Bangor, ME

 Sometimes Jeopardy is unique in its tastes about what to ask, but then it coincides with something you know personally and deeply, and it's an easy answer: Today's Jeoaprdy asked in the $1000 question (hardest clue) of the Jeopardy round for the third most populous city in Maine (along with another "hook" in the clue about Get it on, Bang a Gong, song by T-Rex, but pretty much you were on your own to come up with "Bangor," a city that would barely qualify as a town in other metropolitan areas, weighs in behind Portland and Lewiston as Maine's 3rd largest city at roughly 30,000 residents, also an hour's drive from the Bar Harbor-Acadia combo of cities. Having recently been to Bangor (and stayed there overnight) due to MJ being from an even smaller town in Maine, Bangor is.......not exactly a bustling city, intersected by the Penobscot and even having its own airport (nice job!) If only Camarillo, CA, population 70,000+, that would make my life easier. It reminds me how most of America actually lives outside of cities in these small towns, away from the large urban areas and the bubbles that most of us are accustomed to. Outside of Bangor was the Cole Land Transportation Museum with model tanks and other vehicles strewn about, and then several paintball facilities and rural markets all around town. It's definitely one way to live life; just don't count on any showings of "Swan Lake" at the local opera house or anything. The hotel actually still offered breakfast included in the price, I don't expect those anymore except if living at the Hi Hostel in Chicago, it seems the fancier the hotel the more likely they want to charge you for a fancy breakfast or get you to dine at one of their fancy chain restaurants for fee, but every time I go to a outskirts- sort of city, voila there's breakfast included (although this particular breakfast spread wasn't very good, made me actually miss the good ol' HI Hostel days of Bananas and peanut butter bagels). 

Lobster in Maine? Overrated, although I had only one taste of it. Lobster everywhere tastes pretty damn good, no need to go to the famous places for it. I find it a pretty smart marketing strategy by a state or city to market one of the more expensive items on any menu and encourage all vistors to order it, thus generating more revenue for the city. I guess it's better than Nevada's appeal for having the best casinos to throw money away- most of tourism is really marketing to get people to travel more to pretty mundane places. I've heard of so many "sandy beaches" and "scenic shorelines" in my life; they all feel pretty much the same, it's the ocean and then the sand. You don't have to go around the world to find the best beaches.

Maine's a pretty lonely and quiet place, but its "major cities" like Portland as well as some famous areas like Kennebunkport (George W. Bush lived there) put it outside the top 8 of U.S. least populous states. The least populous states in the US are  1.) Wyoming (not suprising, that is a drive-through and flyover state), Vermont, and Alaska. Even Rhode Island (just too small to have many people, although Brown University's an interesting college town) is No. 6 and has more people than S. Dakota or North Dakota. It's just a big ask to live in the middle of nowhere, America: no big cities around, no major rivers, no historic signifince. 

Philip Johnson

 Philip is such a tough name- is it with 1 "L" in the middle or two? Which one's more common? Is the former American Idol contestant and writer of the hit song "Home," named "Phillip Phillips" one L or two? (I checked it's two). But then the famous artist and the first ever winner of the Pritzker Prize, Philip Johnson, is with 1 L. Go figure. 

MJ and I were seriously considering going to visit "the Glass House," Philip Johnson's most famous piece, in New Canaan, CT this Memorial Day weekend, but we butchered the planning and didn't get tickets! Apparently all of these fancy architectural and artsy outdoor places that are trendy for tourists to visit require reservations, like Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and the new "Edge" in Hudson Yards, NY. You can't just give them your money! 

