Yeah, I know. It’s been a while. And it seems like all of my missives start that way. If I’m going to stay in touch with the people on my ‘Dunbar List‘ (aka ‘in lieu of...
… but this seems to be my destiny in this life. (what follows is the reading I did at Richard Hull’s High Energy Amateur Science (HEAS) gathering in Richmond, VA on October 7, 2023. If...
Hi kids! How’s your summer going? Have you jumped on the BarbieHeimer cultural zeitgeist yet? I’ve jumped on half of it. I went to see Oppenheimer last week, and have already written a...
I did another podcast interview that was released this week. A lot of this will be familiar to you if you tuned into the first one. But this time the Greg Carlwood went a little deeper into...
The initial impulse was innocent enough. After Apple canned me in January ’22 and I had nothing but time on my hands, I started to wonder two things: 1) what to do with the time and 2)...
I contacted the host/producers of Mysterious Universe, and we spent more than two hours talking about the Townsend Brown biography and my earlier (recently re-released) bio of Philo T. Farnsworth, The Boy Who Invented Television. This was really the first opportunity I’ve had to talk about how the two stories dovetail to suggest a single story of forbidden science (fusion and gravity control) and the veil of mysteries surrounding both men.
Here are links if you listen via Apple Podcasts:
Paul Schatzkin joins us in this episode to explore his remarkable research on the obscure historical figures of Philo T. Farnsworth and Thomas Townsend Brown. We delve deeply into the narratives of these men, who pioneered technologies that revolutionized the world, while also contemplating some of the unrevealed technological advancements. Did Farnsworth unlock the enigma of fusion energy? Was Brown connected to a clandestine, highly advanced group?
..or here if you listen to podcasts on Spotify:
I am rather surprised and delighted that both books are starting to sell. It’s not huge numbers by any stretch, but I’ve been learning how to run ads on Amazon and get them to show up when users are searching related titles. I’m also working on tying my books into the release of the expected-to-be-a-blockbuster feature Oppenheimer when it comes out this summer:
*
I have been thinking a lot about what ties all these stories together: that all the science involved begins with Einstein in 1905.
Townsend Brown was born in 1905, Philo Farnsworth in 1906. So both men were “relativity natives.” Like kids today who grew up with computers and smartphones and are considered ‘digital natives’ – these men who were born in the first decade of the 20th century never knew a world where relativity and its related discoveries didn’t exist.
At the very least, the breakthrough theories that led to the atomic bomb also led to electronic video – yes, the the screen you’re looking at now. Even though video is by far the more common and useful technology (lemme check… nope, no a-bomb in my pocket), that connection is largely lost to history. That is mostly because corporate greed and public relations swept Philo Farnsworth under the rug of history after the 1940s.
And Townsend Brown? Who the hell knows what happened there. I’ve been on that story for twenty years now and still have more questions than answers.
You can get a better idea what I’m driving at here:
*And in case you don’t recognize the song, Hey Mister, That’s Me Up On The Jukebox, listen to James Taylor from the album Mud Slide Slim (from 1971 –back when he, like me, still had hair:
I’m not exactly sure how this came to pass, but I learned this week that The Man Who Mastered Gravity has been discussed at considerable length on the Mysterious Universe podcast.
Discussion of the Townsend Brown story begins about 38:20 in – after some discussion of something called “The Ghost Moose.’ I guess that’s one thing I can cross off the bucket list: playing second-fiddle to a ‘ghost moose.’
Mysterious Universe is a very popular and long-standing podcast, ranking #5 in Apple’s listings of social science podcasts. From the listing:
Always interesting and often hilarious, join hosts Aaron Wright and Benjamin Grundy as they investigate the latest in futurology, weird science, consciousness research, alternative history, cryptozoology, UFOs, and new-age absurdity.
Just a quick scroll through the Mysterious Universehome page displays the depth and breadth of this podcast and its affiliated enterprises. These guys cover a lot of territory, some of it within the wheelhouse of my work (i.e. ‘lost science’ outside the realm of orthodoxy) and some of it, let’s be charitable and just say, ummm…. not so much.
