Justin's Blog

Justin's Blog: The Reluctant Muse

2008-12-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Justin's Blog: The Reluctant Muse

Justin's Blog: Resolved: Do Not Begin A Message With "I"

2008-12-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

Justin's Blog: Resolved: Do Not Begin A Message With "I"

The Reluctant Muse

2008-07-05T16:42:00.006-04:00

The Reluctant Muse
By
Justin Dowling

My friend is gone. She pulled the plug. Fini.
A bit of my heart has gone away from me,
He thinks. But I still find just the thought
Of this small meanness too much overwrought
With irony, with a treatment full of hate, 5
When forgiveness ought to flavor my bitter plate.

She’s wrong, Erato is, his reluctant muse.
Apparently he thinks she’s there to use,
When all he thinks and all he feels, she knows,
Isn’t a flap of skin off our muse’s nose. 10
“WTF” he sighs, deflated by the loss,
As if for poetry she ever gave a toss.
Well, it’s OK that the muse lives without the poem.
It takes a living muse to find love at home.

Confounded Beginnings & Endings

2008-06-10T11:18:00.016-04:00

A long time ago, I wrote this piece. Initially planned in 4 Parts, I formatted this short story in 2 Parts for this blog. Don't you think it works better?)

Confounded Beginnings & Endings
By Justin Dowling
(Part 1 of 2)

The water behind the reef was less than three feet deep as I swam out to the cave. This is how the reptiles must have done it, I thought. I imagined how I looked in my black rubber suit, yellow tank, and gleaming regulator; a crocodile-looking creature, fore-claws scratching the bottom, webbed feet flailing in the water. I reached the cave's small opening before Harry Dahlman and had to wait. When he arrived, I signaled him to follow and ducked into the black hole, following the slight shafts of sunlight that disappeared beneath me. The entrance was like a manhole in the floor of the reef, but the cave beneath was a dazzling world of forms too dreamily beautiful to be real. I was wonderstruck.

I took a sharp breath on the regulator and plunged, belly down, to the golden sand that shimmered--lightly suspended by the turbulence about two inches off the bottom. Somehow the few sunbeams I had seen outside the manhole in the roof had become diffused inside, caught and sifted by each water molecule, scattering the light so evenly within that the walls seemed to glow and bathe the water atmosphere in a soft green tone. The walls themselves were a coral pink, rubbed fine by the circulation of tons of water. The floor was littered with orange-golden sawdust-sand. Only a heavy, green, pirate's chest lying, half buried, over in the shade at the back of the cavern could enhance the wonder of the scene. Open, it would spill its contents onto the sand, mixing the heavy copper and gold with the lighter tones of the gleaming carpet. Something clutched my shoulder. I shrank back, an icicle through my heart, and turned to see Harry, who had just followed me in. Relieved, I swam to him and signaled. His eyes seemed to bulge; he looked a little haunted behind the heavy glass faceplate of his mask. I began to doubt the wisdom of bringing him through a submerged cave. But he returned my OK sign so we started off along the cavern that would take us safely under the treacherously crashing surf and deposit us outside the reef. Swimming through the cave was effortless, like running with a gale wind at my back. A few fluttering kicks and I was propelled into the darkening middle distance and on out to the tunnel-mouthed exit. It was too easy. The tidal water was surging out to sea through the cave as if the reef was a giant tub, and we had just swum down the drain.

As soon as we entered deep water Dahlman began stringing his spear gun. I jerked my thumb in front of his faceplate and he followed me as we headed for the surface twenty feet above.

"What's up?" he sputtered, spitting his mouthpiece out, arching his back, and tossing his head skyward to keep his mouth and nose clear of the rolling waves.

"I don't feel right about the surge in that cave. We came out too easy. I'm afraid of trouble going back."

"Eric, I don't like the cave anyway," he said to the sky, "I think I'll go back over the reef."

"You're crazy," I shouted. "You'll be smashed like a bug if you try going through that surf." Twenty yards away the waves were crashing against the reef. Giant spumes of white water were flying skyward, falling behind the reef and running out again in rivulets, brimming over into our shattered blue sea. "It's too risky," I said, kicking violently to keep my weighted body above water. "I'm going back through the cave right now."

