Mormon Station and Genoa

by in Boundary Behavior, Culture, History, Photography, Politics | 14 Comments

“Territory is but the body of a nation.
The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.
In them dwells its hope of immortality.“
– President James A. Garfield

“Mormon Station” is located in the town of Genoa, at the edge of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains in Nevada.  The station was built in 1851 as a trading and supply post along the Carson Route to California, and the town grew around station. The town is known as Nevada’s first permanent, non-native settlement.

Both the station and the town of Genoa were established by “Mormon” pioneers, or members of the “Latter Day Saints” religious and cultural movement, who had originally settled in what was the Mexican territory of Alta California. But at the formal conclusion of the Mexican-American War in early February of 1848, Mexico ceded its territories in the present day southwestern United States.

In late January of 1848, however, gold had been found at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, not far from the town of Placerville (aka “Hangtown”) in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This discovery would ultimately bring around 300,000 new immigrants to California, many of whom would need to cross the Sierras after traveling from the eastern United States on horseback or by wagon. This placed an immediate pressure on the United States to consolidate its new land claims to the west.

In 1849, leaders of the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (“LDS Church”) based in what is today the state of Utah, proposed that much of this new southwestern US territory be included in a new state of “Deseret”. A provisional state government was established by church leaders, but it was never officially recognized by the United States. Instead, the “Utah Territory” was created in 1850 by an act-of-Congress. 

This new territory respected a southern boundary based in the Missouri Compromise, and a western border with the newly established state of California. Extending from the Rocky Mountains on the east, it traversed present day Utah to the still unsurveyed California border in the Sierra Nevada mountains on the west.

Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormon movement, was inaugurated as the first governor of the Utah Territory. And in 1851, a Mormon settler named John Reese brought horses, cattle, and twelve wagon-loads of supplies with the intent of establishing a permanent trading post near the new territory’s western boundary.

Within a year, the settlement around the trading post had expanded into a full-fledged town, complete with sawmills, a blacksmith, and even a U.S. Post Office. And despite a Mormon tenet to abstain from alcohol, in 1853 the town also became host to Nevada’s oldest drinking establishment. In 1856, an official from the LDS Church, Orson Hyde, arrived to survey and record the area’s lands, and officially named the town “Genoa” on maps, after the Italian city.

Travelers preparing to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains via routes to the south of Lake Tahoe could stop at Mormon Station to acquire items such as clothing, dried beef and bacon, beans, flour and sugar, as well as tobacco and coffee. The original trading post stood until 1910, when it was burned in a fire that swept through much of the town. However, the Kinsey House, which was built on the grounds in 1856 survived, and remains as one of Nevada’s oldest original residences.

Between 1856 and 1876, the US Post Office at Genoa was also the eastern stop for “Snowshoe Thompson” (Jon Albert Thompson, born Jon Torsteinsson Rue), who carried mail across the Sierras, year-round, between Placerville and Genoa. Despite his nickname, Thompson actually used Norwegian back-country styled, ten-foot (3-meter) skis, with a single pole during his winter passages. Over his twenty years of carrying mail, Thompson was never actually paid by the US government for his services as a postal contractor.

Present day Mormon Station is a reconstruction built in 1947, and transferred to the Nevada Division of Parks in 1957. The main building is used as a museum, with various larger items also displayed within the stockade grounds. The surrounding area also includes a park shaded by many large trees. The adjacent town of Genoa is also host to the annual “Candy Dance”, a popular regional event first started to help raise funds for reconstruction after the 1910 fire.

Central Genoa is today little more than Mormon Station, a small collection of eateries, stores and shops, and a few older residences. Most of the town’s current population of about a thousand people is spread along the main road to the north of the town. Since the post-Covid California exodus, the area has been host to much upscale residential development. From a supply stop for weary travelers, Genoa has become a destination in itself.

85mm

by in Photography | 19 Comments

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see
without a camera.”
– Dorothea Lange (1899-1965)

Uninspired to write, the placeholder for this month will have to be some photos. Unfortunately, I posses nowhere near Dorothea Lange’s skill as an observer, and especially as a documentary photographer. Even more impressive is that Lange utilized technologies that would severely challenge most contemporary photographers. 

Over the last couple of decades, several big Japanese camera manufacturers gradually shifted much of their high-end lens production to China, presumably to lower production costs. Regardless, one of my more expensive first-party lenses was made in China. The longer-term result, however, was that some of these Chinese factories started producing their own, fairly good lenses. And most of these photos were taken through one of those third-party lenses, an 85-mm F2.0 that I picked up late last year.

A couple of years back, I’d acquired a 13mm, F1.4 lens for my APS-C camera body from the same manufacturer. The lens was inexpensive enough to figure it was worth the risk. But it turned out to be surprisingly good! So this time around, I decided to try the 85mm lens for my full frame body. This is something of a shift for me, as I usually prefer to shoot with wide lenses. So the new 85, which gives about a 28-degree field-of-view, has been the subject of some “messing around”. The photos will open into a new window, usually at 50% resolution.

–
Just walking around the neighborhood. I like trails and roads as subject matter; maybe they give me a sense of “going somewhere”.

–
A storm rolling over the eastern Sierras. Looking west over the West Fork of the Carson River, toward the Carson Pass.

I took several shots from some different angles. Not sure which I like best. Bike rides out this way often end up at the Mad Dog Cafe, which is located at the entrance to the canyon.

–
This is the same subject matter as the first shot in my “Winter Photos“, but from a higher perspective and through the 85mm lens rather than being cropped from an image taken with a 20mm lens. The highest peak in the distance is Mount Tallac in the Desolation Wilderness, about 25-miles (40-km.) away. I think I’d crop this a little differently now that I’m seeing all those messy edges.

–
This was cropped to about an 85mm equivalent through a native 40mm lens pointed in the same direction, but from above Thunderbird Lodge about 4-miles south of town. The high altitude tends to cast everything blue, necessitating some white-balance adjustments. Regardless, a UV filter is pretty much mandatory, and a polarizer would probably have helped. I tend not to do a lot of photo editing; so the contrast was a challenge.