Postmodern architecture: I did not know this but it's the one that came AFTER modern architecture (hey, naming that makes sense) MJ and I's favorite type of architecture, all those Frank Lloyd Wright, Vander Rohe pieces. But the Glass House was actually a MODERNIST piece that PJ created in the early parts of his career. Can't just straddle two different eras like that, Philip! The Seagram Building in New York is apparently part of the postmodern type of architecture, designed in 1958. And that's why people into architecture like those big cities like Chicago and New York and not like.....Cincinatti. The building itself IS the work of art, like the Guggenheim or the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Maybe the pandemic de-emphasized the importance of working in certain buildings and going to work in a fancy building, but it's still nice to have all these great cities to look at. It's why people like the movie "Her" which was filmed in Shanghai; lots of pretty buildings to look at. It's like what I mentioned earlier about if aliens came to Earth after humans die out due to some mass extinction event, but the buildings were still there: they would at least appreciate some of the art and architecture that was put into those buildings. And also it's why MJ loves cities and dislikes riding through small towns; I get it. No big building to put something on the map. 

Philip Johnson actually called architecture the "art of how to waste space." (it's amazing what a good Wikipedia deep dive will do). It is interesting how the Germans (the other famous one is Luis Van der Rohe was the Farnsworth House in Illinois) employed simplicity like the simple rectangle. Something about the German aesthetic I guess, but I sympathize with the "I don't need a fancy tree house, circles and shapes everywhere, I just need a building with neat sides and corners to look at. It's really a high class problem, one of those things that for lower-class people is so trivial because they're worried about paying the bills, feeding the family, and getting through every day one at a time, but for those with those basic needs taken care of, it is really a higher state of life to enjoy architecture. I would guess that many more adults like architecture more as they get older; maybe they're like me, after getting through the tough years of competition, getting into college, trying to find a job, and focusing on doing everything to make it in life, then you find time to enjoy the finer things. Architecture and glass houses. 

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

 I admire people who like science, but I especially admire those who can explain science in a understandable way to common people who don't know all the lingo and detailed scientific processes, but break it down easy. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a very marketable personality because he has a deep voice, an interesting face, and he checks off the boxes for diversity requirements as one of the few African American astrophysicists in the world, but more importantly he knows his stuff, or at least I think he does based on how he explains the Big Bang Theory, the deep recesses of the universe, and how humankind relates to everything in the else in that universe. And that's the important thing: there are probably smarter people than Neil in the world and in his field, but he explains it well to people outside the field in terms others can understand, which is a real skill in itself but also shows a deep understanding of the topic to be able to break it down. I find myself usually unable to give a detailed explanation now; I'm more of just a "remember these basic facts" about something and give one-word or one-phrase answers now. If I had someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson to learn from as a young kid, maybe I would have become more interested in science. According to Neil, kids are naturally curious about science and about how the world works, and emotional memory is the best way to encourage these curiorisities, by engraining lessons in kids' minds by making it graphic, like lighting something on fire, or turning a liquid from blue to green, making something explode, etc. I guess I was exposed to those two as a young kid, but I just never got into chemistry and physics, the hard sciences. I did like biology and animals and plants, did pretty well in meiosis, mitosis, cell reproduction, etc......

But nowadays, I'm catching up with that scientific curiosity, just in a more surface level way that keeps my attention. When astronauts saw a picture of the earth from outer space, they said that all the little quabbles on Earth just faded away, no longer significant compared to the vast universe of things. I feel like all those little things I'm fixated on every day, billing as many hours as I can, checking fantasy baseball scores, which stocks are performing well that day, those all should have very little of my attention span versus the world around me. I do feel like science is genetic, some people just have a predisposition for learning about science, just like some people are meant to be good at chess, it takes me 30 seconds to understand a move that they understood instinctively right away. It's similar to science; some people just get it, everything that happens in the world, whereas I'm just left behind trying to pick up the pieces and get little bits of the bigger picture. But it doesn't hurt to try to understand, and people like Neil with his podcast "StarTalk" and other appearances on various media allow me to do that and keep my interest so it doesn't veer into the latest thing I see on the Internet. My favorite segment has been the "Sci-fi Movies ranked" segment where I learned he really likes the Matrix (one of my favorites because it could be what our world is, a simulation- more and more I'm beginning to believe those theories) but also space movies like Gravity, the Martian, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm going to watch those movies with much less focus on the dialogue, plotline, acting, etc. that I normally do but enjoy the scientific aspects involved in them......and all the fallacies that are contained in each. Science is cool! I'm just like 30 years late in getting excited about it. 

