This is the long stretch now for us all.
When I was sick, I put a lot of stock into my second visit to Allegheny General. I got an echocardiogram that day and they tried to figure out where I stood. And the numbers for my ejection fraction came back and while they were an incredible improvement, I wasn't anywhere near getting back to work. It just meant I wasn't going to drop over while trying to get back. And suddenly there was a long stretch between me and a goal I couldn't see, and wouldn't see for a long time. I was in the long stretch.
Well, how do you get to the goal, when you can't see how far away it is. The easy goal was visible from the hospital bed, that goal was "tomorrow, not here." But when the next goal is at a distance and you don't know how far you'll have to travel, then you can only trust you know the direction, and keep taking steps in that direction. Keeping the increment is what matters more than the distance. And I found that even if the goal I got through was tiny, I was much better off doing a tiny thing then stalling my progress. So every day I tried at least once to push something a little farther than the day before, knock down something new, even if it was small. Maybe that was a little faster on the stationary bike, or making progressively more ornate lunches, or reading another page of the infamous Newfoundland book, but the key was as long as I kept moving and didn't stop for a day, I knew I'd eventually get myself back into a shape that I could get back to normal. Each step counted, and it filled each day with steps towards the goal that mattered. I always kept a few simple things in reserve that I could knock down if I needed a quick goal for the day, but as the time went on, I wasn't worried about that, I just worked through the increments. And I chose to exhaust myself every day, rather than have exhaustion choose for me.
My default advice for everyone who competes in quiz bowl is "Always learn one new thing every day," and I try to hold to that for myself. It is the one habit I have had since grade school. It can be more than one thing, most days it should be, but the importance is to keep the process going and be one thing more knowledgeable today than yesterday. That was my increment before I got sick, and it's still an increment in quarantine. And as long as I'm making a little progress every day, I'm not giving into despair or boredom or numbness or anger. May it be that for you.
One step today, same thing tomorrow.
The garden is starting to yield, first with the radishes, and then sprouting onions, and now it looks like the leaf vegetables are starting to go beyond their first leaves. The combination of time and weather this year has given me a front row seat to see the garden progress. Now I’m getting to see the vegetation get through their increments.
Stuff to Read
One of my favorite books that I gave away as a prize was called Altered States. It was a history of states that were planned to join the union but didn’t. This article gives 12 of those stories, while omitting Newfoundland.
This article on Sir William Perkin scratches the surface quite ably, but if you want the full story, I’d suggest the book Mauve by Simon Garfield.
Stuff to Look At
A list of notable illustrators of children’s books
A study of the motifs of artist Francis Bacon.
Stuff to Hear
The In Our Time Podcast, just start listening whereever, and keep going.
Stuff to Watch
So far I haven’t been led astray on literature questions by watching Thug Notes, so I suppose it’s a way to study.
The Articles I Learned from This Week
In this case the article I unlearned from this week: The Mandela Effect which is like having a neg in the form of a eldritch curse.
The Articles You Could Learn from This Week
Another archive of a Lucky Peach article, this time discussing Spanish cuisine.
An article on Britain’s Viking kings, just for they opportunity to mention Sweyn Forkbeard. I’m sure somebody’s out there working on a forkbeard.
Benny Goodman’s 1938 concert in Carnegie Hall
Didn’t You Learn Anything From the Last Time?
1
The porcelain collection of Frederick Leyland was housed in a room in his home, after it was redecorated in the Anglo-Japanese style.
A. Name that room, later moved to the Freer Gallery in Washington, named for this bird, two of which are depicted fighting on a panel in the room.
answer: Peacock Room
B. This American artist hung his own painting Rose and Silver: The Princess from the Land of Porcelain and did the decorations of the Peacock Room, and after a falling out later caricatured Leyland as a demonic peacock.
answer: James Abbott MacNeil Whistler
C. The porcelain collection housed in the Peacock Room was from the period of the Kangxi emperor, the fourth emperor in this last dynasty to rule over China.
answer: Qing
2
His final official act was to record a protest vote against the celebration of the recently-concluded Mexican-American War.
A. Name this representative from Massachusetts, at the time 20 years removed from his time as President.
answer: John Quincy Adams
B. JQAdams was defeated in the 1828 election by this man.
answer: Andrew Jackson
C. While in the House, Adams argued before the Supreme Court in the case of this Spanish ship, winning their kidnapped passengers their return to Africa, rather than being sold into slavery.
answer: Amistad
3
He was able to identify the mineral molybdena as containing an element, but was unable to isolate it.
A. Name this hard luck chemist whose discoveries included theorizing the existence of the elements barium and manganese, but being unable to isolate them.
answer: Carl Wilhelm Scheele
B. Scheele believed that "muriaticum," which he did discover was an oxide, and lost out to Humphrey Davy when he proved muriaticum was this gaseous element.
answer: chlorine
C. Scheele's Green, a pigment developed by Scheele, was later discovered to be extremely toxic due to the presence of this extremely toxic element.
answer: arsenic
4
The nickname of "Murasaki" or purple is applied to premium versions of this condiment.
A. Name this sauce made from fermenting roasted cracked wheat, and whole legumes.
answer: soy sauce or shoyu
B. This sauce is formed from mixing shoyu with sour citrus juice, often yuzu.
answer: ponzu
C. This term used for soy sauce made only from soybeans with small amounts of wheat actually refers to a syrup that forms on the surface of miso paste.
answer: tamari
5
In the first stanza the narrator observes this title conveyance "as far as I could/To where it bent into the undergrowth."
A. Name this subject of a poem, one of two "diverged in a yellow wood"
answer: The Road Not Taken
B. This poet included "The Road Not Taken" in his collection Mountain Interval.
answer: Robert Frost
C. Frost recited this poem which begins "The land was ours before we were the land's" at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.
answer: The Gift Outright