Category Archives: Uncategorized

Whisky Is My Muse

Leave a reply
With only 19 days left until November 1st it is time to make an important decision: to NaNo or not to NaNo? I have attempted NaNoWriMo every year since 2010, failing in my first attempt but succeeding in the last two. This year, however, I’m torn. You see, I have a fully written novel and it requires a good amount of editing. I’m about one third through my first pass of identifying plot gaps (in come cases chasms) and other major blunders. I should be able to get through the remaining two thirds in a few weeks, and then take a week or so to go back and make some of the additions that I have identified.

That would put me in a pretty good spot to start shopping this baby around sometime early in the new year. On the other hand, I have a half written novel I’ve been sitting on since last NaNo that I really should finish off. It would be nice to have two completed novels under my belt. On the other, other hand, I have this entirely different idea that should squeeze into roughly 60,000 words and make for a nice short little novel that I think would make a great introductory piece for my future readers.

Decisions, decisions.

By Serge Bertasius Photography at http://freedigitalphotos.net 

I really want to move along my finished novel, but the unfinished piece has been sitting for far too long as well. Plus, I really don’t want to anger my muse by ignoring a right proper good idea for too long. Argh!

How to tell if you are a writer:

  1. Do you write?
  2. Do you have more projects started than you have completed?
  3. Do you think procrastination should be an Olympic event?
If you answered in the affirmative to all of the above then congratulations! You are a writer. 

Here’s the thing: I enjoy writing, but I’m a bit lazy turd, but I must also exercise my creativity or I start to get twitchy and depressed. This is why I blog, take a photo a day (as well as many others), write novels, short stories, am about to start a podcast, and write lyrics. Of all these things it’s the writing that I find most rewarding. As mentioned last week, I’m giving it more attention in the next few weeks and through November in hopes I can keep the groove going into the new year, but with what?

Methinks the editing and unfinished novel can wait, if only so I can get this idea that’s been rattling around out of my head and keep my muse from forgetting about me.

 What do you think?

Since we’re on the topic, here’s the latest song creation by Jim Tigwell and I, inspired by all our friends over at Writers Without Borders. We don’t have it recorded yet, but we’re working on it.

~ Andrew

By Naypong at http://freedigitalphotos.net

Whiskey is My Muse

Lyrics by Andrew F. Butters
Music by Jim Tigwell

Capo 2 (seriously)

Am             C         G     G
Nothing but potential On the horizon

Am           C          G    G
Close my eyes and feel her warmth

F                                     Am
Standing next to me, Standing next to me

Am        C       G   G
Careful ’cause she is Watching

Am        C       G   G
Open my eyes and look inside

F                               Am
Trying to be free, Trying to be free

Thinking of the options running through my mind
Need something to get started
To get me on my way, To get me on my way
Praying for the answerto my problems
Fighting urges to be weak
And risk staying the same, And risk staying the same

Am      C       E7
Staring at the page

Am          C    G       E7
Listen (to) what she has to say

Am                 C             G
Scattered words to rearrange the whiskey

   F
In my veins….

G
I better pay my dues today

D                       Am                    
Before she takes it all away

G
I better pay my dues today

D                       Am                    
Before she takes it all away

Fleeting glimpses of the future
Flash before my eyes
I know there is an answer
All I need is to entice
Too much confusion, too much chaos
Hiding deep inside
There she is providing guidance
But not without a price
Not without a price

Staring at the page
Listen (to) what she has to say
Scattered words to rearrange the whiskey
In my veins…
I better pay my dues today
Before she takes it all away
I better pay my dues today
Before she takes it all away

cadd9
Everything I do

D
Everything I say

cadd9
Every word’s for you

D
In every single way

cadd9
Everything that’s yours

D
And everything that’s mine

cadd9
Even though I’m torn

D                    Am
I think that I’ll be fine

Staring at the page
Listen (to) what she has to say
Scattered words to rearrange the whiskey
In my veins…
I better pay my dues today
Before she takes it all away
I better pay my dues today
Before she takes it all away
All away
All away
All away
All away
.

