Author: eboisen

Coming soon…

A whopper of a tale in a whopper of a book.

Moby Dick was published in 1851, so some of the language is a little bit dated, but not as unreadable as one might expect. There is also some pirate-like banter among the crew. This can cause some pause for decipherment, but again, not a cause to put the book down. It is largely about life on a mid-1800’s whaling vessel. The strangest part of the book is the fact that it starts from the narrative of Ishmael, the main character of the book, but then it sometimes goes into a third person that is perhaps Melville himself. The funny thing is, based on Melville’s past experience, I believe Ishmael is the fictional version of Melville. Melville grew up in a well-to-do family, but his father died young and the family was left destitute. Melville worked and lived on ships for a time to earn money. This is likely where this story got its sails.

In third-person, Melville gives quite a lengthy lesson on types of whales and their characteristics and how accurately or inaccurately they are portrayed and described in literature and art of his time. He also gives a detailed account of a mutiny. These little history lessons are told outside of the actually story of the main characters. He leaves the fictional story many times to educate the reader on various whaling topics and then returns the narrative back to Ishmael’s view of the fictional account. It is a very odd way of telling a story, but it somehow works.

Melville takes quite a bit of time to introduce the reader to characters. He starts with Ishmaels’s cannibalistic South-Pacific islander bunk-mate, Queequeg. He takes 30 or so pages describing him and Ishmael’s initial aversion to the outwardly savage-looking character that ends up being his best friend. Queequeg is a very experienced harpooner. Ishmael is an experienced sailor, but without whaling experience, greatly relies on Queequeg for guidance when they both agree to be part of the crew of the wooden whaling vessel Pequod.

Captain Ahab is the captain of the Pequod. Melville introduces the character and then takes nearly 100 pages to physically describe him fully. Ahab is missing one leg which he has replaced with the polished carving of a whale jaw that serves as a peg leg. It has an ivory appearance and Ahab has a strategic hole in the deck that fits this peg so he can keep himself steady on the ship when stationed at top deck. He lost his leg to the great white whale, Moby Dick, and Ahab is hell-bent on getting revenge on the creature that disassembled him.

Later in the whaling journey Queequeg becomes so ill that a coffin is built for him. When the end appears near, he makes a miraculous recovery and the coffin is returned to the ship’s carpenter to be re-purposed as a floatation device.

The Pequod encounters and kills several whales on its journey, but never meets Moby Dick. During these journeys, the narrator goes into great detail about how a whale is processed as well as its anatomy. He describes its skeleton and notes how the skeleton does not really give a true indication of the living whale’s actual form. In this, Mellville is quite accurate, one would likely not guess the living form of a sperm whale from just the skeleton:

Versus the actual living whale:

The top of the head, above the skull shown in the skeletal illustration, is filled with a large reservoir, that holds as many as 500 gallons or more, of oil. This is the primary reason for hunting the whale, as this oil had many applications at the time, especially as lamp oil. Bear in mind, that this whale can grow to nearly 80 feet long and weight over 50 tons. The skeleton is enormous.

Ahab takes his crew across all ends of the earth until he finally finds a fellow whaling vessel, Rachel, that has encountered the great white whale. Ahab gets his wish of the opportunity to slay the whale. As expected, it does not go according to plan. The Pequod and all its boats are destroyed by the giant whale in Ahab’s pursuit of him. As a spinning vortex pulls the Pequod and all its remnants to the bottom of the sea, only one crewman remains with his head above water – Ishmael. As all that remains vanishes into the sea, the coffin, previously made for Queequeg, shoots to the surface. Ishmael floats upon it until he is rescued by the passing Rachel.

It seems pretty obvious from reading this book, that the author of Jaws drew a great deal of inspiration from this story. It was a different time and place, and a different sea creature, but the lust for greed and revenge on the open sea plays out in a similar manner. The mannerisms of many of the characters are also similar.

As famous as this book is, it is interesting to note that it was not popular in the author’s time. Released in 1851, it did not become popular until the early 1900’s, after Mellville’s death. Mellville largely gave up writing novels and worked as a US customs inspector after his writing career faltered, largely due to lack of initial success of this book.

