Something about Something

           Something about Something

 

          Many years ago, I was chatting with a young nephew, one of twins. I told him a cool fact about pterodactyls, and he gushed, “Oh Uncle Nat, you know everything!”

          “Not really,” I admitted. “But I do know something.”

          The lad demanded, “About what?”

          “I know something about something,” I said. Disgusted, he turned to leave the room; I said as he left, “That’s the most honest answer you’ll ever get, kid!”

 

          Addendum: I know that we were discussing pterodactyls, but I forget the cool pterodactyl fact. And I know that I told it to a nephew, but I entirely forget which nephew, Sam or Andrew. That’s how my so-called mind works; which proves my point.

 

My Resolution Score

My Resolution Score

 

 

On December 31, 2022, I made three New Year’s resolutions:

1. Not to make any New Year’s resolutions;

2. To get to bed before midnight;

3. To break all of my New Year’s resolutions.

I broke resolution #1 when I made it; I broke resolution #2 at midnight; and I broke resolution #3 as much as I did not.

I figure that I kept 1/2 out of 3, which equals 1 out of 6. That’s a relatively good ratio.

 

Boy Topologist’s Fuzzy Boundary

Boy Topologist’s Fuzzy Boundary

 

A long time ago, when I was a young lad, I had a strange encounter with topology. I was three whole blocks away from home, at the corner of Center and Walnut streets. There was a signpost at the corner; the sign read: “WABAN  - A Village Of Newton”. I hadn’t been anywhere in Waban yet, so I was curious. A village? Were there thatched huts? I saw none. Maybe if I crossed the border and looked a little closer, I could see them. I approached the sign… and hesitated.

I stood at the border between Newton and Waban. Was it any different in Waban? If so, what happens if you have one foot in Newton and one in Waban? Would you feel the boundary? Would it hurt?

I hesitated… then boldly planted one foot in Waban and one in Newton. The boundary went straight through my body. I closed my eyes and concentrated…

          … and didn’t feel a thing. I was just standing there, splayfooted. Spacetime in Waban was no different from spacetime in Newton.

          So I opened my eyes, and have been skeptical about political boundaries ever since.

          (And no, there are no thatched huts in Waban!)

 

 

Boy Scientist’s Dud Logic Bomb

             Boy Scientist’s Dud Logic Bomb

 

         A long time ago, when I was a young lad, I had a strange encounter with logic. I got a Fisher-Price Science kit for my tenth birthday; it had batteries and wires and lights and toggles and keys and magnetic relays. The instructions showed how to make AND gates, and OR gates, and NOT gates; I made them all. With the AND gate the light went on only if both keys were pressed; with the OR gate the light went on when either key was pressed; and if you wire the magnetic relay in reverse, the light goes on only if you don’t press the key.

          Seventeen days before my tenth birthday, I had seen a Star Trek show. In it, Captain Kirk defeated an evil robot by feeding it a logic paradox. Kirk called Harvey Mudd a liar, and Harvey Mudd agreed. Harvey Mudd told the robot, “I am lying”. The robot fell into a yes-but-no wobble, then shorted out in a cloud of smoke.

I remembered that show and thought, “Cool! Can I do the same thing?” It seemed easy enough; wire a magnetic relay to turn on when it’s off, and off when it’s on. A loop of wire, with a twist; what could be easier? I wired in a battery, and a light, and – just to be safe – a key, so the whole circuit was activated only when the key’s pressed down.

          For that burnt-out robot worried me. How would the relay react to being forced to be in two places at once? Would it break? Would it short out in a cloud of smoke? Would it explode?

          I vowed to leap away if something went wrong; but there were worse possibilities. Maybe the confused relay would tear a hole in the space-time continuum, one that monsters could get through. Maybe a single paradox would destroy the Universe… for I had read those science-fiction stories, too!

I hesitated over my doomsday device… then I figured that other kids must have tried the same experiment before; so it must be safe.

I pressed the key… and the relay buzzed!

I let go of the key; the buzzing stopped. I leaned in close and pressed the key. The relay buzzed; the armature was a blur; a blue-white spark strobed at the contact; the light was half-lit.

