Genius/Time

My Top Three List of History's Greatest Explosions of Genius in the Shortest Amount of Time:

1. Isaac Newton, who in 1666 (while hunkered down at home avoiding the Great Plague) invented calculus, optics, the laws of universal gravitation, and basically most of what's now called classical physics.

2. Albert Einstein, who in 1905 published papers on the photoelectric effect (which won him the Nobel Prize), Brownian motion, E = mc^2, and the special theory of relativity in a span of six months.  

3. Dolly Parton, who in 1972 wrote the songs "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" on the same day. 

Other candidates are welcome in the comments!

Recommended for Women's History Month

Mom's Cancer got a nod as recommended reading for Women's History Day/Month from a blogger and English literature teacher from the Philippines, A. Eleazar. I love the breadth of his other selections, ranging from Jem and the Holograms to Pride and Prejudice. That's fine company to be in. 

Eleazar and I corresponded a bit, and I appreciate his passion and wide-ranging interests. I was also struck again, as I often am, by how worldwide the worldwide web really is. I routinely talk to people in the Philippines, India, Japan, all over the planet about my books. Take a second to reflect on how remarkable that is. 

Thanks for thinking of me, A.!

The Intellectual Life #26

Photo source: Potterymakinginfo.com

A Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple, Part 26:

Karen and I were watching TV last night when we saw a commercial for the weight-loss drug Wegovy. Karen noticed that one of its fine-print side effects was "clay-colored stool."

Karen: What color is "clay-colored?"

Brian: I don't know. Clay comes in a lot of colors.

Karen: Brown.

Brian: Gray.

Karen: Beige.

Brian: Yellow.

Karen: Terra cotta.

Brian: Naturally.

Karen: What are you supposed to do if you have clay-colored stool? Call your doctor?

Brian: Glaze and fire it.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple. I'm not proud of this one. 

Crossing the Streams

Since Trump's inauguration, I've been watching poll aggregator 538 for just this milestone: a larger percentage of Americans now disapprove than approve of him. Individual polls report a scattered range of results, some more positive or negative than others, but 538 weights and averages a lot of polls to reach something like a consensus. 

Trump has crossed the streams.*

Although smart readers who are politically astute and well informed may marvel that Trump's numbers are anywhere near this high, I accept them as a clear snapshot of the electorate's mood. Inexplicable, but clear. Democrats are a minority party in Congress, powerless to do much more than inform, protest, persuade (which I wish they would do more of) and occasionally filibuster, so it's evident to me that little is going to change until Trump's own people--both voters and legislators--start to sour on him.

Which won't happen until they feel the pain.

I don't wish misfortune on anyone, but I think it's more likely than not. If prices rise, if unemployment soars, if the Stock Market tanks, if farmers can't sell their soybeans or afford new tariff-inflated tractors, if VA hospitals close, if Medicaid is cut, if budget battles shut down the government, if Social Security is threatened, if an epidemic or natural disaster hits and no one comes to help, if a Russian cyberattack takes down the power grid, if more of the factories scheduled to create thousands of local jobs under Biden's Inflation Reduction Act are canceled, if Red States finally realize they rely a lot more on government handouts than the Blue States that pay for them, if Republican politicians continue to be jeered out of their own town hall meetings, then maybe things will change.

Some folks, especially those low on compassion and empathy, simply won't care until trouble hits home.

Good people just have to hold on, resist, and help each other until they do. I don't really see any other way around or through it. 

Trump's numbers will bob around and may even float back up momentarily, but in the long run I think he has nowhere to go but down. He will never be more popular than he is right now. 

In Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, a character described how he went bankrupt: "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." I wouldn't dare hope, but also wouldn't be surprised, to see Trump's political fortunes do the same.

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* Ghostbusters reference. Crossing the streams is bad.

250 Words on Little League

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I played Little League baseball when I was around 7 and 8, a stereotypical right-fielder distractedly counting the clover while balls rolled past me.

My handicap in baseball was that nobody ever taught me the rules. Coaches just assumed we knew how to play the game. 

One of my first times at bat, I didn’t understand how I could be called out on strikes when I hadn’t swung at the ball. Another time, I managed to make it to first base when the next batter hit the ball to second, so I turned around and headed back to first. I saw no reason two players couldn’t share one base. Why not? The coach had to drag me off the field to laughter and red-faced humiliation.

I grew up convinced I was uniquely terrible at baseball. My awfulness at the sport colored my entire self-image. 

Then, as an adult, I found myself in a neighborhood ballpark with time to kill, so I watched a bit of a Little League game. In a flash, I realized that almost all 7- and 8-year-olds are terrible at baseball. They ran the bases backwards and toppled over as balls dribbled between their feet. They stunk!

It was an epiphany. I realized I hadn’t been a uniquely terrible baseball player at all. I’d been ordinary. Average. It’s not an exaggeration to say that watching those kids bumble about the diamond recalibrated how I thought of myself. A weight lifted. 

