Reading adventure stories from another time, is rather like reading adventure stories from another country. It is not only the names and clothes that Reading adventure stories from another time, is rather like reading adventure stories from another country. It is not only the names and clothes that differ; the basic attitudes and assumptions differ as well. This is a good thing, in my opinion (although opinions differ).
In Tintin, we could plausibly make the accusation that members of other cultures are portrayed as exotic noble savages, if we wanted to be 21st century self-righteous about it. But really, what is the point in that? It was written by a Belgian in the early part of the 20th century; of course it looks and sounds different now. For the standards of the time, the fact that non-European characters are often prominent characters, and friends of the protagonist, makes it a guilt-free pleasure.
In "Prisoners of the Sun", the exotic culture of the day is the Inca civilization, imagined to be still in existence in remote ruins in the Andes. Tintin, young reporter (who never seems to be reporting back to anyone, by the way) and his usual companion Captain Haddock (there mostly for comedic effect) are looking for their friend Professor Calculus.
If you haven't ever read any Tintin, imagine something like a "Young Indiana Jones", where he's accompanied by an adult alcoholic buffoon. There's also a small white terrier of some sort named Snowy, who seems to have the ability to effortlessly sail through customs in every exotic location Tintin travels to. Who knows, maybe they didn't have as much quarantining of animals at the border in those days.
Tintin's age is not exactly apparent, but he seems to be maybe late teens? He's handy with a firearm, that's for certain.
Good fun, and the art style is simple and enjoyable to look at. I can easily understand how it achieved such success....more
Quite some time ago, I discovered (I forget how) that there was, not far north of Austin, an archaeological site that dated back to Clovis, and even bQuite some time ago, I discovered (I forget how) that there was, not far north of Austin, an archaeological site that dated back to Clovis, and even before (something on the order of 13,000 years ago). Moreover, occasionally they would have tours of the site, for the general public, if you signed up. I pondered this for some time, and finally got around to making my reservation for July. Then, of course, it got postponed, but I was finally able to go in September. The guide, a bone fide archaeologist named D. Clark Wernecke (https://utexas.academia.edu/DClarkWer...) with some very strong opinions about how mammoths went extinct. The tour was quite interesting; I got to see Dr. Wernicke demonstrate an atlatl, we discussed the difference between spearpoints, arrowheads, scrapers, etc., and generally speaking we talked (and walked and looked and saw) a lot about how people lived in this area many millennia ago (and also a bit about how the 20th and 21st century inhabitants of Texas lived there, and eventually rediscovered the spot's history).
Afterwards, I wanted to learn some more about it, so I got this little book from Texas A&M Press. It is a quite readable history of both what the archaeologists have discovered about the Gault site, and how they discovered it. There is also a brief summary about some of the controversies that the site has added fuel to.
Around 11,500 to 13,000 years ago, there was a culture we now call "Clovis" (for obvious reasons, we have no real idea what they called themselves). They were a literal Stone Age people, but their stone artifacts are intricately detailed, with far more work than is necessary simply to get a good pointy bit or blade. The clear impression is that they were, at least sometimes, showing off, making a spearpoint (or other tool) that was both functional and also a demonstration of just how good they were at knapping stone.
For a long time, it was the received wisdom that the Clovis peoples were the first humans in North America. The fact that the megafauna (essentially, any animal bigger than a human) mostly went extinct in a wave right around the end of the Clovis period, suggested that it was a (not unusual) case of humans show up, they hunt too much, and lots of big meat sources go extinct.
More recently, and especially in the 21st century, it has become apparent that there were humans around well before Clovis. This leads some to believe that the Clovis paleoindian culture did not play a major role in the megafauna extinction, but rather that both that culture and the megafauna went extinct due to the (well attested) climate change as the last Ice Age came to an end. In fact, if you say that humans caused the megafauna extinctions in North America around Dr. Wernecke, I don't _think_ he would throw an atlatl at you, but I cannot say that I am entirely certain he would not. The man has strong opinions.
Mary S. Black dances somewhat around these controversies, presenting both sides and the available evidence. What is pretty clear by now is that the Clovis people were not the first humans in North America, and Gault is one of several sites that has proven this. She has a few brief vignettes of what these people may have been doing, to leave behind the artifacts (some purely functional, but some with artistic carving on them as well) which were found many thousands of years later. The science of archaeology necessarily involves a lot of imagining what might have happened, hopefully with enough data to rein in the more extravagant tales. Mary Black does a good job of helping us to see these artifacts as the evidence left behind of real, feeling, thinking human beings.
And also, the real human beings who excavated these artifacts, who have some strongly felt thoughts of their own....more
So, what to say about this book? Well, first of all, it is not actually a good book. But, I knew that when I purchased it, used, yellowing, and the coSo, what to say about this book? Well, first of all, it is not actually a good book. But, I knew that when I purchased it, used, yellowing, and the cover falling to pieces. The prose is overwrought, and the opening chapter has some reasonably impolitic references to African-Americans (they're not villains or stupid, and the most offensive term is not used, but just about every other term is, and it's pretty clearly from another age). But it is informative to see what pulp fiction looked like in other eras, and it was not a long read, so I gave it a whirl.
