250 Words on a Lonely Universe

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

My opinion on whether there is other intelligent life in the universe is the conventional one: the history of science teaches that there’s nothing unique about our star or planet, so there’s no reason to believe life isn’t common elsewhere. Further, there’s no reason that intelligent technological civilization couldn’t arise on one life-bearing planet out of a thousand, a million, or a billion. 

Yet I increasingly find myself mulling a more astounding possibility: what if we’re alone? As physicist Enrico Fermi asked, if the universe is teeming with intelligence, “Where is everybody?”

Skeptics offer rationales. Maybe aliens are ignoring or quarantining us. Maybe advanced civilizations self-destruct. Maybe they’re using technology we can’t perceive.

But it would only take one! One enormous interstellar civil engineering project, one alien artifact, one beacon shining in the night. A pre-contact Amazonian tribe might not know what a lighthouse is, but if one appeared in the jungle they’d know it wasn’t natural. 

Why haven’t we seen a lighthouse out there?

The distance-time argument is irrelevant. It’s a numbers game, and it doesn’t matter if the lighthouse exists now or a billion years in the past. The fact is, you can search a million galaxies and not find a single thing that lacks a natural explanation. No lighthouses.

In one science-fiction trope, a race of ancient elders colonized the universe billions of years before humanity evolved. But what if we’re the ancient elders, just getting started? What if we’re the first?

I shudder to imagine it.

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Southern California Firestorms

The last picture we took as we evacuated our neighborhood before that
fire in the distance swept through and destroyed it. Tubbs, October 2017.

I thought I had nothing original, constructive or useful to say about the heartbreaking fires in southern California, but several people have asked so here's my input this morning:

IF YOU ARE IN AN EVACUATION ZONE: Take it seriously. Do what you're told. Don't sightsee. Assume you will never see your home again and pack accordingly (if you have time to pack at all). Seven years on, the things we miss most weren't the most valuable in terms of money, but in sentiment: family photos, keepsakes, heirlooms, memories. 

If you didn't prepare a "go bag" (and few do), grab your wallet/purse, birth certificate, passport, deeds, and insurance and other legal papers because you'll need them to rebuild your life. Computers and backups. Prescription meds. Eyeglasses. Charging cords for phones and laptops. Set up a safe meeting spot for everyone to gather. If you can, leave early to avoid the rush.

EDITED TO ADD: Here's a good idea from a Facebook commenter that I wish we'd done: If you have time, go around the inside and outside of your house and take a video of everything. It will help with insurance and other tasks later.

IF YOU HAVE LOST EVERYTHING: Take some time to gather your wits, then make a list. Every day, check things off that list and then, tomorrow, make a new one. 

Contact your insurance company. They probably already have a platoon of representatives in the area who will meet with you and may be able to cut a check on the spot. Register with Red Cross and FEMA. Get a FEMA number: that number will be a key to unlocking many services, resources and discounts. 

Get a P.O. box or ask a trusted friend to handle your mail, and submit a change-of-address form to the post office. 

Look out for scams, especially fake government websites. 

If you can get to your property, take photos of everything from every angle. If you can't get to your property, be patient. This is difficult; you want to go home. But there is really nothing you can do there and the authorities are making sure it's safe, searching for bodies, etc. It may be weeks before you get in. That's OK. 

Be willing to accept help. I can't tell you how many people after our fire said, "I don't need it, give it to someone who needs it more." Today, that someone is you. Take it. 

Don't make any rash decisions. Nothing needs to be done RIGHT NOW. You're in a marathon, not a sprint. Get something accomplished every day, but take it as easy on yourself as you can. 

Finally, I'll recommend three trusted Web resources:

After the Fire USA https://afterthefireusa.org/ is a great clearinghouse for all firestorm-related information and resources. I know the people who run it and they're the best.

United Policyholders https://uphelp.org/ is a nonprofit that can help you understand your insurance situation and fight for your rights to get the service you paid for. 

Cal Fire https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/ has excellent advice for both preparing for and preventing wildfires, and what to do afterward.

IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO LOST EVERYTHING: Your friends or loved ones may be out of touch for a while. Don't pester them, they have a lot on their plate. 

Ask them what they need and really listen. They probably don't want piles of clothes, or teddy bears, or pots and pans, or canned food from the back of your pantry. For the next few weeks they'll be living in a motel or a friend's couch and have nowhere to put that stuff.

What we really appreciated were gift cards to big-box stores like Target, Walmart, Safeway (and, later, Home Depot), which allowed us to buy what WE thought we needed. Say what you will about those companies, but they were open and had everything we wanted in one place. When I gave similar advice before, some people commented that "cash is king" and can be spent anywhere for anything. True! That's fine! I still think it's easier to carry a few cards in your pocket than a wad of bills, and safer to mail.

