kw: book reviews, science fiction, short stories, collections, anthologies
I noticed that I haven't posted anything for nearly two weeks. I have't been idle. The book I just finished has 686 pages of first-rate science fiction stories. Even being engrossed, day after day, it took that long to finish them all.
The book is The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois. I believe it set a record for me: of 38 stories, I liked 29 well enough to record the authors' names on my "lookup list" for getting books. That exceeds 70%, totally violating Sturgeon's Dictum, "90% of everything is junk". But then, not only was Gardner Dozois a great editor, whose tastes largely coincide with mine, but he was a great re-editor. The book is the last of three; there's no way to get all of the "very best" into one book, even one pushing 700 pages. There won't be a fourth, since he passed away in May, 2018.
I considered delving into a handful of the stories, but the breadth of ideas is just too great. I'll just have to keep this volume on hand for selective re-reading later on. Just this: nearly every story takes a viewpoint from the side or behind a familiar trope, or introduces something from far outside anywhere SciFi has taken me before.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Friday, October 18, 2019
Spiders on the home front
kw: blogs, blogging, spider scanning
Well, I left a comment about this on the prior "spider" post, but I had to show the image!
That's 129 hits in 8 minutes. The one- and two-hit "grass" is normal traffic. I'm hardly popular, but it's interesting that at least a few people per hour stumble across this blog.
To get this view, you have to look at your stats within two hours of the activity.
That's 129 hits in 8 minutes. The one- and two-hit "grass" is normal traffic. I'm hardly popular, but it's interesting that at least a few people per hour stumble across this blog.
To get this view, you have to look at your stats within two hours of the activity.
Hamilton's doctor and his plants
kw: book reviews, nonfiction, biographies, doctors, history, horticulture, botany, botanists, early united states history
On the left, Manhattan (except the north end) in 1811. On the right, the same view in 2018. The 1811 image is from the book American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, by Victoria Johnson.
Who was David Hosack? He was the most famous doctor I'd never heard of. If I heard the name in an American History class, I didn't retain it. Two items in the 1811 view indicate his importance. The first, a spot that matches the location of Rockefeller Center, which is marked in the 1918 image, is a tiny rectangle labeled "Botanic Garden". The second, across the Hudson River and farther north, is a spot labeled "Monument of Gen. Hamilton". The monument marks the spot where, on July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel over Hamilton's opposition to Burr in his bid to be Governor of New York State. The attending physician was David Hosack. Though he failed to preserve Hamilton's life, he had saved many lives that other doctors considered lost causes.
David Hosack (a Scottish name pronounced "Hozzick"), born in 1769, had studied both medicine and botany, and spent time in his late twenties in Scotland, where he first encountered botanical gardens in Edinburgh. he developed a passion for learning medical uses for plants. He already knew how to cure, or at least alleviate, symptoms of malaria and other fevers using "Peruvian bark", which contained quinine; the few effective medicines besides mercury were all plant parts or plant extracts.
After returning to New York and establishing a medical practice, Dr. Hosack bought 20 acres of land on the Middle Road in the middle of Manhattan Island where he established Elgin Garden in 1801. In just the ten years he had the garden, he gathered plants of all kinds, trained numerous medical students to recognize and use the medically useful ones, and corresponded with numerous botanists and botanical-medical men all over Europe and the American colonies. He corresponded with Jefferson, who had some interest in botany. He became the most famous doctor of the time, and his garden inspired others to set up gardens and arboreta that became the network of horticultural establishments found all over the U.S.
Ms Johnson's book outlines all this, with a wealth of fascinating details about life in and around New York two centuries ago, when Manhattan was mostly farmland. Only later, but in Hosack's lifetime, was Middle Road renamed Fifth Avenue. In 1810, after a few years of lobbying effort, Hosack sold Elgin Garden to the State of New York, though the state took its own sweet time to pay him. He could not continue the massive financial burden of maintaining the garden and its workers. It wasn't but a few years before the state divested itself, turning the garden over to Columbia University, which later sold the land to the consortium that began to build Rockefeller Center, which almost exactly covers the footprint of Elgin Garden, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Whenever you see paintings by members of the "Hudson River School", some of which depict scenes in and around Manhattan and the other areas that now comprise New York City, take a moment to reflect upon the lovely scenes that once filled the area before it all became paved over and built to the sky with monuments to corporate power. And remember to be thankful that only a few percent of this nation has been paved and built upon, that large areas were set aside to retain their natural splendor. Also remember to be thankful for scholars such as David Hosack, whose passion for learning from nature inspired many of the medicines we take for granted, bestowed by the plants that grow all around us.
