Dan Riskin. Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You (2014)

     Dan Riskin. Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You (2014) One of those popular science books that not only tells you lots of cool stuff, but changes the way you look at the world around you. Riskin takes us back to basics: Nature really is red in tooth and claw, and we’d better not forget it. He demonstrates this thesis under the headings of six of the seven deadly sins, carefully including human examples as well. We are animals, we must eat other living things to survive, and like them we want to maximise the odds that our DNA will be passed on by the next generation. Quoting Dawkins brilliant insight, Riskin reminds us that we are machines whose function is to ensure the survival of the DNA that constructs us.
    So what does it matter that we experience love and kindness and joy, and yearn for justice and truth and beauty? These emotions are merely part of the mechanism that guarantees that we will make babies, along with the other emotions that guarantee that we will try to survive long enough to make sure our babies can make babies too.
     That’s the bleak vision Riskin arrives at when he gets to pride, which is a peculiarly human sin. It makes us oblivious of our connection to and participation in the natural world of competition for every possible scrap of advantage. But turn this pride inside out: Instead of being proud of ability to change other creatures to our advantage, we should be proud of our ability to change ourselves to our advantage. We are capable of doing something that other animals can’t do, which is to plan for the long-range future, and curb and redirect those behaviours that give us immediate, short-term advantages over each other and other animals. That, says Riskin, is something to be proud of. We can refuse to be slaves to our DNA.  Evolution produced us, but it also made us capable of defying its process. Or more humbly, to take advantage of its processes to enable the survival of our DNA not only in the next generation, but in the  generations after that. With luck and savvy, and a huge dollop of rethinking of our purposes, maybe for thousands of generations into the future.
     A book worth reading on many levels. Riskin has a sense of humour, he writes well, and he knows how to present examples that not only teach but also entertain. ***

Amanda Cross. Honest Doubt (2000)

     

     Amanda Cross. Honest Doubt (2000) This book introduces Estelle “Woody” Woodham, a PI hired by first the family then the colleagues of Charles Haycock, a professor of English at a small liberal arts college somewhere in New Jersey. The man was hated by everyone, all his colleagues are suspects. Woody doesn’t know much about the academic “country”, so a mutual friend recommends she consult with Kate Fansler. Fansler’s husband Reed calls in a favour which links Woody up with Don Jackson, who explains that the local police department would be happy for her to solve the case, which she does. A movie of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express figures in the solution, which Woody can’t share with anyone, not even Don.
     Woody is an appealing heroine. She deprecates herself because she’s fat, but she knows her craft, and she knows people. Kate has a background role only, perhaps Cross was tired of showing us academe from Kate’s privileged point of view. Despite having a law degree, Woody is no academic; as an outsider she’s a good vehicle for Cross’s satire. All in all a nicely done entertainment, narrated by a character whom we would like to know even better. There was one more Kate Fansler mystery published after this one, I’ve not found it and don’t know whether it continues with Woody or reverts to Kate.
     Amanda Cross was the pseudonym of Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, more  at Wiki.
     I liked this book as much as the other Kate Fansler novels. Cross has the gift of writing not only believable but intelligent conversation. ***

The Imitation Game (2014)

      The Imitation Game (2014) [D: Morton Tyldum. Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode] A fictionalised version of Turing’s life, focussing on his work at Bletchley Park, where he improved on a Polish code-breaking machine and invented the theoretical basis of the digital computer, and ending with his arrest on charges of gross indecency and the effects of synthetic estrogen on his personality and mind.
     The script emphasises the strained human relationships and emotional costs, and strongly hints that Turing was autistic. It dramatises the research and the conflicts within Bletchley Park, portraying its Commander as a narrow-minded results-focussed martinet who despised academics. The relationship between Turing and Joan Clarke has the ring of truth, despite the use of Knightley to act the part. The producers skim over the math and logic, rightly deciding I think that too much technical detail would cause eye-glazing. But an unfortunate side-effect is a variation on the mad-scientist-geek stereotype: Turing is not normal. I think that many, perhaps most, movie-goers will on the one hand sympathise with the emotional pain Turing suffered, and on the other will feel confirmed in the attitude that science is not for ordinary folk. The victimisation of Turing as a gay man will cause similar mixed responses.
     Having seen Codebreaker (See review of February 24, 2015) I think was an advantage, since it supplied an objective framework for this film’s point of view. We can never know what it feels like to be someone else; we even have difficulty reconstructing our own early selves. Biopics like this one help us, and when a nuanced script, a uniformly high level of action, and a carefully paced narrative rhythm come together as they do in this movie, we only be grateful. It’s worth seeing, both as a great movie and as a credible and moving interpretation of a troubled man’s life. ****