 

Progressive rock band Rush’s bass guitar extraordinaire, Geddy Lee got extremely bored during the pandemic. He is not someone who likes idle time, so he decided to write an autobiography. I have never read the autobiography of a musician before, so I really do not know where the bar stands for these things, but this one was quite an interesting read. A musician who spent 40+ years on the road is going to have some stories. Even without his music-related stories, his life is quite interesting.

His parents met as teenage, Polish concentration camp inmates in Auschwitz. They were eventually moved to separate camps during the war, but whatever spark they had upon meeting, managed to carry on throughout the war. They were both imprisoned for nearly the entire duration of WWII. It is a miracle that either one survived, let alone both. Many of their family members did not. Upon liberation, Geddy’s father walked hundreds of miles from Dachau to Bergen-Belsen to reunite with his love. They actually married in the officer’s quarters of Bergen-Belsen as it was then being used to house the newly freed prisoners.

His parents found that many Jews were not warmly welcomed back to their native Poland, and more often than not, all their property had been appropriated.  With this knowledge, Geddy’s parents traveled to Toronto, where a relative had fled to at the start of the war, to start a new life. With almost no belongings, they started their new life. Little by little, they were able to buy their own house in a Jewish neighborhood in the Toronto suburbs. They eventually had three children, one of which being Geddy.

Their life was continuously improving as Geddy’s father manages to start a successful general store. Then tragedy hits. Geddy’s father passes away after a brief illness when Geddy was only 12. His father was only 45. The effects of six years of forced labor in the prison camps had taken their toll. His heart gave out.

The biography details the Jewish mourning customs which lasts 11 months. A prayer is said every day and music is not permitted. Unfortunately for Geddy, Bar mitzvahs often utilize music to help celebrate the event, and Geddy’s fell within the mourning timeframe. Perhaps this starvation from music made him appreciate it more than he would have otherwise. He started his first band shortly after this mourning period. He eventually started one with his classmate, Aleksandar Živojinović (stage name, Alex Lifeson, Geddy’s birth name was Gary Lee Weinrib). Both Geddy and Alex had an insatiable appetite for music. Neither of their parents was all that keen of having musicians for sons, but there was no stopping them. They played as often as they could and eventually, when the drinking age was lowered to 18 just as they turned 18, they were able to play in local bars. They were able to make a modest living playing music. They were also able to hone their craft. Eventually they gained a fairly large following in their native Toronto and managed to record an album with a song that somehow caught the attention of a Cleveland, Ohio radio station DJ. The song Working Man seemed to strike a nerve with the largely blue-collar audience. This led to an audience in the US as well as Canada.

They toured like crazed musical gypsies. Travelling from show to show in a station wagon, they took turns driving while one member slept on top of the gear in the back of the car. Eventually the station wagon became a van, then an RV, and then a tour bus. I don’t know how they did it. They played 250 shows a year for a decade, living out of different vehicles until they made it.

The book then chronicles the production of their various albums and the departure of their longtime producer, Terry Brown. It also covers the events of their final tour. Their esteemed drummer, Neil Peart, suffered the loss of his teenage daughter to a car accident and then the loss of his wife to cancer all within a year. His life was shattered and he roamed North America on a motorcycle for nearly two years trying to make sense of things. During this time the band’s status was up in the air. Eventually, Neil, was able to build his life back. He found a new wife and felt ready to resume his career as a musician after five years adrift. The band was back in business for another decade, until Neil had enough. They had their final tour in 2015. Fate then turned on Neil once again as, sadly, he passed away from brain cancer in 2020. Geddy talks about the difficulty in accepting that he will never see him again. Geddy still appears randomly on stages to perform with others, but Rush as a live band is officially gone.

This book was a very interesting read, particularly if you a fan of Rush’s music.

 

I had never paid much attention to Anthony Bourdain during the height of his popularity. I thought his show was just a cooking show. Something, at the time, I was not really interested in. Recently, I have begun watching Parts Unknown and realize it is not really a cooking show. It is more of show that taught about different cultures. It also dabbled in politics, and of course, food.

