Valtron3030

“To me a heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town.”

In the 1920s, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway became good friends, despite their frequently conflicting worldviews and lifestyle choices. Only three years apart, their literary careers paralleled one another and both authors reached worldwide acclaim by the time they were thirty. From the altogether fantastic tome Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 (public library) comes 26-year-old Hemingway’s delightfully irreverent meditation on his ideas of heaven and hell. It captures with subtle but remarkable precision his characteristic oscillation between humor and insight and the very tug-of-war between idealism and vice that both produced his Nobel-worthy literary legacy and claimed his life:

Burguete, Navera.
July 1 [1925] –

Dear Scott –

We are going in to Pamplona tomorrow. Been trout fishing here. How are you? And how is Zelda?

I am feeling better than I’ve ever felt — haven’t drunk any thing but wine since I left Paris. God it has been wonderful country. But you hate country. All right omit description of country. I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.

To me a heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on 9 different floors and one house would be fitted up with special copies of the Dial printed on soft tissue and kept in the toilets on every floor and in the other house we would use the American Mercury and the New Republic. Then there would be a fine church like in Pamplona where I could go and be confessed on the way from one house to the other and I would get on my horse and ride out with my son to my bull ranch named Hacienda Hadley and toss coins to all my illegitimate children that lined the road. I would write out at the Hacienda and send my son in to lock the chastity belts onto my mistresses because someone had just galloped up with the news that a notorious monogamist named Fitzgerald had been seen riding toward the town at the head of a company of strolling drinkers.

Well anyway were going into town tomorrow early in the morning. Write me at the / Hotel Quintana
Pamplona
Spain

Or don’t you like to write letters*. I do because it’s such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you’ve done something.

So long and love to Zelda from us both –

Yours,
Ernest

* Quite the contrary, Fitzgerald himself was a masterful letter-writer with enormous range, from the heartwarming to the instructive the brilliantly acerbic.

Complement with Hemingway’s wisdom on writing, his magnificent Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and his soul-stirring account of shooting his beloved cat. Letters of the Century: America 1900-1999 is a treat in its entirety, featuring missives from such luminaries as Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin, and Albert Einstein.

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 A theme that will emerge on this blog is my love for fruity fizzy drinks. We are kicking off Steven’s cocktail column with one of my favorites, the Pimm’s Cup. Wimbledon may be over, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this perfect summer cocktail.

Take it away, Steven!

Pimm’s 
Pimm’s No. 1 Cup was invented somewhere between 1823 and 1840, concocted by James Pimm as a digestive aid, comprised of gin, quinine, and herbs. The popularity of Pimm’s No. 1 Cup began to grow when James Pimm became the owner of an oyster bar near the Bank of London in London’s financial district. His success allowed him to expand his business and he built up a chain of restaurants catering to businessmen of the day, all serving his No. 1 Cup by the pint. By 1851, Pimm’s No. 1 Cup had become popular enough that large-scale production began to keep up with demand by other bars and gentlemen’s clubs, and by 1859 it began being sold to the general public. In 1865, James Pimm sold the business and naming rights to Frederick Sawyer, who in turn sold it in 1880 to Sir Horatio Davies, who later became the Lord Mayor of London. Over the years, Pimm’s developed many other fruit cups, known as No. 2 through No. 6, utilizing different base spirits. No. 2 and No. 3, based on Scotch whiskey and brandy respectively, were introduced in 1851. Pimm’s No. 4 cup, based on rum, was released after World War 2. Finally, Pimm’s No. 5 and No. 6, based on rye whiskey and vodka respectively, were introduced in the 1960s. Unfortunately, when the popularity of Pimm’s declined in the 1970s, the less popular No. 2 through No. 5 were discontinued, but if you search hard enough, you may be lucky enough to find Pimm’s No. 6 Cup (though I’ve never seen it). Pimm’s recently reintroduced the brandy-based Pimm’s No. 3 Cup as Pimm’s Winter Cup, which I was lucky enough to come across at a friend’s party and found it very drinkable mixed with apple cider.

I originally discovered this cocktail while searching for a classy and low proof cocktail, as my wife (girlfriend at the time) is a bit sensitive to alcohol. I can’t recall exactly how I came across the Pimm’s Cup, but it certainly fit the bill. The Pimm’s Cup, though relatively underappreciated in the United States, is sometimes considered the second most popular drink in the England, second to tea obviously, and is associated with many of the events attended by the well-to-do. Alongside champagne, it is the official drink of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Henley Royal Regatta, and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. In addition, it is also the standard drink at polo matches and at summer garden parties. The closest analog that we have in the United States is the association of the Mint Julep with the Kentucky Derby, but that is a relatively limited association in comparison.

 I have to admit, I had a very difficult time finding the origins of the Pimm’s Cup as a cocktail, I figure because it is analogous to trying to find the origins of the rum and coke. If anyone knows more about how the Pimm’s Cup came to be as a cocktail, I’d love to know more.

Instead I will cover a little more about the Pimm’s Cup recipe. The “official” recipe for a Pimm’s Cup, as called for on the bottle, is 1 part Pimm’s No. 1 Cup combined with 3 parts lemonade, garnished with mint, cucumber, orange, and strawberry. Lemonade, as referred to in England, is not the lemonade that we are generally familiar with being sold on the roadside by 6-year-olds everywhere, but is actually closer to a lemon-lime soda such as 7-Up or Sprite. I’ve never actually had British lemonade before, but I find using 7-Up or Sprite in this recipe results in an overly sweet cocktail. Making your own lemon soda is very easy, which I detail below, but another acceptable substitute is ginger ale. I elect to use slightly different garnishes than those called for in the official recipe, as I remember reading somewhere in my original search for the Pimm’s Cup that the garnishes were originally native to England. Because of that, I forgo the orange and substitute it with apple. As for the mint, borage is actually the traditional herb used to garnish a Pimm’s cup, apparently having a flavor profile similar to cucumber. Unfortunately I’ve never tasted borage so I can’t really speak to what it adds to a Pimm’s Cup.



Recipe
PDT Cocktail Book
2 oz Pimm’s No. 1 Cup
0.75 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz simple syrup
3 cucumber slices
Muddle cucumber and simple syrup
Add Pimm’s and lemon juice, shake on ice and strain into Collins glass filled with ice
Top with 1 oz. Fever-Tree ginger ale
Garnish with cucumber wheel

My recipe
2 oz Pimm’s No. 1 Cup
6 oz “lemonade” (see below)


Add spear to Collins glass, followed by ice.
Add sliced strawberries.
Add sliced apple.
Add a little more ice.

