CALL ME SNAKE

A friend in the publishing trade gave me an advance copy of a book about quantum theory by a Nobel-prize winning physicist. The book is not of great interest to me, but I glanced through it anyway as that book and the one I’m writing are both aiming for the same kind of audience. The only depressing thing for me is how short the other book is. If I’d been that smart, and made my book that short, I’d be done now. But then again I didn’t win no Nobel Prize in physics.

I’ve been so busy, of late, that it took me two months to read a 300-page book. My 8-year-old daughter, who can read a book a day, teased me mercilessly over my slow pace. I took on this book, No Country for Old Men, because I heard it was better than the movie. It was a frustrating work for me as I thought it was beautifully written in stretches. In fact, almost every single page was beautifully written. Yet as a whole, for me, it didn’t add up. The main theme, so far as I could tell, as expressed by the sheriff (played in the movie by Tommy Lee Jones), was that our country was going to hell and a handbasket. Things were going from bad to worse and there ain’t nothing we can do about it. This was a constant refrain that went on for page after page. And while I agree that may well be true, after awhile I got tired of this steady, unwavering whine. Which is why ultimately I cannot recommend the book, despite the fact that it is filled with beautiful prose. Another complaint is that one of the main characters is knocked off in a most undramatic form, almost in a footnote, which to me was a curious choice by the author. Still I’m sure the book is doing fine, especially in view of the movie’s success, and there’s ain’t nothing my measly two cent’s worth ain’t gonna do about it. And no amount of belly-achin’, no matter how hyperventilated, ain’t gonna change that.

At 81 minutes long, it’s as model of economy. Not an ounce of fat on it, nor a second wasted. A man steps off a train and things start happening. Bad things. The man is played by Spencer Tracy, and the movie is called BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK. It used to be one of my favorites as a kid, and I’m pleased to say it has held up well over the years. Fans of DIE HARD and other action series should watch this to see what a real action hero is like. The fact that the movie is starkly realistic adds weight to the proceedings , showing just how much it detracts from a movie–like the last DIE HARD entry–when a hero can do anything possible, no matter how outlandish. That undermines everything he does. The Spencer Tracy character, by contrast, never has to jump onto or off of flying airplanes. Instead he’s able to accomplish so much with a single karate chop to the wind pipe. See it if you can. And Bruce Willis should see it as well; there may be hope for him yet as a senior citizen we can actually believe in.

A friend in the TV business could not resist sending me a treatment for a ridiculous discussion of quantum mechanics couched in the usual New Age bullshit. More evidence in support of the statement–that was never in doubt–that if quantum mechanics can be misused for any purpose, if you wait long enough, it will almost certainly be misused for said purpose…

I don’t normally read, or recommend, articles written by Republican strategists, but I did enjoy the op/ed in yesterday’s Globe about Mitt Romney’s apparent (transparent) attempt to buy the V.P. nomination. Romney has his good points, the author, Todd Domke, said. “It’s his bad points that aren’t so good,” he noted, repeating the famous line about the boxer Sonny Liston. Domke also repeated a quote from McCain during his primary battle with Romney: “Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” The essay reminded me of how much I enjoy Mitt-bashing and how much I’ve missed it during the last month or two.

I haven’t seen a friend much in the past two years because he’s been doing a major renovation of his spare bathroom. Or at least that’s the excuse. (Maybe he just doesn’t want to see me. And I can’t say I blame him.) He and his wife have just put their house on the market. They accepted an offer and the prospective buyer just had the inspection which said the house was in good shape except for the spare bathroom where the plumbing was called “amateurish.” Apparently just because the guy didn’t want to see me and figured I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Though I would take “amateurish plumbing” instead?

For awhile I thought I was losing my edge. I was making too many mistakes in sudoku puzzles. Occasionally I can fix them but usually I give up. So I wasn’t finishing a lot of the daily puzzles, even relatively easy ones, due to carelessness or sloppiness or a combination of the two (if they are in fact different). But last night, everything changed. I took on the Globe Magazine puzzle which, on the face of it, looked quite difficult–only 22 of 91 boxes were filled and I’ve never completed a puzzle with fewer filled boxes though there are other measures of difficulty as well. I started it late and didn’t have time to finish. Normally I don’t carry a puzzle over from one day to the next owing to my chronic Sudoku backup problem but this time I did. And tonight during Nightline, while Barack Obama toured Iran and was asked to concede that he was wrong about the surge, I had a surge of my own and knocked off the Globe Magazine puzzle. After this triumph, I’ve stopped worrying about my IQ. Or rather I’m now worrying that it might be too high.

