Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #329 - Musical Monday for 1605.30 on TUESDAY

Lori with microphone
Christmas 1972
My birthday 1973 with Jeb Jacobs
Note tape recorder
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #329 - Musical Monday for 1605.30 on TUESDAY

SUBTITLED: Songs for Days

Hi Mom,

So, this is Musical Monday on Tuesday because yesterday was a cookout at Faye Luscombe's, a new friend of Dad's who lives on Gull Lake in Wildwood.

Today's theme (not that I always have a theme as mostly the theme has been either healing from grief, favourites, or good songs to sing) is songs about "days," songs specifically with the word "day" in the title.

So, here's a selection of "Days" songs. I think it's a good list. There's some classics like Pink Floyd doing "One of These Days" for the live at Pompeii film. There's the Carpenters with "Rainy Days and Mondays,"  which were all singing yesterday in the car after our Memorial Day cookout. But first, we have the three songs that first popped into my mind when I thought of this theme.

Check out the end of the blog and the PS for another (and easier) way to access all the music.

"FANTASTIC DAY" - Haircut 100 - from Pelican West - 1982




"Beautiful Day" - U2 - from All That We Can't Leave Behind - 2000

Live at Slane Castle - 2008


"These Are Days" - 10,000 Maniacs - from Our Time in Eden - 1992






"Days" - Kirsty MacColl - Kite - 1989




"All Because of You Days" Echo and the Bunnymen




"Days and Days" Concrete Blonde from Bloodletting - 1990
The Tree Café -  July 23, 1989



"Better Days" - Dianne Reeves





"Book of Days" Enya - from Shepherd Moons -1988



"Days of Apple Pie" - The Great Lakes Myth Society - from Compass Rose Bouquet




"In Between Days" - The Cure -from The Head on the Door - 1985



"Eight Days a Week" - The Beatles from Beatles For Sale -1964




"One of these Days" - Pink Floyd from Meddle - 1971

Live at Pompeii




"Rain Days and Mondays" - the Carpenters




PS: It occurs to me, now, that I may have to make a playlist for this feature or I am going to quite lose track of what songs I have posted already. I made a special Chris Tower's Musical Monday - Days playlist.

Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 331 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.31 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

The Daily Bowie #70 -"Days" - David Bowie - Reality - 2003

David Bowie with Olatz Schanbel
for Vanity Fair - 2003
The Daily Bowie #70 -"Days"


Usually I try not to repeat an album with back-to-back features, but since I decided to do a Musical Monday on Hey Mom about songs with "day" in the title, this song by Bowie named "Days" seemed necessary. I had it in the Hey Mom post, but then I loved it here.

No links or other content this time.

Just the song.

This video is a good one.

"Days" - Reality - 2003




Okay, okay. a link. I couldn't find this last night. As always, I place links more for my reading pleasure than yours.

PUSHING AHEAD OF THE DAME - "DAYS"

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Rest in peace, David. We miss you.

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.31 - 7:00

NOTE ON WHY THE DAILY BOWIE IS NO LONGER DAILY: For 53 days, I completed daily Bowie posts. My schedule is too demanding to make a post every day, so this will now be a feature that is called The Daily Bowie, but it will not be daily. I will post as I can. I will post often. But if I miss a day, I will skip it. Otherwise, I get in the position of making five Bowie posts all in one day, and that's a lot of Bowie for people to swallow all at once... (yeah, leaving that badly phrased, innuendo packed statement. I bet Bowie would have laughed at it).

Monday, May 30, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #328 - MEMORIAL DAY

Mom and Lori - Memorial Day - 1976
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #328 - MEMORIAL DAY

Hi Mom,

I have been sharing MUSICAL MONDAY on Mondays, but this week Musical Monday will be shared on Tuesday because today is Memorial Day. I am thinking about you, Mom, but I am also thinking about all those who have died, especially those who have fallen in service to our country.

I saw a video on ESPN this morning featuring Babe Ruth, but I cannot find a clip of it to share. This clip here is not as good, but it features historical photos, which is my main reason to share it.

