The Online Photographer

Open Mike: Can't Eat Enough

Hmm, two 'Open Mikes' in three days is not good. But I want to pass along another link.

The article is "Challenge to the Insurance Industry: A Solution to Significantly Reduce Health Care Costs," by Ken Beckman, July 2016. (It was featured recently on nutritionfacts.org.)

A brief review of U.S. health care costs, from the paper: "Total expenditures exceed $2.5 trillion and have grown from 5% of GDP in 1960 to about 18% of GDP today. Heart disease remains the most common and costly condition, with over 1,000,000 bypass surgeries or angioplasties annually. Nearly half of individuals 65 and over are taking prescription drugs for high cholesterol and the total direct cost of treatments for cardiovascular disease (including high-blood pressure) is approximately $200 billion. About 45% of the U.S. population was overweight in the early 1960s compared to 75% today, with the proportion of obese individuals up nearly 200% over the same time period. This has contributed to an increase in the incidence of diagnosed diabetes from less than 1% in 1960 to nearly 7% in 2010 resulting in annual direct costs of over $175 billion. In total, about 85% of health care spending is for individuals having one or more chronic conditions."

Yikes.

What are "chronic conditions"? The "diseases of affluence" are roughly:

• hypertension (high blood pressure)
• obesity
• asthma
• cardiovascular disease
• dementia
• diabetes
• cancer
• depression

All of these are at least moderately affected by diet and least four of them (hypertension, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes) are highly affected by diet—basically, eating mainly plants and avoiding meat, dairy, eggs, refined carbs, and oil. Heart disease, named as "the most common and costly condition," is not only curable, it is reversible with diet alone. But we do what we do, (most restaurants in my area feature cuisine I've dubbed "meaty cheesey greasy") and eating plants, by contrast, is culturally considered "extreme" and "radical."

Caldwell Esselstyn responded to that:

...The truth is, the nutrition that is extreme or radical is the one that results in 1.2 million coronary stents being done per year in this country; 500,000 bypass operations where your entire chest is divided in half, [and] veins are taken off your leg and put in your heart. And they may last several years and at the end of that, you will have to have another procedure. Or, maybe it’s a little bit more extreme or radical when you spend $25 billion in statin drugs, $5 billion on stents, an epidemic of obesity, an epidemic of diabetes, an epidemic of heart disease. This is the diet that's radical and extreme.

I followed a plant diet pretty strictly for 18 months, ending in June 2021, so I could write about it here. The result was, well, radical and extreme: I lost 43 pounds (down a whopping 76 pounds from my peak, which I believe occurred in about 2014) and all my health markers improved markedly: my blood pressure went down to 110/60, my cholesterol went way down, and my sleep apnea, energy, and mood all improved very noticeably. Alas, I got depressed after my brother died and I couldn't—well, didn't—keep it up.

Head case
There were two main reasons for my failure: I'm addicted to sugar, and I can't cook. But another reason is one I still find quite odd: I couldn't eat enough. There are more or less a hundred foods you can eat without restriction on a plant diet, and, strangely, the more you eat the better. You're not supposed to eat small portions. You're not supposed to skip meals. For some reason I just couldn't get my head around that. I had "dieted" so much over the years that I just seem to associate "healthy eating" with restricted eating. Smaller portions and fewer meals. That's just not what you're supposed to do on a healthy plant-based diet. You're supposed to eat all you want, as often as you want, and the more the better, because it keeps you satiated and it displaces whatever bad foods you might be tempted to eat.

Mennonite whole wheat bread. Rosemary sets it out
at noon and it was still warm when I bought it
just now. Not WFPB, but hard to resist.

A big task in healthy eating is to come up with basic go-to meals: I need 1–2 breakfasts (one is okay), 2–4 different lunches (three is fine), and about 12–16 dinner meals (the optimum seems to be about 14*). After that the game is just to get your number up. You eat 21 meals a week; the more of those that are plant-based the better. Right now I'm eating about 13 healthy meals a week, out of my 21. That's not enough; I need to get to about 18 or 19.

Oh well. The initial challenge when transitioning to healthy eating is to stop gaining weight—the first thing to do is get a good scale, weigh yourself twice a day (before bed and just after getting up), and hold the line. Most people who are overweight or obese are continually gaining weight, and Job One is to put a stop to that. It's the old "if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." So far I've gained nothing in the past two months, so that's a step in the right direction. (If the analogy is getting back on the horse that threw you, I have a foot in the stirrup.) But I'm still eating out too much, backsliding on @#$&! sugar, putting butter on vegetables, failing to resist the siren call of Mennonite bread, etc.

More updates eventually.

Mike

*Research indicates that even people who can cook and who cook whatever they want tend to settle down to a basic rotation of about 14 or 15 meals that they enjoy a lot and can whip up without too much bother, with an experiment thrown in every now and then for the sake of adventure or novelty, and perhaps a restaurant meal every week or two for variety.

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "I consider myself an anti-extremist. I'm 51 and been active/athlete my entire life. I too am probably addicted to sugar. I have never been on a diet, but I certainly do pay attention to all of my food. I am genetically lucky in that I could probably eat uncontrolled and max out at 210 pounds (6'1")? I am currently 177 pounds and while not nearly as fit as I would want to be, I can attribute my relative leanness to two things: first, I can honestly say that I refrain in some way at every meal to reduce the low hanging fruit. I would love a Coke, but drink water or unsweetened tea. I would love pizza or the chicken parm or the burger, but will opt for the swordfish, chicken and vegetables, etc. Would LOVE the full dessert, but literally carry around my own 70–80% dark chocolate so I can get my 'sugar-fix' in a more controlled manner.

"Second, drinking alcohol really is no longer part of my life. I will probably consume 2–3 drinks per month. I've been asking 'regular' people lately how many alcoholic drinks they consume each week and am shocked to hear that most seem to fall in the 17–25 per week range which I found shocking! Aside from the negatives of alcohol, I've found that a couple of drinks often comes with bad food choices and skipped exercise. When I say 'regular' people, I mean 45–55 year old active/involved parents who are also mostly high-earning career people."

ASW (partial comment): "My extended family on both sides was full of uneducated manual laborers: farming, logging, construction, etc. People who worked hard, all day, every day. No one ever worried about their diet, which was stereotypical Midwestern meat and potatoes with a side of meat and pie for dessert. A bigger worry was having enough food for all the kids (Catholics!). Yet, if we set aside the long-term smokers and the (many) alcoholics, they all lived into their 80s and 90s. Heck, a lot of the smokers and alcoholics made it nearly that long too. When I look back at old family photos I see thin, wiry women and sunburned, muscular men with nary a bulging belly in sight.

"My generation moved up in the world: college, sedentary jobs, sedentary lifestyles, expanding waistlines, health issues. I doubt that many will make it into their 90s.

"I'm in the middle. I got the education but don't like sitting still. I'm in my early 40s but I'm the same weight I was in high school when I played sports and worked on the farm.

"My wife and I eat primarily vegetarian (meat is an infrequent treat), mostly for environmental and ethical rather than health reasons. We try to avoid processed food, and luckily my wife loves to cook (I do not). We do not count calories or worry about portion sizes. I eat a shocking amount of food. I have been (kindly) asked to leave a Chinese buffet. I have been (less kindly) asked to leave a pizza buffet. What?

"I have run every day this year (minimum two miles; maximum twenty miles). I do pushups every day which is a habit I learned from my dad. I'm over 40,000 for the year. Although I sit in front of a computer for a job, I incorporate 'work' into the rest of my day whenever possible. I mow my one-acre yard with a battery-powered push mower. In the fall I rake the leaves by hand and carry them to the compost mountain in a wheelbarrow. I pretend that elevators and escalators don't exist. If I have to drive to a store I park at the farthest corner of the lot (also saves on damage to my car). More often than not I ride my bike into town when I'm going to the public library or to grab a few groceries. It's only two miles, which doesn't even get the car warmed up but is easy aerobic exercise for me. We go for walks and hikes with our dog for fun. Yes, it takes sweat and effort to increase your output, but that's the point.

"I always encourage anyone trying to make themselves more healthy, but I think too many people overthink it. Michael Pollan offered simple advice for the input side: 'Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants' (from The Omnivore's Dilemma [quality hardcover and paperback; Kindle edition and trade versions; Young Readers Edition. One of the most enjoyable books of any genre I've ever read, by the way. —Ed.]). Note that when he says food he means real food: meat, grains, nuts, and veggies, not processed junk.

"On the output side, make an effort to do some sort of 'work' every day. You don't have to be a runner or a competitive body builder, but almost everyone can go for a walk and do some sort of body weight exercise. If you're stuck at a computer, use a standing desk for part of the day. Go for a walk while eating your lunch. When you head down the hall for a bathroom break, do a lap up and down the stairs afterwards. If you love watching TV at night, get an exercise bike and pedal slowly while watching. Push things, pull things, lift things, carry things (including yourself). Then do it again the next day."

Daniel: "How about the list or a reference to the list of the 100 veggies/fruits we can eat without limit?"

Mike replies: I looked around for that too and was frustrated. It's a claim from the linked article.

I can take a run at it, though. "Healthy food" is relative. Olive oil is bad for you (oils are the sugar of the fat world), but it's better than vegetable oils loaded with saturated fats. Beef tenderloin is bad for you (here's the lowdown on protein) but it's a lot better than processed meats like hot dogs, baloney, sausage, and Slim Jims. Milk is bad for you but it's better than soda pop. And so forth. Improving your food will help you even if you're still eating questionable foods.

The seven healthiEST foods are: 1. greens; 2. vegetables; 3. fruits; 4. legumes (beans, chickpeas, split peas, and lentils); 5. whole grains; 6. nuts and seeds; and 7. spices. A fair amount of these real foods are necessary for human health no matter what else people eat and no matter how cockamamie and compromised their food beliefs are. These seven things are the most nutritious foods. They supply the thousands of phytochemicals your body needs to thrive.

It's very difficult to eat a diet of ONLY the healthiest foods—I've tried—but the good news is that small amounts of "bad" foods won't hurt you in the long run. So whatever you're emotionally attached to doesn't have to be banished completely and forever. You can still eat meat once in a while as long as your gut microbiome isn't adapted to make poisons out of it; you can still eat small desserts after a meal unless it triggers cravings for more sugar; you can have pizza a few times a year; and you can even have a sugared soda pop, if you must, although a handful of times a year seems like a prudent limit. (I ate ice cream five times in 2020.) Exceptions like these are repugnant to vegan true believers and purists, and also to those who eschew animal food for ethical and humanitarian reasons, but, scientifically, where health alone is concerned, it seems reasonably clear that they don't appreciably affect health outcomes. You're an omnivore and you can survive on the world's worst foods for shortish periods—it's a tribute to our extraordinary adaptability that it's even possible for humans to survive on McDonalds meals and highly processed foodlike substances from gas stations or convenience stores. You won't thrive, but still, we're amazing.

Peter Croft: "Keep writing about food and healthy eating Mike. I really enjoy your articles and opinions."

A Bold Bunny Is a Bad Thing to Be (OT)

The bunny is getting older, but she doesn't seem be getting any less bold. This afternoon I was sitting on the patio. Twenty-five feet from me, Butters was lying down in the grass with his ball...and 25 feet from each of us was the bunny, in the middle of the lawn placidly munching on clover. We formed a triangle. Me here, Butters over there, and the bunny equidistant from the two of us. Just us three, chilling together in the backyard.

A little while later Butters had some reason to go over by the garage door, so the bunny finally took evasive action, but then I came around the corner opposite him. So Butters and I were ten feet apart and the bunny was in the middle. And she's right there, right by the shed—but does she duck for cover? She does not. I swear she took a look back at Butters, took a look at me, thought, okay, all right, too close—and hopped under the shed, finally. None too hurriedly. Sort of reluctantly. So I go back over and sat down on my chair on the patio, looked up, and she was already back out, standing up and looking at me as you can see. As if to say, what was that about? Wasn't everybody happy minding their own business?

So I gave her a little lecture. I told her a bold bunny is a bad thing to be; bunnies are prey animals, and not every human and dog are going to be as copacetic as me and the B.

So that's the weirdest thing about my Thursday. Out loud, I lectured a young bunny on the facts of life. Seemed foolish to me too, as I doubt she speaks English. But she needs to show a healthier amount of fear, I think. She's starting to make me worry for her.

I think I'll leave a carrot under the shed. Do bunnies really like carrots? Maybe that was that just Bugs.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

robert e: "Don't go by that suspicious Bugs character, who is probably a hare passing as a bunny, burrow and all (which he probably got from a bunny in a shadowy scheme). Rabbits prefer softer veggies like lettuce."

Rob de Loe: "They can be quite insulting about it. My neighbourhood is infested with bunnies and they do not show the proper respect due a terrier. Mind you, if they are aware of this particular terrier's record in catching rodents, which is rather pathetic to be honest (sorry Sophie!), they probably know they're in no danger."

Geoff Wittig: "Don't worry about bunnies. They'll make more. That's their superpower. We have waves of Eastern cottontail rabbits at our home every summer. Dozens of adorably cute little baby bunnies hopping all over the lawn. They're dumb as a sack of hammers, we have to look down to avoid stepping on them. The numbers dwindle rapidly as they suffer attrition from the foxes, hawks, 'n' coyotes, even as the survivors get bigger and (slightly) smarter. Then the whole progression repeats."

MikeR: "Funny, I've been doing the same thing as you. We seem to have an abundance of rabbits this spring, and one young one has decided that our patio is part of his/her/its domain. I've walked right up to it and asked, What are you doing? You need to run away when I get this close. So far, no change in behavior. Kids!"

Keith: "We live back off the main road a bit in the middle of farmland and forests. Rosey, our beagle (known as rabbit dogs around here), will lie on the porch while several bunnies munch in our yard. Soon as we open the front door she launches full speed to run them just out of the yard and howls at them a bit. Then returns to the porch when we go back in. Thirty minutes later the bunnies have returned. We think she has an agreement with the bunnies that they are permitted to eat our grass, but she has to put on the show that she is standing guard against invasive rabbits when we come outside. They can all return to normal once we go back inside and she resumes her position on the porch."

JeffT: "There are old bunnies and there are bold bunnies, but there are no old, bold bunnies."

