Beyond Pluto

By second grade, I could tell you the name of all nine (9) planets, and the number of their then-known moons.  So could a lot of other kids.  (I didn't know much about dinosaurs, however, with which so many of today's tykes are familiar.)

Who likes to see the verities of their early childhood destroyed in adulthood?  Not me.  It broke my heart when Pluto was voted off the planetary island, giving us only eight true planets.

But now it appears that something else is out there.  Something big.  Something so big that no one will deny it's a planet, if in fact it really is there.  Michael E. Brown at Caltech has observed behavior in a number of small objects, traveling in elliptical orbits that suggest they are under the influence of a much larger body. 

Much larger.  To cause the effect on the small bodies that he has observed, the large body would have to be at least as massive as the Earth, and probably up to ten times as massive.  This body -- I'll call it "Eko-Pluto" for present lack of a better temporary name -- has not yet been observed, but its existence seems strongly suggested.  And if it exists, no one will challenge its status as a planet.

Don't expect to visit Eko-Pluto anytime soon.  We finally got to see a close-up of Pluto, thanks to the New Horizons space probe, nine and a half years after the probe was launched.  Pluto's that far away.  But Pluto is, at its fartherst distance, "only" 4.6 billion miles from the sun.  Dr. Brown estimates that Eko-Pluto would be somewhere between 20 and 100 billion miles away; it would,take 10 thousand to 20 thousand Earth years to circle the sun just once. 

That's a long way for you to travel, and you're going to be a chilly tourist once you get there.  And, of course, so far we don't know for sure whether there's actually any "there" there, once you do get there. 

And you might feel a tad lonely.  As one reader eruditely commented, after reading the New York Times's article,

"Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis m'effrait."
--Pascal

(The eternal silence of these infinite spaces is terrifying.)  You got that right, mister.  But, for me sitting in my armchair, it would be warm and comforting to know that our sun once more had nine planets.

Like it's supposed to.

Uncle Tungsten

Sacks's bar mitzvah photo

And speaking of chemistry ...

Since my last post, two days ago, I have finished reading Oliver Sacks's memoir, Uncle Tungsten.  Since Sacks's death last summer, his life and work have been much discussed and reviewed.  Therefore, rather than a "review" of Uncle Tungsten, I'll just offer a few remarks.  

The book is a memoir of Sacks's life up to the age of 14.  During most of his boyhood, young Oliver had a precocious and obsessive interest in chemistry.  (Both his parents were physicians, and many members of his huge family of Lithuanian-Jewish ancestry were scientists.)  Sacks uses the story of his boyhood as a framework for a short history of the field of chemistry, from its earliest beginnings in alchemy up to about 1948, when as a young teenager, Sacks began to appreciate the impact of quantum physics on chemists' modern understanding of their field.

Like all kids -- like myself, as discussed in the prior post -- his interest in chemistry began with an attraction to color, smell, tactile sensations -- in other words to the properties of tangible materials.  Because of his family, he had opportunities from a very early age to see scientists in action, as well as to have a source for chemicals and other materials to work with.  Tungsten offered a particular allure, because one of his uncles owned a company that extracted and produced tungsten in many forms and for many uses.

Sacks thus learned chemistry by handling materials, wondering about their characteristics, and seeking out information on his own.  In his memoir, he implicitly equates his first tentative steps toward chemical knowledge with the first tentative applications of the scientific method in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  As Sacks the boy learned more, Sacks the adult leads us step by step through the history of the discipline.  He suggests that he is merely passing on to us the knowledge he himself had learned at the age of 9 and 10.  To some extent this may well be true, but the elder Sacks obviously did substantial historical research in order to present this scientific history -- and this research is confirmed in his acknowledgements.

Young Oliver learned chemistry the way that early scientists once learned it -- by observation and by seeking explanations for what he observed.  This approach is the opposite of that taken by high schools and undergraduate programs where, for the most part, students learn theory from books, and may then illustrate those theories by prescribed laboratory exercises.  Sacks was always interested first in the observation, and only then in the theoretical explanation.  And to Sacks as a boy, learning about the men who advanced the world's knowledge of chemistry was as important as -- and a substantial part of -- learning about chemical theory itself.

Thus, even as a boy, Sacks immersed himself in the world of the senses, rather than simply read books.  His instincts as a youth prefigured his approach to the practice of neurology as an adult, where he insisted on as much contact with the patient as possible -- learning about patients as living human beings, rather than simply running their symptoms through a prescribed differential diagnosis.

Oliver Sacks lost his enthusiasm for chemistry at the age of 14.  In this book, he wonders why.  In part, he feels, it was chemistry itself that had changed.  Quantum physics gave chemical elements, compounds, and reactions a ghostly quality.  What's happened to cause and effect when a hydrogen atom may change its state of excitation at any moment, totally unpredictably, and when one can predict behavior at the atomic level only statistically?

He also suspects, sadly, that loss of his once burning enthusiasm for chemistry was a predictable accompaniment of growing up.

Was it, perhaps, ... that I was growing up, and that "growing up" makes one forget the lyrical, mystical perceptions  of childhood, the glory and the freshness of which Wordsworth wrote, so that they fade into the light of common day?

However that loss occurred, to be replaced by an interest in medicine, during the years when his peers were playing soccer and cricket, Oliver developed a profound fascination with the world of chemistry, and with the way in which scientific knowledge is advanced.  His recovered enthusiasm, as an adult author, proves contagious.

Playing with chemicals

A chemistry set!  When I was about 12 or 13, my parents finally gave in, despite their better judgment, and bought me a chemistry set for my birthday, or maybe for Christmas. 

I guess they still make chemistry sets, but they no longer possess the glamor and universal appeal they had decades ago.  When you can wipe out an entire planet in virtual reality, what's the fun of making a stink bomb?

The most popular sets were made by Gilbert (which also made American Flyer trains), but mine was a Chemcraft, a larger and more elaborate set than I've shown in the illustration.  It came with test tubes, other small pieces of glassware, and a large number of bottles and stoppered tubes filled with a wide variety of chemicals.  I also dreamed of beakers, flasks, and glass retorts -- the apparatus of Dr. Frankenstein's laBORatory -- but these larger pieces had to be ordered separately.

