The authors of science zines must spend much time reading one another, because they often carry similar stories even when nothing special in the news has prompted it. If one zine carries an article on, say, border clashes between tribes of chimps in Angola, simply because the subject interests one of the writers, other zines are sure to follow in the next few days with similar articles.
This must explain a recent spate of articles in science zines about how closely all humans are related. None of the zines cite any significant new paper in any major journal. Nevertheless, the point is an interesting one though it is nothing new. It long has been the consensus that it is mathematically necessary, due to the doubling of direct ancestors with each generation, for every person now living to be descended from every person in the world who was alive no further in the past than 7000 years ago who left a still intact line. This is so even if very conservative assumptions about human movements are applied. The number is closer to 5000 years if more liberal and more likely assumptions about migration are used. Even a tiny rate of infiltration by travelers over the steppes, the deserts, and the seas ensures this universal relativity - and migration was often anything but tiny. Also, all living people, no matter how remote, share at least one direct common ancestor by 3000 years ago (more likely 2000).
There is something neat about this. A person may not think of himself as hailing from the banks of the Chang Jiang River or the grasslands of West Africa if his great great grandparents sailed to the US from Ireland in 1849, but it seems that he does. His ancestors hauled stones to Giza too. They quite likely besieged (and defended) Troy. It is worth an occasional thought, while claiming this rather than that heritage, that those other folks are cousins too. Cousins, of course, don't always get along, but it is still worth a thought.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Karma Curmudgeon
85 years ago, in separate incidents, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner slew their boyfriends. Allegedly. Both were acquitted. Beulah didn’t actually deny shooting hers; she simply said she acted in self-defense and not at all because of his intention to dump her. After the shooting she played a foxtrot record while waiting for the fellow to die, which he did 4 hours later. Then she called the police. Belva never admitted doing anything. Sure she was in the front seat of her boyfriend’s car where he was killed by a gun found on the seat next to him. Other people had seen her there. Sure she owned guns. Other people had seen her with those too; a girl had to be careful of robbers, she said. Sure she was still covered in her boyfriend’s blood when the police arrived at her apartment. But she had been drinking, you see, and for the life of her couldn’t remember what happened in the car. She sincerely doubted she had anything to do with her boyfriend’s death though.
These became celebrity cases. The juries bought the defendants’ stories and both walked free. Beulah’s husband stood by her through the trial, but after it was over she dumped him and married a boxer.
If all this sounds familiar, it should. Maurine Dallas Watkins wrote a play based on the events called Chicago which ran on Broadway. It was made into a movie in 1927. The movie was remade in 1942 as Roxie Hart with Ginger Rogers in the title role. It returned to the stage in 1975, renamed Chicago, this time as a musical. The best known version is probably the 2002 movie adaptation starring Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
I’ve never seen the straight original play, but I’m fond of the 1927 version (the scene where Roxie is being coached by her lawyer is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-zYAd5FdBE ), the 1942 version, and the Broadway musical. My fondness reinforced a resistance to seeing the 2002 movie that I had anyway. It long has been my opinion that stage musicals rarely translate well to the screen; they never turn out better on screen, despite all the superior stagecraft and fx possible, and sometimes achieved, with film – it’s just not the right medium. On a recent sleepless night, though, I finally watched it. It actually isn’t bad. I much prefer Broadway, but it isn’t bad.
I’m not sure what about this kind of story catches our attention so much in real life and in the movies. It may be wonderment that karma really doesn’t balance things out. What goes around doesn’t come around – unless we decide to make it do so. Even then, we often get it wrong.
These became celebrity cases. The juries bought the defendants’ stories and both walked free. Beulah’s husband stood by her through the trial, but after it was over she dumped him and married a boxer.
If all this sounds familiar, it should. Maurine Dallas Watkins wrote a play based on the events called Chicago which ran on Broadway. It was made into a movie in 1927. The movie was remade in 1942 as Roxie Hart with Ginger Rogers in the title role. It returned to the stage in 1975, renamed Chicago, this time as a musical. The best known version is probably the 2002 movie adaptation starring Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
I’ve never seen the straight original play, but I’m fond of the 1927 version (the scene where Roxie is being coached by her lawyer is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-zYAd5FdBE ), the 1942 version, and the Broadway musical. My fondness reinforced a resistance to seeing the 2002 movie that I had anyway. It long has been my opinion that stage musicals rarely translate well to the screen; they never turn out better on screen, despite all the superior stagecraft and fx possible, and sometimes achieved, with film – it’s just not the right medium. On a recent sleepless night, though, I finally watched it. It actually isn’t bad. I much prefer Broadway, but it isn’t bad.
