October Is National Ergonomics Month

According to my handy article about October holidays , it's National Ergonomics Month!

Maybe you have heard of ergonomics. Even if you haven't, you are still probably benefiting from it. ergonomics, also called "human factors", is the science of designing technology, products and environments to work with the human body--the way it moves, the way it is shaped, and its requirements for support and comfort. 

The theory is that you work more efficiently if you are comfortable, and so products are designed to alleviate stress on the body in order to prevent injury or fatigue. Think of products like those gel-filled wrist rests designed to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome in people who spend most of the day typing, or like the ergonomic angled keyboard, pictured above.

Ergonomics can also prevent accidents, as well. Take your car, for example. Not only is it ergonomically designed with your comfort in mind, but also with an eye toward your safety. Think about how easy it is to reach what you need quickly, so that you won't be too distracted while motoring down the road. It's hard enough to get people to pull over to make a phone call, let alone tune the radio, and it's not worth crashing your car just because you can't get enough Dua Lipa (who can, really?).

In order to raise awareness and appreciation for ergonomic design, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) declared October to be National Ergonomics Month, so every time you sit in a molded chair or use one of those funky curved computer keyboards or drive somewhere in a safe, comfortable car, you can thank ergonomic design, in October and in every other month of the year! 

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LAs_new_kb_and_mouse.JPG

Review of The King in the Tree by Steven Millhauser

 

Steven Millhauser is a very accomplished author with a body of work spanning back to 1972, when his debut novel, Edwin Mullhouse, was published. His book Martin Dressler has won a Pulitzer. Both of these titles are on my reading list, but I happened to have purchased The King in the Tree a while back, and my aim is to read the books I already have before getting any new ones. So, this is my jumping-off point into the work of Steven Millhauser. And I like where I landed!

The King in the Tree (2003, Knopf) is a book composed of three novellas, entitled Revenge, An Adventure of Don Juan, and The King in the Tree. Each story has a different setting, different characters, and a different tone. The three are united, however, by similar subject matter: love, longing, and betrayal.

Revenge, the first novella, starts the book off with a bang. The premise of this story is of a woman who is showing a potential buyer around her home, which is for sale. As we progress through the story, the seller reveals bits and pieces of the real story, which is about far more than selling a home. It's written in a kind of first person/second-person hybrid, because there is a narrator, but she is speaking to the unidentified (at first) buyer, which feels like she's talking to you. We're experiencing the story from the point of view of the buyer, although that person never gets a single line of dialogue, because we are passively listening to the narrator unwind the story, room by room. And yet, we are also experiencing the story from the point of view of the narrator, because she is sharing all of her feelings with us. It was absolutely spellbinding, and when I finished, I basically had to sit and go “Whoa”. I love stories that make me do that!

The second novella, An Adventure of Don Juan, is told in a more traditional third-person style, although we are fully inhabiting the point of view of Don Juan Tenorio, the famous seducer. This ended up making me uncomfortable, because he turns out to be a seriously vile person, wrapped up in the pretty packaging of his handsome face, wealth, and courtly ways. In this tale, Don Juan becomes bored with his self-indulgent lifestyle in Venice and travels to England on the invitation of a casual friend, Augustus Hood, a creative prodigy whose lovely wife and striking, enigmatic sister-in-law are given the care of their guest, with increasingly dire consequences. The conclusion of this story was harrowing, but satisfying.

The 'title track' of the collection, The King in the Tree, is the longest of the three, and packs even more twists and turns than the prior stories. It is based on the legend of Tristan and Yseut/Yseult/Isolde/Isolt, in this version spelled Ysolt. Anyone familiar with the legend knows that it is the classic “doomed lovers” tale, but this version, narrated by the king's advisor and bosom friend, Thomas, gives us a far more subtle view, showing us how the love affair between King Mark of Cornwall's nephew, Tristan, and his queen, Ysolt, is dealt with (or at times not dealt with) by the king, who deeply loves them both.