Memorial Day was always a big deal with you, Mom. We spent so many years going to all those cemeteries around where you grew up, but most important was the Delbridge headstone where your mother was buried.

I know I was not always enthusiastic and willing to be along on these trips. I am sorry for all the times I was brat when you were just trying to acknowledge those who are no longer with us, especially your mother.

I am think the same things today, Mom.

Military Outreach Memorial Day Tribute 2016



ESPN posted it!! Here's the video I mentioned earlier. The embed version doesn't seem to work.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:15790049


Lori and Mom - 1976

Me and Mom - 1976

Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 330 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.30 - 11:14

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #327 - 17 genre-defining science fiction books


Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #325 - 17 genre-defining science fiction books

Hi Mom, I am re-sharing content again today as a time-saver, because I like this content, and because I am sort of, partially on vacation.

I love tackling these subjects because I learn things, such as I did not know there was a Center for Science Fiction (SF) at the University of Kansas.

I wish I could afford to go to the MidAmerica con at the university in August. Maybe next year.

Here's some good links.

DEFINITIONS OF SCIENCE FICTION

DEFINING SCIENCE FICTION - SFCENTER KU

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS - GUNN CENTER FOR STUDY OF SCIENCE FICTION

I also like that I found Life Hacker, which is a cool site that I did not know until I stumbled across this article, and I have no memory of how I came across this article.

I like that I have  read MOST of these books. I have not read Dhalgren. My memory of the Forever War is very sketchy. And I probably could devote some time to re-reading many of these books, especially The Left Hand of Darkness and The Wind Up Girl. But I am happy to say I have read several of these books more than once, and Snow Crash is one of  my all-time favorites and a touchstone for my work with the major world-building novel project that I have played with off and on for the last 20+ years (22 to be precise).

But why 17 books?

Why not expand to 20 books or even 25 and include some rather obvious omissions, such as Octavia Butler, John Brunner, or Kim Stanley Robinson, though I am sure I could think of others. But work of individuals who "changed" the genre would take some more thought.

Most important, after years of waiting, Dhalgren is available as an unabridged audio book, so I am going to be reading that one some time soon.

Meanwhile, though you do not care about this subject very much, here's the Life Hacker article.

As always, thanks for reading.

LIFE HACKER - SF BOOKS THAT FOREVER CHANGED THE GENRE

17 Science Fiction Books That Forever Changed The Genre

best Science Fiction Books
Speculative fiction is the literature of change and discovery. But every now and then, a book comes along that changes the rules of science fiction for everybody. Certain great books inspire scores of authors to create something new. Here are 21 of the most influential science fiction and fantasy books.
These are books which clearly inspired a generation of authors, and made a huge splash either in publishing success or critical acclaim. Or both. And these are in no particular order.

#1 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams(1979)

best Science Fiction Books
The first (maybe only) science-fiction-comedy-multimedia phenomenon, Hitchhiker’s was a radio drama before it was a book, and the book sold 250,000 copies in its first three months.The Guardian named it one of the 1000 novels everyone must read, and a BBC poll ranked it fourth, out of 200, in their Big Read poll.
Ted Gioia comments on Adams’ hilarious book about the trials and tribulations of Arthur Dent, the survivor of a destroyed Earth, across the universe:
“No book better epitomizes the post-heroic tone of sci-fi than Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. As the name indicates, a certain louche bohemianism permeates its pages. This is star-hopping on the cheap, pursued by those aiming not to conquer the universe, but merely sample its richeson fewer than thirty Altairian dollars per day. You can trace the lineage of many later science fictions books, with their hip and irreverent tone, back to this influential and much beloved predecessor.”

#2 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (1870)

best Science Fiction Books
Verne’s whole career is full of works that have inspired generations of authors — but this tale of the underwater adventure of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus has also had a profound effect on science, and inspired real scientific advancement.
In the introduction to William Butcher’s book Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Self Ray Bradbury wrote that, “We are all, in one way, children of Jules Verne. His name never stops. At aerospace or NASA gatherings, Verne is the verb that moves us to space.”
Verne translator and scholar F.P. Walter added:
“For many, then, this book has been a source of fascination, surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveller Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise Dr. Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was his favourite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible.”