Given that it was always intended as pulp fiction, and it was written over 100 years ago, there is no reason to expect it to be a diamond in the rough, and it isn't. The depiction of train-hopping is interesting, although would not be surprised if it was wildly inaccurate. The author claims to be an inveterate train-hopper himself, who goes by the moniker of "A-No. 1", but he was clearly writing for an audience who was not going to be able to fact-check him, and even if he was truthful about his past there was no reason for him not to pander to his audience. He depicts the lifestyle as a sort of addiction, a "wander-lust" that once indulged cannot be shaken.
The story, such as it is, concerns his crossing paths with a boy in his late teens who has taken up the same hobo lifestyle, and come to regret it, who wishes to return home but is uncertain if he will be welcomed or shamed. There are some pretty whopping big coincidences in the plot, and it is, shall we say, melodramatic. The illustrations by Joseph Earl Shrock were for the most part entertaining.
It's kind of like seeing an old "Perils of Pauline" short; it is not so much that it is good, as that it is so different as to be exotic. If a modern author wrote this, I would give it 1 star without hesitation, but given that fact, and the illustrations, I bump it up to a 2-stars....more
This is a book inspired by a museum. The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, to be precise. One could almost say, "inspired by a building", but paThis is a book inspired by a museum. The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, to be precise. One could almost say, "inspired by a building", but part of the story is how the Peabody struggled for years to find itself a building, and then later got bumped out and had to find a new one, and spent years in a sort of museum purgatory in which they were only boxes and other containers full of stuff, in a warehouse, for the most part unavailable.
Museums appear, to us in the general public, to be institutions for showing off things of interest. This is not really the case. At their most fundamental, museums are vast, almost obsessive collections. "Museum" sort of means "high-class hoarder". The idea of making some small sample of its contents available to the general public to look at, is in some ways a bit of an afterthought. The original, and in some ways still primary purpose of a museum is to be a collection for specialists to have access to.
The first part of this book spends some time discussing the infamous "Bone Wars" between O.C.Marsh and E.D.Cope, two early paleontologists who helped establish the U.S.A. in the forefront of dinosaur research. Marsh looms large in the early history of the Peabody, including in the act of persuading Peabody himself to make the monetary grant which allowed for the museum to be founded. Marsh's expeditions were voracious, scooping in fossils (and other artifacts) in quantities far beyond what he and his considerable staff could properly analyze, such that new "discoveries" were being made from his work for decades to come.
The nation in the 19th century was still an uncertain home for a scholar or academic, but there were men (and it was of necessity almost entirely men) who were able to venture between the world of the university museum, and the frontier where Marsh and others often had to negotiate access to the places they wished to collect, with American Indian tribes who were not at all convinced that they should not simply be shot instead. We tend to think of our nation's history as having an early, wild and uncivilized era, followed by a later, more organized and learned (if not always more peaceful) era, but the history of the early Peabody Museum is a reminder that the two worlds coexisted for a considerable time, and interacted quite a lot. Expeditions from the Peabody often accompanied U.S.Army expeditions.
There is another kind of treacherous and dangerous environment, and that is the political infighting of the large University which Yale became, and its struggles to defend modern theories like Darwin's Evolution by Natural Selection against its opponents in the larger nation. As the 20th century progressed, the question arose as to how to put the museum's contents before the public in a manner which could better serve the university's core mission of education. It is still a question which the museum (and all its many peer institutions) struggle with, and probably always will. Just show the dinosaur's skeleton, which is fairly certain, or also what the beast looked like, which is much less so? How much to show of the countless smaller organisms which are, because smaller, often less of a draw of the public's attention? What about the artwork used for the backdrops to the mid-20th century dioramas; should the artist's style be distinctive to help keep the viewer's attention, or is that a distraction? The debates, though many decades in the past, have a familiar feel.
Through all of this, Richard Coffiff does an excellent job of weaving together the science, the larger history, and the very human tales of the people who worked to make the Peabody what is is (or, in a few cases, fought to prevent it). The book is copiously illustrated, and nicely bound, and it was not only interesting but also oddly calming to read the tales of generations past and their struggles (sometimes dangerous or even violent) to learn about their world and where it came from. Perhaps it was heartening and reassuring to know that, whatever the temporary reversals and other vicissitudes of that moment or that decade, the long term trend towards greater understanding is unmistakable, and unstopped. Many people worked for most of their lives to bring this knowledge to us. Read it....more
This is not my first book from the inestimable J.H.Fabre, but each one is a delight. Here, we have a scene in which he goes "wasp-hunting" with his yoThis is not my first book from the inestimable J.H.Fabre, but each one is a delight. Here, we have a scene in which he goes "wasp-hunting" with his young son Paul. This involves finding a wasp's nest at a time of night when they are relatively dormant, so as to reduce the likelihood of being stung as they make their preparations to put an asphyxiating liquid down the hole, and then transport the entire nest back to his workshop where it may be more readily observed.
"Carrying a lantern and a basket with the implements, Paul and I set out, at nine o'clock in the evening, to perform an operation of this sort. The weather is mild and the moon gives a little light. The farmhouse Dogs are bandying distant yelps; the Screech-owl is hooting in the olive-trees; the Italian Crickets are performing their symphony in the bushes. And we chat about insects, the one asking questions, eager to learn, the other telling the little that he knows. Delightful nights of Wasp-hunting, you well atone for our loss of sleep and make us forget the stings which are likely to incur!"
