Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 83

Photos of the Storm

Patrick decided we needed to go out and photograph the storm yesterday. So we did, wading through three foot drifts of snow. I fell down twice. No big deal, since falling into a snow drift is like falling into pillows.

It was a very satisfactory blizzard. Today is bright and clear. The east-west streets are being plowed. Tomorrow will be north-south, and the Cities will be back in operation.

I think the next time I need an author's pic, the one immediately above will be it.

SNOW!!!

We're in the middle of a serious snow storm. Ten to twenty inches was predicted. Right now, the snow is falling so thickly we can see across the street, but not much farther. Patrick is taking photos of nearby buildings. They are almost colorless shadows, looming through whiteness.

So we are stuck inside today, which is just fine.

Patrick has a very large teddy bear given to him years ago by a homeless man. The bear's name is Mr. Bear. Patrick and I occasionally have conversations with him, Patrick voicing the bear. Usually Mr. Bear makes remarks about being homeless and how important it is to have a home.

This morning, Mr. Bear said, "This reminds me of '91."

That was a famous year for blizzards, the last year (till now) when the Twin Cities had serious snow storms.

"You remember '91?" I asked.

"Of course. There was so much snow we couldn't find cans. I spent the entire day under a loading dock."

"You're safe inside this time," I said to Mr. Bear.

Our Tax Dollars At Work At NASA

The robotic rover Opportunity has chanced across another small crater on Mars. Pictured above is Intrepid Crater, a 20-meter across impact basin slightly larger than Nereus Crater that Opportunity chanced across last year. The above image is in approximately true color but horizontally compressed to accommodate a wide angle panorama. Intrepid Crater was named after the lunar module Intrepid that carried Apollo 12 astronauts to Earth's Moon 41 years ago last month. Beyond Intrepid Crater and past long patches of rusty Martian desert lie peaks from the rim of large Endeavour Crater, visible on the horizon. If Opportunity can avoid ridged rocks and soft sand, it may reach Endeavour sometime next year.

Notes on Preceding Post

I just did some checking. The Egyptians thought the heart did our thinking for us and were not much interested in the brain. However, that still leaves eyesight, hearing and speech in the head. Crowns went on the head, not on the chest. Though the Egyptians had some awesome pectorals.

Egyptian gods and goddesses were represented by animals as well as animal headed humans. Thoth, the god of writing and knowledge, could be represented by a man with an ibis head or an ibis or a baboon.

Some were mixtures of animals. Tawaret, the goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, has the head of a hippo, the arms and legs of a lion, the back and tail of a crocodile and the breasts and belly of a pregnant woman. She stands upright like a human, but does not look especially human.

The Assyrians had their wonderful guardian figures, with the heads of men, the bodies of cattle and wings. Chinese dragons are intelligent, talk and have societies similar of traditional Chinese society -- but they are not human in appearance. Rather, they were made of the parts of other animals: snake, fish, horse, cow, lizard, eagle and deer, per tradition.

Native American spirits often seem to flip back and forth between animal and human. Sometimes Coyote is a magical man named Coyote. Sometimes he is a coyote.

Something very interesting is happening here, and I don't think it is simply anthropomorphizing.

Rather, it is the merging of animals and humans, or the breaking down of an artificial barrier between them.

New Scientist

I dropped my sub to Science News, so now New Scientist is my main source for news about science. I have mixed feelings about NS. It's a bit too flashy for my liking. To give a kind of example of my problems, here are comments on an article on anthropomorphism.

First, a definition of anthropomorphic for Dictionary.com:

1. ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human, esp. to a deity.
2. resembling or made to resemble a human form: an anthropomorphic carving.

Now, from the New Scientist article:

There's no doubt that anthropomorphism is ingrained in human nature.Some of the oldest known pieces of cave art show figures who are half-human, half-animal, suggesting the trait may have been present in our ancestors at least 30,000 years ago.

We have no idea what this figure represents, because we don't have enough information about the artist and his (or her) culture. Most likely it says something about humans and animals and maybe about religion, but what?

The article gives a photo of an ancient Egyptian relief, with two animal-headed gods. This is captioned:

Humanized mythic figures have appeared throughout history.

Granted the gods have human bodies, but their heads -- the location of eyesight, hearing, speech and the brain -- are animal. Like the cave painting, this probably says something interesting about humans, animals and the divine. But I don't know what. NS could have checked with an Egyptologist.e both human and animal aspects?
Then there is an explanation for why people attribute their own ideas to God:

The results...might simply confirm that some people use God to elevate their own beliefs... To Epley, it signified something more profound: the less evidence we have for another's beliefs -- and for God we have very little indeed -- the more likely we are to project our own beliefs into the voids.