Why You Should Avoid Pissing Off Writers

3 Replies

So I am planning to do NaNoWriMo again this year and instead of just trying to get 50,000 words down in 30 days I hope to get a completed story out of it as well. I will have to plot this out (blech!) and see where the target word count lands (initial projections have it at 60k or 2,000 words per day). I seriously have to get limbered up. Seeing as I haven’t blogged since the summer I plan on getting back to my once a week post schedule. Also, I’m going to polish two chapters of my 2012 NaNo book (which is in editing mode still) and get them off to an editor in the next couple weeks, as well as get through the rest of that book looking for plot holes (chasms in some cases) and major crapola.

For this year’s NaNo story I’m going a different direction and it’s going to be quite a challenge. My biggest concern is how I am going to generate enough conflict to make it interesting. The good news is, my MC is a total dick so putting him through the wringer and seeing if he comes out the other end better off for it should be quite doable.

My MC doesn’t exist. He is no one person. He’s the embodiment of several people that I’ve interacted with over the past twenty years who have left a sour impression for one reason or another, and the MC is going to get his comeuppance for each and every one of those transgressions to which I’ve born witness.

This is why you should avoid pissing off writers.

We will come up with some of the wildest and most insane punishments you can imagine. Oh sure, we’ll put that fancy disclaimer at the beginning of the book: “This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person alive or dead is purely coincidental” but once you start reading the book you’ll recognize the crap you pulled and know instantly that when the character was getting his face eaten from the inside out by a colony of fire ants that the author was thinking of you.

So, if you’re a gigantic asshole, writers everywhere thank you. Conflict is what makes a novel go ’round and without your “contributions” to society the well we dip into for this stuff would be a lot shallower.

You might be saying, “This may be all well and good for fiction, but what about the real world? You can’t just go all Spy vs. Spy on every single person that grates your cheese”, and you’d be right. The concept of us versus them is not a new one. Since the dawn of time conflict has been a part of the human race. Let’s define things as follows: “us” and “we” can be just one person, a group, collection of like-minded folks, organization, community, tribe, race, or nation. If you fit this definition I want you to listen and listen carefully:

There will always those with whom we don’t get along. If they offend our sensibilities, wrong us in some way, marginalize us, oppress us, or harm us, I humbly request that we don’t ever sink to their level. Even if we have all the education, skills, money, power, and support in the world behind us, especially if we have all those things, don’t do it. Don’t sink. If we can’t find another way, a better way than them, then it’s up to us to seek out help in finding one. If we won’t find another way, a better way; if we outright refuse to do this one thing that makes us different than them, then we have become them and we should be ashamed. Find better ways.

~ Andrew

5 Tips For a Killer Ignite Talk

Leave a reply
5 minutes.
20 slides.
That’s one slide every 15 seconds, and oh  yes, they auto-advance whether you like it or not.
Ignite Waterloo: Enlighten us. Just make it quick.
I volunteer for a speaker series called Ignite. I’ve given a talk and been a speaker coordinator ever since. The format of the talks is what you see above the logo. It’s remarkably difficult and through the speakers’ workshops we hold you see all kinds of stuff. We do our best to educate the prospective speakers so they know what they’re getting into, but it doesn’t always work. We have a workshop coming up and I thought this would be a good time to impart a little wisdom. Hopefully this list will prepare applicants a little bit and improve their chances of being selected. Last event we turned away almost as many people as we accepted so why not take advantage of some free advice?
I played around with a few concepts for this post but given the Ignite format I settled on a list approach. More specifically a list of five. One tip for each minute a speaker is up on stage.  In an effort to avoid the dreaded tl;dr I’ll try to keep things short and sweet.

