A Running Tally of Metaphysical Phenomena

That didn’t take too long. The weather is already back to a normal, warm-but-reasonable Pacific Northwest sort of summer thing, and we’re still alive here. Two years ago today, we were on our way from Memphis to Wichita in weather much more miserable, and days like today, when it was literally 45 degrees cooler when we went out this morning than it was at Wednesday’s Dantesque peak, remind me why it’s awesome here.

I have a couple of weeklies here for you. First is week 30, with Greta hanging out in bed with us in the morning, play with her clickety clickety triangles.
Yay for weekend mornings!

For the second picture, we probably could have come up with some great caption between the three of us, but I thought it would be more fun to leave it up to you. Explore the possibilities. Leave a comment. Winner gets a heartfelt congratulations unless you live around here, in which case you can have a blueberry scone if you come pick it up before we eat it.

One more thing. I don’t often do this, but this song is great and adventurous catchy and weird, and you need to hear it. (If you’re reading this on Facebook, you can’t, so head over to the real blog.) The band is called Fun, and it has members previously of The Format (yes!), Anathallo (yes!!), and Steel Train (not no!). Their album is called Aim & Ignite. You’re welcome. Adios.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you read about our trip to Portland, you may remember that when we went to Powell’s, I picked up Everything and More, a look at the historical development of the idea of infinity over the centuries by David Foster Wallace, a guy who invites a bottomless well full of analysis and discussion whenever you bring up his work. You can read the great details of his life elsewhere, so I’ll sum it up briefly for anyone who isn’t familiar with the guy: equal parts world-changing fiction writer and groundbreaking non-fiction essayist, knowledgeable in a way that was both broad and deep and diverse enough to make huge swaths of people jealous, and, as often accompanies immense creativity and brilliance, quite tragically dead by suicide at 46. This book was one of the things he left behind.

Mathematics, and those who propagate it, have a long history of annexing concepts and ideas from the world and finding ways to ruin them by putting numbers all over them. “Oh, you like that rectangle?” they say. “Let me give you a formula to find how much space is in it. It’s called the area. Good luck enjoying it ever again.” And so on, and that’s how the dominion of math has grown larger and larger over the years until there’s basically nothing left in the world that a good mathematician can’t lay some sort of analytical/descriptive claim to.* I say all of this with a huge, huge amount of respect for math and mathematicians, in the same way that I say that a degree in literature is as effective a cause of writer’s block as anyone could ever have.

It’s easy to think of infinity as just really, really big, and as a purely mathematical idea, but I’m realizing as I read this that neither one of those views is really accurate. I’m just getting to the good stuff, and people like Georg Cantor (people like Cantor, but not Cantor himself, because he’s been dead for ages) could probably explain things in a way that would make your head explode with much more force than I ever could, but I think that terms like “really, really big” imply the sort of limits that just don’t exist with infinite quantities or sizes or what have you. It’s all very brain-melting stuff, and I have to remember to both think and write about it in terms that are not overly mathematical or too heavily philosophical. This is easy, since I’m incapable of the former and disinclined toward the latter as a general rule.

Which brings up what I like most about this book. DFW was a writer first and a mathematician really not at all, at least in these sense that, as far as I know, it wasn’t his job. He was just a guy who concentrated a lot of his undergraduate education around math and really liked it. So the book is much more concerned with telling the story of ∞ with as much mathematical context as is necessary than it is with making sure that all of the math nazis in the world have absolutely nothing to quibble over. As a result, I’ve read reviews that tear into the book because this or that mathematical term was used in a sense that was just so slightly inaccurate, or some explanation “doesn’t really tell the whole story,” or a description doesn’t account for cases where such and such. And to those reviewers and self-satisfied members of the mathematical vaguard, I would say this: relax. Infinity, by whatever nature of it can actually be pinned down, is broader than mathematics and more expansive than the reaches of philosophy. I have just as much claim to it as anyone does (and so do you), and thanks to the challenging and amazing things I’ve been reading, I know a little bit more about the timeline of a few people’s thoughts on the subject. Fortunately for me (in multiple ways, actually), I’m ignorant enough of high mathematics that any incomplete explanations or technical shortcomings in this book just slip right past me, and I can enjoy it for what the author himself said it’s supposed to be: “a piece of pop technical writing” that explains some history and some technical ideas “in such a way that they’re vivid and comprehensible to readers who do not have pro-grade technical backgrounds and expertise.” Good enough for me.

*

…but not to worry. You can see it from here. We’ll be back to more reasonable climes oh so soon.

