|
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude a few days after the longest day of the year. Every year at this time I think about how unfair it is that summer really hasn't started and already the days are getting shorter. It's all downhill from here! But that is glass-half-empty Robert speaking. Glass-half-full Robert instead focuses on ... the thing is ... what I really want to say ... actually, let's just say that's glass-half-full assessments are work in progress and leave it at that. The week behind was productive but tiring, with one book finished and a number of new words as a result. The week ahead is a week off work but with a lot of projects on the go. I have big plans to work on the east wall of my garage and have a bit of painting to do. I want to document my garage project and I might turn it into a Long Form entry on this site. Upward and onward!  Reading Pile: For Book #23 of 2020, I decided to finish the fantasy short-story anthology, "Rogues" that I started several weeks ago. It seemed mentally easier this week to digest a number of short stories instead of trying to read one long novel, and that was clearly the case as I read over 400 pages in five days. I'm not really familiar with short stories as a format, and even less so with anthologies. Based on this experience though, I think I need to become more familiar with both. Rogues was composed of twenty-one stories, and I count at least fifteen as being really good. Definitely worth the read, and definitely worth looking out for more of those authors in short-story or full-length novels. I should be able to finish one book this week at least, which will increase my reading pace to nearly one book per week. Maybe the goal of 50 books this year is actually possible, contrary to my comments last week. See? Glass-half-full Robert once again! New Words:
All of the new words this week are thanks to the Rogues anthology. propitiate [prəˈpiSHēˌāt] VERB
auric [ˈôrik] ADJECTIVE
gyre [ˈjī(ə)r] VERB literary
florid [ˈflôrid, ˈflärid] ADJECTIVE
parterre [pärˈter] NOUN
inimical [iˈnimək(ə)l] ADJECTIVE
epistolary [əˈpistəˌlerē] ADJECTIVE
0 Comments
Greetings from 53.5° north. I did not post an entry last week to allow for some down time, but also because there just wasn't much new to talk about. This week wasn't much more exiting to be honest, but I wanted to make sure I posted something this week to not allow the habit of writing to atrophy. First of, I was negligent in my last post in not retracting a previous comment. In my entry for the week of May 18, I commented that there was clear evidence that hydroxychloroquine "is worse than ineffective; it is actually deadly." I felt confident in amplifying that message because it came from a reputable source, The Washington Post. Even more than that, the WaPo article referenced a study in The Lancet, which is a publication that I would never have questioned, but now maybe I should. As the controversy increased around what was being called #LancetGate, a friend forwarded this article from Peter Ellis, an Australian statistician and data scientist. Ellis dissects the study in The Lancet stating the unequivocal conclusion that there was a "very high probability the data behind that high profile, high consequence Lancet study are completely fabricated". Soon after this article and other pieces of high-profile analysis were released in media across the world. The Lancet retracted the study. In the end, it was a win that the global community could still out a fraud and ensure that the integrity of the scientific process is intact. But it was also a loss because an institution as highly regarded as The Lancet failed so miserably. I can only wince in anticipation of the blow this is to science and the scientific process, and to those who will use this as fodder for the fake news campaign pushed by Trump and his media handlers. But regardless of all of that, I quoted something that turned out to be incorrect and I needed to address that point.  Reading Pile: Book #22 for 2020 was "Belly Up" by Stuart Gibbs. This is the first book in the Young Adult FunJungle series, but the second book in the series that I have read with my younger daughter. As I said a few weeks ago when reviewing the previous book, the first-person narrator and protagonist is twelve year-old Teddy Fitzroy, a modern version of Encyclopedia Brown. This is definitely a good series to pull the younger readers into the mystery genre. It is also important to note YA series like this that are not filled with the tropes of stupid and incompetent adults. Belly Up delivers on this again, and offers some genuinely funny scenes while dealing with difficult concepts such as lying, fraud, and murder maturely and seriously. I have now read two of the FunJungle series and look forward to reading the rest with my younger daughter. With 22 books read in 25 weeks, I am falling behind the pace required to read 50 books in 2020. My general lack of energy and enthusiasm of late has leaked over to my reading. I made zero progress with "The Name of the Wind" last week, I haven't touched the "Rogues" fantasy anthology in three weeks, and I have completely fallen off the wagon for both of my reading groups for "War and Peace" and "The Count of Monte Cristo". I need to rejuvenate and refresh my outlook, but what will come first? - the chicken (reading more) or the egg (the energy to read more). New Beers: Fourteen days, five new beers or about one new beer every 2.8 days. That is close to but a bit lower than my pace for the past six years. The five new beers puts me at 669 unique beers checked into Untappd. The first of the fortnight was the Sierra Nevada Tropical Torpedo. This could have been great but had a bit of chalky or astringent aftertaste that took away from it. I really liked the hops and citrus flavor though. (3.5 / 5) The second was Bob's Your Dunkel from Alley Kat. Really good stuff. Nice caramel flavor with a great malty base. Quite enjoyable, and a shame this is not a permanent offering. (4.0 /5) The third beer for the fortnight was the Bent Stick Electric Boogaloo IPA. It was pretty good. It suffered a bit following the Bob's Your Dunkel, but I would have this again. (3.25 / 5) Unfortunately the next beer I had was a total disappointment. The Final Test Batch for Blindman's Kettle Sour before they finalize on a recipe was nearly undrinkable. It was chalky and bitter and I didn't really think it was sour at all. Too bad as I was really looking forward to this. (2.5 / 5). The last beer was better though. The Waltz Pilsner from 2 Crows out of Halifax seemed more bitter than 22 IBU, and had a nice peppery taste. I'll seek out more beers from 2 Crows going forward based on this one. (3.5 / 5)  New Words:
Only a few new words over the past fortnight, which is of course a clear indication of how little I have read recently. One for sure is a repeat, and a very recent repeat at that. praxis [ˈpraksəs] NOUN formal
sojourn [ˈsōjərn] NOUN
droshky [ˈdrôSHkē] NOUN (historical)
protodeacon (prō′tō dē′kən) NOUN
rapacious [rəˈpāSHəs] ADJECTIVE
argali [ˈärɡəlē] NOUN
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude, the land of near-summer daytime temperatures, open playgrounds, and a populace inching towards showing their middle finger to the concept of social distancing. Thanks go out this week to the Public Sector Network for inviting me to deliver a speech on building a culture of security awareness in an organization. The slides are available here, but probably won't be all that useful without my narrative to accompany the deck. If you are interested in watching the security awareness videos referenced in the presentation, the full playlist is available at this link.  Beyond preparing for and delivering that talk, it was a pretty quiet week. I was able to start and finish a Douglas Adams classic, tried a quarter dozen new beers, and learned (and relearned) and a couple new words. Let's get on with it.  Reading Pile: I took a break from the Patrick Rothfuss masterpiece this week because I didn't have enough mental energy to properly focus on it. I'll jump back into it this week, so it will be even later in June before I finish it. Book #21 for 2020 in its place was a re-read of "Life, The Universe, and Everything" by Douglas Adams. This was definitely my least favorite of the Hitchhiker's series so far. It had some interesting conceptual twists but lacked the irreverant humor that made me laugh out loud while reading it that made the first two books so memorable. It might have been a better written book in some regards, and is probably more serious than the first two books. If that was intentional, I can imagine how much resistance Adams would have received in changing the style of his novels after the success of his first two books. I wonder if that was why he followed up the Hitchhiker's series with the Dirk Gently books. Maybe I should pick those up again. The point above about authors changing their writing style reminds me of a quote I heard from Neil Gaiman about eighteen months ago. He said that everyone pushes you to write something original and new, until they like your first book, and then all they want is more of exactly what you already wrote. Twenty-one books in twenty weeks means I should be able to hit my target of 52 books this year when you factor in the group readings of War and Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo. New Beers: Two new beers this week, with one coming from a favorite brewer and the other continuing my foray into traditional European beers. First up was the Life In The Clouds DDH IPA from Collective Arts. Before diving into this one, I had to figure out what a DDH IPA was. Thanks to Craft Beer Joe for deciphering the acronym to mean Double Dry Hops. The DDH process definitely explains the bold hoppiness of this beer, and why there was so much pineapple and citrus flavor. It was hazy but much more filtered than some of my previous selections. This was a very tasty beer that I would happily have again. (3.75 / 5) Second up was the Destiny IPA from Fuggles and Warlock Craftworks in Richmond, B.C. This had a ton of taste, fruit, and hops. Seven hops varieties, and I was only familiar with four of them. Good stuff. (3.5 / 5) The third beer this week was a European Pale Lager called Tatra produced by the marcro Zywiec. This was pretty decently tasty lager with a fairly crisp and slightly bready taste. Nothing to complain about. (3.25 / 5)  New Words:
Just a couple new words this week. Apparently Douglas Adams didn't have much to expand my vocabularly in his third book, especially since one was a repeat. retroussé [ˌretro͞oˈsā] ADJECTIVE
sidereal [ˌsīˈdirēəl] ADJECTIVE
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude where your humble blogger is happily officially COVID-negative (for now, at least), and is the still-proud-but-aghast father of an officially-in-her-teens-now teenager.
The past week was spent much the same as the previous weeks. A couple bike rides, some reading, some guitar, a lot of work. The news that the playgrounds were open again was definitely well-received in our house. Seeing the garbage can containing the old signs announcing the playground was closed was itself a bit of a tonic for my younger daughter, almost as good as being able to run in the park and get on the swings.
The only COVID item worth posting this week is this story about how Trump's COVID "game changer" hydroxychloroquine is worse than ineffective; it is actually deadly. The article is based on a study published in The Lancet. The most interesting quote from the article highlights the disconnect between Trump's declarations and the actual facts of this matter: "these findings provide absolutely no reason for optimism that these drugs might be useful in the prevention or treatment of covid-19."
But let's not dwell on the negative. Instead, let's focus on the sublime wit of Bike Edmonton and how they completely destroyed this monstrosity of a kid's bike.
Reading Pile: I spent a few days plowing through about half of a short story anthology, and then picked up the absolutely amazing "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. I'm only about one-fifth finished it so I probably won't finish it until early June. Unless the quality of the writing decreases in the upcoming chapters, this will definitely be a contender for the best book I read in 2020. I am also a week behind in my War and Peace reading, and completely negligent in the reading of Monte Cristo. If the world is opening back up, I suspect EPL will open soon as well and that means I have to finish a few of my library finds as well, including that anthology. 
