Katniss and the chopping block

 I don't suppose anyone has invented a system yet for competitive wood cutting, but if someone were to do that, invent a system of style points, it might produce some interesting results.  Degree of difficulty determined by circumference and length of the piece to be split, hardwood or soft. Different weight divisions of competitors.. Form, freestyle or mandatory styles. Meanwhile with no standard to judge by and the lack of spectators at any wood pile, probably everyone has a developed a slightly different way of standing, swinging a maul and following through without jarring their arms out of the shoulder sockets.

Alaska Gothic, with my daughter at the East
Pole, circa 1987, holding that 16-pound maul.

At the East Pole for serious bouts of splitting, I have a 16-pound wedge-shaped maul I bought from the Sotz catalogue many years ago.  That takes a lot just to lift and often I can just let it drop and good dry spruce will fall apart.  But some of the thicker, newer birch takes a bit more oomph.  For particularly difficult ones, I get the maul over my head, hesitate a moment, then lift up onto the balls of my feet and with my whole body bring that monster down onto the resistant wood.  Not much can withstand that hard a hit.  With that swing I can actually feel my legs and then my lats and then shoulders and arms going into it, enough so that if my aim is a little off and I strike a glancing blow, I come close to losing my balance.  It's a full-body swing.  

I haven't watched many people split wood so I have no idea if anybody else uses that little tip-toe move to gain more power. At least I didn't until I saw a movie the other night.

I have been enchanted with Jennifer Lawrence ever since I saw her in "Hunger Games" more than a year ago.  I cheered when she won her Oscar for "Silver Linings Playbook."  Curious I looked into her career and learned her first starring role was in something called "Winter's Bone," which I had never heard of.  Movies are easy to come by with iTunes and Amazon these days and I bought it for, I think $9.  I save those movies on my iPad for times when I don't have access to another way to watch a movie. So, last time at the East Pole, I watched it.  Turns out it was nominated for four Academy Awards including best actress for her -- in her first leading role.

In it she plays a poor woman trying to keep her family alive and together in the Ozarks.  It's a pretty
rugged life made tougher by the plot. Among other things she has to split firewood to keep the family warm.  Of course in the movie, she doesn't have to do it all day like we do in real life, but she took enough licks to make it real. As I watched, something jumped out that told me she knew how to do this, or that someone had researched it and taught her.  She lifted the axe over her head, went up on the balls of her feet and brought the steel down hard right through the wood sending two splits in opposite directions.  I choose to believe she and not a stunt double did it. I often look for reality in fiction, little details that give the story and characters credibility.  Up on the balls of her feet to split firewood, yeah, that rang true to me.

The action gave me even more respect for a very young actress whom I already liked. 

But, later, as I thought through it all,  hmmm  OMG, is it me?  Maybe she wasn't doing it right at all, maybe, ugh, maybe, what if it's me, what if I swing an axe like a girl?

Firewood and revery
JJ Watt does it too

SCHOOLED: More recently I was schooled on doing things like a girl. Mo' ne Davis is 13 years old. She is the first girl to pitch and win a Little League World Series game and also the first to pitch a shutout in that tournament. She throws a 70 mph fastball. And what does she say about that? In a quietly defiant voice she says, "That's throwing like a girl." Watch out world.

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right

Eric Clapton and JJ Cale live playing "After Midnight"

The day after JJ Cale died seemed the perfect one to go for a long, contemplative, aimless drive.  Loaded all the Cale and Clapton onto the iPhone and headed out, not sure where I was going, but with the idea of going up one street in town that I have always wondered what was up there.

Looking up into that pass, it's just around that next ridge. Maybe.

Turns out, nothing really, houses and more houses and the street eventually ended in a T. I took the left option and ended up on the highway, but a sign there offered the perfect destination: Hatcher Pass.  For those who don't know the area it is a low pass in the Talkeetna Mountains between Palmer and Willow, though a little north of both.  Buildings from an old mine still stand near the summit and it's a popular skiing place in winter.  But, this day all leafed out in green it seem the perfect venue for a little introspection.

So far, except for those who died unexpectedly, JJ Cale is the rock performer closest to the music that has been close to me for most of my life. That and we are also connected through two other favorites, Eric Clapton and Leon Russell.  Years ago I ran a boat for a couple of summers that only had an 8-track player. Knowing I wouldn't be using them anywhere but on the boat I only bought a handful of 8-tracks.  JJ Cale was one of them.

