The Electric Zoom Acid Test (with apologies to Tom Wolfe)

 I am jumping the gun on our Blog Post assignment this week, for two reasons:

1. I am afraid of forgetting to squeeze this in at the last minute on Friday the 26th, right after our English class has its first Zoom writer's workshop.

2. It seemed like a fun idea to anticipate how the Zoom session will go.

Here are my predictions:

The professor will get things rolling by saying "Somebody has to be first."

Class members will range in their level of participation from almost silent to chatty and perhaps bossy.

Someone will be extremely nervous and shy.

Someone will wander completely off the subject.

The most frequent comment made will be "I liked your story" or some similar derivative.

Someone will conclude their remarks with "I don't know what else to say, that's about it."

The first round will be a struggle for everyone and the process will get easier, later in the semester.

At least one participant will emerge as a sort of peer-guru with great insight and compassion. This person will not be me.

Much time will be spent in struggling to say the right thing, only occasionally succeeding.

There will be both bright spots and cringe-worthy moments.

Someone will blossom and someone will wilt. (Keep the watering can close by.)

Even though I don't have a dog in the fight as of yet, I will see my own errors showing up in others' work.

I will have an awkward, though enjoyable experience and then second-guess myself for the entire weekend.

Everyone will agree the workshop is worthwhile and will look forward to next week, sort of.

Okay, that's about it. I will see how my predictions pan out.

Writers Blog Post #1: Why this is my favorite piece written for ENGL 21 so far...

You Choose #1: Not the Write Way

    My name is Ima Wanabe and I’m a very frustrated writer on a serious odyssey to discover why I remain unpublished. One would think attendance in an MFA program and six summer writers’ retreats would be enough to get my work read by someone other than classmates and teachers, but no, that hasn't happened yet. My whole life is all about writing, and my lack of progress continues to be a mystery to me. I have read all the writing books, hundreds of them, including Stephen King’s On Writing, in which the main advice is to write a lot and not give up. Duh! I religiously watch each new episode of ProWriterTV and iWriterly on YouTube, along with every single installment of Screen Courage, which is saying a lot. I leave great comments, too. I subscribe to Poets and Writers, Writer's Digest, and Bookmarks Magazine. I also almost managed to hit the 50,000 word target for NaNoWriMo eight years running. My Google drive is filled with dozens of nearly complete short stories and six partial novels and an unfinished novella about an aspiring writer, of which I am very fond, and which I just about sent to Simon and Schuster. And then there are the poetry scraps and doodles. So many lines of poetry!

    During the last few years my quest for success has become more diversified and now includes a number of techniques guaranteed by my friends, Craven and Misty (who are writers like me), to show me the light at the end of my tunnel of despair. These forays into the alternative world began with a weekend of verbal abuse and sleep deprivation at an EST revival in Sausalito, aboard a houseboat once owned by the prolific philosopher Alan Watts. It was intense, especially the part about not having access to a restroom for twelve hours. Then, in March of 2019, I began subscribing to the Writer's Diet program, from which I receive a recipe card every Monday to allow me to recreate the meals eaten by famous authors such as Kate Chopin, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ursula Le Guin. In addition, my friend Misty sold me a whole set of cards with yoga poses designed to achieve the precise positive mental attitude I need everyday. In September of 2019, I traveled to visit Craven’s friend in Brooklyn who sold me a lock of Isaac Asimov's left side burn, the one he always fiddled with while writing. It is very gray and curly, befitting its wise owner. Last July, at the height of the pandemic, I Zoomed into a Kagyu calligraphy class taught by a genuine Tibetan Monk who was actually painting live from his secret sanctuary in Rio Linda. He wore an orange mask to match his Kasaya robe. Very feng shui. Best of all, following up on a tip from Misty, I recently found on eBay one of the real--I can’t believe my luck!-- typewriters used by Ernest Hemingway while he lived in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba. It even has a burn mark from one of his cigars. I hope mine is the winning eBay bid, for with that Corona No. 4 in my possession, I will surely find the success that has eluded me thus far.

Commentary:

ignotum per ignotius

    This little doodle was fun to write because I think it's funny and Professor Hall said it is, so it must be. The mediocre quality of the prose is intended to convey the impression of someone who has written a lot and has the mechanics under their belt, but has yet to develop any depth, relying instead on exuberance over craft. The poor writer is lost in the forest of misguided efforts, and I admit to feeling some kinship with this wrapped-around-the-axle character, despite our different enthusiasms. Since I tried to write in a voice somewhat apart from my own, the experience reminds me of a first-person horror story I wrote in high school which featured the diary of a teenage boy with Down syndrome.

