Filed under: Amazon, Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Emergency, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Plague, Preparedness, Society, Survival, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: bipolar, book conservation, bookbinding, Covid 19, Covid-19, health, Legacy Bookbindery, life, mental health, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, about a year ago I made a fairly big change in my life, and posted the following to my professional website:
September 1, 2019 – Please note: due to increasing difficulties with arthritis in my hands, I am curtailing how much conservation work I am doing. Henceforth I am prioritizing established clients and works of notable historic value.
Yeah, this has been a developing problem for me the last few years, limiting just how much detailed work I could do. It’s gotten to the point where I can typically do only a few hours a week of the difficult, careful work required. Other kinds of hand work isn’t nearly as demanding, unless it involves shock to my hands, so for the most part I’ve been able to continue with the rest of my life with minimal difficulty.
So, after posting that, I started referring new queries about conservation work elsewhere, and focused on my established clients and institutional work.
Then Covid-19 showed up.
After we got a good handle on just what that meant, I stopped meeting with even established clients. Because while my health today is just about better than it ever has been, I am nonetheless at very high risk of having a very bad case of C-19, should I catch it. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t survive it. So I’ve been telling clients that things can wait until there’s a safe & effective vaccine, and I’ve gotten my dose(s) of it.
Which is fine, because there’s rarely a reason to “rush” conservation work. And besides, I had a backlog of work waiting for me in my safe, as I always have.
Well, had.
Last week one of my institutional clients popped by to collect the last couple of items I had to work on. Just a brief, masked, socially-distanced visit. Previous projects had been mailed off, or likewise returned to clients with minimal contact/interaction.
And now the cupboard is bare, so to speak. For the first time in literal decades.
I mentioned a couple of months ago that Covid had likewise changed something else for the first time in decades: my usual mild bipolar cycle. That’s still disrupted. Well, honestly, it’s almost nonexistent. I don’t really have any sense of change currently; I’m in just a new, vague limbo which is neither good nor bad. It’s an odd feeling. Like so much, these days.
Anyway, to ‘run out’ of conservation work isn’t really a problem for me. We’re fortunate enough to be financially stable at this point in our lives, and I had been accounting on much reduced income from conservation for a while.
And, in a way, it’s good. Just this last week I also got the ‘proof’ of the printed pages of St Cybi’s Well, so I can do the hand-bound editions of that book soon. Here’s the proof copy:
That’ll keep me busy for some time.
And beyond that? Well, reinvention is an American’s birthright. I have more artistic impulses to explore and revisit. I have more writing I want to do (no, I’m making no promises of anything). I have life I want to enjoy.
So, for the time being, I’m going to take reasonable precautions to make sure that I can enjoy it, and do those things. I’ll get back to meeting with clients, and doing book conservation, when it is safe (in my assessment) to do so.
Take care of yourself.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bipolar, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Connections, Depression, General Musings, Health, New Horizons, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Society, Survival, Writing stuff | Tags: bipolar, book conservation, Covid 19, depression, Legacy Bookbindery, life, manic, mental health, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, writing
I’ve been pretty open about my mild bipolar condition since I started this blog a dozen years ago. It’s real, and I have to pay attention to it, but I’ve understood it and been able to manage it safely for decades. My natural bipolar cycle (from trough-to-trough or peak-to-peak) is very long, about 18 months, plus or minus a few weeks, and has been remarkably stable since I was in my 30s.
Until now.
As expected, I hit the bottom of my trough sometime last December. I tend to be stuck in that condition (or in the manic peak, which is actually more dangerous) for a month or so. Then things will slowly start to rise, I’ll feel the depression clear, and energy will return for six or seven months until I get into a truly manic state. And early this year, going into the spring, that’s what happened. And that, in large part, is why I was able to finally finish St Cybi’s Well.
Of course, at the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Now, I’ll be honest: Covid-19 has had minimal impact on my life. I’m semi-retired from book conservation due to increasing problems with osteoarthritis in my hands, so I seldom meet with clients. I’m a strong introvert, so I rarely feel the need for much human company beyond time spent with my wife, and easily resist temptations for socializing. I have plenty of things to do at home, and our financial situation is stable. The lockdown and need to be socially distant were not a hardship.
But still, Covid had an impact on me. More than I realized. Because rather than continuing my bipolar climb, I started the downturn back towards depression sometime in May without ever entering into a manic state. It took some weeks before I could be certain that this shift was real (minor fluctuations up & down is normal within the overall bipolar cycle), but it’s been long enough that I am now certain.
