Tag: book-reviews

Let It Snow, Baby

jono55

Last weekend Robin and I drove up to Steamboat Springs to spend a couple of days with Ally and Kyle. It had been years.

For a midwinter trip, the traveling was amazingly easy, without any wintertime difficulties at all. From the character of the snow cover on the ground as we neared their home it was obvious that nothing new had fallen for at least a week or two. The snow was tired-looking, gray, in need of refreshment.

But it was still enough for starting the 112th running of the Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival. Late Friday we trooped over to a park in town and watched local ski jumpers and something that was new to us and often hilarious – downhill bicycle racing in snow.

We broke away for supper, and when we left the building it was raining, which turned to snow before we got out of town. The snowfall was huge flakes that reflected the headlight beams back at us and made visibility poor and the driving treacherous. Four inches of fluff fell that night, and it transformed the town and the surrounding countryside, which went from a gray background to pure white.

Saturday was an all-day snowshow finishing with spectacular fireworks. (I’ve included a gallery, but none of the pix are mine. The crowds were not oppressive, but they did prevent my getting access to good photo-talking locations.)

Lovely time, in all.

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Cactus Country, by Scott Law

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Remember the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words?”

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I confess that I don’t know quite what to make of Musk. While he has a certain amount of technical knowledge and skills, he is otherwise lacking in a host of other areas. One has only to read the sad history of what used to be Twitter to see that. I’m not a huge fan of social media, but Musk took Twitter from a service that was at least trying to keep itself clean to “X,” which is now little more than a megaphone for hate speech.

And he seems to be challenging us to ignore (or accept) his Third Reich-style speeches and gestures. Don’t know about how you see it, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck …

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From The New Yorker

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BTW, if anyone is having trouble making sense of what is happening in Washington DC, I can recommend a book. It’s The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer.

It is compelling reading, as it lays out in detail the steps that are the playbook for the rise of authoritarian regimes wherever they may occur. (Think of it as Project 1934). It is neither a dull nor stodgy history, and totally apropos in our moment.

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Learning the Game, by Leo Kottke

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Normally I am the soul of tolerance. A poster boy for acceptance. Forbearing to the point of being a saint. But something happens to me at the gym when I am using the weight-training devices and another client breaks etiquette by doing one of these things:

  • Dives in front of me and grabs the machine I have been obviously waiting for
  • Puts their water bottle on one machine to hold it while using another one, thus tying two of them up
  • Sits on a device while chatting with some other thoughtless bozo
  • Talks over their headphones while doing a set, turning 10 reps into a 10 minute-long workout
  • Makes no attempt to wipe their grime, sweat, and microflora from the device they have just used

If any of these behaviors occurs and I witness it, the sequence runs something like this: visual data to optic nerve to visual cortex to lizard brain to murderous impulse.

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So far I have been able to stop at this point and not do something which requires that I be incarcerated, but if some Christian teachings are correct and the thought is equal to the deed, I am a serial killer. And an unrepentant one to boot.

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From The New Yorker

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It’s In The Book

jono55

Something very pleasant happened to me recently, and it had to do with my birthday. I was given the gift of a book. A physical book with pages and a spine and everything. How long has it been since that happened? I can’t remember the last time.

There was a time when it was normal and to give gifts of books and music. Pleasing on both ends of the transaction. Any excuse to through the stores that sold such things was appreciated. And spending money on such luxuries was not extravagance but a noble gesture …. because I was going to give it away. Win – win.

With books, it was the Kindle and its clones. Not only were the books generally cheaper, but you had access to a gazillion titles. And on a cold and rainy day when you didn’t want to get out of bed you could simply click “Purchase” and the book would magically wing its way through space and land exactly on that small device in your hand. But giving somebody an e-book … the magic is diluted, if not absent.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Kindle. Why, I can carry hundreds of books with me when I travel, and who doesn’t need such a library when stranded in a Super 8 on a snowy night in Nowhere, USA?

But this new actual book that I was given … I am savoring it … turning pages … inserting bookmarks … what’s not to love about “old school?”

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It’s In The Book, by Johnny Standley

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Touch the Hand of Love, by Renee Fleming and YoYoMa

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Reading can be hazardous to your health. Every time I do a little bit of it, I can’t wait to run and tell somebody about what I’ve learned. In that I am much like the average four year-old.