"What's your hurry? We just got here."

"I don't want to run out of air…inside the cave…I expect…it might be slow going."

We dived back down and split up at the mouth of the cave--Dahlman heading back on the outside while I went within.

I was right about the surge, but I didn't realize it immediately. Halfway into the cave I was kicking as hard as I could without making any progress forward. I was stalled. You can't make it. Yes I can, I have enough air, I'll crawl. But there's nothing to grab but sand. I clutched the dimpled wall. I was close to panic; I could feel my mind trying to slip away, trying to abandon out of fear the problem of returning to the world above. I clung to the wall, hung there sucking the cold, dry air across the tender base of my throat. It hurt. My heart swelled, crowded my laboring lungs. I was sweating .

Think. I was working too hard, losing control of my breathing rate in the effort to swim against the current. I turned onto my left side, holding fast to a coral knob in the wall. This trick, I knew, would relieve my sucking lungs by making the air in my tank flow freely; the difference in pressure between the water at my mouthpiece and the water around the pressure-sensing diaphragm on the regulator attached to the tank on my back was enough to cause free-flowing air to fill my lungs like balloons. Air backed up in my mouth, flowed out my nose and bubbled, reassuringly, out around the edges of my facemask.

Soon my heartbeat slowed to normal and I resumed swimming. Again I had to breathe through my mouth, and, under the circumstances, the discomfort was almost enough to make me tear off my mask and breathe water by the quart until I gave up my life to the dreamy atmosphere in there and floated off into humming darkness. With a growing sense of fear I imagined the soft grass and the warm sand of the shore I had left. I tried not to think of how close I had already come to mindless panic. I knew that I was in no danger yet, that I must control my mind and force it to think me through the present situation. Already I had eased the breathing problem to where I had overcome my sense of urgency and was breathing uncomfortably but with more assurance. I relaxed my aching legs and simply began to crawl using my knife to maintain my forward progress. I stabbed the sand while groping ahead for another handhold in the wall to which I could haul myself.

The surge became worse as I crawled deeper into the cave. The dark shadows of doubt began to creep over my brain again, the worry that my progress was too slow, that I would run out of air in there, hung on the edge of my consciousness yelling: give up! give up! I yelled back, screaming into my mouthpiece. It felt good. The dark doubts stayed back, scurrying around in the dim, wordless distance. I screamed on.

As I crawled, I felt the rhythm of the pounding tide with increasing effect. The crash of waves above was like a heartbeat that grew stronger and stronger as I progressed. The force of this beat was being transmitted to me through the water. If on the flow, the surge became too strong and threatened to uproot me, tear me away from the wall and wash me back out, this outward surge was somewhat abated by the ebb of the tide and I was able to flutter a few kicks forward during the moments of calm, hurriedly find a new handhold, and hang on for the next blow. With timing, my progress became steady and mechanical; I began to sense relief.

Finally, I reached the manhole that now glowed in the roof. Like a newly risen sun it shone on my dark world. To my surprise I realized I was still screaming. I stopped and climbed out to safety. I found I could sit on the edge of the hole with my legs dangling in the cave. I tore off my mask and breathed the sweet air. Across the reef I could see Dahlman standing up. He looked my way, waved his speargun, and started to wade toward me. The gun was sharply bent, but he looked all right. I was calming down, trying to order my experience. The time has come for a change, I reflected.

(Part 2 of 2)

He stood back from his writing desk, hung his head, and sighed. He glimpsed his image just then, and strolled over to the mirror to inspect his features. He often relaxed this way, combing his fine blond hair with the comb and brush set he kept near the mirror. Now he inspected the damage age and booze had done to his face. He gave his cheeks a pinch; the color made him look angelic. He smiled. He strolled back to the desk, threw his pen on the stack of papers, the morning's work. Another chapter of the ballsy adventures of the famous Eric Borges, he thought. Now all I have to do is get him shacked up, laid, and I'll be finished. He thought of Ella's bulging belly and winced. It was growing stale, their marriage. It had been a glamorous affair once: Ella Gault, the bright young abstract painter, and Jason Richards, creator of the famous Eric Borges series. But lately he had begun to get restless. Bored with his series, bored with his life, he had begun to realize, perhaps too late, that his attraction to Ella was somehow confused in his mind with his own self-image. She had been a beautiful accessory to a popular author, and now she was proving to be a tremendous responsibility. Goodbye town house and parties; here comes Jason the family man.