People who belong to established religions have a great deal of information about their God or gods. It comes from sacred texts, doctrine, theology... If people ignore all this and project their personal beliefs on God, the problem is not lack of available knowledge.

Philip Roth

I have been reading Josh Lukin on facebook. He and his friends were discussing favorite authors, especially Philip Roth. I finally posted:

This is a demoralizing discussion, since I have never read Philip Roth and don't plan to. I have read Willa Cather and Chekov and Lou Reed. I even have a book of Lou Reed lyrics... But I think, all in all, I will crawl into a cave and gnaw on Icelandic sagas.

Josh commented that this was sad, and another friend commented that I belonged in a cave if I hadn't read American Pastoral, which is by Roth.

I looked up American Pastoral in Wikipedia and thought, why would I care about the problems of late 20th century, middle class men in New Jersey? I'm not a man; I don't live in New Jersey; and I am not interested in the problems of the middle class.

The intensity of my response was because I'd been put on the defensive. I'm not entirely comfortable with the spottiness of my reading. It's possible there are treasures I am missing. But I think I'd sooner read Grapes of Wrath or the unabridged version of Journey to the West.

I think I want the exotic, the fantastic or the political when I read. Best of all is all three.

I have been reading Josh Lukin on facebook. He and his fr...

I have been reading Josh Lukin on facebook. He and his friends were discussing favorite authors, especially Philip Roth. I finally posted:

This is a demoralizing discussion, since I have never read Philip Roth and don't plan to. I have read Willa Cather and Chekov and Lou Reed. I even have a book of Lou Reed lyrics... But I think, all in all, I will crawl into a cave and gnaw on Icelandic sagas.

Josh commented that this was sad, and another friend commented that I belonged in a cave if I hadn't read American Pastoral, which is by Roth.

I looked up American Pastoral in Wikipedia and thought, why would I care about the problems of late 20th century, middle class men in New Jersey? I'm not a man; I don't live in New Jersey; and I am not interested in the problems of the middle class.

The intensity of my response was because I'd been put on the defensive. I'm not entirely comfortable with the spottiness of my reading. It's possible there are treasures I am missing. But I think I'd sooner read Grapes of Wrath or the unabridged version of Journey to the West.

I think I want the exotic, the fantastic or the political when I read. Best of all is all three.

Another Great Image from NASA (our tax dollars at work)

A wonderful photo of a supercell, which I am not copying here, because it's copyrighted.

Not All is Gloom and Doom

A poem I wrote after the last awful election:

After A Political Setback

The thing to do
is take a hot shower,
dress carefully,
put on a fancy necklace
and amethyst earrings,
smile at the mirror and say:
"I remain.
Those I love remain.
The poor,
the workers and farmers remain.
Those who fight remain.
Those who win
as well as those who lose."

It is dedicated to Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party, the new President of Brazil. When she was young, she was a Communist guerrilla, who was imprisoned by the military government and tortured. She says her goal as president is to end poverty in Brazil. We will see how she does.

My agent tells me that "My Husband Steinn," my story about trolls and the giant hydroelectric project in Iceland has been bought.

The hwarhath Sherlock Holmes story has gone to my writing group. The Brer Rabbit story has -- finally, finally -- gone to my agent, though I still don't like the last few pages. I will probably rewrite them.

Grey Weather 2

The other cause of my low mood is the recent election, and my sense that Obama is a less effective politician than George Bush, who actually managed to do what he wanted to do: cut taxes for the rich, start two wars, increase the power of the executive and begin the process of turning the US into a police state.

Bush may not have been responsible for all this. It might be Chaney. But someone in the White House got things done, though they were all things I dislike.

I used to joke that every president made the previous president look good. Then we got to Bush 2, and I thought there is no way that anyone can make this guy look good.

Bush was an idiot, with an effective handler, would be my guess. Obama seems like an empty suit. I don't know what he wants. I do know he has not come through on any of the promises he made while campaigning, and he is not solving any of the terrible problems the country faces.

If you ever saw the movie Paris is Burning, you know about voguing: fashion shows in which members of oppressed minorities -- black and Latino gays and transsexuals -- presented on stage their dream roles. Many were drag queens, but some acted out, in perfect dress, policemen or businessmen or members of the military.

Obama is voguing the president of the United States. This is not meant to be a racist remark. Obama is not voguing because he is black or a member of a sexual minority. He is voguing because all he knows about the job is the externals. It is politics as a fashion show.