This time it is once again something from the book The Animal Dialogues, and it was in the chapter dealing with pronghorns.

For a good part of my life I called them antelope, and even when I learned that this was not the proper terminology I wasn’t curious enough to pursue the obvious question – if they aren’t antelope, what the heck are they? When I finally did, I found that they weren’t anything in the world but … pronghorns.

Their genus, Antilocapra, belongs to no other species in the world but the pronghorn, endemic to North America. Since they are technically not antelope, and their genus is solitary, the pronghorn is the sole animal of its genetic kind in the world.

Craig Childs, The Animal Dialogues, p. 176.

We have seen them occasionally here in Paradise when we drive to Grand Junction, along Highway 50. But not as often as we would like, perhaps a sighting every couple of years or so. They can survive in what looks to us like the most unpromising rangeland.

The pronghorn is the fastest land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, being built for maximum predator evasion through running. The top speed is dependent upon the length of time over which it is measured. It can run 56 km/h (35 mph) for 6.5 km (4 mi), 68 km/h (42 mph) for 1.5 km (1 mi), and 88.5 km/h (55 mph) for 800 m (0.5 mi). Although it is slower than the African cheetah, it can sustain top speeds much longer than cheetahs. The pronghorn may have evolved its running ability to escape from now-extinct predators such as the American cheetah, since its speed greatly exceeds that of all extant North American predators.

Wikipedia: Pronghorn

Imagine that. Not only could the pronghorn outrun those cheetahs, they outlasted them in the evolutionary story. Today there’s nothing left in North America that can keep up with them.

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Veteran’s Day came and went as always. Thank you for your service has become as frequent and almost as meaningful as other common phrases like I know just how you feel or thoughts and prayers. I always nod when it is said to me, even though I feel somewhat of an impostor. My military service consisted of putting on the uniform, setting aside two years of my life from my civilian career, and then going to work in a safe and comfortable environment. At no time during those two years was I in any danger greater than is encountered by anyone driving on an average American highway.

So those of us who were in the Armed Forces are not all heroes, no matter how many florid speakers on how many platforms proclaim the converse. Most of us worked far away from the sound of guns and bombs and cries of the wounded. The men and women who do that are true exemplars, but unfortunately at parades and public functions where we put on our uniforms we all look the same.

Yesterday I was listening to a discussion on PBS as to who soon-to-be-president Cluck would choose as his military advisers, since nearly all of the generals in his previous term came to detest and distrust him and have clearly said so in the past several years.

The speakers were talking about the ethos of a company of men and women who are going into danger. They must trust their leaders and their fellow warriors, and also must share the intangible ideals of sacrifice and honor. Such a unit cannot function well without all of these.

Our newly elected leader knows nothing of either sacrifice or honor. In his public statements over the past dozen years he has shown that he has little understanding of or respect for the men and women in the military, except as they can be a source of profit, as in his statement “We should have taken the oil.”

So technically speaking I am a veteran, but nowhere near a hero, not even on the same page with them. I did make small sacrifices, and I do know something about honor. I like to think that I would not have behaved badly had I been put into a combat area, but of course I have no way of knowing, and unless they start drafting octogenarians for combat work I will never find out.

So when I am thanked for my service I nod acceptance, because it is easier than going into a harangue like the one you have just been subjected to. But I do know the difference.

So to all of those who did the heavy lifting while I walked through my tour of duty in Omaha, Nebraska, a sincere thank you for your service.

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A moving scene from a fine movie – From Here To Eternity. Robert E. Lee Prewitt plays the bugle call Taps in honor of a friend who was killed. Something about these twenty-four notes has the power to halt people in whatever they are doing until the last one is played.

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Everything Old Is New Again

jono55

As regular readers know, I am presently taking my time going through one of my favorite books, War & Peace. Some might ask “Why re-read anything when you know what the ending will be?”This of course sets them up for the classic rejoinder “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”

My own reasons are this. On each reading I have been impressed with what a modern book it is. Mr. Tolstoy was an uncanny observer of his society, of human nature in general, and he was a premier psychologist as well. There is one gem after another to discover. Last night I read a single paragraph that applies perfectly to some of the problems we are facing today.

