Quote Contest Solution (and Note)

First, the answer: the quote is from Mark Twain, taken from The Mysterious Stranger. The character who speaks the line is a blond teenaged ("so young and beautiful") boy angel named Satan. I asked about the year it was written, and it seems like a range of 1896 up to Twain's death in 1910 would have to be sufficient.

I did a little digging on The Mysterious Stranger. Most academics today consider it an unfinished novel, Twain's last big project. The version I read was published posthumously in 1916, but is viewed with contempt by many Twain scholars nowadays due to the heavy editing and invention of characters by Albert Paine, the biographer who had sole control over Twain's manuscripts during that time.

Okay...it looks like there were three separate versions that are floating around, which were what occupied Twain's last decade-and-a-half. All three, as well as the Paine mis-mash, have as themes Twain's feelings about the hypocrisy of organized religion, the Moral Sense, and the "damned human race." What I read is a very serious social commentary.

One version is about an angel named Satan, a young teenage boy and nephew/namesake of the famous fallen angel, and his travels throughout a 1590 small village in Austria. Satan tries to enlighten the kids about the Moral Sense, the ridiculous way mankind treats mankind, etc. It ends abruptly with Satan entertaining in India, likely because Twain stashed it in a drawer to work on something else, probably another version. This was titled in his notes The Chronicles of Young Satan.

Another version, titled Schoolhouse Hill, starred Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and they're adventures with Satan. This is the shortest version.

The third version returns to medieval Austria, but Satan's name is now No. 44, and has No. 44 out to explain the futility of humanity to the watching kids. This version has Twain playing with his late-in-life ideas about a "waking self" and a "dreaming self," a duality of selves that interested him. In his notes this is called No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug and Freely Translated from the Jug.

The version I read, the one put together by Paine and published as a novella in 1916 as The Mysterious Stranger; a Romance, has as the bulk of the story The Young Chronicles of Satan (though heavily edited with the Astrologer character wholly added by Paine), with the ending of the No. 44... story hap-hazzardly slapped on in a weird precursor to ontological science fiction of later times.

I have to say I was heartened to see that the ending was from a different manuscript entirely, since I didn't think Twain would have so abruptly switched gears, going from a tale about an unfeeling and powerful angel to a philosophically dense ontological dilemma about one's self in the course of a half-page.

Get an idea of how Twain saw his fellow humans...check out the story.

Cult Movie Notes

In 1976, Steve Lisberger was inspired to make a sci-fi film, animated by his small animation company using both traditional hand-drawn cell work and trying to use some of the new-fangled toys offered up by the newly-becoming-affordable computer. He decided to book-end the animation with some live-action scenes.

Finding backers was difficult, but someone bit. When they realized they needed more money, they had put together a rough scene, and eventually convinced a major studio, who at that time was more interested in being daring than they are now.

The final film, from 1982, was only a modest box-office hit, earning about twice as much as it cost. It was received well by some critics, poorly by plenty more, but eventually found a cult following.

It revolutionized the way computers were approached by filmmakers, and developed a technique called Perlin noise, a way of making computer generated images look more realistic in perspective.

The major studio that took the risk was Disney, and the film was Tron (in case you hadn't guessed).

the only reason I mention any of this talk about a sci-fi film from the early eighties is because they're making a sequel, Tron Legacy.

I am curious to see how the project turns out. The original, along with King Kong and Starman, were the movies that made Jeff Bridges one of my childhood favorites. It looks like he's in the sequel as well.

White Lighter Superstition Exposed

This may not make a whole lot of sense to some of my readers, but I've come across an explanation for a maddening superstition I encountered in the dorms.

I never really shared this superstition, but many of my friends in the dorms never used white Bic lighters for anything. They wouldn't touch them, wouldn't take them from your hand, would casually curse anyone holding such a lighter...the only explanation I ever received as to why they acted so was things like "Bad things always happen when there's a white lighter around..." or "I don't know...it's just bad luck..."

Such a ridiculous superstition, I remember thinking, but also remember refraining from obtaining white lighters, mainly because of the hassle it would engender with my friends.

It turns out that the superstition goes back to a (verified?) claim that Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain all had white lighters in their possession when they died, all, rather randomly, at the age of 27.

Express Licensing: It (gasp) Works!

Wow, something resembling a clunky bureaucracy that actually works in the City? Who wouldv'e guessed...

My driver's license had been from California, and expired this past April, but since I never drive, nor get carded for much of anything, I hadn't ever gotten a NY license. Now, I feel like I wanted to change that, and since an out-of-state ID had to be expired more than two years to cost more (besides having to take the test...) I felt like now would be a good time.

