After many decades of collecting, we're working to downsize.
I will be selling some rare books. These items include out-of-print books like Gene Wolfe's Plan[e]t Engineering & Andre Norton's Grand Master's Choice (both in very good condition). Will also be selling some rare old mysteries from my father's estate, which include some Dell "Mapback" books. And, when I can find it, a first edition of The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen.
I was going to do this on eBay, but eBay requires that I give them my phone number which I will not do. I took down an account I created in about 10 minutes. Instead, I'll do it through this blog.
Books for sale include (so far):
If you live in the Pittsburgh area, you can pick up some things for free:
Drop me a note if you're interested in anything.
The #TrumpTulsaRally teen TikTok ticket hack was the BEST combination of punking and a peaceful protest of the #TrumpRegime EVER! Way to go kids!
Happy National Selfie Day!
So we have now followed our state's "Stay Home" order for 100 days.
Jim had worked from home for 14 years and had been planning to retire in mid-April 2020 anyway. I have not worked regularly in years. While I was hoping to be doing some extra work, with all productions shut down that wasn't going to happen.
So when it was clear we wouldn't be spending much time in public in the future, we made one last trip to Wahlburger's, went to the grocery store (which was a mob scene) and went home.
I woke up on Friday, March 13 with a severe headache and body aches. I crawled into my chair and watched TV. I took my temperature regularly and it didn't go anywhere so I doubted it was COVID19. Some friends had reported a similar flu a few weeks before, and people had gotten over it in about a week, which I did.
Over the next few weeks, we got used to shopping in the morning during "geezer hours," buying and cooking odd cuts of pork, and, by early April, figuring out how to jury-rig a facemask. I made some out of odd bits of cloth then figured out how to make some clingy-facemasks out of an old jersey. We have since been able to buy actual facemasks.
We basically did #StayHome, other than visiting our daughter, whose company wisely went to work-from-home mode. As the weather got more spring-like, we also started doing more hiking on the local trails. Between the Montour Trail and the Panhandle Trail, southwestern Pennsylvania has the longest rails-to-trails area in the country.
So now it's been 100 days. We wear masks in public, go out mostly to walk or for quick stops for groceries. We connect with people online and are busy with some volunteer activities. We lost one person from COVID-19 we knew slightly early in the pandemic, we know a few people who were sick and recovered.
We won't get to go on a long-planned trip to New Zealand. This is the second time we'd planned a trip to New Zealand that we had to cancel. The first time was in 2010. We were going to the Worldcon in Melbourne Australia and planned to visit New Zealand after the conference. We were planning to go to Christchurch, as it's near the part of NZ we particularly wanted to visit. But then the first Christcurch earthquake hit so we had to cancel that (not that spending more days in Australia was a chore!). Due to other plans we had tentatively made for 2021 (if travel is a possibility), we may never get to go to New Zealand.
Being baby boomers meant that COVID-19 is our first experience with anything approaching a quarantine. Compared to the very restrictive quarantines in some places during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, we really don't have it that bad. We can leave our house without being arrested so long as we wear our masks. From studying disease spread during earlier epidemics, staying home more and using masks matters.
I had all the usual kid diseases that kids had before the MMR, chicken pox and flu vaccines. Between November 1962 and April 1964, I was sick frequently. I had four stays in the hospital - three times with nephritis (a reoccuring kidney infection) and once with tonsilitis. But in that same period, I also had rubella, chicken pox and at least one severe case of the flu. Spent the rest of my childhood and adolescence being pretty healthy, and much as I hated getting shots, I realized the new vaccines that came out in the '60s were good for me.
I don't really remember any big flu epidemics growing up. There had been a major flu epidemic in 1957, the winter I was born. In January 1971, there was something approaching a flu epidemic in our school. The absentee list went from its usual 1 sheet to 2 sheets for at least a week. No quanrantine though and the flu breakout in our area was gone by February.
Since 1976, there were more threats of flu - swine flu that year and various other diseases since then. SARS and MERS were both frightening but never really spread much in the US. Always felt fear of Ebola was utterly overblown unless you were a healthcare worker. Even the year H1N1 broke out, there was sometimes talk of quarantine, but nothing happened (though we had a young friend hospitalized with it for 5 weeks - luckily, he recovered).
I know, we're lucky. Retirement means if you've saved money and can be frugal, you can get through pandemics without much worry. Many people we know have been able to work from home, and more businesses are finally understanding that working from home can be a really good thing. Southwestern Pennsylvania has been a mostly low-spread area - we're back around .84% which is good. So we plan to mostly stay home for "the duration," where "the duration" is until there is a widespread, safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Much as the movie Contagion really captured what would happen if a highly contagious, more deadly flu spread around the world, it was overly fantastic about the speed in which a vaccine was developed. A COVID-19 vaccine probably isn't months away - it's likely years away. [[Note from 2022.12.16 Luckily, I was wrong about this. Some vaccines were available by early 2021.]]