–
And just to take a poke at the overpriced camera gear, I’ll finish up with a recent, crappy cell phone shot that I liked enough to add to my collection of randomly displayed header photos.

Cheers!
(ツ)v

Heavenly Synchronicity

by in Hmmm..., Mystery, Numbers, Science | 26 Comments

“…la Providence était le nom de baptême du Hasard,…“
[“…Providence was the baptismal name of Chance;…“]
-Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794), Maximes et Pensées [Maxims and Thoughts] (1795, posthumous).

Four astronauts just launched toward the Moon for the first time in more than a half-century. To be clear, they won’t land on the Moon. They won’t even be going into orbit around the Moon. Rather, they will be following what is known as a “free-return trajectory”. 

This is actually just an elongated orbit around the Earth that extends to a distance beyond the moon. Timed correctly, the passing Moon’s gravitational influence will then bend this Earth-orbit into a tight figure-eight that will send the spacecraft almost directly back. This was how the Apollo 13 astronauts managed to return to the Earth.

How the Earth’s single, relatively large Moon came to exist is still something of a mystery. No one really knows the exact mechanisms of how it was formed, or how it ended up in its current orbit. There are a number of theories. But every idea has some underlying technical difficulty.

Lunar rocks brought back from the moon during the Apollo missions appeared to show that the moon’s surface is made from material virtually identical to that found on the Earth. This means that both the Earth and the Moon had to have formed together in the same region of the early solar system, and that the moon wasn’t simply captured after forming elsewhere. But the physics doesn’t provide any simply way for this to have happened.

One popular idea, known as the “giant impactor”, proposes that a proto-planetary object about the size of Mars collided with the early Earth, mixing their crustal materials together while ejecting debris into an orbit around the Earth where it would eventually coalesce into the Moon. However, computer simulations show that this would have required a very precise collision. And the calculated overall spin of the resulting system wouldn’t account for the Earth/Moon system’s present “angular momentum”.

While the Artemis II crew won’t be staying at the Moon, they will get a view of its mysterious far side. This is an aspect not visible from the Earth due to the Moon being “tidally locked” to the Earth. This gravitational effect results in the Moon having a spin-rate that exactly matches the length of its orbit around the Earth. As a result, we always see the same side of the Moon.

The Moon’s hidden face, however, appears very different from the side that we can see from the Earth. Its far side is heavily cratered. And it also lacks the dark, lower-lying basins, or “maria”, that comprise the cloud-like patterns humans have long described as a “man”, a “rabbit”, or as “seas”. Measurements made in 2012 also revealed that the Moon’s far-side crust is thicker, and that it includes an extra layer of material.

Several ideas have been suggested to explain the difference between the Moon’s near and far sides. Among them is that a dwarf planet in orbit around the sun collided with the moon some time after its formation. Simulations show that if an object about 480 miles (780 km) in diameter hit what is now the near side of the moon at around 14,000 miles-per-hour (22,500 kph), it would have resulted in a cloud of debris that would have fallen onto the Moon’s far side to a depth of from 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 km).

Regardless, the moon’s existence has played a significant role in the development of life on the Earth. Its pockmarked face would have provided some shielding from large comet and asteroid impacts in the early solar system. And the early, much closer moon would also have created powerful tides, intermittently flooding tidal zones where prebiotic materials may have collected to form the Earth’s first life. And the moon also helps stabilize the Earth’s spin axis, keeping its seasons from fluctuating wildly.

However the Earth-moon system formed, it initially resulted in a much faster rate-of-rotation for the Earth, creating an about 5-hour day. This would have been fairly close to the physical limit of angular momentum for the formation of a planet within the proto-planetary disk. But the short days would have helped to stabilize planetary temperatures at a time when the the sun was at only about 70-percent of its present luminosity.

The Earth’s rapid spin, however, places a tidal drag onto the Moon. And this slowly transfers some of the Earth’s “angular momentum”, or spin-energy, into the Moon’s orbit. This gravitational transfer of energy gradually expands the Moon’s orbit while slowing the Earth’s rate of rotation. Even today, the Moon grows more distant from the Earth by about 1.5-inches per year as the Earth day lengthens by about 1.7-milliseconds every 100 years. In fact, an Earth day would currently be around 60-hours if not for various mediating influences from the Sun.

When the Moon first formed about 4.5-billion years ago, it was at a distance of only about 15,000 miles (24,000 km) from the Earth, and took a mere 11-hours to complete an orbit. But as the Earth’s rotation gradually slowed from its original 5-hour day to our present 24-hour day, the tidal energy transferred into the Moon’s orbit expanded it out to its present-day, almost 239,000 mile (385,000 km) distance. Today, about 80-percent of the Earth-moon system’s total angular momentum (its overall spin-energy) is concentrated in the Moon’s 27.3-day orbit. But this leads to an intriguing coincidence.

“Anatomically modern” humans have been on the Earth for only around 500,000 years. And their “pre-modern” ancestors who first developed larger brains and then migrated out of Africa only date back perhaps 1.8-million years. This represents such minds having perhaps looked toward the heavens in wonder for a mere 0.04%, or four ten-thousandths of the time in which the Earth/Moon system has existed.

And yet, humans have existed during a brief interval in which to witness both the Sun and the Moon covering the same arc in the sky. The Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun. But at just this point in the Earth’s long history, the Moon’s orbit also just happens to have reached a distance from the Earth that’s about one four-hundredth the distance to the Sun. In fact, the balance is so close that just the difference in the Moon’s slightly elliptical orbit can create both “total” and “annular” eclipses of the Sun.

It’s a curious coincidence; and it won’t last forever. As the Moon continues to drift away from the Earth, it will also continue to appear smaller. And in about 300-million years, there will never again be a total solar eclipse.

The Way Home

by in Boundary Behavior, Death, Environment, Existentialism, Family, Humanity, Loneliness, Love, Luminous Aether, Mystery, The Road | 8 Comments

I wrote this initially about two decades back, ironically during an apparently rather tedious, science-related conference. I first posted it at another, now defunct website.  I re-posted it again at WP in September of 2015, just before some travels to the general area where I witnessed this event.
I was eleven-years old, and it left a deep impression on my still young mind.