So did my joy of ownership segue quickly into depth of scientific knowledge?  Not exactly.  Most of the "experiments" outlined in the manual that accompanied the set pertained to "magic" -- turning water to wine and back to water, through the magic of phenolphthalein (a pH indicator).  That was the simplest of the tricks, but most of the others also involved the production, instantaneously, of variously colored liquids.

From these tricks -- and the little magic shows by which I bewitched the younger kids in the neighborhood -- I progressed to serious stuff.  Like heating a combination of sulfur and paraffin in a test tube, producing hydrogen sulfide gas.  That little stunt -- performed in our basement -- rendered that portion of the house uninhabitable for several days, as well as destroying the test tube.  Or making a makeshift gunpowder, by nervously grinding potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal together.  By god -- it works!

These recollections are occasioned by my in-progress reading of Oliver Sacks's memoir of his childhood, especially with respect to his extensive experimentation with chemistry, Uncle Tungsten.  I felt guilty, even as a kid, that I did nothing more than play with chemicals.  I never made much effort to understand the nature of the chemical reactions involved in my experiments.

But Sacks's introduction to chemistry was exactly the same.  He was in love with the colors he could make.  He made explosives.  He bought pure sodium metal, dumped it in a London lake, and watched it scurry explosively along the water's surface.  From his basement "laboratory," he made his own family's house uninhabitable.

Writing in 2001, Sacks lamented the fact that so many of the chemicals he loved to play with -- acids, explosives, poisons -- were no longer available to modern children.  In a footnote, he quotes Linus Pauling, winner of Nobel Prizes for both chemistry and peace:

Just think of the differences today.  A young person gets interested in chemistry and is given a chemical set.  But it doesn't contain potassium cyanide.  It doesn't even contain copper sulfate or anything else interesting, because all the interesting chemicals are considered dangerous substances.  Therefore, these budding young chemists don't have a chance to do anything engrossing with their chemistry sets.  As I look back, I think it pretty remarkable that Mr. Ziegler, this friend of the family, would have so easily turned over one-third of an ounce of potassium cyanide to me, an eleven-year old boy.

My own set did come with copper sulfate, and a microscope set that I also owned contained a small tube of potassium nitrate.  But alas, even in those earlier days, when we eagerly walked downtown to replenish our supplies of that latter precious substance from a local pharmacy, we were met with a polite refusal to sell.

The moral that Sacks draws, and in which I would concur, is that science is fun, and that many or most scientists (or at least chemists) have been drawn to their profession through childhood play.  Kids need the opportunity for that play.  I never got beyond the stink bomb and magic trick level of chemical research.  Sacks, with greater intelligence and sharper focus, worked his way into a deeper and deeper appreciation of chemistry, without ever leaving behind his spirit of play, his repeated reaction that "Jeez, isn't this cool?" 

I went on to spend a number of summers doing chemical analyses in an industrial laboratory.  There was a certain amount of play, or at least fun, in that work as well.  But I had skipped over the steps that Sacks walked through, where the play leads directly to understanding, and curiosity to innovation.  In my summer job, I learned to understand the concept of "cookbook chemistry," which, intellectually, wasn't really much beyond what I'd been doing out of my Chemcraft manual when I was thirteen!

Light rail comes to the U district

I suspect that if I went back over past blog posts, I'd discover several posts discussing the extension of Seattle's light rail from downtown to the University of Washington's Husky Stadium. 

Probably, sarcastic posts.  Ones noting that it took the primitive Egyptians ten or fifteen years to build the Great Pyramid at Giza, using only manual slave labor, but that it's taken about eight years -- using all the best modern technology -- to extend light rail by 3.15 miles.

But let bygones be bygones.  A week ago, SoundTransit announced that the extension would be up and running by the end of March.  The UW station has been virtually completed for several months, awaiting only, I gather, some work on other portions of the line.

I'm a public transit nut -- note all my posts delighting in New York's subways.  I'm also delighted by this extension.  Once the station is open, we will be able to travel underground -- under the ship canal and under Capitol Hill -- from the UW to downtown's Westlake Center, with a single stop at Broadway and John on Capitol Hill, all in eight minutes. 

At present, Seattle has only the one light rail line.  Students will be able to travel directly, with no change of trains, from the Stadium to Sea-Tac airport.  More to the point, your fearless publisher will be able to travel directly to the airport, once he books the mile from his house to the Stadium station.  It's an easy walk without baggage, or with a light bag or daypack.  With anything bulkier, I'll have to catch the No. 43 or 48 bus north to the Stadium.

Either way, getting to the airport -- just downtown, for that matter -- will be a simpler matter than it has been in the past.  The temptation to pay exorbitant airport parking fees on short trips out of town will be much less. 

The line will be further extended beyond the Stadium to Northgate by 2021, an extension already well under construction.  And a second line from the Chinatown station, across the I-90 bridge, through Bellevue, to Redmond is in the final planning stages.

Forty-six years after voters made the disastrous decision to turn down plans for a heavy rail subway system -- largely provoked by the opposition of a Bellevue shopping center owner who didn't want to make it easy for Eastside shoppers to shop in Seattle -- we finally have the beginnings of an urban rail system.  Not as comfortable as heavy rail, not as comprehensive as then planned, and with costs for property rights and construction that are much higher than they would have been in 1969.

But it's a start!  Thank you SoundTransit.

Gotta go

Science has solved many problems that seemed virtually unsolvable when I was a kid.  We used to whisper among ourselves, "They say that protons and neutrons are elementary, that you can't get any smaller.  But what happens if you cut a proton in two?"  Now we know that protons and neutrons are not elementary.  They are composed of smaller particles -- quarks.  Quarks are elementary particles. 

So much progress!   Available to all of us.  Just look it up in Wikipedia.

But with respect to one of the most heatedly debated topics of my early teens, no serious research has been done.  So far as I'm aware. 

The question is somewhat questionable, as so many topics debated by young teenage boys tend to be.  I hesitate to bring the matter up in a family publication -- the sort of staid, reputable publication that I've always intended Confused Ideas to be.  But -- at the risk of embarrassing some of my more squeamish readers -- I've decided to open the issue for discussion.