But for this week, I was able to finish one book with my younger daughter. Book #20 for 2020 was "Lord and Lady Bunny - Almost Royalty!" by Polly Horvath. This was an enjoyable story to read with a younger family member and had an decent story. Unfortunately though, it started out much better than it ended. By the end, we were constantly commenting on how moronic the characters were. Their shortsightedness was actually distracting. Not that there was a real sense of verisimilitude in a story about talking rabbits interacting with a young girl and her hippy parents, but whatever immersion there was in the story was lost by repeatedly asking if the characters could do anything any more idiotic. So maybe read this to an eight year-old and not a ten year-old.
New Music:
Most of my listening in recent months has been limited to artists that I already knew about and albums I already knew. However this week I turned on Track Radio in Tidal on a Foals song and was really happy to hear a track from Kurt Vile. I have been listening to his "b'lieve i'm going down..." and "Bottle It In" albums repeatedly for the last few days. Bottle It In is much more laidback and b'lieve has more enthusiastic guitar sounds, but both are solid albums with great lyrics and music.
New Beers:
Three new beer this week, bringing my total lifetime unique beers logged on Untappd to 658. The first was another from The Wild Beer Co. in the UK. This time it was the Jambo Imperial Stout. As you would expect with an Imperial, this had lots of flavor with dark raspberries if dark raspberries are actually a thing. Might have been too much flavor though as it took a lot to think through this one. It wasn't too boozy though, which was nice. (3.5 / 5). 
The other two were both from DAB, or Dortmund Actien-Brauerei. DAB touts themselves as the "ambassador of the famous Dortmund Beer style", and while they are "only" 152 years old, they claim a much older provenance by brewing in compliance with the Purity Law of 1516. I think it is fair to call them a macro brewery, but from what I have tried, they produce decent beers.
The first was their Export lager, This was a well made beer with a nice bready malt and a bit of hops. Pretty happy with this one. (3.5 /5). The second was their Maibock, which is a style I don't have a lot of experience with. I feel this was better than most of the average beers that I rate at 3.25, but it wasn't good enough to be 3.5. I guess I will have to branch out to the bocks and maibocks and see if I can find a really good example of this style. That is the beauty of being on a lifelong quest to drink one of each beer in the world. (3.25 / 5) 
New Words:
Very few new words this week, even though I read a lot. syllogism [ˈsiləˌjizəm] NOUN
wain [wān] NOUN (archaic)
Greetings from 53.5 ° north latitude. The week was filled with reading and guitar and little else. So really, a pretty awesome week. Reading Pile: We are just finishing up the nineteenth week of 2020, with the first week of the year being a few days short of the full seven. I'm doing well with my reading, clocking in at an average of one book per week. If I can keep it up and also finish War and Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo with those reading groups I have previously mentioned, I will read 54 books this year. That is a momentous number and would be a hard mark to surpass in my pre-retirement years.  Book #17 for 2020 was the audiobook version of Simon Sinek's "The Infinite Game". Sinek came to my attention during an executive education program I was enrolled in in 2013 - 2014. His TED talks about leadership related to his earlier books continue to be a popular favorite, wracking up millions of views. This latest book is short but worth the time. Sinek distills his thoughts about why an infinite mindset built with thoughts of the long-term and abundance is superior to a finite mindset built with only the short-term in mind and with a focus on scarcity. One quote that stuck with me was that "leaders are not responsible for results; they are responsible for the people that are responsible for the results." That is a good maxim to keep in mind while leading teams and organizations, as is Sinek's comment that we should "go slow now to stop problems later."  Book #18 for 2020 was "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. This was a book I decided to read with my older daughter, and it opened a lot of conversations about surveillance and the Internet, It was also about a teenage boy falling in love, so that kept me scanning a few lines ahead so that I could strategically avoid certain topics. This was my least favorite of Doctorow's books that I have read so far, mainly because I already understood the lessons he was communicating, but also because of the somewhat jingoistic references to the US Declaration of Independence. I was probably a bit overly sensitized to references to the Declaration because Sinek also raved about it in his book as the ideal infinite game. Would I recommend this book? Probably not, at least to a casual reader. Would I use it to reference the problems with surveillance technology. Sure, but something like Bruce Schneier's "Secrets and Lies" or "Data and Goliath" would be better, albeit non-fictional sources.  Book #19 for 2020 was "The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes" by Mark Urban. This was a historical account of George Scovell, the man that provided Wellington with vital intelligence in the war against Napoleon's army in Spain and Portgual. Scovell used captured communications to decipher both the Army of Portugal and grande ciphere used by the French. Urban was able to write the entire book from journals and official war correspondence, and so it provides an interesting portrayal of Wellington, Napoleon's brother Joseph, and the French marshals in the Iberian conflict. The marshals are shown to be vapid and selfish, and completely vested in only their own wealth and position. They are clearly not in this war for the infinite game of anyone beyond themselves. Urban also highlights the cultural and societal biases of the British gentry and of Wellington in particular, and holds that up against the barbaric behavior of the common British soldier. This was an interesting read, and especially interesting in light of the shared backdrop with War and Peace and Monte Cristo. The impact Napoleon had on Europe in the early 1800s can clearly not be overlooked. I'm glad I read this book for that reason, however, it was not as focused on George Scovell as I would have liked. I understand that Urban could only write this history from his sources, but it would have been nice to have more information about Scovell's early life or retirement years. Scovell seems like he would have been a great person to know and I would like to know more about him. This quote from Scovell definitely helped me form that opinion of him. I think it by far the most instructive part of a campaign to know why we fail; success is in the mouth of everyone to account for. --George Scovell Regardless, this is a good book both to get an idea of the mindset, diligence, and meticulousness of an early cryptographer, and to get another perspective on the Napoleonic era. New Words:
With all that reading, there are bound to be a lot of new words. fichu [ˈfiˌSHo͞o] NOUN
peignoir [ˌpānˈwär] NOUN
caisson [ˈkāˌsän, ˈkās(ə)n] NOUN
soi-disant [ˌswädēˈzäN, ˌswädēˈzän(t)] ADJECTIVE
indolent [ˈindələnt] ADJECTIVE
dilatory [ˈdiləˌtôrē] ADJECTIVE
fencible [ˈfen(t)səbəl] ADJECTIVE
yeomanry [ˈyōmənrē] NOUN historical
panegyric [ˌpanəˈjirik] NOUN
intersubjective [ˌin(t)ərsəbˈjektiv] ADJECTIVE philosophy
praxis [ˈpraksəs] NOUN formal
dialectic [ˌdīəˈlektik] NOUN
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude where spring has finally sprung and people are once again able to get outside. Let's hope they stay isolated so that our COVID cases don't spike in a couple weeks.
