Category: photog’s Corner

Here you will find the stuff that shouldn’t be mixed in the other categories but interest me. caveat emptor.

The Sourest of Grapes

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner , ,

Today I heard an hilarious argument as to why it is cheaper to live in New England than in the South.  The main points of the thesis are that the infrastructure and services available here more than make up for the exorbitant cost of living.  So, for instance, whereas the cost of owning a car in New England (insurance, mechanic’s charges, taxes) are much higher, because the roads are so much better your car will last much longer.  When I heard this, I was thinking about what road salt does to the frame of a car in New England every winter.  And then I thought about my recent drive on I-95 and the craters there that I drove over.

Next up was the world class medical care available in this region of the country and nowhere else.  Now, it is without a doubt true that some very fine doctors and hospitals exist in places like Boston.  But it is also true that there are plenty of really mediocre medical centers and even terrible ones up here.  And I have experienced both so I’m not sure I believe that this is a slam dunk.  I guess if your health is extremely poor this might carry some weight but I have heard of good hospitals sprinkled around the country and in addition if someone is in desperate need of specialized care like a knee replacement or something I’m guessing you could travel for the procedure.  So, let’s call this a 50/50.

But the final point was the best.  The overarching reason to live in New England is “the culture.”  That one I think made me snort out loud.  Apparently going into Boston or New York City to see “Hamilton” or some other masterpiece of middle-brow pomposity is supposed to make up for ridiculous real estate prices, outrageous utility and fuel bills, failing schools and colleges and an, in general, overregulated existence.  And once you add the prevalence of increasing violence and squalor in the urban centers to the equation what exactly is there to extol about this region of the country?

But the participants in this New England pep rally nodded their heads and agreed that no sane individual would even think of packing it in, selling off the family home and buying a bigger house for half the price in a place where you can walk around in February in a light jacket and snow is an oddity that you hear about in stories about Santa Claus.

Well, I guess heaven (or hell) is where you make it.  I will admit that we’ve had a beautiful fall with balmy weather extending almost all the way to Halloween.  But eventually you have to pay the piper and the wind has been blowing pretty hard and the leaves have been stripped from a lot of the trees (except the oaks).  So even these people making believe they live in a wonderland know the awful truth.  After Christmas is over, the really awful stuff will begin.  Even with the milder winters we’ve been having, there are four months of bleak, cold weather waiting for us; January, February, March and April.  That’s a bitter pill.

Round and Round it Goes

photog Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Science Fiction / Fantasy ,

Having made it halfway through the marathon nightmare that is the Dunwich Autumnal Zombie-fest I’m beginning to believe I may survive this horror again.  And today was a respite.  I was off-duty and lounging around complaining about my fate.  But at 2pm I had a teleconference with the marketing professional that provided me with a proposal for launching my book, “The Sniper.”

I had gone through the proposal earlier and put together questions about schedule and ancillary activities (e.g., getting a book cover, coming up with my pen name) and I selected the services that I wanted to include in the contract and also, I wanted to specify the date when most of the activities would start.  The meeting went very smoothly and all of my questions were answered and all of my provisos were accepted.

And so now it’s a go.

Sometime before the end of the year there will be a release date and word will go out to all of the non-left-wing science fiction readers that a new classic story has appeared on the literary horizon and everyone who is anyone will be demanding the fastest delivery possible to start reading this splendiferous story as soon as humanly possible.  And the critics will fall over each other praising its qualities to the skies.  And all the Big Five publishers will be fist-fighting each other at my front door trying to buy the rights to my next novel in the series with ingots of rhodium stacked up in a wheelbarrow behind them.  And Joe Rogan will beg me to come on his show and talk about the inspiration I had for the story and about putting him in my next book as a minor character.  And then Donald Trump will mention me in his press conference as an example of someone whose mere existence is making America great again.

And of course, I will be incredibly humble and dignified during all this hoopla.  After all dignified humility is something, I’m well known for.  And I’ve got the whole thing completely covered because my dignity is humble and my humility is quite dignified.  So, there’s that.