I enjoyed this book so much. The writing is just exquisite. Millhauser knows how to set a scene, hatch a plot, and keep things moving, but what I loved best is his ability to thoroughly inhabit his characters – the wounded, vindictive unnamed character in Revenge, the cocky, jaded, Don Juan, the gentle, faithful Thomas – giving us a full immersion into the story through their eyes. I can't wait to read more Millhauser!

If you enjoyed these, please check out my other book reviews: 

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-best-in-writing-half-asleep-in-frog.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/review-of-your-head-is-houseboat-by.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-review-of-boston-darkens-by-michael.html

Looking for a Job? How Charity Work Can Help You Find a Paying Job

So, you have either graduated from school and are ready to embark upon a career, or you are between jobs and looking for work, or you are working part-time but need a job that is going to pay the bills. Whatever your scenario, the job hunt can be exhausting and frustrating. You may have been reading advice articles or even attending classes or workshops to learn how to ace an interview or perfect your resume, but when interviews are few and far between, and your resume has already been polished to a glasslike shine (or is a little too lean yet to benefit from editing), how do you fill your time productively and still gain skills and experience without the benefit of a paying gig?

Try a non-paying one. Although it may seem counter-intuitive to give away your time and efforts for free just at the time you need compensation, you would be amazed by how much the experience of helping others can help you. When you have the experience of working with people from all walks of life, it can give you a sense of empathy that will not only enhance your abilities, but your sensibilities. Being able to relate to people is always a plus in the job market, and your newly-developed sense of what people need can help you ace those interviews, as well.

You may be working for free, but you are also learning skills for free, from office work to dealing with the public to doing construction and landscaping projects, should that be your task. In addition to acquiring knowledge and experience, you will also be making human connections that can help you. Your supervisor at the non-profit might be able to put in a good word for you if he or she knows of a paid opportunity, or at least write a glowing letter of recommendation for future use. You might meet other volunteers who know of job openings, as well. Networking can be the most powerful aid in securing long-term employment.

Potential employers like to see volunteer work on your resume, as well; not just because you have acquired experience that many other job candidates may not have, but it also gives the sense that you are not only a compassionate individual who is willing to work hard, but someone who didn't just sit around during the down time between jobs. Companies want people who can get things accomplished, so don't let the lackluster job market get you down. Now, more than ever, you can make a difference for someone else and help yourself immeasurably in the process!

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/volunteer-volunteerism-volunteering-652383/

Review of Oz the Great and Powerful with James Franco and Mila Kunis (2013)

Disney's 2013 movie Oz the Great and Powerful is available on Disney Plus (Disney+), and I watched it this weekend. I had read a couple of iffy reviews about the movie, but I'm a sucker for big movies with awesome special effects, and this film paid off. Also, I'm not sure what people were complaining about, because it was really great! There are many very good, well-known actors in it--James Franco plays "the wizard", and Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Bill Cobb and Zach Braff do a wonderful job in their roles, as well.

This film is written to be the "prequel" to the 1939 original The Wizard of Oz. It answers the questions we all had as kids when we first saw the movie--how did the wizard get to Oz in the first place? How did he, a regular man, end up in such a powerful position? How did the people of Oz deal with having witches flying around the country? All these questions get answered, and we also get a chance to meet the Wicked Witch of the East, the sister who got smashed flat by Dorothy's house at the start of the original movie.

The makers of this movie have done a great job referencing the original, from the starts-off-black-and-white-and-changes-to-color effect to more subtle things, such as having the actors play dual roles of characters both in the real world and in the land of Oz. Disney also cracks me up by doing a little SELF-referencing: watch for the poisoned apple!

All in all, it's a great film for the family. It enhances the experience to have seen the original movie, but it's a great stand-alone film. Ali approves!

See what I thought of Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

The Creepiest Songs by The Beatles

 A Creepy Song by The Beatles

A friend of mine wrote a post about the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby (that's the one that goes "Ahhhhh, look at all the lonely people"), and I left a comment that the song, with its dark themes of loneliness and death and its brooding music, was kind of creepy.

