Ken’s Blog

Yesterday, by coincidence, both Dave Brubeck and Oscar Niemeyer passed away. Two men in different fields, living on different continents, one American, the other Brazilian. And yet in my mind they were powerfully connected.

Brubeck was continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible in music. He took his influences from everything and everywhere, and used them to push ideas that were well beyond anything else that was happening at the time.

Perhaps his most famous musical intervention into the culture, among many, was his successful attack upon the ugly squat-shaped tower of the 4/4 time signature, that boring edifice which underlies western classical music, rock and roll, dance, blues, rap, really our entire metrical culture — an insistent thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa rhythm that dulls our senses and our lives, and beats us day after day into submission.

After a visit to the Middle East and India, Brubeck was exposed to other possibilities, leading his quartet to compose Take Five (which uses 5/4 time) and Blue Rondo A La Turk (in 9/8 time). Take Five has become one of the most often played and beloved pieces in the Western musical cannon, in direct defiance of the confining boxy square of 4/4 time.

Similarly, Oscar Neimeyer’s entire career as an architect was a full frontal assault on a similar boring mainstay of architecture — the building as squared off box. All over the world he replaced the tyranny of right angled boxes by domes, curves, spirals, undulating enclosures, soaring winglike structures, and dreams of ecstatic flight made concrete flesh.

It is not surprising that his career temporarily came to a halt when Brazil was taken over by a military dictatorship. Like Woody Guthrie (a man who shared many of Neimeyer’s political ideals), whose guitar bore the inscription “This machine kills fascists”, Neimeyer understood that there are many kinds of boxes, and that the ones most dangerous to freedom are those that the eye cannot even see.

Two brilliant men, two continents, who shared a profound idea — that truth comes in many shapes, and beauty is often found outside of the box.

I heard the world is coming to an end
According to the Mayans, it’s quite soon
    Oh why would they want to end us?
    You’d think that they could lend us
Another several months, at least ’till June

I heard the planet’s going up in smoke
According to the Web, the end is near
    Guess it’s time to heave a sigh
    And to say your last goodbye
For the Web is never wrong, or so I hear

Soon, when this is over and you’re dead
You’ll be sorry you ignored that Mayan curse
    But do not give in to the blues
    For there’s one piece of good news:
I won’t be around to write another verse!

🙂

Today I did something I should have done years ago. I’ve had all the pieces for quite a while, but I had never quite gotten around to putting them together. Now I wonder why I didn’t do it sooner. I’m sure you’ve had the same feeling.

When I develop my little computer graphic programs (like the gear example from yesterday), there is generally a trade-off: Either I can approach them in a way in which everything runs super fast (the “compiled” approach) but making changes is slow and clunky, or I can approach them in a way that runs a lot slower (the “interpreted” approach) but changes to the program show up pretty much instantaneously.

If you think about it, this is a difficult trade-off to navigate. If everything runs really fast, you can create far more exciting and interesting things. But you find it too slow or awkward to make little tweaks and changes, then it becomes hard to perfect your design.

It’s kind of like the difference between driving a big automobile and riding a bicycle. The car is powerful and fast, but the bike is far more maneuverable.

Today I figured out a way to make selected parts of my Java programs act like a bicycle while I’m tweaking them, but then like a big car when I am ready to put them out into the world. This means that I can make super fast design iterations, and still end up with something fast and powerful when I’m all done.

This makes me very happy.

There is a research project here at NYU for which I am planning to build a little custom-made robotic mechanism. One of the key components of this mechanism is a “worm drive”. Worm drives, which you may have seen in toy cars, are useful when you want an easy and compact way to gear down the rapid rotation of an electric motor into a rotation that is a lot slower but more powerful.

The general idea is to attach a threaded screw to the shaft of your motor. As the motor rapidly turns, the threads of the screw (being helical), seem to gradually drift up or down the shaft. This drift can be used to transfer power from the rapidly spinning motor to a slowly turning gear.

This weekend I used my little home-brew software modeler/renderer to make a 3D computer graphic mock-up of one of these things. I spent way too much time on it, partly just because it was fun, and partly because I ended up being quite taken by the sheer aesthetic beauty of this mechanism.

If you click on the image below you will see an interactive Java applet that shows a worm drive in action. The applet also will also let you zoom in for a close-up:

 
Individually, the two parts of the drive are rigid, yet the effect when they move together is surprisingly sensual. There is something strikingly intimate about this dance between two very different yet perfectly synchronized shapes. You could say they were meant for each other.