Open Mike: Your Card Just Left the Deck (OT)

I have a definite love-hate relationship with YouTube, as I'm reminded every time I find myself watching "Idiots in Cars" at 1:00 a.m.

The "love" is mostly that I get to watch pool and snooker matches to my heart's content (and I have a pretty robust appetite for them), which otherwise would be thin on the ground. And expensive—Accu-Stats used to charge for DVDs, and you can now see theirs for free on YouTube. I also love being able to dial up random songs for free. As opposed to ten years ago, when I would pay Apple a dollar it didn't need every time I found a new song. So, for instance, I can hear Lutan Fyah on XM Radio and then go listen to "Game Is Over" a hundred million times on YouTube. (I totally love that song at the moment.)

The "hate" (not actual hate) is when I get temporarily addicted to some random category of video and watch too many of them.

Right now it's David Blaine card tricks. Oh, em, gee. I think I like watching them as much as he likes doing them. He's so good that he actually freaks people out. They can't believe it—almost like it was real black magic. Watch him play a simple but astonishing trick on Tyra Banks on the street (the video only takes a minute and a fifth to watch), or on Harrison Ford in Ford's kitchen. Harrison's reaction is priceless (and funny).

Here's another magic trick that totally freaks out Jamie Foxx and his family. I have no idea how he did this.

A little diversion for you for a Sunday.

Blessings
The weather here is just gorgeous today. We have lucked out this summer, enjoying the perfect summer weather that the whole rest of the country wants. Right now it's brilliantly sunny, so clear it makes the opposite side of the lake seem close, 67°F (19°C) with just enough breeze to gently stir the leaves on the trees. But it will rise to 78°F (25°C) this afternoon, before cooling off again tonight. Don't think I'm not thankful. We're being blessed.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth. I only know of Sophie Howarth from her time as a curator at the Tate Modern in London, but my impression then was positive. Her brand new book (it only came out a few days ago) is about slowing down as a means of enjoying photographing more. It's said to contain a curated collection of photographs along with anecdotes and explanation.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Your Shot of the Day (OT)

Alex Kazakis of Greece faces a tough situation.
With the cue ball behind the red 3, he has to
hit the yellow 1-ball or lose the game.

Haven't done one of these in a while.

Understanding the situation is key: Josh Filler of Germany and Alex Kazakis of Greece are locked in a titanic safety battle at the Derby City Classic earlier this year (a safety is when you try to leave your opponent with a difficult shot; think "defense not offense"). They're playing 10-Ball on the Bigfoot, an oversized 10x5' table (regulation is 9x4.5'). Remember each player must hit the lowest-numbered ball on the table first. We pick up the action at 20:22. They're on the solid yellow 1-ball.

First you'll see Alex massé his way out of a tight fix. He succeeds in hitting the 1-ball, but unfortunately he doesn't catch a rail (to be a legal shot, either the object ball must be pocketed, or any ball has to touch a rail). It's a foul, his second. The player must be alerted that he's on two fouls, because three fouls in succession and he's done—loss of game (i.e., the rack). Josh takes ball in hand. Normally he would go on offense, but since Alex is on two fouls, he lays another wicked safety next to the black 8 ball, behind the solid red 3.

Josh has Alex right where he wants him—with a good chance he'll foul out. Alex knows that if he fails to contact the 1-ball, he loses the rack. Watch what he does next.

By the way, note that pool audiences are notoriously hard to impress—typically it's a bunch of old men sitting around granite-faced with their arms folded. It's hilarious how many times you'll hear a commentator say "the crowd applauds" or "the crowd loves it" or something along those lines, when there are only like four people clapping. You'll hardly ever hear a pool crowd break into spontaneous applause like this. 

If you'd like to see what a dramatic safety battle looks like, watch all of rack 4, starting at 15:45. Pool is a connoisseur's game, and the harder it is to understand and the slower the action, the more the fans seem to like it.

Okay, that's it for pool posts for a while—no use clamoring for more.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth. I only know of Sophie Howarth from her time as a curator at the Tate Modern in London, but my impression then was positive. Her brand new book (it only came out a few days ago) is about slowing down as a means of enjoying photographing more. It's said to contain a curated collection of photographs along with anecdotes and explanation.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Albert Smith: "Being a photography site, reading a thread called: 'Your Shot Of The Day' really confused me for a while. 😀 "

Inappropriate Humor (OT)

A Sunday truffle:

(All of this should be considered NSSFW, not-so-safe for work. Although it's just naughty, not nasty.)

I noted to a group of former Corcoran Photo classmates that the 37th anniversary of our graduation just passed, an email I began by saying, "Prepare to feel ancient...." One of my classmates replied that his wife was 12 then, so he replied, "I feel dirty, not ancient."

That reminded me of one of the wickedest SNL skits. (No offense to my classmate, who's been happily married for years.)

When I look at video or film what I mostly think about is how well it's written. That one has Tina and Amy all over it—I'd bet a hundred dollars they wrote it, or most of it. Candy Kirby at The Jest called it the "most savage SNL skit ever made," adding, "also making an Emmy-worthy appearance: Leslie Jones’ death glare." The death glare is one of the few things on video that actually makes me "lol" every time I see it.

Hooker story
And speaking of wicked but hilarious, I ran across this a few days ago. I saw it when it originally aired, in the hazy, distant days of 1978—and probably haven't seen it since then. It's an appearance by the reformed con man Frank Abagnale, who passed millions of dollars in fake checks in his youth, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson*.

Pick it up at about the 7:45 mark for the story about the hooker.

What Johnny says at the end was "so you both got screwed!" although it's bleeped.

Who knows if it's true—Abagnale appears to be something of a compulsive liar, and/or a natural storyteller, however you prefer to look at it. His life story, or some version of it anyway, was the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio, which further fictionalizes Abagnale's claims to have successfully impersonated a pilot and a medical doctor among other things, and to have passed all those millions in bad checks. It's possible that the only thing he really impersonated was a famous con man! That is, that his whole con man story is a schtick, and never happened. Which adds further convolutions to the story. The final hoax may be Abagnale's more recent depictions of himself as completely reformed criminal who has become a highly ethical man with a long FBI career. Fooled Google, if so.

Interesting. Personal honor gets almost zero mindshare today, but it's surprising how complicated things get when it's completely absent. In any event, I think we'd better accept the "hooking the hooker" story as nothing more than a well-told joke.

Associated rascality
By the way: apparently the word "hooker" came from Joseph ("Fighting Joe") Hooker, Lincoln's short-lived General in command of The Army of the Potomac who got thrashed by Lee at Chancellorsville. Apparently fighting was not all Joe was known for—he was an overenthusiastic patron of the army's camp followers, who came to be called "Hooker's brigade," a nickname that outlasted the General's tenure.

Joseph Hooker. I admit that I fixed up this JPEG
a bit, including separating the horse's neck from
the background, which you will no doubt notice
now that I've mentioned it.

That tale, like Abagnale's, might or might not survive the fact-checker.

Mike

*Carson was the host from 1962 to 1992. Those shows were much bigger then—Carson's peak viewership was 58 million in 1969, more than a quarter of the U.S. population then, for the wedding of an entertainer called Tiny Tim and his fiancée Miss Vicki. The current Tonight Show's best performance recently was 1.9 million, when President Joe Biden appeared. And that's against a population more than half again larger than it was in 1969.

Book o' the Week:

The Beatles: Get Back. The story of the band's last year, coinciding with the release of Peter Jackson's documentary Get Back.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

Here's the link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Hidden Glories of the Web

Bartosz Ciechanowski

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and introduced it to the public in August 1991, less than 31 years ago. But already I've been on the alert for high points and masterpieces—because there are naturally going to be creations that fit the medium so well that they almost could not exist if it wasn't for the Web and the particular way that content creation for it has developed. For example, a one-minute, six-second video of a British young person sitting in his apartment demonstrating how to play the Seinfeld theme on his bass at five different levels of difficulty—quite a virtuoso minute!—or this explanation of a difficult musical concept that links the Coltrane Changes to M.C. Escher.

I wish there were a rich, overarching "Nobel/Pulitzer Prize" sort of award for the best accomplishments of the Web, either pages or video clips. The world clearly doesn't even think of it that way yet. We're in the "happily-taking-it-all-for-granted" stage still.

Anyway, "Mechanical Watch" by Bartosz Ciechanowski would win one of those awards. Nick, who brought it to our attention, said, "I can't resist giving a link to this amazing page, explaining through interactive animations how mechanical watches work. A pure wonder." Nailed it. Wow. Bartosz's incredible tutorial combines the written word with gorgeous and beautifully clear interactive graphic animations to explain something commonly assumed to be comprehensible only to engineers and experts. I'm only mildly a fan of mechanical watches, not deeply into them by any means, but I can get interested in many things if they're presented well enough. And I'm a teacher at heart, so I admire clear and communicative explanations of complex topics. This is flat-out great.

The Bugatti and Air Jordan
Every medium and category of creation eventually has its high points and masterpieces. These usually require a confluence of events, individuals, necessity and demand, and attention/prestige. Theater, for instance, enjoyed a massive craze in Elizabethan England; it was the entertainment of the age and the overwhelming preoccupation of the public. The era, the conditions, and the opportunities attracted and enabled an individual called Will Shakespeare, who mostly adapted older stories as stage plays for public entertainment. Something broadly similar can be understood of the Beatles or Mahatma Gandhi or Michael Jordan.

What is true of human activities and arts is generally no less true of human manufacture. Sometimes this is the result of individual genius (the light bulb, the Bugatti Type 35), but in many cases it's cooperative and additive over time—innovation, craft, and engineering is combined with long periods of refinement until we end up with something that appears to be truly miraculous: subtle, effective, and, surprisingly often, beautiful. The sailing sloop, for instance, a modest contrivance that is the culmination of millennia of experience, design, and refinement. The book on the bookshelf, which took centuries to evolve! (If you're a dilettante enamored of design and engineering and don't know Henry Petroski yet, do yourself a favor and pick the book of his that appeals to you most and read it. A warning, though—he picks simple subjects and then says everything it is possible to say about it. If that doesn't sound like your cuppa, then Henry P. ain't either.)

It's Sunday, and it's a good thing it's Sunday, because if you get into Bartosz Ciechanowski's beautiful Web page it's going to suck down a chunk of your spare time. But...well, wow. Thanks to Nick.

And as for Bartosz, can you please do one on Yoshihisa Maitani's Olympus OM-4?

Mike

Book o' the Week

 All About Saul Leiter. The Amazon writeup for this book says "Photography lovers the world over are now embracing Saul Leiter"—and oh boy, is that ever true of me—"who has enjoyed a remarkable revival since fading into relative obscurity in the 1980s." One of my favorite photographers. Beautiful photopoems. Saul's Early Color (which you can still get for around $300) was one of our all-time bestselling book links. (I bought two, one to thumb and one to not touch!)

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

My Inadvertent A-B-A Experiment (OT)

This could be ugly, but in a week or two I'll be able to report to you on the results of an A-B-A experiment I've made but didn't really mean to make.

An A-B-A experiment (actually it's a design in Applied Behavior Analysis, from the field of psychology), as you might know or maybe can guess, is when you change something to see the results, (A—>B), then change it back again to see if the results go back to the way they were before (B—>A). It's a way of checking to see that your results are direct consequence of the change.

For example, when I had an episode of atrial fibrillation, I was told that coffee consumption might be worsening it. So I quit coffee for three weeks (that's the A to B part), and my a-fib got better. Then I went back to my old coffee habits again (B back to A), and my heart issues got worse again. That proved it to me; so I quit drinking coffee, after, I think, 46 years. Haven't had a sip of coffee since about mid-2018.

Anyway, a few years ago I went on Dr. Greger's daily dozen diet, a modified whole-food plant-based (WFPB) plan. As you might remember, when I first advocated it and people asked how it was working for me, I asked for six weeks to go on it strictly so I could be more sure of the changes. Well, I ended up staying on that diet for just about exactly 17 months. But then I did some traveling and had to go off the diet, and my brother died and I got depressed, etc., etc., and I gradually regressed back to a modified version of my old eating habits.

It's been almost exactly a year since then. I haven't been eating badly, really, but I've been eating out a lot, eating sugar again, being lazy. "Eating conveniently" I guess you could say. Eating according to the SAD (standard American diet) and the prevailing "food environment," meaning, what's easily available and offered everywhere, such as at standard "meat, cheese, and grease" restaurants.

So in the interests full disclosure, I figure I'll be honest with you and tell you what happened. I'm not currently due for a checkup, but I asked the good Doctor Anderson, my PCP, if he would order bloodwork for me, and he acquiesced; I'm going to fast tonight and overnight and then go in to have blood drawn tomorrow.

That way I can give you an A-B-A report: the effect of the original change, and the effect of my backsliding.

The Daily Dozen diet is an outcomes-based plan. It's not a cuisine, like the Mediterranean diet; it's not a "food ideology" like strict veganism; it's not a fad diet, like keto; it's not a diet based on an imaginary fantasy, like paleo; it's not primarily a slimming diet where results are judged only by weight loss. It's merely an attempt to eat in a way that leads to the best health outcomes, according to the consensus of the best available science. That means both ongoing health markers and also statistical health outcomes in the long term—like, are you going to get diabetes, heart disease, etc. Obviously I can't report on long-term outcomes, only on biomarkers, outward effects, and how I feel.

I already reported the good part—the changes I experienced after one year of healthy eating. (I continued on that diet for another five months after that post, till about this time of year in 2021). When I get my bloodwork back I'll tell you what's happened to me in the year since then.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Jay Maisel: Light, Color, Gesture. This was suggested by Moose. I got to meet Jay Maisel once. Everybody should meet him in his books, if they haven't already. Might help; cannot hurt. Jay's is some of the most positive, hopeful, and generous picture-taking advice you'll find.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Open Mike: The Dan Stevens Effect

This is a curious phenomenon that I've noticed a number of times over the years. Briefly, it goes something like this:

1. Someone wants to be an artist of some sort.
2. They get a big break and are part of a big success.
3. It's not enough for them, or they think they are above it in some way, so they spurn it and either leave or quit.
4. They never go on to do anything as famous or popular afterward.