In the book Pierre, a rotund and amiable fellow, becomes extravagantly rich when his powerful father dies, and instantly those around him find that he is so much more interesting in every way. He is now a Count and every word from his mouth is worth cherishing. What used to be plain old fat is now stylish corporeal augmentation.

But when he gives a speech to a group of fellow Masons accentuating his take on the spiritual side of their raison d’être, he is verbally attacked by the leadership, and his opinions go right into the water closet.

But it gets worse. Even those who are on his side have revisions and suggestions that totally miss his intentions and lead off in directions that he cannot support. Pierre despairs.

I’ve never read a clearer or more concise description of the problem of trying to lead or reform any human endeavor. Groups of what one thought of as co-creators or at least as followers begin to fall away over doctrinal disagreements. It becomes impossible to keep the group together, and eventually one tires of fighting it and the original heart of the movement wastes away.

Personally, I definitely lean toward the political left side and the Democratic Party’s platforms, although I call myself an Independent. However I do give myself leave to call out the Democrats for what I see as their fecklessness and squabbling. Which means they aren’t doing what I want them to do at a given moment, but are broken up into groups that are at each other’s throats, poking one another in the eye, and pulling the chair out from under one another in perpetual prankism. I want them to be unified behind the projects dearest to me.

In this I am just like the character Pierre in Tolstoy’s novel, without the fabulously wealthy part. But I have an advantage over Pierre, in that I can look over at the Republican Party and see the horrorshow that it has become. No matter how frustrating or annoying the Dems can be, as a herd they are at least heading in a direction toward food and water. If they were only smarter and listened to me, they would get there a lot faster, but that’s another story altogether.

Human, by Rag’N’Bone Man

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A serving US Air Force officer was crowned Miss America on Sunday evening. She is Second Lieutenant Madison Marsh. I gasped in disbelief as I read the story.

During my tour of duty in the USAF I never encountered an officer of any gender remotely qualified to be a candidate in a beauty pageant.

We were instead rather a plain lot, suiting up and showing up each day without having to worry about the problems that possessing excessive physical attractiveness would engender.

Looking back I am grateful that this was the case. If a second lieutenant who resembled this woman had worked among us I think that less work would have gotten done, what with all the preening going on among most of the males and perhaps a few of the females as well.

No … much better the way it was.

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Each time that I leave the gym I am glad that I went. My body feels stronger, my step livelier. Every time I think about going to the gym there is a struggle against terminal inertia.

Each time I have finished mediating I feel clearer in my mind, more settled, glad that I took the time to do it. Every time I think about meditating I have a half-dozen other things I’d rather do, including the twiddling of my thumbs. 

There is a saying that circulates in AA groups to the effect that when becoming sober and wondering what to do with the rest of one’s often messy life, the answer is to pull up one’s jeans, tighten the belt, and do the next right thing. It’s sort of a reworking of the one day at a time slogan. Both pieces of advice are good ones, but taking good advice has never been my strongest suit.

For some reason, and I admit that I don’t understand it, I am presently exercising and meditating regularly. I’m sure that it’s only one of those phases we hear about, and will soon pass. 

Sloth never rests.

Get Up Stand Up, by Bob Marley

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This ad popped up on my computer screen the other day. It is a gigantic doggie bed meant to be occupied by humans. It costs $329.00. 

My first thought in seeing the ad was for goodness’ sake, what will they think of next?

My second thought was what a great idea, this thing has what a bed has always been missing … walls.

When I really needed it was when my children were young, and home life was sometimes chaotic, sort of like living in a pinball game, with small bodies ricocheting around the room constantly. All that was missing was lighting and sound effects.

But if I had owned one of these … it could have been declared to be “Dad’s Quiet Place, and when he is in it he is not to be disturbed.If you bother him he will call Social Services and report you.”

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Mom, can I ask Dad a question?

No, he is in his quiet place.

But I can see him … he’s right there.

He needs to rest his brain, it is on fire.

But he’s not sleeping – look – his eyes are open.

Never you mind. These are the rules.

The rules are stupid … why can’t I have a quiet place?

You are a kid. When you’re a grownup you can buy your own darn doggie bed.

That’s stupid.

You’re stupid.

No, you’re stupid.

Go to your room.

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The Circle Game, by Joni Mitchell

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