Who's asking: Tom Ehrenfeld, Cambridge, MA
If the Answer Girl blog were a genuine journalistic enterprise, I'd call the Apple PR office to ask this question. Since it's a hobby, I just clicked around for a while and found the latest Apple earnings press release, along with a few blogs and forums that gossip about Apple's corporate health as if it were a high school sports team. (One of the reasons I fought the switch from PC to Mac for so long was the awareness of this rabid Apple subculture... I have enough geeky subcultures of my own, thank you.)
Anyway, Apple doesn't split out iTunes revenues or profits from the rest of its earnings report. Apple's fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, so it reported its first quarter earnings last month. In the first quarter of the 2007 fiscal year, Apple took in $7 billion in revenue and made a profit of one billion dollars. That's "billion," with a b. That's a lot of money.
In slightly less than four years of operation, the iTunes store has sold more than two billion songs, at an exponential growth rate. It took two years and two months for the iTunes store to sell its first 500 million songs, but it sold another 1.5 billion between June 2005 and December 2006.
Whether or not the iTunes store is profitable as an independent enterprise seems irrelevant to the main story, which is that the iTunes store is an extremely popular, revenue-producing chunk of one of the most profitable companies in the world. The iTunes store is a crucial piece of Apple's iPod marketing, and trying to measure one piece of that success against another is like trying to figure out which part of the cookie has the most chocolate chips.
I love my iTunes, but don't buy much at the iTunes store -- mostly single songs that have stuck in my head, which I don't feel like buying the whole CD for. (Example: my latest purchase was "It's a Shame About Ray," by The Lemonheads. No idea why this song popped into my head, but the only version of the album I had was on an old cassette.)
Five Random Songs from the iPod Shuffle:
"Smarter," Maria McKee. My entire romantic history in one song.
"Call and Answer," Barenaked Ladies. One of the most honest love songs ever written; it's a tender song of devotion that ends with the promise that the singer will "crucify" his partner if she wigs out on him again.
"Mike Post Theme," The Who. From the most recent album, Endless Wire. This song amuses me for obscure reasons of my own.
"Life on a Chain," Pete Yorn. This CD (Music for the Morning After) never got old for me; it's a nearly-perfect pop album.
"Peace," Eurythmics. Annie Lennox does take herself too seriously sometimes, but this record is beautiful, and this song is one of the best things on it.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
What do pancakes have to do with the beginning of Lent?
Who's asking: Me
Sleep-walking through my local Hannaford the other day, I found myself putting a box of pancake mix in the cart without even thinking about what I was doing. Pancake mix? I never make pancakes. Why was I buying pancake mix?
Because it was February, and it was a week before Ash Wednesday, and it was time to make pancakes. I always make pancakes on the Tuesday before Lent, variously known as Mardi Gras, Fasching, Carnivale, Shrove Tuesday, and -- yes -- Pancake Tuesday.
"Carnivale" I get, because it means "farewell to meat," from the days when Lent meant abstaining from meat altogether. But why pancakes, other than the obvious fact that they go so well with bacon?
Apparently Lent, at one time, meant going without fat, eggs and sugar as well as without meat. Back in the day, using up all the fat, eggs and sugar in the house meant making pancakes, so the Tuesday before Lent was the day to do that. (Hence "Fat Tuesday" -- Mardi Gras -- refers to eating all the fat, not to trying to get fat before Lent began.)
So I'm making some pancakes, in honor of a tradition so entrenched I never even learned what it was about. I don't even like pancakes that much; I prefer waffles. If you want some, feel free to drop by.
Sleep-walking through my local Hannaford the other day, I found myself putting a box of pancake mix in the cart without even thinking about what I was doing. Pancake mix? I never make pancakes. Why was I buying pancake mix?
Because it was February, and it was a week before Ash Wednesday, and it was time to make pancakes. I always make pancakes on the Tuesday before Lent, variously known as Mardi Gras, Fasching, Carnivale, Shrove Tuesday, and -- yes -- Pancake Tuesday.
"Carnivale" I get, because it means "farewell to meat," from the days when Lent meant abstaining from meat altogether. But why pancakes, other than the obvious fact that they go so well with bacon?
Apparently Lent, at one time, meant going without fat, eggs and sugar as well as without meat. Back in the day, using up all the fat, eggs and sugar in the house meant making pancakes, so the Tuesday before Lent was the day to do that. (Hence "Fat Tuesday" -- Mardi Gras -- refers to eating all the fat, not to trying to get fat before Lent began.)
So I'm making some pancakes, in honor of a tradition so entrenched I never even learned what it was about. I don't even like pancakes that much; I prefer waffles. If you want some, feel free to drop by.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Why does green mean go?
Who's asking: Henry Lavinder, Mechanicsville, VA
This will sound simple-minded, but as best I can tell, green means "go" because red means "stop."
Red has always been the color of danger. Red is the first color babies see, and the one color every language has a word for. When early railroad engineers needed to put up signal lights along the tracks, red was the obvious choice.
Red meant "stop," and when the light changed, the train could go again. The very first railway signal lights changed from red to clear -- but that didn't work, because the clear light was too hard to see in the daytime, and it was too easy to confuse the clear signal light with other lights at night.
It's an oversimplification to say that green is the opposite of red -- but, roughly and generally and in a non-scientific sense, green is the opposite of red. So when they decided to make the "go" signal a color instead of clear, green was an easy call.
The very first traffic light was installed in London, in 1868, to govern the buggy traffic in front of the British House of Commons. It used red and green lights for "stop" and "go."
The first red-and-green traffic light in the United States was put up in Salt Lake City, in 1912. Red-and-green traffic lights started to catch on by the end of that decade -- San Francisco installed the first traffic light system in 1917. The amber "caution" light was added in 1920 in Detroit, and the design we use now -- red on top, green on the bottom -- was patented in 1923.
This will sound simple-minded, but as best I can tell, green means "go" because red means "stop."
Red has always been the color of danger. Red is the first color babies see, and the one color every language has a word for. When early railroad engineers needed to put up signal lights along the tracks, red was the obvious choice.
Red meant "stop," and when the light changed, the train could go again. The very first railway signal lights changed from red to clear -- but that didn't work, because the clear light was too hard to see in the daytime, and it was too easy to confuse the clear signal light with other lights at night.
It's an oversimplification to say that green is the opposite of red -- but, roughly and generally and in a non-scientific sense, green is the opposite of red. So when they decided to make the "go" signal a color instead of clear, green was an easy call.
The very first traffic light was installed in London, in 1868, to govern the buggy traffic in front of the British House of Commons. It used red and green lights for "stop" and "go."
The first red-and-green traffic light in the United States was put up in Salt Lake City, in 1912. Red-and-green traffic lights started to catch on by the end of that decade -- San Francisco installed the first traffic light system in 1917. The amber "caution" light was added in 1920 in Detroit, and the design we use now -- red on top, green on the bottom -- was patented in 1923.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Snow pictures
The old Gardiner train depot, which now stands vacant. If I won the lottery, I'd turn this building into a bookstore/cafe.
The State Library, my home away from home.
The State Capitol in the snow.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
How do I find an agent for my book?
Who's asking: Various clients, at various times
Once again, I'm giving away work for free, but only because this may be the professional question that makes me feel the most helpless and incompetent.
A good agent is advocate, therapist, editor, financial advisor, publicist and coach. The search for one is more difficult than looking for a job, and only slightly less difficult than looking for a spouse. Anyone who says otherwise is either very lucky or trying to sell you something.
That said, I have some feeble advice to offer, and if any of my author pals feel like expanding on the advice, please do.
First, don't approach an agent before your manuscript is finished. If you have three good chapters and an outline, great; finish the book. We've all heard stories about the authors who sold books based on a proposal scribbled on a napkin, or a great first chapter, or a five-minute pitch; we hear about these things because they're freaks. Advances for first novels are rarely enough to let you quit your day job to finish the book, so let that fantasy go.
In the real world, you're wasting your time and the agent's when you submit unfinished work. If an agent rejects the first three chapters of your unfinished work, he or she won't want to look at it again once it's finished. If they like the book and want to represent it, they won't want to wait three months, six months or however long it takes you to finish -- if you do finish.
You can, however, do some homework while you're writing. Professional associations are useful sources of names and contact information, especially in genre fiction. I'm skeptical about the value of pitching to agents at writers' conferences, but it always helps to meet potential agents in person.
Look for books and authors that appeal to the audience you're writing for, and check the acknowledgements. Most authors thank their agents, and if an agent likes a book that resembles yours, they might like your book, too.
Many reference books and websites provide information about the best way to approach individual agents. The book I use is The Writer's Market, but other directories have similar information, and you'll find several in any decent library. Before you send out your query, check the agent's website for updated information about whether they're accepting submissions, and how they prefer to receive them.
And don't put all your eggs in one basket. Identify as many potential agents for your work as possible, and submit your work to all of them. It's not like sending stories out for publication; if more than one expresses interest, terrific.
Finally, don't pay anyone any money up front. Agents earn their living by selling their clients' work; publishers pay advances and royalties to the agents, who take their percentage and send you the rest. Legitimate agents don't ask for money up front, and don't charge "editing fees." (They may suggest that you seek help from an independent editor, and may even recommend one -- I've had clients referred to me this way -- but those are independent arrangements between writer and editor, and the agent receives no compensation for these referrals.)
Finding a literary agent is hard, even for established authors. I know a few successful authors who have had to go through this process more than once, because their original agent retired, or because the relationship just wasn't working out.
If it was easy, everyone would be Dan Brown (and then Dan Brown wouldn't be Dan Brown...).
Once again, I'm giving away work for free, but only because this may be the professional question that makes me feel the most helpless and incompetent.
A good agent is advocate, therapist, editor, financial advisor, publicist and coach. The search for one is more difficult than looking for a job, and only slightly less difficult than looking for a spouse. Anyone who says otherwise is either very lucky or trying to sell you something.
That said, I have some feeble advice to offer, and if any of my author pals feel like expanding on the advice, please do.
First, don't approach an agent before your manuscript is finished. If you have three good chapters and an outline, great; finish the book. We've all heard stories about the authors who sold books based on a proposal scribbled on a napkin, or a great first chapter, or a five-minute pitch; we hear about these things because they're freaks. Advances for first novels are rarely enough to let you quit your day job to finish the book, so let that fantasy go.
In the real world, you're wasting your time and the agent's when you submit unfinished work. If an agent rejects the first three chapters of your unfinished work, he or she won't want to look at it again once it's finished. If they like the book and want to represent it, they won't want to wait three months, six months or however long it takes you to finish -- if you do finish.
You can, however, do some homework while you're writing. Professional associations are useful sources of names and contact information, especially in genre fiction. I'm skeptical about the value of pitching to agents at writers' conferences, but it always helps to meet potential agents in person.
Look for books and authors that appeal to the audience you're writing for, and check the acknowledgements. Most authors thank their agents, and if an agent likes a book that resembles yours, they might like your book, too.
Many reference books and websites provide information about the best way to approach individual agents. The book I use is The Writer's Market, but other directories have similar information, and you'll find several in any decent library. Before you send out your query, check the agent's website for updated information about whether they're accepting submissions, and how they prefer to receive them.
And don't put all your eggs in one basket. Identify as many potential agents for your work as possible, and submit your work to all of them. It's not like sending stories out for publication; if more than one expresses interest, terrific.
Finally, don't pay anyone any money up front. Agents earn their living by selling their clients' work; publishers pay advances and royalties to the agents, who take their percentage and send you the rest. Legitimate agents don't ask for money up front, and don't charge "editing fees." (They may suggest that you seek help from an independent editor, and may even recommend one -- I've had clients referred to me this way -- but those are independent arrangements between writer and editor, and the agent receives no compensation for these referrals.)
Finding a literary agent is hard, even for established authors. I know a few successful authors who have had to go through this process more than once, because their original agent retired, or because the relationship just wasn't working out.
If it was easy, everyone would be Dan Brown (and then Dan Brown wouldn't be Dan Brown...).
Friday, February 16, 2007
Why does asparagus make my urine smell funny?
Who's asking: Jennifer Lechner, Freeport, ME
Oh, you knew I'd get around to this question eventually. People have been wondering about it since at least Roman times, when they'd take cartloads of asparagus up to the Alps to freeze, just so the aristocracy could eat it at mid-winter festivals.
The distinctive odor created by asparagus comes from the interaction of digestive acids with a sulfur-sugar compound in the asparagus plant. The chemical reaction produces thioesters, and the one thing I remember from high school chemistry is that esters are strong scent producers.
According to some scientists, not everyone suffers the asparagus-urine smell -- but I read one article that suggests the chemical reaction is the same for everyone, but not everyone can smell it.
I am deep in the February doldrums, with little time for pleasure reading... I've read four manuscripts this week, but don't want to talk about any of them (although at least two already have publishing contracts), because of the likelihood that the final books will look different from the versions I read. Here's a short installment of
What I Read This Week
Robert Crais, The Watchman. Elvis Cole's mostly silent partner Joe Pike must pay off a favor by serving as bodyguard to an heiress who saw the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time. To say much more about the plot would make it sound cliched and maybe even corny, and that's exactly what this book is not. It's a masterful balance of plot and character, both entertaining and compassionate, and Crais' best work since L.A. Requiem.
T. Jefferson Parker, The Fallen. Parker creates a terrific protagonist -- Robbie Brownlaw, a San Diego cop who develops a peculiar form of synesthesia after surviving a fall from a hotel window -- but the plot, a city ethics investigator's murder, never takes full advantage of the character. It seemed almost as if Parker had written two different books, and combined them. The seams show. I hope we see more of Brownlaw, though.
Oh, you knew I'd get around to this question eventually. People have been wondering about it since at least Roman times, when they'd take cartloads of asparagus up to the Alps to freeze, just so the aristocracy could eat it at mid-winter festivals.
The distinctive odor created by asparagus comes from the interaction of digestive acids with a sulfur-sugar compound in the asparagus plant. The chemical reaction produces thioesters, and the one thing I remember from high school chemistry is that esters are strong scent producers.
According to some scientists, not everyone suffers the asparagus-urine smell -- but I read one article that suggests the chemical reaction is the same for everyone, but not everyone can smell it.
I am deep in the February doldrums, with little time for pleasure reading... I've read four manuscripts this week, but don't want to talk about any of them (although at least two already have publishing contracts), because of the likelihood that the final books will look different from the versions I read. Here's a short installment of
What I Read This Week
Robert Crais, The Watchman. Elvis Cole's mostly silent partner Joe Pike must pay off a favor by serving as bodyguard to an heiress who saw the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time. To say much more about the plot would make it sound cliched and maybe even corny, and that's exactly what this book is not. It's a masterful balance of plot and character, both entertaining and compassionate, and Crais' best work since L.A. Requiem.
T. Jefferson Parker, The Fallen. Parker creates a terrific protagonist -- Robbie Brownlaw, a San Diego cop who develops a peculiar form of synesthesia after surviving a fall from a hotel window -- but the plot, a city ethics investigator's murder, never takes full advantage of the character. It seemed almost as if Parker had written two different books, and combined them. The seams show. I hope we see more of Brownlaw, though.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
How much snow did you get?
Who's asking: Jim Lamb, Virginia Beach, VA
Hard to say. The total at Augusta Airport was 14 inches at 8:00 last night, but I think it snowed more after that. As the day wore on, it got hard to tell what was falling and what was just blowing; we had gusts of 40 miles an hour last night, and winds were even heavier along the coast.