I found the obvious murder of George Floyd to be enraging.
But...as a fat person with high blood pressure and being over 60, I'm doing all I can to avoid COVID-19. So while I've participated in many protests over time, I have not been out yet to protest his murder or the overreaction of the Trump regime to it.
I have called Senator Toomey (pointless, I know as he doesn't listen to Democratic constituents). Today I sent the following letter to my senators and several others:
I am extremely troubled by the militarization of police to try to "quell" protesters. Yes, there have been some outside agitators causing trouble, but the vast majority of the protests have been peaceful.
There are unidentified military all over DC, some of whom are rumored to be border guards, which is ILLEGAL! (https://www.southernborder.org/border_patrol_gloating_on_twitter_about_being_deployed_to_clamp_down_on_protesters?fbclid=IwAR2lZm4L8Jj57puJI_-jvBGep43n4Uhq6pw6KdGVc7fWKWb8D7ycZwS5zUs)
Can the Senate act in some way to suppress this obvious abuse of power on the part of Trump? I have not been out protesting due to concern over COVID-19. When I do choose to go out and protest, I feel like I'm going to have to have a motorcycle helmet and something like armor in addition to a face mask because now I'm beginning to think the police could be a bigger danger than the virus.
I did not write this, but I completely agree with it. We must keep track.
Remember when 45 said...
Share so everyone can remember what a liar this so-called president (45) truly is. If you agree, please copy and paste this to your timeline or at least link to it.
I have no reason to complain. Jim and I are comfortably retired, while we can't travel, we are in a rural area with relatively little COVID-19 spread.
Still....
The behavior of some cops in some cities, the installed President Trump and much of the Congress is utterly appalling.
I have been disgusted by Trump since at least 1989, between his treatment of women and his call in a full page ad to execute some young black men, without a trial, whom he said had attacked a white jogger. While the teens were convicted of some of the crimes (without physical evidence), they were later exonerated when someone else confessed to the attack. Trump has never apologized for calling to execute black men before their trial, and I knew he was a dangerous racist.
And over the last week, his inciteful behavior again shows us that he and his administration are all dangerous racists.
How low will Trump go?
Very low. Here is an excellent example of how Trump is misusing his office for the sake of a photo op:
by Gini Gerbasi
Rector at St. John's Episcopal Church, Georgetown, Washington DC
Former Assistant Rector at St. John's Church, Lafayette Square
Friends, I am ok, but I am, frankly shaken. I was at St. John's, Lafayette Square most of the afternoon, with fellow clergy and laypeople - and clergy from some other denominations too. We were passing out water and snacks, and helping the patio area at St. John's, Lafayette square to be a place of respite and peace. All was well - with a few little tense moments - until about 6:15 or so. By then, I had connected with the Black Lives Matter medic team, which was headed by an EMT. Those people were AMAZING. They had been on the patio all day, and thankfully had not had to use much of the eyewash they had made. Around 6:15 or 6:30, the police started really pushing protestors off of H Street (the street between the church and Lafayette Park, and ultimately, the White House. They started using tear gas and folks were running at us for eyewashes or water or wet paper towels. At this point, Julia, one of our seminarians for next year (who is a trauma nurse) and I looked at each other in disbelief. I was coughing, her eyes were watering, and we were trying to help people as the police - in full riot gear - drove people toward us. Julia and her classmates left and I stayed with the BLM folks trying to help people. Suddenly, around 6:30, there was more tear gas, more concussion grenades, and I think I saw someone hit by a rubber bullet - he was grasping his stomach and there was a mark on his shirt. The police in their riot gear were literally walking onto the St. John's, Lafayette Square patio with these metal shields, pushing people off the patio and driving them back. People were running at us as the police advanced toward us from the other side of the patio. We had to try to pick up what we could. The BLM medic folks were obviously well practiced. They picked up boxes and ran. I was so stunned I only got a few water bottles and my spray bottle of eyewash. We were literally DRIVEN OFF of the St. John's, Lafayette Square patio with tear gas and concussion grenades and police in full riot gear. We were pushed back 20 feet, and then eventually - with SO MANY concussion grenades - back to K street. By the time I got back to my car, around 7, I was getting texts from people saying that Trump was outside of St. John's, Lafayette Square. I literally COULD NOT believe it. WE WERE DRIVEN OFF OF THE PATIO AT ST. JOHN'S - a place of peace and respite and medical care throughout the day - SO THAT MAN COULD HAVE A PHOTO OPPORTUNITY IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH!!! PEOPLE WERE HURT SO THAT HE COULD POSE IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH WITH A BIBLE! HE WOULD HAVE HAD TO STEP OVER THE MEDICAL SUPPLIES WE LEFT BEHIND BECAUSE WE WERE BEING TEAR GASSED!!!!
