Hmmm . . .

     

Tucson Weather Today

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Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
--Salman Rushdie

Watched a new (new to me) TV cop show called The Mysteries Of Laura, starring Debra Messing. You've never viewed it? Don't. It stinks.

Also re-watched last night's PBS Nature special, A Murder Of Crows. Enjoyed it immensely, again. And I learned much.

Here's what TV Guide said about it:

One of the world's most intelligent creatures is highlighted: the crow. The "feathered apes," as one researcher calls them, possess a sophisticated language of 250 calls and at least two dialects. They also can recognize (and remember) human faces, pass knowledge to their offspring and, on an island near New Zealand, use tools (making them one of the few creatures beside humans to do so). Other interesting facts: They mate for life, mourn their dead and raise their young for up to five years.


Later last night, after a week's reading, I finished a  curious novel, one that intrigued me greatly. I don't know if I enjoyed reading it or not, but I couldn't stop until I had completed it. It's title is Light From A Distant Star and it was written by Mary McGarry Morris. If you have never read any of her work, I strongly recommend you do so soon, starting with this one.

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Did You Know . . .?

The lunula (little moon in Latin), is the crescent-shaped whitish area of the bed of a fingernail or toenail.

The lunula is located at the end of the nail (that is closest to the skin of the finger), but it still lies under the nail.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1998, Doctor Barnett Slepian was shot to death inside his home in Amherst, New York, by an anti-abortion radical, marking the fifth straight year that a doctor who was willing to perform abortions in upstate New York and Canada had been the victim of a sniper attack. Investigators in both Canada and the United States believe that James Charles Kopp, known among abortion opponents as "Atomic Dog," was responsible for Slepian's murder. In March 2001, the authorities caught up with Kopp in Europe, and he was extradited from France on the condition he would not receive the death penalty. On May 9, 2003, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

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WORD FOR TODAY

charisma [kuh-RIZ-muh]
noun
1. Theology: a divinely conferred gift or power.
2. a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people.
3. the special virtue of an office, function, position, etc., that confers or is thought to confer on the person holding it an unusual ability for leadership, worthiness of veneration, or the like.

The plural for charisma is charismata.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Ryan Rodney Reynolds

(born October 23, 1976)

Ryan Reynolds is a Canadian film and television actor. Reynolds is known for playing Michael Bergen on the ABC sitcom Two Guys and a Girl, Billy Simpson in the YTV Canadian teen soap opera Hillside, as well as Marvel Comics characters Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity and Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He has starred in films such as Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Finder's Fee, Just Friends, Definitely, Maybe, The Proposal, The Amityville Horror, The Change-Up, Smokin' Aces, Adventureland, Buried, and Safe House.

Nancy Ann Grace

(born October 23, 1959)

Nancy Grace is an American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor. She frequently discusses issues from what she describes as a "victims' rights" standpoint, with an outspoken style that has brought her both praise and criticism.

Dwight David Yoakam

(born October 23, 1956)

Dwight Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music. Popular since the early 1980s, he has recorded more than 21 albums and compilations, charted more than 30 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, and sold more than 25 million records. Yoakam has recorded 5 Billboard #1 Albums, 12 Gold Albums, and 9 Platinum Albums, including the Triple Platinum This Time. In addition to his many achievements in the performing arts, Yoakam is also the most frequent musical guest in the history of The Tonight Show.

Kaleena Kiff

(born October 23, 1974)

Kaleena Kiff is an American actress, producer, and director. Kiff is best known for her roles in the sitcoms Love, Sidney and The New Leave It to Beaver. Kaleena is correctly pronounced (kuh-LEE-nuh).

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Even the choicest literature should be taken as the condiment, and not as the sustenance of life. It should be neither the warp nor the woof of existence, but only the flowery edging upon its borders.
--Horace Mann

This Is Who I Am

   

The Sun As God

     

Tucson Weather Today

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179 pounds

The sun has been the principal subject of my thoughts lately. It is easy to understand why the ancient Egyptians and other cultures chose the sun as an object of worship, their God. They believed that the sun gave them life (which modern science says is a fact; man is made of star-stuff) and they believed that the sun was responsible for providing warmth, maintaining man's food supply, and the many other necessities, which again is a scientific fact. The sun nurtures all life, be it human, animal, or plant life.

It seems to me that if there is indeed a god, this entity could and probably would be allied somehow with our sun, and possibly perhaps is a part of a great god-complex ruling each of the billions and billions of stars. Such a mighty being would without a doubt be unconcerned with the lot of humans, or more probably would be completely unaware of their existence.

If the Earth's twenty-first century science community in partnership with a powerful (although nefarious) government agency, while using the most modern computers, someday establishes a somewhat tenuous communication with this solar God, in conjunction with a certain type of individual (a handsome, heroic man and a beautiful athletic heroine) -- then a competent writer would have a super-duper idea for a surefire blockbuster novel.

Can't help it. That's how my mind works.

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Did You Know . . .?

The word Homeboy goes back to the 1800s, and was used by African-Americans to refer to each other as people from back home.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1929, President Herbert Hoover has a phone installed at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House. It took a while to get the line to Hoover's desk working correctly and the president complained to aides when his son was unable to get through on the Oval Office phone from an outside line. Previously, Hoover had used a phone located in the foyer just outside the office. Telephones and a telephone switchboard had been in use at the White House since 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first one installed, but no phone had ever been installed at the president's desk until Hoover's administration.

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WORD FOR TODAY

solar  [SO-luhr]
adjective
1:  of, derived from, relating to, or caused by the sun
2:  measured by the earth's course in relation to the sun: a solar year
3
a :  produced or operated by the action of the sun's light or heat: solar energy
b :  utilizing the sun's rays especially to produce heat or electricity: a solar house

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Eric Idle

(born March 29, 1943)

Eric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer and comedic composer. Idle was a member of the English surreal comedy group Monty Python, a member of the Rutles on Saturday Night Live, and the author of the Broadway musical Spamalot.

Lucy Lawless

(born March 29, 1968)

Lucy Lawless is a New Zealand actress, activist and musician best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess. She is also widely known for her role as Number Three on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series, and for the role of Lucretia on the television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, its prequel Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, and its sequel Spartacus: Vengeance.

Elle Macpherson

(born 29 March, either 1963 or 1964)

Elle Macpherson is an Australian businesswoman, television host, model, and actress. She is well known for her record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue beginning in the 1980s, leading to her nickname "The Body". She is also known as the founder primary model and creative director for a series of business ventures, including Elle Macpherson Intimates, a lingerie line, and The Body, a line of skin care products. In 2010, she became the host and executive producer of Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model. She is currently an executive producer of NBC's Fashion Star and was the host for the first season.

Marina Sirtis

(born 29 March 1955)

Marina Sirtis is an English-American actress. She is best known for her role as Counselor Deanna Troi on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the four feature films that followed, as well as subsequent Star Trek: Voyager episodes she starred in.

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Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
--Alexander Graham Bell

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

To Repeat: A Writer Writes

     

Tucson Weather Today

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There is no more loathsome, sorrow-inducing endeavor than attempting to write a novel, and write it well when one believes oneself to be an over-the-hill, pedestrian scribbler.

But I am still trying.

Perhaps persistence will triumph in (before) the end.

"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."


Research:

Some (supposed) facts I will probably use in my novel:

The bolide arrived from the southeast, traveling at a low angle relative to the earth, so that it came in not so much from above as from the side, like a plane losing altitude. The thing in the sky is six miles wide.

A bolide is a large, brilliant meteor, especially one that explodes. A fireball.

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid crashed into the Yucatán Peninsula, leaving behind a crater 110 miles wide and twenty miles deep and a colossally larger hole in the tree of life. The impact and its after­effects wiped out an estimated 75 percent of species, including, most famously, all non-avian dinosaurs. The event, the end - Cretaceous extinction - is one of six massive die-offs in the history of the planet. Five of them happened in the distant past: 450 million, 375 million, 252 million, 200 million, and 66 million years ago.

The sixth one is happening right now.

From:
The Sixth Extinction Examines Human Overkillers and the Next Great Die-Off by Kathryn Schulz


Another piece of wisdom (hopefully) for my novel:

"I find it extraordinarily irritating when people treat the bishops in the Lords, or the Church elsewhere, or the clergy in general, as moral experts. I think that is an outrageous thing to believe, but people still believe it automatically, without thinking. They think that these members of the Church, of any religion, have a special insight."
--Mary Warnock

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Did You Know . . .?

After 5 years of continual rejection, Agatha Christie finally landed a publishing deal. Her book sales are now in excess of $2 billion.

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Event In History

On this day in 1870, Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Mississippi, was sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress. On February 25, two days after Mississippi was granted representation in Congress for the first time since it seceded in 1861, Revels was sworn in.

Although African Americans Republicans never obtained political office in proportion to their overwhelming electoral majority, Revels and some 15 other African American men served in Congress during Reconstruction, more than 600 served in state legislatures, and hundreds of African Americans held local offices.

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WORD FOR TODAY

perseverance
noun
Steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Bob Lloyd Schieffer

(born February 25, 1937)

Bob Schieffer is an American television journalist who has been with CBS News since 1969, serving 23 years as anchor on the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News from 1973 to 1996; chief Washington correspondent since 1982, moderator of the Sunday public affairs show Face the Nation since 1991. From March 2005 to August 31, 2006, Schieffer was interim weekday anchor of the CBS Evening News. As of 2011, he is one of the primary substitutes for Scott Pelley.

Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni

(born February 25, 1966)

Téa Leoni is an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Flirting with Disaster, Spanglish, Bad Boys, Ghost Town and Tower Heist.

A Photo I Like Better

James Gilmore "Jim" Backus

(Feb 25, 1913 - July 3, 1989)

Jim Backus was an American radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of nearsighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo, the rich Hubert Updike III on the radio version of The Alan Young Show, Joan Davis's character's husband (a domestic court judge) on TV's I Married Joan, James Dean's character's father in Rebel Without a Cause and Thurston Howell, III on the 1960s sitcom Gilligan's Island. He also starred in his own show of one season, The Jim Backus Show, also known as Hot off the Wire.

Rashida Leah Jones

(born February 25, 1976)

Rashida Jones is an American film and television actress, comic book author, screenwriter, and occasional singer. Jones is widely known for her role as Ann Perkins on NBC's comedy Parks and Recreation. She also played Louisa Fenn on Fox TV's Boston Public and was a recurring cast member who portrayed Karen Filippelli on The Office. She has had numerous film roles, including in Our Idiot Brother, The Social Network, The Muppets, and I Love You, Man. She co-wrote the screenplay for Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), in which she starred.

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Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
--Marie Curie

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

Grumpy Old Men, Indeed . . .

Increasingly I find myself reminded that I am an old man, and that I am getting older day by day. Just as I am about to fall asleep at night my body tells me that it needs rest, and my mind needs sleep; my muscles are sore and saggy and my joints are creakily stiff; my thoughts are fuzzy and will not focus on a single thought.

When I wake up after seven hours or so, unlike during my younger years, my body feels as if it did not relax and rejuvenate at all throughout the night. It is difficult to push myself up to a standing position, and after I do so, I must stand there shakily, carefully balanced until my body and my mental orientation is achieved.

I don't know if that is a characteristic of old age or not, but that's the way things are.

. . .

New word:
periphrasis
(puh-RIF-ruh-sis)
noun: A roundabout way of saying something, using more words than necessary

No example comes immediately to mind, but I know that I am guilty of periphrasis.

. . .

With my momentary grumpiness out of the way, I will now get back to work on Chapter 2 of my novel.

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"America has the honour of being the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without the usual interval of civilisation in between"
--Georges Clemenceau