The Icon Thief

I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway. My review of it appears here and below:

This is a very well written book. It's really two books, a straight forward police procedural married to a more challenging narrative relating to a painting and its origins.

Either part alone would be a nice 3-star book, however the two combined with Nevala-Lee's skill make this a 4-star book. And when you add the wonderful ending, it's definitely 5-star.

The book begins by setting up the two parts with an art auction at Sotheby's for a recently discovered painting by Marcel Duchamp, Study for Etant donnés, and on the police procedural front a body is discovered under a boardwalk that had apparently been there for years.

The painting sells for 11 million, over 3 times the expected price, and that discrepancy fuels an investigation by art mutual fund researcher Maddy Blume that eventually turns tragic. This investigation drags Maddy through peculiar historical organizations and cults including the Rosicrucian Order (Order of the Rose Cross), Ordo Templi Orientis, Cabaret Voltaire, Dadaism, and even the Society of Pataphysics.

It's quite a trip and I did spend some time on Wiki looking up things. While one might think that these supposedly long dead organizations would hold no current danger, why then are Maddy and her colleagues being followed and threatened? Could these secret societies still exist and have powerful allies protecting them?

Alan Powell, a British SOCA agent & Rachel Wolfe, a recent graduate of Quantico, are involved in the murder investigation. They lead from the rear for bureaucratic reasons and that informal role allows them a lot of latitude with the investigation.

While this aspect of the book isn't as colorful, it lends a central cohesiveness to the narration which is invaluable by the end of the book. A number of encounters with the Russian Mob and a recently unemployed assassin do add some color to this part.

The three characters I mentioned are quite well drawn and I could easily see them forming the central core for a series of books. The Icon Thief is so good that I hope to see more books like this from Nevala-Lee.

That's the end of my review. There's a lot of references to artwork in the book. Here's a rather frank depiction of a woman in repose without clothes by Gustave Courbet. The name of the work is L'Origine du monde and it plays a pivotal role in the end of the book. It's a case of hiding is the worst thing you can do. I'm not sure if the author was making a playful stab, if you will, at the graphic nature of the painting or not.

The book, The Icon Thief, will be released in a few weeks (March 6, 2012) on the Signet label and the price is likely to be $9.99

Musical References

I saw the following image on Facebook today.

Do you get the reference? I did but it took a few seconds. And today I saw a second musical reference that I also got.

The words "In every city and every nation from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station" appeared in a book I am reading, The Icon Thief. I immediately recognized the line as being from the song "West End Girls" by The Petshop Boys.

Why do I bring this up? Well, now that I'm older and no longer listening to current music---and truthfully I haven't for several decades now---I often don't get musical references anymore. Actually it's rare that I do. So when I got two pop references in one day---it struck me as quite surprising. Of course it helps that both references were to songs popular 30 years ago.


In case you're curious, the picture refers to the song "Puttin' on the Ritz" since it has Vladimir Putin's picture superimposed on a Ritz cracker.The song was written and published in 1929 by Irving Berlin---but the version I remember was in 1983 by Taco.

Imagine being named Taco! (and yes, that is his real name, Taco Ockerse)

Lethal Valentine

I bought a dozen roses, a bottle of wine, and some ham yesterday. Since we're both sick (not sure if it's cold or flu) we didn't drink the wine yet but we'll go out to dinner tonight if our health allows. The poor snow-person below doesn't have that option. No heart = no going out.

It would be difficult to get more cynical than the person who created these snow folk... but it is an amusing picture with which to illustrate a St. Valentine's Day entry.

I wonder how the tradition of romantic love being associated with St Valentine's Day got started. I read the Wiki entry and according to it, there was a gap of over 1,000 years between the martyred saints (c. 197 AD - 267 AD) and the first known reference to Valentine's Day as a romantic time by Chaucer (Parlement of Foules) in 1382.

Maybe we'll have that wine tonight but I think a toast made with cough syrup is more likely. :-(

Parallel Universes

It seems like sometime recently I stepped from my familiar home, if you will, into a parallel universe. In this one Whitney Houston is a fulfilled person, known and beloved by all. This is a wonderful thing. Back in the universe that I spent most of my life she was an incredible talent that had an amazing debut album when she was 22, a pretty good followup album two years later and then just run of the mill stuff after that. Drug use and a poisonous marriage followed.