The issue was debated -- and, for all I know, may still be debated -- wherever two or more adolescent boys got together for a camp-out.   Camp-outs where beverages tend to be consumed in quantity during the hours before sleep overcomes the campers.

You can see where this is going, right?

To set forth the factual context as delicately as possible, let me simply point out the obvious.  First, in the Northwest Corner, though summer days may be hot, the nights tend to be chilly.  And second, all that Coca Cola or Dr. Pepper, once consumed, has to go somewhere.  At about 3 a.m., guys tend to wake up with full bladders.  And at the same time, they realize that it's cold.  And so they debate whether to lie in their sleeping bag, keeping relatively warm, with bladder uncomfortably distended, until dawn.  Or whether to brave the cold, dash into whatever bushes may be at hand, relieve themselves, and climb miserable and cold back into their sleeping bag.

As to the reality of the above dilemma, there's no dispute.  And one generally chooses one's own poison -- excessive fullness or freezing cold -- depending on one's own preferences.

But the debate, the dispute, revolves around the question of whether the choice -- cold or full bladder -- is a specious choice.  One vocal set of 13-year-olds argues that keeping the contents of a distended bladder at 98.6 degrees F. requires sufficient energy as to cause the person to feel subjectively "cold."  The remaining set of youngsters argues that the full bladder acts like a "hot water bottle" (q.v., for those not familiar with the term), one that keeps the body warm for a longer period of time.  This latter group of noisy adolescents, struggling to control their changing voices, argue loudly that one does not throw a hot water bottle out of one's bed at a time when he wishes to stay warm.

I could see both sides of the argument, even as an obnoxious youth.  I see both sides now.  The only difference is my adult ability to look beyond black and white, to seek out more nuanced answers.  The answer to the debate, I now suspect, depends on the ambient temperature, on the body weight of the irritating kid, and on the volume of his maxed-out bladder. 

My nuanced conclusion, however, isn't much help to boys with rudimentary mathematical skills attempting to decide whether to leave the warmth of their sleeping bags at 3 o'clock in the morning.  And it's based on no scientific research.

Has this issue ever been researched?  If not, surely some foundation has ample funds to provide a grant for the necessary advanced studies.  I will volunteer the two middle school kids next door as -- is the term outmoded? -- guinea pigs.

Kemo Kimo

Why it seems important, I'm not sure.  But it bothers me to half-remember events from my childhood, with no assurance that I've pierced the fog of time correctly.  Did it really happen?  And if so, did it happen as I remember?

That "botherment" applies to songs, as well.  In sixth grade chorus, we sang a nonsense song -- which I now discover is classified as bluegrass -- which both entertained me and puzzled me.  Do I remember the lyrics correctly?  I found myself singing it in the shower this morning, and this is how I remember one of the verses and the chorus:

 My true love lives up the river,
Hey dee-ing dang, dilly dally day.
A few more jumps and I'll be with her,
Hey dee-ing dang, dilly dally day.

Kemo kimo, dee row art,
Mi-hee, mi-hai, mi-hum drum penny winkle,
Tit tat pitty pat, blue eyed pussy cat,
Sing song kitty won't you kai me oh? 

What puzzled me, as a kid, about the song was not the nonsense chorus (reproduced here strictly phonetically; I have no idea how it was spelled in our song book) but that one verse.

I knew from my careful and obsessive reading of Batman comics that "up the river" meant only one thing -- "in prison."  (Only later did I learn that this was New York slang for Sing Sing, a prison that was literally up the Hudson River.)  But if the singer's true love was in prison, why would a "few more jumps" reunite the star-crossed lovers?  Well, my 12-year-old brain concluded, the only way you get to prison is to commit a crime.  A "jump" must be a thug term for a robbery or a burglary. 

But that was my hypothesis, not my firm conclusion.  It took an adult mind to appreciate that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and that sometimes living up the river simply means living up the river.

I've tried to find the verse that I've provided you, but have been unsuccessful.  Nat King Cole recorded a version of Kemo Kimo, called "The Magic Song," in 1947.  But his recording had totally different lyrics for the verses, and largely different lyrics for the chorus.

Ke-mo, ki-mo spare-o-spare
Ma-hi, ma-ho, ma-rump-sticka-pumpernickle
Soup-bang, nip-cat, polly-mitcha-cameo
I love you.

 The "2nd South Carolina String Band" had a mildly racist ("white folks" and "darkies") version, with totally different verse lyrics.  Its chorus was somewhat closer to the one that I recall than was Nat King Cole's.

Kemo, kimo! There! oh where?--
With a hi, and a ho, and a in come Sally, singing
Sometimes penny winkle, lingtum, nipcat,
Sing song, Kitty, can't you ki' me, oh!

I'm almost certain that I remember correctly the chorus as we were taught it (spelling excepted), and that in some dark school district warehouse there remain stacks of moldy school song books containing "my" Kemo Kimo.

Ah, would but that I could get my hands on one!

Theseus: King of Athens

Theseus was one of the great legendary Greek heroes.  Much of what we know of Greek civilization comes from Athenian writers, and Theseus was to Athens what Romulus was to Rome.  He inherited a small kingdom -- really not much more than the Acropolis itself -- from his father, and by force and by diplomacy, he forged a united kingdom out of all the tiny villages that stretched across the plain of Attica.

A couple of weeks ago, I discussed certain aspects of Mary Renault's historical reconstruction of the Theseus legend in The King Must Die.  That book covered Theseus's legendary descent from the god Poseidon, his actual descent from the King of Athens, his childhood in the Peloponnesian coastal kingdom of Troezen, his father's eventual acknowledgement of paternity, Theseus's sudden transport to Crete to face the bull ring and the Minotaur, the earthquake that leveled the palace (the "Labyrinth") at Knossos, and his struggle to overthrow Minoan rule over Crete and its domination of the Greek world.  The novel ends with Theseus's return to Athens.

I've now re-read, after many years, Mary Renault's sequel -- The Bull from the Sea.  In my earlier post, I was interested in discussing certain aspects of The King Must Die.  I didn't actually review the book (a book that has been reviewed by hundreds of writers, professional and amateur).  I'll just toss in my belated opinion -- The King Must Die brilliantly recreates the Minoan world, and the primitive Hellene societies that the Minoans dominated. 

