Conversation with an encyclopedia

I slept fitfully, to put it politely. I forced myself to stay in bed until nearly 9:30 this morning, trying to make up for the poor and intermittent quality of sleep I was getting. It must have worked, as I was not exhausted the rest of the day, as I had half expected to be.

After a shower and a breakfast of granola and milk (that I had brought with me), I settled down to a long conversation with Donald that lasted much of the rest of the day. We jumped from topic to topic, stream of consciousness fashion, with him doing about two thirds of the talking.

I wish I had an audio recording of one of these conversations, but no tape would last long enough, and anyway I wouldn't want to ruin the spontaneity. I sat down afterward and tried to remember the topics of conversation, but they were so numerous and so various that I could only recall about half of them—and minus most of the juicy historical anecdotes. Here's a sampling:

The deciphering of the 3600-year-old Mycenean "Phaistos Disk" and the Rapanui rongorongo inscriptions. Donald has a book by the linguist who did the work, but hasn't read it yet; instead, he's trying to do some deciphering of his own "just for fun" and will then read the book to see whether he got it right. (I skimmed the book and found that most of Donald's guesses were correct.)

Finding a new doctor (his old G.P. left town two years ago and he has not had an exam since—a Very Bad Thing in a man who has diabetes)

Diabetes, eyesight and losing your home—I warned Donald bluntly that if he doesn't take care of his eyes, he could lose his sight and then be unable to live in this big old three-story house

Doctors, and why they have inflated egos: they have to, since to admit fallibility would destroy their ability to act

Morphine addiction in the medical and dental professions

Why the Chinese came up with so many inventions, but failed to commercialize or militarize any of them

The nature of Chinese civil service—the entrance exams stressed vocabulary and skill in poetry, rather than anything that had to do with the actual work to be performed

Chinese civil servant Houqua, who was demoted to a post dealing with foreigners (a real insult in an Asian society), actually enjoyed it, got very rich...but had to be very careful how he spent his money in order not to upstage the emperor

How my friend Kenny Gapp's mother had an oil portrait of Houqua in her living room, but handed it over to a restorer with a respectable Princeton address who turned out to be running a scam: advertise restoration services, collect paintings, disappear

The various fossil species named after Donald by his friends and students: a millipede, a salamander, a coelacanth (Hadronector donbairdi), a prehistoric shark, etc. There were a lot more than I knew about!

Russian copies of French weapons (18th century)

Russian copies of American weapons (20th century)

Why there was no Russian Baroque era in music

Late German Romanticism—how the malign influence of Wagner's music spread across Europe

The raising of the Confederate submarine Hunley

The Hunley's sorry history: four Confederate crews (three dozen men) died horribly in test runs; there were only a few Union casualties when the frigate Housatonic was eventually sunk by the Hunley, which then sank herself, killing her fifth and final crew

The bravery of Major Ezra Lee in piloting Bushnell's Revolutionary-war submarine the Turtle

The nature of the Turtle's propeller: not an Archimedes screw as shown in popular illustrations, but a "mill sail" (quoting Major Lee) similar to the later Ericsson propeller that drove the ironclad "Monitor." Bushnell's Turtle was a century ahead of its time in this, as in many things.

The ineffectual British shelling of Stonington, Connecticut in retaliation for Continental use of "infernal machines" such as the Turtle:

"They killed a cat
They killed a hen
They slaughtered three pigs in a pen
It cost King George three thousand poun'
To shell the town of Stonington."

How the townspeople of Stonington badly shot up the three British men o' war that were doing the shelling, using only a couple of 18-pounders (cannon firing 18 lb. balls)...then fusilladed a boatload of marines who were sent ashore to torch the town, convincing the Brits to slink off

King George II's porphyria and its consequences: the king's maltreatment by his physicians and subsequent descent into madness; George II's similarities to George W. Bush (dimwitted, stubborn, puppeteered by his advisors)

Hereditary diseases in European monarchs

The Bush administration's military ambitions and previous failures; the US as a "rogue nation"; the similarity of G.W. Bush's unprovoked war on Iraq to the Argentine military junta's attack on the Falklands: cover up domestic economic problems and brewing scandals with a nice little war against an easy target, beat the drums of jingoism and xenophobia to unite the populace behind the Commander in Chief, etc.

The sinking of the H.M.S. Hood, which took a bomb through the lightly armored foredeck that blew up the magazine

The many tasks involved in publishing a scientific paper: why paleontologists love to do fieldwork and make discoveries, but hate to write papers

Bad proofreading and trusting computers too much

The past and present of the Educational Testing Service, where I work; how our new president Kurt Landgraf has turned the company around, but will probably leave within a few years to run for Governor of Delaware

Fire extinguishers, and why Donald's two dry-chemical extinguishers—22 and 40 years old, respectively—are useless because the dry chemicals are packed in the bottoms like cement.

Buying a new microwave oven to replace Donald's aging and underpowered Emerson. This is one piece of modern technology that Donald really depends upon!

The many parallels between Microsoft's Bill Gates and RCA's David Sarnoff: who was the bigger bastard?

How Sarnoff pulled the rug out from under Edwin Armstrong's pioneering FM radio network by having the FCC change the allocated frequencies, making all Armstrong's equipment useless at a stroke of the pen and eventually driving him to suicide

The benefits of the iPod: carrying your entire musical library with you

How prices of antiques and collectibles have skyrocketed as the stock market has fallen

...and on and on. By around three in the afternoon my bladder was full to the point of considerable discomfort...but the conversation was so interesting that I could not bring myself to get up for nearly another hour!

Finally we took a break, and I had some popcorn and oatmeal cookies (there being very little else edible in the house) in lieu of a late lunch. Hugh came by at about 7:00 with his girlfriend Sharon, a pretty blonde nurse who had just had a foot operation and was getting around on crutches. He drove us out to Mount Lebanon to pick up his mother Deirdre—Donald's widowed older sister—and we went out to eat at a local restaurant called "Giovanni's." The prices were a bit on the high side (entrees were in the $17-20 range) but the food was excellent and plentiful...although Donald complained to me under his breath that "I don't really want any of these things" while perusing the menu. Deirdre, on the other hand, had trouble choosing from the many appetizing meals.

Donald and I both had a chicken dish that had been caramelized and then layered with sauteed onions, peppers, mozzarella and other goodies. It was delicious, though I was only able to finish half of mine—I brought the rest home. Donald, never one to waste food, made sure no bread was left behind. It was excellent, hard-crusted artisan bread—the kind I had sought in vain in that Ohio supermarket.

Hugh was kind enough to take us back to his place long enough for me to pick up the items I need to (hopefully) get a better night's sleep tonight. Tomorrow I plan to rent a car for the day and ferry Donald to the local medical center to get a new doctor, then pick up a new microwave oven and some type B:C fire extinguishers that work. But now it's after midnight and I need sleep!