When you’ve lived with something like this for literally decades, it’s disorienting and a little frightening to have it suddenly change like this. I can’t predict my baseline psychological state a month from now, or six months from now, or a year from now. I don’t know if this is just a one-off truncation of my more manic period, or if the cycle is now shortened, or is gone altogether.
Kinda like what the pandemic has done to a lot of things we used to consider ‘normal’. We’re left off balance, uncertain of the future.
Now, there’s no reason to worry about me. Having lived with periodic depression for so long, I well understand how to deal with it. My coping skills are very good (writing like this is one example), and I know what to watch for, when to turn to help if I need it.
But take this as a cautionary note, and pay attention to your own mental health. This pandemic is more far-reaching than you might realize.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Faith healing, Feedback, Government, Kindle, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Wales | Tags: Amazon, coronavirus, Covid 19, Darnell Sidwell, faith healing, hope, Kindle, News, pandemic, police, politics, racism, reviews, St. Cybi's Well, survival, Wales, writing
I’m just going to post this entire review:
Filed under: Amazon, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Connections, Failure, Feedback, Flu, General Musings, Government, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Politics, Science Fiction, Society, Weather, Writing stuff | Tags: arthritis, bipolar, book conservation, bookbinding, Covid 19, flu, government, health, influenza, Legacy Bookbindery, pandemic, politics, St. Cybi's Well, writing
I’ve been in a bit of a funk the last few weeks. Which, on the one hand, is surprising, since I’m about at the top of my natural long (18 months), mildly bipolar cycle. On the other hand …
… we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, one which has been incompetently managed at the federal level to the point where we’re likely to see hundreds of thousands of additional unnecessary deaths here before the end of the year. (Don’t bother to post a political comment disagreeing — I’ll just delete it.)
… St Cybi’s Well has failed spectacularly to find an audience as of yet, with fewer than 500 total downloads/sales. Given how long I struggled with the book, and the very positive responses to it by people who have read it, that’s very frustrating.
… I’m having increasing problems with arthritis in my hands, which greatly limits how much book conservation work I can do. Given that I love doing this work, that’s been another source of frustration.
So it’s not terribly surprising that I would have this reaction. Lots of people are struggling with the stress of this current time. I know I am extremely fortunate in most ways, so I’m not asking for sympathy or anything.
But it pays to understand what is happening to me, and why. Only by doing so can I decide on the best way to proceed. And my morning walk helped.
I now walk 3 miles a day, about 5 days a week. Two or three days a week I take a break to allow my joints to recover a bit, or to accommodate appointments, inclement weather, et cetera. This morning I was supposed to have a solid couple hour window between thunderstorms to get my walk in, but I took along an umbrella just in case.
And it was a good thing I did. About 2 miles into my walk the skies were too heavy and unburdened themselves. I decided it was something of a metaphor, and that I should do the same. Hence this blog post.
No brilliant insights from this to share. I know how to deal with the frustrations, and am well equipped to do so. More precautions, in spite of the isolation. More writing, in spite of the failure. More work, in spite of the ache. More reaching out and doing what I can for others, in spite of the funk.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Emergency, Feedback, Flu, General Musings, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, epidemic, fire-flu, flu, News, planning, reviews, science, Science Fiction, society, Spanish flu, St. Cybi's Well, Wikipedia
I’m not an epidemiologist. I’m not a medical professional of any sort.
And yet, I spent a lot of time studying the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, because I used that as the model for what the Fire-flu would be like in St Cybi’s Well. And it largely paid off, as I’ve noted previously, since so many people have seen the eerie similarities in how the Covid-19 pandemic has unfolded to what I depict in the novel.
That’s because a lot of these things happen consistently in all pandemics, as you can see time and again if you look at the history.
And, having studied that history, even though I’m not an epidemiologist, I feel honor-bound to say: be worried about where things are headed here in the US. Currently, the C19 virus is largely uncontrolled in most states, and I’m afraid that it is going to get MUCH worse in the coming months. Place the blame for that where you will, the fact of the matter is that each individual needs to take whatever precautions you can to limit your chances of catching this disease. Follow the advice of the real epidemiologists out there. Don’t listen to the politicians. Or the conspiracy theorists. Or your buddy from high school who barely passed biology class.
St Cybi’s Well actually contains a lot of solid practical advice for how to prepare for a pandemic, if you step back and think about it. I added all that stuff because I wanted the book to ‘feel’ real, and to show what an intelligent, well-educated person might do when faced with the prospect of a pandemic. That it now might add some insight into what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones going forward is just serendipity.
If you think so too, maybe share the book with your friends and family. It’ll be available for free download this coming Saturday, as it is on the first of each month.
