Love and Lust: November 2020

If this story doesn't make you go "awww," then I'm afraid you have a heart of stone.

While setting up the massive Christmas tree in New York's Rockefeller Center this year, workers found a tiny owl trapped inside the wrapped bundle.

Uncertain whether the little guy was okay, he was wisked away to a wildlife center. The bird experts checked him out, and once they determined he was fine, they took him to upper New York State and released him into the wild.

The itty bitty critter wasn't a baby but actually a Saw-whet, one of North America's smallest owl species. Hopefully owls don't have a long memory and the whole adventure will be soon forgotten.

One wonders what the owl thought when the tree was hacked down and he found himself imprisoned inside, then taken to downtown Manhattan, a very different environment than his home. Was he terrified or just constantly doing an owl version of WTF is this?

Thursday, November 26, 2020

happy thanksgiving!

To Americans everywhere in the world, Happy Thanksgiving! This will not be a typical turkey day for many, but I hope it's happy and memorable nonetheless. It's not a holiday here down under, of course, so it will just be an ordinary Thursday for us with nothing special planned.

This clip isn't exactly Thanksgiving related, but you might have some liver left over from your turkey feast, so it's sort of topical.

Have a happy, safe holiday. Remember my motto: if you can't be good, be careful. And save the livers!

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

you may kick the bride

A professional hockey player from Vancouver is in the news because he accidentally kicked his new bride in the head while performing a shirtless lapdance for her at their wedding reception.

Nothing says classy like a shirtless lapdance at a wedding reception.

That aside, she was not seriously injured. Looking at their TikTok feed, they seem like a cute but silly couple. He's 24 and she appears to be younger.

He's not bad looking but needs a better haircut and is extremely pale. I guess hockey players in Canada don't get much sun. At least he seems pale to me. New South Wales is like Southern California where nearly everyone seems to be tanned so my perspective may be off.

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

the little rogue planet

For the first time, astronomers have discovered an earth-sized rogue planet that's wandering in the Milky Way untethered to a star. While other rogue planets are known to exist, they're all massive, much larger than Jupiter.

Although life once might have existed on the wandering planet, I have to think it could no longer support anything now. Even if it still has gravity because it's spinning while traveling, it has no sun to heat it and the surface thus would be bitter cold.

The only possibility might be if it was home to an advanced species that evolved when it rotated a star. Presumably, an advanced technology would have created a sealed habitat under giant domes on the planet surface and continually heat those to a life-sustaining level using something like nuclear or thermal energy.

Even if the planet doesn't have a gravitational pull, I suspect it could be replicated by having wheel-like structures within the domes that constantly rotated to create their own gravity.

How would humans react if such a planet wandered into our solar system and began rotating our sun near to earth? Would humans try to make contact or would the other civilization go first?

Would harmony result or interplanetary war? Who would fire the first shot?

Monday, November 23, 2020

flaming dung creature

Yesterday, I read something offline that referred to a bonnacon. I'd never heard of that so I looked up the word.

Turns out a bonnacon was a creature widely believed to exist in earlier centuries. Cow-like in shape and size with useless horns, its self-defense mechanism was simple but effective: it crapped poop that caused severe burns and, per some sources, caught on fire.

According to Pliny the Elder, a first century AD Roman scholar: "The bonnacon is found in Macedonia. It has the mane like a horse but otherwise resembles a bull. It has horns that curve back so they are useless for fighting. If attacked, it runs away, while releasing a trail of dung that can cover three furlongs [660 yards]. Contact with the dung burns pursuers as though they had touched fire."

I was unable to find whether the bonnacon could aim its burning shit or just fired it wildly.

Some mythological beasties, like mermaids, probably have an origin in reality. Early sailors are believed to have mistaken manatees or similar sea animals for mermaids, possibly because very few people in earlier centuries had any kind of eyeglasses.

So what real creature inspired the bonnacon or was it just created by some storyteller and then later mistakenly assumed to be true? The answer is no one knows.

Sunday, November 22, 2020

brutally ironic

The photo appearing below (enlargement) appeared in Friday's New York Times. The photographer is Jenn Ackerman.

