Auld Times

Auld Lang Syne will fill the airwaves in a couple days. The song itself is part of the nostalgia it is intended to evoke. We resist updating the old-fashioned Scots lyrics because that is not the way we heard it in our youths. Besides, we get the gist of it as is.
 
We all know how a song can stimulate the memory of a special place, person or event. Most of us can experience that not just from a few but from hundreds of songs. There are several though (besides the Robert Burns ditty) that might come to my mind on New Year’s Eve but seldom anytime else. Oddly, most of the ones of that sort on my list I don’t even like very much, if at all. But they pop into my head as the clock runs out in the current year. A non-exhaustive sample:
 
In the Mood  performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. My mom loved to dance (especially after a scotch and soda, but without one as well) and my dad wasn’t bad at it. (I did not inherit this trait: I dance like a wounded buffalo.) She had little trouble talking him into it, commonly in the living room in the presence of company. They had dated during WW2, so my mom’s most frequently (but non-exclusively) preferred dance was the jitterbug. Her record of choice was typically a Glenn Miller album, and In the Mood was the first track. She never skipped it. It is actually a pretty good number, but I heard it so many times growing up that I was sick of it as an adult – until recent years and only on New Year’s Eve. It transports me back to when my parents were half my current age and dancing in our living room.
 
In October 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. On a clear night it was visible from the ground. My dad thought this was the start of something important so he made a point of taking my sister, my mom, and I (and the dog for some reason) out to the driveway on a very clear night. I’m guessing a local radio station must have mentioned what time the satellite would pass overhead. It came and went on schedule. Just to impress upon us further the memory of this (I was not yet 5) my dad announced firmly, “OK, we’ve seen Sputnik.” In 1958 the novelty song The Purple People Eater  about a space alien playing rock’n’roll became a hit; at age 5 I loved it and played a 45 of it repeatedly. Even though this was months after the driveway viewing, the song and that event are tangled in my head somehow; I cannot think of one without the other. The song is silly and I seldom think of it except at the very end of a year.
 
Having a sister two years older was a huge advantage in matters of pop culture right up through high school. This was especially so because Sharon was pretty hip for her entire life. She was always in step with the times, which I by nature was not. Because of her, I nonetheless was introduced to social trends and artists (Bob Dylan, for instance) when they were still cutting edge. Left to myself I would have missed them until they were passé. This started early. Sharon (b. 1950) loved the Everly Brothers for a few years straddling 1960. I would play her 45s of them, and particularly liked the 1962 Crying in the Rain. Once again, it is not a song I play as an adult at any other time, but I might just do so on the 31^st. It reminds me of my sister. Hi Sharon.
 
Janis Joplin’s I Need a Man to Love is the second track on the Cheap Thrills album, which came out in 1968. I liked Janis from the get-go, and still do, but she grew on me more and more between 1968 and 1970. (Our psyches and tastes often evolve a lot between age 15 and 18 – mine did.) Initially, I Need a Man to Love was not one of my favorite tracks on the album. A prep school buddy named George (a troubled young man, but surprisingly insightful at times) told me to give it a deeper listen. He said it was undefensively soulful. I did. He was right. All of Janis evokes an extended era in my mind, but of course that track also reminds me of George. He died of HIV related illnesses two decades ago.
 
The Commodores – Easy. This is a song about which I had and have no strong feelings as a song. I neither like it nor dislike it. In the 70s I never played it on purpose but didn’t change the station if it came on the car radio either. I would react the same today, though one seldom hears this number anymore even on an oldies station. The reason it is memorable for me is that my 70s girlfriend Angela once sang it (with radio accompaniment) in the passenger seat of my car as we drove to NYC. I don’t know why. I didn’t interrupt or ask afterward. We all sometimes do things that are hard to explain. That memory sticks with me and makes the tune a possible New Year’s Eve play.
 
