It's Complicated

I know, I know, Father's Day is about all the good things dads do and how much we love them, and there'll be a lot of that in the next couple of days. Completely deserved. But when I read this excerpt, I remembered how, when my dad died, I found out that there are many, many people who aren't, or haven't been, all that close to theirs (as I wasn't with mine). So here it is, a moving, cautionary tale from delanceyplace.com:

Today's encore selection -- from Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin. Steve Martin's strained relationship with his father:

"My father, ... died in 1997 at age eighty-three, and afterward his friends told me how much they loved him. They told me how enjoyable he was, how outgoing he was, how funny and caring he was. I was surprised by these descriptions, because the number of funny or caring words that had passed between my father and me was few. ... When I was seven or eight years old, he suggested we play catch in the front yard. This offer to spend time together was so rare that I was confused about what I was supposed to do. We tossed the ball back and forth with cheerless formality. ...
   "My father, ... was not impressed [with my comedy act]. After my first appearance on Saturday Night Live, he wrote a bad review of me in his newsletter for the Newport Beach Association of Realtors, of which he was president: 'His performance did nothing to further his career.' ... I believe my father didn't like what I was doing in my work, and was embarrassed by it. Perhaps he thought his friends were embarrassed by it, too, and the review was to indicate that he was not sanctioning this new comedy. Later, he gave an interview in a

'Fate Has These Turns'*

"Battle of Waterloo" by William Sadler II

It was on June 18, 1815, that France's Napoleon Bonaparte lost it all, at the famous Battle of Waterloo, to England's Duke of Wellington ~ with the not inconsiderable help, it must be said, of forces from Prussia (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-duke-and-emperor.html). Small wonder, then, that while the British are whooping it up with reenactments, exhibits, and new monuments, the French are keeping rather quiet. Napoleon has always been a divisive figure, seen as either sinner or saint, sociopath or sage. Either way, the battle had ~ and continues to have ~ major repercussions and influence, not only on the two countries most directly involved, but on the entire continent. Writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was not thought to be exaggerating when he said, "Waterloo is not a battle; it is the changing face of the universe": http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/17/napoleon-dream-died-waterloo-200th-anniversary-triumph-reaction and (story, video) http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/17/opinions/roberts-waterloo-bicentennial/
   So how, exactly, did this truly historic encounter unfold?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zwtf34j
   * Victor Hugo (describing, in fact, this particular event), Les Misérables: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135

On the Pelota

Zincha is pumped                                                                                                  © Getty Images

There's a big-deal soccer competition going on in Chile right now (June 11-July 4), and it's quite possible that no one in the United States who's not of South American origin has ever heard of it. It's the Copa América, and it's only the oldest such competition in the world. As a public service, then, The Guardian has compiled a handy-dandy study guide about the event. A few highlights: the 10 countries that participate are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela; the official ball this year is the Nike Cachaña; this seems to be Uruguay's contest to lose ~ they're the biggest winners in Copa history, followed closely by Argentina; some of the meets have been particularly colorful (and I'm not talking about the mascots), politics invading the field as it sometimes does: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jun/17/copa-america-brief-history-conmebol?CMP=ema_565

Running on Empty

Columbia University

Hard to believe, but here it is ~ an engine powered by room-temperature water. Even harder to believe is the main component of this engine ~ a new material called hygroscopy-driven artificial muscles, or HYDRAs, living spores whose outer shell reacts to moisture. How does it work? Well, according to the article, "The engine is placed over a puddle of room-temperature water, creating a small enclosure. As the water on the surface naturally evaporates, the inside of the engine becomes slightly more humid. This triggers strips of HYDRAs to expand as they soak up some of the new-found humidity. Collectively, these HYDRAs pull on a cord which is attached to a small electromagnetic generator, transforming the cord's movement into energy." Granted, we're talking small engine here, but the potential seems almost limitless (story, videos, GIFs): http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a16045/evaporation-engine/

One By One

In 1976, 37.4 percent of Americans age 16 and older were single; by 2014, that number had jumped to 50.2 percent. But what, exactly, qualifies as "single"? Does it mean "unattached," or does it simply mean "unmarried"? In other words, does someone who lives with a partner qualify as "single"? "Once you recognize that the two-parent, two-kid family that married at 22 and are together till the end of their lives is a rarity these days, everything else seems less unusual,” says Hugh Ryan, who considers himself single even though he recently bought a house with, and shares it with, two other men. However it's defined, singledom seems to be booming. "Almost half of new births are to unmarried mothers," according to this article. "The number of parents living together but not married has tripled. And the number of American adults who have never been married is at a historic high, around 20 percent." It's a trend that shows no signs of slowing or reversing itself, and perhaps the question to ask here is, Is there any reason it should?: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0614/Singles-nation-Why-so-many-Americans-are-unmarried