Canada Dry ginger ale (干姜, ジンジャーエール, 진저 에일)

 Recently on an episode of normal Jeopardy (the one that mere mortals play and can get a decent number of questions right, unlike Masters with professional trivia players) the answer to "an early 1900s beverage brand that had a beaver sitting on a log at the top of a map" was "Canada Dry," the ginger ale brand. So many facts to untangle here: did not know that Canada Dry has been along that long, did not know they had cornered the ginger ale market enough that they would be famous enough for Jeopardy, and that "top of the map" part of the clue definitely made me think of a foreign country and if in doubt about any country other than U.S., one's mind should gravitate naturally towards Canada first- it's big up there apparently, partly due to Alex Trebek and success of some recent Canadian champions. But Canada Dry, damn, not all Final Jeopardy clues are built the same; none of the 3 contestants got it, and neither did I watching at home, even though I've ordered ginger ale and distinctly remember getting Canada Dry before, even with memories of forgeting how to say ginger ale and just saying "Canada Dry." It's actually ironic that the "dry" in Canada Dry means "dry wine" and that it's not sweet, which as anyone who's had a sip of one knows, it's the opposite: it's almost sickeningly sweet, enough to turn me off to it because I'm just oversaturated with an uneasy feeling that I'm going to get a sugar high or get diabetes soon. 

At its essence ginger ale was probably meant to be drank with pure ginger root, but now it's just a pure soda, or as I like to call it, "sugar water," with some rumored health effects of being good for nausea, which MJ had recently and got ginger ale to cure it. 35 GRAMS OF SUGAR! That's like 75% of a daily alotted amount, just in a few quick swigs. I empathize with libertarians who say let people do what they want and have no regulation over anything, but boy oh boy these soda drinks are like handing someone pure poison, for that little dose of happiness on the first couple sips, and then it's over and it's all downhill from there. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP! Just the sound of it makes me cringe. MJ once brought back a half full can of ginger ale and told me UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES drink ti because of the high fructose corn syrup. 

I try not to buy stocks that are bad for the earth or peddle products that are bad for people and capitalize off the common person's weaknesses, but I have to admit I own Pepsi stock, which owns what I call "bad beverages." (basically for me anything that's not water or milk). Keurig Dr. Peppter actually owns ginger ale. I also unfortunatley own McDonald's stock, Chipotle stock (not the worst as they try to provide organic foods, but unfortunatley in the process slaughter plenty of red meat animals), Yum! brands, and in the non-food companies I also have Boeing (terrible reputation now), Dollar General, Walmart, etc., a bunch of corporations take advantage of the little man, and probably one of the worst of all, Amazon, Evil Empire and Eater of Small Businesses' lunch. I should really think next time I buy a stock what I'm doing morally, but then again as much as I dislike Canada Dry, a lot of America and the world does; the worse for their health, the better for the Big Beverage stocks (and probably eventually the Big Pharma stocks with medications). A vicious business cycle. The worse normal people do, the better big companies do. 