The King Must Die also brilliantly ties together the sometimes conflicting legends concerning Theseus -- including his encounter with the Minotaur in the Labyrinth -- and makes some cohesive sense out of them.  If the Theseus legend has some origin in the life and exploits of an actual person, Renault may have given as good a description of that person's life and times as anyone in our own day could produce.  The "Goodreads" book review site asks us to give books we review a number of stars, from one to five.  With no hesitation, I gave the Renault novel five stars.

I also give The Bull from the Sea five stars.  The plot of the earlier volume led up to a dramatic climax with the earthquake and Theseus's leadership of the anti-Minoan revolt.  The Bull from the Sea lacks a climax that is quite so identifiable.  But the central event is perhaps Theseus's exploration of the Black Sea shoreline, where he encounters a fierce band of Amazons -- female devotees of Artemis -- whose leader he defeats in combat.  As an agreed consequence of the defeat, the leader (Hippolyta) becomes first his captive, then his lover, and ultimately his de facto queen.

The plot is too intricate to summarize in this blog post.  But Renault does a masterful job of tying together the many legends of Theseus's exploits into a single coherent tale-- a tale as free of supernatural interventions as possible.  At the same time, she presents a moving love story -- the relationship between Theseus and the only woman he was ever able to truly love -- a woman as courageous and as strong as himself, Hippolyta.  She also presents a moving story of his tragic relationship with their son Hippolytos -- a boy he could never understand, a son as courageous and strong-minded as himself, but his total opposite  in many ways.

"When I was small," he said, "I asked you once why the guiltless suffer, too, when the gods are angry.  And you said to me, 'I do not know.'  You who were my father, and the King.  For that I have always loved you."

I made him some kind answer, wondering if I should ever make him out.

 As a boy, Hippolytos had once asked his father to explain the purpose of man.

I had never heard such a question.  It made me shrink back; if a man began asking such things, where would be the end of it?  It was like peering into a dark whirlpool with a deep and spinning center, going down and down. ...  "That," I said, "is the business of the gods, who made us." 
"Yes, but for what?  We ought to be good for it, whatever it is.  How can we live, until we know."

The politician and soldier stares at the philosopher, his own flesh and blood, and finds him inscrutable.

The Bull from the Sea also ties the Theseus story together with other Greek legends.  We encounter Medea, Oedipus, Antigone, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, and Achilles.  Yes, that Achilles.  It had never occurred to me that the Trojan War occurred in the generation following that of Theseus, as the Mycenaeans supplanted the Minoans as a leading power in the region.  And Theseus's son by his legal wife, the Minoan Phaedra, was Akamus, who as an adult was involved in the Trojan horse story.

All biographies and biographical tales are tragic in some respect, if they are written truly, because human life is tragic.  Theseus ends as an old man, suffering the after effects of a paralyzing stroke.  While visiting an old friend, the King of Skyros, he reflects on his life.  He had accomplished much, he recognized, but Athens was already corrupt and being weakened by poor leadership.  Its unity, for which he had devoted his life, was being broken up by ambitious regional leaders.  He wondered what had been the use of it all. 

His host was eager to introduce Theseus to his teenage son, Achilles.  His son, the host king said, hero worshipped Theseus and was eager to meet him.  Theseus was Achilles's "touchstone for a man," his father confided.

I lay down, being tired, and sent off my servants.  I was thinking, before I fell asleep, of the flashing, light-footed boy, awaiting tomorrow.  It would be good to spare him that.  Let him keep this Theseus who speaks for the god within him.  Why change a god for a lame old man with a twisted mouth.

Theseus recalls the hereditary duties of kingship which his family owed the gods.  When the king's time has come, the king goes consenting to his death, giving his life to strengthen his people.  The palace at Skyros is built on a high cliff above the sea, just as his own palace on the Acropolis is perched high above the plain.

He shuffles out the door, and down the path toward the cliff.  The tide is coming in.

Il Grido

The drifter -- the guy who wanders from place to place, clueless but well-meaning, non-malicious, but leaving hurt feelings and broken hearts behind -- is a stock figure in American films and literature.  It is interesting to see a similar character portrayed in an Italian film.

Il Grido (1957) is an early film by the acclaimed Italian director, Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007).   I watched a showing last night, the first weekly offering of the Seattle Art Museum's Italian film festival.

The film is set in the Po River Valley, a flat, featureless, agricultural region of northern Italy -- still occasionally malarial in the 1950s.  Its tedious landscape was then starting to be disfigured in places  by new industries.  Antonioni's black and white cinematography -- his landscapes often look like stage backdrops -- is further flattened by the perpetual haze of the region.  Haze, not fog, just a blurring of distant objects.

Aldo works at a sugar refinery, and is first seen where he is employed, standing at the top of a tall, phallic, observation tower, the industrial purpose of which is never explained.  Irma, his "girlfriend" drops by to inform him that her husband -- who has been off in Australia for seven years, looking for work -- has been reported deceased.  That's wonderful, Aldo says.  Now we can get married and provide our daughter a family.

Irma doesn't share his enthusiasm.  She admits that she has met someone else, and that she no longer loves Aldo.  Aldo's emotions run from disbelief, to denial, to sorrow, to a decision to "man up."  He slaps her repeatedly in front of villagers, to win her back by showing her who's boss.  "Now it's final," Irma declares.  Aldo leaves town, hitchhiking, taking his daughter with him (with Irma's consent.)

The acting -- especially for a 1957 film -- seems melodramatic, reminiscent of soap opera or even silent film.  I'm no expert on Italian directors, however, and Antonioni may have had artistic reasons for selecting this effect.

From this point on, the film is a study of Aldo's long descent, witnessed by his young daughter.  He hitches rides with trucks, traveling across the un-trafficked, post-war Italian countryside, in search of a new life.  He hooks up with a couple of women he meets along the way.  His odyssey is no joyous Kerouac-esque adventure, however.  It is a study in how few emotional, educational, and economic resources male members of the post-war working classes possessed. 

He finds lodging in hovels and shacks.  His two short-term lovers are each desperate to find a man, and demand little from him.  The second provides him a job pumping gas on a forlorn, straight stretch of Po Valley highway.  But Aldo is unable to connect emotionally with either woman, except in bed.  That connection proves insufficient for him -- and certainly for each of the women -- and he drifts on and on, after sending his daughter back to her mother.

