Another era

A story I'm writing now is, among other things, a work of historical fiction. It's also set within my lifetime, because I'm at an age where that's possible.

While there is a market I'm considering, the guidelines don't say anything about setting the story in the past. That's my choice, made for a couple of different reasons. For one thing, the protagonist is a banker. A relatively sympathetic one, out of necessity for me. But the thing is, if it were set today, I'd have to answer questions like "what kind of phone does he use" and "does he use Slack to talk to coworkers" and "what is slack." This way I can limit my research to more fun topics.

Also it's set in New York, a city which seems to have a little more grandeur when you're talking about the seventies. Part of that is because of the movies that have imprinted me, I'm sure.

Apocalyptic uptick

Our experience on Earth is probably repeated endlessly in the cosmos. Life develops on planets but it is ultimately destroyed by the light of a slowly brightening star. It is a cruel fact of nature that life-giving stars always go bad.

Has anyone ever worked that last sentence into a country song?

This is from Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee's The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World, which I just finished. There's something calming in these scientific prophesies of doom. The news isn't good, but things like the sun turning into a red giant are so far in the future we never expected to be around for them. Our children's children won't either. Of course there are threats now, some self-created. But the thing is, the goal is to just squeeze as many good years out of this world we have as we can.

There is no bottom

I have a friend who took out his phone tonight and showed me the sign featured in this article. Well, I'm not too proud to say that I laughed. Thought I'd look it up when I got home. Something did tell me that the image was too good to be true. I mean, there has to be a lot of sets of eyes on a sign that prominent, people who review the text before it's made permanent. And lo, it turns out to be a hoax.

Not sure I'll tell my friend it's a fake, though. I mean, there are a lot of hoaxes going on out there, and most of them aren't as harmless as this one.

It's alive

I received a plant a few weeks ago. I don't think it's exactly a poinsettia, but the leaves have a similar shape and texture, but they're lighter, and maybe a little bigger in area. If this kind of plant has any special needs, I don't know about it. So I've just set it by a window and I've given it water once per week. While the plant has lost a few leaves, it still looks pretty healthy.



Exactly, Steve. So far, so good.

Double oh

I'm listening now to a show on WFMU where the DJ has compiled a solid hour's worth of versions of the song "Live and Let Die." A for effort to her, but man, it's a little hard to believe so many people have chosen to do that song. The original recording works because it's Paul and Wings, but as a song I don't think it exactly towers over Duran Duran's "View to a Kill". The song Chris Connell did for Casino Royale strikes me as much better and I'm not even that big a Soundgarden fan. I mean, McCartney seems to be going out of his way to be trite with that "you used to say live and let live" opening.

I don't know, maybe I'm being mean. But imagine what Lennon must have been saying at the time.

Bookstore follies

If the time comes when we have to restart civilization - and all things considered, I'm not discounting the possibility - it would help to have a few choice scraps of what went before. The above cartoon by Barry Kliban strikes me as an excellent start, among other pieces by him. It's something to aspire to, yet something to relate to.

i b illin'

Making this brief because I'm about to hit the hay to recuperate. Somehow I got through the entire winter and early spring - winter's sequel - without getting sick. My luck just ran out, as I seem to have picked up some manner of cold. I think I know who gave it to me. No ill will, though. The man was just doing his job in difficult circumstances.

Thoughts (and thank you, Susan)

I've done a few things today. One is just to think. Or to meditate, you might say, although there's been no lotus position nor especially deep breathing. But yeah, I've had reason to think about where I'm at and what I'm doing.

Tonight, coming home, I passed a police car with its light flashing. Behind the squad car was a smallish SUV. The front bumper was a little mangled, and there may have been some other damage I couldn't see. I could have sworn I caught a cannabis smell from the vehicle.

Well, if so, I can only wish the guy good luck.

Light through water

Earlier in the evening we had a rainstorm. You could feel it in the air and hear a rumbling here or there well before it happened. When the rain came it was heavy, and the sky went dark.