The phenomenon could be called The Dan Stevens Effect. Wikipedia says of Stevens:

In 2010, Stevens got his biggest break when he was cast as Matthew Crawley in the ITV series Downton Abbey, created and written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes. The series went on to be a global sensation and has been nominated for several Emmy, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards since its debut. The central love story of Matthew Crawley and his distant cousin, Lady Mary Crawley, played by Michelle Dockery, was enormously popular. Determined to ruin* his career, Stevens chose to leave the series after finishing the third season and the Christmas Special in 2012. His exit caused a huge uproar with fans, who notably took to Twitter and other social media sites to express their anger at the character's death. Fellowes later explained that Stevens did not give sufficient notice for a less drastic departure.

*Okay, actually Wikipedia says "move on with."

I should explain, for those of you unfamiliar with the British prime-time soap opera costume drama, that Stevens' character had to be abruptly killed off in an automobile accident...which of course also prevented his return in the various lucrative reunion movies either released or planned. Since leaving his biggest success he has "gone on" to do such things as: play a supporting part in Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, a movie that earned a big $5.2 million at the box office; do a lot of voice-over acting; and play a robot in the German-language science fiction romance I'm Your Man.

I would have milked Downton a bit longer, personally. And not ruined the plotline for millions of fans, what about them?

Chevy Chase left Saturday Night Live after just one season. Sally Kellerman, who played "Hot Lips Houlihan" in the original movie of M*A*S*H, turned down the role in the television series, to her later regret. Neil Young felt his huge hit Harvest, the best-selling album of 1972 in the USA, was "middle of the road"—he said he was afraid of becoming John Denver—so he famously "headed for the ditch."** Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a "love-hate" relationship with his Sherlock Holmes stories, considering them to be lowbrow entertainments; when he first entertained the idea of killing the fictional character off, his own mother said, "You won't! You can't! You mustn't!" He also raised his prices dramatically to discourage new commissions, hoping to "kill" Sherlock that way; but he found the magazines paid his prices anyway, helping to make him one of the highest paid writers of his day.

Arthur Conan Doyle, who considered his greatest literary
accomplishment to have been the 14th-century historical
novel The White Company. Not quite.

Then again, the reason The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best-known Sherlock Holmes story is that it was a reprise that brought the famous character back after a long absence. 

Whenever I think of this idea, it brings to mind the old-timey barn-dance saying, "You gotta dance with who brung ya." Sometimes you just have to be who you are, do what you can do, and give the people what they want. Luck is fickle.

Mike

**I do have to admit I like the ditch trilogy better than Harvest. Do kids today know who Neil Young is? I wouldn't be surprised if they don't.

Book o' the Week

Jay Maisel: Light, Color, Gesture. This was suggested by Moose. I got to meet Jay Maisel once. Everybody should meet him in his books, if they haven't already. Might help; cannot hurt. Jay's is some of the most positive, hopeful, and generous picture-taking advice you'll find.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

B&H is the place to buy

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kevin Crosado: "I've heard of Neil Young. I bought one of his CDs from a discount bin at the local big-box store. It was defective, so I took it back for a refund. Never bothered about a replacement."

Mike replies: Well, there are more modern ways to go about getting a taste, you know. Here are a few favorites:

Change Your Mind

Pardon My Heart

L.A.

Motion Pictures

Fountainbleu

Razor Love

If you need more, I've got about 150 bootlegs in the barn.

Bill Tyler: "Having read both Conan Doyle's The White Company and all the Holmes stories, I can confidently say that the worst of Holmes is better than the best of The White Company."

Zyni Moë: "You confuse two things.

"Thing 1: person has some initial success; head grows enormously big, think this success is too little / too lowbrow for them; walks away from that success...oops.

"Thing 2: person has great success; person realises they will never need money again; walks away to do what interests them instead.

"People driven by money find (2) very hard to understand, as do people who do not understand that enough money means you can choose what you do.

"Neil Young is perhaps example of (2): long time ago he made enough money to do whatever he wanted to...so that is what he did. Recently sold half the rights to his back catalogue for probably $150 million: he has been very rich for a very long time.

"Perhaps Robert Plant is another good example: presumably very rich man makes occasional highly-regarded records which sell...some copies, but Led Zeppelin reunion and probably hundreds of millions of dollars...not so much.

"Charlie Watts is example of someone choosing not to do (2): at any point since say 12 May 1972 [the day Exile on Main Street was released —Ed.] he could have quit the band he played with and done whatever he wanted to for the rest of his life. But he chose not to, probably because he enjoyed playing with that band: certainly not because he needed the money.

"From my generation same for any of the stars of the Harry Potter films (although Daniel Radcliffe has gone on to do interesting perhaps-not-profitable things sometimes, not needing the money)."

Mike replies: You make excellent points, and your analysis may be right—it does feel like my thinking on this is somewhat confused. However I would say that what is more interesting to me is people misunderstanding the nature of their success, or success itself. I recently did a quirky little post about Calvin and Hobbes—Bill Watterson is an example of someone who had enough money and retired at the top of his game and near the peak of his popularity. I have no problem with that (or with his contemporary Gary Larson, who wrote and drew "The Far Side," who did the same). Nor do I have any problem with Yusuf Islam, who used to be Cat Stevens, who walked away from a successful career as a folk singer and pop star because he wanted to live a more committed religious life. And you can speculate that Dan Stevens wanted something different too—that perhaps he preferred to pursue a number of small, interesting, quirky roles in a variety of productions at a lower level, and he considered a standard ITV costume drama to be a potboiler and beneath him. Perhaps he shouldn't have accepted the role in the first place then. Just consider a.) how difficult it is for an actor to land a lead role in a TV series, and b.) how rare it is for a TV series to be a big hit. It's likely or certainly possible that D.S. will never achieve anything near that level again. It doesn't look to me like he has done so since. I'm speculating too, but I don't think he understood what he had.

It could also be that what I am objecting to is a deep level of self-centeredness on his part—his insistence on disrupting the entire series right in the middle of its run for his own ego, or his own personal reasons whatever they were. With zero regard for the creator/writer and his creation, the cast and crew, and the audience. Of course Jessica Brown Findlay did the same thing, and other creative people do similar things all the time.

If Arthur Conan Doyle had retired the Holmes series because a.) it was too difficult to keep coming up with plots, b.) he was getting burned out, c.) he didn't want the series to grow stale and repetitive, or, as you say, d.) he had made enough money and didn't need any more, I don't think I would remark on his case. The interesting feature to me is rather that it looks like he just didn't grasp the rarity of what he had accomplished—he was still locked into old standard ideas about plays and historical fiction being more "serious" and more prestigious, and hence more worthy of him, and magazine stories about a detective being frivolous and lowbrow. When in fact he had created one of the iconic literary characters of his century. But then, I am not very respectful of assertions of cultural prestige and status and hierarchy—for me, Bob Marley is the equal of Mozart, for instance.

I just think some people seriously misjudge their actual talents and the true nature of their accomplishments, that's all.

If you would like to write a reply to this I will post it below!

Zyni replies: "Sorry I did not read your note on my comment earlier. In summary: you are right, what you describe does happen. I can give example from my own field. I have a very dear friend who was (is) a gifted physicist. He could also have been a gifted mathematician perhaps, but he had not trained as one and that is a thing you must train to be. Well, he decided when picking his Ph.D. that he would do a very mathematical bit of physics which he really was not equipped to do, but he would do it because it was 'purer.' And of course he struggled, got depressed, gave up, left physics and deprived everyone of (I believe) his great gifts.

"He did this all because he misunderstood his talents or anyway what he could achieve from where he was.

"This is a tragedy I believe (he does not now rate himself so highly: I am allowed to!), and also ate some significant amount of funding of course. So certainly you are correct in your analysis: this happens. But I believe something else also can happen which looks similar on surface but is not the same, and is admirable where the first thing is not. (Now I must go and apologise to my friend for using him as an example...it's OK, I did ask first.)"

Patrick: "Whenever I think of people who got too big for their britches and made a poor career decision, I think of McLean Stevenson leaving M*A*S*H. From his IMDB entry—'After leaving "M*A*S*H," Stevenson headlined in a series of failed TV shows.'"

Sean: "I’ve never watched a single episode of Downton, but I have seen Dan Stevens in many things, and he’s usually the most watchable actor in the scene. I last saw him play an AI companion in the German sci-fi film Ich bin dein Mensch. Stevens really brought the character to life. I'll get me coat."

Jim Arthur (partial comment): "Here’s a great quote from the ditch where Neil Young is talking to Rolling Stone in 1975. It seems he wasn’t all that concerned with returning to fame or popularity. 'Nobody expected Time Fades Away and I'm not sorry I put it out…I didn't need the money, I didn't need the fame. You gotta keep changing. Shirts, old ladies, whatever. I'd rather keep changing and lose a lot of people along the way. If that's the price, I'll pay it. I don't give a sh*t if my audience is 100 or 100 million. It doesn't make any difference to me. I'm convinced that what sells and what I do are two completely different things. If they meet, it's coincidence.' (From the Rolling Stone website.)"

Mike replies: Neil is a "keep going" type, like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney. There are some stars who just keep at it. Most fade away, and most of those who do don't have any control over that...there's an interesting recent article at The Guardian called "'That's it? It's over? I was 30. What a brutal business': pop stars on life after the spotlight moves on" by Nick Duerden.

The ultimate comment on the fickleness of fame might be a short YouTube video from 2005. It shows Tara Reid, who was an "it girl" in Hollywood following her role in the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski in 1998, getting stopped at the door of a nightclub. As she argues with the door supervisor, the then-current 2005 "it girl," and Tara's former friend, Paris Hilton, comes striding down the sidewalk arm-in-arm with her new bestie Kim Kardashian, who was relatively unknown at the time. A word to the doorman and in they go, while Tara continues to wait. The fickleness of fame in a minute and 35.

Pity we don't have a 2022 video of Paris getting stopped at the door while Kim K. and her unknown new best friend go right in.

My brush with this sort of thing happened when my son was about five. The mother of one of his school friends was dating a guy who used to be a rock star—I don't remember his name, but he had played drums for a variety of bands including Thin Lizzy. He had started a limousine service with his rock-and-roll money, but he was getting out of that and wanted to buy a Burger King franchise. Evidently one of the requirements was that prospective franchise owners had to work the counter of a Burger King for a certain number of weeks so they would know what it was like. So the four of us, in high spirits, went down to the busy local Burger King to get waited on by the former rock star, who was none too happy to be where he was—maybe it was my imagination, but I thought he had a distracted, sort of "how did it come to this?" expression on his face.

rick l: "Of the several friends of my grandchildren, they know far more of music from 50 years ago than I do of their music from 50 days ago. that, I think, is my error, not theirs."

Miguel Tejada-Flores: "I have to respectfully take issue with the idea that Dan Stevens has never really done any acting roles of note since leaving 'Downton Abbey.' In fact, he played the leading role in the stunningly complex sci-fi series, 'Legion,' which was created, written and produced by Noah Hawley, the brilliant storyteller behind all of the 'Fargo' streaming series. Stevens' character, 'David Haller,' has been mistakenly diagnosed as an extreme paranoid schizophrenic, but as the story evolves, we learn that his misdiagnosed schizophrenia actually is due to his extreme psychic powers, and that his paranoia is all too justified, as he becomes the unwitting pawn of a brilliant and evil cabal who will go to remarkable lengths to convince him he is 'crazy,' which will allow them to manipulate his powers. The series ran for three years (2017–2019) and has been justifiably critically acclaimed, as well as attaining near-cult status in serious sci-fi circles. At its heart, Stevens delivers a complex performance as he brings Hawley's disturbed protagonist to life. Some, including myself, believe that the opening hour-long pilot episode of the first season is one of the finer standalone paranoid science-fiction thrillers ever created. I'm not suggesting that his other roles and oeuvre is on that level, but Stevens' performance in 'Legion' has, I think, helped establish his reputation in the acting universe, in ways which his role in Downtown Abbey never could have."

Open Mike: What's a Sport?

There is a lot of confusion and even bigotry around the definition of "sport," which is one of those words that tend to evoke a lot of passion. I encounter it regularly in writing about cue sports.

The word "sport" derives from "disport," which as a noun means "diversion, amusement, play."

The Oxford Dictionary is the culprit in promulgating much misunderstanding, in my view, defining "sport" as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment." (Emphasis mine.) Exertion? Don't care for it.

I would define a "sport" as "a contest involving physical skill for the entertainment of the participants or spectators." That last bit is left out of a lot of definitions.

Simon said yesterday in the Comments that "it's surely not a sport if you don't get out of breath." That's one factor that speaks to "exertion" and weighs heavily in some peoples' conception. But I guess that disqualifies Formula 1 racing, target shooting, and archery, and golf if you use a cart or are in shape, right?

What are some of the other common beliefs around what constitutes a "sport"?

• Has to get you out of breath
• Has to involve physical skill or coordination
• Has to require or display physical strength
• Has to be a contest
• Has to entertain an audience
• Has to take place outdoors
• Has to be something you can bet on
• Has to require physical conditioning

Are all of these requirements met by every sport? I don't think so. Professional basketball takes place exclusively indoors, for example. There goes that criterion.

The unofficial official definition
Wikipedia tells us in its article on "Sport" that "The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.

"SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:

• have an element of competition
• be in no way harmful to any living creature
• not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
• not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.

"They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport)."

SportAccord admits a limited number of "mind sports," including chess (which at the highest level is physically exhausting and in many cases rewards physical conditioning) but is not open to admitting any more. So everything from the ancient Chinese game of mah-Jongg to video games need not apply. Other authorities recognize "eSports" (video games). But no exertion there!

SportAccord's "in no way harmful" clause  disqualifies hunting and fishing. It would seem to also disqualify boxing and MMA, because those are harmful to living creatures. Max Baer (a boxer and the father of "Jethro" on The Beverly Hillbillies), Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, and Sugar Ray Robinson all killed people in the ring, never mind Evander Holyfield's ear. One study determined that an average of 13 people per year have died in boxing matches since 1890. I distinctly remember reading a quote that I have never been able to find again, reportedly written by a British sportswriter: "The only natural sports are running and fighting. All the rest are contrived." (The Internet is terrible at quotes. It's one of the things it's worst at. There is no custom of attribution or citation, and a great deal of noise.) But the SportAccord definition disagrees. We should add that there are borderline cases even here; Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was killed by a pitch in a baseball game in 1920. Pretty sure that doesn't mean baseball isn't a sport.

