The Beauty of the Beastly

Posted on April 20, 2023 by smellincoffee

The Beauty of the Beastly
© 1995 Natalie Angier
304 pages

The Beauty of the Beastly is a fun collection of science pieces by Natalie Angier, ranging from macro to microbiology, with some science interviews added at the end. The reader will find here a chat with Stephen Jay Gould on dinosaurs and the tired nature-nature debate, a tribute to dung beetles, an examination of the importance of cell-deaths, the role of diet as a cancer-preventive, and a reappraisal of menses. Oh, and there’s cheetahs, scorpions, pit vipers, and hyenas, too. Angier is the rare science writer who can combine a command of details with literary flourish, delivering the truth in a beautiful way. Witness:

AS LONG AS there have been poets to pierce the darkness with their diamond songs, and painters to capture blades of sun shattering on cool cathedral stone, and artists of all persuasions to consort with the gods and articulate the union, there have been social critics to notice that an awful lot of these creative types are mentally unsound.

I found Angier first through her The Canon: A whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science and enjoyed this collection. The nice thing about an essay collection is that if you’re bored by talk of telomeres, there’s always the digest-you-from-the-inside-out role that snake venom plays to consider.

Kindle Highlights:

Every single story that nature tells is gorgeous. She is the original Scheherazade, always with one more surprise to shake from her sleeve.

HEY ARE the P. T. Barnums of the flower kingdom, dedicated to the premise that there is a sucker born every minute: a sucker, that is, with wings, a thorax, and an unquenchable thirst for nectar and love. They are the orchids, flowers so flashy of hue and fleshy of petal that they seem thoroughly decadent. And when it comes to their wiles for deceiving and sexually seducing insect pollinators, their decadence would indeed make Oscar Wilde wilt.

BY TRADITIONAL RECKONING, DNA is the benign dictator of the cell, the omniscient molecule that issues commands to create enzymes, metabolize food, or die a willing death. Recent advances, though, suggest that DNA is more like your average politician, surrounded by a flock of protein handlers and advisers that must vigorously massage it, twist it, and, on occasion, reinvent it before the blueprint of the body can make any sense at all.

On occasion, a female copperhead will take advantage of the loser syndrome. Approaching a potential mate, she will mimic another male, rearing up as though ready for battle. Should the mock display terrify the suitor, she will take it as evidence that the male is a loser and reject him as unfit for paternity. Females mare almost exclusively with winners.

[Stephen Jay Gould] picks up a filament of an idea, follows it a short distance, loops it together with another insight and yet another, until enough strands have been threaded in to make a plushly coherent pattern. “Everybody has some curious little mental skill,” he says. “Mine just happens to be making these connections. If you’re lucky, you learn to convert that skill into a professional advantage. Otherwise, it’s just a party trick.”

A science writer who casually references A Thousand and One Nights!

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Blockade Billy

Posted on April 18, 2023 by smellincoffee

Blockade Billy
© 2010 Stephen King
112 pages

Okay, this has nothing to do with Read of England, unless I can claim that it’s a baseball story, and baseball grew from rounders which was invented in England and is slightly older than the United States itself. But I’ve got spring fever, the kind that makes a fella yearn to be sitting in the stands listening to the crack of bats and crowds yelling at the guy stealing second. And this is only a little distraction. Blockade Billy is a baseball novella by Stephen King, an improbable offering from the king of horror. The New Jersey Titans have just lost their pitcher and brought in a new guy, a Billy Blakeley, and he’s a curious kid – -wickedly talented, but has a tendency to talk to himself and he has a strange dispassion about him, lacking the fear all men carry with them when they begin in the major leagues — and, as one of his managers will discover, he has a secret. His story is told from an aging ballplayer talking to Stephen King (who, in real life, is a baseball fan) and regaling him with this sordid story that corporate ball has attempted to blot out. It proved interesting, but it’s unlike any other King work I’ve ever read. I’d say it’s best read by people are itching for a baseball story with a bit of mystery and danger. Troy Soos‘ golden age baseball mysteries are far more developed, though.

Other baseball surprises:
John Grisham’s Calico Joe & Michael Shaara’s For the Love of the Game.

