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Sep. 13th, 2019 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Long slow work week. Came home. Did grocery shopping. And stopped to chat with one of my neighbors. The family that I told you about -- with the two Siberian Huskies, two bikes, kid and mother-in-law had moved from second floor to fifth floor, three bedroom apartment. Space had become a requirement. Anyhow, neighbor was sitting outside in a beach chair with a bottle of whine, a glass, and chatting with folks. He looked very comfortable. He invited me to sit with him for a bit and I did. He's from Lima, Peru and moved to San Fransisco, California where he met his wife -- and they moved to NYC about seven years ago. Nice guy. Big bright smile.
Also spoke to my Dad for a bit tonight, not long, just a bit. My mother switched me to him by surprise.
Mother: I'm reading a new romance about an archaeologist and a Duke (hmmm, so am I), and in this one the young woman was raped by her boarding school headminister, but as he's doing it, she grabs a knife and slits his throat. Her two friends help her bury the body. What are you doing?
Voice muffled in background.
Mother: 60 minutes isn't on until Sunday.
Me: It's Friday.
Mother: It's Friday -- Shelbs and Brooks is over. Oh you are watching a baseball game.
ME: Mother what's the name of the book at least?
Mother: Want to talk to your daughter?
ME: Uh.
Father: How you doing? What are you doing?
Me: Well, up until now...learning about a book my mother's reading. How are you?
Father: Oh, I'm just great. Completely fine and dandy. Couldn't be better.
Me: Yes, we can cut the sarcasm with a knife.
Father: You healthy?
ME: About the same -- same ailments that I've had for the last five years, nothing's changed.
We shoot the breeze like that for a bit, before my mother reclaims the phone and proceeds to finish telling me the plot of her latest romance novel. See? Between my mother and smart bitches -- this is how I end up with an ungodly number of romance novels in my Kindle.
It was a pretty day -- in the low 70s, upper 60s, with blue skies and clouds. Back's been bothering me all week though along with digestive issues -- I'm thinking it's either that time of month or the weather shifts.
2. Someone on Instagram keeps asking what color was the sky on 9/11 -- it was blue, clear robin's egg blue, no clouds, brisk, low 70s, the perfect day. I've restrained from posting this all week long.
3. Felicity Huffman sentenced to 14 days in prison and $30,000 fine with 250 days community service -- I vote for picking up litter in NYC's parks.
4. The Woman Who Smashed Codes -- the Untold Story of Elizabeth Friedman -- I vaguely remember reading about this elsewhere.
5. An Artists Journey Into the Science of Sweat
In the human body, bacterial cells far outnumber human cells. They fill our guts, enable digestion, affect immune reactions and influence appetites and emotional states.
Specific bacteria metabolize sweat to produce an aroma or scent that results from warm temperatures, stress or physical effort. Sweat is a smell that can signal work, such as toiling in a “sweatshop,” or hard manual labor made even harder by poor working conditions. Idioms like “by the sweat of one’s brow” or “sweat equity” are some of the ways we define work, even as work can define us and provide a sense of self-worth.
During the Industrial Revolution, machines began to replace human workers in factories. More recently, microbes have begun to replace and augment these machines. Today, microbes are used to produce a wide range of products including enzymes, foods, beverages, feedstocks, fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Three genus of bacteria are key in producing human scent – Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium. These bacteria metabolize sweat, a human byproduct, to produce a waste product, which has a distinct odor. Two types of glands – eccrine and apocrine – produce sweat. Eccrine glands excrete a fluid, mainly water and salt, that helps to regulate body temperature. Apocrine glands excrete a denser, milky fluid often resulting from emotional stress. It is the bacterial breakdown of apocrine sweat that produces the most pungent body odors.
Staphylococcus transforms amino acids in sweat into various acids, a smell I describe as “high-pitched,” or the dirty sock smell of a locker room.
Corynebacteria alters scentless human steroids and other molecules in sweat to produce smelly steroids and sulfur compounds. I affectionately named these odors “white-collar labor.” Likewise, Propionibacterium metabolize amino acids to produce an acrid odor, funky and vinegary.
