Books read:
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by
David Wallace-Wells
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Trails walked:
- Picture Canyon in Flagstaff (June 4th)
- The National Mall in Washington DC (June 12th)
- Mount Peeley Summit near Sunflower (June 21st)
- Secret Mountain near Sedona (June 26th)
- Brins Mesa near Sedona (June 27th)
Song of the month:
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| Woodbury Fire burning up the Superstition Wilderness (from Mount Peeley) |
The Superstitions are burning. If you’ve followed my blog, then you know
that the eastern portion of the Superstition Wilderness is one of my favorite
places in Arizona. Unfortunately, much
of it has burned up in the Woodbury fire this month (see the photo above). It’s such a
special area. What will happen to the
bears?! How will Circlestone fare (Google
it!)? As my hiking buddy and I were walking in that area this spring we
commented on all the new growth from the February rains and wondered if that
would bode poorly for summer fires. Our
concern was well founded. I’m now
counting the days when the weather cools and we can get up there and assess the
damage in person.
I attended a
conference and lobbying event in Washington DC this month. The topic was climate change. In my past, I had been a good citizen and
voted. I occasionally called or wrote my
representatives or senators about a topic on which I had a strong opinion. I had even visited congressional offices in
my state. But this is the first time
I’ve actually met with legislators in Washington, DC; on “The Hill.” And what a great experience it was. In today’s toxic and divisive political
environment, it was inspiring to see citizens of all walks, with causes ranging
from ALS, to climate change, to children’s issues visiting their congressional
representatives and letting their opinions be known to the people that are
representing them. Did you know that
very few legislators have offices in the US Capitol building? The majority have offices in separate
buildings near the US Capitol (Senators in 3 buildings north of the Capitol,
Representatives in 4 buildings south).
All these buildings are interconnected with each other and the Capitol
via underground tunnels. There’s even an
underground mini subway system for use only by legislators and their staff! Getting immediate feedback from lobbying is
rare, but it occasionally occurs, and I was able to experience it; one week after we lobbied with one Republican
Representative, he joined the bi-partisan Climate Solutions
Caucus! If
you’re interested to know what my week on the hill was like, and what it was
like to lobby in DC, check out this 5-minute video from last year’s
conference. It’s a great summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=196&v=rOF1ewoa0Rg
June is when the weather starts getting serious here in the
desert. That means traveling to cooler
parts of the state for hiking. We
traveled to Flagstaff, the Mazatzals, and Sedona this month. I even added my 6
mile walk around the National Mall in DC as one of this month’s walks. In this month’s books I learned a lot about
whales, vampires, the impacts of slavery, and climate change. I hope you enjoy the June blog.
Song of the Month: I was 10 years old when Sympathy
for the Devil by the Rolling Stones came out in December of 1968 on the
Beggars Banquet album. I’m sure my parents
hated it, along with most parents of that era.
I didn’t become aware of the song until my high school years (“high” school
years?). I’ve always loved this song for
its samba rhythm, rock and roll ranting, it’s “woo-woo” background vocals, and
the fact that it made so many people angry when it came out during that pivotal
year of assassinations, worldwide protests, and the Tet Offensive. In my retirement I have taken up the guitar
again and as part of my memory improvement plan, I try to memorize song chords
and lyrics on a regular basis. I thought
that Sympathy for the Devil might be interesting as an acoustic song (I found
out recently that Mick Jagger first played it acoustically to Charlie Watts at
his front door). One thing that happens
when you memorize lyrics is that sometimes you actually hear them (read them)
for the first time. And wow! These lyrics are brilliant. The song is basically an historical
commentary on humanity’s worst behavior, from the treatment of Jesus by the
Romans, to the European religious wars, to the massacre of the Russian Romanovs,
to World War II, to the Kennedy assassinations (when the album was released late in 1968 the lyrics were changed from "I shouted out who killed Kennedy" to "I shouted out who killed the Kennedys" after Bobby was shot).
