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Vacation
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On a personal note . . .
Posting has been light lately because son #2 was graduating from college:
That’s the last of the kids. So, are we done now?
“Senator” is now just $0.99!
For a limited time, on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Portal is now free on both sites, as Amazon matched B&N’s price.
You’re welcome.
What a difference 97 years makes!
Back in 1917 Arab forces, including British Colonel T. E. Lawrence, defeated the Ottomans in a surprise land-based attack on the sleepy port town of Aqaba. The battle probably looked nothing like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lChJz2DSpsE
Today my son called me from his hotel room in the bustling resort city of Aqaba to give an exhilarated, sleep-deprived account of his participation in the “Dead2Red” relay race from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea in Jordan. The distance is about 240 kilometers, and his segments of the race amounted to the equivalent of about a half-marathon. He was particularly pleased that he and his team of college study-abroad students overtook a U.N. team in the final few kilometers inside the city.
Should this give us all hope for the future of humanity? Let’s check back in another 97 years.
Shootout!
Olympic hockey! USA beats Russia after a, heartstopping shootout. The players are exhausted, the announcers are exhausted, the viewing audience is exhausted…. A shootout seems like an utterly arbitrary way to determine the outcome of a hockey game, but boy, this one was great. A few other comments:
- T. J. Oshie’s Wikipedia page has already been updated. Way to go, Wikipedia!
- Can the Nobel Prize for Hockey Announcing be awarded in perpetuity to Doc Emrick? There’s no one better at anything. I love the way he described someone as “feathering the puck” to a teammate. Or his description of a scrum in front of the net after the goalie froze the puck: “And a disagreement ensues.”
- This wasn’t Emrick, but kudos to NBC for figuring out why the apparent Russian goal was disallowed. But I wish they had pointed out that it was the American goalie who apparently dislodged the net. (A Russian teammate of his pointed it out after the game.) Er, is that legal? Do we have an international incident on our hands?
A blizzard helps us get modern
We had a little blizzard here yesterday–a foot of snow, single-digit temperatures . . . the usual. It was bad enough that our Boston Globe couldn’t be delivered. So we were forced to go modern, and download the digital version onto our his-and-hers iPads:
Reading a hardcopy version of the newspaper is, of course, hopelessly old-fashioned, but we’re a bit stuck in our ways. And this reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s 1964 essay about what life would be like 50 years in the future. It was written in response to the New York World’s Fair that year–and hey, I was there! (I don’t remember much about the exhibits he talks about, but I do recall standing on a moving walkway to view Michelangelo’s Pietà.)
Predicting the future is tough, as I realized when I re-read some of my old science fiction.
This is the sort of thing Asimov gets more or less wrong:
One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.
Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.
He gets some things right, of course:
Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica (shown in chill splendor as part of the ’64 General Motors exhibit).
Bu the most interesting prediction is probably this one:
Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.
This hints correctly at the rise of automation and service jobs, but obviously Asimov didn’t foresee his-and-hers iPads. How can you be bored with them?
Here’s wishing you all a Patrick Swayze Christmas!
Because no one is better at enforcing Peace on Earth than Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse!
Post 500
Hey, this is my 500th post on this stupid blog! At first I was trying to do a post a day, but I’ve slowed down to two or three times a week since I began a new novel.
Thanks to WordPress’s comprehensive statistics, I can tell you that my most popular post ever (by a wide margin) was, oddly enough, this one about my visit to the real Mystic Pizza. In second place was my post on organic plots. And the bronze medal goes to this silly post on the Higgs Boson and smoking ducks. Do you see a trend here? No, neither do I. Wordpress doesn’t track “likes”, but I’m pretty sure I got my most likes for this little post passing along a letter to the editor about the Middle East. I put a lot of effort into that one!
Given the reaction to my last couple of posts, I probably should be doing a lot more Jane Austen blogging. Maybe I should be writing Jane Austen novels. If only I could.
Images of All Souls Day in Provincetown
Thanks to an invitation from friends, I ended up in Provincetown on November 2 — All Souls Day. Provincetown was still celebrating Halloween. I think it likes Halloween! Here’s a zombie/transvestite mannequin:
It was a gorgeous day. Our friends’ house must have some of the most spectacular views in town. Here is the Pilgrim Monument at sunset as seen from their rooftop deck:
And here is the harbor:
And the dunes:
After dark, things get interesting in Provincetown — too bad my camera isn’t better. Here are some sailor boys and, er, girls: 
Here is a biker/angel of death:
On the opposite side of the religious spectrum, here is a nun in a miniskirt and a pope (maybe) wearing sneakers:
Everyone was headed to the big Beaux Arts Ball at Town Hall:
Provincetown is one of a kind.
Images of brains and New Mexico
For reasons that are too complicated to go into I found myself at the University of New Mexico a couple of days ago. Go Lobos! Specifically, I spent an interesting morning at this place:
Here’s a friend undergoing magnetoencephalography (just for fun):
And here’s the brain of another friend undergoing a functional MRI (again, just for fun — we have an odd idea of fun):
But enough of the brain stuff! Here we are in funky Madrid, New Mexico (accent on the first syllable), on the scenic route between Albuquerque and Santa Fe:
They sell lots of interesting stuff in Madrid!
From there we made our way to Santa Fe Plaza, with all the tourists:
And here is the courtyard of the lovely New Mexico Museum of Art:
Finally, here’s a photo of a Georgia O’Keeffe painting from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Isn’t it gorgeous?
Richard Bowker 