checking their page of fellows to be sure.

And there are two things that probably made that association leap to my mind. Number one, another Fellow is Benjamin Radford, and he too has been associated with some similar accusations (starting from incidents after a consensual relationship turned sour). Again, I am not the insider here, but I gather that Barry Karr [or maybe Ron Lindsay -- like I said, I'm not an insider] made an investigation, meted out some punishment, and I don't know the ins and outs, other than to say that Radford is still a Fellow, as is his most noteworthy accuser (from where I sit, not being close to any of this). So I feel confident that something was done with at least some semblance of justice. But the episode also pulled additional anonymous whispers out of the ether.

The second thing that probably kept it fresh in my mind was that the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer noted that Susan Gerbic had been made a Fellow. This was surprising, because most of the Fellows are members of the professoriate in disciplines from physics to psychology. And Susan runs the guerrilla skeptics on wikipedia. I mean, if done right, obviously it's to everyone's benefit for Wikipedia to be accurate, and credulous viewpoints need to be countered by skeptical ones. But...

#1: my brief foray into Wikipedia editing convinced me that it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy and win the Wikipedia editing game. And it isn't me. And I'm vaguely suspicious of the people who find themselves at home in that environment.
#2: Susan's common appearances on the Skepticality podcast did not impress me favorably. In addition to her stated work to push an agenda, it was clear she was also generally a shill for conferences and meetings, etc. Some of the things that pushed me away from greater involvement in organized skepticism (it was not enough that I volunteered to be part of the Independent Investigations Group (an organization I helped name) but to stay in, one would be required to take classes for money -- fuck that).
#3: In short, rather than a skeptic, she strikes me more as a True Believer. Our side is right, and this justifies almost anything.
#4: More recently, I see that Susan is essentially defending Radford on his Wiki page (see the Talk) to keep the page clean of talk of the accusation. Now I don't know that it's notable or meets Wikipedia's standards, but it does bother me that it seems that the truth is less important than defending the people in one's camp.

Anyhoo, this had me thinking about CSI having two fairly well documented pervs among its Fellows (and I wasn't so hot about the merger between CFI and the Dawkins Foundation). And so for a long time (when I only knew of one perv) I was reconsidering the bequest in my will to CSICOP. And now there were (at least) two pervs. Now when you look at the list... there are a lot of people I admire, from Susan Blackmore to Daniel Dennett to EC Krupp to Joe Nickell to Bob Park to Eugenie Scott. Maybe two bad eggs isn't too bad a proportion? On the other hand, there's more than enough star power that I really wish they'd get rid of any bad eggs. After appropriate scrutiny.

And then my stepdad died last week. And I read through his will. And I thought a lot more about my own.

And then a miracle... Lawrence Krauss was (at least temporarily) un-Fellowed from CSI. And I note that between looking at the CSI Fellows page a few days ago and now, Susan Gerbic has also vanished from the list, shortly after arriving. This I assume(?) is at her behest.

So we're back down to one perv (that has come to my attention) who served metaphorical time for one incident. All cool?

(Thank lackofgod that pervy Mike Shermer has an entirely separate Skeptic organization for me to shun. It's true, I shunned him for being dumb long before I knew about any pervy accusations, but every little bit helps. Also a shame that James Randi (who gave his name to yet a third skeptic organization) turned a blind eye to Shermer being 'a bad boy on occasion'.)

Seems like I'm down on all the skeptical organizations, but hey it's just some of the people and the organizations that suck. Not the ideas or the truth of the matter. And possibly CFI/CSI has taken a small step to suck less... and can stay in my will.

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Death in a Bowl, by Raoul Whitfield

2017-09-17T23:16:00Z

Fresh off reading about Tough Guy Writers, it was maybe inevitable that a few titles caught my eye. Death in a Bowl, featuring a murder of the conductor at the Hollywood Bowl during a concert certainly punched the right buttons. Sadly, there's not as much local color as I hoped, and a plot that's hopelessly cockamamie by the end. But a few bloodthirsty and cold-blooded nouns and verbs smash together pleasingly every once in a while.

"Do I look like a killer?"
"I never saw a man who looked like one...You look like a liar to me--I've seen them before."

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Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties, edited by David Madden

2017-09-10T23:07:24Z

A 1968 collection of essays on the the Tough Guys of 30s fiction by diverse authors, primarily academic (including Carolyn See of UCLA (Extension at the time) - her dissertation was on the Hollywood novel, and her essay here explores the well-populated cross-section of Hollywood and tough guys). I picked it up at an estate sale on a whim.

Probably the best of the bunch and a good primer on the topic is "The 'Black Mask' School" by Edgar-winning UCLA Professor Philip Durham, focusing on the origins and contents of the eponymous pulp magazine.

Some essays are insightful, others veer off into academese, others display a surprising distaste for the whole topic:

"Although the novel is atrociously written, with ... a tone I can describe only as illiterate archness, it does contain some of the important elements of gangster fiction: an Italian hero, an unbelievable amount of brutality ..., quite a bit of very rapid and decidedly unexciting sex, a Robin Hood sort of romanticism, and some fairly knowledgeable accounts of the methods of criminals."

Of a different novel: "Chase apparently took all the elements he found striking in gangster fiction and magnified them as far as his imagination and the censors would allow; the result is one of the rarest of rare birds, a truly horrible book."

One interesting insight that caught me eye is the epigraph to an essay on Hammett, quoted from Angus Fletcher's Allegory: "[The 'daemonic agent'] will act as if possessed ... He will act part way between the human and divine spheres, touching on both, which suggests that he can be used for the model romantic hero, since romance allows its heroes both human interest and divine power. His essentially energic character will delight the reader with an appearance of unadulterated power. Like a Machiavellian prince, the allegorical hero can act free of the usual moral restraints, even when he is acting morally, since he is moral only in the interests of his power over other men. This sort of action has a crude fascination for us all; it impels us to read the detective story, the western, the saga of space exploration and interplanetary travel."

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The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, by Meg Ellison

2017-08-18T23:19:51Z

A post-apocalyptic story where the apocalypse is a plague that takes out most of humanity, and is more fatal among women than men, making women even rarer in the post-world. This sets up a brutal scenario with supply and demand turning women into commodities. Our unnamed medical professional manages to stay safe(r) by cross-dressing, but every interaction with others is fraught with danger. I enjoy a good 'men are pigs' story, but this one may tread a bit over the line into unintentional parody from time to time.
It also bears interesting comparisons to Earth Abides, especially with the beginning of this book set in the Bay Area. But our heroine makes her way into the Rockies, gaining and losing companions from time to time. Some of the best writing and interaction is when she lives on the outskirts of a Mormon settlement that survived slightly better than most of the world due to remoteness and isolation.
Ostensibly a journal, the book occasionally interpolates other stories that the midwife copies into it, but the work as a whole doesn't stick to this formula, to its detriment I think. Certain passages break the illusion, providing information on what's going on in other parts of the world, or giving us the unhappy story of what happens to two former companions after they part ways with the unnamed midwife.
A good read, despite my quibbles.

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Winston

2017-06-24T04:34:23Z

I'm desolated to share the news that today was the right time to say goodbye to Winston. Of our cats, he was far and away the best-dressed, most gregarious, and least intelligent.

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