TODAY’S RANT: Punked by NPR

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Sleeping CatsI’m driving along, my mind roving, the droning radio only faintly registering in my subconscious, and suddenly I’m ripped from my reverie by a shrieking siren. I punch the brakes, slowing from a present speed that, unbeknownst to me, is two miles an hour below the limit to an octogenarian crawl. I hear the screech, and look into my rear-view mirror to see the black behemoth, an  SUV, becoming ever bigger. The driver’s solitary finger pressed up against the window, not pointing  at me accusingly, but rather straight up in the air. The SUV slows just enough to not ram me. We travel onward in our respective soiled underwear, I not looking back, her boiling rage now just a flush face and a fading headache (or at least that’s what I expect from my vast experience in her shoes.)

I’ve been punked by a stranger, an audio tech who likes to put background noises into every news story or ad spot to gain the attention of an ADD -riddled populace. Yes, I should have been more in the moment; that’s how they get you.

I would be remiss if I didn’t act as a mouthpiece for another individual wronged by similar antics. I have a cat that only gets about 20.5 hours of sleep per day, and he’s inevitably robbed of precious slumber whenever he hears a “BING-BONG.”  This is another much beloved sound effect for the wicked curs in radio. This particular cat can comfortably ignore any other sound in the universe–including my high-volume rants about use of various personal possessions as a scratching post. I don’t know why our cat knows what a doorbell is. Does he get lots of visitors when we are not there? Who is he expecting? These are questions that I cannot answer.

BOOK REVIEW: Steel and Other Stories by Richard Matheson

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Steel: And Other StoriesSteel: And Other Stories by Richard Matheson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Steel and Other Stories is a collection of 15 short stories from the author of I am Legend. Thirteen of the fifteen stories are from the 50’s, and motifs of that time are common (e.g. Cold War phobia, the Western, etc.)

1.)The title story, Steel, is about android boxers. Viewers of the movie Real Steel, which was loosely based on this story, will find the story not much like the film. In the film the boxers are robots, but in the story they are androids. For those readers who aren’t sci-fi geeks, the difference is that androids look and move like humans. There is more on the line in the final fight in the story than in the film.

2.) Fit the Crime is about a cantankerous old poet on his deathbed. It’s a humorous story and will be enjoyed by those who love language play.

3.) The Wedding is about a superstitious groom who gets on his bride’s last nerve.

4.) The Conqueror is the sole Western in the collection. It features gunfights and a final line revelation.

5.) Dear Diary is a very short sci-fi piece that is written in the form of three diary entries: one in 1954, one in 3954, and one at an undesignated date presumed to be later than the second entry. In typical Mathesonian style, the third entry, only a partial sentence, turns expectations on end.

6.) In Descent two couples are preparing to move underground to survive nuclear holocaust. Confronted with the decision of dying above ground or living a subterranean life, one of the men opts for the former. This creates a dilemma for the man’s wife.

7.) In The Doll That Does Everything two parents of a horrid child contemplate whether the lifelike doll they buy their child really can do everything.

8.) The Traveler is about scholars who go back in time, cloaked, to observe biblical history first hand.

9.) When Day is Dun is about the last man alive, but, unlike I am Legend, the apocalypse is of nuclear annihilation.

10.) Splendid Source is one of the most famous stories in the collection. It’s about a search for the point of origin of ribald jokes. Viewers of Family Guy will recognize its depiction in an episode of that series.

11.) Lemmings is one of the shortest pieces in the collection. It imagines humanity walking one after another into the sea.

12.) In The Edge a man finds that people he doesn’t know know him. This begs the question of whether he has a doppelgänger or he’s lost his mind.

13.) In A Visit to Santa Claus a man reconsiders a contract on his wife’s life that is to be executed on a visit to the mall to see Santa.

14.) In Dr. Morton’s Folly a dentist gets an after-hours emergency case.

15.) In The Window of Time A man travels back in time 68 years by mysterious circumstance, walking familiar territory in transformed in time.

Matheson is a master story craftsman, and this collection is an interesting mix of stories from various genres–some humorous and some dark.

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DAILY PHOTO: Coney Island Boardwalk

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Boardwalk Blight

Glories Past

Sitting off the Coney Island boardwalk, the old Child’s restaurant–like so many structures at Coney Island–embodies glory days past.

Can you see it in its heyday?

I Always See the Wrong Movies: or, Post-Oscars Watcher’s Remorse

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The one Oscar-Winner I saw

The one Oscar winner I saw

I only watched part of the Oscars last night. At some point I realized it wasn’t worth continuing. I see about three movies in the theater per year, and rarely are any of them Oscar material. At 10:00 pm all I had to show for watching was the chorus of the ditty “We Saw Your Boobs” echoing through my brain.  (Damn you, Seth MacFarlane, for that catchy, clever, melodic jingle that still runs like a gerbil in the rodent-wheel of my mind.)

