Olde Tyme Science Fiction

Harvard Magazine has a section in which readers may ask if anybody can identify a certain quotation, poem, story, etc.  A recent supplicant asked for help identifying a 1950s science fiction story vaguely remembered.  I immediately recognized the plot as an Isaac Asimov story.  Though I could not remember the title, Wikipedia's detailed bibliography of Asimov's short stories allowed me to track it down.  I then e-mailed the information in, hoping to have the glory of being the first responder.  Damn!  I was not fast enough.  The guy who won hadn't even read the story; he'd only heard a description of it.

I started reading science fiction pretty young; I remember reading the Space Cat series and Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars.

In later years I had a subscription to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  There are some stories that stick with me but, like the questioner above, I cannot recall the title or author.  In one such story, the Earth passed through some kind of field that stripped animals of the ability to kill other animals.  I think the plot stuck with me because war disappeared without pain or effort.  Along comes this field; violence is banned.  A bullfighter could not bring himself to do his bullfighting job.  A lion starved to death, because he was an obligate carnivore.  I felt sorry for the lion, though the author said it was necessary for the New World to flourish.

Now I realize that such a New World is unworkable.  Rabbits, deer, small fish, and other former prey would eat all the plants in no time.  Soon the whole animal kingdom would starve to death, cursing that allegedly utopian field!  Good thing it was just a story!

Enduring Icons and Bright Ideas.

While reading the Beloit Mindset List for the class of 2016, I stopped at # 27:

Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for “save,” a telephone for “phone,” and a snail mail envelope for “mail” have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens.

I hadn't really thought about that before.  Suddenly a light went on in my head.

I had been idlely wondering if, since the familiar incandescent light bulb is being  phased out, would the newer fluorescent bulbs come to represent bright ideas.  However, these other ancient icons have persevered; why not the old light bulb?

I have a theory in connection with the bright-idea idea.  I remember little drawings of Thomas Edison with his light bulb hovering above his head in a thinking-cloud frame.  This was the pictograph of Edison inventing the light bulb. I think this image led to the now common use of the pictograph above for having a bright idea.  Maybe people zillions of years in the future will still use this icon and have no idea why it should represent a bright idea.

Think about that, will you.

Not a Kitchen Nightmare

The last time my neighbor and I did a Costco run, one of the samples tables was touting this fake ground beef:

It tasted good, and I wanted to reduce my red meat consumption as painlessly as possible, so I bought some.  Then I cooked an eggplant, put it in a pan with some of the fake beef and a jar of store-bought basil pasta sauce and simmered the whole mess for a spell.  Then I poured it over penne.  It was quite tasty.

This is significant because most of my spontaneous cooking experiments turn out OK at best and sometimes just plain bad.

A Pair of Back-to-School Poems

FELIX CROW
by Kay Ryan

Crow school

is basic and

short as a rule—

just the rudiments

of quid pro crow

for most students.

Then each lives out

his unenlightened

span, adding his

bit of blight

to the collected

history of pushing out

the sweeter species;

briefly swaggering the

swagger of his

aggravating ancestors

down my street.

And every time

I like him

when we meet.

(The Best of It, Grove: New York, 2010, p. 225)

TO SCHOOL!

by Stevie Smith

Let all the little poets be gathered together in classes

And let prizes be given to them by the Prize Asses

And let them be sure to call all the little poets young

And worse follow what's bad begun

But do not expect the Muse to attend this school

Why look already how far off she has flown, she is no fool.

(Collected Poems, New Directions: New York, 1983, p. 269)

It's Better to Have Gifts than Receipts!

Here are the gifts I bought for myself in New Mexico.

 I remember the title of this post from a Smothers Brothers record, but I haven't followed this up.  

Amber earrings

 

Reversible hemp coat.

 

The back of the blue side.

 

Loose-weave cotton shawl.

Post-Vacation Processing

Naturally, when I get back from vacation, I start Photoshopping the photos.

A Duotone of the Santa Fe Opera House.

The Valles Caldera modified.

Dad's house.

Doggone!

There were a zillion prairie dogs in the Valles Caldera, but I couldn't get a good shot of any of them.  The closest I got was one of a prairie dog butt as it dived into its hole.  I had to borrow pictures from Chuck.  Here they are, after the usual Photoshopping.

The Missing Word

I am indebted to Chuck for recovering the word retronym (of which there are many examples).  I had learned it long ago, then forgot the word while remembering the definition.  Why does my brain do this?

retronym, n.

Pronunciation:  Brit. /ˈrɛtrə(ʊ)nɪm/ , U.S. /ˈrɛtroʊˌnɪm/

Etymology:  < retro- prefix + -onym comb. form.

orig. U.S.

Categories »

 

  A neologism created for an existing object or concept because the exact meaning of the original term used for it has become ambiguous (usually as a result of a new development, technological advance, etc.).A retronym typically consists of the original term combined with a modifying word.

1980   W. Safire in N.Y. Times Mag. 27 July 8/1   Frank Mankiewicz, president of National Public Radio, collects these terms and calls them ‘retronyms’—nouns that have taken an adjective to stay up-to-date and to fend off newer terms. Other retronyms include ‘hard-cover book’.

1988   Washington Post (Electronic ed.) 6 Nov. g1   True art lay elsewhere, probably in what we now, in a classic retronym, call ‘live drama’.

1995   I. L. Allen City in Slang ix. 229   The name East Village was given..to borrow prestige from the name of Greenwich Village or just The Village, which then became known..by the retronym West Village.

2003   Edmonton (Alberta) Jrnl. (Nexis) 22 Nov. a13   Older folks, who actually grew up when all clocks had moving hands, phones had dials and wires, and milk was just plain old milk, are usually familiar with both the item and its retronym (analogue clock, rotary and land-line phones and whole milk).

retronym, n.
Third edition, March 2010; online version June 2012. <http://www.oed.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/view/Entry/266828>; accessed 23 August 2012.

