Category: books

Reading My Old Book in a New Light

Sena bought me a wonderful new lamp to read by and it improves on the ceiling fan light I wrote about the other day (And Then a Light Bulb Went Off).”

The new lamp even has a nifty remote control with which you can choose the ambient feel. There are several selections, one of which is called “breastfeed mode,” a new one on me. There’s a light for that?

The lamp arrived at about the same time I got a notice from my publisher for my one and only book, “Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry,” that people are still buying—after 14 years! My co-editor was my former psychiatry department chair, Dr. Robert G. Robinson. As far as I know, Bob has dropped off the face of the earth. I hope he’s well.

Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry is probably about the same as I left it when I retired 4 years ago. I walked all over the hospital trying to help my colleagues in medicine provide the best possible care for their patients. I put in several miles and stair steps a day. I saw myself as a fireman of sorts, putting out fires all over the hospital. I got a gift of a toy fire engine from a psychiatrist blogger in New York a long time ago.

Now I walk several miles on the Clear Creek Trail, like I did yesterday and the day before that. I have shin splints today, which tells me something—probably overdid it.

So, I’m taking a break from walking and reading an old book in a new light.

Because I Wanted a Hurts Donut…

I got an urge for a Hurts Donut so I walked on the Clear Creek Trail to Coralville get to the little hole in the wall shop. You can easily walk to several places in Coralville on the trail. Actually, I wanted to also check out the Coralville Public Library and see S.T. Morrison Park. I’ve never been to that park so it was a novelty all by itself.

It took about 45 minutes to walk to that part of town. It’s great exercise and beats the traffic. You have to walk under some railroad tracks and there’s a sign warning you not to stand in the culvert below while the train is passing over the top. I can see why.

There are funny signs in the rustic Hurts Donut shop. You can see the corny “Wanna hurts donut?” jokes on the walls. There’s another sign saying “School is important but donuts are importanter,” which reminds me of my coffee mug which says sort of the same thing about cribbage: “Education is important but cribbage is importanter.”

The Old-Fashioned donuts there are so good, but so bad for you. I had two.

The Coralville Public Library has a beautiful skylight. I haven’t been in a public library for ages and so it was fascinating to see that libraries haven’t changed much.

In fact, after I found one of Dave Barry’s books, “Dave Barry Book of Bad Songs,” (published in 1997; I had a copy but it got lost in a move) I asked one of the librarians about the old rule I learned as a kid. You might remember it too if you’re old enough. When you pick a book off the shelf and go to a reading room to look it over—can you just put it back on the shelf where you found it or do you have to give it the librarian who will reshelve it?

If you guessed that you have to give it to a librarian, you’re right and you’ve probably dated yourself. The librarian joked that some things never change. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Among the things that never change are the difficult to understand lyrics in some songs. Dave Barry wrote a whole chapter about it in the Book of Bad Songs, “Songs People Get Wrong.” He mentions one of them, which I always got wrong but never told anyone about it because it was embarrassing. It’s a lyric in the song “Blinded by the Light” that Barry said was done by Bruce Springsteen, but which I didn’t hear until Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covered it.

So, here’s my deal with that lyric. I always heard “wrapped up like a douche” instead of “revved up like a deuce.” Barry notes that many people made the same mistake. Funny thing, Barry never mentions what that common mistake is called and it’s a mondegreen (a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from mishearing the lyrics of a song). Music is important but mondegreens are importanter.

I finally saw Morrison Park and it’s a very restful place. You can contemplate the sculpture which is placed in the center of a pond. Ducks paddle around it. It’s called “Silver Lilly” and it was made by Professor Hu Hung-shu. Art is important.

Saying Goodbye to Zem the Mattress

We’re saying goodbye to Zem the mattress. This raises important questions. Who the heck is Zem? Why does a mattress have a name? If you’ve ever read Douglas Adams’ book “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Five Novels and One Story,” you’d probably wonder why anyone should ask.

The name Zem is given to every mattress that exists. According to the Guide, mattresses were once living beings who were slaughtered (not clear who slaughters them) and sold throughout the Universe. They are friendly, talkative, and originate on Sqornshellous Zeta, a swampy planet on which Zem the mattress has a long, idiotic conversation with a depressed robot named Marvin. It’s true, at least in Adams’ book. Find it in Chapter 7 of “Life, The Universe and Everything.”