The shroud masks a flag
at Hatcher Pass Lodge.

So with Cale and sometimes Clapton rocking the Jeep we headed up the narrow road to the pass. 

Clouds obscured the high peaks with shrouds of funereal whitish gray above the myriad shades of green on their slopes, interrupted only by splashes of pink-purple fireweed.  The Little Susitna River rushed seaward along side the road, swollen by recent hard rains.

At one pullout, Anchorage Gen-Yers in their Tour de France clothing unloaded bicycles from their Subarus.  I thought more of the early prospectors who must have hauled their gear up this trail on their backs, perhaps with horses, maybe dog teams or, later, with machinery.  And, too the Natives who crossed this pass long before those miners. Doubt any of them would have thought much of spandex bicycle shorts and aerodynamic  plastic helmets.

Farther on a young mother dressed more like we'd expected an Alaskan to, was lifting bicycles out of her pickup truck for herself and her two small children.  That was more like it.

As the road grew steeper, I stopped at a pullout to try for a picture that would illustrate what the pass was and in that parking lot a couple had unloaded and saddled two horses and were preparing to ride somewhere.  That felt more comfortable too.

The curvy road continued its steep rise into the pass until I entered the shrouds, only gray and the brush close to the road visible, climbing into the clouds. Just in time for Clapton and Cale to swing into "Danger:"

Danger she's out into the night

Danger she's such a pretty sight

Danger she's out with you tonight

Danger she such a pretty sight

--JJ Cale. "Danger"

The Little Su flows out under the shroud.

In the clouds the air turned noticeably cooler as well, a deathly chill adding to the atmosphere of mourning, the shroud hanging like the black bunting at a funeral, an armband only one that tried to smother everything.

At a high turnout I stopped and faced the Jeep where I could see down the valley once in a while as the cloud passed by sometimes opening up the view.  It seemed a good place to think about things.  The Little Su roared down the mountain somewhere off to the right, again every imaginable shade of green lit up when the shrouds allowed a little bit of light to intrude into the atmosphere. I sat on the hood of the Jeep, now listening to "Don't Cry Sister:"

Don’t cry sister cry, it’ll be alright in the morning

Don’t cry sister cry, everything will be just fine

Don’t cry sister cry, it’ll be alright, I tell you no lie

Don’t cry sister cry, don’t do it, don’t do it

-- JJ Cale, "Don't Cry Sister"

The road down.

No tears, though, warm memories of times when there was Cale music.  I remember we made up new words for "Cocaine."  All that comes to mind now is "Propane, it'll take what you got, and sure make it hot, Propane."  A love interest on that 8-track boat and sitting together with a jug of wine lost in the music. And so many Clapton versions of his songs, "After Midnight," "Cocaine." Cale wrote Lynyrd Skynyrd's hit “Breeze.”

Well, they call me the breeze
I keep rollin' down the road
Yeah, they call me the breeze
I keep rollin' down the road
I ain't got me nobody
I ain't carry no heavy load

JJ Cale, "They Call Me the Breeze"

The Little Su lower in the pass with a head of steam.

Those rock musicians from my day, at least the ones who didn't die early, unnatural deaths, are aging into their seventies now.  Cale was 74 when he died.  Mick Jagger turned 70 the day before, Paul McCartney is 71, as I will be in a couple of months. Keith Richards has been 70 since he was 30. Clapton is 68. So many out there, All those great musicians from the 60s, so, more of this is going to happen and we might as well get ready for it.  JJ Cale is the first major one in my life, again not counting those too early tragic deaths.

I sat on the Jeep hood listening for a while, the chill dew of the cloud cooling and moistening my face while the music filled my head.  In time I took the camera over to the edge and snapped a picture of the river tumbling down through the valley. Somehow a river belonged in this reverie like the clouds, the mountains, the music and I felt fulfilled and refreshed, I started up and began the long drive down off the mountain, having taken care of the melancholy brought on by the death of someone who feels like he was a friend.  Rest easy, my friend, your music will carry on.

The photo is by Tony Gutierrez of the Associated Press. I
might have to take it down at some point, but for now it
seems the perfect portrait.