#3 Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney (1975)

best Science Fiction Books
Sam Anderson prefaced his interview with Samuel R. Delany with thispraise for Dhalgren‘s impact:
“In the 35 years since its publication, Dhalgren has been adored and reviled with roughly equal vigour. It has been cited as the downfall of science fiction (Philip K. Dick once called it “the worst trash I’ve ever read”), turned into a rock opera, dropped by its publisher, and reissued by others. These days, it seems to have settled into the groove of a cult classic. In a foreword in the current edition, William Gibson describes the book as “a literary singularity” and Jonathan Lethem called it “the secret masterpiece, the city-book-labyrinth that has swallowed astonished readers alive.”
Dhalgren has remained popular through the years, being reprinted 7 times since 1975. It was also dropped by Bantam, the original publisher, because of its willingness to tackle LGBT themes despite the fact that the Bantam version sold over a million copies and went through 19 printings.

#4 War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1898)

best Science Fiction Books
In his book about The War of the Worlds, a seminal look at an invasion of Earth by Martians, author Brian Holmsten states:
“Since 1898 the War of the Worlds has been translated into countless languages, adapted by comic books, radio, film, stage, and even computer games, and has inspired a wide range of alien invasion tales in every medium. Few ideas have captured the imagination of so many people all over the world in the last century so well.
“It is a tribute to H.G. Wells that his story of alien conquest was not only the first of its kind, but remains one of the best.”
The 1927 American reprint, it can be argued, was one of the touching-off points for the Golden Age of science fiction. It inspired John W. Campbell to write and commission invasion stories — which also prompted authors like Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak, Robert A. Heinlein and John Wyndham to do the same.

#5 Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)

best Science Fiction Books
Foundation is a sweeping tale of pyschohistory and the battle for the intellectual soul of a civilisation. and According to the BBC:
“The Foundation series helped to launch the careers of three notable science fiction authors of the succeeding generation. Janet Asimov sanctioned these novels, which were published in the late 1990s: Foundation’s Fear by Gregory Benford, Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear, and Foundation’s Triumph by David Brin.” And without a doubt it launched the imaginations of countless other writers.”
It is also worth mentioning that the Foundation series won the 1966 Hugo for best all-time series. An award that has not been given out since.
And this book’s influence goes beyond science fiction: Artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky classified Asimov “among the finest of modern philosophers,” and Nobel-prize-winning economistPaul Krugman describesFoundation as his version of Atlas Shrugged, “I didn’t grow up wanting to be a square-jawed individualist or join a heroic quest; I grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon, using my understanding of the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilisation.”

#6 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (1961)

best Science Fiction Books
The first science-fiction work to enter the New York Times Book Review’sbestseller list, Stranger sold 100,000 copies in hardcover and over five million in paperback. This book’s influence can’t be overstated. Arthur D. Hlavaty refers to Heinlein as a prototypical science-fiction author,saying:
“One of the ways human beings organise the world is by prototypes. We define a set as a typical example and a bunch of other things that are like it. For instance, when I was growing up, the prototype Writer was Shakespeare, the Artist was Rembrandt, and the Composer was Beethoven. In that way, Robert A. Heinlein has often been taken as the prototype Science Fiction Writer, and as changes and new paradigms shake the field, he still sometimes represents the science fiction of the past.”
Writer Ted Gioia looks at Stranger in a Strange Land‘s main character as a prototype for other similar characters in SF, saying: “Smith is more than a character. He is prototype of an alternative personality structure. The question of whether we can remake the human personality from the ground up.”

