Author Review: Gerald Durrell

Al Denelsbeck

A few years ago, I would have skipped doing any reviews of this nature, because the books I refer to had a limited run from American publishers and are nearly all out of print now; some of them never actually had a US publication, since the author is British and they were primarily published in England. With the internet, however, it is now possible to find just about any book, given a little patience and search skills, and have it shipped to you from nearly any continent. So I can’t feel bad about making any such recommendations now.

I’ll also note that I don’t like over-generalizations; I think as a species we seek patterns and simple answers, and thus often force things to fit some overall category in which they do not reasonably belong. Much as I like many authors, there are also bad examples of their work, and much the same can be said of musicians, so I usually aim for specific works to review instead.

DurrellBooksGerald Durrell is an exception, primarily because he’s produced far more great works than dismal ones, but also because I cannot bring myself to choose just one book to review. There are too many gems to think selecting one is doing justice (and one should not take the image at right to be a guide – it was dictated by aesthetics, not favoritism.)

Nearly all of Durrell’s works are semi-autobiographical, in that they chronicle his experiences in naturalism and conservation, from a boy growing up on the Greek island of Corfu to establishing his own zoo and endangered wildlife trust in Great Britain. And I admit to some suspicion about embellishment (stung by much of James Herriot’s work,) since he relates a large number of peculiar characters and unique situations, which brings up a curious aspect within the genre. Authors working on pure fiction can freely use such things, since there is a suspension of disbelief when one reads those works. But non-fiction is expected to maintain accuracy, and the tales of peculiar individuals or situations within capture our attention because of their outrageousness. Few authors can resist adorning their work with not-strictly-accurate representations of encounters, conversations, and personalities, but how much is allowable?

In most of the stories within Durrell’s books, it probably doesn’t matter. Because the charm of the books isn’t solely the appeal to the animal lover, or conservationist, or naturalist, but also the distinctive way he relates his subject matter. Durrell is one of the very few writers I’ve ever come across who can describe a species not just succinctly, but accurately enough that years later, I could see a photo of an animal for the first time and confidently say, “That’s an agouti.” Nor does he limit his descriptive powers to animal identification, as he paints the landscapes and expressions of his experiences in a manner that straddles the line between illustration and poetry. From The Whispering Land, on his chance encounter with a guanaco while sleeping under their Land Rover in Argentina:

He turned his head, sniffing the breeze, and I could see his profile against the sky. He wore the supercilious expression of his race, a faint aristocratic sneer, as if he knew I had slept in my clothes for the past three nights. He lifted one forefoot daintily, and peered down at me closely. Whether, at that moment, the breeze carried my scent to him I don’t know, but he suddenly stiffened and, after a pause for meditation, he belched.

It was not an accidental gurk, the minute breach of good manners that we are all liable to at times. This was a premeditated, rich and prolonged belch, with all the fervour of the Orient in it. He paused for a moment, glaring at me, to make sure this comment on my worth had made me feel properly humble, and then he turned and disappeared as suddenly as he had come, and I could hear the faint whisper of his legs brushing through the little bushes.

That passage also illustrates his sardonic humor, as much a part of his writing (and, one would guess, his life) as naturalism. On reading the books about his youth in Corfu, it’s easy to see that he was raised in this environment, most especially courtesy of his older brother Larry, better known as the author Lawrence Durrell. It is entirely possible that his brother’s interest in literature fostered his own writing skills, though his accounts of profound resistance to any education that did not include animals seems to belie that notion. But since biting commentary is the trait of his brother’s most emphasized in those stories, one can be excused for believing this was the prime influence.

Most of Durrell’s books chronicle his efforts to collect animals for zoos in the 1950s through 1970s – after that time, obtaining animals from the wild was on the wane and endangered species programs were coming into their prime, largely due to Durrell’s own influence, and he also had a zoo of his own that he had established. But those earlier collecting trips reflect a fascinating period in many of these areas, touched only lightly by industry and technology, not yet affected by the globalization that was to come. Entire camps were transported to their destinations by ancient trains, Land Rovers, horses, and native porters, many of whom accepted cigarettes or shots of whiskey as tips. Durrell’s observations of not just the local wildlife and scenery, but the native customs (including, too often, the Customs procedures themselves,) paint exotic cultures that are next to impossible to find anymore.

Some of these portions may strike the reader as somewhat racist, especially Durrell’s renditions of local languages or his casual callousness at times – we have now grown hypersensitive to such issues. Yet his sarcasm is not restricted to natives, imparted equally to even his wife, and these aspects should be viewed through the perspectives of the time. Some of his destinations in Africa, for example, were in the last vestiges of British colonialism, and the natives really did speak pidgin English and refer to all whites as “massa.” Contrasted against Durrell’s distaste of arrogant classism, and his delight in native dances and songs, any discomfort over such passages is likely more a product of our current attitudes rather than an indication of Durrell’s.

It must be said, these are all animal books, first and foremost, and the accounts split their time equally with the rigors of caring for so many different species, and Durrell’s observations of their traits and personalities. Moreover, I need to emphasize his approach from a practical, objective standpoint – these are not books of spirituality, ‘communication,’ or seeking some connection with any particular species; those are all human traits, and nonsense ones at that. Durrell may describe animals, as above, in terms we relate to, but does not even faintly ascribe our traits to any other species, offering keen observations in place of imagined qualities – the books, even of his childhood, are from the perspective of a scientist, not a spirit guide, and he takes pains at times to correct the impressions of those who fail to understand what animal work is truly about. I was about to remark, as a wildlife rehabilitator, how appropriate I find this approach, before realizing that these books are a large part of why I become involved in rehab. And thus, for anyone interested in pursing that, or any other animal-related field, I can say that the perspective given in the books, especially those of his collecting trips and establishing his own zoo, provides an accurate expectation of the tasks and effort involved.

(As a brief aside, reminded by the ‘spirit guide’ comment, his chapter in Birds, Beast, and Relatives on attending a séance in London is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, and even delightful from a skeptic’s standpoint.)