This raises the issue of how to replace a mattress. It’s a difficult thing and it’s likely there are exceptions to the rule that all mattresses have to go to the junkyard.

I should say that the crude drawing of our Zem is an original work by me, using Microsoft Paint. It’s definitely not made by something called Image Creator. Recently, Windows 11 added Image Creator to Paint, which claims to be able to create drawings just by clicking on the AI icon—which appears almost everywhere nowadays.

It’s getting harder to ignore, but I did. That explains why my drawing of Zem looks like it was made by a 4-year-old child. It’s a form of protest against AI. I’m not sure how long I can hold out. I suspect that AI will eventually learn to disguise itself as something completely innocent without formally introducing itself as AI.

Anyway, like most people, it was challenging to find a new home other than the landfill for Zem. It turns out there is an informal underground railroad leading to new homes for Zem. Zem can be recycled, or at least some parts of it can be repurposed, which don’t include going back into mattress production.

And, there are places like Salvation Army, Goodwill, and homeless shelters which may publicly refuse to take Zem—but then not always stick to the rules on the signs. The websites may say they won’t adopt Zem, even if it doesn’t have a port wine stain on its face. On the other hand, there are circuitous, by word of mouth only code talkers who guide you (sometimes from half-closed doors) to what “could” be a new home for Zem, but you didn’t hear it from them. That rhyme was unintentional, but it worked.

The process is a little like the old TV show “Hogan’s Heroes,” in which Stalag 13 outwardly looked like a prison camp, but contained cleverly disguised nooks, crannies, and tunnels which allowed trips to the Dairy Queen if inmates were so inclined.

It turns out Zem might have a new home—but you didn’t hear it from me.

People Remember Hurricane Edna

The hurricane season this year continues to be deadly, and they are not named after women anymore. That stopped in 1979; how and why it stopped is quite a story in itself. The latest one is named Milton, which is a benign sounding name, but the storm is anything but that.

I was reminded of the custom of naming hurricanes after women last night when I reread E.B. White’s essay, “The Eye of Edna.” The essay is subtitled with place and date: Allen Cove, September 15, 1954. It was published in a collection “Essays of E.B. White in 1977 by HarperCollins. It was published originally in the New Yorker, according to an online quote from his essay.

I’m too young to remember Edna. When I did a web search of the term “The Eye of Edna,” I got many hits for both the essay and the hurricane. Reading White’s essay is a treat because he makes fun of how radio news reporters and the people in Maine who were listening to the radio reacted to the weather reports about Edna. Radio reporters often seemed disappointed about the lack of heavy rain and high winds.

I found the abstract of an article published a 1958 issue of the Journal of Meteorological Sciences which the driest summary of Hurricane Edna I could possibly imagine:

“Kessler, E., 1958: EYE REGION OF HURRICANE EDNA, 1954. J. Atmos. Sci., 15, 264–270, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1958)015<0264:EROHE>2.0.CO;2.

Abstract

The eye region of Hurricane Edna (1954) is studied with the principal aid of radar and dropsonde data. Vertical sections show that over the eye there was a thick layer derived from the wall cloud which bounded the eye on the northeast. Precipitation fell from this upper layer into drier air beneath. A reasonable mechanism is thereby suggested by which large moisture values can become associated with air in the eye without producing the wet bulb potential temperatures or high winds characteristic of the rain-filled masses outside the eye.

Radar data giving the height of the “bright band” or melting level show that the warm core structure of Edna was most pronounced within the radius if maximum surface winds. The result is qualitatively confirmed by soundings and by comparison of surface winds and the speeds of radar weather elements in various portions of the storm. The radar photographs also show that heavy precipitation near the eye of Edna was bounded sharply in the western semicircle along an east-west line through the center of the storm. This boundary must be associated with a rather large change of vertical air speeds and therefore has special dynamic significance.”

If you read it the citation too quickly, you might misread the journal’s abbreviated name as my own. It’s actually J. Atmos—not J. Amos.