The art and science of smell
My research began by defining human skin bacteria associated with odors and learning how to grow them. The scientific literature is sparse, as much of this research is carried out by deodorant and antiperspirant industries, which often don’t publish their results.
Next, I isolated my sweat by capturing bacteria from my armpits in sterile gauze, filtering it and incubating it in dozens of heat and atmospheric conditions. Then I designed a bioreactor, similar to fermenters that brew beer, except they are built to enable more varied types of biochemical reactions with microbes. Finally, I experimented with liquid cultures that encouraged bacteria to thrive and produce fragrant waste products.
The concept of my artwork “Labor” is that microorganisms create the “vulgar odors” of sweat, a byproduct of production and labor reminiscent of “sweatshops” and factories of the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibit contains several large glass bioreactors, each populated with one of three strains of bacteria. The soup in each container produced the smell of sweat, odors that collected in a central glass enclosure where a white T-shirt hung. From there, the smell drifted into the room.
6. My Brother's Passing, God and The Origins of Life --by Charles Mudedbe -- a strangely moving and philosophical essay about how the writer handles his brother's sudden diagnosis of terminal cancer and his eventual passing.
"How much time does he have?" I asked, as my brother fell back into a weeping, bawling, wailing, totally devastated heap.
The doctor, who appeared shaken by my brother's unrestrained discharge of terror/confusion/anguish, looked up at me and said: "If it is pancreatic cancer, at the most 12 months. If it is stomach, 16 months." My brother, upon hearing this, wailed louder again and again. I'm having a hard time describing his cries because they were indescribable. Why was he forsaken? He just could not believe it. It was impossible. He was only 37.
"The reason we did not catch it earlier is precisely because he is so young. These cancers usually occur in old people," said the doctor.
Thirty minutes later, I was alone with my brother and my son, who had brought two bottles of wine to the hospital. My brother was in a state of shock. What could he/I/we say now? We had never prepared for this moment. We had never talked about death, or the meaning of life. In our entire time together (in Zimbabwe, where he was born; in Seattle, where he moved in 1998), I cannot recall one conversation with Kudzai about God.
On August 4, a University of Washington theoretical physicist, Ann Nelson, slipped on a hiking path in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness (a glacier-carved terrain with more than 700 lakes) and fell, headfirst, to her death. Her husband and two of her friends watched how the 61 years she spent on earth came to an end in a gully. Her body was recovered on August 5.
Nelson, considered to be one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of our time, specialized in something called CP violation, which is a violation of CP symmetry (or charge conjugation parity symmetry).
To put it simply: There should be no stuff in our universe. I should not be here, nor my cats, nor the pear tree in my garden, nor the clouds in the sky, nor the moon, the stars, the clouds of gas and dust. The universe should be as it was in the beginning: a smooth radiation of light. Why? Because in the normal run of things, matter is annihilated by antimatter.
In the normal universe, "to be" is annihilated by "not to be." But for reasons that are still a mystery to even the deepest math of physics, a bit of matter in a billion or so is not obliterated, it has no antimatter partner. It becomes a drop of experience. But why is the universe not symmetrical, not a perfectly smooth spread of photons, the particles of light? What's behind this break in symmetry? Why do some quarks (the stuff of particles in the nucleus of an atom) escape what's called the "primordial annihilation"? This question was on Nelson's mind for much of her life.
As for me? The mystery of cosmic asymmetry will always be the point at which an imaginary conversation with my brother about God would begin. We are on one of those docks on Lake Washington. The stars are in the sky. Bellevue shimmers in the distance and is reflected by the water. I turn to my brother and say: "I have never, ever said this to you before, but I will tonight. If there is a God, Kudzai, He can only be a break in symmetry. Not creation, but violation."
7. Fandom meme
Quickly...top fives.
* Cyclops
* Jean Grey
* Magneto
* Storm
* Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat
(yes, it's not lost on me that a decent movie has yet to be made with any of them, with the possible exception of Magneto).
Top five movie/television superhero characters...