Durrell also penned several tomes on his youth, a few collections of short stories from various points in his life, and even some works of fiction aimed at both adults and kids. Only sporadic chapters have little to do with animals, but more than a few concentrate on his interactions with family, friends, and random characters, often giving the impression that he wades through an ocean of eccentricity as the only one who can see the absurdity of it all (and relate it hilariously as well.) However, it is also not hard to find the tongue-in-cheek references to his own view on things, knowing full well that his overriding interests in animals is hardly considered normal. Yet this never takes on the appearance of obsession; Durrell is accomplished at highlighting what’s interesting about other species, and why, and it’s easy to identify with his attitudes, even when we recognize that dissecting a decaying sea turtle on the porch as a child was probably not his brightest idea.

There is no particular order one should read his books within – the progression of events is minimal – but just to see the development of his writing skills, I might suggest starting with The Bafut Beagles or Three Tickets to Adventure (named in Britain as Three Singles to Adventure,) then through either The Whispering Land or The Drunken Forest, tackling the books of his childhood – My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (in that order) – in there somewhere. In A Zoo in My Luggage, he begins the saga of his own zoo, which leads to Menagerie Manor and Beasts in My Belfry. However, starting with any book that you lay your hands on is fine.

Durrell also started the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, one of the leading organizations devoted to endangered species, and the zoo he created in A Zoo in My Luggage lives on as the Durrell Wildlife Park – there are, certainly, worse organizations to make donations to. Part of his legacy is also expressed by the existence of eight separate species named in his honor. Despite the predictions of his brothers, Durrell’s interest in animals was not something that he grew out of, thankfully, because it produced a remarkable amount of lasting impact.

Dearly departed

Al Denelsbeck1 Comment

A friend of mine has maintained a saltwater aquarium off-and-on for several years now, and she tends to find some pretty cool species to occupy it. She related this story to me a couple of years ago, and having been reminded of it recently, I’m obligated to feature it here.

She had, not long before she related this tale, obtained an exotic crab species for her tank, a colorful addition, and was inordinately pleased with it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very long before she looked in the tank one day to find it sprawled on the bottom, quite motionless. She was heartbroken, because she had already grown fond of the little guy – crabs, as we all know, bond devotedly to their owners and soon learn tricks, even snuggling up just for company. Maybe I’m thinking of something else here…

Anyway, she carried the poor lifeless husk out to the backyard and buried it – flushing simply wasn’t appropriate for her little friend. She did not tell me if any eulogy was delivered or not, but she made it clear she was pretty upset…

… to find, the following day, that the crab was still in the tank and perfectly healthy. It seems she had forgotten that crabs molt their exoskeletons routinely, and this was of course what she had found.

I simply find it delightful that she held a funeral for crustacean dandruff. I’m trying to imagine if the crab felt honored at its mere castoffs receiving such high honors, or slighted that it wasn’t invited to the ceremony.

“It was a lovely shell, protecting its owner against all threats while yet remaining fashionable, sprightly if you will. Those who knew it will not soon forget its articulation, its vibrancy, its keratinous embrace. But girth grows ever greater, and we must bid adieu to the past and back away from our fetters, too tight now in the cephalic groove, and free our chelipeds for bigger things…”

Breathless

Al Denelsbeck

ItsCold
After about 36 hours of rain, the clouds cleared yesterday evening and the temperature plummeted, so early this morning was “crisp,” as they say when they don’t want to say, “goddamn cold.” It meant I finally had the chance to do some more frost pics, though the winds had carried many of my preferred subjects away. Most of the moisture left by the rains had vanished surprisingly quickly, but this leaf, probably sandwiched with another until being uncovered by squirrels, retained enough moisture for the beads to freeze on the surface. Most other places, the leaves on top were dry, but moist air drifting up from under the piles froze to the edges and created long needles of frost.

ItsNotColdI thought to check on my green lynx spiders, who had weathered the chill with aplomb (go ahead, picture a spider with aplomb.) This is the first time I never saw mama – she had been looking so decrepit that I was always surprised to find her still around, up until now – but the younguns ventured out as soon as the sun warmed their little chitins. Leaves blown by the wind into the protective cluster of weblines around the former egg sac get incorporated into the shelter, tacked down (I think entirely by accident) with the draglines left by the spiderlings swarming all over them. Still, it’s not much of a shelter when the temperatures drop this far, and I’m impressed with the spiders’ ability to endure the sub-freezing conditions and bounce right back with a little sunlight. There’s fewer of them now, at least some having dispersed by ballooning, but the other two hatchings that I’d observed have vanished almost entirely, so this one has been curiously stable. I plan to keep an eye on it and see what happens – I’m pretty sure these are the offspring of the hatching I observed last year, so they have to do something for the winter.

I decided to see what other kinds of critters could be found, and started turning over rocks in various places. I was considerably surprised to find my next subject – I figured they’d all be long buried by now:

FrozeMyPeepsOff
I didn’t get enough details to positively identify this little sprog, but I think it’s a pine woods treefrog (Hyla femoralis.) Only about 30mm long, and definitely more sluggish than the lynx spiders; until it warmed a little in the sun, the most it managed was some feeble paddling like an infant – notice that it hasn’t even straightened its toes. After a couple of minutes while I was getting pics, it became active enough to hop away, and I nudged it back against the rock so it could crawl underneath – though when I went back out a short while later, seeking identifying characteristics, it had taken itself somewhere else and couldn’t be found.

Under the same rock were a few snail shells – some occupied, some not. I picked up one, perhaps a centimeter across, and noticed another tiny one adhering to it, no more than 2mm in diameter.

Fractal
Another shell nearby sprouted its occupant, who began meandering around looking to get back under shelter, and its path led it up onto the larger shell and right across the smaller one in a collision of pathetic slowness.

Underfoot
Not surprisingly, the smaller shell simply adhered to the foot of the snail and was carried away, the wind of its passage whistling through the shell mouth – okay, I might be exaggerating a little. The smaller shell revealed itself to be occupied as the inhabitant erupted from within and grasped desperately for purchase. It was truly an exhilarating drama to behold, and I watched with great trepidation to see how events would play out.

