I was in bed. Tucker was beside me. He’d awakened me with a couple claw taps to my hand. This is what he does when he wants me to pet and scratch him at night. I obliged him.
It was 4:50 AM. Dim light was skirting in and around the blinds but the light had an unusual, lemon-green hue. It seemed pixelated with black static. That black static seemed to be closing in on me like a malevolent hand reaching out to seize me.
I wanted to cower under the covers but I felt like I had to get up and check a noise heard elsewhere in the house. Clenching my jaw, I forced myself out of bed.
The black immediately gained mass, pouncing on me like a swarm of angry black insects. I could feel its anger like a growing breeze. Waving it off, I said in my head, “I’m not afraid, you can’t stop me.” I then amended that, “Okay, I am afraid but I’m still not going to let you stop me.”
The black drew down on me and slammed my head like a hurricane wind. I held fast, resisting being pushed back or knocked over. After some seconds of this, I pushed forward toward the door. The black burst apart and vanished.
I woke up. I was partly out of my bed. Surprise held me; “That was a dream?” It seemed so real and intense that I stood there, half out of bed, remembering and thinking before wondering, had there really been a noise? I went to check.
Sunshine began crowning around 7:15 this morning in Ashlandia, and then came the sun’s piercing rays through trees and over snow-topped mountains at 7:34 AM. White and blue has been sprayed-painted on the sky. The paints are still resolving their form. It’s still and cold, 29 degrees F. Saturday, January 21, 2023, has been reached.
The other end of the day will come with the sun rolling away as the planet spins on at 5:11 Ashlandia time. We’ll have clouds and sunshine and other fun stuff with an ultimate high temperature of 54 degrees F.
I’ve been reading about state responses to electric cars. Many manufacturers declared that they’re shutting down internal combustion engine production by specific years. Some states have mandated that only electric cars will be sold within their borders by an established date. In response, other states, such as Wyoming, are attempting to ban electric cars in their state by 2035.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that we’re seeing this. We saw the same happen when ICE cars were introduced over 100 years ago. States drew up actions to throttle enthusiasm for these noisy vehicles and people rejected them as foolish. In one memorable article in the Saturday Evening Post, Alexander Winton recounted how his banker called and berated him about buying a car.
‘My banker called on me to say: “Winton, I am disappointed in you.”
‘That riled me, but I held my temper as I asked, “What’s the matter with you?” He bellowed: “There’s nothing the matter with me. It’s you! You’re crazy if you think this fool contraption you’ve been wasting your time on will ever displace the horse.”
‘From my pocket I took a clipping from the New York World of November 17, 1895, and asked him to read it. He brushed it aside. I insisted. It was an interview with Thomas A. Edison: “Talking of horseless carriage suggests to my mind that the horse is doomed. The bicycle, which, 10 years ago, was a curiosity, is now a necessity. It is found everywhere. Ten years from now you will be able to buy a horseless vehicle for what you would pay today for a wagon and a pair of horses. The money spent in the keep of the horses will be saved and the danger to life will be much reduced.”
‘It is only a question of a short time when the carriages and trucks of every large city will be run by motors. The expense of keeping and feeding horses in a great city like New York is very heavy, and all this will be done away with. You must remember that every invention of this kind which is made adds to the general wealth by introducing a new system of greater economy of force. A great invention which facilitates commerce, enriches a country just as much as the discovery of vast hoards of gold.”’
Skepticism and denial are natural in the face of change. While Wyoming’s legislature is rationalizing why electric cars shouldn’t be brought to their state, the backdrop is that they, like Texas, who is also contemplating anti-electric car legislations, is trying to protect the fossil fuel industry. Their state economies depend on fossil fuels.
In other news, I sometimes just stop reading and turn the page, frustrated and depressed again by the rise of murders, particularly shootings, and the obstinance always flashed whenever reform is addressed. The same lies are given fuel over and over. Meanwhile, the emerging agendas in several states who are trying to stop social change often by suppressing votes and others’ rights, has me thinking of Linda Rontstadt. The Neurons brought up her cover of the song, “You’re No Good” from 1973.
The coffee is half consumed but I might refresh the cup and sip a bit more before facing the cold and going off to the coffee shop to write. Stay positive and enjoy your day, summer, winter, whatever, best that you can. You can complain about it, like I do, but don’t let that stop you from trying.
Another short dream. I was part of some kind of team. Can’t say it was or wasn’t military but ranks and uniforms weren’t in use. I received a phone call about modifying a car for a mission. The car, a silver 2022 Corvette C8 convertible, belonged to another individual who was more senior in rank. I was to approach him and tell him we were going to use his car, and then make changes to it.