The three movies I saw in the theaters last year were: The Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, and This is 40. The first two will no doubt convince you that I am a 12-year-old boy trapped in a middle-aged man’s body, and the last will convince you that I have poor judgement. (This is 40 had its humorous moments, but there was far too much screaming for my taste, although we did see Leslie Mann’s boobs– damn you, again, Seth MacFarlane.) I saw another half-dozen 2012 films on long Korean Air flights, but these were equally lowbrow titles (Men in Black 3, Prometheus, and Brave– the latter at least won an Oscar during the hour and a half I was watching, I think it was for Best Animated Makeup Artistry.)

I’m not altogether lowbrow. I will see most of the big winners eventually, when they finally make it to basic cable. For example, I watched The Hurt Locker on Saturday, just one day before the Oscars. So I am only three or four  or five years out of synch.  The Hurt Locker is a particularly fine example of going the other way because I understand its distinction is being the lowest grossing Best Picture winner ever.

This year’s Best Picture Argo is definitely a film that I will see in the next five years–barring Zombies, the apocalypse, or a Zombie Pandemic Apocalypse. So there’s a 60% chance that I’ll see it. The Iranian hostage crisis is one of the first historical events that I remember seeing on the news first-hand. Had I been in the country when Argo came out–I might have seen it in the theaters, but probably not.

Part of me thinks that I should grow up and start watching the “right” movies.  However, part of me says, “wait, there’s this one day a year when everybody is talking about these movies, and the other 364 days  they are talking about Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers“  So in some sense, I already am watching the “right” movies.

BOOK REVIEW: How to be God by George Mikes

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How to Be GodHow to Be God by George Mikes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Humorist George Mikes’ main premise in this book is that humans created God in their image. The book is a series of essays designed to instruct God, if he or she exists, in being a more reasonable facsimile of the ideal human–dear old mom.

Actually, the micro-essays that make up the chapters of this book cover a wide range of subjects. Some of them stay on topic more closely than others. A few of the chapters seem to be stories that the author found interesting (and they are), but which didn’t have a lot to do with supporting his argument. For example, he discusses the two good deeds he has done in life, and he has a chapter on episodes of coincidence. The former may be a tongue-in-cheek support for the argument that even the worst of us are good sometimes. The latter may have been an attempt to bolster a more general argument for atheism by stating that coincidences are not miracles. However, if that is his point, while true, he doesn’t explicitly close that loop in any but the most gratuitous way. At barely over 100 pages, it felt like some of the material, while entertaining, was in the book not to address the topic but to hit the lower bound on a page range.

Mikes weaves together amusing anecdotes with shock-essayist statements that are not so much humorous as gratuitously provocative. With respect to the latter, I’m thinking of his discussion of Hitler and Stalin as basically good guys–if at least in their own minds.

The book is a mixed bag. It’s sometimes though-provoking and humorous, but other times it drifts into shock and awe gratuitous assertions. I suspect he could have hit his page mark by supporting his arguments better and still maintained the humor (realizing that exposition can be death in humor writing.)

A prime example of the book at its best is a story about a woman meeting with her doctor [paraphrased herein.] This is in a section about mini-gods, i.e. those people that we quasi-deify–such as judges and medical doctors. The doctor is trying to convince the woman to have surgery, but the woman refuses.

The doctor asked, “how did you get here today?”

The lady replied, “I took the bus.”

“And you trusted the driver, a complete stranger, with your life. But you won’t trust me–an expert in my field?”

“Yes, of course, the difference is vast.”

“How so?”

“The driver was on the same bus.”

If you find a copy, this book is worth a read. It’s not much of a time investment. It’s an illustrated 105 page book.  If your attitude is, “Sacred cow? it’s what’s for dinner,” you’ll probably like it overall. If you are pious, you’ll probably hate it. If you are neither, you’ll probably find that it has its moments.

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DAILY PHOTO: The Danube from Gellért Hill

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Budapest's south side

Budapest’s south side

Gellért Hill is a prominent overlook in Budapest; it’s topped by the Citadel. The hill offers splendid views both north and south down the Danube River. I show the view to the South to be contrary  (pictures to the north, dominated by the sprawling neo-gothic Parliament building, are ubiquitous–and are commonly the subject of postcards.) If you want some exercise, you can walk up to the top. The stairs are adjacent to the roundabout at the foot of the Buda-side of the Erzsébet bridge.

DAILY PHOTO: A Duck at General Coffee State Park

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Killer duck jumps out of the water.

Killer duck jumps out of the water.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lone Samurai by Wm. Scott Wilson

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The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto MusashiThe Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi by William Scott Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

[Note: this was previously posted in my martial arts blog, Jissen Budōka.]

This is a concise and well-researched biography of one of Japan’s most famous swordsmen. Miyamoto Musashi, however, wasn’t just a swordsman, he was also a writer, a painter, a sculptor, a Zen Buddhist, a poet, a philosopher, and a strategist. In short, he was a renaissance man. While The Lone Samurai focuses heavily on Musashi’s many duels as a traveling warrior, it also describes his artwork as it paints a portrait of a complex and beguiling character.