Morley Callaghan. No Man’s Meat (1931)

     Morley Callaghan. No Man’s Meat (1931) Soft-porn novella originally published in 1931 in Paris in an edition of 525 copies, all signed by Callaghan. Reissued by Stoddart in 1990. A divorced woman visits her friends at their cottage in Muskoka. She plays poker with the husband, loses every hand, and finally bets her virtue. The wife insists that the husband collect the bet, which the friend feels is a matter of honour. It’s not a good experience for either of them. The wife comforts the friend. Next morning, she tells her husband that the friend left her marriage because she cannot stand the touch of a man. Next morning, she drives the friend to the station, and leaves with her. The husband is left alone to ponder the note in which the wife confesses that she loves the friend, and that she will not return.
     Like all of Callaghan’s stories, it’s told in a plain style that distances us from the action while at the same time engaging our imaginations and so our feelings. But it’s not among Callaghan’s best stories, and would not have been reprinted if it had been by another hand. **

Mr Harper's War on Science

Since taking power in 2006, the Harper government has systematically reduced funding for anything that directly or indirectly opposes their ideology. John Dupuis has compiled a chronology  on Science Blogs. Read it and weep.

Human Cantilever Bridge

 

Boing-Boing republished the above old photo, which I first saw in a Wonder Book, a series of compendiums first published in England sometime in the 1920s, and continued into the 1950s: Human cantilever bridge

George Gently & Miss Fisher: two TV series episodes

     Gently: The Lost Child (2012) Episode 3 of the 2012 season. [D:Nicholas Benton. Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby] An adopted child is kidnapped, but the reasons aren’t money. The kidnapper was himself an adopted child. The adoption agency is run by a woman with well-meaning but mistaken motives. Gently and Bacchus must navigate an emotionally intense tangle of past history, motives, secrets, and events. People are unable or unwilling to reveal essential knowledge because they are afraid of their own vulnerability, and because they want to do what’s best for their partner. Well meaning motives cause trouble. Gently and Bacchus’s own lives mirror some of the relationships they must investigate.
     Like the other Gently episode we’ve seen, this one’s moody, sad, psychologically complex. Hunter (the author of the books) clearly is more interested in how the random collisions of private and public knowledge and motives lead to catastrophe. ***

     Miss Fisher: Raisins & Almonds (2012) [D: David Caesar. Essie Davis, Nathan Page.  Based on the books by Kerry Greenwood.]
     It’s the 1920s. The Hon. Phryne Fisher is for some reason displaced to Melbourne. There she lives in a fine house with a full staff and several hangers-on that assist her in her investigations. Just how she has created a PI career for herself is unclear, since this is the 5th episode. The series is now in its third season, we will watch it when we can.
     The series is agreeable fluff, lovely clothes and cars, stereotypes galore (Australia at the time was still very much a colony), many different accents, and light-weight historical references, which in this episode form a large part of the plot and puzzle. The McGuffin is a formula for synthetic rubber, created by the murder victim, who has Zionist connections. Family rivalries motivate the murder. There’s some kind of romance developing between Miss Fisher and Inspector Jack Robinson. Miss Fisher has a gun and a dagger, both of which she uses when she needs to. In short, an adventure romance of the kind that is rarely written these days, which may explain why these books are quite often translated into video.
     The scripting, acting, photography add up to competent story-telling. A well-crafted entertainment. Worth watching if you like this genre. Wikipedia has entries on both Kerry Greenwood and the TV series.**½