Weekend Wizards

The Cancer Journey 6

2016-07-29T07:42:00.003-07:00

I made it through Radiation Therapy without too much problem. Yes, I got tired, terribly, deeply, bone-deep tired, but after six weeks that was gone. My skin turned red, as if with sunburn, but that faded, and it never became worse than that. Some women have a lot of blisters and sores from the treatment, but not smoking and not getting suntans all my life paid off. There was one small spot, however, that turned redder and took longer to recover, and I recognized that it was the area where I had been badly sunburned, multiple times, in my early teenage years. Thirty-five years had passed, but still, that spot was more susceptible than the areas that had been covered by my swimsuit. Still, by not having previously damaged skin, for the most part, I could recover a lot faster and lot easier with little permanent damage.

The same, unfortunately, could not be said for Barbie.

I took her with me to illustrate the Cyberknife, which is an improvement on the One-eyed monster. With a much narrower beam, the Cyberknife can deliver radiation with surgical precision, and thus can also deliver higher doses that affect just the tumor. Greater flexibility of the head, with six degrees of movement, means that it can also follow the irregular outlines of the tumor, and can hit the same area of the tumor multiple times in one session while passing through different overlying tissues. The Cyberknife can be used as an alternative to surgery in certain cases, by shrinking and sometimes completely destroying tumors in situ.

Barbie seemed to tolerate her treatment. When I got her home, however, and moved her legs, I heard an unusual crack. Then her legs hung oddly. So I had to take off her dress to see what was going on, and her panties – and found them melted to her crotch. When I pulled the material away, gently, her legs fell off.

Barbie's crotch was broken.

I've had that Barbie for over forty years, and didn't want to just throw her away, so I collected all the bits and tried to put her back together with superglue. Which is a lot trickier than it sounds. Holding Barbie upside down, I balanced her leg assembly in her hips, then put the glue on the pieces. And then held it all together for the required sixty seconds. Pulling my fingers away too early -- which I did more than once -- meant that the whole process had to be repeated. Again and again I tried. Finally I succeeded, and Barbie was more or less fixed -- and all I had to do was keep her in that upside down position for another 24 hours while the glue cured.

I realized that I should have thought about that before I started.

So, holding Barbie in one hand, I hunted through the house for something that would hold her in the right position. A vase? A glass jar, a -- ahah!

Which is how Barbie ended up wearing only a bra, upside down in a beer glass.

The Cancer Journey 5

2016-05-04T08:07:00.002-07:00

Every morning, Monday through Friday, I get up, eat breakfast, and get dressed, and head off to the radiation specialist for an early enough appointment. Once there I sit in the waiting room and knit, because knitting doesn't care if you only manage three stitches or three hundred -- it's still progress. Sometimes I talk to the other patients. They tend to be an optimistic bunch and talk about lives that do not revolve around cancer. This is real life, not a Funky Winkerbean story.

Within a few minutes the loudspeaker calls my name and summons me. I go to the right hand changing room, put my purse, shirt, and bra into the right hand locker, and put on a medical gown. It's the kind that likes to fall open, so I use a couple of clips, one at the shoulder and one at the waist, to hold it shut. It's so much easier to just clip the gown than to fight with the ties. Apparently I'm not the first person to think of this, because the technician said that some people use clothespins. I wonder why doctor's offices haven't thought about investing in clips or clothespins for their patients? They aren't that expensive, and they do make the whole experience so much easier. But then I suppose the FDA would call such things medical devices and require vast amounts of research and testing to determine that they are safe -- and then how could we afford to buy them to hang up our clothes? Better just bring your own.

Next, I am escorted into the vault, lay down on a narrow table, and assume the virgin sacrifice position. Arms go above my head, head in place by brackets, and I grasp a post. The technicians slide me up beside a huge, one-eyed monster and pull back my robe to expose the "treatment area." The lights dim and they push my passive body back and forth to make the marks on my chest line up with the red laser lights shining from the wall and ceiling.

Oh yes, the mark. At every treatment my body must be in the exact same position, so that the radiation hits the exact same area. Some people get tattoos, a permanent reminder of their treatment, but I have painted marks with stickers over them. On the good side, they will go away after treatment is finished. On the bad side, they keep trying to go away now, and must be constantly reapplied.

Once my completely submissive, partly exposed body is ready, the technicians leave the half-lit room and the heavy door to the vault closes. I'm alone with the leering monster. There's a buzz, a pause, and then the monster slides over my body to peer at me from the other side. Another buzz. And then the door opens, the lights come up, and that's it for another day.

Maybe tomorrow the monster will eat me.

***

The name of the one-eyed monster is Linear Accelerator. For a good explanation of how it works, written in lay terms, check out http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=linac. The TL:DR version is this: the machine is programmed to deliver high-power x-rays that have been pre-shaped to fit the area that needs treatment. Thus my poor right breast is being radiated, but only my poor right breast.

There are side effects, the price of treatment. I'm developing what looks like chronic sunburn in that area, and I have fatigue. Fatigue is not just being tired. It's -- fatigue feels as if someone came up when you weren't looking and set the exercise bike to hard. Fatigue is always walking uphill, and every day the slope gets a little steeper. Fatigue is a vampire sucking out your soul.

Nothing much, just a little fatigue...

Tomorrow is a new day.

The Cancer Journey, 4

2016-04-20T11:19:00.001-07:00

So, having healed up from the surgery, I was given the go ahead to visit the Oncologist and the Radiologist. According to the Surgeon, I only needed the Oncologist to prescribe the hormone blocker for me. The big truth of medicine, however, is that one doctor does not speak for another doctor. Ever.

The Oncologist suggested the possibility of chemo. Nasty stuff, chemo. It poisons you, but hopefully the cancer cells, being weaker and stressed by their growth and fast division, should die from the chemo while your healthy cells will only be damaged. Damaged cells, in time, should recover.

Should.

But does every one with breast cancer need chemo? No. If your cancer hasn't metastasized, that is, some cells have started to wander away from the mother tumor to hide in healthy tissues and grow baby tumors, then you don't need to poison the entire body to get them all out. But how can the oncologist be sure that the cancer cells have not reached that point? Yes, the margins of the tumor were clear, not ragged with areas where cells have broken away, and there were no cancer cells trapped in the lymph nodes, but still, could a few have gotten away and just not yet been washed into the lymph nodes?

And that's where the cancer story gets complicated.

Cancer starts with a mutation in a cell, generally a cell that is not completely differentiated and still dividing. These are germinal cells (the ones used in reproduction,) renewal cells (skin, gut, and other orifice linings), or undifferentiated cells used to repair and rebuild tissues. But most mutations will simply make a cell defective and kill it. But mutations in certain areas will unlock the genes that the cells used when it was part of the embryo. These cells grow and divide, just as they did in the early embryo, but in a mature person they form a tumor. This tumor does not have, however, the directions to tell it when to stop growing.