Strained lemon juice, ~2 oz. from 2 lemons.
Mix up lemonade (see below).
Add Pimm's No. 1 Cup to Collins glass.
Add lemonade.
Garnish with borage if possible, mint is an acceptable substitute.

“English-style lemonade”
1 oz strained lemon juice
0.5 to 1 oz simple syrup (1:1) to taste
Club soda to 6 oz.

Results
It’s been too long since I’ve enjoyed a classic Pimm’s Cup and I have to say after the lengthy process of preparing one and taking photos, it was very refreshing. I leaned towards making my lemonade tarter this time, only using 0.5 oz simple syrup as my wife enjoys things more on the tart side. This is a very refreshing and light cocktail, with the unique flavor provided by Pimm’s No. 1 Cup. It is sweet, sour, fruity, and mildly herbal. The strawberry and apple lend a pleasant fruity aroma to the cocktail and are a tasty treat when eaten. It can be difficult to fish the garnishes out of the cocktail, so I ended up pulling out a cocktail pick to spear the pieces of strawberry and apple. The cucumber serves as a very refreshing and becomes very crisp after soaking in the ice cold cocktail. It’s difficult to stop after just a single cocktail, so feel free to help yourself to a second one (or third), since it is luckily quite light on the alcohol. This also makes it very friendly for entertaining others without destroying them before the end of the evening.

Variations
Some people like to fortify their Pimm’s Cup with a bit of additional gin, or add a different dimension of sweetness by using a splash of a liqueur such as St. Germain or orange liqueur. Additionally, if you do not have access to Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, there are some recipes floating around on how make a homemade Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, which is roughly 2 parts gin, 2 parts sweet vermouth, and 1 part orange liqueur. The lemonade in a Pimm’s Cup can be substituted with ginger ale, as mentioned before, resulting in a slightly spicier cocktail. In terms of garnish, other fruits are acceptable, for as a fruit cup cocktail, whatever is native and in season will work pretty well.

I went out this morning for a quick run along La Seine. That was fun. There were very few people out, which made it easier. Paris is a city for strollers, not runners. In this small section of the city, everyone seems to be offering a variation on the phrase "And I wasn't even trying."

Women pedal their bikes up the streets, without helmets, in long white dresses; or they whizz past in pink daisy dukes and matching roller skates. Men wear orange pants and white linen shirts. They parler un petit peu then disappear around corners. When I next see them they are pushing porsches up St. Germain, top down, loving their lives. Couples sit next to each other in the cafes, watching the street. There are rows of them assembled as though in a spread from Vogue, or as a stylish display of manequins. Everyone smokes. They know what awaits them--grizzly death, orgies, in no particular order. 

I came home. I showered. I dressed. I walked across the way and bought some bread and milk. My wife brewed coffee. We had breakfast. Then a powerful fatigue came over me and I slept till noon. When I woke, my son was dressed. My wife was wearing a Great Gatsby tee-shirt, shades, earrings and jeans. Her hair was pulled back and blown out into big beautiful Afro. We walked out and headed for the RER. My son was bearing luggage. This is the last we'd see of him for six weeks. 

It was on the train that I realized I'd gone mad. I started studying French through the old FSI tapes and workbook. I then moved on to classes at Alliance Française. Next I hired a personal tutor. We would meet at a café in my neighborhood. Sometimes my son would stop by. I noticed he liked to linger around. One day he asked if he could be tutored in French. It struck me as weird, but I went with it. In June he did a two-week class--four hours a day. He stayed with my father. He woke up at 6 a.m. to get to class on time, and didn't get back until twelve hours later. He would eat dinner and then sleep like a construction worker. But he liked it. Now I was sending him off to an immersion sleep-away camp--Française tout les jours.

It is insane. I am trying to affect the aggression of my childhood home, the sense of constant unremitting challenge, sans the violence. A lot of us who come up hard revere the lessons we learned, even if they were rendered by the belt or boot. How do we pass those lessons on without subjecting our children to those forces? How do we toughen them for a world that will bring war to them, without subjecting them to abuse? My only answer is to put them in strange and different places, where no one cares that someone somewhere once told them they were smart. My only answer is try to mimic the style of learning I have experienced as an adult and adapt it for childhood.

But I am afraid for my beautiful brown boy. 

A few weeks ago I was sitting with my dad telling him how I had to crack down on my own son for some indiscretion. I told my dad that the one thing I wasn't prepared for about fatherhod was how much it hurt me to be the bad guy, how much i wanted to let him loose, how much I felt his pain whenever I challenged him. I felt it because I remembered my own days, and how much I hated being 12. I was shocked to see my dad nodding in agreement. My dad was an aggressive father. I didn't think he was joyous in his toughness, but it never occurred to me that he had to get himself up to challenge us. He never let us see that part of him. His rule was "Love your mother. Fear your father." And so he wore a mask. As it happens, I feared them both.

I told my son this story the day before we dropped him off. I told him that I would never force him to take up something he wasn't interested in (like piano). But once he declared his interests, there was no other way to be, except to push him to do it to death. How very un-Parisian. But I told him that pain in this life was inevitable, and that he could only choose whether it would be the pain of acting or the pain of being acted upon. C'est tout.

We signed in. He took a test. We saw his room and met his room-mate. We told him we loved him. And then we left.

"When I e-mail you," he said. "Be sure to e-mail back so that I know you're OK."

So that he knows that we are OK.

When we left my wife began to cry. On the train we talked about the madness of this all, that we--trifling and crazy--should be here right now. First you leave your block. Then you leave your neighborhood. Then you leave your high school. The your city, your college and, finally, your country. At every step you are leaving another world, and at every step you feel a warm gravity, a large love, pulling you back home. And you feel crazy for leaving. And you feel that it is preposterous to do this to yourself. And you wonder who would do this to a child.