We Are Stardust

NASA

"There is a wind that blows from the heart of dying stars, a wind so strong that it reshapes the atoms in its path and drives them out as spindrift into space." So begins this poetic piece on the ways the finding of a specific iron isotope on a rock brought up from the ocean floor ~ and the absence of a specific plutonium isotope on Earth ~ could change our theories about our planet and the history of the solar system. Even if it doesn't, the author says, the link such discoveries highlight between the geological and the cosmological, between the smallest thing we know and the largest, is a source of wonder and nuance: http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/oliver-morton/stars

The Playground's the Thing

Patrick Giblin

You may never look at playgrounds the same way after you've seen City Museum in St. Louis. Always under construction of one sort or another, it opened in 1997 on the site of the International Shoe Company and covers 600,000 square feet. And when you've got that much room to play with, you'd better get inventive. Which they have. In addition to the aquarium, ball pits, and Ferris wheel (on the roof, of course), there's the cantilevered school bus, hundreds of feet of tunnels, two 10-story slides, a restaurant, and ~ get this ~ a bar, among other pleasures (story, tons of pix): http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/06/city-museum/?src=footer

Dog Really Is Your Copilot

 

According to a study conducted at Kyoto University, dogs are very loyal, maybe even more so than your human best friend. “We discovered for the first time that dogs make social and emotional evaluations of people regardless of their direct interest,” reports lead researcher Kazuo Fujita. How did they determine this? By having their test dogs be offered a treat by someone they saw being mean to their owner and someone who was neutral to their owner. Consistently, the dogs refused to take food from the mean person: http://qz.com/426907/scientific-proof-that-your-dog-is-on-your-side/

Just Because: 'First Love'

Arnaldo Reyes

OK, I'll admit it. I'm posting this poem because it strikes a really deep, resonant note in my soul and solar plexus. But I'm willing to bet it speaks a universal truth that many can relate to. The poet, Jennifer Franklin, explains its origin: "This poem was written on a napkin in Brandy's Piano Bar in New York's upper east side. Brandy's is a remnant of old(er) New York where a solo featured pianist and a handful of bartenders take turns playing 80s ballads, Bob Dylan, and the standards. We arrived, close to last call on a bitterly cold February night ... Just before close, two patrons asked if they could usurp the piano and mic for a three-song set. They were brilliant. Their set happened to be the nostalgia of my childhood jukebox, presented as spontaneous and ironic, but nonetheless sincere and therefore sad." From poem-a-day:

The boy beside me
is not you but he
is familiar in all

the important ways.
I pass through life
finding you over

and over again—
oppress you
with love. And every

surrogate?
Afflicted by my
kindness, they leave

me with my music.
I loved you before
I ever loved you.

Monitor on Board

Board Formula

At some point in November, if you happen to be out in the vicinity of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, you will be witness to an interesting sight ~ 50 scientists and researchers from that venerable institution taking to the waves on their surfboards. While they'll probably enjoy their time out there, their purpose is to test a new fin. Called the Smartphin, it's the brainchild of a professor-of-neurology-turned-filmmaker and a surfer getting his PhD in structural engineering. What makes it smart is the sensors embedded in it that will collect data on water temperature, salinity, acidity, and wave signature. If all goes well, the next step will be to convince surfers to swap out their old fins for a smart one: http://www.outsideonline.com/1982296/surfers-acidification

Where Did Bashō Gō?

Bashō on the road

So who is this Bashō, and which back roads did he take to which far towns and places (see post directly below this one)? Born Matsuo Kinsaku in 1644, in the Iga Province of Japan, he became the most famous haiku (or hokku) poet of his day. And really, his haikus are so open and honest, so real and so evocative as to touch all the senses at once. For example, this one:
an ancient pond
a frog jumps in
the splash of water
   He was a restless spirit, by all accounts, but he also had a sense of humor:
now then, let's go out
to enjoy the snow ... until
I slip and fall!
   Around 1682, Bashō ("Matsuo" was his family name, "Bashō" a pen name he took on after receiving a gift of bashō trees from a student) began the first of the many months-long walking journeys that

Just Because: 'Back Roads to Far Towns After Bashō'

Along with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, and William S. Burroughs, among others, writer and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (né Lawrence Monsanto Ferling in 1919 ~ his Italian immigrant father, who died six months before he was born, had shortened the family name, but Ferlinghetti went back to the original) is considered one of the premier voices of the Beat movement of the 1950s. According to The Literature Network, "The years immediately after the Second World War saw a wholesale reappraisal of the conventional structures of society. Just as the postwar economic boom was taking hold, students in universities were beginning to question the rampant materialism of their society. The Beat Generation was a product of this questioning. They saw runaway capitalism as destructive to the human spirit and antithetical to social equality. In addition to their dissatisfaction with consumer culture, the Beats railed against the stifling prudery of their parents’ generation": http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php
   Ferlinghetti founded City Lights magazine and then the iconic bookstore of the same name in San Francisco, which was a gathering place for Beat artists, and in this way, in addition to through his writing, he was a major influence in the movement. His book Back Roads to Far Towns After Bashō, published in 1970 and a year later under the title Back Roads to Far Places, is one long poem, written in his hand. Here is an excerpt:

Make it new!
                                                                 Make it new!
cried the parrot
                                                                                 to the mockingbird
We were born
                                                                 under the mulberry trees
from which drop
                                                                                             the mynah birds of madness
And fish float
                                                                 thru the trees
eating the seeds
                                                                                         of the sun

High-Tech Hotel

inside the NH Collection Madrid Eurobuilding

Just in time for summer vacation, that's "high-tech" as in wireless charging, Bluetooth furniture, chrome glass walls, and hologram presentations. As in Bluetooth room keys, projector TV in the bathrooms, and under-bed sensor lights. Really. Only thing is, so far, you can get all this at one hotel ~ and that's in Madrid (as if you needed that excuse to go there). But it may not be long before every Motel 6, Hampton Inn, and Super 8 ... Yeah, right! (story, videos): https://www.yahoo.com/travel/this-high-tech-hotel-room-will-blow-your-mind-121053998252.html

A Race of Robots

Running Man scores another point               Daniel Terdiman for Fast Company

"I instantly see there's a gulf in performance between the top robots and all the others. A handful of bots can't even get out of the vehicle they drive to the start of the course. At one point, the Atlas robot from Hong Kong University spills head-first out of its vehicle, tearing its hydraulic lines and spraying fluid in an arc." So begins an account of the finals at DARPA's Robotics Challenge on June 5-6. It is, according to the article, "the world's most important robotics competition," testing as it does the skills a robot would need in a real-life disaster. The participants drive vehicles, climb stairs, and cut through walls. Some perform most of the tasks automatically and others are completely human-controlled. By the end, the field is narrowed down to the KAIST humanoid, Running Man, Tartan Rescue, Momaro, and CHIMP. With the first prize set at $2 million, the tension is palpable and understandable (story, link to slideshow): http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27678-thrills-and-spills-as-worlds-best-robots-take-each-other-on.html?full=true#.VXXr7Oc0zeQ

The Real SEAL

Only those who've been on a regular Navy SEAL team for several years can try out for Team 6 (the Navy's counterpart to the Army's Delta Force), and only about half of those who try out make it. Most of us know Team 6 as the group that found and killed Osama Bin Laden, but as this extensive, in-depth New York Times investigative piece shows, what we don't know about it could fill tomes. The team's current role, according to the report, "reflects America’s new way of war, in which conflict is distinguished not by battlefield wins and losses, but by the relentless killing of suspected militants.
   "Almost everything about SEAL Team 6, a classified Special Operations unit, is shrouded in secrecy — the Pentagon does not even publicly acknowledge that name — though some of its exploits have emerged in largely admiring accounts in recent years. But an examination of Team 6’s evolution, drawn from dozens of interviews with current and former team members, other military officials and reviews of government documents, reveals a far more complex, provocative tale" (story, video, GIF, links): http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/world/asia/the-secret-history-of-seal-team-6.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0

May Flowers Bring Bridal Showers

3,500 couples married in a Unification Church ceremony in 2013              © AP

In honor of June, which, as we know, is traditionally the month for weddings, at least in the United States, a compendium of photographs of the ceremony from around the world (slideshow): http://www.nationalgeographic.com/125/photos/explore-weddings/ and one of interesting traditions, many of which involve mass weddings, also from around the world. It's never too late to incorporate some of these in your own celebration (story, slideshow): http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/30/living/matrimony-global-traditions/index.html

One White Woman's Burden

The story of Cynthia Ann Parker could very easily be seen as a metaphor for the egocentric way in which groups of people have always viewed and continue to view each other. After reading this excerpt, I wondered what happened to her children, the two sons and one daughter by her Comanche husband, Peta Nocona. Both a son and her daughter died young (Prairie Flower was 4) of influenza, and her remaining son, Quanah Parker, grew up to be one of the last Comanche chiefs: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3141

from delanceyplace.com:

In today's encore excerpt -- from Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne. The heartbreaks of Cynthia Ann Parker. In 1836, when she was nine years old, she was captured in a murderous raid by Comanches on her frontier family. The story, and the resulting search for her, became famous throughout the country. However, she then became the wife of a Comanche chief of that tribe, bore two sons and a daughter, and seemed a content wife and proud mother. She was finally "rescued" by Sul Ross and the U.S. Army twenty-four years later in a battle that saw her husband killed, her two young sons run away to save their lives, and both she and her young daughter taken into captivity:

   "[There was the] virtually universal belief among Texans at the time that Sul Ross, the hero of the battle and the future Texas governor, had saved the poor, unfortunate Cynthia Ann Parker from an ugly fate. That belief would color the histories for a long, long time.