I’m not sure what about this kind of story catches our attention so much in real life and in the movies. It may be wonderment that karma really doesn’t balance things out. What goes around doesn’t come around – unless we decide to make it do so. Even then, we often get it wrong.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Clockwatching
Author Ray Bradbury, who will be 89 this August, once remarked that when he was a boy, a visit to the relatives meant a visit to the graveyard. It was a pre-birth-control era of large families, and it was unlikely that all of one's siblings would make it to adulthood. Modern medicine in 1920 was just beginning to make to make serious headway against common diseases and infections, and something curable a quarter-century later with simple penicillin could very well be fatal. He said the greatest changes in social attitudes in his lifetime have come from the increasing insulation of modern life from everyday connection to death. Violence in video games doesn’t count, since we know that is as much a fantasy as the aliens and zombies shooting back at our avatars in the games; if anything, it adds to the sense of detachment. We no longer expect to lose friends and relatives in real life before they are old. It happens, of course, for any number of reasons, but we no longer expect it. We often forget about our own mortality altogether, until blindsided by some event that that forces our awareness.
This surely has much to do with the abundance of Peter Pans and Wendys running about with graying hair. If life is neverending, there is not much need to look at the clock to see what time it is. Perhaps paying attention to time is a definition of maturity. I know I didn't begin to grow up until I started to lose those close to me, and I haven't finished the job even at this late stage. Fortunately, having avoided taking on such adult responsibilities as were avoidable (fatherhood being the big one), I've been able to dodge most of the dire consequences of a Never-never-land existence so far, though no doubt I've missed some benefits too.
This is not entirely a bad thing. Perhaps the old saw "Live each day as if it were your last" should be modified to "Live each day as if it were your first." After all, it probably won't be your last and you'll be stuck paying for the party. Nevertheless, perhaps we also should remember, at least occasionally, that there really is a clock. None of us knows to what time the alarm is set, but we often can make an educated guess.
In another week or so on the summer solstice, nature's clock, I’ll sit out back and toast time – if I remember to look at the calendar. How about you?
This surely has much to do with the abundance of Peter Pans and Wendys running about with graying hair. If life is neverending, there is not much need to look at the clock to see what time it is. Perhaps paying attention to time is a definition of maturity. I know I didn't begin to grow up until I started to lose those close to me, and I haven't finished the job even at this late stage. Fortunately, having avoided taking on such adult responsibilities as were avoidable (fatherhood being the big one), I've been able to dodge most of the dire consequences of a Never-never-land existence so far, though no doubt I've missed some benefits too.
This is not entirely a bad thing. Perhaps the old saw "Live each day as if it were your last" should be modified to "Live each day as if it were your first." After all, it probably won't be your last and you'll be stuck paying for the party. Nevertheless, perhaps we also should remember, at least occasionally, that there really is a clock. None of us knows to what time the alarm is set, but we often can make an educated guess.
In another week or so on the summer solstice, nature's clock, I’ll sit out back and toast time – if I remember to look at the calendar. How about you?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Something Wilde
I haven't learned very much in my years on this planet, but I have learned (the hard way, of course) enough to know there is a land mine inside this excerpt from an Economist article:
"Americans expect a lot from marriage. Whereas most Italians say the main purpose of marriage is to have children, 70% of Americans think it is something else. They want their spouse to make them happy. Some go further and assume that if they are not happy, it must be because they picked the wrong person."
Another person cannot make you happy. Let me repeat that. Another person cannot make you happy. It is trite to say (annoyingly, most truths are), but you have to find happiness inside yourself.
On the other hand, another person can make you miserable.