I approached as directed. The guy vaguely reminds me of Paulie “Walnuts” from The Sopranos, played by the late Tony Sirico. I give him the message. He stares at me for about five seconds, grunts hard, then tosses something up against the ceiling where it makes a resounding bang and sticks. As I protest that I’m following instructions, he storms off.
That’s the dream’s essence. Further instructions are received. More mods are needed. I tell ‘Paulie’ that they’re needed and I’m going to do them. His anger increases each time, but he does the same thing in response – throws something against the ceiling. Bang, and cracks. Glares at me. Stalks off. As this plays out, I’m getting angry, too.
But there’s never any cracks on the ceiling the next time it happens. And other than his reaction, I enjoy modifying the car and I’m eager to do the work, and gaining confidence that the team will succeed.
Writing science fiction, one area I end up studying and contemplating is change. I was happy to come across this Harvard Business Review (Walter Frick) interview with Tyler Cowen. Cowen’s newest book, ‘The Complacent Class’, addresses how America has become complacent and averse to change in recent years.
I’ve watched this develop. NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard – was the rallying chorus to battle many new construction suggestions. Property values and appearances take precedence over more pragmatic uses of land, usually in the name of property values, especially when one small set who don’t live in the area will benefit to the detriment of those living in the area and fighting the action.
Yet, we can see the concrete results in places like Oroville Dam. Oroville Dam was headline news during some of February as record rains struck parts of California. The dam’s spillway was opened but damage caused it to be closed. With water rising behind the dam, the emergency spillway was employed but the visibly fast erosion taking place concerned many. Fears that the dam was going to collapse caused mass evacuation. Many area residents were pissed because the water behind that dam in their back yard benefited others living hundreds of miles away.
Almost as an extension of NIMBY, Homeowners Associations (HOAs), have developed to protect individual neighborhoods and developments here in southern Oregon. A large part of that is the agreement to establish a new development is centered around having an open green space, or mini-park, as part of the development. That park, and the attendant common areas, need a management focus. Hence, the HOA is used. To protect property values, the HOA restricts changes and uses. Home owners are limited to what they can plant; fruit and vegetable gardens are generally off-limits, frustrating people who want to grow their own produce. Some common interest developments address this by creating a community garden.
So, from the economic and social ramification of residing in America in the early twenty-first century, to watching and thinking about politics, to imagining our future, Cowen’s book entices me.
HBR: And all this is happening during a time when we see a lot of change in technology, particularly in IT and machine learning, and, potentially, artificial intelligence. How does that progress fit with your thesis?
Well, there is a lot of change, but it’s concentrated in some areas. Look at a classic 20th-century notion of progress: how quickly you can move through physical space. That hasn’t gotten faster for a long time. Planes are not faster. With cars, there’s more traffic. It’s actually harder to get around, and that makes the physical world less dynamic. It’s harder to build things in the United States.
The thing that’s much easier to do is sit at home and have all of life come to you. You speak to your Alexa or your Echo, and you have things be ordered. You use the internet. You watch on Netflix. It’s made us all much more homebodies, feeling we don’t need to change things, more comfortable in our consumption patterns. And obviously that has big private gains, or people wouldn’t be doing it. But there’s nonetheless a collective effect that I think is worrying when our physical and geographic spaces become less dynamic, less mobile, less intermixed. And that’s the America we’re seeing today.
A fascinating part of the net for me is the opportunity it provides to meet people who I would otherwise never encounter. Many of these are fellow writers, intelligent and personable people who enjoy reading and writing. One of these is Barbara Froman.
Barb is the author of Shadows and Ghosts. She has come up with a recipe that she calls ‘Resistance Bread’. She posted it on Facebook. I liked it (because it sounds delicious for cold day) and decided I’d share it here, so here is Barb’s FB post and recipe.
I created this tea bread so that it would be food for strength and comfort—loaded with antioxidants, yet sufficiently sweet. Indeed, my husband says he can’t think of this as bread, as it seems more like dessert to him. I, on the other other hand, eat it for breakfast. The recipe is open to improvisation. If you try it, and experiment with your own additions/changes, please share!
Preheat oven to 350º
Liberally grease an 8″ x 4″ bread pan with cultured butter.
Mix:
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil or melted cultured butter
2 beaten eggs
1 grated apple
1/3-1/2 cup orange juice (pulp or no pulp, it doesn’t make a difference, just start with the smaller amount and add more if necessary)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup dried cranberries or cherries (I mix the two when I have both on hand)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts.
To this mixture add:
1 cup minus two tablespoons any 1-to-1 gluten free flour mix
2 tablespoons coconut flour
(optional) 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Blend well into liquid mixture. The batter should have substance, but not be stiff.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for @50 minutes. Test with toothpick to see if it’s done. Cool in pan on rack, then slice when still slightly warm and slather with chevre or your favorite nut butter.
Michael Seidel, writer 