Is pool a sport?
The border between sports and games is porous, shifting, and vague. Personally I'd consider cue sports to be in the DMZ between a sport and a game. It's a game because it requires a lot of strategy and knowledge to play well; and it's a sport because it requires a great deal of physical coordination. Of course, to the average observer, most of the strategy is invisible, and a lot of the physical skill is invisible too. One aspect of the physical skill that's crucial is that you have to strike the cue ball exactly in the right spot to get it to behave how you want it to; but that is impossible to see directly. The only way you can tell how well the ball was struck is by seeing what the cue ball does and, to a lesser extent, what the object ball does. And most casual observers have no idea how to judge this. It's as if they can't even quite see the game at all when they watch it. But we can't say that non-exertion activities have to have a strong element of strategy or gamesmanship, because what about darts?

It's a thorny thicket, and we have to be a little respectful of the complexities of the various definitions. If curling is a sport, why isn't shuffleboard? If bowling is a sport, why isn't boules?

Basketball
The greatest, most quintessential sport of all might be basketball. Think of it. It requires great skill and coordination and athleticism, yet also a high degree of strategy, gamesmanship, and instantaneous adjustment. It requires team sport cooperation and also rewards individual flair and skill. It can require delicacy, touch, and finesse, yet also demands strength, physical prowess, and a tremendous level of conditioning.

The only thing wrong with basketball is the structure of the game. The endings, if the game is very close, don't seem to go well. It would be better just to eject anyone who committed a foul in the last 75 seconds, which would put a high premium on not committing one of the fouls that routinely interrupt play at the ending of games. And there is only one ending. The way to "fix" basketball in my opinion would be to make it "best three out of five" 15-minute periods, with each period being one point. So a blowout would feature three endings and last only 45 minutes, whereas a close game would last for an hour and 15 minutes and feature five endings.

But I'm just thinking out loud here.

Anyway, I definitely consider cue sports to be sports. If you don't, that's fine—be that way!

Mike

Book o' the Week

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman. A very brief, illustrated overview of the life of America's 16th President suitable for young people.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave Levingston: "Funny this should come up today. I enter photos in the French PHOTO magazine contest every year. I almost always 'win' in that they publish one of my entries in the magazine. This year I had one entry that did not seem to fit any category. So just left the category blank. That's the photo that won. And they picked a category to put it in: 'Sport'

"Here's the photo...go figure...."

Richard Parkin: "All definitions are doomed! However, my view is that the activity should be 'sporting' which rules out most of the activities you’ve mentioned. In snooker, how is it 'sporting' to pot all the balls while you opponent sits glumly at the ringside?  ;-)  . Among the spectator 'sports' cricket possibly qualifies but not much else. Of the activities you mention I think fishing, by which I assume you mean angling, is sporting and it often causes little harm to the fish if they are returned to the water as is often the case."

Mike replies: You can "break and run out" in pool, in which case your opponent does not get a turn and can "sit glumly" etc. But never in the history of snooker has there been a single break-and-runout. The reason is that each frame necessarily starts out with a safety battle. So while the winner of each frame breaks off in the next frame, the opponent gets a chance at least once per frame to get in amongst the balls. It really is a beautiful game, in its game-like, strategic aspects—much better than any of the many pool games, none of which are as well designed.

By the way, the best game for beginners is not "stripes and solids." It's Simpson's Any-8, invented by Tom Simpson. Flip for break, and if the breaker makes one he keeps shooting at any ball on the table until he misses. The first one to eight wins. If the cue ball is pocketed, it is spotted on the center spot and the opposing player takes over, but all pocketed balls stay down.

It's a much easier game except in one respect: the players have to keep track of the score! That's why 8-ball is preferred, because score is automatic—just look at the balls remaining on the table. Any-8 is also very easy to handicap: if one player is consistently better, then just allow the weaker player to win on fewer balls. For example, I have to pocket eight balls, you only have to pocket six.

schralp: "An acquaintance who liked to send catchy postcards once sent me one with a cartoon drawing of two beer-bellied fellows in a John boat with unattended fishing lines in the water as they reclined and consumed malt beverages. The caption was one asking the other: 'If fishing is a sport, does that make us athletes?' Actually, I believe it was spelled athaletes….  ;-)  "

Mike replies: In Wisconsin there were semi-regular reports of hunters sitting in blinds up in trees until they got so drunk that they fell to the ground and hurt themselves.

T S Moore: "Basketball, baseball, etc. are games because they have officials who enforce agreed upon rules and there are multiple individuals on the team that contribute and cooperate. Fishing and hunting are examples of sports. The efforts of the individual are the only determining factor in the outcome. There are no officials enforcing the rules. Also the individual may choose more restrictive rules than other participants."

Yonatan Katznelson: "ESPN regularly televises the National Spelling Bee...if you can watch it on ESPN, then it's a sport."

Barry Reid: "Surely the 'in no way harms…' part also pretty much rules out equestrian sports? In particular, but not limited to, jump racing, as so many horses have been put down as a result of falls."

Gert-Jan: "The word sportsmanship also comes to mind: fairness, respect, graciousness in winning or losing. I kind of like the SportAccord definition, but what I still miss is the notion of awareness and fairness. That all involved know they are part of it, and have an equal chance of winning. Hunting and fishing would also not qualify as sport because the animal is not there by choice and has no chance of winning. Winning by killing does not show a lot of respect for the victim. 

With regard to getting hurt by a baseball, I would read 'in no way harmful' as 'the goal is not to harm.' Accidents can always happen, and some sports are more dangerous or rougher than others. I see that Merriam-Webster defines a game as 'a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other,' and sport as 'a source of diversion.' Playing a game can be a sport, and a sport may also be a game...."

Luke: "My wife sent me to kart racing school as a birthday gift. After three days of racing, for only a few hours per day, I was plenty tired and sore. It's a real workout. These karts probably never went over 70mph, but that's fast when your butt is an inch off the ground. It's by far the most fun I've had on four wheels, at least in the front seat. Sport, indeed."

Mike replies: Several people replied that Formula 1 is arduous and physically demanding, but I never said it wasn't. I merely said it doesn't get you out of breath, which I don't believe it does; it's not anaerobic exercise.

By the way, didn't Aryton Senna believe that kart racing was the purest form of motor racing?

jeremy thomason: "This is quite a rabbit hole you have enticed me down. Some thoughts that popped into my head: Game fishing is a sport. Traditional field sports, covered by Field Sports magazine, are hunting, shooting, and fishing, none of which appear as field sports in the Olympics. Cricket is a sport but each match is a game. Sportsmanship is seen as something to aspire to while gamesmanship is seen in a more negative light. You personally can be a 'good sport' but not a 'good game.' Though games can be good. The sport known as football is often called the beautiful game. The Olympic Games are all sports. The Sporting Life newspaper in the UK covered mostly horse racing, while the similarly named magazine in the US covered trap shooting and baseball. And my favourite tongue in cheek quote from the Guardian 2011: 'sport is what the servants watch on the TV, game is what we shoot.' Sport and game are clearly synonyms; they are often differentiated but that depends on the linguistic/cultural context."

Sunday Mystery Men (OT)

For five life points, who are these guys?

Mike

UPDATE: Your official clue is now the new "Book of the Week" below. Congratulations to Wolfgang Lonien and J. Lauretig, who guessed it first (see Featured Comments).

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson. I just read a dire, apocalyptic article about mental health during the pandemic, so I decided on trying an "off topic" book rec that is slightly lighter than our usual fare. If you don't appreciate it, don't worry, it's a blog. Something else will be along soon.

Heeeere's...Blimie and Herman!

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Wolfgang Lonien: "John Knox and Thomas Hobbes?"

Wolfgang Lonien: "Calvin and Hobbes?"

J. Lauretig: "John Knox and Thomas Hobbes."

J. Lauretig: "John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes, pretty funny. At first I thought it was John Knox, but the joke became too obvious."

Benjamin Marks: "I know this will seem like another opportunity to pontificate on any and all subjects, but The Complete Calvin and Hobbes has the most interesting Preface by Bill Watterson as it applies to creative pursuits in general. In it, Watterson writes of all the failures he had designing characters and strips in the years leading up to the creation of the basic set-up in Calvin and Hobbes. If you all assumed, as I did for many years, that C&H was a work of instant, inspired, Mozart-like genius, proceeding weekly and directly from the mind of the Almighty straight through the pens and brushes of Bill Watterson, this introduction is the cure to your amazement. It was also, for me, an excellent reminder/instruction that creative pursuits most often require failure in order to find success. And a balance of bravery with doggedness.

"The Complete Calvin and Hobbes can still be ordered from Amazon.

"It is timeless, evergreen, priceless. Actually, not 'priceless' in the literal sense, but to demonstrate what a fan-boy I am: My children actually loved the first boxed set I bought right to death—re-read it until the covers fell off and the glued spines gave up the ghost, folded the pages and spilled various drinks on them, etc. I then purchased a second set for myself, which sits high on a shelf in my office. So from my perspective, buying only one set would be getting all this goodness at half-price. At least half of what I wound up paying.  ;-) "

First Pitch (OT)

Best first pitch ever: Kim Ye-Lim of South Korea. Retire the trophy. (She's a figure skater, can you tell?) And although the spin is the main attraction, that's an elegant throw she made, too. Obviously a talented athlete.

And this must be one of the worst. This is more like what would happen if I did it!

There should be a name for the opposite of a "bucket list": all the things you know absolutely for certain you will never do. Bungee-jumping, own a jet, do a backflip on solid ground, read Proust—and to those, I could add "throw out a first pitch."

Carly Rae Jepson is a singer, I found out, and also a good sport. She was laughing at herself. And apparently she was nailing it in practice; she just tightened up at showtime and failed to release, that's all.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jim Arthur: "I walk around my local park almost every day and over the years I’ve found a few baseballs rolled up under bushes, etc. I kept the first few but now I just chuck them out into the nearest diamond to be found by some lucky kid. Eventually it occurred to me that I should try my hand at pitching again since I have these few baseballs stashed in the back of my Jeep. (I was the star pitcher of my Little League team when I was 10 years old.)

"I unearthed an old softball glove from the back of a closet and began using one of the pitching practice areas in my local park...and as a potbellied graybeard I’ve received a few double takes.  :-)  These practice areas have a mound, home plate and a large rubber sheet covered in chain link serving as a backstop. I started extremely slow because my arm is now 50 years older and I’m in sad, sad pandemic shape, but I found that my accuracy came back almost immediately.

"I’ve fallen into the habit of throwing balls once or twice a week as a fun distraction and now I think I’d be pretty good at throwing out a first pitch…if I was famous. This new bit of activity and break in my routine has prompted me to restart my old habit of daily stretching and light weight training. I must say, I feel great. I don’t know why I wasn’t exercising throughout the pandemic. For anyone who like me just sank into their couch or computer chair over the last few years I can highly recommend a little spring time activity. Just start very slow. My approach was to design an exercise routine that assumes I’m ten years older than I am."

JTK: "Re 'There should be a name for the opposite of a bucket list.' There is Mike, there is. And it rhymes perfectly with bucket list."

John Cecilian: "Dont know if this link will work for you but don't give up on the possibility of throwing out the first pitch. My business partner loved the Cubs her whole life and circumstances came together for her doing just that in their World Series year, and you can see the joy she had being on Wrigley field and throwing out a first pitch. Thought you might like this."

Mike replies: Impressive!

Reach Out (OT)

Off-topic for TOP, on-topic for life...just a brief note. Our community lost one of our own yesterday, a talented guy with many friends. No one I've heard from saw it coming. Now, my late brother was wise in these ways, but I'm not. But I know suffering is hard. Despair and depression suck, loneliness and lack of love is toxic, and the times are in turmoil. So please let me just say: remember to reach out. Find succor for yourself. If you don't find it from one source, keep looking. We need to put our worries and feelings "into relationship," as Carol Gilligan put it, by speaking them to another. Carrying our problems around hidden in our own heads lets them swell up out of control and seem bigger and badder than they may really be. It doesn't matter if we pay someone to listen. I've done it. You can do it if you need to. There's no shame. Right now I'm a member of a 12-step program where we help each other maintain our sobriety (I've been sober since I woke up, and I like my chances of getting through today), and we're supposed to bring our troubles into the group to share...and we're helping others when we do, because when you let another help you it helps them. It's a blessing, and not everyone has that. Anyway, just this thought: reaching out for help is not worse than dying. So if you need to reach out, just do it. Burdens are lighter when shared. It's not good to keep your shit to yourself.

Words to those who are here but also to someone who can no longer hear. I'm just sayin' is all.

Kind regards,
Mike
(R.I.P. JG, a.k.a. Audii-Dudii, who shall be missed)

-

darlene: "I am shocked and saddened by this devastating news. Just a few days ago, JG was responding in a forum thread I read. My sincere condolences to his community of friends. May peace be with his loved ones. Godspeed JG."

The Perfect Game (OT)

Guest Post by Carl Weese

Mike's post on Saturday about pool reminded me of something I still continue to process. My maternal grandfather emigrated from Ireland to Canada as a child with his family, then at 16 crossed into the U.S. on a bicycle. At thirty, John Francis Duggan had become a vice president of the Gimbel Brothers department store chain, known as Gimbels. It wasn’t because of his executive skills. It was because the Gimbels were Jewish and were excluded from the country clubs and after-hours watering holes where some important business networking was done. Jack Duggan wasn’t. He played golf in Greenwich and the resort town of Deal, New Jersey. But most important was a prestigious private club he belonged to in New York City. The center of the networking. Through the decade of the Roaring Twenties he was the reigning billiards champion there, and God knows how many business deals for Gimbels he secured in the pool rooms. This was during prohibition of course, so I love that I’ve inherited several of his many trophies—engraved sterling silver hip flasks.

This sucker is big, too—it holds a full pint!