When I told Camera Girl the cost, I wasn’t sure at first whether she was going to hit me.  But she just shook her head and walked away.  I told her that a good wife encourages her husband and supports his decisions.  She nodded and said, “Sure, support.  There you go.”  I thought it was weak but as I said she didn’t take a swing at me so a win’s a win.

And honestly, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing.  I’m completely aware that the odds are way, way stacked against me.  99.9999% of books don’t sell more than a few copies.  It’s one in a million that hits a home run.  But I’ve always, since I was a kid, wanted to write a science fiction story.  And now, for better or worse, I have and for once in my life I’m gonna do something crazy.  I want to do what I can to make sure that as many people as possible read it.  I’m putting all the chips on double-zero and spinning the wheel.  And round and round it goes.

Drilling for Megawatts

photog Current Events, photog's Corner, Science ,

Human beings depend on energy.  It’s almost what makes us human.  When we discovered fire, we became truly the masters of creation and the apex of the animal kingdom.  You can imagine our cave dwelling ancestors wielding a flaming torch in the face of a cave bear or a saber-tooth tiger and living to tell the story.

So, what should be our attitude about the prospect of running out of energy?  Well, windmills and solar panels don’t seem to be the future.  Of course, if photovoltaic cells become more efficient and cost effective, maybe they will be a big part of the answer.  But I tend to think there will be more cost-effective options.  And this is long term.  Short term we’ll probably be using uranium fission technology to produce power but sometime in the future we’ll run out of recoverable uranium and need to move on.

As I’ve reiterated endlessly, I think that geothermal energy will be a very important source of power in the future.  The earth has an enormous heat source to be tapped into for our energy needs.

And now, finally, results are moving beyond the research and pilot plant stages:

“Leading Companies in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) or advanced variants like closed-loop or superhot rock geothermal, involve drilling wells several kilometers deep to access hot rock formations, fracturing them if needed, and circulating fluids to extract heat for electricity generation. These technologies aim to scale beyond traditional hydrothermal resources, enabling baseload, carbon-free power almost anywhere.

As of October 2025, commercialization is accelerating due to oil/gas-derived drilling innovations, major funding, and partnerships with tech giants like Google and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Based on recent developments, the companies closest to large-scale commercialization (defined here as multi-MW projects entering operation or construction by 2026–2028) are those with demonstrated pilots, secured financing, and firm power purchase agreements (PPAs). Below is a summary table of the top contenders, followed by details.

These companies stand out for their progress toward utility-scale electricity production (tens to hundreds of MW), distinguishing them from firms focused on shallow heating/cooling (e.g., Dandelion) or conventional geothermal (e.g., Ormat, Calpine). Progress is driven by DOE’s FORGE initiative and private investments exceeding $1B since 2020.

  • Fervo Energy (USA): The frontrunner in EGS commercialization, Fervo adapts shale-fracking techniques for deep (up to 15,765 ft) horizontal wells in hot granite, achieving flow rates over 80 liters/second—surpassing commercial benchmarks. Its 2023 Nevada pilot (3.5 MW) powers Google’s data centers and demonstrated energy storage capabilities. The Cape Station project in Utah, fully funded at $206M in June 2025, targets 400 MW Phase I by 2026, with multi-GW expansion. This positions Fervo to supply 24/7 power to AI/data centers at costs competitive with coal.
  • Eavor Technologies (Canada): Specializing in closed-loop systems that avoid hydraulic fracturing by using insulated U-shaped boreholes (up to 10 km deep), Eavor enables site-agnostic deployment. Its New Mexico demo reached 250°C at 18,000 ft in 2024, proving scalability. The Geretsried project (Germany) will deliver 65 MW baseload power by 2027, with heat co-production for district heating. Backed by $991M, Eavor has operational pilots in Alberta (2019) and Colorado (2023), making it a leader in Europe and North America.
  • Quaise Energy (USA, MIT spinout): Focused on ultra-deep drilling (20 km) to access superhot rock (>500°C) for 10x higher energy output per well, Quaise uses gyrotron millimeter waves to vaporize rock, bypassing mechanical bits that fail in extreme heat. A 2025 demo drilled 387 ft at 16 ft/hour through basalt, the deepest with this method. Targeting steam extraction in 2026 and commercial ops in 2028, it plans to retrofit fossil plants globally, with $91M raised and DOE support. This could unlock 5,500 GW in the U.S. alone.
  • GreenFire Energy (USA): Its GreenLoop closed-loop tech retrofits existing deep oil/gas/geothermal wells (3–5 km) without stimulation, reducing costs and risks. Partnerships with DoD (e.g., California naval base) and GeoZone aim for 200 MWe by 2027, leveraging idle infrastructure for quick deployment. Selected for DOE’s 2025 next-gen initiatives, it’s ideal for scaling in oil-rich basins like California’s Geysers field.
  • Sage Geosystems (USA): Developing GGS, which stores excess renewable energy by pressurizing deep fractures (kilometers below surface) with water, then releasing for on-demand power—acting as a geothermal battery. A 2025 Meta contract for 150 MW highlights its commercial traction, with DoD pilots in Texas. Using proven fracking tech, Sage could integrate with wind/solar for hybrid grids by 2027.”