A photograph that appeared in a chain e-mail about Trayvon Martin. In fact, the man in the photo is a 32-year-old rapper considerably larger than the slain 16-year-old.In trying to assess the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, two seemingly conflicting truths emerge for me. The first is that based on the case presented by the state, and based on Florida law, George Zimmerman should not have been convicted of second degree murder or manslaughter. The second is that the killing of Trayvon Martin is a profound injustice. In examining the first conclusion, I think it's important to take a very hard look at the qualifications allowed for aggressors by Florida's self-defense statute: Use of force by aggressor.--The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who: (1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or. (2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless: (a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or (b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.I don't think the import of this is being appreciated. Effectively, I can bait you into a fight and if I start losing I can can legally kill you, provided I "believe" myself to be subject to "great bodily harm." It is then the state's job to prove -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- that I either did not actually fear for my life, or my fear was unreasonable. In the case of George Zimmerman, even if the state proved that he baited an encounter (and I am not sure they did) they still must prove that he had no reasonable justification to fear for his life. You see very similar language in the actual instructions given to the jury:In deciding whether George Zimmerman was justified in the use of deadly force, you must judge him by the circumstances by which he was surrounded at the time the force was used. The danger facing George Zimmerman need not have been actual; however, to justify the use of deadly force, the appearance of danger must have been so real that a reasonably cautious and prudent person under the same circumstances would have believed that the danger could be avoided only through the use of that force. Based upon appearances, George Zimmerman must have actually believed that the danger was real. If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. There has been a lot of complaint that "stand your ground" has nothing to do with this case. That contention is contravened by the fact that it is cited in the instructions to the jury. Taken together, it is important to understand that it is not enough for the state to prove that George Zimmerman acted unwisely in following Martin. Under Florida law, George Zimmerman had no responsibility to -- at any point -- retreat. The state must prove that Zimmerman had no reasonable fear for his life. Moreover, it is not enough for the jury to find Zimmerman's story fishy. Again the jury instructions:George Zimmerman has entered a plea of not guilty. This means you must presume or believe George Zimmerman is innocent. The presumption stays with George Zimmerman as to each material allegation in the Information through each stage of the trial unless it has been overcome by the evidence to the exclusion of and beyond a reasonable doubt. To overcome George Zimmerman's presumption of innocence, the State has the burden of proving the crime with which George Zimmerman is charged was committed and George Zimmerman is the person who committed the crime. George Zimmerman is not required to present evidence or prove anything. Whenever the words "reasonable doubt" are used you must consider the following: A reasonable doubt is not a mere possible doubt, a speculative, imaginary or forced doubt. Such a doubt must not influence you to return a verdict of not guilty if you have an abiding conviction of guilt. On the other hand if, after carefully considering, comparing and weighing all the evidence, there is not an abiding conviction of guilt, or, if having a conviction, it is one which is not stable but one which wavers and vacillates, then the charge is not proved beyond every reasonable doubt and you must find George Zimmerman not guilty because the doubt is reasonable. It is to the evidence introduced in this trial, and to it alone, that you are to look for that proof. A reasonable doubt as to the guilt of George Zimmerman may arise from the evidence, conflict in the evidence, or the lack of evidence. If you have a reasonable doubt, you should find George Zimmerman not guilty. If you have no reasonable doubt, you should find George Zimmerman guilty.This was the job given to the state of Florida. I have seen nothing within the actual case presented by the prosecution that would allow for a stable and unvacillating belief that George Zimmerman was guilty.That conclusion should not offer you security or comfort. It should not leave you secure in the wisdom of our laws. On the contrary, it should greatly trouble you. But if you are simply focusing on what happened in the court-room, then you have been head-faked by history and bought into a idea of fairness which can not possibly exist.The injustice inherent in the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman was not authored by a jury given a weak case. The jury's performance may be the least disturbing aspect of this entire affair. The injustice was authored by a country which has taken as its policy, for the lionshare of its history, to erect a pariah class. The killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman is not an error in programming. It is the correct result of forces we set in motion years ago and have done very little to arrest.One need only look the criminalization of Martin across the country. Perhaps you have been lucky enough to not receive the above "portrait" of Trayvon Martin and its accompanying text. The portrait is actually of a 32-year old man. Perhaps you were lucky enough to not see the Trayvon Martin imagery used for target practice (by law enforcement, no less.) Perhaps you did not see the iPhone games. Or maybe you missed the theory presently being floated by Zimmerman's family that Martin was a gun-runner and drug-dealer in training, that texts and tweets he sent mark him as a criminal in waiting. Or the theory floated that the mere donning of a hoodie marks you a thug, leaving one wondering why this guy is a criminal and this one is not.We have spent much of this year outlining the ways in which American policy has placed black people outside of the law. We are now being told that after having pursued such policies for 200 years, after codifying violence in slavery, after a people conceived in mass rape, after permitting the disenfranchisement of black people through violence, after Draft riots, after white-lines, white leagues, and red shirts, after terrorism, after standing aside for the better reduction of Rosewood and the improvement of Tulsa, after the coup d'etat in Wilmington, after Airport Homes and Cicero, after Ossian Sweet, after Arthur Lee McDuffie, after Anthony Baez, Amadou Diallo and Eleanor Bumpers, after Kathryn Johnston and the Danziger Bridge, that there are no ill effects, that we are pure, that we are just, that we are clean. Our sense of self is incredible. We believe ourselves to have inherited all of Jefferson's love of freedom, but none of his affection for white supremacy. You should not be troubled that George Zimmerman "got away" with the killing of Trayvon Martin, you should be troubled that you live in a country that ensures that Trayvon Martin will happen. Trayvon Martin is happening again in Florida. Right now: In November, black youth Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old Jacksonville resident, was the only person murdered after Michael Dunn, 46, allegedly shot into the SUV Davis was inside several times after an argument about the volume of music playing. According to Dunn's girlfriend, Rhonda Rouer, Dunn had three rum and cokes at a wedding reception. She felt secure enough for him to drive and thought that he was in a good mood. On the drive back to the hotel they were residing at, they made a pit stop at the convenience store where the murder occurred. At the Gate Station, Rouer said Dunn told her that he hated "thug music." Rouer then went inside the store to make purchases and heard several gunshots while she was still within the building. Upon returning and seeing Dunn put his gun back into the glove compartment, Rouer asked why he had shot at the car playing music and Dunn claimed that he feared for his life and that "they threatened to kill me." The couple drove back to their hotel, and claim they did not realize anyone had died until the story appeared on the news the next day.After killing Jordan Davis, Michael Dunn ordered a pizza.When you have a society that takes at its founding the hatred and degradation of a people, when that society inscribes that degradation in its most hallowed document, and continues to inscribe hatred in its laws and policies, it is fantastic to believe that its citizens will derive no ill messaging.It is painful to say this: Trayvon Martin is not a miscarriage of American justice, but American justice itself. This is not our system malfunctioning. It is our system working as intended. To expect our juries, our schools, our police to single-handedly correct for this, is to look at the final play in the final minute of the final quarter and wonder why we couldn't come back from twenty-four down. To paraphrase a great man: We are what our record says we are. How can we sensibly expect different?

I’ll be honest – I was never fond of chickens, and that went double for roosters. Mike has always had chickens – Snake was actually hatched by one of Mike’s hens five years ago – but I never spent any quality time with them and they always skeeved me out. The only thing going for them, I thought, was that they are obviously descended from dinosaurs, and I do appreciate their eggs.