   "We will never know how Cynthia Ann Parker felt in the weeks and months after her capture by Sul Ross. There are so few comparable events in American history. But it was painfully apparent from the earliest days that the real tragedy in her life was not her first captivity but her second. White men never quite grasped this. The event that destroyed her life was not the raid at Parker's Fort in 1836 but her miraculous and much-celebrated 'rescue' at Mule Creek in 1860. The latter killed her husband,

Creature Watch

ospreys, Bremen, Maine                                                                 screen shot

Live cams! It's time for the Hatch Watch with this particular osprey pair (the dad arrived as I was watching), who are caring for their eggs in a beautiful nest with a view of the bay. But wait! There's more! The Audubon website offers links to live cams trained on walruses and puffins and polar bears, too, among others: http://explore.org/live-cams/player/osprey-nest

Maybe Socks, Too?

from unclaimedbaggage.com

There is a place where the precept "reduce, reuse, recycle" is taken very seriously, and that is the Unclaimed Baggage Center. Before you ask, yes, there really is such a thing. It's in Scottsboro, Alabama (mostly known, until now, for the landmark Scottsboro Boys case of 1931 ~ in fact, the center is not far from the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center). It's hard to understand how so many suitcases are left behind by their owners, but there you have it ~ and there, in Scottsboro, you have the spoils, ripe for the picking. Says the center's Brenda Cantrell, "Our shelves provide both a snapshot of what's going on in America right now and also a chance for shoppers to essentially travel the world" (story, slideshow): http://www.smithsonian.com/travel/nations-stash-lost-luggage-finds-new-life-tiny-alabama-town-180955422/

The Police and the People

screen shot

Whatever your political stance or general ideology, this chart listing all those known to have been killed by police in the United States so far this year is hard to ignore. So many questions are raised. Are these statistics correct? Have previous years' statistics been correct, and if not, how can we determine whether the number of such incidents has grown over the years? Is it possible, for example, that we are just more aware of them, that their documentation is more publicly available now, due to the growing prevalence of citizen videos shared over the Internet? If their number is indeed up, could that possibly be connected to the easy availability of guns in the country? Or are officers being trained differently?: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database?CMP=ema_565#

'Geographic' Takes On Time

There was an urban legend making the rounds a long time ago about the FBI figuring out where a Russian spy lived when they went through his garbage and found he was throwing out his National Geographics ~ and of course, no "real American" does that. Whether that's true or not, the story illustrates the vaunted position the magazine holds in our culture. Those who appreciate the mag, then, might want to know that it's just launched a version devoted to history, and its first issue looks promising: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazines/pdf/052915_History_02/MAY29ACPB5.html?utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=ngmcirc_20150529_RESP&utm_campaign=Magazines-NGM

Out of One, Many

screen shot

"I haven't cried during a TED talk like that before," is one comment. "Emilie, you have just validated the existence of so many who have been unknowingly searching for themselves," is another. "This truly resonated in my heart." "Erasing 'Jack of all trades, master of none' from my vernacular." "I think this might have started to undo years of anxiety and self-hate I've bottled up." Call it giftedness (that dreaded, politically incorrect concept) or call it, as Emilie Wapnick does, multipotentiality. Either way, it comes down to individuals whose interests are so varied and so intense that it is often difficult, if not impossible, for them to settle on one in which to specialize. Wapnick, obviously, is one of those individuals, and she found her calling (and a way to indulge all her interests) in helping others recognize and appreciate this trait in themselves and learn how to make it work for them (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJORi5VO1F8&feature=youtu.be

A Portrait of Two Women

Mark in 2010                  Koto Bolofo

Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015) and Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) have much in common, in terms of their art. Perhaps the most obvious and also the most profound similarity was their ability to recognize and capture a moment so infused with humanity that it could touch everyone, regardless of background or standing. Their pictures really were worth a thousand words each. Mark died May 25, but her photographs never will, because they are timeless (photographs and link to Mark's explanation of her favorite): http://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2015/may/26/mary-ellen-mark-legendary-photographs-in-pictures

Lange     © 1937, 2014 Rondal Partridge Archives

   On the other end of life's spectrum, May 26 is Dorothea Lange's birthday. Lange, of course, is best known for her portraits from the Depression, and especially that of the "Migrant Mother," Florence Owens Thompson. What is less well known is the fact that she took detailed notes about each of her subjects, including quotes from her conversations with them (story, photographs, link to story of Thompson ~ yes, she and her 10 kids survived, but it was never easy): http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/26/409738018/hunger-and-humanity-how-dorothea-lange-taught-us-to-see

To All Lengths

could this be the answer? ;-)

In the People Are Funny Creatures department, a look at two seemingly conflicting cases of a violation of social mores. In one country, a young woman is not allowed into her school because her skirt is too short, and in another, a student is turned away because hers is too long. You can probably guess the underlying factor in both of these events. Yes, it's religion ~ and the intersection of that and government (video): http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32885418

