zygote daddy

books! books! books!

I've seen this one floating around recently, most recently over at Sex Ed in Higher Ed and Chucheria, so I thought I'd take a crack:

1. One book that changed your life: This one's a total cliche, so let me paint a picture for you. The time: Fall of 1998. The place: A soulless 1950's apartment complex-turned-dorm in Davis, California. An 18-year-old kid with acne, man-boobs, and no friends sits alone in his room while his suitemates get high without him in the room next door. He picks up a battered old copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang that had been sitting on a bookshelf at home for as long as he could remember. He had packed it in a box to bring to college with him, having been recommended the book by a crazy old hippie at his job the previous summer. A year later the boy finds himself at a strange little environmental college on an island off the coast of Maine, swimming naked in the ocean between classes and regularly engaging in very serious debates about the respective ecological footprints of tofu, tempeh, and seitan.

2. One book that you've read more than once: I generally try not to read books more than once because there are so many out there I haven't gotten to yet, but I must admit that several times I have had to bend my rule for Lord of the Rings. I am such a nerd. But how cool is a novel with appendices? Pretty damn sweet, my friend. Pretty damn sweet.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: This one is hard. For me it comes down to three possibilities: A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (because I've never read it and probably won't get around to it unless marooned), The Elements of Style (to make sure my final thoughts are scratched into the sand while dangling no participles), or The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (so at least I could have some old friends along with me). I would definitely take Historical Statistics of the United States if I were allowed a laptop, a power source, and some statistical software. That would keep me occupied for ages. Or at least until I need tech support.

4. One book that made you laugh: Bill Bryson's I'm a Stranger Here Myself left me gasping for breath from beginning to end. I even stole pirated acquired the audio version so I can keep it on my iPod. The concept of a former expatriate writing columns about small town American life for a British newspaper is absolutely brilliant.

5. One book that made you cry: Me man. Me no cry. Except for when Piggy died. *sniff*

6. One book that you wish had been written: Anything about an introverted fat kid with no friends that ends in neither death nor unrealistic personal transformation. Preferably written by David Sedaris or Milan Kundera. But I imagine that might be a hard sell.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Can't do it. Freedom of expression is a lot more important that what I may think about a particular work. OK, OK, I'll stop with the self righteous bullshit now. Sorry.

8. The book that you are currently reading: Hmm. I've been reading nothing but scientific journals for months now, but the most recent book I read for fun was No God But God. Great discussion of the development and historical context of Islam. And Reza Aslan goes on the Daily Show from time to time, so I'm automatically predisposed to like him.

9. One book that you've been meaning to read: Can I count the Torah, New Testement, and Koran as one book? We are all the children of Abraham, after all.

10. Five people to tag: OK, I am going to support what I've recently noticed to be growing anti-tagging sentiment, doing my part in differentiating the blogosphere from a middle school playground. I'd love to see what others come up with, but I'm not singling anyone out. Vive la revolucion!

DDT and creationism in the Atomic Age

I am a total sucker for old science books, which d.w. just doesn't seem to understand. In fact, she is rolling her big, brown eyes at me as I write this. Old books offer a lot of perspective. I have come to accept, for instance, that everything cutting-edge I am studying now will soon be embarrassingly quaint. It really takes a lot of the pressure off: "So what if I make up data? This won't matter in a couple of years anyway!"

Dude, I'm joking. Really.

Anyway, I bring it up because our local public library's annual book sale was today, and I brought home a stack of lovely, musty old library books. One that will find a place (again, d.w. rolling her eyes) on the new shelf of baby books is Functional Anatomy of the Newborn. Useful stuff, in case we ever want to know the weight of the hatchling's pituitary gland, or the anteroposterior length of the maxillary sinus. By far the best find was a general science textbook from 1950, entitled Our Environment: How We Use and Control It. A few select tidbits:

On physics:

No savage can tell you why a log or canoe floats, but he uses the principle of bouyancy every day of his life if he lives near water.

On chemistry:

Whether or not DDT will prove as useful in the protection of crops against insects as it has in the protection of human beings, time alone will tell. We shall consider this remarkable insecticide in greater detail at a later point in our study.

On geology:

At best a theory is only a guess and should never be taken too much for granted. By contrast, the story of creation as told so beautifully in the Bible gives us the great truths of creation. We should keep that story constantly in mind as we study [geology]. Yet, as we read and reread its simple, inspiring narrative, we realize that it purposely leaves many interesting details for men's inquiring minds to fill in.

On engineering:

Hardly had the steam engine become well-established  when along came the gasoline engine with its invaluable contributions, especially in the related field of transportation. Then came the dynamo and the Age of Electricity. Now we are face to face with the Atomic Age, and no one can yet foretell what wonders of industry its power holds for the world. Perhaps the time may come when we shall be flying around with enough atomic energy packed away in our pockets to keep our automobiles or airplanes running for a lifetime.

And finally, on genetics. Hoo boy:

Some families have been known to science for many years in which immoral, feeble-minded, pauper, vagrant, and drunken traits appear with regularity through several generations. There are others where the descendents were generally of a high type physically, mentally, and morally.

There are thirty-five normal-minded persons to every feeble-minded person in this country. The future well-being of the nation depends upon these normal-minded people. To encourage the recognition of this fact the science of eugenics has developed. Eugenics is the science of improving the human race by better heredity through better parents.

So what insights can we glean from such a, um, perspective? Well, in 1950, apparently only white people understood basic physics and being poor was a genetic disorder. Oh, and scientific theories (like gravity) were really no more than a wild guess.

It does make me wonder though. Are my kids going to think that this decade (whatever the hell it's called: ots? oughts? aughts? oh's? owe's? o's?) is as backward as we the 50's were?