I'll post photos later in the day, if I can get the camera's cable to work. I've just come in from 50 minutes of shoveling that cleared my front stairs and about 2/3 of the deck I share with my next door neighbor, and I'm behind on several projects. But the sun is shining, it feels warmer than it's been, and I must say it's all awfully pretty.
Hard to say. The total at Augusta Airport was 14 inches at 8:00 last night, but I think it snowed more after that. As the day wore on, it got hard to tell what was falling and what was just blowing; we had gusts of 40 miles an hour last night, and winds were even heavier along the coast.
I'll post photos later in the day, if I can get the camera's cable to work. I've just come in from 50 minutes of shoveling that cleared my front stairs and about 2/3 of the deck I share with my next door neighbor, and I'm behind on several projects. But the sun is shining, it feels warmer than it's been, and I must say it's all awfully pretty.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Weather...
...is all anyone up here really has to talk about today. We're under a blizzard warning until tomorrow morning. These photos were taken about an hour ago.
Dizzy generally likes the snow, but seemed doubtful about this storm. We are well-stocked on the essentials (dog food, espresso, skim milk), so as long as the power doesn't go out, we'll be fine.
Happy Valentine's Day, everybody, and happy birthday to Eileen Consey-Heywood, in darkest Aberdeen.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Do you want us to go ahead and replace the timing belt while we're in there?
Who's asking: The service manager at O'Connor Volkswagen, Augusta, ME
It was a spectrum of things that could have been wrong with my car, I knew. Best-case scenario, just a loose hose; worst-case scenario, water pump.
Of course it was the water pump, plus an expensive oxygen sensor. Parts would run about $375, the service manager said, but what would really cost would be the labor, because they'd have to take the engine apart to fix things. Since my timing belt was due to be replaced in a couple thousand miles, would I want them to do that as well? It would only be another $150 or so, and I'd save on labor.
What the hell; it's only money. I managed not to cry, even when I signed the bill, which came to $867. Good thing the work's been rolling in lately.
Rushing off to Boston this morning; a client meeting, and then I'm hoping to see Chris Moore speak at Porter Square Books tonight. Whether I actually stay for the event depends on how the weather looks; things are supposed to get ugly tomorrow.
Happy, happy birthday to my brother James, who will always be the baby of the family.
It was a spectrum of things that could have been wrong with my car, I knew. Best-case scenario, just a loose hose; worst-case scenario, water pump.
Of course it was the water pump, plus an expensive oxygen sensor. Parts would run about $375, the service manager said, but what would really cost would be the labor, because they'd have to take the engine apart to fix things. Since my timing belt was due to be replaced in a couple thousand miles, would I want them to do that as well? It would only be another $150 or so, and I'd save on labor.
What the hell; it's only money. I managed not to cry, even when I signed the bill, which came to $867. Good thing the work's been rolling in lately.
Rushing off to Boston this morning; a client meeting, and then I'm hoping to see Chris Moore speak at Porter Square Books tonight. Whether I actually stay for the event depends on how the weather looks; things are supposed to get ugly tomorrow.
Happy, happy birthday to my brother James, who will always be the baby of the family.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Is it wrong to have girl hope for Valentine's Day? or are we sucked into commercialism?
Who's asking: Chandra Leister, somewhere in Maine
Most of my own romantic history could be filed somewhere between "ambiguous" and "imaginary," but if priests can be marriage counselors, I'm happy to tackle this question.
Valentine's Day represents the unified field theory of modern romance. If you've figured it out, I invite you to post your own solutions below.
Easy part of the question first: yes, we're sucked into commercialism. The fact that jewelry stores offer payment plans for Valentine's gifts is horrifying. Do women expect men to go into debt in order to prove their devotion? Obviously, some do. If you're one of those women, shame on you.
The "girl hope" part of this is more difficult. All any of us really wants, I think, is for someone we find amazing to find us amazing. This is "in love." It tends not to last very long, because familiarity does breed contempt. As we get to know the object of our affection better, the things that amazed us become ordinary or even annoying. It takes energy and desire to keep looking for amazement in one person, and to keep trying to be amazing for the person we love. The truth is that we can never know everything about any other person. If we remind ourselves that any long-term relationship is a never-ending process of getting to know each other (and ourselves), we will always find new things to amaze us.
Hope of any kind suggests a position of weakness. Men justifiably complain that women don't tell them what we want, then yell at them for not being able to figure it out on their own. If Valentine's Day is important to you, you need to let your husband or boyfriend know that well in advance. I don't believe in picking out one's own presents -- in fact, I think that's kind of tragic -- but you can certainly drop a few hints about the kind of things you'd like. (Some people are good at presents, and some aren't. Being a person who's good at presents, I'd like to consider the lack of this ability a character flaw, but it isn't.)
The other thing to remember is that Valentine's is one arbitrary day. What matters is every other day. If you're in a relationship, remind yourself every day to look, really look at your partner, and ask the only question that really matters:
How are things with you?
Oh, and before I forget: best birthday wishes to Adrienne Lakadat, my oldest friend (oldest in duration, not in age), and to Sarah Weinman, the Idiosyncratic Mind.
Most of my own romantic history could be filed somewhere between "ambiguous" and "imaginary," but if priests can be marriage counselors, I'm happy to tackle this question.
Valentine's Day represents the unified field theory of modern romance. If you've figured it out, I invite you to post your own solutions below.
Easy part of the question first: yes, we're sucked into commercialism. The fact that jewelry stores offer payment plans for Valentine's gifts is horrifying. Do women expect men to go into debt in order to prove their devotion? Obviously, some do. If you're one of those women, shame on you.
The "girl hope" part of this is more difficult. All any of us really wants, I think, is for someone we find amazing to find us amazing. This is "in love." It tends not to last very long, because familiarity does breed contempt. As we get to know the object of our affection better, the things that amazed us become ordinary or even annoying. It takes energy and desire to keep looking for amazement in one person, and to keep trying to be amazing for the person we love. The truth is that we can never know everything about any other person. If we remind ourselves that any long-term relationship is a never-ending process of getting to know each other (and ourselves), we will always find new things to amaze us.
Hope of any kind suggests a position of weakness. Men justifiably complain that women don't tell them what we want, then yell at them for not being able to figure it out on their own. If Valentine's Day is important to you, you need to let your husband or boyfriend know that well in advance. I don't believe in picking out one's own presents -- in fact, I think that's kind of tragic -- but you can certainly drop a few hints about the kind of things you'd like. (Some people are good at presents, and some aren't. Being a person who's good at presents, I'd like to consider the lack of this ability a character flaw, but it isn't.)
The other thing to remember is that Valentine's is one arbitrary day. What matters is every other day. If you're in a relationship, remind yourself every day to look, really look at your partner, and ask the only question that really matters:
How are things with you?
Oh, and before I forget: best birthday wishes to Adrienne Lakadat, my oldest friend (oldest in duration, not in age), and to Sarah Weinman, the Idiosyncratic Mind.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Why does one of my ears suddenly turn red for no reason?
Who's asking: James Lamb, Virginia Beach, VA
This is actually pretty common among fair-skinned people, and in most cases, it's not a symptom of anything at all. It's the same mechanism as blushing -- involuntary dilation of the blood vessels -- and it happens for much the same reasons: embarrassment, sudden changes in temperature, mild allergic reactions to food or medication, responses to alcohol or caffeine.
No one knows why some people blush more than others, or why some people's ears flush more than others. One theory suggests that it has to do with levels of serotonin in the blood stream, which would explain why facial and ear flushing can be a side effect of some anti-depressant medications. If it gets to the point of being painful, doctors can treat it with Botox, the same way they treat excessive sweating.
Ear flushing can also be a symptom of high blood pressure or acne rosacea, so it's something to mention to your doctor during a routine physical. Anna and I once had a boss whose ears would flush so badly when he was angry that they turned purple; he had learned to control his temper but couldn't control his ears, so they served as a barometer of the emotional weather in the corner office.
This morning I am scrambling to figure out what's wrong with my car. On the way to Newburyport last night, the thermostat indicator light started flashing bright red. The Volkswagen has a closed cooling system, so the fact that the coolant reservoir was low means there's a leak somewhere. I refilled the reservoir and headed for home, to my profound disappointment -- Chuck Hogan was signing The Killing Moon at Jabberwocky Books, and I missed it -- but by the time I got home, the thermostat light was flashing again, and the Check Engine light was on. I'm afraid this is going to be expensive.
This is actually pretty common among fair-skinned people, and in most cases, it's not a symptom of anything at all. It's the same mechanism as blushing -- involuntary dilation of the blood vessels -- and it happens for much the same reasons: embarrassment, sudden changes in temperature, mild allergic reactions to food or medication, responses to alcohol or caffeine.
No one knows why some people blush more than others, or why some people's ears flush more than others. One theory suggests that it has to do with levels of serotonin in the blood stream, which would explain why facial and ear flushing can be a side effect of some anti-depressant medications. If it gets to the point of being painful, doctors can treat it with Botox, the same way they treat excessive sweating.
Ear flushing can also be a symptom of high blood pressure or acne rosacea, so it's something to mention to your doctor during a routine physical. Anna and I once had a boss whose ears would flush so badly when he was angry that they turned purple; he had learned to control his temper but couldn't control his ears, so they served as a barometer of the emotional weather in the corner office.
This morning I am scrambling to figure out what's wrong with my car. On the way to Newburyport last night, the thermostat indicator light started flashing bright red. The Volkswagen has a closed cooling system, so the fact that the coolant reservoir was low means there's a leak somewhere. I refilled the reservoir and headed for home, to my profound disappointment -- Chuck Hogan was signing The Killing Moon at Jabberwocky Books, and I missed it -- but by the time I got home, the thermostat light was flashing again, and the Check Engine light was on. I'm afraid this is going to be expensive.
Friday, February 09, 2007
What are the typical flaws of a first novel?
Who's asking: Me
This question came up recently when I left a comment on a friend's blog, dismissing a book's shortcomings as "first-novelitis." I knew exactly what I meant by that, and my friend, who is a writing instructor as well as an author, knew too. When I used the term with one of my clients, though, it struck me as a lazy shorthand for something that needed more explanation.
Helping people fix their books is a big chunk of how I make my living, so I'm giving work away for free here -- but it's useful for me to lay this out, for my own purposes.
Every novel has flaws (with the possible exception of The Great Gatsby), and most of those flaws originate in the writer's own weaknesses. First novels, however, tend to be both overwritten and underdeveloped.
You can't learn to write a novel except by writing it, and along the way you have to unlearn as much as you learn. One way or another, an author's entire life goes into the first novel. First novelists tend to cram in everything they know about their particular areas of interest or experience. The ones who come out of writing programs often think they need a theme or "motif" (those quotation marks are just for you, Tod), and wreak havoc with their story trying to lard in symbolism, metaphor, political agendas and cultural references.
At the same time, a first novelist may know what's supposed to happen in the book, but lack the skills necessary to make a sequence of events believable. Why does Character A do that? Well, it's necessary to the plot. But is Character A the kind of person who would do that? No, not the way he's written. That means going back to the beginning to reimagine the character, and that's a daunting process for anyone. As novelists learn their craft and develop their skills, the flow of character into plot becomes more natural. First novels, however, often have characters doing things that seem out-of-character or abrupt, simply because the novelist had outlined the plot that way.
For an object lesson in this, go read Robert Crais' The Monkey's Raincoat -- a highly entertaining first novel -- and then read L.A. Requiem, which takes the same characters to an entirely different level. (I'm halfway through Crais' latest, which is another step forward, but more about this next week.)
That said, I love first novels. Somewhere I once read that a first novel sets the agenda for everything the author wants to explore in his or her career, and I love that idea. One of the books I read this week is a first novel from an author who's given herself a lot to work on.
What I Read This Week
(I'm off my usual pace; too much other work, which I can hardly complain about.)
Sarah Langan, The Keeper. This first novel is a horror story set in a town very similar to Gardiner; Langan did her undergraduate work at Colby, just up the road. Gorgeous writing, truly scary in parts, a little unfocused. It reminded me a great deal of the early works of Peter Straub, and even more of John Connolly's "The Reflecting Eye."
Dorothy Herrmann, Helen Keller: A Life. More client research, but so enjoyable I feel bad about charging for it. Helen Keller was an icon of my childhood (no jokes, people; I'm looking at you, Scott P.). I've mentioned before that my grandmother taught kindergarten at a school for the blind, so I can't remember a time when I didn't know about her. What I knew, however, was the sanitized version. Herrmann gives us the whole woman -- a socialist, a woman who liked her martinis, a woman who might have gotten married if her Teacher and her mother hadn't interfered. Fascinating.
This question came up recently when I left a comment on a friend's blog, dismissing a book's shortcomings as "first-novelitis." I knew exactly what I meant by that, and my friend, who is a writing instructor as well as an author, knew too. When I used the term with one of my clients, though, it struck me as a lazy shorthand for something that needed more explanation.
Helping people fix their books is a big chunk of how I make my living, so I'm giving work away for free here -- but it's useful for me to lay this out, for my own purposes.
Every novel has flaws (with the possible exception of The Great Gatsby), and most of those flaws originate in the writer's own weaknesses. First novels, however, tend to be both overwritten and underdeveloped.
You can't learn to write a novel except by writing it, and along the way you have to unlearn as much as you learn. One way or another, an author's entire life goes into the first novel. First novelists tend to cram in everything they know about their particular areas of interest or experience. The ones who come out of writing programs often think they need a theme or "motif" (those quotation marks are just for you, Tod), and wreak havoc with their story trying to lard in symbolism, metaphor, political agendas and cultural references.
At the same time, a first novelist may know what's supposed to happen in the book, but lack the skills necessary to make a sequence of events believable. Why does Character A do that? Well, it's necessary to the plot. But is Character A the kind of person who would do that? No, not the way he's written. That means going back to the beginning to reimagine the character, and that's a daunting process for anyone. As novelists learn their craft and develop their skills, the flow of character into plot becomes more natural. First novels, however, often have characters doing things that seem out-of-character or abrupt, simply because the novelist had outlined the plot that way.
For an object lesson in this, go read Robert Crais' The Monkey's Raincoat -- a highly entertaining first novel -- and then read L.A. Requiem, which takes the same characters to an entirely different level. (I'm halfway through Crais' latest, which is another step forward, but more about this next week.)
That said, I love first novels. Somewhere I once read that a first novel sets the agenda for everything the author wants to explore in his or her career, and I love that idea. One of the books I read this week is a first novel from an author who's given herself a lot to work on.
What I Read This Week
(I'm off my usual pace; too much other work, which I can hardly complain about.)
Sarah Langan, The Keeper. This first novel is a horror story set in a town very similar to Gardiner; Langan did her undergraduate work at Colby, just up the road. Gorgeous writing, truly scary in parts, a little unfocused. It reminded me a great deal of the early works of Peter Straub, and even more of John Connolly's "The Reflecting Eye."
Dorothy Herrmann, Helen Keller: A Life. More client research, but so enjoyable I feel bad about charging for it. Helen Keller was an icon of my childhood (no jokes, people; I'm looking at you, Scott P.). I've mentioned before that my grandmother taught kindergarten at a school for the blind, so I can't remember a time when I didn't know about her. What I knew, however, was the sanitized version. Herrmann gives us the whole woman -- a socialist, a woman who liked her martinis, a woman who might have gotten married if her Teacher and her mother hadn't interfered. Fascinating.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Does Canada still belong to the United Kingdom?
Who's asking: An anonymous Google searcher
No.
If countries have personalities, Canada is careful and polite, while the U.S. is pushy and loud. When the U.S. decided to separate from England, we did it in five years of bloody warfare; when the Canadians decided to do it, it took 115 years of diplomacy, and the parting could not have been more amicable.