The crux of the message, I think, is that humans have both good and evil
inside each of us. And the evil in some
humans has unleashed some of the worst events in human history. You can blame it on the devil, but it’s there
in all of us. When the song came out,
the Rolling Stones were excoriated for their evil ways and devil worshiping
song. It probably helped make them even
more famous (or infamous to some). They
became the evil opposite of the perceived squeaky-clean Beatles. There was the rumor that this was the song
playing when that woman was killed at the concert in Altamont, but it was
actually “Under My Thumb” that was playing at the time. Anyway, check out the video link above which displays the lyrics and develop your own opinion about it.
Quick garden update: The garden I planted in April is growing
nearly as fast as the weeds I’m continually pulling out of it. Tomatoes and pimento peppers are doing
great. Green beans, cucumbers, green
chile and watermelon are struggling. I
made a delicious pasta using garden fresh sliced plum tomatoes and pimento peppers.
Well, summer temperatures are reaching triple digits so
Hiking Buddy (HB) and I decided to head up north to Flagstaff for a hike. Picture
Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve
starts in a less than appealing area of Flagstaff, right between a wastewater
treatment plant and a natural gas compression plant. But other than this first taste (…or smell)
the rest of the preserve is fantastic.
The city bought this plot of land in 2012 with voter approved funding to
improve Flagstaff’s outdoor recreation activities. An agreement with the wastewater facility
provides a year-round reliable water source for the riparian area and its many
birds and other wildlife. There are 5-6
miles of trails in this preserve along with interpretive signs. There’s even a 1.5 mile stretch of the
Arizona Trail! Some of the highlights include a nice waterfall, the remnants of
an old railroad trestle, several 1,000-year-old Northern Sinagua petroglyphs, and some nice viewpoints of the small canyon. We spotted a king snake (or maybe a milk snake) near one of the
viewpoints. King snakes and coral snakes
look similar but are very different.
Coral snakes are venomous while king snakes are relatively harmless and
not venomous. So, HB and I were trying
to remember the little poem about the color bands on these snakes: Red touches yellow kill a fellow, red touches
black is a friend of Jack…or was it red touches black kills Jack, red touches
yellow a friendly fellow… We decided it
was the first one and that it was a king snake but kept our distance just in
case…. One of the petroglyphs we saw was that of a snake, but no ancient clues
as to color bands unfortunately. We got
rained on a bit, and had some lightning and thunder, but most of the walk was
in beautiful 65-degree weather while the valley roasted. Stopped for a burger and a beer and Bun
Huggers, which is a Flagstaff favorite for burgers. I highly recommend this preserve. The hiking is very easy and there are several
highlights, and it’s free! There’s not
much space for parking at the trailhead, but there are several places
to parallel park along the road if it’s crowded on weekends.
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| Entrance to Picture Canyon |
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| King Snake...we think... |
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| Petroglyph of snake |
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| Nice waterfall in the small canyon |
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| More petroglyphs |
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| Picture Canyon |
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| Riparian area |
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| I believe they want you to go right here.... |
I finally got around to reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. The
Irish author published the book in 1897 to modest success, but the book did not
become popular until the 1931 Hollywood movie starring Bela Lugosi was
released. Since the movie was released,
the book has never been out of print, but too late for Bram Stoker as he died
penniless. There have been over 200 films featuring Dracula, which is right up
there with Sherlock Holmes, God, and Santa Claus as the most adapted character
on film….so, he's got that going for him.
Rather than a straight narration, the story is told through various
protagonists’ diaries, newspaper articles, and ships' logs. That was creative I thought, except for the
fact that it was a bit of a stretch to think that one would have time to write
in one’s diary in the middle of hunting for a madman that is trying to suck
everyone’s blood. The story begins with Jonathan Harker’s
journal entry describing his business trip to Transylvania to arrange London
property purchases for a Count Dracula.
