David Erik Nelson's Blog, page 44

Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) Classic issue #257 (published December 15, 2005): "Perpetually sore from the electric bull."

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Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) Classic issue #257 (published December 15, 2005)

Perpetually sore from the electric bull.

Giant Squid: Ask the Giant Squid: Midget Vs Lion by the Giant SquidDear Giant Squid:

Any thoughts regarding the theoretical cage match between a lion and forty midgets? Of particular interest to me: who would win?

Many thanks,

k

Inquisitive K.,

Far from shockingly, this is indeed a matter upon which I have meditated much, considered thoroughly, and come to some conclusions. Primarily of note is the relationship of size to numerosity.

Consider: Clearly it is the case that much more oft than not, the small must fall before the strong. Although ants are sagacious in their autonomy, the ant is oft eaten by the vexsome and nigh-unto brainless cat, so much the larger and more tactless than she (As an aside, K., were you aware that a cat can live for almost seven weeks without use of its head? Strange, and yet true. They are creatures nigh unto totally autonomic in function.) Similarly, there is little question of who shall be victor in such popular match-the-ups as David vs. the Goliath, polar bear vs. marmoset, Christian vs. lion, hurricano vs. tenement or Roe vs. Wade. Can a cat challenge a king? For certain it is not the case, for the average cat has a mass under 7 kilos, while an average king posseses some 90.

So, then, we know that the larger does conquer the smaller. There is a matter of size.

But, consider thurther: There is size, and then there is multitude. . . .

Fiction: Must be Love by Nadine DarlingHe hasn't shaved since they bought the test.

He has his hand between her knees, then on her belly. It's already there, the belly, pressing out like the flat of a tongue.

"See here," says Jack, "how fat do you plan upon getting?"

"Oh, massively so," says Suzanne. "Massively."

"Just checking."

"I want to dance," says Suzanne.

"Fat people love dancing. It's humorous. Also, falling down stairs. Also, getting their hands caught in giant mouse-traps."

"Then, let's do all of that," says Suzanne. "Right now."

"I want to go home," says Jack.

They're in the new car, which smells of wet and leather and other people's air, and it's raining out and early. Several paramount stop lights are out; yellow-slickered traffic cops stand in the middle of intersections, arms akimbo, like Rubbermaid reverends, whistles clenched between their teeth, middle-aged dissatisfaction coming off them in waves like a musk. Jack drives carefully, hunched forward, his hand still on Suzanne's belly, listening for new-car sounds that shouldn't be there.

She touches his forearm, his elbow. She watches the side of his face as he drives, the peppery stubble, his fine jaw grinding gum, a slight chap creeping up his lower lip like frostbite.

"Do you know what this is like?" Asks Suzanne. . . .

Poetry: Animist Youth by Jon Reevewhen Mama Bear met Roosevelt

at an orphanage in Bombay,

when the circus elephant appeared

on trial for lunatic espionage

when we were young animists

we blinked like windshield-wipers over mud. . . .

Rant: Pricing Paradigms by Eric HowertonYou know what really grinds my gears? The way that marketers and advertisers price things that we purchase using almost whole numbers like $19.95 or $9.99 or $29.98 . . . are these fucking people kidding? Do they honestly believe that a person is going to be looking at the price for a movie, and say to themselves "Wow . . . only $15.99! That's only $15 for a movie, but I expected to pay $16 . . . what a great price!". Is that the thought-process they were shooting for when they took off A PENNY and hoped that the American public would buy into their crap? I guess they seem to think that people will think they are getting a better deal, or that the item in question is less money than originally expected, purely on the basis of our in-ability to round decimals. . . .

"Like a man who eats sesame oil, his anus farts": The Rock-Solid Aphorisms of Ancient Sumeria

The Gecko Wears a Tiara: Ancient Sumerian Proverbs

A note from the compiler:

Man’s oldest recorded literature is found in the ancient proverbs of Sumeria, written down starting about 4,400 years ago (though most are only 3,800 years old). Then again, these were already proverbs passed down for generations back then, so they are probably far older.

Some of these seem very obvious now. Others are bizarre, many are funny, and a number contain real nuggets of wisdom. Than again, Sumeria was what we now call Iraq, so take that wisdom with a grain of salt.

Oxford University has created a web repository of these texts, and their English translations, called the “Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.” It's located at

http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/

I’ve been fascinated by these and can’t resist sharing my favorites, arranged by category. They’re like a time travel machine, taking us back millennia and revealing what was strange about their society, and what is strangely similar.

-- Mark Saltveit, December 2007

While I do not endorse the dig at Iraq--kick a culture when it's down, why don't ya?--but I do endorse this collection, including such classics as:

"Putting unwashed hands to one's mouth is disgusting."

"The mother who has given birth to eight young men lies down exhausted."

and

"You should not have sex with your slave girl: she will chew you up."

Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) Classic issue #148 (published August 21, 2003): "A hall pass for Nirvana."

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Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) Classic issue #148 (published August 21, 2003)

A hall pass for Nirvana.

