Wednesday Apr. 8, 2015

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What Yo’ Gwine T’ Do?

        Oh, po’ sinner,
        Now is yo’ time
        Oh, po’ sinner
        What yo’ gwine to do when de lamp burn down?

Oh, de lamp burn down an’ yo’ cannot see;
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?
Oh, de lamp burm down an’ yo’ cannot see;
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?

Ezekiel saw dat wheel o’ time;
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?
An ev’ry spoke was of human kind;
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?

God made man an’ He made him out o’ clay,
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?
An’ put him on de earth, but not to stay;
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?

Dey cast ole Daniel in de lion’s den;
What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?
An’ Jesus locked de lion’s jaw;
What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?

Ole Satan’s mad an’ I am glad;
What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?
He miss one soul he thought he had,
What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?

Ole Satan’s a liar an’ a conjurer too;
What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?
If yo’ don’t mind, he slip in on yo’
      What yo’ gwine t’ do when de lamp burn down?

"What Yo’ Gwine T’ Do?" Public Domain. 

It’s the birthday of novelist Barbara Kingsolver (books by this author), born in Annapolis, Maryland (1955). She grew up in rural Kentucky. She loved to write in her journals, but it never occurred to her that she could make a living as a writer. She got a scholarship to study classical piano at DePauw University in Indiana. She said: “It was very scary when I first got there, because there were all these kids who looked alike and they had these clothes and these hairdos. There was a veneer of knowing things before you know them that I didn’t have.” She dropped her Southern accent, and started reading radical books and protesting the Vietnam War. She realized that job options for a pianist were extremely limited, so she changed her major to biology.

After college, she moved to Arizona and went to graduate school, where she studied the social life of termites. She did some science writing and gradually expanded into other journalism. She never told anyone that she was writing fiction for herself. Finally, she took a chance and submitted a short story to a contest, and she won. She wrote in all capitals in her journal: “I AM A WRITER.”

She published stories here and there, and she wrote a book of nonfiction called Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike. She hired an agent, but the agent couldn’t find a publisher. Meanwhile, Kingsolver was pregnant and had terrible insomnia, and she began working on a novel in the middle of the night. She lived in a one-room house, and in order to avoid disturbing her husband she wrote in a closet. It was the story of a young woman from rural Kentucky who leaves behind her dead-end town to drive west, and ends up with custody of a Cherokee toddler, whom she names Turtle. Kingsolver finished the novel toward the end of her pregnancy, but she was sure it was unmarketable, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Just before her daughter was born, she had the urge to give the house a thorough cleaning. She couldn’t stand the sight of all the manuscript pages cluttering up the house, and she spent awhile deliberating whether she should throw it in the trash or mail it to her agent. Finally, she mailed it off with a note that said: “I’m sorry, you probably don’t want this. I think it’s a novel.” Her agent informed her that yes, it was a novel, and immediately found a publisher. Kingsolver was offered a book contract the day she got home from the hospital with her new daughter. That novel was The Bean Trees (1988).

She has written six novels since then, including The Poisonwood Bible (1998), The Lacuna (2009), and most recently, Flight Behavior (2012). She has also written short stories and nonfiction, including Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007) about her family’s decision to spend an entire year eating only local food.

She said: “It’s all about accessibility. That’s why I write in English as opposed to some sort of highfalutin English that’s incomprehensible. I really believe that complex ideas can be put across in simple language. And a good plot never hurt anybody. It doesn’t cost you in literary terms to give your readers a reason to turn a page.”

On this date in 1911, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivity. The term refers to the quality of certain materials to exhibit no electrical “friction” or resistance below a certain temperature; each material becomes superconductive at its own specific and unique temperature. If resistance can be reduced or eliminated, no energy is lost. You can run a charge through a loop of superconducting wire, and it will hold its charge indefinitely, even when the battery is removed. Onnes was the first to discover this phenomenon as a property of mercury; other materials have been found to demonstrate it in the years since then.

The lower the temperature of a substance, the less resistance it has to electricity. Prior to Onnes, other physicists had posited that pure metals would become perfect electromagnetic conductors at “absolute zero” — that is, zero degrees Kelvin, or about 460 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale. The problem was that it was very hard to attain a temperature of absolute zero. In 1908, Onnes produced liquefied helium for the first time: the temperature at which the helium gas becomes liquid is so low that it boils at a mere four kelvins. The liquid helium could then be used to chill other substances to extremely cold temperatures.

Onnes began testing the theory of superconductivity with gold and platinum, but later switched to mercury, since it was easier to refine. He chilled the mercury using liquid helium. When the mercury temperature dropped to 4.19 kelvins, Onnes recorded that the metal’s electrical resistance abruptly disappeared. When he allowed it to warm to 4.20 kelvins, the resistance reappeared. In his first publication on the phenomenon, Onnes dubbed it “supraconductivity,” but later changed it to “superconductivity.”

Buddhists celebrate the birthday of Buddha today. Gautama Buddha was born Prince Siddhartha in India, in the sixth century B.C.E., and his parents were told by mystics that he would grow up to be either a great political leader or a supremely enlightened teacher. He was raised in luxury, married, and fathered a son, but when he was 29, he wanted to see the world outside the palace walls. He began taking short trips outside the palace, where he encountered suffering for the first time. He was amazed at how serene people managed to be in the midst of all their pain and sickness, and so he traveled the land for six years, studying meditation and living the life of an ascetic. When he was 35, he outlined the basic tenets of Buddhism, its “four noble truths.” They are: 1) the nature of life is suffering; 2) suffering is caused by human cravings; 3) there is relief from suffering in the state of Nirvana, which is attainable; and 4) Nirvana is attainable by following an eightfold path to self-improvement.

It’s the birthday of the American astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor David Rittenhouse, born near Germantown, Pennsylvania (1732). He built one of the first telescopes in America, and used a real spider’s silk to form the crosshairs in the eyepiece. He used his telescope to study the transit of Venus, and determined that the planet has an atmosphere. He was also a surveyor, and determined part of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, although he didn’t enjoy the work. He said, “I found it a very laborious affair; being obliged, singly, to go through a number of intricate calculations.” During the Revolutionary War, Rittenhouse worked as a weapons engineer, improving designs for cannons and rifles. George Washington named him first director of the United States Mint in 1792. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson held Rittenhouse in high regard, and Philadelphia’s Southwest Square was renamed “Rittenhouse Square” in his honor in 1825.

It’s the birthday of lyricist Yip Harburg, born in New York City (1896), who wrote “April in Paris,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” and many more songs. He wrote, “The Lord made Adam, the Lord made Eve, he made ’em both a little bit naive.”

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®