Harker ends up trapped in Dracula’s castle, but manages to escape. There are several other characters that provide
journal entries to tell the story of Dracula moving to London to create terror,
including Professor Van Helsing who helps to unravel the mystery of vampires
from his study of Romanian superstitions. I enjoyed
the book mainly from the standpoint of reading the origination of Dracula and
his strengths (dark, wolves) and weaknesses (garlic, crosses) that are so well
known now from all the movies adapted for nearly the past century. However, beyond the story, the writing was at
times difficult to understand as past and present tenses seemed to get
intertwined in the storytelling and it wasn't always clear exactly what was
happening, which I don’t think is what the author was intending.
I had about 4 hours of free time in DC this month after the
Climate conference and before my flight back home. So, I decided to walk the National Mall
and visit the many stunning memorials and buildings in this national
treasure. The day was perfect, upper
60s, lower 70s with cloud cover and a nice breeze. I decided that I didn’t have time to visit
any of the museums as just one of them would likely have taken the entire 4
hours, so I started at the US Capitol building and headed west. It’s such a beautiful area, with huge shade
trees everywhere, manicured lawns, reflecting pools, and magnificent
buildings. I cruised passed the
Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum and the castle which acts as the visitor’s
center for the Smithsonian museums. The
towering obelisk of the Washington Monument loomed ahead of me and acts as a
great landmark to know where you are at on this humongous mall. For a brief time, this 555-foot monument was
the tallest structure in the world, until the Eiffel Tower was built. I believe it’s still the tallest obelisk in
the world. Just west of the monument is the World War II
memorial which I hadn’t seen in person yet as it was dedicated in 2004. It’s a beautiful design, with 56 pillars (one
for each US state and territory) and 2 triumphal arches (one for the Pacific
Ocean theater and one for the Atlantic).
There’s also the Freedom Wall with over 4,000 gold stars, each
representing 100 US soldiers who died during the war. A huge fountain in the center plaza makes for
a dramatic setting, with the Washington monument directly east and the Lincoln
Memorial directly west. I then headed
south past the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, past the National Holocaust
Museum and towards the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial. On the way I passed some old dudes fishing
who said they’ve caught 9-pound small mouth bass in the basin! The Jefferson Memorial is terrific; it has a
huge statue of Jefferson standing in the middle of a rotunda which contains
some of his most famous words carved in stone.
Underneath the memorial is a nice little museum with lots of information
about Jefferson and his legacy. Next, I
passed the FDR memorial and the MLK memorial, then the Korean war memorial and
on to what I believe is the most stunning of all monuments in this stunning
place; that is the Lincoln Memorial.
You’ve all seen it on TV, as the backdrop for Martin Luther King’s “I
have a dream” speech. On the walls on
each side of the gigantic sculpture of a seated Lincoln are his Gettysburg address and
his 2nd inauguration speech carved in stone. There is nothing like this memorial and I get
chills every time I see it. Next I headed
northeast towards the sparse and emotional Vietnam Memorial wall and then east
on Constitution avenue towards The Ellipse where you get a great view of the
south portico of the White House with its semi-circular columns. Security was tight everywhere, but especially
in the area around here. I walked by the
now 3-year-old National Museum of African American History and Culture which is
housed in a very cool looking building that should have been named Wakanda! The exterior is made up of these geometric
patterns which were copied from iron grilles found in historic African American
communities in South Carolina and New Orleans.
I wandered past the Museum of Natural History where there were busloads of school children lined up to see giant dinosaur fossils, then strolled
through the outdoor National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden; then up towards the Ulysses S Grant memorial,
the Peace Monument and back to the US Capitol building. A great day in our great National Mall.