 

“不知周之夢為蝴蝶與，蝴蝶之夢為周與。”
“Did a man dream he was a butterfly,
or is a butterfly dreaming it is a man?“
–Zhuāngzǐ (c.369 BC – c.286 BC).

Science has been at the center of nearly all of my adult life. Ironically, however, I find some reassurance in that science doesn’t have answers to every question. To be honest with myself, I don’t want to know everything.

Bewilderment can be a marvelous sensation, hinting at possibilities that some wondrous magic perhaps awaits just behind the curtain. The joy in watching a good magician is in the mystery. And life itself is filled with mysteries — experiences that liberate stories far more wonderful than anything possibly rendered into mere description.

Finding myself alone one autumn afternoon in the years before being endowed with the all-knowing condition of teenager-hood, my eyes fell upon one of those magnificent, but mysteriously unexplainable phenomena. Rounding a corner along a trail through the hills near my childhood home, the very landscape suddenly transformed into a rolling, whirling, orange and yellow cloud of pulsating wings.

A tremendous gathering of monarch butterflies had settled into a ravine of wild oaks and milkweed near the edge of the Forest of Nisene Marks, draping everything in a living fabric of what entomologists refer to as the “imago stage of lepidoptera” — or “butterflies” for the rest of us.

In one of life’s great mysteries, scientists have no idea how, or even why tens-of-millions of monarch butterflies travel thousands of miles across the North American continent, ultimately to converge on just a few locations. Moreover, a single migration is accomplished through generations. Each delicate butterfly’s life enduring only a fleeting few weeks, it will be the offspring of many generations on who complete the cyclic annual journeys started by distant ancestors.

Of course, scientists know some things. Experiments show that southward migrations can be triggered by cold weather. But this only tells us that the butterflies don’t like to get too cold, and that’s not really very surprising.

Some also think that monarchs orient themselves to the sun during their travels. But they don’t know how the insects compensate for the sun’s different positions over a day, or at different latitudes. And even more mysterious is how a butterfly, so many generations removed from any who previously congregated at some special location deep in a Mexican forest, can ultimately return to that exact spot.

Scientists are also just as mystified by how monarchs form “roosts” along their migratory routes, such as the one I happened upon in the local hills near my childhood home. These delicate insects don’t travel in flocks, like birds. Rather, they migrate alone.

Yet, these sudden gatherings of sometimes vast numbers of butterflies will form spontaneously over a few hours, with members converging from every direction onto a single location. It’s as if countless flyspeck minds suddenly resolved that this particular place should be called “home.”

And just as suddenly, they’re gone.

Maybe there was a message for that solitary witness. After all, what is “home”, and what is it that draws us to gather in such places? And why is it that just when we might think we’ve discovered such a place, it just as suddenly disappears?

The world around us changes. The young and the old alike, move on. New generations take their places. We awaken to a changed landscape, perhaps even one in which we no longer find refuge. Maybe home isn’t a place after all?

And so we migrate. And if not in our bodies, then in our hearts. We go on to what comes next and gather anew. We gather with our friends and fellow travelers, our families, lovers and companions, or perhaps just our faith in something greater. That, or we die alone.

And how we know when it’s time to travel is not by the temperature of the air, or by the positions of the sun or the stars, or by changes in some physical field. Instead, we look inward, toward something else entirely, to something unquantifiable. We turn to a counsel for which there is no science.

Standing within a swirling sea of pulsating wings, some brushed my face while others took momentary refuge upon outstretched arms. I stood in place until my muscles ached, until I knew that I’d be missed among my own. But the warm memory of the experience remained, like the magical iridescence of orange dust that was left on my skin afterward.

Returning to that same spot the next day, but for a few lifeless husks they were gone. Now even the hills where nature once performed that blissfully mysterious act of magic for an awestruck child have been tamed by other humans in search of homes for themselves. And I too have moved on. But every journey has a destination, even if we don’t know what it is.

 

Some “Winter” Photos

by in Altitude, Environment, Photography, Tahoe | 6 Comments

“Everything made by men will be destroyed by nature in the end.
Mountains and river, the creations of nature — they will remain.“
–Richard Lloyd Parry, Ghosts of the Tsunami (2018).

Just a few photos… maybe a nature-will-do-whatever-it-wants theme. There hasn’t been much snow this winter, so the views are unusual for the season. Unfortunately, we did get a heavy snow about two weeks back that resulted in an avalanche that killed nine back-country skiers. Nature isn’t concerned with human pursuits. But this is still a beautiful place.

From the end of January. Sitting on some rocks near the water, I was just messing around with aperture and exposure settings while the sun settled into the clouds across the lake. The haze over the water is from controlled burns in the basin.

“Artist’s Point” – With no snow in February! This is usually only accessible on skis this time of year. Right out of the camera, without any editing other than to downsize the image to 50% for WP. This is from just about the same spot in 2020.

I tend to shoot panoramic views, but decided to crop this one into a square. This was another of those cases of just sitting on the rocks and messing around with settings while the sun and the clouds did their thing. The lens was a 20-millimeter, so this was simply cropped down to a pretty small area at full resolution.

Heading toward the Fredericksburg area on bike rides, I’d always noticed this tree off to the left of the road. Looking southeast on a late December morning.

From an overnighter. Making hot water for dinner in a snow pit next to the tent, I took out my avi beacon for a couple of shots. The thermometer read 7-degrees F. You could have put a zero after that number in town yesterday.

 

 

Nature does whatever it wants.

“Nobody” Will Read This

by in Boundary Behavior, Hmmm..., Mystery, Numbers | 29 Comments

“The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” 
– Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (411 BC).

Melos was a free state, on an island in the Cyclades. It had remained neutral in the war between the Athenian empire and Sparta. But in 416 BC, the Athenians landed troops on the island and demanded that the Melians surrender and become a tributary colony to Athens. The Melians refused. So the Athenians, finding the Melian defenses too strong to overcome by direct force, instead blockaded their supply routes. The Melians, eventually starved into submission, surrendered the following winter. The Athenians then executed all of the young men of Melos, sold the women and children into slavery, and resettled the island with Athenian colonists.