5 Tips For a Killer Ignite Talk:

  1.  Simplify
    We do this exercise in the workshops called “Log Lines”. It’s designed to help distill your message down into its most basic form and it works wonders. Too many words, too many concepts, too much of anything actually and you risk losing your audience before you even get warmed up. If you can’t summarize what you want to say in one or two sentences then try again, and keep trying until you can strip it down to the bare essentials. Simplify.
  2. Be Passionate
    I’m not saying you have to go all Tony Robbins or anything like that, but a genuine enthusiasm for your topic goes a long way. If you don’t look interested in your topic there is a very slim chance anyone else will be. Speak from the heart.
  3. Tell a Story
    The hardest part of preparing any Ignite talk is teasing out the narrative. This is something that my speaker coordinator colleagues and spend the most time on during the workshops. There are lots of great ideas that get discussed, but the ones that end up with a person on stage are the ones that can tell a story. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end and your Ignite talk is no different. Think of your talk as a three-act play: hook them early, have some ups and downs along the way, then drive the point home with something memorable. The good thing about this concept is that even if can always take something interesting and make it entertaining. Beginning. Middle. End.
  4. People Remember Funny
    Understandably, not everyone can be a comedian and not every talk can be all laughs, but even a serious talk with a well-placed moment of levity will stick in people’s minds. John Cleese, a veritable king of comedians, says to be aware that there’s a difference between serious and solemn and that some of the funniest moments he’s experienced have come during a well delivered eulogy. Quite simply, people love to laugh, and if you can share a nugget of information with them while doing it then you’ve done your job. Laugh it up, fuzz ball.
  5. AVOID: selling, preaching, or pandering
    While people love to laugh, they hate to be targeted, made to feel guilty, or be underestimated. Ignite is about sharing a little bit of Waterloo Region culture that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. It’s not a sales conference or a venture capital rodeo. You’ve got an attentive audience for 5 minutes or less and you’re just one of 16 to 20 they will see that night. They should want to seek you out and have a conversation with you about your topic after the event, not wonder what your angle is or how much money you need to crowd source The Next Big Thing. Less is more.
So there you have it. Five easy tips to improve your chances of being selected as an Ignite speaker. Of course, you will never get selected if you don’t apply. Attending a workshop is another sure fire way to get a leg up. Just about every speaker we’ve had in recent events has attended one. 
Our first workshop leading up to our next event will take place on August 6th at 6:30pm (location to be determined – check out the Ignite Website or sign up for the mailing list). See you there!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvEP7Ry0Jnc]
~ Andrew

Avast Ye Scurvy Dog!

Leave a reply

So you want to be a pirate, eh? Interesting. Personally, I’d rather be part of the Justice League of America.

The origins of this discussion come from a widely distributed quote from the very famous Steve Jobs:
“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”
People like to march out that quote at every opportunity; mass mailing it to every friend, follower, and potential investor within reach. As it turns out, I am not a pirate. Not even close. The first indication came after I read that quote for the first time and thought to myself, Do pirates get health benefits? What about retirement contribution matching, paid vacation, and training subsidies?
Seriously, if I were a pirate there would be none of that (not initially at least), and I like all of that. I really, really do. Pirating looks like a lot of fun but I’m not so sure the behind-the-scenes view is nearly as glamorous. 
To paraphrase Steve Furtik, “Don’t compare your behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel”, or to quote another good one from W.H. Auden, “There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.”
For every success there is a string of failures, sleepless nights, lost weekends, damaged relationships, and self sacrifices that are significantly less publicized. Are the rewards greater? Sure, but so are the risks, and some people (such as myself) just aren’t cut out for it. 
I’m clearly taking the Jobs quote in the context of entrepreneurship, in the way it references joining the navy. I’m viewing this as analogous to working for a large, stuck up, follow-the-herd type company with lots of rules, regulations, and processes guiding their rules and regulations.

I prefer to let my real life be more like the navy and my imaginary life, the one filled with words, be more like a pirate. Certainly there is a literary parallel in here somewhere as well as you can tap any academic on the shoulder and ask for, and receive, a long list of books that follow the rules. 