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| That's me on the east side of the US Capitol building |
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| Supreme Court building |
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| West side of the US Capitol building and its rolling lawns |
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| South portico of the White House from The Ellipse |
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| Vietnam War Memorial |
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| Lincoln Memorial |
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| Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial |
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| World War II monument |
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| One gold star for every 100 soldiers killed in WWII |
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| Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin |
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| Jefferson Memorial interior |
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| African American museum |
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| National Sculpture Gallery (politicians who've lost their heads??) |
About halfway through The Uninhabitable Earth by David
Wallace-Wells, the author says, “If you have made it this far, you are a
brave reader.” That is no joke because
the first half of this book is about as depressing as Cormac McCarthy’s The
Road. This book was a LOT scarier than
Dracula. Many people have called it
“climate porn” for its alarmist take on Climate Change. He spends the first half of the book
describing what would happen to the people on this planet if the average
overall temperature were to rise by 2, 3, 4, 5, or even 8 degrees Celsius in
the next few decades. He interviews
scientists from all areas to back his projections. In all honesty, the rhetoric gets a bit old
after 140 pages of this. I get it
already, but the author feels that he needs to scare people into action. He’s trying to do for greenhouse gasses what
Rachel Carson did for pesticides in her great 1962 book Silent Spring. The second half of the book explores various
technological, political, and ethical reasons for the crisis and possible
solutions, although, for my money, he doesn’t spend enough time on solutions. I
believe that’s where we SHOULD be as a planet now…implementing solutions. Unfortunately, there are still millions of
people denying the overwhelming scientific evidence. I love all the positive
things our industrial world has given us (cell phones, the internet, safe cars,
electricity, heating and cooling), but the price for all that innovation and
comfort is coming due in the form of more CO2 in the air and a warming
planet. I’m not as negative about our
future as Wallace-Wells is, but I do believe that if we don’t start acting
soon, the world as we know it will become more and more uninhabitable. The planet will survive, so whenever I hear
people shouting to “save the planet”, I say, don’t worry, the planet will be
fine…. there just may not be any humans left to enjoy it…. unless we act….
soon, which is why I’m doing all I can to change the political will to enact
solutions.
HB and I headed up to the Mazatzals to hike the Mount
Peeley Summit trail. Some locals
pronounce the mountains Ma-Tuh-Zels, but I tend to pronounce it the way it looks
Maz-At-Zals. There seems to be no sure
story behind the name’s origin, likely named by some ancient native tribe and
corrupted by Anglo mapmakers trying to translate. Part of the mountain range is declared as a
wilderness area and the Arizona Trail traverses the range from Four Peaks all
the way to the Mogollon Rim (around 80 miles).
Much of it is remote and
difficult to access. The road to the
trailhead starts at the Mount Ord turnoff from AZ87 (Beeline Hwy) at around milepost 222.8 where you
turn left on FR627, drive just over a mile, and then turn right on FR201 for
around 9.5 miles to the trailhead. FR201
is a fairly good dirt road. There are
sections with lots of rocks where you need to go slow, but most of it is decent
although very narrow in places which could make for some interesting encounters
on a busy weekend. By the time you get
to the trailhead you are at 5,600 feet in elevation, so the heat of the desert
has been left behind. There is a sign at
the trailhead about a 68-year-old hiker who went missing up here in 2010, along
with information on who to call if you come upon any human remains…thankfully
we didn’t, although I’m sure his family would love to know what happened to
this poor guy! I really hope they never have to erect a sign like that for me....although it wouldn't be a bad way to go....The trail is a steady
uphill walk, for about 3 miles and 1,700 feet in elevation to the summit. There are some “scrambly” steep spots near
the summit, but overall, it’s a fairly moderate walk. The first half mile is on the Cornucopia
trail which then intersects with the Arizona Trail. Around 1.5 miles of this hike is on the
actual Arizona Trail, so that’s another 0.2% of the trail completed! One of these days I’m gonna calculate exactly
how much of the Arizona Trail I’ve done, just by chance. But for now, that sounds like too much
math. This area of the Mazatzals was severely
burned in forest fires during 2004 and 2012. There are a few scraggly pine
trees and junipers, but you mostly see the medium sized bushes and trees you’d expect
at this point after a fire. The
highlight of this hike is the spectacular view you get once you are on the
summit. You can see in every direction
for miles; the Mogollon Rim to the north, the Superstitions to the Southeast,
Bartlett lake and the Verde river to the west.