But as soon as I mentioned that, I thought, "And yet, that song is not the creepiest Beatles song, by far."

An Even Creepier Song by The Beatles

There is a song that is much creepier than that, called "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". This song is about a medical student ("Maxwell Edison, majoring in medicine") who is basically a serial killer, murdering people by bludgeoning them with a hammer. What's more creepy than the subject matter is that the lyrics are set to an upbeat tune, and everything is treated as giddy little romp:

Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head;

Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead

Jeez, at least "Eleanor Rigby"'s music is somber and gives one a bit of a warning that the song isn't about a cheerful subject. But hey, peppy and industrious serial killer Maxwell isn't even the worst character The Beatles invented:

The Creepiest Beatles Song Ever 

That honor goes to the guy singing "Run for Your Life", another Beatles song disguised as good-time rock, until you actually consider the lyrics:

You better run for your life if you can, little girl

Hide your head in the sand, little girl

Catch you with another man, that's the end, little girl

Um, yeah. And just in case you thought "the end" might just mean the end of the relationship: No. The first two lines of the song make that plain:

Well, I'd rather see you dead, little girl

Than to be with another man

The reason I think this is even creepier than the song about the med student who shyly asks a girl on a date so that he can smash her skull in is that "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is still a pretty fanciful situation. 

The ruthlessly possessive and violent guy in "Run for Your Life", however, is all too real for hundreds of thousands of women who have been stalked, and sometimes attacked, even killed, by a jealous, abusive, obsessed ex-lover. For the Beatles to couch this as a fairly light-hearted pop song really did a disservice to the subject of violent domestic abuse and stalking. The singer talks about a woman he supposedly loves, but it's clear he knows nothing of love, only fear and control.

To me, that's not just creepy, it's horrifying.

On a serious note: 

If you or a loved one is suffering from domestic violence, help is available. Speak with someone today.

National Domestic Violence Hotline

Hours: 24/7. Languages: English, Spanish and 200+ through interpretation service 

Call 1-800-799-7233 or Text START to 88788

More info: https://www.thehotline.org/

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/beatles-statue-sculpture-liverpool-7767458/

The Best in Writing: Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

One of my favorite literary passages appears in the book Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins. This book could perhaps be best described as a mystical screwball comedy about the stock market. I know that’s a lot to accommodate as a concept, but Robbins handles it deftly. His dialogue is creative and funny, his deeply flawed characters are maddeningly well-developed and his plot is twisted, yet consistent. But this is not a book report, Dear Reader. This is my review of one jewel-like passage that outshines not only the rest of the book but also the complete works of many other authors.

Okay, that’s a lot of hyperbole, but now you may judge for yourself. The story is set in Seattle, that bastion of dampness (yes, they have a stock market there), and in one rather long but deliciously sensory paragraph, Robbins sums up the endless, permeating rain:

This is Seattle, the brief, bright spring has stalled, and the rains have returned. They have stolen down from the Sasquatch slopes. They have risen with the geese from the marshes. It rains a chattering of totem teeth. It rains a sweat lodge of ancient vapors. The city, with its office towers and electricity, has been somehow primitivized by the rain: every hue darkened, every wheel slowed, every view foreshortened, every modern, commercial mind-set turned in on itself, forced to rub shoulders with the old salamander who sleeps in the soul. Hour after hour, the rain will fall; apartments, decorated to be showplaces, will take on the character of burrows or nests; and espresso carts, the little pumping stations of Seattle’s lifeblood, will glow beneath their umbrellas like the huts of shamans. Drops spiral from every cornice, every antenna, every awning. Drops glisten on each plate-glass window, each tailgate, each inch of neon that sizzles in the mist. Dense, penetrating, and modifying, the rain narrows the gap between nature and civilization. Forgotten longings stir in the crack.

