Magic Shows (Lapham's Quartely 05-3 2012)

 LQ 05-3: Magic Shows (2012) Magicians take advantage of the way the brain constructs a simulation of reality. The brain does a good enough job that most of us survive long enough to succeed at whatever ambitions we may have. But the simulation is flawed in fundamental ways, and the magicians know how to exploit those errors to make us believe we see what doesn’t happen while we miss what actually happens.
     There have always been people who believe that magic is real, that the illusions crafted by the magicians aren’t illusions at all. Some scallywags have exploited this desire to believe in mastery of supernatural powers, which has always damaged people’s wallets, and too often their health as well.
     Of course, “magic” has many senses. The common core means something like “actually or apparently breaking the laws that govern reality as we know it.” There’s always the whiff of the supernatural about magic. At one extreme, people may believe that evil entities use magic to mislead or harm. At the other extreme, all apparently inexplicable phenomena are dismissed as fraud or delusion. Superstition and cynicism are close cousins.
     Me, I enjoy a good magic show. I also have more or less serious doubts about the claims for sightings of the Loch Ness monster, or abductions by aliens arriving on Earth in flying saucers. As for spoon bending, while I don’t know how to do this trick, other people do, and psychic energy isn’t part of it.
     Magic is designed to elicit wonder, which makes it close cousin to science and art. It requires skills useful in both. As entertainment, it satisfies. As a reminder that the universe is largely inexplicable, it may rekindle wonder and gratitude at the gift of life, and a brain able to both explain the mystery at the heart of reality, and know where that explanation shades into confabulation.
     Recommended. ****

The Disordered Cosmos (Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 2021)

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. The Disordered Cosmos. (2021) A mix of science, history of science, memoir, sociology, and psychology. Prescod-Weinstein’s thesis is that while Western science has given us unimaginable insight into the structure of the cosmos, it has also ignored, deprecated or suppressed the contributions of women and Indigenous people. Worse, it has often dismissed their contributions as mere superstition.
     I found this book both exhilarating and painful to read. Exhilarating because of her skill in explaining the abstruse and esoteric concepts that are the core of modern physics. Painful because of what it cost her to achieve these insights. She played the academic game, and achieved academic career success. She’s now using her position to try to change the culture of science. I hope she succeeds.
     One thing her book confirms: Modern physics is mostly about how we cannot know what we would like to know. The equations describe mysteries so well that we can predict the interactions we will measure in our experiments and observations. But exactly what the interacting entities are is unknown, and likely unknowable. Given invisible matter and contestable energy, we may never know more than a tiny fraction of the cosmos, and understand less. Perhaps we are limited by our very nature: we are stardust, electromagnetic entities.
     Read this book. ****

Work: Love it or hate it, you need it. (Lapham's Quarterly 04-2, Spring 2011)

 LQ 04-2: Lines of Work. (2011) “Work fascinates me. I could watch it for hours.” That’s one of the quotes scattered through this collection. It expresses one end of the range of attitudes to work, adumbrated in the curse laid on Adam after the Fall: In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread. At the other end we find St Benedict’s Ora et Labora, “Work and pray”, often rendered as Laborare est orare, “To work is to pray.”
     We humans need purpose and structure in our lives, and work provides that. The lucky ones have work that satisfies. Most have work that earns enough to survive, while providing much of the social life without which we cannot thrive. The unlucky ones toil at soul-crushing labour, which as often as not is neither valued nor rewarded as the necessary effort that enables our survival and keeps the rest of us in relative comfort.
     William Morris (not included, an instructive omission, I think) was one of many starry-eyed reformers who recognised the inhumane aspects of industrialised work, and wanted a return to what he believed was the golden age of craft. He thought of craft as work that not only earned a living but engaged the worker’s skill and imagination. Morris failed to see that even craft relies on the toil of labourers that relieves the crafter of the necessity of spending time in the work that sustains their life.
     There are many descriptions of actual work in this collection, most by people who found a way out of the labour that they describe. One is by Orwell. His account of how the workers at the grand hotels of Paris discharged their duties would have convinced me never to stay at anything above a one or two star establishment. Maybe things have changed since the 1930s. I would have included an excerpt from Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
     The other pieces describe or discuss the context of work, or of the relations that working with others makes possible. Work makes up the single largest part of our lives. Irksome or satisfying, necessary or optional, we can’t escape it. It’s the necessity that irks. When we choose how to occupy ourselves, that freedom erases the negatives.
     Most of my jobs have been more or less interesting, at least until I mastered the requisite skills. But usually, my co-workers were more important than the work. I worked most of my life as a teacher, work that was sometimes frustrating enough that I wondered whether I could continue. I did, and now I miss the classroom and the staff room.
     As always, recommended. ****