My father, a teacher of biology and one-time avid bird-watcher, was nonetheless never one to make me accompany him on a pursuit such as this. While I am sure the memories of it were treasured by the son Paul when he grew older, I am content not to have gone digging into wasp-nests by moonlight as a youth. It is enough to read Fabre's account of it, and similar exploits.
What Fabre was essentially able to do, excellently, was: - mess with insects - observe very carefully what happens as a result - write engagingly about his observations
To the very limited extent that he engages with theory at all, it is primarily to dismiss it. He was a pronounced skeptic of the theory of natural selection (he lived and wrote in the time of Darwin, who called him "an excellent observer"). Fabre found it implausible that natural selection could account for the elaborate schemes of hunting, nest-building, and so forth that he witnessed. He was, however, a scientist of the highest rank, experimenting at great length with dozens of different insects, many of which he housed in his workshop in order to observe them more closely, or in more varied situations. Here he pauses in his detailed description of what he has seen, in order to engage in a brief statement of his scholarly philosophy:
"It is something to observe; but it is not enough: we must experiment, that is to say, we must ourselves intervene and create artificial conditions which oblige the animals to reveal to us what it would not tell if left to the normal course of events. Its actions, marvellously contrived to attain the end pursued, are capable of deceiving us as to their real meaning and of making us accept, in their linked sequence, that which our own logic dictates to us. It is not the animal that we are now consulting upon the nature of its aptitudes, upon the primary motives of its activity, but our own opinions, which always yield a reply in favour of our cherished notions."
So, to determine the nature (and limitations) of an insect's instinct in regards to the construction and provision of its nest, he regularly and in some cases quite imaginatively intervenes. In essentially all cases, what he discovers is that if he removes, say, the egg from the cell which the wasp is busy preparing, it will nonetheless provision it with freshly caught game, and seal it up. If the entire cell of mud and paper is removed, just before it is time for the wasp to construct the sealing layer of mud and glaze, then it will carry on, sealing up the spot where the cell once existed, as if nothing untoward had occurred. In every instance, the apparent forethought and careful design which it manifests in ordinary circumstances, are revealed to be in some sense mere execution of an instinctive program, with no ability to ascertain if or when later steps are no longer necessary or sensible. He is, from his 19th century perspective, unable to say it this way, but it is as if insects are little embodied computer programs, running about in the biological equivalent of the internet, executing their instructions without perspective or awareness.
Much different than the author. He is, to our great advantage, energetically and thoughtfully aware of what is going on around him, and imaginatively endeavoring to find just the right experiment to reveal to us how it works. Better yet, he is able to write about it in a way which is charming to read....more
So, first of all I should say that mostly what I knew about Eddie Izzard before reading this book was: 1) "cake or death" 2) "do you have a flag?" 3) croSo, first of all I should say that mostly what I knew about Eddie Izzard before reading this book was: 1) "cake or death" 2) "do you have a flag?" 3) cross-dresser 4) my wife wants our book club to read his memoir
It turns out that he has a great conversational style of writing. I am particularly fond of his footnotes. I believe there was also a point when he wrote something like 'I just went downstairs to ask Dad if he popped the question to Mum or the other way around, and he said it was him', which really makes you vividly imagine the book as an experience where a human being is just typing out what they know of their life (or their parents'). It was a very informal, relaxed, and enjoyable read.
That said, I'm not that into memoirs, so around 2/3 of the way through the book I was thinking, "so far so good, but I don't see how he's going to tie all of these plot threads together into a cohesive whole", and of course he doesn't. Life isn't really like that; life is incoherent, for the most part. It's why I prefer history or science books, to memoirs. Generally speaking, I could divide the book into:
1) childhood: interesting 2) wilderness years: interesting 3) achieves success: boooorrriiiing 4) running a ridiculous number of marathons in South Africa: interesting
Having said that, if you're going to read a memoir, Izzard's is a good one. He explores very well how the circumstances of his childhood, and his early career as a struggling street performer and then comedian (what he calls his "wilderness years"), helped to shape who he is now. He does a good job of explaining not only what he did, but why (what he was thinking at the time), how the world worked (e.g. how the London comedy circuit in the late 20th century worked for a would-be up and coming standup comedian), and why and how he was able (eventually) to succeed in making a career in it....more
Eugene Kaplan, the author of this book, is a hoot. He is telling us, in this book, about a lot of things quite likely to cause some people to get a biEugene Kaplan, the author of this book, is a hoot. He is telling us, in this book, about a lot of things quite likely to cause some people to get a bit queasy, so not being too serious about it is a good thing. When he tells us about the experience of, say, becoming infected with worms on a trip to Thailand, he is able to do so in a way which shows a great sense of humor. Another example: when teaching a class about parasites, one of their tasks is to prepare a slide of the (many) parasites found in a cockroach.
"The first effort is to remove a roach from the squalid colony...Some unemancipated women decide to employ a time-honored method - they smile at the young man next to them and request assistance. No matter how independent the woman, there are times when she is not adverse to using charm. In this moment of desperation, a sensible woman asks the 'guy next door' to get her a cockroach. He is equally repulsed (as I am), but his male honor is at stake. Nothing is as powerful as the need for a youth to respond to a challenge to his manhood...He succeeds in placing the roach into the jar she is holding. She claps on the cover and runs to the tank of CO2, placing the hose inside. Ocassionally, in her nervousness, she turns the gas on too hard and the roach is blown by the blast across the room. People duck, shrieking and bellowing, and the roach is lost. The gallantry of the young man is then further tested. She needs another roach.
