Rick Steeves on Social Distancing

Sacramento Airport, St. Patrick's Day 2020

Recently, world traveler and TV presenter Rick Steeves has observed that travel has become extremely touristy. Instead of venturing into the unknown to make interesting discoveries, tourists swamp the most popular sites for Instagram moments. 

"Look where I am!" they say. "That's one off the bucket list!

Meanwhile, places off the beaten track, that could prove fun and inspiring destinations, and where tourism could really benefit the locals, go relatively unvisited. This sort of herd mentality, of having to go where everyone else goes, makes no sense to me. Don't people want to experience adventure and discovery anymore?

Besides, where's the fun of sitting in traffic, waiting in line, or being limited to a designated amount of time in a given location because it's such a popular destination? I suppose it's easier to impress your friends with photos and tales of the places you've been, if they are places they'll instantly recognize. But is that was travel is supposed to be about?

On my return flight, I was struck by how empty Sacramento Airport felt. Few restaurants had patrons. Most stood empty. I saw one person walking away from the counter at Starbucks, while Peet's Coffee & Tea was staffed, but seemingly closed. Hardly anyone waited for flights. Most of the chairs at the gates were empty. 

By now, admonitions to wash your hands, wipe down any surfaces you touch, and keep your distance from others were in the news. So we found an unoccupied area at the gate, disinfected the seats and sidetables w/ wetwipes, and pulled out our ebook readers. Within a few minutes, a woman plunked down next to us. Seemingly oblivious to us, she talked on her phone loudly and continuously enough to make reading impossible.

With people canceling or changing their travel plans, most airlines canceled flights. Despite only having thirty passengers, Southwest Airlines demonstrated their mission of customer service by not canceling our flight, or rescheduling all their flights to fly full. Instead, they kept to their schedule, operating at a loss to not inconvenience their passengers. 

The flight crew advised everyone to spread out, and leave plenty of space between themselves and others, in order to inhibit the potential spread of Coronavirus COVID-19. Being among the first to board, my wife and I took a row around a third of the way back. We disinfected out seats and tray tables, and strapped in. 

Despite warnings from government health authorities and the Southwest staff, passengers filled up seats and rows in front, beside, and behind us. Again: the herd mentality. When a family filled up the row directly in front of us, we abandoned our seats, and left our carry-ons where we had stowed them.

The view ahead on our Southwest flight

A little behind the wings, we found a row with no one else close around. We disinfected the seats and tray tables, and got comfortable. By the time boarding had finished, only six others had joined us from the wings back. This left 145 empty seats on the plane, with 22 people clustered up front.

The view behind

On our trips to England, we've visited many popular places, such as Westminster Abbey and Stonehenge. But most of the places we traveled to were places few international travelers go, such as the town of Bideford, where Charles Kingsley set his novel Westward Ho!, and Chagford, a historic stannery town featured in The Tinner's Corpse, a novel in the Crowner John mystery series by Bernard Knight. Some places, such as Cromer, have grown more interesting since our visit. Through my reading, I've accompanied characters on their visits to the seaside town in Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells, Limitations by E. F. Benson, and So Disdained by Nevil Shute.

No one knows how Coronavirus COVID-19 may alter our world. Times like these make us reflect on our lives, and what really matters. Perhaps we should contemplate how Rick Steeves' observation relates to us. At the very least, it makes sense to adopt easy habits such as cleaning your hands, disinfecting surfaces, and keeping more distance from others than usual. 

Dragon Dave

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Marcus Aurelius and Coronavirus COVID-19

Jenkinson Lake, California

My wife and I debated whether or not to cancel a planned visit with a family member in Sacramento. In the end, we decided not to let the Coronavirus halt our plans. 

The airport seemed as busy as normal. While we waited to board, the airline staff certainly made lots of announcements. As we boarded, the flight attendants asked the passengers to spread out, and not congregate near the front. With over one hundred seats free, they wanted to balance out the weight on the plane.

With the constant interruption of announcements, I took a break from Peter F. Hamilton's science fiction novel The Abyss Beyond Dreams. Instead, I finished Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which I had slowly been reading through, bit by bit, for some time. Then I dived into essays on the writer regarded as one of the last good Roman emperors. 

The plane did not wait in line on the runway. We had a pleasant flight, and arrived twenty minutes early at our destination.

My thoughts on the man, and his writings, carried through with me on our visit. According to the essays, Marcus Aurelius never wanted power, and valued a simple life. He wrote his notes, or sayings, not to impress or instruct others, but merely for his own benefit. Through what we might call a journal, the Emperor dwells on the importance of staying true to your calling, and what you hope to achieve in life. Let nothing stop you, he seems to keep saying. Let nothing divert you from your purpose.

In an age of Coronavirus COVID-19, when many of society's events and activities are shutting down, and even Churches are closing their doors to worshipers, his Meditations resonate. Marcus Aurelius insists that people are not made to be alone, to distance themselves from others. People are made to be with others, and at their best when they are serving others. They should do this with dignity, not because they wish please or to be honored, but simply because we are all part of the whole.

