Seed of doubt, kernel of truth

As a sequel to my previous post, “Curse all seeds!” I’m happy to report that the Slate Explainer has answered “a version” of my seedless watermelon question . . . here. My thanks to the Explainer!

For reference, my original question was: Why does so-called seedless watermelon have seeds? Specifically, the little white “seedlets.”

The Explainer only answers my question directly in the Bonus Explainer at the end of the article, and then only briefly, but I won’t fault them for that. It’s kind of a thrill to get a published response at all, and they offer a detailed answer to the question they are more interested in: what is the difference between seed types/colors in watermelons?

Regrettably, I have never specifically wondered about the difference between white seeds and black seeds in a “regular” watermelon. So for me, the entertainment value of this question is about on the level of, say, how common is premarital sex at BYU? Or, what is the congressional gym like?

I was more interested in the socio-economic ramifications of what I considered a biological oddity.* People buy seedless fruit for the perceived masticatory convenience. So why market an item as “seedless” when it has some seed-like elements, even if they are only “hard seed coats”? Honestly, does it make much difference to my mouth whether I have to spit out mature seeds or empty seed coats?

I’ve been told, “why don’t you just swallow them?” Well, that’s not really the point, is it? For people who don’t care either way, it’s easy to recommend a “grin and bear it” mentality. And if I were some soft, dandyish type who was born with a silver ladle up my petard, accustomed to suckling on the teat of an overfed nursemaid, I could see this as a valid point. But I’m not bemoaning a world that allows people to be victimized by the arduous chore of watermelon-eating. I’m just annoyed by the lack of clarity, consistency, transparency, whatever you want to call it.

Maybe I’m the only one who’s bothered by it. And I admit that my intellectual curiosity about this far outstrips my gustatory qualms about seedless watermelon.

But no, I’m still not swallowing.

_______

* I’ve also enjoyed reading about the genetics behind growing a seedless watermelon, which is the triploid (three sets of chromosomes) hybrid of a diploid plant and a tetraploid plant.

Curse all seeds!

Dear Slate Explainer,

I’ve been enjoying my fair share of watermelon during this hot summer. Perhaps to the dismay of the watermelon seed spitting champs of Luling, Texas (as well as greenhorn porch-swingers and curb jockeys all over the South), I always buy seedless watermelon. However, it has always bothered me that there are all those little white seeds or “seedlets” in there, as well as the occasional “normal” black seed.

Why does so-called seedless watermelon have seeds? Seedless oranges and grapes generally have no seeds whatsoever. I buy seedless fruit because I don’t have the patience for the oral gymnastics of sifting through seeds. What gives?

Thanks.

Czardoz Contra World

* * *

A few days ago, I emailed a version of the above to the Slate Explainer, a column that answers questions “about today’s news.” Not directly factual questions about specific events, which would be boring, but rather, thematically germane questions, the kinds of quandaries that particular events get you thinking about. So you would likely find a question about choreographing fireworks displays during the Fourth of July, or a question about lethal doses of radiation during the Fukushima nuclear tragedy in Japan, or even a question about the various spellings of Gadhafi (Qaddafi?) during the apex of Libyan revolution coverage.

I especially enjoy questions that address cultural touchstones, things that everyone has some experience with, for example: what happens if you eat the silica gel that’s packed in with your ramen packages and Blu-ray players? And I can’t help reveling in questions with some lurid fascination, like: would your dog eat your dead body? Or, what does whale taste like?

So, do you think they’ll answer my question on the website? I hope so, because I certainly think it has more entertainment value and intellectual breadth than, say, whether someone can really make you go to rehab, or how the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement compares to that in the other major sports.

Is it petty of me to say that I am terminally annoyed with the white seedlets in seedless watermelon, from both mouthfeel and nomenclatural standpoints? The former point is obvious; the latter, well, in a marketplace that has established the meaning of “seedless” to mean “without seeds” for other fruits, isn’t it somewhat fraudulent for the watermelon to gallivant through the produce section under the same banner? Wouldn’t it be more honest to call it a “white seed” watermelon as opposed to a “normal” or “black seed” watermelon? Actually, who’s to say what’s normal? I wasn’t aware until researching this issue that the familiar yellow Cavendish banana is actually a “seedless” fruit, produced through vegetative reproduction rather than sexual reproduction. They seem pretty normal to me!