Floatin' down that old river boy, all my worries far behind,

Floatin' down that old river boy, leave old memories way behind,

Yesterday is slowly fadin',

I been waitin', now forever, for this ride

JJ Cale, "Ride the River"

Sun shines where I'm going home.

Republished by Alaska Commons 

A bridge too far ... up

        

This picture came from a facebook page called Interesting Engineering.  
The only caption information read "Pont De Normandie, France."

Over the years there has been a recurring dream, one that has never come up in discussion so far, mostly because there isn't an easy interpretation and for that reason alone it has been disturbing.

It involves driving a vehicle over a bridge, only the bridge is so high and the road so steep, the vehicle never makes it to the top and the effort paralyzes the driver in fear.  In the process, the climb is agonizingly long and never reaches the peak, like other dreams about actions with no outcome, like the endless falling dream many people report having. There is one where I am in a fight and throw a punch that goes on forever, never connects and the swing never stops.  This vehicle only climbs and climbs and climbs getting ever higher but apparently never crossing the river.

There probably are standard interpretations for this dream like there are for the falling one but so far none has showed up in anything I've read or heard. What are the symbols here?  A bridge spans an obstacle.  But in this the bridge becomes an obstacle in itself.  It is dizzyingly high, and the roadway narrow.  Perhaps height is part of the disturbance and that bridge represents a height beyond the capability of the dreamer, a frustrating unreachable goal.  There just doesn't seem to be a simple interpretation, but the feelings generated are all too real.

When this picture showed up on facebook today it hit me in the pit of my stomach; I actually responded physically to the sight and the dream came immediately to mind as this bridge is so reminiscent of the one in those dreams. At first it looked like the roadway went all the way up to those high arches, a height comparable with the dream.  A more careful look revealed the road only goes about half that high, but, still steep and a long climb.

Thoughts of these dreams of endless unresolved actions reminded me of another.  For the first year or so that I lived in Alaska, I had a recurring dream that I was Outside somewhere (meaning somewhere other than Alaska). The whole dream revolved around trying to get back to Alaska and the frustration of not being able to overcome obstacles to that effort again leaving the dreamer suspended in a frustrating yearning to somehow make it back.  Like throwing that punch that never lands or climbing that insurmountable bridge in endless fearful frustration.  I met someone who had the same dream.

In writing this it's starting to occur that it is that frustration and all of these dreams really are based in the same stimulus somehow, the effort of reaching for something unattainable. At this time of day, the one thing to reach for is sleep. Why don't I get these ideas in the morning?  Now there's this idea of dreaming about taking a swing at a bridge too tall to climb and falling off it but never reaching the river below which would be my way back to Alaska.  I may be awake for a while.

----

From Wikipedia: The Pont de Normandie is a cable-stayed road bridge that spans the river Seine linking Le Havre to Honfleur in Normandy, northern France. Its total length is 7,032 feet,  2,808 feet between the two piers. Despite being a motorway toll bridge, there is a footpath as well as a narrow cycle lane in each direction allowing pedestrians and cyclists to cross the bridge free of charge.  Its height is listed as 705 feet but that may be to the top of the towers.  What ever it is, I don't think I will be going there any time soon.

Oh no, there's another one

Cinema

Oh, yeah, ran into some friends at the movies.

Nothing all that consequential.  I've kind of judged what movies I would pay money to see by their television commercials.  If there are several commercials over time and they only show one or at most two different scenes, it seems to me if there are only two highlights in a film worth promoting, it might not be worth seeing. On the other hand, if you see a commercial for a particular movie several times, and each of them is different or there are very few repetitions, chances are there is a lot going on in that movie and it might be worth seeing.  That theory proved out the other night when I went to see "The Heat."  I don't remember seeing such a fast-paced movie with so many scenes one right after the other that drew laugh after laugh.  Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock are hilarious playing off each other, with original dialog and one humorous situation and outcome following another. And true to that movie I would guess I saw TV commercials with at least half a dozen different scenes highlighted.  And, after seeing the movie it looks like they had a hard time picking only half a dozen. I think I can safely stick to my theory.

For the record, only one person was given a writing credit.  Her name is Katie Dippold and among other things she has been a writer and producer of the "Parks and Recreation" and "MADtv" shows. Here is her Wikipedia entry.

Someone to watch, I think.