This was this afternoon. The first time the Seattle area has ever gone over 100 degrees! History in the making!

And this was a little bit ago. Notice the time on the bottom. It doesn’t really want to cool down! We’ve set records the past two nights for highest minimum temperature ever in the recorded history of the area.

And this was at a bank around the corner. Come on, you guys. I know it’s hot, but not that hot. It was a bank, though, so they probably just didn’t require any documentation on how much available heat was really there and just took Redmond’s word for it. I heard they didn’t even require real ID.

I mentioned a little while ago that I had read a couple of new books and then the other day that I had started another one (actually, I guess I just mentioned that I had gotten it, I think, but you know), so I thought I would pass on some thoughts in case you’re interested. I can’t imagine you come here for book recommendations, but I come here to write stuff that I’m thinking about, so if you end up picking up and enjoying any of this, then I would just be really happy about that.

First up is C.S. Lewis, who is always great, of course (you guys know C.S. Lewis), with An Experiment in Criticism. (Couldn’t find a good cover picture, sorry. Go here to have a look.) This book was as much of an analysis of readers and the way that people read as it was about literature. You could put it another way and say that it looks at the whole of literature the way that a lot of criticism has done in the last 50 or 60 years and includes readers and the experience of taking in literary works as part of what constitutes literature in the first place. Like a whole lot of stuff that Lewis wrote, and like a lot of good criticism and philosophy, there are parts that you want to get upset at because they make you feel intellectually lazy or challenge the way you think about something. But even the parts that you end up coming away still sort of not agreeing with 100%, you have to appreciate for making you work through something for yourself before you set it down and move on. And then the next time you read it, you realize that he could just be right after all. This is the point where I go to the bookshelf, pull this one down, type “Listen to this:” and then try to find a great quote as if I’d remembered it by heart already and just had to get it right. I know because I just did that. Basically, the whole book is quotable, but in a lecture sort of way that you have to commit yourself to taking in. I think that anyone serious about appreciating literature could get their world rocked by this book, and I’ll just leave it at that. I told my brother Scott that he should read it, and we made a deal: he’d read this (my sort of thing and not really his) if I’d read Economics in One Lesson (his sort of thing and, in a bit of poor timing of late, not really mine). I haven’t heard back from him about this, so I haven’t started in on the economics. I have a feeling it’s coming, though, since Goldman Sachs may have already actually purchased my loved ones and me without me knowing about it. In the mean time, and more happily, on to numbers two and three.

I’d heard about the Redwall series, by Brian Jacques, since an adolescent literature class in college when a guy also named Brian did a presentation on the books (and then about a million times since, like when you learn a new word and then start encountering it everywhere), but it wasn’t until recently that I actually picked up the first two, Redwall and Mossflower.

Both fun, easy books about woodland creatures that do brave deeds and get into mischief and risk life and limb for each other in a medieval sort of setting. In the age of Harry Potter, a long children’s book with difficult things like vengeance vs. mercy or central characters dying is no big deal, and that fact sort of got in my way when I read these. The reason is that in the Redwall books—the first two, at least—when, for example, a chapter started out with two characters trying to accomplish a Thing, the chapter almost always ended with the two accomplishing the Thing, whatever it was. Or when the Good army went to pull off a sneaky maneuver on the Bad army, it worked, and generally without complication. There were rarely setbacks and never betrayals, and the characters were fun, but they didn’t keep me awake after I put the book down. And I couldn’t help but think that it was a little unfair. These books were good books, and if some day I read them to Greta or read them at the same time as Greta when she’s 9 or 10, we’ll have a blast together. Again, they’re good books. And we can’t expect everyone to make the transition from children’s books to books that used to be for children but aren’t anymore the way the Harry Potter series did. You have to accept a series for what it is, and for that, Redwall is a creative, readable set of books that, bottom line, won’t be a waste of your time.

I was going to put my number four in here at the end, but as it turns out, I just pulled out that part and pasted it to Notepad so I can finish it later. I’ve actually enjoyed number four and been challenged by it so much that I have too much to say. So rather than make this post overly long and out of balance (as opposed to just out of balance, which I’m accomplishing right now), I’ll call it a day and reflect a little more on our last book, which is nerdy and mathy and should be handled on its own anyway. Adieu, and stay tuned.

Sorry I fell behind so far! Here are the last few weekly pictures that I promised recently.

This was at the zoo on my birthday. Greta made a lot of really entertaining faces when I blew on her face, but she loved it. She told me.

Grandpa holding her on the front porch.

First peas at the big six month mark!! These were SO bright green! She did a great job eating them, and she’s been doing better and better since.