    My intent was to go down an array of fruitless self-help pathways and thereby reinforce the importance of completion and follow-through if one is to be successful as a writer. It's no good to "almost" do anything, and time spent pursing alternative routes to achievement are often just expensive forms of procrastination. In my experience, challenges are best faced head-on.

    The part about the Tibetan Monk is intended as a personal tribute to my Asian Humanities professor, Christine Vona, here at Sierra. I enjoyed her class and learned valuable life lessons during the course, such as the importance of being present in the moment. I have attempted to remember and incorporate the ancient Asian philosophies in my daily walk, and I thought the inclusion of a shallow appreciation of Tibetan art would add an inoffensive spin to my parody. Among the perhaps too subtle touches of humor is the unnecessary capitalization of "Monk," treating the word as a proper noun.

    As for the Latin phrase above, it means "the action of offering an explanation which is harder to understand than the thing it is meant to explain," and is thereby in keeping with the impression I tried to convey in my favorite piece written so far...

Prospector's Cross

   Mayor Joanie Flinn pushed her way past the cowboys who were gathered in a circle and staring down at something or someone lying in their midst on the dirty plank floor of the Stumble In Saloon. The smell of stale beer, hard liquor, human sweat, and dried cow manure was palpable. There was another smell as well, less pronounced and sadder. It was the smell of blood. As soon as Joanie broke through the circle and gazed down at the crumpled body she became angry.

    "Carl, what the hell? This guy is deader than last week's meatloaf. You shoulda' just called Peabody and left me out of it," complained Joanie, who was no doctor anyway. All she ever did was try to stop the bleeding and give a fella, if he deserved it, a sympathetic face to look at and a few kind words to listen to. But today she was busy and had better things to do than to waste time with a shot-to-pieces, bled-out cowpoke. "What's his name, anyway?" And one of the drunks said, "Gill."

    Carl, the enormous saloon keeper, saw his error. "Yup, you right, ma'am. Sorry to bother," he said in a low rumble as he stood behind the bar twisting alternately one end and then the other of his waxed mustaches. He addressed the circle of cowboys. "Okay you bunch of drunks, grab a let or an arm or something and carry Gill here over to the undertaker's will ya? I'll get the mop and bucket." 

    "Nah," said Joanie, "you can get the body out of here, but leave the blood puddle where it is and just set a stool over it. The sheriff will have to write up a report." 

    "Alright," said Carl. "It's your place."

    Joanie stood up, brushed her skirts with her hands and noticed a brown, flop-eared dog wandering in under the batwing doors and sniffing the air. Amid much grunting, the body was hoisted and its bearers lurched toward the exit. Mayor Joanie was already gone when Carl looked around for her again, expecting more instructions, but only finding the doors swinging back and forth in the wake of her departure. "She's in a mood today," he said, tossing a scrap of beef to the brown dog who snapped it out of the air and looked on with mournful eyes. Deputy Degs, who'd done the shooting, halted the progress of the body for a few moments while he removed the dead man's gun belt and untied the holster from around the man's thigh. "Ok, boys," he said as he ran his fingers over the tooled leather, thinking and brushing the cow dirt from the cartridges. "He should'a handed this here over while he was still breathin'. Young and dumb. Young and dumb." He shook his head.

    Across the tracks, on the other side of the little burg, judge Mortimer S. Brooks raised one heavy black eyebrow and swung his gavel down, sending another man to the gallows. The condemned prisoner was taken back to his cell to wait, and the bailiff shooed everyone out of the courtroom, post haste. This was Saturday and, like Joanie, the judge was in a hurry, not wanting to be late for the fall dance recital. He went immediately to his chambers, where he grabbed two bright yellow tickets with the words "Swan Lake" emblazoned in black ink. His daughter, Clarabelle had just turned twelve, and this was her first public performance. He could already hear the intermezzo blaring from the gramophone outside the opera house across the wide, newly paved street to announce the approaching performance and give impetus to the people joining the line that straggled down the covered wooden sidewalk. The ornate Opera House was the finest building in the newly renamed town of Prospector's Cross.

