And February's a Wrap!

 

Mr. Kipple Goes to Budapest

 

All right. It’s time to get this off my chest. It’s been sitting there over four decades, since I was put a poor confused lad navigating the mean streets of middle school. True, many years have gone by where I haven’t thought one iota about this, but it is also true that, from time to time, it does revisit me and haunt me.

 

In 1980 Mr. Kipple was my social studies teacher in eighth grade. He was a fun, young teacher, small in stature but a student favorite, fairly easygoing and innovative. For example, he assigned us seating in reverse alphabetical order, a fantastic novelty for me, whose last name begins with an a followed by a c, who sat in the front desk on the left or right in 99 percent of my classes. He had a friendly, curious demeanor, kept us laughing, and gave us unique projects over the course of the semester.

 

One of the more basic “fun” projects was for each student had to select any city, anywhere in the world, to research and prepare a report about it. For some bizarre reason – or maybe for no reason at all – I chose the Hungarian city of Budapest. And for a less bizarre reason, I attacked this project with my usual modus operandi – I waited until the last minute. After burning some midnight oil the night before it was due, I had the horrifying realization I didn’t have enough material.

 

Remember, this was a quarter-century before the internet. We did our research in the library. Not having access to a library at 10 pm on a Sunday night, I was at a loss of what to do. So I fudged some facts, small things, little items I think would fall between the cracks and would not be caught by Mr. Kipple. After all, he had 29 other cities to visit via his students’ reports.

 

A week or so later he bounced around class excited to talk about our reports. They were all very, very good, he noted, very interesting and informative. We’d be tested on the information we were about to discuss and review that afternoon.

 

Can you see where this is going?

 

He had a huge checklist he wanted to go over based on the “cool stuff” he gleaned from our research. Thank God he did not make each one of us stand up and read them. Instead, he picked on random people and complimented them for this piece of information, that factoid, this legend, that myth, this stat.

 

Then he called my name, and studying the paper in his hand, asked me if Budapest really did mean “the land at the fork of the rivers in ancient Magyar.” I turned white as a ghost and gulped and nodded. With a faraway look in his eyes, Mr. Kipple uttered but one word: “Neat!”

 

Now, Wikipedia tells me that the etymology of “Budapest” has something to do with the merging of two names, Buda and Pest, both probably Roman Empire names either of ancient rulers or fortifications. Less certain is that idea they derive from the Turkic word for “branch, twig” and the Slavic word for “cave.” That night in 1980 when I was stumped for facts, I noticed that the Danube ran through Budapest, and thought that “the land at the fork of the rivers” would be a great translation.

 

I lied academically for the first of only two times in my life. I felt awful. But the worse was to come. Later in the week we were tested on the class review of all our city reports, and two-thirds down the page was the following question:

 

22. This city derives its name from the Hungarian phrase “the land at the fork of the rivers”: ______________________ .

 

Oh no! Not only have I deceived my teacher, but through me twenty-nine of my fellow students were also fed and learned falsified knowledge, even though they may have promptly forgot the origin of the word “Budapest” over the subsequent years and decades.

 

Unlike the other time when I faked my way through an essay exam on Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, which I made amends for by actually reading the novel 20 years later (and a half-dozen other Dickensian works since), I do not see how I can restore balance over this deceit. So, suffice it to say, this is my mea culpa. I can only hope that it was never a secret dream of Mr. Kipple’s to vacation in the Hungarian capital, and if it was, hope that he was never laughed out of a tavern in that noble city for disrespecting the origin of its name.

 

Book-Beaten

 

 

Well, this is a first.

 

And it’s kinda embarrassing.

 

A book has defeated me.

 

Sure, probably a half-dozen or so books I start each year don’t move me. So with a “Life’s too short to read a bad book,” I set it aside with all due reverence and respect. Some I realize I am not ready for, and place atop a pile to revisit at some point in the future. Others I realize I will never be ready for, and return them for pennies at the used book shops. And a tiny percentage gall me so bad I simply toss them in the trash (this has only happened twice, though).

 

But I’m kinda embarrassed to admit that, yes, Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has beaten me. Not for reasons that you might think. I still enjoy the topic immensely. I’ve learned Gibbon’s foibles and prejudices, and I’m okay with them. I just can’t physically read the book.

 

Yes, you read that right.

 

Over the past week or so I’ve been going to bed with terrible headaches. Centered at the front of my brain. My eyes, specifically. From about eight p.m. on I can’t read at all, whether it’s my daily spiritual reading, whether its my side read, and especially if it’s Gibbon.

 

The version of The History of the Decline I am currently reading is from the Great Books of the Western World series. Now, I’ve read other books from this series without ill effect. But something with the tiny-sized print, the double-columns per page, the two-hundred sentence paragraphs, well, it all just perfect-stormed it’s way into making my eyes – and my brain – strain terribly.