In my observation, there are two basic sets of people: 1) those who are naturally happy unless especially bad things are happening to them, and 2) those who are naturally unhappy unless especially good things are happening to them. If you're one of the former, you don't need to look for someone else to cheer you up. You’ll be just fine whittling on the porch by yourself. If you're one of the latter, no one else ever will supply you with enough good times to keep you smiling. Attempts to extract enough out of your companion merely will add to you own disappointments while making him or her miserable.
Type 1s almost always marry type 2s. Type 2s almost always marry type 1s.
Said Oscar Wilde, "I always give away good advice. It never is of the slightest use to myself." So, here goes. Just try to find someone who doesn't make you miserable. At least he or she won't get in the way.
"Americans expect a lot from marriage. Whereas most Italians say the main purpose of marriage is to have children, 70% of Americans think it is something else. They want their spouse to make them happy. Some go further and assume that if they are not happy, it must be because they picked the wrong person."
Another person cannot make you happy. Let me repeat that. Another person cannot make you happy. It is trite to say (annoyingly, most truths are), but you have to find happiness inside yourself.
On the other hand, another person can make you miserable.
In my observation, there are two basic sets of people: 1) those who are naturally happy unless especially bad things are happening to them, and 2) those who are naturally unhappy unless especially good things are happening to them. If you're one of the former, you don't need to look for someone else to cheer you up. You’ll be just fine whittling on the porch by yourself. If you're one of the latter, no one else ever will supply you with enough good times to keep you smiling. Attempts to extract enough out of your companion merely will add to you own disappointments while making him or her miserable.
Type 1s almost always marry type 2s. Type 2s almost always marry type 1s.
Said Oscar Wilde, "I always give away good advice. It never is of the slightest use to myself." So, here goes. Just try to find someone who doesn't make you miserable. At least he or she won't get in the way.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Pulp Friction
I have four paper-and-ink books available for sale and have one more online for free, but Stephen King has no cause to look worriedly over his shoulder. I am not gaining on him.
That is OK (sort of). I’ll never refuse a royalty, but my fiction would exist if there were no readers at all. I write to scratch an itch, as nearly all writers do. Some writers have more remunerative itches than others, of course. Many successful authors write with grace, depth, and quality (even many potboiler authors: Koontz and Ketchum, for example, write not just commercially but well), but others are not so handicapped by talent.
A friend of mine, who regularly and cheerily reminds me of my absence from the bestseller list, recently (for no particular reason that I could see) pondered aloud what I was "doing wrong." Using his fingers, he counted off well-known titles by authors of dubious talent, and then asked me what I thought were the elements of a commercially successful novel. I countered that I obviously didn't know, and changed the subject. Yet, the question stirred something in my memory. It seemed to me that a hypothesis about this had once been proposed and put to the test. I did a little research and soon stumbled upon the experiment that I recalled from my schooldays.
One day in 1966, Newsday columnist Mike McGrady picked up The New York Times book review section and looked at the bestseller list. He was irritated by what he saw, and concluded "inept writing held the key to success." He was convinced he could write as badly as any author on the list, and that many of his colleagues could, too. Inspired by the thought, he playfully wrote a memo and sent it to 24 members of the Newsday staff.
"You are hereby invited to become the co-author of a best selling novel," he wrote. "There will be an unremitting emphasis on sex and true excellence in writing will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion."
The staff responded enthusiastically. They devised a simple plot: a woman discovers her husband is cheating on her, so she takes revenge by indulging in one lurid sexual escapade after another. That is the whole plot. Her lovers are sophisticates and ruffians from all walks of life. The staff divvied up the writing in appropriate fashion: Newsday's crime writer wrote the chapter about her fling with a gangster, the sports writer the one about an affair with a boxer, and so on. They invented an "author" and named her Penelope Ashe. McGrady's sister-in-law agreed to play Penelope on the talk show circuit. Released in 1969, the novel was a stunning success. Naked Came the Stranger soared to 4 on The New York Times bestseller list, elbowing aside Jacqueline Susann's The Love Machine. Hollywood came knocking and bought the movie rights for a large sum (yes, the movie was made, and it, too, was successful by the standards of low-budget x-rated films). The revelation of the hoax by McGrady did nothing to diminish sales.
I don't think tastes have elevated in the 40 years since, so McGrady's formula probably still has legs. So, all my scrawling friends out there, perhaps together we too can tap out something truly awful.