Increasingly women do not resort to feminine wiles...A delicately pretty young woman, face stony with determination, reached into the tank, causing the usual boiling out of roaches from under their dark havens. She grasped at one. It ran up her arm toward her vulnerable armpit. A gasp! Determination gone, she uttered a nasty word and flung the roach onto the floor. Enraged, she stomped on it...once...twice...many times. All she needed was castanets. The sound of her heels was as staccato as any Andalusian dancer."
So, if that excerpt caused you to smile, then this might be the book for you. If, on the other hand, you now regret reading even this review, maybe give this one a pass. It has chapter names like "A Peek into the Anus of--My Child", "The Well-Hung Dog", and "The Anti-Semitic Tapeworm". It also has a lot of science, about the amazingly complex lifecycles of parasites. Perhaps out of a need to be able to leap from one host to another because they keep causing health problems for their host (otherwise we wouldn't call them 'parasites'), they quite often have 2, 3, or even 4 different species which they move between during the course of a single parasite's life. Oftentimes, this involves one of their hosts getting eaten by another. Not uncommonly, it also involves a scene which is really disgusting, for one reason or another. This is not the sort of book to read while eating, I think, especially if you are not vegetarian. Avoiding meat is no guarantee of safety, but it sure does seem to be the most common method of transfer of a parasite. Swimming in water that has had other people in it also seems to be a risk factor, particularly if it is neither chlorinated nor quickly moving. It is also not a book to motivate you to visit the Third World; being in advanced economies is also no guarantee of avoiding parasites, but we have managed to put quite a few in our past.
The direction of causality might even go the other way; some economists have seriously proposed that the disease and parasite load on the humans in a given part of the world, is as much a cause of that nation being poor as it is an effect. Children who grow up in areas with rampant malaria, for example, are suffering under a handicap that children in wealthier countries do not have. The fact that wealthier countries are more often found in colder climates, may not be coincidental. The book opens with a quote from Donald McNeil, Jr.: "No movie star has died of diarrhea. No politician has died of poverty."
Most of the book, though, is not about the politics, economics, or even ethics of parasites, but rather about the science, with a goodly side-helping of gross-out. Perhaps as a mercy to the reader, the book uses drawn illustrations, rather than pictures; it is graphic enough.
But if you have a steely stomach and a keen curiousity for how life works, it's a smashing good read....more
So, this is one of those books that I read out of curiousity, not because I am the intended audience for it but rather precisely because I am not. ThiSo, this is one of those books that I read out of curiousity, not because I am the intended audience for it but rather precisely because I am not. This was first published in 1978, and was intended for someone who had a professional need to know about paper. For example, perhaps someone who needs to buy paper in a professional capacity. The timeframe it was written for showed in a number of ways.
In more than one place, the author apologizes a bit for the confusion of the standard English units which are being used in the industry just then, and looks forward to the time very soon when it will all be the easier to use metric system. Ha ha! Ah, well. Like daylight savings time, our resistance to the metric system makes no sense, but will not go away.
There are also some uses of paper which are a bit dated, as for example the section on mimeograph papers. Also, there is an assumption in the book that the U.S. total use of paper would continue ever upwards. It's not as big of a blunder as it sounds; paper usage did in fact continue to climb for decades after this book's publication. The use of computers, in the short to medium term, resulted in a massive increase in paper usage (because it was so much easier to print out huge amounts of paper reports that no one ever read more than a page or two of). But, eventually, it did start to decline (although from what I'm finding online, not by as much as you might think). Newspaper grade paper, however, has plunged rather precipitously.
The final chapter on "Recycling and Ecology" was interesting, not only for its content but also (primarily) for the very different take of these issues which its 1978 viewpoint gave. The idea of recycling was something that had to be explained to the reader, and the primary argument for it was economics and a basic dislike of waste. The author, presumably not a young eco-idealist, seems to assume that the idea of recycling is something which needs to be sold to his audience, a bit. Probably, it did. Nowadays, the discussions around recycling are more about how to get everyone to do it, whether it really helps (e.g. where does the recycled material actually go), and its value relative to "reduce" and "reuse". But in 1978, explaining what it even meant was more the issue.
There are a number of pictures of industrial paper-making machinery, and also of some very 1970's haircuts and shirt patterns. My, but the 1970's was not a very stylish decade, I don't care what the kids today think.
There is a goodly amount of explanation of how to do basic algebra in order to figure out how much paper to order, and of what kind. I don't expect I'll ever have any use for this information, but it is pleasant to see just how much thought goes into every piece of the world around us, including apparently ordinary things like greeting cards and newspaper inserts, or (more usefully, in my opinion) books and boxes. I hope that books such as this one are still around a few hundred years from now, in some form, so that people in the future can get a glimpse into how things got made in their distant past. In the meantime, it was worth a few hours lazy reading to examine just how it was that the paper used in many of the books on my library shelves, got to where it is today....more
The finches of the Galapogos Islands rank right up there with Newton's apple and Galileo's telescope in the iconography of science, and like them, areThe finches of the Galapogos Islands rank right up there with Newton's apple and Galileo's telescope in the iconography of science, and like them, are as much fiction now as fact. There is a great deal of accumulated storytelling around the nugget of truth about Darwin's finches. While they did influence Darwin's thinking, they were just one of many, many species (or groups of species) to do so, and his notes do not reveal them to have been any sort of trigger for a Eureka moment. To give just one example, Darwin's long association with pigeon fanciers was at least as influential on his thinking. The Galapogos finches are, however, a great illustration of how evolution does and doesn't work, and in recent decades they have come in for almost unparalleled scrutiny. The primary reason why, is a married couple named Peter and Rosemary Grant.