Just then, Ella came bursting into the room. "Hello darling, good news!" she hailed, steering straight to him, her head canted to receive his kiss on her clear cheek. Without her makeup, he thought, her features are no more classic than a baby's ass. He remembered the first time he ever watched her take off her stockings; it was then that he realized those beautifully shaped legs were, underneath the perfection of a synthetic weave, flesh and some blood flowing through a lagging network of veins and arteries. How he loved her.

"Doctor Connors says that Sean could come at any moment, isn't that wonderful?
"

"Your enthusiasm for making babies isn't catching, I'm afraid."

"Oh…what a grouch…besides, it's a baby, the singular, not babies. Some writer you are. And I thought you'd be happy about this baby; after all, he's my first. Up 'till now the only things I've ever made have been a few dreary old abstractions--'monuments to the artful intricacy of the human mind,'" she recited. "Bullshit!" Now she put on her concerned, quizzical look. "What's the matter," she inquired, "trouble with the series?"
"No."
"Well I wish you'd perk up and stop talking to the floor. I'm going into my studio. Would you be a dear and put the water on? I'd like to have some tea before I begin work."

He went into the kitchen and, taking a match from the box in the dispenser on the wall, he lit the gas under the battered old kettle that came with this old house. Glancing out the window over the stove he could see the bare branches of the trees; the browns and golds of last autumn were being blown about by the late April winds. He only frowned. Jason wished he had never moved to the country. Harry, his agent, had found him this house as a favor to Ella. He wished Harry had to live here instead. He felt like going to a bar, getting roaring drunk. He wished he were in the city.

Jason entered Ella's studio through the adjoining door and found her standing before a lively splash of warm color, her back arched, her hands resting on her kidneys.

"Something new?" he asked.

"I'm giving representational subjects another chance. That abstract business was getting out of control. All those Chinese-locking puzzles were just so many designs. That's it, they were just designs: artifice, not art."

"So you want to do representational art, like me?"

"Is that what you call your series? Well, a picture is worth a thousand words. If it weren't, I wouldn't try to paint one."

"You did well in the galleries with that 'abstract business'."

"I wonder if that story about John D. Rockefeller losing his sense of taste isn't just a metaphor. Is it just a metaphor? You know about metaphors."

"Very clever."

"Money isn't everything," she sneered, turning to her canvas.

"Fish gotta swim; birds gotta fly; man gotta make money, an' he don' know why," Jason serenaded.

"I feel like painting something with a subject, with warm, gay, alive colors," she murmured to the canvas, "I feel so…organic."

"I feel like cutting my throat."

"Oh…my…you are down in spirits. What is the matter?"

"Harry says the series is lagging. Says the publisher's complaining the stories are getting too formulaic, that there's hardly any complication in the plotting. Can you imagine that? No complication!"

"Yes, the stories are getting a bit dreary dear."

"Of course they're dreary, life is dreary. There's no complication in life, how about that?" Jason had become strident.

"You're the artist Jason, use your imagination. Anyway, you needn't shout. You'll disturb Sean. Do you want some tea? I'm going to make a cup." She swung her belly around and followed it out of the room, leaving him standing before a summer scene. "I left the hospital's number by the phone," she called from the kitchen, "you're to ring them when it's time." He thought he heard the doorbell ring at the front of the house.

"I'll get it," he called over his shoulder. He opened the door to a slight man in his early thirties with fine blond hair. "Hello there," and he leaned across the threshold, took a pinch of Jason's cheek between his thumb and forefinger, gave it a tweak that brought color to his face. He looked angelic.

"Who the hell are you?" Jason asked.

"I'm your fairy godbrother," he said and smiled. "May I come in?"

"Hell no you can't come in," Jason tried to boom, taking a stand in the threshold. But he had hardly folded his arms before he brushed, elf-like, between his legs.

