Quote of the Post (for Elle Cordova)

  

 

 "But she had already stopped in front of a tall door padded with purple velvet. There were voices on the other side-- eldritch voices, the sort of voices that mere typography will remain totally unable to convey until someone can make a linotype machine with echo-reverb and, possibly, a typeface that looks like something said by a slug." 

Terry Pratchett The Light Fantastic, novel  

Pratchett had an imagination and sense of humor that was amazing. Find and read his books!   His discworld is one of literature's greatest inventions. For those of you not in the know, Elle Cordova is one of the most talented people on YouTube. I imagine she's also talented elsewhere, and, perhaps, in real life, but I have no first-hand evidence to that effect. In any event, she has perfected a style of intellectual-goofiness that is rarely seen, and almost never to the level she achieves. There is a kinship, I think, with Pratchett's work. Among other things; she's given personalities to various typefaces. Dare I say that she's given faces to typefaces? Yes. I dare. In certain parts of New York, she would be called a pisser. Everywhere else she'd be funny. And, if I had the skills, there would be some links to her channels. But I don't. So there aren't. 

Quote of the Post

 "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

Groucho Marx

A Bit of a Tribute

This is little early for a Paddy's Day post, but as I may very well be otherwise occupied on the day, preventing dehydration with a beer or few, I'll put this in now.

This limerick, based on a true story, is dedicated to Simone Giertz. I'm a big fan. Check her out on YouTube.


    There was a young woman from Sweden
    Who said, Making things is my Eden
    But when, to her ire
    She set her own belly afire
    Said, My dignity is recedin'

Christopher Mahon

Quantum Baby-sitting (An Open Letter to the Physics Community)

  Although I am not myself a scientist, other people are. And many of those scientists have written books, which I've read. That is to say, I've read the easier ones-- well, some of them; the ones that weren't too thick and intimidating. All right-- I've skimmed some dust jackets and I have access to Wikipedia. So I know a thing or two about science. (Perhaps as many as five or six things, but I don't like to brag.) Over the course of the last few years I have made certain observations and noticed peculiar correlations which have led me to discoveries that will knock the world of science on its ass. (Or asses. It really depends on how many scientists read this.)
  I am Uncle to.... I was about to give the number of nieces and nephews, but blogalistic integrity compels me to mention that my siblings and I disagree on what that number actually is. Due to the geocentric nature of my home in relation to my family (poor planning on my part), I am the victim, or as my family likes to call it, "host" of many family gatherings. Based on the decibel levels and seismic measurements meticulously recorded at these events, my kid-count is one or two orders of magnitude greater than theirs. Compared to the kind of scientific accuracy that I have achieved, my siblings' claims that "We were there during the delivery" and "We know how many children we're raising" seem rather weak. But let us not pick at that scab today, we have bigger fish to fry.
  I am Uncle to... many.
  The relationship between uncle and child is an important one, but given short shrift in our culture today. Nevertheless, the responsibility of uncling is one which I have taken quite seriously. I have given these... many... children the full benefit of my great wisdom and experience in ways that parents and other authority figures simply cannot. Indeed, ask any one of my nieces and nephews who taught them that matches and gasoline are outside toys, or who always made them share the razor blades and poison. Indeed, ask them who it was who gave them the magnificent opportunity to use their wits and bravery to find their own way home from neighboring towns. To a one, they will point at me with a shaking finger and say in a quavering voice: "He did." (I am almost as proud of their honesty as I am of their survival skills.)
   My various siblings all married within three years of each other and, as if all of those ceremonies and receptions weren't enough, began their begatting at a prodigious rate, seemingly without coordination of any kind. (Poor planning on their part.) Interestingly enough, once having produced these larval hominids, the parents felt an immediate need to foist the helpless little homunculi off on the nearest adult relation. (Why didn't I move into a cave when I had the chance?) The tiny primates are simply handed off with vague excuses such as: 'going shopping', 'running errands' or, 'If we don't get some sleep we'll go insane.' This practice of outsourcing parental duties is known as 'baby-sitting', although, in my experience, no sitting actually occurs. This is especially true once the miniature mammals reach the stage that is blithely, and misleadingly, referred to as 'toddlerhood'.  And it is this shocking and disturbing stage of human existence which occasions this letter.
  Horses, antelope, zebras and such, can all walk, and even run, within hours of birth. Not so with humans. The human baby doesn't walk for over a year, during which time it gathers its strength, observes its surroundings, and concocts its plans for total household domination.
  The word toddler conjures up a vast array of images of domestic bliss. One pictures the little munchkins walking awkwardly around, holding lollipops and sippy-cups and talking about eating 'pisghetti'. Awwww. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Their short, little legs carry those pint-sized Tasmanian Devils with the speed and destructive energy of your average tornado. And in the midst of diaper changes, hazmat-suit purchases, feedings, and television shows featuring improbably cheerful sauropods, I noticed a remarkable thing. Those messy little dynamos were actually acting out the laws of  physics and quantum mechanics.
  Below is a basic primer of Quantum Baby-sitting followed by my paradigm-altering discoveries.