Most of the discussion that is freely available is a recap of the early chapters of the book. There is a further discussion that gets into The Caroline Group and the rest of the story, but that’s behind a prescription paywall.
Gratitude
I have reached out to the producers of Mysterious Universe to see if I can get access to the subscriber-only edition. And (perish the thought!) offering myself up for an interview.
As I said, I don’t know how this came about, or how the book fell into their hands. I’m just glad that it did.
Yesterday, I listened to the episode in my – and had something of a moment. I listen to dozens of podcasts. I rarely listen to radio any more, just podcasts. And too often I’m listening with a twinge of envy, like “hey, I’ve written books… I’m interesting… why doesn’t anybody want to talk to me?”
So yesterday… finally! Hearing my own name and work mentioned in a credible manner was the most ‘external validation’ I’ve had for about twenty years. I know, we’re not supposed to rely on ‘external validation,’ we’re always just supposed to believe in our own work and purpose and just forge on in obscurity.
Well, fuck that. It’s nice to know that somebody else finds merit in the work.
I used to think Kara Swisher is a bit of a blowhard. I’d listen to some of her interview/podcasts and think “shut up, Kara, and let your guest talk.” It seemed she always had more to say than whoever she was interviewing.
That is still often the case, but I’ve warmed up to her, particularly since I started listening to the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway. I listen to Pivot mostly to hear from Galloway. Don’t anybody tell him, but he’s a Staunch McLuhanist, too.
(This is a cross-post of an item posted to ttbrown.com on March 18, 2023)
“Writing a book is adventure to begin with. It’s a toy and amusement; then it becomes a mistress and then it becomes a master and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
That’s hardcover ($29.99), softcover ($19.99) and Kindle edition ($9.99).
What can I say other than, “I hope y’all will run right out (well, actually, sit right down) and buy a copy – and leave a glowing review on Amazon!”
Please note, the hardcover and softcover editions are print on demand (PoD), so delivery times are a tad longer than typical Amazon titles that are pre-printed and sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
I guess this is what the self-publishing gurus call a ‘soft launch.’ I don’t think of it so much as a ‘launch’ as just, well… like Churchill said, flinging it out to the public.
I am reasonably certain this edition is 98% perfect in terms of proofreading. I just haven’t found the other 2% yet. I was still finding typos etc. right up until I uploaded the files, so I am sure there are still some waiting to be detected. If readers will point them out to me, I’ll round ’em up and fix as many as I can all once.
The title has also been established with IngramSpark, which will distribute the print editions to bookstores if there is any demand.
This long-ago-abandoned project resurfaced in the months after I got fired from Apple. I suddenly found myself with all of my time on my hands. I dunno, maybe that’s a dangerous thing – quite arguable in this case, since the project continues to be a bottomless rabbit hole in which there is quite possibly no rabbit. Or maybe the rabbit is a squirrel. Still beats the fuck out of me.
Even though I set it aside – quite abruptly – back in 2009, this story always lurked in the back of my mind. When I ‘published’ the first draft of the manuscript that I’d written between 2005 and 2008 (Q: What’s that book about? A: About 500 pages…) I did it under the masthead of ‘Embassy Books and Laundry.’ That was a callback to a front-business that Townsend Brown and his wife operated in the 1950s when he said he was ‘done with science.’ I wasn’t done with the book, either, but I didn’t think it would be thirteen years before I returned to it.
I worked on the manuscript all summer and into the fall. I whittled 200,000 words down to about 100,000. I don’t know if what’s left tells the story, but it tells a story.
In December I sent it to a volunteer from my fusion website for proofreading. I got the file back from him at the end of January, and then had to spend a couple of weeks sorting through the fixes, prepping the illustrations and fixing the endnotes.
Last Saturday (February 11 – Thomas Edison’s birthday), I sent the file to a layout/designer in Pakistan. That was a bit of a monumental moment, representing nearly twenty years of thought and effort since I first went down the rabbit hole in 2003. (Incidentally, I found the layout/designer in Pakistan, and the woman who created the cover from Bangladesh, on Fiverr.com).
I just know I have to be careful, because I still don’t believe a lot of the things I think.