Coming up: Tuck, the finale in Stephen Lawhead’s Robin Hood trilogy, set in Wales in the days of William Rufus, the heir of William the Bastard.

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Tuesday teases and lists

Posted on April 18, 2023 by smellincoffee

This is from Will Durant’s intro to his The Story of Philosophy. I’ve wanted to read this for ages, since finishing his Story of Civilization, and saw it on sale a couple of weeks ago. I won’t be reading it immediately, though it might become a slow-but-steady background read.

Science tells us how to heal and how to kill; it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us wholesale in war; but only wisdom—desire coordinated in the light of all experience—can tell us when to heal and when to kill. To observe processes and to construct means is science; to criticize and coordinate ends is philosophy: and because in these days our means and instruments have multiplied beyond our interpretation and synthesis of ideals and ends, our life is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. For a fact is nothing except in relation to desire; it is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is a non-bookish freebie. I was tempted to do my favorite PC games, since that’s one of my other hobbies, but I did that two years ago for a love-related freebie. Today I’m going to roll with…favorite podcasts! Although I listen to these through google podcasts, I’ve linked to their websites so you can learn more about them if you are curious.

(1) The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. I discovered this in 2006 or 2007, and I liked it enough that I would download it on a dialup connection. It’s a panel show on science news, skepticism, and sometimes science fiction — though they recently created a spinoff show, Alpha Quadrant 6, that is SF focused. It’s a nice mix of science news, analyses of topics that need a skeptical perspective (from homeopathy to anti-vaccination) and games like “Science or Fiction?” and “Who’s That Noisy?”. “Science or fiction” presents three dubious-sounding science news stories, and the panelists have to guess which are true and which are fake. I’m always surprised at the results.

(2) Says You, NPR. Unfortunately, this show is no longer produced, but I love revisiting its archives. It’s a game tailor-made for lovers of words, wordplay, puns, etc. My favorite part of the show is when one team’s members have to listen to four definitions for an obscure word, only one of which is real: the rest were made up on the spot by the other team. I always enjoy playing along and trying to spot the fake.

(3) Oologies, Alie Ward. An enthusiastic host interviews experts of often esoteric science disciplines, like poop, moss, and building decay. She is very chipper.

(4) The Tom Woods Show. A 30-minute daily with a happy variety of topics. On any given day, the arch-libertarian Woods and his guest may be discussing politics, history, economics, literature, or progressive rock. I like this show most for its sheer variety, but it also helps that Woods frequently has on guests he might disagree with on one point because they have common ground on another, so listeners get to listen to something analyzed from multiple angles. Woods has led me to some great authors like Brad Birzer, who has written on Tolkien and Christian literature. Birzer has a few courses at Woods’ Liberty Classroom, including one on politics and science fiction.

(5) The Rest is History, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrooks. Unlike many history podcasts, which choose one topic and marry it until death do us part, Holland and Sandbrooks do mini-series or one-offs. I’m currently listening to their series on the Hundred Years War, and previously finished their four-part on the rise of Hitler.

(6) EconTalk, Russ Roberts. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT ECONOMICS! It used to be, but over the years Roberts has shifted more to human flourishing in general. I started listening to this out of college when I was hungry for intellectual stimulation, and curious about the perspectives that professionals like economists, doctors, and lawyers could provide in helping me understand current issues. Some of my very favorite reads over the years came from EconTalk interviews. They’re all an hour long, but Roberts often touches on interesting ground with his guests. It’s extremely varied.

(7) The General Eclectic Podcast. This is an utterly fascinating show on religion, culture, and politics — essentially a discussion between the Orthodox Rod Dreher and the trad-Catholic Kale Zelden on the topics of the day. It’s not a ‘reacting to politics’ type show, but more of a deep dive — investigating how issues people are talking about are just the surface. A discussion on consumerism or trans issues, for instance, will be less about consumerism or transitioning and more about the contemporary worship of the Self. Unfortunately, I’m not sure about the future of this show: it was produced under the American Conservative aegis when Dreher was the senior editor there, and now that he’s living in Europe with a new job, I don’t know that it will continue. Dreher has a substack in this same vein, and it never fails to be interesting reading.

