Tag: Top Ten

There’s more to the Northern Lights than you see

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Living as far north as I do, just a hair below the 45th parallel halfway between the north pole and the equator, I’m starting to keep an eye out for the Northern Lights on clear nights through winter. Moonlight, clouds, precipitation, and pollution all block viewing, but our remote location means that many of our nights can be visually crisp and rewarding for those who bundle up.

  1. More formally, the beautiful, dancing waves of light are known as the aurora borealis, named by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1619 in honor of Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, and Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind. They most famously resemble giant colorful curtains blown by some cosmic wind, though that’s all a mesmerizing illusion. In fact, where I live, they’re more likely to be detected by time-exposure photography than by the naked eye.
  2. They’re best viewed between September and April, when the night sky is longest and darkest, especially in the “auroral zone,” a cap roughly within a 1,550-mile radius of the North Pole. Places like Fairbanks, Alaska; Tromso, Norway; Lapland, Finland; Orkney, Scotland; and Yellowknife, Canada, are key travel destinations for viewing, but rare sightings have been reported as far south as tropical Honolulu, Hawaii.
  3. While Northern Lights happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, they are most intense after a geomagnetic solar storm, which tosses energized particles into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds up to 45 million miles an hour. As the Earth’s magnetic field shields the surface by drawing the onslaught toward the poles, the energized particles collide with atmospheric gases, producing vibrant hues of blue, green, pink, violet, and even gold in surreal movement across the night sky.
  4. Solar storm emissions run in 11-year cycles. The last peak of extreme activity was in 2014, and the next is next year. We’re already in the higher-than-usual range.
  5. The strongest geomagnetic storms can disrupt GPS systems and radio signals. One temporarily knocked out electricity across the entire Canadian province of Quebec. The largest solar storm recorded, Carrington Event of 1859, sparked fires on telegraphs. I remember some occasions in 1970-’71 when they turned the overnight teletype news reports from the Associated Press, United Press International, and other wire services into unintelligible jumbles. (Some of my Sun Spot poems are drawn from that outpouring.)
  6. The storms even have the potential to wipe out the Internet for weeks or months unless the technology is “hardened,” , according to some warnings.
  7. The night lights also appear in the Southern Hemisphere as the aurora australis but are more elusive because there’s less land mass, and, thus, fewer suitable spots for viewing the spectacle.
  8. Earth’s not alone. Jupiter, with a magnetic field 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s, has far brighter blazes. Auroras have also been discovered on both Venus and Mars, despite their very weak magnetic fields.
  9. NOAA’s forecasts are available online at NOAA’s Aurora Viewline for Tonight and Tomorrow Night page, mapping the southern-most locations from which you may see the aurora on the northern horizon.
  10. The best time for viewing? One source says mostly just before sunrise or after sunset. Another says between 9 pm and 3 am.

Some things I’m anticipating in the year ahead

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Sitting beside our newly installed wood-burning stove on otherwise chilly mornings and evenings.
  2. Completing the second phase of our upstairs renovations along with moving into the back half up there, including my book collection when it comes out of storage.
  3. My second week on the water in the schooner Louis R. French.
  4. Revisiting my journals from the Baltimore years on.
  5. A magazine orgy.
  6. Renewed time with the Bible.
  7. Using my passport. We do live right next to Canada, after all.
  8. Events at the arts center.
  9. Continuing Quaker worship face-to-face rather than Zoom.
  10. Scallops in season as well as local blueberries, cranberries, lobsters, and crab.

A few things I’m grateful for in the past year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. A second presence in the house year-‘round. Plus our guests.
  2. Seeing the home renovations finally under way. And how.
  3. My maiden voyage in a ship overnight. As you’ll be seeing.
  4. A steady supply of real tomatoes, once they started arriving at the beginning of September, thanks to a serious, raised-bed garden already featured here at the Red Barn.
  5. Our new choral director. We may be a small community, but there’s some deep talent.
  6. The resurrected film society. The showings are followed by some serious discussion into the wee hours.
  7. Contradances, too, both here in Eastport and at the Common Ground Fair.
  8. My appearances resulting from Quaking Dover. You can still find some of them online.
  9. Scallops in season. (And local blueberries, cranberries, lobsters, and crab.)
  10. All the eagles I observed during the alewives’ run and additional encounters after. Always inspiring.