Cure for Cancer (がんの治療法, 癌症的治疗方法)

 MJ and I recently visited a friend to witness the baptism of her daughter, and of course being the nosy person I was I looked at the bookshelf of their home and found a book I've always wanted to read: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, describing the African-American woman who originated the HeLa cells, an important cell line in cancer research. The book looks behind the rosy picture of Henrietta contributing to cancer research and years of scientific exploration, as she was not informed that her cells were being used, she wasn't compensated for using her cells, and she led a difficult life with 5 children and going through cervical cancer, especially in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital, not exactly the best time in the history of the world or the U.S. for African American women. It's a sad story but one that described one of the people who sacrificed for contributions to science, albeit unwillingly. I ask myself the question, if I had the body like Henrietta Lacks to be the key to discovering a cure for cancer, would I give up my life for millions of people after me to receive that cancer? Even knowing that after they cure cancer the hedonic treadmill will just move on to the next thing that's bothering the world and my contribution will likely be forgotten, like Henrietta Lacks's contribution is mainly forgotten? It's a tough conundrum, right? Utilitarians would say, yes, of course the cost of one life is nothing compared to saving millions of other lives, but it's not their life their sacrificing, if I give up my life I don't live in a world anymore that requires me to save, so why do it in the first place? It's a paradox for sure, although I wouldn't put it past the future to have one person in history have to make a decision like that, I imagine some sort of button like in a movie where there are 2 options: "sacrifice yourself to save the world" and "sacrifice the world to save yourself." What a dilemma. 

Unfortunately we don't have a cure for cancer yet, and even with AI and technology improving all the time, a cure for cancer is not expected. Cancer seemingly is appearing in my life in various places, to distant connections like a law school friend's dog dying suddnely because of a silent killer of cancer in the pancreas, to my mom developing cancer and going through chemotherapy and now having to make a difficult decision whether to continue with chemotherapy, pursue immunotherapy, or go with the doctor's initial recommendation of doing surgery. It's not something anyone wants to go through but a real problem nevertheless; and based on how common cancer is (if other killers like heart disease, diabetes, suicide, accidents, Covid-19, etc. don't get you, cancer will eventually catch up to you) it's something I will continue to deal with either in myself or someone I'm close to. There are also so many different types of cancers: breast cancer, lymphoma, leukemia, lung cancer, colon cancer, melanoma, and the one I really fear because it's so in deep and involving an essential organ: brain cancer. I donate to the St. Jude Children's Hospital because they deal with childhood cancers, something that seems grossly unfair to not let children even live their lives for a little bit before burdening them with cancer. Heck there's even a whole month for breast cancer awareness every month (this month!) coupled with Nurses week, etc..... MJ and I got a pink Phillies hat upon going to a Phillies game last week, pleasantly fun experience as MJ seems to have taken to baseball stadiums, it's kind of her concession to me going to art museums with her. 

I often wonder if I will be known for anything in this world, and the answer increasingly seems to be no, I won't because I'm just not superlatively good at anything: not the best at dodgeball, not apparently ANY good at chess, know some languages but definitely never going to be the best polyglot in the world, after watching Jeopardy Masters definitely not ever going to be as good as Victoria Groce or Yogesh Raut at trivia, not going to become the best lawyer in the world; I've settled on becoming the best person I can be and the best husband/son/(hopefully one day father)/ friend to the people around me, etc. Donate blood/platelets once in a while (and still not going to become the most prolific blood donor in the world, those people are crazy getting stuck in the arms all the time). But would I bite at the chance to be a specimen for cancer treatment, knowing it might increase the chances of finding a cure for cancer? Yea probably, as long as I don't die from it. I keep having this fantasy of grandeur and making a difference in the world, it might as well be that. But I'm no Henrietta Lacks (nor do I want to be with the unhappiness she dealt with), and thus my life will not be as immortal as hers. 

If I Die Young (The Band Perry)

 I'm not really into country music, but there are some songs that really resonate, and I'm not talking just about Lil Nas X's "Old Country Road" or John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads." I was this years old (37 in a few hours!) when I learned that one of the most favorite songs that came on the radio in my twenties is called "If I Die Young" by an obscure "not-Jeopardy-worthy" band named The Band Perry. An excellent song whose lyrics make you wonder (I'm also not one who focuses on lyrics of songs) what it'd be like to die young and never experience love, and it strikes the audience that there's someone out there that this applies to, dying young and not getting to live to 37, as I live to today. 