 

About a week or so back, I noticed a strange occurrence with my WP page. It seemed that every article that wasn’t password protected had been visited twice. If that had been all, I’d simply have figured that I’d been discovered by some A.I. training engine. However, about a dozen pages were visited up to six times, two old articles were visited 14 times, and one particular article had been visited 48 times.

I don’t post regularly. My writing here is merely for a little self-expression; I even have the site set for “Search Engines Discouraged”. And the vast majority of others whom I’ve “followed” on WP over the years have long since disappeared.

How often I post depends mostly on external factors… work, the weather, what’s going on locally, visitors, travel, or whether or not I have anything to say. So, I’m accustomed to the stats jumping around. Still, I would consider 20 visits to a new post to be unusual. So 54 hits just seemed odd.

The older article with the 48 hits is titled “〇”, and it’s almost impossible to find in a title search without a copy-and-paste. The character in the title isn’t a letter, nor is it a Japanese “kana” or “kanji”. Rather, it’s an ideographic character used to represent a kanji’s meaning in certain contexts.  The kanji used in Japanese is pronounced “rei”, and traditionally written in Japanese as “零”. It means “nothing”.

At the time I wrote the article, my word processing software wouldn’t display the correct character for the title. And WP wouldn’t display the correct character for the kanji. As of now, however, both issues seem to have been mostly resolved. Although, the phonetic Japanese kana to kanji selection in my word processor still comes up with only the “simplified”, or Mainland Chinese rendering for the kanji.
–

“Dead Internet Theory” proposes that most Internet activity is now the product of bots, algorithms, and automated systems. Originally, the idea was seen as a fringe theory, having more in common with claims of state surveillance systems, COVID having escaped from a Chinese bio-lab, or the existence of networks for underage sex-trafficking to the super wealthy. But AI tools are now capable of producing content that mimics human creativity.

Indeed, much of YouTube has been buried under masses of AI-generated “clickbait” sufficient to render searches for legitimate or historical uploads almost useless. But AI can also be used to gather information useful for eliciting large-scale social patterns that can later be exploited. And some of the channels for collecting this type of information aren’t so obvious.

For anyone following the policy trail, this was the real reason for the transfer of Tik-Tok management onto US-based servers. No one in the US government actually cares whether some Chinese corporation or government official has your personal information. Rather, they’re more concerned with what the Chinese know about people’s mindless media preferences.

Using this data, algorithms could be utilized to target emotionally charged clips at certain, particularly receptive demographics. Timed deliberately, these could be an effective psychological warfare strategy intended to internally destabilize US society at some critical moment. Think, armed and angry flash mobs. And the “information” driving these emotionally charged crowds can now be entirely AI manufactured.
–

About a month ago, I left a comment on a slick YouTube video that has since disappeared. It was presented as a comparison of the US system of governance versus that in Mainland China. It was a fairly well presented argument… if rather one-sided. And I’m sure it was AI generated.

Concluding that the Chinese system was clearly superior to that of the US, the video referred to a 2014 Princeton paper that I recognized immediately as a flag for Chinese propaganda pieces. The paper, one of the more blatantly biased and statistically manipulated pieces of research I’ve encountered, has since been removed from the Princeton archives. But I posted a link to a copy at the Internet Archive, with a notation that it would take some careful reading to see how they had generated their results.

My own YouTube page is a fairly innocuous collection of playlists, music, records of bike rides, and one brief commentary on the local traffic. Most of it is private. But what isn’t certainly became popular shortly after I left my comment. And within a few days, I also started receiving unsolicited text messages asking about my political views on various topics. I’ll just block the phone numbers; but a new question from a new number will arrive few days later. Today’s simply asked whether I was a Democrat or a Republican.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve also started receiving Japanese-language email messages from various “charities”, either thanking me for my donations, or for upping my donation amounts. They’re clearly fishing. But it’s an interesting strategy given that anyone who’s read through my posts will know that I have been involved with some Japanese-based organizations.
–

If you’ve followed Japanese politics at all lately, you might have caught that Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, just won a landslide in a snap election, while also securing a single-party super-majority in Japan’s more powerful Lower House. Takaichi, who was slated to hold office for two more years, called the election in order to gain both a public mandate and the legislative strength to introduce a sweeping conservative agenda. And a part of that agenda is taking a tougher stance toward China while rebuilding Japan’s military.

Acknowledging that Japan’s shipping lanes, and thus its economic lifeline would be at risk should China impose a naval blockade of Taiwan, Takaichi publicly removed any ambiguities about how Japan would view such an action. On November 7 of last year, Takaichi openly affirmed that any Chinese blockade or attack on Taiwan would constitute a “national emergency”, and that this could very well trigger the deployment of Japan’s Self Defense Force (JMSDF).

Xue Jian, China’s consul general in Osaka, responded by writing on X that, “We have no choice but cut off that dirty neck that has been lunged at us without hesitation. Are you ready?” But rather than being taken as a withering threat, the remark ended up merely confirming to many Japanese citizens that Takaichi’s assessment of China was correct. And this has driven the CCP’s propaganda machine into overdrive.

Internally, the CCP has been whipping up nationalist fervor with horrific images of atrocities committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers during its occupation of China during the lead up to WWII. Externally, we’re seeing things like the YouTube video that I mentioned. And that’s why I think the particular post attracted so much attention. Just as with using a platform such as Tik-Tok to divide a nation’s population, potentially to the point of inciting violence, CCP messages now seek to divide the various alliances that have formed to resist Mainland Chinese regional threats.

“〇” ends with mention of the Japanese “Zero”, an exceptionally fast and maneuverable Japanese fighter aircraft, feared by Allied fliers at the start of WWII. An industrial and technological symbol of Imperial Japan’s rise to great military power, it would ironically also end up amounting to nothing. But I have to wonder if that may have meant something to a large information gathering system tasked with conveying the futility of defending an island.

the big game

by in Culture, Existentialism, Hmmm..., Identity | 18 Comments

“In the game of life, sports teach us that victory is sweetest when shared, and that the bonds forged in competition last far beyond the final whistle.“
– Fake Quote Generator, (2026).

