The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son, by Rupert Isaacson; New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009. ISBN-13:978-1-61523-575-9. Paperback edition; 357 pages; 16 pages of color photographs.

This book was in my Christmas gift basket from my oldest daughter and her family, and I recommend it with my whole heart; it's a wonderful book. It tells the story of Rupert Isaacson, his wife Kristin, his autistic son Rowan, and a whole cast of other characters, who go on an incredible journey together. The word "quest" is exactly the right word.

There's an intricate plotline about horses and the relationships between people and horses, that I found deeply interesting and totally convincing. I've never ridden horses -- a mule, but never horses -- which means that if this plotline isn't accurate I would have no way of knowing, but I was completely convinced.

There's a plotline about the family's trip through Outer Mongolia, first by air, then in an unreliable van, and then days on horseback. If the book had had only this story arc it would have held my interest from beginning to end; Isaacson's descriptions of the landscapes and weather, the troubles and complications, the crew of helpers (and a camera crew as well), are riveting. This man can really write; he makes you see and hear and taste and feel every mile and every experience as if you were right there with him.

There's a plotline about the shamans that Rowan's parents hoped would be able to help their son -- with detailed descriptions of their rituals and ceremonies. And then, on pp. 348-349, Isaacson writes:

"Rowan is still autistic -- his essence, his many talents, are all tied up with it. He has been healed of the terrible dysfunctions that afflicted him -- his physical and emotional incontinence, his neurological firestorms, his anxiety and hyperactivity. But he has not been cured. Nor would I want him to be. To 'cure' him, in terms of trying to tear the autism out, now seems to me completely wrong. Why can't he exist between the worlds, with a foot in both, as many neurotypical people do? Think of immigrants to the United States, living with one foot in their home language and culture, the other in the West, walking in two worlds. It is a rich place to be. Can Rowan keep learning the skills necessary to swim in our world while retaining the magic of his own? It seems a tangible dream."

And at the book's end Isaacson is making arrangements to take Rowan to the Kalahari, as one of the shamans they consulted in Mongolia told him he must do. I hope this means there will be a book about that journey as well.

I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to read this magnificent book.

Via Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror, The C Programming Language by Brian W Kernighan and Dennis M Ritchie and HP Lovecraft. My favourite part:

I had heard tales of the... thing that C.A.R. Hoare had summoned up in '62– dark hints of choosing one element from an array, and partitioning the rest into lesser and greater sets, and hellishly recursing until the data were twisted into a sorted list– but nothing I could have imagined would be in any way comparable to the daemoniac, blasphemous reality that I saw.

I think any second-semester sophomore encountering quicksort for the first time knows exactly how the narrator feels.

Unrelatedly, was woken by the postman this morning from a dream in which I was giving a talk about error-correcting codes, failures in spoken communication, and formality of register, at a feminist conference (!), using the OSI network stack as an analogy (!!). I had just got through the obvious parts about how explicit, simple protocols and robust error-correction at the application layer reduce misinterpretation (for some reason, my example for that was a bingo game), but when the protocol has no built-in error correction and can be fragmented, the rate of confusion rises (I think where I was going with that was some kind of analogy between natural language and fragmented IP datagrams), but then the doorbell woke me up.

Rendezvous with S-Rank bears Woofer and his Husbear, Matthew. They were visiting SF for Christmas and I was so lucky to meet them at StarBearbucks. Woofer is way more fun than his blog lets on—and his husband is incredibly animated and super fun to talk with. Woofer says I'm taller than he imagined *blush!*

Would you look at that? I think I just scored A-List-Bear-Bingo. Let's review:



Hurray!

And now I'm moving in with Mr January.

• 04:29 is on a 50 seat propeller plane at Charlotte airport... should be an interesting morning. #
• 16:12 is in a cabin in the woods. maps.google.com/?q=35.335031%2C-83.587225 #

Automatically shipped from Gabe's Twitter Account c/o LoudTwitter

My friend's cat Holly; I suspect she decided that her species required representation along with the camels, cattle and lambs.

Never molest same.

Finally got out and made it to church at St. Luke's this morning.  The snowdrift that blocked me in on Christmas Eve was still there on Christmas morning, so it wasn't until afternoon Christmas Day that my dad and I got out and shoveled off the driveway.  We had over half an inch of ice under the snow to try to break up and remove, too.  The streets are still a mess around here.  In the South, municipal governments aren't equipped with snow plows as they are up north, so we wait for the weather to warm up and the limited car traffic there is to wear away the snow.  My parents' house is near the local hospital, so their street usually gets enough traffic to make the road passable after a day or so, but my tires were still spinning on my way up the hill.

Church attendance was light this morning.  I walked in five minutes before Mass was to start, and they were putting everybody up in the choir.  By the time the processional was going, enough more people had wandered in to fill up the first several rows of pews on both sides.  I think a little over 50 ended up finally there (the deacon told me there were only 18 people in church Christmas Eve, mostly people who lived near the church who could walk there).

Hymns this morning were Regent Square (Angels from the realms of glory) for the processional, Puer nobis nascitur (Unto us a boy is born) for the sequence, Venite adoremus (The snow lay on the ground) for the offertory, Antioch (Joy to the world, v. 1) for the fraction anthem, Greensleeves (What child is this) during communion, and In dulci jubilo (Good Christian men rejoice) for the recessional.

The Mass setting included a Taizé setting called "Glory to God" in lieu of the Gloria and Proulx's A Community Mass setting of the Sanctus and Benedictus.

The rector was out on his post-Christmas vacation, so the assistant, a priestess, was the celebrant.  She wore an ungirdled alb with her stole hanging straight down on both sides bishop-style, but at least she put on a chasuble for the consecration and communion.  The deacon preached this morning.  He talked about how God didn't make change in a big "shazam" way, but provided a tiny spark to build up inside us, and analogized that to how scientists believe that during the "big bang" that began the creation of the universe, it all started with a singularity that had no dimension, and yet within a couple of seconds, 75% of the universe was formed.  In case you were wondering, this isn't exactly a parish of Creationists!  LOL  We can get very scientific and rational here, since ConocoPhillips has a research and development center in town, and there are lots of scientists and engineers out there with one or two Ph.D.s.

It's always nice to be back at St. Luke's, since this is the parish where I grew up, and I still know lots of people there.  Sitting in the choir is always fun, too, since that is where I learned to sing as a young choir boy many years ago.

Time to go figure out what to fix for lunch.  Maybe if things clear off tomorrow, we can start running around town, but for now, we're essentially at home in the snow.

Homemade Vanilla ice cream with red wine poached pears and red wine reduction sauce.



P.S sorry for not doing food posts as often.... my palm pre STILL doesn't have and LJ app.

for misskimh. I had a cat, Nicodemus the Evile Anti-Koala aka ThiefCat, who would steal crackers off of the table (or out of your hand if you weren't paying attention) and then go to a corner and eat them like a squirrel. He also stole small pieces of jewelry, coins, other shiny bits, and dice. He once stole a die while my ex was rolling die while watching tv. Just snuck his paw out and tucked it under himself while pretending to be watching tv as well. My ex didn't notice a thing. He also didn't believe it when I asked him to count his dice, he noticed one missing, and I said, "Pick up the cat." "What?" "Trust me. Just pick up the cat." ::chuckle::

More than the gifts I received this Christmas, I like the ones I gave other people. It's not the fact that some of the gifts were valuable, but just that I was able to touch someone else's life a little bit. Maybe they'll think about me in 2010, because I will certainly be thinking fondly about them. Here is what I gave some of the people I love:

( Cut for loot )

GI Joe on a PED and a sundae. Yay First Class!