Blogs to follow: Moths to a Flame

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Richard Bowker

This blog about dating misadventures is pretty darn funny, if not particularly relevant to my situation in life. Here’s a taste:

In the summer of 2010, I met CircleGlasses at The Princeton Club’s weekly live rooftop music program in mid-town Manhattan. I arrived early to snag a high top table in the center of the patio. It was the perfect anchor location for people to drop by, mix, mingle, and move on. While I was seat-dancing / shoulder-bopping to a little jazz, CircleGlasses came over. He briefly chatted us and then got my number before leaving. He was what I call “old world adorable” because he was wearing a dinner jacket and circular glasses at a casual evening event – in any other season we can safely assume an ascot would be fashioned around this neck. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was no longer the 18th century.

THE FIRST DATE

CircleGlasses and I texted over the weekend and set a date for Monday. But there was just one thing I had missed…

You see, my physical dimensions make me the human equivalent of an IKEA flatpack: 6′ long, 20″ wide, 6″ deep. Combine my natural height with the extra inches from my requisite heels and I stand no less than 6’3″ on any given day. Basically, I dwarf the Williams sisters. I have had a number of life experiences that made me feel like extreme height was normal. In my elementary school I was in a combined 4th-6th grade classroom, so the inches I had over my fellow 4th graders were not noticeable in comparison to the 6th graders. In my very Scandinavian Minnesota high school, my Viking-descended classmates were all fairly tall, so I fit in just fine. After high school, I walked the runway a few times and everyone around also was a lanky slyph. Even now, with my Danish/Swedish family, I look squat at the Thanksgiving gathering since the shortest of my three cousins is 6’5″. When I met CircleGlasses while sitting down, I forget that I missed out on comparing the compatibility of our heights.

We had arranged to meet in the Flat Iron district for cocktails and dinner. As I approached him on the sidewalk, I noticed for the first time that CircleGlasses stood a diminutive 5’6″. When we met, it was like the scene when Glinda the Good Witch presents the lolli-pop guild. I was hovering far above the ground and in a herky jerky motion he stuck out his arm for a strong handshake. It was awkward… We needed to get to a seated situation STAT. It’s just too bad that the gods were having a laugh that day. The place where we scheduled cocktails was closed for a private party; the backup location was closed on Mondays; the bar at our dinner locale was standing room only.

For 30 minutes I contorted my back into scoliosis-inducing curves, bent my knees like I was doing wall sits, and rocked sideways off my heels trying to lose some inches. When a person feels self-conscious because of appearance there’s usually a fix. Got a zit bubbling up? Slap on some concealer, you’ll be fine. B.O. wafting away? put those ‘pits on lock down. Weird cowlick happening in your bangs? Work those angles, girl. I can usually use my surroundings for an advantage, but in this case there was no help for the shoulder-hunching. Finally, we sat for dinner at one of the restaurant’s elevated tables. I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure his feet were swinging from the high chairs.

Music from Summit: Chopin Ballade in G minor

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Here is Krystian Zimerman, looking very dashing:

Here from Summit is the Russian psychic Valentina listening to Daniel Fulton play the piece in Moscow; he looks dashing, too. The first half of the recital hasn’t gone well, but now things are picking up.

********

Valentina closed her eyes as he played the solemn opening octaves. She knew this piece so well; he had played it last time, and she still remembered. Duty and love, love and duty—the eternal, irresolvable conflict; that was what it spoke of to her. The harsh minor-key opening theme chillingly spoke of her duty—what she had to do to stay alive; but thank God the theme melted away, and in its place—love. Grand, passionate love, sweeping across the keyboard. The duty theme would return, more menacing, more insistent, but it didn’t matter. The love existed; it too would return, and it would triumph.

Wouldn’t it? Oh, she knew it wouldn’t, she knew it was just a dream, but when Daniel Fulton played the piano like this, anything seemed possible. The tension of the first part of the recital was gone, her prayers had been answered, and now there was only the joy that had been missing from her life for three awful years.