* Batman
* Iron Man
* Black Widow
* Wonder Woman
* Nick Fury
Top Five Whedon Characters...
* Spike
* Willow
* Zoe
* Giles
* Buffy
Top Five Science Fiction Series Characters
* Leia
* Aeryn Sun
* River Song
* Starbuck
* Picard
Also spoke to my Dad for a bit tonight, not long, just a bit. My mother switched me to him by surprise.
Mother: I'm reading a new romance about an archaeologist and a Duke (hmmm, so am I), and in this one the young woman was raped by her boarding school headminister, but as he's doing it, she grabs a knife and slits his throat. Her two friends help her bury the body. What are you doing?
Voice muffled in background.
Mother: 60 minutes isn't on until Sunday.
Me: It's Friday.
Mother: It's Friday -- Shelbs and Brooks is over. Oh you are watching a baseball game.
ME: Mother what's the name of the book at least?
Mother: Want to talk to your daughter?
ME: Uh.
Father: How you doing? What are you doing?
Me: Well, up until now...learning about a book my mother's reading. How are you?
Father: Oh, I'm just great. Completely fine and dandy. Couldn't be better.
Me: Yes, we can cut the sarcasm with a knife.
Father: You healthy?
ME: About the same -- same ailments that I've had for the last five years, nothing's changed.
We shoot the breeze like that for a bit, before my mother reclaims the phone and proceeds to finish telling me the plot of her latest romance novel. See? Between my mother and smart bitches -- this is how I end up with an ungodly number of romance novels in my Kindle.
It was a pretty day -- in the low 70s, upper 60s, with blue skies and clouds. Back's been bothering me all week though along with digestive issues -- I'm thinking it's either that time of month or the weather shifts.
2. Someone on Instagram keeps asking what color was the sky on 9/11 -- it was blue, clear robin's egg blue, no clouds, brisk, low 70s, the perfect day. I've restrained from posting this all week long.
3. Felicity Huffman sentenced to 14 days in prison and $30,000 fine with 250 days community service -- I vote for picking up litter in NYC's parks.
4. The Woman Who Smashed Codes -- the Untold Story of Elizabeth Friedman -- I vaguely remember reading about this elsewhere.
5. An Artists Journey Into the Science of Sweat
In the human body, bacterial cells far outnumber human cells. They fill our guts, enable digestion, affect immune reactions and influence appetites and emotional states.
Specific bacteria metabolize sweat to produce an aroma or scent that results from warm temperatures, stress or physical effort. Sweat is a smell that can signal work, such as toiling in a “sweatshop,” or hard manual labor made even harder by poor working conditions. Idioms like “by the sweat of one’s brow” or “sweat equity” are some of the ways we define work, even as work can define us and provide a sense of self-worth.
During the Industrial Revolution, machines began to replace human workers in factories. More recently, microbes have begun to replace and augment these machines. Today, microbes are used to produce a wide range of products including enzymes, foods, beverages, feedstocks, fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Three genus of bacteria are key in producing human scent – Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium. These bacteria metabolize sweat, a human byproduct, to produce a waste product, which has a distinct odor. Two types of glands – eccrine and apocrine – produce sweat. Eccrine glands excrete a fluid, mainly water and salt, that helps to regulate body temperature. Apocrine glands excrete a denser, milky fluid often resulting from emotional stress. It is the bacterial breakdown of apocrine sweat that produces the most pungent body odors.
Staphylococcus transforms amino acids in sweat into various acids, a smell I describe as “high-pitched,” or the dirty sock smell of a locker room.
Corynebacteria alters scentless human steroids and other molecules in sweat to produce smelly steroids and sulfur compounds. I affectionately named these odors “white-collar labor.” Likewise, Propionibacterium metabolize amino acids to produce an acrid odor, funky and vinegary.
The art and science of smell
My research began by defining human skin bacteria associated with odors and learning how to grow them. The scientific literature is sparse, as much of this research is carried out by deodorant and antiperspirant industries, which often don’t publish their results.