In an era where the bioengineering of food is commonplace, where inaccurate and misleading labels are as old as Rhode Island and the Indians of Christopher Columbus, and where getting a raw deal is considered business as usual, perhaps we’ve lost our innocence on numerous fronts. It’s a loss I can bear, but in the absence of innocence, I should like very much to retain my sense of outrage.

* * *

UPDATE!

During the course of writing this post, I received an email response from Daniel Engber, Explainer editor, who told me that they “might answer some version of it tomorrow.” Cross your fingers!

Ode to my father

For Father’s Day, I thought I would do something I’ve never done before: share a few anecdotes about my father, in homage to a man I’ve long underappreciated and have had difficulty connecting with. Here are a few of the moments I’ll never forget about my father.

* * *

Once upon a time, during a visit to Oakland, it was suggested to my father, my brother, and me that we see the local Mormon temple, which was reputed to be quite aesthetically pleasing. Once there, we walked the grounds, and somehow got roped into taking a “tour,” their version of a tour involving very little architecture or landscaping, and quite a bit of religious propaganda, most notably in the form of a short movie about the Mormon “experience.”

After the movie, our guide, a smile-happy young woman, asked us what we thought of what we had just seen. Though I gather the questions were directed at all of us, she specifically looked at my father, and he took the lead in answering.

“I thought it was very nice,” he said, “that you believe in a father who takes care of you.”

Our guide nodded approvingly. Then she made the mistake of asking my father, “What do you believe in?”

My father looked at her with the placid expression that he had maintained throughout the film and conversation, and said, “Nothing.”

Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder beside him in the theater-style seats, I tried desperately not to laugh out loud. I could feel coming upon me a crack of smile the size of the Grand Canyon, and it was only a combination of jaw-clenching, lip-biting, and hand-over-mouth that saved me from an epic guffaw. The man had said he believed in “nothing,” as if it were the blandest comment in the world.

Our young lady looked slightly bewildered, and I’m sure she didn’t want to respond in any fervent way, for fear that something was lost in translation. In a way, I think something was lost, because although I know my father was honestly expressing that he has no religious beliefs, I don’t think he realized the idiomatic impact of his blunt statement.

Embroiled as our societies are in various destructive culture wars and ideological arm-wrestling matches, I’d like to think that one day, I’ll be able to say with a straight face and clear conscience, “I believe in nothing.”

That was the last time we visited a Mormon temple together, but hopefully, not the last.

* * *

On a family daytrip to Davis, California (the reasons for the trip would bore you as much as Davis bores most sane people), I asked to be dropped off for the afternoon to see an old college friend who was now attending UC Davis. I met up with her, just the two of us, and we talked, laughed, and drove around while the rest of my family pursued their own Davis delights.

When my family retrieved me, my mother asked me, “Did you have enough time together?”

My father interrupted in a good-humored way and said, “When it comes to the people you care about, when is it ever ‘enough’ time?”

When it comes to life lessons, I was never particularly receptive to the ones my father tried strongly and directly to instill in me. But once in a while, he would utter an offhand remark that reached right into the most humane and sympathetic part of me.

* * *

My favorite memory of my father comes from my grade school days.

When I was a boy of about six, just starting to walk that one long block to school on my own, my father would walk me out of the house and up to the street curb, and then let me cross the street by myself. At the opposite side of the street, it was my habit to look back at my father, and invariably, he would move his hands up to his head and make a gesture of finger-combing his hair. He was telling me to smooth down my disheveled jungle of hair. I would try my best as I walked the rest of the way to school. Looking back now, I wonder why he didn’t just put a comb in my pocket. I also wonder why the best memories are always the simplest.

Though I don’t tell him nearly enough, and though his attempts to give me advice might strike me as imperious and officious now, I hope he realizes that I appreciate his concern. And no matter how well I've learned to tame my hair, I hope my father will continue to look out for me as he did back then.

* * *

Note [The following will perhaps be of only minimal interest, and only to my long-time readers.]:

I wrote and edited the above post all in one day, and so it is in very real terms a first draft, as opposed to almost all my other posts, which are heavily scrutinized and modified before I publish them. Not to say that there is any treasure hunt of typos or grammatical boners to be found. Rather, it is only remarkable to the degree that anyone cares about the “voice” of my posts, which perhaps is less clear in this one than in my more carefully written posts. If I ever get around to revising this post, I may put the new version alongside the above version as a useful comparison study. For myself, I mean, because I’m sure no one else cares!

Gotta Catch His Ball!