When Fulton finished in a wild flurry of octaves, the audience leaped to its feet to cheer him. All except Valentina, who sat in the balcony with tears running down her cheeks, falling like raindrops onto her beautiful red silk dress.

******

Update: YouTube also has performances of the G-minor Ballade by Horowitz and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli — surely two of the finalists, along with Gould, for most eccentric pianist of the twentieth century. (Michelangeli is also a finalist for most poetic name.) Zimerman is way more showy than either of them, but they are both worth watching.

I played the Ballade when I was in high school. It’s not impossible, except for the last minute and a half, which I simply didn’t have the technique to pull off. The third Ballade is much easier. The fourth is the best of the lot, I think, although not as immediately accessible as the G minor. It’s also the hardest; I struggled with it for quite a while before giving up.

More dispatches from the Middle East

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Why you shouldn’t paint a Jordanian flag on a trash can and other insights from our intrepid correspondent, shown below (he’s the one with the beard):

Here he is without a paint roller in his hand:

What explains differences in levels of belief?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Richard Bowker

This post explored the wide ranges of unbelief in America, ranging from members of Congress (almost no nonbelievers) to elite scientists (very few believers). Jeff wonders what explains the difference:

And what does it mean that “elite” scientists have, statistically, different views from “regular” scientists? Are they smarter and more perspicacious about the life, the universe, and everything? Or are they just really, really smart in their own narrow realm? Just asking.

I’d offer a different (or maybe an additional) explanation: insensitivity to the social stigma of atheism. As we talked about here, atheists are considered about as trustworthy as rapists. For most politicians, it would be political suicide to admit that you don’t believe in God. It probably takes some courage to admit it even to yourself, even to someone else in a confidential survey. But elite scientists can afford to have the courage of their convictions. They probably have tenure; they work in areas where atheism won’t get them fired, won’t cause them to be shunned by their associates. They’re not involved in popularity contests. There’s little downside to saying what they believe.

For most of them. I don’t know much about Neil deGrasse Tyson, except that he’s a pretty well-known science popularizer. Here he is trying to explain his religious beliefs:

Clearly the whole atheist/agnostic thing bugs him. He obviously doesn’t want to be seen as one of those strident, rabid, shrill, baby-eating atheists. So he insists on the safe, uncontroversial agnostic designation. Jerry Coyne, naturally, is not impressed.

It only takes two seconds to call yourself an atheist (you don’t have to write a book on it!), and it would do so much to help disbelief become respectable. His distinction between atheism and agnosticism (the former are “in-your-face”; the latter are not) is completely disingenuous: one can be a Republican and not be an “in-your-face” Republican, and so it is with atheists.

Just as one can be a Christian and not be a Bible-thumping come-to-Jesus you’re-going-to-hell-if-you-don’t-believe Christian.

Of course, Tyson may actually and sincerely be an agnostic. But the video sure makes it seem like it’s more about how he is perceived than what he believes.

How religious are scientists?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Richard Bowker

In response to my post on whether an atheist could be elected president, reader Jeff points to a Pew poll surveying the level of religiosity shown be members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This study showed that these scientists were about an order of magnitude less religious than the general American public:

[T]he poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view.

The writeup of the poll mentions that this study more or less agrees with the results of similar polls:

The recent survey of scientists tracks fairly closely with earlier polls that gauged scientists’ views on religion. The first of these was conducted in 1914 by Swiss-American psychologist James Leuba, who surveyed about 1,000 scientists in the United States to ask them about their views on God. Leuba found the scientific community equally divided, with 42% saying that they believed in a personal God and the same number saying they did not.

More than 80 years later, Edward Larson, a historian of science then teaching at the University of Georgia, recreated Leuba’s survey, asking the same number of scientists the exact same questions. To the surprise of many, Larson’s 1996 poll came up with similar results, finding that 40% of scientists believed in a personal God, while 45% said they did not. Other surveys of scientists have yielded roughly similar results.