Finally, he returns to the town where he had left Irma.  He sees his seven-year-old daughter, now nicely dressed, entering a house.  He looks in the window, and sees Irma living a happy and (relatively) prosperous life. 

He walks back to the refinery, now deserted, about to be flattened and replaced with a modern airport..

He sees once again his watch tower, the symbol of his life when the going was good.  He climbs the circular stairway to the top, slowly, step by step.  He stares out across the bleak industrial/agricultural landscape of the misty Po Valley.  He leans over the railing a couple of times.  And then he tips over, falling to the ground.

Fine.

Twelfth Night

We Three Kings of Orient Are. 

Although popularly considered a Christmas carol, this favorite hymn more aptly belongs to tomorrow's celebration of Epiphany.  Epiphany is an important day on the religious calendar, marking the events -- especially, the arrival from the East of the gift-bearing Zoroastrian Magi  -- that opened men's eyes to Christ's divinity.

Insofar as it is still observed at all in our secular society, Epiphany is observed as Twelfth Night.  The last of the twelve days of Christmas (twelve drummers drumming, and all that), it generally marked the final day my family could tolerate the continued presence in our living room of the shriveled remains of our Christmas tree. 

Various countries have different ways of observing the holiday.  In some countries, it is on Twelfth Night -- in memory of the Magi's gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh -- not on Christmas Eve, that gifts are exchanged.  Twelve more days to wait would have been agony for me as a kid.  Many countries have special foods and beverages that are consumed on Twelfth Night.  Wikipedia claims that Carnival begins on Twelfth Night in some countries, and continues until Mardi Gras.  Since Mardi Gras (the day before Ash Wednesday) occurs on February 9 this year, those countries will be celebrating Carnival for more than a full month.

Life is even more exciting in the eastern Alps.  On Twelfth Night, two to three hundred masked young men rush about the streets with whips and bells driving out evil spirits.  Combine this tradition with Brazilian Carnival, and you'd end up with something like the frenzied and frightening activities honoring the god Dionysus in ancient Greece.

Here in Seattle, we pay little attention to Twelfth Night -- to either its religious or its secular aspects.  Trees disappear from houses at various times.  Exterior lighting seems to be staying lit later each year -- most houses that were illuminated at Christmas remain so even tonight.  But one by one, the lights wink out as the days pass.  The music and light of Christmas -- disguising the darkness of the winter solstice -- die away, leaving us to face the dark and gloom of January. 

And yet, our pagan forebears wisely celebrated the solstice as the beginning of the march back to summer.  Already, I sense the days becoming slightly longer, and I realize that the darkest 30 days of the year are now behind us.  Shrubs already were forming buds before Christmas, with the coldest days yet to come.  This past week, puddles and lakes froze over.  It is warmer now, but of course anything can happen when it comes to weather between now and the end of February.

It wasn't much later than this last year that I discovered the first flower opening on what I call the Harbinger Tree -- an early blooming tree of my own discovery on the UW campus.  Within the next couple of weeks, I'll begin watching my Tree anxiously for signs that summer and its hours of sunny daylight are once more headed our way.

Meanwhile, let's not forget, even as we say goodbye to the shining lights of Christmastide and face the dark of winter:

“I say there is no darkness but ignorance.”

--Shakespeare, Twelfth Night  

Looking back

And so ends 2015.  As with most years in recent memory, it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.

What was it like 50 years ago, back when another year ended not with a bang?  The year my eldest nephew (now 50!) was born?

Well, let's see. In 1965, LBJ was ramping up the American presence in Vietnam, with an increase of American troops from 75,000 to an incredible 125,000.  (They reached just under 550,000 three years later.)  The student deferment status of II-S was worth its weight in gold.

The Dow ended the year at 969 (it will end 2015 at about 17,500).  An average new home cost $13,600.  Gas sold for 31 cents per gallon, which included full service (gas pumped, oil and water checked, tires inflated, windshields washed).  Average new car cost $2,650.  Average rent was $118 per month.  Loaf of bread would cost you 21 cents.

But, of course, if you were an average worker, you earned an average salary of only $6,450.

Until 1965, our coins were 90 percent silver.  I began hoarding silver half dollars in that year, as did many other people.  The half dollar, silver or otherwise, which had until then been as common as the quarter, soon became hard to find.

The five top-grossing movies (not necessarily the five best movies) were The Sound of Music, Dr. Zhivago, Thunderball, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, and That Darn Cat! (!).

The book published in 1965 that I'm most likely to remember was Frank Herbert's Dune.  But the New York Times listed only three best selling works of fiction for the year:  Saul Bellow's Herzog, Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase, and James Michener's The Source.

Fiddler on the Roof grabbed most of the Tony Awards, including best musical.

Nineteen sixty-five was the year of best-selling hits by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher -- it was clearly a transitional year between the old pop music and the new rock.  But the absolute top hit of the year, the best selling song on the charts?  That would be, of course, Wooly Bully, by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.

I was living a monastic life in 1965.  My Selective Service II-S status in hand, perched on a chair in my dorm room, studying Differential Equations, Functions of Complex Variables, Advanced Mechanics, and Electricity and Magnetism -- an unpromising beginning for a future blogger.  It was also the year of my second round trip jet flight (Seattle to Los Angeles), of yet another summer working as a chemical lab analyst, and the year I realized I really needed to learn to ski. 

It was a different world, 1965 was, but it doesn't feel that different now when I call it to mind.   It seems, as the cliché runs, "just like yesterday"!

Going beyond being pleasant

Men at some time are masters of their fates.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
--Julius Caesar

Yesterday, I took one of those silly quizzes that keep popping up on my Facebook newsfeed.  Ones like "What Planet Do You Come From?"  Where each question posed by the quiz is surrounded by a multitude of advertisements.

But this quiz purported to determine my personality by asking a few multiple choice questions.  Most of those questions sought the decade, month, zodiac sign, time of month, and time of day during which I was born.  There were also a few odd questions, such as the color of my eyes.

I took the quiz, waited thirty seconds for the mandatory commercial clip to play, and then received my analysis.  It was flattering, for the most part.  I apparently love my family, am generous to a fault, and probably feel underappreciated at times.  That's just me, the analysis said -- it would be silly to try to change myself.  But be careful, don't let folks take advantage of me.