Does this fact make these books boring or undesirable? To some, for sure, but not for everyone. What about all the books that are out there that don’t follow the rules; the ones that break them at the turn of every page? Some may find them more interesting. Some may not be able to find the order among the chaos. 
Just as we can’t have an economy with nothing but pirates we can’t have libraries filled with books that break all the rules. At the same time, if every novel followed the same set of writing rules, and every character within them exhibited the same set of behaviours we’d have a lot less interesting libraries, don’t you think? 
What’s the first thing any successful writer will tell you about writing? Ignore all the rules. The really good writers will tell you to ignore them intelligently. What’s important to realize is that whether you break them or not it’s okay either way.

The world needs rules just as much as it needs rule breakers (intelligent or otherwise). It’s what keeps us moving forward and yet somewhat organized at the same time. 

“In the world there must surely be of all sorts” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Sheldon translation, 1620)

~ Andrew

Spam, Spam, Spam, Eggs, Bacon, and Spam

2 Replies

I don’t get a lot of traffic on this blog, but I get enough that I’m not embarrassed by the numbers on a month-to-month basis. Regardless of my readership numbers I’ve always struggled with the best mechanism for managing comments. I have tried a few things ranging from “wide open free for all” to “must sign in with an account” before finally settling on Blogger’s built-in “word verification”. It held up fairly well until one fateful day in May when I published a post about my encounter with Chuck Wendig.

Since the Wendig post my blog comments have been inundated with spam from all directions. Maybe inundated is too strong a word, but it’s definitely a noticeable increase. The good news is the comments don’t make it through to the website, so at least Blogger’s algorithm recognizes that they don’t belong, but the thing is I don’t get a lot of comments (see previous mention of traffic) so I have email notifications set up to send them to me when they come in, which unfortunately includes the spam comments as well.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE?rel=0]

Don’t get the idea that I think this is really that big of a deal, it’s not, but I do find it interesting for a couple of reasons and it poses a couple of questions, the first of which is “What was it about the Chuck Wendig post that brought on the spam bots?” I’ve posted many things that were more widely read and/or controversial and it hasn’t received this much attention. Maybe it was just a timing issue and would have happened regardless of what I posted? Who knows.

All I can say is that it’s all a little disappointing. Not that my spam to actual comments ratio is terrible but rather that the spam itself is terrible. Quite frankly, if I’m going to get spam I’d at least prefer if it was interesting. Here’s a sampling:

  • For the reason that the admin of this web site is working, no hesitation very shortly it will be famous, due to its feature contents.
  • Hello, Neat post. There is a problem together with your website in internet explorer, may test this? IE nonetheless is the marketplace chief and a large element of folks will miss your great writing because of this problem
  • Your mode of describing the whole thing in this piece of writing is genuinely good, all be capable of without difficulty be aware of it, Thanks a lot.
  • Hello Dear, are you actually visiting this web page on a regular basis, if so then you will definitely take fastidious experience.
  • Fine way of explaining, and nice post to obtain facts about my presentation subject matter, which i am going to deliver in institution of higher education.
Of course, each one comes with its own “click this” or “check out my website” link. 
On top of it all there isn’t even a single mention of how I can increase the size of my penis. Seriously, it’s like they’re not even trying anymore.

Check out my website!

~ Andrew

My Daughter Stanley

Leave a reply

If you’re thinking, “Hey, it seems like Andrew hasn’t posted in a while“, you wouldn’t be wrong. I haven’t. There are reasons for this (some of them good) and I’ll be addressing that in my regular post on Sunday (is it still a regular post if I haven’t done one in over a month?)

Tonight though, something special could happen. So, please allow me a few minutes of your time to get all nostalgic and sappy.

Since 2003 a day like today has only come around once. If you count 2002 this day has only happened three times in the last 12 years. That may seem common, a leap year happens that often after all, but in my world it’s actually quite special.

You see, on this day in 2002 my wife was 37 weeks pregnant and we were lying in bed watching the Stanley Cup finals. Well, I was watching. I’m pretty sure Jodi was reading a book. At any rate, I don’t have an adult memory of me missing the Stanley Cup presentation at the end of the final game. I watch the winning team’s captain accept The Cup from that weasel shit-for-brains Gary Bettman and then raise it over his head and then plant a big ole kiss on the greatest trophy in all of sports.