This is the book that made him a household name. He had previously written two works of fiction, but they went nowhere. Before this book, he was basically an unknown, outside of New York city, journeyman chef.  It is clear from reading this that he is very well-read. He writes in a Charles Bukowski or William S. Burroughs sort of manner. Kind of a high-brow look at the gutter. He lays out his life, warts and all, for the entire world to see. He paints a very vivid picture of his life and the crazy characters he mingled with. Oftentimes, the individuals he described had me laughing openly. The debauchery and depravity is so outrageous that it appears more funny than sad. There is definitely talk of cooking contained in the book, but the story is more about his life and the lives of restaurant kitchen culture in New York city.

Bourdain mentions that he is risking his livelihood by publishing this book. He has pulled his life out of the throes of addiction and become a well-respected chef at this point. Revealing the worst points of his life was definitely a risk. If this book had only been a modest success, it may have been damaging. The fact that it was so honest and took so many risks, however, is probably what also helped make it successful. I found this to be an amazing book. Be warned, however, it can be a bit crude at times. This book is not for someone who is easily offended.

I wrote a little program to help myself learn the different degrees of the notes of each of the 12 musical keys. These would be the actual note names of the old Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do Solfège for a given musical key. The program randomly picks a key and scale degree and asks the user to pick the radio button corresponding to the correct response. The actual notes of each scale are not hard-coded into the program. Intervals of the chromatic scale are used to compute them when a question is randomly chosen.

The program:

The correct answer below would be “D” as the A major scale contains the notes A, B, C#, D, E, F#, and G#. The fourth note is “D”. Chords are constructed with the different scale degrees, for example, a plain major chord consists of the Root(first note), the Third(third note), and the Fifth(fifth note), or the A, C# and E notes for an “A” chord. All chords are constructed using rules of combinations of notes based on scale degrees. Knowing them will allow a musician, or even a hack like me, to construct chords of any type, in any key. Here is a screenshot of this simple, but effective program:

It works just like a deck of flash cards. I have found it to be a pretty effective way to help learn the notes of each key. You get one point for a correct answer and minus one point for an incorrect answer, but it does not let you get a negative score. If you have any interest in basic music theory, give it a try with the link below, if not, thanks for reading this until the end.

Scale Quiz

note:  For those of you with OCD, you may have become uncomfortable due to some misalignment in the quiz display. Sincere apologies-it has been corrected.

As with all Walter Walter Isaacson biographies, this is a fairly long book. I got stuck in Pennsylvania for an extended period because of the Crowdstrike debacle, so I was afforded quite a bit of time to read this in airports and on planes. It took less than two weeks to read the nearly 500 pages.

This book covers the story of the discovery of CRISPR and its use as a gene editing tool.  I had heard of it previously to picking up the book. I knew it involved gene editing, but I really did not understand its implications in detecting and curing diseases. I though it was just a way to selectively create designer organisms. It does in fact do that, and has actually been used in China, in 2018, to create three AIDS-resistant human babies, but there are many more applications that do not come with moral conundrums.

Bacteria have been using CRISPR for millions of years to fend off viruses. When a bacteria is exposed to a virus, it adds a little genetic code to its DNA so that it can identify and defend against a future exposure to a like virus. All future generations of this bacteria will have this coding, and thus be protected from this virus. Several scientists identified this behavior in bacteria and sought ways to understand and control it. Being able to control this process allows someone to edit the genes of virtually any living thing. The key figure in this book is the American scientist, Jennifer Doudna.  She, along with French scientist, Emmanuelle Charpentier, were awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in chemistry for their work on CRISPR. The book notes several other scientists that made similar advancements in gene editing using CRISPR, but Doudna and Charpentier were recognized as having figured out its workings first.