#7 Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (1967)

best Science Fiction Books
This series helped launch the careers of almost every major author of the New Wave. The first volume included Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, and J.G. Ballard. In his introduction to the 2002 reissue of Ellison’s anthology, contributor Michael Moorcock wrote of Ellison’s collections:
“He changed our world forever. And ironically, it is usually the mark of a world so fundamentally altered — be it by Stokely Carmichael or Martin Luther King Jr. or Lyndon Johnson, or Kate Millet — that nobody remembers what it was like before things got better. That’s the real measure of Ellison’s success.”
“Gonna Roll the Bones” by Fritz Leiber won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award for Best novelette. “Riders of the Purple Wage” a novella by Philip José Farmer tied for the Hugo Award. Samuel R. Delany got the Nebula for Best Short Story for “Aye, and Gomorrah…” Ellison was given a commendation at the 26th World SF Convention for editing “the most significant and controversial SF book” published in 1967.

#8 Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

best Science Fiction Books
Arthur C. Clarke himself had reservations about this novel, yet it sold out its first printing, 200,000 copies, in just two months after publication. Author Jo Walton writes about the first book to feature benevolent aliens who try to help the human race evolve:
“Science fiction is a very broad genre, with lots of room for lots of kinds of stories, stories that go all over the place and do all kinds of things. One of the reasons for that is that early on there got to be a lot of wiggle room.
“Childhood’s End was one of those things that expanded the genre early and helped make it more open-ended and open to possibility.
“Clarke was an engineer and he was a solidly scientific writer, but he wasn’t a Campbellian writer. He brought his different experiences to his work, and the field is better for it.”
Childhood’s End was nominated for a retro Hugo award in 2004.

#9 Ringworld by Larry Niven (1970)

best Science Fiction Books
Sam Jordison of the Guardian had this to say about Ringworld, the masterpiece that is centered around around a theoretical ring-shaped space-habitat:
“Larry Niven’s 1970 Hugo award winner, Ringworld, is arguably one of the most influential science fiction novels of the past 50 years. As well as having had a huge impact on nearly all subsequent space operas (Iain M Banks’ Culture series and Alastair Reynolds’ House of Suns are just two), the book has helped generate a multi-billion-dollar industry.”
To add to this Jonathan Cowie, who wrote Essetial SF: A Concise Guide,called Ringworld “a landmark novel of planetary engineering (for want of a better term) that ranks alongside the late Bob Shaw’s Orbitsville.”
Niven later added four sequels and four prequels which tie into numerous other books set in Known Space; the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories.

#10 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)

best Science Fiction Books
The Left Hand of Darkness was one of the most popular science fiction novels of the 1970s. It won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1969 for “best novel” and established Le Guin’s status as a major author of science fiction.
Jo Walton, again, comments on this novel about interstellar diplomacy and anthropology:
“The Left Hand of Darkness didn’t just change science fiction — it changed feminism, and it was part of the process of change of the concept of what it was to be a man or a woman.
“The battle may not be over. What I mean is that thanks in part to this book we’re standing in a very different place from the combatants of 1968.”
In 1994 literary critic Harold Bloom included it in his Western Canon of Literature, going as far as to say, “Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time.”

#11 Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)

best Science Fiction Books
By 2007, this cyberpunk classic had sold more than 6.5 million copies. It’s been adapted into almost every genre, and it’s responsible for introducing numerous terms, and, arguably, the idea of the internet.
The Encyclopedia of NewMedia calls Neuromancer more important thanOn the Road in its cultural influence, and credits its formative influence on subsequent media, from Wired magazine to The X-Files.
After the initial inventions of the ARPANET, Paul T. Riddell writes, the internet took shape due to “impressionable students reading [Gibson’s] stories and novels; instead of whining and complaining after reading Robert Anton Wilson, they read Gibson and thought, ‘You know, we can do this.'”
Neuromancer was the first novel to win all three of the major science-fiction awards — – the Nebula, the Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award for paperback original. Fittingly for the gandfather of cyberpunk, the novel was later released as a hypertext-annotated HyperCard stack for the Apple Macintosh.