What does it matter how long you live, or how you're remembered? Do what is important, and in line with your purpose.  Whether people forget or revere you when you're gone, should not motivate your actions.

During our visit, we went to restaurants until they closed their dining rooms. We visited a bookstore, a comics shop, and an art supply store. Some places, notably supermarkets, seemed busier than normal. Others were less so. People went about their tasks, and life went on. (The following week, I suspect many of those visits would have been impossible).

One day, we drove to Jenkinson Lake. We visited midweek, and had the shoreline to ourselves. The beauty of nature refreshed and centered us. 

On the return drive, we stopped by a Starbucks. There, we were far from alone.

Dragon Dave

Catching Up With Peter F Hamilton

Peter F. Hamilton World Fantasy Convention 2013

While I've long been in awe of Peter F. Hamilton, I've only read a fraction of his novels. That seems unconscionable, given how highly I esteem his stories. Mostly, I'm familiar with him because of The Night's Dawn Trilogy. In the United States, the first two novels were split in half, and published as four mass market paperbacks in the late 1990s. The third and fourth halves of the story appeared a year after the first two. That's an acceptable interval between books in such an involved series. 

The third novel was published a year later, but in hardcover. Given how deeply I was into mass market paperbacks at the time, I waited an additional year for the fifth and sixth paperbacks. After the long interval, I had trouble remembering the characters, and all that had happened to them in the previous books. So I set the fifth and sixth paperbacks aside, vowing to read the entire series through from the beginning again. When I was ready.

Eventually, I did return to those novels. As best I recall, the process took me around six to eight months, and I completed the series in 2010. All together, this is one long, involved storyline, with weighty themes. Diehard Hamilton fans may regard it as unconscionable that I waited so long to start again, and took so long to finish the books. But while novels give, they also take. Those books brought me great joy, but they also took their toll on me. And in the meantime, while I was waiting to reread the saga, and then doing so, I was missing out on other great stories that Hamilton was creating. 

In 2013, I had the honor of meeting Peter F. Hamilton, and telling him how much I loved The Night's Dawn Trilogy. I also attended a reading he gave. In the years that have followed, I've gone on to read two more of his novels: The Dreaming Void and Mindstar Rising, as well as the short story collection Manhattan In Reverse. Ironically, while I usually prefer novels to short story collections, I enjoyed Manhattan In Reverse the most of the three.

Recently, I've started his novel The Abyss Beyond Dreams. While set in the same universe as The Dreaming Void, it's the first of a two book series called The Chronicle of the Fallers. It concerns life on a planet where much of the technology the settlers brought with them does not function. The growth of civilization is also limited by The Fallers, which are large eggs that fall through the atmosphere. They send out a hypnotic call that lures people to them, and once a person touches the egg, it absorbs the person, and then births a replica bent on killing anyone nearby. 

I find some of the technology the characters possess, and the abilities they wield, a little hard to believe in. Distanced as I am from these people, and how they interact, I find myself more removed from them than the characters in The Night's Dawn Trilogy. Yet as I read, I feel some of the same wonder I felt as I read those first mass market paperbacks in the 1990s. Also I get a little thrill remembering that when I met Peter F. Hamilton back in 2013, this was the upcoming novel he read an excerpt from. 

For those reasons, and perhaps even more importantly because of the way he treated me when we met, is why I'll keep reading Peter F. Hamilton, even if I don't read his novels in order, or in a timely manner.

Dragon Dave

E. F. Benson on Limitations

King's College, Cambridge UK

In E. F. Benson's novel Limitations, we meet Tom Carlingford, the son of a rich, retired English gentleman. He's attending King's College, but can't concentrate on his classes. University life in England is different from that in the United States. As best I understand it, students attend Sixth Form for two years, which equates to our 12th and 13th grades (or last year of High School and first year of college). Then they attend university for three years, where they have no general education requirements, but study only classes for their major. 

I'm not sure how easy it is to change your major once you've been accepted at a UK university. Unlike his friend Ted Markham, Tom finds he has little love for classical literature. So he loafs around, playing sports, and hanging out in the museums. Eventually, he decides he wishes to become a modern art sculptor. So instead of changing his major to Art (assuming that was possible back in 1890s, when the novel was published), Tom does the minimum he needs to graduate while reading up on sculpture. 

After graduation, he travels to Athens. There, he finds himself drawn to classical art. It affects him so powerfully that he vows to give up on modern art, and spend his life chipping classical Greek figures out of marble instead.

The Elgin Marbles room in the British Museum, London UK

While in Greece, he meets Maud, a young English woman. Her family is wealthy like his, and her father is an influential member of the government. While Tom is interested in her, she falls head over heels in love with him. But when they return to England, and he returns home, Tom is drawn to the sister of his old school chum Ted. Somehow, she embodies the grace and perfection Tom found in classical Greek sculpture. So Tom courts Ted's sister, and after they marry, takes an apartment in London. There he begins working on a life-size sculpture of the Greek goddess Demeter.