37 years old is not a special age, no one has a party for 37, it's not a round number, not an even number, but it's significant enough for me to reflect that I've probably already lived half of my productive years (I think by 75 I won't be very productive anymore), yet I don't feel like I know half of the things I ever want to know, or have experienced half of the things I want to. The more I delve into different worlds, the more I realize how many different worlds there are out there, not enough for many lifetimes to experience all of them that I want to. The other day I learned what "elote" is, a Mexican corn dish and I made one! Yay! How have I not experienced all of these foods in my life before? I'm reading a thick tome of a book called "1000 books to read before you die" (A life-changing list!) right now and even in a category where I feel like I know some things and an author or two, there are so many that I just haven't read. I even want to read all the young adult literature, in fact they can be the best stories (C.S. lewis had the view that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story). 

Which brings me to the dilemma of having kids, of which I still have none (the joke about not having any kids "that I know of" has gotten lame even for me); it's the ultimate sacrifice for adults because essentially it's an admission that your life isn't the most important anymore, now you're living for your kids, and the kids' needs must be prioritzed over your own, including trying to pursue dreams, enter different worlds, doing everything you wanted to do with the second half of your life (in my case). I'd have to cross half of all those things off my list of to-do's. But if I don't have a child, I'd have to cross off the BIGGEST thing left in the 2nd half of life to do: have kids and enjoy life with them. That would have been my biggest regret if I died young: Not to enjoy the love of having kids. 

At least, unlike the narrator of "If I Die Young," if life ends at 37, I have loved others (just not kids) and lived. I'll always have that. And also some obscure trivia facts like Lake Placid, NY hosted 2 Winter Olympics, both in 1980 (the most famous one, Miracle on Ice) and 1932; Antoine Saint Exupery sadly died in a plane crash (ironically since Little Prince was a pilot), and "fascinator" is the name of a headpiece that was shown in Prince William's Wedding worn by Kate Middleton (now the Duchess of Cambridge). Welcome to my....oh gosh, late thirties??? 

Dress Code (着装要求, ドレスコード, 드레스 코드)

 Recently Jeopardy had a clue about the basketball player- tall senator from Pennsylvania and his notoriously casual wardrobe, John Fetterman. It's not the biggest issue in a world where university students are protesting the war in Gaza, innocent people are dying in many parts of the world, climate change, etc., etc., but it is an interesting discussion, especially in light of the pandemic and working from home, what the dress code should be for work. 

Now that I work from home everyday in shorts and a T-shirt, I simply cannot fathom how I got through 5 days a week pre-pandemic showing up to work in business casual attire, with dress shoes and a clean shirt and ironed pants (I didn't necessarily meet all these requirements, but it definitely did qualify as business casual!) Getting out of bed every day and forcing myself to get those contrivances on must have been a dreadful experience. MJ still has to deal with it, which is part of the reason she resents going in but does anyway because of peer pressure from work colleagues. The first thing she does upon returning is ALWAYS to change out of the cloth, RIP off her bra as if it's a leech attached to her body, and lie down. I totally get it; dress code clothes seem like a straitjacket imposed by society to make us all feel more uncomfortable than we should feel, for the sake of what? Making others believe we are more professional? If that's the only purpose, it seems like an illusory concept that can be done away with by mutual agreement not to adhere to those standards anymore. Who came up with the business casual standard anyway? In these ways I do agree with John Fetterman wearing whatever he wants in the Senate, it's all for show anyway, what matters is the substance of what John Fetterman does for his state, not how he looks on the outside. And by the way what is the standard for appearing on screen on Zoom anyway (asking for a friend)? If I'm sitting at home with no one around me but I'm staring at the screen at other colleagues, does that require putting on business clothes, and for what purpose would it be for? Just to show others how serious I am about the meeting, when they'd probably only see down to my neck? I could be down to my underwear everywhere else, as long as I show on screen that I'm a professional person?

