The Future Is Now

Culminating in the street date appearance of Michael Grant's BZRK, we have been hearing a lot of science fiction stuff happening NOW.  I especially liked hearing (however incidentally) about Jen-Hsun Huang's work on graphics and how the ultimate test is the human eye.  I was also tickled to hear more about nano technology right about the same time - making transistors from a single atom.

The future was predicted so many times so many years ago, like by E.M. Forster in The Machine Stops, William Gibson's titles, like Idoru, which talk smoothly about cyberspace, avatars and nanotechnology, and even Eric Flint & KD Wentworth's The Course of Empire, which among other items talked of personal comm boards.

There is something especially fascinating and horrifying about little, tiny things, smaller than can be seen by the naked eye. 

Ten years ago, Michael Crichton introduced us to micro-robots with Prey., and, even after death, Michael Crichton is able to entertain, enlighten and engender fear and horror with Micro which was subsequently finished after Crichton's death by Richard Preston, a best-seller science fiction and non-fiction writer in his own right (the only non-physician to win The Centers for Disease Control Champion of Prevention Award).  In Micro, the little, tiny things are miniaturized humans, battling the terrors of giant ants and other creatures to say nothing of the obstacles of mere giant dirt particles.

In Michael Grant's BRZK, the world of gaming meets the world of nano science, where "nano" means the being in and on the giant world of the human body while "macro" means the real world in which humans live in full-size.  The little "'bots" must navigate around cilia waving around like giant trees and watch out for the waterfall of eyedrops administered by wearers of contact lenses.  There are so many opposite forces, like yin and yang, good and evil, we have miniature machines run by humans versus biological extensions of humans run by their flesh and blood creators' mind, those who are fighting for a greater good and those who are doing it for the thrill of victory.  It's hard to say that this is simply a Young Adult book, except that most of the main characters are between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.  Like most science fiction, there's action, incidental human relationships explored and a bit of futuristic technology to titillate.  It's a good read.  And who's to say if this future is not happening right now?

Our Society Has Bigger Chinks

I have often been accused of being politico-culturally unaware of the umbrage I should take for slurs against my roots, my heritage, my group, for the discrimination, racism and violence -- malicious, thoughtless or otherwise -- against Chinese-Americans, Asian-Americans, Chinese or Asian women, women, CPAs, New Yorkers, Vassarites, et al.

I am not being flippant.  I am part of many groups and one of those groups is the wide one called Citizens of the United States of America.  I have experienced discrimination as well as outright personality conflicts throughout my life.  Is it racism for 5th grade girls to call a fellow 5th grade girl "Ching Chong?"  Or, is it just bullying?  Is it racism for ESPN's Anthony Frederico to ask about a "chink in the armor" with some reference to current phenom Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks (the real headline which I cannot quote, because I can no longer find it)?  Or, is it a writer in the fast-paced, competitive and high exposure environment of sports reporting looking narrowly at bringing the most colorful, mind-grabbing words he can to spice up a story, the wider implications of the politically correct world not considered?  The answer is YES.  I know, I know.  I usually hate it, too, when you get a yes/no answer to an either/or question, but in this case, I am deliberately saying there cannot be an either/or answer.

People are complex.  We are Americans.  Even if it is not the reality that we are inclusive of all of our diversity, we like to believe that it is the bedrock of our founding.  Our forefathers fled death and lack of opportunity due to differences in class, ethnicity, race (in that small Europe context), religion, income, political or military affiliation, and other ideas of oppression to a new and promising place where one does not get killed for not wanting to fight (imagine that), and people are not driven off their land because geographically, they lived under the protection of a defeated noble. 

No, I have nothing against those who rise up in outcry against the reference to Jeremy Lin as a "Chink in the Armor."  Yes, it was thoughtless.  Maybe, it is a reflection of the underlying, unconscious racism of this country.  No, I don't believe it was malicious.  Yes, I think the unfortunate Anthony Fredrico has learned something from this brouhaha.  Maybe others have learned something, too.  While we cannot learn and grow with being open to differences in thought, speech and result such as this one, we also cannot become and remain narrow-minded, politically correct and socially stunted or else we will (guess what?) not grow.  Let the adnascentia of a large vocabulary thrive.

Embrace the differences.  Embrace the freedom not only to vilify for any insult -- real and imagined, but also to forgive.  Lin forgave.  I forgive.  I hope we can all forgive, but not forget -- ever -- that we much be always vigilant for underlying stereotypes in our thinking and delightful wordplay in our speech.

Is a Blind Person Illiterate If He Can't Read Braille?

NPR's "All Things Considered recently reported on the decline in the number of blind people who can read.  That's right.  They don't read in Braille, maybe out of practice or maybe never learned, so in essence, they can't read.  Does that make a blind person illiterate if he can't read in Braille?  With voice-activation, voice-recognition, voice-command and voice-converting technology as well as audiobooks, RSS feeds, and apps with GPS to tell people -- sighted and blind -- where to go and what's going on, what's to read?  Sigh!  Yet another example of printed bound books (and magazines and other reading material) going into the antiquity category.