#12 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)

According to the New York Times, Stephenson’s look at the way humans interact with digital worlds has a well-earned reputation for prescience:
“Snow Crash was published way back in ancient 1992 and laid out many of the attributes of today’s online life, including the Metaverse, a virtual place where people meet, do business and play, presenting themselves as avatars.
“If you’ve ever played wildly popular multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, or visited the virtual communities of Second Life, you can get a chill thinking about what he saw back before the popularization of the World Wide Web.”
Despite the reputation of his book, Stephenson is pretty reluctant to take on the title of “Seer” saying in the same article, “I can talk all day long about how wrong I got it. But there are a lot of people who feel as though that was an accurate prediction.”

#13 Wind-Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)

The growing trend of climate-focused science fiction, and a greater attention to future problems in general, owes a lot to this great book about the very real problem of future food shortages. In this biopunk SF novel (a Hugo and Nebula award winner) Emiko is a humanoid GM organism, who is enslaved as a prostitute in Thailand. She yearns for an escape. Niall Harrison, judge of the Arthur C. Clarke award in 2006 and 2007, writes:
“Emiko is a stepping-stone to that future; and by the logic of The Windup Girl, so are we all. From our point of view, it’s hardly an optimistic conclusion but it is, in The Windup Girl’s terms, a very human one, and I can’t recall another novel that has articulated the same vision of what it means to be human in the present moment with the same force.
“It’s that vision that insists that Emiko is human, and that she remains bound at the end of the novel: because we remain bound, and she is us; because at least for now, science fiction remains bound; and because, quite probably, so does our world.”

#14 The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1979)

The Forever War (1974) is a military science fiction novel by Joe Haldeman that follows the United Nations Exploratory Force being assembled for a war against an alien race known as Taurans. Michael M. Jones explains what makes this book distinct from previous works of military science fiction:
“The Forever War is a masterpiece of military science fiction and social observation, applicable on numerous levels. While some aspects might be far-fetched, there’s no denying that it’s a powerful work.
“William Mandella is no career soldier like many of the military SF heroes out there; certainly not like Johnny Rico in Starship Trooper. He’s just an ordinary guy who gets drafted, and has the bad luck to actually survive the war.”
Haldeman won Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards for this book, and along with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, it helped inspire generations of more realistic military SF authors.

#15 Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1969)

Salon’s Michael Schmidt writes about the way Vonnegut changed the war novel by using aspects of science-fiction:
“Doris Lessing calls him “moral in an old-fashioned way . . . he has made nonsense of the little categories, the unnatural divisions into ‘real’ literature and the rest, because he is comic and sad at once, because his painful seriousness is never solemn.”
“His acknowledgment and expression of the nuanced nature of experience makes him “unique among us; and these same qualities account for the way a few academics still try to patronize him.” As though what he does is easier than the resolved plotting of more derivatively artful novelists.”
After a school tried to ban this novel, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library offered 150 free copies of the book to students in Rockville, Missouri.

#16 The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)

Ray Walters at geek.com explains why this book was influential on not just literature, but also science:
The Martian Chronicles is a collection of loosely related fictional stories depicting humanities struggle to flee from the potential of nuclear war on Earth to try and find refuge on the Red Planet. Many of the ideas Bradbury put forth in the novels seemed fantastical at the time, but modern day efforts to explore Mars smack of the science fiction writer’s vision of what it would be like to visit there.
“While Bradbury is seen primarily as an author who had a profound effect on his literary genre, in reality his reach has been much wider. While his novels may not be required reading in our schools anymore (which blows my mind), his ideas are talked about everyday with the people uttering the words usually not knowing the origins of the topics they are discussing. Ray Bradbury will certainly be missed, not just for his amazing science fiction writing, but also for his visionary foresight into cultural phenomenons.”
NASA put a burned DVD containing The Martian Chronicles on the hull of the Phoenix Martian Rover.