A World Without Work

from quick meme

The title of this opinion piece, "Why Do People Waste So Much Time at the Office?," intrigued me, but it was not until I got to the end of it that I saw what, to me, was the really compelling concept. The author, Peter Fleming, is a professor of Business and Society at City University London and wrote the book The Notion of Work: How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself. "... Work," he writes here, "has become ritualised and detached from the practical things it was invented to accomplish.
   "... A job simply grants us access to man-made vouchers we call money. We then redeem these so we can then purchase life.
   "How many vouchers we obtain and what we have to do to get them is the political question par excellence under neoliberal capitalism. But it's this growing disconnect between labour as a biological/social requirement versus work as a cultural artefact that has seen it take on a life of its own, spiralling out of control, taking over everything else.
   "Herein lies the work paradox. At the very moment it is glorified as the highest civic virtue (on both the political left and right) it is drying up at an unprecedented rate."
   And now here's the kicker: "Like it or not we are moving into a post-work future. According to some

Geeks With Towels

KW

It's nothing short of totally appropriate that Towel Day, May 25, should also be Geek Pride Day, as it's undoubtedly celebrating (and celebrated by) pretty much the same population. And, yes, this year it is also Memorial Day. Towel Day was established in honor of that most revered author of, among other tomes, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (1952-2001): http://www.towelday.org/

Death, Illustrated

screen shot

Find out, via emoji, how you will die, courtesty of xkcd. Surprisingly on point (not really ... well, maybe ~ how would I know?). Come on ~ you know you've always wondered (interactive): http://www.xkcd.com/1525/#eyJxIjoiIiwiYSI6WyImI3gxRjQ1NjsiLCImI3gxRjQ0RjsiXX0=

Saving History

Temple of Bel, Palmyra

I doubt there were very many across the world who weren't indescribably saddened and appalled, back in 2001, when the Taliban (remember them?) machine-gunned, bulldozed, and dynamited the 6th-century Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. Since then, there've been many more such attacks in which ancient historical sites and artifacts have been systematically destroyed. That this is all taking place in the area where humankind and civilization first appeared makes these losses that much more poignant. But this kind of behavior is nothing new. It's been going on for as long as one group of people has conquered another (i.e., forever ...). In 1562, the Spanish bishop de Landa had 27 Maya codices and more than 5,000 sacred images and objects burned. Adolf Hitler decimated not just a population but centers of history and national identity (libraries, schools, religious institutions) in the countries he invaded. And closer to home, let's not forget Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864, when he and his troops destroyed just about everything in their way between Atlanta and Savannah.
   So now that Islamic State (aka ISIS aka ISIL) militants have taken over Palmyra, Syria, the nausea-inducing question is, How much history and how many invaluable artifacts will the world lose now? The follow-up is, Is there any way to save them? Palmyra goes back to the Neolithic period. In the second millennium BCE, it was a caravan stop for those crossing the desert. It's mentioned in the Hebrew bible and by Assyrian kings. And it's seen its share of conquerors. It was destroyed by the Romans in 273 and by the Timurids in 1400. So when IS's advance toward Palmyra became fact, archaeologists and museum personnel began to rescue what they could. Given the area's recent history, they've become ingenious at doing so. "But," Maamoun Abdulkarim, director general of antiquities and museums in Syria, asks rhetorically, "how do you save colonnades that weight a ton? How do you save temples and cemeteries and, and, and?": http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32824379
   On the lighter side of war and invasion, if there is such a thing, here's a quiz that will help you determine which historical conqueror you would be (me? Sun Tzu!): http://www.buzzfeed.com/javiermoreno/which-historical-conqueror-are-you#.ow4rwk2eD

Dr. Strangelove & the Fab Four

Dr. Strangelove mid-"She Loves You"                                               screen shot

Sure, he was Chief Inspector Clouseau (the Pink Panther series) and Hrundi V. Bakshi (The Party) and Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Muffley, and Dr. Strangelove (Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), not to mention Chauncey Gardiner (Being There), but the inimitable Peter Sellers (1925-1980) was also Laurence Olivier's Richard III performing a spoken-word version of his friends The Beatles's "A Hard Day's Night" and both Dr. Strangelove and an Irishman (not at the same time) covering "She Loves You." Difficult to fathom, I know, but there you have it, and there you have, in a nutshell, Peter Sellers, and that's why it's good that his performances have been preserved on tape (story, videos): http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/peter-sellers-covers-the-beatles-a-hard-days-night-she-loves-you-help.html

Don't Get Burned

summer solstice, June 21                                          Montana State University

Every year around this time, I post one or another link to information about sun safety ~ well, sunscreen safety, mostly. Because it seems that about five minutes after we hear of a new miracle ingredient in sunscreens, we hear that it's not really so great and can actually be dangerous to our health. Hard to know what to believe or what to use, isn't it? Here's the latest, from the Environmental Working Group (website): http://www.ewg.org/2015sunscreen/?inlist=Y&utm_source=201505SunscreenRelease&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201505SunscreenRelease