Flash forward to the late nineteen-thirties. He had been clobbered by the 1929 crash. When my father was courting my mother, the family had (very unwisely) not yet dealt with the sunk cost and moved out of the mansion in Greenwich. But the pool room was still there and Dad told me it was the most frustrating thing in the world to play with Jack. He was more or less recovered from his first nervous breakdown (as they were called back then), but playing the game you described today, he would insist you take the first break. You might sink a ball and get another shot or two. Then you’d miss, and he’d clear the table. And the next. And the next….

Dad said it wasn’t boring, because he could closely observe what Jack was doing, but the frustration was that he couldn’t try to replicate the moves and learn to do them, because the table was never relinquished. Bear in mind, at this moment in history my father held all the world records for tournament archery. It was one master, or champion if you will, observing another.

Bowling
I’ve almost never thought of this connection before, but when I was maybe twelve or so I asked Dad if we could go bowling, because I’d heard it was this neat thing to do that other kids were doing with their parents. I also knew that in the shoe rack in the closet there were these weird-looking narrow black shoes. I had been told, oh, those are Dad’s bowling shoes. Kangaroo leather and smooth soles. We went to a local place and found shoes small enough for me (I hadn’t had my growth spurt yet). For the first line he was mostly teaching me to get the ball, in my rented shoes, down the lane instead of in the gutter. Then he’d toss one down. Then he started throwing strikes, looking kind of happy at remembering the skill. So we did another line. I managed to knock down some pins on my turns instead of going in the gutter. Dad bowled strike after strike. A peanut gallery formed. Then management came down to look—while Dad bowled a perfect 300. He was in his early fifties and hadn’t bowled in at least twenty years. There was no video to prove it, of course, in that long-ago time, but when we turned in my shoes and went to pay, the counter guy just said, "Are you kidding? You don’t pay after a perfect game!”

I’m not the physical genius my father was. But I’m a bit better than your average bear, and have tried to make the most of it.

—Carl

Our friend Carl, who has written for TOP many times  and held several prints sales here of his platinum/palladium large-format prints, was a champion archer in his youth. You can see all his TOP articles under his name in "Categories" in the right-hand sidebar—scroll through and you'll realize how many gems there are.

Book of Interest this Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Open Mike: Jayson Shaw in Full Flow (OT)

Before I detour to pool, check this out. Maybe not elegant, but it works...this is the guy who comments here as JG, he of the Frankenkamera. As an aside, if you scroll up from there, you'll see a lovely color portrait of a beautiful young woman. Of course it doesn't detract from the picture, but note that nothing in that photograph is quite sharp. The eyes are close enough.

Now to pool. You know I need to point out that Jayson Shaw of Scotland has set a new record for high run in 14.1 straight pool.

14.1 is the name of a game. The player breaks, then can pocket any ball in any pocket scoring one point per ball. At the end of the rack, the player leaves one ball remaining and re-racks the other 14, leaving the space for the head ball vacant; then, the shot to pocket the free ball must also break open the rack, and the run continues. The game is also called straight pool. It was Mosconi's game, and the most prestigious pool game in his time, but it's fallen out of favor in recent decades. The faster, more freewheeling 9-ball, traditionally more of a gambler's game, is the leading game now, although it has lost some ground lately to 10-ball.

The most famous 14.1 record was set by Willie Mosconi in March of 1954, in an exhibition at the East High Billiard Club in Springfield, Ohio. Mosconi was shooting on an 8-foot "pro" or "plus" size Brunswick Exposition table (46x92" playing surface, slightly smaller than the 9-foot professional standard, which is 50x100 inches between the cushions). Willie shot 526 consecutive balls. At the end of that time, he didn't miss...he just got tired of pocketing balls, which he'd been doing for four and a half hours at that point, so he just packed it in.

That record stood for 65 years. There's no situation in the actual game where you'd naturally keep going and see how well you could do, so it's not something people try to do regularly. Even in exhibitions, Mosconi would usually sink 150 balls—a number that was a common finishing line for a match—and then quit.

The famous 526 was finally broken in May of 2019 by former World Straight Pool Champion John Schmidt, who was intentionally trying to break Mosconi's record. He had been training and making attempts for approximately a year. This effort culminated in a run of 626 balls on a 9-foot table with 5" corner pockets, using fast Simonis 760 cloth.

Around that time, straight pool aficionado Bobby Chamberlain, founder of the Legends of Pocket Billiards, had teamed up with owner Deon Chapman of Street Lights Billiards Academy in the Landmark Office Building in Alexandria, Virginia, to realize his longtime dream of setting up a facility where top professionals could come to attempt to break the 14.1 record—a private area with video recording (necessary to certify the results) where players could work all day for days or weeks at a time to attempt high runs. The first players to visit were Shane Van Boening, Ruslan Chinakhov, and Earl Strickland (Earl and Shane being the sport's only five-time U.S. 9-ball champions), who posted high runs of 308, 300, and 238 respectively.

Jayson Shaw, fresh from his record seventh straight win at Turning Stone, had only five days free in his schedule, so he played 12–13 hours a day to try to get it done. After many strong runs and a high of 407, his time came to an end. But he and his wife discussed it, and he ended up calling Chamberlain to see if he could try just one more day. "I felt like I was right there," said Shaw. Back at Street Lights on January 18th for one more try, he ran 11 racks on his first attempt, a run of 154, before missing a break shot.

Then it happened. First, he stopped to celebrate at 527 when he surpassed Mosconi. Then he passed Schmidt. "At 680 or 690, the way the balls were opening up, I thought I could run 1,000. I had already beat all the numbers that were out there. There was no pressure and I was free stroking. I broke the balls open at 714 and the cue ball went through the stack, bottom rail, and the length of the table to scratch." That set the new record at 714, coincidentally the same number as Babe Ruth's career home run total.

The intense week-long campaign left Shaw exhausted and sore, with an aching shoulder and blisters on his feet and on all the fingers of his bridge hand. He slept around the clock when he got home.

The video has been certified, but it's not online. If you're curious to see Jayson Shaw in top form, watch his match with U.K. snooker champion Judd Trump at the U.S. Open. Trump, coming over from snooker, had handily beaten two lower-level players, and fans in the U.K., who believe that snooker is a more difficult game than pool (it's certainly more beautiful) and that therefore snooker players should be able to beat pool players at their own game, were crowing that Trump would win the tournament. Bookies there agreed. Then he ran into a real top pool player in Shaw, who took him to school. It was so one-sided that Trump celebrated when he took his one and only rack off Shaw, preventing the ignominy of a shutout. Watch Shaw's cue ball control in particular. Masterful. Shaw in full flow is a beast.

Other top players want to put in time at Street Lights. Russia's Fedor Gorst, Yorkshireman Darren Appleton, and Corey Deuel from the U.S. have expressed interest, and Germany's Joshua Filler reportedly wants to spend two to three weeks in his attempt when his schedule permits.

How long will the latest record stand? Only time will tell. But right now, Jayson Shaw's amazing 714 is the high run to beat.

Mike
(Thanks to AZBilliards)

Book of Interest this Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Are You Ready for an Electric Vehicle? (OT)

The annual "Best & Worst Cars, Trucks, and SUVs" issue of CR arrived yesterday, and I've had a chance to browse but not peruse. Perusal being quite a major project with this issue.

A mild upset: Subaru took the pedestal in the "Best and Worst Brands" ranking, with former champion Mazda (I'm a Mazda partisan) nudged to the second spot. BMW tied with Mazda, with Honda and Lexus rounding out the top five. At the nether end of the list of 32 manufacturers (not quite the butt end as several makers didn't even qualify to be judged), Jeep four-wheeled it through the mud and the muck on the floor of the dank sub-basement, the lowest of the low. GMC, Mitsubishi, Land Rover, and former #last Alfa Romeo round out the bottom five. Of the rest, among the surprises are that Tesla ranked only 23rd but got the top grade in owner satisfaction—meaning what, the cars aren't reliable but the owners don't mind?—while Kia, which has the highest-ranked model in the entire magazine (the Telluride, a three-row SUV), struggled only as high the middle of the pack.

The gas mileage champion overall (plug-in electrics not counted of course) is the Honda Insight, at 54 miles per gallon, in the Small Cars category. The best hybrid and gas models are listed for each of eight categories. Of the ones named, there is little overlap: only the best gasoline-powered cars vied with the worst hybrids.

Best photographer's vehicle
Among "CR Green Choice" cars, the Hyundai Tucson got high marks, along with the hard-to-get Toyota RAV4 Prime (current average wait time: six months).

Kia Telluride in copper black. Best—if
you go places with five other people.

In the individual model reviews, the Telluride dominated with a 97 score. The only other vehicles to crack 90 are the Hyundai Tucson, the BMW X5 two-row SUV, and the Toyota Avalon—that last being curious, because this is the Avalon's last year. Guess it was so good Toyota had to kill it? CR claims the Avalon's ride comfort is better than that of any Lexus. And the lowest score among all vehicles of all types? Let's just say Jeep Wrangler owners will probably want to skip this issue.

"Best Photographer's Vehicle" is the Honda Odyssey van with optional PRP (photo roof platform, with ladder). Yeah, no (as the kids say), that's not real.

The dense "Predicted Reliability" charts are impossible to sample, since not only is it divided into 17 different areas (Engine, Major; Engine, Minor; Noises/Leaks; Fuel System; In-Car Electronics; etc.), but each model is divided into specific model years. It's a welter of information. However, it's obvious that the '19, '20, and '21 Lexus GX take the cake there, with a sold dark-green bank of top marks and no stumbles. Recent Subaru Crosstreks and the '20 and '21 Forester also do very well, among others. Certain models and years are highlighted with a gray box...I presume these are "not recommended" used cars, but I couldn't find a legend explaining the gray box anywhere, so maybe not.

Top ten (not TOP ten)
As for the top recommendations overall, there are 10 "Top Picks." A surprise was that two Nissans made that list, the Sentra and the Rogue Sport, and CR had plenty of nice things to say about the Honda Ridgeline, which may be a pickup truck for those who want to be seen driving a pickup truck but don't really like pickup trucks. (Consider the Odyssey—vans are more useful than pickup trucks for most people, although they lack the machismo.) The Honda Accord was there as it always is on 10-Best lists—the only way you could go wrong buying that car is if you want, well, a pickup truck (maybe that's why they make the Ridgeline). The Ford Mustang Mach-E also made CR's honor roll, but that's another one that will take some patience to buy—seven month wait.

This only barely scratches the surface of all the information they present and all the cars they rate in the issue. Many more topics are covered. Available at newsstands? You can also buy it from Amazon. Expensive, but a huge amount of work went into this.

The world goes electric, better late than never
Probably the most surprising thing? A sidebar called "The Coming Wave of Full EVs." It lists a total of no less than 37 new EV models set to be released within the next two years, from a total of 23 makers. Wow. There's that, then—it's a-comin'. Are you ready for an electric vehicle? The inflection point on electric vehicles might not be too far away. 'Bout time, says Earth.

Mike

[CORRECTION: This post was edited to remove a footnote. —Ed.]

Book of Interest this Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Sixblockseast: "I assume the Hyundai Tucson you refer to as the CR Green Choice is either the hybrid or plug-in hybrid option. We bought the hybrid in August and absolutely love it. I'm no car connoisseur but I'm very happy with this purchase!"

Aakin: "I believe that the reason Teslas rank the way that they do is that they tend to have issues, but they are cosmetic; very rarely do they have mechanical problems, because they don't actually have a lot of mechanics to break down. And the thing with most of their issues that people do have is that they can be fixed by their mobile mechanic team; you rarely have to take it to them, unless it needs to be lifted up. For everything else, they come to you at a time convenient for you, and do the work and leave. Its a great experience compared to everyone else, hence the satisfaction."

Rick in CO (partial comment): "Lots of politically-motivated misinformation out there on EV's. A dual-axle-motored EV will leave any gas-powered supercar in the dust from 0–60. Now that's fun!"

[For the full text of partial comments, see the full Comments section accessible in the footer of each post. —Ed.]

Henning (partial comment): "CR ratings require an understanding of their proclivities and biases, as with any other reviews. Seating for five will trump seating for four; seating for seven will trump seating for five. Larger is better. Smoother ride will trump handling. See the Toyota Avalon. It is the ultimate expression of the '60s/'70s American land yacht. Large, roomy, easily mistaken for a living room sofa with a variable scenery mode. If you like a Miata, you will not like this. It is not for driving; it is for moving through the landscape, preferably forgetting that driving is involved. Once in a while CR will toss most of its criteria and award a car an extremely high score mostly based on enthusiasm. See the Tesla S. Highest score ever, by a long shot at the time of testing! It was definitely a significant and groundbreaking car, but by far the best four-wheeled vehicle ever? Over the last eight or so years they've tried to backpedal, but since that doesn't look good and would hurt their image, they've just occasionally made some comments around the edges that it might not be as great as initially stated."

David Dyer-Bennet (partial comment): "While the electric power train should last a lot longer than the vastly more complex internal combustion power train...I've never gotten rid of a car because the power train wore out. It's body rust and interior degradation, usually. Those will probably go just the same on EVs, or worse, they may go faster because all those new manufacturers don't have it quite right yet. (Yes, you'll have to replace the battery pack once or twice in the life of the rest of the vehicle; that's a chunk of change, but it's reasonably predictable and can be planned for.)"

James Allen: "I wouldn't buy an electric vehicle unless they adopted a system of interchangeable battery packs. Then I could drive into a station, pay my fee, and swap out my discharged pack with a charged one. I expect that could be automated to take about the same time as a conventional fill up. And it would get rid of the problem of using an electric car to travel very far. Yes, they'd have to standardize on a few pack sizes, etc., but it seems do-able to me."

Mike replies: Totally with you there. So obvious it's painful.

John: "CR is the last place I’d look before deciding on a car. Their choices are always the most boring cars around, the ones I avoid like the plague."