ThoughtISmelledSomething
LeftBehindAfter a frantic ride of perhaps 10mm, the smaller one was eventually dislodged and tumbled to a stop, miraculously unharmed, as the larger snail thundered away blithely. I waited for a short while to get some pics of the smaller one emerging and toddling off, if only to ensure that it was not limping (picture that if you will.) If you look closely at this image, you can just see the eyestalks emerging to the far right, but after its traumatic ride the snail was understandably cautious and taking its own sweet time about it, which I will leave you to imagine. The sun was bright today and this isn’t ideal conditions for snails, so after a quick spritz of water, I soon returned them all to the shelter of the rocks whence they came, where I’m sure the stories will be traded this evening over long draughts of whatever it is that snails quaff.

However, I have to close with this image, because the effect of the macro depth-of-field was particularly unique, helped to no small degree by the light reflecting from the rock beneath. If you think I was being overly dramatic above, just look into this eye and tell me that’s the look of a sane snail. Of course I was worried – wouldn’t you be?
EyeOut

Just because, part 13

Al Denelsbeck

Warped
Taken back in August, I was playing with the perspective of the dewdrops up close and going unfocused into the ‘distance.’ I knew I would get the spider in the pic, but didn’t know the metalwork of the porch risers would show up in the flash as well. Since it continues the curves started by the web, this is an accidental composition that probably worked out better than if I had actually planned it.

I missed posting this on Halloween, but since that spiral reminds me of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I figure splitting the difference in the holidays is acceptable. That may not make sense to you, but it does to me, and it’s my blog, so there…

A (supposedly) fictional conversation

Al Denelsbeck

[The location: A dark room somewhere deep in officialdom, drifting smoke obscuring the light from a single table lamp because, if you’re going to do something like this, you have to do it right.]

Shadowy Figure #1: You know something? This president is really a pain in the ass!

Shadowy Figure #2: Boy, you said it! It would be so much better with him out of the way, because he’s the sole force operating in government, and once he’s gone we’ll be able to do whatever we want.

SF1: So let’s kill him!

SF2: Why didn’t I think of that? How should we do it, though?

SF1: Well, let’s see. We have tons of resources at our disposal, the ability to create false news reports and stage elaborate scenarios, so my thinking is, we do it in a ridiculously public place with tons of witnesses, likely with cameras.

SF2: Wouldn’t it be better to make it look like an accident?

SF1: [disparaging sound] That would only arouse suspicion! No, we just need to set up someone to look like a solitary nutjob, and get rid of him quickly before he can prove he’s innocent. A bomb along a motorcade route would be perfect, easy to place ahead of time and next to untraceable.

SF2: Hmmmmm. I like the patsy idea, but a bomb sounds much too risky. How about if we do it by rifle? Witnesses would be much more likely to follow the sound of the shots and find the patsy.

SF1: Yeah, you’re right, why produce a patsy that we’re going to have to get rid of quickly and then make it too hard to find him? That would be stupid.

SF2: So let’s see, we’ll need to find a guy, and plant lots of incriminating evidence on him – a history of frustration, anger, and anti-nationalist sentiments, time spent in the Soviet Union, and maybe Cuba, employment alongside the motorcade route, bills of sale for the rifle, people who have seen him with it… how about film of him handing out pro-Cuban literature?

SF1: Dandy! Do we want to find a foreigner with no records in this country, and no family ties or anything?

SF2: No, that’s unnecessary, and probably expensive. We’ll just create some FBI files to build his entire adult history. And make sure his wife can admit to taking the photos of him posing with the gun.

SF1: One complete brainwashing – check. What else? I imagine there’s going to be cops all over the place, so we’ll need agents on hand to control their actions. What do you think, will fifty be enough?

SF2: Go with a hundred – otherwise we’d have to coach the police ahead of time to direct attention away from the wonky bits. Just make them swear not to reveal anything.

SF1: Okay, so, we send our assassin up to the top of a building during normal business hours, leaning out a window in plain sight of the crowds below. He takes his shot, then vanishes, and the cops arrest the patsy. Make sure patsy’s fingerprints can be found on the gun, but our guy manages not to obliterate them, got it?

SF1: No problem. Now, this lone gunman thing, it seems a little risky. Should we have backup?

SF2: Yeeeaahhhh, let’s put another gunman at ground level, at the very edge of the crowd, right where his shot can be easily spoiled.

SF1: I don’t like it. What if he’s spotted? What about the additional rifle sounds? And how will he get away?

SF2: We put him behind a fence, see? No one will know a thing. And there won’t be enough witnesses to pinpoint whether the rifle sounds came from the top of the building or right behind their fucking heads. Then he’ll just scamper off through the throngs of police converging on the scene. If anyone stops him he’ll just flash a badge – cops won’t bother questioning him then.

SF1: [Nodding] I can see how that would work. Let’s get cracking!

[On the fateful day]

SF1: Bad news, 2! The patsy walked past the cops and wasn’t arrested!

SF2: Can’t have that – we’d have wasted all this effort. Let’s see, let’s see… [long pause] Okay, shoot a cop, about a mile from the patsy’s house – make sure there are witnesses, so get a guy that looks exactly like our patsy, same jacket he just put on ten minutes ago and everything. Then find the patsy and plant the gun on him, so he has it when he’s arrested – even though he’s perfectly innocent, he’ll brandish the damn thing in front of dozens of witnesses and try to fight with the cops.

SF1: I like it! But he can still talk, so we still have to get rid of him, or the entire thing’s blown. Is our other agent in place?

SF2: Yep! He’ll go wandering all over town running errands to create his alibi, then step up right as the patsy is being transferred and pop him one in the gut, in front of dozens of police officers who could ruin the whole damn thing. It’s perfect!

[A day later]

SF2: This isn’t good. Somebody got movie film of our second gunman finishing the job, right from an ideal vantage point. Should we have it confiscated as evidence?