A frieze of Demeter, from the Parthenon in Athens, Greece

Unfortunately, his father dies shortly after learning that the company for which he worked has gone bankrupt. All the family finances were tied up in the failed company, which leaves Tom with no money. He attacks his statue with vigor, but it's a long, ambitious project. Worse, he can find no one interested in buying it. 

Once, when the financial strain has him in his grips, he seeks inspiration in the Elgin Marbles, or the portions of the Greek Parthenon on display in the British Museum. To clear his head, Tom walks past the Serpentine in Hyde Park. There he sees people swimming and enjoying themselves on a hot day in London.

The Serpentine, Hyde Park, London UK

Meanwhile, Maud's love for Tom has her tied up in knots. Unable to get past him and move on, she takes a holiday in the seaside Norfolk town of Cromer. She stays with a relation of Tom's for a month, enjoying the beach with huge sand dunes, and the quaint red-roofed buildings surrounding the church tower. There, she gains perspective. Although she refuses to marry another of Tom's friend, a promising modern art sculptor they met in Greece, perhaps one day she can open her heart to love another.
 

Cromer UK

In his novel Limitations, E. F. Benson ponders the limitations that define us. Each of us have strengths and weaknesses, and the paths we choose shape us just as Tom's chisel shapes his statue of Demeter. Tom's brother-in-law Ted, a bookish fellow student at Cambridge, becomes an instructor, and then a priest. His passion for for study and learning limits and isolates him from an ordinary social life. Maud's unrequited love for Tom limits her ability to love another who would make any sacrifice for her. And then there's Tom. No one in England is buying classical Greek art right now. It simply isn't the flavor of the month.

In order to make a living for his family, Tom is forced to make modern art sculptures instead. No matter what he does, he cannot awaken his original love for contemporary art. His passion for Classical Greek art has seemingly ruined him on every other form of art, or at least those that people will buy.

The first time I read Limitations, I could not empathize with the characters as much as on my recent reread. Having visited so many of Benson's settings in the interval, I better understand Tom, Ted, and Maud. I suppose, ultimately, that's why we travel: to better understand our world, and the people who inhabit it. 

Perhaps one day I'll visit Greece. I'd love to see the remains of the original Parthenon. I can only imagine how much more I might enjoy rereading E. F. Benson's novel again, after visiting the country that so transformed young Tom.

Oh, and while I'm dreaming, perhaps one day I'll return to England on a hot day. A visit to London when I'm not constantly wearing a jacket? Now that would really be something!

Dragon Dave

William Shatner and the villainous Leonard Nimoy

Aside from the overwhelming sense of how much William Shatner misses his friend, another takeaway from his biography Leonard is how long and hard Leonard Nimoy worked until he achieved success. Unlike William Shatner, whose leading man qualities allowed him to make a decent income fairly early on, Leonard Nimoy scrambled to make a living. His move to Los Angeles did help him pick up work in TV and film. Sadly, the parts he got were largely one-offs, and usually limited to just a couple lines of dialogue. 

Shatner paints a poignant description of Nimoy's work on projects filmed on location. The crew and cast of these poorly funded productions often literally had to pick up their equipment, and run from one location to another, just to film the next line or so of dialogue. Far from being concerned about continuity, or matching up backgrounds, all that mattered was getting enough natural light to complete the scene!

Even more surprising, Leonard Nimoy's looks largely relegated him to bad guy roles prior to Star Trek. Far from being cast as a wise intellectual like Mr. Spock, or the kind and compassionate man he was, all-too-often Nimoy was cast as a thug, a hired gun, or some other minor villain. So Nimoy struggled to find a way to make his bad guy roles more distinctive. As he was a smoker, he often suggested to the director that he could smoke in the scene. Surely the way he smoked a cigarette would distinguish him from his fellow bad guys, or say something about his villainous character?

"Sorry," the director or TV producer would always say. "We can't have a villain smoking cigarettes if the TV broadcasters pick up commercials from a particular cigarette brand. We don't want to send a message that only villains smoke cigarettes. Or worse still, that villains smoke the sponsors' brand!" In an age when the virtues of smoking marijuana seems to be celebrated by popular culture, and advertised in so many mediums, it's interesting to look back, and see how our perceptions change over time.

Leonard Nimoy would eventually find success through Star Trek, but that would take him fifteen-or-so years of solid acting. Nimoy continually took classes in acting, and any other skill he thought could contribute to making him a better actor. And eventually, his hard work paid off. Like Shatner, Gene Roddenberry invited Nimoy to his new TV show, and handed him the choice role of Mr. Spock on a plate. Someone had finally noticed Leonard Nimoy, and believed in him enough to give him a major part. Even more incredible, Roddenberry  fought to keep Nimoy on as Mr. Spock when the studio heads wanted to get rid of that pointy-eared Vulcan. 

Why would the studio heads dislike the character of Mr. Spock, you ask? Because he looked too evil, or villainous! That's why.

Dragon Dave