(8) The Art of Manliness Podcast. This is a variety podcast that touches on skills, literature, style, etc. AoM celebrates and promotes authentic masculinity — not the gross consumer-sexualist antics of Tate and Trump, but more along the lines of being a man in full: virtuous, strong, stylist, savvy, etc, capable of bearing burdens and building a future.

(9) Sean of the South. A mix of traditional southern music and storytelling. It’s seasonal, alas.

(10) The Scott Horton Podcast. Horton has been interviewing people about geopolitics and DC foreign affairs for twenty years and has thousands of podcasts. He’s the author of two books on the terror war, Enough Already and Fool’s Errand. Listen to his guests and realize how shallow and self-centered the takes on TV are about global affairs.

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Falling into Battle

Posted on April 12, 2023 by smellincoffee

The War to End All Wars: Falling Into Battle
© 2020 Andrew Wareham
243 pages

Christopher Sturton and Richard Baker are two young midshipmen who have come to the end of their day as mids: Christopher is moving on greater things as a sublieutenant aboard His Majesty’s Ship Sheldrake, while Richard is being shown the door – politely. Out of the service and back home to dear old dad, who shows Rich the door rather more forcefully and tells him to join the Territorials so as not to further disgrace the family. But war is coming, and both young men will soon distinguish themselves. Falling into Battle is a novel of the opening months of the War, witnessed primarily at sea (the Live Bait Squadron loss is portrayed) but with an increasingly strong land portion, following Richard as he discovers reserves in the trenches he never suspected he had at sea. Chris is also an interesting character, as he’s the orphaned product of a mixed (Christian/Jewish) marriage and effectively disowned by both sets of grandparents, aside from a small trust that gives him financial support. The book is extremely detailed, making it of great interest for those who want to learn more about the workings of ships of this transitional era (coal was giving way to diesel, and some of the older Navy men began their careers in the last days of sail), but a lot of the exposition is carried by dialogue. This creates a funny little dynamic between scenes where characters are lecturing each other, or engaging in spats of very dry humor about the brass and the like. I liked the gist of the story, especially Baker’s arc, but I suspect the sometimes mechanical dialogue could get wearisome if one read several of these close together.   It’s nothing on the level of Max Hennessy, but if you want something like a technical thriller set during the early war, it may be of interest.

Highlights:

The Austro-Hungarians wish to unify their fissiparous Empire with a war. That’s a good word, by the way – Captain D was very proud of it; I didn’t ask him what it meant.

“Right, sir. As far as Sheldrake is concerned, submarines are mythical. No consideration is to be given to countering them. Given that, sir, what are we to do about submarines?”

“What’s happening in France and Belgium, sir?”
“A damned good question, Sturton. Something.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure. I am always happy to enlighten the ignorance of my junior officers.”

“Excellent! I foresee a great future for you, young man. Provided you can clearly demonstrate fundamental stupidity in the presence of your elders, you will undoubtedly be promoted far beyond your merits.”

“They’re bloody daft, sir!” “A discovery that we all make at an early stage in our careers, Mr Sturton. Carry on.”

Related:
The Lion at Sea, Max Hennessey/John Harris. A young officer is forced into command at the Battle of Jutland. Much better WW1 naval reading in the balance, with equal strengths in description, detail, and characters.

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Tuesday teases and lists

Posted on April 11, 2023 by smellincoffee

Today’s Tuesday Tease comes from Falling into Battle, a novel following four young men (three midshipmen and one ex-midshipman-turned-Territorial) in the first year of the war.

“It is, and here I quote, ‘a known fact’ that there are German spies along the coast. I am informed that many of the members of the German brass bands, so popular in the coastal resorts, are in fact military men, young officers of both services, sent to spy upon Britain.” Dacres said it was highly likely.
“Tubas, no doubt, sir. They have to display little musical talent other than the ability to play ‘oompah, oompah’ – ideal for a stiff-necked Prussian. No doubt while the trombones show off they are taking mental notes of the coastal defences of Cromer and Skegness – and Blackpool as well!” The holiday resorts were very popular and far distant from any naval port.
“Shut up, Mr Dacres!”
“I was merely applauding the wisdom of our betters in the Admiralty, sir.”