Giant Squid: Notes From The Giant Squid: Hey Ladies!

by the Giant SquidDearest Giant Squid, some advice on the fairer sex is needed for I am in dire need of your wise counsel:

Why do I always pick one of two women:

A- Lesbians

B- Women with boyfriends

C- Red heads

and how do I avoid this conundrum?

I assume it's a curse from my fore-fathers, who were sea-faring vikings, for I have fallen many times also for the red-haired fiery women of Irish and Scandinavian descent. Please help me.

Your Dear Admirer And Loyal Companion,

Rick Delicious

Delicious Rickard,

Of initial mostforth interest to me, in this query, is that you begin by announcing a problem two-parted, and then name three parts of that two, going one in excess, in parts, of the named size of the whole. This confused greatly, until I recalled my own treatise brief and true on the matters of numbers, their significancies. . . .

Fiction: Tokens of Affection (part 2 of 2) by Terence S. HawkinsEveryone was suspect. I couldn't ask the girl at the desk at the gym for a second sweat towel without wondering whether she was spending her free time at the xerox. I wondered whether it had to be a woman at all. Recently a male MFA had taken to following me around the weight room until I was driven to lacing my conversation with phrases like, "Jeez, aren't tits great?". . . .

Poetry: The Unknown by Secretary of Defense Donald RumsfeldAs we know,

There are known knowns.

There are things we know we know. . . .

Rant: Political Selections from:
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY (part 2 of 2) by Ambrose Bierce(Abridged in 2003 for Modern Readers and Those with Taste and Grit by Morgan Johnson). . . LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

LIAR, n. A lawyer with a roving commission. . . .

The "Myth" of Sustainable Meat?

Two weeks back a lot of blogs (including our own Newswire) gave James E. McWilliams's New York Times op-ed a nice signal boost: The Myth of Sustainable Meat - NYTimes.com

Upon inspection, McWilliams's argument is looking like something of a straw man. For example, *a lot* of his claims (which are unsourced) are oddly out of date--until you realize that Williams is a history professor specializing in the Early Republic and not, you know, a farmer or agronomist or biologist or landscaper or gardener or migrant laborer. In that NYT op-ed Williams called out Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, who has responded at length:

Joel Salatin responds to New York Times’ ‘Myth of Sustainable Meat’ | Grist

Let’s go point by point. First, that grass-grazing cows emit more methane than grain-fed ones. This is factually false. Actually, the amount of methane emitted by fermentation is the same whether it occurs in the cow or outside. Whether the feed is eaten by an herbivore or left to rot on its own, the methane generated is identical. Wetlands emit some 95 percent of all methane in the world; herbivores are insignificant enough to not even merit consideration. Anyone who really wants to stop methane needs to start draining wetlands. Quick, or we’ll all perish. I assume he’s figuring that since it takes longer to grow a beef on grass than on grain, the difference in time adds days to the emissions. But grain production carries a host of maladies far worse than methane. This is simply cherry-picking one negative out of many positives to smear the foundation of how soil builds: herbivore pruning, perennial disturbance-rest cycles, solar-grown biomass, and decomposition. This is like demonizing marriage because a good one will include some arguments. . . .

Just for the record, I think that Salatin sounds kinda nutty, but at least he's a detail-oriented nut with precise claims that can be refuted or confirmed. McWilliams, meanwhile, makes claims like: "Free-range pigs are routinely affixed with nose rings to prevent them from rooting, which is one of their most basic instincts." I've seen a fair number of free-range and hobby pigs here in Michigan, but have never seen one ringed. I've never seen *any* pig ringed. I'd been given the impression that no one bothered any more (it used to be mandatory in some towns; for example, as late as 2000 it was still the law in Detroit, of all places). Ringing is clearly not "routine" in Michigan, where I buy delicious pastured mulefoot pigs from Mark Sponsler of Parmanian Acres. Upon googling, I've discovered that the practice is now hotly contested among free-range pig farmers. In fact, this claim about "univeral snout ringing" is one that McWilliams has been making since 2009, and getting called out on by farmers. I don't know that any corrections or retractions have been published. Thank God he never went on This American Life. Anyway, none of this seems to be slowing McWilliams down.

But, perhaps more to the point, why is it that every op-ed in the Times recently seems to have been written by someone shilling a book? That seems like a funny coincidence.

dave-o is the author of "Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred: Seriously Geeky Stuff to Make with Your Kids" and "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate."

The Tourist-Trap Gift Shops of Ancient Egypt

Radiological investigation of an over 2000-year-old Egyptian mummy of a cat

Mummified cats were the tiny plastic American flags of the Ptolemaic Dynasty:

From about 332 BC to 30 BC, animals began to be raised near the temples for the specific purpose of being mummified. People bought the mummies and left them at the temple as offerings. For this reason, many cats that had died prematurely and by unnatural deaths have been found. Kittens, aged 2–4 months old, were sacrificed in huge numbers, because they were more suitable for mummification. This is likely the case of the cat mummy from the museum in Parma. Indeed, the abnormal findings in the caudal portion of the calvarium may suggest an unnatural death. Cat mummies were so numerous that in the late 19th century, mummified cats were shipped from the town of Beni Hasan, in middle Egypt, to the English port of Liverpool to be pulverised and sold as fertiliser in England.

