Show Notes - Week of August 12, 2019

Hello from 53.5° north. It was another amazingly intense week, with meetings, deliverables, and reviews conspiring to consume the days faster than I care to acknowledge as we approach the launch of our new system in November. The work is good, maybe even great to be honest, and the support I get from the organization is amazing. It's just the sheer intensity of the hours that leaves me spent by the end of the day each Friday. But as I am fond of saying, if the worst thing that happens to me any day is that I have too much work, it is still a pretty good day. 

Family Reunion:
We spent most of the weekend at a family reunion. The common ancestors were my wife's mother's father's parents, so my daughter's great-great-grandparents. It wasn't a huge amount of people, 60 maybe, but it was a good time. We went to Vermilion, which I was the only one of our family that had ever been there. On the way home, we stopped to see the pysanka in Vegreville, and the ... sausage ... in Mundare. It was good to connect with a bunch of family, and it resparked a lifelong interest in genealogy. And we got to see ... the sausage. (I mean, seriously, what is up with that? ) Plus, we got some seriously good Lobby Waffles at the hotel. 

Reading Pile:
This week's reading pile was focused on finishing "A Choice of Gods" by Clifford Simak. Who is Clifford Simak, you ask? If you don't know, then you are in the same situation as me. As the Wikipedia entry on Simak indicates, he was a masterful science fiction author, and was the third individual named as a Grand Master of Science Fiction after Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson (again, who?). 

Reading science fiction from 1972 caused me some trepidation because the science could have been simplistic, naive or outdated. However, this was a story about human transcendence and the meaning of our relationship with our planet. It just also happened to have some robots and deal with travel into space. It was pretty clear that Simak deserved the accolades and the title of Grand Master since this story was incredibly readable 47 years after release. 

I was struck by Simak's empathy to the "Indians", as he called him. Their desire for a life connected to nature was never seen as a weakness or a sign of inferiority. Rather, it was a choice to be connected to the earth and to nature as partners and not owners. The Indians were able to reconnect with nature after the Disappearance of most of the human race, and they were clearly better off for it. 

We had only a few hundred years of the white man’s way and they had been far from good years. We never fitted in, we never had a chance to. It was a relief to shuck off all of it and go back to the flowers, the trees, the clouds, the seasons and the weather, the running water, the creatures of the woods and prairies—to make them a part of us again, more a part of us than they’d ever been before. We learned something from the whites, that we can’t deny—we’d have been stupid if we hadn’t. And we used these white man’s ways to make the old way of life an even better life."

Simak also offers a subtle commentary on the human need for technology that seems like it was written for today and not 1972. 

But we no longer are a technological race. We lost technology when we lost the manpower and the knowledge and the machines broke down and there was no one to start them up again and no energy to run them. We don’t mourn that lost technology, as I think you know. At one time we might have, but not any longer. It would be a bother now. We have become competent observers and we gain our satisfaction from our observations, achieving minor triumphs when we are able to reach some solid understanding. Knowing is the goal, not the using. We aren’t users. We have somehow risen above using. We can rest content to see resources lying idle; we might even think it shameful to try to use or harness them."

And later, a less subtle commentary on technology:

A technological civilization is never satisfied. It is based on profit and progress, its own brand of progress. It must expand or die. You might make promises and be sincere in the making of them; you might intend to keep them, but you wouldn’t and you couldn’t.”

Knowing is the goal. That is a pretty remarkable sentence of a mere four words. 

I'm really happy I read this story, and really happy I have discovered a great author. Some of Simak's earlier works are available at Project Gutenberg, if you are so inclined. I know I am. 

Clifford Simak

Other Media:
The Freakonomics episode "How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War" was quite thought-provoking. The thread was from World War I, to the creation of the supermarket, to World War II, to industrialized meat production, to consumerism as a vital propaganda tool against the Soviets, but then with a less laudable outcome of obesity and even to the use of corn to create ethanol for vehicles. There is a great quote in the episode about the need to "make agriculture green" which is ironic, funny, and depressing all at once. 

We watched the 2017 version of "Murder on the Orient Express". It was decidedly okay, certainly worth a 6.5 on IMDB, which for point of reference, is near the low end of what we will watch. Reading the comments however, one might think that the movie was an absolute disaster. Nothing can compare to the 1974 version! Kenneth Branagh is a hack! The sets were terrible! The morals questionable! The dialogue stilted! Et cetera. 

I began to wonder about how genuine the comments were. Was there a bevy of actual individuals who really hated the movie and decided to type out their animosity for the movie on IMDB? Or is this another form of division by the Russians to sow discontent and discord into the lives of the democratic nations? Did I just cross the line into absolute paranoia, or did Russia undeniably win in their quest for destabilizing their enemies, because now we can't even trust a comment on IMDB?

Did you see that movie? Great movie. Great. Fine actors. All of them. Especially that Dafoe. He played a German. Strong, strong character. A real man.

Finally, some good news on the new music front. The Tidal weekly mixes are really starting to bring in some great music, and it is easy to get down a real rabbit hole for hours on end. Last week, I came across "A Song For Our Grandfathers" by Future Islands, which is probably my favorite song of 2019. I am playing it endlessly. So much good music, so little time. 

New Beers:
It was a busy week for new beers. I found a collaboration pack from Parallel 49 that had a number of unusual offerings. There was a habanero peach gose (a very surprising combo), a brut made with yuzu citrus that was quite good, and one brewed with gin botanicals that I wasn't really a fan of. In addition, I had the West Coast Pale Ale from Granville, which was also citrusy without being overpowering. That added two badges on Untappd - Fields of Gold (Level 4) and The Great White North (Level 85).

New Words:
All of the new words this week came from "A Choice of Gods", with the exception of horchata which came from a Vampire Weekend song. 

horchata
[ôrˈCHädə]
NOUN

1. (in Spain and Latin American countries) a milky drink made from ground almonds, tiger nuts, or rice.

exaction
[iɡˈzakSHən]
NOUN
formal

1. the action of demanding and obtaining something from someone, especially a payment or service.

cant
[kant]
VERB
canted (past tense) · canted (past participle)

1. talk hypocritically and sanctimoniously about something.

scriptorium
[ˌskripˈtôrēəm]
NOUN

1. a room set apart for writing, especially one in a monastery where manuscripts were copied.

overmuch
[ˌōvərˈməCH]
ADVERB

1. too much; excessively.

supercilious
[ˌso͞opərˈsilēəs]
ADJECTIVE

1. behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others