The Grants, and their many colleagues and especially graduate students over the decades, have studied the several related finch species of the Galapogos Islands, down to the individual bird. They measure beak dimensions, reproductive success, parentage, wing length, coloration, etc. etc. They repeat this for bird after bird, on a particular islet (small even by Galapogos standards), until they have measured (and banded) virtually every single bird. They repeat this year after year. It was already, in the early 1990's when this book was written, enough to show something that most scholars of evolution in the decades after Darwin had assumed could not be seen: evolution in progress.
Because they are relatively new to the islands (in evolutionary terms), and because periodic El Nino and La Nina events shove the islands' climate from dry to wet and back again over the years, the finches of the Galapogos are by no means evidence of the much-cited "delicate balance of nature". They are, in a sense, perpetually unbalanced, and traits like beak length (which impacts what kind of food they are able to eat, and how efficiently they can do it) show trends visible over the course of a decade or less.
Well, visible if you study it in as much detail as the Grants do; the changes are sometimes measured in tenths of millimeters over the course of a year.
But, how can we know that these changes have anything to do with natural selection? What if it is simply a difference in diet (owing to differences in how much rain falls), causing the birds to grow either larger or smaller beaks? To know that, you would need to keep a ridiculously vast and detailed family tree of all the finches of the tiny islet that the Grants have made their particular object of study. Fortunately, that is just what the Grants did. They know what birds had great reproductive success, and what birds did not, and how many offspring they all left behind, and how much reproductive success those offspring have had.
The book has several dozen illustrations, some taken from Darwin's original books, and some by the Grants' daughter, Thalia, who appears to be a quite talented artist. I especially liked the ones by Thalia Grant of a finch taking a ride on a Galapogos tortoise, and a finch hunting flies on an iguana. The tortoise and iguana, both much larger than the respective finches which perch atop them, appear to take little notice of it, as if bird and reptile are living in entirely different timescales.
Jonathan Weiner does a great job of showing us both the day-to-day efforts required to collect this data, and the year-to-year and decade-to-decade progress of the Grants in collecting it. He can effectively communicate something as abstract as an evolutionary fitness landscape, and how drought and flood can push the species of Galapogos finches around it. It was a fascinating, yet oddly effortless read, as concepts that were mind-bending to 19th century scientists can get communicated to someone like me, who has no professional background in the field. This kind of thing doesn't just happen accidentally; Weiner must have worked hard at making it that easy for us. Rarely has learning been so thoughtfully and skillfully provided to the reader, it would be a shame to pass it up....more
I read this for a book club (our first virtual meeting), so I'm just going to tidy up my personal notes a bit and leave that as my review.
Tells you whI read this for a book club (our first virtual meeting), so I'm just going to tidy up my personal notes a bit and leave that as my review.
Tells you what food to serve for the bookclub in the very first paragraph! How convenient. Especially since I don't actually have to serve any of that, since it's virtual. That does preclude actually throwing that food at anyone, though, so not quite as fun as in the book.
I hear it in my head being narrated with a fake British accent.
This Duke fellow is either going to be killed, or is the love interest of the protagonist.
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, KG, PC, FRS (/ˈtaʊnzənd/; 18 April 1674 – 21 June 1738) was an English Whig statesman. He served for a decade as Secretary of State for the Northern Department, 1714–1717, 1721–1730. He directed British foreign policy in close collaboration with his brother-in-law, prime minister Robert Walpole. He was often known as Turnip Townshend because of his strong interest in farming turnips and his role in the British Agricultural Revolution.
"Smother her with a book"??
"As she was neither a leopard nor a grizzly bear at the Tower of London, she took offense at his tone." Huh?
"No house party that contained a murdered corpse could be described as a complete success."
"she wasn't a damp parsnip with no understanding of the natural world"
"noodle-headed nodcocks"
At 74% mark: it is [one of three characters, one of whom did turn out to be the killer, but there were at least two other characters I was plausibly suspecting could be the one, so not too obvious then].
fus·tian /ˈfəsCHən/ noun: fustian 1. thick, durable twilled cloth with a short nap, usually dyed in dark colors. 2. pompous or pretentious speech or writing.
Bea never did actually announce "whodunnit", the windup to that point caused a confession. Was this all part of the plan? Did Bea not actually know whodunnit, and she was just bluffing? She did have a tendency to throw herself into a conversation without having worked out in advance what her story would be, and making it up as she went along, so it's not impossible.
Bea could speak up for herself in any situation which Aunt Vera hadn't trained her for; she lost her voice in ordinary situations. This, I theorize, was why she found the experience of investigating a murder more thrilling and liberating than intimidating; she could shrug off the years and years of training from Aunt Vera on how one was to behave, since Aunt Vera hadn't told her what to do (or not do) in the presence of a murdered corpse.