Canada Day, July 1, celebrates the British North America Act of 1867, which granted the Canadians home rule. The BNA Act created the Dominion of Canada by uniting the Province of Canada (modern Ontario and Quebec), the province of New Brunswick, and the province of Nova Scotia. Home rule was not absolute; the Dominion got its own Parliament, but its decisions still needed to be affirmed by the U.K. Parliament. Manitoba joined the Dominion in 1870, followed by British Columbia (1871), Prince Edward Island (1873), and Saskatchewan and Alberta (1905). Newfoundland and Labrador gave up its own claim to nationhood to join Canada in 1949. (The Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon remain territories, not full provinces.)
The Statute of Westminster, in 1931, finally removed the U.K. Parliament from Canada's legislative process. It was not until the Canada Act of 1982, however, that the U.K. relinquished its authority to amend the British North America Act (then renamed the Canada Act). Theoretically, then, until 1982 the U.K. could have said, "Sorry, just kidding -- we're repealing the BNA, you have to go through us now."
Canada maintains strong ties to its mother country. Queen Elizabeth is still the Queen and head of state under Canada's constitution, and a Governor General (currently Michaelle Jean, a Haitian-born woman) represents the Crown in Canada. Canada is also still a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a group of 53 countries with historical or constitutional ties to the former British Empire.
No.
If countries have personalities, Canada is careful and polite, while the U.S. is pushy and loud. When the U.S. decided to separate from England, we did it in five years of bloody warfare; when the Canadians decided to do it, it took 115 years of diplomacy, and the parting could not have been more amicable.
Canada Day, July 1, celebrates the British North America Act of 1867, which granted the Canadians home rule. The BNA Act created the Dominion of Canada by uniting the Province of Canada (modern Ontario and Quebec), the province of New Brunswick, and the province of Nova Scotia. Home rule was not absolute; the Dominion got its own Parliament, but its decisions still needed to be affirmed by the U.K. Parliament. Manitoba joined the Dominion in 1870, followed by British Columbia (1871), Prince Edward Island (1873), and Saskatchewan and Alberta (1905). Newfoundland and Labrador gave up its own claim to nationhood to join Canada in 1949. (The Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon remain territories, not full provinces.)
The Statute of Westminster, in 1931, finally removed the U.K. Parliament from Canada's legislative process. It was not until the Canada Act of 1982, however, that the U.K. relinquished its authority to amend the British North America Act (then renamed the Canada Act). Theoretically, then, until 1982 the U.K. could have said, "Sorry, just kidding -- we're repealing the BNA, you have to go through us now."
Canada maintains strong ties to its mother country. Queen Elizabeth is still the Queen and head of state under Canada's constitution, and a Governor General (currently Michaelle Jean, a Haitian-born woman) represents the Crown in Canada. Canada is also still a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a group of 53 countries with historical or constitutional ties to the former British Empire.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
What do dogs dream about?
Who's asking: Gary Fleder, Santa Monica, CA
Until dogs talk, I can only give you a theory. Dizzy dreams of chasing cats and squirrels, running with his old friends from Los Angeles, and bacon. He also has nightmares, but I don't like to think about what those might be. I got him from people who found him on the side of the road, after he'd fallen or been thrown from a moving vehicle. He was only five months old, and he'd been starved, so who knows what his puppyhood was like. He's afraid of teenaged boys and men with beards.
These days, his life is pretty good. He likes the snow, but misses grass in the wintertime. He is passionately devoted to Casey, a black Lab who lives up the hill; when we walk by Casey's house, he makes me stop to see whether Casey (who gets a lot of freedom) will come out to play. He loves the water, and considers anything that doesn't have ice on it suitable for wading.
My cousin Moira finds artistic inspiration in dogs' dreams; her collages, based on photographs of her clients' pets, imagine all the things a dog might dream about. (One of her prints might make a nice Valentine's Day present, don't you think?)
Five Random Songs
"I Don't Wanna Fight," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. From Echo, a CD that's all about midlife and the death of relationships. Appropriate, maybe, not cheerful.
"Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six," The Pogues. The old and the new, more sorrow and more anger off the Pogues' magnum opus, If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Is is just me, or does everyone seem unusually angry and sad lately? I blame the weather -- or maybe it's just *@$#% February.
"Is This Love," Bob Marley. Oh, thank goodness. Spring break comes to the iPod.
"A Man in a Purple Dress," The Who. More anger and sadness from Pete Townshend (off Endless Wire), raging against the Catholic Church.
"Sister Europe," The Psychedelic Furs. Arrgh... more rage! I'm fast-forwarding. Where's my ELO? Where's my ABBA? Where's my Partridge Family, for Pete's sake?
Until dogs talk, I can only give you a theory. Dizzy dreams of chasing cats and squirrels, running with his old friends from Los Angeles, and bacon. He also has nightmares, but I don't like to think about what those might be. I got him from people who found him on the side of the road, after he'd fallen or been thrown from a moving vehicle. He was only five months old, and he'd been starved, so who knows what his puppyhood was like. He's afraid of teenaged boys and men with beards.
These days, his life is pretty good. He likes the snow, but misses grass in the wintertime. He is passionately devoted to Casey, a black Lab who lives up the hill; when we walk by Casey's house, he makes me stop to see whether Casey (who gets a lot of freedom) will come out to play. He loves the water, and considers anything that doesn't have ice on it suitable for wading.
My cousin Moira finds artistic inspiration in dogs' dreams; her collages, based on photographs of her clients' pets, imagine all the things a dog might dream about. (One of her prints might make a nice Valentine's Day present, don't you think?)
Five Random Songs
"I Don't Wanna Fight," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. From Echo, a CD that's all about midlife and the death of relationships. Appropriate, maybe, not cheerful.
"Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six," The Pogues. The old and the new, more sorrow and more anger off the Pogues' magnum opus, If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Is is just me, or does everyone seem unusually angry and sad lately? I blame the weather -- or maybe it's just *@$#% February.
"Is This Love," Bob Marley. Oh, thank goodness. Spring break comes to the iPod.
"A Man in a Purple Dress," The Who. More anger and sadness from Pete Townshend (off Endless Wire), raging against the Catholic Church.
"Sister Europe," The Psychedelic Furs. Arrgh... more rage! I'm fast-forwarding. Where's my ELO? Where's my ABBA? Where's my Partridge Family, for Pete's sake?
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Why didn't Prince get electrocuted, playing an electric guitar in the pouring rain?
Who's asking: Me
Prince's Super Bowl halftime show is now up on YouTube, for anyone who might have missed it on Sunday night. Twelve minutes in the pouring rain, starting with "Let's Go Crazy" and ending with the glory that is "Purple Rain." That album is 23 years old, and still sounds as fresh as it did in 1984.
But the whole time I was watching, I couldn't help wondering: why aren't they getting electrocuted? As usual, I consulted an expert -- in this case, my cousin Sheila's husband, Greg Cameron, a professional sound and video engineer. Greg said that Prince and his dancers were all using wireless equipment, probably protected by plastic bags -- nothing was exposed to water. The danger would have come from electric cords on the stage, which can have small, nearly invisible cracks in their insulation.
Pure water is not that great a conductor of electricity; what makes rainwater conduct electricity so well are the particles of iron and other metals that fall with the rain. If you're standing in a puddle and have any contact with metal, an electrical current applied to the water will disperse itself through the water to make a circuit with the metal -- and if you're in the way, you become part of that circuit. Zap.
Prince's Super Bowl halftime show is now up on YouTube, for anyone who might have missed it on Sunday night. Twelve minutes in the pouring rain, starting with "Let's Go Crazy" and ending with the glory that is "Purple Rain." That album is 23 years old, and still sounds as fresh as it did in 1984.
But the whole time I was watching, I couldn't help wondering: why aren't they getting electrocuted? As usual, I consulted an expert -- in this case, my cousin Sheila's husband, Greg Cameron, a professional sound and video engineer. Greg said that Prince and his dancers were all using wireless equipment, probably protected by plastic bags -- nothing was exposed to water. The danger would have come from electric cords on the stage, which can have small, nearly invisible cracks in their insulation.
Pure water is not that great a conductor of electricity; what makes rainwater conduct electricity so well are the particles of iron and other metals that fall with the rain. If you're standing in a puddle and have any contact with metal, an electrical current applied to the water will disperse itself through the water to make a circuit with the metal -- and if you're in the way, you become part of that circuit. Zap.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Who was the last cigarette smoker to be President of the United States?
Who's asking: Bill Walsh, Washington, D.C.
Bill asks this question in light of the recent revelation that Senator Barack Obama smokes. I admire Senator Obama a great deal, and must admit that news of his smoking came as a jolt; I had a hard time remembering the last time I saw a national political figure smoking a cigarette.
Bill Clinton notoriously had his cigars, and Gerald Ford was known to smoke at least half-a-dozen pipes a day -- but you have to go all the way back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to find an active cigarette box in the Oval Office. Harry Truman, an opponent of smoking, banned cigarettes from the White House. Dwight Eisenhower had rolled his own during the Second World War, but quit cold turkey before taking office as President. Jackie Kennedy smoked cigarettes, but JFK smoked cigars, and LBJ quit his three-pack-a-day habit after a 1955 heart attack almost killed him. Richard Nixon smoked pipes and cigars, but not cigarettes. Jimmy Carter smoked the occasional cigar. Ronald Reagan quit smoking before becoming President, and I seem to remember that the famous jelly beans on his desk were supposed to be a substitute.
Hillary Rodham Clinton declared the White House a smoke-free zone in 1993. I'd be delighted to find out that she's a closet smoker; it would make her about 1000% more sympathetic, in my eyes. Give me scoundrels over self-righteousness any day.
Speaking of reformed scoundrels -- not that we were, but I needed some feeble segue -- did everyone see Prince on the Super Bowl halftime show last night? A religious experience. It gave me chills, and inspired my question for tomorrow.
Bill asks this question in light of the recent revelation that Senator Barack Obama smokes. I admire Senator Obama a great deal, and must admit that news of his smoking came as a jolt; I had a hard time remembering the last time I saw a national political figure smoking a cigarette.
Bill Clinton notoriously had his cigars, and Gerald Ford was known to smoke at least half-a-dozen pipes a day -- but you have to go all the way back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to find an active cigarette box in the Oval Office. Harry Truman, an opponent of smoking, banned cigarettes from the White House. Dwight Eisenhower had rolled his own during the Second World War, but quit cold turkey before taking office as President. Jackie Kennedy smoked cigarettes, but JFK smoked cigars, and LBJ quit his three-pack-a-day habit after a 1955 heart attack almost killed him. Richard Nixon smoked pipes and cigars, but not cigarettes. Jimmy Carter smoked the occasional cigar. Ronald Reagan quit smoking before becoming President, and I seem to remember that the famous jelly beans on his desk were supposed to be a substitute.
Hillary Rodham Clinton declared the White House a smoke-free zone in 1993. I'd be delighted to find out that she's a closet smoker; it would make her about 1000% more sympathetic, in my eyes. Give me scoundrels over self-righteousness any day.
Speaking of reformed scoundrels -- not that we were, but I needed some feeble segue -- did everyone see Prince on the Super Bowl halftime show last night? A religious experience. It gave me chills, and inspired my question for tomorrow.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
Is it true that crab rangoon doesn't have any crab in it?
Who's asking: An anonymous Google searcher
Anna told me this a while back, but I wasn't sure whether to believe it; sometimes my friends like to trick me into trying foods I wouldn't otherwise eat.
This would seem to be the case here, because the primary ingredient in crab rangoon is chopped crabmeat, or a crabmeat substitute. It's a simple recipe: one pound of chopped crabmeat, a package of cream cheese and some chopped green onions, seasoned with salt and sugar to taste, folded into wonton wrappers and deep-fried. It all sounds great, except for the crab part.
I'm spending the weekend in Portland, so won't be posting tomorrow. Happy birthday to Vikki Bea, and happy Groundhog Day.
What I Read This Week
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Mount Dragon. I've been a fan of Messrs. Preston and Child for a long time, and frequently recommend them as an alternative to certain other, more famous writers. This book, their second novel, is a far more convincing and compelling thriller about the dangers of genetic engineering than Michael Crichton's Next.
Martha Grimes, The Old Fox Deceiv'd. Martha Grimes was among the first American authors to make the traditional British mystery her own. In this, her second novel, Inspector Richard Jury must go to Yorkshire to investigate the murder of a shady young woman on Twelfth Night. Jury and his sidekick, the aristocratic Melrose Plant, are great characters, but the most memorable ones here are a 12-year-old boy and his faithful Staffordshire terrier, Arnold.
Anna told me this a while back, but I wasn't sure whether to believe it; sometimes my friends like to trick me into trying foods I wouldn't otherwise eat.
This would seem to be the case here, because the primary ingredient in crab rangoon is chopped crabmeat, or a crabmeat substitute. It's a simple recipe: one pound of chopped crabmeat, a package of cream cheese and some chopped green onions, seasoned with salt and sugar to taste, folded into wonton wrappers and deep-fried. It all sounds great, except for the crab part.
I'm spending the weekend in Portland, so won't be posting tomorrow. Happy birthday to Vikki Bea, and happy Groundhog Day.
What I Read This Week
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Mount Dragon. I've been a fan of Messrs. Preston and Child for a long time, and frequently recommend them as an alternative to certain other, more famous writers. This book, their second novel, is a far more convincing and compelling thriller about the dangers of genetic engineering than Michael Crichton's Next.
Martha Grimes, The Old Fox Deceiv'd. Martha Grimes was among the first American authors to make the traditional British mystery her own. In this, her second novel, Inspector Richard Jury must go to Yorkshire to investigate the murder of a shady young woman on Twelfth Night. Jury and his sidekick, the aristocratic Melrose Plant, are great characters, but the most memorable ones here are a 12-year-old boy and his faithful Staffordshire terrier, Arnold.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Is there any difference between pita, Syrian, Lebanese, or unleavened bread?
Who's asking: Richard Bostwick, Hallowell, ME
I had never heard the names "Syrian bread" or "Lebanese bread" before moving to New England, but both describe pita bread. Although pita bread is flat, it's not unleavened; it's made with yeast. Yeast-induced puffing is what creates the distinctive pita "pocket."
Naan, the Indian version of flatbread, is also leavened. Naan is sweeter and lighter than pita bread, but the concepts are similar. Chapatis, Indian unleavened bread, are more like tortillas; they don't have pockets.
If you haven't already subscribed to The Mystery Bookstore's podcasts, now would be a good time to do so. In the next week they'll be posting an interview I did last week with Megan Abbott, Charlie Huston and Theresa Schwegel, and the one I did last night with Martha Grimes. Megan, Charlie and Theresa are always entertaining, but Martha Grimes is fantastic. Each podcast is 15-20 minutes long. To subscribe, just go to the bookstore's website and click one of the options in the upper right-hand corner of the front page.
I had never heard the names "Syrian bread" or "Lebanese bread" before moving to New England, but both describe pita bread. Although pita bread is flat, it's not unleavened; it's made with yeast. Yeast-induced puffing is what creates the distinctive pita "pocket."
Naan, the Indian version of flatbread, is also leavened. Naan is sweeter and lighter than pita bread, but the concepts are similar. Chapatis, Indian unleavened bread, are more like tortillas; they don't have pockets.
If you haven't already subscribed to The Mystery Bookstore's podcasts, now would be a good time to do so. In the next week they'll be posting an interview I did last week with Megan Abbott, Charlie Huston and Theresa Schwegel, and the one I did last night with Martha Grimes. Megan, Charlie and Theresa are always entertaining, but Martha Grimes is fantastic. Each podcast is 15-20 minutes long. To subscribe, just go to the bookstore's website and click one of the options in the upper right-hand corner of the front page.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
When did tabloid journalism get started?