Nice and thoughtful with a bandana on her head to protect from the crazy Olympia sun. It was crazy that day.

The background here is Powell’s City of Books that I mentioned in the Portland post. Greta had a great time looking around at the people and colors.

Tomorrow is Saturday, so I’ll take a new one. She’s getting more and more expressive and more and more capable of doing more interesting things than just sitting there, so hopefully tomorrow will yield a good portrait. We’ll see.

Over the last several months, there have been many, many times when we’ve been out somewhere eating or erranding or exploring and one or the other of us has said something like, “Hey, I wonder where [word] came from…” or “Do you know how to get to [place]?” It’s gotten to be more and more persistent, and for two people who will be first and second in line for a subcutaneous Wikipedia implantation as soon the whole world—including the human body—is open sourced, it was eventually going to come to where it did, which was: “should we consider doing something about this?” Or, put another way, “do you want to get some kind of internet type cell phone or something?” I had the internal struggles related to being too connected, following a trend when it wasn’t really necessary, worshipping convenience, etc. Eventually, though, we decided that we’d look into it. Turns out we could take a tiny ding to our allowance and just about make up the difference on our phone bill, so we pulled the trigger and sheeped it up with a couple of iPhones.

Now, the upper upper management where I spend a lot of my time isn’t too fond of this thing, but I’m just kind of thinking that if they want to make something that fits better for me, I’m willing to talk. Personally, the approach I take to using a phone and the way that I’d like it to respond just come together pretty well in an iPhone. If you have a Palm or a Blackberry or some sort of Windows Mobile phone and you like it, then great. It’s probably right for you. What was right for me was standing in the kitchen making cheese and realizing I needed an eighth of a cup of water and, consequently, a unit converter, and after 30 seconds (and no money) in the iPhone App Store, I had a unit converter in my pocket and three tablespoons of water in a bowl. Or the next morning when I was putting on a new set of guitar strings to do music with the kiddos, not having a good idea where E was, and 30 seconds later, holding a (free) guitar tuner in my hand. And all for the same I’d pay for any other phone and data plan.*

One thing I like is the little button on the headphones that came with the phone. With it, you can do a few things:

• Answer incoming calls (click once; do the same to end a call). If you have music playing, it fades quickly down and then comes back up when the call’s done.
• Put the volume up and down.
• Skip forward and backward to the next/previous track.
• Hold in the button for a second and then, at the prompt, say things like
  • “Call [person]“
  • “Play [album/artist/song]“
  • “Play more things like this” (which will make a playlist of similar stuff)

  and have it do whatever you just said.

The only problem I have with the headphones is in their use as, you know, headphones. The sound quality was really poor. I noticed, though, that if I pressed them in a little and got a bit of a seal, I could actually hear the middle and lower parts of the acoustic range of what I was listening to.

What do you do, then, with headphones that are great up until the very top bits? Well, you could buy Apple’s in-ear headphones with the button for $80 or other companies’ versions for anywhere from Much More to All the Money. Or, you could go to Target, snag a pair of headphones where the tops go down into your ear, and just make the tops of the iPhone ones better. And that’s what I did. 30-40 minutes of soldering, and I had just saved myself a bundle of cash and gotten much better headphones. Still not crazy Sennheiser or Shure quality, but a nice, inexpensive upgrade from the ones in the box. Plus, I got to use a soldering iron, which is a lot of fun. I didn’t think to get pictures along the way, but I did snap this one today. I’m glad I soldered the speakers themselves instead of just trying to put the wires together. These look a lot tidier than that would have.

The other cool thing is that because they lower background noise, you can keep the volume a little lower and keep your ears healthier. Yay for projects!

* Look, I do own some stock here, and I like to think I have some level of common sense. It really needs to be said that I’d be very much willing to sit down with someone from Windows Mobile and have them walk me through, say, the ten most common non-”traditional phone” type things I do with my phone. If they can [give me something like the App Store as well as] demonstrate that this company makes these ten things more easy and intuitive than the folks behind the iPhone, I’d be very happy to respect that and keep it in mind the next time I’m actually looking to spend money on a new phone (which hopefully won’t be for a long time; this was the first one that wasn’t just free with the contract).