Though the above photograph is about as blurry and confused as a Psyduck, the viewer should be able to discern the unmistakable image of a tiny boy dressed in what could only be interpreted as an Ash Ketchum costume, with a canary yellow balloon trailing behind him as a fanciful representation of Pikachu. Look carefully. See the red and white hat peeking out from behind the bus door. See the blue backpack and blue shoes, the overall air of shrimpy insolence. Revolting, isn’t it? This may not be a perfectly accoutered Ash (see below), but the imagination involved makes it stand out from mere verisimilitude.

I stalked this mother and child parade for about the length of a street block, trying to capture the money shot while eluding their notice. Astonishingly, the sight of a grown man bounding after a little runt and snapping pictures has the tendency to cause ignorant passersby to mistake said man for a child snatcher. My aversion to being featured on yet another episode of To Catch a Predator forced me to take a timidly defensive posture, like, I don’t know, a Metapod? (He only knows how to “harden,” hahahaha! Disgusting.) Shackled as I was by our suspicious American culture, this photo, shot with my ancient Nokia cell phone’s 2-megapixel camera from a great distance, obscured and fuzzy as it is, was the best and only one I could get.

As the old adage goes, the best camera is the one you have with you. I would have liked to have been wielding my Pentax DSLR with a super-telephoto lens attached at the moment that I stumbled on the lad. But, like a Pokémon trainer who comes upon a rare Pokémon but has no master ball . . . uh . . . and then he has to use his other ball . . . um . . . and his type is weak against some other type . . . er . . . I’m not good with these Poké-nalogies.

What other franchise could I try . . .

Like Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios bro-ing it up in Army of Two, you use the tools you have. If you don’t have a guitar to celebrate surviving a hairy back-to-front tandem parachuting gauntlet, you muscle out some air guitar and make funny noises with your mouth. Don’t have a girl to hug after dishing out a nasty decap? Just walk up slowly behind your partner, grip him tenderly but snugly around the waist (back to front, natch), and lift him gently off the ground until you can feel his manly weight upon you. Then lower him like a child cradled in your loins, his warmth commingling with yours. And hush, no words now, lest you disturb the sanctity of this moment.

Ugh, what depravity. I guess pedophilia is still worse, right? Right???

Another two bite the dust. What now?

Here they are, the ten songs that I wish I could have played on either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I’m not saying that the inclusion of some or all of these would have saved either franchise from the ax (that’s a pun, see?), but they would have added some legitimacy, zest, variety, and vigor to decent song lists that consistently fell short of greatness, hewed too close to a noise rock comfort zone, and included far too much that was disposable (I’m looking at you, Slipknot, and “Chop Suey” by System of a Down).

I searched the official websites of both series to see if any of these songs were available either as downloads or innate to any of the boxed games, and as far as I could tell, they were not. If I made a mistake, let me know, and more importantly, buy me that song.

1. Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over (1987)

A bit of a “soft” choice, but all instruments are represented, including keyboards, plus there’s a backing vocal. And it's a great song for singers of either sex.

2. Erasure – A Little Respect (1988)

Synth-pop gets little respect in the rock world, but with the arrival of the keyboard in Rock Band 3, this song would have easily led the vanguard of keyboard tracks (though, as it turns out, this vanguard is now more of a funeral procession).

3. Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is (1984)

A real singer’s song, the kind of thing both series are short on. That made some sense in the pre-Rock Band days, but with the coming of the microphone and the acknowledgement that these games weren’t just for would-be power shredders, it would have been nice to have this song, the king of the power ballads.

4. Golden Earring – Twilight Zone (1982)

You can play “Radar Love” on Rock Band, and while that’s a fun song, “Twilight Zone” is the one I want. It’s like riding on the knife edge of insanity.

5. Guns ‘n’ Roses – You Could Be Mine (1991)

A classic, especially memorable from the Terminator 2 soundtrack, and the kind of song that these games were designed for. So what was the hold-up?

6. Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven (1971)

I’m no Zeppelin aficionado, and I would understand a little backlash in selecting this, a too obvious choice, and too lengthy a song. But I listened to it again the other day, and it is a truly marvelous piece of music. And I can’t think of any other Zeppelin song I’d choose over this. Let’s say it falls into the category of “missing definitives.”

7. Smashing Pumpkins – Ava Adore (1998)

Both series feature decent selections of Smashing Pumpkins songs, but neither features this, which I consider their best song. You can keep “Today,” which shows off the band at its most saccharine and user-friendly. “Ava Adore” is a song for the Gothic Nosferatu within.