I love the way Robbins captures the relentlessness of the drenching Seattle rain. Indeed, the use of one long paragraph mimics the never-ending effect of an all-day soaking rain. The onomatopoeia of “a chattering of totem teeth” evokes the nonstop ticking of rain on every surface, and the metaphors of the sweat lodge of ancient vapors and the espresso carts like the huts of shamans keeps to the ancient and mystical theme of the rain “primitivizing” the modern city with its timeless embrace. More onomatopoeia: drops glisten, neon sizzles. Robbins ends the passage by restating the triumph of ancient Nature over the edifices of modernity and the awakening of the deeper self, perhaps the “old salamander who sleeps in the soul”. In my personal opinion, this is masterful, and I hope you enjoyed it, too.

Other literary reviews you might enjoy: 

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-duma-key-by-stephen-king.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-review-of-boston-darkens-by-michael.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-historian-by-elizabeth-kostova.html

Image Credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/water-dew-in-clear-glass-panel-125510/

How to Avoid Tricky Grammar Mistakes: Confusing Plurals

 

I was watching a financial show on CNBC, and Eric, an executive with the Siemens company, was a guest on the program. He was a pulled-together chap, generally well-spoken, but he said something that made me want to write another "Grammar Mistakes" article. There are a lot of grammar and usage pitfalls in English, a language cobbled together from many other languages, each with their own sets of rules and pronunciation and spelling. I get it; it's hard. That's why your Grammar Diva is here to help you!

So, what was it that Eric said that made my toes curl, but not in the good way? He used the word "processes". And he used it correctly, more or less. The "less" part is that he pronounced it "process-eeze". 

I hear this kind of thing all too often. People who are intelligent and well-educated can frequently make this error--especially when trying to sound intelligent and well-educated, ironically enough--because they are aware that some plural words do indeed end in an "eeze" sound, when ending in -es. However, these words are few and far between. The staggering majority of words that end in -es, for example, actresses, convalescences, sentences, seances, buttresses, glasses, continuances, senses, and yes, processes, are pronounced the easy way. Just say "es" with that schwa sound and a soft (sibilant) or hard (like a "z") "s". I don't think anyone thinks "actresses" is pronounced "actresseeze", and you can safely assume most other -es words also do not follow that pattern.

 Well, which ones do, then? Obviously there are a few out there, setting a confusing example. Words ending in -is, such as "crisis", "synopsis", and "diagnosis" are the main culprits, as these words change to an -es ending in their plural form that is indeed pronounced "-eeze"; hence, "crises" (KRY-seez), "synopses" (sin-OP-seez), and "diagnoses" (DY-ag-NOH-seez). 

By the way, please don't confuse "synopses" with "synapses", whose -es ending is pronounced the normal, non-eezy way (SIN-app-sez). Also please note that the -es ending is not an addition to these words; it is a change, from -is to -es, plain and simple. I cannot begin to count how many times I have heard some poor soul utter the word "crisises" (pronounced "crisis-eeze", of course).

Another group of words that takes the "-eeze" ending in the plural form are words ending in -ex, such as "index" (indices) and "vortex" (vortices). So, if you hear someone referring to "heat indices", she has not lost her mind, she is just being learned. That said, however, it is perfectly okay to say "indexes" and "vortexes", according to Merriam-Webster and other sources. Also apparently according to my Spell Check, which is furiously underlining the -ices words. Suck it up, Spell Check! (Click here for my love/hate relationship with SpellCheck: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2017/10/why-you-should-never-trust-spell-check.html)

So, to recap: Words whose singular form ends in -is take the -es ending that is pronounced "eeze". Words whose singular forms end in -ex can, but do not have to, take the -ices ending that is pronounced "iss-eeze", as in "indices" (IND-iss-eeze) and "vortices" (VORT-iss-eeze), mentioned above. All other words ending in -ces, -ses or -sses are pronounced the normal way, with a short "e," or really a schwa sound, and a sibilant (hissing) "s" or "z" sound, not a long "e" and a "z" sound. 

In other words, it's very rare that you will be using the "eeze" ending. When in doubt, go with the non-fancy pronunciation.

So pleeeeeze, dispense with the unnecessary "eeze"! Your Grammar Diva thanks you.