Even worse, the unlocking of these genes causes other genes to unlock. With each cell unlocked, the cancer cells become more and more like embryonic cells. They lose the characteristics of the cell they had been, become formless, and then do something else that embryonic cells do -- they wander to other places in the body.

In embryology, the cells move around quite a lot, but they know where they are going. They form discrete structures and mature into proper organ cells. Cancer cells, on the other hand, have Alzheimer's. Not only are they regressing into infanthood, they wander with no idea of purpose or place. Eventually they get stuck somewhere, settle down for away, and then grow and divide. And create more tumors.

Worse, the cells in a tumor do not do this all at the same time. While many cells are in Stage 1 cancer, others have changed into stage 2 or stage 3 cancer cells. So just because most of the cells are still only mildly changed, there may already be stage 4 cells wandering through my tissues.

Getting poisoned starts to sound better. What chance is there that there are advanced cells in my body?

In my case the biopsy did show that about 5% of my cells were changing faster than the rest.

So the Oncologist asked for two things before he determined that I would not need chemo. One was a catscan to check for metastasis tumors in my chest and abdomen, and the other was Oncotype(dx) testing. The Oncotype(dx) testing looks at the genes in the cancer cells and gives the tumor a score based on the number of genes that have already been unlocked in the tumor. "So," he said, "I'd like to send your tumor away for genetic testing."

I touched my wounded breast. "But it's gone."

He grinned. "I have it here."

I'm sitting in the office of a doctor who collects people's tumors! Does he have them in little display cases along the walls of his office?

So I got my catscan two days later, and it showed many interesting things, but no metastatic cancer. I do have a tortured aorta, proof that my heart has been twisted by the cruelties of fate, and my liver is overweight, but nothing to concern the oncologist. Two long weeks passed before the result of the Oncotype DX came back. My tumor had a score of 18, right on the border between slow and intermediate. With the fact that the tumor margins had been clear and the sentinal lymph nodes had been clear, we threw the dice and decided against chemotherapy.

Yay! I hope...

So, on to radiation...

The Cancer Journey, 3

2016-02-16T08:16:00.000-08:00

On February 2, Groundhog's Day, and just thirteen days after receiving my diagnosis, I fasted and prayed and presented my sacrificial body to the local hospital. With a minimum of fuss, apparently having realized that I was a flight risk, I was ushered into a small room and told to change my clothes for a gown and a pair of "lovely designer socks." One size fits all, of course. The most striking feature of the socks is that they have non-slip soles, for those few times when the nurses will actually let you out of bed. They are made of soft cotton, are washable, and go home with you.

The gown was made of paper. Stiff paper. It could have held the largest person I know, but on me it stood straight out in all directions. It was also incredibly hot. The nurse came back, took one glance at my apparently reddening face, and ran to get a cloth gown. When she brought it back and I quickly changed, I asked her about the paper gown, which was lined with extra paper. It also had holes in it, lined with a rubber seal like the opening to a vacuum cleaner bag, that did not penetrate the lining.

"It can be inflated with hot air," she explained, showing me a tube that ran from the wall. "Some people like it."

Not people whose estrogen has been suddenly stopped just a week previous, I don't think.

We went through the normal surgical preliminaries -- starting the IV, allowing in the visitors, a quick chat with the anesthesiology people. I repeated again and again my one great wish, "Please have a big bucket on the bed in the recovery room. Not a spit-up tray. I throw up after general anesthesia. I really throw up."

And everyone assured me it was okay, that the anesthesiologist has drugs for this sort of stuff. And I would repeat my request. And I would get assurances...

And then I and my surgical buddy were whisked down for some pre-surgery work. I had to have a wire installed in my breast. In order to make sure to get the tumor with a minimum of effort and damage, a radiologist used an ultrasound to guide a wire into the center of the mass. As he planned his route, he muttered, "I'm going to go right through the center of both of them."

"Both?" I was supposed to have only one tumor. I didn't like the idea of new tumors suddenly popping up. That's a bad, very bad sign.

"Lesions. The other could be a hematoma."

"According to the MRI, it's a hematoma," I said, a bit relieved. I hugged my surgery buddy tightly.

After the wire was installed, I was also injected with a radioactive tracer that would help the doctor know which lymph nodes to sample. And then a mammogram to verify that the wire was correctly placed. And the doctor proudly said, "Right though all three of them."

"Three?"

"The tumor, the 'hematoma,' and the marker clip." I could hear the quotation marks in his voice.

Along the way we discussed the identity of my surgery buddy. His technician was the only person that day to even know who he was, and even she only recognized the name, and not his immensely cute, squishable form.

And then came the surgery, which lasted under half an hour, and I came aware in the recovery room. After a few minutes polite discussion, I suddenly begged for the bucket. She gave me a spit-up tray. And then she gave me something bigger. And then again, and again, and again, and... Finally she hung another bag of fluids so that I would at least go home well-hydrated.

Reaction 1, drugs 0.

Pathology confirmed that that the tumor was no more than one centimeter at its widest point, and that no cancer cells have been identified beyond its margins. The lymph nodes, the filters on the great sewer system of the body, had caught no cancer cells. It would appear, at this point, that it was caught early and removed cleanly. And that the other thing was indeed a hematoma. Whew!

I don't know what the future treatment will entail. I need some more doctor's visits to determine what path to take. Chemo is not likely, radiation therapy is. Also a drug to starve my body of estrogen, which will make life even more interesting than it already is. But I don't have those answers yet. I haven't reached that part of the quest. Still, the dragon is dead and all that's facing me is the long slog back from Mordor.

The reactions to my having cancer have been interesting. My friends have taken it much worse than I have. But from where I'm standing, this sucker was caught early by an annual mammogram and removed before it could start acting really cancerous. It had not yet begun wandering through my body, and there is a pretty decent chance that even if I refused all further treatment, I would never see it again. And while I have a couple of new scars, and some pain, my body is not particularly mutilated. It's like I'm looking at a crumpled fender yet knowing that I just narrowly missed a catastrophic wreck.

And its even more poignant because, if I had followed the proposed guidelines that women shouldn't bother with a mammogram every year, that every other year is good enough, I would be writing a different story. This would have been my off year, and if I had waited until next year to find this, then I would likely be looking at a full mastectomy, strong chemotherapy, and a much greater chance of recurrence.

So please, go get your annual mammogram. Tell them Cthulhu sent you.

The Cancer Journey, 2

2016-02-05T07:36:00.001-08:00

Am I the only person tempted to say "Beetlejuice" three times?

With a diagnosis of cancer comes a lot of reading material. A lot. I have a pamphlet for every little procedure and possible pathway on this journey. Most will need to go on a shelf and wait for another day, and hopefully will be of no more use to me than as resource for future writing, but if I need them, I have them. And I can pretty well answer the question of "Where does the American Cancer Society spend all that money it doesn't spend on research?"