In addition to gene editing, CRISPR technology can also be used to detect disease. Many of the COVID tests used in the last pandemic, utilized CRISPR to create low-cost, home-based tests. Many of the COVID vaccines also used CRISPR technology. One of the key discoveries is that RNA is actually the component that directs changes in DNA. In the presence of the appropriate enzyme, RNA can be used to edit genes in cells.

Immunizations created using CRISPR for defense against a virus such as COVID can be manufactured far more cost-effectively than conventional methods that employ a non-viable variant of the virus. They can also be adapted to be used against other viruses, as needed.

I believe we have just scratched the surface of what biotechnology may bring. Currently, many of the treatments are prohibitively expensive, but there already exists cures for previously untreatable diseases such as sickle cell anemia. It has already cured one woman. The initial cost for treatment was about one million dollars. Sickle cell afflicts approximately 100,000 people in the US.  Sickle-cell generally means that the afflicted will not see life beyond their 50’s. Worry was that it would bankrupt the healthcare system, but new technology is always expensive at first. Costs will come down. CRISPR appears to have applications for many diseases, including many cancers. We are at the very beginning of this technology and there will be many new applications discovered in the coming years.

 

 

Viktor E. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and Neurologist who became a concentration camp inmate during World War II.  He was born in Austria, earned his M.D. in 1930, and had established himself as an experienced physician when he was sent to his first of four concentration camps as an inmate.  Like most holocaust survivors, he was stripped of everything upon being taken by the Nazis. He was stripped of possessions, of family, and of title.

His training as a psychiatrist gave him a very unique look into every aspect of what it means to be human. He saw the extremes of human endurance, of compassion, and of course, cruelty. He saw how he, and those around him dealt with the incredible stress of knowing that each moment may be your last. He saw similarities in the actions and thoughts of those who succumbed to their situation and he saw similarities in those who survived it.

He concluded that humans are capable of enduring almost anything if they feel that they are enduring it for a purpose. Frankl used the idea that he needed to be there for his wife when this hell-on-earth ended. He endured years of hard labor, while consuming just scraps of bread and watered-down soup. He toiled outside in the winter months with tattered, inadequate clothing.  All the while knowing that a pause in his work or a glance in the wrong direction, at the wrong time, may draw a beating, or worse yet, a bullet.

Frankl occasionally saw unexpected kindness from a Nazi guard. He sometimes saw extreme cruelty from a capo. A capo was a fellow prisoner that was favored for some reason by the guards and put in charge of a work detail or barrack. A capo typically received extra rations and privileges. Apparently, a small amount of power was capable of quite a bit of moral corruption.

The life of a concentration camp inmate was the most stressful situation a human being could endure. This unlikely setting served as a sort of psychological observation laboratory for Frankl where he first began to develop a theory of motivation for human existence.  Contrary to fellow Austrian Sigmund Freud’s theory that humans are guided by pleasure, Frankl determined that they are guided by finding a purpose or meaning to their lives.

In the end, the image that kept Frankl alive, that of his wife, was found to be just a memory. His wife Tilly succumbed to illness in Bergen-Belsen well before his liberation.  Not knowing this likely greatly assisted in his survival. He was able to toil on in the hopes of one day being there for her.

The psychiatric field of Logotherapy is largely attributed to Frankl and has shown great success in helping patients with OCD, schizophrenia, and terminal illnesses. Its underlying philosophy is to help a patient find a meaning or purpose to his or her life. This purpose can often differ greatly from individual to individual, but upon finding, and pursuing it, one’s well-being is greatly enhanced.

 

This book is a continuation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This is the third book in the inaccurately named five-part trilogy. I have read two of these in a row. I hope I am not boring anyone, assuming anyone is reading this, with another Douglas Adams novel. Once again, the entire cast returns in this book. Even the thought-to-be-dead, perpetually depressed, Robot, Marvin. Marvin took some damage riding a stolen starship into a nearby sun, but somehow escaped incineration. Some of his replacement limbs have been cobbled together with odd spare parts, but he lives on.