Time after Time by Cyndi Lauper. In 1984 I owned a property on Schoolhouse Lane with two small houses on it. I moved into the smaller cottage and rented out the other. It was the first real estate actually in my own name. The first home that is really yours tends to be special in a way that later ones are not, and I accordingly put a lot of work into it – not all at once but steadily. The grounds in particular got attention: I installed decorative 2-rail fencing, reworked the driveway, and planted blue spruce to delineate the northern boundary line. On the cottage itself I replaced exterior trim and repaired the back deck, which had seriously dry rotted in places. I recall Cyndi Lauper’s song playing on the radio while I worked on the deck; I cannot hear the song without remembering feeling at home in that home. Incidentally, the official video of that song was filmed nearby; the train station scene is in the NJ Transit train station in Morristown. Am I a Lauper fan? No, not really though I don’t dislike her either.

My old Schoolhouse Lane cottage

Frank Sinatra Fly Me to the Moon. A night club in the 1990s, where someone important to my life worked, closed every night playing this number on the sound system. The relationship that this song evokes would require a book rather than a paragraph to begin to describe. So let’s just call it intense rather than characterize it any other way here.
 
That’s one per decade (OK, two in the 1960s -- three counting when I most commonly heard In the Mood) up to the 21^st century. I’ll leave the next three for another blog someday – maybe.
 
Once again, not one of these is a favorite song on its own terms (though I do like the Joplin number). My general taste tends more to bluesier and/or harder rock. But that is not the point, is it? The point is a memory – maybe a good one, maybe a bad one, but a poignant one either way.
 
There are also entire genres of music with a nostalgia factor. I’ve grown to like much 1940s fare far more than I did when my parents played it on the stereo for instance. I see I’m not alone in that with groups such as the Postmodern Jukebox covering songs such as What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve, charted by Kay Kyser in 1947. In the case of people as young as that, they are nostalgic for an era they never experienced. True, I wasn’t around in the 40s either, but the music definitely was in the house when I grew up.
 
So, December 31 – on which I plan a quiet evening – I may not only hear Auld Lang Syne but some unfavorite yet special tunes from my youth. Perhaps also, some Kitty Kallen and Harry James. Then on January 1 to welcome the new year I’ll try something new.
 

Postmodern Jukebox – What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Creaky

Some days I feel my age and others not. If there is a reason for the day to day differences (sleep length, diet, exercise, or whatever) I haven’t been able to discern it. The creaky days occur more frequently with each passing year, but the first hints of them appeared surprisingly early: soon after 30. That is a time of life when the innate sense of invulnerability of the 18-y.o. fades and mortality starts feeling real. This is evident in much of the pop culture content aimed at thirtysomethings. It accounts, for example, for the success of the movie The Big Chill among my fellow Boomers in 1983. Strangely enough, Barbie, directed and co-written by 40-y.o. Millennial mom Greta Gerwig, likewise speaks to the sense of aging among today’s Millennials (e.g. the bus stop bench scene). Thirtysomething (sometimes fortysomething) is an age when many folks adopt exercise regimens and start taking megavitamins to try to slow the hands of the clock. It’s when entrepreneurs with the wherewithal start businesses that take on the Grim Reaper himself.
 
One such company is Altos Labs, formed by Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner, which seeks to extend life through a variety of methods, but in particular through cellular reprogramming. The credentials of its researchers are impressive. Calico Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Google), is similarly dedicated to combat aging. The company’s home page is worth a look. BioSplice Therapeutics reveals its approach in its name. Juvenescence reveals its goal in its name. If none of these or competing labs produce sufficient results in time for you to dodge the scythe, there is always Alcor.
 
The notion of suspended animation has been around in science fiction for more than a century. So, too, the similar notion of deliberately freezing a body in hopes it can be thawed out and reanimated at some future date when medical science has advanced to the point to make that possible. Alcor, located in very unchilly Scottsdale Arizona, was founded in 1972 in order to do just that. When a “patient” (who, of course, must be legally dead) arrives at the facility, s/he is injected with chemicals to prevent the formation of damaging ice crystals. The body is lowered to a temperature of -196 Celsius and then deposited in a tank of liquid nitrogen. There are presently 224 patients plus about 100 pets. Among the patients are baseball great Ted Williams and Bitcoin entrepreneur Hal Finney. You can reserve a spot for yourself at a cost of over $200,000, though you can save some money if you just preserve the head.

