Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind: Volume 2: The Athena Chapters,
Chapter Ten:
Beef Stroganoff
“What the hell do you think you are, some kind of rocket scientist?”
A question asked (with just a hint of anger) of a guy named Derek by some random Townie at a hole in the wall drinking establishment near MIT’s campus 30 years ago.
I might as well start and end this book at a dive bar. The physical locations are separated by decades in time and hundreds of miles in space, but they are essentially the same place. The tiny, insignificant details are different, that’s all. Apparently, all seedy bars with rat populations that eclipse the number of human patrons are exceedingly interesting places, at least to me they are.
A long time ago, I would guess it has been about 30 years; I witnessed something quite interesting. I was out for a drink with a guy named Derek, who was a graduate student at MIT. We were sitting at the bar when a man in his 40s walked in and had a seat. The stranger started talking to one of the other regulars about a problem he was having with his car. You know, carburetor this and fuel pump that and on and on. I slowly sipped my diet coke (no beer for me back then, I had to study) as Derek threw himself into the conversation. He was in a bit of a mood, and he was blowing off some steam by showing off as only he could.
Derek started in by giving the guys a lecture on how cars work, and by that, I mean a very deep dissertation on the physics of combustion engines. The two guys looked cross-eyed at each other and at Derek as they tried to keep up. Finally, one of the guys, totally frustrated and on the verge of kicking Derek’s skinny little butt, looked over at him and said: “What the hell do you think you are, some kind of rocket scientist?” I tensed a little because I knew this situation was going to go down one of two ways. Derek, with a twinkle in his eye, carefully reached in his pocket, took out his wallet, and slowly handed the guy an ID card from the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and said: “Why yes, as a matter of fact, I am.” I laughed as hard as I ever had, and that broke the ice. The guys all laughed, and we had a great time, the three of them pounding beers while I nursed my diet coke.
Reflecting on that story serves as a simple reminder of how much I have been looking back as I have lost countless nights of sleep while writing about what has happened to me since I met Athena. Reminiscing is not something I enjoy doing; I prefer to put on blinders and look ahead. Fundamentally, I am one of those people who are delusional enough to think that my best years, my good old days, are still ahead of me. Hope springs, right?
I am in the awkward position of having to look back a little bit more to complete this volume. I don’t think I have mentioned what I was working on before I met Athena, before my little corner of the universe turned upside down. Well, guess what? This was supposed to be a baseball book. No kidding. Random Thoughts From A Nonlinear Mind, Volume Two was planned out as an entire series of essays on the mathematics of baseball. The vast majority of the book was already written when I sort of got sidetracked (just a little) by a chick in a dive bar. It looks like Volume Three will tackle an Exploratory Data Analysis approach to all those numbers that baseball players generate after the umpire yells “Play Ball.”
While everyone holds their breath with wild anticipation for that book (I’ll take that bet!), it looks like I have finally reached the end of this one. This is the last chapter and, believe it or not; it is short and sweet. I am writing it just to give a sense of the overall perspective I have on this whole ordeal. I want to give everyone a little more insight into what this experience has meant to me, and, oddly enough, I have to start with a Canadian rocket scientist.
Yvonne Brill, a very clever woman with an international reputation, died recently. Back in the 70s, she made seminal contributions while working on propulsion systems for satellites. Aside from being a world-class rocket scientist, she was also a wife and mother.
Brill’s life merited an obituary in The New York Times, and that is why I am writing about her. The obituary was a disaster. The person who wrote it started, in the very first line, by telling the world that she made a mean Beef Stroganoff. When I read that I couldn’t believe what I was reading, many people, including the editor of The New York Times‘ obituary department, also were not happy. I am sure that in the history of history, the words “Beef Stroganoff” have never before created so much controversy.
So, what is the big deal? Was her Beef Stroganoff really not that good? Is that what upset everyone? No, not at all. The problem was that a discussion of the culinary prowess of a first-rate scientist does not belong in the first line of her obituary. That brings up the question: Are you aware of what a big deal first lines of obituaries are? I polled many of my friends, and none of them had any idea that first lines are a “thing.”
People with a certain type of ambition (think really, really big) muse about things like first lines of obituaries or what equation might grace their tombstones. Ludwig Boltzmann’s gravestone has his famous equation, one of the most important ever conceived, right on the top. If you are ever in Vienna, you can go look it up. Right above his bust, you will see the following: S = k* log W. Can you imagine doing something so important with your life that your grave marker serves as a testament to your remarkable achievement? Some people, and I have known many of them, think about this stuff a lot.
People like Presidents of the United States are living the first line of their obituaries every day they are in office. If you are a scientist or a writer and you are ever awarded a Nobel Prize, you can guess what the first line of your obituary will be. That first line is supposed to sum up the major work of a life. The person who wrote Brill’s dropped the ball and, after a storm on Twitter and Facebook, the online version of the obituary was quickly changed.