SF1: No, you idiot! That’s just what they’d expect us to do! Just make a couple of copies of it and let him sell it to a major news company.

SF2: But… it shows our target’s head snapping back, and to the left – back, and to the left. Won’t that arouse suspicion?

SF1: What do you want us to do, bury it? It’s the one thing that every armchair sleuth would seize onto as evidence the shot came from the front! Of course it has to go public!

SF2: Okay, now you’re not making sense.

SF1: [Rolls eyes behind sunglasses] If everything goes so smoothly that no one suspects a thing, that will be suspicious in itself, see? So we do something so incredibly stupid, something that could ruin hundreds of little details that we’ve worked so hard on, that it’ll throw everyone off – logically, we’d never let something as incriminating as that go past, so there must not be a conspiracy.

SF2: That’s… that’s just brilliant!

SF1: You have to understand how people’s minds work. No one would believe we’d miss the most obvious problem in the world.

[Some weeks later]

SF1: So, how’s it going?

SF2: Excellent! While witnesses claim at least three shots, sometimes four, our guys on the report are going with one bullet unaccounted for, and the kill shot lost as well, leaving just one that went through the target, through the seat, and gave multiple wounds to the governor. Ballistics experts and doctors who specialize in gunshot wounds are all vouching that the kill shot came from the rear, and the pesky exit wound from our guy on the rise was eliminated with CGI. We’ve hidden the extra bullet holes in the seat – lucky for us no one heard all the extra shots – and not one witness standing right in front of our backup assassin heard the discharges behind them.

SF1: Now, see? Isn’t this so much better than a bomb or a plane crash? Much less planning, that’s for sure.

SF2: You said it!

*      *      *      *      *

While I admit to feeling a little annoyed with myself for jumping on the bandwagon, at least this isn’t a post having anything to do with Meleagris gallopavo. And far be it from me to let an opportunity for elaborate sarcasm slide…

Yet, the point is perfectly serious, and something that is very frequently missed by those who seem intent on examining every tiny detail. Almost no one sits back and examines their conspiracy scenario from the standpoint of plausibility, and how likely it is that anyone would actually plan something in this manner, especially something as elaborate as the Kennedy assassination or World Trade Center collapse. If someone really wanted to stage any such event and make it look like something else, there are millions of easier ways to do it. Why involve several dozen to hundreds of confederates when you could use a small handful looking the other way while the car was doctored?

There’s a curious trait at work herein, too. All it takes is just one factor that seems off – in this case, Kennedy’s head snapping in a seemingly unnatural direction (you have to hand it to the Zapruder film, which in 26 seconds created thousands of ballistics and forensics experts.) Once someone seizes on this as suspicious, they then start to look for other suspicious factors as well – and the bare truth is, if we want to see them, they can be found anywhere. And every one becomes fodder for the contrivance [none of them deserve the word ‘theory’], fed by our innate delight in puzzles. My favorite Suspicious Detail is the “Umbrella Man,” some guy who opened his umbrella as the motorcade went past, in protest of Kennedy’s appeasement practices with the Soviet Union – it’s a Neville Chamberlain reference. Of course, this was promoted as a signal to the assassin(s), as if they would need a signal of, what? The car reaching a certain spot? Kennedy being in a clear line of fire? Is there something that somehow wouldn’t be plainly visible to the guy behind the rifle? It serves no purpose, but it’s curious, so it means something.

(Even better, Umbrella Man has also been accused of firing a poison dart, because of course this makes perfect sense.)

Most times, no suspicious factor ties in with any other in a coherent way, instead requiring another explanation, another piece of speculation, to support it. That’s not solving a puzzle, however – it’s building an edifice, finding ways to shore up a foregone conclusion instead of seeing what direction the evidence, all of the evidence, leads. And the edifice that results is usually a rickety, swaying thing that stands on faith alone, because there’s nothing solid beneath it.

Undoubtedly, a lot of the more fervent conspiracy mongers could tear apart my conversation above, claiming I didn’t disprove their cherished little plot (there’s only a million of them, and curiously, none of them in agreement,) but of course that misses the point. The point is, is any explanation logically sound, and by extension more sound than Oswald acting alone? If any of the hundreds of parties who had Sufficient Motive had actually plotted to assassinate the President, what would make them settle on such a Rube Goldberg design involving thousands of details and elaborate planning?

And then, there’s one little question I have for all those who insist that there’s a conspiracy, anywhere: What are you suggesting we do about it? Let’s assume the moon landings were all faked. Fine – what now? Bin Laden wasn’t killed when we were told he was. Okay – so? I mean, you do have a plan of action that you worked out in all the time spent on this, and aren’t simply trying to find some way to feel superior… right?

Well, now

Al Denelsbeck

Photo courtesy Schlitterbahn Kansas City Waterpark
Photo courtesy Schlitterbahn Kansas City Waterpark
What you’re seeing here is the view from the top of the world’s tallest waterslide, dubbed Verrückt, now under construction in Kansas City, KS. With nothing in there for scale or comparison, it’s hard to get a decent grasp of the size – a wide-angle lens will automatically make everything look more distant, and drops more precipitous – but according to the maker, it’s supposed to be in excess of 50 meters (164 feet) tall, and the slide is not intended for single victims sacrifices riders, but to accommodate a four-person raft instead. As they said, this makes it wedgie-free, which is a good thing, because I’ve ridden the The Bomb Bay and Der Stuka in Wet ‘n Wild in Orlando, and at 23 meters that’s the outcome with the standard US guy’s waterwear – riders sit in the deceleration trough at the bottom and try to extract their swimsuit from their cheeks before standing up.

[By the way, companies need to stop using the retarded ‘n conjunction in product names – the apostrophe represents a missing letter, of which there’s two (and I can never remember where it’s supposed to go,) not to mention it looks incredibly ignorant.]