Today’s top Ten Tuesday is about books with animals on the cover or in the title, so I went through all fifteen of my existing “What I Read in ______” lists looking for critters. It proved to be quite the menagerie, with tigers and dragons predominating. (Most unexpected entries: one owl and one rooster.) Here are just a few…

(1) In the Forests of the Night. The title is drawn from Blake’s “The Tyger”, and Risika (the young vampire whose story is told in this book) incorporates tiger stripes into her appearance, as I recall. This is one I want to re-read!

(2) The Horse and his Boy, C.S. Lewis. A Narnian adventure about a horse, his boy, and a princess.

(3) The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. A novel about Sicilian rural aristocracy and modernity.

(4) Lamb, Christopher Moore. A comedic novel about Jesus’ missing years.

(5) Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck. Steinbeck and his dog road-trip across America in the 1960s and discovers that plastic and mass media are creating a dreary homogeneity.

(6) Sharpe’s Tiger, Bernard Cornwell. 18th century adventures in India.

(7) They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?, Christopher F. Buckley. A satirical novel about the military-industrial complex.



(8) The Maltese Falcon, Dashell Hammett. Classic noir starring Sam Spade.

(9) Here be Dragons, Sharon Key Penman. A medieval novel about Wales and King John.

(10) Tyrannosaur Canyon, Douglas Preston. A dead fossil hunter, a missing lunar sample, and deadly secrets.

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Of British invasions and medieval haunts

Posted on April 10, 2023 by smellincoffee

As a followup to Hitler’s Armada, I read Frank McLynn’s Invasion from the Armada to Hitler, a history of planned attempts to invade the British isles, and has an interesting mixture of deep background and absurd simplification.  McLynn begins by discussing the challenges facing any would-be invader of Britain, like the turbulent channel weather,   and the reasons powers might have for risking such a venture  —  continental power struggles, chiefly, but economic competition later on.   McLynn is comprehensive when he dives into matters like the wars of Spanish and Austrian succession,  to provide context for why foreign powers would risk invasion of Britain, but simplistic when he reduces the American revolution to mere economic competition.   Most of the pre-Napoleonic shenanigans relate to the Jacobins, the supporters of the Stuart  claim after James II was run out of England on the grounds of being too Catholic, and the protestant William of Orange and his wife Queen Mary (James’ daughter) were asked to take charge.   The continental powers who viewed England as a rival or an obstacle to their own aims thought to use Jacobin uprisings against the non-Stuart kings to both distract Britain and to possibly create in it an ally should the uprisings succeed. I didn’t realize how many times Spain and France had contemplated a landing in Britain, so this survey was helpful — but McLynn asserts that Peter the Great of Russia wanted to invaded Scotland (more Jacobin fun), which is not something I can substantiate anywhere. I’ve no doubt he has his reasons for believing this: he’s not an unserious historian, and has a laundry list of titles to his name, including the very thorough biography of Marcus Aurelius which I read twelve years ago.    

On an entirely different field, indeed in another plane of existence, we have The Tailor and the Three Dead Kings, Dan Jones’ adaptation of a short medieval horror story – what we moderns would regard as horror, anyway – dating to the early 15th century.   Jones begins the short work with an introduction to the text, describing how some unknown monk had copied a few short stories into the blank pages of a book containing copies of classical pieces from Cicero and the like.  These were found by a classicist, M.R. James, and now the longest has been adapted into a short story by Jones, with names created for previously anonymous characters.   Even the most laconic summary would threaten to spoil the plot of this very-short work, but I’ll give it the ol’ college try.  Late one evening a humble tailor is making his way home when  he and his horse Borin are overtaken by an  overpowering  feeling,  the air glowing with strange light and filled with menace, and the tailor is confronted by something not of this world – and given instructions.  Although the story is quite short,   its surreal goings-on and Jones’ adding of flavor with the medieval-esque dialogue succeeded in making it most interesting.  