Alan: "People are missing the white elephant in the room with EV cars. Where do you think most of the electricity comes from? Fossil fuels. Coal and gas. Please don't tell me it's from alternative sources. The energy density is not even close. There is so much disinformation on this green direction. The net result is no real significant gain in emissions reductions. Of course that all depends on who you want to listen to. (same goes for Hydrogen cars as it relates to total life cycle emissions, reformation of methane/natural gas as the most cost effective way to create hydrogen). I know. I have been involved in development/building hydrogen fueling centers for the last seven years. The other big issue is when this onslaught of EV cars hit the streets, we are not prepared for the electricity demand from the grid. Get prepared for brownouts. Just sayin'. Doubt this will hit the 'Featured Comments.'  :-) "

Robert Roaldi: "I have the transcript from a meeting of blacksmiths from 1905 in northern New York state. Here's part of it: 'Now they're trying tell us that we're going to replace all those horses and carriages, build gas stations on every street corner, train thousands of automobile mechanics, find and refine oil from all over the world and deliver it to all those gas stations! And who is going to build all those engines. Where are they going to get the money to do all that? And who's going to put out all the gasoline fires? It'll never happen, just a big hoax to get money out of suckers.'"

Mike replies: Is this real or are you making it up?

Herman Krieger: "The 27 solar panels on my house help with charging the batteries on my plug-in hybrid camera, bicycle, and car. In addition, they help shade the roof during the Summer."

hugh crawford: "Keep in mind that CR used to downgrade Nikon F series cameras because the viewfinder would show all the way out to the edge of the frame showing stuff that got cropped out of machine prints or hidden by cardboard slide mounts. A German friend says that German car reviews used to be very critical of cars with gas gauges that indicated empty before the car actually ran out of gas. The moral is that you have to know what the priorities of the testers are. Also those reliability ratings are really about what brands have the most picky customers with the highest expectations."

Ronny Nilsen: "Took delivery of of a Tesla model Y last week, my first EV, and I love it! Here in Norway more than 80% of all new cars sold are pure EV. And most of the rest are hybrids. In January there were more Porsche Taycans (EV) sold that all petrol cars combined. And Tesla model 3 and Y is the top seller here I think."

Thomas Rink (partial comment): "At least here in Germany, an increasing amount of young people lose [i.e., have lost —Ed.] interest in cars. In the generation of my sons (14 and 18 years of age), already about 25% refuse to even obtain a driving license. Car traffic is often considered as a nuisance among them, and cars have definitely lost their appeal as desirable possessions."

MikeR: "On ratings and reliability, and indeed reputations of such—about three years ago I replaced an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, which had been faultless, with a Subaru Outback, which has been absolutely the most unreliable thing (let alone car) that I have ever owned. Whoever is responsible for their quality control must have been off sick the day my car was built and someone put the work experience kid in charge...."

Clive W: "There are a lot of comments here, so I may have missed this point elsewhere, but it's worth bearing in mind the massive difference in thermal efficiency between an ICE and an EV—enough to invalidate any obfuscation about how the electricity is generated. A litre of petrol contains about 34.2 megajoules. A very economical ICE car will burn about five litres in the course of travelling 100km. That's 171MJ. (If readers want this in bushels per furlong, I'm sure there's an online calculator.) A kilowatt hour is 3.6MJ. Even a relatively hungry EV will go the same 100km on 25kWh, or 90MJ. So even if the electricity is all from coal (which it very seldom is) that's half as much fossil combustion as the ICE car, before you count the fossils burned in the fuel distribution chain, or the chasm in capability between the vehicles.

"IC engines turn fossil fuel into heat and noise, plus a little incidental motion. Yes, my fossil car can travel 3–4 times as far between stops as my EV, but it does it by carrying 3,000MJ in fuel, against the EV's 151MJ—20 times as much. Summary: an EV requires far less energy per unit distance travelled, so it reduces CO2 emissions regardless of how its electricity is generated."

The Inevitable Putins (OT)

Sure is a tough time in the world. I feel for the many innocent citizens of Ukraine, those who would prefer just to be left alone to live their lives. I feel for the many innocent citizens of Russia, who have no control over the actions of their government or their leader—they have no more more ability to stop their country's "neighbor abuse" than you or I have to stop any of the cockamamie things our own governments do. Imagine yourself, if you will, as one of the 1,800 Russians newly imprisoned merely for protesting. Your life probably isn't so bad by comparison.

I feel for today's teenagers, growing up with COVID-19, isolation from their peers, and the jumbled babbling fracas of the internet. But also, this latest—the abrupt resurgence of an articulated nuclear threat by someone with the power to carry it out—is reawakening long-slumbering fears in the generation just ahead of mine, whose childhoods were clouded, long ago, by the brooding threat of nuclear Armageddon in the early days of the Cold War. They used to have to do drills at school which had them getting under their desks to take cover from a nuclear attack, a gesture even five-year-olds could recognize as pathetic and futile, even if they didn't know those words. Some people of that generation find those old fears being unearthed again by the prospect of a deranged leader waving his weapons around. As a small boy I used to listen for the "booms" of the supersonic fighter jets high overhead—staring at the sky, hoping to see one. They were invisible.

I've posted this before, but it seems like it might offer a modest balm this Monday: the reverently joyful 50th-anniversary performance of "The Weight" by Playing for Change, performed by Robbie Robertson, Ringo Starr, and more than 20 musicians across five continents. This took a year and a half to record and edit, everyone working together.

Dictator-types
This is just my opinion, but humanity, I feel, just has to get past its voluntary subjugation to the psychodramas of semi-demented single individuals. We regularly put our societies, often almost willingly it seems, into the hands of dictator-types with disordered personalities. It's always broadly the same, whether it's Alexander the so-called Great (I'd call him the Great Destroyer), Napoleon, Hitler, Idi Amin, Saddam, or Putin—we sure wish the list were that short. They're like a drug for us somehow. It might be the biggest recurrent problem of the human race throughout history. But we can understand it now, from a mental health perspective. Collectively we'll have to learn to act on what we know, to find some way to free ourselves someday from the inevitable Caesars, the inevitable Putins. Those assassins in the Curia of Pompey had something right, after all, on that ancient Ides of March. Although it's less well known that every one of them was eventually hunted or hounded to death, and they were on the losing side. The Republic they were trying to rescue by their shocking act was lost*.

May I just say I love Ringo's drumming, always have. Never a showoff, always in the pocket. He's not a great drummer, he's a great musician who happens to be a drummer. As someone once said, "most drummers play the drums. Ringo plays the song."

Enjoy the music, pray for peace.

Mike

*One of my unpedigreed theories, of which you know I have many, is that all modern Westerners should be schooled in the fall of the Roman Republic. Nothing in history offers greater relevance for our times and our own societies.

Book o' the Week

Ara Güler's Istanbul, one of the more amazing books in my collection. I'm also amazed it's still in print. Not only does it culminate a longtime habit and a vast body of work for the Turkish photographer of Armenian descent, one of the few world-famous photographers from Turkey—a labor of love—but it's a unique and wonderful example of bookmaking. If you don't buy this, at least see one sometime.

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Featured Comments from:

David Miller: "Thank you Mike. I can't explain why that video from Playing for Change released the flow of tears that has been building up in me since the invasion of Ukraine began, but I'm grateful."

John Camp: "I was part of the under-the-desk generation. As the saying went, 'Get under your desk, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.'"

Kye Wood: "My brother Mike. I hear you. I really do. But we're all hardwired to find the best mate we can. To compete. To show potential mates that we can provide for them, better than others can. Thus, finite resources get shifted disproportionately, to those who compete the most successfully. Wealth inequality and all that flows from it is a consequence of our core programming. Ya can't patch the symptoms with laws and dreams. Our core unconscious programming is the problem. All we can do is be kind and be generous. Inequality is an uncrackable nut."

Mike replies: We'll always have Athens.

David Cope: "I often wonder, but can’t work out how, as a society, we afford one individual so much power. The power is not really with them, it’s given to them by others who cannot say 'no.' Fear of punishment from one’s peers for saying no is carried out, usually, by subordinates who, themselves, are not willing to say no. It’s easy to see why a chain of command is, psychologically, the instrument of the hierarchy, be it military, criminal or civil society. Are we genetically disposed to live in hierarchy or can we evolve into true egalitarian, flat structures where no one individual can dominate."

Albert Smith: "Love that song and this compilation video is so well done. I was in the military for 22 years; it doesn't define me, it's just what I chose to do. Every day from the '70s until the early '90s, we trained to take on the Russian bear. I was in SAC when we brought our bombers off of alert and, in a gesture of goodwill, Russia flew two Bear Bombers to our base and we flew two B-52s to Moscow. Everyone exhaled and could relax a bit. We were done with the cold war without the worst-case scenario happening.

"Now because of one guy that can't accept history we are in jeopardy of one mistake leading to some horrible consequences.

"My hat is off to the Ukrainians. Nothing motivates like things happening in your own backyard, and they are putting up a valiant effort to repel this unwarranted assault. I wish them well and hope for a quick resolution."

Charlie Ewers: "Cicero wasn't even a conspirator, just a Senator who loved the Republic and was willing to speak up when he felt it was being threatened by the autocrats. They cut off not only his head, but also his hands, which he had apparently used extensively to gesture while speaking in the Senate. In my mind a true hero, someone whom we might well need to emulate in our own time, the way things have been going lately."

Mike replies: And Fulvia, the wife of Antony, who was presented with the severed head of Cicero (which would have been pronounced "KICK-eh-roe" in his time) stuck pins in the tongue, to repay him for his sharp words. Now that's vengefulness, lest you think your neighbor is being vengeful by ignoring your request to borrow his snowblower because you were slow to return it last time.

Patrick J Wahl (partial comment): "What book would you suggest about the Roman Republic?"

Mike replies: That's hard to answer. Maybe Rome: An Empire's Story, by Greg Woolf, to start? On the grounds that it's a complete overview from soup to nuts, a sort of basic primer of the outlines of everything. Roman history, I suspect, is one of those subjects in which scholars write books from the perspective of their own theories as a way to communicate and contend with one another. And it's such a vast and sprawling subject that a lay reader can dip in here and there and come away with a partial picture that feels more complete than maybe it is. And finally, I don't know how little old me would know. I read Roman history for maybe eight months—it didn't feel like a whole year, whatever it was—and took in only a smattering of books. Personally I would not recommend Mary Beard, who comes in for a lot of praise but doesn't give me what I'm looking for. Her book SPQR struck me as commentaries on history rather than a history. She seems to be writing for people who are already well versed.

One thing I will say is that reading about Rome is damned entertaining. Lurid, vivid, larger than life. 

Julius Caesar was the fulcrum point of Roman history, the hinge. Before even Greg Woolf's book, read the short Wikipedia article "Crossing the Rubicon." It's only a few hundred words, but you'll catch the whiff of all the drama implicit in it.

Rod S.: "I wondered whether I was alone in having my 'long-slumbering fears' resurface from childhood. I'm 65 and vividly remember the fear and chill that I, as a six-year-old, felt as my family listened during a car journey to a series of radio news broadcasts during the developing Cuban Missile Crisis. A nuclear World War Three was imminent. And here now, all these years later, we have cause to fear it all coming at us again."

Mani Sitaraman: "This was wonderful, Mike, though the theme song by The Band playing in our heads the last few days was probably 'The Shape I'm In'! Nice to see Lukas Nelson in that collaborative song—I like him.

"And a word offered in protest. It is 2022, and it is high time we retired the canard, originally likely proffered as a humorous aside, that Ringo Starr isn't a great drummer. He is—as any fresh listen to the Beatles albums and the perspective of time reveals to us. In my YouTube viewing of late, it is heartening to hear musicians of the younger generation wonder why we 'olds' would say that about Ringo. He just isn't a showy drummer, the type who hogs passages with long drum solos, but surely that's immaterial?"

Mike replies: I agree totally. The gag was, "Maybe Ringo wasn't the best drummer in the world. All right, maybe he wasn't the best drummer in the Beatles." Attributing it to John Lennon is what makes the joke a canard, "a false or unfounded report or story, especially, a fabricated report." The words were written by Geoffrey Perkins and broadcast on the Radio 4 sketch comedy "Radio Active" on October 6th, 1981, followed either by audience laughter or canned laughter. Lennon had no part in it it.

But, of course, you can't correct the internet.

Paul C: "On the Ringo front—there’s a short, fun TikTok video that was making the rounds last fall from a drummer illustrating what made Ringo so special. Twitter link to it."

Jeff Hughes: "What would you recommend to this modern Westerner who would like to learn more about the fall of the Roman Republic? Thank you for that musical inspiration."

Mike replies: See my reply to Patrick above, but my favorite of the ones I read is The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti. But this would not be an appropriate recommendation for everyone, because Parenti is a red-blooded leftist and unapologetically examines his subject in that light. I loved it—who wouldn't want to know that girl-children in ancient Rome were often given the same name and distinguished by descriptives? For example, the two daughters of Octavius were Octavia the Elder and Octavia the Younger. You'll know exactly where the author stands by the end of Chapter 1, which launches with an ice-cold, rock-hard appraisal of the class biases of Gibbon.  :-)

Open Mike: Ice Dams! (OT)

Icicles hanging off a snow-covered roof in the winter are picturesque, but what you might be seeing is something that can ruin a valuable house as surely as a three-alarm fire. It's a dreaded term in the north: ice-dams.

Here's a great explanation of how ice dams form and why. If some of those illustrations don't make you wince, I'm guessing you're not a homeowner.

As the fellow in the video says, "water always wins."

The pool shed
The pool-table shed I bought last year immediately preceded a serious downturn in my economic fortunes, never robust in the first place, and if I had it to do over again I definitely wouldn't. It turned out to be very bad timing. However, since it's done and dusted, I'll say it's one of the best things I've ever bought for myself in my life. Second only to the used Miata I had for three years starting in 2010. I've really enjoyed it.

Of course, I rank a lot of things more highly that I've done for others, including paying for my son's college education and digging deep to pay for my late dog Lulu's TPLO operation even though I was desperately poor at the time. I'm proud of certain charitable donations too. In 2006 I had pneumonia, and received some expensive medical care from a local free clinic for the uninsured. After I got more prosperous I donated $500 to that clinic every year for a number of years. It's satisfying to repay such a debt. But I digress.

The pool table shed has been a steady source of pleasure. In the 13 months I've had it, not including when I'm traveling, I've missed a day only about twice. On a normal day I probably go out there four times, sometimes for just ten minutes, occasionally for as long as an hour. Longer when friends come over to play.

I won't be playing any pool today, however. The reason: ice dams! I saw a leak inside the pool table shed for the first time yesterday. Oh no! Gotta protect my investment.