My first reaction was to roll my eyes, and to observe that virtually any old codger born during the decade of my birth might well receive the same analysis.  But then I recall that I once had an analysis of my handwriting done -- long ago, when I was younger and my personality less predictable --  with almost identical results.

While I concede that handwriting analysis probably has some basis in science, I'm hardly an enthusiast for the "science" of astrology.  But the similarity of the handwriting and astrological analyses is interesting, especially when they correspond to some degree with my egotistical self-image.

Regardless of the validity of these pop science conclusions, they raise questions in my mind -- questions that have puzzled mankind since earliest times.  What if both good traits and bad traits really are inherent in the individual -- either because of the configuration of the stars at the moment of his birth, or because of genetics, events in utero, and his early up-bringing?

If I have a naturally pleasant, loving and generous temperament, is this something for which I can claim credit or be proud?  If I'm naturally irritable, tense, aggressive, and quick to anger, are these traits something for which I should be ashamed?  Our entire concept of morality seems based on the assumption that our actions are chosen in an exercise of free will.  Instinctual goodness or badness, on the other hand, seems no more moral or immoral than athleticism or a tendency toward obesity.

I suppose the usual response would be that free will gives us the ability to rise above our natural personality.  If we are naturally loving, we can direct our natural affections in ways that do the most good.  If we are naturally quick to anger, we can bite our tongues and seethe in private, or direct our anger toward evils we find in the world.  

As a consequence, two persons may behave identically.  But one of them -- who acts nicely by instinct -- is no more virtuous than a dog who wags his tail.  And the other one, whose acts of kindness may be accomplished only by strenuous efforts to overcome his natural inclination toward anger, may well be a saint of sorts.

As Shakespeare suggested, at some times -- maybe not on a hourly basis, but some times -- we are masters of our fates.  Rising above whatever instinctual behavior is built into our brains may be the definition of heroic virtue.

Decadence

If I had my Companions here, and a few thousand warriors, I could sweep Crete from end to end.  These people are in second childhood, fruit for the plucking, finished, played out.

Theseus is one of the great heroes of Greek mythology.  Growing up as the unrecognized son of the King of Athens, Theseus is finally acknowledged as a teenager by the aging king, only to be taken by the Minoans of Crete as part of an annual tribute.  Theseus and 13 fellow Athenians were destined to die as food for the "Minotaur" -- the monstrous offspring of a mating between a bull and the Minoan queen,  kept hidden in a labyrinth. 

The myth describes how Theseus organized his fellow Athenian captives into a tightly knit group.  The king's daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, and  helps him find his way through the labyrinth, kill the Minotaur, and escape with her from Crete.

I heard the story from my father as a boy.  It was a story, no more and no less realistic than Jack and the Beanstalk.  But in 1958, Mary Renault wrote her critically-acclaimed historical novel, The King Must Die, re-telling the story from Theseus's point of view, filling in the blanks she found in the myth, and adding her own twist to Theseus's nature and personality.  She offers what, we may choose to believe, were the real and somewhat more plausible facts out of which the ancient myths grew with time -- an account based on her understanding of Greek and Minoan civilizations during the time of Theseus's supposed life.

I read the novel as a youth, and I've just finished re-reading it now.  Coincidentally, my nephew, an English teacher, will be teaching the novel to his ninth grade honors classes as part of the school's prescribed curriculum.  The Renault novel has become a classic.

On re-reading, the novel was every bit as exciting as it had been the first time around, and as evocative of Hellenic civilization -- or at least of a plausible interpretation of Hellenic civilization.  But reading it now, it also brought about thoughts of our world today.

More explicitly than in the myth, every important act by Renault's Theseus is rooted in his religious beliefs -- and especially in his conviction that he is an offspring of the god Poseidon, the god of the sea, of horses, of bulls, and -- crucial to Renault's story -- of earthquakes.  Since childhood, Theseus has had an ability -- whether physical or god-given in origin -- to sense impending earthquakes.  Nothing is more natural than for him to treat this ability as confirmation of his descent from Poseidon the Earth-Shaker.  Allied to this ability is the ability to sense -- whether supernatural in origin, or self-delusional -- when Poseidon is pleased or displeased with his course of action.

Although Theseus turns primarily to Poseidon for guidance, he fully respects the other Hellenic sky gods -- especially Apollo -- and pays respect to the earth gods of the indigenous matriarchal civilization that the invading Hellenes had found on the Greek mainland and on Crete.  For purposes of this summary, it's important only to realize that Theseus and his companions were formed in a world where respect for the gods was instinctual and imperative.

Many aspects of life on Crete amaze Theseus, including the antiquity of the civilization and the incredible wealth and leisure of the ruling class.  But he is appalled by the superficiality, as he views it, of Cretan life, and by the impiety of the Cretan people, both rulers and ruled.  The teenagers brought to Crete annually as tribute for the bulls, in Renault's version of the myth, don't serve as food for the Minotaur (who in fact is merely a human prince), but as participants in the bull ring, to their eventual death as a sacrifice to the bull god, the Earth Shaker himself.  They become "bull dancers."

But the performance long ago lost its religious significance to the Cretan public.  Only the forms of religious sacrifice remained -- the performance by now is for the crowd's entertainment, similar to bull fights in today's Spain, and an occasion for gambling on the relative longevity of the young bull dancers.  Even Princess Ariadne, who is the high priestess, has no belief in anything other than a desire to perform the public rituals properly. 

Theseus, who views kingship as a sacred duty -- serving not only as a military leader but as a priest standing before the gods on behalf of his people, and destined finally to offer his own life as an ultimate sacrifice -- not only is scandalized, but is unable to see how the Minoan king, the Minotaur prince, and even his beloved Ariadne can live with themselves.

Renault's description of the Cretan aristocracy -- the folks who attend the bull performances -- anticipates by a half century Suzanne Collins's description of the citizens of The Capitol in her Hunger Games trilogy.

