recent reading and stuff

[bunrab]

The Culture of Our Discontent: Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness by Meredith Small - it's a rather lightweight pop-science type thing. The author is an anthropologist, and she decided to look at mental illness as an anthropological topic. However, she skims through definitions of mental illness a little too thinly. And how can someone talk about the possible evolutionary usefulness of schizophrenia without talking to, or at least mentioning, Robert Sapolsky? But one chapter was really interesting, about how the balance in our diet between omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids has changed, and how that might be contributing to rising incidence of depression; since "eat more fish and less corn-fed red meat" is probably good advice in any event, it is nice to know that more omega-3 from fish may also lessen depression - can't hurt to give it a try.

And an anthology, Best New Comic Fantasy, 2005 - which, considering that includes stories first published in 1955, is a rather misleading title, but it is nonetheless a nice fat anthology with lots of good stories. A few duds; one self-referential parody of comic fantasy can be amusing, two of them become merely tiresome. ETA: 'Scuse me, the correct title is The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy. And I counted. 8 of the 32 stories - 1/4 - are original to this anthology; another 3 are copyright 2004 or 2005 although they were published elsewhere first - so that is 1/3, at most, of the book, that qualifies as "new." PPhhhttthht.

For those of my readers in our general geographic area, note that the Montgomery Village Community Band will be playing a concert at the Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Center in Silver Spring, MD, on Sunday, March 18, at 2:30 p.m. The senior center is a public recreation center, so anyone can attend. It's free. There's some fun stuff on the program.

Speaking of music, my family sings in public. All of us. For no reason whatsoever. squirrel_magnet thought it was just me, when he first was getting to know me, until he met other chunks of the family and discovered it was widespread. If something reminds one of us of a song, we'll start singing it. And we do a lot of deliberate singing, as well, whether we're any good at it or not. Where most families, after Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, retreat to the TV to watch football, my family decides to sing every song we can possibly remember. We sing in the car to pass time, and it doesn't even have to be along with the radio. One time, Steve and I were visiting my brother JJ and his wife, in California, and we were walking around San Francisco, and we saw something, I don't even remember what, that apparently reminded me and JJ of exactly the same thing, because at exactly the same moment, and even in the same key, we burst into the same song (I don't remember what it was). Steve and B were backing away from us, like 'we don't know these people, never seen them before in our life.'

So, if you haven't taken the Kelly Quiz yet, now's the time!

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I call "shenanigans" on the omega-3 fatty acid thing. There have been, throughout history, large human populations that didn't have fish as a substantial part of their diet, because they lived away from the sort of seacoasts and rivers that could provide a ready source of fish.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how to shut Kelly up. I *think* some highly trained medical professionals *may* have discovered an anesthetic that works, but I'm doubtful.

[squirrel-magnet.livejournal.com]

Uhhh, doubtful is good. The doctors report that she chatters away during surgery while under anesthesia.

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

At least 2 surgeons have reported that I kept talking quite cheerfully while undergoing procedures with them. In fact, when I was first getting an electrophysiology study and an angiogram, back in Austin, the doc said the nurses had a little trouble keeping up because I was making them laugh.