James
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Surgery Was Successful
My wife is resting comfortably. The surgery was long but the surgeons are confident the tumor was removed completely. Thank you for your kind thoughts.
Sunday, January 24, 2021
au revoir for now
For the first time in nearly twelve and a half years, I have to stop daily posts on this blog. But I certainly have a good reason.
Tomorrow, I am having major surgery, specifically brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. Two weeks ago I had a biopsy which thankfully showed it's not malignant. I've been recovering since then, hence all the video posts, which I mostly programmed before my biopsy.
Roughly two months ago I began noticing I was having difficulty understanding people speaking. The biggest problem was speech recordings and broadcasts: radio, audiobooks, and podcasts.
A trip to the GP resulted in a clean bill of health with a referral to an audiologist. I had my hearing tested and was rated above average. A second, more comprehensive hearing test, which used both musical tones and spoken words, revealed I had problems with understanding words but not tones.
So I was referred to a neurologist. A physical exam revealed no problems so I was sent for a CT scan and an MRI. And that's when the small tumor was spotted.
It's specifically in what's known as the Wernicke's area of my cerebral cortex, a part of the brain that handles language recognition. That is causing a type of aphasia where I'm having problems understanding spoken speech.
Curiously, it has had no measurable affect on my reading ability. The neurologist said, however, if the tumor was not removed and grew larger, it would undoubtedly affect my reading ability and, possibly, even my ability to speak.
So understandably I'm very anxious about tomorrow. I'm not worried I'll die, given a woman my age has less than a one in a hundred thousand chance of dying during major surgery.
It's the aftermath that has me on edge. I likely will be put in a medically induced coma for several days right after the surgery. I also will have my entire head shaved, something I'm not looking forward to at all.
And the recovery will be long. My speech recognition and even my reading and writing skills may be diminished somewhat because brain surgery is delicate. But at least the deterioration will have stopped. And therapy will retrain my brain to rewire itself so to speak, like is done with some people who have had strokes and traumatic brain injuries.
I have no idea when I will be able to resume here. I imagine it will be quite a while. And hopefully my writing won't be reduced to the "I see the dog run" level. I've asked my husband to post once for me after the surgery is all over if he's up to it.
So, as the French say, au revoir. That means "goodbye for now until we meet again."
Saturday, January 23, 2021
performing animals
First seeing this on Imgur made me want to learn more. YouTube has a lot of videos of this performing animal troupe, and while the production quality isn't best on the one below, you can see the whole Robe Goldberg sequence of cats and dogs and other animals coming and going.
I'm most impressed with all the cats they've trained. It appears they have more of them in the show than dogs. Conventional wisdom holds they're easier to train then cats. But, conventional wisdom isn't always right because, indeed, the only critter that appears to goof up its part is a dog in the beginning.
I'm most impressed with all the cats they've trained. It appears they have more of them in the show than dogs. Conventional wisdom holds they're easier to train then cats. But, conventional wisdom isn't always right because, indeed, the only critter that appears to goof up its part is a dog in the beginning.
Friday, January 22, 2021
stormy weather
This song popped into my head today for no apparent reason and I couldn't help but hum along. Then I started to sing it while I went about my day. I could only remember about half the lyrics so I popped on YouTube and found what I think is the best cover of the song I've heard. Here is the great Ella Fitzgerald in a 1961 recording.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
inspiring
The inaugural festivities in Washington began when it was about four in the morning in Sydney, so I did not watch live. I doubt it was even on broadcast television here at that hour.
I did watch coverage later online. I thought the highlight of the day was Amanda Gorman's inspiring poem. Her outfit and hair were also terrific.
If you'd rather watch her read her poem, you can see that below.
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
if gumby did porn
When I was a small child, Gumby was one of my favorite toys. He seemed indestructible and could be bent into any position.
I have no idea who gave me Gumby. For all I know, it was a hand-me-down toy from my older sisters or brother.
I sadly learned one day that Gumby was destructible after all when the family dog got hold of it somehow and chewed it to an unrecognizable mass. I did not scold the dog because she didn't know it was bad, and I had pretty much outgrown Gumby by then anyway.
Gumby was interred where all broken toys go: the garbage can on the other side of the garage.
I thought of Gumby when I looked at the video below. Except this is what Gumby might look if he was making porn.
My nearly five-year-old son didn't see that, of course, when I shared it with him. He saw nothing more than a silly dancing green man and was amused.
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
happy cows
This is very sweet and cute but a little sad, too. Not many cows have a happy ending like this. I'm glad for the ones that do, so they can act like this.
Monday, January 18, 2021
what's with all the videos?
There is an explanation. I'll post about it soon. In the meantime, read this excellent article in a recent issue of The New Yorker. If this story is not made into a movie, I'll be really surprised.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
the purse snatcher's comeuppance
The bus driver here is all ready to star in Speed III. The big tough purse snatcher turns into a crybaby by the end. He could have humiliated himself a bit more by peeing his pants. Obviously, this was shot before the pandemic, but it doesn't lessen the amusement.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
strange book you've got there
As a former New Yorker, this short video made me laugh. It was obviously made pre-pandemic. All the passengers are typical strap-hangers. Nothing they see really fazes them very much.