My part-time neighbors across the street are apparently here. I can tell because their Dodge Ram 3500 with its super-extended cab and Turbo Diesel V8 engine won’t fit in their garage; so it’s usually parked in the driveway when they’re in town. I’ve always thought it looks rather like the offspring of a limousine that was mated with a short-bed pickup.

I understand that it cost something like $90,000, which seemed like it was important to let me know. I hope they kept some money to pay for fuel.

Meanwhile, my new, also part-time next door neighbors from the Bay Area apparently arrived in their little Subaru hybrid. Being near silent and getting parked in their garage, I wouldn’t even have known if they hadn’t knocked on my door with a gift bottle of wine.

He works for Google, and once confided that they bought the old house mainly because they just didn’t want to keep any assets in California. But she’s a serious skier; and they tend to head out to the slopes before sunrise.

While I was out washing the road grime off my old Toyota pickup with a sponge and a bucket of hot water, my neighbor from across the street came by to ask if I knew anyplace local that could fix a snowblower. After a couple of suggestions, he then mentioned that the Seattle Seahawks would be playing in the big game.
He seemed pretty happy about it, asking me if I was going to watch.

“No,” I replied. “I don’t really follow much sports.” I didn’t mention that my years in Seattle were among those I’d rather forget.

“Your husband have any teams?”

“Not really. He’s more of a skier…
when he’s not working…
or traveling.”

He seemed a little disappointed, shifting his eyes onto the grimy truck getting the sponge bath. “Nice little truck,” he said. Then noticing the rusting steel hook held up under the license plate with a piece of rubber from an old bicycle inner tube, “Is that a winch?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “A five-ton. Good for moving trees or pulling people out of the snow.”

His expression conveyed images of just how big of a winch could be stuffed under the bumper of a Dodge Ram 3500.
–

I think my neighbor from across the street was hoping to do a little “BIRGing”, or basking in reflected glory. It’s that vicarious experience of success one has by aligning a personal identity with an external source of victory or success. We usually think of this in the context of sports; but it can apply to anything… a famous person from one’s hometown, pride in a national hero or achievement, affiliation with successful cultural or political groups…

When BIRGing, it doesn’t really matter that the individual didn’t actually contribute to the success. It’s merely the sense of association that connects the perceived achievement to the individual. The dopamine rush is just the same. This contrasts with people who tend to get their hormonal fixes through direct experience, like my neighbors who were out skiing.

The concept of birging in social psychology dates back to the work of Robert Cialdini in the 1970s as an approach to “Social Identity Theory”. Cialdini proposed that personal identity is, at least in part, drawn from perceptions of association with high-achieving or high-status group identities. BIRGing is consequently an attempt to enhance one’s self image by association.
–

I guess surveys show that a slight majority of Americans don’t really follow professional sports anymore, or at least not all that closely. And only about 16% of Americans venture to keep themselves well informed and watch most or all relevant games. What percentage of those can be found sitting at the bar in a casino sports book, I can’t say. But I suspect my neighbor will probably be in front of his $16,000, 180-inch, OLED big-screen during the big game.

I’d categorize my husband in the “not closely” group. I know he doesn’t really care all that much about professional sports. But he seems to be aware of the tribal benefit of at least not appearing clueless in discussions with other guys.

In the circles I tend to keep, sports isn’t an especially frequent topic of conversation. But I work with someone who follows political kayfabery with the same degree of fervor. He’ll occasionally hit me up with something like, “So what do you think of that (fill in the politically explosive blank) that happened yesterday?!”

Usually, my responses tend to fall along the line of, “I don’t know. I’ve only heard what’s been on the news.”

The look of astonishment at my apparent lack of excitement over news-as-performance-art suddenly reminds me of the tribal benefit of at least appearing to have some emotional investment in sports. But at what point does it all become more like belonging to a cult?

It strikes me that it’s not necessarily easy to spot people who find themselves tied up in them. Cults mostly revolve around the fixation on a particular message that colors how one views the world. That doesn’t necessarily imply a destructive influence. But it is a subjugation of “self” to someone else’s messaging.

Ironically, most of those who don’t follow sports at all tend to fall into lower socioeconomic groups. So feeling an investment in your local team apparently isn’t merely some form of compensation for not feeling invested in the rest of society… at least not economically. And a significant portion of those who identify as more recently losing interest in professional sports say that it’s because it’s become too politicized.

For the 7% of Americans who identify as “superfans”, however, it doesn’t seem that they much care. They’re going to cheer their teams and their favorite players tomorrow, regardless. And I’m sure the adrenaline and dopamine highs will be just the same as if they’d skied a perfect powder slope while perilously threading between menacing rock walls and being chased by an avalanche.

The difference is that win or lose, they will all survive. And whether to a cheering high-five or to laments over another beer, the tribal bonds will be cemented for another year.

Links:

 

Sunlight and Ground

by in Boundary Behavior, Culture, Death, Existentialism, Feminism, History, Hmmm..., Humanity, Identity, Japan, Loneliness, Music | 23 Comments

Some time on February 5th of 1999, Mutsumi Fukuhara stepped from the balcony of her Osaka apartment. Sunlight and ground became one.

“Someday I’ll melt into the ground,
And be fertilizer for the earth,
So better than too fast the stream of time,
Is too slow the universe turning.
Still I battle with questions of love.

This is my life.
Only one life in this Role Playing Game.”
S.J.M. – R.P.G.
–

Getting myself grounded in an only marginally familiar culture after moving to Japan in mid 2002 was a difficult process. Viewed from the outside, Japan is a peaceful country… clean, safe, orderly…
Too orderly.

The peace of Japanese culture conveys the spirit of “wa” (和), a concept usually interpreted in English as “harmony”. But wa isn’t really something that can be properly translated in a single word.

Wa describes a kind of communal harmony based in valuing social conformity over individual concerns; and it’s a central concept in Japanese society. Many both formal and informal Japanese social structures exist primarily as means through which to ensure this harmony. To disregard their expectations is to be as the proverbial “nail that sticks out”, and the recipient of a sort of passive-aggressive hammering down.