It's spent on education, on these pamphlets, on classes, and on resources for the Newly Diagnosed.

My next step was to get an MRI which would tell the doctor if there were any other developing trouble spots. In an MRI, for the person who has never been through this, you are put into a tube and subjected to loud banging noises. To protect your ears -- unless you are the unfortunate child who is getting an MRI of her head -- the technicians give you headphones to cover your ears and pipe in music that will not be heard over the banging. And then, to examine just the afflicted part, it is elevated away from the rest of the body. But when the afflicted part is something soft and squishy that is not easily elevated, then gravity is used. I had to lay down on a special frame and pretend I was Superman. The worst part of the whole thing, easily, is that the technicians failed to start the IV (for contrast) on one side, and so had to stick the other side as well.

The next day I went to see the plastic surgeon. He was a very affable man. He told me all about the various kinds of implants I could receive if I had a mastectomy. One can get saline implants, silicone implants, or even a new solid natural shape silicone implant. And then he said the words that pretty much sealed up my opinion of getting reconstruction: "The second surgery will be outpatient and will take place a few weeks or months after the first."

No.

It seems that after the mastectomy, which removes all the tissue above the muscle wall, the plastic surgeon comes in and places a spacer under the pectoral muscle. (So you're sore both above and below that muscle.) Then, over the course of several weeks, the spacer is inflated with saline. When it's big enough, the spacer is removed under general anesthesia and the implant put into its place. "It's outpatient surgery."

No! (Have I told anyone how surgery phobic I am?)

And then, because implants wear out over time, and I'm such a young woman, I could expect to have the implants replaced every ten years or so.

NO!

Of course, the other option is flap reconstruction, where muscle and fat is taken from the belly or buttocks, and a new breast is molded from it. Advantage -- it never needs replacement and never feels hard, and can be done completely at the time of the mastectomy. Disadvantage -- you end up with two big surgical sites instead of just one, and if the tissue is taken from your belly, you end up with a weaker abdominal wall than before.

Dear God, no, just get me out of here!

And then the plastic surgeon pulled up the radiologist's report from the MRI from the night before -- thanks to open access of records he could see what had been posted in my chart -- and gave me the news that the MRI had confirmed a singular lesion of not particularly large size. I was likely go for the lumpectomy.

Thank God. Finally, a bit of luck my way.

On Friday I went back to the Breast Surgeon and got the results of the cell tests. Estrogen positive, Progesterone positive, and HRER negative. What this means is that the cancer cells are fed by hormones, so I will need to take a hormone blocker for years to prevent recurrence, but I do not have certain genes that predispose me to developing cancer. So my prognosis for survival is pretty good -- barring a zombie apocalypse, an ecological collapse, or a wayward asteroid.

The Cancer Jouney, 1

2016-02-05T06:48:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's what they call it these days. The Cancer Journey. Personally, I'd prefer an Alaskan Cruise, or even a Mediterranean Cruise, but I guess we take what we can get.

I'm sure that there are many, many, many blogs out there about The Cancer Journey. Some even have science in them. This one is my story, and while it may not be significantly different from all the other journeys out there, it will answer all the questions of my friends and family. And who knows, maybe I'll pick up some more friends along the way.

The story started in the last week of December, when I went in for my annual mammogram. Now, like many women in this world, I have no particular fondness for that exam, but I go anyway because I'm not going to tell all the people I know who have had breast cancer or other issues that I just can't be bothered. So I went. I even went a bit early because I had plans to see the new Star Wars Movie, and the technician took me in early and quickly did the scan.

At the end of it, she said, "I'm rushing these over. You'll understand why." And of course I understood why. It was the holiday season, she had told me about her children, so she obviously had things that needed to be done which were a lot more interesting than running tests. Going early was a favor to everyone, right? So, even before my appointment time I headed to the movie, which turned out to be a bust -- all the showings were sold out. So I made plans to see it another day and came home to the message that "further evaluation was needed. We'd like to schedule an ultrasound."

I had flunked my mammogram.

December had been an incredibly stressful month for reasons above and beyond the season, and I didn't feel like causing undue alarm in anyone over something that probably nothing -- so I made the appointment and kept it to myself. Though I did have to tell my one daughter because the ultrasound appointment would affect when I could pick her up from work. And the technician kept assuring me that the spot that had been seen was likely a cyst, these are usually benign, etc.

I flunked the ultrasound.

The images were sent directly to the radiologist, over the internet, and now I needed a biopsy. And that was scheduled for the next week, at seven in the morning. So now I _had_ to admit to the rest of my family what was going on. But no worries, the biopsy usually shows that these cysts are benign.

I flunked the biopsy.

Three weeks, exactly, after the mammogram, I was sitting in the Breast Surgeon's office as he outlined my possible options: lumpectomy with radiation or mastectomy, with or without reconstruction. He asked me to see a Plastic Surgeon to learn about my reconstruction options, to get an MRI, and to come back in a week when he would also have the results of some tests on the tissue samples. And then we would make decisions, once he could tell me what decisions I could make.

Pantsing vs. Plotting

2014-05-18T14:08:00.001-07:00

“Are you a Plotter or a Pantzer?”

The most political yet honest answer I have to that question is, “I have learned the value of Plotting.” It is indeed the most efficient way to write a story, and it gives the story its best chance of being written – for even if you are sick to death of the thing, you can still doggedly follow a written plot to the end. And it will be complete. If you are Pantsing, on the other hand, you must engaged and enthusiastic about the story, and if it takes a wrong turn or bogs down, it is so much easier to drop the book into a nearby drawer and take up officially with the next one – which, to tell the truth, you have been cheating on the first book with. Plotting is essential if you want to write professionally, for time wasted is money lost and plotting keeps you from wasting time with dead ends, plot collapses, and dull days when writing is hard.

But Pantsing is fun.

Pantsing is putting your characters into an interesting situation and asking, “What if?” And as you write that, you think another “What if?” and “What next?” In this way you keep the main characters moving from situation to situation, from complication to complication, until finally you allow them to reach the resolution. As you write you draw on your character’s personalities, experiences, and situation to create complications. You send them off to new places that you heard about yesterday, and you have no idea where they will end up tomorrow. In Pantsing, a great amount of time is spent mulling over the story and character to figure out where it will go next.

Pantsing is also a very social way to write. Most Pantsers like to talk about their books as media fans talk about an ongoing series, using their friends both as soundboards and as inspiration. Plotters, I’ve found, don’t have as much time for that idle chit-chat. They already know where the book is going and what will happen, and they don’t need to bounce their ideas off of each other. Instead, they will talk about all the other interesting things in their lives – for one advantage of Plotting is that it is much easier to put down the book at the end of a writing session and think about other things.