Back From NM

I spent a week in New Mexico.  I saw five operas and one concert, hiked in Bandelier and the Valles Caldera, went to Santa Fe and Tesuque.  Here are a few photos.

 

For more these and more photos in a variety of sizes go to: https://picasaweb.google.com/113500384056871252807/NM82012

My Favorite Bookplate

Many zillions of years ago I checked out a book with the infamous Widener bookplate.  (It wasn't the following book; I'm just using it as an example.)

Read the second bookplate.

[from Twenty-Six Historic Ships]

I was rather shocked, because I didn't know the story behind the infamous bookplate:

"In 1931 Joel C. Williams, A.M. '09, Ed.M. '29, a former instructor at Groton and a former high-school principal, was caught with 2,504 stolen Widener books at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts. He said he was preparing himself for a college professorship. His thieving had begun eight or 10 years before, but had stopped a year and a half before he was caught when, according to a newspaper account, "extraordinary steps were taken by the Harvard authorities to prevent students 'sneaking' books out of the library without permission. A turnstile was erected at that time and suspicious bundles were ordered examined." An editorial writer in the Boston Post said that the case "suggests impaired mentality." When the books came back to Widener, librarians had an acerbic bookplate printed and affixed to each volume. It reads, "This book was stolen from Harvard College Library. It was later recovered. The thief was sentenced to two years at hard labor. 1932." A security measure of sorts."  From Harvard Magazine.  The Crimson article.

Note that, though literally true, the text of that bookplate is misleading.

Despite the security measures, the thieving continued.

[from A Source Book in American History to 1787]

A Hot Weekend

Juliet relaxes on the patio.

 

The trees outside my patio help keep my electric bill down.

But even in July, Romeo is making lots of fur.  I could stuff a mattress with what he sheds!

Victoriana, etc.

I'm reading The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders.  I picked it up because I loved Judith Flanders's earlier book Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England.  JF writes intelligent, funny, fascinating social history.  One of the more fascinating facts from TIM is that well-off Victorians collected Staffordshire figures of murderers and victims.

Potash Farm, the home of murderer James Blomfield Rush

.
The barn where William Corder (at the door) murdered Maria Marten (at the left).

The Victorians united the charmingness of porcelain with the grisliness of murder!

From Planet to Galaxy

Last Friday some buddies and I ate at the newish Veggie Galaxy.  It is certainly fancier than Veggie Planet, of which this is an offshoot.

Julie was relaxed and out of focus.

 Dave was a bit sharper.  In the background, a woman signals.

 Dave's view of me is slanted.

 Laureen approves!

Next time I'm going to have the Eggs Benedict, which Julie says is very good.  My black-bean hamburger was just OK.  The chocolate cream pie, however, was fantastic.

Clandestine Decoration

This tree-hugger is the first instance of yarn bombing that I seen in my usual haunts.

In an age of acid etching graffitti,  it's encouraging to see nondestructive forms of street art. 

Off to a Better Place

Today was Vida and Ranald's last day (before retirement).  So we sent them off properly with a party.

We had pizza from Otto and cake from Finale.  Naturally, since many of us have been around for longer than we care to think about, a flood of reminiscences spewed forth.  Then Charles dropped in, and the reminiscing got really serious, since he knows the history of everybody.  He recalled many scandals and was able to satisfy my curiosity about one old one.  I had heard that a German bibliographer had gotten money from Harvard to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair and get Widener some books, but he didn't actually go, and so he got canned.  But then Jon said that wasn't true.  I wanted to know what was true.  Charles said that the bibliographer had made appointments to see all sorts of book dealers in Frankfurt; but he didn't show up for any of the appointments.  So the dealers e-mailed Harvard asking "Did this guy die or what?"  This question led to the discovery that the bibliographer had used the Frankfurt-Book-Fair money to take his family to Switzerland for a ski vacation.  He got canned.  However, this goofy behavior had not prevented him from getting high-paid library jobs elsewhere.

This is a sobering story to hear at the end of one's working life!

Better Late Than Never

As one of our office mates prepares to retire, he is clearing up various problems before he leaves.  Here's a truck of books he's had by his desk as long as I've known him.

This old book is slated for repair.

Note the date on the slip.

Olde Tyme Harpers Hooked its Readers

Steve discovered this clever advertising ploy from Harpers of the 20s and 30s.  While he was trolling the Hathi Trust site for an old cookbook, he found an example of a Harpers Sealed Mystery.  These books had a seal enclosing a portion of the last pages (said portion determined by the author).  Harper promised to refund the purchase price of any HSM that was returned with the seal intact.  I'll bet this helped loosen the purse strings of many a mystery fan.  Very few books were actually returned.

I checked the catalog and found a few titles from the series in Widener.  These 2 still have the front part of the seal.   (Larger versions of these pictures available here.)

HOLLIS record

HOLLIS Record

Mt. Auburn Animals

Last Thursday Laureen and I took a walk in Mount Auburn Cemetery.  I was especially keen to see critters.  I'd once seen a Great Blue Heron there.

Here's a baby bunny nibbling grass near a pond.

Here's a handsome hawk strutting among the tombstones.

Here's a busy mother turkey.  We met an elderly man who spent a lot of time there.  He told us that coyotes came out near evening, and he showed us a picture on his camera.  It looked something like the following:

More photos here.:https://picasaweb.google.com/113500384056871252807/MountAuburnCemetery

Happy Birthday Chuck

For more fun stuff see: https://picasaweb.google.com/113500384056871252807/ClipartAnimals