These young lords and ladies were full of nonsense, having almost their own language, like children's games.  And they held their honor as light as they held their gods. ...New things were their passion, and hard for them to come by.  ... They would stand on their heads for the sake of newness, if nothing else new was left.  You could see this in their pots and vases.  ... It was a pleasure only to take their pots in your hands, to feel the shape and the glaze.  But lately they had begun to spoil them with all kinds of gaudy stuck-on finery, flowers and dangles which might show their skill, yet gave the thing a look of being fit for no use and good for nothing but to gather dust.  The truth is that what had not been tried in a thousand years was not worth doing,  But even beauty wearied them, if it was not new.

Perhaps that is how today's visitors from the Arab world view us in the West?

In the end, of course -- like the exquisite but similarly trivial society in the Hunger Games's Capitol -- it all collapsed.  Poseidon became disgusted by the impieties committed before him.  He spoke, the earth shook, and the great palace of Knossos collapsed.  Only Theseus and those companions he had trained in discipline, supporting each other to the death, their mutual support reinforced by oaths mutually sworn before the gods they held sacred, escaped the island.

The Cretans considered Theseus and the other dancers in the bull ring "barbarians."  They were uncivilized, their behavior was crude and unrefined, they were like children.  They were amusing as entertainment, and as occasional invited guests in their beds. The dancers' belief in the traditional gods was charming and picturesque, but, my goodness, they took everything so seriously.  They hardly knew how to take a joke.

Theseus was not "uncivilized" -- he was a Hellene, and he himself saw non-Hellenes as "barbaric."  He took his beliefs seriously, and accepted the burdens of his duties.  He had his pleasures -- women flocked to him -- but those pleasures always were secondary to his obligation to the gods and to those he was duty-bound to defend. 

In a typical adventure story, Theseus would have had the last laugh -- but for Theseus, the deaths of thousands and the ruin of Minoan civilization came from the gods and inspired awe.  Theseus had served only as the instrument of the gods' will.  It would have been impious to laugh at what the gods decreed, even when you became -- as he ultimately did -- King of Athens and overlord of Crete as a result.

Christmas memories

After procrastinating for days, I finally wrapped the five presents I will be taking with me to California for an unusually small Christmas gathering -- but all of us family, and all wonderful company, so we'll have quality even if not quantity!  For several days I put off the onerous task of wrapping, which actually ended up taking about a half hour of my valuable time.

Somehow I felt I'd have to devote an entire evening to the project.  Probably because, as a kid, I did spend at least a large part of an evening.  Back when wrapping presents was not a chore, but a delightful activity.

By the time I was 10 or 11, my brain had matured somewhat -- to the point where Christmas wasn't completely "gimmee, gimmee."   For brief moments, I was excited about giving presents as well.  From that age, each year I made up for the small amount of money I could spend on gifts by the amount of thought and time I was delighted to devote to the project.

Looking back on those days, my gifts may have seemed odd.  Did my mom (a non-smoker) really need another ash tray, with another elf sitting on it?  Did she really need a set of six water glasses, supplementing a cupboard full of such glasses?  But I have no doubt she treasured each gift, knowing how much time I spent wandering around the main street of my small town in search of ideas.

But if the gift-buying provoked a certain amount of anxiety, the wrapping was sheer pleasure.  I was not an artistically creative youth.  I devised no original forms of gift-wrapping -- in fact, my entire hope was to wrap gifts in conformity with certain well-known standards of how gifts were to be wrapped.

Who set those standards?  Again, my mother -- without realizing what she was doing.  I doubt if she ever offered a single suggestion to me to assist me in my own wrapping.  But I had watched her wrap for years.  She was not an artist either, but she had inherited standards of wrapping from her own mother, and she was magnificently competent in meeting those standards.  Her corners were wrapped square; her ribbons were taut; her bows were symmetrical and flower-like.

I spent as much time selecting gift wrap -- just the proper design appropriate for each member of my family -- as I did in selecting the gift itself.  Once the paper was selected, the proper ribbon -- always wide, satin ribbon -- had to be chosen in the appropriate color.  And then there was the question of the gift tags -- those little tags (or, increasingly, tiny folding cards) that identified the giver and recipient of the package.  These tags had to match the paper as well -- either designed specifically for the wrapping paper I was using, or ones that somehow complemented the paper in color and theme.

All of this effort for four presents -- mother, father, brother and sister.  At the appropriate time, usually sooner rather than later, because I couldn't wait, the gifts would emerge from my room and be laid ceremonially beneath the altar of our Christmas tree.  Appropriate words of  appreciation for my wrapping were as vital to my sense of self-worth as appreciation for the present wrapped within.

I thought of all of this, ruefully, as I wrapped the presents -- swiftly and mechanically -- that I'm taking to California this year.  I no longer find richly-colored gift wrap in folded sheets, sheets that generally were the correct size for the packages I needed wrapped.  Now, if gift wrap is available at all, it comes in rolls.  And it seems "cheaper" in appearance somehow, the colors less saturated, the paper flimsier, than the paper I recall from my youth.  But the Christmas lights seemed more magical back then, as well; the crèches more reverent, the carols better sung.  The less said about the psychology behind my perceptions the better.

What's more disturbing by far than rolls of gift-wrap, is the wide-spread substitution of "gift bags" for paper.  Again, not to belabor the point, but what better suits our frenzied times than a form of "wrap" where you just drop your purchase into a bag and set it under the tree.  And so much easier to "unwrap" as well.

But -- as I've tried to hint -- what's really changed is me.  And it's a change that occurs to most of us as we grow older.  Christmas celebrations were magical as a kid because they were new to us (and because they seemed to come around far less often!).  We could have been sitting around an aluminum "Festivus Pole," and (assuming we kids got some presents, and the family was all together and showing excitement) it would have seemed like a wondrous time of year.   

So I travel to California, bearing gifts -- especially for the younger set -- and I know that I'll have the opportunity to witness excitement and joy, the same excitement and joy that I experienced back when I was struggling to force a length of inflexible wide satin ribbon into my first bow.

And some of that excitement and joy will work its way under my skin, melting my scrooge-like heart.

Merry Christmas to all -- no matter how young or how old you may be!

Take the Green Line

At some point I need to understand the metro. I have a weird mental block with it (as a Californian... we drive).

A relative's friend invited her to drop by, next time she was in our nation's capital, and visit her home, conveniently located near a Metro stop.  I wasn't shocked -- more startled -- at the above response. 