Honestly, Karen and I find it very hard to watch the news because we know what those folks are going through now, and what they'll be going through for the next months and years. It's too much. They'll get through it but it's not an ordeal I'd wish on anyone. 

As for the MAGAs who are gloating, laughing, and mocking fellow Americans without showing an ounce of empathy or compassion--especially the MAGA-in-Chief who's taking the opportunity to spew playground insults and uninformed idiocy--I wish they could take just a moment to reflect on how they became such terrible people. They won't, I know. They think they're the good guys. The worst villains always do. 

Blast from the Past

Here's a find that blasted me back to the past: an email from my Mom I haven't seen in more than 20 years, written right after she first read Mom's Cancer.

When I set up Mom's Cancer as a webcomic, the domain came with a free email address that I used for a brief time before switching to another. I was doing some Internet archaeology yesterday when I found that forgotten email account, which still has 68 emails from mid-2004 sitting in it, including hers. 

Other emails are from friends, some who are still friends (Hi, Nancy!) and a couple who are dead (RIP Ronniecat). Some are from journalists asking for interviews, others from readers sharing their own cancer experiences. They comprise a fragmentary time capsule of the weeks when Mom's Cancer began to catch on and go viral that really takes me back. 

These emails are a gift, especially Mom's but also the others, particularly since I lost most of my pre-2017 email archives in our fire (long story, suffice to say they weren't recoverable). What a terrific time machine!

250 Words on Twins

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

My adult daughters are identical twins, and I apologize to them for mentioning it.

My wife Karen and I have standard answers to the usual questions. Yes, we can tell them apart—most of the time. Having two kids at once felt more than twice as hard when they were babies but might have been easier later. Etc.

Our girls have their own standard answers to the usual questions. Telepathy? No.* Different interests? Yes. Same taste in food? No. Same friends? Some. However, they can’t answer “What’s it like?” because they have nothing to compare it to.

We seldom dressed them alike and, when they were old enough to dress themselves, “seldom” became “never.” They rarely pretended to be each other. They style their hair differently. One’s left-handed, the other’s right-handed. 

They also drew so much attention when they were adorable blonde toddlers that today any notice paid to “the twin thing” makes them squirm in anguish. 

Hence my apology.

Most of the time I don’t really think about it, but once in a while I’ll just sit across the room gazing at them in amazement and think, “Huh! Twins! Damn!” 

I also believe they sometimes enjoy it. First, for a sibling bond closer than most of us will ever experience. Second, for the befuddlement on people’s faces when they figure it out, particularly if it’s someone like a long-time acquaintance who didn’t know.  

I imagine it’s a bit like being able to flex a little superpower whenever you want.

*Not that they'll admit to, anyway.

***

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250 Words on Snowballs

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I’m a Californian now, happily living in a moderate Mediterranean climate, but I was a kid in snowy South Dakota. Because all my memories of snow are those of a child who played in it rather than an adult who had to shovel and drive in it, I like it. In wintertime, I miss it.

We kids were finely attuned to snow’s many manifestations. Fluffy powder you sank into, icy crust you walked on, slushy mush that soaked through your boots. Most important was the difference between snow that packed well and snow that didn’t. 

Fashioning a perfect snowball was both science and art. Edison never tested as many lightbulb filaments as we did snowball layers, sizes, shapes and weights. 

When I was a kid, snowball fights had unwritten but universally understood rules. I don’t know if kids are even allowed to throw snowballs anymore, but in the olden days children were expendable and if one was lost in a skirmish their parents simply had another. 

A slushy snowball stung more than a regular one but was fair play, especially if it hilariously dribbled down someone’s neck. A layer of ice beneath a veneer of snow was underhanded but allowed. A hard shell of gravel was prohibited but hey, if a little gravel sneaks in, what can you do?

Of course, compacting snow around a rock core was the nadir of poor sportsmanship. There are 80-year-olds who still aren’t allowed to throw snowballs due to their lifetime bans for rock-packing.

***

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250 Words on Dubious Doggerel

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and as long as I’ve been posting stuff online I’ve marked the date by celebrating the best Christmas carol ever written. Alas, I fear you’ll need convincing.

Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” is my favorite comic strip of all time, and Kelly is in my personal pantheon of “Top Five Greatest Cartoonists Ever.” Sadly, “Pogo” is pretty much forgotten except for Pogo Possum’s Earth Day meme, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” but in the 1950s and ‘60s it was the hip thinking person’s comic strip: satirical, political, delightfully silly, and beautifully drawn. I never saw it in newspapers, but when I was 10 I discovered several “Pogo” collections on the bookshelves of my stepdad, who had been a smart college kid in its heyday. 