The result from Plotters and Pantsers is often different. Plotted books move smoothly from start to finish, with all the parts working together from the start and few digressions. I can often see how a book will end when it is Plotted, just from the general shape of the plot, the emphasis that the author gives each character, and the progression of the events. I still read such books for the drama and action, but the plot is like a road that goes to its destination. Pantsed novels, on the other hand, have unforseen twists and turns, non-obvious connections, and endings that are not neat but not unsatisfactory. They are more akin to a trek through the backroads – and for the adventurous, a lot more fun.

As you may have guessed, I am basically a Panster. My current WIP, Maroon Sunia, Barbarian Princess of the North, is being written Pantsed. I took my hardworking tavern girl, gave her some magic armor, and set her on an Adventure with only the vaguest idea of what she would achieve and what she would find along the way. I throw adventures at her and her companions, I lean on tropes and turn them on their heads. At this point, halfway through, I know the final scene and the major points I will reach on the way there. Every week there are new adventures to write about, new ideas, and questions to answer. Writing is slow – about a chapter a week, but it has been steady.

On the other hand, I have also written Plotted novels. There is no way to write a first draft in thirty days unless I have a plot to draw on, to tell me each day what I will do and where I will go with the story. Furhter, Plotting is a good way to rescue a story that started off Pantsed, stalled out, and now sits in the dust with its wheels spinning. So, I have learned the value of Plotting.

Plotting is for productivity and Pantzing is for fun. My best work, however, comes from a combination of the two approaches. If I minimally plot out a story by deciding what the ending and the major plot points will be, and I write toward those points, I can Pants the stuff in between and not get lost. I can both have fun and be productive. That’s what works best for me.

Marcon Con Report -- Saturday Only

2014-05-13T05:58:00.003-07:00

We drove through pouring rain to reach Marcon, but the worst was the fog. Halfway between the cities was a thick fog bank. On one side of it, I saw a car that had apparently slid into the retaining wall on the side, hard enough to severely damage the car but not hard enough to damage the driver. On the other side of the fog a saw a car turned sideways, and another in the field below.

Once we arrived in Columbus, we found the garage to be full. I drove around a bit, and finally found my way to the Chestnut Street garage. We hiked to the convention center through the walkways, a fair distance but out of the rain. At the con we found that registration we found the room right before everyone else.

Thus we were only mildly late to our first event, a fan-based Dr. Who panel. Both panelists and audience members contributed with their favorite memories of the show.

Our next event was watching the The Confused Greenies perform a new, unrehearsed, mostly improve play: Dottore Who and the Convenient Plot Device. Dottore Who lands on a planet where everyone lives his life as a streetplay, and everyone’s life ends happily due to the Convenient Plot Device. But horrors! The device has been stolen! By who? Why? And what part with Skarino the Dalek play?

My Little Demon

After that we ate lunch, palled around, and visited the art show and the Dealer’s room. The art show was only half full, and while the dealer's room was full, I think that there were fewer dealers and more display space per dealer. Further, the con did not restrict entrance into the dealer's room to attendees only, so that they could get business from the attendees of other events.

Next we went to the Plot Doctor’s panel. Eric Flint was on the panel, as well as Charles Gannon, Emilie Bush, and G. Wedlund. We were asked what plot problems we had for them to fix, and no one volunteered one. So the panelists were left to talk about plotting, and various tools that they used to help them plot. Excell, Note cards, and Dragon Speech recognition were all discussed, including the trick of using a voice recorder on a Smartphone and Dragon to turn the comments into written notes. All attempts to derail the panel were rebuffed...

After that we got dinner, and found far more friends to talk to in the food court than we had in the con suite. And then we went home.

Thoughts on the con: It was very quiet for a con, especially a Marcon. A lot of my con friends were not there, and the energy was way, way down. There were a lot of people in the building, but most were attending other events: a volleyball tournament and a dance competition. It got a bit hard to tell the cosplayers from the dance competition girls, but the dance girls came in multiples and had sexier outfits. Other people have reported having a good time, however. I think much more was going on in the gaming rooms and at night. But I missed the science track programming, and I would have like to see more programming on popular TV shows and movies. Especially with the success of the Marvel movies, a few panels on comic book topics would have been very welcome.

Elizabeth's Graduation

2014-05-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Elizabeth graduated from the University of Dayton. There was no commencement speakers, no valedictorian speeches, no grandstanding. But plenty of students, who were all called up name by name and honored before the crowd. And it was quite a crowd.

In fact , we spent most of the time trying to figure out if we could see her. I realized too late that I should have brought my binoculars. However, when she received her diploma holder and had her hand shook in congratulations by the Provost, her image was splayed across the large screens in the corner.

The poor thing was a bit nervous when we left, so I grabbed a plush creature for her to hug. It turned out to be a fortuitous grab -- in the mass of people trying to leave the stadium afterwards, but not trying so hard as to not stop in large clusters and have long conversations, it was east to lose each other. But the tallest member of our party was the only person carrying a long, green, plush tentacle...

Afterwards there was dinner and cake:

Spring is Sprung

2014-04-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

It's an environmental menace, the cause of berries being shat over my car all fall, and I'm allergic to it, but I have to admit that the Bradford Pear is one gorgeous tree in spring. But it does put out a lot of pollen. My car is not normally tinged yellow.

That all pollen, and from just one night. Aaaa-choo!

I also found that the clump of what I thought were spring onions are really miniature daffodils. I was hoping to use this photo for a book cover, but it isn't working out so well. The mother of pearl on the shell is reflecting too much sunlight.

This photo is better, but still, not quite. I need to replace the shell with something else.

April Showers

2014-04-13T14:32:00.004-07:00

April Showers....

Bring out flowers!

An Incredibly Short Flash Fiction Story

2014-04-08T06:52:00.003-07:00

Countercurrent
by Helen E Davis

They accepted my story. Oh dear...

What should I send?

Living backwards can be a bitch.

The Foothills of Disordered Thinking

2014-03-21T05:43:00.001-07:00

Warmer temperatures and, more importantly, rain have worked together to reduce the Mountains of Madness to a pittance of their former glory. Their retreat has left behind things that were trapped in the snow, trash and silt and -- a pvc pipe? I do not know where it came from, but the upper end looks torn, as if ripped off by a careless snowplow. It's also speckled with the grime of the snowheap, so I imagine, yes, it was transported here with the snow.

Will we still have something on April 1st? That does depend on how much rain we get over the next week -- but it's very, very likely. That's still a significant amount of frozen H2O.

Give a Child a Book

2014-03-20T06:07:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend I learned about a local charity with a specific aim: to give books to children. Many children grow up without having a single book of their own.

I grew up in a house that was filled with books, and I was free to read any that I could. I read a lot of classic SF from the family collection, and a lot of non-fiction. I did not, however, have a collection of children's books. There were a few, yes, but most of the easy reader books that I read came from school and went back to school.

And yet, I did have a book of my own, given to me by a college student. I couldn't have been more than five or six at the time. They gave me the book, and I like it very much. It had interesting pictures. As I grew older and could understand the words, I found it very interesting to read.