I'm very glad to now be in this gentler universe. I can't wait to see how other people are doing in their lives. I hope everyone is as improved as Ms Houston was. I did notice that all the tributes used songs from her first album though and not from music she created in the next 26 years of her life---so maybe things aren't as different as I might hope.

Press Releases

Universities love to release press releases when scientists get a paper published. Unfortunately they usually have the press release written by their PR folk, typically English Majors!

Why is this bad? Mostly because typical English majors stay as far away from science classes as they can. As a result, press releases written by them have tendency to mislead readers. Case in point, today a press release was put out by University of Alberta informing the public that researchers there had shown that "Mobile Animals Could Have Evolved Much Earlier Than Previously Thought."

So far, so good... but then the lead paragraph went on to say:

A University of Alberta-led research team has discovered that billions of years before life evolved in the oceans, thin layers of microbial matter in shallow water produced enough oxygen to support tiny, mobile life forms.

Now forgive me for being picky but how can microbial matter exist billions of years before life evolved? Isn't microbial matter alive? That's rhetorical---microbes are indeed alive.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Now in the actual article, Possible evolution of mobile animals in association with microbial mats, written by scientists and published online in Nhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifature Geoscience (May 15, 2011), the language is a little more accurate:

Complex animals first evolved during the Ediacaran period, between 635 and 542 million years ago, when the oceans were just becoming fully oxygenated. In situ fossils of the mobile forms of these animals are associated with microbial sedimentary structures and the animal’s trace fossils generally were formed parallel to the surface of the seabed, at or below the sediment–water interface. This evidence suggests the earliest mobile animals inhabited settings with high microbial populations, and may have mined microbially bound sediments for food resources.

The science article isn't as pithy as Brian Murphy's press release, Life gets a little older, but it's a lot less idiotic. And I like that. They really need to have intelligent people look over those publicity blurbs before they're released to the press.

short and healthy

Twenty two years ago a group of researchers started studying a small village in South America. You might be asking yourself what's so interesting about this Ecuadorian village.

Well, it so happens that there's an unusually large percentage of people with Laron syndrome. A disease which involves mutations to the GHR (growth hormone receptor) gene. These mutations lead to severe GHR and IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor-1) deficiencies. Since insufficient growth hormone results in a failure to grow properly, this is a very height challenged group.

This study commenced in 1988, two years before the human genome project got underway. Back then we didn't have DNA microarrays to pinpoint which genes are being up and down regulated. Why am I mentioning this? Hell if I know.

In any case, the researchers commenced the project in an attempt to help the people with GHRD. But an interesting thing happened on the way to the forum.

These short people don't die of cancer or diabetes. Go figure. Their "normal" Ecuadorian counterparts (the control population) die of these things at a rate of 20% (cancer) and 5% (diabetes) despite the fact that the GHRD folk tend to be more obese on average (21% in GHRD vs 13.4% in control pop). Weird, huh?

Since the mortality of the GHRD group is much higher in children, it's not a good idea to artificially emulate the low growth hormone level from birth. However using drugs to partially block the binding site of HGH (human growth hormone) might be very helpful.

That's not what's typically done though. Most people who play around with HGH (it's available by prescription) are boosting their levels, usually for athletic reasons. Uh-oh!

For those interested in the science background, HGH is synthesized and secreted from the back of the pituitary gland and is regulated by the neurosecretory nuclei of the hypothalamus. Interesting, n'est pas?

If you want to read the paper, Growth Hormone Receptor Deficiency Is Associated with a Major Reduction in Pro-Aging Signaling, Cancer, and Diabetes in Humans, it was published in Science Translational Medicine this month. Just search for the lead author, Jaime Guevara-Aguirre.

Happy New Year

According to the Chinese, today is the first day of the year.

And since about a quarter of the Earth's population is living in China (1.3 billion strong!) their opinion has to count for something. Maybe a lot. And it means more each and every year.