The week that was was long and repetitive, with double-digit meetings each work day. The reading was good, as was the guitar playing. If I thought the picture would be clear, I'd take a picture of my left fingertips to show the budding callouses. The tl;dr for this week is: Two books finished, four beers drank (three from the previous week), a book discussion recorded and posted on YouTube, and a bunch of new words. Let's get on with it, shall we?
Reading Pile:
It was a productive week for reading, with two books finished and a new one about one-quarter completed already. Book #15 for 2020 was a young reader series mystery that I finished with my younger daughter. "Panda-Monium" by Stuart Gibbs is a first-person narrated story of a middle school sleuth who helps solve the mystery of a missing panda. Teddy Fitzroy is a bit like Encyclopedia Brown, but in a modern setting and in a full-length novel format. The book was really well done and had a couple absolutely hilarious scenes. If you are looking to hook a young reader on the mystery genre, this is a good choice. Book #16 for 2020 was "Ancillary Justice" by Anne Leckie, a science fiction story revolving around a multi-millennium old AI hellbent on revenge. It was a great concept, and ultimately it came together really well, but I did lose interest for a while about two-thirds of the way through. To be fair, that might have been a symptom of mental fatigue and quarantine overload. It was definitely good enough to make me seek out the second book in the series. Leckie wrote an excellent quote near the end of the novel that could have been equally applicable to today's world. If you've got power and money and connections, some differences won't change anything. Or if you are resigned to dying in the near future ... It's the people without the money and the power, who desperately want to live, for those people small things aren't small at all. What you call no difference is life and death to them, 
I mentioned above that I am already one-quarter through another book. That one is a historical account of some seriously interesting cyrpto work done over 200 years ago. I suspect I'll have a good summary of it done for next week's entry. In the meantime, here is a tweet related to that book.
Lastly, I have commented multiple times since mid-December about the War and Peace Reddit reading group that I am part of. I highly encourage you to read War and Peace, and if you do, a chapter-a-day reading habit is a great way to do it, especially if you augment it with Brian E. Denton's Daily Meditations on each chapter. Denton has been actively lurking on the subreddit this year and invited myself and others to record a session where we talk about Book 1, Part 1. It was a really good discussion, and it was great to put faces to names of some of the most active contributors to the subreddit. The full video is linked below, and a few of my points are linked here [1, 2]. New Beers: Four new beers for the past fortnight - I didn't feel like posting a beer update last week - and it was a fairly forgettable bunch unfortunately. It started out well with the Collective Arts Hazy State. Collective Arts do like their hazy IPAs. This one was very hazy and never did settle or clear in the slightest. There was a big waft of pine and a nice taste. (3.75 / 5). The next was also from Collective Arts, but this was a bit disappointing. It wasn't bad or poorly done, but just didn't live up to my expectations for a sour from Collective Arts. (3.25 / 5). Next was the Wild Beer Company Millionaire Salted Caramel Chocolate Milk Stout. This had a nice boozy flavor without being overpowering, but I didn't taste much of the salted caramel or chocolate. (3.25 / 5). Last up was the Lech Premium Pale Lager. When you are on a personal quest to drink one of every beer in the world like I am, you will eventually have to drink benign lagers from big macro breweries, and this was one of those times. This was decent, but wholly unremarkable. That's all I am going to say. (3.0 / 5) 
New Words:
Quite a few words this week, with a couple being repeat offenders. shabrack [ˈSHabˌrak] NOUN historical
antipathetic [anˌtipəˈTHedik] ADJECTIVE
sobriquet [ˈsōbrəˌkā, ˈsōbrəˌket] NOUN
perfidy [ˈpərfədē] NOUN literary
epistemic [ˌepəˈstemik, ˌepəˈstēmik] ADJECTIVE
inveterate [inˈvedərət] ADJECTIVE
anthropoid [ˈanTHrəˌpoid] ADJECTIVE
somnolent [ˈsämnələnt] ADJECTIVE
extirpate [ˈekstərˌpāt] VERB
bluestocking [ˈblo͞oˌstäkiNG] NOUN derogatory
newel [ˈnü-əl , ˈnyü- ] NOUN
antiphonal [ˌanˈtifən(ə)l] ADJECTIVE
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude. If my weeks had themes, this week's theme would have to be "The Triumph of the Introverts". I could see the struggle and the fatigue in the faces and hear in the voices of my friends and coworkers this last week. What seemed like a holiday a few weeks ago, a chance to hang out, try some new tech, ignore the commute, turned this last week into the slog of quarantine. The fact that we haven't hit the peak yet, that we have a significant amount of time before isolation ends, the fact that we should mentally prepare for another wave in the fall, has all taken its toll on those around me. But not everyone is doing poorly. Some of us, the introverts especially, are faring much better. One might even argue that we were made for these times. If you have a deep-seated need to be in physical contact with someone, you are going to be in a much worse place right now than if connection via video conference is sufficient for you. Mental health issues will be paramount while and after we deal with the physical issues. I'll point out the same mental health support videos that I highlighted in last week's entry. Watch them for yourself and those close to you, and share those with others in case they might benefit as well. Even if you are doing better than most because of your innate personality and genetic makeup, it is highly unlikely that you are immune from mental health concerns. Take care of yourself.  