This relative is sophisticated and well-traveled, and she just turned 40.  She's no country bumpkin. But lots of folks who live outside major cities would make the same response.  Riding on a subway is apparently like using the internet for the first time -- simple enough, but somehow intimidating.

I love it!  I'm not bragging.  It's no accomplishment. Millions of very average residents of -- for example --New York, Chicago, San Francisco, ride the subway daily, half asleep, to and from work.  I use public transit routinely -- both in Seattle, which has light rail but doesn't really have a "subway," and as a tourist elsewhere.

I use it because it's convenient, of course, and because it's cheap.  No one with any sense rents a car at Newark or Kennedy and drives to his hotel in Manhattan.  If you don't use transit, you pay for a cab.

But with me, it goes beyond convenience.  I honestly just love transit systems, and I love riding the rails.  When visiting a new city, especially in Europe, virtually the first thing I do is get a map and master the public transportation system -- especially rail transit.

I guess I was brought up that way.  My home town of about 20,000 had, maybe, five bus routes.  When I was about 7, my mother showed me how to climb aboard a bus near our house and ride about two miles to my aunt and uncle's home.  I was ecstatic.  I was traveling on my own.  If my folks had done this today, my folks would have been charged with child neglect, and my siblings and I would have been taken away and put in foster homes.  By the time I was 9 or 10, I was boarding city buses downtown, alone and on my own, and visiting  my grandmother.  At 14, I traveled, alone and on my own, coach class, by train, from Seattle to Chicago -- two nights and three days of travel each way -- to visit a friend and former classmate.

By the time I traveled to Italy, studying for six months, at the age of 21, I traveled everywhere, on my own, by train and bus.  The London Underground and the Paris Metro became virtual playgrounds for me during my visits to those cities.

Many young people have these experiences, and then, as an adult, "put aside childish things."  But I take after my mother, I suspect.  Into her old age, she loved nothing more than planning train trips and mastering city transportation systems.  To me, like her, getting around a city is as much fun as what I find at my destination.

Within the United States, New York is of course the subway rider's dream.  Searching this very blog, I find at least six of my posts devoted, in whole or in large part, to the fun I've had riding the New York subway.  And I also find my 2009 review of the novel Lowboy, about a schizophrenic teenager who spends all his days underground in the labyrinthine New York system.

Every visit to New York finds me licking my chops over the New York subway map.

Do you need further proof regarding my fixation? 

I certainly don't expect anyone else to share my mild derangement, any more than I'd expect them to share my passion for hiking in remote areas.  Chacun à son gout, is what I always say.  It's hard to explain my passion.  Every transit system is a bit different.  How one buys one's ticket from a vending machine differs from system to system, and can be a bit of a challenge -- although, now that most machines accept credit cards, the process seems simpler.  Learning where to change lines -- a joy for those of us who love such things -- can also confuse the novice.

But let's face it -- learning how to ride the subway isn't rocket science.  At the very least, it's a tool, like using an ATM or riding an elevator.  As use of automobiles within central cities becomes increasingly difficult -- Seattle is making it deliberately more difficult -- mastery of transit systems will become essential.

If I learned -- belatedly -- how to use a smart phone, you clever people can use and enjoy riding the rails underground.  Try it.

Knee-slapping in Seattle

Is Seattle the "Least Funny City" in America?  A 2008 on-line article (I'll leave the author anonymous) so claims, quoting from GQ Magazine:

“It’s rainy and progressive and almost kind of European,” GQ observed. “It’s Norway on the Pacific. Norwegians should design wind farms and plan the health care system, but they may not roast people at the Friars Club.”

The on-line author did deny claims that we Seattleites had absolutely no sense of humor.  He gave ten examples of jokes we found funny, such as:  "Knock, knock. Who’s there? Seattle Washing. Seattle Washing who? Seattle, Washington."

As a Seattle resident with Norwegian roots, I respond "we are not amused."  Well, actually, oddly enough, we are amused.  And although I wonder how familiar this guy actually is with us benighted Northwest Corner dwellers, reading his article made me wonder -- what, really, is "humor"?

Intensive middle school level research (Wikipedia) into the sources of "humor" uncovers a revealing description by a psychologist named Peter McGraw:  "humour only occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling, or threatening, but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe."  Although McGraw is a contemporary professor at the University of Colorado, his description simply elaborates on the long-appreciated understanding that humor -- when we think about it -- usually arises from some apprehension of incongruity. 

Humor may well be our way of dealing with the sense of discomfort we feel when we sense the incongruity, a way of releasing the tension.

My pondering of this question -- even before I read the "Least Funny City" article -- began this morning when regarding the behavior of one of my cats.  A cat is a repository of almost every virtue to which we humans aspire (but usually fail to achieve).  But cats do not have a sense of humor.  Not even a glimmer of one.

Nor do other animals.  Dogs may at times appear to find life funny, but that's just because of the way they open their mouths when they pant. 

Cats and other animals are similar to Biblical characters.  "Jesus wept," declares the shortest verse in the Bible, but nowhere is it recorded that Jesus roared with laughter.  It's even harder to imagine Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, or even St. Paul indulging in self-deprecating wit.  They all, like my cat, took life seriously, and understood exactly what life demanded of them.  They saw no ambiguities to be reconciled.  Something that was "wrong, unsettling, or threatening" was simply that -- wrong.  It was never simultaneously "okay, acceptable or safe."

Despite being a Scandinavian Seattleite, I find life generally funny.  I think I have a sense of humor not much different from that of a guy in Brooklyn or Dallas.  I suspect my fellow citizens in the Northwest Corner find Donald Trump at least as hilariously funny as do our contemporaries elsewhere.  But if we nevertheless appear humorless to our fellow Americans, maybe it's simply because -- like Ezekiel -- we are convinced that we have discovered all the ingredients of a life that's both virtuous and satisfying, right here where we live.  Good is good, and bad is bad.  Where's the incongruity in that, huh?

And to return to our anonymous author's on-line article -- as I mentioned, he lists ten favorite jokes enjoyed by us Norgies in the Northwest Corner.  We do have a sense of humor. And they aren't all "knock knock" jokes.

Question: How many Seattleites does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: One.

I rest my case.