There is a much more vividly emotional account of Hurricane Edna in the Vineyard Gazette’s 2014 online story, along with a video.

The bottom line is hurricanes are deadly storms, no matter what people name them. Everybody, including E.B. White, would agree on that.

And Then a Light Bulb Went Off

I was sitting in my office last night trying to read a book and noticed that the overhead light on the ceiling fan wasn’t providing enough light. The next morning I flipped the switch and could see through the glass globe cover that one of the bulbs was out. It flickered on about a half hour later and then went out again.

When I got the ladder out and tried to remove the cover, it wouldn’t budge. There weren’t any screws on it, so I looked at a few YouTubes to learn how to remove it. Lot’s of people were using tools and, of course, duct tape. Some methods looked dangerous.

For me, the most helpful hint came from a Wikihow lesson. The first example suggested using those rubber dishwashing gloves. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it right away because I use them to twist off stubborn lids on food jars. It worked on the fan light cover.

Sometimes the simple, old-fashioned tricks for solving problems are the best. In fact, it reminded me of what I’d been reading by the dim light. It was an essay by E.B. White from his book, Essays of E.B. White. The title was “The Winter of the Great Snows,” published by HarperCollins in 1977. Copyright restrictions prevent me from quoting directly, but his point was that tackling challenges with common sense and safety in mind is a good idea.

There are many light bulb moments in life that I’ve missed. I appreciate any help I can get.

A Game of Darts in Frankenstein Movies

I just saw the 1939 film “Son of Frankenstein” on Svengoolie last night. There was a double feature, but I didn’t see the second movie.

I’m anything but a movie reviewer and all I’m going to do is point out a parody of the dart throwing scene between Wolf Frankenstein and Inspector Krogh in “Son of Frankenstein” of the scene in the 1974 movie, “Young Frankenstein” starring Gene Wilder as the son of Frankenstein.

The dart throwing scenes are similar enough in both films to make me laugh. The comedic effect in “Young Frankenstein” of Inspector Kemp (played by Kenneth Mars) slapping his wooden arm around and sticking the darts into it is immediately obvious. While somewhat overshadowed by the “Son of Frankenstein,” melodrama, I couldn’t help but notice the similar behavior of Inspector Krogh (played by Lionel Atwill) goofing around with his wooden arm as well.

You can compare the YouTube dart throwing scene (see below) in “Young Frankenstein” with that of the last few minutes of the “Son of Frankenstein” in the scene starting about 1 hour 32 minutes in on the Internet Archive full movie.

I’m only sorry that I’m not up to the task of comparing either film to the original novel on which all the Frankenstein movies were more or less based: “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,” written by Mary Shelley. I never read it. I skimmed the Wikipedia article about it. The section about the novel’s reception finishes with the idea that the novel asks fundamental questions about why we’re here and what our purpose is. Has anyone ever answered them?

A game of darts, anyone?

Thoughts on the Big Mo Pod Show “Funkin’ Down the Highway”

This is a post about the Big Mo Pod Show we heard last night on the KCCK FM radio dial 106.9. Incidentally, the KCCK fund drive was enormously successful this year, earning $100,000 in donations, according to Big Mo (aka John Heim) himself.

One item is the cover by Buddy Miles of the song “Tobacco Road.” This rendition was different from performances by other artists. Big Mo liked it and so did I. I did a little web search on it because I couldn’t catch all the lyrics. It was originally done by John D. Loudermilk in 1960. Miles’ version is essentially the same.

What interested me even more about “Tobacco Road” are the associations I have about it with specific literary works. I’ll admit I’ve never read nor seen the film adaptations of Erskine Caldwell’s books, “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.” But one of my favorite short stories by James Thurber is “Bateman Comes Home,” which was published in a collection entitled “The Thurber Carnival,” in a hardcover edition in 1945. You’ve got to read it to get a sense of how comical the parody is of the regional dialect used in Caldwell’s novels. In fact, Thurber himself gives the game away about his intent in writing “Bateman Comes Home” by adding a wry comment as a subtitle:

Written after reading several recent novels about the deep south and confusing them a little—as the novelists themselves do—with “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.”

He also adds another comment at the end of the short story: “If you keep on long enough it turns into a novel.”