Banks and his Brother: Strange Affair (Robinson, 2005)

 Peter Robinson. Strange Affair (2005) Banks is recovering from nearly dying in the fire that destroyed his cottage. His estranged brother Roy leaves a message asking to speak to him about a matter of life and death. Banks goes off to London to find Roy.
Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabot investigates the murder of a young woman shot at close range in her car. The two threads intertwine, of course. More murders, international sex trafficking, shady business deals, etc, and we have a nicely done puzzle satisfyingly solved. But the story telling is dilatory, the a ambience sometimes pure cliche, and the characterisation too often 2D. The title’s link to the story is obscure, like a bad cryptic crossword clue. Below Robinson’s standard, which still makes it a cut or a half above average. **½

Celebrities: A culural constant (LQ 04-1)

LQ 04-1: Celebrity (2011) There are times when our worship of celebrities seems like a

peculiarly 21st century aberration. This collection may cause a revision of that opinion, and perhaps a more sanguine attitude. It had that effect on me, and prompted a number of reflections. Herewith a small sampling.
     True, there are now probably more people famous for being famous than ever before, but such people have always existed, and humans have always paid them more attention than they merited. True, much celebrity is founded on genuine achievement, but even more genuine achievement has gone uncelebrated. Our century may be unusual only in the intensity of celebrity worship. But every historical era is an outlier in some aspect of human possibility; that’s how and why we mark them. Cultural expression varies over time and place, but the range of cultural options is remarkably small. One of them is celebrity, labelled fame in earlier times.
     The desire for fame was often considered a virtuous ambition, especially by the Greeks and Romans, for it prompted striving for excellence. The desire for notoriety has been seen as the corresponding vice. While the great religions have praised the one and condemned the other, they have also expressed some ambivalence. For glorying in fame, even that earned by virtue or excellence, is too close to pride, especially its pathetic variant, vanity.
     Celebrity belongs to the suite of social dimensions labelled “reputation.” Our public persona is our reputation. We know ourselves in the tension and contrast between that public persona and our self-perception. That makes reputation important: We want outer and inner self to be as closely aligned as possible. It may be that our focus on celebrity is in part an attempt to learn how to create a reputation that meets our expectations or fantasies about ourselves.
     There’s a lot to chew on in this collection. One is P T Barnum’s discussion of how to make celebrity pay: Manufacture it. Reading his comments, one sees that marketing is the commodification of celebrity, which in turn explains phenomena such as the Kardashians. That’s progress of a sort, perhaps.
    Recommended. ****

Maliick's Pillow Book: Random musings and barbs.

     Heather Mallick. The Pillow Book of Heather Mallick (2004) Mallick was still writing for The Globe and Mail when she published this book. The Globe eventually dismissed her because of her caustic remarks about rich twits who think they’re the Universe’s gift to the rest of us. She titled this collection of notes “Pillow Book” in homage to Sei Shonagon. Like a commonplace book, a pillow book is a collection of quotes. Like a journal, the quotes are written by the collector.
     Mallick is about as open a writer as I’ve ever read. She seems to hold nothing back. I’m sure she’s left out some of her rawest bits, after all, one’s readers’ sensitivities must be respected. What she’s included adds up to a portrait of a person on whom nothing is lost, one who finds nothing human alien to her. But Mallick does show her distaste for the detestable. Fundamentally, she’s a satirist in the Juvenalian tradition, which means she’s a moralist. Her morality is simple: Don’t hurt people. But otherwise, you can do (and say) what you want.
     As you might guess, I enjoyed this book. Even the bits that annoyed me. Mallick’s sharp eye is matched by a clear style. Recommended. ****

Past Reason Hated: Early DI Banks Shows Robinson's Skills

Peter Robinson. Past Reason Hated. (1991) Caroline Hartley, a beautiful childlike woman is found stabbed to death, with a recording of Vivaldi’s Laudate Pueri playing on repeat. Banks believes that the answers he needs will be found in her past. Newly promoted Detective Constable Susan Gay, newly married Detective Sergeant Jim Hatchley, the cast of an amateur production of Twelfth Night, (directed by Susan’s former teacher), the dead woman’s lover, a mysterious poet, the dead woman’s dysfunctional family, and other obstacles on the path to enlightenment delay Banks long enough that there’s almost another murder.
      An early Banks, but Robinson’s ability to develop character and ambience make for a satisfyingly long read. My copy was well-used, and will be passed on. Recommended. ***