Ah, Science! All these effects were new to me, unexpected, yet obvious in retrospect. I have based much of my paradox-logic research upon this experimental observation. The buzz, the blur, the strobing, the half-lighting… and above all the fact that it didn’t explode.

For as you can see, I took a big risk for Science! And I did so without consulting anyone! I didn’t know that a paradox-circuit wouldn’t destroy the Universe; I just figured that it probably wouldn’t. So I went ahead anyhow; but it all turned out OK, because here we are.

          How reckless of me! In my defense I plead the folly of youth. So there you have it: as a boy I thought I invented a Doomsday Device, but instead it was just a Buzzer!

Plucking the Pigeon

            Plucking the Pigeon

 

            Once upon a time Working Joe was outdoors, hammering nails, though the air was freezing cold. Big Boss was driving by in his stretch limo just then; he ordered the driver to stop, and rolled down a window.

            Big Boss said, “Isn’t seven more than five?”

            Working Joe said, “Isn’t thirty-two more than twelve?”

            Big Boss said, “Have you ever had a fire in your house?”

            Working Joe said, “Not yet, but she’ll set one in five years and he’ll set one in ten.”

            Big Boss said, “Can you pluck a pigeon?”

            Working Joe said, “Send me one and you’ll see.”

            Big Boss rolled up his window and ordered the driver to go. He then turned to Suxel, who was sitting next to him, and he said, “Did you understand any of that?”

            Suxel said, “How could I? You spoke in riddles.”

            Big Boss said, “And you call yourself a super-lawyer! You, supposedly the cleverest man in town, but this working man understood me and you didn’t! I give you three days to figure out what we said. If you don’t, then you’re fired!”

            Suxel was stunned. He hurried to his office, and called an emergency meeting of all his subordinates, but none could figure out the riddles. Suxel then summoned Working Joe, and he asked Working Joe what that conversation meant.

            Working Joe said, “I’ll tell you if you pay me five hundred thousand dollars.”

            Suxel said, “How dare you! Five hundred thousand dollars for some wretched riddles?”

            Working Joe retorted, “If it’s not worth the money then don’t pay,” and he left.

            On the third day Suxel knocked on Working Joe’s door. He said, “All right, I’ll pay!”

            Working Joe said, “The price has gone up to a million.”

            Suxel said, “All right, all right! Here’s a check!”

            Working Joe said, “Thank you. I’ll be back shortly.” He walked outside, and with one mighty leap jumped straight to the Bank. He walked in, deposited the check, walked out, and with another mighty leap jumped back to Suxel, who had been standing there, sweating.

            Suxel said, “Now tell me, quickly!”

            Working Joe said, “When Big Boss saw me working in the cold he asked if seven isn’t more than five. He meant to ask whether I did not earn enough in the seven warm months to make unnecessary my work in the five cold months. I answered that thirty-two is more than twelve. I meant that with my thirty-two teeth I could eat up more than I could earn in all twelve months.

            “Big Boss then asked if I have had a fire in the house. By this he meant to ask if I have sent any children off to college, for that costs as much as a fire in the house. I replied that my daughter will go in five years and my son in ten.

            “Big Boss then asked me if I could pluck a pigeon. I replied, send me one and you’ll see. As you can see, he sent me you. So now go back to Big Boss and tell him if I have done so or not.”

 

            Moral: If you can’t tell who’s the pigeon, then you’re it.

 

Super-Democracy

Super-Democracy

 

Once upon a time, Working Joe conspired with Dr. Diablo to overthrow the reign of the superheroes. They worked together for different reasons; Dr. Diablo because he was a supervillain, Working Joe because he was neither hero nor villain, just super.

          Working Joe gave Dr. Diablo cheek swabs, blood samples and stool samples, and was scanned by ultrasound, X-rays, neutrinos and eloptic radiation. Between Dr. Diablo’s theorizing and Working Joe’s experience, they figured out the nature of superpower. It turned out to be a simple matter of electron psychology, replicable by adeledicnandar technology. With a morphogenetic transmogrifier, anybody could achieve, or even surpass, the powers of the superheroes.