In any case this is the year of the rabbit. The branch is 卯 Mǎo. Whatever the hell that means. According to Wiki there's no apt English translation. At least I know what a rabbit is. :-)

I work with several Chinese people and I received two New Year presents which are pictured here. I've had some types of mochi before and it's okay---the hot shredded radish worries me though. I'll try it---but I suspect it'll not like me.

恭喜发财 : Often mistakenly assumed to be synonymous with "Happy New Year", the usage of this phrase dates back several centuries. The first two words of this phrase have a long historical significance.

Legend has it that the congratulatory messages were traded for surviving the ravaging beast of Nian, although in practical terms it may also involve surviving the harsh winter conditions. Nian being a dragon-like critter.

From Wiki:

Clothing mainly featuring the colour red or bright colours is commonly worn throughout the Chinese New Year because it was once believed that red could scare away evil spirits and bad fortune. In addition, people typically wear new clothes from head to toe to symbolize a new beginning in the new year. Wearing new clothes also symbolizes having more than enough things to use and wear in the new year.

In that tradition, I bought some new clothes at Wal-mart yesterday evening after hiking around Oconeechee Mountain. A lot of the Winter clothing is 50% off at Wally World so I got some "nice" stuff really cheap. So, happy new year!

Ground Hog?

No, not groundhog. I did mean ground hog. Or maybe ground dog.

This critter loves to play in the dirt and mud. She truly was meant to be a warthog, pig or some similar wallowing animal.

It's a testament to the cupidity of the gods that she was born with white fur. And that certainly helps sell lots of pet shampoo to a certain household. :-(

On the subject of Groundhog Day, it's warm here but overcast and windy---not much chance any groundhogs here would see their shadow. Now I just hope the warm weather arrives here to stay on schedule.

Groundhogs don't lie, do they?

Put a Cork in it

But try to be careful just how you put that cork in. Okay?

Case in point. Here's a nice bottle of Moscato that Carrie and I had Saturday night.

We picked it up last week at Trader Joe's and thought the cork looked a little funny cut off like that on the top but chalked it up to the bottler trying to make their product stand out on the shelf.

When I began to use a corkscrew to remove the cork I started to wonder if that damn thing was solid wood and not cork at all. It was quite dense and hard. Once the screw was all the way in, things weren't any easier. That bugger was very difficult to pull out.

There was a very good reason for that difficulty. The cork was put in the bottle upside down!

As you can see on the left, the part drilled in is the narrow part. The thick part of the cork was in the neck of the bottle and under quite a bit of pressure.

In the lower picture you can see the insignia on the part of the cork that was inside the bottle. I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be on the outside of the bottle.

At least it tasted pretty good. Not really clear details but that was probably due to being on the sweet side, and not the fault of the cork placement.

We had the wine with two types of Gouda cheese, also bought at Trader Joe's, and both cheeses were quite good.

One Gouda from France that was only 6 months old and a longer aged one from Denmark. We liked the Danish cheese more but it was close. The more pungent quality of the older Gouda made the wine taste better than its pedigree would normally allow. ;-)

Later that night we had a Wisconsin cheddar that we didn't like all that much. Even the dogs didn't appreciate it.

Cows are Herbivores?

I think most of us learned early in school that cows are herbivores.

Sure, there were other facts given to us. They go "moooo", often have cute spotted hides like those on the Gateway Computer boxes, produce milk (which might not be all that great on its own but leads to cheese and ice cream), and cows often have cute names like "Bessie" and "Elsie".

But now I have to question those myriad facts I learned so long ago.

Just look at these two pictures I took today! That doesn't seem like a herbivore to me. What do you think?!

You can bet I didn't stick around to ask Bessie there what she was eating. I didn't want to be next!

Now that I've uncovered the disturbing fact that cows do have a yen for animal flesh what's next? Vicious rabbits (like the one in Holy Grail) or killer sheep like in that Kiwi movie Black Sheep. Or maybe this is a ZOMBIE cow! Yikes.

Actually the explanation is more pedestrian but the thought of zombie cows is worth exploring. Especially if I can score some serious cash from National Enquirer for being the first to photograph this nasty new breed of cow.