Besides making some errors on my part, resulting in having to ride the subway home and back three separate times, I made it inside a thing calling itself "Express Licensing" at 3:40 pm. I had little confidence I'd get done that day, since they close at 4:30 (and shutter the front doors at 4), but after spending all day riding to midtown, then back out to Brooklyn, then back, etc, I was determined to test my luck.

In New York, or at least the City, the DMV is used for something besides renewing licenses and registrations, as this is done at these licensing express type places. I got a slip from one lady, who said, "Sign this and go over there for your picture." I signed it, and went for my picture, which took all of ninety seconds, as there was no line.

The picture lady made sure my documents were the necessary ones (my passport, my social security card, my old ID, and my application), then gave me a printed out number (A036) and told me to go sit down and wait to be called.

I waited the longest for that first call, and then waited some more as there was a lady who got to cut in front of me at the worker's discretion (which I understood, but wasn't so happy about). That employee scanned my stuff (passport, SSN card, old ID), drew an 'F' over the 'A' on my A036 number, and told me to sit again and wait for F036 to be called. Her work took about forty seconds.

I waited a little more, got called quickly, gave a new lady my stuff, she made me read a line of letters behind her, I gave her money, and I got a paper license that is valid for operating vehicles (but not as identification) to hold me over for the week or three it'll take to get me my new card. I was out by 4:07 pm.

I'm not upset about no longer having a photo ID of me when I was 16 years old, that's for sure.

Long Days Upstate

I spent a few days last week helping out on some delivery runs for Ronny Brook dairy farm, a farm that prides itself on being "beyond organic". They (and I with them) believe that how they farm is, while not adhering to one stipulation, better than organic farming, and the quality of their dairy shows as much. They bottle in glass quarts and pints on the farm; they've use the same basic family of cattle for the last sixty-plus years, having neither purchased nor sold a cow in that time; they feed the cattle organically grown grass; and they keep up a well trained staff of veterinarians on hand to make sure all the cattle are healthy.

Here's some of them checking me out while I take their picture:

My friend and I were getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get to the farm and find invoices, load the truck, and head out on tours of upstate New York, and eventually Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The area is beautiful and ancient. You get the feeling roaming through the green how the early settlers must have felt, witnessing the never-ending sprawl of timber and game, fruits and nuts there for the foraging.

On the second day, the early one/long one (I was up at quarter-to-three)(this is when we ventured out-of-state), we had a truck that had what I liked to call an NPR-only radio. Here's a picture:

The runs into Connecticut were quick and non-consecutive (we went into Conn through one road, doubled back to NY for a few more stops, and then back to Conn on a different road), and the terrain and villages were all pretty similar to those across the state line in NY. In Mass, the villages and terrain was again very similar, but there were more trees of a distinctly pine-variety.

One of our last deliveries was to somewhere called Stockdale, MA, to the Red Lion Inn. It was a pity, my friend said, that we couldn't spend more time there, since the Norman Rockwell Museum is in the vicinity. Wow, I said, I've been there before, in 2007, when my fam (on my mom's side) ventured in that direction for my grandfather's 80th birthday party. We spoke about the museum for a minute or two, and I noticed the name of the inn written on a pilar or sign on a corner that we were coming up to. We needed to cross in front of the place, then around the back, then weaving through a dense collection of buildings that made up different areas available for rent from the inn-keepers.

I had a strange feeling when we passed the front of the Red Lion Inn. Then it hit me: this is the establishment we ate at after the trip to the Rockwell Museum. I said as much, and my friend said, good for you, they serve some good grub. I agreed.

We made it back to his house by 2 pm or so, which left me about an hour to go before needing to be in Poughkeepsie to pick up the train to Yankee Stadium for the night's game, a make-up game between the Yanks and the A's. having been up for more than twelve hours already before the train showed up, I was quite delirious and dazed for the ride back to town.

I had to make a stink as well to leave the train at Yankee Stadium. I had a train ticket for the longest possible route along the particular commuter line I was dealing with; Grand Central (the beginning) and Poughkeepsie (the end). The Yankee Stadium stop is between the two, and I was planning to just get out there instead of going all the way into Manhattan, turning around and taking the subway back. The ticket cost more than the distance I was planning on riding, so I didn't foresee any problem. But...in the infinite wisdom of the New York Yankee Cash-Money Printing Machine, there is a special cost of using the Yankee Stadium terminal, one which I wasn't going to pay. I was cranky anyway, and hungry, and made a scene, and was able to leave without paying the extra charge.

Of course, it was pouring down rain, quite windy, and pretty much miserable all around. Corrie and I met up, entered the park, found our seats, got some food and refreshments, and tried to keep warm. Isn't this July?