Last week I saw the acclaimed caper flick, The Bank Job. As the name suggests, it’s a familiar kind of tale–one that’s been done in many different ways but usually to similar effect. The thing that got me about this movie [SPOILER ALERT!!!] was that it had a surprisingly happy ending that I didn’t see coming and was totally unearned. The so-called “hero” (played by Jason Stratham) brings his friends and buddies in on this sweet deal, and gets a couple of them get killed–at least two in brutal fashion. The hero gets to have an hour-and-50 minute flirtation with Saffron Burrows (who had a thing with James Spader in an elevator once upon a time), make off with all kinds of bootie, make up with his wife and kids, and take them off on a yacht in a warm sunny place. Good for him, but what about the rest of his gang? Note: If a friend like this ever calls you, just say you’re busy. Make sure you’re out of head-butting range. And then call in for the reward.

Granted, I did not see the movie under ideal conditions. For one thing, I started it really late because I worked really late and by the time I started it I was already quite tired. Also I was working on the Globe sudoku at the time, which is generally rather difficult on Saturday and given that I was tired to start with, I had to work even harder than usual to finish the puzzle. But casting all that aside, I didn’t like what I say in the first hour of I’M NOT THERE. Frankly, I couldn’t see the point of having all these different people playing different aspects of Bob Dylan (and poorly at that), including a little boy who, frankly, looked like a littie boy but talked like he was a man who’d been all over. Then there was Cate Blanchett who supposedly played one of the Dylans too, but wasn’t fooling anybody. Nor was anybody else. (Fooling anybody, that is.) I did not make it through much of the movie, but in the little I did see I did not see anything that held my interest, anything to recommend itself, including Blanchett’s celebrated turn.

I recently saw part of Nightline, which I sometimes end up seeing when I don’t turn off the TV fast enough after the sports and weather come on at about 11:30. For once, Nightline was not doing a story about how expensive gas had become and what people were doing about it (i.e., installing extra-large tanks in their pickup trucks and driving to Mexico to fill up their vehicles). This time they had a segment on a guy called the “Sound Tracker”–one of the world’s premier recorders of nature’s sounds and a champion for what’s called “quietude.” I wrote a couple of articles on the subject, and about the Sound Tracker, for Omni Magazine about 15 years ago; we’d talked over the phone many times but I’d never seen him before, as he’s based in Washington state, so that was kind of interesting. Even more interesting was the fact that this guy, whose whole life revolved around sound, became deaf for a brief period due to some sort of viral infection. But fortunately he regained his hearing and is back to doing what he does best–capturing rare sounds and trying to protect quiet places.

By chance I happened upon an article called “Fishing in the Norton Rings” that I’d forgotten all about. I wrote it 11 years ago for a long-defunct magazine, Omni, about a wild artist and his band of scientist friends who planned to search for life (in the form of microbes from human waste products) in outer space. A fan of Omni took it upon himself to create a website in homage to his favorite magazine, which is where the article (and many others I penned) can be found. It was only 11 years ago but–dating back to before my children were born–it seems much longer, almost a lifetime ago.

It’s not often I laugh out loud while listening to the radio–especially during work–but a clip I just heard from Chris Rock did get to me. “Who’s more racist, black people or white people?” Rock asked. “Blacks, because we hate black people too.”

Physicists and mathematicians will go to great lengths to avoid talking to me about the book I’m currently working on, and I’m gettting pretty much used to it. But today a geometer pulled a stunt I haven’t seen before. Midway into our conversation he got kind of quiet and was fumbling around. A few seconds later I heard a loud beeping sound. “That’s the fire alarm,” he said matter-of-factly. “I gotta run.”

For years, a friend used to ask for my top 10 movie lists. He stopped asking, but I haven’t stopped making lists. So here are my top 10 movie selections for I’m not sure what year. I’m pretty sure all these movies came out in 2007 but I didn’t see them until 2008 when they came out on video. So let’s call it the 10 Best of 2007/2008:

Once
Away from Her
Margot At the Wedding
Broken English
The Savages
Starting Out in the Evening
Juno
Into the Wild
Talk to Me
Broken Trail

Most people who get to a place as beautiful as Martha’s Vineyard stick around if given a chance. But I’m not most people. I left after a fews days to get back to working on my book plus another short-term project that’s due soon. Twenty hours after returing to Boston, that’s seeming like a dumber and dumber move.