"Oh, what a lovely place," he gasped, doing a little turn in the center of the room. "My, what I could do with this. Some lavender drapes on those west windows to keep out the nasty old sun. Oh, and we could make a darling little cocktail cove in this corner: with a little throw rug…1 have just the one in mind, a white fluff…"

"Who the hell are you?" Jason shouted, incredulous.

"My, my," he said, pausing in mid-stride on his way across the room to the imaginary cocktail cove, twisting, abruptly, letting his gaze fall on Jason--who had managed to stumble about, awe-struck, poleaxed, and now stood, still, framed by the door, guarding the outdoors from the extrusion of this strange elfin caricature.

"You're repeating yourself," he said to Jason. "That's so dreary; please don't be dreary." He muttered something under his breath about Jason's life.

"What was that?"

"I said, my good sir, I am your complication."

"My complication?"

"Oh dear."

"My complication!"

"Tsk, tsk."

"I must be losing my mind."

"Yes, that's much better. Now, my wish is your command. What can I do for you? Advise you about your story? Tell your wife about us?"

"About us?"

"You know, before this baby business."

"Baby business?"

"Yesss. I'll tell her we're one. She'll have to give you a divorce. Then we can go back to putting out a Series."

"A series."

"A series, yes. Your series is lagging, I'm afraid."

"That's right…What's wrong?"

"I don't think you put enough of yourself into it. You'll need more facts, new facts from actual experience. Get a divorce; get back in circulation; we miss you."

"And Ella? The baby? I'll be needed by my son."

"You'll be needed by the people. Forget Ella. You have to think of yourself. It's a dog eat dog world. And right now you're about as tasty as lukewarm horsemeat!"

"Ugh! I hate your images. And I don't like your advice. I put entirely too much of myself in my series. That's the problem. Ella is right. I have to use my imagination, think up my own complications. I don't need you. In fact, I could have a perfectly happy life without you."

"You can't have any life without me, Mr. Smarty."

"I can have a life with my family and you can write the goddam series--you're so good at advice. I like you and your advice so much I'm going to switch to the scenic narrative. In my next chapter I'm going to get outside Eric Borges."

"My dear, self-effacing authors strike such a nothing pose."

"That's the point. Now why don't you efface yourself? I have to get back to work."

--:--

"What are you doing sitting there Eric? Don't you feel well? Have trouble in the cave?"

"I'm OK Harry. Bend your spear gun coming over the top?"

"What? Yeah, oh yeah... You sure you're alright?"

"I was just thinking of an idea for a new chapter. Something about the cave flashed like the mirror of a birth image. It was as if my life were connected to the earth by an umbilical cord as insubstantial as the air we breathe. And down there, coming back through the cave, was like hauling myself, on my own cord, back through the womb of Mother Nature Herself."

"You writers with your imagery. How are you going to use that on a self-centered bastard like Jason Richards?"

"The timing on the tides was wrong; if I hadn't been able to haul myself back to shore I would have been born fish-food. Jason Richards is like me; his conceit is sterile, fruitless; his life is a stillbirth. It's time for a change; I'll give him something to get outside himself. Are you with me Harry? You have to use a little imagination."

"This is a new one for you Eric, you're getting philosophical all of a sudden. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Good, 'cause it's all set for tonight."

"Tonight?"

"The Gallery opening. I got the invitations.You're supposed to meet that artist broad, Ella."

"The abstract painter? I've seen her work. Weird forms that blend into one another. She'll take what looks like two different shapes and blend them together so you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It's cute."

"So's she. You two will make a great couple. Just leave the publicity to me. Your fans will love it; it won't hurt her career either."

"No Harry, this time I don't want you to publicize my love life; I don't want to use Ms. Gault outside my fiction."

"Look who's getting scruples? Are you sure you didn't meet your fairy godmother down there?"

"I almost drowned."

"Does this mean the Gallery opening for tonight is off?"

"For you it does Harry."

"Who's going to cover the show?"

"I'll take a few notes for you Harry. C'mon, let's get back to shore."

--:--

"Jason, did I hear you talking to someone?"