On this particular night the Detroit Red Wings won The Cup and captain Steve Yzerman got to drink from Lord Stanley’s mug once again. As soon as he lifted the silver chalice above his head I turned to my wife, patted her on the belly (pausing briefly to see if my soon-to-be daughter would finally give me a kick – she didn’t) and said, “Okay, you can give birth now.“

It would have been funny had she just gone into labour right then, but alas she did not and we went to sleep. She did wake me up at 05:00 though with a gentle, “Andrew, we’re going to have a baby.” To which my reply was, “I know.” (Hey, it was 5am, cut me some slack). She clarified that her water just broke and, while she was not in labour,  that she would be giving birth today one way or another.

Later that day our first child was born. Happy and healthy, with only a couple bruises and a slightly cone shaped head and since June 14, 2002 I have had my very own Stanley Cup. Only once since then has there been a Cup deciding game on June 13th. Back in 2011 it could have happened but they polished it for nothing on that particular evening. Last year there was a game seven scheduled for June 13th – which would have guaranteed the celebrations on the right day but the darn thing was handed out after game six.

Tonight, however, the heavily favoured LA Kings face a disorganized New York Rangers and hold a three games to one lead in the series. The Stanley Cup will be in the building and even though I don’t have television I’ll be huddled around my wife’s cell phone watching on her TV app. If I feel up to it I’ll just pay the three bucks and Air Play it to my TV from my iPhone through the CBC Hockey app. Either way, I’ll be watching.

Regardless of the outcome, one thing is certain: I’ll be waking up tomorrow and giving my little Stanley Cup a great big birthday kiss.

The First Stanley Cup – 1893
My First Stanley Cup – 2002

Update:
It took until after midnight (which is way past my bedtime by the way) and one and a half overtimes but the Kings pulled it off and gave me a cool daddy memory in the process. I’m the only one in the world for which this odd little piece of trivia matters and I’m glad I got to relive experience. So thanks to all those players who were able to make that happen for me.

~ Andrew

P.S.
I did not get up at 05:00 to commemorate the utterance “We’re going to have a baby.”

P.P.S.
I did spring the $3 so I could stream the game from my phone to my Apple TV. The picture was HD quality but the connection was a bit flaky. Also, my phone kept putting itself to sleep every five minutes and the app wouldn’t play when it did that so I had to tap my screen every couple minutes to keep things going.

One Night Only: Chuck Wendig’s Beard

2 Replies

As I have mentioned in a few previous posts, particularly those that revolve around NaNoWriMo, I am a pantser. Even the idea of planning out something before I write it gives me the heebie-jeebies. The problem with this is I am slightly (i.e. very) compulsive about certain things and in order for me to make decent progress I have to plan.

The same goes for any self improvement activity, whether it’s a new hobby or honing the skills of a particular craft like photography or writing. I got a new camera, a shiny new Nikon D90 a few years ago and read a couple things online and started snapping pictures. I had taken a photography course at the local community college a decade ago and figured I would just wing it. The results were better than average, but they weren’t great, so I took a couple more classes specifically geared toward the camera I owned and then started taking tonnes of pictures. The result? I wouldn’t classify them as “great”, but they are certainly better than anything I’ve ever done and I’m quite pleased.

When it comes to writing I’ve done a lot of reading, but not as much reading about how to write as I have much as I have for research and pleasure. This is not a bad thing, but just as reading about rocket science isn’t going to actually make me a rocket scientist, reading books isn’t going to make me an author. I’ve also done some writing, though not nearly as much as I should. I haven’t even amassed half a million words yet, in spite of finishing a first draft of a novel, having written 50,000 words towards a second novel, 20,000 words toward a third, and 52,000 words on my blog in the last 16 months.

So, when my friend and Orange Karen: Tribute to a Warrior publisher Christina Esdon sent me a message on Facebook a few months ago asking if I wanted to go to an all day writer’s workshop given by none other than Chuck Wendig I didn’t even have to check the calendar twice. I bought a ticket within minutes and yesterday morning she met me at my house and we carpooled into Toronto to go learn how to “art harder”, as chuck is wont to say from time to time (usually with a well place expletive at the end).