There were a few other COVID-related items worth highlighting this week. The first was this combination sun hat and face shield. My spouse is looking seriously at getting one, but for some reason I just cannot take it seriously. The company selling these hats has various other "Health Protection" items for sale, but the main categories of their products on their web site include "Spring Fashion" and "Accessory and Beauty" so I can't help but feel that this is nothing more than a cash grab. 60 Minutes broadcast an interview with Peter Navarro, who US President Trump appointed to lead the initiative to distribute Personal Protective Equipment. Watch that interview for a quick lesson in deflection and redirection, and to see pushback in action instead of leadership. In the end though, 60 Minutes comes out on top with this interview with their mic-drop moment when they highlighted their previous reporting on pandemic response after Navarro openly challenged their role and leadership.  And speaking of a lack of leadership, take a read of this article and a look at the picture below to see what happens when poor leaders lead poorly. Note the vitriol of the Trump supporters with their MAGA hats and their "Don't Tread on Me" flags, all because of the American cellular-level need for loudly protecting personal freedoms, rekindling the "age-old U.S. debate over government regulation vs. personal liberty", fueled by a leader who just cannot lead.  You can almost see the respiratory droplets coming out of their gaping mouths.  There is more to life, well my life at least, than COVID, so let's talk about something else for a while, shall we? Cybersecurity is important to everyone, and I would be remiss if I did not pass on this note about CIRA's new Internet protection service they call "Canadian Shield". CIRA touts their DNS privacy service, ransomware blocking, and pornography filtering service as "enterprise-grade protection for all Canadians". It is super easy to setup and free. If you are Canadian and don't already have access to a similar service or commercial offering, there is no reason why you shouldn't configure your home network using CIRA's Canadian Shield settings.  Reading Pile: There was a lot of reading in my life this week, and I was able to finish one small book. Book #14 for 2020 was Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor", the third book in our social science reading group hosted by Adam Greenfield. We only read excerpts of the first two books, but this week we read the whole book from Sontag. To be fair, it clocked in at a paltry 88 pages, but I will count it as a full book regardless. There was a lot of very powerful language in this book; language that made me think about the social "value" of diseases, and how two diseases can be viewed so differently. A lot of the book is focused on tuberculosis, and early in the book, Sontag discusses how the consumption and wasting comes from TB has lead to the skinny mindset in the twentieth century. Twentieth-century women's fashions (with their cult of thinness) are the last stronghold of the metaphors associated with the romanticizing of TB in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Sontag then contrasted the new waifish chic brought along by TB with how their male contemporaries stereotyped themselves. Gradually, the tubercular look, which symbolized an appealing vulnerability, a superior sensitivity, became more and more the ideal look for women—while great men of the mid- and late nineteenth century grew fat, founded industrial empires, wrote hundreds of novels, made wars, and plundered continents. I'm glad we read Sontag's book, but I couldn't help but feel it was dated. The book quotes Kafka a couple times as he ultimately died from TB in 1924. One quote from him from 1920 said that he had an illness of the mind that had moved to his body. Sontag's book was written in 1978, meaning there is a span of 58 years between his quote and Sontag's book. At present in 2020, there have been 41 years since Sontag wrote this book, which is getting close to the gap between Kafka and Sontag. Think how much has changed in collective thinking in those 41 years, and it seems that a 2020 Sontag book on the same topic would arrive at new conclusions. It is unfortunate that Sontag passed away so many years ago, as it would be insightful to read a 2020 version with a new foreword by the author. New Words:
Lots of new words this week from a combination of War and Peace, The Count of Monte Cristo, Sontag's book discussed above, and a new science fiction book that I will hopefully be able to finish this week. corvée [kôrˈvā] NOUN (historical)
hortatory [ˈhôrdəˌtôrē] ADJECTIVE
etiology [ˌēdēˈäləjē] NOUN
enervate [enervate] VERB
garret [ˈɡerət] NOUN
parvenu [ˈpärvəˌn(y)o͞o] NOUN (derogatory)
rachitis [rəˈkīdəs] NOUN
philippic [fəˈlipik] NOUN (literary)
autophagy [ôˈtäfəjē] NOUN (biology)
laity [ˈlāədē] NOUN
exemplum [iɡˈzempləm] NOUN
orgone [ˈôrɡōn] NOUN
apposite [ˈapəzət] ADJECTIVE
semiotic [ˌsemēˈädik] ADJECTIVE
lacuna [ləˈk(y)o͞onə] NOUN
orthorexia [ˌôrTHəˈreksēə] NOUN
perspicacious [ˌpərspəˈkāSHəs] ADJECTIVE
pediment [ˈpedəmənt] NOUN
Greetings from 53.5° north latitude where it is unbelievably, and frustratingly, still winter.