Now, here’s my dilemma. I like thrill rides – roller coasters, water parks, alpine slides, I-285 around Atlanta (okay, maybe not that last one) – but I almost never get to go. Because I have one friend that also likes them, and that person lives in Ohio. I have a friend that lives near Kansas City, but there’s no way in hell I could talk them into going, so even if I visited, I’d be attending on my own.

The Girlfriend doesn’t like waterparks or thrill rides. The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog doesn’t like them either, and cannot swim (I tried pointing out that waterparks don’t actually require swimming ability, but no dice.) On this last trip to Savannah, I broached the subject anyway, seeing a waterpark on Jekyll Island – Our Female Host could probably be talked into going. But that would have left three people in our party of five just sitting around, since Our Male Host had no interest either, so it didn’t happen.

So, the last trip to an amusement park was six years ago I think, and I was robbed – Cedar Point in Ohio had recently introduced weight restrictions on many of their rides, and I was just past their limit apparently, so roughly half of the rides I wanted to go on were ruled out. This didn’t mean I got a break on the horrendous entrance fees though.

And the last time I was at a waterpark was ten years ago, when I was in my late thirties. Too old for that? Yeah, fuck off. My then-brother-in-law and I had time to spare, and because the weather was grey that day, attendance was thin and waiting almost nonexistent. Now, this actually presents a problem with waterparks, in that they run on gravity, which means you have to start up high – the better the ride, the higher the climb. When it’s crowded, you go up several stories in stairs slowly, a few steps at a time – but when it’s empty, you can go straight on up and jump into the water, to be back at the bottom in thirty seconds and ready to climb again. After a few rides you realize you’re getting exhausted.

This was at Wet AND Wild, and then-brother-in-law wouldn’t try either of the super slides mentioned above, the wussy bastard. So it was just me flossing the butt on the way down. These slides really are pretty cool, because they’re fairly steep and you achieve a nice velocity. Here’s the experience: you go over the top and accelerate quickly, told by the ride attendants to assume the mummy position (no, not walking around stiffly with your arms held straight out in front of you, but ankles crossed and arms folded over chest.) In moments, your feet are kicking up spray that’s preventing you from keeping your eyes open too far and you feel like you’re barely staying in the trough because you’re skipping off the water. Brief physics lesson here, because as I started typing this I realized it sounded wrong – both you and the water should be falling at the same rate, right? But no, because water tends to stick to surfaces a bit, and it tries to adhere to the stationary slide, so it goes down at a relatively leisurely rate, while you rocket past on your date with gravity. The slide gradually levels out, and then you hit the deeper deceleration trough at the bottom. Hit it just right, as I’ve done, and you really do skip off the water into the air, not by much, but enough to make you unlock your limbs in a reflexive attempt to brace for impact, which likely looks quite graceless. Then you hit the deeper water and plow to a stop, and if you’re big, you kick up a bow wave worthy of a log flume ride – this is, of course, when wedgie occurs. Once stopped, you try to figure out how to extract this without anyone knowing what you’re doing, even though it’s a lost cause.

Now, what the then-brother-in-law did try is a ride now gone, unfortunately, so I cannot provide the name. Take two chairs and connect them back to back, and suspend them with cables from an arm five or so meters overhead. In front of each chair affix a fire hose facing out, so they’re pointing in opposite directions. The goal is for both riders to alternate triggering their hose (leave it alone) and start the chairs swinging back and forth, timing it just right to drive the swing a bit further each time. Done correctly, you can get the thing pretty much vertical, pulling a full 180° arc – and I know this because at the top of each swing we were actually going weightless, the chair starting to pitch forward unsuspended from the chains for a moment. Since neither of us was particularly light we were quite proud of this accomplishment, and were also the last ones off the ride each time because we kept swinging long after the water was shut off. They never should have taken this ride out.

Weightlessness is one of those key things for many thrill rides, often called hang time. Rides that combine this with higher-G turns or spinning are the ones that induce the most sickness, because neither of these is something that we ever experience in our normal lives. And those are what people like me actually seek. I couldn’t tell you why this is such a rush – I can only speculate that it triggers a moment of panic in the system, the adrenaline surge of falling, and the after-effect of this, whatever it is, is pretty wild. For some, anyway – other people are mutations who find this disturbing. And if you go back up to that pic at the top and look, or check the linked article, you’ll see that the waterslide actually has a hill in the middle, meaning it induces some degree of hang time. That’s intriguing.

One ride in recent memory actually startled me, which of course made it rate highly in my book. The Power Tower at Cedar Point consists of a ring of chairs around the outside of a big column, and you can choose to get hurled into the air from a start at ground level, or you can slowly get drawn up to the top and then dropped. Or so I thought. You see, they don’t simply release the chairs and let them free fall – they propel the chairs downwards at a greater velocity than gravity. So abruptly the chair is attempting to leave you all alone at the top of the tower, having departed from under your ass rather callously. True enough, there’s a safety harness that pulls you down with the chair, so the sensation is for the barest fraction of a second, but that’s enough to trigger the panic response. In the next millisecond you feel stupid for it, and that’s the whole point.

By the way, hearing someone’s scream rapidly dwindle as they accelerate away from you really is hilarious, especially if they’re a big black guy. Call it racist if you’re stupid, but black men tend to have a certain timbre to their voices which makes the scream very rich, like hitting the high notes on an electric bass. Once you hear it you’ll lose the skepticism.

Anyway, it doesn’t look good for me checking out this new slide, but I’ll keep it in mind anyway. If you see a guy hitching in North Carolina next summer with a sign that says, “Verrückt,” that’ll be me. Though considering what that word means, it might be best not to assume anything.

Bully for you!

Al Denelsbeck

I have a list of topics to address in posts someday, and within them is one about the difference between bullying and criticism. I was reminded of it with a recent interchange between Jerry Coyne and Deepak Chopra, and so…

Deepak Chopra is the shining god of the pseudoscience, new age, mystical reality, mushrooms-lead-to-higher-consciousness crowd, a guy who trades on his MD to try and convince anyone that he actually knows what he’s talking about, regardless of the fact that he no longer practices anything he learned while obtaining the degree. Chopra has discovered one simple mantra, and it is repeated every time he opens his mouth: there are things we don’t know, therefore magic. Seriously, this is what it boils down to every time.