Now it goes without saying that geothermal energy is still in its infancy and no one knows what kinds of technical problems will surface (pun intended).  But at the same time the problems will mostly involve well understood parameters like material of constructions to deal with the pressures, temperatures and corrosion problems inherent in circulating water and steam in a bore-hole.  But these are not mysterious or insoluble problems.  They are the bread and butter of material scientists and engineers.  I am also interested to see that tech companies are financing some of these ventures in order to control their electric power supply in the face of power shortages and interruptions associated with the “green energy revolution” that many of us currently suffer under.  Imagine that!

And on the Seventh Day He Rested

photog Current Events, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner

In the words of Anthony Quinn in his portrayal of Alexis Zorba, “I’ve got a plan.  A great big crazy plan.  But I’ve got things to figure; angles, forces.  Otherwise, it will be; catastrophe.”

So, I think I’m going to take the plunge and try to market my book with a professional campaign.  And just as with Zorba it may turn out to be the full catastrophe!

But you only live once, you know and there is a certain satisfaction in throwing the dice.  Of course, when the dice come up snake eyes that’s a tough moment.  Especially if you’ve bet the bundle.

Be that as it may, I’m feeling pretty good about this and I want to try it.  Of course, now there are all the details.  I’ve got to put a cover on the book.  Maybe I’ll hire a proofreader and I have to come up with a nom de plume.  “photog” is kind of informal for a great author.  Grok recommended the following:

  1. T. Blackwood – Combines a sharp, classic feel with a dark, mysterious edge.
  2. Grayson Holt – Sounds gritty and determined, fitting for gritty thrillers.
  3. Silas Crowe – Evokes a brooding, ominous vibe, ideal for dark narratives.
  4. Nora Kade – Short, punchy, and carries a sense of hidden danger.
  5. Vincent Quill – Suggests precision and a knack for weaving intricate plots.
  6. Damian Frost – Cold and calculating, great for intense, chilling stories.
  7. Raven Locke – Mysterious and enigmatic, with a nod to puzzles and secrets.

Well, I’ll have to give it a little thought.

I can just see me now, with “The Sniper” on top of the New York Times best-seller list for three or four years and the royalty checks piling up in my mud room and Camera Girl forced to keep her innumerable diamond tennis bracelets in an antique bath tub in the laundry room and me building a giant garage on the Compound filled up with antique Dusenbergs and Rolls Royces that I’ll buy from Jay Leno.  But I’ll still be “just folks” and I’ll still use my Sony 90mm F/2.8 macro lens to take pictures of spiders and flies.  I’ll never become a photo snob and buy a Leica or anything like that.

But I will have to take on some eccentricities in order to capture the imagination of the reading public.  I think I’ll take up big game hunting.  But not just shoot boring things like elephants and polar bears.  I’ll pay those guys who are restoring the wooly mammoth to name it after me and then I’ll shoot it and make it extinct again so I’ll have the only stuffed wooly mammoth in the world.  Then I’ll have them bring back the Giant Rok bird and I’ll shoot that too and I’ll have my Michelin Four Star chef cook the drumsticks specially for me.  And then I’ll commission Elon Musk to build me a moon ship.  I’ll go to the Moon, set off a nuke and name the subsequent new crater after myself.