My position as Uncle to the toddler swarm is known as special relativity. Strangely, this relationship went unnoticed until Einstein's famous paper of 1905. (Perhaps, prior to this, most people used nannies.)

The fact that the juice can not un-spill, the red dyes in it will not un-stain the priceless Persian
carpet* and that the commemorative martini glass from Harry's Bar in Venice can never un-shatter into a billion pieces is derived from the laws of thermodynamics and is known as entropy.

The attempts, by the Uncle, to prevent the aforementioned catastrophes, is relative motion, also discovered by Einstein. (Did he already have kids at that time?)
(In a related phenomenon, the inability of the Uncle to grab the prized martini glass in time is described by the Fitzgerald-Lorentz Contraction, whereby the length of the arms actually shortens in direct proportion to their forward motion.)

The slow motion of the glass, as it falls, is, of course, due to the effects of time dilation.
 
  Everything above is certainly textbook physics. That is, I think it is. (Have you ever priced those textbooks? They're also really thick and scary) Perhaps any students out there can check their own volumes and get back to me.
   What follows are my kick-ass discoveries.

  While the Laws of Thermodynamics have their uses (See entropy, above, as the reason for my ruined home), the laws fall short in several areas. First is the claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, followed by the highly dubious proposition that perpetual motion is impossible. And, there is an even bigger boo-boo in the laws of physics that must be toppled.
  Just as my hero, Albert Einstein, used thought experiments to help him work out and explain his theories, I, too, shall use one now.

  Imagine, first, a group of toddlers. Next, picture a man (the Uncle) attending to them. Now, add ice cream and birthday cake. Over the course of the next few hours, you will see energy created (theirs); energy destroyed (mine); and a quite convincing demonstration of perpetual motion. The most astounding discovery is this: That within mere minutes of consuming dessert-- all of the pint-sized life-forms are capable of exceeding the speed of light!
  Due to the inability of my smart-phone's stop-watch app to measure billionths of seconds, I have no concrete proof, and I know that there will be doubters. To them I will say only this: If you believe that I am wrong, you come over and baby-sit the little darlings at the next party, and observe for yourselves. Please. Really. Please, pleeeaze watch them for me.

* Synthetic dyes were first developed in Imperial Germany in the late 19th century. I won't say that the industrialization of those dyes had anything to do with the Kaiser's plans for world domination (see World War One), but a country busy scrubbing stains from the upholstery is much less likely to notice a pending invasion.











  

 
 

Pity the Fool

 With all the family gatherings that seem to be mandatory at this time of the year, many of us will find occasion to envy the orphan.
 Upon reflection, when calm and rational thought is, once again, possible, we find instead that we must indeed pity him. For, though he is spared the gift lists and family obligations, he must face the end of the old year and the beginning of the new without any assistance in the discovery and cataloguing of all of his failures and shortcomings.
 Can any one of us, surfeited with kin, imagine the utter desolation and loneliness of seeing in the new year without such a catalogue?
 To the orphan, the coming year could possibly be a tabula rasa on which he must tread without guidance or direction. He might, indeed, find that he is heading in directions, and down roads he never knew existed. He may discover, at the end of that year, that he has travelled to places unimaginable the year before, and re-made his life totally anew.
 As I said, we must pity the orphan.

Decline and Fall- A Blogger's Tale- part the first

 The autumn of 2012. Heady days for those of us addicted to politics. Karl Rove and Dick Morris were guaranteeing victory for their champion; the Billionaire Boob Club was pouring in cash; and your correspondent was in the middle of it all. How can I describe the constant whirlwind of visits to all of my most important and reliable think tanks and research institutions, day after day, from happy hour to last call, for months on end? And how can I get across the horror of finding myself in a government detention facility where I was required to complete a certain number of 'steps' before I could regain my freedom?
 Yes, heady days. Much of that time remains a blur, my memories fuzzy- probably from government mind control devices- but some images remain.
 I recall the man who, on the strength of Gingrich's primary victories and promises to put poor children to work, was about to launch a line of janitorial wear for grade-schoolers. He even planned a kid-sized equipment line: Mops for Tots. There was the man who 'just knew' that Herman Cain would win the election and feed the poor with pizza. He invested everything he had in mozzarella futures.
 Where are they now, those patriotic, hopeful, optimistic, idiots?
 I cannot say. I can only tell you what happened to me.