Dragging me out of the Stone Age

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

I was tempted to make that “stoned age,” but I was of a more tempered side of the hippie era.

When it comes to high tech, though, I’ve leaned more toward neo-Luddite. You know, face-to-face and keeping people employed. That’s why I go inside to a teller at the bank, rather than an ATM or drive-thru. Ditto for fast food.

One way my family has of nudging me in the other direction is in their Christmas and birthday gifts to me.

Well, my clumsiness therein is another matter.

Here are some examples.

  1. My first cell phone and then, a dozen years later, the big upgrade to my S22 Ultra, in large part for its digital camera abilities.
  2. That replaced the Olympus digital camera they’d presented a few years earlier. I have to agree it’s a huge upgrade.
  3. A coconspirator in all this offered some puzzling lenses and a lobster tripod for photography that made no sense until I learned about the S22 Ultra. I was so ignorant, but these are cool.
  4. Then there’s the LED ring lamp for Zoom meetings with its warm and cool light settings. The way it’s set up now, I use it for a regular light at my workstation.
  5. A Fire tablet. An ebook author really should have one, though I use mine mostly to stream music. Which leads to …
  6. A Bluetooth headset that works with the aforesaid cell phone and tablet plus my laptop Zoom connections. Didn’t know I couldn’t live without one.
  7. As well as my Tribit remote speaker. I love the flexibility of taking my music around the house or of having hands free during a phone conversation.
  8. My little weather station, the one that doesn’t require wires running out to the wind, temp, and rainfall gauges. Hey, living on a windy island puts the weather high on the awareness chart.
  9. The mustache trimmer. The rechargeable battery device really does the job better than a razor.
  10. Most recent is a set of wireless speakers to go with the new audio system. I started to say “stereo” but know how outdated that’s become. Still, this one  accommodates vinyl, if you know what that means.

 

Well, maybe this should go somewhere

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Still more random notes in no particular order:

  1. Why so many churches? Only an unbeliever would ask.
  2. Note the hippie vibe of Pride Day. Like a time warp.
  3. The jolt of phoning someone and preparing to respond to the voicemail only to have a live voice pop up instead.
  4. Keys that don’t fit anywhere.
  5. It’s a Catholic church too small to conduct bingo games.
  6. I’m spending as much time keyboarding as ever.
  7. All those years I worked five-day weeks every holiday ‘cept maybe Christmas Eve. Or commuted in atrocious weather.
  8. What is literature? And why does it matter?
  9. She strikes me as little more than skin-deep beauty.
  10. What do you like about Christmas?

 

A shoutout some outstanding vocal ensembles

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

With the holidays just ahead, we’re coming up on the prime choral season of the year.

Look around, and there are many outstanding groups, not just the big, famed organizations in the footsteps of conductors Robert Shaw, Roger Wagner, Margaret Hillis, or John Oliver, either.

Hit on some of these on YouTube or Vimeo and let me hear what you think.