And after that I’ll rest.

Reprieve, Reprieve.  Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight, Mr. Snedrig

photog Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Science ,

As I have whined interminably about, I am in the midst of a long, boring and exhausting project from which death would be a welcome release.  But today I unexpectedly discovered that I have a two-day respite from this miserable existence.  I have Friday and Saturday off.  And just like that my heart is full of joy.  I can sleep in tomorrow morning, maybe as late as 6:30 a.m.!  “I’m as light as a feather! I’m as happy as an angel! I’m as merry as a schoolboy! I’m as giddy as a drunken man!”

Seriously, when some onerous burden is unexpectedly lifted off your shoulders, even if only for a little while, it changes your attitude.  Because now the thing that you had seen as impossibly hard has been cut into a smaller piece.  It can never now be what it was.  It is diminished.  Even if the diminution is minor, the psychological effect is great.

I will spend tomorrow weighing some decisions that I need to make.  I have a lot of factors and unknowns that need to be considered and somehow weighed against each other.  I have to perform the hardest of all tasks; think intelligently.

But all that is okay.  This two day carve out of time is a perfect interval to look carefully at the problem and make some kind of decision.  Maybe it won’t be definitive but at the very least I’ll be able to define the time parameters needed to answer all the questions.  And to me that is an important milestone in any project.

I was watching a YouTube video from someone who argued that human colonization of other planets was highly improbably and interstellar colonization was completely impossible.  For interplanetary human travel he pointed to the health problems associated with extended time in freefall and the damage to human health from radiation that permeates the environment beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field.  In addition to these problems, for the case of interstellar travel, he pointed to the issues that a twenty-thousand-year multi-generational space ship would create for the humans within.  First off, he reiterated that all health issues would be magnified by several orders of magnitude over such an enormous length of time.  But he also stressed that a flight of that duration would see a genetic selection among the crew for individuals with anti-social or even psychopathic tendencies.  He predicted that well before arrival, the crew would have sunk into barbarism and cannibalism.  Now that’s a scenario I can stand behind!

Anyway, it was very interesting, if a little bit depressing.  One thing I learned is that mammals brought onto the International Space Station to test the effects of microgravity on reproduction had a 100% rate of birth defects due to developmental anomalies caused by the lack of gravity.  Well, all this negativity sure puts a damper on a lot of my favorite science fiction stories from the golden age of science fiction.  Where does that leave “Red Planet,” “Farmer in the Sky” and “The Rolling Stones?”  Well, maybe we can find a workaround.

Brains Beget Brains

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I have a theory.  I think that human intelligence will spawn higher intelligence in other species of animals.  And this isn’t mysterious.  Higher intelligence will produce greater success when sharing an ecosystem that more and more is dominated by human actions.  And the negative situation is already well known.  Animals that can’t adapt to interaction with modern humans have a much lower chance of thriving in the current world.  Maybe the grizzly bear is a good example.  In the first century of interaction with Europeans, the grizzly’s instinct told him to charge into a pack of Europeans.  This resulted in many, many dead grizzly bears.  And this pattern continues to this very day.  Result?  Grizzlies were extirpated from all parts of United States other than Yellowstone where they were protected by law.

But what about animals that have adapted?  Which animals thrive in our company?  Well, obviously dogs and domesticated cats are the prime examples.  And as far as it goes, we’ve done a lot more with selective breeding of dogs than cats.  And I’m guessing that canine brain development has been fundamentally changed by association with man.  I think that some kind of selection is happening that will attune dogs with human intelligence.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  Dogs are not geniuses but they are relatively intelligent animals and so the potential is there for them to continue to evolve into a creature that interacts with humans at a much closer to equal level than is currently seen.  Of course, if we were domesticating chimpanzees or bonobos, I think the process would move at a much faster pace.  Those apes already have significantly greater intelligence.  But apes are truly dangerous animals with unpredictable behavior.  Dogs, for the most part, are already part of the human household and have enormous empathy for people around them (for the most part).  So, I think that some time in the future dogs will move forward significantly in intelligence.