"I was just talking to myself hon."

"Jason? I think it's time."

GUANO GARDENS

2008-04-07T00:07:00.038-04:00

…It lyth nat in his wit, ne in his wille,
But soth is seyd, `a fol can not be stille …

So he said, our Geoffrey Chaucer, in Parlement of Foules, back in the thirteen hundreds, in England. Here it is, the 21^st century, and we’re still fools. Not much has changed:-)

So a long time ago I wrote this poem, mostly in Heroic Couplets, and recently revised it somewhat. Not much has changed:-)

GUANO GARDENS

Of him I sing who like the poet his muses,
Crusader after love of her he chooses,
Of him who bends his blade, who toils and sweats
To try a lass he hasn’t tumbled yet,
Who stumbles after, mumbling prose and verse 5
And finds him caught, his hopes to catch reversed.

What length foreshorten he his locks descried
And bind Our Prince him to a job unprized.
A hundred bucks a week, an airport bit
‘Neath hot skies, summer rains and seagull shit 10
If not to woo Erato, muse of love,
Amuse her day and night on his time off?

Erato, lovesome lady for who’s trust
He lingers long in shade bereft of lust.
(For swivings, while great sport, sans love are sterile, 15
Two beasts backing one both blind and puerile.)
In shade he lingers, longs to love another,
And worries that he’ll wind up with her mother.
(“He’s such a nice boy, quiet, I approve.”
“Oh quiet mother he hasn’t made a move.”) 20

But she declared, for all to hear, her promise
To follow soon and lay her presence on us,
So mollified he turns his thoughts ahead
To fantasies of taking her to bed.
Waking to alarming noise he drops 25
His trusty blade and reaches for his socks.
“Oh God, the lifelong bother of it all.
A creep like me with Grace in love I fall.”

Look! See beauty in the breast of man betray
A female soul who doesn’t see the way 30
Her own resemblance to a lass confuses
His love of self with love for her he chooses.
In morning’s cup his fancy’s image lies:
And stares back, looking with a lover’s eyes.
He sees his soul and leans to kiss her lips. 35
Enthralled by his own soul he takes a sip.

Sean Connors is Our Poet’s pen name signed
Only to juvenalia. He’s the kind
Young man who never loved someone or met
A woman less inclined to be his chosen pet.
And now with fuel hose in hand he plans 5
To gas a plane, or, intermission, stand
The crew to coffee. See the narrow locus
Of his plans expand until his focus
Circumscribes the cosmos near and far
To include her flight, his crew, that coming car. 10
How nice, how bold and brave, how bleak, how pale:
His plan to salt a bird who’s trimmed her tail!
As if his future, ordered, must come true
Because well ordered, carefully thought through
As a poem, this one, nimbly foots its way 15
From dark to dawn, return to night from day.

Erato’s bird in flight its song persists.
Unmindful of his plans it lands and sits
On its tail and sings and sings. And even though
Our Boy were then a man his words would blow 20
No bird to him if in the trees she knew
A different nest, another future flew.

Now frown, now look around. Inspect Her Grace,
Reflection of his soul. Now see her face
Reflected in his lusty, gleaming eye , 25
As she beams down as on a muddy sty.
“How nice Sean dear you met my plane--don’t drip
Fuel on the ground be careful keep your grip
Here help me with my bags I lost my case
Oh damn this book of verse here hold my place 30
Oh here’s my friend’s new car forget it I
Must find a hot tub now and soak or die.
‘Nice seeing you again,“ she wings and flies
To join the leisure flock.
He’d like to lie

..........................The verse aside but hold her place he must, 35
While the earth, falling away, loses his trust
And he clings to a single page, scanning the track
From left to right, top to bottom and back
Until the moment’s meaning disappears,
And only its music falls on his numb ears, 40
‘Till silence stands where once a world had stood.