I own (but have not yet read) all of Chuck’s books on the writing craft and get every one of his blog posts over at Terrible Minds but didn’t have any idea what to expect. If you want the executive summary now here’s all you need to know: it was worth every penny ($90) and I’d do it again in the beat of a heart.

The room we set up very formally, with a podium at the front and rows of tables that each sat three people. After some background from Chuck on how he came to be a full time professional writer we got right down to business. We covered a wide range of topics and he had us do exercises for each one where we got to share with the class, get feedback from him and the others, and even participate in crowd-sourced story creation. It ended with a Q&A session on writing and storytelling and then a book signing / photo op.

Some of the stuff we covered:

  • Log lines
  • Themes
  • Characters
    • Problems
    • Solutions
    • Limitations
    • Complications
    • Strengths
    • Boons
    • Character Log lines

I’m not normally much of a note taker and even mentioned to Christina that I wasn’t sure I would take any notes, but I did have this wonderful pen my brother bought me for Christmas and a notepad just in case. By the end of the all day session I had taken six pages of notes (including stuff written for the exercises). In addition to that, I came up with one new idea for a series and several improvements for the novel that I’m editing.

On top of all that, I got to eat lunch with Chuck and spend some time having normal conversations. Well as normal as they could be given the fact that he’s this hugely successful writer on his first trip to Canada and I’m a newbie writer Chuck Wendig fanboy who grew up 15 minutes from where we were sitting noshing on some tasty Pickle Barrel sandwiches.

I scribbled down a little humorous line in my notebook while Chuck was talking with Christina and at a break in the conversation asked him if he’d do me the pleasure of signing it. He went one better and added a line of his own before penning his name to the bottom. Day = made. In addition to being a great writer and knowing his shit when it comes to the craft I can honestly say that he’s also one of the most genuine dudes I’ve ever met as well as beyond patient when it comes to his fans and fellow writers (especially considering how creepy I was being).

Hopefully this won’t cause Chuck any problems at the border

Finally, as if all of the above wasn’t enough he’s also got that awesome beard, which would come in really handy if I were in need of a good name for a punk band or thoroughbred racehorse.

Chuck Wending’s Beard

~ Andrew

Fill In The Blanks

Leave a reply

First off, an apology to all four of you that were expecting posts the last couple of weeks. I decided  I would take some mental health time away from blogging. Also, I had exactly zero ideas for posts and was becoming quite frustrated so I decided to do other things.

Anyhow, a few things happened while I was away from the blogosphere but today we’re going to focus on storytelling. I was in a bit of a funk and having a hard time getting words to flow. Call it writer’s block, call it whatever you want. I was stuck and having a hard time getting out. Before you knew it though the day was saved… by none other than Rob Ford.

I know it sounds a little suspect, but it’s true! Before you think I’m just another person jumping on the let’s make fun of Rob Ford bandwagon (I’m not) I have a question:

What do Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, former President Bill Clinton, and former football player O.J. Simpson have in common?

Answer: in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary they all chose to deny, deny, deny… and then admit.

Well, two of the three eventually copped to some reasonable facsimile of the truth. One of those two could very well be in the White House again in a couple years (albeit as the spouse of the President this time) and one could still be Mayor of Toronto in the fall (though still the butt of late night television jokes). The one who is still denying everything? Well he was sued for every penny he had an is now in jail for an “unrelated” conviction.

So what is it about denying something until you’re blue in the face before coming clean at the last second that actually works?

Answer: imagination.

In storytelling you have to lead people down the path but you can’t spoon feed them every detail. If you did there wouldn’t be much of a story, and if there’s one thing we humans love it’s a good story. We also have wonderful imaginations, especially when we’re given just the right amount of information to work with. If you can leave out certain bits and carefully highlight other ones you end up leaving enough room for the reader to fill in the blanks with their own fabulous ideas.

Good stories live inside negative space. 