I can only hope so.

they seemed so much less trippy when I was little

So apparently not all childrens' books are about polar bears and hippos. Some of them feature anthropomorphic tabs of acid giving moralistic life lessons. Nice.

But man, this takes me back. Being mesmerized by the primary colors. The simple lines. The archetypal protagonists. The uncluttered, dependable narrative arc.

Apparently the Mr. Men books turned 35 this week (seriously, they couldn't come up with a less chauvanistic name? At the height of second-wave feminism?), and in all honesty, if I hadn't stumbled across this at the BBC, I probably would have never remembered (or cared).

But here it has been three days since that article was published, and I still can't get these things out of my head. Am I just wigging out or something? Whoa...

a plague of frogs

The BBC was absolutely giddy yesterday reporting a story about how Americans know more about the Simpsons than they do the First Amendment. Apparently, 20% of us think the right to own a pet is one of the freedoms guaranteed under the amendment. Only one in 1,000 could remember all five.

You know what the stinker is? Only 1,000 people were polled. Lucky that one dude got called, or else, statistically-speaking, NONE of us would know them all. I managed to get four of them (speech, religion, press, and assembly), but I forgot the right to petition the government for a redress of grievences. Silly me.

So this got the dear wife and I talking about what other seminal documents we could remember, and the conversation veered toward the Ten Commandments. Killing and adultery we remembered. Always good for married folks.

Not remembering all ten, I whipped out Exodus looking for them. I forgot what a wonderful treasure trove of archaic belligerence the book is! Had untold millions not been murdered over the millenia because of its priceless little tidbits, I would even characterize it as "amusing." Either way, it certainly provides persective.

Anyway, the reason I am here: I'd forgotten the frog part. Oh, man, can I stick this in my thesis? That would be awesome. Here we go, Exodus 8:1-14

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:
3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.
5 And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.
6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
7 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.
8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.
9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?
10 And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God.
11 And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only.
12 And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh.
13 And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields.
14 And they gathered them together upon heaps: and the land stank.

...and that's where all the current frog extinctions began.

 

data. sweet, sweet data.

Just saw an article about what looks like the coolest book ever. Well, a close second anyway. The new illustrated edition of The Elements of Style kicks serious ass. But that's for another time.

No, I'm talking about the 5000-page, five-volume, 29-pound behemoth known as Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times To The Present: Millennial Edition. Thirty-seven thousand data sets spanning the economic, demographic, and political history of the good ol' U.S. of A.

Oh yeah.

Want to find out how many married, but separated, white males there were in 1880? Look no further. Curious about long-term trends in broccoli production? Settle in for a bit. Can't remember the going price of vanadium in 1972? This bad boy will jog your memory.

And best of all, they don't bother with summary statistics or anything like that. Just row after row of pure unadulterated data.

It's a good time to be alive.

two gods among men. with superior grammar.

Has it really been two weeks since I was last here?

It's now 6 in the morning and I am still up writing. I seem to do that a lot these days, but I like working late at night. It's quiet. It's dark. I become completely consumed by putting words to paper. Actually, it's really more like putting electrons to silicon, or something like that. But that's neither here nor there.

Of course, now I get to start my work day. I walked back to the lab at about 4:30 this morning, because the dear wife was sleeping in the other room, which reminded me that I wasn't. I now have a full day of writing, meetings, more writing, and more meetings. And then I go home for a few hours' sleep, so that I can start my next 30 or 40-hour workday. Surprisingly, it's really not as bad as it sounds. I am excited about my work, and I never knew I had so much to say. This thing'll easily be 100 pages by the time I'm done.

And to think in high school I would lose sleep over having to write 5 pages on William Faulkner.

Ah yes, the reason I am here:

I was just looking through my copy of The Elements of Style, because I couldn't remember if you are supposed to hyphenate those odd adverbs-with-modifiers-used-as-adjectives mutants of verbage. As in, "My stress-addled brain makes me forget that I am supposed to wear similarly-colored socks when I leave the house."

Anyway, I logged on for a reason, and that is to convey to the world that The Elements of Style is one of the most incredible books ever published in the English language. Ever. Need proof? This is how Strunk and White address a common pitfall in writing: 

8. Avoid the use of qualifiers.
    Rather, very, little, pretty--these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the word little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.

See what I mean? Best. Book. Ever.

how's this for juxtaposition? (vol. 2)

OK, I have to say something. But first a qualifier: I love Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Beautiful poem. The cadence, the imagery, the je ne sais quoi. But frankly, Robert Frost has "been done", if you will. At this point I think we can safely give some other poets their due without risking Frost's place in the canon.

Standing out in the snow the other morning, I was reminded of the poetry of Ted Kooser, an Ames native enjoying a well-earned surge in popularity these days, having twice been appointed U.S. Poet Laureate, and winning a Pulitzer last year.

I love his poetry because it exemplifies everything I actually like about the Midwest: the lack of pretension, the deliberate pace, the landscape that makes you to look closely to enjoy its beauty. Anyway, here is the poem I was thinking of the other day, from his Pulitzer-winning collection Delights and Shadows:

A Winter Morning

A farmhouse window far back from the highway
speaks to the darkness in a small, sure voice.
Against this stillness, only a kettle's whisper,
and against the starry cold, one small blue ring of flame.

how's this for juxtaposition? (vol. 1)

The old man (Jeez Dad, relax; it's just an expression...) emailed me earlier and said that I left you all hanging with the end of the last post. So here's a little something to satisfy the inner nostalgist in all of us. I know, I know, it's not really about snow falling in the woods, etc. But was my last post? Hmm... Sounds like dissertation fodder to me...

Anyway, here it is, although I know you all have already read it:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
    by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Expect a little commentary tomorrow. I'm too tired right now.