  1. Old Order Mennonite Harmonia Sacra. Let’s start from an old American shape-note tradition of harmony. Singing from the 1832 hymnal compiled by Joseph Funk in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, this video will likely lead you to others in this unique stream, including the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp. I’m inclined to sing along, using some much later Mennonite hymnals. Imagine an entire congregation singing parts like this, and many do. Eventually, it may even lead you to the unique Sacred Harp style. If you want to talk about American roots, don’t overlook this. I’m forever indebted to my exposure in this vein. So where do we turn from here? How about something completely different in the religious vein:
  2. Detroit Mass Choir. This large, tightly disciplined urban body runs flawlessly, turning on a dime when director Jimmy Dowell spontaneously decides to repeat a phrase or section or even jump back several parts or similarly ahead. Their take on Charles Tindley’s 1905 “The storm is passing over” is outstanding. Yeah, it’s one more place where stony unemotional me gets teary. That confessed, don’t overlook the instrumentalists, either. And I, for one, do appreciate the audience support throughout, something my mother would have considered interruptive and rude.
  3. Jehovah Shalom Acapella. And you thought the King’s Singers or Cambridge Singers epitomized the small, elite, all-male a cappella field? This six-member Ugandan Gospel group, members of the Seventh-day Adventist faith, delivers with an unbelievably smooth pop style. Where, by the way, do they find such an incredibly deep bass? Now, if we only knew how they’d handle Handel, Bach, and Mozart as well, we might have even more cause for amazement. By the way, we’ve also delighted in live performances by athletic Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
  4. Central Washington University chamber choir. Within a higher education state institution in tiny Ellensburg, well east of the Cascade Range and Seattle, there’s long been an outstanding fine arts program. In such situations, a few good teachers can make a lasting impression. (I hate to think of the destructive obverse.) Under the direction of Gary Weidenaar in works by contemporary Ola Gjeilo or Renaissance master Tomas Luis da Victoria , these student singers reflect, I feel, the high standards found in many other pockets across America – and not just its great conservatories and leading music schools. Returning to the shape-note tradition:
  5. Amherst Madrigals. In William Billings’ “Euroclydon,” a distinctive masterpiece, these ten singers blow me away. It’s a very demanding piece, after “all. And they present it so clearly, with no conductor in sight! For further confirmation, listen to what they do his “I am come into my garden.” Or, for pure polyphony, move onto another group for this:
  6. Indiana University’s Conductor’s Chorus. Their master’s of music performance of Palestrina’s “Sicut cervus” for conductor Daam Beam Kim in 2016 is unbeatable. After seemingly endless rehearsals and a few public performances of this choral masterpiece, I can’t imagine anything more ethereally sublime than this. Period. Even as an IU grad.
  7. Saint Olaf College Choir. This Minnesota Lutheran institution makes some incredible music. The diction in their videos and recordings leaves me envious, and their annual Christmas broadcast is understandably anticipated and admired. Still, compare their rendering of William Billings’ “What wondrous love is this” to one led by Ukrainian conductor Yuriy Kravets and the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp orchestra and choir, previously noted. Both are deeply moving.
  8. Luther College. Set along the upper Mississippi River in Decorah, Iowa, this church institution also has a superb musical program. Just listen to what its Nordic Choir can do. I’m even more impressed when I notice they sing their parts from memory and then their ease in navigating dynamics. Oh, my, that soon leads to a Baton Rouge high school performance that definitely stands out. Yes, high school.
  9. Quoddy Voices. My current chorus is an amazing group in a small remote fishing village with an active arts scene in easternmost Maine. Still, we would really welcome some younger voices. During the Covid restrictions, director John Newell put together some remarkable virtual presentations online, despite the fact we were recording individually under some highly unfavorable conditions. Now that we’re back face-to-face, I’m also delighted and humbled to be part of this circle and its stellar leadership.   
  10. Boston Revels. A unique half-century-old organization that blends history, folk traditions and classical music, dance, plus theatrical acting and story line, I have to admit a bias in being part of the organization though not its justly celebrated annual winter holidays extravaganza. Each year’s Christmas show ends with the entire audience joining in, in full harmony, on the Sussex Mummers’ Carol, inevitably drawing tears from me and, I suspect, most others in the packed and wildly cheering Sanders Theater at Harvard. As a charter member of its community chorus, I do confess this family custom is one thing I do miss in relocating to Way Downeast Maine. Thanks for the memories, all the same.

If you’re a self-published author, how do you stack up?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, we want folks to read our work, but we do dream of fame and riches, right?

Now, for a splash of cold reality.

  1. Even though a lot of authors are turning to self-publishing their own books, most don’t sell many copies. The typical self-published author sells about five copies, according to one report, while another has the average at 250. I’m guessing that some really hot sellers pull the average way up over the mean, kinda like winning the lottery.
  2. Another report has the average book now selling fewer than 200 copies a year and under a thousand copies over its lifetime. At the bottom, 90 percent of self-published books sell under a hundred copies. Not a lot to crow about, is it?
  3. On the other hand, self-published books account for a $1.25 billion annual market. At Amazon, that comes to $520 million in royalties. (As a self-published author, my royalties on an ebook rival what I get for a paper edition.)
  4. At Amazon, more than 1,000 self-published authors made $100,000 a year. Well, there goes a fifth of those royalties.
  5. For many authors, one secret to success is in having a lineup of titles rather than relying on just one. In that light, the average self-published author makes $1,000 a year in royalties, according to one account.
  6. But, back to the mean, a third of self-published authors make less than $500 a year and a fifth report making no income.
  7. New book sales don’t account for library patrons or the used book market. Used books? I don’t see ebooks showing up at yard sales. Consider that an advantage.
  8. The average American adult reads just 15 minutes a day, according to one survey that apparently doesn’t considering texting. On the other hand, just what are the others looking at on their phones?
  9. Still, if you’re an author, don’t quit your day job, OK?
  10. Only 1 percent of audiobooks on Audible are self-published.