Mike loves chickens, so I kept these opinions to myself. He had five or six hens and roosters, and this spring, we were at the co-op and they had chicks, so we got five chicks. Then, Mike heard of someone who was moving and needed homes for their chickens, so he took a dozen of theirs. I thought he was crazy. Over twenty chickens! I was a little afraid.

At the same time, I was planning my garden. I wanted to have a full garden this year that would not get demolished by grasshoppers as has happened in the past at my house, so I decided to build raised redwood beds up at Mike’s house, flanking the chicken house. His chickens are completely free-ranging; they put themselves to bed in the chicken house each night but are never contained, as Mike’s dogs keep predators away, and they eat all the bugs around his place. I have never seen a grasshopper up there.

Throughout the spring and summer, I’ve spent a lot of time working on my garden and, therefore, around the chickens and have become quite smitten with them. I even built them a chicken trough for their food, which I am absurdly proud of. One day, I noticed one of the roosters was limping. I mentioned it to Mike and he said, “I know, but what can you do about a rooster foot?” It seemed to worsen over the next couple of days, so I crept up to the rooster and saw his foot was horribly swelled. I asked Mike to catch the rooster so that I could have a proper look at his foot. None of the hens and roosters are particularly tame, but it’s easy to sneak up on Snake because he only has one eye (this is why I named him Snake; my inner child is a twelve year old boy).

So Mike caught Snake and held him as I examined his foot. There was a large dark spot on the bottom that looked like it might be a scab, so I soaked his foot in warm water which made the scab come off easily. I won’t describe the rest because it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. I put peroxide in the wound and then placed a cotton ball over the hole and wrapped his foot in vet wrap. Snake was calm throughout the procedure and seemed quite pleased with his new footwear. After craning his neck into a bizarre position in order to admire his bandage with his good eye, he walked around with much greater ease.

Since I didn’t really know what I was looking at (the interior of a rooster foot is very different than the interior of a mammal), I called my vet and described what I saw and did. He prepared two shots of chicken antibiotics for me and suggested iodine in the wound the next time I changed the wrap. Done and done, and Snake is on the mend.

When it was bad, Snake didn’t move around very much, so I’d take a handful of food to wherever he was sitting and sit down facing him and toss pellets and grain to him piece by piece, which he’d gobble up from a seated position. I’d carefully aim for his right side, so he’d see where the morsel would land, and tell him how handsome he was, and he’d do that darling chicken murmur back. Now he’s much more mobile and no longer needs me to bring him food, but he still lets me sit beside him and tell him how handsome he is.

It’s been a busy week here at Worldbuilders central. We got a surprising number of orders for Unfettered in the Tinker’s Packs, along with people taking the chance to buy t-shirts, posters, and other assorted ephemera.

After I mentioned the book on Monday’s blog, we had about 500 orders, which is (if you’ll excuse my language) a shit-ton of orders for us to process in a week. But my team rose to the challenge, stared it grimly in the eye, and destroyed it.

Or, if we didn’t destroy it, we at least gruesomely maimed it.

I think my analogy is falling apart here.

My point is that everyone’s orders are being processed and shipped out with such speed and efficiency that you’d think that we were entirely staffed with some manner of high-tech robot ninjas. We’ve got the first 350 out the door already, and would be even further along if not for the whole federal holiday/post office being closed on the 4th of July thing.

First, I’d like to thank so many of you for supporting both Worldbuilders and Shawn by buying the anthology off the tinker’s packs.

Second, I should mention that if you’re one of those people who feels a burning desire to pick up first edition copies of books, they’re selling *much* faster than I’d anticipated. I asked Shawn, and it turns out that the first printing of this book was only 5000 copies. He’s sold a couple thousand. I’ve sold 500. The rest are going to get snapped up pretty quickly….

Thirdly, if you don’t know what the deal with the anthology is, you can read the introduction I wrote for the book over on Goodreads.

Lastly, a story about Oot….

*     *     *

The man himself, showing off his new fruit-and-music tattoo.

When he showed it to me, he explained that it was pretty cool and that it made him super tough.

“How tough?” I asked.

Wow. That’s pretty tough.

But that’s not the story. That’s just the prologue.

This is the story….

A couple days ago, the two of us were taking a walk, giving mom some time to herself. We were looking at trees mostly.

On this particular walk, Oot also had brought a sack with him. He told me it was his bird sack. That’s where he’s going to put the birds he catches. Into the sack. He’s obsessed with trying to catch birds right now. Chases them all over.

And Honestly? I wish him the best. Aim high. Dream the dream.

Then out of the blue he says, “Y’know dad, I’d like to see you write your own book.”

“What was that?” I ask. It’s caught me a little off guard. He knows I’m an author, but he’s never asked anything like this before.

Then I realize this is probably because two blocks back, I stopped to chat with some folks out doing yard work. A husband and wife, older than me. What I think of as grandparent age.

Are you that author? they asked.

I am that author, I said.

We can’t can’t wait until the third book, they say.

Side note: If I ever get snippy or terse about people being on my case about book three, it’s because of this sort of thing. It’s not mean spirited. And honestly, taken by itself, it’s fine. Flattering even. And it’s loads better than someone screeling, “Why aren’t you writing the next book right now!!!”

The problem is that it’s incessant. I don’t just get it online. I don’t just get it when I go to conventions. I get it when I go for a walk around the block with my boy. Three years of this sort of thing wear a guy down.

 Anyway, Oot repeats himself, he says, “I’d like to see you write your own book.”

I thought about it a little bit, then asked, “What do you think that would look like?”

“Oh you know,” he said, very matter-of-fact. “You’d pull a feather out of a turkey. Then dip it in some ink and write on some paper.”

I nodded. “That is probably what it would look like.”

Then I asked, “How much time do you think it takes to write a book?”

“Oh you know,” he said. “Not so long….”

I’ll admit my heart fell a little bit when he said that. I found myself thinking, Oh Oot, not you too….

But then he kept going, “…but long.”

And you know what? He’s exactly right. That’s exactly how much time it takes to write a book: Not so long, but long.

Just in case you were wondering….

pat

Minors counter major hegemony with disarming clarity.

“Children help us to mediate between the ideal and the real,” MoMA’s Juliet Kinchin observed in her wonderful design history of childhood. Indeed, children have a singular way of seeing even the most complex of cultural phenomena with disarming clarity. From Letters to Ms., 1972-1987 (public library) — the same wonderful tome that gave us the story of how feminist magazine Ms. sparked the “social media” storm of women’s empowerment and Pete Seeger’s delightful solution to gender politics in language — comes this charming selection of children’s responses to the cultural climate of the second wave of feminism. Amusing, poignant, and infinitely telling, the letters epitomize the signature Ms. “click” moment — a term coined by the magazine to denote an instant feminist insight derived from an anecdote that just “clicks.”