But what other creatures huddle around humanity successfully?  Well, rodents.  Mice, rats, squirrels and chipmunks.  They’ve adapted to humans in a big way.  And their numbers have probably never been higher than they are right now.  But humans are getting better at killing them.  New poisons, better traps and strategies for preventing them from getting into our food stores seems to be making a dent in their success.  My guess is as we use smarter and smarter methods to keep them at bay, we will produce smarter and smarter rodents that keep wanting to break in.

And I have this feeling that one day there will be rodents that are orders of magnitude smarter than they are now.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that rats will be the ones to noticeably grow more intelligent.  This will sound crazy, but I envision a species of rats that become social in a way that mimics human socialization.  I think they’ll develop something approaching speech.  It’ll be like something out of a Disney cartoon with the rats having tribal gatherings and getting their marching orders from the head rat.  Well, I better get some sleep.

Back to the Horror

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For a truly lazy man nothing is worse than hyperactivity.  And so, my current frenetic schedule has rendered me borderline despondent.  But the mail must get through!  No, wait.  The show must go on.  So, let’s do this thing.

Let’s start with the government shutdown.  I think the Democrats are crumbling in real time, before our eyes.  Most of the people impacted by programs that are about to run out of money, (e.g., Snap) vote for Democrats.  So, they’re going to be hurting really soon and that is going to be bad for Democrats running for office.  I read an article that said Schumer is already dealing with a bunch of Democrat Senators who are frightened that they’re going to be blamed for poor people going hungry.  My guess is things will come to a head in about a week.  Well, good.  Anything that makes Chuck Schumer look bad is by definition a wonderful thing.  So, yay!

Next, the Mamdani ascension to Gracie Mansion looks poised to happen in two weeks.  And both Democrat and Republican establishment figures are petrified that this guy is going to reduce New York City to a Mid-Atlantic version of Mexico City.  Basically, a bankrupt madhouse run by gangs and beyond the control of the police.  And I think they’re right.  I read that a large number of the NYPD are going to retire if he wins.  I don’t think you need anything more than that to tell you where the city will be next summer.  Bedlam.

On a personal note, I received a detailed proposal for the marketing of my book, “The Sniper.”  Currently I haven’t had a chance to even look at it yet.  I’m bogged down in Dunwich civic life to such an extent that I lose track of the day of the week.  But as soon as I can I intend to study it intensively and make up my mind on whether I think I should pursue a commercial plan to market it.  By the way, if any more of you folks have finished reading it, please pass along your criticisms to help me weigh the value of going forward with a structured commercial release of the book.  Well, to be continued.

I’ve been following Trump’s press releases and moves on the Ukraine War.  He was talking as if he would provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.  But when Zelensky showed up in Washington to receive them it didn’t happen.  Some outlets are saying he told Zelensky he no longer believes Ukraine can win and they should negotiate seriously with Russia to find a ceasefire and a peace plan.  I have to confess I’m not sure whether Trump has a plan or is just trying to keep both countries at arms’ length.  Russia has made some significant (albeit glacially slow) gains on the battle field.  The cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk are teetering on the edge of complete capture and several others (Kostyantynivka, Myrnohrad and Lyman) are not far behind.  Pretty soon the Russians will accomplish through arms what they are telling Ukraine they demand for a peace settlement.  What happens then is anybody’s guess.  The NATO countries are stating they are getting ready to send their troops into Ukraine.  But I have a hard time believing that England, Germany and France will get their people to agree to this.  Well, maybe Trump can broker a deal that’s not too disastrous for Ukraine.  We’ll see.

Well that enough for now.  Back to the horror.

Thoughts on Jack London’s Short Story, “To Build a Fire”

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When I was young, every high school English curriculum would include a review of some classic short stories and Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” was inevitably among them.  And rightly so.  Within the space of seven thousand words London casts a spell that draws you into the inhuman realm of winter in the Yukon.  We barely have a thumbnail sketch of the protagonist; “the man” and his unwilling accomplice; “the dog.”  But we learn the tragic details of what can happen when a man ignores the physics of arctic winter weather.