“Ordinary” and “average” were a big relief. 

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The Planets Align

There's much talk about planets lining up these days, because they're all in the same half of the sky and make a pretty sight. The arc of Venus to Jupiter to Mars is cool. You might also catch Mercury and Saturn, although they're faint and near the western horizon (beneath Venus). In addition, Uranus and Neptune are in the line-up, but you won't see them unless you have a fairly hefty telescope.

So that's neat and worth a look if you care. But I'm also seeing online predictions of doom, as the combined gravitational force of all those planets rips the Earth apart. Earthquakes, volcanoes, dogs and cats living together . . .

Don't be stupid.

Here's a page on the subject from a book I wrote but don't expect to ever be published. It was a book-length science comic; we hadn't quite settled on a title, but in my mind its working title was Don't Be Stupid. 

I still think the book has good information and an important message, so why do I consider it dead? I was just finishing it in 2017 when the firestorm that destroyed my neighborhood also destroyed all the original art, reference material, and permissions to reprint copyrighted material that I'd compiled for it. In the years since, some of its content has become obsolete.

I also emerged from the fire with a different attitude toward my work. I wasn't the guy who wrote that science comic anymore. I did A Fire Story instead. And truth be told, I had no public reputation as an expert whose opinion was worth listening to. A science comic by famous physicist Brian Cox would get a lot of attention, one by cartoonist Brian Fies would not. I also suspect it wouldn't have sold well, mostly because the people who'd need a book whose theme is "Don't Be Stupid" would be too stupid to know they needed it.

I expect I'll still do something with it someday. Maybe in occasional dribbles like this. 

250 Words on Hope and Squirrels

 

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Friends and readers know that my neighborhood burned to the ground in the 2017 Tubbs wildfire. For quite a while, the place was a sterile gray ruin. Then, slowly, life returned.

Deer appeared, venturing up from a nearby creek. They were regular callers even before the fire, but we also got rarer visitors: rabbits, foxes, coyotes. Crows were the only birds for a while, except for the hawks and vultures wheeling high overhead.

We rebuilt, as did many of our neighbors. Gradually, streetlights turned back on and fences went back up. Commensurately, wildlife sightings went down. But as we landscaped, other life returned. Bees and hummingbirds to the flowers. Finches, juncos and towhees to the saplings. Quail to the shrubs. 

We still have no squirrels.

In the pre-blaze days, squirrels were common enough to be nuisances. Rats with good PR. They need trees of a certain size to nest and scamper in, preferably in large thickets. More than seven years after the fire we still have none, and probably won’t for at least a decade. I see squirrels in nearby neighborhoods that survived the fire and try to convince them to follow me home. None have yet accepted my offer.

The first day I see a squirrel back in my yard will be a joyous one. I wonder if I put too much weight on it, as if that will be the final sign that both the land and we are healed, when I know very well neither will be.

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250 Words on Gluten

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

My wife, Karen, has to eat gluten-free. It’s not always easy, but there have been unexpected benefits.

It made us better cooks. Gluten, in the form of wheat flour, is hidden in many prepared foods, so we cook from scratch much more than we used to. The result is invariably tastier and fresher than whatever we might have pulled off a shelf.

Mexican and Indian restaurants are a dream, Italian and Asian are a challenge (soy sauce has gluten). We’ve found many good pasta options—look for noodles made from a blend of rice and corn flours rather than straight rice or oddball substitutes such as chickpea. Boil it al dente so it doesn’t get gummy.

Gluten is the protein that gives yeasty dough its stretchy, airy quality, and there is no decent alternative. We’ve had some tolerable pizzas with gluten-free crusts, but none great. Likewise, palatable breads are difficult, but not impossible, to find. 

We judge gluten-free foods on a scale. The gold standard are those so good we’d eat them even if they weren’t gluten-free. We have favorite brands of pretzels, pancakes and muffin mix that fall into that category. Next are foods that are adequate enough, like pastas and cookies. Anything worse, we don’t bother.

I do not eat gluten-free. Indeed, I am an enthusiastic savorer of gluten. But whenever I go without for a while, and then scarf down a couple slices of bread or pizza, my gut feels the difference. If I’m gassy, blame gluten. 

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Wasting Dam Water

I've just returned home from a quick trip to and from southern California via Interstate 5, a flat straight freeway through some of the most productive farmland in the nation. Dotted along the route are many signs like these, reading "Newsom: Stop Wasting Our Dam Water!" and suchlike.

I expect all those parched farmers will be editing their signs to read "Trump" after he recently ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release 2.2 billion gallons of water from California reservoirs to fight fires in Los Angeles, despite the fact that there was no way for that dam water to get to L.A. It just flowed out to the Pacific, where it will do the farmers' crops no good during the hot dry summer to come. Trump literally did the thing on the sign. 

Yes, they'll be rewriting them any day now . . .

I am 99% sure that Trump believes water somehow flows downhill from the Pacific Northwest to L.A. because Canada is above California on the map. I am completely serious. 