Individually, this results in what are known as “honne” and “tatemae”. Honne (本音, “true sound”) refers to one’s inner feelings, desires, or opinions. Tatamae (建前, “facade”), however, refers to one’s expected pattern of public expression through which wa is maintained.

Understanding this is important to understanding social interaction in a culture where people rarely say what they mean. Personal expression and negative reactions aren’t prevented; but they don’t encourage future connection. The Western saying goes that, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But in Japan, even silence leaves a chill.
–

Like the passions of honne hidden beneath a veneer of tatemae, the Japan I experienced in the early 2000s concealed a surprisingly expressive wilderness beneath that external facade of conformity, neatness and order. At the time, cities like Tokyo and Osaka hosted entire networks of discrete, underground music establishments known as “live houses”.

Often little more than transitory basement dives, they’d be ignored by police so long as the local yakuza assured that nothing unseemly made it onto the streets. But especially in places where art-communities or vice tended to congregate, some were more established.

“You can dance your dance. you can talk hard loud.
you can live your own life with your POPO…
you can walk your way. you can scream in this way.
I can live my own life!”
S.J.M. – POPO Bar
–

East Asian kids learn early on to be self-reliant. This is rooted in a Confucian ethic that one shouldn’t be a “problem” for parents, family or others. The Japanese term, “meiwaku” (迷惑) means to be troublesome, or a nuisance or annoyance. And it’s a kind of criticism most Japanese children learn to avoid. Meiwaku is more than just an expression of annoyance at another’s behavior; it’s a disruption to the communal harmony of wa.

Adults unfamiliar with meiwaku often perceive East Asian children brought up with this internalized principle as easy. But a lot of these kids are simply struggling with not getting the care or attention they need. And for those who are called out as troublesome, it can become a sort of hammering down that deeply affects self-worth.

“Just like weapons (Yes) WORDS kill me
Just like weapons (Yes) WORDS kill people I love…

At some point … we must forget the WORDS
To the broken body, gentle lights
To the open pupil, Sweet liquid
To the blocked up ears, bird-like sounds
To the closed mouth, Song from stones.”
S.J.M. – The WORDS
–

Stumbling into this music scene, I never really thought much about it having emerged from something cultural that had preceded my own time in the country. Japan was the “Asian Tiger” of the 1980s. In a mere two generations, the country had accomplished an economic “miracle”, taking itself from the ashes of WWII to a nation seemingly poised to simply purchase the world. But near the end of 1989, that all changed.

The fevered inertia of economic enthusiasm collapsed as “zombie companies” kept alive by endless injections of investment capital from over-leveraged banks eventually resulted in a stock-market crash. Then, equity and property values collapsed. Early 90s Japan marked the start of more than two decades of near total economic stagnation. But more importantly, it also represented a broken promise in the Japanese social contract.

Many lifetime jobs, once the hallmark of Japanese corporate employment, were replaced by temporary workers. Wages stagnated. And real household earnings fell as the purchasing power of a weakened Yen resulted in inflation. A generation of youth approaching adulthood were greeted by uncertain futures as families struggled. And Japan’s young population became caught up in an atmosphere of anxiety and frustration.

“The era bathed in light disappears,
And new seeds are born,
Spreading branches envelop my body,
Colors flow and fill the gaps,
The empty time becomes a crimson sea,
The empty time becomes a crimson forest,
The empty time becomes a crimson sky,
The empty time becomes crimson waves,
The forging of memories… of sharp memories.“
S.J.M. – Forged Memories (from Japanese)
–

Against this backdrop, the almost mythically notorious all-female Japanese band, Super Junky Monkey, would emerge in 1991. Known for raucous performances that frequently hosted masses of stage-diving youth, their music defied any particular niche… aside from that of being “anti-mainstream”. Too experimental and unrestrained for popular domestic consumption, they remained mostly live-house performers in Japan.

Overseas, however, a 1993 live album the band had produced was getting noticed. And in 1994, they were picked up by Sony Records. Taking cues from genres like funk, metal, hardcore punk, grunge, stoner rock, and avante-garde, the band continued to skillfully navigate a wide range of sounds that utterly defied categorization.

A big part of Super Junky Monkey’s success was that all four members of the band, percussionist “Matsudaaaahh!!“, bassist Shinobu Kawai, guitarist Keiko, and vocalist Mutsumi Fukuhara, were all talented musicians. But it was frontwoman Mutsumi’s brashly charismatic performances and vocals that really gave the band its unique character, especially in  live performances.

“If we were deaf and blind, could we still kill each other?
If we were able to fly, then would borders still fence us in?
If the human beings could love, would we live as equals?
If we were happy innocent and… dumb as dorks,
Would there still be wars?
Would we still want more?
Would there be users controllers and hierarchy?
Can you give me the answers?“
S.J.M. – IF
–

By all accounts, Super Junky Monkey was a successful band, producing four LPs, two EPs, and a number of videos, while developing significant followings both in Japan and abroad. They traveled extensively, performing in some larger venues in the UK, the US, and Canada, while receiving both foreign and domestic awards for their work. And in Japan, they blazed the trail for other all-female bands that also broke the usual Japanese “cuteness” mold for women as performers.

After a brief hiatus, Super Junky Monkey began performing live sets in the latter part of 1998 that pointed toward a new direction. The music was just as difficult to pigeonhole, but more contemplative and mature.

Moving away from the gritty sounds and Hip-Hop narratives that once invited stage-diving youth, Mutsumi’s voice instead began to echo into a distance that slowly disappeared into a kind of musical chaos. Her feverish leaps and long flailing ponytail were replaced by hands that slowly reached toward a calling sky. There was clearly some new inspiration to the compositions, perhaps reflecting her having had a child. 

I never saw Super Junky Monkey perform; I was hunkered down in the conformity required of my own life in the US during the band’s peak. And by the time I found myself in Japan, Mutsumi was gone, and the rest of the band had moved on. But I wish I had seen them. It would have added a great deal of context to what I witnessed in the Japanese music scene of the early 2000s.

Sometimes, success isn’t really what it’s all about. A lot of these musicians were simply pouring out their souls…
Sometimes, until there was nothing left.