Feather or Not

Psophia Crepitans                                             Thomas Lohr

Balearica Regulorum                                         Thomas Lohr

Are feathers one of the most amazing things or what? The multitude of colors alone makes them worthy of awe, but then there's their structure and the facts that some dinosaurs had them and that different kinds have evolved to serve different functions. There's the wing feather, tail feather, down, contour feather, semiplume, bristle, and filoplume (which work like a mammal's whiskers). They display varying degrees of asymmetry and smoothness. The "branches" that grow off the main "stem" have little hooks that interlock to insulate, waterproof, streamline, camouflage or advertise, and protect their wearers. There is actually a bird that, kind of like a cricket, rubs its feathers together to create a one-note tune (story, lots of links to fantastic sidebars, many of which are interactive): http://biology.allaboutbirds.org/feathers-article/
   This whole inquiry into the subject began when I saw the photographs of Thomas Lohr, who mostly shoots fashion but also takes amazing close-ups of plumage (story, photographs): http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/05/beautiful-abstract-bird-plumage-photographs-by-thomas-lohr/

A Fat Lot of Good

UN/DPI photos

It is possible that a newly created "heavy" fat can strengthen our cells and help them resist the aging process. A California biotech company will be testing its idea on people who have a genetic disorder called Friedreich's ataxia. Because the disorder shares some basics with the aging process, the thought is, if it works on one, it might work on the other. The mechanism has been shown to be effective in yeast and to protect mice against Parkinson's disease. "The principle is sound," says Corinne Spickett, a biochemist at Aston University's Research Centre for Healthy Ageing in Birmingham, "and some beneficial effects of heavy fats have been seen in cells and rodents. But will this translate to humans? We'll have to see": http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630214.900-pill-of-superprotective-heavy-fat-may-be-key-to-eternal-youth.html?page=1#.VVZu_Bc0zeQ

On Exhibit

May 18 is International Museum Day, and many museums around the world are participating by hosting special events and/or offering discounted admission. Not all are on the map accompanying this story, so check directly with whichever museum you've been meaning to visit for the last year. (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for example, is offering $5 admission on that day. Those of you in New York can enjoy a 10 percent discount at the Guggenheim Museum store ~ but then, you guys also have the ever-so-fantastic 37th annual Museum Mile festival coming up on June 9: http://museummilefestival.org/.) Many museums in Europe and some in the U.S. also celebrate with a Museum Night over the weekend. The theme this year is "Museums for a Sustainable Society" (story, link to interactive map of events): http://news.yahoo.com/sustainability-spotlight-international-museum-day-152330796.html;_ylt=A86.J3bGO1ZVBxYAmN8nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--
   In honor of the day last year, TIME magazine took a look at 10 of the strangest museums in the world: http://time.com/101851/weirdest-museums-in-the-world/

Me and My Shadow

... strolling down the avenue. Or bombing a mountain or surfing or reading a book or ... Yes, it has come to this. Toss (upcycle/recycle) your selfie stick and meet the selfie drone. You control it via a tracker you can put in your pocket or in a waterproof case you can strap on your wrist. It'll follow you around and film (or take pictures of) whatever you're doing that you think is important/cool enough to document and then, of course, share on facebook/photobucket/flickr (story, advertisement video): http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2484131,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121

Too Much, Magic Bus (Tour Guide)

post-Cruise Levitch                                                            Dana O'Keefe/Hulu

Waaay back in 2013, I learned of the existence of a fantastic, almost fantastical 1998 documentary called The Cruise (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/01/magical-big-city-tour.html), which focuses on the unique (and uniquely voiced), knowledgeable, and oddly entertaining New York City tour guide Timothy "Speed" Levitch. The movie can't be viewed anymore on the link I provided then, but you can watch it on Hulu. So enjoy, learn, and wonder, as I still do, how any human being can keep so many interesting details in his head: http://www.hulu.com/watch/357882
   The most recent update I could find about Mr. Levitch was this story in the New York Times, from 2012. It seems that he starred in a Hulu series in which he tours various cities around the country. The writer's review? "... it’s impossible to look at Mr. Levitch here — working within the system, even if it is in an independently produced Web series — and not recall the much more interesting and unwashed figure he cut in 'The Cruise.'" My own take, after watching half of the first episode? I agree but will add that, as he did in the movie, our Mr. Levitch unearths interesting places one might not always be familiar with and is most informative about them and, through them, the cities they inhabit: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/arts/television/up-to-speed-with-timothy-levitch-on-hulu.html?_r=0
   P.S., A profile in NYU's alumni magazine concludes, "Whether or not Up to Speed gets renewed, Levitch will keep busy with mobile barbecue tours, occasional acting gigs, and a long-simmering plan to start a Shakespeare theater troupe that makes monologue 'deliveries' across New York City": http://www.nyu.edu/alumni.magazine/issue20/classnotes_1.html