The writeup doesn’t mention that Leuba did another study in 1914 of the level of belief of “greater scientists,” identified as such in the publication American Men of Science. For these guys, the level of disbelief was somewhat higher — about 53%. He replicated the study in 1933, at which point disbelief had risen to 68%. In 1998 Larson tried to replicate these studies by sending a questionnaire to members of the National Academy of Sciences, which is an elected body of distinguished scientists; the authors believe this sample was probably more selective than Leuba’s samples. For NAS members in 1998, the rate of disbelief was 72%. The level of actual personal belief had declined from 27% to 7% (the remainder are agnostics). The authors write:

As we compiled our findings, the NAS issued a booklet encouraging the teaching of evolution in public schools, an ongoing source of friction between the scientific community and some conservative Christians in the United States. The booklet assures readers, “Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral”. NAS president Bruce Alberts said: “There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists.” Our survey suggests otherwise.

So, let’s consider samples of 500 people:

1 out of 500 members of Congress doesn’t believe in God.

20 out of 500 people in the general American public don’t believe.

205 out of 500 regular ol’ scientists don’t believe.

360 out of 500 distinguished scientists don’t believe.

I don’t have anything deep to say here; I just wanted to point out the gap between the religious beliefs of elite scientists and those of the general public — and the chasm between their beliefs and those of members of Congress.

Rule 5: Outline

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Continuing with our rules for writing:

Imagine that you’re about to start on a long car trip — one that might take you a year or more. It’s dark out. You have only a vague idea what your destination is, or how to get there. What should you do?

Turn on your headlights so you can see the next hundred yards or so, and hit the accelerator. Or:
Write yourself some directions before you even get into the car.

Rule 5 says you should write yourself some directions. I’m sure some writers can keep entire plots and all their characters in their heads, either because they’re really smart or their novels are really simple. Or the plots and characters just work themselves out as the novel progresses, and there are a minimum of dead ends or wrong turns along the way.

None of those characterizations applies to me. I have started adding some review quotes to the descriptions of my novels hidden under “Books” at the top of this blog. It’s surprising to me how many times reviewers point out the twists and turns of my plots, even for novels that I don’t recall as being especially complicated. But even if you don’t have to carefully plant clues or plan out multiple plot twists, you’re going to have lots of things happening in your 80,000+ words, and it’s helpful to figure out as much of that action ahead of time as you can.

There are two problems with writing an outline for a novel:

You won’t get it right. What works in an outline won’t necessarily work in a novel. Characters turn out differently; scenes suddenly pop into your head that demand to be included. (Again, maybe some writers can get the outline completely right; that ain’t me.)
You’ll get bored. You didn’t get into this business to write outlines. At some point you’re going to need to put the outline aside and start doing with what you really want to be doing.

Still, you’re better off with an incomplete, inaccurate outline than none at all. What I’ve typically done is something like this:

Take notes about plot elements and characters until that becomes boring.
Start an outline, and keep fleshing it out until that gets boring. (It has to take me from beginning to end; it’s the level of detail in between that’s at issue.)
Start writing the novel, keeping the outline at hand to make sure I don’t leave out anything important. I’ll occasionally add to the outline if I get a bright idea for later in the novel while I’m working on an early chapter.

I write the outline as a narrative of the events, just like a novel — this helps maintain my interest. Some of the sentences in the outline may even end up in the novel. Typically the outline ends up being between 20 and 30 pages. At that point, I’ve had it; I’ve got to get to “Call me Ishmael.”

Update: MaryA, who apparently never forgets anything, let me know that I cribbed the idea of writing as driving in the dark with your headlights on from E.L. Doctorow, who had a slightly different point to make:

It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

He also had this to say:

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining …researching …talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

Clearly he is a believer in Rule 0.

Could an atheist be elected president?