On the left, Manhattan (except the north end) in 1811. On the right, the same view in 2018. The 1811 image is from the book American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, by Victoria Johnson.
Who was David Hosack? He was the most famous doctor I'd never heard of. If I heard the name in an American History class, I didn't retain it. Two items in the 1811 view indicate his importance. The first, a spot that matches the location of Rockefeller Center, which is marked in the 1918 image, is a tiny rectangle labeled "Botanic Garden". The second, across the Hudson River and farther north, is a spot labeled "Monument of Gen. Hamilton". The monument marks the spot where, on July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel over Hamilton's opposition to Burr in his bid to be Governor of New York State. The attending physician was David Hosack. Though he failed to preserve Hamilton's life, he had saved many lives that other doctors considered lost causes.
David Hosack (a Scottish name pronounced "Hozzick"), born in 1769, had studied both medicine and botany, and spent time in his late twenties in Scotland, where he first encountered botanical gardens in Edinburgh. he developed a passion for learning medical uses for plants. He already knew how to cure, or at least alleviate, symptoms of malaria and other fevers using "Peruvian bark", which contained quinine; the few effective medicines besides mercury were all plant parts or plant extracts.
After returning to New York and establishing a medical practice, Dr. Hosack bought 20 acres of land on the Middle Road in the middle of Manhattan Island where he established Elgin Garden in 1801. In just the ten years he had the garden, he gathered plants of all kinds, trained numerous medical students to recognize and use the medically useful ones, and corresponded with numerous botanists and botanical-medical men all over Europe and the American colonies. He corresponded with Jefferson, who had some interest in botany. He became the most famous doctor of the time, and his garden inspired others to set up gardens and arboreta that became the network of horticultural establishments found all over the U.S.
Ms Johnson's book outlines all this, with a wealth of fascinating details about life in and around New York two centuries ago, when Manhattan was mostly farmland. Only later, but in Hosack's lifetime, was Middle Road renamed Fifth Avenue. In 1810, after a few years of lobbying effort, Hosack sold Elgin Garden to the State of New York, though the state took its own sweet time to pay him. He could not continue the massive financial burden of maintaining the garden and its workers. It wasn't but a few years before the state divested itself, turning the garden over to Columbia University, which later sold the land to the consortium that began to build Rockefeller Center, which almost exactly covers the footprint of Elgin Garden, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Whenever you see paintings by members of the "Hudson River School", some of which depict scenes in and around Manhattan and the other areas that now comprise New York City, take a moment to reflect upon the lovely scenes that once filled the area before it all became paved over and built to the sky with monuments to corporate power. And remember to be thankful that only a few percent of this nation has been paved and built upon, that large areas were set aside to retain their natural splendor. Also remember to be thankful for scholars such as David Hosack, whose passion for learning from nature inspired many of the medicines we take for granted, bestowed by the plants that grow all around us.
More spiders visit from Russia
kw: blogs, blogging, spider scanning
So I logged right in, and what did I see? Bunch'a Russian spiders, lookin' back at me!
At my present rate of activity, any hourly spike above about 10 is suspicious, as is a daily total greater than 50. And in "Pageviews today", the total shown is for less than half the day, which is counted in PDT.
Below, the weekly country splits are on the left, and for today on the right. I do have a worldwide readership; I just hope that, outside of Russia, they are actually reading!
So I logged right in, and what did I see? Bunch'a Russian spiders, lookin' back at me!At my present rate of activity, any hourly spike above about 10 is suspicious, as is a daily total greater than 50. And in "Pageviews today", the total shown is for less than half the day, which is counted in PDT.