#17 Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)

science fiction books you need to read
Scott Timberg at the L.A. Times says Frank Herbert’s epic novel, in which noble houses battle for control of each others’ planets, was not just massive but ground-breaking:
“Writers had imagined life on other planets and written of environmental catastrophe. But the scale of Dune was unprecedented, comparable, as Arthur C. Clarke said at the time, only to “The Lord of the Rings.”
It’s not quite New Wave — which developed in the late 1960s — not an antecedent to cyberpunk, nor a precursor to the recent space-opera renaissance. “It’s some kind of singularity,” says Latham.
“Dune” both channeled and stoked a greater environmental consciousness in SF: Important later novels by Ursula Le Guin, John Brunner and Octavia Butler looked at planetary ecology.
Dune won the Hugo award in 1966 as well as the very first Nebula award.
It’s almost impossible to fit all of the most game-changing works of science fiction and fantasy into one article. Which books do you think should be on this list, and why?
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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 329 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.29 - 10:10


NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #326 - Feeling Old



Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #326 - Feeling Old

Hi Mom, Just a cartoon today.

Feeling old.

Thank you xkcd.

If you are a reader and have not checked out xkcd, now is a good time to click the link below.

It will make you feel less old.

xkcd - Feel Old


Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 328 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.28 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #325 - Piper's Recital

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #325 - Piper's Recital

Hi Mom, So, Liesel and I went to Piper's recital last night. Below find the comments she made on Facebook and I shared and the video that has "extra" effects added by her father.

This kind of thing is actually the kind of show and tell I would have done with you when you were alive. I felt you very strongly over my shoulder at the recital, and now, as I type these words, I feel you very strongly also.

We are all very proud of Piper. She is very talented, which is what I told her. She has started auditioning for roles in area theatre. I have encouraged her. She has a beautiful voice as you will hear.





Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 327 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.27 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #324 - Last year at this time: SCOTLAND

St. Andrews - May 26, 2015

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #324 - Last year at this time: SCOTLAND

Hi Mom, Last year on May 26th, Liesel and I were in Scotland. Specifically, we were took a drive over from Crieff, where we were staying, to St. Andrews.

I had a whole route planned that would allow us to loop back to Crieff by going through Dundee, which meant crossing where the River Tay meets the North Sea on Scotland's east coast. I saw some neat riverwalks in Dundee, and so I thought it would be a good pl ace for tea after spending most of the day in St. Andrews (not so much about the golf as the history and the university).

Though we found a very cool country market on our way to St. Andrews, the driving was not to Liesel's liking. I was doing my best, but St. Andrews was a bit tighter than anywhere else we had been to date. Liesel actually suggested we split up once we arrived, and maybe we should have. Still, we had a nice lunch of Indian food and saw some very cool things. I will share an assortment of pictures here from our day.

Though Liesel was not inclined to stop in Dundee and Perth on the way home, as I hoped, we did get down to the Tower Pub in Crieff, which was a highlight. It was also the site of a goal met as I heard a Clash song playing in the pub while we ate and drank. I also sipped a fine Scotch from the local Glen Turret distillery.

Now, a year later, I wish I had been more diligent about my trip journal as much of the details have faded, though my memory is aided by these photos.

For our next trip, I will be more journalish and bloggy.

I know you would have loved it all, Mom.

student housing and cool tree in a courtyard

St. Andrews Cathedral ruins

St. Andrews Cathedral ruins

St. Andrews Cathedral ruins (and my finger)

Maisha was decorated in James Bond posters from India

Maisha - lunch

The street - it just looks cool

Cool alley

just because I like the name

Care for a walk... a cool lane, part of the university

School of Psychology and Neuorscience

School of Psychology and Neuorscience

one of the coolest trees in all Scotland
obv

"in the beginning was the word..."
entrance to St. Mary's College

the Tower pub and Inn
Crieff, Scotland


Glen Turret scotch

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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 326 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.26

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.



Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #323 - More on introverts

My space ship art work - 1974?
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #323 - More on introverts

Hi Mom,

Recently, I was trying to explain to Liesel how much psychic energy it would take for me to go to the Google IO conference, which I did a week ago today.

I was trying to adjust my expectations. My initial expectations for the conference involved giving out over a dozen business cards and talking to as many people or more. I spoke with my therapist about lowering these expectations because I had them far too high. I expect too much of myself. It's a problem.