One of my books, Trash & Other Litter, by the way, actually has a few elements of the formula. Sales nonetheless are modest. I prefer to suppose this is because Mike would have taken his blue pencil to it.
That is OK (sort of). I’ll never refuse a royalty, but my fiction would exist if there were no readers at all. I write to scratch an itch, as nearly all writers do. Some writers have more remunerative itches than others, of course. Many successful authors write with grace, depth, and quality (even many potboiler authors: Koontz and Ketchum, for example, write not just commercially but well), but others are not so handicapped by talent.
A friend of mine, who regularly and cheerily reminds me of my absence from the bestseller list, recently (for no particular reason that I could see) pondered aloud what I was "doing wrong." Using his fingers, he counted off well-known titles by authors of dubious talent, and then asked me what I thought were the elements of a commercially successful novel. I countered that I obviously didn't know, and changed the subject. Yet, the question stirred something in my memory. It seemed to me that a hypothesis about this had once been proposed and put to the test. I did a little research and soon stumbled upon the experiment that I recalled from my schooldays.
One day in 1966, Newsday columnist Mike McGrady picked up The New York Times book review section and looked at the bestseller list. He was irritated by what he saw, and concluded "inept writing held the key to success." He was convinced he could write as badly as any author on the list, and that many of his colleagues could, too. Inspired by the thought, he playfully wrote a memo and sent it to 24 members of the Newsday staff.
"You are hereby invited to become the co-author of a best selling novel," he wrote. "There will be an unremitting emphasis on sex and true excellence in writing will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion."
The staff responded enthusiastically. They devised a simple plot: a woman discovers her husband is cheating on her, so she takes revenge by indulging in one lurid sexual escapade after another. That is the whole plot. Her lovers are sophisticates and ruffians from all walks of life. The staff divvied up the writing in appropriate fashion: Newsday's crime writer wrote the chapter about her fling with a gangster, the sports writer the one about an affair with a boxer, and so on. They invented an "author" and named her Penelope Ashe. McGrady's sister-in-law agreed to play Penelope on the talk show circuit. Released in 1969, the novel was a stunning success. Naked Came the Stranger soared to 4 on The New York Times bestseller list, elbowing aside Jacqueline Susann's The Love Machine. Hollywood came knocking and bought the movie rights for a large sum (yes, the movie was made, and it, too, was successful by the standards of low-budget x-rated films). The revelation of the hoax by McGrady did nothing to diminish sales.
I don't think tastes have elevated in the 40 years since, so McGrady's formula probably still has legs. So, all my scrawling friends out there, perhaps together we too can tap out something truly awful.
One of my books, Trash & Other Litter, by the way, actually has a few elements of the formula. Sales nonetheless are modest. I prefer to suppose this is because Mike would have taken his blue pencil to it.
Friday, May 1, 2009
The Quiet Riot
As a new month of May quietly arrives, my thoughts turn to
an earlier more riotous May. As riots go, it was a pleasant one.
In the spring of 1971, ARVN troops launched an ill-fated
offensive against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos . The sudden re-escalation of
the war put new life into the anti-war movement in the US . 200,000
protesters jammed into Washington ,
DC
This was my freshman year at GWU and I lived in Mitchell
Hall, an 8-story dorm at 514 19th
St NW in DC, three blocks from the White House and
a short walk from the Mall. The rooms and hallways of the dorm were crammed
with out-of-town students who were there for the demonstrations. I'm afraid my
primary interest was unpolitical: it was whether any of the visitors were pretty.
On the night of May 2 my friend Don and I walked to the Washington Monument Constitution
Avenue trying to direct traffic. A young blonde
woman in jeans and buckskin, and high on something more than the thick haze of
marijuana in the air, stood next to him and "assisted" with grand
sweeping gestures in the direction of walls and lampposts. Finally he became
exasperated and gently shooed her away.
"You're a good cop!" she shouted far too loudly
into his face.
"Yeah, I know," he said, shaking his head as she
staggered toward the Monument.
Trying to navigate across the crowded Monument lawn, I
stepped over and around human beings, who sat and lay about in various states
of consciousness. The spaces between them were filled largely by blankets,
coolers, and knapsacks. It was a surreal scene, so Don and I mingled
and lingered. Eventually, we moseyed back to our dorm.