Who's asking: Kris Dean, Mechanicsville, VA
Gossip is a basic human need, up there with food and shelter. It's essential to the formation of social groups: we share information in order to bond with each other, and to distinguish "us" from "them." Efforts to curb gossip in schools and workplaces always fail, and make people miserable; the best you can hope for is that the gossip is led by people who are kind-hearted, rather than by the nasty ones. (Of course, the nasty ones usually have the best information.)
Tabloid journalism goes back to the early days of the printing press. Gutenberg invented movable type in 1440, and you can bet some of the first things printed were circulars decrying the crimes and moral transgressions of public figures.
The first cheap, sensational newspapers -- as opposed to single sheets of paper -- appeared in the United States in the early 1830s. These "penny papers" were a 19th-century version of The Weekly World News, reporting things like murders, fires, animal attacks and tragic stories of women gone wrong. The New York Sun, launched in 1833, was the first tabloid-sized paper.
The early tabloids were political bombthrowers and muckrakers, as well as sensation-mongers; by the late 1840s, they had become so powerful that four of them joined with three more traditional newspapers to form the Associated Press, the news wire service that survives to this day.
Five Random Songs
"C'est la Vie," Lowen and Navarro. This album (Walking on a Wire) was one of the best pieces of singer-songwriter pop of the 1990s; what happened to these guys?
"Train in Vain (Stand by Me)," The Clash. I'm excited to see Julien Temple's new documentary about Joe Strummer, which premiered at Sundance.
"'74-'75," The Connells. I think this was the single off this album (Ring), which is baffling, because it's not one of the stronger songs on the record. Kind of limp, kind of whiny, and (at 4:38) it goes on too long.
"Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run," Sufjan Stevens. This wonderful album (Illinois) is the anti-iTunes; it's designed to be listened to as one complete piece, and chopping it up into individual tracks makes it incomprehensible.
"Cry a While," Bob Dylan. From Love & Theft. Old-timey blues, and Dylan's sense of humor shines through.
Gossip is a basic human need, up there with food and shelter. It's essential to the formation of social groups: we share information in order to bond with each other, and to distinguish "us" from "them." Efforts to curb gossip in schools and workplaces always fail, and make people miserable; the best you can hope for is that the gossip is led by people who are kind-hearted, rather than by the nasty ones. (Of course, the nasty ones usually have the best information.)
Tabloid journalism goes back to the early days of the printing press. Gutenberg invented movable type in 1440, and you can bet some of the first things printed were circulars decrying the crimes and moral transgressions of public figures.
The first cheap, sensational newspapers -- as opposed to single sheets of paper -- appeared in the United States in the early 1830s. These "penny papers" were a 19th-century version of The Weekly World News, reporting things like murders, fires, animal attacks and tragic stories of women gone wrong. The New York Sun, launched in 1833, was the first tabloid-sized paper.
The early tabloids were political bombthrowers and muckrakers, as well as sensation-mongers; by the late 1840s, they had become so powerful that four of them joined with three more traditional newspapers to form the Associated Press, the news wire service that survives to this day.
Five Random Songs
"C'est la Vie," Lowen and Navarro. This album (Walking on a Wire) was one of the best pieces of singer-songwriter pop of the 1990s; what happened to these guys?
"Train in Vain (Stand by Me)," The Clash. I'm excited to see Julien Temple's new documentary about Joe Strummer, which premiered at Sundance.
"'74-'75," The Connells. I think this was the single off this album (Ring), which is baffling, because it's not one of the stronger songs on the record. Kind of limp, kind of whiny, and (at 4:38) it goes on too long.
"Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run," Sufjan Stevens. This wonderful album (Illinois) is the anti-iTunes; it's designed to be listened to as one complete piece, and chopping it up into individual tracks makes it incomprehensible.
"Cry a While," Bob Dylan. From Love & Theft. Old-timey blues, and Dylan's sense of humor shines through.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
What is dry ice, and why does it smoke?
Who's asking: Jen Lechner, Freeport, ME
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. It's made by compressing the gas into a liquid, then freezing it at temperatures below -109.3°F (-78.5°C). It doesn't smoke, it steams; the steam is pure CO2, released into the atmosphere whenever the dry ice is stored at temperatures above -109.3°F.
Because CO2 isn't water, dry ice doesn't "melt" -- it sublimates, passing directly from a solid state into a gas. If stored in a regular ice chest, it sublimates at a rate of 5-10 pounds every 24 hours, and has 2-3 times the cooling power of water-based ice.
DryIceInfo.com advises against storing dry ice in a regular freezer, because it's so cold that it shuts off the machine's thermostat.
Dry ice is popular for school science projects because it's fairly safe, as long as you use common sense when handling it: don't let it touch your bare skin, and make sure your work area is well-ventilated. Inhaling concentrated steam from dry ice can kill you, and anoxia (death from lack of oxygen in the bloodstream) is a nasty way to die.
We don't need any dry ice here in Gardiner; we have plenty of the regular kind. Yesterday's official high temperature in Gardiner was 22°F, but it felt much warmer in the sunshine. Amazing how fast one acclimates to the cold.
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. It's made by compressing the gas into a liquid, then freezing it at temperatures below -109.3°F (-78.5°C). It doesn't smoke, it steams; the steam is pure CO2, released into the atmosphere whenever the dry ice is stored at temperatures above -109.3°F.
Because CO2 isn't water, dry ice doesn't "melt" -- it sublimates, passing directly from a solid state into a gas. If stored in a regular ice chest, it sublimates at a rate of 5-10 pounds every 24 hours, and has 2-3 times the cooling power of water-based ice.
DryIceInfo.com advises against storing dry ice in a regular freezer, because it's so cold that it shuts off the machine's thermostat.
Dry ice is popular for school science projects because it's fairly safe, as long as you use common sense when handling it: don't let it touch your bare skin, and make sure your work area is well-ventilated. Inhaling concentrated steam from dry ice can kill you, and anoxia (death from lack of oxygen in the bloodstream) is a nasty way to die.
We don't need any dry ice here in Gardiner; we have plenty of the regular kind. Yesterday's official high temperature in Gardiner was 22°F, but it felt much warmer in the sunshine. Amazing how fast one acclimates to the cold.
Monday, January 29, 2007
What sounds do animals make in other languages?
Who's asking: Tom Ehrenfeld, Cambridge, MA
My high school chorus had to learn Aaron Copland's "I Bought Me a Cat," which includes some unusual animal noises: the cow says, "Baw, baw;" the hen says, "Shimmy shack, shimmy shack;" the cat says, "Fiddle-eye-fee."
I have never met a cat who says "Fiddle-eye-fee," and the noise a cat makes is one that most languages actually agree on. In English it's "meow," in French it's "miaou," and in Russian it's "myau." Japanese, Korean and Indonesian make the noise with an "n" instead of an "m" -- "nyaa," "(n)ya-ong," and "ngeong," respectively, but in each case, it's easily recognizable as a cat noise.
Roosters, too, make similar noises in almost every language. English is "cock-a-doodle-do;" German is "kickeriki;" Mandarin is "gou gou." Thai roosters sound a little different: "ake-e-ake-ake," but it's still that hard "k" sound.
It's pig noises where things start to vary. English is "oink oink," but Polish is "chrum chrum," and Japanese is "buubuu." Korean is "kkool-kkool," and Norwegian is "nøff nøff."
English and American dogs say "bow wow," or "woof," but in Greece they say, "gav," and in Catalan they say, "bup, bup."
"Bup, bup"? I just tried it out on Dizzy; he opened his eyes halfway, then went back to his nap. Guess he doesn't speak Catalan.
My high school chorus had to learn Aaron Copland's "I Bought Me a Cat," which includes some unusual animal noises: the cow says, "Baw, baw;" the hen says, "Shimmy shack, shimmy shack;" the cat says, "Fiddle-eye-fee."
I have never met a cat who says "Fiddle-eye-fee," and the noise a cat makes is one that most languages actually agree on. In English it's "meow," in French it's "miaou," and in Russian it's "myau." Japanese, Korean and Indonesian make the noise with an "n" instead of an "m" -- "nyaa," "(n)ya-ong," and "ngeong," respectively, but in each case, it's easily recognizable as a cat noise.
Roosters, too, make similar noises in almost every language. English is "cock-a-doodle-do;" German is "kickeriki;" Mandarin is "gou gou." Thai roosters sound a little different: "ake-e-ake-ake," but it's still that hard "k" sound.
It's pig noises where things start to vary. English is "oink oink," but Polish is "chrum chrum," and Japanese is "buubuu." Korean is "kkool-kkool," and Norwegian is "nøff nøff."
English and American dogs say "bow wow," or "woof," but in Greece they say, "gav," and in Catalan they say, "bup, bup."
"Bup, bup"? I just tried it out on Dizzy; he opened his eyes halfway, then went back to his nap. Guess he doesn't speak Catalan.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
How thick would the ice have to be in order for you to drive a car across China Lake?
Who's asking: Anna Bragdon, China, ME
Anna expected that my answer to this question would be that I would never drive a car across China Lake. That's true, as far as driving the car myself goes; I personally would not drive on ice voluntarily, under any circumstances.
But I'd be willing to ride along with someone else, as long as I thought the driver knew what he or she was doing, and as long as the ice on the lake was two feet thick.
The "two feet thick" requirement doesn't come from thin air; it's just over twice the thickness the Maine Ice Anglers association says is safe to drive a 7-8 ton truck on. Where ice is concerned, I believe in an excess of caution.
For the more reckless among you, the Ice Anglers say it's safe to drive a single-passenger automobile on ice that is at least seven inches thick. Keep in mind that the thickness of ice on a body of water can vary radically within a small area; it might be seven inches thick in one spot, but it's only four inches thick a few feet away. Don't be an idiot. Or rather, go right ahead, and take yourself out of the gene pool.
Smelt shacks are out on the Kennebec, but I don't think I'd go this weekend. The weekend of February 17-18 is open fishing, when people without a license can go. A friend has promised to take me if the weather holds, so that might be the best time for me to try it. This same "friend" tells me it's an ice-fishing tradition to bite the head off one's first catch, but I suspect this is a joke. It had better be a joke.
Anna expected that my answer to this question would be that I would never drive a car across China Lake. That's true, as far as driving the car myself goes; I personally would not drive on ice voluntarily, under any circumstances.
But I'd be willing to ride along with someone else, as long as I thought the driver knew what he or she was doing, and as long as the ice on the lake was two feet thick.
The "two feet thick" requirement doesn't come from thin air; it's just over twice the thickness the Maine Ice Anglers association says is safe to drive a 7-8 ton truck on. Where ice is concerned, I believe in an excess of caution.
For the more reckless among you, the Ice Anglers say it's safe to drive a single-passenger automobile on ice that is at least seven inches thick. Keep in mind that the thickness of ice on a body of water can vary radically within a small area; it might be seven inches thick in one spot, but it's only four inches thick a few feet away. Don't be an idiot. Or rather, go right ahead, and take yourself out of the gene pool.
Smelt shacks are out on the Kennebec, but I don't think I'd go this weekend. The weekend of February 17-18 is open fishing, when people without a license can go. A friend has promised to take me if the weather holds, so that might be the best time for me to try it. This same "friend" tells me it's an ice-fishing tradition to bite the head off one's first catch, but I suspect this is a joke. It had better be a joke.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Cold enough for you?
Who's asking: Someone at the Gardiner Public Library
Why yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The thermometer on my MacBook dashboard currently reads -1F, despite bright sunshine. It's breezy, too, so we've got a windchill warning.
How cold is cold? Cold enough that I can't wear glasses or earrings, because the metal freezes to my skin if I go outside. Cold enough that Dizzy has tiny icicles on his chin at the end of a (very short) walk. Cold enough to be able to feel the hairs inside my nose, which is rather unpleasant.
Still no Internet -- maybe, just maybe, it'll be back this afternoon, but most likely not till Monday. Dammit. But they're nice people at the library, and it's well-heated...
What I Read this Week
Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box. It's an open secret now that Joe Hill is Stephen King's son; even if it weren't, I'd have wondered. This first novel stands on its own merit, though -- it is scary and original, a truly impressive debut. Judas Coyne, a semi-retired heavy-metal rock star, has collected occult souvenirs for years. One day his assistant asks whether he wants to bid on a ghost that's up for auction; Jude buys it without a second thought. What he gets turns out to be far deadlier than he could have imagined, and freeing himself will require that he redeem his own soul.
Susan Richards Shreve, A Student of Living Things. I picked this book up at the library because it had made a few Best of 2006 lists, and carries the endorsement of Richard Ford. I finished it only because I felt obligated, and can't remember when I've felt so hostile to a book. It's the story of how Claire Frayn copes -- or doesn't -- with the assassination of her brother on the steps of the George Washington University library. I disliked every character in this book, didn't recognize the Washington Shreve describes, and struggled with the present tense narration-into-extended flashbacks structure. Maybe Richard Ford read a different book.
Sammy Davis Jr., Burt Boyar and Jane Boyar, Why Me? The Sammy Davis, Jr. Story. I picked this up for a client's research project; I didn't need to read the whole thing, but did, because it's mesmerizing. A good celebrity biography is cultural history, as well as personal, and the world Davis describes already seems very far away.
Wil Haygood, In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. What a luxury to be able to go straight from the autobiography to this meticulously researched study, which reveals everything Davis kept secret and puts it all into the context of African-American history. I'd be hard-pressed to recommend one book over the other; read them together, if you can.
Why yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The thermometer on my MacBook dashboard currently reads -1F, despite bright sunshine. It's breezy, too, so we've got a windchill warning.
How cold is cold? Cold enough that I can't wear glasses or earrings, because the metal freezes to my skin if I go outside. Cold enough that Dizzy has tiny icicles on his chin at the end of a (very short) walk. Cold enough to be able to feel the hairs inside my nose, which is rather unpleasant.
Still no Internet -- maybe, just maybe, it'll be back this afternoon, but most likely not till Monday. Dammit. But they're nice people at the library, and it's well-heated...
What I Read this Week
Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box. It's an open secret now that Joe Hill is Stephen King's son; even if it weren't, I'd have wondered. This first novel stands on its own merit, though -- it is scary and original, a truly impressive debut. Judas Coyne, a semi-retired heavy-metal rock star, has collected occult souvenirs for years. One day his assistant asks whether he wants to bid on a ghost that's up for auction; Jude buys it without a second thought. What he gets turns out to be far deadlier than he could have imagined, and freeing himself will require that he redeem his own soul.
Susan Richards Shreve, A Student of Living Things. I picked this book up at the library because it had made a few Best of 2006 lists, and carries the endorsement of Richard Ford. I finished it only because I felt obligated, and can't remember when I've felt so hostile to a book. It's the story of how Claire Frayn copes -- or doesn't -- with the assassination of her brother on the steps of the George Washington University library. I disliked every character in this book, didn't recognize the Washington Shreve describes, and struggled with the present tense narration-into-extended flashbacks structure. Maybe Richard Ford read a different book.
Sammy Davis Jr., Burt Boyar and Jane Boyar, Why Me? The Sammy Davis, Jr. Story. I picked this up for a client's research project; I didn't need to read the whole thing, but did, because it's mesmerizing. A good celebrity biography is cultural history, as well as personal, and the world Davis describes already seems very far away.
Wil Haygood, In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. What a luxury to be able to go straight from the autobiography to this meticulously researched study, which reveals everything Davis kept secret and puts it all into the context of African-American history. I'd be hard-pressed to recommend one book over the other; read them together, if you can.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
What language do they speak in Turkey?
Who's asking: An anonymous Google searcher
Um, they speak Turkish.
If you subscribe to the belief that language is destiny -- and I do -- it's interesting to look at the expansion and collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a failure of Turkish to conquer the Romance languages. Even within the Ottoman Empire, Turkish was a stepchild; the Ottoman court used Arabic for its legal proceedings and religious practices, and Persian for art and literature. "Ottoman Turkish," spoken at court, used a lot of Arabic and Persian words, while "pure Turkish" was a language of the lower classes, and not generally written.
Modern Turkish is a political creation, and dates back only to the 1920s. When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk came to power, he demanded the creation of a single, "pure" Turkish, with a Roman alphabet. Scholars devised a system of transcribing Turkish sounds into the Roman alphabet in 1928, and by January 1, 1929, the use of the Arabic alphabet to write Turkish was illegal.
The adoption of the Roman alphabet was part of Ataturk's broader goal of Westernization. Nevertheless, the Turkish language is much more closely related to several Asian languages (Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and more) than to the Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish). Turkic languages are spoken across a large percentage of the planet, from Turkey to Mongolia.
Still no Internet connection at my house; I'm posting this from the Maine State Library. It's inconvenient, but it does force me to keep more-or-less regular working hours.
Um, they speak Turkish.
If you subscribe to the belief that language is destiny -- and I do -- it's interesting to look at the expansion and collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a failure of Turkish to conquer the Romance languages. Even within the Ottoman Empire, Turkish was a stepchild; the Ottoman court used Arabic for its legal proceedings and religious practices, and Persian for art and literature. "Ottoman Turkish," spoken at court, used a lot of Arabic and Persian words, while "pure Turkish" was a language of the lower classes, and not generally written.
Modern Turkish is a political creation, and dates back only to the 1920s. When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk came to power, he demanded the creation of a single, "pure" Turkish, with a Roman alphabet. Scholars devised a system of transcribing Turkish sounds into the Roman alphabet in 1928, and by January 1, 1929, the use of the Arabic alphabet to write Turkish was illegal.
The adoption of the Roman alphabet was part of Ataturk's broader goal of Westernization. Nevertheless, the Turkish language is much more closely related to several Asian languages (Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and more) than to the Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish). Turkic languages are spoken across a large percentage of the planet, from Turkey to Mongolia.
Still no Internet connection at my house; I'm posting this from the Maine State Library. It's inconvenient, but it does force me to keep more-or-less regular working hours.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
When was the first recorded war?
Who's asking: Kris Dean, Mechanicsville, VA
Given human nature, we were probably having wars long before anyone figured out how to write about it. Written history dates back only to about 3100 B.C., when Sumerians and Egyptians separately started to keep records on stone or clay.
Thus, the first recorded war happened in that part of the world. It took place between Sumer and Elam, around 2700 B.C., and was fought in the area that is present-day Basra, Iraq. The first detailed military history records warfare between the Sumerian cities of Lagash and Umma, in 2525 B.C. Lagash won, and its king, Eannatum, commissioned a stone pillar (stele) to honor his victory.
Discussions of a lasting peace in the Middle East must begin with the awareness that this region has been at war for 5,000 years, more or less. In that context, it would be foolish to expect too much out of a two- or three-day summit meeting.
My Internet connection at home is down, for unknown reasons. I'm posting this from Freeport. If it takes me a day or two to respond to an e-mail, I apologize.
Five Random Songs
"Today I Sing the Blues," Aretha Franklin. From one of my all-time favorite albums, Aretha Sings the Blues (naturally).
"Red Red Wine," The Replacements. No, this is not a cover of the Neil Diamond song.
"Heaven," Talking Heads. Hey, we were just talking about this song! From Stop Making Sense, soundtrack to the best concert film ever.
"Sure Don't Feel Like Love," Paul Simon. I found this album, Surprise, a little hit-or-miss, but it's growing on me. This is a track I particularly like.
"Man of Peace," Bob Dylan. Very appropriate to today's question, although I don't want to believe what I once read about this song, which is that it's supposed to be about Anwar Sadat. Bob Dylan's a genius, but he's been wrong about some things.
Given human nature, we were probably having wars long before anyone figured out how to write about it. Written history dates back only to about 3100 B.C., when Sumerians and Egyptians separately started to keep records on stone or clay.
Thus, the first recorded war happened in that part of the world. It took place between Sumer and Elam, around 2700 B.C., and was fought in the area that is present-day Basra, Iraq. The first detailed military history records warfare between the Sumerian cities of Lagash and Umma, in 2525 B.C. Lagash won, and its king, Eannatum, commissioned a stone pillar (stele) to honor his victory.
Discussions of a lasting peace in the Middle East must begin with the awareness that this region has been at war for 5,000 years, more or less. In that context, it would be foolish to expect too much out of a two- or three-day summit meeting.
My Internet connection at home is down, for unknown reasons. I'm posting this from Freeport. If it takes me a day or two to respond to an e-mail, I apologize.
Five Random Songs
"Today I Sing the Blues," Aretha Franklin. From one of my all-time favorite albums, Aretha Sings the Blues (naturally).
"Red Red Wine," The Replacements. No, this is not a cover of the Neil Diamond song.
"Heaven," Talking Heads. Hey, we were just talking about this song! From Stop Making Sense, soundtrack to the best concert film ever.
"Sure Don't Feel Like Love," Paul Simon. I found this album, Surprise, a little hit-or-miss, but it's growing on me. This is a track I particularly like.
"Man of Peace," Bob Dylan. Very appropriate to today's question, although I don't want to believe what I once read about this song, which is that it's supposed to be about Anwar Sadat. Bob Dylan's a genius, but he's been wrong about some things.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
How many people die waiting for organs every year?
Who's asking: Me
I couldn't find statistics for this on a world-wide basis, but the Department of Health and Human Services says that 17 Americans a day die waiting for a transplant that could save their lives.
On Sunday, one of those 17 people was Barbara Seranella, the author of No Human Involved and seven other novels featuring outlaw-turned-businesswoman Miranda "Munch" Mancini. Barbara's ninth book, a standalone called Deadman's Switch, is due out this April.
As awful and stupid as it sounds, Barbara was one of the lucky ones. She'd already had not one, but two liver transplants; her body rejected the first, and they managed to find a second one in time to save her life. When it became clear that this one wasn't working either, Barbara remained upbeat and active -- at Bouchercon in October, she was gray-faced but radiant.
I didn't know her well, only as bookseller/fan to author, but her visits to The Mystery Bookstore were always an event, even before she got sick. She was funny as hell, and she would say anything -- she had done so much and seen so much in her life that shocking the uptight was the last thing she worried about. And she was kind, kind in a no-nonsense way that sought no credit; many southern California writers can tell stories about the contacts she made for them or the advice she gave.
She was only 50 years old when she ran out of time on Sunday. The best tribute to her I can think of would be for everyone who reads this to go, right now, and print out an organ donor card here. Sign it and put it in your wallet, and tell your family you've done it.
One organ donor can help as many as 50 people. One of those 50 might write the next great American novel -- or direct another great movie, like heart-transplant recipient Robert Altman -- or just get to celebrate one more Christmas with her family.
It's not like any of us will need our organs in the next life.
I couldn't find statistics for this on a world-wide basis, but the Department of Health and Human Services says that 17 Americans a day die waiting for a transplant that could save their lives.
On Sunday, one of those 17 people was Barbara Seranella, the author of No Human Involved and seven other novels featuring outlaw-turned-businesswoman Miranda "Munch" Mancini. Barbara's ninth book, a standalone called Deadman's Switch, is due out this April.
As awful and stupid as it sounds, Barbara was one of the lucky ones. She'd already had not one, but two liver transplants; her body rejected the first, and they managed to find a second one in time to save her life. When it became clear that this one wasn't working either, Barbara remained upbeat and active -- at Bouchercon in October, she was gray-faced but radiant.
I didn't know her well, only as bookseller/fan to author, but her visits to The Mystery Bookstore were always an event, even before she got sick. She was funny as hell, and she would say anything -- she had done so much and seen so much in her life that shocking the uptight was the last thing she worried about. And she was kind, kind in a no-nonsense way that sought no credit; many southern California writers can tell stories about the contacts she made for them or the advice she gave.
She was only 50 years old when she ran out of time on Sunday. The best tribute to her I can think of would be for everyone who reads this to go, right now, and print out an organ donor card here. Sign it and put it in your wallet, and tell your family you've done it.
One organ donor can help as many as 50 people. One of those 50 might write the next great American novel -- or direct another great movie, like heart-transplant recipient Robert Altman -- or just get to celebrate one more Christmas with her family.
It's not like any of us will need our organs in the next life.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Why is St. Monica a saint?
Who's asking: An anonymous Google searcher from somewhere in North America
St. Monica (333-387) was the mother of St. Augustine (354-430). Monica's husband, Patritius, drank and beat her until Monica's patience and prayers helped to change his nature, and won his conversion to Christianity. Monica's charity and faithfulness annoyed her son Augustine, but ultimately inspired him, and her constant prayers are credited with Augustine's conversion from Manichaeism to Catholicism. She was the one who introduced Augustine to St. Ambrose, who became Augustine's mentor and confessor. Monica is the patroness of the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers, whose object is mutual prayer for straying sons and husbands.
Today we would call St. Monica co-dependent, and urge her to seek treatment; she would probably leave Patritius, wash her hands of Augustine, write a self-help book and host a talk show. I'm not sure this is progress.
The California city of Santa Monica is named because explorers found it on St. Monica's traditional feast day, May 4. Since Vatican II, the church has celebrated the feast of St. Monica on August 27, the day before the feast of St. Augustine.
St. Monica (333-387) was the mother of St. Augustine (354-430). Monica's husband, Patritius, drank and beat her until Monica's patience and prayers helped to change his nature, and won his conversion to Christianity. Monica's charity and faithfulness annoyed her son Augustine, but ultimately inspired him, and her constant prayers are credited with Augustine's conversion from Manichaeism to Catholicism. She was the one who introduced Augustine to St. Ambrose, who became Augustine's mentor and confessor. Monica is the patroness of the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers, whose object is mutual prayer for straying sons and husbands.
Today we would call St. Monica co-dependent, and urge her to seek treatment; she would probably leave Patritius, wash her hands of Augustine, write a self-help book and host a talk show. I'm not sure this is progress.
The California city of Santa Monica is named because explorers found it on St. Monica's traditional feast day, May 4. Since Vatican II, the church has celebrated the feast of St. Monica on August 27, the day before the feast of St. Augustine.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
What do you have against adverbs?
Who's asking: Various clients
One of my clients, in fact, went so far as to say, "William Goldman uses adverbs. Are you saying he shouldn't?"
My answer to that was that William Goldman can do whatever he wants. He's William Goldman, and he rules.
The rest of us, however, should avoid adverbs when writing fiction. It's part of my larger rule, which most writing instructors call, "Show, don't tell." I find that advice useless, though what I say is probably just as vague: "Trust your reader."
Adverbs are bad because they do the readers' work for them, or compensate for lazy writing. Don't tell me that your character said something "teasingly;" I ought to be able to infer that teasing from the content of the dialogue. If I can't, the dialogue's not right. If someone's shrugging, you don't need to say that she shrugged helplessly or tiredly or carelessly or defensively; we should already know that from the action that preceded the shrug.
Likewise, modifying your adjectives is seldom a good idea. "Very," "extremely," "rather" and "quite" are weasel words, qualifiers that belong in political speeches and newspaper columns, not in fiction. Fiction ought to be the one place where characters say and do exactly what you intend them to say or do, without reservation or apology. (Unless that's the character.)
Do not write to me to defend your use of adverbs. Instead, examine your conscience and your prose, go your way and sin no more.
One of my clients, in fact, went so far as to say, "William Goldman uses adverbs. Are you saying he shouldn't?"
My answer to that was that William Goldman can do whatever he wants. He's William Goldman, and he rules.
The rest of us, however, should avoid adverbs when writing fiction. It's part of my larger rule, which most writing instructors call, "Show, don't tell." I find that advice useless, though what I say is probably just as vague: "Trust your reader."
Adverbs are bad because they do the readers' work for them, or compensate for lazy writing. Don't tell me that your character said something "teasingly;" I ought to be able to infer that teasing from the content of the dialogue. If I can't, the dialogue's not right. If someone's shrugging, you don't need to say that she shrugged helplessly or tiredly or carelessly or defensively; we should already know that from the action that preceded the shrug.
Likewise, modifying your adjectives is seldom a good idea. "Very," "extremely," "rather" and "quite" are weasel words, qualifiers that belong in political speeches and newspaper columns, not in fiction. Fiction ought to be the one place where characters say and do exactly what you intend them to say or do, without reservation or apology. (Unless that's the character.)
Do not write to me to defend your use of adverbs. Instead, examine your conscience and your prose, go your way and sin no more.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Where does space end and heaven begin?
Who's asking: Grace Lechner, Freeport, ME
Let's start with what we know. Space begins where the Earth's atmosphere ends. NASA gives astronaut status to anyone who flies more than 50 miles above the surface of the earth; some scientists say space begins at 400,000 feet (75.76 miles), where rockets start to experience the friction of the atmosphere when they come back to earth.
So where does space end? No one knows. NASA says that space may be finite or infinite, but in either case, nothing exists outside it.
We live in three dimensions, meaning that we have line and surface and direction. We can measure and describe what's around us, and that's what scientists do.
No one has ever been able to measure or describe heaven. Heaven is not on any map. Depending on what you believe, only one person has ever been to Heaven and come back, and Jesus didn't get terribly specific about what Heaven was like.
But people have always believed in some kind of heaven, which suggests strongly to me that such a thing exists (this is the ontological proof for God: if He didn't exist, we couldn't imagine Him). People have always imagined that Heaven looks like the place they've always wanted to be, whatever that is: warmth for people in cold climates, water for desert-dwellers, vast wealth for the poor.
My own theory is that Heaven is no place outside; Heaven is a secret locked in each of our hearts, and it's only when our hearts stop beating that Heaven takes over. I think that Heaven is not a place at all, but the best feeling we ever had, of trusting and being loved and going home.
Grace, who is five, probably doesn't remember where she was before she was born. None of us do, by the time we're old enough to put things into words. But if we were somewhere, maybe that's heaven.
What I Read This Week
Charlie Huston, Already Dead. Huston lays his own modern vampire mythology -- in the tradition of Matheson's I Am Legend -- on the structure of the classic hard-boiled PI novel. Very dark, graphically violent, extremely well-done.
Jess Walter, The Zero. The tag-line of this book is "A novel of September 12." It sat on my shelf for months, because I wasn't ready to put the events of September 11, 2001 into a story that would narrow its scope or reduce its significance. The Zero doesn't do that. New York police detective Brian Remy shoots himself in the head on September 12, but doesn't die; what follows is a surreal journey, as he agrees to work for an obscure government agency -- or maybe it's a private firm? -- and deals with his son's insistence that he's dead. None of it makes any sense; even at the end, you're not exactly sure what's happened. Which is exactly right. The Zero captures that lost, baffled, paranoid feeling of the autumn of 2001 better than I thought anyone could, and will go into a box of things to leave for my (hypothetical, very far in the future) grandchildren.
Charlie Huston, Caught Stealing. I'm interviewing Charlie next week for another Mystery Bookstore podcast, along with Megan Abbott and Theresa Schwegel; I've read both of Megan's books and both of Theresa's, so needed to catch up with Charlie's. (He's written five; I won't have time to read them all before next Saturday. Sorry.) Huston's first novel is the story of a very, very bad week in the life of Henry Thompson, failed baseball star-turned-bartender, who agrees to care for his neighbor's cat and winds up a murderer on the run. No redemption here, just survival -- that's not giving anything away, because Huston went on to write two more Henry Thompson novels (Six Bad Things and A Dangerous Man).
Let's start with what we know. Space begins where the Earth's atmosphere ends. NASA gives astronaut status to anyone who flies more than 50 miles above the surface of the earth; some scientists say space begins at 400,000 feet (75.76 miles), where rockets start to experience the friction of the atmosphere when they come back to earth.
So where does space end? No one knows. NASA says that space may be finite or infinite, but in either case, nothing exists outside it.
We live in three dimensions, meaning that we have line and surface and direction. We can measure and describe what's around us, and that's what scientists do.
No one has ever been able to measure or describe heaven. Heaven is not on any map. Depending on what you believe, only one person has ever been to Heaven and come back, and Jesus didn't get terribly specific about what Heaven was like.
But people have always believed in some kind of heaven, which suggests strongly to me that such a thing exists (this is the ontological proof for God: if He didn't exist, we couldn't imagine Him). People have always imagined that Heaven looks like the place they've always wanted to be, whatever that is: warmth for people in cold climates, water for desert-dwellers, vast wealth for the poor.
My own theory is that Heaven is no place outside; Heaven is a secret locked in each of our hearts, and it's only when our hearts stop beating that Heaven takes over. I think that Heaven is not a place at all, but the best feeling we ever had, of trusting and being loved and going home.
Grace, who is five, probably doesn't remember where she was before she was born. None of us do, by the time we're old enough to put things into words. But if we were somewhere, maybe that's heaven.
What I Read This Week
Charlie Huston, Already Dead. Huston lays his own modern vampire mythology -- in the tradition of Matheson's I Am Legend -- on the structure of the classic hard-boiled PI novel. Very dark, graphically violent, extremely well-done.
Jess Walter, The Zero. The tag-line of this book is "A novel of September 12." It sat on my shelf for months, because I wasn't ready to put the events of September 11, 2001 into a story that would narrow its scope or reduce its significance. The Zero doesn't do that. New York police detective Brian Remy shoots himself in the head on September 12, but doesn't die; what follows is a surreal journey, as he agrees to work for an obscure government agency -- or maybe it's a private firm? -- and deals with his son's insistence that he's dead. None of it makes any sense; even at the end, you're not exactly sure what's happened. Which is exactly right. The Zero captures that lost, baffled, paranoid feeling of the autumn of 2001 better than I thought anyone could, and will go into a box of things to leave for my (hypothetical, very far in the future) grandchildren.
Charlie Huston, Caught Stealing. I'm interviewing Charlie next week for another Mystery Bookstore podcast, along with Megan Abbott and Theresa Schwegel; I've read both of Megan's books and both of Theresa's, so needed to catch up with Charlie's. (He's written five; I won't have time to read them all before next Saturday. Sorry.) Huston's first novel is the story of a very, very bad week in the life of Henry Thompson, failed baseball star-turned-bartender, who agrees to care for his neighbor's cat and winds up a murderer on the run. No redemption here, just survival -- that's not giving anything away, because Huston went on to write two more Henry Thompson novels (Six Bad Things and A Dangerous Man).
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Why do we put candles on birthday cakes?
Who's asking: Lilly Dean, Mechanicsville, VA
Lilly, 4, poses a question it had never even occurred to me to wonder about. Why do we set our birthday cakes on fire? What a very strange thing to do, when you think about it.
The origins of this custom go all the way back to ancient Greece, when worshipers at the temple of Artemis, the moon goddess, used to make offerings of cakes decorated with circles of candles; the ring of light represented the full moon. Hundreds of years later, Germans would put a single candle on a birthday cake, to represent the life spirit. Sometimes they would mark off the candles in segments, symbolizing the passage of the year. (Kathy and I had candles like this when we were little. They were marked off in years, and you were supposed to burn it down an inch once a year, on your birthday. Who knows what happened to those candles; they only went to 21, anyway, so they'd be long gone even if we'd kept up the tradition.)
Candles have always been part of religious rituals, and making a wish and blowing the candles out also has its roots in ancient pagan customs -- the idea is that the smoke carries your wish to heaven.
This morning's temperature of 0F was noticeably warmer than yesterday's -5F. You wouldn't think those five degrees would make much difference, but they do. Dizzy doesn't seem to mind it, as long as the sun is out.
Lilly, 4, poses a question it had never even occurred to me to wonder about. Why do we set our birthday cakes on fire? What a very strange thing to do, when you think about it.
The origins of this custom go all the way back to ancient Greece, when worshipers at the temple of Artemis, the moon goddess, used to make offerings of cakes decorated with circles of candles; the ring of light represented the full moon. Hundreds of years later, Germans would put a single candle on a birthday cake, to represent the life spirit. Sometimes they would mark off the candles in segments, symbolizing the passage of the year. (Kathy and I had candles like this when we were little. They were marked off in years, and you were supposed to burn it down an inch once a year, on your birthday. Who knows what happened to those candles; they only went to 21, anyway, so they'd be long gone even if we'd kept up the tradition.)
Candles have always been part of religious rituals, and making a wish and blowing the candles out also has its roots in ancient pagan customs -- the idea is that the smoke carries your wish to heaven.
This morning's temperature of 0F was noticeably warmer than yesterday's -5F. You wouldn't think those five degrees would make much difference, but they do. Dizzy doesn't seem to mind it, as long as the sun is out.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
How many grapes go into a single bottle of wine?
Who's asking: The quizmaster at The Liberal Cup, Hallowell, ME
According to the quizmaster -- and several websites I checked this morning, because I didn't believe this -- it takes 600 grapes to make an average bottle of wine. Any winemakers out there who can confirm or deny this? It seemed low to my pub trivia team; our guess was in the thousands (I won't embarrass us by saying how many thousands), because each grape doesn't give off much juice.
Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother's death, so today is the end of the traditional "year and a day" of deep mourning. I've thought more than once in the past year that it's kind of a shame that we've abandoned the old mourning customs; back in the 19th century, when people wore black for a year and a day, everyone knew that those people would not be their usual bright shiny selves, and might not be working quite as well as everyone else.
Friends who've been through it told me last year, "It [grief] takes longer than you think it will," and that's the truth. Grief is like a lighthouse, it turns and flashes at intervals. Over time, the intervals get longer, but the beam's just as sharp when it hits. I miss Mom, and so do my sisters and brothers. We always will, and that's the way it's supposed to be.
At any rate, I wasn't terribly productive yesterday, and today promises to be not much better. I'm headed to Portland right now to see Richard Ford speak at the Portland Public Library, and plan to be back up to full speed tomorrow. (I'll still wear a lot of black, though. I always did, but not in a Morrissey kind of way.)
First Five Random Songs:
"(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," Elvis Costello & the Attractions. The Strokes, the Arctic Monkeys, the Shins, none of those guys would exist if Elvis hadn't done it first.
"Maybe It's Imaginary," Kirsty MacColl. "I don't know much/But I'd like to know why." Exactly.
"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," The Beatles. My favorite Beatles song. It's one of John's. We've discussed this.
"La La," Cortney Tidwell. This CD was a gift, I'd never have discovered her otherwise. She sounds a little like Kate Bush, a little like Bjork, a little like the girl from Sixpence None the Richer. It's a sound that grows on you.
"Whiskey Bottle," Uncle Tupelo. I once startled a friend by quoting this song -- it's one of my brother Ed's favorite lines: "Whiskey bottle over Jesus/Not forever, just for now."
According to the quizmaster -- and several websites I checked this morning, because I didn't believe this -- it takes 600 grapes to make an average bottle of wine. Any winemakers out there who can confirm or deny this? It seemed low to my pub trivia team; our guess was in the thousands (I won't embarrass us by saying how many thousands), because each grape doesn't give off much juice.
Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother's death, so today is the end of the traditional "year and a day" of deep mourning. I've thought more than once in the past year that it's kind of a shame that we've abandoned the old mourning customs; back in the 19th century, when people wore black for a year and a day, everyone knew that those people would not be their usual bright shiny selves, and might not be working quite as well as everyone else.
Friends who've been through it told me last year, "It [grief] takes longer than you think it will," and that's the truth. Grief is like a lighthouse, it turns and flashes at intervals. Over time, the intervals get longer, but the beam's just as sharp when it hits. I miss Mom, and so do my sisters and brothers. We always will, and that's the way it's supposed to be.
At any rate, I wasn't terribly productive yesterday, and today promises to be not much better. I'm headed to Portland right now to see Richard Ford speak at the Portland Public Library, and plan to be back up to full speed tomorrow. (I'll still wear a lot of black, though. I always did, but not in a Morrissey kind of way.)
First Five Random Songs:
"(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," Elvis Costello & the Attractions. The Strokes, the Arctic Monkeys, the Shins, none of those guys would exist if Elvis hadn't done it first.
"Maybe It's Imaginary," Kirsty MacColl. "I don't know much/But I'd like to know why." Exactly.
"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," The Beatles. My favorite Beatles song. It's one of John's. We've discussed this.
"La La," Cortney Tidwell. This CD was a gift, I'd never have discovered her otherwise. She sounds a little like Kate Bush, a little like Bjork, a little like the girl from Sixpence None the Richer. It's a sound that grows on you.
"Whiskey Bottle," Uncle Tupelo. I once startled a friend by quoting this song -- it's one of my brother Ed's favorite lines: "Whiskey bottle over Jesus/Not forever, just for now."
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Where did the name "United Kingdom" come from?
Who's asking: Jennifer Lechner, Freeport, ME
The song says, "There'll Always Be an England," and there pretty much always has been an England -- since the eighth century, at least, when Egbert of Wessex first unified Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
Since then England has been the Pac-Man of nations, gobbling up everything around it (Americans got the idea from somewhere). England and Wales were formally united in 1536; England became "Great Britain" with the annexation of Scotland, in 1707; and "the United Kingdom" formed in 1801, with the addition of Ireland.
The country's official name at that time was "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." Since 1927, it's been "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
The "Home Counties," a phrase that comes up frequently in historical British mysteries, are the counties closest to London: Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, and (formerly) Berkshire and Middlesex. The designation comes from the old circuit Court of Assize, in which judges from London would travel around the Home Counties to hear cases during periodically-scheduled sessions. Now the phrase refers to the area considered commuting distance from London.
The song says, "There'll Always Be an England," and there pretty much always has been an England -- since the eighth century, at least, when Egbert of Wessex first unified Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
Since then England has been the Pac-Man of nations, gobbling up everything around it (Americans got the idea from somewhere). England and Wales were formally united in 1536; England became "Great Britain" with the annexation of Scotland, in 1707; and "the United Kingdom" formed in 1801, with the addition of Ireland.
The country's official name at that time was "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." Since 1927, it's been "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
The "Home Counties," a phrase that comes up frequently in historical British mysteries, are the counties closest to London: Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, and (formerly) Berkshire and Middlesex. The designation comes from the old circuit Court of Assize, in which judges from London would travel around the Home Counties to hear cases during periodically-scheduled sessions. Now the phrase refers to the area considered commuting distance from London.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Was the Barbie doll based on a real person?
Who's asking: Richard Bostwick, Hallowell, ME
Before I get to this answer, let me state for the record that I have never owned a Barbie doll. Mom did not approve of them. My younger sisters, Peggy and Susan, had Barbies -- originally a gift from our dad, who I guess didn't get the memo -- but I never did, and as far as I know, my twin sister Kathy never did, either. To this day, I wonder whether having a Barbie would have made me a girlier girl, or whether I didn't insist on having a Barbie because I wasn't a girly girl. Too late now, in any case.
Anyway, according to Barbie's official biography, Mattel Toys' co-founder Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll because her daughter, Barbara, had no three-dimensional dolls to play with that weren't baby dolls. Ruth and Elliott Handler introduced the Barbie doll at the American Toy Fair in 1959, and Barbie was among the first toys to have a nationwide television marketing campaign. The rest, as they say, is history.
But it's not the whole story. Before there was Barbie, there was a German doll named Lilli -- the same height as Barbie, the same blonde ponytail -- except that Lilli was the plastic representation of a Bild Zeitung cartoon character who... uh... traded one type of favor for another. In her book Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll, M.G. Lord describes the process of transforming Lilli -- originally designed to be a gag gift for men -- into something suitable for American pre-teens.
Now, of course, women spend a great deal of money trying to look like Barbie. If the original Barbie doll had been a real woman, her measurements would be 39-18-33; a few years back, Mattel reduced Barbie's bust size and made her waist a little bigger, but she's still not a realistic representation of a woman.
As the immortal line from Sid and Nancy goes, "I'll never look like Barbie. Barbie doesn't have bruises."
In other news, the first-ever Mystery Bookstore podcast is now live. I'm talking with Don Bruns, Jim Fusilli and Nathan Walpow about the stories and songs in their recent anthology from Poisoned Pen, A Merry Band of Murderers. To listen, go to iTunes, choose Podcast, click on "Advanced" from the toolbar menu, and then subscribe to http://www.mystery-bookstore.com/podcasts/rss.xml. Because this was the first one, there are a couple of technical glitches -- you can hear buzzing at a couple of points -- but we'll sort that out in future episodes.
Before I get to this answer, let me state for the record that I have never owned a Barbie doll. Mom did not approve of them. My younger sisters, Peggy and Susan, had Barbies -- originally a gift from our dad, who I guess didn't get the memo -- but I never did, and as far as I know, my twin sister Kathy never did, either. To this day, I wonder whether having a Barbie would have made me a girlier girl, or whether I didn't insist on having a Barbie because I wasn't a girly girl. Too late now, in any case.
Anyway, according to Barbie's official biography, Mattel Toys' co-founder Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll because her daughter, Barbara, had no three-dimensional dolls to play with that weren't baby dolls. Ruth and Elliott Handler introduced the Barbie doll at the American Toy Fair in 1959, and Barbie was among the first toys to have a nationwide television marketing campaign. The rest, as they say, is history.
But it's not the whole story. Before there was Barbie, there was a German doll named Lilli -- the same height as Barbie, the same blonde ponytail -- except that Lilli was the plastic representation of a Bild Zeitung cartoon character who... uh... traded one type of favor for another. In her book Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll, M.G. Lord describes the process of transforming Lilli -- originally designed to be a gag gift for men -- into something suitable for American pre-teens.
Now, of course, women spend a great deal of money trying to look like Barbie. If the original Barbie doll had been a real woman, her measurements would be 39-18-33; a few years back, Mattel reduced Barbie's bust size and made her waist a little bigger, but she's still not a realistic representation of a woman.
As the immortal line from Sid and Nancy goes, "I'll never look like Barbie. Barbie doesn't have bruises."
In other news, the first-ever Mystery Bookstore podcast is now live. I'm talking with Don Bruns, Jim Fusilli and Nathan Walpow about the stories and songs in their recent anthology from Poisoned Pen, A Merry Band of Murderers. To listen, go to iTunes, choose Podcast, click on "Advanced" from the toolbar menu, and then subscribe to http://www.mystery-bookstore.com/podcasts/rss.xml. Because this was the first one, there are a couple of technical glitches -- you can hear buzzing at a couple of points -- but we'll sort that out in future episodes.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Photo of the week
It's snowing here, with total accumulation of up to six inches expected. My own winter began in earnest this morning, when I took my first fall on the ice. It was bound to happen... no real damage, but my best pair of black slacks may be permanently mud-grimed.
This photo's old, but I like it... Dizzy was waiting for Santa, or something.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
What is the difference between blue cheese and Gorgonzola?
Who's asking: An anonymous Google searcher from somewhere in North America
Mmm, blue cheese. Did you know that blue cheese provides the distinctive flavor of Cheetos® and other delicious puffed cheese snacks? Well, it does. (Which begs the next question: why, then, are cheese puffs orange and not blue-gray? Then again, would you eat a blue-gray snack food? Possibly not.)
Anyway, "blue cheese" is a descriptive phrase that encompasses dozens of different cow's, sheep's or goat's milk cheeses that are made with the Penicillium mold. (Next question: does blue cheese have antibiotic properties? I'm still researching this one, but Civil War surgeons did pack wounds with moldy bread.)
Gorgonzola is one of the oldest of the blue cheeses, dating back to at least the ninth century. Food historians say the distinctive blue mold on Gorgonzola developed accidentally around the 11th century, but was deliberately cultivated after that. (Gorgonzola was, at the time, a village near Milan; now it is part of the Milanese suburbs.)
Most blue cheeses are named after their places of origin: Maytag Blue comes from Iowa, Roquefort and Bleu de Bresse come from France, Stilton and Double Gloucester come from England, and so on.
One food website I found suggested having a blue-cheese tasting party, with port wine and burgundy as accompaniments. This sounds like a great idea to me... we're supposed to get an ice storm tomorrow night, so maybe I'll just stock up for a party of my own. You're welcome to stop by if you can get here.
Mmm, blue cheese. Did you know that blue cheese provides the distinctive flavor of Cheetos® and other delicious puffed cheese snacks? Well, it does. (Which begs the next question: why, then, are cheese puffs orange and not blue-gray? Then again, would you eat a blue-gray snack food? Possibly not.)
Anyway, "blue cheese" is a descriptive phrase that encompasses dozens of different cow's, sheep's or goat's milk cheeses that are made with the Penicillium mold. (Next question: does blue cheese have antibiotic properties? I'm still researching this one, but Civil War surgeons did pack wounds with moldy bread.)
Gorgonzola is one of the oldest of the blue cheeses, dating back to at least the ninth century. Food historians say the distinctive blue mold on Gorgonzola developed accidentally around the 11th century, but was deliberately cultivated after that. (Gorgonzola was, at the time, a village near Milan; now it is part of the Milanese suburbs.)
Most blue cheeses are named after their places of origin: Maytag Blue comes from Iowa, Roquefort and Bleu de Bresse come from France, Stilton and Double Gloucester come from England, and so on.
One food website I found suggested having a blue-cheese tasting party, with port wine and burgundy as accompaniments. This sounds like a great idea to me... we're supposed to get an ice storm tomorrow night, so maybe I'll just stock up for a party of my own. You're welcome to stop by if you can get here.
Friday, January 12, 2007
If Macs are so great, why doesn't everyone have one?
Who's asking: Jennifer Lechner, Freeport, ME
At the end of my first week as a Mac user, I can only think of three reasons the entire country hasn't switched to Macs: ignorance, laziness and habit.
That's why I hadn't switched, anyway. Contrary to appearances, I am one of the most habit-bound, change-averse people I know. Big changes I can do; little changes make me so anxious they can paralyze me. (A couple of months ago, I switched toothpastes on a whim -- my new brand is Tom's of Maine, cinnamon/clove, and it rocks -- but for two weeks, I kept looking for the old tube of Colgate in my bathroom cabinet, and feeling panicky when I couldn't find it.)
But now that I have a Mac, after all that kicking and screaming, I can't believe it took me so long. In the words of my friend John Erath, I have drunk the Mac Kool-Aid. Every day I discover something new that it does, and it's all so easy it boggles my mind. I didn't have to load a printer driver on this machine; I just plugged in my old printer, and it worked. Same thing with the digital camera. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to store and move files around, but now that I have, that's easier than on PCs, too.
I'm still getting used to a couple of things. The "delete" key is just a backspace, and that annoys me. The aspect ratio of documents in Word is different than on my old machine -- but is the aspect ratio of a physical sheet of paper, so that makes more sense than the PC Word display.
But those are minor. I love the deck at the bottom of my screen, which shows all the programs available to me; the "e" for Entourage bounces adorably every time a new e-mail comes in. The picture quality on my screen is better than any PC I've ever had. The built-in speakers are quite good, though I might get some external ones (I've been warned: the urge to accessorize is the biggest danger of Mac ownership). This weekend I'll be launching the first in a series of podcast interviews for The Mystery Bookstore, and these will be entirely self-produced (by the store's computer guru and myself) on Mac software.
It's a whole new Mac world, and I like it. Join me, my friends! (Okay, that part where I said I wouldn't proselytize? Changed my mind.)
What I Read This Week
One of my New Year's resolutions was to make my way through the pile of paperback originals I've gotten from publishers over the last several months. In the last week or so, I've started four, and set them all aside at page 50. Shockingly, dismayingly bad, every one of them. This will be the subject of a longer post at a future date. In the meantime, I did finish...
Alexander McCall Smith, The Right Attitude to Rain. I needed something restful, but this was a little too restful. The third Isabel Dalhousie novel finds the Scottish philosopher wrestling with questions of love and loyalty, and ends with a surprise that -- I hope -- will liven things up a bit. Isabel's habit of questioning everything she does is charming at first, but distances the reader instead of making us feel closer to her. Frustrating, and I don't know whether I'll stick with this series.
Donna M. Lacey, Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age. John Armstrong "Archie" Chanler, an heir to the Astor fortune, married best-selling Southern novelist Amelie Rives in 1888. For the next seven years they drove each other crazy, as Amelie flirted with a serious of famous and infamous men and Archie pursued his dreams of building an industrial utopia at Roanoke Rapids, NC. Amelie was addicted to morphine; Archie believed he could channel supernatural wisdom through automatic writing, and that he could reshape his face to look like Napoleon's death mask. It ended badly, with Amelie marrying the artist Pierre Troubetskoy and Archie committed to Bloomingdale Asylum -- but the story is fascinating.
It's still National De-lurking Week, and only two people identified themselves yesterday... so if you're stopping by today, won't you please leave a comment to say hello in person? Thanks!
At the end of my first week as a Mac user, I can only think of three reasons the entire country hasn't switched to Macs: ignorance, laziness and habit.
That's why I hadn't switched, anyway. Contrary to appearances, I am one of the most habit-bound, change-averse people I know. Big changes I can do; little changes make me so anxious they can paralyze me. (A couple of months ago, I switched toothpastes on a whim -- my new brand is Tom's of Maine, cinnamon/clove, and it rocks -- but for two weeks, I kept looking for the old tube of Colgate in my bathroom cabinet, and feeling panicky when I couldn't find it.)
But now that I have a Mac, after all that kicking and screaming, I can't believe it took me so long. In the words of my friend John Erath, I have drunk the Mac Kool-Aid. Every day I discover something new that it does, and it's all so easy it boggles my mind. I didn't have to load a printer driver on this machine; I just plugged in my old printer, and it worked. Same thing with the digital camera. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to store and move files around, but now that I have, that's easier than on PCs, too.
I'm still getting used to a couple of things. The "delete" key is just a backspace, and that annoys me. The aspect ratio of documents in Word is different than on my old machine -- but is the aspect ratio of a physical sheet of paper, so that makes more sense than the PC Word display.
But those are minor. I love the deck at the bottom of my screen, which shows all the programs available to me; the "e" for Entourage bounces adorably every time a new e-mail comes in. The picture quality on my screen is better than any PC I've ever had. The built-in speakers are quite good, though I might get some external ones (I've been warned: the urge to accessorize is the biggest danger of Mac ownership). This weekend I'll be launching the first in a series of podcast interviews for The Mystery Bookstore, and these will be entirely self-produced (by the store's computer guru and myself) on Mac software.
It's a whole new Mac world, and I like it. Join me, my friends! (Okay, that part where I said I wouldn't proselytize? Changed my mind.)
What I Read This Week
One of my New Year's resolutions was to make my way through the pile of paperback originals I've gotten from publishers over the last several months. In the last week or so, I've started four, and set them all aside at page 50. Shockingly, dismayingly bad, every one of them. This will be the subject of a longer post at a future date. In the meantime, I did finish...
Alexander McCall Smith, The Right Attitude to Rain. I needed something restful, but this was a little too restful. The third Isabel Dalhousie novel finds the Scottish philosopher wrestling with questions of love and loyalty, and ends with a surprise that -- I hope -- will liven things up a bit. Isabel's habit of questioning everything she does is charming at first, but distances the reader instead of making us feel closer to her. Frustrating, and I don't know whether I'll stick with this series.
Donna M. Lacey, Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age. John Armstrong "Archie" Chanler, an heir to the Astor fortune, married best-selling Southern novelist Amelie Rives in 1888. For the next seven years they drove each other crazy, as Amelie flirted with a serious of famous and infamous men and Archie pursued his dreams of building an industrial utopia at Roanoke Rapids, NC. Amelie was addicted to morphine; Archie believed he could channel supernatural wisdom through automatic writing, and that he could reshape his face to look like Napoleon's death mask. It ended badly, with Amelie marrying the artist Pierre Troubetskoy and Archie committed to Bloomingdale Asylum -- but the story is fascinating.
It's still National De-lurking Week, and only two people identified themselves yesterday... so if you're stopping by today, won't you please leave a comment to say hello in person? Thanks!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Are elephants more closely related to pigs or to cows?
Who's asking: Patrick Miller, Jacksonville, FL
Actually, neither. While elephants, pigs and cows are all mammals, elephants belong to their own lonely order, Proboscidea, which includes elephants, mammoths, and several other species that are now extinct.
Biologists put animals together according to what they have in common, and at one time they thought that elephants' thick skin was similar to the skin of pigs, so the two species must be related. As they looked more closely, however, they saw that pigs and elephants don't really have that much in common. Now taxonomists believe that the two living sets of animals most closely related to the elephant are the hyrax and the sea cow ("sirenians" -- isn't that a great name? -- manatees and dugongs).
The idea that elephants might be related to manatees makes some sense. But hyraxes?
At first glance, one of these things is not like the others. But since 1945, taxonomists have placed the three types of animals in a superorder called Paenungulates, whose distinguishing feature has something to do with the amino acid sequences in their red blood cells.
I'm guessing they don't schedule many family reunions, though.
In other news, it has come to my attention that this is National Delurking Week in Blogworld. I've already done my part on another site, commenting on a forum I visit often but never post to -- and immediately getting into a snarky argument with a frequent poster. Sometimes it's best just to lurk... but today and tomorrow, if you visit here often and never comment, won't you just sign in and say who you are and where you're visiting from? I'll be fascinated. Thanks.
Actually, neither. While elephants, pigs and cows are all mammals, elephants belong to their own lonely order, Proboscidea, which includes elephants, mammoths, and several other species that are now extinct.
Biologists put animals together according to what they have in common, and at one time they thought that elephants' thick skin was similar to the skin of pigs, so the two species must be related. As they looked more closely, however, they saw that pigs and elephants don't really have that much in common. Now taxonomists believe that the two living sets of animals most closely related to the elephant are the hyrax and the sea cow ("sirenians" -- isn't that a great name? -- manatees and dugongs).
The idea that elephants might be related to manatees makes some sense. But hyraxes?
At first glance, one of these things is not like the others. But since 1945, taxonomists have placed the three types of animals in a superorder called Paenungulates, whose distinguishing feature has something to do with the amino acid sequences in their red blood cells.
I'm guessing they don't schedule many family reunions, though.
In other news, it has come to my attention that this is National Delurking Week in Blogworld. I've already done my part on another site, commenting on a forum I visit often but never post to -- and immediately getting into a snarky argument with a frequent poster. Sometimes it's best just to lurk... but today and tomorrow, if you visit here often and never comment, won't you just sign in and say who you are and where you're visiting from? I'll be fascinated. Thanks.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
What happened to the "B" batteries?
Who's asking: Matthew and Henry Lavinder, Mechanicsville, VA
Have I mentioned that my three-year-old nephews are ridiculously bright children, and paragons in every way? Well, they are.
Santa Claus was extra good to them this year, and brought them a number of toys that require batteries. (This is something that seems to disappear in adulthood. The only batteries I ever buy any more are for my toothbrush and my remote controls. Why don't I have cool battery-operated toys? Wait, don't answer that.)
Anyway, the boys were shopping with their mother for C batteries, and Peggy went through the battery display with them: AA, AAA, AAAA, C, D, nine-volt. Where, the boys wanted to know, was B?
B batteries are no longer widely available because nothing uses them any more. Old radios used to operate on vacuum tubes that required two different batteries: an "A" battery to heat the vacuum tube, and a "B" battery that ran the rest of the radio. Improvements in technology did away with vacuum tubes in consumer electronics, which ended the need for the "A" and "B" batteries.
Before I forget, a very happy birthday today to Mr. Tod Goldberg, who may now officially be too old to be called wunderkind any more.
Five Random Songs
I skipped this last week because I had no access to my iTunes. The new MacBook has brought my iTunes back in all their glory. Hurray.
"You Will," Too Much Joy. Back in the late '90s, this was really sharp satire about telecommunications advertising campaigns. Now I have been faxed at the beach, and it doesn't feel so funny any more.
"The Busy Girl Buys Beauty," Billy Bragg. Ooh, it's Mock the Consumer Society morning on my iPod Shuffle! Did everyone read the New York Times article last week about how those fancy skin products do no good at all? My devotion to Oil of Olay has been vindicated.
"Come, Let Us Go Back to God," the Soul Stirrers. From The Ladykillers soundtrack, which I've raved about before.
"You Won't Have to Cry," The Byrds. No one sounds like them, even now.
"Yesterday," The Beatles. Some Beatles songs are so familiar that we don't really listen to them anymore -- and then one might catch us by surprise, as this one did, and we hear it as new and realize what geniuses these guys were. If you haven't listened to "Yesterday" or "Hey Jude" lately on headphones, by themselves and without distraction, I recommend that you do so, just to restore your sense of wonder.
Have I mentioned that my three-year-old nephews are ridiculously bright children, and paragons in every way? Well, they are.
Santa Claus was extra good to them this year, and brought them a number of toys that require batteries. (This is something that seems to disappear in adulthood. The only batteries I ever buy any more are for my toothbrush and my remote controls. Why don't I have cool battery-operated toys? Wait, don't answer that.)
Anyway, the boys were shopping with their mother for C batteries, and Peggy went through the battery display with them: AA, AAA, AAAA, C, D, nine-volt. Where, the boys wanted to know, was B?
B batteries are no longer widely available because nothing uses them any more. Old radios used to operate on vacuum tubes that required two different batteries: an "A" battery to heat the vacuum tube, and a "B" battery that ran the rest of the radio. Improvements in technology did away with vacuum tubes in consumer electronics, which ended the need for the "A" and "B" batteries.
Before I forget, a very happy birthday today to Mr. Tod Goldberg, who may now officially be too old to be called wunderkind any more.
Five Random Songs
I skipped this last week because I had no access to my iTunes. The new MacBook has brought my iTunes back in all their glory. Hurray.
"You Will," Too Much Joy. Back in the late '90s, this was really sharp satire about telecommunications advertising campaigns. Now I have been faxed at the beach, and it doesn't feel so funny any more.
"The Busy Girl Buys Beauty," Billy Bragg. Ooh, it's Mock the Consumer Society morning on my iPod Shuffle! Did everyone read the New York Times article last week about how those fancy skin products do no good at all? My devotion to Oil of Olay has been vindicated.