Perfect storm?
The conditions are perfect for ice dams. There's a lot of snow on the roof, which supplies the water. And it's been cold, so I've been pumping a lot of heat into the shed. Two inches of spray foam insulation on the ceiling, it turns out, isn't enough to keep the heat away from the shingles. So water forms under the snow and then trickles down to the unheated edge of the roof, where it promptly freezes. Repeat indefinitely and before you know it there's a ridge of ice three inches thick. Behind that ridge, water builds up and works its way back up under the shingles. Water always wins.

Last week on a warmish day I got up on a ladder and removed all the ice dams by hand. And just as soon as the temperature plummeted they were back with a vengeance. It was 40°F on Monday, and I got all the ice dams removed again (carefully) using a spade. But as long as it's below freezing, I plan to leave the temperature in the pool shed at 35°F, just above freezing, to try to minimize the problem.

By the way, you'd think it would be easy to just get up on the roof and shovel the snow off, but, apart from the risk to my not-so-nimble self, I'm not really sure the roof can support my weight. I think I'd break the adhesion between the rafters and the insulation on the inside, weakening the structure.

Billiard hall at Paul Smith's casino, Adirondack Mountains, 1905. Courtesy Shorpy.

Of course, the best thing to do would have been to build a better building in the first place. But we're all bound by budgets. Most of us, anyway.

Fixes
Here's what I'll do today—a temporary fix. Ice-Melt in nylon stockings (now where in the world do you buy nylon stockings? I don't have the first clue) to create channels through the ice for the trapped water to escape. As soon as I can, I'll try to install a better solution: heated de-icing cables for the roof.

The best solution would be more insulation under the roof. My rafters are 2x6's, so there's still room for more insulation—Rockwool, maybe? Unfortunately there's an impediment: the pool table. With the pool table already in place, it's no longer convenient to get to the ceiling above it.

The biggest problem with the heated de-icing cables? I don't really trust myself to install them by myself, and it's such a small job that I'm unlikely to be able to entice a tradesman to help me. Around here, the trades are in high demand, so they're pretty picky about what jobs they'll take on. I already have several jobs around my property that are too big for me to do alone but too small to hire anyone to help me with. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, it's always something.

Anyway, beware icicles! When the weather is just right, or rather, just wrong, icicles are a big warning flag for possible damage to your house.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ronny Nilsen: "Getting the snow of the roof can be done without climbing by using a snow roof rake."

Mike replies: A lot of people have suggested that, and it would be a good suggestion, except that one side of the shed roof is pretty much right next to the barn wall. So there'd be no room on that side to use a roof rake.

I have a friend coming out tomorrow to give me a quote on installing those zigzag heated cables. I know they use a lot of electricity, but I'd really only need them a few times a year.

Moar Futbol! (OT)

Haven't been following American football* lately? Totally understand. I was away from it too, for years. Sports are the thing I miss most about not owning a TV.  

For some reason I got back into it this year. Well, the reason is probably that the NFL on YouTube has been publishing 15-minute "highlight" videos from recent games, which make it possible to fast-forward through a complete game.   

It was fun to see the Cincinnati Bengals win their first playoff game in 31 years. They have an absolutely standout young wide receiver in Ja'Marr Chase. Rookie of the Week in five different weeks. Watch his exceptional performance in Week 17 against the Chiefs (who lost last year's Super Bowl). Eleven receptions, 266 receiving yards and three touchdowns. Yowzuh. That's just fun.

Ja'Marr Chase, born in 2000(!) in Harvey, Louisiana  

Several young quarterbacks have had an excellent year: Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs, Josh Allen of the Bills, and Joe Burrow of the Bengals among others. And of course young Tom Brady—he's 44—of the Buccaneers.   

Oldsters
In my time the quarterback who was famous for being "old" was Kenny "The Snake" Stabler, who retired mid-year when he was 37. It was considered pretty ancient for a QB in an era when "roughing the passer" was still something to strive for rather than a penalty. Fans accepted at the time that Stabler gritted out his last three years, hanging on past his sell-by date out of pure toughness and cussedness.

The oldest quarterback ever, though, was George Blanda, who played until he was 48. He spent 26 years in the League, the most ever. Brady has played 20 seasons. Quite a few more than the NFL average career length of 3.3 years for quarterbacks, but Brady would have to play till age 50 to catch up to Blanda. He might try.

"The hotter the game, the cooler he became," John Madden said
of his QB and friend Kenny Stabler. Photo by George Brich.

I've finally fallen into the gravity field of the nearby Buffalo Bills, who have become great fun to watch. The butt-whumping they laid on perennial powerhouse New England was, as the kids say, epic: the Bills scored on their first seven possessions. Buffalo didn't do a lot of things: they didn't punt; they didn't turn the ball over; and they didn't attempt a field goal (two missed extra points accounts for their unusual point total). The final score of Rebel Alliance 47, Galactic Empire 17 makes the game look closer than it was. The deficit at halftime was the worst in Patriot playoff history.

Insane
If Josh Allen, Brady, Mahomes and Burrow are having outstanding years, there's one QB who's having an insane year: Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers. He's a baaaad man. He's 37 too, the age at which Stabler hung up his spurs, but he's showing not one iota of decline. After posting their third 13–3 season in three years, Rodgers is arguably even better this year than in the previous two: for example, over his last six games he has 18 touchdowns to zero interceptions, which in the NFL is just shy of a unicorn getting out of a flying saucer. He has just one interception over his last 384 pass attempts. These numbers make Old COVID-Toe probably the best quarterback with the fewest Super Bowls in history. Right there with Jim Kelly, Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, and Warren Moon. He does have one Super Bowl, but he ought to have about five. He's that good.

Readers with long memories might remember my "futbol" dilemma when I moved here (if you lived where I do, what's the logical team to root for? The answer was the Packers, of course). True to long allegiance, I'll root for the Packers first. But after that, it's the Bills.

I think this means I'm starting to be a real New Yorker.

Mike

*This website's style sheet—the list of ways in which we handle various spelling, punctuation, and usage matters in order to stay consistent—has settled the "football/football" standoff by referring to the two games as "American football" and "World football."

Book o' the Week
American Geography by Matt Black, a great name for a photographer but a terrible internet name, impossible to search. Stan Banos calls American Geography a "handsome, well thought out and put together book." Matt's work is outstanding.

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Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Tippler: "I’ve lost interest in American (gridiron) football to association football. You know that sport where they don’t touch the ball, but rather apply foot to ball to maneuver it across the field into the opposing net.

"It all started with my brother-in-law and his friends. Argentines and Uruguyans. When watching the Argentine national team in big matches with them, one name popped up: Messi. When at home, my cable channel lineup included La Liga (i.e. the top Spanish league), where this guy Messi would be on every week. I was hooked in short order. Association football fans have the best deal in the world, with classicos, derbys, world cup qualifying tournaments, World Cup tournaments, long standing rivalries (USA vs. Mexico, Argentina vs. Brazil…). My favorite team, though, is the U.S. National Women's Team on account of their heart and spirit, and oh, they’re the best team out there. One big reason why I enjoy futbol so much may be inconceivable to gridiron football fans: no commercials during play!"

Greg Heins: "I was living in the Bay Area in 1970 and that fall Blanda, at 43, having been released by multiple teams during his career, came in late during each of the last five Oakland games of the season and engineered fantastic comeback wins with both passing touchdowns and field goals. (Early in his career he also played linebacker.) I lived next to a guy with a TV and happened to be visiting him for the amazing ending of the first of those games and after that he would bang on the wall for me to come over each time Blanda came into the game. Blanda became the AP's Male Athlete of the Year, the first pro football winner of that award. Those were giants that walked the earth...."

Clay Olmstead: "In Australia, they play Australian Rules Football, American Football, rugby and World Football: which they call footy, gridiron, rugby and soccer, respectively. No confusion there."

Open Mike: Washing Machines (OOT*)

[Comments have been added, Thurs. 12:30 p.m. EST]

We've been talking about riches these past few days. And everybody has different ideas about money. The way I've always thought about wealth in my own life is that it gets me back to zero. That is, being prosperous is not actually a very good source of rewards; what it's really good for is removing the problems. Too much below the zero line, and I'm in a state of deficiency, where problems proliferate because I don't have the wherewithal to get them solved. If you've ever been poor, think of all the problems and headaches you experienced just because you couldn't afford a reliable automobile. It can even create minor crises, for instance when you're in dire need of a large repair you can't afford, or if you get in an accident when you don't have insurance. If you're prosperous, your car always works, your maintenance costs are predictable, everything's all insured and checked and inspected, you never worry about gas money, and you might even have a backup car in case anything does go wrong. It "nulls out" all the car problems. Gets you back to even. The car is just there, at your service.

As another example, I sometimes think of my history with...um, washing machines. (You can probably already tell this is going to be the weirdest post I ever wrote, but hey, it's a blog. If you don't like it, you can wait till Friday.)

When I was a boy, here's how clothing got washed: I dropped my dirty clothes on the floor of my bedroom and they disappeared. Some time after that, they reappeared, washed, dried, and neatly folded, in the drawer of my dresser. This happened invisibly, when I was at school. The agent of this routine miraculous transformation was Emmie, our sixtysomething spinster housekeeper of German descent. And this, by the way, is the optimum method for getting one's laundry done. It's ideal, not to mention lovely, and I wish I had appreciated it more.

The part about the bedroom floor was me, though. I have a very vague memory of a hamper in the upstairs hall that I was supposed to throw my dirty laundry into. But I don't think I very often did. Emmie didn't seem to resent having to pick my laundry off the floor; Emmie didn't seem to resent anything.

Start-stop
Emmie had two peculiarities I remember above all. One was that every now and then, as she worked, she would break into song. But it was always the same song, and she sang only one line of it: "Around—the world—in eigh-ty days...." Next, as if she had forgotten the words, she would continue with "ta-tah-tah-ta, ta-tah-tah-ta...." Then she would hum a few more bars softly and fall silent. A few moments or minutes would pass and she'd start up again, singing the same snippet again, exactly the same way. I probably heard her do that eight hundred times, or twice that.

The other odd thing was the way she drove her car—by repeatedly flooring the accelerator and then letting up off the pedal completely and coasting. So if the speed limit was 25, like it was in our neighborhood, she'd accelerate to 30, drift down to 20, then accelerate to 30 again. When I dawdled in the morning and missed the school bus, sometimes Emmie helped my mother by driving me to school. Accelerate, coast. Accelerate, coast. It's not like the car jumped ahead when it was floored. Her car, an inexpensive American hardtop coupe of a bland greenish color with a vinyl roof, probably had less than 90 horsepower and a zero-to-60 time in the high teens. Steadily holding delicate middling positions of the accelerator, however, was beyond her—when I goaded her into trying it, she just held the pedal down too long and we ended up careening down the leafy, lazy roads of the sleepy suburb of Bayside at fifty miles an hour! Which alarmed us both. Although the subtleties of Emmie's adult psychology were no doubt beyond my ken at the time, I was a bright enough child, and it did occur to me that she would continue to be fine with her odd style of driving so long as she never had to pilot too powerful a car.

It was only two miles, but it was during these trips to school that I pried her for details of her life. (Curiosity has always been one of my main characteristics.) Emmie's story, as far as I ever knew it, was that she was the daughter who had stayed home to care for her elderly parents, which she had done dutifully and without complaint. Her immigrant parents (Milwaukee was settled largely by Germans) had spoken little English, so she translated for them as well. There had been suitors for her, once upon a time, one in particular whom she honored in memory, but the complications of her familial duties had discouraged him. The problem with the arrangement was that, with her parents gone to their reward and Emmie's obligations fulfilled, she herself was left alone in her own old age. (I resolved at age ten not to end up like that, although I have.)

After my parents separated, it became my job to do my own laundry. I can't complain about that, because it's a basic life skill any young person of either sex should learn. At least the respective laundry machines at Mom's house and Dad's house were convenient and private, and supplies and maintenance were paid for out of my parents' pockets rather than mine. Again, no appreciation from me. Laundry was a chore and chores an annoyance.

After that, I moved to the Corcoran School of Art's "dorm," so called, a small brownstone apartment building in the Dupont Circle area of D.C. The laundry machines were just outside the door of my unit, which was convenient, but they were often in use, night or day, and at night the noise of the machines and people's comings and goings fractured my sleep.

Then I moved to a larger apartment building in Georgetown. We tenants weren't allowed to have laundry machines in our units—supposedly because of the risk of flooding, but also probably because the coin-op machines in the ancient dank basement were another source of income for the landlord. Those machines were dirty and sluggish, and took a lot of quarters—you had to run the dryers twice to have any hope of getting everything dry. If you abandoned your stuff for even a few hours it would be removed and set aside by some other tenant, some of whom would just pile your clothes on the floor, which looked like it had not been cleaned since maybe the Truman administration.

Stop, thief!
I was never a clothes horse except for a brief period of about three years in my mid-teens. If pictures from that period are any indication, that did not go well. So I've never owned much in the way of clothing, and what I do own tends to be utilitarian—I got through the entire George W. Bush administration with four identical pairs of black jeans. But I never learned the value of even basic clothing until I had some stolen from that apartment building in Georgetown.

The basement was what's called a "walk-out" type, and it got a lot of walk-through traffic because the basement door was the entrance from the back parking lot. And there was a band of homeless people in the "park" you had to be careful of. The park was actually not a park—it was the oldest Black graveyard in D.C., for the leaders and well-to-do of the Black community in the 1700s and 1800s. But at some point all the headstones had been shoved into the bushes and into the little gully, to clear the land for picnic tables and games of Frisbee (which I considered to be beyond disrespectful—let's not get me started on that topic). Halfway down the slope to Rock Creek was a crypt, a small stone room dug into the hillside. It was where the caskets of the dead had been temporarily stored during Winters when the ground in the cemetery was too frozen to dig. The crypt was the headquarters of the shadowy and shady homeless bunch, and you had to be cautious around it. I only peeked into it once, during the day, when its denizens were out panhandling, procuring their poisons of preference, thieving, or doing whatever they did.

