Homemade Air Conditioning and Alienation in New Jersey

I was looking online for some tips on cooling off (it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, as they say) and found a university student’s account of building an air conditioner using nothing but a garbage can, a large fan, copper tubing, vinyl tubing, zip ties, clamps, and water. MacGyver would be proud.

Today, green blog Treehugger covered how to build a solar-powered air conditioner. Treehugger also linked to the blog lifehacker, which also posted instructions on making your own air conditioner (similar in design to the university student’s but with a “closed-circuit” system that reuses water).

I’m happy to learn that even something as unwieldy and technically incomprehensible as an air conditioner has a cheap, homemade counterpart. Of course one shouldn’t expect such units to cool one down as much as a commercial unit, but the savings in cost (on the unit itself and electricity) might make this an option worth exploring for some.

And here’s a completely unrelated quote:

“And I thought that one natural effect of life is to cover you in a thin layer of … what? A film? A residue or skin of all the things you’ve done and been and said and erred at? I’m not sure. But you are under it, and for a long time, and only rarely do you know it, except that for some unexpected reason or opportunity you come out–for an hour or even for a moment … as when you were a kid.

And you think: this must’ve been the way it was once in my life, though you didn’t know it then, and don’t really even remember it–a feeling of wind on your cheeks and your arms, of being released, let loose, of being the light-floater.”

-The Sportswriter, Richard Ford

A good book on alienation in contemporary life, set in the New Jersey suburbs outside New York City. I first read Ford in the New Yorker. His short story “Quality Time” is one of my all-time favorite pieces of literature. The story is reprinted in one of his recent collections, and I’d highly recommend it.

More Spring Observations

Walked by a fenced-in grassy lot tonight that smelled of freshly mown grass, whatever those chemical compounds are that cut grass emits. Which reminds me that I recently read about “freedom lawns” in the book Suburban Safari, by journalist Hannah Holmes. Freedom lawns are free of pesticides and fertilizer and are basically the antithesis of the mini golf courses that some people cultivate as their yards. I no longer have the book handy, but the Christian Science Monitor reported on this environmentally friendly trend way back in 2004.

I saw Saturn on Saturday (well, I did!). Two men had telescopes set up by an entrance to the subway station. One telescope was focused on Saturn, the other was trained on Jupiter. Jupiter was a bright spot in the sky. But Saturn looked like a marvelous paper cut-out set against a nightlight. Although the image was small, it was possible to distinguish Saturn’s rings from its body.

Long Time, No Post

We’re all agreed at the office that Tuesdays are the worst.

Tuesday lacks the notoriety of Monday. Yet the 24 hours separating Tuesday from the weekend do not soften much the impact of a new week (assuming one is on a Monday-Friday schedule). Wednesday–hump day–has always been neutral. The end is in sight, but it’s not quite the release provided by Thursday, considered by some to be the best day of the work week. Thursday has a leg up over Friday because one can revel in anticipation. Friday night, although it’s the beginning of the weekend, can be a bust just because one’s energy might be sapped after five days of work.

John Porcellino’s Perfect Example is perfectly lovely. Next, I will be tackling the 592-page graphic novel Blankets, by Craig Thompson, which a friend recommended highly.

Stanley Kubrick’s "Lolita"

Note: My thoughts on Lolita were originally posted in my sidebar and was written a few weeks ago.

I really enjoyed Kubrick’s 1962 version of Lolita. Shelley Winters blew me away as Charlotte Haze, Lolita’s mother. I’d seen Winters in The Night of the Hunter, another great movie, but she wasn’t onscreen for very long. Winters played Charlotte as both a disgusting and pitiful woman.

James Mason was also excellent as Humbert Humbert. His Humbert struck me as being a much more despicable than Jeremy Irons’s Humbert in Adrian Lyne’s version of the story. Now that I think about it, I would say the same goes for the two Lolitas. I could sympathize with Dominique Swain’s Lolita, but as far as I can remember, Sue Lyon’s Lolita was closer to the precocious brat depicted in Nabokov’s novel.

The News Today

I’m baffled by this article on IMDB, titled “Grace Horrified by Holloway Robbery.” Here’s an excerpt:

Josh Holloway’s Lost co-star Maggie Grace is horrified to learn of the actor getting robbed in his home, because she knows he only just completed work on the dream property. … And Grace, who learned of the incident during her current visit to New York City, knows just how much the home and vehicle mean to Holloway.

There’s a brief description of the robbery and an even longer quote from Grace about her reaction to the incident.

Either the article should have been about the robbery and about how Holloway feels, or the article should have mentioned that Holloway could not be reached for comment. Instead, the article ends up sounding like it’s trying too hard to make something (a robbery) out of nothing (comment from a person who did not witness the event and was not in the area at the time).

Maybe this was just an excuse to put up a portrait of Grace, who’s in a movie that came out the same day this article was posted?

On a lighter note, I saw a commercial for an upcoming episode of NOVAscienceNOW that will feature a segment on fish surgery (!). Incidentally, I just read about fish surgery in Herd on the Street: Animal Stories from The Wall Street Journal, which I picked out from the library today.

According to this 2002 Wall Street Journal article reprinted in the book, there are only 20 or so vets in the entire country who operate on pet fish. The number of such vets might have grown since then, as the reporter noted that demand for such services is rising as increasing numbers of people install backyard ponds with fish.