Oh my. Your Bloguero's existence in the pixelated world is fading. Let him explain. This morning he noticed that he had not posted here in more than two months, the longest time ever. This, after 1445 posts over many years. And not even an explanation. Or a warning. Cue feelings of abandonment, violins, perhaps sadness and maybe even (sigh of Hammond organ) guilt. Shudder.
Maybe this is because blogs are so old school. Maybe they bear the same relationship to those old listservs and email chain letters that DVDs have to cassettes, old technology that improved only slightly on even older tech. Maybe social media (yes, your Bloguero is on FB and Twitter) have stomped out in rapid fire 140-character phrases all of the work it takes to post to a coherent entry to a blog. Maybe the wise crack has supplanted more developed thoughts. Maybe spontaneity (and not readiness) is all.
Maybe this is because, as your Bloguero once opined here, he wanted to get out of his chair, push back from the keyboard, avert his eyes from the screen and participate in the outside world, to have adventures as he bravely put it. And no, he declines to write about these adventures, thoughts, experiences here. The details of your Bloguero's personal life have never been the subject of this blog, and he doubts that they are the proper subject for any.
Maybe this is because your Bloguero spends every workday writing and when the day draws to a close, the last thing he feels like doing is even more writing.
Maybe this is because your Bloguero is forbidden by his present occupational activities from discussing politics or legal cases. Your Bloguero thinks this is not the greatest reason for his absence.
And so, your Bloguero offers you, dear reader, this: an apology for a prolonged, unexplained absence. Your Bloguero feels a bit like the father of the protagonist in the great children's book "Henry Bear's Park." The father is a balloon ascensionist. One day he flies off, leaving Henry to tend the park where they live. No explanation. No forewarning. Such a departure is probably inherent in his life's activities, in ballooning. And then, one day, he returns. Will your Bloguero return? He assumes we will all find out in due course.
I'd rather be a rocket than a launching pad. I'd rather be a hammer than a nail. I'd rather be a human cannonball. That would be best. That would be unbelievably exciting. That would be the way to live. No safety nets. No crash helmets. Blasted through the air. But first before the launch, there's some important research. Research, as Mr. Toad once said, is my life.
Hugo Zacchini may have been the first human cannoball. Born in Peru on October 20, 1898, he died on the same day in 1975 in San Bernardino. His wiki is only a stub but it tells the following about him:
*"He was known for being a daredevil and a painter, and for being litigious." This is quite a sentence for a two paragraph biography.
*He was an interpreter of as many as 11 languages.
*He received two engineering degrees from the University of Florida, was educated at the Rome Arts Academy, and got a master's degree at Jamstown (NY) Academy.
*He was the victorious named plaintiff in Zacchini v. Scripps Howard, 433 U.S. 562 (1977), decided by the US Supreme Court:
"Zacchini sued Scripps-Howard, the owner of an Ohio television station, when it filmed, and then broadcast on the evening news, Zacchini's entire act of being shot out of a cannon at a county fair. The United States Supreme Court sided with Zacchini, ruling 5 to 4 that the publicity rights overrode the First Amendment rights in this case where the entire act was shown on television."
On the other hand, maybe the first human cannonball "in 1877 at the Royal Aquarium in London, was a girl called "Zazel" (Rossa Matilda Richter, then only 14)." She too later toured with the PT Barnum Circus.
On the third hand, maybe it was George Layal who in 1875 was the first human cannonball.
The Zacchinis, however, were clearly the prominent, first family of human cannonballing:
The most famous family, the Zacchinis (over 35 members) devoted their entire life to this entertainment starting in 1922, coming to the US in 1929. At times (1939 to 1991) they had as many as 5 traveling shows with 14 cannons. The Zacchini's introduced launching two people simultaneously from the same cannon. Aside from the original five brothers who took flight, eventually two of their daughters also became human bullets (Duina and Egle Victoria). Hugo was the last of the family members to take flight on August 29, 1991. The Zacchinis also suffered several serious accidents, including one, where two of them collided in mid air having been simultaneously shot from opposing cannons.
Nevermind that none of the dates match other reports. Or that the places don't match up. Forget all of that. In human cannonballing the facts aren't as important as the flight. Not even close.
The human cannonball is a performance in which a person (the "cannonball") is ejected from a specially designed cannon. The impetus is provided not by gunpowder, but by either a spring or jet of compressed air. In a circus performance, gunpowder may be used to provide visual and auditory effects, but this is unrelated to the launching mechanism.