The line of vehicles holds people waiting for Covid-19 tests in Mandan, North Dakota, which is in the south central part of the state. The backdrop is unintentionally but brutally ironic. I can't think that didn't escape some or most of the people waiting in that line.

North Dakota has, by far, the highest per capita infection rate in the United States. The state has had almost as many total Covid-19 deaths as the entire country of Australia, which has a population thirty-two times the size.

Saturday, November 21, 2020

twatwaffle

The insult twatwaffle is widely known and, of course, amusing. I've always wondered how two seemingly unrelated words were jammed together like this.

After all, a twat is slang for a woman's vagina. A waffle is a tasty breakfast item.

But here is where I went wrong. Some online etymological research revealed that the twat in twatwaffle refers to the British slang twat, meaning a foolish, stupid, useless, and/or contemptable person.

And waffle isn't referring to something you eat. Again, the correct meaning is rooted in English slang, where waffle means someone's vague, wordy chatter.

So now twat and waffle together seem related. In America, twatwaffle is regularly used to describe a foolish, contemptable person, straying from its British origins.

Americans essentially use twatwaffle the way Brits use twat.

Friday, November 20, 2020

character business

We usually use the dishwasher, but for one reason or another, sometimes I handwash dishes. I never mind doing this, because I find it relaxing.

Sometimes when I wash them, I think of the scene in the movie Rosemary's Baby when Rosemary, played by Mia Farrow, and Minnie, played by Ruth Gordon, do the dishes in the kitchen after dinner. Minnie washes and Rosemary dries.

Rather than just washing dishes like any normal person would, elderly Minnie goes at it like she's sterilizing surgical instruments in boiling acid. She wears rubber gloves and really scrubs and scrubs at each individual dish with a brush.

It's a nice bit of character business, as actors call such unscripted elements. Who knows if that was Ruth Gordon's idea or the director. I don't remember that it's in the source novel.

Like all good business, it reveals something about the character. Minnie is a Satanist, presumably having sold her soul, yet she's also a clean freak — a woman with a blackened soul but impeccable dishes.

It's a great performance in a classic film. Gordon won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie.

I searched online and found a few dishwashing scene stills but none showing how Minnie aka Ruth scrubs the dishes themselves. The best one is below (enlargement). I've seen the movie several times but never noticed all the plants until I found this photo.

Presumably witchy Minnie was growing herbs which she used in her various drinks. If I recall from the novel, the wretched drink she makes for Rosemary is a combination of raw liver and spices which mask the horrid taste.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

the kindness of women

Back in September, I wrote about how I re-read J.G. Ballard's autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun and wanted to read the sort-of sequel The Kindness of Woman, which I'd never read.

I've now finished that and while I overall found it a good read, it has nothing of the power of Empire. Both novels tell of a character significantly based on the author and his life experiences.

The main character is the same in the two books, but the two stories don't quite mesh because the protagonist in one book does some things where in the other book he does the opposite.

In both books, the young central character is born and raised in the Shanghai International Settlement before World War II, as Ballard was, and then interned in the Lunghua Internment Camp during the war, again like the author.

Reading the book, I thought about how Ballard's parents and many others were foolish to stay in Shanghai and other British colonies so late when it was so obvious that the world was on the brink of war. They exposed their children to near certain danger and a greater chance of death.

The experience certainly scarred Ballard as it does the young protagonist in both books. Like his fictional counterparts, Ballard also witnessed horrendous wartime atrocities.

In the novels, he does not mention how the parents felt when their child was put in the prison camp. Did they feel guilt or was it just stiff upper lip?

As for their captors, if you're sending children into internment camps, you have to know you're a decidedly horrible person. I imagine most people who made such decisions were sociopaths who didn't even care about the damage they were doing to young lives.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

cover boy

The fashion media is all abuzz because, for the first time ever, the American edition of Vogue has put a solitary man on its cover. (It is not the first time a man has appeared on their cover, as incorrectly reported by some, because a number of men have appeared with women.)

Their choice for cover boy is the androgynously dressing Harry Styles. No surprise there. Styles has appeared at various events in the past wearing parts of women's outfits. He also wears women's clothes in most of the photos with the cover article and mostly ugly clothes at that.