By constantly denying, what those people are doing is allowing everyone’s individual storytelling machines to work overdrive. At the end of it all they can just stand back and put their arms up and say, “Well look at that, everyone’s got a theory. My ‘theory’ is I’m innocent. [smiles and waves] No further comment.”

After a while, because people have dreamed up such amazing stories to fill the space in between, when the truth does come out (and it always does eventually) it’s really quite an anti-climactic event. We forget all about how incredulous we were back when it all began. The redemption story starts to take hold. Everyone deserves another chance. Blah blah blah. Humans are also suckers for the happy ending. Film has been taking advantage of this for over a century (the finest example I can think of is the film adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s “The Natural”. Watch Robert Redford in the movie and then read the book).

The problem is we live in the real world and not in the pages of a best selling novel or some Hollywood tale. I want real people, especially leaders and role models, to be able to produce a list of end notes and reference checks as long as their arm like you’d have at the end of a research paper. Just as it is with that list, I’m never going to follow up on everything on it, but I’ll feel much but I feel much better knowing it’s there. This way we can spend more of our precious creative time coming up with stories that actually matter.

~ Andrew

Is There Anybody Out There?

Leave a reply
Image from Wikimedia Commons courtesy Oliver Stein 

There will be a total lunar eclipse this week that almost the entirety of North America will be in a position to see. I’m undecided if I’m going to drag by butt out of bed to watch it because there’s another one coming on October 8th and I’ll have access to a telescope/camera combination then. At any rate, it got me thinking about how fortunate we are to have developed into these fabulous creatures that can ask questions, learn about our world (and the worlds beyond), understand and share information, ask more questions, become inspired, inspire others… and create.

It’s those last three items on the list that more often than not have me feeling that we, as a planet, have just won the Powerball lottery. The first five numbers gave us life. An extraordinary planet that spins and floats around an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in a random corner of the Universe. The sixth number, the Powerball number, gave us the self awareness and intelligence to appreciate it all. Whether or not you believe that All Of This was created by the hand of God or we just happened to win the greatest cosmic lottery of all time, one thing is certain: it is absolutely awe inspiring.

Image from Wikimedia Commons courtesy NASA

The iconic photograph above was taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spaceprobe at a distance of 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles). It depicts the Earth as a mere 0.12 pixel in size and the photograph is aptly titled “The Pale Blue Dot”. It was taken at the request of Carl Sagan as part of a “Family Portrait” – a collection of photographs of some the planets in our Solar System as taken by Voyager. In his 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space“, Carl used some amazingly profound words to describe what he saw:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Sagan had a way with words, didn’t he? I keep that photograph along with the first paragraph of his description on my phone and every time I need a little perspective I take a look at it and read the text. The copy of the picture I have has a little arrow pointing to Earth with the comment “You Are Here”.

The human brain has a hard time working with things that are on a scale much larger or much smaller than what we experience on a day-to-day basis. Until you see the entirety of your existence as a dot on a screen I don’t think it’s an easy thing for people to grasp just how small we are, and just how absolutely huge everything else is. Fortunately, there are some very creative people who have come up with some nifty tools that help us out in this regard.

You could easily spend days playing around with these, so be careful. You have been warned!

If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – Josh Worth

This is the best example I have ever seen which highlights the true massiveness of the universe. The concept is simple: if the moon were 1 pixel in size on your computer screen how big would everything else be, and more importantly, how far away would everything else be? You use the scrollbar on the bottom and you travel to the right through our solar system starting with the Sun and working your way out to Pluto. Along the way the creator of this site puts witty commentary in the voids between all the planets so if you jump back and forth instead of scrolling you will miss some good stuff. As he says around the 117,350,945 km mark, “Most of space is just space.”

100,000 Stars – Chrome Experiments (Chrome browser only)

From the ‘?’ link on the page:
“100,000 Stars is an interactive visualization of the stellar neighborhood created for the Google Chrome web browser. It shows the location of 119,617 nearby stars derived from multiple sources, including the 1989 Hipparcos mission. Zooming in reveals 87 individually identified stars and our solar system. The galaxy view is an artist’s rendition based on NGC 1232, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way.