...and that was that. All in all, while I doubt it will turn me into a regular "cozy" reader, it was entertaining, in a kind of fluffy way. Odd that a murder is the plot device around which such a genre is based. Perhaps the dark subject allows the rest of the tale to be more purely gossipy, without the need to be gritty. Or maybe it's just that Agatha Christie sent them down that path and that is the archetype all these stories are building on.
All in all, if like me you are not a "cozy" reader but are curious as to what that genre is about, this was an entirely painless and even enjoyable introduction....more
I ordered this little booklet from Pathway Publishers, a publishing house which caters to Old Order Amish and Mennonite customers. Since Mennonites arI ordered this little booklet from Pathway Publishers, a publishing house which caters to Old Order Amish and Mennonite customers. Since Mennonites are generally willing to drive automobiles, this particular booklet would be intended for the Amish. Needless to say, I am not their typical customer. I sent in a request for a catalog, got back a paper catalog and order form, sent in my order along with a paper check, and got back my books, along with a credit for a few dollars off my next order, because I had accidentally sent them too much money. Dealing with Pathway Publishers is not quick, but it is straightforward and economical.
The booklet consists of a few chapters, each beginning with a short story. An excerpt:
"The three teenagers had spent the evening at Uncle Samuel's house, visiting with their cousins. As such evenings usually went, the hours slipped by and before they realized what had happened, the old clock on the corner shelf was striking ten bongs. Uncle Samuel and Aunt Hannah and the younger children had gone to bed earlier after sharing popcorn and apples with their visitors. The last few hours had been spent discussing a variety of topics as only cousins can."
Those crazy Amish teenagers, staying up 'til all hours of the night. By which we mean 10 pm. Anyway, it is pointed out further down the page that if this story were happening in an earlier time, the horse, Missy, would have been quite able to get them home on its own without really needing much human direction, so if the driver got drowsy and nodded off, no harm done. With modern vehicles on the road, it's a different story. Hence, this book is intended to let them know not only how to drive a buggy, but how to cope with the fact that the road is now full of us English and our horseless carriages.
Much of it reads in a similar way to a "Rules of the Road" booklet that you might get in a modern Driver's Ed class, if not quite as dry. There are some differences, and some of them probably make more sense to the intended reader than to me:
"A backhold tearing, a snap breaking, or a tug coming loose from the single-tree -- any of these can cause you to lose control of your horse. The harness should be checked regularly and worn parts replaced."
Ok, if I ever drive a horse-drawn buggy, I'll be sure to check the single-tree. I'll need to look up what that is first, though. Contrary to what some people imagine, the Amish are perfectly capable of adapting some modern technology. Reflective tape on the back of their buggy, for example. There are differences between different groups, for example some are willing to use battery-powered lights on their buggy while others insist on using lanterns. If you use buggy lanterns, by the way, "be sure that the lanterns are well filled, the globes clean, and the wicks trimmed."
There are some parts of the book which emphasize to the reader that encountering a slow-moving buggy on the road is the primary encounter many non-Amish are going to have with their community, and they don't want to be a source of annoyance, because it could give their entire community a bad reputation. For example, the readers is urged not to stop their buggy in the middle of the road to have a conversation with the driver of another buggy going the other way, but rather to pull over out of the way of traffic if you need to visit. It's more or less the same idea as "don't talk on your cell phone while driving", without the "...or you could get someone killed" part that would apply to cell phones.
I think my favorite part is "Billy Meets a Monster", when we are inside the head of Billy the horse as it encounters a "big, yellow road grader". Levi (the driver) is unfortunately not very understanding of Billy's apprehension.
"Oh, what a huge yellow beast that is! It's coming right at us! I won't go another step even if Levi is slapping and urging me to go on. I'm sure it's going to devour us. I can hear the bones of other horses churning inside that hideous monster! Let's get out of here fast, right now! But where can we go? Let's take the ditch. Oh, no this side has a dense row of trees. We can't get through that. The monster is almost upon us and we must do something quick! We'll have to take the other ditch, water and all!"
All in all, I found "Learning to Drive Safely With a Horse and Buggy" to be an entertaining, if brief, read, even if I didn't feel the urge to fill in the crossword puzzle at the end....more
So, I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I'm not sure if I'm smart enough to be reviewing this book, but they asked for iSo, I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I'm not sure if I'm smart enough to be reviewing this book, but they asked for it, so here goes.
First of all, let me say that physically, it is a very satisfying experience to read this book. That may sound odd, but a nicely bound book, hardcover, with multicolor images in copious amounts on high-quality paper, is just satisfying to read, at a tactile, almost subconscious level. Which is good, because at an intellectual, conscious level, this book is definitely demanding that you sit up straight and bring your "A" game, so it is nice to have an emotional reward for doing so.
The images are actually useful in an intellectual sense, also, because what Wolfram is talking about here is in one sense quite abstract, but it does relate to networks (sometimes quite large) of connections between nodes. If one were to attempt to read a book about that without the images to make it a little more clear what we're talking about, it would have been hopeless. There are pictures on every page, I think, or nearly so, and they are in many colors and many shapes. We see abstractions of abstractions, and one attempts to learn words like "foliations" and "multiway graph" and "branchial graph", and it is better to at least be able to look at one of these things and think, "huh, that kind of looks like those 'choose your own adventure' diagrams they would have at the end of the story". Which is actually a thought I had when I woke up in the middle of the night, apparently having been thinking or perhaps dreaming about the contents of Wolfram's newest magnum opus.