Do you have a life’s work, something that will ultimately define your time on Earth? In my experience, most people certainly do not. Nearly everyone I know is just trying to get by. They have jobs and families, and I guarantee you they have never given a single thought to what the first line of their obituary might be. We all know what it will be, though, don’t we? Loving husband/wife, father/mother, and so on. From someone who has no family, I will say that is not a bad way to start an obituary. I make that statement with the full realization that mine won’t read that way, and yes, I say that with more than a tiny bit of envy.
If someone had asked Brill, she may well have said that the best job she ever had was being a wife and mother and that her biggest contribution to humanity was her children. That is the kind of thing moms say. The scientific community, though, sees things a little differently. She was a major figure in rocket science, especially propulsion systems, and her contributions were immense. Who the hell cares how her Beef Stroganoff tasted? Is there anything that could possibly be more irrelevant?
I am sure that you all are wondering why I am ending this volume with an essay about the botched obituary of a woman I never met. That answer, unlike all the others in this volume, is an easy one. I knew the moment Athena introduced herself that the most important thing that was ever going to happen to me was happening right then. I still have no clue how I knew that, but I remain firm in my belief that my initial impression was correct. I mentioned earlier what my obituary was not going to say, if you have made it through all these essays, then you know damn well how the first line is going to read. I have just finished writing it.
POSTSCRIPT
A few interesting things have happened to me since I finished this chapter. As usual, these experiences form a disjointed, seemingly random thread. This time, I will start at the beginning. Sure, I will still bury the lede, but incremental progress is better than none.
Most writers will tell you that they do not watch a lot of TV. Many do not even own one. I do have numerous TVs, but there are lots of days when they are never turned on. It is hard for me to write if I am distracted by television sounds. I prefer writing in my library while listening to Mozart. I have no evidence that his cosmic genius somehow rubs off on me, but hope springs, right?
I do not watch a lot of TV, but I occasionally get hooked. In Chapter Zero, I mentioned the television show Breaking Bad. What a treat. Transcendent is one word I would use to describe that series. I thought the writing was stellar. The acting, of course, was as good as it gets.
For me, the void created by the end of Breaking Bad was filled by an HBO show called True Detective. Wow, what an intelligent and interesting short series (of course, I am talking about the first season). One thing that I have been doing after each episode is to go through all the online reviews posted by the army of critics paid to tell me what they think. There are many reasons I am doing this. Mainly, I want to see if all the critics are seeing what I am seeing. They are mostly unanimous in their praise for the series; many refer to it as the best show on television. One review, though, caught my interest.
Emily Nussbaum, TV critic at The New Yorker, wrote a provocative piece about the first year of True Detective. She was critical of the portrayal of women in the series. Of course, lots has been said about the female characters on Breaking Bad. Not many people were impressed with them, either. Skyler and Marie were not nearly as popular as the male characters.
After reading Nussbaum’s article, I happened upon an interview with Cary Fukunaga, the director of season one of True Detective. Fukunaga was asked about the portrayal of women on the series, and he readily admitted that the show would never pass “The Bechdel Test.” Well, I thought, what is that? I had never heard of anything called a Bechdel Test, so I decided to do some research. What I found was quite intriguing.
In 1985, Alison Bechdel published a comic strip called “The Rule” in her series Dykes to Watch Out For. In the strip, two women are walking down the street while having a conversation about movies. One woman remarks that she has criteria for whether to see a movie or not. The first criterion is that any movie must have at least two women in it. The second is that the women have to talk to each other. The third, and this is key, is that the women must talk about something other than a man. These three criteria became known as The Bechdel Test.
The Bechdel Test is important because it gave rise to The Finkbeiner Test, a proposition that was mentioned quite prominently when the Brill obituary was published.
Ann Finkbeiner is a science writer who did not propose this test. A journalist named Christie Aschwanden named the test in honor of Finkbeiner. The test was meant to root out gender bias in articles written about women scientists. The criteria (taken directly from the Wiki page) are as follows:
Does the article mention the fact that the person being written about is a woman?
Is her husband’s job mentioned?
Are child-care arrangements discussed in the text?
Does the writer talk about how this person nurtures the people that report to her?
Is there a mention of how surprised this person was by the competitive nature of the field?
Does the piece talk about how this person is a role model for women?
Does it mention that she is the first woman to do this or that?
That is the list of questions that are asked of a piece of writing to determine whether it passes The Finkbeiner Test. Here is the first line of Yvonne Brill’s original obituary that was published online in The New York Times on 3/30/13.
“She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children.”
Good grief. I bet Douglas Martin, the author of this obituary, wishes he would have known all that you just learned. I guarantee you he is now up to speed, but it is a bit too late; that particular genie has made good his or her escape.