The human cannonball lands on a horizontal net or inflated bag, the placement of which is determined by classical mechanics. Outdoor performances may also aim at a body of water."
The propellant of choice today is compressed air. The human projectile climbs into a hollow topless cylinder that slides inside the cannon barrel. Having been lowered to the bottom of the barrel, the cylinder is blasted forward by compressed air at 150-200 pounds per square inch. The cylinder stops at the cannon's mouth. Its occupant doesn't.
Being shot from a cannon, like jumping out of an airplane, isn't that strenuous; it's the sudden stop at the end that's a bitch. Elvin Bale, the "Human Space Shuttle," was experimenting with air bags to break his fall while on tour in 1986. He overshot the airbags and crashed into a wall, seriously injuring himself. On another occasion two members of the Zacchini family, long famous for its cannonballing exploits, were launched simultaneously from opposite ends of the circus. They collided in mid-air; one Zacchini broke her back.
Historian A.H. Coxe says of 50 human cannonballs more than 30 have been killed, mostly by falling outside the net. Even if you avoid mishaps, many human cannonballs black out in flight, which makes me wonder about long-term brain damage. (OK, I lied when I said it wasn't strenuous. Sue me.)
But why try to describe it? It's 2010. You can see it.
Fantastic. Remarkable. Inspiring.
I've been saying for the past week that I aspired to live as a human cannonball. A human rocket. Flying. Fearless. Astonishing. A shooting star. Defying gravity. Isn't that what it's all about?
On Sunday morning I went into town to gas up my car. While I was pondering the blue sky and the ridiculous price of gasoline, a man I know, a one-time client of mine, approached me and asked me if I had heard the bad news. I hadn't. He told me that on Saturday, a friend of mine, another lawyer, a colleague in the public defender's office, had died of a brain aneurism. I was shocked. My friend is about 25 years younger than I. I told my former client that I hadn't read about this in the paper or heard about it. He said he was sure it was true, that he was sorry, and he called his sister on his cell phone. Yes, she said, it was true. Four people had called her to tell her the news.
I went home and called our mutual, public defender boss. I think I woke her up. She said my friend was as alive as alive could be, that nothing was the matter, but that she, too, had received several calls about his having died. To put it mildly, reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated. They were, in fact, false. I called him up. He answered the phone.
It seems that on Friday he was playing in a golf tournament. Through a bureaucratic error, no lawyer showed up to cover his cases in City Court, where he was supposed to be. The judge said in words or substance that my friend wouldn't be representing his clients, and he sent various people back to the jail or to home. Apparently, the rumor started after that.
This morning I spoke again to the dead man on the phone. He was fine. He'd received phone calls for two days about what had happened to him. He had visits from the police, the troopers and the deputies. His office had received numerous calls from his clients and friends. The funeral home next door to his office had received more than a dozen inquiries about what the arrangements were. A few people pulled into his driveway, some with tears streaming down their faces, to express their condolences. A few friends of his had called the house from as far away as Florida. A neighbor spoke to his father-- his father was leaving a child's birthday party at his home on Saturday-- to express his condolences.
Today is Monday. The rumor goes on, undeterred by the fact that the supposed dead guy is at his office, doing what he always does, and that the story is completely false.
Today I heard the story that his family was forced to pull the plug on him yesterday.
Meanwhile, he's agreed to call a few reporters he knows to see if he can stop this before somebody on a playground tells his young boys how sorry they are that their dad died.
Oh boy. The New York Times has done it again. This time it's a story about how paid bloggers are, well, killing themselves:
They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
The rest of the story outlines the pajamas wearing sweat shop: writers who cannot sleep, eat, or live a life because they don't want to miss a story and have to write. Constantly.
This, my dear readers, is not my life. It's not my problem. It's not something that's happening to me. First, I don't get paid for writing the Dream Antilles. And most folks act like they're allergic to clicking the "donate" button om the right hand side of this page. Second, I'm not trying to beat anybody to anything. I post what I think when I can think about it. I'm not in a race with anyone or anything. If I don't post, well, I just don't post. Third, I have a real life, a job, a family, children, pets. Fourth, there's enough competition at dailyKos and even docuDharma for readership. I don't need to bring it here, and I won't.
So, my dear readers, please don't worry about me. I'm fine. Really. But would it kill you to donate to the Dream Antilles? That would ease my "stress." Just asking.
David's new novel Tulum was just released. You can purchase it online at the usual sites as a soft cover or eBook. For details and to talk about this book, "like" its Facebook page and leave a comment.