‘At the man’s heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolfdog, gray-coated and without any visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man’s judgment. In reality, it was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero. Since the freezing point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of frost obtained. The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink along at the man’s heels, and that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snow and cuddle its warmth away from the air.’

…

‘Already all sensation had gone out of his feet. To build the fire he had been forced to remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of four miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and to all the extremities. But the instant he stopped, the action of the pump eased down. The cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the blow. The blood of his body recoiled before it. The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it wanted to hide away and cover itself up from the fearful cold. So long as he walked four miles an hour, he pumped that blood, willy-nilly, to the surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down into the recesses of his body. The extremities were the first to feel its absence. His wet feet froze the faster, and his exposed fingers numbed the faster, though they had not yet begun to freeze. Nose and cheeks were already freezing, while the skin of all his body chilled as it lost its blood.’

…

‘A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was like taking an anaesthetic. Freezing was not so bad as people thought. There were lots worse ways to die.

…

He drifted on from this to a vision of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly, warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe.

“You were right, old hoss; you were right,” the man mumbled to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek.

…

Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow twilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in the dog’s experience had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers.’

London reveals the emotions and thoughts that race through the mind of the man as he tries to escape the consequences of his terrible mistake.  But at every turn he’s thwarted by the limitations that cold have imposed on his failing body.  And we listen to his thoughts as his time runs out and he accepts his fate.

Jack London created a remarkable story.  There is no filler.  The story only includes what is needed to paint the picture of a tragic human tale.  And I will say that if I ever write anything half as good as, “To Build a Fire,” I will consider myself an accomplished writer.  Well done Mr. London.

Life over Art

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Thomas Mann was a famous German author whose heyday was the first half of the twentieth century.  He had a Nobel Prize in literature for one of his novels and a reputation for writing psychological stories that were full of melancholy and longing for lost happiness.

In addition to his novels which were too long for my liking he wrote a handful of novellas that were collected in an English translation under the title “Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories.”  One of these stories is named “Tristan” and is the story of a sanitarium up in the Alps that especially treated people suffering from tuberculosis which is never actually named in the story but only hinted at when a patient would cough and then check a handkerchief for blood.  But in addition to the actual patients at this sanitarium called Einfried there was one resident who stayed there for the atmosphere; a “novelist” named Detlev Spinell.  And novelist would be an exaggeration.  No one has ever read his book and even letter-writing is an enormously slow and painful exercise when performed by him.  In the story, this writer is the cause of the death of a woman who is attempting to recover from a mild case of tuberculosis which is several times emphatically stated to be only affecting “the trachea, and not the lungs, thank God.”  He is a malevolent force that insinuates into the young woman’s mind that she is the victim of a crass, plebian existence that sacrificed her health and artistic spirit at the altar of mundane human activities, specifically; marriage and childbirth which was the event that sapped her strength and weakened her body sufficiently to allow the wasting disease to get the upper hand with her.

And this unhealthy influence by Spinell eventually causes her health to completely break down.  And so, the doctors call for her husband to return to the sanitarium before her incipient death.  And while this catastrophe is occurring Spinell takes it upon himself to write a letter to this husband who at this point is occupying a room in the same building.  He painstakingly writes the letter, mails it, smiles at the husband in the hallways when they meet and gives no thought to what will happen when the letter returns from the post office to the building that they both reside in.  The letter is an insulting and disparaging polemic attacking the husband for his “plebian” tastes and lack of artistic feeling.  And he announces that he has awakened the wife to her true spiritual stature and thereby causes her to renounce her allegiance to ordinary life (and by that choice, life itself).

Now all of this is quite bizarre but Mann paints the personalities of husband, wife and Spinell very skillfully.  And this allows the personalities and their relationships to each other to make sense.  The husband is a very plain and “normal” individual.  A businessman who embraces the life of a husband and father along with his hard charging life as a capitalist.  He loves his wife and child but he isn’t above pinching a maid in a hallway when the opportunity arises.  The wife loves her husband and child but she has the artistic side to her personality and she can be influenced into believing that the prosaic life of a housewife and mother is a demeaning occupation for someone as sensitive and with such an elevated soul as herself.  And then there is Spinell.  He is an abnormal spirit of the “artistic” type who sees life through a prism that only values the spiritual and pure emotions and sensibilities of the artist.  All ordinary things like the normal male/female relations are fraught with unacceptable amounts of inartistic reality.  Thus, his hatred of the husband in the story and his beatification of the wife.