From memory the budding poet’s pen stroke would
Will the future of our Princely Youth
By imaging the matter of a truth:
A shadow speaking in the tones of time 45
With a thousand voices, seeking just the rhyme
Whereby to reverse the mantle clock at last,
Aligning the poet’s soul with Our Hero’s past
While over Our Scribbler’s shoulder Psyche nods
Her approval, “let him know on him the gods— 50
In honor of his future poems—confer
Anima’s mute wisdom and a love for Her
(Who in time stands nowhere while in space
Her naked form attires everyplace)
To equal my sweet love for you my light.” 55

Closed eyes begin to view unearthly sights,
Numb ears strain to hear Psyche’s song
Peacefully breezing a golden butterfly along
Time’s rolling fields until she finds their nest,
Alights, and lays Our Sean’s crusade to rest. 60
What fuels our Sean’s desire to willfully choose
Her, the creature he doesn’t want to lose?
Sexless, will he act against his nature?
Loving Psyche, Sean’s a different creature.

III

He wipes his eyes, shrugs off this chrysalis spell,
And with a grin no weary world knows well,
Our Hero penetrates his shocked repose;
An unobtected imago lives and knows
That in this book of verse he holds the glass 5
To his soul. His future self lives now, in the past;
Still clutching her book, he’d like to lie
The verse aside, close the cover, fly
Away to the stars, but hold her place he must,
As. Swirling out, appears the motto: In Words We Trust. 10

Swirling into this view his soul passes through
To that infinite place which knows that He is You;
While surrounding, spinning, spheres peel back and fold.
Into the heart and mind, into this hold.
I’m god, he thinks, I’m You, I am the Eye 15
That makes with a glance a world which turns to die;
Inside the sky, Inside my heart and mind
Wind sighs, trees grow--yet I live to find
In her appearance reality appears.
Under this light, my soul’s own shape grows clear. 20

Of him I sing who at the stroke of noon
Summons life’s wise thoughts into the room
Of his mind where a voice says, ”lock the door,”
As if his heart would see the sun no more.
Drawing the shade, with care he selects a pen— 25
Her sun inside will rise just once again—
And writes these words, “who like the poet his muses,
Crusader after love of her he chooses,
Who bends his blade, his pen, who toils and sweats
To try a lass he hasn’t tumbled yet, 30
Who stumbles after mumbling prose and verse
And finds him caught, his hopes to catch reversed.

Now tell of his awakening, how he knows
Her scorn is innocent, “and even though
The boy were then a man his words would blow 35
No bird to him if in the trees she knew
A different nest, another future flew.
Now smile, hang up the hose, bow low and face
An image of your soul, “your servant, Grace.
Give me those bags, I’ll find your case, now run, 40
It’s good to see you too, your friend has come.”
And with a shrug he waves away her smile,
As if to say stay here with me awhile,
He’ll love her still, but in a different style.

His mind now knows his soul and, just perhaps, 45
She’ll follow, now that Sean can truly choose,
Can leave his heart, entrusted to her lap.
To win, oh paradox, he has to lose.

Martian Math

2008-04-02T00:21:00.008-04:00

Whenever I failed to find a lesson plan for whatever teacher, whenever I arrived at school to substitute for the real teacher, who was absent, I would turn to my trusty notebook and teach the unruly class how to do what I called Martian Math (which was really binary math, '1's and '0's, like a computer does.) This was just after I got out of college and couldn’t find a real job. So I'd substitute-teach Martian Math to High School kids.

On those sick-days-for-somebody-else, I thanked the gods that I paid attention to 1^st Class Petty Officer Odom from Albany Georgia (rhymes with “rainy”, Albany that is, not Georgia,) I thanked the gods that I paid attention to 1^st Class Petty Officer Odom while he was teaching Boolean Math & various gate circuits, like And gates, Nand, Or and Nor gates to our sleepy class of would-be electronic technician strikers back in Fleet Ballistic Missile school in 1963 Dam Neck Virginia. (An unlikely scientist, Petty Officer Odom. When he spoke, you might judge him to be the redneck he resembled in outward appearance.)

(These days, if I were constructing a lesson plan about troubleshooting electronic computer circuits, instead of Boolean logic and various individual electronic gating circuits, I’d teach about microchip inputs, and their wholesale substitution. Forget about troubleshooting an individual transistor circuit when microchips can contain thousands of transistors. Back then computers were big. Those thousands of transistors would easily fill up your hands and spill onto the deck below your feet.)