Jim Downey
Filed under: ACLU, Civil Rights, Connections, Constitution, Emergency, General Musings, Government, Heinlein, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction, Society, Violence | Tags: America, civil liberties, Constitution, dystopia, government, Heinlein, law, NPR, police, Portland, Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction, society, Stranger in a Strange Land
This one’s fiction ( Specifically, from Chapter XIV of Stranger in a Strange Land ):
The man said, “What is your interest in Gilbert Berquist?”
Jubal answered with pained patience, “I wish to speak to him. See here, my good man, are you a public employee?”
The man barely hesitated. “Yes. You must-”
“I ‘must’ nothing! I am a citizen in good standing and my taxes go to pay your wages. All morning I have been trying to make a simple phone call-and I have been passed from one butterfly-brained bovine to another, and every one of them feeding out of the public trough. I am sick of it and I do not intend to put up with it any longer. And now you. Give me your name, your job title, and your pay number. Then I’ll speak to Mr. Berquist.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Come, come! I don’t have to answer your questions; I am a private citizen. But you are not. . . and the question I asked you any citizen may demand of any public servant. O’Kelly versus State of California 1972. I demand that you identify yourself-name, job, number.”
This one’s nightmare (NPR interview with the mayor of Portland):
“But the difference between local and federal law enforcement is that we have clear policies, clear directives. We have a complaint process. We have an independent accountability and review system.
With the federal government, they won’t even identify who they are. We don’t know why they’re here. We don’t know the circumstances under which they’re making arrests. We don’t know what their policies are or what accountability mechanisms there are, to the point where even the U.S. attorney here in the state of Oregon is calling for an investigation, wondering, where was the probable cause to pull these people off the streets into unmarked cars?”
Of course, Heinlein’s book is set in an alternate “future”, so I suppose there’s still time for us to get there …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Emergency, Flu, Government, NPR, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Religion, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff | Tags: America, Covid 19, distancing effect, dystopia, fire-flu, government, Josh Malerman, NPR, pandemic, racism, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, theocracy, Verfremdungseffekt, writing
Why on Earth would you want to read a novel about a pandemic during a pandemic? Or why would you want to dive into a world where America is a dystopia of racial hatred and theocratic overreach when America is, well, trying to sort out racial hatred and theocratic overreach? There’d have to be something wrong with you to join in such a dance, wouldn’t there?
This was touched on in an interview on NPR I listened to this morning on my daily walk. In it, author Josh Malerman said that reading about a pandemic during a pandemic was somehow comforting; it was a way of saying “we know how to deal with this”.
In writing St Cybi’s Well I used an old literary technique to create some psychic space between the reader and my criticism of our American society, by not placing the story in America, but by having characters in the story reflect on and discuss what a dystopia American had become. This way the reader joins me in a dance, following my lead, but themselves moving through the story I’ve set out. The dystopia is there, but together we have defined it, perhaps tamed it enough that we can see it for what it is.
Of course, our reality is not the reality of St Cybi’s Well. Though it is still very early in the Covid-19 pandemic, I don’t think that it will be quite as devastating as the Fire-flu is in my book. And though we are perhaps at a turning point in the political history of our country, we’re not yet in a constitutional theocracy.
Take the lesson — or the warning — for what it is. That’s why you join the dance.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Brave New World, Carl Zimmer, Connections, General Musings, Google, NPR, Pandemic, Science Fiction, Society, Star Trek, YouTube | Tags: Ben Zimmer, Carl Zimmer, Covid 19, Facebook, Google, NPR, pandemic, post-apocalyptic, Science Fiction, South Park, Star Trek
Some variation of the phrase “in the before time(s)” has been a staple of post-apocalypse Science Fiction for so long that it’s a well-deserved cliche, mocked even by South Park. Usually invoked by some grungy child reciting a barely-understood mythos, or an aged ‘elder’ thinking back to their youth, it served as a mechanism to explain what happened to civilization.
Of course, in our post-modern, self-aware world “in the before time” came to be widely used in a joking manner, to refer to some not-so-serious turning point in recent history. Before YouTube. Before Google. Before the internet. Before Fonzie jumped the shark. Whatever. It was funny, see?
Except in the last couple of weeks, I’ve started hearing it used to refer to the pre-Covid pandemic times. And not in a humorous way. People are using it completely seriously. Here are just two examples, the first from NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday program on 6/12:
New York Eater’s Chief Critic Isn’t Ready To Eat Out. Here’s Why
* * *
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Are you worried about the future of the restaurant industry? I mean, do you think it will look anything like what it resembled before the pandemic?