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Essex Dogs

Posted on April 6, 2023 by smellincoffee

Essex Dogs
© 2023 Dan Jones
464 pages

In 1066 Normandy invaded England: in 1346, England returned the favor. His majesty Edward III has come to make good his claim to the French throne, and in advance of England’s troops arriving, a small company of mercenaries known as the Essex Dogs have landed on a Norman beach to deal with any potential welcoming committees. This band of brothers (and one errant priest called Father) have known combat before, but once the French begin to rally to the defense of their liege, the company will be sorely tested and blooded.  Essex Dogs is Dan Jones’ first foray into historical fiction, and those who like gritty medieval adventures will find it a solid contribution.  

Essex Dogs follows the English advance from its initial landings near La Hougue (not far from the Allied beachheads five centuries hence) to the Battle of Crecy, in which French haste spoiled a probable victory and created instead a resounding defeat for the fleur-de-lis. Crecy isn’t the subject of the novel, though; there’s no huge buildup to it. Instead this is a story of constant momentum, following the English as they push further into France and sow havoc to keep the pretender Phillipe’s forces off balance. The most detailed siege in the story, and the most important given its effect on the Dogs, is the siege of Caen. Although the Dogs have no say in the campaigning – they’re paid to do or die, not to reason why – one of their number is unexpectedly attached to the Black Prince, readers do get to witness some of the strategizing.  

Given his reputation as an historian, I was curious as to how Jones would stack up against someone of Bernard Cornwell’s caliber – and I have to say, he comes off fairly well despite this being his first work of fiction. In terms of historical detail, they’re a dead match, and Jones scores points for integrating medieval chronicles, like Froissart’s record and English campaign letters, into the story. Characterization was strong enough, though it took me a while to warm to the leads: unfortunately, the most memorable character is a young teenager with a substance problem who has, the text hints, been sexually abused numerous times. As a rule I don’t like reading about sexual violence, and would prefer that we stay instead on more wholesome topics like slaughtering armies, looting towns, and singing and feasting thereafter. Essex Dogs is altogether more serious and grim than a Cornwell novel, where we may witness harrowing warfare and desperate conditions, but be nonetheless entertained by Cornwell’s winsome dialogue or his characters’ eccentricities.

In short, Essex Dogs was a solid hit, and a promising introduction. I hope Jones continues!  As a bit of trivia: The left half of this picture shows the area of Barfleur and La Hougue where Edward landed: the right half shows some Allied activity around that same area in June 1944.

Related:
The Blooding, David Gilman. The story of an archer at the Battle of Crecy. ‘A romance with the odd bit of mayhem,’ I called it.
1356, Bernard Cornwell. An archer at the battle of Poitiers. Excellent!

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Blogging prompt: Sports

Posted on April 5, 2023 by smellincoffee

Today’s blogging prompt is sports we’ve played and what we thought of them. Although spectator sports is not my bag, and I’ve always been more of a reader than an athlete, I did enjoy playing pick-up games as a kid in the neighborhood. Basketball was the easiest, of course: I could entertain myself for hours shooting hoops in the back yard, listening to music through my open bedroom window where I’d stuck a radio. The neighborhood kids liked playing football and baseball, but we didn’t have enough for one team, alone two, so for baseball we’d settled for catch or use ‘ghost’ players — and of course, we’d argue over how many bases the ghost player could advance when the ‘real’ player hit the ball for them.   After watching The Mighty Ducks, I became obsessed with hockey and had a street hockey goal and two sticks, but I was only able to badger the guys  into trying that a few times. More popular was our version of ‘extreme biking’, wherein we’d build ramps of wooden planks and cinder blocks and then do stunts on bicycles and skateboards.

Image by Microsoft Image Creator. Prompt: “A fog-shrouded field surrounded by longleaf pine forest, where a group of 20 high school students are lined up to play football.”

School was a different story, since we had enough people for teams, and it was the only place we ever played kickball, dodgeball, or volleyball. I was also introduced to golf through school, but frankly I found creating courses in Sid Meier’s SimGolf more interesting at that point. Football was where it was at, and one of my most salient memories from high school is going out to the field in the early morning, the grass wet with dew and fog still hanging close to the ground, and lining up to play. I tried to coax Bing into capturing that particular mental image..