Cranberries!

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Not everybody loves them, but they are a Thanksgiving tradition, jellied or stewed or otherwise.

Here’s some background.

  1. They’re one of the few fruits native to America.
  2. They don’t grow in water but the berries do float, which is how many of them are harvested, starting with a machine called an eggbeater.
  3. They also bounce.
  4. Only five percent are sold fresh. And eating one raw will be unpleasantly tart.
  5. Americans consume 400 million pounds of cranberries a year – roughly a pound and a half per person – a fifth of that during Thanksgiving week. How do you measure up?
  6. A gallon of juice requires 4,400 berries. Did we mention it’s a great antioxidant and high in Vitamin C?
  7. The “Sex in the City” TV series in the 1990s boosted the popularity of the Cosmopolitan cocktail, which features cranberry juice and vodka. Well, there’s a classic version with gin instead. Cosmos are typically served in martini glasses, after all.
  8. I’m quite fond of Craisins, the dried berry version that goes nicely in green salads and yoghurt, at the top of my list.
  9. Seven out of every ten cranberries sold in the world today come from Ocean Spray, a farmer-owned cooperative with more than 700 grower-families.
  10. Wisconsin is the leading producer in the U.S., followed by Massachusetts. A few are even grown here in Downeast Maine.

 

Just how many new books are being published, anyway?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

November is the month when a lot of amateur writers make a push to start and finish writing a novel. While I applaud the effort, I also question whether we need that many new manuscripts.

Again, definitive figures turn out to be elusive. Still, focusing on the United States, here’s what turns up:

  1. A conventional view places the output at 600,000 to 1 million new titles every year. That’s between 1,700 to 2,700 published every day – or more than 100 books an hour. Not all of it’s fiction, of course, not by a long shot. But if you’re writing, the competition is stiff.
  2. Another view puts the number at 4 million new books a year, three-quarters of them self-published. Under the radar, as it were.
  3. Hard cover and paperbacks account for just half of the books being sold in America. Ebooks get 36 percent, and audiobooks and “other” formats take up the rest. (When compared by the amount spent on each category, printed-on-paper editions skewer the picture.)
  4. A third of all ebooks are self-published.
  5. Two-thirds of the top-rated, self-published books are written by women, compared to just 39 percent of conventionally released books.
  6. The number of self-published books has increased by 264 percent in a five-year span.
  7. Of authors who released their first book in the last ten years, 1,200 traditionally published authors have earned $25,000 or more a year, compared to 1,600 self-published authors. That’s an eye-opener.
  8. The global publishing market is expected to grow at 1 percent a year, while the self-publishing market is expected to grow at 17 percent. I’m unclear if the figures are based on sales earnings or on the number of copies sold. Still, it’s a trend worth watching.
  9. Not every non-fiction book is read cover-to-cover.
  10. Fiction is for escape.

How many books do you read a year?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

These days, it seems that everyone I meet has written a book. As an author myself, I’d much rather for everyone to have read a book in the past week. Or, gee, even a newspaper.

Trying to get solid figures on how much is being published or read is trickier than you might suspect. But to get us started, let me offer some findings, albeit with a grain of salt. And, to further complicate matters, I’m not exactly sure how the researchers are defining “book.” I’m assuming textbooks, instruction manuals, catalogs, and the like are excluded. But cookbooks? They’re big in our household. That said, in the United States:

  1. Readership averages four books a year.
  2. A quarter to a half of adults admit to reading no books.
  3. A typical bookworm, on the other hand, devours 14 a year.
  4. Non-fiction dominates over fiction, three to two.
  5. History, biography, and memoir are major sellers.
  6. Two-thirds of book readers are women, but they comprise 80 percent of the fiction audience. Some surveys suggest that women age 18-24 are the most frequent fiction readers.
  7. On the other hand, half of American book readers are over age 55.
  8. Romance is the best-selling fiction genre, accounting for a third of the books sold. Mystery, fantasy, and sci fi are also boffo.
  9. Fiction titles still dominate bestseller lists.
  10. Books aren’t just for readers. They’re also for collectors. And gift giving.