Moving on, I have been marveling (no pun intended, really) at the change in science fiction movies in recent years. Remember when futuristic movies took place in exotic science-fictitious locations with floating homes and hover craft and food delivered at the push of a button, where the society lived with all kinds of marvelous technological advances even though there would be drama and strife? Today, that has changed and most of the futuristic movies project a post-apocalyptic world where buildings are skeletons of steel, wrecked cars are the mode of transportation (usually with no explanation for where the gasoline comes from) and people wearing tatters and searching for food (though, again, they usually have enough ammunition to fight whoever the bad guys are)  And another note about those cars, how about how fast people travel on foot, New York City to northern New England, Massachusetts to Charlestown  South Carolina, or Northeast Coast to Texas all in just a couple of days and with no apparent change in foliage or climate.

How did we get from a future so bright we’d have to wear shades to a world desolated by universal war or alien invasion?  Are we still an optimistic society?

What else needs to be said?

                                                                                                                       From the All Science, All the Time facebook page.

Ardent spirits

Some days I feel like the Dan Rather of copy editing, relegated to a backwater channel still performing, but for minimum wage.  The only difference is Rachel Maddow doesn't ask me about divisive issues like one or two spaces between sentences, or a slash or not at the end of a web address, or whether or not to use "on" before of a day of the week.  Believe it or not those are emotional issues that raise anger among certain segments of the editing population.  For what it's worth, you can't stand ON a day.

Other days it's more like River, receptors wide open but despite intelligence, no idea what to do with what she knew, until one day she becomes Serenity.  That's a "Firefly" reference in case you don't know.

Then I heard a term tonight that just screams to be used.  It showed up on a Ken Burns PBS special about the Lewis and Clarke expedition.  At Christmas on the Oregon coast after two years on the trail, Meriwether Lewis lamented they had no ardent spirits with which to celebrate the occasion.  The early American lexicon had such wonderful terms, terms that are lost now unless somebody like Ken Burns dredges them out of expedition journals.

In another incarnation. research found this one in a description of an early Alaska gold miner who had gone crazy.  The editor of a newspaper in Iditarod wrote that whatever tipped him over was, "the last blow to unseat his reason."

Ardent spirits seem quite tempting in the current climate on the Knik River bank as well, only unlike for Lewis and the Corps of Discovery, there are some available here.

I might have been right

Sometimes it is like I have too much free time to think.  Over the years in that free time my mind has presented a number of theories, most of which turn out to be pretty harebrained.  But, then that is outside the box, which is all the rage these days. To my mind there should be no box.  Free thought, like free fall, anti-gravity and loose.

Anyway one of the theories that crossed my mind was in thinking about how no one had been able to cure the common cold, perhaps there was a good reason for that.  Given all the substances that come flowing out of the body in those periods, I thought maybe the common cold was good for us.  Good as in cleansing our systems of contaminants.  Given that mucus is supposedly a catch-all for alien intrusions in the body and that mucus is mostly what is expelled, taking with it all the contaminants that had built up in it, it seemed a periodic cleansing could be good for overall health, despite how it made us feel for a few days.  One positive result was I learned to enjoy a good cold after that and not let one bother me too much.

Also, the realization gave me the basis for what turned into what I thought was a pretty good short story.  The story revolved around a scientist who finally discovered  a cure for the common cold, and in the process nearly killed off the whole human race.  That story disappeared somewhere into the boxes and boxes of story ideas half finished or discarded, but the thought persisted.

Then tonight, while perusing a facbook gallery that has more interesting science than my mind can embrace in one sitting, I came across the following.  It seems science has discovered that plain old mucus may be the basis for developing a whole new immune system.  Eureka! Once again science fiction turns to reality, even if my story never was published and one doesn't follow the other exactly, although maybe it is the bacteria collected by the bacteriopage gets too heavy and needs to be expelled and that mechanism is the common cold.

The facebook page is "All science, all the time."  It really is worth taking some time to go through the photo gallery.  I am afraid I have overburdened my friends with shares from it.

Anyway, here is the article and the diagram that went with it:

Mucus may be slimy and gross, but a San Diego State University research team, led by Biology Post-doctoral Fellow Jeremy Barr, has discovered that it is also home to a powerful immune system that could change the way doctors treat a number of diseases.

A new immune system

The researchers sampled mucus from animals and humans—ranging from a sea anemone to a mouse and a person—and found that bacteriophage adheres to the mucus layer on all of them.