Our timing was fortuitous. Just before dawn on May 3,
thousands of police and National Guardsmen surrounded the grounds and the Mall.
Most of the protestors were fleet-footed
enough to evade immediate arrest. The assault on the roads and bridges went
forward. It was no small event. Over the next three days 12,000 demonstrators
were arrested. The practice field by RFK Stadium was used to hold them.
I opted simply to observe, and Mitchell Hall proved a good
vantage point to watch some of the action. I kept to the rooftop and upper
floors, not only for the better view, but to get above the street-level tear
gas. The tang of the stuff cleared my sinuses even on the roof. Below,
protestors drifted from intersection to intersection, while convoys of police
cars and squads of CDU police on foot chased them away. One rag-tag troupe
surrounded a Metro bus in the street below; they opened the engine cover and
tried to disable the bus, but police cars arrived before they could finish.
They scattered. This was a typical scene all over town. The protesters
definitely interfered with traffic, but they didn't stop it. Government
commuters got to work, though they could not have enjoyed driving through tear
gas. Some street action sputtered on for a couple days, but by May 6 it was all
over. A fellow student passed by me in the dorm hallway with books under his left arm. "Revolution's over," he said to me. So it was.
What struck me most about the whole affair was the remarkable
lack of rancor in the tone of the event. Police and protesters seemed, if
anything, to be having fun. I heard more than a little laughter from both
sides. Yes, protesters were violent and police did get rough, but there was no
overall sense that the violence would turn deadly. None of my dorm residents who had gotten arrested had so much as a small bruise to show off for it.
Many civil disturbances in this era and since were both
mean and deadly. Why was this one such a soft riot? In large part it was
because the police were professional and restrained. Also, it was because the
protesters by and large were overwhelmingly middle-class college kids. They
came from supportive families where they had been raised on Disney and Dr.
Spock. They weren't angry enough to be truly dangerous.
So, my first large scale riot was pretty tame, by the
standards of such things. I'd just as soon avoid being present at a second,
since odds are it would be different.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
String Theory
I heard a tune the other day which sounded familiar. It was recorded by the Andrews Sisters in 1940, but I couldn't place where I had heard it before. (Why I was listening to the Andrews Sisters probably requires another explanation, but we’ll leave that for another time.)
I've got no strings
To hold me down
To make me fret, or make me frown
I had strings
But now I'm free
There are no strings on me
A Google search quickly provided the answer, which seems obvious in retrospect. It is from the Disney cartoon Pinocchio (1940). I hadn’t interpreted the lyrics literally when I heard them, and perhaps the lyricist Ned Washington didn’t when he wrote them, which means he may have had some explaining to do at home about them (assuming he had strings).
I’ve taken Disney to task in the past for suckering the young (and not just the young) with false expectations of castles and fairy tale romances and happily-ever-afters. When instead they encounter mortgage payments, working-on-our-relationships, and daily stress, many naturally feel victims of a bait-and-switch. Yet, there is nothing really wrong with escapist fairy tales provided we don’t dupe ourselves into thinking they are anything else. Besides, reviewing these and other Disney lyrics, I think I may have overlooked a subtle subversive streak in Walt and his minions after all.
I've got no strings
To hold me down
To make me fret, or make me frown
I had strings
But now I'm free
There are no strings on me
A Google search quickly provided the answer, which seems obvious in retrospect. It is from the Disney cartoon Pinocchio (1940). I hadn’t interpreted the lyrics literally when I heard them, and perhaps the lyricist Ned Washington didn’t when he wrote them, which means he may have had some explaining to do at home about them (assuming he had strings).
I’ve taken Disney to task in the past for suckering the young (and not just the young) with false expectations of castles and fairy tale romances and happily-ever-afters. When instead they encounter mortgage payments, working-on-our-relationships, and daily stress, many naturally feel victims of a bait-and-switch. Yet, there is nothing really wrong with escapist fairy tales provided we don’t dupe ourselves into thinking they are anything else. Besides, reviewing these and other Disney lyrics, I think I may have overlooked a subtle subversive streak in Walt and his minions after all.
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