Below, the weekly country splits are on the left, and for today on the right. I do have a worldwide readership; I just hope that, outside of Russia, they are actually reading!
Tuesday, October 08, 2019
Humidity balance in older guitars
kw: essays, musical instruments, maintenance, humidification
I have a few vintage guitars. One, a Takamine that I bought new in 1973 in California, became so dried out it began to come apart by 1980, so I unstrung it and stored it and bought another (which is now also vintage!), a Sigma Anniversary Edition. By then I was living in South Dakota, which is even dryer than southern California. I later learned of humidifiers for acoustic guitars, such as the one shown here. I got one for the Sigma.
The sponge can hold 20cc of water. In a closed and latched hard case it can keep a guitar from drying out for a month in pretty dry weather. However, it doesn't regulate the humidity, it just raises it, sometimes close to saturation, which can make a guitar body "fat", raising its pitch; it gets sharp and the tone changes, getting "hollow". And then, if you leave it outside the case to dry out, it goes flat. It's hard to find a balance.
Before my Mom died she sent me her guitar, the one I'd learned on some 60 years ago. She didn't know what brand it was, and the paper label was missing. Her dad had bought it used when she was very young. It had suffered some damage over the years, so I loosened its strings and just stored it for a decade or so. Then in 2016 I decided to take it to a luthier to see if I could afford to have it repaired and set up for playing.
The price was a bit steep, but affordable, so I had him go ahead with it. He did all kinds of things to it, and was also able to determine, from penciled and stenciled notations inside, that it is a 1905 Gibson Artist. He talked to me a long time about proper care once I took it home. He said a humidifier like the one I was using on my Sigma could ruin it, and recommended a 2-way pack such as the Humidipak by D'Addario.
The kit comes with three packs that contain a special mix of salts (probably mostly magnesium nitrate) and a gel, in an osmotic membrane. They can both raise and reduce humidity whenever it strays from 48%. The optimum humidity for an acoustic guitar is 50%, but anything in the range 45%-55% will keep it "healthy".
Two of the packs go in a 2-pocket bag and are hung between the strings; the other one is put in the neck compartment of the case. The box says each pack can release as much as 26cc of water in dry conditions. There is no indication of how much they can absorb when the environment is humid.
The luthier recommended that I get a room-size humidifier to use in the wintertime, to raise the humidity, and a digital hygrometer. From the readings on our thermostat, I already knew that the house humidity gets as low as 30% in winter. We run a humidifier in the basement, set at 50%. It regulates the whole house in summer, keeping it below 55%. Without it, humidity gets into the seventies and stays there for at least a couple months.
The humidifier I got needed daily attention, and even putting it in a closed closet with all the guitars, in their hard shell cases (by this time I also had a Fender 12-string), it needed filling daily. We were worried that all the humidity was going into the walls and ceiling and floor, and could induce mold, even though my digital hygrometer reported the closet's humidity stayed below 60%.
After a year of that, I thought things through and made a big change. The luthier had said that the speed of the Humidipaks to dry out humid air was slower than when they were humidifying dry air. I decided to do in-the-case regeneration of the Humidpaks, using the humidifiers I already had, and a few more I bought.
I made record sheets like this one, one for each guitar. I have a digital kitchen scale with a sensitivity of 1g (the weight of 1cc of water). I figured that if the Humidipaks can release 26g each, it would be OK for them to absorb 10-20g from the humidifiers.
Last October I began. I usually checked about twice monthly to see how things progressed. I would decide each time whether to add water to the humidifiers ("restoration packs"). The "+20" or plus-whatever records how much water I added. I used distilled water.
I noticed that each time I added water, the guitar would get a little fat after a day or two, then dry back out in another day or two. I figure that is the time it takes for the Humidipaks to absorb most of the water in the humidifiers. I didn't want to interfere too much by weighing daily.
Perusing this record, I can see that I had to add a lot of water from December through March. Middle and late February was warmer and wetter, so I tried not adding water for about a month. The humidifiers released their water quite slowly, and the Humidipaks kept their weight or even gained just a bit.