It was love at first sight.

Kelly excelled at doggerel. Come Christmas, “Pogo’s” cast often broke into a chorus of “Deck us all with Boston Charlie,” whose lyrics wobbled perilously but always scanned. Join me, won’t you?

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!

Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!

***

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250 Words on Patterns

[Note from Brian: I’m changing the day I post these from Monday to Tuesday. I don’t know about you, but my to-do list is packed on Monday morning, and I wouldn’t want to be lost in the shuffle.]

People are pattern-finding engines. It’s our great gift and curse.

Understanding “If X then Y” led to agriculture, industry, science, civilization. It also led to sacrificing goats to appease the rain gods because that one time we sacrificed a goat it rained.

Among my earliest memories is being entranced by patterns. In kindergarten, laying out wood tiles to make roads and railways. Spreading dominoes across the floor, not to play the game but to connect all the numbers in intricate fractals. When my grandmother gave me a bag of clothespins, I’d stay busy and quiet clipping them together in spirals and arches for hours. 

Yes, children of the 21st century, this is what kids had for fun in the mid-20th: clothespins. If we were lucky, rocks and sticks. 

Peek-a-boo is the prototypical pattern-finding activity. Cover your face and then reveal the same expression a few times in a row. On the next reveal, stick out your tongue. Even an infant will laugh because they perceived the pattern and then you broke it, subverting expectations, which is the basis for much humor. Peek-a-boo may be our species’ first joke.*

I think being able to recognize patterns, and then discern the difference between true and false patterns, is fundamental to being a good, informed human and citizen. Distinguishing between goat sacrifice and the scientific method, or being able to spot pattern-breaking lies, hypocrisies and scams, is our gift and responsibility. 

If only it were more common.

* Either that or a fart.

***

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It's Sentimental, I Know

If you're playing along at home, in previous posts I arrogantly confidently declared that there are only four good Christmas songs. The Top Three are "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love, and "River" by Joni Mitchell. 

Now, who could argue with those?

I expect my fourth pick to be both unknown to many of you and more controversial: "White Wine in the Sun" by Tim Minchin.

"Controversial" because Minchin is an Australian atheist, so his song has neither conventional snow-covered sleigh-bell escapades--Christmas being in the summer down under--nor paeans to the holy babe in a manger. "White Wine in the Sun" acknowledges that, and then asks: if you take away the traditional trappings and reasons for the season, what do you have left? Minchin's answer: still something pretty great and worth celebrating. 

I admit that this probably isn't a tune you'll add to your Christmas party playlist, but I make a point to listen to it at least a couple of times per holiday season. I think about my kids and family, and people who aren't here anymore. Like my other three choices, it makes me happy and sad at the same time.

Maybe that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

I hope you have a good one.

The Trump of Doom!

 Friday the 13th actually falls on a Friday this month, which makes today the rare perfect day to brag (not "humble brag," this is just a straight-up "brag brag") that I own the original art to this "Pogo" comic strip celebrating cartoonist Walt Kelly's favorite date. You can see the blue pencil underdrawing in this scan (the actual strip is four panels across; I stacked it 2x2 to fit better on the Web). 

The "Pogo" characters' terror of Friday the 13th was a running gag of Kelly's. If the 13th didn't happen to fall on a Friday, that just proved how sneaky it was, while a 13th that coincided with a Friday was a perfect storm of misfortune. Such whimsical foolishness is one of the reasons "Pogo" and Kelly are among my Top Five favorite comic strips and cartoonists, respectively.

I Would Teach My Feet to Fly

In recent posts I've declared, based on no evidence or rigorous argument whatever, that there are only four good Christmas songs, and that "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love are Numbers One and Two, respectively. 

Number Three is "River" by Joni Mitchell.

"River" is barely a Christmas song, despite opening with the lyrics "It's comin' on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, they're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace," sung to a mournful off-key variation of "Jingle Bells" (which itself isn't necessarily a Christmas song, either). Although Mitchell recorded "River" in 1971, it didn't take off as a holiday standard until Linda Ronstadt covered it in her album "Merry Little Christmas" in 2000. 

Still . . . It has everything I look for in a Christmas song. Melancholy. Nostalgia. Lamenting lost love. Longing for simpler times in a different place with deeper roots.