I remember from previous longer things I have written within these pages that people have requested “the whole thing at once”. So I have now compiled the thirty posts that constitute “A Nose for Danger” into a single conveniently sequential read.

The daily breaks in the original telling have been marked in the form of thin horizontal lines. You can think of these as virtual pages. Each such page actually counts off a day of my life during the month of November 2012. This nod to temporal authenticity may or may not be relevant to your reading experience, but there it is.

I understand that many people who participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) revise their creation after they have recovered from that initial insane monthlong rush to produce a book-length cornucopia of words. It is not clear to me that there is anything in this particular novel that I would wish to revise.

So here it is, as original written: A Nose for Danger (a novel).

The experience of writing a novel within the thirty allotted days of National Novel Writing Month was intense, and mostly good. I stuck with my rule that each segment needed to be written “on the day”, not in advance. Though as the month went on, and I got to know the novel’s world better, it became clear to me where the characters wanted to go, and I pretty much just happily followed them there.

The entire enterprise actually evolved from a single word. A friend, who happens to be named Lulu, had come up with the word “Smellephant”, which she thought would be a great name for a character in a children’s story. When I asked her, somewhat nonplussed, “What’s the difference between a Smellephant and an elephant?” she replied, as if it were obvious: “Because … he’s the Smellephant!”

And from that contradiction came the key insight that led to my writing this novel. For when is an elephant not an elephant? When he’s a hard-boiled shamus who follows his nose, an antihero who deeply resents being beloved as an elephant by children everywhere. A sort of “Babar Noir”.

Bits and pieces then dropped in from a multitude of random sources, like shreds of brightly colored cloth woven into a magpie’s nest. For example, at the start of the month a friend from the U.K. happened to mention the opening line of “Rebecca”, which made for a perfect beginning, since du Maurier’s dark classic is as far from a cheerful children’s book as you can get. Then exactly one month later, I managed to slip in a sly reference to Michael Nesmith, which is always a good thing. Other influences were too personal to mention here, but will be recognized by the individuals involved.

But ultimately the Smellephant exists because he has always existed, in the hopeful hearts of children everywhere, and in the dreamlike shadows of tales waiting to be told. Wherever there is a dame in need, or a crime in need of justice, you will find the elephant who never forgets. For what are dreams but memories set free? And as we dream ourselves awake, the Smellephant follows his nose.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the door.

“Sorry chief,” an officer said, poking his head in. “This tortoise here claims he’s an old friend of yours. I think he’s some kinda foreigner. Says he’s got a present for the Smellephant.”

“It’s ok, let him in,” the chief nodded.

It was Tommy, and he was holding a gun. The pointy end of the gun was aimed at a very upset looking ferret. “He’s got no right to do this. Tell him chief.”

Tommy ignored the ferret’s outburst. “Was like you say, Smellephant. Ferret shows up at hospital, looking for Sam.” The tortoise was looking very pleased with himself. “Finds me instead.”

The chief turned to me. “Well well. Looks like the ferret went straight for the chimp, as soon as he heard Sam was still alive. You know what this means, right?”

“I think,” I said, “it means you can uncuff the lady.”

“Thanks,” Lulu said, flashing me a big smile. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you. Or maybe,” she said slyly, “I do.”

“So the ferret was behind everything?” the chief was starting to put the pieces together in his head.

“Nah, ferrets don’t read du Maurier, everybody knows that. He’s just a hired hand, working for the real perp, the one that created a false paper trail, then killed Winthrop, Manny too when the parrot was about to sing, and paid the ferret to plant Winthrop’s glass at my place to implicate me. Then shot Sam when the chimp got wise to the forged records, and used that number sequence to make sure the trail would lead back to Rebecca.”

“So who’s the perp?”

“Someone who knows how to forge documents well enough to make a pile of money once Winthrop’s out of the picture. Someone we all thought was dead — because the ferret told us he was. But our mastermind couldn’t resist leaving a signature — the first animal mentioned in the novel “Rebecca”: A rabbit!

“So,” the chief said, “it was Whiskers all the time! Now that we know he’s the one behind this harebrained scheme, we’ll catch up with him soon enough. But Smellephant, how could you remember something like that, an old book mentioning rabbits?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Lulu said, “An elephant never forgets.”

THE END

The chief took us down to the station. I wore a fedora, Lulu wore handcuffs. The desk sergeant started processing the precinct’s number one murder suspect.

“By the way,” the sergeant said, “those lab results came back.” He handed the chief a folder.

After studying it for a moment, the chief stared at me long and hard. “When I heard you had those prints lifted, I sent them down to central for a full ID check. Just standard procedure. Guess who prints were on that glass, Smellephant?”