FACT: Some day our "I ♥ Jacksonville!" snow globes will be treasured artifacts in museums run by hyper-evolved cyborg centipedes with graduate degrees their parents disapprove of, and our most sublime artistic achievements will be lost to bit-rot, leaky roofs, and demagnetization.

Hunh . . . this sounds like a pretty good product, and it has 4.5 stars on Amazon

Amazon.co.uk: Customer Reviews: Veet for Men Hair Removal Gel Creme 200 ml

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Streamline, 23 April 2012
By J Dog

After liberal application to my entire body, I managed to cut 3/100ths of a second from my 100m PB.

Not only does the streamlining help with speed I have also noticed that there is less 'clatter' when going over hurdles.

My balls now slice through the air like greased ferrets down a Yorkshirmans trousers.

Thanks Veet. See you at the Olympics.

Is "slice through the air like greased ferrets down a Yorkshirman's trousers" a standing stock phrase in England? "I agree, Janet; we never thought Labour and the Democratic Unionists would come together on any issue, but that resolution went through the House of Commons like a greased ferret down a Yorkshirman's trousers, didn't it?"

Kickstart Jim Munroe's "Ghosts with Shit Jobs"!

Tour for GHOSTS WITH SHIT JOBS, a Lo-fi Sci-fi Feature by Jim Munroe — Kickstarter

I've gushed about Jim Munroe in the past, and am super-pleased to be supporting this project. Brass tacks: $10 is a *totally fair* price for an advance, full-quality download of this lo-fi sci-fi feature. Please kick in some dough so this project goes live; I really want my early-bird backer's copy--which, *bonus*, will basically come almost in time for my birthday!

What's Dave-o Been Up To? Sleepy Babies, Writerly Advice, and Clockwork Sexbots!

Hey Mojonauts and Mojoketeers,

Just a quick post about what I've been up to between tweets, diapers, and soul-crushing research about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (*SPOILER ALERT* Things have been pretty uncool in Afghanistan since 1806, apart from a brief OK-spell from 1923-1979).

Anywho, I continue to write a regular column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle; latest installment covers babies, sleep, neuroplasticity, and DSM-IV-TR 300.21 (more so than other columns, this one is all in the footnotes):

Three years later – a period during which I never slept more than four hours at a time, and little of it “restful” – I started having panic attacks. If you delve into crowds and find yourself squeezed by the visceral conviction that you’ll likely need to fend off a pack of bears at any moment … well, it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that the best course of action is to stay in the damn house. “Hypervigilance” was ultimately listed among my symptoms.

(Just to clarify: I didn’t have an irrational fear of bears; I had the sudden, irrational sensation of some impending mortal threat, and I had it basically all the time, and I basically just wanted to be the hell away from people. Hence DSM-IV-TR 300.21. To this day my fear of bears – when bears are verifiably present – is entirely rational.)

My psychiatric history notwithstanding, here’s the point of this interlude: The above essay celebrates the adaptive advantageousness of sleep-deprivation-driven neuroplasticity, but fails to acknowledge the dark side of that coin, because when I wrote the original essay I did not yet know it was one of those two-sided sorts of coins. I know better now.

This week I'm also blogging about Voice for Shimmer:

Listen: Voice isn’t gravy.

It’s not something you pour over a story once the meat and veggies–the plot, the characters, the setting–are cooked and ready to plate. Steampunk isn’t alt-history slopped with a ladle of cogs and dirigibles; literary fiction isn’t YA with the last half of the final chapter cut off and a schmeer of 50-cent words.

The voice of a piece–and your Voice as a writer–arises from stripping everything else out, not piling more crap on.

Right on the face of it, I’m sure this sounds absolutely absurd. . . .

(Attentive Mojonauts will recall that Poor Mojo's Giant Squid has been featured in this same fine publication, both in print and online. Check that out!)

Finally, I've *finally* gotten to the second stage of my steampunk sexbot novella scheme: Releasing the damn thing for platforms other than the Kindle.

You can now enjoy the escapades of Dicker Tucker--that much-celebrated, crippled, alcoholic Johnny Reb--on basically any device, or even paper (*gasp!*). Details here: "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate" Pick-What-You-Pay ebooks

So, click those links! Then reclick them! Tweet them and retweet them! Share them until you are exhausted by your sheer volume of shares! You have my appreciation and my blessings!

Thanks!

The "Trolley Problem," concisely presented as an 8-bit video game

Trolley Problem

(In case you're unfamiliar, here's a solid intro to this problem in utilitarian ethics.)

Local Boys Make Good: Poor Mojo's Giant Squid to be featured in upcoming steampunk anthology

Ecstatic Days -- Blog Archive -- Steampunk Revolution – Announcing the TOC

Mojo, Fritz, and Dave-o are pleased to brag that one of their Giant Squid stories--"An Exhortation to Young Writers (Advice Tendered by Poor Mojo's Giant Squid)"--shall be featured in Ann VanderMeer's upcoming anthology Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution alongside works by such luminaries as Lev Grossman, Garth Nix, Cherie Priest, Bruce Sterling, and Catherynne M. Valente.

{*squeeeeee!!!*}