Building With Bamboo in Bali

who wouldn't want to wake up to this every day?                            screen shot

"From little huts to elaborate bridges, ... bamboo has been in use across the tropical regions of the world for literally tens of thousands of years," says designer and architect Elora Hardy. But I'm willing to bet it wasn't used like this. For Hardy, it all started with a fairy mushroom house her mother built from her then-9-year-old daughter's own "blueprint." Later, Hardy's father turned her on to bamboo, and she took it from there and ran ~ sustainably ~ all over the jungles of Bali (video): http://www.ted.com/talks/elora_hardy_magical_houses_made_of_bamboo#t-30259

There Once Was a Man Named Ed Lear ...

a self-portrait                             Beinecke Library

Somanyinterestingthings.

It's the site that gives your brain wings.

News, facts, fiction galore ~

And what else is in store?

Perhaps walruses, cabbage, and kings!

May 12 is National Limerick Day, so chosen to honor English artist, musician, and writer Edward Lear (1812-1888, and the youngest, btw, of 21 children), who, if not the inventor of the form, is commonly held to have popularized it. While the limerick usually has five lines, Lear often fused the third and fourth together:

 There was an old man with a beard,

Who said, "It is just as I feared—

Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren

Have all built their nests in my beard."

 Arguably, his most famous poem, though not a limerick, was The Owl and the Pussycat. 

   One of the better limerick writers, imho, was Ogden Nash. Here's one of his more famous attempts:

A flea and a fly in a flue

Were imprisoned, so what could they do?

Said the fly, "Let us flee!"

"Let us fly!" said the flea.

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

My favorite, though often attributed to Nash, was written by Dixon Lanier Merritt:

  A wonderful bird is the pelican.

Muscle Mass

leaders at first YMCA camp in U.S., 1887

There is such a thing as Muscular Christianity, and President Theodore Roosevelt was one of its most stalwart proponents. It was a movement spawned in the late 1800s, reportedly as a response, at least in part, to what was being seen as the Victorian-era feminization of church. An organization of the time, the Businessmen's Awakening, and the YMCA were started largely to bring more men into the fold. But while the emphasis on masculinity and manliness seems to have waned, the movement's influence continues to permeate our culture. In the introduction to his fascinating book Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920, Clifford Putney writes, "Members of the Men and Religion Forward movement may no longer be around to preach the virtues of muscular Christianity, but their faith in the power of manly athletes to overcome society's ills lives on, as evidenced by the re-emergence of such neo-muscular Christian groups as the Promise Keepers and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes."
   It lives on, too, according to the author of this piece, in our violent sports, such as boxing and football. He quotes Roosevelt: "The sports especially dear to a vigorous and manly nation are always those in which there is a slight element of risk." The risks inherent in football have taken center stage of late. This happens, writes the author, "once every 30 or 40 years in America. It happened in 1905, when around 20 players (estimates vary on the exact figure) died in game action. It happened again in the 1930s, when so many players were getting hurt that the American Football Coaches Association felt it necessary to begin an annual survey of player injuries. It happened in 1968, when 66 players were either killed or paralyzed on the field, an epidemic that forced the creation of official equipment standards and led to the birth of the hard shell plastic helmet still in use today. And it has been happening once more over the past half-decade, as the damage hidden under those hard helmets has been revealed in the form of CTE diagnoses and other mental health issues now rampant among former NFL players": http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/08/muscular-christianity-and-american-sports-undying-love-of-violence?CMP=ema_565

Fly Away Home

awww ...                                    from flikie.com

One by one, our darlings are shown to have feet of clay. Thomas Jefferson had a slave mistress. A-Rod took steroids. The ladybug (yes, that adorable round red or orange beetle with black freckles, the gardener's little friend) is nothing more than a promiscuous, disease-ridden, mite-infested little cannibal that doesn't really help in the garden as much as one might have been led to believe: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150506-the-truth-about-ladybirds

The Double-Edged Word

Gentrification. If ever there was a hot-button issue that typifies the beginning of this century, this is it. If ever there was one that seems to prove that one person's meat is another's poison, this is that, too. From Boston to New York to Chicago to L.A., many of our major cities' poorer neighborhoods have undergone and continue to undergo these demographic shifts. And the push-back is growing stronger.
   On May 8, San Francisco's City Hall is expected to be the site of a demonstration against what many are seeing as the gentrification of the Mission district. The movement's Facebook page states "10,000 people have been displaced from La MiSSiON! Join us MAY 8th @ City @ 12 NOON to tell the Mayor & Board of Supervisor 2 immediately STOP the Evictions & development of Luxury Condos in La MiSiON! We will DEMAND that the City build 3,000 AFFORDABLE HOUSING & bring everyone that's been evicted from the MiSiON back! Si Se Puede!" The city's supervisors mirror the public's conflicting attitudes as they contemplate a building moratorium. According to the article, "Supporters say the once thriving