    Soon everyone was seated, including the Mayor and the Judge. Heavy black drapes were drawn across the windows and three lime lights illuminated the dancers on the raised stage. During the performance, which ran about an hour, there was some commotion in the audience when Mrs. Miller, wife of the town's largest stockholder in the nearby copper mine, refused to remove her huge bonnet. Mr. Miller finally convinced her to doff her headgear after the sheriff strode up to the front row where she was sitting, and stopped the performance in the middle of Clarabelle's pirouette, much to the dismay of Judge Brooks and his wife. The sheriff addressed Mr. Miller without even looking at the man's wife, saying, "You can get your rich ass out of here if you can't set a good example for all fine folks behind you. Or would you rather ruin this here performance even further and get your taxes raised to boot?"

    At end of Swan Lake, after a full five minutes of enthusiastic stomping and clapping, all of the dancers went out and mingled with the audience in the lobby, their slender bodies and makeshift tutus interspersed among gentlemen in heavy black suits and women in gaily colored full length dresses and bustles. Myrtle, the town secretary, took the opportunity to approach Joanie, who was clicking her champagne glass against the judge's and congratulating his daughter's "tripudium mirificus." Joanie didn't mean to be pretentious with her use of Latin phrases, she was an educated woman and simply wasn't shy about using her gifts and enjoying erudition. Tilly, the town secretary, cleared her throat and motioned for Joanie to step outside for a moment.

    Once on the sidewalk, Tilly spoke quietly. "Mayor, we've got a problem."

    "Just one?," said Mayor Joanie, exhaling and smiling with a certain world weariness, along with genuine warmth. She adored and trusted her young, girlish secretary, who had grown into a valued assistant and advisor over the past two years.

    "No, there's never just one. Obviously." Tilly roller her eyes, then became more serious. "I'll rephrase. There are a number of new problems and updates you need to know about right now." She glanced at her notes. "These are in approximate order of importance. First, we've got a rumor that the Smith boy, 14-year-old Tommy, is planning to put a bomb of some kind under that stage here at the Opera House."

    Joanie looked frightened for a second, then furious, and putting two slender fingers in her mouth, she took a breath to whistle for the sheriff. Before she could blow her earsplitting call to arms, Tilly put a hand over the mayor's mouth and loudly whispered "Wait!" The mayor looked exasperated, then forced herself to relax.

    "Oh, I should have known, you've already got things under control, eh?" Some sarcasm crept into her tone.

    "Well, let's just say Sheriff Bluehorse already knows. Let me get through the rest of the list before you talk to the sheriff." The mayor muttered "alright" and Tilly went on.

    Tilly took a deep breath of her own. "Second. The Wekings are really, really angry about the town's new name. They say it was their ancestors that built the first houses here and Kingville is the only possible name for the town."

    "Damned Wekings are a pain." Joanie held up a finger and thought for a moment. "So, tell me why a bomb under the Opera House is only slightly more important than the Wekings griping about a name change?"

    "Well, they are planning to come armed to the town council and you know that a hundred Wekings with repeaters and six shooters are not going to back down when faced by our sheriff and his deputy."

    "Yeah, we know they love their Winchesters and Colts. That shot-up fellow in the saloon, he's not a Wekings is he?"

    "No, a Forgiven."

    "A different kind of pain in the ass. Probably ordered a sarsaparilla for his health. What was his beef anyway?"

    "Afraid of the Wekings, what else? Said he had a right to protect himself."

    "Ye gods! What else you got?"

    Tilly cleared her throat again. "There are three more items and I'll go through them quick so you can focus on saving the Opera House. A couple of strangers arrived in town a few days ago."

    "So what? We get strangers in here every week now that we are a regular stop for the railroad. Which reminds me, we need to add some more rooms to the hotel."

    "It's a Greenie and a Parpull," said Tilly by way of an answer. Like eveyone else in town except the mayor, she pronounced Purple as Parpull. 

    Joanie didn't like the way this discussion was going before, and now her hackles were raised again. "I will not allow prejudice any influence in my jurisdiction. Those men have every right to visit or even stay in this town as long as they aren't vagrants."

    "The Greenie is selling moonshine to the lowlifes on the other side of the tracks. And the Parpull has been doing some roofing in trade for food and seems to have consumption. They are both bedding down behind the stables."

    "Anybody gone blind from the Green's moonshine or been exposed to the Purple's cough?"

    "No ma'am, not so far as I know. I was thinking about having Degs follow them around for a while."

    "What about the other deputy? What's his name. Something weird like Bilks?"