There’s a jar buried under rocks at the summit where you can record your
assent. The notes I saw go back to
2011. The latest person to sign was here
in April of this year. The Woodbury fire
in the Superstitions was burning big at this time and we could see large plumes
of smoke along with miles and miles of trailing smoke headed north and
east. We found a nice shady spot that
was sheltered from the wind and had a nice lunch with beautiful Arizona views
all around us. The hike back down was
quite easy once we passed the steep scree slope. Did not see a single person either on the
hike or the drive. Just a couple of deer
and a horny toad to keep us company….and of course lots of birds, lizards, and
bugs, but the wind kept the bugs at bay.
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| Sign at the trailhead, including the notice of the missing 68 year-old hiker |
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| Dead tree shot |
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| Good trail signage, including where on the Arizona Trail you are |
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| Prickly Pear cactus blooms with a view of the road we drove in on |
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| Trail art with Woodbury fire in the background |
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| Summit log jar |
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| Funky looking cactus up on top |
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| "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" |
Beloved by Toni Morrison was published in 1987 and won the Pulitzer prize for fiction. It was also a National Book Award finalist. I see it listed on nearly every “best of” book list I’ve seen and I’m glad that I finally got a chance to read it. It is powerful. However, I will admit that I was very confused after reading the first chapter and had to resort to Spark Notes to fully understand the beginning. I believe that I would have eventually figured it out as the story unfolded, but Spark Notes helped to clarify it. Maybe it was just my engineering brain not fully understanding the poetic opening. As the story unfolded, the horrors of slavery, and the personal toll it took on its survivors was a major theme. It’s set post-Civil War, circa 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The main character, Sethe (played by Oprah Winfrey in the 1998 film evidently) was living in a “Negro” section of town with her 18-year-old daughter, Denver. The events that took place during those 18 years between the harrowing birth of her daughter while escaping slavery and present times are extraordinary. The questions explored in this novel are deep and troubling: To what extremes will someone go to in order to protect their children from a fate they know to be worse than death? How does a person, or a community deal with individual and collective pain? Should you hold back your capacity for love when you know that everyone that you could love will likely be gone before you even get to know them? What is marriage? What are the bonds between a mother and her daughter? Are there spirits roaming this earth? This book was banned in some schools and libraries due some of its terrifying scenes, however the most graphic scenes are described in an abstract sort of way without the graphic description you might expect from a banned book. More graphic descriptions were used for describing the pain left behind from some of those awful events. But intertwined in all the pain are beautiful acts of human kindness that provide hope. Morrison based the book on an 1856 newspaper article she read about the true story of an escaped slave and her daughter.
In April, HB and I hiked Loy Canyon near Sedona up to where
it intersects with the Secret Mountain Trail. We thought it might be interesting to one day
hike Secret Mountain in the summer since it’s at 6,500 feet and would be cooler
than the desert and so that's what we did this month. The biggest obstacle to this hike is that the trailhead is a 3-hour drive from Phoenix, including 25 miles of
dirt road. You have to drive all the
way past Sedona, up to Flagstaff, then back down towards Sedona on dirt roads. The first 20 miles of dirt road are not bad,
but the last 5 miles are slow going. It
took an equal amount of time (45 minutes) to drive the first 20 miles as it did
to drive the last 5 miles. But once you
are at the trailhead, you know you’re in for a special hike. The views from the start are spectacular as
you gaze down at the red rocks of Loy Canyon and the beautiful buttes and rock
formations surrounding it. This area was heavily impacted by the Rhino/Platypus fire
last year. The trail is around 6 miles each
way (12 miles round trip), but we stopped around half a mile short of the end
because the last bit would have required even more bushwhacking through burned
out manzanita bushes and by then our scratched up arms, legs, and shirts had had
enough. The point at which we turned
around had a magnificent view of Long Canyon and the city of Sedona below, so
we were good with this finale. Even
though we did get a bit scratched up, it wasn’t like the entire trail was
bad. I’d say about a mile of it was
dicey, the rest being fairly moderate with around 2,000 feet of elevation
gain in 5.5 miles. It was a bit
challenging to keep on the trail because fires and lack of use tend to make trails
disappear, so having a good GPS track helps here. In addition to the great views, we also explored
the ruins of Secret Cabin which was built in the late 1800s by a Mormon family
trying to escape persecution for their polygamous lifestyle. But, based on the size of that cabin (around 20ft by 12ft), I can’t
imagine the dude had too many wives because it would have been really close quarters! The cabin is in a nice setting with pine trees
and about a quarter mile from the rim and its views. There was also a corral and what looks like a
catch basin that was built to collect rain water from the nearby washes. We picked a good day as it was cloudy and
breezy with temperatures in the upper 70s.