This week saw the world surpass 1.8 million confirmed COVID cases, and the US going over the 20,000 mark to become the country with the most confirmed COVID-related deaths globally. Here in Alberta, we hit 40 deaths so far, but that is a far cry from the estimated range of 400 and 3,100 deaths as modeled by AHS and presented to the public by the Premier (video below). We are only 10% of the way to the best-case scenario right now, which is really staggering. Is there a bright side to all of this? Is there something positive we can take away? I think there is, whether it be the wonderful in-home concerts we can watch, the positivity from so many people, or the companies around the world retooling so they can focus on creating life-saving equipment. Plus so many of us are finding ways to stay connected even if we are alone. I remember back in my twenties hearing for the first time that there was a difference between being alone and being lonely. If we can stay alone or at least only together with our household while still finding ways to stay connected, we can come out of this okay. Don't get me wrong, the world will be changed, and mental health will be greatly impacted in addition to the more obvious physical issues. But that doesn't mean the world will be or has to be worse than it is now.
Reading Pile:
I am taking advantage of as many opportunities as possible to do something new. The most obvious at this point is a reading group I joined hosted by author Adam Greenfield. This isn't a typical book club or even a contemporary international reading, but rather a group reading about specific theories and books in the social sciences.
Our first book was "Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly" by Judith Butler. My proviso for this is that I didn't read the whole book like the rest of the group. I thoroughly read about ten percent and then skimmed the rest. Butler's reputation of writing obtuse and hard-to-read prose is apparently well-deserved. Not that I knew about Butler's reputation, or even Butler at all, prior to the group discussion.
Our second book which we delved into this week was "The Wretched of the Earth" by Frantz Fanon. Again, never heard of him but his writing was much more consumable albeit dated. Written in 1961, Fanon wrote in the language of the day: Man this, man that, women as an object. Trying to get past that, we focused on the chapter "On Violence" which discusses the need for the colonized to stand up to the colonizer.
At the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. --Franz Fanon
I am grateful for the opportunity to be exposed to different thinking, different intellectuals, and completely different discussions, but I am concerned with my ability to contribute to the ongoing discussion. That said, I did propose that we discuss the use of the "war" moniker and metaphor in our COVID responses and that received enthusiastic support. Cue up some Susan Sontag!
Switching over to the "listening pile" for a minute, I was able to find time to dive into the recent Longform interview with science writer Ed Yong. Yong had just completed a great article on COVID for The Atlantic, which is definitely worth reading in addition to or instead of the Longform interview. While the whole interview was enjoyable, my favourite part was in the first few minutes as they were getting settled and Yong compared his COVID-reality life to a combination of "Groundhog Day" and a Michael Bay movie: stunningly mind-numbing repetition followed by scare-you-out-of-your-seats moments. Yep, pretty much sums up the last month. The last bit of non-fiction reading this week was a throwback to 1997. Back in January, I commented on the Longform interview with Kevin Kelly, former editor at Wired. This 1997 article was co-written by Kelly and comments on the soon-to-be demise of the browser and the coming wonders of push technology. 
It is interesting to read something from twenty-three years ago, especially given that the Internet as we know it was barely a couple years old at the time of publication. A lot has changed, of course. Talk of T1 lines seems antiquated, even though I can remember being proud to commission my first T1 installation not long before that article came out.
We can expect a billion Web pages by 2000. Some of them will even be worth reading. -- Wired, March 1997
Where the article was most prescient was its predictions regarding technology pervasiveness and the dependency content producers would have on advertising. At one point, the authors predict that this new world of push technology, which has somewhat been replaced with notifications, will be "gentle, in-your-face, intermittent, in the background, or always on." The always-on-ness of our world these days is definitely one of our defining societal problems. See my comments from last October regarding Michael Harris's book "Solitude: A Singular Life in a Crowded World". As for their other prediction, some form of the word "advertising" appears eight times throughout the article. Maybe the authors were afforded a crystal ball and could see their magazine's web page covered in ads from their parent company and lifestyle brand, Condé Nast.
On to fiction. First, I am continuing to read "The Count of Monte Cristo" and am thoroughly enjoying it. It holds up quite well at nearly 200 years old. One of my favourite lines so far in the book came in the penultimate paragraph of Chapter XXX, and it really sets up the revenge section of the novel.
I have taken the place of Providence to reward the good; now let the avenging God make way for me to punish the wrongdoer! --The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter XXX 
I also finished another book this week. Book #13 for 2020 was "Seraphina", by Rachel Hartman. This was a wonderful and unique Young Adult novel, that earns the YA moniker in all the best ways. The eponymous protagonist was not an orphan, which is of course the single worst trope in YA novels, plus was part of the solution but realized she could not cannot do it alone. No pushy teen sidestepping the lame-brained adults in this novel. There was a great message about the importance of family and friends and how solutions are best solved together and not alone. I'm not an expert on the middle ages, but the setting seemed to be a realistic, wealthy monarchy set in a middle ages equivalent world. Hartman was able to introduce IRL middle ages items and terms, such as houpelandde, oud, and sackbut (see the New Words section below for all three), and added to the dragon mythos with new words like saar, saarantras, and dracomachia (you will have to read the book to get definitions for these). All in all, a great novel worthy of your time and energy to read whether you are in the YA time frame or just like a good novel.
New Beers:
Three new beers this week from three different Canadian breweries, Collective Arts, Alley Kat, and Moosehead. The first was the Collective Arts No. 12 IPA which was a nice hazy IPA with a lot of citrus and a refreshing taste. (3.5 / 5). The second was the Alley Kat Westminster Tabby from their Back Alley Brews line. This Extra Special Bitter benefited from the authentic British malts, and according to the label Alley Kat even replicated the minerals in the water from Burton Upon Trent in the UK. It is a shame this is a limited edition beer that isn't sticking around. (3.75 / 5) Last up was the Moosehead Pale Ale. A pale ale is by definition pale which implies not a huge amount of flavor or aroma. Moosehead's Pale Ale was a decent representation of a style that doesn't have a lot going for it, in my opinion. Decent, drinkable, but pretty forgettable. (3.25 / 5) 
New Words:
Lots of new words this week, partly because I caught up with all of the words from "Seraphina", but also because of the Fanon, Butler, and Monte Cristo readings. phlegmatic [fleɡˈmadik] ADJECTIVE
probity [ˈprōbədē] NOUN (formal)
postulant [ˈpäsCHələnt] NOUN
superadded [ˌso͞opərˈadəd] ADJECTIVE
houppelande [hüˌpländ] NOUN
oud [o͞od] NOUN
sackbut [ˈsakˌbət] NOUN
auto-da-fé [ˌôdədəˈfā] NOUN
tonus [ˈtōnəs] NOUN
puerile [ˈpyo͝orəl, ˈpyo͝orˌīl] ADJECTIVE
hieratic [ˌhī(ə)ˈradik] ADJECTIVE
enchiridion [ˌeNGkəˈridēən, ˌenkī-] NOUN (formal)
ab ovo [ab ˈōˌvō, äb] ADVERB
salutary [ˈsalyəˌterē] ADJECTIVE
mot juste [ˌmō ˈZHo͞ost] NOUN
apotheosis [əˌpäTHēˈōsəs] NOUN
prevaricate [prəˈverəˌkāt] VERB
redoubt [rəˈdout] NOUN (military)
There are those words that you say without thinking about, and then one day you think about them, and all you can think about is how weird that word is. "Hunker" is definitely in that category. We are definitely into the "hunker" phase of our global COVID response, in which we are, to use the North American use of the word, taking shelter in a defensive position. See the full definition in the "New Words" section at the end of this post. With that, greetings from 53.5° north latitude, in a spot in the world where it is still solidly winter with cold temperatures, snow, and ice that can cause both the short of cycling mishaps that rip through two layers of pants and at least one layer of skin, and an intensely beautiful vistas.
The world zipped past 1,000,000 confirmed cases of COVID earlier this week, and passed 1.25 million this morning. There is a growing realization that we will be in this state of isolation until the end of June and that some form of public health measures will extend for some time beyond then. Even with all of the news, the messages from public health officials, the pleas from celebrities, there are still people who just won't get it. The blistering editorial this week in the Thorsby Target from Thorsby Mayor Rod Raymond this past week was a welcome read. It seems Mayor Raymond does not mince words. Pin heads, indeed!
I talked about the economic impact in the last two weeks [here, and here]. The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce released some staggering survey results this week. Nearly half of Chamber members surveyed feared that their business would not survive, and a quarter surveyed do not have cash to meet their next payroll.  The world will change as a result of this. The world is changing as a result of this. It will be imperative to engage to do as much as possible to influence the changes to be positive and inclusive. If we fail to that, what we are living in now may be the real-world equivalent to the prequel to a haunting dystopian science-fiction story. Reading Pile: I had a good week as far as reading goes. I dove into "War and Peace" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" and should be caught up in the respective Reddit reading groups in a few days. Monte Cristo is revealing itself to be a beautiful book filled with evocative imagery and phrases. Below are two of my favourite from my readings this last week. The first one is strangely recursive, discussing how a heart can break and then itself causing hearts to break. The heart breaks when it has swelled too much in the warm breath of hope, then finds itself enclosed in cold reality. The second is darker, highlighting a fatalistic view on the world and the thoughts that maybe the world should just be burned down. If only the sky would rain gunpowder for two days and fire for an hour, and we could have done with it all.  Beyond those two novels, I did finish another novel this week. Book #12 for 2020 was "Future Home of the Living God" by Louise Erdrich. This was a book that I thought was wonderful as I was in the act of reading it, but as I stepped away from it I reflect on a few flaws. There were a few plot points dropped in and not explored, such as the massively changed fauna (sabre-tooth cat, anyone?). I also would have liked to have the role of the theocratic church explained more, and how the monitoring and surveillance technology was a surprise and also so surprisingly effective. I still don't know with certainty which characters in the book were "good", but I suppose that is no different than real life, where every person we encounter is both wonderful and flawed. But ignore that. You should read this book even with its flaws. The timeliness of a novel where the protagonist is locked away and isolated is certainly worth reading right now, as are the hints at how quickly and how completely our world could change for the worse. Don't take anything for granted, even those crummy gas station granola bars, and especially the rights of the individuals. And since I am apparently big on quotes this week, here is one from this book that can hopefully remind us of all that exists that is worth fighting for. I think we have survived because we love beauty and because we find each other beautiful. I think it may be our strongest quality. New Words:
More reading this week, and therefore more new words as well. Plus leading off with that word that seems really weird when you really think about it. hunker [ˈhəNGkər] VERB
chiaroscuro [kyärəˈsk(y)o͝orō] NOUN
funereal [fyəˈnērēəl] ADJECTIVE
enervate [enervate] VERB
gravid [ˈɡravəd] ADJECTIVE
I took a pause last week mainly to let the impact of coronavirus aka COVID-19 sink in. It is easy to think that there is nothing else to talk about, and that is largely true. However, I am concerned that our new single-minded focus on the urgent will distract us from the important. I wrote the following in early December: The trouble with working incredible hours and having a single-minded focus is that there is no mental capacity for anything beyond the focus of the single-mindedness. My brother-in-law apparently sold his house and moved cities. Vague recollection. A colleague is starting the next round of chemotherapy. Ringing some bells. The new Star Wars movie opens mid-month. Yeah, I think I saw a trailer for that. I wrote that fourteen weeks ago, a couple weeks before the first case of coronavirus was announced. At that time, the single-minded focus was the result of work and a major system deployment. Now a global pandemic is focusing our thoughts to our health and safety, to stockpiling and hunkering down..  If it is possible to think about this objectively and intellectually, it is really fascinating how COVID-19 is impacting all aspects of our lives, including the mundane and subtle. Think of the new entries into our lexicon as a result of this pandemic, like social distancing. I wonder if 1,000 people in the entire world had spoken that phrase before last month, and just last week, three major media outlets all felt obliged to define it for their readers. Social distancing is too new to make the March 2020 update to the OED, but I suspect that it will be in the June 2020 update.  A quick scan of media is a good way to gauge how much impact any topic has. My podcast feed has been dominated by COVID-19 and what-the-hell-happened-to-the-economy episodes for the last two weeks, and I expect that to continue for the foreseeable future. The data nerd in me is fascinated by good GIS maps and useful data visualizations. The most useful map I have come across for COVID-19 info is the one published by Johns Hopkins University. The combination of geography-based reporting down to the province or state level (for China, US, Canada and Australia) and the day-by-day breakdown of infections is particularly helpful for gaining understanding of how big this really is.  But then of course someone has to prey on the chaos and fear, and decides to produce a fake JHU map that downloads malware on to computers. The Hacker News reported on this earlier this week. If you do look for the COVID map, make sure you are going to the official Johns Hopkins site. (You could trust the link I shared above, but your best course of action is to search for it yourself.) In the words of my 12 year-old daughter, "2020 sucks so far." Reading Pile: The "reading" lately has all been almost exclusively podcasts. I won't do a recap on any of the recent episodes because they are all very timely and specific to COVID-19 or the economy and as such have likely very little utility in the future. . As far as actual reading goes, I have fallen terribly behind in my reading clubs for "War and Peace" and "The Count of Monte Cristo". If I don't get back into those two books soon, I fear that I won't be able to get back into a rhythm and catch up with the group. I do have a few books in progress and I hope to get back to them this week.  Last week, I finished a YA novel with my 12 year-old daughter. Book #11 for 2022 was "I, Q: Independence Hall" was a super enjoyable spy novel, full of intrigue and threats of violence, without all of the typical tropey YA garbage about how the adults can't save the world and how the kids are so much smarter than their parents. In the end, the kids are central to the plot - it wouldn't be YA if that wasn't the case - but they aren't invincible and they desperately need the adults to help in certain situations. This is a series with author Roland Smith delivering six novels in six different historically significant settings in the US. I'm not sure if I will read all six by myself, but I will certainly read at least one more with my daughter. New Beers: There were only three new beers in the past fortnight. I am rapidly closing in on my five-year anniversary on Untappd, and in that time have logged 641 unique beers. My pace is for a new beer every 2.84 days, which is down from 2.74 days as noted in my first ever post on this site. The first beer was the Steamworks Pilsner from Steamworks Brewery in Vancover. I found it to be decent but not great, with nice lacing but a bit too much fizz. (3.25 / 5). The next was the Moosehead Grapefruit Radler. It was nice and juicy, and pretty lightweight but that's to be expected in a radler. Good stuff and definitely something to consider for hot summer days. (3.5 / 5) Last up was my second beer from Odd Company. Their Carrot and Blood Orange Sour was good, but definitely not as good as their Mulled Lambrusco that I raved about a couple weeks ago. Still, I think Odd Company is worth looking for based on the first two of their beers that I have tried. (3.25 / 5)  New Words:
Not a lot of reading in the past fortnight translates into not a lot of new words. caisson [ˈkāˌsän, ˈkās(ə)n] NOUN
culverin [ˈkəlvərən] NOUN
defile [dəˈfīl, ˈdēˌfīl] NOUN
carabineer car·a·bi·neer | \ ˌker-ə-bə-ˈnir , ˌka-rə- \ (variants: or carabinier) NOUN
caliginous [kəˈlijənəs] ADJECTIVE
|
Archives
June 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