The book starts where The Restaurant at the End of the Universe left us, with Arthur and Ford stranded on prehistoric earth. We discover, however, that they have split up. Arthur remained near the location of the original landing site, but Ford left to wander the earth. Arthur, still clad in his pajamas, robe, and slippers, has lived alone in a cave for four years. He has grown lonely and despondent. Finally, Ford returns. Initially, Arthur thinks he is a figment of his isolated imagination. Ford has returned because he believes he has tracked down a space-time eddy in the area where Arthur has been living. It presents itself in the form of a chesterfield sofa. Arthur and Ford chase it around as it moves around going in and out of existence. Finally, they leap onto it and are transported, sofa and all, to the Lord’s Cricket Ground just a couple of days before the timeframe of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. They arrive in the middle of the field as a match is in play. The crowd and announcers are bewildered by the appearance, out of thin air, of two long-bearded men on a chesterfield sofa.

Arthur is carried off the field on said sofa and both Arthur and Ford are questioned by police who aren’t quite sure if the duo have done anything wrong. As this is happening, the sofa vanishes out of existence. The police, fearful that they might be losing their grip on reality, let the two go. This seems to be the end of the excitement until a ship appears from the sky and out from it appears Slartibartfast, followed shortly afterwards by another ship that disperses violent white robots everywhere. The scene quickly escalates to pure chaos as the robots begin unleashing mayhem. The robots have come to steal the Ashes urn. This is the trophy given to the victor of the Australia versus England cricket series.

Arthur and Ford join Slartibartfast in his ship and leave earth to head for a party that has been going on for generations in an attempt to get information that will save the universe. Slartibartfast and Ford make it to the party, but Arthur does not. He has apparently upset a being known as an Agrajag. This  being has been reincarnated many times, only to have his existence snuffed out, mostly unwittingly, by Arthur. The Agrajag seeks revenge, but ends up getting killed, once again, by Arthur, who accidentally topples a statue of himself on the Agrajag.

In the end, Ford, Slartifartfast, Trillian, and Arthur are all reunited and learn that the Krikkit race is responsible for the killer robots that wish to end all life. They also learn that the Krikkits are being manipulated by an all-knowing super-computer named Hactar. Trillian persuades Hactar to cease existing, but his plan to end the universe is still in motion. On earth once again, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes Urn just after they have been stolen. He is is unsuccessful in this endeavor, but manages to save the universe by disposing of a cosmic-supernova-bomb and beheading a malevolent Krikkit robot with the robot’s own club. He does this still clad in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers.

There are two more books left in this series, but for the moment, I am moving on to something else. Perhaps I will revisit this series later.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  See that recap to get up to speed here.  It is the second book in the inaccurately named five-part trilogy. This book starts off with the same characters as the first book and starts right where the previous book ends with the cast of four fleeing the planet Magrathea where Arthur Dent’s brain is wanted to decode the meaning of everything.  As they leave in their ship, The Heart of Gold, they are attacked by Vogons. Under most conditions, fleeing from the Vogons would be trivial as The Heart of Gold has an improbability drive that can normally transport the ship to any part of any universe almost instantly. Unfortunately, Arthur has asked the ship’s computer to make tea with milk. This request overloads the computer’s processors and leaves the ship sitting ducks to the Vogon’s weapons.  Just before they are completely annihilated, a séance results in Zaphod’s deceased great-grandfather shrinking the ship and putting it in Zaphod’s pocket while also transporting Zaphod on a journey to find the ruler of the universe.

On his journey, he finds the ruler, who lives in a shack and has no idea he is the ruler of the universe. This is an ode to the theory that only someone who does not want to be in charge is qualified to be in charge.  Eventually, after the journey, Zaphod returns to The Heart of Gold  and sends the ship to the nearest restaurant.  Geographically, the nearest restaurant is exactly where they currently are, but many years in the future. This restaurant is built  at the literal chronological “end” of the universe.

After a dinner of steaks made from a being that introduced himself prior to the meal, Zaphod decides not to leave in The Heart of Gold, but rather in another ship that is in the parking lot. It turns out that Zaphod’s depressed robot, Marvin, is also in the parking lot working as a parking attendant. Many millions of years have passed since Marvin last saw Zaphod. Marvin is, geographically, exactly where he was left when the last book ended. Zaphod has Marvin let everyone into a sleek black ship and Marvin, Trillian, Ford, Arthur, and Zaphod venture away from the restaurant.