(Photo credit: KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, because I thought it imprudent to take photographs while driving 75 mph.)

250 Words on Tough Jobs

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

“There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”
—attributed to Ernest Hemingway (but maybe not actually by him).

The Tortured Artist is an archetype. Creativity is agony, but that agony yields exquisite beauty. 

Well . . . maybe if you’re Hemingway, Van Gogh or Plath.

I had other careers before becoming a professional cartoonist in my forties, and one perspective I gained from that late start was that a bad day writing and drawing is better than most good days doing those other jobs. 

I see it like this: In a previous career, I was a journalist. If I got a story wrong, I could ruin a life or a business. Later, I was an environmental chemist. If I did an analysis wrong, I could endanger public health.

One of my sisters was a registered nurse. If she made a mistake, a patient could die.

A college friend analyzed terrorism for the CIA. If he made a mistake, thousands could die.

Making art takes thought and skill but it ain’t curing cancer or fighting terrorists. Don’t be too precious about it. If I have a bad day writing or drawing, I toss my disappointments into the bin. I’d like to do it well and be successful, but if I fail? Nobody dies. Nobody cares. Nobody gets hurt but me. 

Create art or don’t. If it’s such agony, find something else to do. The world will still spin and life’s too short.

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Enjoy Beautiful Lake Illinois!

My delight of the day comes courtesy of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who called a press conference to announce that he was changing the name of Lake Michigan to Lake Illinois, and that his state would be annexing Green Bay, Wisconsin "to protect itself against enemies, foreign and domestic."

It's expert trolling that only slightly exaggerates the ridiculousness of the actual federal policies, which I think makes it very effective. Autocrats hate being laughed at. I'm laughing.

A Suggestion for Troubled Times

I go light on politics online because Internet arguments don't change minds and few care what I think. Still, I think it's worthwhile to clearly state where one stands from time to time, and I have what may be a helpful approach for some of my friends . . .

I am as distressed, anxious and enraged as any intelligent American who's mourning our apparent national suicide. I can't think of any time in the history of the world when a dominant empire simply decided to take itself out at the height of its power--to threaten its allies, cozy up to its enemies, and withdraw all the peaceful levers of soft power (USAID, CDC, WHO, NOAA, the G20) that make it a leader. It's inexplicable to me.

Here's the problem: if I stay revved up about that continuously, I don't get anything done during the day and I don't sleep at night. Me being anxious and sleepless doesn't do anything to help the good guys or stop the bad guys.

Here's my solution: engage during the first half of the day. Read the news, Heather Cox Richardson, Rebecca Solnit, half a dozen writers I follow on Substack. Give money to causes, contact my representatives, work up a solid knot of stress and agita.  

Then disengage during the second half of the day. Stay off social media. Write my little 250-word essays, work on my art and new books I'd like to get published someday. Watch funny YouTube videos and TV programs. Read books. Try to go to bed with a clear mind.

This is a new approach for me but it seems to work. Every day I try to get a little something done to defend my country plus a little something done to nourish my career and soul. That, in addition to our regular work for the local food bank and other do-gooders, seems like a balance I can live with.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Democrats simply don't have the votes to stop the carnage, so nothing's going to change until Republicans' constituents start to feel the pain. They will. Then, as Ms. Solnit wrote this morning, I think the challenge will be not to say "I told you so" but "Welcome."

250 Words on Musical Appreciation

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

One of my life regrets is that I have little facility or deep understanding for music. 

I’ve tried. I can’t sing. I played violin for a bit when I was very young, then picked at guitar through my teens, but showed no aptitude. I don’t think I’m tone-deaf but I may be tone-impaired; simply tuning an instrument was a struggle because I couldn’t really tell when two close notes sounded the same. I think if I’d stuck with guitar I could've become a competent player, but no more. Never a musician. 

I love classical music and took deep dives into Beethoven and Bach in college, which became slogs of sheer brute force memorization. Harmonics, counterpoint, the circle of fifths: music theory might as well have been quantum theory, which I actually understood better. Those two classes taxed me more than most physics coursework did.*

And music composition? Sorcery!

Watching a good musician play fills me with admiration and envy. They’re not thinking about where to put their fingers or how to move their hands. It’s all muscle memory—playful, expressive, intuitive. Beautiful.

I think I know what that feels like when I’m doing art, particularly using a brush to ink or paint. I’m not conscious of pressing hard or light, moving fast or slow, or how the medium will flow. It just does what I want it to. It’s my instrument and sometimes I can make it sing. 

And sometime it surprises me. I bet musicians get that, too. 

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*I expect some smart readers to point out how music actually is physics, with mathematically related vibrations and such. Yes, I know. I don’t find that as helpful as you might think. Why does a major chord sound triumphant while a minor chord sounds sad? How does a composer weave melodies together to tell a story and, while they’re at it, know to play some notes with an oboe and others with a trumpet? How can a song make you cry? That’s the ineffable magic. 

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