Ice Walker!

The beginning of Ice Walker: A Polar Bear’s Journey Through the Fragile Arctic is so captivating, just as The Butterfly Effect‘s opening chapters were. Hope author James Raffan is able to keep the focus on polar bears, not drift into a depiction of human activity — all self wants is nature, all the time.

What she loved so much about Eddie’s Boy, which she blazed through a few days ago, was how relentless it was. The book was about a hitman, and he stayed hitman to the very end, no apologies. She appreciates Thomas Perry’s singular focus. You would think a reader would find all the killing pretty rote by the end — but no, it stayed fresh. Again, kudos to Thomas Perry.

Chapter One of Ice Walkers (“Circling”) is gripping:

• She stops and sniffs the frigid air, with almost no vapor trail from her mouth or nose. In a frozen world where liquid freshwater for drinking is absent, she draws on metabolic water created by the burning of seal fat, her main food source. The outside air is desert dry, but the air in her lungs is humid. Somehow she is able to conserve moisture and stay sufficiently hydrated, even when running or exerting herself physically in the hunt, when a human would soon die from winter dehydration. Every one of these adaptations is a marvel that has taken untold generations to evolve. These are not physiological changes that can respond to seasonal or even annual environmental shifts.

Moving On

The days will grow longer. Then the front yard will die, as it does every summer. Self has never mowed her yard, not once in three years. The grass is a bright green, and all the different things she’s planted are green and lush and it’s beginning to look like an ecosystem. Like a balanced ecosystem. Which is what she wanted to do in the first place, though a year and a half ago, she had only a vague idea.

Onward.

She has briskly dispatched The Butterfly Effect. She skimmed the later chapters, which had a lot to do with industry and man’s ingenuity and how man depends on insects for manufacturing product, yada yada yada. She also skipped the chapter on eating bugs because, while surely fascinating, she doesn’t feel the slightest inclination to experiment in that direction.

She has three library books currently. Two of the books begin in high summer, and the third is about a polar bear in the Arctic. So she’s reading Ice Walker, because it’s cold here in her house. It’s probably best to read about polar bears when it is actually cold.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

Self Learns Something New Everyday 2

Self is so glad she is reading this book! There was a review in the Wall Street Journal, last August. She saved the review for months, finally got the book from the local library.

The Butterfly Effect, Chapter 1 (The Bug in the System):

• “Insects evolved around 480 million years ago . . . ” whereas “the earliest fossil evidence for anatomically modern Homo sapiens — discovered on a tree-speckled savannah in 2017 at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco – is a mere three-hundred thousand years old.”
• Moreover, insects used to be giant. For example: There were “gargantuan” Meganeura monyi (dragonfly-like griffinflies) with “two- to three-foot wingspans” which “made them the size of small hawks.”
• Their decline in size was likely due to “the evolution of predatory birds” as well as “reductions in atmospheric oxygen levels.”

Editor’s Note, ms. aligned 3

There’s still almost an hour before the game begins, so self can squeeze in a few more things. Self’s quote of the day is from Rebecca Thomas, Editor of ms. aligned 3: women writing about men. (Published by El Leon Literary Arts of Berkeley and Manoa Books)

For the past nine years, I have been teaching composition at West Virginia University. I primarily teach freshmen, and one of their first papers is a narrative. In so many of the narratives, students — of all genders — explore issues connected to masculinity, in particular the effects of toxic masculinity. I receive papers about abusive relationships in high school, peer pressure to act a certain way, loneliness in emotionally connecting with peers, and the very real risk and fallout from coming out. My students are young, so it’s natural that they write about their childhood, the childhood moments where they begin to construct their identity. In our class discussions and in their reflections, I see so many grappling with the concept of masculinity. How did it shape their life? How will it shape their life as they journey into adulthood?

In this Me Too era, it’s hard not to think about masculinity and how it can be toxic. Working on a college campus, I know that many of my students have been assaulted. I know that many of them are trying to find the space to talk about it, and I know that many of them are starting to test the waters of self-acceptance, to see if it’s safe to be who they are. Since I am the mother of two young boys, toxic masculinity is something that I have to consider constantly: how do we raise our children in this environment? What conversations do I need to have with my kids?

Contributors to ms. aligned 3, and series editor Pat Matsueda, will be on-hand at an online event hosted by Redwood City Library. Register here.

Here It Comes!

SUPERBOWL! Of course self has to observe the day. All her friends are off watching too, so it’s like a big Superbowl party, only . . . in different countries.

She went to the Belmont Farmers Market early this morning and came back with pork buns, which she’s going to have with cold beer. She bought a big bag of chips yesterday, but she ate the whole bag . . . yesterday.

Anyhoo. GO CHIEFS!

Self Learns New Things Every Day!

from the Introduction to The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World:

• The father of chaos theory — “small causes can have large, wide-ranging effects” — was “Edward N. Lorenz, who addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston on Dec. 29, 1972. Lorenz’s talk: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas.”
• “In 2017, scientists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for using Drosophila to understand the molecular gene responsible for controlling circadian rhythm, the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a daily cycle.” (Drosophila is the humble fruit fly)

Sentence of the Day: Edward D. Melillo

When we bite into a shiny apple or enjoy a spoonful of strawberry yogurt, listen to the resonant notes of a Stradivarius violin or watch fashion models strut down a runway, receive a dental implant or get a manicure, we are mingling with the creations of insects.

— The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World, p. 4

Onward!

Eddie’s Boy was a very satisfying read. So fleet of foot! No anguished moralizing! Only kill, kill, kill!

Next: Ice Walker: A Polar Bear’s Journey Through the Fragile Arctic, by James Raffan.

Opening Sentence:

• “Imagine you are in the International Space Station, curving over North America.

Love it!

But oh no, coming from behind is a book about insects, The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World, by Edward D. Melillo.

Self may wind up going for the insect book.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

Angela Nishimoto’s “Sex Education: A Tragicomedy, Part II” in ms aligned 3, edited by Rebecca Thomas

ms aligned 3 is a collaboration between El Léon Literary Arts (Berkeley, CA) and Manoa Books, Hawai’i. More information can be found here.

Upcoming Online Event: Redwood City Library Reading, Thursday, Feb. 25, 5:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m. Register here.

“Daniel attempted to lead me; I tried to lead him. We struggled. I pushed him on the shoulder; he pushed me back. I kicked him in the shin. Hunching, he grabbed my right hand in both of his and bit me hard.”

— Excerpt from Angela Nishimoto’s “Sex Education: A Tragicomedy, Part II” in ms aligned 3

Poetry Friday: Kimiko Hahn

To Be a Daughter
And To Have a Daughter

(An Excerpt)

can forecast at-odds relationships
especially when the mother hazards to write
while keeping the baby safe
from herself as she and the baby wail,
one in the crib, the other on the floor, to wail
with the vacuum cleaner so the daughter
can’t hear mama-drowning, so the new relationship
isn’t all arithmetic and geometry, all right
angles barely connecting. What is left
at dusk, still tender and safe,

— from The New Yorker, 23 March 2020

• Kimiko Hahn teaches at Queens College, City University of New York. Her latest poetry collection is Foreign Bodies.