There are apps that will convert text messages into read messages (someone's reading them, but not the recipient of the text message).  There are apps that will convert voiced words into text messages to be sent.  I think there was a joke about that on another program.  One person spoke in awe about this new technology.  His companion said, "Isn't that called a telephone?"  (It is and it isn't, as text messages are more popular than ever, enabling people to keep in touch while one or the other is sitting in a meeting, at the dinner table or even in a church service.  I think this blog post might morph into a question of whether a texter is rude if he can't devote full attention to his physical presence.)

In any case, I am sure the first reaction that one has to the notion that a blind person who cannot read Braille cannot read and therefore, is, by definition, illiterate, would be denial, repulsion and horror.  Illiteracy through the ages has come to infer low intelligence, akin to saying a person is stupid to his face.  That's too rude for our politically correct society.

I have tutored adults who have wanted to learn to read.  A question one always asks is why.  This is to find the motivation within, the reason for beginning and continuing on a big challenge.  One man, who had a slight disability, had wanted to become independent and move out of his home -- open a checking account, sign a lease on an apartment, do many of the things that most of us take for granted.  During the time I tutored him, he came once to a session empty-handed, without the dozens of index cards we had made as flashcards for his home study.  He said his brother had thrown them out, saying that he was getting too uppity and didn't have to learn how to read.  Now, that's a way to keep a man down.  Another person I had tutored -- an elderly Filipina -- had wanted to read to her grandchildren, wanted to read when everyone else was reading after dinner or on a Sunday morning, and wanted to be able to shop in a big American grocery store without her son out to accompany her.  It was truly a struggle for her and I felt that I was too often impatient with her and not at all a good teacher.  I still felt bad even when her son and daughter-in-law thanked me, telling me she had learned a lot and that they would continue to help her learn as they moved the family out of Chicago to the suburbs.

So on one hand, we have adults desperately seeking redress for illiteracy, either because of English being a second language or childhood learning disabilities or family circumstances.  On the other, we have adults going blind and saying, why learn to read when there are all these other options, as if learning to read -- whether in written English or in Braille -- is an exercise for children.  We are not faced with lower i.q.; we're faced with laziness. Sorry to say, I think the answer is yes, if you can't read, you are illiterate.

Charles Dickens at 200!

Some people love his work, some people could leave it. In fact, people usually are familiar with one or two of three things about Charles Dickens:

• A Christmas Carol with Scrooge, Tiny Tim and Marley's Ghosts;
• The quote: "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." (which is the first line of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, used incessantly by pundits to describe all times); and/or
• Oliver Twist as lead character in Oliver! the Musical from which we get such memorable tunes as "Food, Glorious Food," "Consider Yourself," "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two" and "Where Is Love?" (or even, "I'm Reviewing the Situation").

Actually, A Christmas Carol by far is the most well-known of Dickens's work, but the story of Pip in Great Expectations has been known to be .  There's a great NPR item on Dickens jumping off from an exhibit at the Morgan Library in NYC (a wonderful little museum), with little known facts with which to dazzle one's friends.  He managed to save his reputation as well as his mistress and his manuscript from a train wreck?  Pshaw!  I can't see that everyone didn't know (in contemporaneous times) that heady with celebrity, he also did things outside propriety.  Only through the lens of history and forced high school reading has the reputation of Dickens as a proper, hard-working and boring person come.  And, now, there is a novel by Gaynor Arnold, Girl in a Blue Dress, based on his letters and other British Museum documents which tells a fictionalized heartbreaking story of his abandoned wife Catherine.

Who among our writers today has such celebrity?  And, one wonders in 200 (or 150 or so) years from now, who among our popular writers will be so honored.  James Patterson?  Nicholas Sparks?  Nora Roberts?  That one doubts any of these or anyone else would be so popular today and read tomorrow must be the real indicator of the decline of published writers and books as a society's source for enlightenment and entertainment.

Book Lovers Wanted - Date for Registration Extended!

To All of Our (unshy) Book Lovers --

Now you can pass along your passion for a book, literally!

On Monday, 23 April 2012, join thousands across the USA, UK, Ireland and Germany in giving away millions of copies of books to non- and light-readers.  Here in the USA, there are thirty titles from which to choose (3 choices) and here in Sauk Valley, there are so many places you can choose to give them away -- at a sports event, at the hospital, at the Y, outside a gathering place just hopping with people not thinking about books (at that moment).

And, now, the deadline for registering has been extended to tomorrow, Monday, 6 February.  With 30 titles (see list at the website (www.us.worldbooknight.org) from which to choose, the problem will be figuring out which ones you feel most passionately about. Or, if you are passionate about reading and have not yet read the English version of Jodi Piccoult's My Sister's Keeper or the Spanish version of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (also available for passing along), make the commitment and then, come in to buy the book.  We will give you a discount of 20%.

Douglas is excited about reading and passing along Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games to children at KSB.  Won't you join him with Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn Dixie?  Someone you know may be standing outside County Market that Monday, passing along Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle.  Won't you join her, maybe with copies of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner?

Join all of us today!

-Books on First, the Premier Bookseller/Coffeehouse in Sauk Valley 202 W First Street in the Heart of Downtown Dixon, IL 61021 815.285.BOOK (2665) www.booksonfirst.com