“Storm is gone
Earthquake is gone
Time is gone
Sunlight dazzled my eyes
Sunlight surround me
Sunlight and ground became
Congenial to each other“
S.J.M. – Towering Man

Emergence – part 1, Patterns

by in Hmmm..., Mystery, Numbers, Philosophy, Science | 22 Comments

“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny,
for what could more aptly fit your needs?“
– Marcus Aureleus, Meditations.

Around the time I started college, the video-game, “Sim City” became popular. It was a city-building simulation game, where players tried to create a viable metropolis with infrastructure, neighborhoods and sources of economic production such as factories and businesses. The goal of the game was to improve the standard-of-living for the city’s residents over time by investing tax-revenues, without  going bankrupt or destroying its own environment.

Sim City was a slow, problem-solving game. But it was possible to have a little short-term, if perhaps sociopathic fun by doing things like burning down a city’s crappy neighborhoods or misappropriating the tax revenues from a future Superfund site. But around 2000, the game spun-off a more human simulation in “The Sims”.

The Sims was a sort of “virtual doll house” without any particular goals or objectives. Players simply created digital simulations of people, or “Sims”, put them into homes that could be designed in various ways, and then tried to direct their simulated humans’ actions by slightly adjusting their moods and desires. Later versions of the game added to what players could do with their Sims, eventually diverging into some fairly preposterous territories.

Will Wright, the original developer of The Sims, said that the game’s initial intent was merely to satirize US consumer culture. Taking ideas from 70s-era architecture and urban design philosophies, Abraham Maslow’s “Theory of Human Motivation and Hierarchy of Needs”, and Charles Hampden-Turner’s “Maps of the Mind”, he came up with a sort of primitive artificial intelligence that would direct the actions of the game’s simulated humans.
In other words, it was pointless.
–

I’m not aware of anyone ever considering Sims as conscious, self-aware beings. But computers, and especially the software they can run have now reached a point where it can be pretty difficult to distinguish an exchange with another human-being from a digital simulation of one. Artificial Intelligence systems now produce “art”, have friendly conversations, or even discuss philosophy. So questions about machine self-awareness or consciousness now elicit at least some degree of debate.

In 1949 the English mathematician and computer scientist, Alan Turing, proposed a test to answer the question, “Can machines think?” The “Turing test” as it’s come to be known, is a measure of a machine’s ability to act in a way that is equivalent to that of a human. Turing proposed that if a human communicatively interacting with a machine can’t reliably distinguish it from another human, then it must be assumed to be equivalent, and thus to be able to think.

Turing made it clear that his proposed test’s results weren’t dependent upon actual “consciousness”, or even correct responses. Rather, it implies that the only observable distinction that humans can make regarding other humans is based on behaviors. Consequently, anything behaviorally indistinguishable from a human must be assumed to have the same capacities. Of course, it could be argued that the “mind” is something non physical, or that it at least has some non-physical properties that can’t be measured. But Turing’s point was simply that when observing the universe, all we actually see are its patterns.

Fundamentally, this is what defines “science”. As a discipline for revealing knowledge, science is based in the observation and measurement of patterns. Science moves forward by searching out, questioning, testing, and then cataloging the valid patterns which define our universe. And this also sets the limits for science.

In his autobiography, the physicist and originator of Quantum Theory, Max Planck, asserted that accurate knowledge about the universe requires accepting only that which can be observed and measured. “The belief in miracles must retreat step by step before relentlessly and reliably progressing science…” But Planck also acknowledged that those same patterns must have their foundations in something we cannot observe. Mathematics, for example, is the means through which the patterns of science are described. And yet, it exists as a concept emergent from something that can’t be held. “Modern Physics impresses us particularly with the truth of the old doctrine which teaches that there are realities existing apart from our sense-perceptions…” 

In 1931, the mathematician, Kurt Gödel, presented two theorems of mathematical logic that describe the limits of logical provability in formal theories. The first of these theorems demonstrates that a complete and consistent set of “axioms”, or foundational truths for all of mathematics is impossible. And the second theorem shows that there exist cases where certain “true” patterns will have no mathematical algorithms through which to prove that they are true. 

None of this refutes either science, or that the universe is defined by patterns. However, it does suggest that what we perceive in the universe around ourselves is based in something potentially unconstrained by any of the rules that govern our own existence. What we experience as “reality” could be little more than our own interpretations of patterns held in something otherwise unknowable.

A “computation” is simply a consistent pattern within some system. In a “computer”, like the one you’re probably reading this on right now, the patterns are simply electrical “ons” and “offs”, which can be represented as numerical ones and zeroes. Patterns are created when these “ones” and “zeroes” interact according some simple set of rules, like light switches flipping in predesignated responses to other lights being either on or off. And a software engineer can represent this pattern with numbers.

A “computer”, however, can work by any means of interactions. It can be waves that interact, or tubes, or wheels and gears, or levers and buckets of water… or something we can’t even imagine. All that’s important is that there is enough consistency to maintain an overall pattern.
–

In the metaphysical computer of my imagination, I see an infinitude of interconnected meta-water buckets, pouring into one-another as they’re tipped by a system of interacting levers. A trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion buckets slowly shift in its first computation… a “Planck time”, the shortest meaningful interval in the overall pattern. Standing at a great enough distance, and watching over a great enough number of shifts, the buckets create a beautiful pattern of waves propagating in various directions, sometimes recycling, or interacting to form new patterns.

Merely a vast infinitude of shifting buckets and spilling water, one particular collection of patterns describes the interactions of an incredibly complex murmuration and all of its environmental interactions. Examining it carefully, the numbers that represent full and empty buckets and their up or down positions describe places where some patterns are blocked, and others where they are able to pass through. Water spreads through the system, temporarily collecting in some areas, and irretrievably dispersing into others… decaying meta-hydrodynamics.
–

Sima knows nothing… can know nothing of those metaphysical buckets, despite her sometimes wondering. Watering the pepper plants in her kitchen window, she looks out, admiring the beautiful sunset and the trees swaying in the wind.