    "It's Blooks, and he is the final item on my list. He quit right after the saloon incident this morning." At this news from Tilly, the mayor brightened. She never like Blooks.

    "Let's make the Green a deputy. How green is he, anyway?"

    "I don't know," answered Tilly, perplexed.

    "Do you have the names of these gentlemen?"

    "John Harry for the green guy and Pancho something for the Parp."

    "John Harry's a slave name. Him we can save. Pancho something will have to go, if he really is sick. Get Doc Richards to check him out. That it?"

    "Yes ma'am."

    "Well get going, then. I need to have a talk with the sheriff and the Wekings." Mayor Joanie eyed Tilly, put her fingers back into her mouth and blew. The Sheriff gulped his champagne and hurried over.

    "Yes ma'am," he said, touching the brim of his hat.

    "Wekings," she said.

    "Yes ma'am," was his reply and the two of them headed down the street, striding quickly toward the newly painted white church with no cross. As the got closer a shot rang out an a puff of dirt near Joanie's right boot kicked up as a rifle bullet buried itself in the unpaved street. She never broke stride.

    "Wait here," she grumbled and left the sheriff standing by himself as people everywhere else ran for cover.

    "But ma'am..." the sheriff's strained voice trailed off.

    "As long as the Lord wants me doing this job, he'll protect me," said Joanie, repeating an oft-used phrase. "And if he changes his mind, I'll be the first to know", she concluded under her breath. No rifle report followed the first one and she went up to the door of the church and pounded her fist. When no one answered, she listened and could hear hushed voices from the inside. She waited a full minute as the afternoon sun warmed her back and sent a bead of sweat trickling down her left temple. She heard the sound of someone on a rooftop pumping another cartridge into a Winchester. Finally the door opened and she went in. Someone else inside close the door.

    Five minutes later 

    

   

Albiny with pink eyes like a rabbit.

Purple kneeled and crossed himself. The mayor, taken aback, said, "You never said anything about this one being a Sinner!"

"Oh, yeah. I actually did know that and forgot to mention it. He wears a big silver cross with Jesus nailed to it around his neck."

"Good Lord. A Sinner. I never thought I'd see the day."

"I though you didn't approve of predjudice."

"There are limits to everyone's tolerance. Even mine. Do you know they pray to dead people?"

"Do you mean Jesus and Mary?"

"No, I mean ordinary people. They call 'em Saints and they elect more of them to the metaphysical office all the time, based on the miracles associated with these people."

    Mary Joanie believes in empty jails and a busy undertaker. This is the what the Romans believed.

Doggie Diversity

It is startling to consider the wide variation in size, shape and color of the dog. Yet all of the breeds listed by the American Kennel Club and all of the mixes found at the local animal shelter all have a common genetic source. The variations may appear dramatic, but in most cases they are actually superficial. Certainly dogs are all genetically compatible because all breeds can be mated together to produce fertile offspring. There does not appear to be any biological barrier to dog compatibility. The only barriers to mating are the physical ones of size and stature. Interestingly, there is also no difficulty in crossing wolves and dogs. Their offspring are also healthy and fertile in every case. Here alone we have substantial evidence of evolutionary parentage.

No matter how a dog may appear, each is biologically the same species, inside of which lurks a wild wolf. Even very small dogs will growl menacingly and do everything in their power to guard against an invasion of personal territory. The same little dog who barks at a postal worker, will not hesitate to enthusiastically display every single tiny tooth and fiercely attempt to repulse the advance of a dog ten times its size if the intruder deserves the treatment. Luckily for the smaller breeds, the big dogs have strong inhibitions against attacking another dog they perceive to be a puppy, even if the small dog is fully mature. In fact, large dogs are often perplexed by small, aggressive dogs who act in a mature, fully aggressive manner, rather than acting like playful puppies. It just doesn’t make sense to them.

The wide variety of dogs is a result of their long-term association with humans. From the outset of human/dog relations, selective breeding has been an integral part of the relationship. Undesirable qualities including excessive aggression, stubbornness, nervousness, were selected against. In the wild, wolves reach full maturity when they begin to kill regularly, but dogs never reach this stage and mature a notch below their wild relatives. The wolves with variations that allowed them to mature sexually before reaching the killer stage were most likely better adapted to live with people and could survive longer and reproduce more offspring.  Through the process, dogs regressed from the final stages of maturity exhibited in wolves and became more placid and playful. Not only was this true of their personality, but also their appearance. Unlike cats, another domesticated carnivore, dogs’ appearance and proportions change as they develop from pup to adult. Humans not only selected for immature behaviors, but also for underdeveloped physical features. The differences in breeds reflects the stage of development that was selected for.