I am deeply shaken. I did not see any protestors throw anything until the tear gas and concussion grenades started, and then it was mostly water bottles. I am shaken, not so much by the taste of tear gas and the bit of a cough I still have, but by the fact that that show of force was for a PHOTO OPPORTUNITY. The patio of St. John's, Lafayette square had been HOLY GROUND today. A place of respite and laughter and water and granola bars and fruit snacks. But that man turned it into a BATTLE GROUND first, and a cheap political stunt second. I am DEEPLY OFFENDED on behalf of every protestor, every Christian, the people of St. John's, Lafayette square, every decent person there, and the BLM medics who stayed with just a single box of supplies and a backpack, even when I got too scared and had to leave. I am ok. But I am now a force to be reckoned with.
Thank-you, Rev. Gerbasi, for your decency and honesty. I wish we had that kind of behavior in our government and on more of our police forces where we need it desperately.
In 2011, I was an extra for Won't Back Down, a movie about a school in the inner city starring Viola Davis as a teacher and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a parent.
I was part of a big crowd scene. There was a really cute guy up with the teachers. I knew I recognized him but I couldn't figure out who it was and this bothered me.
After about an hour, someone yelled "Oscar!" and the cute guy left the school steps.
I realized it was Oscar Isaac. I turned to a friend and said "The last time I saw Oscar, he was naked!"
Well, naked on TV anyway. A few weeks earlier, I'd seen Robin Hood with a very attractive young actor co-starring as Prince John. The first scene in which Oscar Isaac appeared, he was quite naked.
But I had seen him at least one other time, as Orestes in the little seen-but otherwise excellent movie Agora. Agora starred a way too young Rachel Weiss as Hypatia, a scholar and librarian of the Library of Alexandria after her father's death. Oscar played a very tricky role very well, and I felt he was a potentially very interesting actor.
Like many science fiction fans, I'd read The Sparrow and Children of God, Maria Doria Russell's amazing books about an interstellar-traveling priest/linguist named Emilio Sandoz back in the '90s. There was some talk then that Antonio Banderas was attached to a possible production, and he would have been very good a Sandoz. That disappeared--perhaps the special effects needed to pull these movies off in the '90s wouldn't have been up to the tasks.
A few years later, though, Brad Pitt bought the rights to The Sparrow, and held them for a number of years.
Hmmm....Brad Pitt wouldn't be right for Sandoz...but Oscar Isaac sure would be. And by about 2010, CGI would have been good enough to pull off the necessary special effects.
I almost brought The Sparrow with me the next time I was called to set. I wondered if Oscar Isaac was familiar with the book and would want to be in a science fiction movie or two?
When you're an extra, you're not supposed to approach "the talent." I was usually pretty good about that beyond saying "Hi." Oscar was on set again, and this time there was more mingling between extras and "the talent" as a school festival was being shot. The assistant director sent Oscar over to one corner of the festival, and then sent me to the same corner.
So while we were waiting for the assistant director to call "Background!" (which is the call for the extras to start moving; this is said before the assistant director calls "Action!"), I told Oscar how much I'd enjoyed watching him in Agora (and did not mention Robin Hood).
"Thanks."
"Have you ever read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow? I hear Brad Pitt has the rights and you'd be a great Emilio Sandoz."
"Background!" the Assistant Director screamed and that was that. I saw Isaac from time to time, but we never had the chance to talk again.
Oh well.
At least we know now he has been in major science fiction movies, and he was very good in Ex Machina and the more recent Star Wars movies as Poe. He looks like he'll be an outstanding Duke Leto in Dune. And he's still not too old to play Emilio Sandoz.
§ 3. Religious freedom.
All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship
Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences;
no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any
place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his
consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control
or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference
shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or
modes of worship.
§ 4. Religion.
No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future
state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his
religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or
place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.
On July 16, 2018, Donald Trump committed treason by denying Russian influence over the 2016 election and refusing to believe the findings of his own FBI and Department of Justice (and even British Intelligence) about Russian involvement in it. Those of us who believed in Trump-Russia-Collusion spent a lot of time venting on Twitter because it should be really clear to anyone that it happened. Impeach him! Convict him of treason! Maybe even execute him!