Another great day in Arizona.
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| This is what you see when you step out of your car |
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| Stupendous views - this is Loy Canyon |
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| Secret Cabin - Polygamous family lived here? Pretty small.... |
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| Now that's a sizable dandelion |
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| HB seems to be walking off the edge of the world |
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| Burned up manzanita made for some scratchy bushwhacking |
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| More fire damage |
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| Artistic Horse Tree? |
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| I think the gloves really tie my outfit together.... |
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| Deer! |
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| Wow, right? |
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| Dead Tree Shot |
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| More wow |
The day after this hike marked 38 years that my wife and I have been married, so we drove up to Sedona and did a small hike up to Brins Mesa. It’s around 1.5 miles each way with 600 feet elevation gain and a real nice view, not only of Sedona, but also of the Secret Mountain area that HB and I had hiked the day before! After the hike, we explored around town (that is code for “she shopped, and I waited outside stores.”) and then ate at the Javelina Cantina before heading home. A great way to celebrate our anniversary in one of the world’s most beautiful places.
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| Here is the view towards Secret Mountain from Brins Mesa in Sedona. |
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| And the view from Brins Mesa back towards Sedona |
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| Brins Mesa Trail |
Well, I’ve finally gone and done it. I’ve read Moby Dick by Herman Melville for the first time. How is this possible you say? Well, somehow my very erratic New Mexico education never got around to it, and every time I picked it up and felt its weight, I leaned towards something leaner. I’ve heard so many good and bad things about this book that I really had no preconceived idea about it. I have to say that I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. I’ve always said that I learn as much from good fiction as I do from good non-fiction. Did you know that Starbucks got its name from the first mate in Moby Dick? There’s a scene in the book where the captain of another boat is bringing something to the ship and someone yells “It's a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he's coming off to make us our coffee!” I learned a lot about whale oil and whale anatomy; and that life on a whaling ship for 3 or 4 years per trip was mainly toil, hardship, and danger, mixed with long bouts of boredom. There were very diverse racial mixes on whaling ships (Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Africans, Asians, Whites…). When you hear that Moby Dick is about mad captain Ahab’s pursuit of a giant whale, you would never imagine that the whale only shows up about 40 pages from the end of this 565-page book. The remaining portion of the book is allotted to the personalities on the ship, descriptions of whales and the whaling industry, life on board a ship in the 1800s, lots and lots of Biblical and Shakespearean references, brutal descriptions of whale hunting, and of course the tension of the great white whale that lies at the end of the book. I’m really glad I read this book now, because if I had read it in high school, I think I would have hated it. When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, he talked about this book at length which he had read in grammar school! He said it was one of the biggest influences in his life and work. That just goes to show the brilliance of Dylan….I mean he actually understood the deep philosophical meanings in Moby Dick when he was in grade school. So, if you read Moby Dick in grade school and understood all its meanings, then you too can have the creative success of a Bob Dylan. If not, then you’ll have to be satisfied with writing long drawn out blogs about White Whale Privilege....
I hope you enjoyed this month's blog. See you next month!
Song of the Month: I was 10 years old when Sympathy
for the Devil by the Rolling Stones came out in December of 1968 on the
Beggars Banquet album. I’m sure my parents
hated it, along with most parents of that era.