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/portrait-photo-of-woman-in-red-top-wearing-black-framed-eyeglasses-standing-in-front-of-white-background-thinking-3762807/

Movie Review - Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters is the sequel to 2010's Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, both based on books from a wildly popular YA fiction series penned by Rick Riordan. This film has rather unfortunate ratings: 5.7/10 on IMDb, 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a paltry 39% on Metacritic. These are well-deserved, because as we know, the success of a book may not guarantee the success of a movie. And boy, did they take an appealing concept, likable characters and great special effects and completely ruin it with a script that stank.

I don't want to give spoilers, here, so I will try to be kind of vague, although I will state unequivocally that I would not recommend watching this movie. It's 106 minutes of your life that you can't get back; I'm just saying.

Throughout the entire movie, characters who are supposedly on an urgent quest to save not only the world in general, but the life of a very special individual in particular, show no sense of urgency in getting there. They stop to ask questions or get backstory when they could be actually moving right along while doing that. In one particularly urgent case, Percy stops to have a bonding moment when he could be quickly sprinting the last ten feet or so to prevent something that could destroy the world.

At other times, characters seem ridiculously oblivious: When Percy is pursued by a threat to the demigod kids' camp, he faces it down alone, even though everyone in camp could (and should) be rushing to his aid. After all, they're all demigods and should be well-qualified to assist him.  Indeed, when he returns to camp, no one even asks him what happened! 

There are plenty of other complete lapses in judgment and utterly stunning flubs: One character asks for help catching the bad guy's yacht while Percy seems helpless and hopeless, and yet soon after, we see that he had more than enough personal power to do that on his own. And an island and a whirlpool that were firmly established in the waters around ancient Greece show up in the Bermuda Triangle, of all places. Yikes!

The whole thing is just a mess. The producers who approved Marc Guggenheim's plothole-ridden screenplay should be slapped twice, and director Thor Freudenthal, who stuck with it instead of spotting the obvious inconsistencies, should be sent to bed without supper. It's mortifying, and I'm sure Rick Riordan can't be too pleased. The movie clearly sets up another installment to follow, but this sequel was such a wild mess that no more movies have been made. The popularity of the books remain, though, and there have since been some shorts, an animated, feature, and a miniseries. Apparently, a TV series is in production and planned for release in 2024. Let's hope it doesn't insult our intelligence like Sea of Monsters, which would be better off sinking back under the surface without a trace. 

Here are some reviews of things I didn't hate:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-of-kaiser-chiefs-cd-yours-truly.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/02/my-review-of-beyond-thickburger-from.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-historian-by-elizabeth-kostova.html

Image Credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/underwater-photo-of-bubbles-15537421/

What is SEO, and How Can It Help Me Earn Money?

If you have your own website or work as an online content producer who earns money for page views, you understand that the money part is all about website traffic, or how many people visit and view the content (and, therefore, the ads). On some content production sites, writers can get some income from socializing with each other and earn money that way, but the real money is in outside traffic. There are already millions, if not billions, of internet users out there from whom you can draw views, if you know the secrets of SEO to increase your traffic.

Just What is SEO, Exactly?

SEO stands for "search engine optimization". It refers specifically to how easy your website is to find by using a search engine like Google or Bing. Search engine optimization relies on the use of various techniques, including the use of keywords, which are words that are likely to be entered into the search engine by the person who is looking for information. 

For example, a person who is planning to travel to Mexico for the first time and wants to make sure they book a decent hotel sight unseen may enter the following search criteria: "hotel reviews Guadalajara Mexico". If your website features reviews of hotels in Guadalajara, you will want to feature those keywords prominently enough for the search engine to bring your website up near the top of the search results.

How Does SEO Benefit Me?

As you can imagine, there are a lot of websites out there fighting for real estate on the search results pages. Some popular terms can bring up literally millions of hits on Google, and potential customers certainly won't waste their time checking more than the first page or two of results. The use of SEO practices can increase your visibility and thereby your traffic. Even your website's URL can influence how easily potential business can find you.

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-100-us-dollar-banknotes-2068975/