My four-year-old niece was sharing a snack of cheese and crackers with her grandfather. Halfway through the plate he noticed she was gobbling it up at a pace rivaling his own. He proclaimed, “Boy, Erin you’re really a ‘cheeseman’!” Amused at his obvious error she replied, “No, Papa! I’m a cheese ‘person’!”

This wasn’t a statement of the influence of feminism; it was an innocent recognition of an obvious mistake in word usage. At four years old, Erin was aware of someone’s casual denial of her womanhood. Before long she may no longer notice it and begin to accept it …. not if I can prevent it.

Name Withheld
June 24, 1981

I thought you might enjoy hearing a discussion I heard between my son and his neighbor friend. They were playing together and the little boy got the giggles. “Hee-hee-hee-hee,” he giggled, whereupon my son replied in a very condescending tone, “What are you, Danny, some kind of chauvinist? In this house we say “her-her-her-her!”

Her who laughs last,

Name Withheld
August 7, 1975

Recently my nine-year-old son and I were looking around the house for a ruler for his homework assignment. I observed to him that when I was growing up, most rulers had the golden rule printed upon them. “What’s that?” he asked. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” I replied. “Oh,” he said, “I know where you got that. You got that at all those ERA [Equal Rights Amendment] meetings.” Click!

Betsy Brinson
Richmond, Virginia
August 1980 Issue

I offer the following excerpt, taken from a school assignment written by my seven-year-old grandniece, as evidence of the future good health of the feminist movement:

“George Washington’s brother had died. In those days women did not get to own there own home. So George Washington’s sister did not get the house. George got the house. . . . He became the first president. And then he was put on a nickel.”

Name Withheld
March 11, 1979

The analysis of power-preserving notions of behavior based on biological characteristics in Steinem’s article was topical for our family. Only a few weeks ago our three-year-old daughter added to the list of attitudes toward genitalia undocumented in print.

Her behavior occurred in the locker room with her father after a swimming lesson. Observing all the male genitals, she asked if all people grow up to have penises. Her father told her that only men and boys have them. She studied him carefully and consoled him. “Don’t worry, Dad, it’s only a little one.”

Alice Fredricks
Mill Valley, California
September 23, 1978

I was observing in my daughter’s class during a sixth-grade open house when the discussion turned to immigration. Why did people immigrate to America? The teacher and the class discussed pestilence, war, persecution and then addressed famine. “What is famine?” the teacher asked one of the boys in the class.

“Discrimination against women.”

Name Withheld
April 1, 1981

I recently had an experience that I suppose falls into the click category. I was sharing the bathroom with my daughter, who is not yet three. She made an observation and the following conversation ensued:

“You don’t wipe your bottom when you tinkle.”

“No, Kristin, I don’t.”

Reflective pause, then, “Why?”

“Because my tinkle comes out a different place than yours.”

Another reflective pause, then, “Why?”

“Because boys and girls are different.”

Another reflective pause, then with certainty, “No, boys are different.”

My interpretation of this sample event is that she does not see the society or the world in terms of masculine “norm,” with her own status defined only in relation to that “norm.” I hope my interpretation is correct. As parents, we must be doing something right.

Robert J. Shaw, Minister
Tabernacle Christian Church
Franklin, Indiana
July 1981 Issue

Letters to Ms., 1972-1987 is absolutely fantastic — necessary, even — in its entirety, at once timeless and infinitely timely in bespeaking the struggles we still face as a society striving for equality in all dimensions.

Public domain photographs by Nickolas Muray via George Eastman House

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Yes, and there's also $20 over-the-counter test for HIV that gives results in 20 minutes.

Two recent developments could make these conversations less awkward, or even render them moot. But they also raise troubling questions about promiscuity and responsibility that are reminiscent of debates from the 1980s.

The first development was the approval, last summer, by the Food and Drug Administration of an over-the-counter rapid-response at-home H.I.V. test kit. The test, called OraQuick and available nationwide since October, gives results 20 minutes after a cheek swab. The second is the increasing availability of PEP and of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.

PEP - the medication I am taking - has been called the H.I.V. morning-after pill, and PrEP, to follow the analogy, is akin to birth control. A study in the British medical journal The Lancet this month found that drug-injecting addicts who took PrEP were half as likely to become infected with H.I.V. as those who did not; other studies have shown that the drug reduces transmission of the virus from mother to child, and transmission among both gay men and heterosexuals.

Tags: HIV   medicine

Douglas Engelbart died at his home in California yesterday at the age of 88. Engelbart invented the mouse, among other things. In 1968, Engelbart gave what was later called The Mother of All Demos, in which he demonstrated "the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor".

Not bad for a single demo. Truly one of the giants of our age.

Update: Bret Victor urges us to remember Engelbart not for the technology he created but for his vision of how people could collaborate and create together using technology.

The least important question you can ask about Engelbart is, "What did he build?" By asking that question, you put yourself in a position to admire him, to stand in awe his achievements, to worship him as a hero. But worship isn't useful to anyone. Not you, not him.

The most important question you can ask about Engelbart is, "What world was he trying to create?" By asking that question, you put yourself in a position to create that world yourself.

(thx, andy)

Tags: Douglas Engelbart   obituaries   video

From Diego Mazzeo, illustrations of a bunch of different mechanical animals, including a whale, horses, elephants, flamingos, giraffes, a griffin, and a dragon.

Tags: art   Diego Mazzeo   illustration

A reader writes:

Did you see this new development?  It has come out that the Inspector General’s report on the IRS was deliberately limited to only discussing Tea Party groups, and the IG says it was Congressional Republicans who ordered this limitation.  In other words, the whole “scandal” was ginned up from the start. It’s not just that the IRS was targeting progressive groups also, but that the entire IG report was deliberately skewed, with undisclosed parameters, to create the false impression that Tea Party groups were being singled out.  Now the IG and the Republicans are pointing the finger at each other, and the only scandal concerns the investigation itself.

Garance has a great post about the IG himself. It seems to me that the more we learn about this, the clearer it is that Bush appointee J Russell George should resign. We have no evidence whatever that the White House was involved in any way, and we now know that the IRS scrutiny included left-liberal groups, and yet the Inspector General, fully aware of these facts, testified under oath:

This is unprecedented, Congressman …. During the Nixon Administration, there were attempts to use the Internal Revenue Service in manners that might be comparable in terms of misusing it.

Did he ever cop to the fact that progressive and liberal groups were also targeted?