I have nothing against Styles, but I think there are a lot more noteworthy men they could have put on the cover. He really is nothing more than a gimmick for the magazine. That makes me wonder if they approached some more notable men who all passed on the offer of appearing.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

X Æ A-12

Somehow last spring I missed the news that billionaire Elon Musk and musician Grimes had a new child they named "X Æ A-12."

In the annals of asinine celebrity baby names, this has to be in the running for grand prize. It's utterly unpronounceable.

Being the child of rich, famous parents is already enough of a burden. To then saddle that child with a bizarre name is an extra stigma.

If you're wondering what the name means: X stands for the unknown variable, Æ is the elven spelling of Ai, and A-12 is a type of aircraft. The explanation is as ludicrous as the name itself.

I guess it could have been worse. They could have called the child "Dog Breath" or "Cat Fart" or "Gibbon Diarrhea." Maybe they're saving something like that for their next kid.

Monday, November 16, 2020

ghosts of 1918

On their webpage, The New Yorker highlights, in an ever-changing rota, various notable articles from their 95-year publishing history. Currently, one they're featuring is a really fascinating piece about the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Like many articles published in the magazine, this one is about more than just the 1918 flu.

The piece also focuses on how present-day scientists searched for literally buried samples of the virus pathogen. And it's an excellent primer on how viruses mutate in both the short and long term.

The article is written for the general readership, and I learned a good bit I didn't know about what make viruses work and change and become so deadly.

I highly recommend a read. It's both timely and captivating.

The 1918 photograph below (enlargement) shows influenza patients and the nurses caring for them.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

will society collapse?

Last Sunday, the New York Times published a feature article called "How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart?" This very interesting piece is built around several scholars who study social collapse.

Given the popularity of dystopian fiction, films, and programs, and given this is the year of Covid-19, the article is particularly timely.

The feature looks at some societies that have collapsed in the past. Given it isn't a book, there are limitations to what one feature piece can explore. But the piece definitely could be expanded into a book.

In a book, it could examine what societal collapse might look like in the near future. I suspect we couldn't see a wholesale abandonment of a society like occurred in past centuries — no vanished people and abandoned cities. Society might look more like the movie Soylent Green, where everything is still somewhat held together but also badly fragmenting.

A modern parallel of sorts, which a book could also explore, would be to look at societies in the immediate aftermath of war — Germany after both world wars, Japan after surrender, and so on, before the victorious nations occupied the defeated country in question and reestablished order. The same could be said about a city after a major natural disaster.

I guess that's why I found the article so interesting — it leaves the audience wanting to learn more. I recommend a read.

And by the way, in the movie Soylent Green, the year is 2022. Eeek!

Saturday, November 14, 2020

the plastic lady

I happened to be reading a news item about a Russian billionaire and his ex-wife fighting in British courts over title to a very pricy piece of real estate. Ironically, because of sanctions on certain Russians, neither can actually enter the United Kingdom to live in the property.

The wife can be seen in the photo below (enlargement) that accompanies the article. I found other pictures of her online and she has the same plastic doll look. Her skin even shines like plastic.

I don't understand why women want to look so fake like this. She resembles an android character out of Westworld or The Stepford Wives. I wonder how long she goes without needing a battery recharge.

Friday, November 13, 2020

asteroid armageddon?

Astroners are keeping a close eye on an asteroid named Apophis that may come uncomfortably close to earth in the year 2068 or even strike the planet. A previouos expected path had to be revised after it was determined that Apophis's route might change because of the way the sun heats the asteroid.

This is not the first time that Apophis has potentially threatened earth. Initial calculations for a year 2029 visit by the wayward voyager showed that it had a 3 percent chance of striking the earth, although those odds were subsequently revised downward.

I'll be 83 if I'm still alive in 2068. My husband will be in his nineties but our children will be late forties into mid-fifties. Presumably we'll have grandchildren then, too. I worry more about what might happen to their world than what this might means for hubby and I.

Before estimates were recalculated, there was a one in 150,000 chance that Apophis would strike earth, but now those odds will worsen. That means the collision possibility has worse odds than the chance a person will be in a commercial airline crash, which is about one in a million.