I made the mistake of leaving a bag of clean laundry in the basement, because I was on my way out and too lazy to take it back upstairs. And then, unfortunately, I forgot about it. For a whole day or maybe even two. Bad move. The door to the parking lot was never locked. My bag got stolen. I had never thought twice about the cost of clothing until I lost that whole heap of it during a time when money was tight! Shirts, $20, jeans, $25, and so on—the replacement cost of that single bag of vanished laundry was more than $200. Painful.

Next I moved to a luxury apartment in Laurel, Maryland, and things started looking up. That was in my professional photographer period, so I had some money finally**. The apartment had a small utility room with laundry hookups just off the kitchen, and I splurged for a basic top-loading washer-dryer set in stylish avocado green. That was a luxury, too—my machines were private, proximate, shiny and new, needed no quarters, and they worked just like they were supposed to. And there you have it—back to zero! No more problems with laundry. Nothing could go wrong from there on out, right?

Except that a year later Xander was born and we moved to Chicago. And that's where I hit the nadir, laundry-wise. I had paid to move my still-fairly-new machines from Maryland, but I couldn't use them in the unit. So while my still all-but-new washer and dryer sat unused in storage in the basement of the building across the courtyard, mocking me, I had to take all our laundry five miles away to a laundromat and sit there and wait till it was done. It sucked up a lot of time, and it was vaguely humiliating in some undefined way, but let's look on the bright side—I got a lot of reading done. Xander, who was six months old, slept beside my chair in his handy detachable carseat basket. It was the least convenient way of getting laundry done I had ever experienced. I had certainly gone a long way down from the days of Emmie. That avocado-green washing machine and dryer had to be left behind when I moved again, and by the time I went back to get them they had vanished. Back below zero again.

Beautiful girl
This is getting longer than it is interesting. So, long story short, unless it's already too late for that: things are getting better now. Here in Western New York we have a large Mennonite community, and for an oh-so-short time a couple of years back I hired a beautiful young Mennonite housekeeper (or cleaning lady or maid or whatever you want to call it) named Jen Zeiset. And for that short period I actually did make it full circle back to the era of Emmie. Jen came once a week for maybe half a year or so. She didn't just help out; she enjoyed domestic work and had a gift for it. She worked like there was a contest on, wouldn't take breaks even when I encouraged her to, and did things better than I thought they could be done. She did all the laundry and folded it beautifully and returned it to the drawers. (To answer your question, no—I have matured into an orderly and dignified old fart, so I don't drop my undies on the floor any more.)

That's what affluence is for, the way I look at it. It alleviates the mundane, quotidian problems of life. You never have to cart the laundry to the Laun-Dro-Mat and stop for a roll of quarters along the way.

Alas, I'm back to shifting for myself. Mennonite girls, I'm told, only work outside the home until they start their own families. I assumed I might have Jen for two years, because she was only 18 when I hired her and Mennonite women typically marry at around 20, but no such luck: she married her beau Cody that very year and moved away to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where his business is. I wish I'd had to courage to ask her if I could take her portrait—she really was an uncommonly beautiful young woman, slender and demure in her cap and long dress. Smart and decent, too. It's no wonder she got taken early in the draft, if that's not too crass a way to put it. Cody was reportedly pretty head-over-heels for young Jen. According to her mother.

But we were talking about riches: and here's what really makes you rich. Not just to get back to zero, the point where a lack of money is no longer causing any problems: but to appreciate it. This is really where the satisfaction comes from, if you ask me.

It's the difference between Jen and Emmie. I took Emmie for granted; but after years of annoyances with the quotidian task of getting my clothes clean, every time I opened a drawer to find Jen's stacks of crisply folded clean shirts...well, I felt a flush of satisfaction, pleasure, and gratitude. Each time. I suppose rich people will pooh-pooh the idea that periods of poverty have anything to do with the enjoyment of wealth, and I can't speak for others, but I will claim that it sweetens the simple fruits of prosperity to have lived without them. In the way that hunger increases the satisfaction of a simple but excellent meal.

Searching for home
Oh, and by the way—my conclusion about Emmie's song was not that she was simple, but that she went about life with the lush cadence of a waltz playing in her head! She worked, you might say, in waltz time. Swinging the vacuum cleaner back-and-forth, forth-and-back as if the skirts of her gown were brushing the floor of a Berlin ballroom. I wish I had figured this out early enough to see if waltz time could be overlayed on the rhythm of her pulses of acceleration as she drove, but by the time this idea occurred to me Emmie had long since faded into a memory. Still, it pleases me to think that maybe her odd gun-it-and-coast style of motivating her car might have been a sort of repressed dancing.

It was only long after her death that I got curious about those lyrics: what were the words that came next after "Around the world in eighty days," anyway? I learned then to my astonishment that those weren't even the right words—the song title, from the 1956 musical, never occurs in the song itself. Rather, it begins, "Around the world I've searched for you...." And the words that come next, the ones Emmie always sang with placeholder ta-tah-tahs, are,

I traveled on, when hope was gone,
To keep a rendezvous....

Mike

*You know how they talk about off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway? Well, this post is off-off-topic. We'll have no more of this!

**I told everybody I earned $72k a year, but it was $72k gross, $39k net. Maybe...1991, so $143k/$77k in today's money.

Book o' the Week

American Geography by Matt Black, a great name for a photographer but a terrible internet name, impossible to search. Stan Banos calls American Geography a "handsome, well thought out and put together book." Matt's work is outstanding.

The link is a portal to Amazon. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

GKFroelich: "For what it's worth, this was my favorite post since your one on Fotomats. Perhaps that's because I could relate to it so well, but it was a great read, and had me smiling the entire time."

Marty Knapp: "Mike, Thanks for making my day! Your essay this morning put big smiles on both my wife's and my faces. I could just see Emmie waltzing around...your description brought me right beside both of you. You have a gift of inviting us into the rooms and times of your life. I wish I was able to write as well as you, but for the time being I will be happy just reading your OT and OOT narratives! Please keep these coming!"

Jonathan: "If you are not familiar with Hans Rosling and the Magic Washing Machine you really should look it up. In addition to not having to worry, a functioning car/washing machine/whatever provides an enormous amount of free time. Having to take the car to the shop or waiting for a repairman can waste a whole day."

Scott Marriott: "When you said: 'This is getting longer than it is interesting,' I just about shouted: 'No it's not!' I enjoyed it immensely. I'm only a couple of years older than you and found many of your descriptions painfully funny, familiar and telling. I could easily hear more like them."

Robert Roaldi: "My wife and I have a running joke about money. We say that we want to die with zero dollars in the bank. She was speaking to her cousin a few months ago, after he had just retired, and she told him our line. He said, 'I want my cheque to the funeral home to bounce.'"

Mike replies: Funny, but I feel the opposite. I have never been much motivated by money; I didn't realize until a particular day in my brother's kitchen in 2003 that I had never actually tried to make money. Now I do feel the danger of insecurity in my old age, so I care more now. But mostly, the main reason I would like to earn some money is so I could leave something to my son. That's not the only thing, but it's really what motivates my ambition (what I have of it) more than anything else.

Gerard Kingma: "Years ago I read Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. This post very much reminds me of that. It's about nothing and about everything at the same time. Thank you."

Mike replies: Years ago I had the opportunity to meet Garrison Keillor. He gave a talk at a bookstore in Georgetown. After the talk, a long line of people formed to meet him and exchange a few personal words. Most of the people in front of me asked deep questions, and each exchange seemed to take a lot of time. The line moved slowly. I was at the very end of the line, and I meant to ask him a deep question too: "How can I become a writer?" But as the line dwindled, the bookstore cleared of people, and the afternoon light outside began to shift toward dusk. When it came my turn, I opened with, "how are you?" and Mr. Keillor immediately answered, "tired." I looked at him more closely, and he did look very weary, and distracted, and I realized that what he most likely wanted more than anything was to get to his dinner—his eyes kept wandering toward the front door, even. So I just thanked him briefly for his talk and wished him a good evening. His face actually brightened when he realized he didn't have to talk to me! I didn't take it personally at all. Rather, I considered how kind it was of him to talk to everyone in the line, all the way to the very end, leaving no one out, even though he most probably very much wanted to be finished and leave.

Ernest Zarate (partial comment): "There are entire books, numerous self-help courses, workshops, counselors, computer apps, free 'advice' from family and strangers and much more that focus on money. But I’ve never seen or heard of anyone distilling wealth in all its many phases (i.e., to have or have not) down to washing machines. Never. Real estate. Exotic cars. Travel. Antiques. Stock market. IRAs. Retirement. Yes, all that and more. But never washing machines. To say nothing of household help, young and old."

Andrzej Rojek: "Mike, I liked your off-off-topic quite a lot indeed. I fully subscribe to your opinion that having lived without fruits of prosperity can sweeten them when they eventually appear.

"Poland where I was born and where I live now was on the wrong side of the iron curtain a few of decades ago. Permanent shortages of food and household items were facts of life in the 1980s. Russian cameras such as Smena (lower end) and Zenit (somewhat higher end) were all I could have dreamt of. East German Praktika seemed to be beyond my reach while Japanese SLRs remained a sort of unobtainium back then. When my friend got a colorful flyer of Olympus photo gear (I cannot recall the exact camera model and what I remember is Zuiko 50mm ƒ/1.2) we felt like kids looking at a candy behind a window pane. I feel it affects the way I appreciate and enjoy my cameras these days (including those that heavily fall short of what can be considered as fancy cameras). P.S., my Zenit is still in perfect condition after some 35 years (however, I haven't used it for quite a long time now)."

Peter in Boulder: "Off off topic or not, Mike, I greatly enjoyed it. Your definition of wealth resonated with me."

Geoff Wittig: "Ah, memories of laundry thrills past.... Washing and cleaning clothes is one of those boring fundamentals that explain why being poor is so soul-crushing and expensive. My first two years in medical school were spent in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, during the nadir of New York City's 1980s crime and bankruptcy crisis. The closest laundromat was a grimy snake-pit crawling with cockroaches a half mile walk northeast from our apartment. If you didn't stay guarding your machine, your clothes would disappear. A heavy pocketful of quarters got you one load. There was at least one stabbing at that laundromat while we were there, so I did all the laundry; it was too hazardous for my petite wife. Affluent people generally have no idea how hard it is for working poor folks to get the laundry done; how expensive it is in terms of time, effort, and share of a very meager budget."

Mike replies: True dat. Barbara Ehrenreich's bestseller Nickel and Dimed has some vivid stories of that.

Open Mike: 'Why Tempt Ye Me, Ye Hypocrites?'

Just a slight counterpoint to the previous post: We do need to remember that wealth doesn't actually cling to us past death, even though modern society has evidently decided it does. It doesn't actually cling to us even in life. The Buddha said, "Gold and silver are like grains of sand that slip through my fingers, as if it were nothing." Ethan Nichtern elaborates: "In life, we are all wandering around in circles, thinking that our next stop will be exactly what we have always been looking for. But we never arrive—it’s an illusion of an oasis. It is the same thing with materialism: The idea that 'If I get the right stuff, I will finally feel at home.' But we can never acquire enough stuff."

Except I'm sure he wasn't thinking of a GFX 50R when he said that. If I were to get one, surely I would achieve nirvana. I don't mean the group.

But other than that, Ethan—and Buddha—might be right.

1 Timothy 6:10 reminds us, "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Which clearly recommends that we refrain from loving money. Jesus, when the wily Pharisees tried to trap him by asking him whether it was okay to pay taxes, asked whose picture was on the coins. When they replied it was Caesar's, Jesus said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." This seems to imply that Jesus was recommending that the symbolic tokens of the power structure belonged to them anyway, so why fight it? And that the material realm and the spiritual realm are separate. But it's open to interpretation. Jesus isn't always perfectly clear with his advice about worldly things.

Jesus also said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." That seems pretty clear to me. I once joked to a friend that this is an ironclad logical proof that either Pat Robertson is going to hell, or he doesn't believe what the Bible says. It's either A or B; there is no C. Traditionally, the position of Christianity was that true acolytes turned their backs on material wealth and took vows of poverty. Both Buddhist and Christian monks were not allowed to own money or seek it. In light of which, the evangelical project over the past half century of turning Christianity into a cult of materialism is...curious.

The essential activity for humans, in any event, seems to be trade, not wealth. Barter preceded cash. What we trade is actually not as important as the ritual and the symbolism—consider the price of Manhattan, or the current craze of exchanging vast sums of money for rectangles of canvas with oil paint dabbed on them. That makes sense only because we've decided it does. It's the interaction that's essential. We traded before we invented money as a convenience to help us trade. Gifting is included; tribal cultures, the essential ancestral form of human groups, have, or had, core customs of gift exchange, on which social status partly depended. Gift-giving raised the standing of the giver, and as a utilitarian practical matter helped keep socially divisive inequality from getting out of hand.

Taking the contrary position, Marek Cieslik noted that "...we can't make spiritual progress if our material needs aren't met...the wealthier we are the more we can help others and devote more time to spiritual practice." He quotes Abraham Lincoln: "You can’t help the poor by being one of them."

Is money itself evil? "We need to have some kind of system for measuring how we consume, produce, and share," continues Ethan Nichtern, "So there will always be money in any complex society. And any human who wants to pay the rent has to learn the rules of budgeting. But it’s not just a necessary evil. Money can also be spiritual or divine, by powering whatever positive activity you want to engage in."

Aha! That there's my GFX 50R loophole right there!

I wonder if I'll be able to take it with me?

Mike

Book o' the Week

American Geography by Matt Black, a great name for a photographer but a terrible internet name, impossible to search. Stan Banos calls American Geography a "handsome, well thought out and put together book." Matt's work is outstanding.

The link is a portal to Amazon. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ray L Hudson: "That 'eye of needle' thing. There's a story about translations, 'eye of needle' referring to a low gate in ancient cities, camels having to get on their knees to enter.... If true, changes the commonly understood meaning of Jesus's saying. So I'm just saying...."

KeithB replies to Ray: "The idea that the 'eye of the needle' referred to a gate did not come along for maybe 900 years, and there is no evidence for it. The whole idea appears to be a way to soften the saying."

MikeR: "Quoting Jack Benny, 'If I can't take it with me, I won't go!'"

"And to borrow from Kurt Vonnegut, who was himself quoting (if I recall correctly) Kin Hubbard, 'It's no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.'"