I didn’t become aware of the song until my high school years (“high” school
years?). I’ve always loved this song for
its samba rhythm, rock and roll ranting, it’s “woo-woo” background vocals, and
the fact that it made so many people angry when it came out during that pivotal
year of assassinations, worldwide protests, and the Tet Offensive. In my retirement I have taken up the guitar
again and as part of my memory improvement plan, I try to memorize song chords
and lyrics on a regular basis. I thought
that Sympathy for the Devil might be interesting as an acoustic song (I found
out recently that Mick Jagger first played it acoustically to Charlie Watts at
his front door). One thing that happens
when you memorize lyrics is that sometimes you actually hear them (read them)
for the first time. And wow! These lyrics are brilliant. The song is basically an historical
commentary on humanity’s worst behavior, from the treatment of Jesus by the
Romans, to the European religious wars, to the massacre of the Russian Romanovs,
to World War II, to the Kennedy assassinations (when the album was released late in 1968 the lyrics were changed from "I shouted out who killed Kennedy" to "I shouted out who killed the Kennedys" after Bobby was shot).
The crux of the message, I think, is that humans have both good and evil
inside each of us. And the evil in some
humans has unleashed some of the worst events in human history. You can blame it on the devil, but it’s there
in all of us. When the song came out,
the Rolling Stones were excoriated for their evil ways and devil worshiping
song. It probably helped make them even
more famous (or infamous to some). They
became the evil opposite of the perceived squeaky-clean Beatles. There was the rumor that this was the song
playing when that woman was killed at the concert in Altamont, but it was
actually “Under My Thumb” that was playing at the time. Anyway, check out the video link above which displays the lyrics and develop your own opinion about it.
I finally got around to reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. The
Irish author published the book in 1897 to modest success, but the book did not
become popular until the 1931 Hollywood movie starring Bela Lugosi was
released. Since the movie was released,
the book has never been out of print, but too late for Bram Stoker as he died
penniless. There have been over 200 films featuring Dracula, which is right up
there with Sherlock Holmes, God, and Santa Claus as the most adapted character
on film….so, he's got that going for him.
Rather than a straight narration, the story is told through various
protagonists’ diaries, newspaper articles, and ships' logs. That was creative I thought, except for the
fact that it was a bit of a stretch to think that one would have time to write
in one’s diary in the middle of hunting for a madman that is trying to suck
everyone’s blood. The story begins with Jonathan Harker’s
journal entry describing his business trip to Transylvania to arrange London
property purchases for a Count Dracula.
Harker ends up trapped in Dracula’s castle, but manages to escape. There are several other characters that provide
journal entries to tell the story of Dracula moving to London to create terror,
including Professor Van Helsing who helps to unravel the mystery of vampires
from his study of Romanian superstitions. I enjoyed
the book mainly from the standpoint of reading the origination of Dracula and
his strengths (dark, wolves) and weaknesses (garlic, crosses) that are so well
known now from all the movies adapted for nearly the past century. However, beyond the story, the writing was at
times difficult to understand as past and present tenses seemed to get
intertwined in the storytelling and it wasn't always clear exactly what was
happening, which I don’t think is what the author was intending. 
About halfway through The Uninhabitable Earth by David
Wallace-Wells, the author says, “If you have made it this far, you are a
brave reader.” That is no joke because
the first half of this book is about as depressing as Cormac McCarthy’s The
Road. This book was a LOT scarier than
Dracula. Many people have called it
“climate porn” for its alarmist take on Climate Change. He spends the first half of the book
describing what would happen to the people on this planet if the average
overall temperature were to rise by 2, 3, 4, 5, or even 8 degrees Celsius in
the next few decades. He interviews
scientists from all areas to back his projections. In all honesty, the rhetoric gets a bit old
after 140 pages of this. I get it
already, but the author feels that he needs to scare people into action. He’s trying to do for greenhouse gasses what
Rachel Carson did for pesticides in her great 1962 book Silent Spring. The second half of the book explores various
technological, political, and ethical reasons for the crisis and possible
solutions, although, for my money, he doesn’t spend enough time on solutions. I
believe that’s where we SHOULD be as a planet now…implementing solutions. Unfortunately, there are still millions of
people denying the overwhelming scientific evidence. I love all the positive
things our industrial world has given us (cell phones, the internet, safe cars,
electricity, heating and cooling), but the price for all that innovation and
comfort is coming due in the form of more CO2 in the air and a warming
planet. I’m not as negative about our
future as Wallace-Wells is, but I do believe that if we don’t start acting
soon, the world as we know it will become more and more uninhabitable. The planet will survive, so whenever I hear
people shouting to “save the planet”, I say, don’t worry, the planet will be
fine…. there just may not be any humans left to enjoy it…. unless we act….