Musashi holds a curious allure among figures in Japanese history. The Japanese tend to be strictly bound by societal conventions, and being respectful and well-mannered is valued above all else. Musashi flouted convention whenever it served him. He used irreverence for strategic advantage. He was an astute reader of men. He often showed disrespect in order to get into his opponent’s head. This is most famously exemplified in his Ganryu Island duel with Sasaki Kojiro.

Musashi adopted a life of musha shugyo, or warrior errantry, though he could have been much wealthier and more comfortable had he chosen to be. He enjoyed simplicity, and only owned a few possessions. In his travels, he engaged in over 60 duels, and is usually credited with being undefeated [Note: I’ve heard some dispute the outcome of his second duel with Muso Gonnosuke. Wilson calls it a draw, but I’ve heard it called Musashi’s only defeat as well.] He fought as a samurai in battle at Sekigahara as well, but his adulthood was a relatively peaceful time.

One fascinating, but controversial, claim is that Musashi had no teachers–neither in swordsmanship nor in any of the fine arts he practiced. Musashi said this himself, but some historians dispute it. If true, it really takes being an extraordinary person up a notch. It should be noted that Musashi was only 13 when he had his first duel.

There is much about Musashi that is lost to the ages, but this book does a great job of pulling together what is known and weaving it into a portrait of the man.

There is an extensive series of appendices providing background information, notes, a glossary, and even a collection of pop culture (e.g. movie and novel) depictions of Musashi.

It’s well worth the read if you’re interested in strategy, history, or the biographies of incredible people.

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BOOK REVIEW: Secret Weapons by Cheryl Hersha, et al.

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Secret WeaponsSecret Weapons by Cheryl Hersha

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Secret Weapons is about two sisters who are trained in an MKULTRA-style behavior modification program to become femme fatales. This book was a rare find. I hadn’t heard of it before or seen it in my local bookstores, but I came across a copy at the Strand bookstore in New York (the “miles of books” place) on a trip several years ago.

Like Whitley Strieber’s Communion, this book leaves one engrossed but wondering what exactly one is reading. It is written as non-fiction, and not creative non-fiction that admits to blending elements of fiction into the fact. The writers are eager to convince the reader that this is not a hoax. About a quarter of the book is supporting documents to lend the book credibility. However, while I’m well aware of the “mind control” programs sponsored by the American government, this story doesn’t ring true to me. (In large part this is because we know the programs that operated were not nearly so successful as the one in Secret Weapons would have had to have been.) [I wrote a post about such programs that is available here. If you’d like to read some primary documents on the subject, this page at the National Security Archives has many of them.]

One might think that there are two possibilities: either it’s a true story or it’s a hoax. However, it’s a third possibility that makes this book so thought-provoking. What if the two sisters believe that the story is absolutely true, when–in fact–it wasn’t? How could this be? Their father is presented as an unsavory character. One possibility is that the father abused these girls and they created an elaborate backstory in their minds to cope with the fact that the one man who should have loved them, that they should have been able to trust, neither loved them nor was worthy of their trust.

Of course, another possibility is that it’s all true. While a lot of information did come out about Projects ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, and MKULTRA, a lot was also shredded. The person working the shredder might have gone after the documentation of activities involving pedophilia first. If there is any activity that would have rightfully taken the situation from one of CIA employees being sent to country club federal prisons to them being strung up on the Capitol steps, it’s what’s depicted in this book.

Of course, it could all be a hoax as well. A story like this, if believed, elicits the publicity of the news media. That’s a powerful way to sell books.

I’ll leave the reader to decide which of the three possibilities they believe is most likely.

If you haven’t concluded this already, let me be explicit: This book contains disturbing descriptions (and even sketches.) It isn’t gratuitous to the story they are trying to convey, but if you have a weak stomach for such matters, I’d recommend you steer clear.

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DAILY PHOTO: The Grand Palace in Bangkok

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On the grounds of the Grand Palace

On the grounds of the Grand Palace

This was taken at the Grand Palace in October 2012 as some foul weather was arriving.

A few things to keep in mind:

1.) The Palace is open all day almost everyday but tuk-tuk drivers tell bald-faced lies,  saying that it’s closed for an hour or two. They do this so they can get a fare. The loudspeakers blaring an announcement to not listen to anyone who attempts to divert you, doesn’t dissuade them. They will say that there is some special event involving the King or Queen that has shut the complex down. Don’t believe it.

2.) Cover your thighs. While there are lots of places (temples and so forth) that say they require such modesty, this is one of the few places that seems to strictly enforce it. If you don’t want to end up wearing a communal sarong, leave the daisy dukes in your hotel room and wear some bigboy/biggirl pants (or at least long shorts.) I wore walking shorts that went to the top of my knee, and was fine.