          Dr. Diablo and Working Joe met with Big Boss to ask for a loan, to develop, test, and mass-produce cheap consumer transmogrifier. Big Boss seized upon this opportunity for super-profit.

          The superheroes and the other supervillains got wind of this, and interrupted their endless destructive fighting, to oppose such crass commercialism. Only they, the genetic elite, should wield superpowers, not the common folk.

They joined forces to destroy the Transmogrifier Corporation; but in the end they were defeated by Big Boss’s super-money, Working Joe’s super-productivity, and Dr. Diablo’s super-cunning.

          Nowadays everybody in Metroville is super, so nobody is.

 

Moral: Power to the People!

 

Wonderful

          Wonderful

 

          Once upon a time, Working Joe was walking down the street, minding his own business, when suddenly –

          ZOT!

– there was a bolt from the blue, and Working Joe was face-to-face with a Superhero.

The Superhero said, “Hi there! I’m Captain Wonderful!”

Working Joe said, “How are you, Captain?”

“Wonderful!” said the Superhero. He flexed his biceps. “I love my job, my life and myself!”

Working Joe asked Captain Wonderful, “What is your job?”

Captain Wonderful said, “I go around the world, giving people a diabolically subtle test to determine which ones are good, and which ones are ee-vil!”

“And when people are good?”

“I say they pass!”

“And when people are evil?”

“I pummel them with my fists!”

“Why, that’s terrible!”

“You pass!”

ZOT!

And Captain Wonderful was gone.

 

 

Moral: This moral is false.

 

The Price

            The Price

 

            Once upon a time, Big Boss frowned. Hands on hips, he glared upwards at the inert bulk of Turboencabulator #7. He sucked on his stogie. He blew out a cloud of smoke. He grumbled, “I’ve got no choice. Call Working Joe!”

            Big Boss’s minion Lackey texted Working Joe, and Working Joe flew right over. When he landed, Big Boss said, “Turboencabulator #7 broke in the super-fight last Tuesday. Can you fix it?”

            Working Joe inspected Turboencabulator #7. He used his vision, his X-ray vision, and his sonar. He scratched his head. Then he opened a flap on his utility belt and took out a hammer no bigger than his thumb. He got onto his knees, he crawled to the lower left rear corner of the huge machine, and he tapped it once with the tiny hammer.

            Instantly Turboencabulator #7 roared back into full operation. Working Joe crawled out, stood up, put away the hammer and said, “It’ll work fine now.”

            “Thank you, Working Joe. How can I ever repay you?”

            Working Joe said, “Easily,” and he handed over a bill.

            Big Boss read the bill and his face turned red. “A hundred thousand and one dollars?” he bellowed. “But you just tapped it once with a tiny hammer! A hundred thousand dollars for that?!”

            Working Joe said, “No. Only one dollar for tapping it with a tiny hammer. A hundred thousand dollars for knowing where to tap it.”

            Moral: Knowledge is the best merchandise.

Supply and Demand

             Supply and Demand

 

Big Boss and Working Joe were touring a car factory, to inspect a new line of welding robots. 

Big Boss joked, “You wondering how you’re going to get them to join the union?” 

Working Joe replied, “No, I’m wondering how you’re going to get them to buy cars.” 
 

          Moral: Give to get.

 

 

 

Super-Retort

             Super-Retort

 

            Once upon a time, Captain Blue was flying towards Big Boss’s mansion, to attend a big dinner-party. He looked down and he saw Working Joe, standing in a muddy ditch, using his heat-vision to weld a sewer line; for Working Joe needed the money.

             Captain Blue called down from the sky, “Poor Working Joe! If only he knew how to flatter Big Boss, then he wouldn’t have to weld sewer lines!”

             Working Joe replied to the sky, “Poor Captain Blue! If only he knew how to weld sewer lines, then he wouldn’t have to flatter Big Boss!”

 

          Moral:  Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

 

Civic Fixture

             Civic Fixture

 

             Menace, one of the stupider supervillains, threatened Working Joe’s family. Working Joe went to Captain Blue for help, but Captain Blue said “Give up your day job, and come with me to fight crime.”