SUTTON: I don’t think anyone knows what the restaurant industry is going to look like in the coming months, never mind the coming year or so. We can only agree – is dining out in the future won’t look anything like it did in the before times. We’re going to continue to see a lot more takeout, and we’re going to continue to see, I think, a lot of people continue to eat at home rather than treating restaurants like extensions of their dining rooms. It’s not going to be a nightly fare anymore. And that’s going to cost a lot of jobs, and that’s going to close a lot of restaurants. And that’s just a terrible thing for everyone.
And the second from a FaceBook post a friend shared, about whether schools would/could open in the fall:
A high school teacher in this state has a maximum class size of 32-35 students, which gives the teacher around 200 students across 4-6 classes in beforetimes schooling. To mitigate coronavirus would then require 3 kindergarten teacher now to do the job of one kindergarten teacher a year ago. High school would require 24 high teachers to do one beforetimes high school teacher’s work and that is if we overlook the very awkward point that having half the class meet half the time might limit the children’s risk but only extends the hours of exposure to the virus that is faced by the teacher.
In doing a bit of quick research for this post, I also find that lexicographer Ben Zimmer (brother of excellent science writer Carl Zimmer) has noticed this change as well:
‘The Before Time’: A Sci-Fi Idea That Has Made Its Way to Real Life
(I haven’t actually read that, since I don’t have a Wall Street Journal subscription. But it’s obvious that he’s noted the same shift in usage.)
Just an interesting observation about how our language changes, and another example of how science fiction has had an effect on the ‘real’ world.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Artificial Intelligence, Brave New World, Connections, Emergency, Expert systems, Feedback, Google, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: A.I., Alexa, Amazon, Andi, Communion of Dreams, coronavirus, Covid 19, epidemic, Google, News, pandemic, predictions, reviews, Seth, Siri, St. Cybi's Well, technology, Travis M. Andrews, Washington Post, writing
In Communion of Dreams, I have “experts” who are A.I. assistants. As I describe them in that book when I introduce one as the character ‘Seth’:
His expert was one of the best, one of only a few hundred based on the new semifluid CPU technology that surpassed the best thin-film computers made by the Israelis. But it was a quirky technology, just a few years old, subject to problems that conventional computers didn’t have, and still not entirely understood. Even less settled was whether experts based on this technology could finally be considered to be true AI. The superconducting gel that was the basis of the semifluid CPU was more alive than not, and the computer was largely self-determining once the projected energy matrix surrounding the gel was initiated by another computer. Building on the initial subsistence program, the computer would learn how to refine and control the matrix to improve its own ‘thinking’. The thin-film computers had long since passed the Turing test, and these semifluid systems seemed to be almost human. But did that constitute sentience? Jon considered it to be a moot point, of interest only to philosophers and ethicists.
In the world of 2052, when Communion is set, these “experts” are ubiquitous and extremely helpful. Seth is an “S-series”, the latest tech, and all S-series models have names which start with S. I figured that naming convention would be a nice way to track the development of such expert-systems technology, and in the course of the book you see earlier models which have appropriate names.
So when the time came to write St Cybi’s Well, I figured that I would introduce the first such model, named Andi. Here’s the first bit of dialog with Andi:
“Hi, I’m Andi, your assistant application. How can I help you?”
“Andi, check local restaurant reviews for Conwy and find the best ranked Fish & Chips place.”
“You’re not in Conwy. You’re in Holywell. Would you rather that I check restaurants where you are?”
“No, I’m not hungry yet. But I will be when I get to Conwy.”
“Very good. Shall I read off the names?”
“Not now. It can wait until I am closer.”
“Very good. Shall I track your movement and alert you?”
“No.”
“Very good. May I help you with something else?”
“Not right now.” Darnell shut off the app, then the phone, and dropped it back into his pocket. The walk back to his car was uneventful.
Now, I wrote this bit almost eight years ago, long before “Siri” or “Alexa” were announced. But it was predictable that such technology would soon be introduced, and I was amused as all get-out when Amazon decided to name their first assistant as “Alexa”.
Anyway, I also figured that since the technology would be new, and unsophisticated, that Andi would be slightly annoying to use. Because it would default to repetitions of scripts, be easy to confuse, et cetera, similar to encountering a ‘bot on a phone call. And you can judge for yourself, but I think I succeeded in the book — the readers of early chapters thought so, and commented on it.
So this article in the morning Washington Post made me chuckle:
Heh. Nailed another prediction.
* * *
It’s the first of the month. That means that both novels and our care-giving memoir are available for free download, as they are the first of each month. If you haven’t already, please help yourself and tell your friends.
Jim Downey
