and some reading

I confess, I've kind of thrown over Moby-Dick of late (this happens to me often with longer books but I usually come back to them). Maybe once I go on break again after the summer class ends and can concentrate more tightly on the allusions in the novel.

I am, however, reading :"Cool: how air conditioning changed everything" which is a very interesting book. It's actually a uni-press book (Fordham) and is a somewhat-scholarly history (but not very technical). It was reviewed in a recent issue of American Scientist (along with two others I wanted - one on antimatter and one on Marshall Nirenberg, neither of which I've read yet).

"Cool" is interesting because it starts pretty much at early days - with things like "tatties" (the Indian subcontinent's answer to a swamp cooler; those things work well in a dry climate but I shudder to think of a swamp cooler with the humidity we've had of late). And some early abortive attempts to blow a fan over ice. (I have actually known a few people recently who tried that when their A/C went down for a couple days and they couldn't get the guys out for a couple days. Again, it works better in low humidity).

Broadway plays must have been awful in the 1800s in the summer (I guess Broadway shut down during really hot weather). The author wrote about the smell of hundreds of people (and showering was less frequent in those days than now) in heavy evening clothes, and how women regularly fainted (it wasn't JUST the tight corsets). And also, that "ladies' lounges" type restrooms may have been to provide a semi-private place for an overcome woman to retire to, either to recover from a faint or even to vomit. (Yeah, I've nearly been there, after long fieldwork in really hot weather. I don't think I ever actually threw up but I've been close. The key is to eat relatively little and make sure that what you eat is very low in fat)

Salvatore Basile (the author) also notes that public buildings were the first to be cooled: partly, of course, because of the expense, but also, apparently, the folks who had the money to put in air conditioning (the upper classes) had some weird stiff-upper-lip thing going on where it was seen, apparently, as plebeian to care about comfort.

And in a lot of places that got it, it was more for keeping manufacturing processes running smoothly (offset printing, where colors needed to line up, was one of those industries) and eventually businessmen realized that a cooler workforce was a more efficient workforce....

And Washington, DC. There were lots of fights over air conditioning because some wanted it greatly (Washington DC is a swamp, or rather, was built on one, and it's kind of subtropical) and others who feared what we'd call "bad optics" today ("Why should the Senators be cool when the ordinary man must sweat?")

Hoover (I think it was) arranged for installation in the White House. But FDR didn't like it and didn't want to use it and I wonder if that was some residuum of those stiff-necked patricians who didn't want to seem "weak" by being cooled(*). It did get run some, on the insistence of one of his Cabinet ministers who was an asthmatic. (And I will note, as a low-grade asthmatic myself, air conditioning is one of the GREATEST things for preventing problems in the summer)

(* Interestingly, I've seen arguments against air conditioning from "both sides of the aisle." On the more left-leaning side, the arguments take the form of reducing energy use and pollution that it causes, and the idea that a certain level of discomfort is necessary for the benefit of those yet unborn. On the more right side - and you don't see this often but it does seem to be a particular flavor of conservative that says this - the claim is "air conditioning makes you weak and soft." Which I admit makes me roll my eyes because not being able to get enough oxygen to one's brain - which is how it feels to me on a really humid day here - isn't a mark of toughness in my book. But still, it's interesting that some vestige of the "Suck it up, son, and be a Spartan" argument is out there.)

I have seen one of the big old commercial units - one of the antique shops I frequent in Sherman is in what must have been an old department store and they have a couple HUGE (like 9' tall) Carrier units. They HAVE to date to the 1930s at the oldest and look like nothing that exists today as an air conditioner - they actually have a stylish script name on the front and a dial to show the temperature. They're interesting and unusual and I like looking at them when I'm there, but I also wonder: (a) How much power must those things suck down, because in recent years great strides have been made in efficiency and (b) how on earth do they get parts for the things if they break down?

(They might be Weathermaker models but I don't remember the name on the front, other than that they're by Carrier. this one isn't quite it, but it looks more like them than modern air conditioning units do)

I'm only partway through the book - up to the point where people are beginning to accept air conditioning for the home. But it's been interesting and I've learned a lot.

I'm also reading a murder mystery - for those nights when even a popular history is too taxing to read. I've been working through the out-of-print Jean Montrose mysteries by CF Roe. I bought the first one YEARS ago, not long after it first came out in paperback, but never read it.....and then I wanted to read more of them. Fortunately, you can find the paperback editions for fairly cheaply on Amazon or other places. Right now I'm reading "A Classy Touch of Murder" (they all have titles along that line). I was greatly surprised to find my cheap ($3 or so) paperback was one that the author actually signed for an earlier owner. They're not too mentally taxing, and are fun, because they're set in Scotland (Jean Montrose is a doctor, but she often winds up consulting with the police on cases). There's also a heavy family emphasis: her husband, Steve, runs a glassworks, and they have two grown daughters, Fiona and Lisbie.

I've got a couple more- not quite in sequence as some of them are apparently a bit tough to find and I don't fancy paying $15 for a used paperback mystery. (I suspect a library with a large, well-stocked mystery section might have some, if they haven't weeded them - most of these seem to have been written in the 1990s).

In this one, part of the plot seems to be turning on a "penny skimming" scheme like the one the guys in Office Space were going to do (which one of them said he based on a scheme from Superman III), so perhaps that scam is not all that uncommon, or at least wasn't in the earlier days of computerized banking or money transfers.