Next, I isolated my sweat by capturing bacteria from my armpits in sterile gauze, filtering it and incubating it in dozens of heat and atmospheric conditions. Then I designed a bioreactor, similar to fermenters that brew beer, except they are built to enable more varied types of biochemical reactions with microbes. Finally, I experimented with liquid cultures that encouraged bacteria to thrive and produce fragrant waste products.
The concept of my artwork “Labor” is that microorganisms create the “vulgar odors” of sweat, a byproduct of production and labor reminiscent of “sweatshops” and factories of the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibit contains several large glass bioreactors, each populated with one of three strains of bacteria. The soup in each container produced the smell of sweat, odors that collected in a central glass enclosure where a white T-shirt hung. From there, the smell drifted into the room.
6. My Brother's Passing, God and The Origins of Life --by Charles Mudedbe -- a strangely moving and philosophical essay about how the writer handles his brother's sudden diagnosis of terminal cancer and his eventual passing.
"How much time does he have?" I asked, as my brother fell back into a weeping, bawling, wailing, totally devastated heap.
The doctor, who appeared shaken by my brother's unrestrained discharge of terror/confusion/anguish, looked up at me and said: "If it is pancreatic cancer, at the most 12 months. If it is stomach, 16 months." My brother, upon hearing this, wailed louder again and again. I'm having a hard time describing his cries because they were indescribable. Why was he forsaken? He just could not believe it. It was impossible. He was only 37.
"The reason we did not catch it earlier is precisely because he is so young. These cancers usually occur in old people," said the doctor.
Thirty minutes later, I was alone with my brother and my son, who had brought two bottles of wine to the hospital. My brother was in a state of shock. What could he/I/we say now? We had never prepared for this moment. We had never talked about death, or the meaning of life. In our entire time together (in Zimbabwe, where he was born; in Seattle, where he moved in 1998), I cannot recall one conversation with Kudzai about God.
On August 4, a University of Washington theoretical physicist, Ann Nelson, slipped on a hiking path in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness (a glacier-carved terrain with more than 700 lakes) and fell, headfirst, to her death. Her husband and two of her friends watched how the 61 years she spent on earth came to an end in a gully. Her body was recovered on August 5.
Nelson, considered to be one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of our time, specialized in something called CP violation, which is a violation of CP symmetry (or charge conjugation parity symmetry).
To put it simply: There should be no stuff in our universe. I should not be here, nor my cats, nor the pear tree in my garden, nor the clouds in the sky, nor the moon, the stars, the clouds of gas and dust. The universe should be as it was in the beginning: a smooth radiation of light. Why? Because in the normal run of things, matter is annihilated by antimatter.
In the normal universe, "to be" is annihilated by "not to be." But for reasons that are still a mystery to even the deepest math of physics, a bit of matter in a billion or so is not obliterated, it has no antimatter partner. It becomes a drop of experience. But why is the universe not symmetrical, not a perfectly smooth spread of photons, the particles of light? What's behind this break in symmetry? Why do some quarks (the stuff of particles in the nucleus of an atom) escape what's called the "primordial annihilation"? This question was on Nelson's mind for much of her life.
As for me? The mystery of cosmic asymmetry will always be the point at which an imaginary conversation with my brother about God would begin. We are on one of those docks on Lake Washington. The stars are in the sky. Bellevue shimmers in the distance and is reflected by the water. I turn to my brother and say: "I have never, ever said this to you before, but I will tonight. If there is a God, Kudzai, He can only be a break in symmetry. Not creation, but violation."
7. Fandom meme
Quickly...top fives.
* Cyclops
* Jean Grey
* Magneto
* Storm
* Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat
(yes, it's not lost on me that a decent movie has yet to be made with any of them, with the possible exception of Magneto).
Top five movie/television superhero characters...
* Batman
* Iron Man
* Black Widow
* Wonder Woman
* Nick Fury
Top Five Whedon Characters...
* Spike
* Willow
* Zoe
* Giles
* Buffy
Top Five Science Fiction Series Characters
* Leia
* Aeryn Sun
* River Song
* Starbuck
* Picard