I did not know at the time that they had picked up the book especially for me. I thought, like so many things in my life, that it was another hand-me-down, and may not have seemed as excited by this gift as I really was. Or perhaps because I opened it and fell into it, they knew I did indeed like it.

So I would like to say thank you for this book, which turned out to have a life-long impression on me. And I would like to encourage other people to give books to children, books with interesting pictures and fun facts, such as the life cycle of a parasitic worm. Thank you very much.

And see? I still have that book!

The Shrinking Mountains of Madness

2014-03-10T11:55:00.001-07:00

February 21st, 2014

February 28th, 2014

March 10th, 2014

As you can see, the endless winter has ended, and the Mountains of Madness are shrinking. How much longer before Regional Warming destroys then forever?

Thaw!

2014-02-18T14:39:00.003-08:00

Today it was warm. Warm! Up to fifty degrees warm, leave the car in the coat warm! Grass could be seen by the road, and we drove through water puddles instead of snow slush!

And here I found the snow on a tin roof sliding off like so much warm icing on a cake.

I'm Having Trouble With My Mailbox

2014-02-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

I can't get to my mailbox. We've had continuous snow cover for over a month now, two major snowfalls, and several minor ones. Where the snow is flat on the ground it does melt down into the ground, slowly, but on the sides of the driveway the piles turn to ice. And we must have piles on the side of the driveway, because every time the snow plow comes past it scrapes a wall of slush over the mouth of the driveway. Sure, we could just shovel it back into the street, but the next time the plow comes past we are blocked in again.

Meanwhile, our street is growing narrower with every snow. The mailboxes stand on the edge of the curb, which is now about two feet from the clean edge of the snow. It's worse on the other side of the street. More than a yard. Two cars must pass very carefully now, and there is now passing the school buses.

In the parking lots, the snow is piling up even higher. We will have snowmounds for a long time. I think I should start a contest as to how long before this one, which I have nicknamed the Mountain of Madness, will remain. Place your guesses in my SFF.net newsgroup and the winner will get a free ebook/pdf of any of my novels that he or she chooses.

The Mountain of Madness

Snow Crystals

2014-02-13T05:51:00.000-08:00

I went out to clear off the car the other day. There had been enough moisture in the air that snow was threatened, but it had been too cold -- below zero -- to snow. Instead of frost or snow I found my car was covered with these giant snow crystals. They looked like delicate butterflies waiting to take off, growing as they were away from the car like wings. I could not take the time to photograph them, but when I got back from my errand I found that a few were still sticking to the leeward side of the other car.

Here's a close-up of the crystals:

Big Bang Theory, October 12, 2011

2011-10-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

In honor of tonight's showing of the Big Bang Theory, which will have a guest star appearance by both Will Wheaton and Brent Spinner, my daughter is wearing her special shirt.

Pottermore

2011-08-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

Wow -- I'm in Pottermore! Sorta.

Pottermore has been billed as an interactive site for the Harry Potter fans. What it will be, no one knows, other than that it is currently exclusive. There are rumors of games and ebook downloads and fan forums. The TOS deals with the ownership of fan fiction and fan art posted on the site, so I assume that will be allowed as well. For the most part, however, it is a tantalizing mystery.

The big game right now, however, is to get in. One millions lucky souls will be allowed in early. That is, they will be allowed to experience the Beta site.
To be chosen as one of the lucky million, they must play a game. Each day for seven days, at a secret time, a clue will show up on Pottermore. Tack the answer to the clue to the end of the web address quill.pottermore.com. This may take you to the site where the magic quill is located. If you find the magic quill, then you can register for the site.

Using all the skill I had developed while trying to land substitute teaching jobs, I went to the Pottermore site. First I found the servers swamped. When I finally landed the site, the clue was not up. But after some time and a few refreshes -- it helps to be writing a really tough section of a novel and looking for a distraction, any distraction, from the uncooperative wordage -- I discovered that the clue was up. And it was, for me, an easy one. So I tacked the right answer onto the address and got...

I got a website advertising Sony products. Sony gaming systems, Sony TVs, Sony DVD's. Huh? No mention of a quill anywhere. Was my answer actually wrong? I tried a different answer, and an obviously wrong answer, and discovered that if the answer was wrong I was simply bounced back to the Pottermore site, with the clue staring me in the face. And the right answer took me to an advertisement.

Obviously, I was meant to be a Muggle.

As I was trying to figure this out, which meant multiple tries with the right answer, suddenly I got the magic quill. Okay, it worked. So I went through the more complicated than usual registration and was awarded a user name. I choose a password and wrote it down. Then I was congratulated and told that my registration would be complete when I clicked on the link in the email I would receive. It would arrive within a day. And then I could enjoy the wonders of Pottermore.

The email arrived within twenty minutes. It helps, as I said, to be grinding through a tough section of writing. I clicked on the link and went to the registration page, and carefully entered my user name and password.

My password was not recognized.

I tried again and again, checking each time. Same result. I went through the password change link, and tried again. Soon after, I was told that I had tried to log in too many times and was thus locked out for an hour.

They know I'm a Muggle.

I waited for an hour and tried again. Ahah! I was in! Or was I? What I got was a page congratulating me on completing my registration, but they can't let everybody in at the same time, so I should get my welcome letter in a few weeks.

How many is a few? There are only eight weeks until the site opens to everybody.

When do the Muggles get to enter?

At any rate, it is important to remember that this is a beta site, and there will be glitches. And frustrations. If you want in, just keep trying, and remember, a few weeks isn't that different from eight.

Miyazaki and The Borrowers

2011-07-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

Studio Ghibli's latest film Arrietty is an adaptation of Mary Norton's Book, The Borrowers. I remember reading this book, and its sequel, in my Jr. High School Library. Now I want to read it again -- but I think I will see the movie first, so that I don't suffer that awful clash of "This isn't how the story is supposed to go." Miyazaki does do wonderful treatments of the books he turns into films, but time limitations do mean that he must snip subplots, combine characters, and change things.

See the trailer here.

Thoughts on Dying

2011-07-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

We expect our doctors to save our lives and heal us, or at least keep us alive for longer. And yet, is this practicing medicine? Is this doing the best for the patient? A Doctor Grasshopper ponders what many of us ponder, in Life. And Death.

Me, I think I should have DNR tattoed above my right breast.