Well, here we are on a train heading from Downtown Portland back to Hillsboro. We didn’t have any particular plans for July 4th, and as it ended up, Kirsten’s cousin Jessica didn’t either. We coordinated in making sure it didn’t stay that way, and we’ve spent the last couple of days down in Oregon, which has been a blast. Back at home, it’s been in the upper 40s or low 50s overnight and the mid to high 70s during the day, so we had a full range of mild climate-oriented clothing all ready. And then we looked up the forecast. Heat advisory? OK, time for a change of wardrobe! It’s been in the high 90s here—and I was under the impression that Portland’s climate was very much like ours—which isn’t really what you want when you haven’t prepared yourself mentally, but we’ve had a lot of fun hanging out in the heat with Jessica, her roommate Kailyn, and Kailyn’s boyfriend Eric. Thanks for the hospitality, ladies!

Portland itself seems like the best parts of Seattle mixed with the best parts of my old neighborhood in Richmond. (I’ve just described it in terms that like two of you will get. “Well, I know X,” you’re saying, “but I’ve never been to Y.” Or I could be overestimating your interest and inclination to engage and analyze.) What I mean is that the tall buildings are not terribly tall like some cities, there are trees growing over lots and lots of the sidewalks, the shops and stuff are really unique and in line with Portland’s pride in its own weirdness, but the city seems old enough to have some interesting, aged character in ways that Seattle, or at least the parts I’ve explored, has less of. Lots of fun! I recommend it, especially if you live only a three and a half hour drive away.

It would take too long to recount every little detail, plus it’s boring and you can read your own travel guides, so I’ll hit the highlights, in no particular order:

• Powell’s City of Books! The world’s largest independent bookstore, which was basically like a very respectable city library but more permanent and expensive. And awesome. Meticulously organized first by room color then by section. For example, if you want Nautical Fiction, go to the Gold Room, and it’s over on [that] side (between Erotica and Sci-Fi, interestingly, which casts some doubt on the meticulousness of their organization after all). Or, if you’re looking for nautical non-fiction, you’re headed to the Rose Rroom, between Sports and Outdoors, which makes a lot more sense. To help you out, they have maps available at the checkout counters and information desks, of which there are many.

  

  I left with a James Joyce book (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), which I haven’t started yet, and Everything and More, a history of the idea of infinity, by David Foster Wallace, for nerds. I’ll put some thoughts up soon-ish.

• Pine State Biscuits. We saw this one on Food Network, on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, which you should watch.* The story goes that a few wise men came from the East to go to school in Oregon, and when they realized that there wasn’t a whole lot of fattening Southern food to be had (and “a whole lot” is pretty much the fundamental unit of Southern food), they decided to stick around after graduation and open a biscuit shop.** It was every bit the taste sensation that Guy Fieri promised it was going to be. Along with my Cheerwine (Cheerwine? No way! And it was the cane sugar kind, too!), I had the Reggie Deluxe, which—and you’ll just have to trust me on this—sounds like a patently ridiculous publicity stunt of a meal but was actually perfectly balanced and didn’t seem overly heavy. It was fried chicken, bacon, cheese, a fried egg, and gravy on a biscuit. I know what you’re thinking! “That’s ridiculous,” you’re saying. “Just pick two of those things, add the biscuit, and then hit the treadmill!” But you’re saying this because you haven’t had it. It was amazing. I’ve never had gravy even playing the same sport, let alone in the same league, as this place. Fantastic. Go here the next time you’re even in the same half of the continent. It’s great, and the surrounding neighborhood is a great place to hang out as well. Here’s the menu (click to biggify). Check out the McIsley. I hear it’s delicious as well.

  

• Oh, seriously, you don’t need a list of what I liked. There was a Tang donut, lots of record stores (Who’s Next for four dollars!), some public transit, blah blah blah. Just head to Portland some time and eat things and hang out. It was a lot of fun.
• Stopping by Kirsten’s Uncle Steve and Aunt Shelly’s chicken farm for the afternoon on the way back. They have 144,000 chickens and get 144,000 new ones every seven weeks! Egads. They also have four chocolate labs, a bunch of land***, and boundless hospitality, which makes the farm a pretty cool place to visit. Kirsten went there a lot growing up and was SO excited to visit again. It was a lovely afternoon. Big thanks to Steve and Shelly for lunch and to cousin Darcy for the amazing Greta photos (of which there is an example below)!

  

I have several weeklies of Greta coming up as soon as I label them with what week they were taken, some board game stuff coming down the pike, and then the infinity stuff too. Hoping to become a bit more regular. (Which merits hahas, because I am currently in the summer between fifth and sixth grades.)

* We actually saw this episode when we were hanging out at the hospital with Meghan after her surgery, which was odd, because she couldn’t eat any food for about two weeks, but all we watched when the TV was on in her room was Food Network because evidently we’re all complete, irrecoverable jerks.