Patent Office

I noticed a weird little coincidence recently, that probably doesn't mean anything to anyone but me.  We were watching the episode of 'The Big Bang Theory' in which Sheldon has gotten horribly stuck trying to solve a tricky equation, and realizes he has to turn his mind off in order for the answer to appear.  He reminds everybody who'll listen that Einstein was working in the patent office in Switzerland when he did some of his most groundbreaking work, and decides that he needs to do that kind of 'menial' work in order to engage his cerebral cortex on the problem.  Leaving aside whether that's a valid technique for theoretical research, and whether government clerkship is 'menial' work in the first place, it struck me:  I seemed to remember someone else who had to go to work in the patent office before his big success.

After a little research I confirmed it: one of my favorite writers, the English poet A. E. Housman, blew a big written exam at Oxford in 1892, and had to take a job in the patent office in London because he hadn't gotten his degree.  While working for the government, he pursued his classical studies and published a very well-received volume of poetry titled A Shropshire Lad, and after ten years he was rescued by the University of London, which gave him a professorship in the classics.

Now, Einstein went to work for the government because he couldn't get a job anyplace else, even with his degree, not because he failed a test and wasn't able to get a degree. And obviously there's a big difference between theoretical physics and the writing of poetry, and lots of people, especially these days, would argue that only one of those activities involves real genius. But in his day, which was a few decades before Einstein, Housman became a very big deal, and we shouldn't sneer at what he accomplished just because it isn't science.  Millions of us remember the lines 'When I was one-and-twenty', or 'Loveliest of trees, the cherry  now', or 'With rue my heart is laden'. And my personal favorite of Housman's poems:

          Into my heart an air that kills
          From yon far country blows:
          What are those blue remembered hills,
          What spires, what farms are those?

          That is the land of lost content,
          I see it shining plain,
          The happy highways where I went,
          And cannot come again.

So isn't it weird that both of these guys took a detour into the patent office, before they were ready to prove themselves to the world?  Is working as a clerk really so mindlessly bureaucratic that you can turn your brain off, and let it work on something else even while you're doing your job?

Start of Spring?

So today is supposed to be the start of spring.  We've had sunshine, that's for sure.  But the temperature took a nosedive the last couple of days, and the wind started screaming out of the west, and it feels like spring is really a long way off.  It puts me in mind of one of my favorite jokes about Midwestern weather.  The late comedian Richard Jeni once said 'I think that's how Chicago got started.  A bunch of people in New York said 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough.  Let's go west'.

Sounds about right. 

Habemus Papam - Francis I

Our new Holy Father is Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina.  He has chosen the name Francis, which delights me to no end.  Our world needs the virtues of St Francis now more than ever.  Let's hope our new pope can show us how to live those virtues, and 'rebuild My Church.'

Update 6:17PM - My son Nate reminds me that since Cardinal Bergoglio is a Jesuit, he was probably intending to honor St Francis Xavier instead of St Francis of Assisi.  He's undoubtedly right, but since St Francis Xavier was honoring the saint of Assisi when he took HIS name, I think it still counts as a tip of the hat to the Poverello.  Still really happy that we have a Pope Francis!

Dr Syn

It looked like a good day to take a trip down memory lane today, so I went to the internet to find out a little about something I remembered from my childhood.  I distinctly remember a Disney movie about a guy in a scarecrow mask, sort of like Ray Bolger in 'The Wizard of Oz', who rode around on a horse and helped out people.  He was a smuggler, but all the money he made from dodging the tax man was given to the poor, sort of like Robin Hood. The only name or title that I could remember was 'Dr Syn', but that was enough.  A listing of all Disney theatrical features was no help, but when I entered the name 'Dr Syn' into Google, presto!

Turns out the Disney feature, originally titled 'The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh', and with a very young-looking Patrick McGoohan as the title character, was only in theaters for a short time, as part of a double-bill with 'The Sword in the Stone'.  It had a bigger presence on TV, as a 2-or-3 part feature on 'The Wonderful World of Color'. It was renamed and recut several times; check under 'In Other Media' in the Wikipedia article on Dr. Syn. 

Now for the best part - Youtube has a 12-minute clip of the beginning of the film.  The Scarecrow's men unload a shipment of smuggled booze, and then he and his two buddies have to ride like the wind to escape the King's excise forces.  I'm watching this piece of film, and I see the Scarecrow on top of the most beautiful dapple gray horse I've ever seen, and it hits me - that's why I always want to bet on a gray horse!  That's why I'm always looking for the gray horse in any post parade!  It's because of this movie I saw on TV when I was just a little kid.  That's stuck with me all my life.

Say what you want, I think the web is almost as good as a shrink.