It was only a brief storm, though, relatively speaking. It got darker than you'd expect for the time of day and the time of year. Then as the rain tapered off something unusual happened. The sky turned purple, a pinkish shade of purple, for a few minutes. After that, Gold. So it was a picturesque storm.

understatement

You might hear this song out of nowhere, as background music. In some ways it sounds like background. The vocals are rather deep in the mix. It sounds a little distant, mysterious. These aren't singers who went on to a great deal of fame, but once you start listening to them they can put you in a bit of a trance.

As to the above instructional video on "How to Dance Really, Really White" well, what more can I add?

At the front (of the classroom)

I have a good friend who's a school teacher. High school, in Pawtucket. It's been something of a crazy ride for him in all sorts of ways, but he's stuck with it. Because of his specialty and the way that his district is set up a lot of his students come from non-English-speaking homes, and he has to get them up to speed.

It's a hectic job, and around this time of year is when it gets especially so. I'm sure the job is rewarding, but I can also see why he hasn't taught summer school since he stopped having to.

The forest primeval

Menagerie from Brian Yulo Ng on Vimeo.

Good Lord, this is some gorgeous work! I don't know that it has a lot of plot, but it's loaded with texture and charm. I do notice a recurrence of living things here that turn out to be not quite what they first appeared to be. And that's true. Nature is always challenging our understanding.

Piping up

Plumbing is one of those invisible conveniences. As a matter of perception, anyway. When all is going right we tend to overlook it. When something goes wrong it balloons in perceived importance.

Another thing about it is that it's very easy to think you've pinpointed the problem, when really it's something entirely different. But the actual problem is just as simple as the one you think you figured out.

Ah well, everything is resolved now. And boy do I feel lucky!

Ah youth

Well, it's that time of year again. Specifically, the time we go from wintry weather to summerlike conditions with basically no stop in between. And as I predicted a couple of weeks ago, it's led to some rambunctiousness on the part of the younger residents of the neighborhood, college-age I gather. They don't want to go inside or go to sleep, so they're jawboning on the streets. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get to sleep through it. If I have troubles I'll have to start dumping cold water on their heads. Or something.

A little not particularly light reading

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse is proving to be a profoundly complicated reading experience. It has a reputation as being such a breakthrough that it assured Hesse the Nobel Prize for Literature. Given the times I suspect the real reason he won was because he was a German who stood firmly against Nazism. I approve of this motive, needless to say.

It's a philosophical novel set in the far future. There are unmistakable and no doubt intentional echoes of Plato's Republic. Humanity has passed through a decadent phase. The titular Glass Bead Game is held up as a response, a way of moving beyond. Initially a memory game involving the completion of musical passages, it has expanded to encompass almost all fields of human study, while leaving the use of actual glass beads behind. Hero Joseph Knecht is a master player of the game, accounting for the alternate title Magister Ludi.

Fiction writing manuals always tell you that the story has to involve a conflict, something the protagonist needs or wants but can't get right now. Hesse, despite centering the early chapters on Knecht's days as a promising student, is not writing a proto-Harry Potter or really aspiring to any kind of popular fiction. He eschews conflict for the most part, letting the characters have philosophical exchanges but keeping these in the realm of rhetoric.

On the one hand, you can see reading this why the "gotta have conflict" rule of thumb exists, since things can get pretty dry. On the other, Hesse's ambition is tangible, so one is inclined to give him leeway.

Women barely exist in this book, by the way. I'm curious as to the extent that was a deliberate and knowing choice.

Tints

Looking in the drugstore at hair dye for men, you notice a few things. One is that the top brand is called "Just for Men." Okay, so we've got that cleared up. It seems like men, whether they're greying or not, have a complex about leaving the store with a package of Miss Clairol or something else with a woman's picture on the front. Back when I used to dye my hair I never worried about this. Women's brands had a wider selection of colors, anyway.

Of course a number of people now, both men and women, dye their hair unnatural colors like blue and green. Like it's not just for dedicated punk rockers anymore. It's still an attention-getting look, but I'm not sure it really works for people over, say, 35.