In May, George declined to answer questions about whether progressive groups were targeted, a kind of cageyness that now raises questions about his impartiality in presenting findings about what went on at the IRS.

At the May 22 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing “The IRS: Targeting Americans for Their Beliefs,” Chairman Darrell Issa asked George point-blank about “be on the lookout” orders: “Were there any BOLOs issued for progressive groups, liberal groups?”

“Sir, this is a very important question,” the courtly George replied. “Please, I beg your indulgence …. The only ‘be on the lookout,’ that is BOLO, used to refer cases for political review were the ones that we described within our report.”

That’s either perjury or incompetence. But almost certainly perjury. He should resign.

(Photo: J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration, speaks during a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill May 21, 2013 in Washington, DC. Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and others appeared before to committee to testify about the targeting of politically conservative 501(c)(4) groups applying for tax exempt status. By Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.)

From the beginning, all I've ever cared about is things being great. I never cared about when they were done. Because I also feel like I want the music to last forever. And once you release it, you can't go back and fix it, so you really have to get it right. And that takes time.

A chat with Rick Rubin. You may not know the name, but you definitely know the music (and you'll probably never forget the beard).

Tags: interviews   music   Rick Rubin

Dan explains how the It Gets Better Project has not only saved lives, but enabled a previously-impossible dialogue between gay adults and gay kids as well:

Dan’s new book, American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics, came out a few weeks ago. My recent conversation with him at the New York Public Library is here. Dan’s previous answers are here. Our full Ask Anything archive is here.

I sat down with Anderson and Evan Wolfson last night to discuss yesterday’s historic ruling:

(Hat tip: Maria Popova)

Here’s a charming, unintentionally amusing 1933 essay from Harper’s, “What the Young Man Should Know.” Among the many skills a gentleman should possess? Drinking:

American social habits being what they are, there is one indoor skill which seems to me not only far more important than bridge or dancing, but actually compulsory — drinking. A young man who could convince me that his lips really would never touch liquor might be let off my required course in drinking. But he would be an exceedingly rare bird, and alcohol is so much more evident a liquid in the United States than water that it is probably quite as necessary for a young man to learn how to drink as it is for him to learn how to swim. If the youth of the country had been taught how to drink, just as they were taught not to eat between meals or swallow before they had chewed, we should never have had Prohibition. It is a more difficult art than most, for every man reacts differently, and every man should know, long before the time when (according to our customs) he indulges in his first collegiate binge, whether liquor goes to his head, his legs, or his morals, whether he is the type that sings, fights, weeps, climbs lamp-posts, or pinches the girls. Furthermore, he should learn his capacity and stick within its limits; he should know something about the different kinds of drink, and which drinks produce chaos within him when mixed. By all means let him leave drink alone if he wants to. But since, nine times out of ten, he will drink, let him do so sensibly.

Read the rest for Depression-era thoughts on gambling, swimming, driving, dancing, and more.

Elizabeth Thompson, after her arrest for being drunk in public – from a cache of mug-shots of habitually drunk female patrons in pubs in Birmingham, England, in the early 1900s. Money quote:

Many of the women on the Black List had scars, missing teeth or other deformities, including Kate Kibble, 50, with her eyepatch and crooked fingers. Surprisingly, most of the women on the list held down jobs, working as charwomen (cleaners), woodchoppers, polishers or grease merchants. One street performer ‘played tin whistle outside licensed premises’, while some also worked as prostitutes to bolster their income.

The eye-patch drinker below the jump:

(Hat tip: Ancestry.co.uk)

A reader writes:

You’re completely correct about what will be viewed as the “barbarous and unimaginable” treatment of animals. Coming from the mind of perhaps one of the “new atheists” you’ve been profiling lately, I believe waste to be one of few true sins. It betrays a lack of appreciation, a failure to understand the interconnected nature of all things in the world, and a selfish hedonism that is driving our species (and others) towards some very unpleasant places. Furthermore, the careless waste of meat – of animals that (in the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases) we ourselves brought into being only to live horrendous lives of invisible suffering and leave a trail of environmental damage, simply for our unthinking momentary pleasure – is especially disgraceful.

I’m not vegan/vegetarian, nor do I believe it is unethical to eat meat or to raise animals specifically for consumption. But I choose to eat meat judiciously, from better sources whenever possible, and more consciously. The current system is so profoundly wrong that I’m not sure it’s possible to be an honest and compassionate human being without changing our dietary behavior or to continue living with blinders on to the issue. We can, and must, do better.

For your unafraid and more self-aware readership, I highly recommend Jonathan Safran-Foer’s Eating Animals. It gives a factual yet personal, non-judgmental, and intensely affecting account of the meat industry and human values.

Another:

The reader who wrote about his response to the PETA video reminded me of my own experience.

When I was 18, a freshman in college, I took a course in world population, which stressed the environmental costs of meat production.  One afternoon we watched a film showing cows being butchered in a factory slaughterhouse. I was so sickened that I became a vegetarian that day. It has been 38 years since I’ve eaten red meat or poultry, and I can honestly say I haven’t missed it. Based on average annual meat consumption in America, I figure I’ve spared 1050 chickens, 35 turkeys, and a dozen or so cows and pigs.

Life as a vegetarian has become much easier in the last decade. Instead of having to make my own veggie burger mix or track down tofu at the food co-op, you can buy veggie food at any grocery store, and almost every restaurant (even Burger King!) has vegetarian options. And as an added bonus, my cholesterol level is about 110.

Cruelty to animals is only one troubling facet of the meat industry. Meat production uses about 30% of the earth’s fertile land mass and accounts for about a fifth of all greenhouse gases. It takes somewhere between 430 and 2400 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, depending on whether you use industry figures (the lower number) or PETA’s (the higher number). Earlier this month, a group of MPs  began a campaign to reduce meat consumption in Britain to prevent a global food crisis.  I don’t support PETA’s practices in general, and I’m not out to evangelize anyone – my own life partner is a happy carnivore – but I applaud you for continuing this important discussion.

Another:

I am 43 years old and lifelong carnivore. But your recent post that linked to the “humane” killing of cattle led me to stop eating red meat. This is a big deal since I eat low-carb (lots of proteins) on the regular. In the back of my mind, I have been making a deal that I won’t think about pork until I no longer miss red meat. I think this post has gotten me there.

It also led me to do a couple of things today: research where the pork and poultry at my grocery store comes from, and to send them a letter asking when they plan on being “5-step”Compliant (here is the link). This blog is making me a better citizen in so many different ways.

(Photo credit: Farm Sanctuary)

Pascale Honore enjoyed watching her sons surf but couldn't participate because she's been a paraplegic for the past 18 years. But then Tyron Swan, a friend of her sons, duct taped her to his back and took her out on his board.

Man, that smile is incredible. What a great video. Pascal and Tyron are trying to raise funds to take their show on the road. Backed. (via ★interesting)

Tags: Pascale Honore   sports   surfing   Tyron Swan   video

Innovation in tic-tac-toe? A meta version of the game is actually challenging and fun to play if you're not 4 years old.

This lends the game a strategic element. You can't just focus on the little board. You've got to consider where your move will send your opponent, and where his next move will send you, and so on.

(via waxy)

Tags: games

Until fairly recently, recycled glass was not made into new glass bottles. But now recycling plants can use optical sorting to separate out colored glass from clear glass so the latter can be used to make new bottles. Here's how the process works.

Don't miss the glass gobs shooting down into the molding machine at around 2:13.

Tags: how to   recycling   video

Raspberries are incredibly fragile, which is why, for most of the year, I pass them up. When they're flown in from a far-flung farm, or sit on shelves for any amount of time, I can tell. They get sad, their color darkens, and eventually mold sets in stealthily from the bottom of the basket. The mold. You'll likely discover it after you get the berries home. So, I wait until local berries start showing up at the farmers' market. And it's worth it. I can only hope the raspberries where you live are as impressive as what I'm seeing here right now - basket after basket filled with ruby gems. They have luminescent color, good structure, drupelets filled with sweet raspberry juice, ready to pop. This quick, saffron-sugared raspberry bowl is the best thing I've made with them this year - and you likely have the ingredients on hand. There's a bit of lemon zest, some vanilla bean paste, olive oil, and toasted almonds for contrast to the softness of the raspberries.

My sense is this would also be a nice flavor profile for a pie or tart. If the raspberries where you're from rarely look good? Substitute a berry that does - strawberries would taste great here, and I'm imagining a blackberry version could be nice as well. Start with great fruit, and go from there. A dollop of yogurt or sweetened creme fraiche is one way to make it all the more decadent. And one favorite weekend breakfast shaped up to be equal parts saffron berries, Greek yogurt, and Marge's original granola - xo Megan!

I do have one regret. Golden raspberries made their annual debut here just about five minutes after I shot these pics. And they'd be perfect. So, if you can get your hands on those, use them :) xo -h

Continue reading Saffron Raspberries...

“I am mastering my love for you and turning it inwards as a constituent element of myself.”

As a lover of spectacular love letters, especially ones between history’s creative and intellectual power couples — like those between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, Charles and Ray Eames, and Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin — I was delighted to come upon a gem from legendary French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and political activist Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905–April 15, 1980) to celebrated French writer, intellectual, and feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908–April 14, 1986).

In this beautiful missive from the spring of 1929, found in the altogether wonderful collection Witness to My Life: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone De Beauvoir, 1926-1939 (public library), 24-year-old Jean-Paul writes to 21-year-old Simone de Beauvoir — herself the eventual masterful writer of breakup letters — at the dawn of their romance, shortly before he proposed marriage, which Simone turned down; instead, the two embarked on their famous lifelong open relationship.

My dear little girl

For a long time I’ve been wanting to write to you in the evening after one of those outings with friends that I will soon be describing in “A Defeat,” the kind when the world is ours. I wanted to bring you my conqueror’s joy and lay it at your feet, as they did in the Age of the Sun King. And then, tired out by all the shouting, I always simply went to bed. Today I’m doing it to feel the pleasure you don’t yet know, of turning abruptly from friendship to love, from strength to tenderness. Tonight I love you in a way that you have not known in me: I am neither worn down by travels nor wrapped up in the desire for your presence. I am mastering my love for you and turning it inwards as a constituent element of myself. This happens much more often than I admit to you, but seldom when I’m writing to you. Try to understand me: I love you while paying attention to external things. At Toulouse I simply loved you. Tonight I love you on a spring evening. I love you with the window open. You are mine, and things are mine, and my love alters the things around me and the things around me alter my love.

My dear little girl, as I’ve told you, what you’re lacking is friendship. But now is the time for more practical advice. Couldn’t you find a woman friend? How can Toulouse fail to contain one intelligent young woman worthy of you*? But you wouldn’t have to love her. Alas, you’re always ready to give your love, it’s the easiest thing to get from you. I’m not talking about your love for me, which is well beyond that, but you are lavish with little secondary loves, like that night in Thiviers when you loved that peasant walking downhill in the dark, whistling away, who turned out to be me. Get to know the feeling, free of tenderness, that comes from being two. It’s hard, because all friendship, even between two red-blooded men, has its moments of love. I have only to console my grieving friend to love him; it’s a feeling easily weakened and distorted. But you’re capable of it, and you must experience it. And so, despite your fleeting misanthropy, have you imagined what a lovely adventure it would be to search Toulouse for a woman who would be worthy of you and whom you wouldn’t be in love with? Don’t bother with the physical side or the social situation. And search honestly. And if you find nothing, turn Henri Pons, whom you scarcely love anymore, into a friend.

[…]

I love you with all my heart and soul.

* De Beauvoir would come to have a number of young female lovers, whom she’d usually introduce to Sartre over the course of their relationship.

Complement with Sartre on why “being-in-the-world-ness” is the key to the imagination and De Beauvoir on ambiguity, vitality, and freedom.

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Two creative icons on the precipice of mortality.

On the evening of June 19, I attended a wonderful event at New York’s Society of Illustrators celebrating the inimitable Maurice Sendak and the taboos explored in his work. Among the many memorable insights was a passing mention of a reading from Sendak’s 1970 classic In The Night Kitchen (public library) Sopranos star James Gandolfini had done at a 92Y tribute for Sendak’s 80th birthday in 2008. Little did any of us at the event know that mere hours earlier, Gandolfini had been been pronounced dead in an Italian hospital while on vacation with his 13-year-old son. In an even more eerie strike of tragic coincidence, one of the taboos discussed at the lecture was the notion of mortality in Sendak’s books. Thus, for reasons that are threefold obvious, there is hardly a better way to honor both Gandolfini and Sendak than with the original recording of the acclaimed actor’s exquisitely expressive reading of the Sendak classic:

At the lecture, Steven Heller quoted Sendak as having once told him in an interview:

Primarily, my work was an act of exorcism… so I could have peace of mind as an artist.

(How reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson’s timeless advice to his teenage son, in which he argued that “the point of being an artist is that you may live” and added, “The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.”)

But In The Night Kitchen, which was a Caldecott honor book in 1971, has a story particularly emblematic of both Sendak’s defiant spirit and the generous, steadfast support of his editor and creative champion, the great Ursula Nordstrom. In 1972, when a school librarian burned a copy of the book in an act of micro-censorship against Sendak’s depiction of his fictional little boy in the nude, a righteously outraged Nordstrom sent said librarian this colorful letter, found in the ever-excellent Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (public library) — a fine addition to literary history’s most poignant meditations on censorship:

January 5, 1972

Dear [Redacted]:

Your letter about Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen was delayed in reaching my desk as you sent it to our Scranton, Pennsylvania, division. I am sorry not to have written you more promptly.

I am indeed distressed to hear that in the year 1972 you burned a copy of a book. We are truly distressed that you think it is not a book for elementary school children. I assume it is the little boy’s nudity which bothers you. But truly, it does not disturb children! Mr. Sendak is a creative artist, a true genius, and he is able to speak to children directly. For children—at least up to the age of 12 or 13—are usually tremendously creative themselves. Should not those of us who stand between the creative artist and the child be very careful not to sift our reactions to such books through our own adult prejudices and neuroses? To me as editor and publisher of books for children, that is one of my greatest and most difficult duties. Believe me, we do not take our responsibilities lightly! I think young children will always react with delight to such a book as In the Night Kitchen, and that they will react creatively and wholesomely. It is only adults who ever feel threatened by Sendak’s work.

I will send you a few positive comments on this book within the next few days, and I hope you will read them and that you will give the children in your school a chance to enjoy Mr. Sendak’s book.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed)

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What medieval smuggling has to do with the atomic structure of carbon.

Having previously explored such mysteries as who invented writing and how sounds became shapes, it’s time to turn to something much less mysterious, a seemingly mundane yet enormously influential tool of human communication: the humble pencil.

“Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak,” states the first of Margaret Atwood’s 10 rules of writing. “But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.” But even though the pencil has fueled such diverse feats of creative culture as celebrated artists’ sketchbooks, Marilyn Monroe’s soulful unpublished poems, Lisa Congdon’s stunning portraits, and David Byrne’s diagrams of the human condition, it has only been around for a little over two hundred years. In the altogether fascinating 100 Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know: Math Explains Your World (public library), John D. Barrow tells the story of this underrated technological marvel:

The modern pencil was invented in 1795 by Nicholas-Jacques Conte, a scientist serving in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. The magic material that was so appropriate for the purpose was the form of pure carbon that we call graphite. It was first discovered in Europe, in Bavaria at the start of the fifteenth century; although the Aztecs had used it as a marker several hundred years earlier. Initially it was believed to be a form of lead and was called ‘plumbago’ or black lead (hence the ‘plumbers’ who mend our lead water-carrying pipes), a misnomer that still echoes in our talk of pencil ‘leads’. It was called graphite only in 1789, using the Greek word ‘graphein’ meaning ‘to write’. Pencil is an older word, derived from the Latin ‘pencillus’, meaning ‘little tail’, to describe the small ink brushes used for writing in the Middle Ages.

But the history of the pencil, like that of many seminal innovations, has a dark side:

The purest deposits of lump graphite were found in Borrowdale near Keswick [England] in the Lake District in 1564 and spawned quite a smuggling industry and associated black economy in the area. During the nineteenth century a major pencil manufacturing industry developed around Keswick in order to exploit the high quality of the graphite.

And yet the pencil industry blossomed:

The first factory opened in 1832, and the Cumberland Pencil Company has just celebrated its 175th anniversary; although the local mines have long been closed and supplies of the graphite used now come from Sri Lanka and other far away places. Cumberland pencils were those of the highest quality because the graphite used shed no dust and marked the paper very well.

Plain as it appears, however, the pencil has evolved significantly since its invention:

Conte’s original process for manufacturing pencils involved roasting a mixture of water, clay and graphite in a kiln at 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit before encasing the resulting soft solid in a wooden surround. The shape of that surround can be square, polygonal or round, depending on the pencil’s intended use — carpenters don’t want round pencils that are going to roll off the workbench. The hardness or softness of the final pencil ‘lead’ can be determined by adjusting the relative fractions of clay and graphite in the roasting mixture. Commercial pencil manufacturers typically market 20 grades of pencil, from the softest, 9B, to the hardest 9H, with the most popular intermediate value, HB, lying midway between H and B. ‘H’ means hard and ‘B’ means black. The higher the B number, the more graphite gets left on the paper. There is also an ‘F’, or Fine point, which is a hard pencil for writing rather than drawing.

Barrow offers the science behind an oft-cited trivia factlet:

The strange thing about graphite is that it is a form of pure carbon that is one of the softest solids known, and one of the best lubricants because the six carbon atoms that link to form a ring can slide easily over adjacent rings. Yet, if the atomic structure is changed, there is another crystalline form of pure carbon, diamond, that is one of the hardest solids known.

For the mathematically-minded, Barrow offers a delightful curiosity-quencher:

An interesting question is to ask how long a straight line could be drawn with a typical HB pencil before the lead was exhausted. The thickness of graphite left on a sheet of paper by a soft 2B pencil is about 20 nanometers and a carbon atom has a diameter of 0.14 nanometers, so the pencil line is only about 143 atoms thick. The pencil lead is about 1 mm in radius and therefore ? square mm in area. If the length of the pencil is 15 cm, then the volume of graphite to be spread out on a straight line is 150? cubic mm. If we draw a line of thickness 20 nanometers and width 2 mm, then there will be enough lead to continue for a distance L = 150? / 4 X 10^-7 mm = 1,178 kilometers.

100 Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know: Math Explains Your World goes on to explore such fascinating questions as the origami of the universe, what rugby has to do with relativity, how long things are likely to survive, and more.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.

Brain Pickings takes 450+ hours a month to curate and edit across the different platforms, and remains banner-free. If it brings you any joy and inspiration, please consider a modest donation – it lets me know I'm doing something right.

Andrew Johnson has been diagnosed with Early Onset Parkinson's Disease and recently underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery to implant a brain pacemaker that supplies his brain with regular and reliable electrical pulses. In this incredible video, Johnson turns the pacemaker off and you can see the effect that DBS has had on his life.

Understatement of the year at the end of the video. Wow. Johnson writes about his experience with Parkinson's on his site, Young and Shaky. (thx, eamon)

Tags: medicine   Parkinson's Disease   science   video

Colbert’s eulogy for his late mother:

The makers of Kingdom Rush, probably my all-time favorite iOS game, are out with a brand-new game: Kingdom Rush Frontiers.

I will see you all in a few days. Tell my wife and kids I love them. ("thx", @mykeatkinson)

Tags: iPad games   Kingdom Rush   video games