BTW, if anybody wants a copy when it’s finally ready, I’ll send you one if you’ll write a review on Amazon. I’m imagining an April 1 publication date. April Fools Day.
*
People sometimes ask me if I cook for myself, and my usual weisenheimer answer is ‘well, I prepare meals, I don’t know if I’d call it ‘cooking’ exactly…
But last week I made chicken tikka masala from scratch and it turned out pretty well. I have a mason jar of sauce in the fridge so it’ll last me awhile. I don’t generally do photos of my food, but this is what the cooktop looked like before I started the cleanup:
I can make a mess with the best of ’em
*
It’s either been a mild winter – or a late one.
Storms that have devastated other parts of the region just left a nice sheen in my neighborhood:
I dunno if I mentioned but I started reading Shakespeare last year. First Saturday of each month I meet up with the good folks from the Nashville Shakespeare Festival to read one the plays. Last month was “Much Ado About Nothing.” This month is “As You Like It.” Some evenings I sit in the treehouse while the sun sets and read a scene or two:
These winter sunsets from the treehouse are pretty colorful.
In the meantime, life goes on out here in West Bumfuque.
And, yes, I leave the ‘Winter Lights’ up until Daylight Savings starts again.
*
Oh, and, one other thing. That pop-popping sound you hear? Pickleball. I’ve been playing a couple of hours nearly every day since last summer. I am powerless over pickleball and my life has become unmanageable, but I impress myself with my septuagenarian ability to nimbly chase after the balls I just missed.
I think a lot about what a weird destiny this has turned out to be, a life preoccupied with these two obscure, esoteric subjects. I need to write more about that, and what ties these two stories together – if I can ever figure out what it is exactly I’m thinking. Or, more precisely, find the nerve to actually say it.
PS: I watched Maron’s HBO special ‘From Bleak to Dark‘ last night. A lotta laugh-out-louds. I’ve always respected Marc Maron from a distance, never really dove into him, but after seeing this special I’m more of a fan. He scores a lot of subtle points without the usual yelling that too many comics rely on. He might be this generation’s George Carlin
I got a text message from my sister a couple of days ago, informing me that Kenny Shane – a classmate fromthe Columbia High School class of 1969 – has died.I looked for an obituary online but haven’t found one yet.
I remember Ken Shane because we shared a few interests in junior high. First it was slot cars and, later, music (which is a euphemism for ‘girls’).I recall Ken as a drummer, though I don’t remember what bands he might have played with.Max Weinberg was the drummer in our class.He went on to play with some other guy from New Jersey, Bruce somebody.
I encountered Ken on Facebook some years ago. We traded the occasional Like or comment.By then he was a regular contributor to an online music publication called Popdose, and a singer/songwriter.He sent me a CD he made (Spotify link).I listened to it. Once.
We chatted a little at our last class reunion in the fall of 2019… the 50 year reunion.Fortunately he didn’t ask me about that CD.
Ken Shane’s last Facebook post was October 10 – a birthday salute to John Lennon (also dead). There is nothing on his Facebook about an illness.
It’s funny, the yardsticks by which we measure good fortune.
I spoke with a dear friend a couple of days ago.I hadn’t spoken to her in several months, and actually only made contact when I sent a text message to somebody else and iMessage accidentally added her name to the ‘to’ line.She replied with the news that she’d been in a horrendous auto accident three months ago, had been in the hospital for 3-1/2 weeks, and was still in physical therapy and recovery.
First of all: I. Had. No. Idea. (That none of our mutual supposed friends thought to say a word to me about this is its own source disturbed curiosity – but that’s a subject for another time/post – which means I’ll probably never mention it again.)
When we finally spoke a couple of days later I learned that her femur had been broken, along with several other bones and an accompanying raft of bruises and lacerations.She sent me a photo of the car. It’s a wonder anybody survived. Her husband was driving but the worst impact was to the passenger side.Airbags may have caused some of the minor injuries, but they also saved both of their lives.
The good news is that after several months of arduous rehab, she is presently walking with cane and expects a full recovery.
As we were talking, I went through a mental inventory. I could not find anything similar in my own experience.