Friday, January 15, 2021
george carlin
I suspect a century from now, George Carlin will be thought of much the way Mark Twain and Will Rogers are viewed by people today. If only dear George was still alive to gift us with commentary about our very, very strange times.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
two minutes that changed history
This very short video -- less than two minutes -- captures one of the most important moments in American history. A moment that forever changed politics and public attitudes about it. One might even argue the mass media age began with this revelation.
It also serves as a subtle reminder that there is a very wide chasm between selflessness and selfishness.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
the plague year
Last night I finished reading an absolutely excellent magazine article in The New Yorker about the coronavirus crisis in the United States. It was written by Lawrence Wright, who has written for the magazine for nearly thirty years and has won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize.
I learned more about Covid-19 from reading this article than anything else I've read. And the piece wonderfully profiles some of the real unspoken heroes in fighting the disease and delivering a workable vaccine.
It's a long piece but well worth reading. A free audio reading of the article can also be downloaded at the link above.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
illustration or art?
I read somewhere once that the difference between an illustration and art goes something like this: an illustration is something you might glance at for a few seconds in a magazine ad or editorial feature, while art is something you could hang on your wall for twenty years and always admire.
I don't know if that's really true or not, but it's something I remember when looking at artists' work.
I borrowed a coffee table type book from the library on British woman artists because it looked interesting. In all honesty, when reading about the women, I think some of them are more impressive than their works.
One artist was Leonora Carrington, whom I'd never heard of before. She grew up in a Downton Abbey world of privilege between the two world wars. As a young woman, she became a free spirit and an artist and had a love affair with surrealist Max Ernst.
On the eve of World War II, Ernst fled Europe and she had a breakdown, ending up in a mental hospital. When her family sent her to another facility in South Africa, she escaped and fled to Mexico, where she lived for the rest of her long life.
She created many paintings and also sculptures. And, she wrote ten published novels. Her work has been shown many times in exhibitions and some of her artwork is in the collections of some of the world's most famous museums.
With that said, I couldn't help but thinking about the "illustration versus art" comparison mentioned above when looking at her work. It's interesting to examine for a few moments, but would I want to look at it on my wall for twenty years?
Below is her self portrait, painted in the late 1930s (enlargement). It's in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Monday, January 11, 2021
agent running in the field
When David Cornwell, who wrote as John le Carré, died a few weeks ago, I wanted to re-read something by him again soon. I chose his final published novel, Agent Running in the Field, which I'd read when it first came out in 2019.
Being his newest, it is the only book of his that I hadn't read at least twice. Like all le Carré, it's better and better with each re-read.
I hope, now that he's gone, people will continue to read him. Hopefully his books will become classics that are widely read decades and even centuries from now.
He is such a masterful writer, with beautiful prose and layers inside layers inside layers. He truly peels his characters and stories like the proverbial onion.
What I particularly like about Agent Running in the Field is how his perfectly rendered characters are on a collision course for each other, and you can't help but watch like a horrible accident happening before your eyes.
I've read news reports suggesting Cornwell aka le Carré had an unfinished novel in the works at the time of his death. I hope that it's far enough long to be published, and I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing this will happen.
If you've never read le Carré, Agent Running in the Field would be a great and accessible first read. If you've read other books of his but not his last one, treat yourself soon to a read soon.
Sunday, January 10, 2021
free-love christian communists
For some reason, I had the idea that the nineteenth century Oneida utopian community was celebate. After watching a very interesting seven-minute BBC documentary, I learned I was 100 percent wrong.
The Oneida community was very much into free love and thus far ahead of its time. While sex with multiple partners was AOK, falling in love with one person was frowned upon and resulted in "sticky love," according to their vernacular.
I definitely want to read more about Oneida after having watched the linked short documentary.
Saturday, January 9, 2021
space alien litter
Back in August, I wrote an entry about a mysterious object streaking through our Solar System called Oumuamua that many scientists said was a hydrogen spaceberg and not an alien spacecraft as some suggested.
But now a Harvard astrophysicist named Avi Loeb has a new book that theorizes the mysterious object may have been made by an alien culture but that it's just a piece of their space garbage.
Loeb previously published a scientific paper in 2018 that noted Oumuamua is an "object unlikely to exist in nature: a wide, super-thin disk being pushed by sunlight and moving sixteen miles per second... The case for its alien origin ... are its shape, its shininess, and the way it moved."
As exciting as it sounds, the astrophysicist speculated that it's something like a discarded light sail. In other words, alien space litter.
Maybe if someone installed interstellar litter bins, aliens wouldn't be so careless with their trash.
Friday, January 8, 2021
radioactive snake oil
I was reading a magazine article offline about how certain over-the-counter products once contained dangerous substances like radium. It's amazing how people used to sell "health" remedies that were actually toxic.