They placed bacteriophage on top of a layer of mucus-producing tissue and observed that the bacteriophage formed bonds with sugars within the mucus, causing them to adhere to the surface. They then challenged these mucus cells with E. coli bacteria and found that the bacteriophage attacked and killed off the E. coli in the mucus, effectively forming an anti-microbial barrier on the host that protected it from infection and disease.

To confirm their discovery, the team also conducted parallel research challenging non-mucus producing cells with both bacteriophage and E. coli. The results—the samples with no mucus had three times more cell death.

"Taking previous research into consideration, we are able to propose the Bacteriophage Adherence to Mucus—or BAM—is a new model of immunity, which emphasizes the important role bacteriophage play in protecting the body from invading pathogens," Barr said.

"This discovery not only proposes a new immune system but also demonstrates the first symbiotic relationship between phage and animals," Barr said. "It will have a significant impact across numerous fields."

"The research could be applied to any mucosal surface," Barr said. "We envision BAM influencing the prevention and treatment of mucosal infections seen in the gut and lungs, having applications for phage therapy and even directly interacting with the human immune system."

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-immune.html#jCp

Wings and things

What do a loon, mosquitos and a small airplane have in common?

From the book "Wild Critters"
Photo by Tom Walker
Copyright © Tom Walker

Only that items of concern lately seem to be of the flying kind.

First, I heard a loon the other night.  This is not an unusual occurrence in Alaska, but this one was.  I heard it the night before, too, and the morning in between. Somehow that lonesome, plaintive, seeming lunatic wail across a woodland lake sums up all that is good about the solitude of the wilderness.  What made this one so special was that I heard it at the East Pole.  There's a small lake to the west of the cabin, more of a flooded swamp to my mind, though someone who knows says it's long and deep enough to land a Super Cub. If a Super Cub can land there, surely in the almost 30 years I have been going there something as small as a loon should have. I've always wondered why no larger water bird had chosen to nest there, and in particular a loon who would call at dawn and dusk just to let us know he is there.  Well, this year it happened and it made the arduous trip through rutted mud all the more worth it.  As I understand it, they return to the same lake year after year so I may get to hear this one again. Perhaps one day I will wander up there and try to spot him or her or them.  For now that call at morning and night is enough.

From the book "Wild Critters"
Copyright © Tim Jones
and Tom Walker

But not all the things that fly were pleasant.  This year has been a bad one for mosquitos. All over the state people are saying there are more than ever and think perhaps the late disappearance of winter may have been the cause. Not only are there a lot of them, but they seem bigger and they even sound meaner, diving at you like one of those bombers you hear in movies about World War II. There are even shortages of repellents. Around the house and garden I have had to use them every time I go out, something that hasn't happened in the past. After many years, I had found a repellent I liked.  It was the Off brand Deep Woods, not a spray but moistened pads, like wet-wipes. I used those for a couple of years but ran out this year and couldn't find them anywhere.  Off has a new type of pad called Botanical, which is based on natural ingredients from plants, and like so many products made with "natural" ingredients, well, you know the rest.

German Luftwaffe Stuka Ju-87 Junkers dive bomber

That was what I had to take to the East Pole.  Now first of all, I ran into a different kind of mosquito at the cabin.  They were noticeably smaller than the ones in the garden and they made no noise.  And if I stood still for more than a minute they were all over me. The other thing was, like a whole lot of other "natural" products, the damn Botanical Off didn't work, not at all, didn't even slow them down. They couldn't keep up with the four-wheeler when I was running and they didn't seem to bother me when I was cutting firewood. Maybe given they didn't make any noise, they didn't like noise either. But, if I stepped out on the porch to try to get a cellular signal, they were on me within a minute.

So it goes, if it were easy everyone would do it.

Now, the best winged story of all saved for last.

The top two pictures show the damage a bear did to an airplane after a charter pilot and fishermen had left a food cooler and bait aboard, pretty much tore it apart.

But, Alaskans don't give up.  The pilot was able to radio a pilot friend who brought him two new tires and three cases of duct tape, though fliers call it 100-mile-an-hour tape for its ability to adhere even in 100 mph apparent wind.  The results are in the bottom two pictures, the airplane repaired.  Oh, yeah he flew it out of there and all the way home.