Serpent Mound

2011-05-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

(Reporting Information Paper)

Serpent Mound, a mysterious and ancient relic of a long-lost civilization, has fascinated modern humans for over a hundred years. Who built it? For what reason? What secrets does it hide? Was this quarter-mile sculpture of a snake the site of ancient ceremonies? Does it have special meaning for us today? As F. W. Putman, savior and excavator of the mound wrote of his visit in 1883, “Reclining on one of the huge folds of this gigantic serpent, as the last rays of the sun, glancing from the distant hilltops, cast their long shadows over the valley, I mused on the probabilities of the past; and there seemed to come to me a picture as of a distant time, of people with strange customs, and with it came the demand for an interpretation of this mystery. The unknown must become known!” (871)

The Serpent, a giant snake built of clay, earth, and sod, basks on a high, crescent-shaped prominence and looks over the Brush Creek river valley. As George R. Milner, author of The Moundbuilders describes it, “This long, low embankment snakes its way down a narrow ridge. The tail forms a tight spiral, and the other end widens to join an oval embankment, commonly interpreted as the head, although some have thought the snake is swallowing an egg.” (79) It was only one of the many earthwork wonders that white settlers found when they moved into the Ohio and Missisippi river valleys, but among the many mounds, hill forts, and geometric enclosures built by earlier unknown cultures, it holds the distinction of being one of few that was preserved in its original state. At 30 feet wide at the head, 6 feet at its tallest point, and 1,348 feet long, it is the largest snake effigy found in the United States. (Glotzhopper and Lepper 3)

In the mid-nineteenth century an interest in ancient earthworks blossomed, and the scientific community discovered the Serpent. E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis included Serpent Mound in their 1848 collection of surveys of ancient earthworks for the Smithsonian Institution. (96) Inspired by their work, Frederick Ward Putman visited Serpent Mound in 1883. He was awed by the earthwork, but also dismayed to find that it was being slowly destroyed. After a tornado raked along the precipice and cleared away the trees growing there, the farmer who owned the land had plowed the covering soil to grow corn, then let animals graze on the mound. The farmer planned to sell his farm the next year, and the new owner would likely turn the mound into a cornfield, as was happening to so many of the of the ancient earthworks. Rushing back to Boston, Putman enlisted the help of Miss Alice B. Fletcher, and together they raised the $6000 needed to buy Serpent Mound and the surrounding 54 acres. As Warren Moorhead, a prominent archeologist of the late nineteenth century, tells us “After investigating the mound, Putman told Bostonians that if it were obliterated by development that event would be more disgraceful than tearing down Bunker Hill Monument.” ( 241) The land was given to Harvard’s Peabody Museum to hold in trust, and Serpent Mound Park was created. (Putman 872) Before it opened to the public, Putman examined the mound by partially excavating the oval and a portion of the tail. He also studied the three nearby burial mounds and a village site. In 1886 William Henry Holmes published a map for the Smithsonian Institute, and in 1919 Charles Willoughby, from the Peabody Museum at Harvard Univerity published a paper with measurements and surveys.

After the Ohio Historical Society took over administration of the park in 1900, it became a popular place for people to picnic. In 1908 the thirty foot tall observation tower was built, which is still in use today — as are the picnic shelters and latrine houses constructed in the 1930’s. (Glotzhober and Lepper 12-14) Even today, Serpent Mound draws over 23,000 visitors each year. (Toncray, par 1)

So who built Serpent Mound? When Putman excavated portions of the effigy, he found no bones or artifacts to link it to its builders. However, the two nearest burial mounds contained Adena Culture graves and artifacts, and thus Putman linked the building of Serpent Mound with the Adena.(Glotzhober and Lepper 5) The Adena Culture populated Ohio from about 700 BC to 1AD. They were the first people in Ohio to build burial mounds. Grave goods, such as stone platform pipes, copper braclets and breastplates, pieces of cut mica, and marine shell beads were buried with the dead. Then dirt and rocks were hand-carried to the site, mounded up, and tramped down, forming large, hard mounds over the graves. The larger mounds contained multiple burials. (Milner 57- 61) Because the mounds were apparently maintained and even enlarged from generation to generation, many people believe that they were used for more than burials. The mound sites may have hosted clan-gatherings or larger gatherings on the Solstice and Equinoxes, and there may have been feasting, marriages, and storytelling. (Byrd, Dawn of the Adena, 12)

However, the Adena were not known for building elaborate earthworks. This did not start until the Hopewell Exchange Culture, approximately 100BC to 400AD. The Hopewell built geometrical enclosures: circles, octagons, and squares which surrounded acres of land. These enclosures which contained both burial mounds and building sites, (Milner 76) but little evidence of daily occupation or agriculture. It is assumed by most scholars that these were ceremonial centers which people came to for special occasions and trade. (O’Donnell 21-23) There were openings in the walls, apparently aligned with the solstices, the equinoxes, and the nodal points of moonrise. They may have been, therefore, giant observatories which marked the seasons as well as sites for gatherings and feasts. (Byrd, Heights of the Hopewell, 13) Fort Ancient, west of Dayton, is a good example of a Hopewell earthwork.

Serpent Mound is not a geometric shape, and it has no openings, but it does contain astronomical alignments in the loops of the snake. In 1988 Robert Fletcher and Terry Cameron demonstrated that a line drawn from a stone structure on the body of the serpent to a stone structure in the oval aligns with the setting sun on the summer solstice. By 1993 the pair had mapped out alignments with the summer solstice sunrise, the equinox sunrise, and the winter solstice sunrise. Further, a line from the tip of tail to one of the stone altars marks true north. (Glotzhober and Lepper 10)

To answer the question of who built the mound, and when, samples of charcoal were taken from the mound and dated by radiocarbon testing in 1991. The result indicated that the mound was built about 1070 AD. (Sarcaceni) This was well after the time of the Hopewell Exchange and into the time of the Fort Ancient Culture, which lasted from 900AD to 1500AD. (Glotzhober and Lepper 9) A Fort Ancient burial mound and the remains of a Fort Ancient village within a hundred yards of the mound (Putman 874) supports this.
The Fort Ancient people built burial mounds, but they were smaller and less elaborate than those built by the Hopewell or even the Adena, and their burial goods were fewer and more utilitarian. (Milner 105-106) At the same time, villages, as exemplified by Sunwatch Village in East Dayton, became more complex and inhabited for longer times.(Milner 114) Open areas in the center of the village appear to have been used for ceremonial purposes, with alignments of the houses and posts used to track the solstices and equinoxes. (O’Donnell 25) The remains of such a village, determined to be from the Fort Ancient culture, has been found 100 yards south of the mound.(Saraceni)

Effigy mounds were common at that time in Wisconsin and parts of the neighboring states, but seem to have been built by a hunter-gatherer culture which was not part of the Fort Ancient Culture. (Milner 106-108) There are, however, two snake effigy mounds which were constructed just outside of Fort Ancient, and which work with Fort Ancient features to mark the Winter and Summer Solstices. Although Fort Ancient is a Hopewell structure, the snake effigies have been dated with Radiocarbon dating to the twelth century AD, only a hundred years after the Serpent Mound date. (White 55)

However, Dr. William F Romain, a research associate with the Ohio State University Newark Earthworks Center, questions the validity of the radiocarbon dating. He believes that when Putman restored the mound in the late 1880’s, he could have contaminated the site by using soil taken from the village site. He is currently leading a new archaeological excavation to find an undisturbed area of the mound, and to take samples from that area for radiocarbon dating. (Weyrich)