Miracle cures made with radium literally killed some people, particularly those who overused a product because they thought it would work better. And unfortunately with radium, if could take years or even decades before you realized serious, life-threatening damage had been done.
I remember my grandfather said when he was a little boy that shoe stores used to have a machine where you could X-ray your own feet, primarily for novelty reasons. I wonder if anyone has ever been a study about how many people who used those machines too often or worked in shoe stores later developed cancer at a higher rate than the ordinary population.
I am reminded of the old saying "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Thursday, January 7, 2021
did movie sex disappear?
The Daily Beast is currently running a somewhat rambling, chatty article bemoaning the relative lack of sex in 2020 movie releases.
While I certainly don't have a problem with sex in movies, I do think this is a rather silly lamentation. It's like complaining about the lack of beagles or red-haired actors or green sofas in 2020 movie releases.
It's not like Hollywood has a central sex scene office that ensures a minimum of 21.2 percent of releases must have a sex scene, with 17.9 percent required to have a naked butt shot, 16.3 percent required to have at least four thrust of simulated sex, and a minimum of 10.8 percent mandated for tongues licking nipple shots.
Sex should be in a movie if it advances the characters and/or the story and not if it doesn't. Otherwise, don't get distracted by pointless trivia. If you want more sex, watch porn.
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
rip harold budd
Looking at a long tribute page to notable people who had died from Covid-19 on the New York Times webpage, I was sorry to see that one of them was composer and musician Harold Budd.
He may not be a familiar name to you, but he will be if you listen to ambient or downtempo music. He was a pioneer in the genre and released dozens of albums, many in collaboration with other musicians and composers, notably Brian Eno and Robin Guthrie.
My husband is not a fan of this type of music, but it's perfect for an iPod with earbuds while reading so I can enjoy it all by myself. You can hear one of his best known collaborative compositions below.
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
fabulous gravel
A news alert from a science website arrived in my email with the breathless title of "Look at All These Mind-Blowing Photos of Asteroid Pieces Retrieved From Ryugu."
Knowing the Ryugu was an asteroid near Earth and that an unmanned space vehicle had intercepted it recently to collect samples, I quickly clicked through to the article, expecting to be amazed by the pictures.
Oh.
The photos look like a closeup of driveway gravel. Yes, retrieving the samples was undoubtedly an important scientific milestone, but don't promise photos of something "mind-blowing" when it fact it's mind-numbing.
You can see the "mind-blowing" sample below. Try not to get too excited.
Monday, January 4, 2021
swastika forest
I read a magazine article offline yesterday about the several so-called "swastika forests" that were discovered in various places in Europe and western Asia decades after the Third Reich collapsed. They are believed to have been planted as seedlings and are only visible for a few weeks in the autumn when leaves change their colors.
The ones in Germany were either felled or disguised with new plantings once they were revealed. Others outside the country were largely left alone.
They were believed to have been planted by Nazi fanatics, Hitler Youth, and German POWs imprisoned inside the Soviet Union, depending on the location. They are a curious testament to fanaticism, created by people so brainwashed that they believed the trees, which they obviously hoped should last for centuries, would somehow by mere existence prove the superiority of their warped beliefs.
When the forests were discovered, were any of their creators still alive and, if so, what did they think about what they had once done decades earlier? Was it still a source of pride or a lingering source of shame?
Sunday, January 3, 2021
the man in the high castle
About six weeks ago, a box arrived from my friend in the movie and TV business in Los Angeles. He had sent dozens of "for your Emmy consideration" DVDs that he had received over the last four or five years as a member of the TV academy.
Some are for shows not available here in Australia or ones that were not released on DVD. One of these was The Man in the High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick's acclaimed novel about an alternative history where the Axis powers won World War II and the Allies lost.
As a result, North America is divided between western portions under control of the Japanese Empire and eastern portions under the Third Reich in the 1960s when the story takes place. The United States continues in that eastern part as a fascist puppet state controlled by Germany.
Both the husband and I have found the show to be compulsively watchable. We've finished two seasons so far and will now start on the third of four seasons.
It's not just a "what if" show. The reason for the parallel universe is revealed in bits and fragments, which is integral with the story's central mystery.
The production values are impressive and the acting is consistently strong. Some very flawed characters nonetheless have moments of humanity that give them empathy. And the heroes and heroines are not without their flaws, as well.
I don't believe the series was ever released in most of the world on DVD, but it is available for streaming everywhere. If you like alternative history or science fiction, I highly recommend the show.
Saturday, January 2, 2021
big long slidin' thing
When this song was released in 1954, I wonder what percentage of adults understood the lyrics' double meaning, considering that was a somewhat more innocent time. Per a Salon article: "'I blow through here, then I work my fingers and my thumb' is probably the line that [is] most difficult to believe they got away with."
Friday, January 1, 2021
happy new year!
Best wishes for a safe, healthy, and prosperous 2021 wherever you may be in this wide world. While I'm sure we all have some good memories from 2020, it's a year best left behind in so many ways.
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