On the other hand, I get the flip side of wanting some sort of dress code that everyone can agree on, and adhering to that dress code so everyone is held to that standard (I just feel that standard should be relaxed a bit). For example, court proceedings is one area I agree lawyers should look as businesslike and professional as possible. (See the movie "My Cousin Vinny"). If doctors need to wear gown and hospital garb, I'm OK with lawyers being formal in front of a judge, if only to add to the official nature of such a situation. And while I'm with Fetterman in the general idea of wearing what you want, Fetterman is a U.S. senator representing 13 million people (PA's population based on 2022 census) and you're making important decisions as the highest legislative body in the world..... maybe set a good example and show discipline and respect for the office by dressing up for the job? And I've worked in offices where no one cared about dress code; it raises some questions of marketability for the company and whether people are just there to fool around and do a sloppy job. I personally experience just a tad more responsbility when putting on my "big boy clothes" and even subconsciously start to take the job more seriously. It's psychological; "I'm at work and other people are working with me and we all look similar together at the same time. 

Verdict: casual at home, business casual when going into offices where others can see you and be in the same presence. Pending resolution: how to dress during Zoom calls, should they be treated like appearing live in person? 

Pickleball (匹克球, ピックルボール, 피클볼)

 For 2 or 3 years the game of pickleball has taken over the country; so many people started playing it that indoor gyms set up courts instead of volleyball; tennis courts are being converted into pickleball courts; Jeopardy champions discuss their pickleball leagues on national TV. At the recent wedding in Cabo MJ and I went to, the bride's family members picked pickleball (see what I did there?) as the recreational activity they would do at the resort. It's a fad. I dislike it. And yes, I have tried it, and still don't like it. Like the scene in the Wire where D'Angelo explains the game of chess to Bodie instead of playing checkers with chess pieces, "Chess is a way better game yo!" 

The game originated in 1965 in Bainbridge Island, Washington as a children's game (not unlike dodgeball!) but was invented when the kids tried to play badminton but couldn't find the shuttlecock. Right there that leads to the biggest problem which is.....it's an inferior game to tennis. Very typical of today's times: we turned a perfectly good game, and made the watered-down version the standard. Tennis has a lot of running, swinging and hitting, and the tennis ball goes far and bounces naturally; if you've played tennis it's so frustrating how the wiffle ball used in pickleball goes nowhere, it just loses all momentum soon after being hit, and you don't get that satisfying feeling of hitting the ball past your opponent. 

Another problem: it's too easy when playing doubles to let one of the players on a team hog all the action. This can happen in tennis but to a lesser degree: there's just too much court to cover, and the opponents eventually wise up and hit to the inferior partner and there's nowhere to hide. I've watched pickleball games, and there's usually one partner who hogs up all the room, basically standing right in the middle of the court, and because the court is smaller (half of a tennis court!) and the wiffle ball is like traveling through quicksand, that alpha player can dominate the court and ballhog. Not a good look when it's mixed doubles and one aggressive guy is taking up all the shots from the female partner. 

My dislike for pickleball is a metaphor for my tastes in real life......I like how life was like back when I was a kid (I don't think I'm the only one). Some of the new fads in life are just ripoffs of the good stuff we had back in teh day: music, art,  TV shows, movies, sports, celebrities. Everyone looking for the next big thing, but they're still inferior to old things. One of these old ideas is marriage and having a loving family; seemingly an outdated institution from bygone days, nowadays the hot trend is to not have kids, or have fur babies, and have those sub-relationships replace the nuclear family relationship. Being free and "living one's best life" is the new pickleball: tons of poeple are adapting to it. Well, in this case as well I think this new "pickleball" style of life lacks something that the real thing provides, it sells itself as better but is actually an inferior product, and I don't subscribe to what everyone else thinks. I don't like pickleball.