soon, which is why I’m doing all I can to change the political will to enact
solutions. 
Beloved by Toni Morrison was published in 1987 and won the Pulitzer prize for fiction. It was also a National Book Award finalist. I see it listed on nearly every “best of” book list I’ve seen and I’m glad that I finally got a chance to read it. It is powerful. However, I will admit that I was very confused after reading the first chapter and had to resort to Spark Notes to fully understand the beginning. I believe that I would have eventually figured it out as the story unfolded, but Spark Notes helped to clarify it. Maybe it was just my engineering brain not fully understanding the poetic opening. As the story unfolded, the horrors of slavery, and the personal toll it took on its survivors was a major theme. It’s set post-Civil War, circa 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The main character, Sethe (played by Oprah Winfrey in the 1998 film evidently) was living in a “Negro” section of town with her 18-year-old daughter, Denver. The events that took place during those 18 years between the harrowing birth of her daughter while escaping slavery and present times are extraordinary. The questions explored in this novel are deep and troubling: To what extremes will someone go to in order to protect their children from a fate they know to be worse than death? How does a person, or a community deal with individual and collective pain? Should you hold back your capacity for love when you know that everyone that you could love will likely be gone before you even get to know them? What is marriage? What are the bonds between a mother and her daughter? Are there spirits roaming this earth? This book was banned in some schools and libraries due some of its terrifying scenes, however the most graphic scenes are described in an abstract sort of way without the graphic description you might expect from a banned book. More graphic descriptions were used for describing the pain left behind from some of those awful events. But intertwined in all the pain are beautiful acts of human kindness that provide hope. Morrison based the book on an 1856 newspaper article she read about the true story of an escaped slave and her daughter. 
Well, I’ve finally gone and done it. I’ve read Moby Dick by Herman Melville for the first time. How is this possible you say? Well, somehow my very erratic New Mexico education never got around to it, and every time I picked it up and felt its weight, I leaned towards something leaner. I’ve heard so many good and bad things about this book that I really had no preconceived idea about it. I have to say that I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. I’ve always said that I learn as much from good fiction as I do from good non-fiction. Did you know that Starbucks got its name from the first mate in Moby Dick? There’s a scene in the book where the captain of another boat is bringing something to the ship and someone yells “It's a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he's coming off to make us our coffee!” I learned a lot about whale oil and whale anatomy; and that life on a whaling ship for 3 or 4 years per trip was mainly toil, hardship, and danger, mixed with long bouts of boredom. There were very diverse racial mixes on whaling ships (Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Africans, Asians, Whites…). When you hear that Moby Dick is about mad captain Ahab’s pursuit of a giant whale, you would never imagine that the whale only shows up about 40 pages from the end of this 565-page book. The remaining portion of the book is allotted to the personalities on the ship, descriptions of whales and the whaling industry, life on board a ship in the 1800s, lots and lots of Biblical and Shakespearean references, brutal descriptions of whale hunting, and of course the tension of the great white whale that lies at the end of the book. I’m really glad I read this book now, because if I had read it in high school, I think I would have hated it. When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, he talked about this book at length which he had read in grammar school! He said it was one of the biggest influences in his life and work. That just goes to show the brilliance of Dylan….I mean he actually understood the deep philosophical meanings in Moby Dick when he was in grade school. So, if you read Moby Dick in grade school and understood all its meanings, then you too can have the creative success of a Bob Dylan. If not, then you’ll have to be satisfied with writing long drawn out blogs about White Whale Privilege....