8. The Sounds – Midnight Sun (2009)

A relative obscurity, and recent, but this list needs a representative of where music is going now. This is perhaps my favorite song from my favorite good-time band of the last several years.

9. U2 – Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984)

If you could have only one U2 track, which one would it be? As much as I love “One,” I wanted more of an earnest rocker than a ballad of yearning. So it was a toss-up between “Pride” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” While I think the latter is a more pleasing song, I’m going with the former because it’s more of a vocal challenge.

10. Veruca Salt – Seether (1994)

“Volcano Girls” is available as a download in Guitar Hero, and while that may be a more rocking song overall, “Seether” is their iconic hit, one of the defining songs of the 90s, and it should be here. Plus, it's nice to have the harmony vocal.

I suppose it’s no accident that this list is heavily populated by the songs of my childhood and adolescence. Take them for what they’re worth; they’re just one man’s opinion. All in all, I think Rock Band and Guitar Hero did a good job; it wasn’t exactly easy to make this list, and though I can think of many other songs I would have like to have played (Phil Collins and Rod Stewart, anyone?), the above are the closest to being essential.

So long, music games. You made a good show of it. I guess we still have karaoke night.

Booth and the Double Button

My former teacher at the University of Chicago, Wayne Booth, wrote an essay entitled, “Is There Any Knowledge that a Man Must Have?” In it, he discussed the aims of liberal education, and while I suspect he didn’t have in mind such a mundane task as sewing a button, Mr. Booth possessed a breadth of interests that surprised most.

On a recent winter trip to Seattle, in the midst of uncommonly cold weather (as confirmed/alleged by various longtime locals I happened to come across), I recalled Mr. Booth’s question when the buttons of my overcoat (the only coat I had brought for this weeks-long trip) started popping off.

The coat was barely adequate to fend off the chill in the first place, and it would certainly be useless to me if it couldn’t close. At the same time, I had never in my life sewn a button. I think my only sewing experience of any kind was a crafts project in elementary school. I didn’t plan to spend the rest of my trip indoors or furiously hugging myself to keep my coat closed. (Nor did my budget or temperament allow for the purchase of a new garment.) So I had a choice: take the coat to someone to fix the buttons, or sew them myself.

How hard could it be? I thought. So I bought a rudimentary sewing kit at Walgreen’s and, with the internet as my guide, I got to work. Here are the malefactors (shown with size references):

You can see that there is not only the main, larger button for the front of the coat, but also a smaller (let’s call it an anchor) button that attaches to the interior side. I didn’t fancy the idea of cutting my teeth on this pernicious “double button,” but I figured that one doesn’t choose the crisis, only the response.

Once I got going, I realized that it was indeed a simple operation, though none of the videos and guides I initially consulted made clear how to accomplish the final knot that the button required. So I improvised a little, and though my technique wasn’t entirely orthodox, the button held well enough. I tackled a second button with more assurance, but left too narrow a shank this time, meaning that the gap between button and fabric was barely wide enough to accommodate easy buttoning. But it worked. And voila! The coat, she is done:

I returned to the question: is there any knowledge that a man must have? (Or as Mr. Booth revised at a later, more politically correct time: what knowledge, if any, should everybody pursue?) Specifically, is sewing a button a skill that everyone should learn? Once I had done it, I had to say no, I didn’t need to have this particular knowledge, and if I had a personal handmaiden to sew my buttons and darn my socks till the end of days, I wouldn’t feel like I had lost some crucial piece of my humanity.

But the question is not about specific fragments of knowledge. Rather, it asks of each of us what it is that we need to know in order to be truly free as human beings. I wouldn’t say that learning to sew a button was an Olympian achievement, but I did enjoy the small freedom I felt in doing it myself, and knowing that when the time comes, I could do it again.

As soon as I join the ranks of professional seamstresses (we really need a masculine form of that word), I will announce the pricing for my services.

* * *

Wayne Booth was a great man, a great humanist. I was proud to know him, and only regret that I never got to know him well. Though the academy has a reputation for snootiness, I never knew a professor so at ease with bringing together the prosaic and the divine. I trust he would not begrudge me the use of his good name and good words in pursuit of matters sartorial.

“A man can be ignorant even of Shakespeare, Aristotle, Beethoven, and Einstein, and be a man for a’ that – if he has learned how to think his own thoughts, experience beauty for himself, and choose his own actions.” – Wayne Booth

It's a-you? It's a-me!

Mario has achieved the top of the flagpole! Hooray! 5,000 points!

(Totem pole at Victor Steinbreuck Park, Seattle)