 On Halloween day 2012, I was in Sarasota Florida covering a speech by the Vice President, who had appeared in character, if not in costume. I spent that night writing my blog at a local think tank decorated like a tiki hut, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. I approached the bar for another drink, intending to try to get something without a little umbrella in the glass. I noticed a down-in-the-dumps looking guy, wearing a slightly seedy suit and a forlorn expression. He looked like he really needed someone to talk to, so I headed for the other end of the bar. Unfortunately, he looked up and spoke to me as I passed.
 "Sir, you strike me as a perspicacious and sympathetic soul."
 Well, he was half right. I was about to correct him on the sympathetic part, when he instantly endeared himself to me with that much beloved and universal gesture of peace and brotherhood that signalled that he was buying. I naturally sat down next to my new-found friend, who ordered something that was served in a coconut shell and with, of course, a paper umbrella. The drink was sweet and cool and went down smoothly, unlike the conversation, which dragged until I began to pay attention.
 "You just can't run freak-shows anymore," he was saying. I thought, at first, that he was referring to Republican politics. The election was only days away, after all. But no. He was talking circuses. "My great-grandfather was a talent scout for ol' P.T. Barnum himself," he said.
  "He could go into a small town bar, buy a few rounds for the locals, and the next thing you know, he had the address of another bearded lady or alligator man." While he was talking, I managed to get the barkeep to bring over a pitcher of beer, without umbrellas, so I could concentrate on his story. "Great- grandpa eventually realized he could do better going solo and started his own sideshow. My grandfather and then my father carried on the tradition into the early seventies, when sideshows became impossible to run," he said sadly.
  "Because of political correctness and civil rights?" I asked.
  He shook his head. "Plastic surgery and electrolysis."
  He ordered a shot of whiskey and downed it fast. "We went bankrupt. I had to drop out of college. I bummed around for years and eventually ended up in the merchant marine."
  It seems, though, that all was not lost. "We had to overhaul an engine in Australia. I was stuck in Sydney for two weeks. One night I found the answer to my prayers in a little pub."
   I started to tell that him lots of people find their prayers answered in pubs, but he interrupted me.
"Dwarf tossing," was all he said.
  He was getting animated now. It seemed that the Aussie penchant for aerial homunculi might restore his family's fortune. "I knew that the idea would fly over here. My family not only had the showmanship, but my maternal grandfather had done all the PR for the Munchkins. I knew every little person in Hollywood, and they never had enough work." My new friend quickly secured the rights from the local promoter and headed home.
  "We built up a dozen or so circuits that hit every redneck and biker bar in the country. I was making money hand over fist until it all fell apart again."
  "Because of injuries and liabilities?" I asked.
  He shook his head. "Political correctness and civil rights."
  Apparently protests had sprung up almost from the beginning. "That's why we held the events at biker and redneck bars. They were sort of self policing, if you know what I mean." Eventually, though, the tide of public opinion caught up with dwarf tossing. "States started passing laws against us. As rich as I was, I wasn't rich enough to afford a lobbyist of my own, and we finally got shut down."
  In the face of this dreadful, heartbreaking tale of sorrow and woe, I almost felt guilty as I gestured toward the empty pitcher. After a refill, he finished his story.
  "I found a sympathetic politician in Florida who tried to get the law changed, to no avail. But I feel a lot of sympathy here, and I think that if Romney wins we can start over again." I have to admit my admiration for this man was growing with every drink I swallowed. Not only was he not giving up, but his reading of the political 'tea leaves' was right on the money. "The Republicans haven't got any kind of jobs plan, and I'm the kind of small businessman they admire. We'll employ lots of people and kick those bleeding heart PC liberals in the ass. It can't fail. I was even able to pick up a warehouse full of tiny janitor uniforms for a song." He was very excited now. "The only problem is that I've used up most of my working capital, and..." he looked at me meaningfully.
  Now I realized everything. I saw through it as easily as I could see through the vodka in my shot glass. My new-found friend needed an angel. Here was my chance to get in on an amazing business opportunity. Without another word, I whipped out my checkbook and emptied the account on what could only be described as a 'Sure Thing.'
  As hung over as I was on the flight back to New York, I still had to smile at my great luck. All the stars were now lined up for me: politically, economically and, most importantly, bachiccally (my friend had given me a case of single malt scotch to seal our partnership.)
  On election night I watched my favorite conservative network, and sipped scotch, with the confidence that my fortune was tied to President Romney's. As the returns came in, I realized that the electoral victory promised by the conservative media was not to be. Both the election and my fortune were wiped out.
  Of the debacle and disaster of the wee hours of that night, where I lost everything, I will say only this: I was apprehended at the Fox News studios where I tried to see how far up Karl Rove's ass I could shove a tot-mop.
  The story of my subsequent arrest and internment must await another day. Since my downfall I've had to rely on my local library's computers. And, if the impatient kid who keeps poking me is correct, my time at this terminal is up.

A Note to Readers

Even though no one has posted any queries, I know that you, my loyal followers, have been wondering at my long absence from this space. My readers are nothing if not discreet. (Except, perhaps, imaginary.)

Suffice it to say, my friends, there is a long and and wonderfully interesting story in this, as in all aspects of my life. Unfortunately, time does not now permit me to tell it. Rest assured that I will fill in all the juicy details in the coming days.