What he claims, here, is that he has the framework for a theory of everything, which will explain relativity, quantum physics, and everything. Not, as Einstein and Bohr and etc. did it, by postulating certain things as just given, but rather proving that they must work that way, by virtue of his theory of everything. In a few cases, I could kind of get what he was saying. It did look interesting. More plausible than, say, string theory.
This is not the same as saying that I think his theory is correct. It could be, for all I know, but I don't think I'm qualified to say, or really even to have a guess. It did look like it might be interesting to play with these kind of systems in simulation, but I don't know if I could tell whether or not it was true even if I had the time and supercomputing power available to do that. But it was fun to look at the diagrams.
This was a three star read until the last chapter or so, when he starts showing how to derive some of the fundamental facts of relativity and quantum physics from it. While I cannot say I'm quite a convert yet, that did look interesting enough to make me start to wonder. It could be that, ten years from now, this will be one in a long line of dead-end attempts to explain how and why the crazy physics of the 20th century (relativity and quantum physics) could be explained. But it also could just possibly be that it will be much more successful than, say, string theory, in going someplace.
But, let's be honest here, not if it requires me to be able to advance the field. It does have lots of nice pictures, though....more
In the Christmas season of 1929, "Margaret" received this book "from Bill". The writing on the inside cover tells me that Margaret lived in Austin, TXIn the Christmas season of 1929, "Margaret" received this book "from Bill". The writing on the inside cover tells me that Margaret lived in Austin, TX at the time. I don't know what an Austinite in the late 1920's was doing with such a book, but it probably was no more impractical (and perhaps considerably less) than me reading it in 2020. It is a book addressed to the devotee of antique furniture, by which we mean nothing later than the earliest part of the 19th century. If it is unlikely that a 1929 Austinite was needing to know how to tell French Louis XV era furniture from Louis XVI, it is even more so that I ever will. But, if this book is any guide, there are (or were) some people who spent a great deal of time thinking about such matters.
Arthur de Bles (that's "Major Arthur de Bles" to the likes of me and you), apparently given a great deal of thought to such matters. Here's a sample:
"The panelled back, however, always remained the main feature of the wainscot chair, though as the years flew by, the beautiful carving of the late Tudor and early Jacobean epoch was abandoned in favor of a poor type of 'gouge' or 'chip' carving in which the carver even attempted to reproduce such effects as the complicated 'guilloch' or meander motive. A child's chair, and parts of the upper section of a fine court-cupboard, in the Metropolitan Museum, examplify this debasement of taste and craftsmanship."
Major de Bles does not approve, and he will let you know it, in no uncertain terms.
There are an abundance of photographic plates here, and even better an abundance of drawings, and as far as I can tell we are meant to assume that the author is the illustrator as well. The fellow obviously spent a great deal of time looking at old furniture. I cannot comment in an informed way on whether, for example, the above-mentioned court-cupboard represents a "debasement of taste and craftsmanship", but I do tend to think that at least de Bles was not commenting on something he had only recently begun to consider. This is obviously a person who has spent a great deal of time thinking about the topic at hand.
"At his best, Hepplewhite had the genius of design. He always showed talent, but at times - if we can accept certain so-called authenticated pieces as his work - his taste was as bad as that of the period itself, than which little worse can be said."
He does comment, at times extensively, on the place that all this furniture held in the lives of the people of the era. He begins with a brief discussion of furniture (such as it was) in the ancient classical world, then begins in the Gothic era, and examines English, French, Italian, Dutch, and eventually American furniture styles. I would have preferred to hear a bit more about what those not in the orbit of the high and mighty of their day were using for furniture, but I suppose that little of it survived into the 20th century to be evaluated or collected.
I learned a bit about what a "splat" and a "stretcher" are, in regards to furniture.
Reading this book is rather like listening to a curmudgeonly old expert on any topic about which one has little emotional investment, which for me is an enjoyable pasttime. With no particular reason to disagree with his opinions on the topic, I can simply enjoy the evident passion with which another human being has thrown themselves into the mastery of a subject....more
I resist the urge to make this review a series of hacky haikus. I hope y'all appreciate how difficult that was for me to resist.
So, the first thing toI resist the urge to make this review a series of hacky haikus. I hope y'all appreciate how difficult that was for me to resist.
So, the first thing to acknowledge about this book is the fantastic binding. It's a style called Traditional Chinese, in which each page is a double sheet folded over, printed only on the outside, and the stitching is visible on the outside of the spine. It looks rather nice, and it was a pleasure to hold. I have not the historical knowledge to know if Japanese haikus were printed using Traditional Chinese Bookbinding techniques, but let's assume for the moment that the publisher did their homework on this point.
The haikus are presented, one per page, in English, Romanji (Japanese words using Latin letters), Kanji, and Hiragana; the first two horizontally, and the other two vertically. The paper is nice quality, and the use of black ink for the first two writing systems and dark red ink for the other two was nice. It felt peaceful just to open the book and look at it. I read it two pages per morning, at a spot by the river, which seemed to fit the subject matter.