The bottom line shows measurements I made today. I added no water over the summer, after the final summer record on August 1. I only took this guitar out to practice, usually daily, because I used the 12-string to lead church singing. I had been using the Takamine for that the prior year or two.
I was told that Humidipaks will last about three years if a guitar spends most of its time in a closet with a small-room humidifier. Rather than burning through a gallon of water almost daily, I used about ten ounces of water for the whole year. This kept the Humidipaks a little over-full and the guitars all keep their tuning when not in use, and they only needed a little tweaking after being used for an hour or two. I'll find out if these last longer than three years after another couple of years.
I have a few vintage guitars. One, a Takamine that I bought new in 1973 in California, became so dried out it began to come apart by 1980, so I unstrung it and stored it and bought another (which is now also vintage!), a Sigma Anniversary Edition. By then I was living in South Dakota, which is even dryer than southern California. I later learned of humidifiers for acoustic guitars, such as the one shown here. I got one for the Sigma.
Before my Mom died she sent me her guitar, the one I'd learned on some 60 years ago. She didn't know what brand it was, and the paper label was missing. Her dad had bought it used when she was very young. It had suffered some damage over the years, so I loosened its strings and just stored it for a decade or so. Then in 2016 I decided to take it to a luthier to see if I could afford to have it repaired and set up for playing.
The price was a bit steep, but affordable, so I had him go ahead with it. He did all kinds of things to it, and was also able to determine, from penciled and stenciled notations inside, that it is a 1905 Gibson Artist. He talked to me a long time about proper care once I took it home. He said a humidifier like the one I was using on my Sigma could ruin it, and recommended a 2-way pack such as the Humidipak by D'Addario.
Two of the packs go in a 2-pocket bag and are hung between the strings; the other one is put in the neck compartment of the case. The box says each pack can release as much as 26cc of water in dry conditions. There is no indication of how much they can absorb when the environment is humid.
The luthier recommended that I get a room-size humidifier to use in the wintertime, to raise the humidity, and a digital hygrometer. From the readings on our thermostat, I already knew that the house humidity gets as low as 30% in winter. We run a humidifier in the basement, set at 50%. It regulates the whole house in summer, keeping it below 55%. Without it, humidity gets into the seventies and stays there for at least a couple months.
The humidifier I got needed daily attention, and even putting it in a closed closet with all the guitars, in their hard shell cases (by this time I also had a Fender 12-string), it needed filling daily. We were worried that all the humidity was going into the walls and ceiling and floor, and could induce mold, even though my digital hygrometer reported the closet's humidity stayed below 60%.
After a year of that, I thought things through and made a big change. The luthier had said that the speed of the Humidipaks to dry out humid air was slower than when they were humidifying dry air. I decided to do in-the-case regeneration of the Humidpaks, using the humidifiers I already had, and a few more I bought.
Last October I began. I usually checked about twice monthly to see how things progressed. I would decide each time whether to add water to the humidifiers ("restoration packs"). The "+20" or plus-whatever records how much water I added. I used distilled water.
I noticed that each time I added water, the guitar would get a little fat after a day or two, then dry back out in another day or two. I figure that is the time it takes for the Humidipaks to absorb most of the water in the humidifiers. I didn't want to interfere too much by weighing daily.
Perusing this record, I can see that I had to add a lot of water from December through March. Middle and late February was warmer and wetter, so I tried not adding water for about a month. The humidifiers released their water quite slowly, and the Humidipaks kept their weight or even gained just a bit.
The bottom line shows measurements I made today. I added no water over the summer, after the final summer record on August 1. I only took this guitar out to practice, usually daily, because I used the 12-string to lead church singing. I had been using the Takamine for that the prior year or two.
I was told that Humidipaks will last about three years if a guitar spends most of its time in a closet with a small-room humidifier. Rather than burning through a gallon of water almost daily, I used about ten ounces of water for the whole year. This kept the Humidipaks a little over-full and the guitars all keep their tuning when not in use, and they only needed a little tweaking after being used for an hour or two. I'll find out if these last longer than three years after another couple of years.