The more researchers try to answer the question of who built Serpent Mound, the more confusing the answer becomes. It has been dated to the Fort Ancient time period, but that dating may be faulty. It is characteristic of the large scale Hopewell earthworks in size, in complexity and in marking various celestial events, but the burial mounds close to it are filled with Adena artifacts. The Serpent remains mysterious and ancient.
Today, in the 21st century, people still travel to Serpent Mound for spiritual reasons. Some believe that Serpent Mound is a “ New Age power center; the locus of an astrological harmonic convergence.” (Glotzhober and Lepper 7) Others, such as Pagans and Wiccans, come to celebrate the equinoxes and solstices, just as Native Americans may have done a thousand years ago. Friends of Serpent Mound sponsors events on these days, as well as the Archeology and Ohio Geology Day in September to celebrate the unique geology of the area, and a Perseid Meteor Shower viewing in August. (Friends) Even the Mayans are coming for a Full Moon Ceremony in October 2011. (“New Changes”)

Serpent Mound is unique, a relic of the past saved for the future, for our children and our children’s children — and yet it barely escaped destruction in the 1880’s. Many other Indian mounds and earthworks, such as the Dayton earthworks located just west of what is now just west of I-75 in West Carrollton, (Squier and Davis 82) have been destroyed. More continue to be destroyed in the name of development and growth. In 1890 Moorhead wrote, “…it is only by careful and patient investigation into the remains of these dead and almost forgotten races that we may ever hope to arrive at any definite knowledge of their lives. All the light we can hope to shed upon them must come to us through the examination of their works and their skeletons. It is in the interest of science that we plead for the preservation of the native Americans.” (108) A hundred years later the battle was still being fought. Roger Kennedy, writing about the efforts to build a dam and flood the land about the mound for “recreational use,” said, “The rescue of Serpent Mound and the issuances of Cyrus Thomas’s report on the Mound Builders marked the highwater mark of intelligent and responsible preservation of the architecture of ancient America. As these words are being written in the winter of 1994, a developer is threatening to desecrate the lowlands which supported the life of the people who created the serpent effigy on a promontory above them.” (241)

Works Cited
    2011 FOSM Events. Friends of Serpent Mound. Arc of Appalachia, 2011. Web (www.serpentmound.org) 4 April 2011.

Byrd, Alfred D. “Kentuckiana X: Moundbuilders of Kentucky I: Dawn of the Adena.”     The Reluctant Famulus 77 (2010): pp. 9-14. Print.

- - -. “Kentuckiana XI. Moundbuilders of Kentucky II. The Heights of the Hopewell.”     The Reluctant Famulus 78 (2010): pp. 13-17. Print.

    Glozhober, Robert C., Bradley T. Lepper. Serpent Mound: Ohio’s Enigmatic Effigy Mound. Columbus:Ohio Historical Society, 1994. Print.

    Kennedy, Roger G. Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North America Civilization. New York: The Free Press, 1994. Print.

    Milner, George R. The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. Print.

    Moorhead, Warren K. Fort Ancient: The Great Prehistoric Earthwork of Warren County, OH Compiled From a Careful Study With An Account of its Mounds and Graves. Cincinnati: Robert Clark and Co, 1890. Print.

    New Changes Coming To An Ancient Site. The People’s Defender, 24 January 2011. Web. 24 April 2011.

O’Donnell, James H. Ohio’s First Peoples. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. Print.

    Putman, F.W. “The Serpent Mound of Ohio: Site Excavations and Park Contruction.” Century Magazine XXXIX (new series Vol. XVII) (1889/1890): pp 871-888. Print.

    Sarceni, Jessica E. "Redating Serpent Mound." Archaeology 49.6 (1996): 16. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.

    Squier, A.M. And E.H. Davis. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Washington: Smithsonian Institute,1848. Print.

    Toncray, Marla. Drawn to the Serpent — Serpent Mound State Memorial Continues to Fascinate. Ledger Independent, 1 April 2011. Web. 24 April 2011.

    Weyrich, Carleta. Scientists Aim To ID Age of Serpent Mound. The People’s Defender, 18 April 2011. Web. 25 April 2011.

    White, John R. "The Sun Serpents." Archaeology 40.6 (1987): 52-57. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.

Text Analysis Paper

2011-05-10T05:04:00.000-07:00

Helen E Davis
English 111 section 67
April18, 2011

FROM WHAT YOU KNOW TO WHAT YOU WANT

Introducing new concepts to a general audience can be a daunting task for both professionals and scientists. In this paper, Jonathan Frome uses a popular video game as both springboard and vehicle to explain his ideas of how cognitive psychology can answer the question: why do we care about fictional characters?

Why Do We Care Whether Link Saves The Princess? Frome asks in his essay, but he’s also asking a bigger question: why do we care about fictional characters? Why do we cry at movies when the hero dies? Why do we cheer when the heroine succeeds? Why do we go into endless discussions on the love lives of a young wizard who never existed in the real world?

To answer this question, Frome delves into philosophy and then into cognitive psychology, his area of research. (Jonathan Frome, Ph.d 1) Before he explores these unfamiliar areas, however, he grounds his readers in a topic that is familiar to them, the playing of videogames. As The Legend of Zelda games are the subject of the book, The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am, in which this essay appears, he focuses on one particular videogame game: Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. (Frome 3)

The first Zelda title, Legend of Zelda, was released in 1986 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. (Cuddy xii) In the twenty-five years since there have been 14 additional titles released, as well as numerous re-releases of games on newer systems. The franchise has included comic books, animated cartoons, music, and artwork. Its popularity is due partly to the fact that it has always been more than just a videogame, it is also a story. Link, the main character that the gamer must guide through puzzles and in combat against dangerous monsters, is on a quest to save Zelda, the princess, from a specific evil antagonist, and on the way he must interact with a variety of characters. From the beginning these characters have had personalities, and are as likely to be grouchy as nice — Zelda must convince them to help him in his quest. It’s a very entertaining world, as compelling any straight narrative. Gamers often talk about the characters as if they are real. Why are they sucked into these game worlds? Why are any of us sucked into the Adventures of Harry Potter, for that matter?

Frome starts his essay by appealing directly to the emotions of his audience. He uses second person voice to draw the reader in, to give her the same feeling she has while controlling the Link in the game. Frome reminds the reader of the emotions created by the game. Using such phrases as “you feel a swell of emotion when you defeat the final boss” (Frome 3) and “you have every right to feel happy with your performance” (Frome 3) he directs the reader to feel those emotions again, the joy of winning the game. Then he moves deeper and directs the reader to remember the emotions she felt while playing through the storyline of the game, such as “it’s sad when Link leaves his grandma,” or “you feel touched when Aryll gives Link her telescope.” (Frome 4) His intimate tone allows the reader to participate in the essay, to be involved.