The Progress of Progress

Don't worry, they say. The chances of getting hit are smaller than those of being hit by lightning, they say. Only 20 to 40 percent of the unmanned stricken Russian spaceship Progress will survive re-entry, they say. Of course, 40 percent is about 1.5 tons and no one can say for sure exactly where it'll land. What they do say, in addition to the above, is that re-entry will be sometime between the evening of May 7 and the early morning of May 8 (London time, and they're about 8 hours ahead of us, give or take, depending on where in the States you are) (story, video): http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/07/russias-progress-spacecraft-set-to-crash-to-earth-within-24-hours?CMP=ema_565

ZIP Tips

Today's trivia subject ~ the ZIP Code! On the assumption that I'm not the only one who had no idea there are two Americans who have their own ZIP code, this, courtesy of the USDA Forest Service: "There are only two special ZIP codes in the country not associated with a business. Each U.S. president is assigned a ZIP code for his or her personal use while in the White House. But those ZIP codes are kept secret except for a few choice people. The other lucky ZIP code belongs to Smokey Bear, who received so many letters in the 1960s that the U.S. Postal Service gave him 20252. And we don't want to keep this one a secret." (As you can imagine, some of the letters Smokey's received are very moving, coming as they do from children, but there have been a few, equally poignant, that have come from adults: http://www.fs.fed.us/blogs/letters-smokey-bear-reveal-promise-hope-future)
   Extra points to whomever can name the year we added those five digits to our addresses (1963). According to about.com, "The first digit designated a broad geographical area of the United States, ranging from zero for the Northeast to nine for the far West. This was followed by two digits that more closely pinpointed population concentrations and those sectional centers accessible to common transportation networks. The final two digits designated small post offices or postal zones in larger zoned cities": http://inventors.about.com/od/xyzstartinventions/a/zipcode.htm

Good Gardens

United States Botanic Garden is our oldest public garden   U.S. Botanic Garden

May 8 is National Public Gardens Day, and gardens all over the country are participating. Scavenger hunts, speakers, story times, tours, special exhibits, and more events are scheduled. Many gardens will continue the activities through the weekend, which, as you may remember, includes a little holiday called Mother's Day on Sunday. You can find out what your local gardens are planning on this interactive website page: http://www.nationalpublicgardensday.org/search-gardens

Mitochondrial Memories

"A human being is a whole world to a mitochondrion, just the way our planet is to us. But we're much more dependent on our mitochondria than the earth is on us. The earth could get along perfectly well without people, but if anything happened to our mitochondria, we'd die." So explains Charles Wallace to his sister Meg in Madeleine L'Engle's wonderful A Wind in the Door. The tiny organelles play the lead role in Duke University neurology professor Allen Roses' theory about Alzheimer's, too. The generally accepted theory posits that the protein beta-amyloid is the primary culprit, but Roses believes that the presence of beta-amyloid is a side effect, not a cause. His theory, which is gaining adherents, is that variations in two genes keep mitochondria from providing energy to neurons, causing them to die: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-30/do-we-all-have-alzhemers-completely-wrong-man-says-yes

The Force on the Fourth

screen shot

Just in time for Star Wars Day, May 4, you, too, can be the proud owner of an R2-D2 Pepsi cooler ~ and, good news (or rather, better news), it's now 50 percent off and can be yours for $499.99. Or how about a life-sized Amanaman statue ($3,757.49)? Apparently, there is no better way to celebrate a movie series than by buying stuff: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2015/0501/Ten-super-weird-Star-Wars-collectibles-for-sale-on-eBay and http://www.starwars.com/events/star-wars-day-2
   Of course, if you're a real fan, you know that the latest entry in the series is due out on Dec. 18 and that the merchandising will begin Sept. 4. But have you seen any of the teasers yet? (videos): http://www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens/trailers/

A Very Very Very Twine House

Who would have thought?: portraits of wood-and-stone, mortar-and-brick houses made with cloth, yarn, and thread. Salt Lake City-based artist Stephanie K. Clark likens her embroidery to painting. "When I embroider on canvas it feels like oils," she says. "When I embroider on loose shear or silk, it's like a watercolor" (story, photos): http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/04/thread-architecture-stephanie-clark/
   In a recent interview, Clark explains that growing up poor rather forced her to be creative with the materials that were available to her. As for what she hopes her work transmits to the public, she says, "Visually, I love it when people bypass my work thinking it's nothing other than a simple painting. Until they look a little closer and see that, in fact, it is fibers [and] thread. Then they have to proceed to look even closer and look into the windows of the home. I like to push my viewers to then question, Whose home is this? What kind of people live in this home?": http://jungkatz.com/2014/12/08/artist-interview-stephanie-k-clark-embroidery-artist/