No word yet what the odds might be for surviving a commercial airline crash at the same moment an asteroid strikes earth.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

scary eyes

I borrowed a book from the library that features cover art with just a very tight shot of a scary-looking man's eyes. I've been keeping the cover turned face down when I'm not reading it because it creeps me out so.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've always intensely disliked images that just feature someone's scary, somewhat demonic eyes. I suspect this is because I saw something on television featuring a tight shot of frightening eyes when I was very small that scared the crap out of me.

The picture below is not from the book's cover but I've recreated the shot. It's an engaging page-turner but the cover gets a big neurotic thumbs down from me.

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

veterans day

In the United States, today is Veterans Day. Here in Australia, it's Rememberance Day, which is not a public holiday, but more of a somber occasion.

Of course, it's Veterans Day, not Veteran's Day. The plural adjective underscores that the day is in honor of all veterans, not something possessed by just one veteran.

On Veterans Day, I think about members of my own family who have served in the American military, particularly my grandfather who served during World War II. He would talk about his eperiences if asked, but you always got the sense of a certain melancholy when he did so, because he still remembered the good friends he lost.

My husband and members of his family are veterans, too, in the Australian military. My husband's grandfather, who he knew as a boy, also served during World War II and spent time in a Japanese POW camp, an experience he never discussed.

It's certainly understandable that people might not want to talk about wartime experiences. It is unfortuate, however, that the lessons of those memories are lost when they pass.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

killing eve redux

Back in August, I wrote about how the husband and I were watching Killing Eve and enjoying it tremendously. I posted that entry when we were about halfway through the first season.

We took a break between each season and watched other things. Last night, we watched the cliffhanger episode at the end of the third season. A fourth season will be made soon.

We both felt that, after three seasons of episodes, the plot had become somewhat ludicrous and over the top. That aside, however, the acting continued to be outstanding.

I wrote before about how Sandra Oh is terrific, and she continues to be in every episode. I didn't mention Jodie Comer in my previous write up, and she's fantastic, too.

I initially really disliked the professional killer character Comer plays and that colored at first how I felt about her acting. But once I watched more episodes, I saw how terrific she really is. She plays a really horrible person with great depth so that we find that loathsome person somehow empathetic.

Fiona Shaw is also great on the program. She plays a steely MI-6 honcho, but there are private moments where she lets her guard down, and that's when you really see Shaw's acting brilliance shine.

Who knows when the fourt season will be ready, but the three existing seasons stand on their own. If you're looking for a very well done but offbeat series for binging, both the husband and I heartily recommend Killing Eve.

Monday, November 9, 2020

RIP alex trebek

I was very sorry to learn that Alex Trebek died over the weekend. I used to watch Jeopardy! as often as I could when I lived in the United States.

He was such a classy, witty man with a wry sense of humor. He seemed so inseperable from Jeopardy!. The producers still have enough of his episodes to air through Christmas.

At some point in the new year, a replacement will be brought on the show. Those will be very tough shoes to fill, given he hosted Jeopardy! for the entire time of its nighttime run, starting in 1984.

He was the best gameshow host of all time. Who was Alex Trebek?

Sunday, November 8, 2020

book recommendation

Last night, I finished reading Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy, by British author Ben MacIntyre, published in September of this year. It is sold in North America with the title Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy.

This nonfiction work tells the true story of Ursula Kuczynski, code named Agent Sonya, who spied for the Soviet Union against pre-Revolutionary China, Poland before World War II, Switzerland during World War II, and post-war Britain but was never caught.

She was one of the principal players responsible for passing reams of top secret documents to Moscow so that the latter could build its own atom bomb in the early 1950s. While she was suspected of being some kind of covert operative, the British never realized how important she was until it was too late.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys biography, history, and espionage. It's as much a page-turner as any fictional thriller and MacIntyre is a gifted prose stylist.

Although Kuczynski spied against the west and, indirectly, against the United States, the author nonetheless shows her as an empathetic figure who came to realize she had devoted her life to serving a deeply flawed state. She was so blinded by her hate of fascism that she did not notice that she served an evil equal in barbarity and ruthlessness.