Home in a Flash (part 4)

by in Fiction, Flash's Stories, Hmmm..., Luminous Aether | 7 Comments

Jynx Shadowheart scanned the mountains with her binoculars. There was little that escaped her sharp eyes. She reached down to pet her two massive dogs. “Bruiser, Thor… It seems our hunt is nearing its conclusion.” 

Removing her custom, .450 magnum Smythe and Easton unicorn gun from its case, Jynx looked through its high-magnification scope. She could just make out two tiny figures in its cross-hairs, dangling precariously from a thread on the high cliff. “It won’t be long now. The cannery is going to pay us well for this one. And you two can have the scraps.“

Meanwhile, Flash and Candy Cane returned to the team of reindeer waiting on the mountain trail by expertly rappelling the 970-foot drop. By the third pitch, Candy Cane had gotten pretty good at not opening her eyes while she was being lowered by Flash.

Before Candy Cane could even recover her composure, they were already careening back down the winding mountain trail in the speeding sleigh. “Somehow, we have to throw Jynx Shadowheart off the Kirin’s trail,” said Flash. “She’s a good tracker. I have an idea… But it could get messy.”

Candy Cane looked at Flash’s wild hair, inside out-shirt and unmatched socks and shook her head in agreement.

“I can help!” said Candy Cane. “But I need to get back to the North Pole. I can use the golden key to get there in an instant. But I don’t know how to get back!”

Arriving at the snowy meadow, Flash had Candy Cane help her pull the big red sack out from the back of the sleigh. It was a lot heavier than it looked!

“Is that Santa’s..?” asked Candy Cane.

“I needed something that was bigger on the inside than on the outside in order to fit everything into the sleigh,” said Flash.

“What’s in it?” queried Candy Cane.

“Probably better if I don’t say,” Flash replied. “But with the lighter load, you won’t need all the reindeer. Shred and Vexen can stay with me. We make a good power-trio!”

Flash handed Candy Cane the map they’d used to get to their starting point for the trip. “Rebel and Raven will know how to lead the team back here from the little town where we started. See you soon!” And just as Candy Cane, the sleigh, and the ten reindeer vanished into a cloud of golden glitter… “Just watch out for the swamp!”

With a little help from Shred and Vexen, Flash had soon emptied the contents of Santa’s dimensionally transcendental toy sack. Flash was very familiar with how it worked, having helped in its design. She actually got her job at the North Pole because of her degree in transcendental geometry, or shapes that are bigger on the inside than the outside.

Soon, a collection of massive black cabinets was stacked in a neat row at the edge of the meadow. Flash, Shred and Vexen were ready. Now all Flash needed was a crowd worthy of stirring up a mosh-pit.

Just then, a shrill voice echoed up from the trail. “What’s this? My welcoming celebration? It might as well be, since you’ve led me right to the unicorn’s lair!“

Flash turned to see Jynx Shadowheart, with Bruiser and Thor at her side.  “Shred!” she called out. “Give me a G-sharp ten!”

The reindeer quickly tightened up the high string on his guitar until it almost snapped, and struck a note… that no one could hear. At least, no one standing on two legs.

Bruiser and Thor Howled! They could hear the note. Jynx suddenly realized what was happening and raised her rifle. “Looks like there’ll be reindeer on the menu tonight,” she bellowed. But as she took aim, a loud hum broke through the forest.

It sounded like a swarm of bees on an eight-shot caffeine buzz, and it was getting closer. Suddenly, a river of tiny lights poured out of the trees. They were fairies… seemingly millions of them, summoned by the ultrasonic note from Shred’s blaring guitar amplifier.

Drawn by their whining, the little buzzing lights swarmed the dogs like a monstrous cloud of hungry mosquitoes.

“Shred, Vexen! Full punk doom!” cried Flash.

As Shred cranked out a round of down-tuned power cords, Vexen thundered on the drums. A huge clump of snow shook out of the trees, piling onto Jynx.  Then Flash grabbed a guitar, turned her amplifiers up to full Concorde take-off power, and unleashed a solo that knocked the unicorn hunter right off her feet.

Falling backward as the entire forest began to tremble to the awesome, thundering sound, Jynx’s rifle hit the ground with a loud “BOOM!” And at that, Bruiser and Thor had had enough and took off like two frightened rabbits, with the huge swarm of overstimulated fairies in hot pursuit.

Having come prepared for the sound of a .450 magnum anti-unicorn round, however, Jynx had brought hearing protection. Slipping on her Shell-Shok, -180dB, active noise-canceling headphones, she stood up and brushed off the snow. There was nothing more Flash could do as the now infuriated unicorn hunter picked up her rifle and reloaded.
They were doomed!

When what should appear, but a sleigh pulled by ten flying reindeer! If not for the 50-cycle hum from the wall of amplifiers, the forest would have gone dead silent as the band stopped mid note. Even Jynx stared as the flying entourage landed in the meadow and pulled up between her and the three questionable musicians.

Candy Cane jumped from the sleigh before it had even come to a stop. “I’ve brought help!“

Behind her followed a large, serene and leisurely… cow, with big brown eyes, and a cowbell hanging from its neck. Both Jynx and Flash spoke simultaneously, “A cow?“

“Jynx!” called Candy Cane. And with that, the cow walked right nose-to-nose with the hunter.

“Get out of my way!” shouted Jynx. She reached out at the cow and smacked the bell with her hand, causing it to ring out. “Stupid cow!” She smacked the bell again. “You’re going to prime rib!” shouted Jynx, as she hit the bell again.

“POOF!” A huge cloud of purple and pink smoke suddenly appeared right where both Jynx and the cow had just been standing. They were gone!

“That was Betsy, the Pennsylvania wonder cow!” explained Candy Cane. “She used her magic bell to take Jynx off to someplace where she can’t cause any more trouble. I don’t think we’ll be seeing that awful unicorn hunter again.“

“So where did… Betsy take her?” asked Flash.

“Where’s the nearest swamp?“

Flash grimaced.

“Anyway, I think this was a perfect vacation,” said Candy Cane. “I got to see Japan, go sledding, meet your sister, learn some history, climb a mountain, and save a family of magical animals!
Where should we go next?!“

Flash grimaced again.

“Oh!” said candy Cane. “I almost forgot to tell you… Your shirt is inside out.“