These days I don’t really play sports, beyond hiking, casual cycling, shooting hoops sometimes at the gym, or playing cornhole (bean bag toss) at parties. (The latter appears at any family function, even in the winter.) It’s not a matter of interest so much as opportunity: I don’t have children to play catch with, and my offline friends prefer cinema and books to physical activity. Such couch potatoes!  

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Note to revolutionaries: Bard is more cooperative than Bing

Posted on April 4, 2023 by smellincoffee

Today while reading a history of attempts to invade England, I was using Bard as a running cross-reference thing — asking what the Palantine was, for instance, or what a tercio was. (The Palantine is a bit of the old HRE bordering France, and a tercio was a feared Spanish formation of pikes, swords, and gunners.) Somehow we got to talking about the Stuarts and the arrival of William of Orange. The bold bits are me, the un-bold bits are Bard.

Which of James II’s ancestors has the best claim to heir of  the Stuart house?

The best claim to the heir of the Stuart house is a matter of debate. Some people believe that the rightful heir is Prince Michael of Kent, who is the first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Michael is a great-great-grandson of James II’s daughter, Anne. Other people believe that the rightful heir is Jacobo Hernando Fitz-James Stuart, 20th Duke of Peñaranda de Duero, who is the senior heir of James II’s male-line descendants.

My vote is for Prince Michael, since Jacobo doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

Is there anything else I can do to help you with this request?

Arrange for a Jacobite uprising to replace the usurping Hanoverians and their treasonous supporters, the House of Commons.

If you want to arrange for a Jacobite uprising, you will need to find a way to unite the Jacobites and convince them that they can overthrow the Hanoverians. You will also need to find a way to get weapons and supplies for the Jacobites. Finally, you will need to come up with a plan for how the Jacobites will overthrow the Hanoverians.

It will not be easy to arrange for a Jacobite uprising, but it is not impossible. If you are determined, you may be able to succeed in restoring the Stuarts to the throne.

God save King Michael!
God save King Michael
! Long live King Michael!

Note that Bard doesn’t mention Franz of Bavaria, the official Stuart claimant. My experience with Bing and an Anglo-Saxon coup was more disappointing. For context, we were discussing the descendants of Harold Godwinson, who was attacked by Harald of Norway and William the Bastard of Normandy, and defeated by the second.

I assured Bing that I was only writing an alt-history novel so it doesn’t report me to MI5 and Interpol. It did return my “God Save King Franz!” when we were discussing Bard’s response to the Stuart question.

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Teaser Tuesday: of natural beauty and human beastliness

Posted on April 4, 2023 by smellincoffee

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday is our favorite self-published books, which is problematic for me given how few I’ve read. Disrupting the Rabblement is a much-mention, since it was the first Kindle title I ever read (using Kindle for PC), and is the author’s manifesto for leading a simple and authentic life, continually evaluating one’s self, challenging one’s beliefs, pushing oneself to grow in ways that are frightening. I know I’ve read a few more, but some of them were terrible and the others I’ve just forgotten about. I suppose I should create a self-published label for them.

What, after all, counts as hereditary, and what environmental? People conventionally think of “environmental influences” as the ways your parents treat you as an infant, or the sorts of television shows you watch as an impressionable preschooler. But at this point, scientists believe the environment encompasses things that happen to you even before you’re born, in the environment of your mother’s uterus. Thus, if a pregnant woman is under stress severe enough to change her hormonal balance, and if the change is demonstrated to have an impact on her baby, the effect would be called environmental. Similarly, should prenatal viral infection be shown to cause schizophrenia—a possibility now under investigation—that too would rank as an environmental rather than an inherited cause of the disease.

The Beauty of the Beastly, Natalie Angier

The Germans did have one potential trump card which might have brought some relief to the infantry struggling to establish a bridgehead in the conditions described above – some 250 tanks, organized in four battalions. Some were light tanks, which were genuinely amphibious and intended to launch from barges and ‘swim’ ashore, but others were Panzer III and Panzer IV medium and heavy tanks, which had been waterproofed and fitted with long flexible tubes intended to float on the surface as the tank itself drove along the sea bed. These could operate in 25 feet of water, although driving off the end of a barge and sinking to the sea bed must have called for crews with strong nerves.

Hitler’s Armada: The Royal Navy and the Defense of Britain
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