The three authors were Basho (1644-1694):
In this bleak rain Even the monkeys seem to want Little straw cloaks
...Buson (1716-1784):
Settled on The temple bell- A sleeping butterfly
...and Issa (1763-1828), my favorite:
The winter fly I spared Was captured by The cat
Inevitably, it encouraged me to try my hand at making my own, but more importantly, after reading one or two each morning, there was a moment of calm stillness, when I would look out across the river and mentally pause for a short time....more
There are a wide variety of animals (other than birds and insects, which get their own volumes) covered in this book. Common Dormouse. Marsh Frog. BriThere are a wide variety of animals (other than birds and insects, which get their own volumes) covered in this book. Common Dormouse. Marsh Frog. British Saddleback Pig. Badger. Red-necked Wallaby (yes, really, although they are not common, they have been seen in the wild in Britain).
The sheer quantity of high-quality illustrations is rather mind-boggling, if you actually think about the fact that somebody painted all of these (there are also some photographs). The text is plain, functional, and to the point. Occasionally, the fact that it was written several decades ago shows through, but often it allowed me to pause in my reading to check on the current status of some endangered (in the U.K. at least) species, and happily most of the time prospects had improved in the intervening years.
One might ask why not have all photographs, and no illustrations. Well, it makes a superficial sort of sense, but I have to say the illustrations are better. I suppose this is because we benefit from the illustrator's trained eye, to show the relevant and leave out the extra visual clutter, so that we have almost as good an understanding of what we are looking at as they do. The human sees with the mind as well as the eye, because the mind knows which details to concentrate on, but only for subjects which it has long experience at looking at. With illustrations, it is our eyes, but the illustrator's mind, which helps us to do this. Or that's my guess, anyway. What I can say for certain is that, although the photographs are fine, the illustrations were more engaging and interesting to look at, and the book would be immeasurably worse if they had been replaced with photographs.
This book is, generally speaking, not the source for in-depth analysis of any one species. However, sometimes it did go into a great deal of depth on what would, in other books, be considered the same topic. Each species of wild animal gets its own two-page (at least) section, and my goodness there are a lot of different kinds of deer in the British Isles, so you're reading about deer for some time. Also, rodents.
Farm animals are also covered, and thus we do get to learn about quite a few different types of cattle and sheep. My goodness, but the British Isles also have a great fondness for milk and wool. But, even though I probably was more intrinsically interested in, say, polecats or badgers or hedgehogs, it was interesting to see all the many ways that farmers over the centuries have steered the gene pools of one breed or another of cow, sheep, horse, or chicken.
This is, needless to say, not a pageturner; rather, this is a perfect book for reading about one animal per day, which is more or less what I did....more
Tim Woolings is a professor of Physics at Oxford University, studying in particular physics related to the climate. If you infer from this that we areTim Woolings is a professor of Physics at Oxford University, studying in particular physics related to the climate. If you infer from this that we are going to hear about climate change in this book, you would not be wrong, but the book is much more readable, interesting, and informative than if it were primarily aimed at browbeating the reader into caring about fossil fuels. In fact, Woolings does essentially no browbeating of the reader here, so if you're looking for a preach-to-the-choir sermon on the evils of human energy consumption and the hellish future that awaits us if we do not repent of our wicked ways, this is not your book. Woolings is here to tell us about the jet stream.
He somehow, despite being a professor of physics at a prestigious university, is able to write well. One device he uses to help us comprehend all of what he has to tell us, is to follow a hypothetical weather balloon on its path around the world. It is released from the island of Barbados in the Caribbean, and makes its way across several oceans and continents, actually doing more than 360 degrees around the planet (because when it gets back to the New World, it is considerably north of where it started). But that's not the only journey we go on, we are also time travelling.
Humans have been interested in how the winds blow Up There for a long time, and so they have been trying to figure out how to explain (and maybe even predict) what is happening for almost as long. As our weather balloon reaches each new section of the planet, there are new puzzles about how the jet stream works that somebody (or usually several generations of somebodies) had to figure out, and Woolings does a good job of telling the tale of how it happened.
There are several things that make this system complicated to understand (or write about). First, it involves both water and wind. The two impact each other, but they move in different ways, such that you can neither treat them as the same nor worry about only one of them at a time. Second, it is very much a three dimensional problem, with the extra feature that it involves a spinning system (the planet underneath). So, you have to think (or in the case of the author, write and draw) in at least three dimensions at once, and those dimensions are all in flux.
Third, it is very much a chaotic system, in the technical, mathematical sense. In fact, weather is almost the prototypical chaotic system, where immeasurably small changes can have large affects. It has patterns, but often just enough of a pattern to make you believe you know what's going on, and then it changes on you. This made it difficult for scientists who attempt to develop a mental model for it, to know when they are making progress. In some cases, the normal variation of weather (and climate) can obscure a pattern immediately after you publish your results pointing it out. Nonetheless, over the course of the centuries, and at an accelerating pace in the last 100 years, real progress has been made.
This all prepares us, very late in the book, for the question of how the jet stream will change as the climate changes. To his immense credit, Woolings is very forthright in admitting that not all models agree, and much is uncertain. But, given what is known (or suspected), he tells us what we do know. To summarize: it is very unlikely to stay the same, anyway. Given how commercially important the jet stream is, and the profound impact that it can have on how much rainfall different parts of the globe get, this will be important. The one thing you may rely on, is that the average climate where you are is likely to change, in a long-term significant way.
But, more interesting to me than the destination, is the journey to get there. Woolings is an engaging teacher, on a topic he is clearly genuinely interested in, and reading this book was a pleasure....more
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