Then, when Frome admits that the story is fiction and moves to summarize the section, he moves into first person plural voice. He invites himself into an intimate conversation with the reader, and in this intimacy he asks, “Why do we care about people who don’t exist?” (Frome 4) Thus the reader is invited — not pushed, not forced, merely invited as one friend would invite another — to explore this new area with him. At the same time, Frome uses the change in personal address to signal that he has moved from merely engaging the reader to a discussion of the topic.

The next section, with its discussion of theories, sets up the academic background of the essay. Frome introduces the term “paradox of fiction,” the act of caring about characters we don’t believe in, and then presents three theories to explain it. There is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “suspension of disbelief” (Frome 6), Noel Carroll’s “illusion theory”(Frome 6), and Kendall Watson’s “pretend theory” (Frome 7). Frome discusses these theories and their criticisms in third person, maintaining a scholarly air: “Noel Carroll…argues that emotions can, in fact, be generated by thoughts alone, and he proposes what he calls thought theory. He gives the example of standing on a dangerous precipice.” (Frome 6-7) Frome then moves into a more intimate voice, using first person plural, to discuss the example, “We’re scared, not by a belief that we are in a dangerous situation, but by the mere thought of something bad happening.”(Frome 7) Later, Frome moves into second person voice to link the example to the reader’s emotional reaction to the game, as described in the first section, “But if our thoughts only cause emotional response when we visualize them, then this doesn’t explain your response to Wind Waker, because you don’t visualize the world of the game while you play. You don’t have to — you see it onscreen.”(Frome 7) By using different voices to describe different parts within the same section — scholarly presentation, response to the presentation, and links to the emotional experience of the reader, Frome helps the reader to keep clear which part is which and to navigate the argument. In this way, he makes the academic background accessible to the new student.

With the reader engaged and the background material explained, Frome moves to the idea he is presenting to the reader, that the ability to become involved with fictional characters can be explained by “the idea that the mind has multiple systems.” (Frome 12) We can accept something as real by one part of our mind while knowing that it is not real in another part of the mind, and we can hold both of those ideas at the same time. In this section, the focus is on the academic argument, presented in third person voice, and Frome’s discussion of this argument, presented in plural first person voice. The reader is still included in this discussion, but the focus is on the argument, not the videogame.

Frome concludes his essay by returning to The Legend of Zelda and discussing the videogame in relation to this idea of multiple systems. He answers the question he put forth in the title with the opening and closing sentences of his final paragraph. “We react to videogames and other art forms in some ways as if they are representations and in some ways as if they were reality….And as Videogame simulations approach reality, we may expect that our emotional responses tothem will approach our response to reality as well.” (Frome 14-15).

By using separate voices for the different parts of his essay — scholarly presentations in third person, discussion in first person plural, and examples in second person — Frome not only engages the reader in an intimate discussion but also helps the reader to keep track of the different parts. By moving the reader from a topic she knows well to the one he wants to teach, and by giving academic support to his argument before he makes it, Frome leads the reader into new ideas and concepts. Although videogames may not seem to be a very academic subject, they are a major part of the young adult culture, and can be used effectively as part of academic teaching.

Citations

Cuddy, Luke. “Setting Up The Game” The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link
    Therefore I Am.
    Ed. Luke Cuddy. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2010. Print.

Frome, Jonathan. “Why Do We Care Whether Link Saves The Princess?” The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am.
    Ed. Luke Cuddy. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2010. Print.

"Jonathan Frome, Ph.d." University of Texas at Dallas Faculty. The Arts and Technology Program at the University of Texas at Dallas, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. .

Mound Hunting in Chillicothe

2010-07-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

You can do a lot of research for stories online, at the library, and from your own TV. But sometimes, in order to get the right feel for a story, you have to go onsite and experience what you want your subjects to experience. Objects should be felt, held, and sometimes smelt. Places should be stood in. Food should be tasted. You'll never know the small details, such as how it feels to be bitten by the bugs of the region, unless you actually go there.

For that reason my friend needed to do some research on Indian mounds. he picked me up and we drove out to what was not the nearest site, but the place with the greatest number of mounds: The Hopewell National Historic Park. This National Park hugs the Scioto River Valley, and covers five different Indian mound sites. Two were closed, as they were in the midst of active preservation, but the other three -- Mound City Group, Hopewell Mound Group, and Siep
Mound – are open to visitors.

We drove in from Dayton on US35, turned onto
Highway 104, and drove past two large correctional institution complexes, missed the turn into the park due to construction, drove past a smaller correctional complex, turned around, made our back to the park and dodged the construction equipment to turn in. The park itself was worth the trouble to reach it, though. To the front was a nice, air conditioned visitor's center staffed with friendly park rangers. There was a small museum, a well-stocked gift shop in the lobby, and clean bathrooms. To the side was a shaded picnic area, where we ate lunch. Behind it stretched the well-manicured grounds of the complex, with informative signs on most of them. Even the maintenance workers were friendly, and told us to go down to the river walk where there was a shaded view of the river.

There are 23 mounds at the Mound City Complex. The Hopewell Indians lived in this area between 200BC and 500AD. Using nothing more than simple digging tools, baskets, and a lot of hand labor, they built large mounds of dirt which have lasted for over 2000 years. The mounds were used for burials and other ceremonies. Originally the burial ceremonies took place in charnal houses which were then burned down, and a mound erected over the site. Often artifacts, such as carved effigy pipes, were buried in the mounds. The taller mounds were built in several layers, apparently over several generations. It is thought that the taller mounds were built to honor important people. A monument, perhaps like the pyramids, to mark the final resting spot of a great chief.

I rather have the idea that these mounds grew over time as first mourners, then respectful visitors, added bucket after bucket of dirt to the mounds. This idea does not come from archaeological evidence but from human psychology. Our tendency to pile flowers and other artifacts at gravesites did not start with our culture,

At the end of the lifespan of this spot, the practice of burial had changed. Instead of building new mounds for people, they were cremated and their ashes interred in the tops of existing mounds.

We next went to the Hopewell Mound Group, following a map provided by the Visitor's Center. There we found a site that was much more in its wild state. A well-maintained gravel path led along the high outer wall and a road cut through the center of the enclosure, but high prairie grasses hid most of the features of the land. The largest mound was just visible curving up above the grass. In its own way, this was quite valuable for research, as it showed how an undeveloped site would look. And also why so many of mounds go without notice until they are torn open and the artifacts spill out.

The third site, Siep Mound was memorable in several ways. The first is that it contained a relic of Ohio Travel from the last century. As recent as the nineteen eighties, the only rest stops along I-71 in Ohio were latrines, and they can still be found along country roads. On the plus side, it was nice to have something. On the minus side, well, if you've ever visited a permanent latrine...

The mound itself was well worth seeing. It's elliptical, tall, and could have been used to stage outdoor dramas and other ceremonies. As my friend declared, “Jackpot.”