Saturday, November 7, 2020

extraterrestrial windfall

A massive new comprehensive survey carried out by NASA and dozens of scientists has just been released, revealing that, by conservative estimate, some 300 million habitable planets are thought to exist in our solar system alone.

One of them is within twenty light years from earth and four are within thirty light years. Close in relative terms, compared to the vastness of space, but still out of reach given our technological limitations for the foreseable future.

Absent some sort of suspended animation stasis, and considering travel amost certainly will never be possible faster than the speed of light, would humans really want to spend decades in a spacecraft only to discover the nearest habital planet might only host something like lichen?

I do have an idea for how NASA or its successor might be able to find volunteers for such a mission — non-violent prisoners serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Many of them certainly would not be interested, but I bet some would.

Friday, November 6, 2020

metamorphopsia

I thought this very short item was fascinating. It's about a man with a brain condition known as "category-specific metamorphopsia."

He cannot "perceive, describe, or copy" the numbers two through nine. When he attempts to do so, the result is a jumbled mess which looks like a woman's tits.

Brain injuries which impair simple functions that we take for granted are quite rare but nonetheless very interesting. In his various books about the brain, Oliver Sacks several times wrote about different types of agnosia, a condition which results in a sort of brain blanking that affects only certain specific functions, like the inability to recognize common objects or familiar faces.

Thursday, November 5, 2020

the fear gene

Just as some people are emotionally crippled by fear and anxiety, on the other end of the spectrum, some people simply don't feel fear no matter how perilous the situation.

Such people may end up as professional daredevils, highwire artists, skyscraper construction workers — or spies.

I'm currently reading a new nonfiction book set in the world of espionage and, at certain points, the author notes how one real-life character or another experienced no fear even in very dangerous situations.

Reading this drove home that I would not make a good spy. I thing I would be overwhelmed by fear, particularly when a situation grew dangerous.

While spies caught in first-world countries are usually just tried and imprisoned or expelled, spies from first-world countries under deep cover within dictatorships can expect torture and/or execution if caught. In such a situation, I'm afraid I would fold like an umbrella.

I guess this is why espionage books appeal to me because it's a vicarious thrill. It's experiencing that world without the pain, suffering, danger, fear, and more.

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

nail-biter

Because of the Daily Savings Time shift — we're on it now in Australia and the US is now off it — we're a full sixteen hours ahead.

So watching the US election returns starts in the late morning here. People in the US are sweating staying up all night while it's sunny and bright here.

Still, final results are not expected for days yet. So not just a nail-biter overnighter but more like a week-long nail-biter. Or maybe even longer. Yeesh!

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

a cellblock of one's own

Now here's something you don't see every day: a pretty brick house for sale in Missouri, upgraded with all the latest conveniences and with its own private nine-cell jail.

Built in the 1870s, until recently, the house was the county's residence for the local sheriff, who also ran the county jail. It sounds just like Mayberry.

The present owners, who apparently bought it from the county, have rented out the jail portion for private parties and Airbnb travellers.

Monday, November 2, 2020

election day!

I've largely avoided politics here for the last four years, but today's political message will be nonpartisan.

Tomorrow is election day in America. If you haven't yet voted — nearly 100 million of us have already — then you should head to your local polling place and vote.

Too many people made the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I would have the freedom to vote. We must not squander that right and that gift.

You needn't vote in every race, but you must vote in at least some of them. Don't let people you don't know decide your future for you.

Sunday, November 1, 2020

bond, james bond

The legendary Sean Connery died in his sleep either late Friday or early Saturday morning. He was ninety.

His public profile was fairly happy-go-lucky but he was less so in his private life, at least according to his biographers. And while he was famously a Scotsman, he was actually half Irish; his paternal grandparents were born in Ireland.

He was not a man without flaws, and no one is. He made some loutish comments about hitting women earlier in his career but clearly regretted in later life having said what he did.

The most off-the-wall film in which he appeared arguably was Zardoz. If you've never seen it, the movie is definitely worth a watch.

As for his best roles, there were many choices for such a list. Undoubtedly, most everyone has their own ideas about this.

And while he stopped making films nearly twenty years ago, he will continue to live on in his many and varied onscreen appearances. He will be missed.

Monday, November 30, 2020

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Friday, November 27, 2020