             Working Joe said, “I’m no trust-fund baby like you, I got a wife and kids, I gotta work for a living.”

             So Working Joe then went to Big Boss. He said, “I’m not asking you for anything, I’m just telling you I can’t work under these conditions, and I’m thinking of leaving town.”

             Big Boss said, “No, stay. Don’t worry about that moron. I’ll take care of him.”

             Working Joe said, “So what do I owe you?”

             “Nuthin’. You worth plenty as is.”

             And what do you know, the very next day it was Menace who suddenly left town.

 

          Moral: Follow the money.

 

Meet Working Joe

             Meet Working Joe

  

            My daughter Hannah and I have, between us, invented an alternate comic-book superbeing; “Working Joe”. He’s not a superhero, nor a supervillain; more like a super-worker. He has the usual superpowers, but he uses them strictly for heavy construction work. He’s the guy who cleans up the mess after the superheros and supervillains stop battling. Unlike superheros, he’s in it for the money; unlike supervillains, he wants only honest jobs.

             Working Joe neither fights crime nor commits it; he just works, very very hard. Don’t call him a superworker, he doesn’t like being set apart. He’s a Union man, of course. His contract with the Metroville Reconstruction Authority states that after a superfight, he does the heavy lifting and the dangerous labor, and the other Union people do detailing. What with all the superfights, all the time, it’s steady work.

             I envision an episode consisting of nothing but him cleaning up after an action-packed sequence, all off-stage; we see him pick up the pieces afterwards, commenting all the while on the super-fighter’s super-carelessness. After restoring the city to its pre-fight glory, Working Joe says, “Another job well done!” and flies home.

             No secret identity for him; but he has a wife and kids (all of them super) so he can’t afford to antagonize anyone. He’ll do honest work if the pay is good. So Working Joe moonlights as an independent contractor, building fortresses for both superheros and supervillains! The superheros look down on him for his mercenary streak; the supervillains despise him for his habitual honesty; he consoles himself that they need him more than he needs them.

             Wife and kids also have superpowers. The wife is Home-Maker. She has super-endurance, she can read minds, and she can see out of the back of her head. The boy is Hyper; he has superspeed and ADHD; the girl is Goth; a moody teen with the power of invisibility. Raising superkids is super-expensive - so many home repairs! - so that’s why Working Joe has that mercenary streak. Part of the hidden joke of the comic is that he always needs money. He has wealth-creating superpowers, yet the system is rigged so that he constantly has to keep hustling.

             And how did he get those superpowers? His origin story is that his maternal grandmother was not only an alien, she was an illegal alien!

             Other characters in Working Joe’s Metroville: GoodCop/BadCop, Bankster, Suxel, and supersalesman “Bob”.

             Once Working Joe met a boyhood hero of his; Fireman. Working Joe stammers his admiration, Fireman graciously returns the compliment. “Who built all the firetraps I rescue people from? Guys like you! Who do I rescue from those firetraps? Guys like you! Who pays my pension? Guys like you!”

             I visualize Working Joe as wearing denim overalls and a helmet, and drawn in angular buff Socialist Realist style. Something like Spain’s “Trashman”.

 

 

Three Berkeley Trips 3

       Three Berkeley Trips 3

    

          Trip 3, by Abstinence

        Or: Planet of the Boobs

         

          The nurse said, “You need to schedule another blood test next week.”

          I shrugged. “OK.”

          “And to test hormone levels,” she continued, “you’ll have to abstain from all sexual activity.”

          “All sexual activity? For a week?”

          “Mm-hm.”

          “Including masturbation?”

          “Mm-hm.”

          I shrugged. A week without masturbation sounded easy enough. We scheduled the blood test, I went home and put away my one-hand magazines. (These were in the days before the Internet.)

          A day came and went without inconvenience, then another. But on the third day something odd happened. I was walking down Telegraph Avenue, and I noticed that every woman on the street had unusually large breasts. Not just some of the women; all of them. This strange change in half the human population of Berkeley persisted all day, and I realized that it wasn’t them, it was me.