When she wrote "River," Mitchell was a Canadian transplant living in Los Angeles. Aside from being an emotionally raw break-up song, "River" has a deep undercurrent of homesickness, too. I relate. I lived my childhood in South Dakota, where we had prodigious snowfall and really did skate on frozen ponds. Then I moved to a part of northern California where it never snows. It's not quite as dramatic as the contrast between Mitchell's hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and sunny southern California, but every winter I get wistful. Christmas just isn't Christmas to me if you can go outdoors in a short-sleeved shirt. 

More than 400 other artists have recorded versions of "River," and Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 247 on its list of "500 Best Songs of All Time." Plus: it's Joni Mitchell. Hard to go wrong. 

 

Baby Please Come Home

A few days ago, I declared that there are only four good Christmas songs. Despite hearing from many who suggested other tunes I should give a chance, I stand by that. The best Christmas song is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland. Accept no substitutes. 

The second best is "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love, and I have to explain that my opinion is completely colored by watching Love's many joyful, soulful performances of the song on David Letterman's late-night TV programs. First in 1986, and then from 1994 through 2014, Letterman ended his last show before Christmas break with Love belting out the song she first recorded in 1963.

Every year, Letterman's band and stage crew made each performance more spectacular than the last while staying faithful to the original song. To that end, Letterman's bandleader, Paul Shaffer, bought the baritone saxophone that Wrecking Crew session player Steve Douglas played on the original record from Douglas's estate. When Shaffer's saxophonist, Bruce Kapler, said he'd have his horn mechanic fix it up, Shaffer said, "Just don't take out any of the dents." Aside from not wanting to affect the instrument's unique sound, Shaffer explained that one of the dents was acquired when Elvis knocked it over during the filming of "Jailhouse Rock." When Kapler steps forward for his sax solo, that's the real deal.

The annual performance also gave Love, who in 1986 was largely forgotten, a new late-in-life career. She is currently 83 and still singing, acting, and receiving all the accolades she's due.

Historical trivia: one of Love's background singers in 1963 was a 17-year-old Cher.

Darlene Love with Cher in 1963.
The guy in the shades is producer Phil Spector.

On its own merits, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is the rare Christmas song that legitimately rocks. If you were in that theater, you'd be on your feet! It's got that hint of melancholy I appreciate, telling a story of lovers separated during the holidays. In addition, Love's Letterman performances are a link to half a century of popular music, plus a couple of decades of me sitting in front of a TV until 12:30 a.m. waiting for Darlene to announce that Christmas had truly begun. 

250 Words on Cultivating Greatness

[Note from Brian: I’m changing the day I post these from Monday to Tuesday. I don’t know about you, but my to-do list is packed on Monday morning, and I wouldn’t want to be lost in the shuffle.]

Nobody but the rarest prodigy is born great. The best athletes, artists, or scientists in the world were not great when they were 5 years old. They were just great for 5-year-olds.

What happens after that? You become the class athlete, artist or brainiac. You may get praise from teachers, status among peers, support from parents. You begin to study and master the thing you’re good at and get more positive feedback for that. Maybe you join a team, class or club to learn from others who excel at it. You practice for hours, not because you have to but because it lights up your brain like nothing else. Repeat that loop for years and, if you have the necessary physical and mental tools, you too could be great.

Unless you burn out. As Charles Schulz wrote for Linus to say, “There’s no heavier burden than a great potential!” Encouragement easily twists into discouraging pressure. Happens all the time. My daughters had a friend who was a talented athlete and could have gotten a university scholarship in her sport, but by the time she graduated high school she was done. It was no fun anymore. 

Also, being a wunderkind rarely ages well. Competitors catch up. Skills that dazzle the world when you’re 10 aren’t as impressive at 30.

Self-motivation is the key. Do it because you love it, because you can’t imagine not doing it. Ironically, you only become the best when you realize your only true competition is yourself.

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We'll Muddle Through Somehow

I am weary of carols. If I never heard another Christmas song by Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Burl Ives, Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney or Mannheim Steamshovel again, I'd consider that a life happily spent. 

There are four good Christmas songs. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland is at the top. No other version will do. First, because it's melancholy, the season's best emotion (Karen finds this dumbfounding, but I maintain Christmas is best met with a tinge of bleakly nostalgic sadness). 

Second, because it's from the movie "Meet Me in St. Louis," released in November 1944. I can only imagine how the original lyrics--"Next year all our troubles will be miles away . . . Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow"--would have hit audiences like a sledgehammer during the separations and deprivations of World War 2. There wouldn't have been a dry eye in the house. Frank Sinatra and subsequent singers rewrote the lyrics because they thought they were too depressing, but for when they were composed, they're perfect.

Third, because it's Judy Garland.