Guilty Pleasure

Izze and I made a run to Barnes and Nobles today.  As we were driving there, I reflected to her:  I bet you could poll families about what is the first non-essential venue they went to after the pandemic set in a few years ago and the result will tell you something essential about them.  So, after work, school, and groceries - where did your family go first?  For the Rideouts, it was the book store.  Interesting and revealing, right?

Now, full confession time:  Every time I go to the book store, I go straight to study aids section and look the books I wrote or co-wrote for Barrons.  I look at them for a second (maybe re-arrange the shelf discretely while no one is looking) and then go about my business.  I'm embarrassed by this but I also feel, how could I not?

Today, I was in the science aisle and browsing when I saw one of my books there too!  I had never thought to look for it in this section.

Then I noticed another Barron's book that look oddly familiar.  I picked it up and flipped through it.  All of the pages looked familiar and then I remembered.  

A few years ago I did some consulting for a physics-in-pictures kind of book.  It turned out to be many more back-and-forth iterations than originally anticipated and the editor had promised me an editorial credit in the book.  As the pandemic dragged on longer than anyone could have imagined, I lost track of the project. 

 I went ahead and bought a copy for myself.  

Promises, Promises...

 

I was born to love thee.

Eye wide open, your faults I now see.

But in your promises, I want to believe

My youthful optimism: Naive, naive.

America, come back to me...

Sources: Our World in Data; World Bank

Taking Candy from... Romeo?

Tonight, at dinner, the Rideouts had a discussion about that staple of 8th grade literature:  The on-ramp to the Bard's work: Romeo and Juliet.

After I regaled the fam (okay, maybe I bored them and they indulged me, but I far prefer 'regaled') with a tale of how, in my own 8th grade, our english class staged a low budget production of Romeo and Juliet.  (actually, as I type this, I am recalling the actual play was 'The Taming of the Shrew'. Awkward).  Anyhow, what I remember most about this production (for which the audience only consisted of about half of our parents) is that, at one point, my buddy JTC seemed to have forgotten his line so I reached out and tapped him on the arm to prompt him to say it.  The thing is, I'm pretty sure he didn't need nor did he appreciate that public prompting.  Hopefully he has forgotten all about this incident.

Okay, all that is neither here nor there.  What I posited at the dinner table is that many enduring tales or expressions or ideas persevere not because they are eternal truths but because there is a subtext that is exactly the opposite of the espoused idea.

For example:  Consider the expression "taking candy from a baby" which nominally means something easily done. But, in reality, a baby holds on tight to candy and baby mammals have astonishingly strong grips; such that taking candy from a baby is, in actual fact, harder than you think.

Now, the conventional motif of Romeo and Juliet is one of star crossed lovers, tragic destiny, etc.  But a recent viewing with the fam reminded me of the beginning of the play in which it is made clear that Romeo is the type of guy who is falling in love with every girl he meets.  So, what is going on here?  Is the play about how being ruled by your passions is dangerous rather than how your passion is a reflection of your destiny?

Hmmm... I gotta go now ... cause, you know, a rolling stone gathers no moss...

OMG, What's in a goodbye?

Seb is taking French and making connections that never occurred to me.  This morning he mentioned to Irene, "Hey - adieu in French and adios in Spanish both reference god but mean goodbye!"  Irene does a quick internet search during the day and lays this one on us at dinner: "Goodbye evolved from 'God be with you'!"  

I'm like, what?  Dieu, m'aidez! 

Dining al fresco, viral loads, and magnetic induction

I have long noted how much better food and drink taste when dining outdoors.  For many years, I thought this was simply a trick of psychology:  I tend to be eating and drinking outside when on vacation, with friends - in a good mood, you know?  Or, at the very least, I'm only eating outside if the weather is nice and that puts you in a good mood automatically, right?

Well, I still think all that is true, but today (while sipping on some of my latest batch of homebrew outdoors), I thought about how nice it is to be able to take off the mask that I wear when indoors in public spaces when outside because of how air circulates and whisks away any viral load.  Then my brain connected that to the aromatics of food and drink which I have long understood to be over 90% of what we think of as taste.  If the outdoor air is helping take the viral load of others' exhalations away, it is also taking away all those yummy aromatics too, right?  

Our latest unit in physics class has been magnetic induction.  We have spent the last couple of classes exploring Faraday's amazing discovery of how it is the change in magnetic flux that induces electricity.  Just having the magnetic fields sitting there ain't gonna do it - you gotta make them stronger (or weaker) quickly to get some good induction! (it's how generators work for all of you who have no idea what I'm talking about)

So, when I actually sip or bite something outdoors, the internal taste that comes from the aromatics has a whole new intensity when it enters my mouth and nasal cavity, right?  So the change in my olfactory sense is higher when outside than when dining inside.  It draws my attention to what I'm eating and drinking in a primal way that I can more easily ignore when inside. Hence the pleasure of dining al fresco.

This new little theory of mine may be total bunk, but at least it has some nice intersectionality.

Reflexive Help on Mayday

Today (a fine day in May!) my father-in-law asked me "I heard that the word 'mayday' has a French origin.  What does it mean?"

Well, this was certainly news to me and a bit vexing personally as I have a fondness for words that slip their home language and become adopted/perverted in a new language to the point where they are not so easily recognized.

First I thought of the date:  a day in May, May First which is a holiday.  None of those sound like 'mayday' in French and certainly didn't seem to be connected to a sinking ship.  I had a brief thought about "Aidez moi" which is a literal 'help me' - but that's obviously not right in sound (but correct in meaning).

A few minutes later (well after I could have sounded smart and sophisticated by responding right away), I hit upon the reflexive form "M'aidez" which was obviously the source of the anglificiation "mayday'.

Turns out I was stuck in thinking-in-english-and-translating-into-french mode.  If only I had tried to have a french monologue in my head, I think I would have hit on the solution quicker.  So my slow efforts at solving this multilingual puzzle turned out to be a reminder of how important flexible thinking is in problem solving.   

Before crying 'Au Secours!', one should think of how to pose the issue you need help with in an other language or from a different point of view!