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Richard Bowker

The Ides of March is not a great movie, but it has its moments of liberal porn, where we see presidential candidate George Clooney saying things that we wish liberal candidates knew how to say. Here is how he responds in a debate to his opponent’s charge that he isn’t a practicing Christian:

I’m not a Christian. I’m not an Atheist. I’m not Jewish. I’m not Muslim. My religion, what I believe in, is called the Constitution of United States of America.

(This is a rehearsed talking point — we see his aide Ryan Gosling reciting it during a sound check before the debate.)

Good enough, I suppose. But could a presidential really get away with not being a Christian — or worse, being a self-proclaimed atheist? I mentioned in a comment that Richard Dawkins believes we should judge candidates on their religious beliefs, like the bizarre mythology of Mormonism. But of course this isn’t likely to happen. Evangelicals may grumble about Romney, but the mainstream media — and liberals — will both sing from the same hymnal: a person’s religious beliefs are a private matter. Even if those private beliefs are arrant nonsense. But what about a candidate’s lack of religious beliefs?

Of course, the problem isn’t likely to come up, because virtually every American politician professes some level of religious belief. Wikipedia’s interesting article about Discrimination against atheists notes that only one member of Congress — Pete Stark of California — has “come out” as a nonbeliever. Since the percentage of nonbelievers in Congress is far below that of comparably educated groups, these politicians are probably either self-selecting (atheists don’t even bother going into politics) or lying about their beliefs.

With good reason. This article states that 52% of Americans wouldn’t vote for a well-qualified atheist to be president — more than those who wouldn’t vote for a Muslim. The study reported on here puts the number at 45%. According to the study, atheists are considered about as trustworthy as rapists. Interestingly, atheists also tend to trust religious people more than other atheists. One of the comments on the article sums up the problem nicely (the spelling is in the original):

The reason people won’t trust an athiest is plain and simple: Athiests have no moral foundation for what they believe in because they do not believe in anything. How can you have faith in someone who has no faith to stand for.

Better to believe in the truth of the Book of Mormon than to believe in science.

As great, if not greater than…

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Richard Bowker

In the Boston Globe today, we have this sentence, in an article about the dangers facing America after the Cold War:

Nonetheless, more than two-thirds of the members of the Council on Foreign Relations–as good a cross-section of the foreign-policy brain trust as there is–said in a 2009 Pew Survey that the world today was as dangerous, or even more so, than during the Cold War.

Is it just me, or does that sentence go off the rails at the end? The “or even more so” seems to cause the author to completely forget where he was going. He wants to say something like “as dangerous as, or even more dangerous than, it was during the Cold War.” But maybe that was just too simple.

The second “as” in constructions like this seems to disappear more often than it shows up nowadays, leaving us with sentences that just don’t parse. This sentence was a little complex; I have noticed the problem in constructions as simple as, if not simpler than: “…as great, if not greater than, Larry Bird.”

I’m too young to feel like a curmudgeon.

The article, by the way, is fairly interesting, making the case that the world is safer than we think, while the foreign policy establishment, and all the political candidates, hugely overestimate the threats out there. It doesn’t mention Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, but it should.

Baseball notes

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Richard Bowker

You can’t blame me for yesterday’s debacle. Nor Bobby Valentine. I like the Times headline: “Two late touchdowns lift Yankees in Boston”. ESPN tells me this is the second time in MLB history that a team has led by nine runs, and then lost by six or more. Go Sox!

Dice-K Matsusaka, Red Sox nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

From the vantage point of my hotel treadmill this morning, where I saw it about six times, no way was that a swing on the last pitch of Humber’s perfect game. I don’t think the batter would have been safe at first if he had bothered to run instead of arguing with the umpire, but it would have been awesome if the perfect game was lost on a strikeout with two outs in the ninth. Awesome for collectors of baseball oddities, not for Mr. Humber.

Was I the only one who expected more than 200 ex-Red Sox at Fenway on Friday? I wish I knew what percentage this represents. Did people have to pay their way to Boston? Get their own hotel rooms?

This is the first post I’ve composed on my iPad. The interface isn’t too bad.