Most people relax on a place as beautiful as Martha’s Vineyard. But I’m not most people. I went from biking to swimming to blading to swimming and kept it up all day long. I was moving so fast, I almost didn’t make it off the Island. First I decided to try to get from the house we were staying in in Edgartown to the Oak Bluffs ferry in 20 minutes by bike, & my bike was weighed down with gear. But I was racing so fast along the bike path, I didn’t realize until it was too late that I had missed the the turnoff for Oak Bluffs and was instead heading to Vineyard Haven. So I missed that boat by sheer stupidity but caught the next one. Upon leaving the boat, I could have waited 12 minutes for the bus but instead decided to ride three miles to the bus stop in Falmouth which I figured I could do in 12 or 15 minutes. But again I was moving so fast that I went clear past the bus station and only realized my mistake when I reached the satellite parking lot. I then raced back to the bus station and caught the bus. But there was no room for my bicycle and the driver said I should have gotten on at Woods Hole when the bus was empty. Somehow I managed to squeeze my bike into a compartment that was too small for a bike and I got back to Boston, safe and sound. I took my time on the bike ride to Cambridge.

Now I’m here working (and not getting much done) while the rest of my family is enjoying the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard. And I only have one person to blame for that. Well actually three people: me, myself, and I.

It’s that time of year and Call Me Snake will be taking a brief siesta as I go off to Martha’s Vineyard and hobnob with fellow “Deciders” like myself. (I might even say hi to Bill Clinton if I’m not too busy working on the old suntan.) Years ago, when I was a mere youth, I used to go to the island with little more than a bike, swimsuit, and a sleeping bag and camp out for a few dollars a night near a tiny airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Well, the times have changed. Now I’m going with little more than a bike, swimsuit, and a sleeping bag and this  time I’m going to camp out for free in someone’s back yard (or living room floor). That’s what Deciders do.

I got a nice message from my “Internet Service Provider” telling me how we’d all gotten this nice upgrade, more MIPS & BIPS, and we didn’t have to do anything about it except sit back and enjoy the show. The note said that if you want more details, “click here,” which I did and it then took several minutes to download the measly text explaining the unexpected windfall that had come my way.

I went to a carnival this past weekend with my family and my daughers’ friends’ families. I asked a 6-year-old in our group to go on a daredevil ride with me called Freakout which I actually had no intention of going on. “I’m too young,” she said. “I’m going to wait until I get older.”

“I’m going to wait until I get younger,” I told her.

“You’re not going to get younger,” she said.

“Good,” I replied. “Then I’ll never have to go on Freakout.”

I woke up this morning thinking about the “metric.” I wasn’t thinking about the fireworks we saw late last night or the BBQ or the canoeing and kayaking that preceded it. I was thinking about the geometrical concept of the metric and how to explain it. I started writing up my explanation yesterday and got stuck. This morning, while lying in bed, I figured out how to do it. Or at least I think I figured it out. But the proof is in the puddin’, as they say, and I won’t know if I can do it until I do it. I’ll give it a try later today if I can steal an hour or so away from fambly activities. If I succeed, I’ll have a lot of patient mathematicians to thank, particularly an especially friendly one at UCLA. And the fireworks which are probably owed some thanks too.

People say I do OK in the intelligence department. In fact, my bored demeanor during a Mathematical Physics class in college secured my reputation as a “genius” that lasted for, well, at least a week or two. But I must say, I’m often stumped by the directions found in simple consumer products and wonder how the average, or below average, citizen fares in this regard. Last week I got a moth trap and had the hardest time trying to figure out how to “mount” the lure. It was a humbling experience, and life deals out no shortage of them–even to someone who famously appeared bored in Herb Bernstein’s legendary, though short-lived, Mathematical Physics course.

For years “busy” people keep telling me that email is the best way to reach them. Yet I know from experience that the good old-fashioned phone is often better. For example, I was just writing something and need to talk to someone (the lead engineer on a project). I sent him an email a week ago and got no response. Finally yesterday I called up his organization and said that if they want me to mention their outfit in my story, somebody there better call me pronto. I soon heard from the guy I’d emailed the week before. We had a nice chat. Afterwards he said if I had any further questions, “don’t hesitate to get in touch. Email is always the best way to reach me.”

I found this in Peter Hartlaub’s San Francisco Chronicle review of “Day Watch” (the Russian vampire picture): “Advisory: This film contains adult language, violence and sexual situations, including two characters who make love in a moving automobile — which you should not try on your own, unless you’re Tommy and Pamela Anderson Lee, who actually drive safer that way.”

They call it “All the news that’s fit to print,” but they fit precious little about handball into that paper. You pretty much have to die to get a story about handball in the New York Times. And it took the death of Vic Hershkowitz, the 23-time national handball champion from New York City, to get a feature article on handball in the hometown rag. They say Hershkowitz was the greatest who ever played. Unlike him, I’ll never be more than a mid-level player. But I still hope the New York Times won’t be writing about me anytime soon.