          My perceptions were distorted, due to hormonal imbalance. Every woman’s breasts weren’t really bigger than before; they just seemed that way to me. I was hormone-addled, and seeing things strangely; I knew this, but the knowledge did not decrease the perceptual distortion effect. 

          The effect increased on the fourth day. Every woman, everywhere, had an amazingly ample bosom. I knew that was an illusion, but it was a very convincing illusion. I tried not to look, or seem to notice; but my judgment was probably as impaired as my perception; so if you noticed, then please forgive my peeking, dear women of Berkeley!

          By the fifth and sixth days, I was adrift in an impossible parallel universe of fantastic mammary antigravitation. I knew that I was hallucinating, but still I saw the mirage as plain as day. I was amazed how clear, specific and florid the hallucination was; and as before, knowledge of illusion did not dispel illusion.

          On the seventh day I went to the clinic and gave a blood sample. Then I went home and got out the one-hand magazines.

          The next day, every woman’s breasts were back to normal size.

 

Three Berkeley Trips 2

        Three Berkeley Trips 2

    

Trip 2, by Sleep

        Or: Which was the Dream?

 

          I was sitting up in bed, reading a book. It was late, I was tired. Then I noticed something odd; the words of the book were changing and shifting. But why? Then I noticed something even stranger; my eyes were shut. I felt my eyelids firmly sealed together; yet I could see. But how?

I realized that I was asleep and dreaming. Within that lucid dream, I looked up from the book and scanned the room. There was the bookshelf, there were the knick-knacks, there was the couch, there was the computer desk, there were the windows and shades… all dreams.

          Then I willed myself awake. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I noticed was that I was slumped over. I sat up, closed the book, and looked around. Same bookshelf, same knick-knacks, same couch, same computer desk, same windows and shades.

          The two rooms were identical.

 

 

Three Berkeley Trips 1

       Three Berkeley Trips 1

     By a Goat, Sleep, and Abstinence

         

 

          I had some wild times during my days in Berkeley, California. The Sixties were long gone by the time I got there, but some of the spirit lingered, and I sought it out. My three trippiest times there had nothing to do with drugs. These three weird experiences were caused by, respectively, a goat, sleep, and abstinence.

 

          Trip 1, by a Goat

        Or: Thurber’s World

 

          I was visiting Marion Zimmer Bradley’s house. After a few rounds of dilemma chess with the fantasy writer’s son, I stepped out to their back yard for a stroll and a breath of fresh air.

          It was evening; the zenith had darkened to deep blue, the horizon glowed orange and red. A crescent moon shone, and a few stars, and Venus too.

          I stopped, amazed; for there in front of me stood a goat. An Angora goat, waist-tall, with silky white hair… and a single horn.

He was Lancelot, a successful animal-husbandry experiment by Morning Glory and Otter Zell. At the goat’s birth, they had surgically fused Lancelot’s two hornbuds together; the fused hornbud grew into an imposing monohorn.

          Lancelot was a unicorn. That surgically-modified Angora goat looked like he had stepped out of a medieval tapestry. Morning Glory and Otter Zell claimed that surgery like theirs was entirely possible for the medievals; so perhaps unicorns had been real enough all along.

          Just then, in the evening twilight, with Moon and Venus overhead, that unicorn looked more than real; for Lancelot was eating Marion Zimmer Bradley’s rosebushes. Those of you who have read James Thurber’s stories know the one about the unicorn eating the rosebushes. In that surreal moment, I learned that a visit to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s place can put you in a Thurber story.

          I also learned that unicorn droppings are about one centimeter long and about half a centimeter wide.

 

         

 

 

Mome Declares Himself Fallible

Mome Declares Himself Fallible

 

 

          Nome, Alaska  -  In a surprise announcement yesterday, J.R.”Bob” Dobbs, Mome of the Noman Particular Church, proclaimed the doctrine of Momal Fallibility.

          “What, me infallible?” the Mome snarked. “Of course Momes can make mistakes. In fact we’ve made some big ones. Just judge for yourself.”

          Sources high in the Noman Particular Church said that they adopted this doctrine because they needed more wiggle room. “We’ve painted ourselves into a corner. It’s high time we ‘fessed up,” said Ordinal Maustinger, the Mome’s most trusted advisor. “His Holiness has made a bad call lately, and he needs a face-saving way to back out of the mess.”