 
It would be tempting to prank someone with an Alcor reservation who awakes after some minor surgery: say the operation didn’t go well, but not to worry because you’ve been thawed out, cured, and it is now the year 2324. You can pay the bill at the desk. The temptation probably should be suppressed.
 
Meantime, I’ll just deal with my creaks and aches as best I can and hope that tomorrow is one of those days with a more youthful spring in my step.
 
 

Neil Young – Frozen Man

Julia Gets By in the World As It Is

When I read 1984 (1949) by George Orwell as a school assignment back in the 1960s, the novel’s timeline already had been overtaken by real historical events. That didn’t matter. Alternate realities and parallel worlds long had existed in science fiction by then, predating by decades the quite serious hypothesis by physicist Hugh Everett in 1950s that they actually might exist. H.G. Wells has characters drive through a portal into one in Men Like Gods (1923), and it wasn’t his first exploration of the idea. Robert Heinlein famously rescued his early fiction (see The Past through Tomorrow) by the tactic. 1984 is a book of ideas. What mattered was that those ideas remained plausible and scary in the 1960s – as they still do in the 2020s.
 
In 1984, Winston Smith’s love interest Julia is a curious character. It is hard to see exactly what she sees in the middle-aged Winston, but she sees something. Winston himself seems surprised by her persistent affection. Julia gets her own story in Julia by Sandra Newman, a novel authorized by the Orwell estate. Nothing in Julia contradicts 1984, but the character is not as shallow and emotion-driven as she sometimes seems in Orwell’s novel. SPOILER ALERT: it is impossible to discuss what is special about this version of Julia without SPOILERS, so, if you wish to be surprised, stop reading this blog post now, read Newman’s book, and then return to this blog afterward.

Both Winston and Julia work at Oceania’s Ministry of Truth in London on Airstrip One, formerly known as Britain. (BTW, Oceania’s flag is described in passing as stars and stripes.) Winston destroys objects and old news articles that contradict current propaganda (e.g. previously projected production targets that were missed) while Julia works in Fiction where old literature is rewritten (and new literature created) in Newspeak to be compatible with the ideology of Ingsoc. The corruption of language that is Newspeak, which redefines old words and creates new ones (while always shrinking the total number in the dictionary), is a particularly insidious form of persuasion. It is difficult or impossible in Newspeak to say anything contrary to the Party without calling oneself a criminal while doing it. The words just don’t exist.
 
We learn that Julia’s parents before the Revolution had been dangerously bourgeois, which would have tainted her too, but when still a teen she informed on her mother, which won her a pass into the Outer Party. Julia wears the sash of the Anti-Sex League, though she indulges in clandestine affairs. As Winston grows increasingly troubled by the notion of truth, which it is his job to destroy, Julia notices him and is genuinely attracted to him as a bad boy. She picks up on his resistance to the Party line, especially after spotting him leaving Charrington’s shop in the prole district. Inner Party honcho and torturer O’Brien picks up on both of them. He tempts Winston ideologically by pretending to be a link to the Resistance known as the Brotherhood. He tempts Julia (who is more interested in her own personal freedom than philosophy) by dangling in front of her the prospect of being elevated to the Inner Party if she works for the thought police. She knows full well that the room above Charrington’s shop where she meets Winston for trysts is bugged. Nor is Winston (unknown to him) the only man she meets there and prompts to incriminate himself while there. So, while she actually likes Winston (unlike some of the other men), her professions of love are calculated. Given the choices she has, however, it is hard to judge her as evil – just as desperate to save herself.
 