The climax of the story, to my mind is the collision when the husband reads the letter and confronts Spinell down the hall from him.  He reads parts of the letter to the author and then rains verbal abuse on the head of his frightened and contrite adversary.  But just as his screaming abuse reaches its crescendo, from out in the hall, comes news that his wife’s lungs have collapsed under the ravages of her ailment, causing her to cough up an enormous quantity of blood and that she is on the edge of death.  The husband shifts his focus onto the bearer of bad news:

‘“Is she dead?” yelled Herr Klaterjahn.  As he spoke he clutched the Rätin by the arm and pulled her to and fro on the sill.  “Not quite?  Not dead; she can see me, can’t she?  Brought up a little blood again, from the lung eh?  Yes, I give in, it may be from the lung.  Gabriele!”  he suddenly cried out, and his eyes filled with tears; you could see what a burst of good, warm, honest human feeling came over him.  “Yes, I’m coming.”  He said and dragged the Rätin after him…’

Mann shows us the reality of life and compares it to the shadow of life that Spinell hides in.  He uses art to hide from life.  As for the husband, who really was a crass, plebian individual full of crass plebian faults, he is also a living, breathing human being.  Spinell is a wraith.  His artistic sensibilities and motives are pathetic and infantile.  Now this is coming from Thomas Mann who embraced art as the central motive of his life.  What I find interesting is that he so clearly shows us the primacy of life over art.  I find that powerful.

Diplomacy, Gerrymandering and Ice Cream

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Friday will be a very long day.  Excuse my absence from the site.  I’ll do my best to catch up later.

Well, I’ll have to say I was shocked that Hamas gave up the twenty living hostages.  I am a little suspicious of their claiming to not have all of the remains of the dead hostages.  Maybe they’re still holding onto some of the living that way.  But all in all, it seems like the Arabs are applying the screws to Hamas and that is a good sign.  Trump is getting some credit even from the leftist media and that is also encouraging.

And I hear that the Supreme Court is about to declare some parts of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.  Specifically, I think they’ll say that the present maximizing of black representation is a form of anti-white discrimination and that may be an incredible change to the breakdown of seats between the Democrats and Republicans in places like Alabama and Mississippi.  Good.  Gerrymandering makes a 60/40 state like Massachusetts into a 100/0 state in terms of representation.  There are zero Republicans in the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts.  Why should there be any Democratic reps in places like Oklahoma or Utah?  Just draw the district maps so that the Republican suburbs and exurbs out number the urban Democrat strongholds and presto change-o no Democrat reps!  Sounds like a plan.  Thank you, Massachusetts!

Now I hear Trump is going to meet with Zelensky and then give the Ukrainians Tomahawk missiles.  That’s a very powerful weapons system.  And then I hear he’s going to meet with Putin.  Well, he’s really going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to end this war.  But let him try.  I just hope we don’t start taking incoming from Russian surrogates.  I was just beginning to hope Trump was serious about making the world more peaceful.  Fingers crossed.

Even though we’ve already had frost on the ground Camera Girl was able to find a live preying mantis in the yard and now it’s taking up residence in our house.  She even bought some crickets at Petco and hopes to keep it alive for the duration.  I warned her this might be a very short reprieve.  I think they’re not programmed to live very long after maturity.  Well, I hope to take some macro shots of our little houseguest before he kicks off.

Unbelievably we’re still getting raspberries from the patch and we had them today with vanilla ice cream.  But we’re down to the nitty-gritty.  I think we’ll be getting a hard freeze in the next week or so.  And I’ve taken a bunch of photos of the wolfbane because by Halloween they’ll be wilted too.  Today the bees and the flies were the only insect life I saw around the yard.

So, a beautiful September and beginning of October is transitioning to more wintery weather but spirits are high and with any luck I’ll survive my three-week ordeal with First Selectman Cthulhu with only superficial damage.

Excelsior!