The placebo and the engineer

An engineer, updating one of his machines, replaced the old analog controls with a plc. In his haste to deliver the machine to the customer, he specified the old control panel faceplate. Rather than leave an unsightly hole where a knob had been, the shop foreman installed the old knob and potentiometer. Neatly taping the unattached wires, he pointed out his service, and told the engineer where the freshest doughnuts could be purchased.

Having delivered and tuned the machine, a technician locked all the settings, inviting the customer, if unsatisfied with the machine’s performance, to call for service. Weeks later the customer’s old, experienced operator told the technician the machine worked well, except the operator needed to adjust the knob once or twice during the shift. Wisely holding his tongue, the technician nodded and made a note. The manufacturing company’s old experienced engineer told the younger engineer to be content, and leave the switch on all models, as a placebo. And so that’s what they did, illustrating the difference between engineers, and smart engineers.

Maps

“Most great stories of adventure, from The Hobbit to Seven Pillars of Wisdom, come furnished with a map. That’s because every story of adventure is in part the story of a landscape, of the interrelationship between human beings (or Hobbits, as the case may be) and topography. Every adventure story is conceivable only with reference to the particular set of geographical features that in each case sets the course, literally, of the tale. But I think there is another, deeper reason for the reliable presence of maps in the pages, or on the endpapers, of an adventure story, whether that story is imaginatively or factually true. … People read stories of adventure – and write them – because they have themselves been adventurers. Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity.” — Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood, by Michael Chabon

The heron, the goldfish, and the gardner

Thirty-some expensive goldfish disappeared from a pond. The police stopped investigating when they realized a heron ate them. It’s like the goose that laid the golden egg, but backwards; or maybe sideways; and with a heron and fish instead of a goose and eggs:

A gardener, finding thirty large and valuable fish missing from his koi pond, reported their theft to the police. They, questioning the neighbors, learned the expensive fish had been eaten by a heron. Told of this, the gardener resolved to avenge his loss. He stalked and surprised the heron who, too full to fly, was unable to defend herself and so died. The gardener cut open the heron, only to find a bunch of dead fish. The police took the gardener before the magistrate, who rebuked him, assessed a large monetary penalty, and ordered a psychiatric evaluation. As the gardener paid the fine he observed,

There’s no sense killing the heron that ate the golden fish.

The fable is inspired by actual events – a heron really ate someone’s goldfish. The rest is totally made up.

Submissions open

Donald is accepting submissions for Storyblogging Carnival XCV

Books and stories

• “A new breed of loneliness researchers [argues] that urban alienation is largely a myth.” Well, yeah. They might have argued that the conventional wisdom was right all along, but who’d pay attention to that? — Alone Together
• “Another bookshop owner of my acquaintance so hated his customers that he would sometimes play Schoenberg very loudly to clear the shop of them.” — Of Bibliophilia and Biblioclasm
• Bernard: [to customer] “Get out!” — Black Books
• Submissions are open for Storyblogging Carnival XCIV

Accepting submissions

Storyblogging carnival XCIII is accepting submissions.

Stories

“In out modern culture, we sometimes imagine that stories are kid’s stuff: little illustrations, while abstract ideas are the real thing. So Jesus’ stories, people say, were just ‘earthly stories with heavenly meaning.’ But that’s rubbish! Stories are far more powerful that that.” — The Original Jesus, by Tom Wright

And speaking of stories, Storyblogging carnival XCII is accepting submissions.

Hubris precedes Nemesis

After a long life, Joe Biden dies and finds himself in a hotel lobby. Charles Gibson is standing in front of a doorway.

“Welcome, Mister Biden. I’ve been assigned to interview you. In light of your years of public service, I have just one question. How do you spell ‘dog?’”

Biden smiles and quickly says, ‘d-o-g.’

“Thank you, Sir, that is correct. You may enter.”

As Joe Biden is signing an autograph for Mister Gibson’s assistant, Barack Obama arrives. Gibson welcomes him, and explains that because of the nature and extent of his public service, his question must be more demanding. Obama, with some surprise, agrees to the interview. Charles Gibson looks him in the eye and demands, “Mister Obama, how do you spell ‘leopard?’”

“Um, I spell that, uh, ‘l-e-o-p-a-r-d,’ Charles.”

Gibson says “Thank you, Sir, that is correct,” and gesturing to the door warns him to be careful of the step.

The applause from Mister Gibson’s staff dies suddenly as Sarah Palin approaches. Obama and Biden pause at the doorway to turn and look. Without preamble Gibson demands, “Mrs. Palin, to enter you must spell ‘Czechoslovakia.’”

Palin smiles pleasantly, spells “C-z-e-c-h-o-s-l-o-v-a-k-i-a,” walks past, and pushes the button for the elevator.

Goats arrested?

The story is, police in the Congo arrested a herd of goats for being sold illegally. A visiting government minster found them in a cell, ordered them released, and said the police “had serious gaps in their knowledge and they would be sent for retraining.”

I don’t believe that. The police knew exactly what they were doing. They just stole some guy’s goats. Maybe they were going to eat them, or sell them, or hold them for ransom. They got caught and made up a story. Granted, it’s a pretty good story.

Three observations about writing

• Among things Elizabeth Bear has learned about telling stories: “Much like the serial killer POV and the sacrificial prologue narrator, dream sequences are not any better when I write them than when anybody else writes them.”
• I had to read this from The Turn of the Screw several times to get the sense. See if you can do better.

The good thing, after all, was that we should surely see no more of him.

This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it in trouble.

• Tolkein vs. Lewis:
  

  “If in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ someone is always swinging an axe at the head of a monster, in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ he is getting out of the rain, warming up by the fire, and having some tea and biscuits.” — When the Movie Trumps the Book-Top Ten