          The ‘bad call’ referred to is the infamous Elvis Clone debacle. “His Holiness sure dropped the ball there,” Maustinger confided. “We never made sure that that hanky was really one of Elvis’s; or if the genetic material found there was his; or even how that genetic material got there in the first place. But ‘Bob’ insisted on cloning, so we went ahead; after all, he’s the Mome. And the result? Well, let’s just say that the clone we grew didn’t see things our way. Put it all together, and it spells M-I-S-T-A-K-E.”

          “I am a man, mortal and therefore sinful,” the Mome confessed to the world. “I say I am fallible, and I say so ex cathedra. My judgement is not perfect; to claim otherwise is the sin of intellectual pride. Only God is free from all error – and sometimes I wonder about Him.”

 

         

"Alternate Jesus"

      Review of Imaginary Book:

     “Alternate Jesus”

 

 

          Every so often there comes along a book which shakes the world. Such books incite revolutions, topple empires, destroy religions, spread mass insanity, and spark genocidal wars. Fortunately, “Alternate Jesus” is not such a book.

          In “Alternate Jesus”, the author asks, what if Jesus of Nazareth had never been crucified?  How would history have been different? The author gives us two answers; two “alternate worlds” in which Jesus lived. Unfortunately, only one of those answers is convincing to this reviewer.

          The book has two parts: “In This Sign Conquer”, and “What is Truth?” In Part One, Jesus seizes control of his environment by secular means; in Part Two, Jesus takes a more spiritual approach. Part One is all too convincing, for its message is “power corrupts”. Part Two is mystical, not dramatic. It teaches that “truth shall set you free”, but it deliberately does not tell us what truth is.

          “In This Sign Conquer” starts in the city of Rome, where King Jesus had just successfully concluded his Crusade Against Empire. With the defeated Roman Empire at the mercy of his Zealots, he proclaims himself Prophet, Messiah, and God-Emperor of the World. “That was his high point,” the chronicler wryly comments. We then see Emperor Jesus play out, within his reign, the entire history of the medieval Church, including censorship, repression, fanaticism, fraud, corruption, witch-hunts, wars and genocides. It ends with Emperor Jesus’s death and the collapse of his tyrannical theocracy.

          “What is Truth?” shows Jesus as an old man, teaching Torah to his students – among whom we find the Roman Ambassador to Judea. The story is a dialog between the old Rabbi and his students, friends and rivals; they ask each other what truth is. In a style similar to Plato’s dialogs, Jesus draws from all participants their own ideas as to the nature of truth; and in return the students draw out his own views. This part of the book is lyrical, philosophical and mystical – and for those reasons lacks the spectacular drama of Part One.

          The book, as a whole, lacks balance. “In This Sign Conquer” is a critique of the historic Christian Church; and as such, all too effective. After such an indictment one would expect praise of equal power, but “What is Truth?” seems thin in comparison. It is more for poets, priests and philosophers than for the rest of us.

          The difficulty is partly due to the nature of the subject. It is easy to write political protest for the masses, but far less easy to present ecstatic mystical liberation theology in terms that relate to the average reader’s everyday life. Neither Dante nor Milton could describe their Heavens as vividly as their Hells. This difficulty is compounded in a secular age such as ours.

          Another difficulty is due to the nature of history. “Alternate Jesus” is an alternate-worlds story, subject to the epistemological limits of such a narrative. We of this world-line can visualize the world-line of “In This Sign Conquer” because it is a lesser line than ours; it contains less information. The opposite is true for the world-line of “What is Truth?”; it is a greater world than our own, one of higher content, and for this reason we cannot know it fully.

          God-emperors have risen and fallen many times; there is nothing new in that old story. But in our world, Jesus died young, so we do not know what he would have taught, had he lived to old age. For this reason, “What is Truth?” falls short; it ends with mystery; one must fill in details for oneself. It ends with silence, as “In This Sign Conquer” ends with noise; and in both cases we see reflected the tragedy of our own world-line’s Jesus, who died before he could tell us all that he had to say.