Instructions: Pan using your mouse and zoom in/out using your touchpad or mouse wheel. Click a star’s name to learn more about it.

Warning: Scientific accuracy is not guaranteed. Please do not use this visualization for interstellar navigation.”

Cosmos – ChronoZoom

This is one link where you can get lost for a long while and I’d recommend it for everyone who has ever wondered about the concept of time, as well as every science teacher out there. The site allows you to zoom in and learn about the Universe in terms of time. You start with the Universe at it’s beginning – more than 12 billion years ago and you can scroll, zoom, and click your way through time. As you will see, humans exist in just a fraction of a fraction of the whole thing. Here’s a link that should take you right to “Humanity”. Use your scroll wheel to zoom out and you’ll get a good sense really quickly exactly how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. Alternatively, click the main link I provided in the header and when you arrive at the site click the word “Humanity” at the top.

Finally, even though this song finishes with a solar eclipse and not a lunar one I think it’s still appropriate to end this post with one of my favourite Pink Floyd tunes. The songs “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” come off the album Dark Side of the Moon (easily in my top 5 albums of all time) and features a very Sagan-esque set of lyrics:

All that you touch and all that you see
all that you taste, all you feel
and all that you love and all that you hate
all you distrust, all you save
and all that you give and all that you deal
and all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal
and all you create and all you destroy
and all that you do and all that you say
and all that you eat and everyone you meet
and all that you slight and everyone you fight
and all that is now and all that is gone
and all that’s to come and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZL0sNxP_28?rel=0]

~ Andrew

Read This F***ing Post

3 Replies

So Justin Trudeau has faced some criticism from the Conservative Party of Canada, specifically the Prime Minister, because he dropped an F bomb while in a boxing ring at a charity event last week. Some days later when asked about it on a popular talk show he replied with “Um… [exaggerated sigh], shit, what do I say?”

Of all the stuff I’ve read about it I have yet to hear one person mention how an English swear word to a French person doesn’t carry the same weight. Maybe it’s the media trying to avoid fuelling the whole English/French fire that people up here love to stoke. Maybe it’s a non-issue. I don’t know, but I’m surprised I haven’t seen it come up.

I worked for a guy who owned the company and spent a week golfing with him in Hawaii a bunch of years back. He was French but spoke English better than a lot of people I know. When he’d swear on the golf course it was almost exclusively in English. Being the owner of the company and all I tried to keep it together every time I flubbed  a shot but eventually let loose some choice swear words – in English. It didn’t phase him at all.

However, when I three putted from inside 5 feet to go from birdie to bogey and dropped what I thought was a very well paced “tabarnac!” he got serious in a hurry and admonished me for using such foul language. You see, English swear words were just stupid words with no meaning. Let loose with a “osti de tabarnac de calice” in La Belle Province and you’ll turn a few head for sure.

Image courtesy photostock at http://freedigitalphotos.net

For me, it’s all about context. Call someone a name, any name, and you’ve made it personal. I’m not saying never do it (some people deserve to be told the truth) but if you do be well aware that it comes with certain consequences (good ole Justin called someone a “piece of shit” in the House of Commons back in 2011. However true a statement it was, it was probably offside for Justin to mention it in that forum).

In my opinion, using a swear in a different manner and with a different context, like how our future Prime Minister did more recently – twice, should’t even garner so much as a raised eyebrow. If it draws attention to the fact that he’s more in touch with the average Canadian and then gets people to run out and vote for him in the next election then I supposed that’s just a bonus.

When Jean Cretien was Prime Minister he swore in front of the Queen! (in French – “merde” – which translates to “shit”). When Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was Prime Minister he caused a ruckus by mouthing some choice words in the House of Commons. Later he translated what he said to “fuddle duddle” and accused the opposition of “crying to mama”. To him, it was no big deal. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far, whether it’s from the family tree or from the political party.

I’ll tell you one thing, given the choice between honest statements that contain swearing and perfectly scripted lies that are free of expletives, I know which one I’m fucking voting for.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Iu2CAwQaU]

~ Andrew