We were getting pretty fed-up with the whole shenanigans of not calling the game a washout just to keep people hovering around the beer and hot-dog vendors...finally, close to 9 pm, almost two hours after the proposed start was scheduled, we decided to leave. It was Thursday, and Corrie had already in that week worked 47 hours at her office, and I'd been up since before 3 am. We got home and learned they'd just started, close to 10 pm, which meant they ended close to 1 am. I was bummed we missed the game, but we couldn't stay any longer. Yankee Stadium is not quite a cheap place to just chill and wait out some miserable weather. Here are some pictures:

The Solomon Dwek Operation

Solomon Dwek was the son of a Rabbi. He started a career as a Jersey real estate mogul, buying land and selling it to developers, while still in his teens. From there he became a money guy, and con-artist, fleecing hundreds of people out of millions of dollars.

He was finally caught by bouncing a $25 million check; he deposited the check into a night drop and tried to withdraw $23 million of it soon afterwards. He was caught, and in the courtroom that day in 2006 at his pre-trial arraignment, loud and angry victims overflowed into the hallways. He had disparaged his family's good name, and destroyed countless family's retirement plans.

Instead of prison, Dwek decided to help the FBI, and go undercover in an unprecedented sting operation. What he told the FBI he could give them was so outlandish that they were initially in disbelief, but he convinced them, and if any of my readers have seen the news coming out of Jersey and Brooklyn lately, he wasn't lying.

Dwek help lead the feds to arresting--all on the same day mind you--44 folks in jersey and Brooklyn, but these weren't your average thugs, gangsters, mafioso, shady dealers and the like. They nabbed three mayors of New Jersey cities, state senators and assembly-persons from New Jersey and New York, Rabbis from Jersey and Brooklyn, and may other bribe-taking folks in the building department of New Jersey.

The sting netted two basic categories of criminals. One was the bribe-taking corruption you find in almost any municipality. Inspectors being paid to clam up about mistakes; city council members being paid to push through permits; mayors being paid for green-lighting certain projects over others...the mayor of Hoboken was one of the mayors arrested. Hoboken lies directly across the Hudson from Greenwich Village, is a picturesque little burg, about 1 square mile in area, and had just elected the mayor two months ago in early June. Two months...and he's arrested for corruption. One quote taken from a smitten resident called this mayor "so young and handsome" at least three separate times, and she could hardly believe the allegations were true. Everyone who was arrested in the bribe/corruption can be heard on wiretap recordings bragging about their deals and status.

Wiretap recordings also nabbed the other category of criminal netted in the sting. This one was centered around Brooklyn, and run by one or two Rabbis. This is the organ-trafficking category, the made-for-pulp-fiction type stuff.

The way it seemed to work is that destitute folks from places like Moldavia and Israel would be flown into America with phony visas, have a kidney removed, be paid a few thousand dollars and be sent home, or be sent to work as cheap labor here. The organs would be sold on the black market for $160k and up, sold to waiting and willing customers. 

When they processed the 44 arrested through the federal court in New Jersey, they were doing it in groups to speed the process up and be able to finish it that day.

Solomon Dwek, con-man, FBI snitch, blows the lid off of a sordid level corruption barely seen this side of Italian politics...

Quick Ozzie Smith Note

Ozzie Smith was a shortstop in Major League Baseball, and was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame. He was a light hitting, slick fielding dynamo, short and skinny, former Mustang (Cal Poly, baby)...

His defensive wonders were highlight-reel worthy before Sports Center was around, but is there a way to measure his defensive prowess using statistics? Possibly...

This is something that appeals to the number-cruncher in me, so my apologies to those who find this lame and boring...

There are stats that tell us how many groundballs were hit to the shortstop during the season (actually, the stats cover every out of an entire season, but we're looking at shortstop only). From this, we can add up all the groundballs to short for every team, then divide by the number of teams to get an average number per team. If any team is substantially above the average, our conclusion is that their shortstop had good range, or was an excellent--at least above average--defensive shortstop.

One problem here is: what if a team with above average play at shortstop has inflated numbers due to groundball inducing pitchers, like sinker-ball throwing righties, or hard throwing lefties? This is a problem, and you can either accept it as part of the limitations of statistics, or not accept it, and claim all this as illusion or fraud.

However you feel about the limitations of stats, one thing that is shown is that Ozzie had substantially above average numbers almost every single year of his career, and, it turns out, is the only shortstop is pro-ball history to be at +500 plays relative to his teams' leagues and contexts...what that says is that Ozzie Smith got to 504 more grounders at shortstop than an average player playing in the same leagues and years as him, throughout his career...

You know what they say: "three types of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics", but this only seems to reinforce our pre-conceived notions and memories of our slick fielding Wizard of Oz.