So my new expectations were simply to talk to ONE person. Maybe give out a card. Maybe get a card. That's the minimum. (I exceeded the goal.) But I was trying to explain to my wife that even that much caused me great anxiety because at heart I am an introvert. She disagreed, suggesting that I like the idea of being an introvert but that I am really an extrovert. This comment made me wonder if she really knew me at all.

I have always felt that my core personality is the introvert. I am not painfully introverted. And I have had to learn to be extroverted, and I do quite well when I am comfortable, such as in teaching or at Ultimate. Even at the grocery store, I am often able to strike up a conversation with the cashier and bagger. I am not naturally gregarious, but I am not rude, either. My wife calls this my Mr. Aloha personality. I just consider it being polite.

But if I enter a world in which I am not comfortable, especially somewhere I have never been like the Google IO conference, then I have great anxiety. I shrink into my shell. I find it difficult to strike up conversations. In these places, at these functions, I am not naturally gregarious. I do not tend to talk to people. I tend to hide in a book, or I sit off to the side and isolate myself. Last year, at the magic convention, when not with my Dad, I did not talk to very many other magicians. I gravitate naturally to the introvert role.

My wife has some valid means for comparison. Between us, she is the more introverted. I am much better at performing than she is, better at pretending to be extroverted. And in repeated performance truth emerges? Maybe. But performance was and is always a source of intense anxiety. I still dream about it all the time. But unlike when I was younger, I am no longer a slave to the anxiety. I no longer fail in the dreams. I improvise and succeed in some fashion, either spectacularly or feebly. The anxiety is still there, but it no longer controls me.

So, in like fashion, I trusted in my ability to improvise at the Google conference, and I actuallu made some connections that may last.

But when I examine this article on introversion and read the links, I am clearly an introvert. I get over-stimulated easily. I need a great deal of time to process something. I do not like risk and change.

This statement that you will read below basically describes my greatest joys: This is why introverts feel content and energized when reading a book, thinking deeply, or diving into their rich inner world of ideas.

Uh, yeah, that's me. You know this about me, Mom. But I think I got this trait more from Dad than from you.

For more on introversion, check this out: SUSAN CAIN'S THE QUIET REVOLUTION

Here's the content...

6 Illustrations That Show What It’s Like in an Introvert’s Head

FROM - THE QUIET REVOLUTION - LINK HERE

By Liz Fosslien and Mollie West


Dear Extroverts,

We love your energy and your excitement. But as introverts, we sometimes feel misunderstood. We wish you could visualize what’s going on inside our brains—you might be surprised! Here are six illustrations of what it’s like to be in our heads.

Sincerely,

Introverts

1. According to The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney, introverts have a longer neural pathway for processing stimuli. Information runs through a pathway that is associated with long term memory and planning. In other words, it’s more complicated for introverts to process interactions and events. As they process information, introverts are carefully attending to their internal thoughts and feelings at the same time.



2. According to studies by psychologist Hans Eysenck, introverts require less stimulation from the world in order to be awake and alert than extroverts do. This means introverts are more easily over-stimulated.


3. The flip side of introverts’ sensitivity to dopamine is that they need less of it to feel happy. Extroverts’ brains run on an energy-spending nervous system, whereas introverts’ brains run on an energy-conserving nervous system. This is why introverts feel content and energized when reading a book, thinking deeply, or diving into their rich inner world of ideas.




4. Introverts’ brains aren’t as strongly rewarded for gambling or taking risks as extroverts’ brains are. The brain’s reward and pleasure system is activated by dopamine neurotransmitters. Scientists found that extroverts’ brains responded with more pleasure to positive gambling results. In other words, introverts feel less excitement from surprise or risk.




5. The introvert’s brain treats interactions with people at the same intensity level that it treats encounters with inanimate objects. Introverts process everything in their surroundings and pay attention to all the sensory details in the environment, not just the people.




6. As introverts are thinking, they reach back into long-term memory to locate information. An introvert will often compare old and new experiences when making a decision, which slows the processing down but leads to carefully thought-out decisions. This means that introverts have an active dialogue with themselves and usually walk around with many thoughts in their minds.








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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 325 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.25 - 10:10


NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.