Unsurprisingly, he gets called on this a lot, and he responds the same way as so many other peddlers of bullshit: they cry that they’re being bullied, or attacked, or mistreated, or disrespected, and so on. This actually deserves being examined in detail.

First and foremost, it’s a blatant attempt at emotional manipulation. We all know what bullies are – they’re the insecure assholes in school who believe tearing others down makes themselves look better in comparison, and they seek whatever angle they can find to exploit. However, the teachers in the same schools aren’t being bullies when they mark answers wrong on a test, because they have a goal with criteria, primarily that the student obtains a certain level of knowledge. One is driven by insecurity, the other by functionality.

Which brings us to the distinction of criticism. Nobody likes hearing that they’re wrong, but it’s still the most valuable information we can receive – without it, we’d never try to find out what’s right, and in many cases, we’d continue to do something stupid, or damaging, or dangerous, or even fatal. Criticism is a social activity that not only shares information, it continually raises the standards of our species as a whole. Science as a pursuit runs on criticism, or to be more specific, the careful examination of where any hypothesis or conclusion might be wrong, because that’s the only way to find out what’s right. The whole process involves others nitpicking the hell out of any new ideas, and of course, the requirement to produce plentiful evidence that whatever is being proposed is solid. That means anyone even suggesting something new to science is being fatuous if they expect not to receive critical examination, and that’s putting it mildly.

True enough, in many other cases criticism is only an opinion, e.g., movie critics, but this bears a certain level of recognition as well, because movies are put out there for public entertainment, so the public is free to express whether or not they actually were entertained. And that brings us to the ‘free speech’ and opinion angles. Very frequently, you’ll find the woo-meisters whining that they’re entitled to their opinion, and people can believe what they want, as if this means no one is allowed to criticize them. Naturally, anyone else may express their opinion that the woo-meister is a sack of runny green infant diarrhea, and people can believe that if they want, too. It’s disturbing how many people seem to feel that their right to an opinion somehow disallows anyone else’s right to disagree. Not to mention that it’s not actually a right in any legal sense, and even free speech is limited by things that can cause direct harm.

But even more along these lines, we’re rarely ever talking about something as simple as opinion. The moment that anyone seeks money for their opinion, or their books, or their specialized treatments, or their magic rocks, we’ve gone beyond opinion to selling a product, or at least an idea, and to the greater public as well. Nobody doing so has any reason to believe they should be free from scrutiny, or that there’s some right to sell whatever the hell they want without someone else examining not just the claims, but the potential for damage as well, or even simply fraud. This is another place where the manipulative angle comes into play, because the targeted quack cries about being picked on, as if they are the only one who might come to harm, while most of the time, those doing the criticizing are motivated by the public welfare. Someone selling poison can blubber all they want, but the person who points out that it’s poison is hardly being a bully. And of course, who’s performing the best public service in that case? Does free speech and free enterprise really enter into it at all here?

Often, one can even see the conspiracy card getting played, where the snake-oil salesman is the lone hero crusading against the concerted forces of large corporations, the medical establishment, or the scientific hegemony, as if that’s the only reason why someone could possibly find fault with their grandiose claims. Long a favorite of the UFO crowd, the idea of the secret cabal that’s working to suppress information somehow works with too many people, apparently already inclined to believe in such things. Martyr complexes are incredibly popular. Less so, of course, is the con man, so the motivation to throw a different spin on it is pretty strong.

Anyone may point out that not only have I failed to prove their favorite folk hero is a fraud, all I’ve done here is name-calling, and the first thing I’ll do is direct them to a post on recognizing pseudoscience. And the second thing I’ll do is remind them that it’s not up to me to prove anyone’s wild claims wrong, it’s up to the claimant to prove that they’re right. While it’s somehow imperative that a skeptic should point out the myriad ways that pseudoscience claims fail, it’s much easier to have the simple requirement that they pass instead, rather than hiding behind possibilities and mysteries and, most frequently, the blatant misuse of scientific terminology.

But, let’s turn the tables a little bit. If you confront a child about why the dog is covered with doodles in permanent marker, and the child dodges the question, changes the subject, or screams about being hated, are they heroic, much less innocent? If you ask your auto mechanic why some expensive repair is necessary, and they shoot back that you can’t prove it’s not, do they deserve your business or respect? If you give a student a failing grade because they cannot calculate dewpoint accurately, and they claim they don’t deserve it because science doesn’t know everything, should you change their grade?

Answer carefully, because nobody wants to be a bully, now…

Clueless

Al Denelsbeck

I have a project I’m working on that requires a little airbrush work – nothing serious or fancy, but I’ve found that a little cup would work better than a complete siphon bottle at times. I don’t have the little cup, so I started looking online for it.

Courtesy of the arts & crafts & stupid dried decorative shit store called simply, ‘Michaels’ (because everyone can figure out what you sell from such a name, right?) we have this remarkable web page:

Fuckad
Will they tell me how much it costs? No. Can I order it online? No. Can I determine if the store even has it in stock? Don’t be silly. BUT… I can Like it or Pin it or play some remarkably pointless social dipfuckery thing with it, because, you know, that will drum up business for them!

I’m trying to imagine if I had someone on my list of Friends or Dudes or Chuzzlewits, whatever, and they actually remarked in any manner how much they liked an airbrush color cup, how quickly I would delete my account and try to hold back from cutting myself because it made me despair for the future of humans. That I already did this a few years ago (deleting my Facebook account, I mean) is besides the point.

Anyway, they’ve won the Shitass Webdesign of the Week award. Congratulations on your complete inability to recognize what use the internet can be to you!

paintcup2The followup: I found one on eBay, would have been just over five bucks with shipping if I didn’t get into a stupid bidding war. The item is worth about two bucks, and six is the maximum I would pay for the damn thing (which, as I would come to find out, is less than half what Michaels wanted for it.) So while waiting for the bid close date to come along, I just made my own, from a brass pipe I had and a plastic cap. Works perfectly.