So, back in those bad old uncertain times when I substituted for ailing teachers and the lesson plan was also absent, I’d turn to my notes on Boolean stuff so I could teach Martian Math to an unruly room full of girly, wannabe porn starlets, and manly, wannabe hoods, general knob polishers (who polished their own knobs in the absence of their feminine classmates. For it seemed to be true, that old navy saying, that 95% of all men used to masturbate, while the other 5% still do—not that there’s anything wrong with that. I guess that those kids weren’t as bad as I thought back then; appearances, like Odom’s appearance, may not be real. My mind was slowly changing about appearances. Maybe the Navy was just worried about controlling a crowd of guys alone on a ship, at sea…)

Anyway, what I called “Martian Math” was actually binary math, dressed up in a spacesuit to attract the geeks in the room, who recognized it as something they might like to know, and so, would take a front row seat to get away from the noisy kids at the back of the room, the inevitable crowd of slackers any class of forced students contains.

To seal the deal, so to speak, I’d begin by talking about Martians as funny looking individuals who had, for example, only two fingers where our hands have ten. And there, the science fiction would start. “Imagine the mathematics of such a civilization,” I’d say, “Instead of being based on ten numbers, on 0-9, like ours, Martians would base their math on only two. Oh, they’d still use something like the powers of ten to calculate stuff.“ I’d say. “Only it would be the powers of two.” We can use the powers of ten to convert decimal numbers to binary numbers and Martians can use the powers of two to convert binary numbers to decimal numbers.

And, if no one asked what are the powers of ten, or two? If no one asked how do you use the powers of ten to convert binary numbers to decimal numbers, or how do you use the powers of two to convert decimal numbers to binary numbers I’d just pretend someone had asked. I’d just forge on: “Some ask, what’re the powers of ten and how do you use them to convert binary numbers to decimal numbers?”

Let me show you the powers of ten. The decimal number 8765 contains 8 numbers worth a thousand each, 7 numbers worth a hundred each, 6 numbers worth ten each, and 5 numbers worth one each. From another viewpoint, starting at the right and moving through a decimal number like 8765, a decimal number contains units, tens, hundreds, thousands… From yet another viewpoint, to assemble a decimal number with the powers of ten you multiply the number in the far right column (“5” in “8765”) by 10^0. Multiply “6” by 10¹, “7 by 10² and “8” by 10³. (Notice that each column of any decimal number is one power of ten more than the column on your right and one power of ten less than the column on your left--…10³, 10², 10¹, 10⁰, or, thousands, hundreds, tens, units.

Working backward let me show you the powers of two. To assemble a decimal number with the powers of two you multiply the number in the far right column by 2⁰, Moving left, multiply the digit in the next column by 2¹, 2² next, 2³next…(Notice that—as in the powers of ten above--each column of any binary number is one power of two more than the column on your right and one power of two less than the column on your left--…2³, 2², 2¹, 2⁰. Of course, 2³, 2², 2¹, 2⁰equals 8, 4, 2, and 1 respectively.

Anyone can reconstruct the powers of ten or the powers of two by remembering that any number raised to the zero power equals one. 10⁰equals 1. 2⁰ equals1.

Now someone might ask: "how do you use the powers of ten to convert binary numbers to decimal numbers, or how do you use the powers of two to convert decimal numbers to binary numbers?”

“Starting with easy stuff, let me show you how to convert a binary number, say, the number 1000₂, convert it to a decimal number. (Remember, any binary number has only two digits: a “0” and a “1”. Thus 101010₂ is a binary number. 1001001₂ is also a binary number.)"

To convert the binary number 1000₂ to a decimal number multiply each column by its power of two for that column. Thus, 0 times 1 equals 0. 0 times 2 equals 0. 0 times 4 equals 0. And 1 times 8 equals 8. 1000₂equals 8₁₀.

To convert the decimal number 500₁₀ to a binary number list out the powers of two and build the binary number by inspection. (I recommend this method because the binary number will be a long string of '1's and '0's. This method makes the conversion manageable.)