The other thing I noticed about the podcast last night is that one of the songs which was not included in the list, “Joliet Bound,” was performed by an artist I haven’t heard of, the Reverend Shawn Amos, who is no relation to me, of course. But my background as a psychiatrist made me take special notice of details about his family, one of which is that his mother, Shirl-ee Ellis, a singer herself, had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Sadly, she eventually died by suicide. Shawn Amos is also the youngest son of the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie founder, Wally Amos (again, no relation), although I’ve gotten a lot of friendly ribbing about that.

The song “Joliet Bound” is about a guy who expresses that he’s wrongly accused of killing a man over a woman and is on his way to Joliet prison in Joliet, Illinois. The Joliet Prison is a tourist destination nowadays and has other distinctions attached to it. It was featured in the 1980 film, the Blues Brothers. There were some famous inmates there, among them John Wayne Gacy, who was once evaluated and diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by psychiatrists at The University of Iowa in 1968 as described in Dr. Donald Black’s book, “Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy).”

Congratulations KCCK Radio!

University of Iowa Writing Programs Get High Ranking from U.S. News & World Report

The University of Iowa ranks No. 9 across all universities in the country for its power in the writing disciplines., according to the 2024 U.S. News & World Report.

The school is well known for its writing programs of which the The Writers Workshop is the best known.

The University of Iowa also gives medical students a leg up on writing in its Writing and Humanities Program, which offers courses such as writing and medicine and editorial writing.

This reminds me of a couple of things, one of which was the University of Iowa medical school note service. Many medical schools have note services so that not all students have to write their own lecture notes. It’s ironic in a way that one of the best known public medical schools didn’t encourage all the medical students to labor over their own class notes. I volunteered once to write notes for the class. It was hard work.

The other thing writing education at the University of Iowa reminds me of is the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk. There are several plaques along Iowa Avenue which honor famous authors who had Iowa connections, often through the Iowa Writers Workshop. My favorite is one by Kurt Vonnegut, a former teacher at the workshop.

Can Artificial Intelligence Learn from My Book?

Recently the publisher of a book co-edited by me and my former psychiatry chair Dr. Robert G. Robinson asked me to sign off on a proposal to involve Artificial Intelligence (AI) in using the work.

The book, “Psychosomatic Medicine: An Introduction to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry,” is 14 years old now, but is still a practical tool for learners, at least in my opinion.

Interestingly, it looks like the publisher is also trying to contact Dr. Robinson about the proposal through me. I wonder if that means they’re having as much trouble finding him as I have.

I’ve made it clear that I have misgivings about AI, as I’ve indicated in at least one blog post about Google’s AI, which used to be called, Bard which I think has been renamed Gemini. I think AI is prone to spreading misinformation, which has been called “hallucinations” by some writers.

The publisher makes it clear that this proposal regarding AI involvement in our book is an “opt in” choice. I gather that means if I don’t opt in, they’ll continue to bug me about it until I do.

That’s unlikely to happen.

The Story So Far on the House Finch Family

The story so far on the house finch family is that the eggs are intact. We still don’t know when they might hatch. The video from yesterday shows what the birds typically do and I think it would be redundant to make videos daily. The critter cam captured over 400 video and image files in the space of almost 5 hours yesterday. The short YouTube was produced from a tiny fraction of those.

Their behavior doesn’t change from day to day. I’ll be checking the nest once a day to check on the eggs, which will cut down on the number of intrusive visits that only startle the birds.

One thought I had was about bird flu which is in the news a lot lately. The CDC web site on Avian Influenza A makes it clear that water fowl are the main wild bird transmitters, not the typical back yard songbirds.

Another thing I found was a new edition of Iowa bird expert Stan Tekiela’s book, Birds of Iowa Field Guide (new edition 2023, last one was in 2000). I think it’s a great guide, partly because it helps readers to identify bird species starting with a very simple feature—their color. The image below shows the old edition on the left and the new one on the right.

One new item about the house finch is that, rarely, males who are not well-nourished might have a yellow rather than orange or red head, chest, and rump. Another is that both males and females can get a disease that causes the eyes to crust over, leading to blindness and death.