What do the perpetrators of this system gain from it? They have the joy of the raw exercise of power. This is especially true of the Inner Party members, of course, but also applies to lower links in the chain. As O’Brien explains, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever." The fellow wearing the boot, at least in that moment, is having fun.
 
The timeline of Julia extends beyond that of 1984, which ends with Winston’s conversion and execution. We learn there really is a Resistance on Airstrip One. This seems improbable given the stability achieved by the thoroughness of Oceania’s repression, but aid to the rebels from Eurasia (one of the three superstates, the other being Eastasia, perpetually at war with each other in different combinations) has upset the status quo. There is more than a little hint, however, that even were they to succeed, it would be a false rescue: a matter of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
 
1984 at its core is a dark vision of humanity – and one that is all too credible. Julia makes the title character’s behavior in 1984 far more explicable – again, all too credibly. We are easily tempted to ruthlessness and disregard for truth in pursuit of lofty goals and also purely selfish ones. The two books are complementary and are welcome warnings about where those temptations can lead. Highly recommended.

 

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again

Slipping and Sliding

The information center on my Chevy has a lot to say to me about everything from tire pressure to remaining oil life. Yesterday as the temperature dropped toward freezing, it warned me that icy roads are possible and nagged me to drive carefully. That’s OK. It is one reason I bought the car – not for the information center but for being a better winter vehicle. Until a couple years ago I drove a 1998 4WD GMC 2500 Sierra (previously my dad’s) and a 2014 Cruze. The ’98 was a great winter vehicle but by 2020 it finally had grown too tired to keep on the road and had to be replaced. New 4WD pickups have prices that are simply ridiculous, so I opted to replace it with a basic 2WD Colorado priced in the mid-20s, which to me seemed quite high enough. It served (and serves) the workaday purposes for which I needed a pickup. The problem was that both my vehicles were then 2WD, and the winter of 20/21 proved this to be a bad idea. The Cruze was a small sedan runabout that was reliable enough on a dry road, but all but useless in snow and ice. The Colorado was only marginally better. There were days when neither of my vehicles could make it up my driveway, which definitely has an incline but is hardly a cliff. So, in the summer of 2021 I traded the Cruze for a Chevy Trailblazer with All Wheel Drive. (AWD is distinguished from 4WD by a differential between the front and rear axles.) It handles well in snow and, importantly, makes it up my driveway.

My driveway a few winters ago

4WD and AWD are well and good for extra traction driving forward, but of course they are no help at all when trying to stop. The Trailblazer’s information center is not wrong to warn about ice. I’ve been lucky with cars and ice, but I’ve had close calls. As a pedestrian I avoided getting struck by a car that lost control on black ice only by leaping over a fence. In a Jeep (in 4WD) on an icy road I once managed to maneuver around a pointlessly stopped vehicle when it was clear my brakes weren’t going to do the job. My Cruze once slid over a small backroad bridge sideways without incident. In the two latter cases it helped that I was driving slowly and didn’t lock my brakes. On dry pavement AAA recommends at least 3 to 4 seconds braking time (adjust speed and distance accordingly) between you and the car in front. Increase this to 8 to 10 seconds on icy roads. Even this might not be enough. Over 150,000 auto accidents occur every year in the US due to icy roads. There are over 1800 fatalities in those crashes. In the Northeast only 11.4% of surveyed drivers say they haven’t driven on black ice. I think those 11.4% are mistaken. I think they have but aren’t aware of it – that they simply didn’t happen to step on the brakes while on top of it.
 
The danger doesn’t stop when you park and exit your vehicle. The CDC reports that 1 million people in the US are injured each year by slips and falls on ice and snow. More than 17,000 of those falls are fatal. For those 65 and older, falls are the leading cause of accidental injury and death. Once again, I’ve been lucky so far. Every year I slip and fall on ice at some point, but, other than the occasional sore butt, as yet I have injured only my pride. Nonetheless, I’ve stocked up on salt and sand for my sidewalks and driveway. NJ winters are unpredictable: some are fierce with repeated blizzards while others are almost balmy. I hope for the latter but am preparing for the former.