The powers of two, ascending, are: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024… 500₁₀contains a binary 256 or 100000000 (the binary representation of a decimal 256, a 256₁₀). That leaves us with 244₁₀ (500 – 256). 244₁₀contains a binary 128 or 10000000. 116 (244 – 128) contains a binary 64 or 1000000. 52 contains a 32 or 100000. 20 contains a 16 or 10000. But 4 contains no 8 or 0000. 4 contains a 4 or 100, but 2 and 1 are, in this example, 0 and 0. In sum, we express all the binary numbers with this combination:111110100₂.

111110100₂equals 500₁₀.

If I were lucky, someone who followed the above reasoning would ask, “but what about the Martians who have 16 fingers?”

“Their math,” I’d reply, “is based on the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F. But remember, any number to the zero power equals 1; any hexidecimal number to the zero power equals 1; 16⁰ equals 1. You can figure out the rest.” And if my luck held, the bell would ring:-)

Resolved: Do Not Begin A Message With "I"

2008-03-30T15:26:00.007-04:00

It's been more than twenty years since I made the conscious decision NEVER to begin a written message (e.g., an e-mail) with the word "I". Such egomania usually means that whatever thought follows the first word, that thought is missed by the reader, who has stopped reading because no one is interested in me as the lead character in this play we all act in together. (I don't think even devoted lovers tend to put the other person first, although perhaps they should.)

It's just a rule. You can adopt it, or not, as you see fit. (But maybe you'd rather not. Maybe you think I'm like Sherman's horse in the Vonnegut poem Goosing Statues After Dark--that I'm just an insensitive piece of stone. Instead, maybe you should think, If Sherman's horse can take it, why can't you?)

Fixing Sheng Lu’s Laptop

2008-03-28T12:15:00.000-04:00

Sheng Lu’s laptop could only boot up to the screensaver. It wouldn’t populate the desktop with shortcut icons or anything! There was nothing wrong with the hardware. But the Operating System (OS) software gave an error message on bootup that it couldn’t locate the browseui.dll file. Of course, this missing file contains a lot of information about the Graphics User Interface (GUI); no wonder the laptop finished booting up just short of booting up into the GUI. You couldn’t even boot up to the GUI in Safe Mode to troubleshoot or fix the problem. The Operating System, Windows XP, publishes no way to troubleshoot or fix this problem that I know of. This laptop contains no floppy drive, so the laptop cannot be booted from the floppy. The laptop does contain a CD drive, but I had no CD that would boot the laptop beyond the Recovery Console. I searched for help on the Internet.

Another method worked for me. I couldn’t fix a missing browseui.dll file according to the way suggested by Soumitra Sengupta in his blog, the way that uses XP’s Recovery Console. (Alex Lu—who originally bought the ailing laptop—couldn’t remember—if he ever knew—the administrator’s password, so we couldn’t use the Recovery Console to fix this ailing laptop), so I devised another way that uses a memory stick, the ailing laptop’s Safe Mode with command prompt, and some MS DOS commands.

First, I copied a good browseui.dll file from my own XP system onto a memory stick (otherwise known as a thumb drive or, generically, as a flash drive). Then I stuck the memory stick into one of the laptop’s USB ports. I guessed that the laptop’s Operating System would name the drive e: because the laptop had only the main drive (drive c:) and a CD drive (drive d:). There is no floppy drive on the laptop. So, this left an "e" as the next letter for the OS to assign to any new IDE drive—like a flash drive.

Next, I pressed and held the laptop’s F8 key while I turned on the power switch. (Ignore the frantic beep, beep, beep…the computer makes to protest the F8 key being held down.) The laptop booted into an Advanced User screen containing a number of options. I chose Safe Mode with command prompt and the laptop booted into Safe Mode with a command prompt instead of the GUI that no longer worked because the computer cannot find the browseui.dll file.

This method needs you to change the directory to the system32 directory with the change directory command To change the directory to the system32 directory with the change directory command use the following command: cd \windows\system32.

At the prompt c:\windows\system32> you need to copy the file on the memory stick to this directory with the command copy e:browseui.dll. You should get a 1 File copied return message.

Eureka! Joy! The ailing computer now boots up into it’s GUI and you’re done.