"Come, Let Us Go Back to God," the Soul Stirrers. From The Ladykillers soundtrack, which I've raved about before.
"You Won't Have to Cry," The Byrds. No one sounds like them, even now.
"Yesterday," The Beatles. Some Beatles songs are so familiar that we don't really listen to them anymore -- and then one might catch us by surprise, as this one did, and we hear it as new and realize what geniuses these guys were. If you haven't listened to "Yesterday" or "Hey Jude" lately on headphones, by themselves and without distraction, I recommend that you do so, just to restore your sense of wonder.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
How does skywriting work?
Who's asking: Carl Lavinder, Martinsville, VA
Any plane that leaves a condensation trail (contrail) can skywrite, theoretically. In practice, most skywriting is done by single-engine planes that force compressed vapor, mixed with a small amount of low-viscosity oil, through their exhaust system. Early pilots used a mixture of liquid paraffin; pilots today probably use something fancier.
Either way, skywriting doesn't last long. Each skywritten letter or figure is approximately a mile long and a mile wide, and winds scatter the vapor quickly. A letter or two at a time is all most single planes can manage, before the text blows away. To get around this problem, advertising pilots developed the technique of skytyping, which requires several planes working together to produce text, in a manner similar to a dot-matrix printer.
When I read this, the first question that popped into my mind was, "Well, how did the Wicked Witch write 'Surrender Dorothy' in The Wizard of Oz, then?" It turns out that that wasn't skywriting at all. Jack McMaster, the special-effects man for The Wizard of Oz, created the effect in a water tank, using dyed canned milk forced through a hypodermic needle (the witch's broom).
Sometimes I'd rather not know these things. Next, someone will probably write in and tell me the flying monkeys aren't real, either.
Any plane that leaves a condensation trail (contrail) can skywrite, theoretically. In practice, most skywriting is done by single-engine planes that force compressed vapor, mixed with a small amount of low-viscosity oil, through their exhaust system. Early pilots used a mixture of liquid paraffin; pilots today probably use something fancier.
Either way, skywriting doesn't last long. Each skywritten letter or figure is approximately a mile long and a mile wide, and winds scatter the vapor quickly. A letter or two at a time is all most single planes can manage, before the text blows away. To get around this problem, advertising pilots developed the technique of skytyping, which requires several planes working together to produce text, in a manner similar to a dot-matrix printer.
When I read this, the first question that popped into my mind was, "Well, how did the Wicked Witch write 'Surrender Dorothy' in The Wizard of Oz, then?" It turns out that that wasn't skywriting at all. Jack McMaster, the special-effects man for The Wizard of Oz, created the effect in a water tank, using dyed canned milk forced through a hypodermic needle (the witch's broom).
Sometimes I'd rather not know these things. Next, someone will probably write in and tell me the flying monkeys aren't real, either.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Does my cat know she's a cat?
Who's asking: John Schramm, Tracy, CA
John Schramm says he thought to ask this question when he showed one of his pets its reflection in a mirror; he says the cat looked at himself for a moment, then tried to clamber.
Believe it or not, scientists have done a lot of research into this question of whether animals are self-aware, and showing animals mirror images of themselves is one way they do it. So far, the only animals that seem to be able to recognize themselves in a mirror are humans, great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans), dolphins, and elephants -- and even elephants can't do it, most of the time.
It's not even clear that what most animals see in a mirror looks like another animal to them. Cats and dogs see motion, more than anything else, and static images don't interest them. Dizzy adores Chris and Claire, for example, but doesn't pay any attention to photographs of them. He'd be much more interested in a tape recording of their voices, or in the smell of something they'd recently handled.
The deeper question here is whether cats and dogs have any idea of Catness or Dogness, and the answer is maybe. Cats, particularly, are predators, and predators divide the world into Prey and Predators, including things that might prey on them. Humans are neither, so cats seems to consider us either large and incompetent kittens (which is why they bring us their kills, since we're too feeble to be able to kill our own food) or intransigent tools.
Either way, it's rare for cat owners to say, "My cat thinks she's human," which is something you hear dog owners say all the time. In fact, this is backwards; a well-trained dog does not think it's human, it thinks humans are other dogs. Responsible dog training is based on the idea of adapting your dog's instinctive pack behavior to a pack of humans (or mixed humans and other animals). Dogs like order, and they want to know where they belong.
At the moment my own dog is damp and smelly, after a long walk in the pouring rain. He wanted to go, and I needed the exercise. At least it's not ice, which is what we were supposed to get this morning.
John Schramm says he thought to ask this question when he showed one of his pets its reflection in a mirror; he says the cat looked at himself for a moment, then tried to clamber.
Believe it or not, scientists have done a lot of research into this question of whether animals are self-aware, and showing animals mirror images of themselves is one way they do it. So far, the only animals that seem to be able to recognize themselves in a mirror are humans, great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans), dolphins, and elephants -- and even elephants can't do it, most of the time.
It's not even clear that what most animals see in a mirror looks like another animal to them. Cats and dogs see motion, more than anything else, and static images don't interest them. Dizzy adores Chris and Claire, for example, but doesn't pay any attention to photographs of them. He'd be much more interested in a tape recording of their voices, or in the smell of something they'd recently handled.
The deeper question here is whether cats and dogs have any idea of Catness or Dogness, and the answer is maybe. Cats, particularly, are predators, and predators divide the world into Prey and Predators, including things that might prey on them. Humans are neither, so cats seems to consider us either large and incompetent kittens (which is why they bring us their kills, since we're too feeble to be able to kill our own food) or intransigent tools.
Either way, it's rare for cat owners to say, "My cat thinks she's human," which is something you hear dog owners say all the time. In fact, this is backwards; a well-trained dog does not think it's human, it thinks humans are other dogs. Responsible dog training is based on the idea of adapting your dog's instinctive pack behavior to a pack of humans (or mixed humans and other animals). Dogs like order, and they want to know where they belong.
At the moment my own dog is damp and smelly, after a long walk in the pouring rain. He wanted to go, and I needed the exercise. At least it's not ice, which is what we were supposed to get this morning.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Is all baby babble the same language?
Who's asking: Anna Bragdon, China, ME
I'm paraphrasing Anna's question. She noticed that her not-quite-five-month old, Wyatt, makes the same noises as a child of similar age born in the United States, although Wyatt spent his first four months (plus nine months in the womb) in Korea.
So is all baby talk the same language, the way (presumably) all dog talk is the same language?
Actually, no -- but yes, too.
Scientists know that babies hear and respond to speech even before they're born. They don't know the meanings of words, but they recognize recurring sounds and rhythms of speech, and from a very early age, they are more likely to pay attention to speech that follows the rhythm of their mother's.
That said, researchers at the University of Texas have identified four word patterns common to all babies, regardless of nationality. Babies make these noises because of the shape of the human mouth and jaw: "ma-ma," "da-da," "ba-ba," and "ta-ta."
This explains why the word for "mother" in almost every human language begins with or includes that "ma" sound. The word for "father" almost always includes the sounds "da," "ba," or "pa," which is very close to "ba." Following those sounds quickly are "na" and "ya."
In Korean, the word for "mommy" is "umma" (UM-ma) and the word for "daddy" is "oppa" (OP-pah). So whether Wyatt is trying to say "umma," or "mama," he's making the same sounds.
I'm paraphrasing Anna's question. She noticed that her not-quite-five-month old, Wyatt, makes the same noises as a child of similar age born in the United States, although Wyatt spent his first four months (plus nine months in the womb) in Korea.
So is all baby talk the same language, the way (presumably) all dog talk is the same language?
Actually, no -- but yes, too.
Scientists know that babies hear and respond to speech even before they're born. They don't know the meanings of words, but they recognize recurring sounds and rhythms of speech, and from a very early age, they are more likely to pay attention to speech that follows the rhythm of their mother's.
That said, researchers at the University of Texas have identified four word patterns common to all babies, regardless of nationality. Babies make these noises because of the shape of the human mouth and jaw: "ma-ma," "da-da," "ba-ba," and "ta-ta."
This explains why the word for "mother" in almost every human language begins with or includes that "ma" sound. The word for "father" almost always includes the sounds "da," "ba," or "pa," which is very close to "ba." Following those sounds quickly are "na" and "ya."
In Korean, the word for "mommy" is "umma" (UM-ma) and the word for "daddy" is "oppa" (OP-pah). So whether Wyatt is trying to say "umma," or "mama," he's making the same sounds.
Friday, January 05, 2007
What I Read This Week
Crashing on a deadline today and out of questions to answer, so this will be short. (Send me some questions, folks -- leave them in the comments section, or e-mail me at LambLetters -at- gmail.com.)
Dan Simmons, The Terror. An epic horror novel about the doomed Sir John Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage, 1846-1849. It's not enough that they're frozen into the ice and darkness, with no means of communicating with the rest of the world and a rapidly-spoiling food supply; the men are being hunted by a monster who makes the ice its home. The only one who seems safe is the mysterious native woman Lady Silence, whose tongue is missing -- not cut off, but chewed. Fascinating, plausible, truly scary, a little long.
Jesse Kellerman, Trouble. Medical student Jonah Stem becomes a fifteen-minute hero when he saves a young woman from being killed on the street. But the NYPD wants to talk to him about the incident -- which left the woman's assailant dead -- the dead man's family is suing him, and the extra attention is just making his life harder. Then the woman herself shows up in Jonah's apartment, and his life is turned completely upside down. Trouble is a terrific, perceptive, paranoid thriller; I read it in a single sitting, which almost never happens any more.
Dan Simmons, The Terror. An epic horror novel about the doomed Sir John Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage, 1846-1849. It's not enough that they're frozen into the ice and darkness, with no means of communicating with the rest of the world and a rapidly-spoiling food supply; the men are being hunted by a monster who makes the ice its home. The only one who seems safe is the mysterious native woman Lady Silence, whose tongue is missing -- not cut off, but chewed. Fascinating, plausible, truly scary, a little long.
Jesse Kellerman, Trouble. Medical student Jonah Stem becomes a fifteen-minute hero when he saves a young woman from being killed on the street. But the NYPD wants to talk to him about the incident -- which left the woman's assailant dead -- the dead man's family is suing him, and the extra attention is just making his life harder. Then the woman herself shows up in Jonah's apartment, and his life is turned completely upside down. Trouble is a terrific, perceptive, paranoid thriller; I read it in a single sitting, which almost never happens any more.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
What happens when you flip your rearview mirror and how does it work to cut the glare?
Who's asking: Tod Goldberg, La Quinta, CA
Did you ever notice that your car's rear-view mirror isn't just a flat piece of glass, but a whole capsule with glass at the front? The glass you see at the front of the rear-view mirror is just that -- clear glass, not really a mirror. The mirror is behind the glass you see, and when you flip the rearview mirror up or down, you adjust the angle of the reflecting surface behind the glass.
If I knew how to draw online, I could show this more easily than words can express it. When the rear-view mirror is in its daytime position, the image of whatever's behind your car bounces directly off the reflecting surface at the back of your rear-view mirror, into your field of vision. When you flip the switch, the reflecting surface tilts so that it's looking at your car's ceiling. Light comes in your back window and passes through the front glass of the rearview mirror, bouncing off the angled reflecting surface at the back of the mirror and then back into your eye -- so the headlights you "see" in the mirror are actually reflections of a reflection, and much dimmer than if you were getting a head-on view or a single reflection.
Aren't optics cool? One of my favorite places in Santa Monica is the Camera Obscura in Palisades Park -- it is open to the public and free, just a big dark room where you can see the outside world reflected on a circular white table in the center of the room.
This is my very first post as a brand-new Mac user -- yes, it's happened, and I am now the proud owner of a gorgeous new MacBook. I feel a little like a newly-shaven Hare Krishna. I promise not to proselytize.
Did you ever notice that your car's rear-view mirror isn't just a flat piece of glass, but a whole capsule with glass at the front? The glass you see at the front of the rear-view mirror is just that -- clear glass, not really a mirror. The mirror is behind the glass you see, and when you flip the rearview mirror up or down, you adjust the angle of the reflecting surface behind the glass.
If I knew how to draw online, I could show this more easily than words can express it. When the rear-view mirror is in its daytime position, the image of whatever's behind your car bounces directly off the reflecting surface at the back of your rear-view mirror, into your field of vision. When you flip the switch, the reflecting surface tilts so that it's looking at your car's ceiling. Light comes in your back window and passes through the front glass of the rearview mirror, bouncing off the angled reflecting surface at the back of the mirror and then back into your eye -- so the headlights you "see" in the mirror are actually reflections of a reflection, and much dimmer than if you were getting a head-on view or a single reflection.
Aren't optics cool? One of my favorite places in Santa Monica is the Camera Obscura in Palisades Park -- it is open to the public and free, just a big dark room where you can see the outside world reflected on a circular white table in the center of the room.
This is my very first post as a brand-new Mac user -- yes, it's happened, and I am now the proud owner of a gorgeous new MacBook. I feel a little like a newly-shaven Hare Krishna. I promise not to proselytize.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Is it true that albino moose were seen in Greenville, Maine?
Who's asking: Richard Bostwick, Hallowell, ME
A photo's been circulating online of two albino moose, with an attached e-mail saying the photographer had seen the two near Greenville, which is a good bit north of here, on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake.
I can't confirm or debunk the existence of these particular moose -- one Maine wildlife website I visited said the same photo had been circulating about a year ago, and that the moose were actually in Canada.
But it's possible. Albinism occurs in 1 in 100,000 moose, and more often than that when herds with the trait inbreed, as seems to have happened in southeastern Idaho. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife estimates Maine's current moose population at 29,000, so that means the chances of seeing one albino moose, much less two, are awfully low.
I still haven't seen a live moose, and it's on my list of Things to Do in 2007. You can read all about them on the Fish & Wildlife site here.
A photo's been circulating online of two albino moose, with an attached e-mail saying the photographer had seen the two near Greenville, which is a good bit north of here, on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake.
I can't confirm or debunk the existence of these particular moose -- one Maine wildlife website I visited said the same photo had been circulating about a year ago, and that the moose were actually in Canada.
But it's possible. Albinism occurs in 1 in 100,000 moose, and more often than that when herds with the trait inbreed, as seems to have happened in southeastern Idaho. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife estimates Maine's current moose population at 29,000, so that means the chances of seeing one albino moose, much less two, are awfully low.
I still haven't seen a live moose, and it's on my list of Things to Do in 2007. You can read all about them on the Fish & Wildlife site here.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Are you back online?
Who's asking: Various people
Sort of. Because my computer is still under warranty, it will have to go back to the factory for assessment and repairs. It seems likely that the motherboard was blown, so I've retrieved what I needed from the hard drive and will be renting a new machine tomorrow. In the meantime, the Bragdons have kindly lent me an ancient laptop that has Microsoft Word and a dial-up modem, so I'm getting by. I'm posting this from the Gardiner Public Library, and long may it prosper.
Life and baseball are all about streaks and slumps, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I believe I'm slumping at the moment. The only remedy is to keep swinging, and wait for the streak to come back around.
Happy new year, everybody.
Sort of. Because my computer is still under warranty, it will have to go back to the factory for assessment and repairs. It seems likely that the motherboard was blown, so I've retrieved what I needed from the hard drive and will be renting a new machine tomorrow. In the meantime, the Bragdons have kindly lent me an ancient laptop that has Microsoft Word and a dial-up modem, so I'm getting by. I'm posting this from the Gardiner Public Library, and long may it prosper.
Life and baseball are all about streaks and slumps, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I believe I'm slumping at the moment. The only remedy is to keep swinging, and wait for the streak to come back around.
Happy new year, everybody.
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