 

Little Richard – Slippin' and Slidin'

Roll of the Dice

My choice for a movie last night was a re-watch of the neo-noir The Big Town starring Matt Dillon and Diane Lane at her most stunning. I recommend it. The film was made in 1987 but is set in the mid-1950s. Matt plays a young professional craps shooter in Chicago. The Big Town can be enjoyed without expertise in the game which is fortunate because I understand the rules of craps only in the broadest outline. In its casino form the betting in craps is quite complicated. Street craps is usually considerably simplified, but the fast pace still can make it hard to follow for a newbie. For all that, it has a reputation as a workingman’s game, though at the upper levels gamblers play for very large stakes. Craps was invented in New Orleans in the early 19^th century, apparently deriving from the European dice game Hazard. It reached a peak in popularity in World War 2, but still has plenty of aficionados today. It has never been my game, but as a kid I generally liked board games with dice. They introduced a random element that nonetheless was literally in one’s own hands, thereby mirroring life itself.

Dice are very old, and probably derive from the casting of bones for divination: 6-sided knucklebones in particular, which continued to be used into Classical times. Ancient cube dice were commonly made from bone (or ivory), which gives this idea further credence. The pips (the dots) allowed numerology to enhance the divinations. Once dice were invented, of course, secular gambling with them was a natural. The oldest dice ever found were excavated in southeast Iran and date to at least 2500 BCE – perhaps centuries older. Not far behind are bone dice found at Skara Brae in Scotland, which date to at least 2400 BCE. They turn up in Egyptian tombs from 2000 BCE and also are found both in ancient China and India. Given the geographic spread of these finds, I think we can surmise that the actual origins long predate any of them. Dice of alternate shapes (e.g. 4-sided pyramids and 20-sided polyhedrons) also are ancient, but 6-sided cubes by far were, and are, the most common. The arrangement of pips were largely catch-as-catch-can until Roman times. The ancient Roman die was the same as a modern one, with opposite sides adding up to 7. The Romans enjoyed dice enough to use them as metaphors for taking a chance, just as we do today. Hence Caesar’s “Alea iacta est” (“the die is cast”) when he crossed the Rubicon on January 10, 49 BCE for a do-or-die showdown with the Senate. Dice didn’t disappear in the Middle Ages in Europe but became less common and non-standard. They made a comeback in the Renaissance. The Roman pip arrangement again became standard and has been with us ever since.
 
Modern dice come in three basic types: loaded, commercial, and casino. It is best to avoid loaded dice if one values one’s own health and safety. Commercial dice are the ones found in board games and toy stores. They are inexpensive and produce results that are random enough for informal purposes, but they almost certainly have unintended small biases in them. Casino dice are carefully crafted to be as perfectly balanced as possible; even the pips are filled with a polymer of the same density as the die itself so that they don’t introduce a bias. These, though somewhat costlier than commercial dice, are not actually expensive, but casinos change them every 8 throws or so, so they go through a lot of them.
 
Can a skilled dice player beat the odds – at least by a little? Maybe. Casinos try to get around this possibility in craps by requiring that thrown dice bounce off the back wall. This introduces enough unpredictability to make nonrandom outcomes very unlikely. Even in a straight throw, minor variations in motor control, geometry, and air resistance should be enough to ensure random results with balanced dice. Yet, maybe. Casinos make a good deal of money, though, off shooters who think they can do it. My bet is always on the House.
 
Have I ever made money with dice? Not much, but some. Back in college in a Business class we were told the dart theory of investing. Beating the S&P with any one investment is just a matter of luck, we were told, and picking stocks by throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal on average produces returns no better or worse than picking them after assiduous research, which necessarily is always incomplete. I believe this is still taught today. Some years back, I figured dice should work as well as darts, so after jotting down the names of a half dozen companies that I recognized, I rolled a die and picked that number on the list. John Deere did all right. Too bad I didn’t buy more.
 

Linda Ronstadt - Tumbling Dice