“Ok, I give up,” I shrugged.

The chief nodded toward Lulu. “This gal’s dead dad.”

I gave him a steady look. “What are you implying?”

“Isn’t it obvious? This puts the victim at your place, and we know you and the dame have been playing patty cake. We also know she’s been impersonating her sister.”

“Chief, are you’re saying…”

“You know exactly what I’m saying. You two were in this together, killed Winthrop for his dough.”

“But I’m the one who brought the prints to Hu in the first place.”

“Thought you were being cute bringing in that glass and teacup, didn’t you? We find the same prints on both, and everyone thinks there’s only one dame. But you got unlucky — you picked up the wrong glass.”

“But why would Winthrop come to my place?”

“Not for me to say. I guess that part of the story died with him. But it connects you to the murder. Looks like you outsmarted yourself this time, Smellephant. Sarge, book him.”

“As you have already decided that I am guilty of these murders, what would be the point of speaking in my own defense?”

“Look, Rebecca,” I said. “You had motive and opportunity. As your father’s heir, you stand to gain the most from his death. The gaps in your sister’s records suggest you were in the process of planting false info about her, which you hired Whiskers to forge. Then you killed the hare to cover your tracks, and Manny because he got wise to what was going down. It would have been a perfect crime if Sam hadn’t found some records you missed. The chimp is the missing link.”

She shook her head. “I am sorry that Sam is dead. I … I know he was your best friend.”

“Well, I guess the truth can come out now. Sam’s still hanging in there, although he’s in a coma. We don’t know if he’ll wake up.”

“Hey Smellephant,” the Ferret asked, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but do you mind if I go? I don’t need to be here for the dramatic parts.”

I nodded. What was coming next probably wouldn’t be pretty.

“Miss Winthrop,” the chief said to Rebecca, “I’m afraid I’ve got to formally charge you with these murders.”

“Yes,” she said, “but which Miss Winthrop do you mean?” Suddenly I realized her accent was gone. In fact her whole way of carrying herself had transformed. Right before our eyes, Rebecca had turned into Lulu.

“So,” I said, “you’ve been the same gal all along.”

“Apparently,” Lulu explained, “I am a classic case of a split personality. That’s what the doctors say anyway. Rebecca doesn’t know. This personality comes out in times of stress.”

“Yeah,” the chief said, “I can see how being arrested for homicide can be stressful.”

I had to admit I was glad to see Lulu. I’d kind of missed her.

But the chief looked troubled. “Hu showed me the lab report.”

“Who showed you the lab report?”

“Yeah, exactly. And the prints didn’t match. So how does one dame,” the chief said, looking hard at Lulu, “have two different sets of finger prints?”

Chapter 6

“How do you know elephants are afraid of commitment?”

Rebecca just stared at me. I don’t think she was in the mood for a joke.

Fortunately the chief saved the moment. “Because,” he jumped in, “wherever they go, they take their trunk with them.”

She looked from me to the chief and back again. “Was that supposed to be clever?”

“I’m not sure clever is the right word,” I shrugged. After all, maybe I was afraid of commitment. Some joke. “We asked you here,” I said, attempting to move on, “to figure out what happened the night that Sam got shot.”

“I really don’t know what you are talking about. Of course I am saddened that your friend was killed, but I cannot see how that has anything to do with me.”

I had to hand it to her, either she was innocent or she was a very good liar. “I asked you the other night if you recognized the sequence of numbers 4514295. Got anything to say about that?”

“I told you Mr. Smellephant, it’s just a meaningless string of digits.”

“I figured you might say that. I asked the ferret here to get a certain book. You might recognize it. After all, it’s got your name on it. Also the last message of a shooting victim.”

The ferret was only too eager to hand her the book. The publisher was Victor Gollancz of London, the author Daphne du Maurier, the title “Rebecca”. It was a first edition too, 1938, original dust jacket. I’d had the ferret bring it here from the city archives. Maybe that was my real idea of a joke. She turned it over in her hand, like she was afraid to open it.

“Go ahead,” I said, “read the first line.”

“Last night,” she said slowly, reading the words aloud, “I went to Manderlay again.” When she looked up there were tears in her eyes.

“Sam didn’t have the use of his right arm,” I said, more to the chief than to Rebecca. “All he could do was type a sequence of numbers on the adding machine. But maybe that was good enough to finger a perp.”

The chief looked at her. “4514295, perfect match for the letter count of the words in the opening sentence. Not much chance it’s a coincidence. Rebecca, you got anything to say for yourself?”