And because they spent more time trying to be popular than accommodating a customer, I won’t be shopping at Michaels ever again – I’ll stick to a place that actually wants business. I can take a hint.

That’s just your science

Al Denelsbeck

An article over at Wired talks in detail about the overblown reputation and fears of the notorious brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa) and, as is so typical of any attempt to impart some needed perspective to the general public, it crashes like a wave against the rock of human nature – at least, if you consider the comments to be a reliable metric, which is likely a bad move in itself. Still, it illustrates a very common trait, one that works against us so often that I want to highlight it (again.)

Short synopsis of the article: brown recluse spiders are rare in a large number of the states they’re reputed to be within. Misidentification of the spiders themselves is common. Misidentification of myriad forms of skin ailments as being the bite of a brown recluse is common. Worrying about them as a dangerous species demonstrates poor perspective. And, an observation of my own, reflected in even giving this synopsis in the first place: providing links in posts to helpful, detailed sources of greater information is often a waste of time.

Because, within the comments, the accusations of how wrong the article is in one aspect or another are flying fast and furious, or ‘speedy and spurious’ if we want to subvert a silly phrase. The range is incorrect, they can travel all over the world in boxes, I can see the evidence of bites on numerous shoppers in my local store, and so on. One of the most detailed points in the article – that the folklore of the spider is mostly dead wrong – gets trumped by the personal anecdotes of far too many commenters [small pet peeve appears here: ‘commenter,’ as in, someone who comments, is not considered by either my computer’s dictionary or Merriam Webster to be a proper word – the only word that means the same thing is ‘commentator,’ which is stupid, because that word is used only for someone who is paid to blather meaninglessly and nobody is ever said to ‘commentate.’ We need to keep using ‘commenter,’ in recognition of common language rules, and force the dictionaries to keep up.]

Ignoring my petty irritations, the power of the personal anecdote is stunning, and unfortunately way out of proportion to its actual value. It’s very plain how many people are completely willing to trash the entire article because of their own experience, or even that of another commenter, immediately after reading that such anecdotes are wildly inaccurate. There is even the not-so-subtle implication, highlighted in bold face in an excerpt, that the allure of drama skews such anecdotes to be even more unreliable:

“If you get a bacterial infection, do you tell anyone about it? Of course not,” Vetter said. “But if you think you got a brown recluse bite, you tell everybody! You put it in your Christmas letter.”

And yet, this is somehow missed by, no matter how you measure it, far too many commenters.

GritspiderNow, let me introduce a few points. I am, among other things, a spider photographer, which means not only do I have close contact with them very frequently, I also seek them out, and look closely at any I might stumble across, and that’s nearly daily. There is not any experience of mine that I can point to as definitely a spider bite, though I am chewed up routinely by mosquitoes and other various parasites, not to mention encounters with bees, ants, and even caterpillars. I might have found a brown recluse once, in my apartment in North Carolina (outside of the mapped range in that article,) but did not get any photos – I know from experience that identifying arthropods is a tricky business, and I did not make enough observations to pin down all of the telltales of the recluse or even the greater family. One commenter claimed that they can spot brown recluses in their vents with a flashlight because their eyes reflect, but that’s true of many spiders, including the one shown here, only a few millimeters across and definitely not a recluse, or even close.

So when I tell you that the article is accurate, well, you hopefully already caught that the entire above paragraph (as well as most of this blog) is anecdotal, and just one uncontrolled data point to be weighed against the studies quoted in the article, using a large variety of data sources and numerous actual specimens examined by qualified entomologists. The weight of any of my statements? Not much at all, really, and certainly no more, or less, valuable than any of the comments on the article. Anything I say needs to be measured against how many ways I could be wrong or mistaken. My biggest point is, of course, that while I refer to my potential inaccuracies, this same potential applies to most such anecdotes that anyone might hear, anywhere. That’s the key thing to remember: one data point, with a confidence value that cannot even be calculated.

And then there’s our old friend, confirmation bias. Even if any of the commenters are entirely correct and highly accurate, this does not negate the points in the article, much less the studies it is based on, in any way. A house full of confirmed brown recluse spiders in Alaska does not mean the state can now be considered part of their range, any more than the NC Zoo proves that puffins are native to North Carolina. You can find commenters referring to necrotic wounds as evidence of brown recluse populations, despite the very clear information within the article that necrosis is not limited to brown recluse bites, and in fact not even typical.

Confirmation bias is the golden child of pseudoscience, but it can be seen everywhere. As I’m fond of pointing out, we don’t give much credence to our neighbors when they tell us of their youthful exploits, sports accomplishments, or value in the workplace – fishing stories, in other words. But when it comes to confirming something we want to believe, oh yeah, then they’re a solid source of information, and even questioning this is often challenged with, “Are you calling them a liar?!?!?” Yet our desire to be vindicated in our beliefs does not give greater accuracy to any statement supporting said beliefs. This is, in fact, when we should be more suspicious, just because we’d love to be proven right and thus play favorites with the evidence – this is even a common warning in scientific fields.

Another consideration is sample size and representation. While I can point to the comments on that article and even count them up according to whatever broad categories I choose to define, it doesn’t mean that I’ve produced reliable data. Not everyone reading is commenting, obviously, and not everyone who came across the article even bothered to read it; by nature it may attract arachnophobes solely because it denies their fears, even in the title, so the negative, defiant nature of many comments would be virtually guaranteed regardless of the points within the article. Then we have to consider how many people skim articles or do not retain every detail within, and thus respond based on incomplete info – reflecting not stubbornness when they miss any point, but mere oversight. This means considering such comments as representing the overall populace is unwarranted, and likely very inaccurate.