I haven’t been in a serious wreck since I was in high school: a rear-ender that was absorbed by the trunk of my mother’s Buick Skylark. I was involved in a couple of pretty bad wrecks when I was younger, but, again, no serious injuries (and that was before seatbelts).That’s one reason why I am a pretty careful driver – and why I am a terrible passenger when anybody else is driving (just ask my ex-wife).
What do I have to compare to such grievous injuries?
I pulled a muscle in my left calf last week and can’t play pickleball for a few weeks.
Yes, I have been caught up in the pickleball craze.As most people I mention it to are aware, pickleball is America’s fastest growing sport – and the fastest growing source of sports-related injuries.I suffered one myself last week, pulling up lame as I rushed the net after a serve.An orthopaedist fondled my calf and advised me to just stay off it for a while.I hobbled about the house for a couple of days but I’m about 95% normal now, save a bit of residual tenderness.I’ll wait another couple of weeks before I venture out on the court again.
That’s it.
I’m 72 years old. And some of my friends are dead already.
But the closest I’ve come to anything that could even be remotely considered a health scare was when I had a skin cancer surgically removed six years ago.That might not even have qualified as a ‘scare’ were it not for the fact that my father, my mother and my brother all died of various kinds of cancer.
And since I dropped 30+ pounds during the pandemic (and hanging in pretty consistently at 5’8″ and ~155lbs),my ‘numbers’ have been the best they’ve been in a decade: blood pressure, cholesterol, A-1C – all more or less normal.
Some people get a ticket for their last bus ride.Some people get hit by the bus.Barring the latter, I should still be around long enough for my next colonoscopy.
*
So what am I doing with this gift of time?
Hah. Please don’t hold me accountable.
I am working on several projects, all writing-and-publishing oriented.
Remember that book project I was working on in the ‘aughts?“The biography of a man whose story cannot be told”?A few weeks after Apple canned me I found myself drawn back to that material, and over the summer I finished the second draft that eluded me for more than a decade.Funny how things work out, huh? I am planning to publish in January (I could use a proof-reader, anybody wanna volunteer?).
I also spent a fair amount of the late summer editing a friend’s memoir.He handed me a 100,000 manuscript and six weeks later I handed him back a 60,000 word manuscript.I really enjoyed that work. And he paid me for it – the most I’ve ever earned from word-smithing!
I’ve been maintaining this personal blog/site for more than a decade, with little regard to how much traffic it generates. Even though I’ve been on the Internet since before most people ever heard of the Internet, I have a lot to learn about the Dark Arts of Keywords, Indexing, Search Engine Optimization and Analytics. Right now I am a digital carpenter gazing into an unfamiliar box of virtual tools, picking each one up and wondering “what does this one do?”
When I’m baffled by all these moving parts, I wonder if that’s how I should be spending my time – staring at screens, tapping at at keyboards, scratching my chin. But for the remainder of the fall and coming winter, this will suffice. And I always have a guitar within reach, and I expect pickleball to resume at the end of the month.
What else am I supposed to do, play golf?
I’m also thinking about another pilgrimage to the U.K. in the summer of ’23:Summer Solstice at Stonehenge in June, the British Grand Prix in July (I’ve started following Formula 1 racing, a rekindled interest from adolescence).Time will tell if I can line that up.
*
And of course, there is Buster, my constant companion.
The point is: Most of the time, I consider myself unimaginably fortunate.
I’ve got a couple hands-full of close friends, and a larger personal ‘social network‘ that I stay in regular contact with this way.
I have a paid-for house (thank you, Gaylord), a cord of firewood for the winter, a few shekels in the bank and no debt to speak of, a bit of Social Security and Medicare, food in the fridge, a small collection of fabulous guitars, and a convertible that I can drive dangerously fast when the mood strikes me – and I am still agile enough to manage a stick shift (if I ever need a car with an automatic transmission, please, just put me in the ground with it).
And I never invested a dime in crypto.
Also: 35 years without a sip, a sniff or a puff. My last drink was Thanksgiving day 1987. When people ask “how’d you do it?” I tell ’em “I’m on the 2-step program: 1. Don’t drink. 2. Don’t die.