 

So I must with great reluctance set it aside.

 

I am coming up to the end of Volume II in 48 pages. My par is 10 pages a night, so I’ll continue with it throughout this upcoming week. The work itself has six volumes, so I’ll have made it through two complete volumes in six weeks. Not bad. I did learn a few interesting things about Gibbon, the History of the Decline, and the Roman Empire itself I will blog about in a few days. 

 

I originally had the idea (actually, Tolkien came to me in a dream and commanded me to take up the work) of reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for the four months my oldest daughter will be studying abroad in Italy. Well, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. I’m getting heavy vibes that Little One would want me to switch over to modern, cutting-edge hard SF this spring, so, hey, that’s what I’m going to start. And with that will come more book reviews. Yay!

 

Happy reading to all, but don’t read so much you lose your eyesight!

Single Focused Mind

 

“We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object.”

 

Neat, really neat sentence from Chapter 21 of The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (page 316 in my Great Books of the Western World volume). I have thought this thought many times throughout my life, even wrote about it here in these electronic pages: What could I do with a hundred such men under my command? (Click on the link for the answer.)

 

And as applied to myself? Good Lord, I wanted to do too much that the force of this single mind became too diluted – write a paradigm-changing novel, discover the basic building block of the basic building blocks of matter (I still think it has something to do with the photon), re-write or re-discover history, compose something that will last long past I’ve lived, and on, and on, and on.

 

Still, though, the thought itself and the ideas behind it resonate very strongly and clearly with me on an almost daily basis. Nice and neat to see it in Gibbon’s 1781 work.

 

N.B. The mind in question regarding Gibbon’s quoted remark is Athanasius of Alexandria, a fourth century Christian theologian and Church Father noted for his tireless efforts to defeat Arianism. Perhaps later this week I’ll post a “workman’s guide to Christian heresies” regarding Arianism and Donatism, as I am somewhat hazy on the terms …

 

No Bread and Circuses Today

 

My family won’t be watching the Super Bowl today. We decided we have better things to do.

 

Now, the NFL died to me sometime around 2017 or 2018, I think (I haven’t been keeping track and can’t be bothered to confirm the exact season). You know, when the whole kneeling thing started. I didn’t watch a single game for several years, and that includes my beloved New York Giants as well as any playoff games or Super Bowls.

 

This unofficial boycott lasted until about 2022 or so. We moved down to Texas which has such a football culture. My brother-in-law tried to get us into watching college ball, but it just didn’t stick with me. Funny story with that – and one I can’t write about without being canceled. And as a diehard Giants fan, I can’t rightly root for the Cowboys. So that season I think we just watched the Super Bowl. Rams, was it? Or was it Tom Brady’s Bucs? Can’t remember; these things all seem to mishmash into each other.

 

Then early this past fall with the horrendous Giants having something like four primetime appearances in the first five weeks we started watching them again. After that, not so much as both the Giants and Jets were a little south of mediocre all year and not often broadcasted this part of the South. We watched some post-season games; since my wife spent her first eight years of life in a Detroit suburb, we rooted for the Lions. Naturally, they did not advance to the Super Bowl.

 

The whole thing has an astroturfed stink to it, doesn’t it? I mean, that obnoxious Kelce guy and the NFL embarrassingly fawning over all things Tayor Swift. You absolutely knew the Chiefs would be in the big game. Go to YouTube and you’ll find any number of videos about the current state of NFL refereeing, horrible and conspiratorial and hypocritically subjective. They’re like Goodell’s evil minions, the NFL commissioner’s praetorian guard. And the league still panders to the left-wing wokeism from the late 2010s. It’s all so overtly manufactured and it’s all, ultimately, meaningless.

 

So instead of watching the “festivities” drone-like, hive-like, NPC-like, we’re going to do something different this year. Yeah, we’ll still have the appetizers coming out of the oven full-force later today (potato skins, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, etc.) but we’ll eat them watching a classic from by-gone days: 1977’s Star Wars, the original, the one-and-only, untainted by Disney and DEI. I’m actually really looking forward to it. Last time I saw it the little ones were really little.

 

If you want to subject yourself to Taylor Swift – I mean, the Super Bowl – more power to you. I was once in your shoes. Actually, for most of my life. I’ll be on Tatooine and the Death Star this evening.

 

Persecutions

 

“They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt [sic] of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.”

   - Tacitus, quoted by Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter sixteen.

 

“[sic]” addition mine.

 

Just finished Volume I of Gibbon’s great work, the first fifteen chapters detailing the reigns of Aurelius to Constantine, roughly 180 to 310 AD. Volume II starts off with a grim and powerful exploration of why the Empire, famous for its tolerance of religious polytheism, persecuted the Christians in waves of vicious bloodshed. Tough read for me, and I am detecting a slightly-more-than-slight anti-Christian bias in Gibbon that I had been warned about. Still, faults and all, productive reading. Learning much about an Empire that reached the peaks of splendor with frequent descents into valleys of madness, often at the whim of the personality of the man in charge.

Cosmodrome

 

Cleaning out my office a few days ago I realized I had, mixed among the stacks of bills, unfiled paperwork, books, records, and boxes of DVDs and NJ memorabilia, 27 Astronomy magazines.

Now, I have been an off-and-on subscriber to Astronomy magazine since my Seton Hall days, beginning sometime around 1992. Occasionally I’d let the subscription run out and start up a new one with Sky & Telescope, but I’ve been with Astronomy for probably twenty years. Back in NJ I’d read them cover-to-cover, especially in the 90s, then as physics left my life and I started a family and gained other obligations, I’d skim the magazines, reading at best one or two articles for each. We moved down to Texas two-and-a-half years ago and I notified the publisher of a change in address, and, 27 issues later, realized I haven’t read a single one.

So I decided that I’d try to get through one a week when the Mrs. and I are watching the Dallas Stars or she’s watching her thing on TV. Beats scrolling through twitter. I’m already halfway through the most recent issue, and will read them backwards over the next couple of months. I’ve learned (and re-discovered) a lot of interesting things, and learning new things is high on my values list.

I can’t remember when I last renewed my subscription. It’s probably due to end soon. Probably did a three-year run for something like $1.99 an issue. Dunno. Maybe I’ll switch to Sky & Telescope. Again, dunno. Regardless, I don’t like wasting any amount of money, so I’m off on a mission.

That mission involves my backyard, my own private cosmodrome. It’s a heckuva lot better than the one I had in NJ. Back then, nested in houses, trees, and a downward sloping hill to a highway, I probably could access maybe 20 to 30% of the bowl of the sky. Here, thirty miles north of Dallas, sitting in a chair on my backyard patio, I have access to something like 60 to 70% of the sky.

Down in Texas we have far horizons and big sky. Where I live there are literally no mountains. Trees, but no forests. All the houses are no higher than two stories, or fifty feet I’d guess. When I open the backyard and take a few steps to the center of the patio, I can see the complete southwest sky to the horizon. A close neighbor blocks off a small part of the south above the horizon, and another to the west an even smaller portion as he’s further away. So I can see clear to southern California, in a range from the Mexican border straight up to Canada, with a slight addition of kryptonian vision.

I can see up and over my head to zenith, and perhaps twenty degrees eastward tilting my neck back. (To view the full eastern sky I’d just have to open my front door.) And turning my head north I see two-thirds of the sky above the garage. Here’s where I see Polaris, the North Star, every night, accompanied by the Great Bear, Cassiopeia, or Cepheus, depending upon the season.

Looking though to that open southwest, this image from Close Encounters of the Third Kind always comes to mind, though it doesn’t quite represent actual reality for me:

 

(Actually, the scene where the police are chasing the UFOs and come to a screeching halt at a cliff as the objects fly over the countryside is a better image, but I couldn’t find it online).

 

There is lots of activity in this sky: Dallas Fort Worth Airport is 23 miles south/southwest. Sheppard Air Force Base is 112 miles west/northwest. Dyess Air Force Base is 200 miles directly west. So there’s lots of motion all the time. Planes of all types, including helicopters. I often see them dance before bright Venus setting in the west, or Jupiter and Saturn slowly traversing a great arc overhead. The moon is brilliant – to my chagrin as it makes identifying stars more difficult – but it seems to be out and full every evening, so clear and close I could hit it with a rock or dust it off had I a stepladder and a broom.

A few days ago we hit 71 degrees – unseasonably warm for this time of year even down here. I reclined on a chair and mapped the skies as Charlie the dog inspected the perimeter of the yard for bunny infiltration. Off to the northwest I see bright globes on the horizon, slowly nearing, getting brighter, more defined, eventually resolving into massive jet liners en route to DFW. And each time I see one I hope it won’t. Perhaps it will zig zag, change colors, speed up or speed away at some crazy angle. And who knows? It might be some aircraft of unknown origin escaping F-18 Super Hornets launched from Sheppard or Dyess in hot pursuit.

Ah, my cosmodrome! Looking forward to spring nights sitting out there sipping a beer and watching the stars.

(And yes, I know “drome” connotes “airfield”, such as “aerodrome” – UK airfields in WW II, but “cosmodrome” sounds cooler than plain ol’ “observatory”.)