But, today, take a deep breath...and fight on but a little more calmly (and this is a reminder to myself as much as anyone else).
I will call my senators and my representatives today, and my message will be:
We are very used to the Republican "witch-hunty" hearings of recent times, where Hillary Clinton spent 11 hours answering many questions over and over again. But while she was accused of many things, the committee could never charge her with anything.
I know Congressional hearings can be meaningful and relevant. Because, when I was 16, I spent part of the summer of 1973 watching the Watergate Hearings on TV.
I felt like was part of the only Republican family in Massachusetts. I did support Nixon, I supported the war in Viet Nam and so on. I even believed he was innocent of knowing anything about Watergate and it was all on his underlings. But, remember, back then, many Republicans were pro-ERA and pro-choice, so you could be a Republican and support women's rights. The party was definitely turning racist, but, sadly, I just didn't notice that as much as I should have.
But watching the Watergate Hearings, it became clear to me that Nixon did know what was going on, and I believed Nixon was guilty-guilty-guilty as Gary Trudeau used to say in Doonesbury.
I told Mom I thought Nixon was guilty, she called me a Communist, I cried about that and didn't talk politics with her again until the '90s. In fairness to Mom, she didn't vote for Goldwater and she wasn't planning to vote for Trump (but died before the election).
The problem is, while millions of us know that Trump is guilty of multiple impeachable crimes, millions are in complete denial, aided and abetted by the lapdog Republican Congress and Faux News reinforcing their fantasy that the Trump Regime is somehow good for the country and the world when it is anything but.
If the Republicans refuse to hold hearings on the 2016 election or on the Emoluments Clause, the Democrats should rent a hotel ballroom and hold mock hearings on Trump. Invite the TV networks to film them. Bring forward witnesses. Show the American people what a functional, Congressional hearing can look like.
If you don't have your representatives phone numbers & E-mails on your phone (and you should!), here's how you can find them.
PS: While it was exciting for the DOJ to have arrested Russian agent and NRA photo-girl Maria Butina, she's a small fish in a big school. She was too young to be anything but a minor player. I hope the DOJ is focusing on her handler(s).
Simon and Garfunkel's "America" came out in April, 1968. I always heard the chorus as "All gone to look for America." The Internet tells me I've heard that line wrong for nearly 50 years - it's really "All come to look for America." But, I think my mishearing is a better title for this series of blog posts on a trip back in 1968.
In 1968, our parents took our family plus Grandma on a major trip - a cross country trip mostly by train, returning eastward across Canada. It was an amazing few weeks and fueled my lifelong love of travel. It was also challenging at times for my folks who were traveling with 4 children under the age of 12 - I was 11, Carrie was 10, Jeff was 8 (had his 9th birthday on a train in Canada) and Terry was 3 (turned 4 not long after we got home). This was not the kind of trip middle class families made in the '60s but my grandfather had died in late '66 leaving some money for extras like this trip.
The main argument I had with Mom over this trip was her refusal to fly. She was phobic about flying, and this phobia extended to Dad (who occasionally had to fly on business) and her kids. Her stepmother would fly, but she traveled with us for most of the trip. She left us in Canada for a separate trip to Banff; don't remember if she flew home from there or not.
This story of our trip will be mostly lacking something important - photographs. I know Dad took a fair number of photos as he stored them in photo envelopes in his office drawer for decades. Over the last few years, both of my parents have died. One thing we have yet to find after two years of combing over their stuff - most of the photos from that trip. The one family picture I have from early that summer just before the trip is the single most ugly shot of the four of us, so horrifying in its utter dorkiness that one brother has begged me to never put it online and I agreed. How bad is that photo? Well, here's the picture of me from that photo, and, I agree, it is one of the worst photos of me ever.
Here's a travel shot of us taken in Canada in 1967 (we were all bigger by '68, me especially).
And our youngest brother looked roughly like this in 1968 (though smaller in this case)
And, finally, here's a photo of my parents, taken around the time of the big trip.
While most of the photos of that summer are probably still buried in a box somewhere, one thing we did unearth last fall was the itinerary. My folks used a local travel agent who arranged the hotels and the like. So I can tell you that we left Union Station, Worcester, MA on Friday August 2, 5:10pm and took the train to Chicago. We had sleeper bunks in the train and got to Chicago the next morning. We stayed at the Harrison Hotel (now the Travelodge on East Harrison St.). I never had many memories of Chicago, other than it was the first huge city I'd ever been to. I think we went to one of the museums and walked around. I think we took a sightseeing trip on Lake Michigan. But the reason I have so few memories of Chicago from that trip is we were only there for about a day and a half. By early Sunday evening, we were on a train, heading west for Flagstaff, Arizona.