The emergence of different varieties of dogs provides an evolution in the way humans live. Dogs are selected for hunting, protection, and even companionship. Unlike their predecessor, dogs are able to learn how to behave from their owners. Originally, the traits selected for were ones that helped in survival – not only for the dogs, but also for humans. Dogs that could track and chase, but not devour, were selected for as companions in the hunt. Later, some dogs were bred to be larger and stronger in order to help work in the fields. Others were selected for their herding ability, or their sense of smell. More modern breeds have been developed based mostly on looks. Humans were able to do this by selecting to breed only the ones with the most desirable traits. The breeding techniques employed in the production of a wide variety of dogs were not particularly sophisticated at first, nor difficult to perform. If a small dog was desired, all the humans had to do was to breed the runts of several litters over a period of time and pretty soon, a small breed exists. Or, if a fast dog is desired, it was much the same process of breeding together those animals that exhibited a propensity for speed. All one needs are dogs and time. This selection process would increase the number of desired alleles in the population and reduce the corresponding undesirable alleles, until eventually they would breed true for the desired traits each generation. This process also has worked for selecting for certain temperaments in dogs. Some breeds have been selected for by behaviors. Today’s bird dogs have been bred to have “soft mouths” so they can collect the birds, but not damage them. These same dogs have been selected for more recently as family pets because they do not bite.

For an entertaining overview of the principles discussed above, check out this Radio Lab episode wherein Brian Hare tells us the story of Dmitri Belyaev, a geneticist and clandestine Darwinian who lived in Stalinist Russia and studied the domestication of the silver fox.

http://www.radiolab.org/2009/oct/19/new-nice/

References:

Abrantes, R., et al Dog Language: An Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior

Budiansky, S. The Truth About Dogs: An Inquiry into the Ancestry, Social Conventions, Mental Habits, and Moral Fiber of Canis Familiaris

Hare, B. et al. (2002).The Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs. Science. 298, 1634

Katz, J. The New Work of Dogs, Tending to Life, Love, and Family

Lange, K. (2002). Wolf to Woof. National Geographic. 201, 2.

Mestel, R. (1994). Ascent of the Dog. Discover. 15, 10

Pennisi, E. (2002). A Shaggy Dog History. Science. 298, 1540.

Powell, K. (2002). Stone Age man kept a dog. Nature. http://www.nature.com/nsu/021118/021118-12.html

Scott, J.P., Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog

Serpell, J. The Domestic Dog : Its Evolution, Behaviour and Interactions with People

Tsuda, K., Kikkawa, Y., Yonekawa, H., Tanabe, Y. Extensive interbreeding occurred among multiple matriarchal ancestors during the domestication of dogs: Evidence from inter-and intraspecies polymorphisms in the D-loop region of mitochondrial DNA between dogs and wolves. (1997). http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/interbreeding.htm

Vila, C., Savolainen, P., Maldonado, J., Amorim, I., Rice, J., Honeycut, R., Crandall, K., Joakim, L., Wayne, R. (1997). Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog. Science. 276. <http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/wayne1.htm>

Wayne, R. Molecular evolution of the dog family. (1993). <http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm>

Eyes Wide Open, But Nothing Else is Working

Occasional sleep paralysis is normal. It is an evolutionary solution to the problem of reacting to one's dreams in a way that might cause injury. Running away from a dreamed-up terror could cause you to suddenly depart from your bed with dire, or perhaps just embarassing consequences. While asleep, we are generally unaware of this loss of voluntary muscle control, but sometimes our brain partially wakes up without reactivating the neural pathways that control skeletal muscles. The result is that you think that you've suddenly become completely paralyzed, because in fact you HAVE, though only temporarily. As frightening as it may be, sleep paralysis is usually no cause for alarm. Most every child will experience the condition at least once for a few terrifying, confusing, frustrating seconds, and adults can also experience the condition.

 

...so there's nothing to worry about. Except, of course, if the ability to move is a particularly pressing need, such as when the Promethean eagles are swooping in for another meal of fresh liver.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ask-the-brains-sleep-paralysis

http://www.sleepdisordersguide.com/sleep-paralysis.html

 

By way of brief explanation.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis, 1. 26