Finally, we have a perspective not touched on in the article. The chances of a fatal auto accident are exponentially higher than any illness caused by bites of anything, and this never stops us from driving anywhere – we accept these risks readily even when we know of someone who died in an accident, and the rationales we use are plentiful. Using myself as an example, I receive the most injuries from working on the cars or doing larger projects, and even the smaller projects often produce some damage to my hands – it’s just the price paid. Bodies heal. Now, I can still speak of the immediate kneejerk reactions of arachnophobia, despite knowing that the risk is trivial – I can pick up a modeling knife without qualm despite nearly every finger bearing scars from one, but cannot let a large spider walk across my hand. Rational considerations do not easily overcome phobias. However, the key point about phobias is recognizing that they’re irrational fears, way out of proportion to the risks, and strictly personal. Using them to dictate behavior beyond the reflexive is the very definition of irrational, and not a justification as so many people tend to think.

But this still tells me I should probably finish up my proposed school presentation on critical thinking, because the habit of maintaining a critical perspective cannot start soon enough.

So how does one ‘compose’ an image?

Al Denelsbeck

FrostBarbs
It’s been a slow couple of weeks for finding topics of interest for some reason, which hasn’t helped with my resolve to top the number of posts done in 2011 (2012 was well short, and I’ve already passed that mark.) It’s one of those things that I don’t worry about too much, because I’d rather post because there’s something that I want to cover, not to hit some arbitrary number or a personal goal – it’s like the “personal best” idea used in sports, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard but then again, it’s uttered by sportscasters, so…

ConfusedFlowerAnyway, I still think the frost image above could be better, and if I get out tomorrow morning early enough we’ll see if I can improve on it. I feel the same way about the picture at left, even though this was a re-shoot; I’d taken one the same time as the frost pic (well, not exactly the same time, a talent I haven’t yet mastered, but a few minutes later,) but the flower was in full sunlight and that was making the contrast too high to get the best results from. The petals were blown out to pure white in ‘normal’ exposures, and the rest became too dark when that was controlled for, so I did it again while using the softboxed flash. I’m pleased with the leaves in foreground and background – the flower really was poking up through the leaf litter – but the petals seem off. They’re not only a little too symmetrical, they’re closely matched with the green leaves behind, seeming more, I dunno, geometric than we’d expect. Maybe it’s just me. I do like the prominence of the curled petal, which is why I chose this position and angle.

And that brings me to the main topic of this post. The frost pic at top was the sharpest one I got from several different leaves chosen for the effect – there were others that I liked much better as subjects, but working at high magnification handheld in deep shade, I didn’t nail those shots. With the flower, the whole image could change with a subtle shift in position; I could have shot in horizontal format, which would have worked better going wider and using the more leaves as setting, keeping the flower towards the left of the frame so it was ‘facing’ out over the leaves. A little higher and the foreground leaf would have disappeared, and might have taken away from the idea that the flower was struggling up through the clutter (which perhaps still isn’t communicated all that well – I’m biased because I know what the conditions were.) Other angles would have minimized or obscured that curled petal, just like the other petals that are barely noticeable. And of course, the lighting was important.

DriedPokeberriesThis is what’s so hard about teaching composition, because countless different factors come into play for any image, and that’s just considering one style of shooting, of which everyone has their own. It’s easy to overwhelm new photographers with loads of compositional elements, and no way to define which should be used for any particular image or approach. Here, some dried pokeberries (genus Phytolacca) had produced an interesting effect with the shiny black seeds poking through the decrepit remains of the berries – somehow, the mockingbirds did not discover them this year. But, just using the posts on composition that I’ve made so far, how many different elements were actually used here?

Position – To see both the emerging shiny seeds and the dried husks took a specific angle. Also,

Background – The soft pastel colors came from aiming up at the sky, which also eliminated

Distractions – Other portions of the plant and, much much worse, the nearby chain link fence were all too easy to have in the pic.

Focal length played a small role. The macro lens was necessary to get the detail, but it also affected the depth of field which helped blur out the branches in the background.

A subtle one is perhaps only apparent when I tell you about it. The shine of the seeds is only going to come with a distinctive light source, but the direct bright sun of the day was producing too much contrast, so a white cloth was held up just out of the frame to the left to provide reflective fill lighting – this is especially noticeable in the shine on the underside of the seeds, which were in deep shadow otherwise.

And finally, I cropped the image a little to get the framing just the way I liked it.

DriedPokeberries2It’s not just one image, either – I shot the same subject under a diffusing cloth to simulate light shade, in hazy conditions on another day (seen here,) and at night in completely controlled lighting. I used other portions of the plant or the lawn as backgrounds and even hung a few leaves from a wire close behind for the night shot (because the flash wasn’t going to travel far.) They all produced their own effects – some quite nice, some completely useless. If you ever wonder why photographers take a lot of shots or even seem obsessive, it’s because subtle changes can produce different effects on the image, and perhaps only one choice among numerous variables will net the desired results. Of the two shown here, you likely think one is better than the other, and this may or may not be in agreement with me. This preference thing comes into play when selling shots too, because editors have their own opinions, and uses may dictate certain things – while this latter shot might be more useful to show the conditions, the other might work much better solely because of the blue background, since it has to play nice with any other images in an article or post. This even comes up when I decide what to use here on the blog, and dictated the order of the images that appeared in the previous post.

It’s not unreasonable to ask how one goes about knowing which compositional elements to use for any given shot, and there isn’t a simple answer or formula for that. The first recommendation is to keep shooting, because experience tells you more than anything what will work and what won’t. But it can also help to sit down with an image and hash out the different elements that could have been used – what would fill lighting have done, or should I have come back when it was hazy? How many different backgrounds could I have managed with this subject? Does it even show what I wanted it to show? This changes compositional elements from a memorized list, which isn’t likely to work, into associations with previous subjects or conditions. Soon enough, you start seeing subjects and knowing that it’s going to look better from a lower angle, or with light coming more from the left, even before attempting the shot. And while it can be difficult to predict just how the camera will render it, because they don’t ever produce exactly what our eyes see, you will also know how that several shots at different f-stops will give a variety of effects, and that different approaches might yield some pleasant surprises. Compositional guides and tricks can be helpful, but there’s no substitute for learning how they work on one’s own. And that means practice.

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