They soon discover that the ship is, for the most part, a drone designed to drive into the nearest sun and provide a sort of pyrotechnic display for a rock concert on a neighboring planet. They discover a transporter on the ship that allows everyone to escape before colliding with the sun. Everyone, except Marvin, who stays behind to control the transporter.

The book then loses Zaphod and Trillian who are transported to a different location than Arthur and Ford. Arthur and Ford are transported to an enormous ship filled with frozen, but still living bodies, and a small crew navigators. It turns out this ship was “fleeing” its home world to populate another planet. It was supposed to be one of three ships that was travelling to a new world. It turns out that this ship was really the only one travelling. It was filled with hairdressers, middle-managers, telephone sanitizers, and others who where deemed irrelevant to their society and were tricked into being expelled as a way to rid their planet of its worthless members.

They eventually arrive at their new planet which Arthur and Ford determine to be prehistoric earth. They find a small population of inhabitants already on the planet, but soon realize they are dying off due to the new people arriving. This makes Arthur realize he is a descendant of the cast-offs on the recently arrived ship, rather than the native inhabitants. The book ends with Arthur and Ford stranded 2 million years in the past on a planet of Neanderthals and morons.

A collection of short stories and writings from Kurt Vonnegut. It was compiled and released about a year after Kurt’s passing. A book released like this can sometimes be a money-grab, but there are many good stories in this compilation. All are based on some sort of Armageddon, be it war or the coming of Satan.

Included in the beginning is a copy of the letter Kurt wrote to his parents after he was released from a POW camp towards the end of WWII. His parents had not heard anything from him for over six months, other than he was missing in action. He does a pretty good job of bringing his parents up to speed on what he has endured, and does so with his trademark humor. He was not treated well as a prisoner of war. Who would have guessed that Nazis were not hospitable captors? He gets this point across, but manages to keep the letter in good spirits. He was a pretty good writer, even back then. After reading this, I got a pretty good insight into what gave him his unique perspective on the world. The fact that he got to live and breath humanity at its worst as a prisoner of war and still come out ok gave him insights into the human condition that few others can claim. He always seemed to find the humor in a situation, regardless of how dire. Seemingly more so, if it is really dire. This is absolutely reflected in his writing. This ability to sprinkle humor into nearly anything is much of the reason he is my favorite author.

Three of the stories really stand out. The first is Brighten Up. It appears to be an account of a situation he actually lived through while a POW. One of his fellow prisoners, Louis, somehow was always able to charm the people that ran the prison into letting him do things no one else could get away with. This allowed him to exploit his fellow prisoners who were desperate for cigarettes and bread. The story details each of Louis’ prison schemes that eventually drained all the prisoners of anything of value. It paints a vivid and humorous picture of how humans can exploit with a smile.

The second story that really stood out was called, Just you and me Sammy. It also involves prisoners of war just before they are liberated, but this is one is definitely a fictional account. I do not want to give away too much on this one. It is the best of the bunch. I will leave it at that. Please give it a read.

The third story that really stood out is the same as the title of the book, Armageddon in Retrospect. It is definitely the funniest, despite its main theme being Armageddon. It uses the theme of people exploiting each other for their own gain and also shows the incompetence of people who are often in charge of things, such as the government. It addresses widespread misinformation and manipulating the public for personal gain. I doubt these kinds of stories will ever get old as these themes seem to be more and more prevalent in modern life.

I believe that any of these three stories would make for a pretty good film, if adapted. Despite his popularity, adaptations of Vonnegut’s films have not fared well. I believe this is mostly due to the time in which they were made coupled with the elaborate nature of his stories. The special effects were not good enough to make his visions believable, particularly with his best novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Perhaps some producer will have another look at his work and bring it to life on the screen once again. If not, we still have his wonderfully funny novels and short stories in print to enjoy.