Wednesday, October 02, 2019
This short story collection took me by surprise
kw: book reviews, fiction, short stories, collections
The local library finally wised up and began putting the collections of short stories in its New Books section all in one place. Their Dewey Decimal code is SS, after all. So this and the prior two books were easier to find, and allowed me to indulge my enjoyment of short stories, which I usually prefer to novels. The recent trends in science fiction novels are not to my liking.
The collection is The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction, edited by Larry Dark. I pay so little attention to mainstream fiction that I didn't know about the Story Prize until now. It is given to award books containing exceptional writing in short format. In the Introduction the editor waxes eloquent about the difficulty of the short format, and of how gratified he is to find many authors who still publish books full of short stories, even though "the money is in novels." After fifteen years of conferring the award, Mr. Dark gathered for this volume the best story of each year (minus one).
When I have dipped my toe into the mainstream I have usually come away dissatisfied. Many times I have stopped rather early on in an apparently aimless book or story, skipping to the ending "to see if it goes anywhere". If it does not, that's that, I am done with it. Sadly, this is more and more true of speculative fiction, particularly longer works of science fiction or fantasy (yes, I also enjoy well-written fantasy, but my standard is high, and no more than a few books per decade pass muster).
Most of the stories in The Story Prize were top-notch, to my way of thinking, so I can mention only a few. One, the longest in the volume (76 pp), is actually science fiction: "The Memory Wall", a novelette by Anthony Doerr; a way of recovering the experiences of memories has been developed, but it only helps dementia patients a little, and there is a dark side to the existence of memories outside the brain that made them. Another, "Saleema" by Daniyal Mueenudin, shows the nearly-universal experience of poor women world-wide, who have no currency but their own bodies, and does so without making the reader feel slimed. And finally, the last story, which initially seems to be going nowhere, about a man keeping a private epiphany a secret for decades; when in old age he heals an old rift with a neighbor, but also begins to harbor doubts and tells his wife, she is unsurprised, saying in effect, "Why not?"
Though a few stories were indeed "flyover country" to me, most were worth reading, and quite enjoyable. Even a couple that made me squirm (e.g. "Saleema") were stories I am glad I read.
The local library finally wised up and began putting the collections of short stories in its New Books section all in one place. Their Dewey Decimal code is SS, after all. So this and the prior two books were easier to find, and allowed me to indulge my enjoyment of short stories, which I usually prefer to novels. The recent trends in science fiction novels are not to my liking.
The collection is The Story Prize: 15 Years of Great Short Fiction, edited by Larry Dark. I pay so little attention to mainstream fiction that I didn't know about the Story Prize until now. It is given to award books containing exceptional writing in short format. In the Introduction the editor waxes eloquent about the difficulty of the short format, and of how gratified he is to find many authors who still publish books full of short stories, even though "the money is in novels." After fifteen years of conferring the award, Mr. Dark gathered for this volume the best story of each year (minus one).
When I have dipped my toe into the mainstream I have usually come away dissatisfied. Many times I have stopped rather early on in an apparently aimless book or story, skipping to the ending "to see if it goes anywhere". If it does not, that's that, I am done with it. Sadly, this is more and more true of speculative fiction, particularly longer works of science fiction or fantasy (yes, I also enjoy well-written fantasy, but my standard is high, and no more than a few books per decade pass muster).
Most of the stories in The Story Prize were top-notch, to my way of thinking, so I can mention only a few. One, the longest in the volume (76 pp), is actually science fiction: "The Memory Wall", a novelette by Anthony Doerr; a way of recovering the experiences of memories has been developed, but it only helps dementia patients a little, and there is a dark side to the existence of memories outside the brain that made them. Another, "Saleema" by Daniyal Mueenudin, shows the nearly-universal experience of poor women world-wide, who have no currency but their own bodies, and does so without making the reader feel slimed. And finally, the last story, which initially seems to be going nowhere, about a man keeping a private epiphany a secret for decades; when in old age he heals an old rift with a neighbor, but also begins to harbor doubts and tells his wife, she is unsurprised, saying in effect, "Why not?"
Though a few stories were indeed "flyover country" to me, most were worth reading, and quite enjoyable. Even a couple that made me squirm (e.g. "Saleema") were stories I am glad I read.
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