I spend a ridiculous amount of time alone, but I can’t say as I feel entirely lonely.Compared to a lot of people I know, I’m my own best company. I mean, sure, I’d like to have snuggle-buddy, but it’s hard to meet somebody a) when you don’t leave the house much and b) so many people my age are dead.
Will there be cake? Oh yeah, who wants a slice? Have cake, will travel (within reason).
Tonight I’m going to dinner with some friends and I am going to eat many things that some people will say are ‘bad’ for me (including an incredibly indulgent chocolate cake).
But I’ve been eating those things for 70+ years now and they haven’t killed me yet. Why mess with success?
So, yeah. 72 years old, unimaginably fortunate – and not dead.
I just want anybody taking the time to read this to know that I am grateful for your continued goodwill and friendship, however it is manifest (but, please, if you’re in a life-threatening car wreck, maybe let me know and I’ll bring chicken soup).
A few thoughts on the end of the 2022 Major League Baseball season, starting with some of the truest words ever written on the subject:
Baseball is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.
…and I’ll add a few thoughts now that the 2022 season is over, and since baseball played such a big part in my summer…
One of the many summer nights I spent at the ballpark.
I watched a lot of the World Series, but it was really kinda boring. Thankfully I had lots of other things to multitask with – photo editing for the book – because the games themselves were mostly… well, long periods of strike outs punctuated by occasional home runs. I got a lot of work done.
But jeezus the games still go on forever and I must have lobotomized the part of my brain that saw the same commercials two (or was it three… or five…) hundred times. Mercifully, I don’t remember any of them.
I don’t care much for the new playoff format. I’ve never been a fan of the whole ‘wild card’ business that lets a team that hasn’t ‘won’ anything a chance to appear in ‘The Fall Classic.’ This year, the format allowed a team that had finished the regular season in third place in their division to reach what Bob Costas has more correctly labeled “the MLB finals.”
Fortunately, a team that won their division prevailed in the ‘finals.’ Unfortunately, that team was the Houston Astros. But I’m happy for Dusty Baker, he finally won a World Series as a manager (only the second Black manager to do so). I remember Dusty Baker playing for the Dodgers when I lived in Los Angeles – and that was a millennium ago.
Smiling because only winners get to the World Series, and when this was taken it as usually the Yankees.
When the first rounds of major league expansion in the 1960s dictated a playoff for the pennant, you still had meaningful divisions – east and west – and the winners played five (later seven) games before the Series and it was all still over by the middle of October.
As Keith Olbermann has opined a few times on his podcast, if a third place team can make it to the World Series, then what is the ‘regular season’ even for??
In the good old days, your team either won the pennant and went on to the World Series – which was played on sunny warm days in early October – or went home for the winter. Now it’s frozen night games (or, worse – indoors!?!?) in November.
November? You do. not. play. baseball. in. November. That’s football season.
George Carlin put it best:
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.
George Carlin, “Football -v- Baseball”
*.
I’ve written elsewhere about my 4th-grade fascination with Roy Campanella. When I was poking around to find an image to illustrate ‘It Breaks Your Heart’ I found this photo of Roy:
I always liked the morning after Halloween when I was a kid, because that meant it was November– the month of my birthday. Maybe I’ll say more about that when the time comes (Nov 15).
In the meantime, it has been a surprisingly colorful autumn here in Middle Tennessee. I say surprising because it has also been very dry, and that usually means that the foliage turns brown before it has a chance to show the full range of color that comes with some seasons. This hear has been pretty spectacular, actually (Photoshop helps, but ya gotta have something to start with) and I’ve been taking pictures during my daily jaunts around the neighborhood here in Sunny West Bumfuque.
That's my neighbor Sam walking his dog
Home again... that's my house, nestled under the trees. My sanctuary. I really need to get out more often but... why bother?
Most years, I go on some kind of ‘Fall Tour’ to some colorful place. Like last year I drove all the way to Quebec City – the most European city you can drive to from Tennessee (and with the top down most of the way). That was during the first few months of my self-imposed exile from ‘the socials’, and I never did post any of those photos, like, anywhere. I’ve started doing that now.
It’s all mostly gone now. My yard is covered with dead leaves, and Winter is Coming.
Here’s some instrumental music to listen to while you’re sitting by the fire:
