May, 2025

"This Just In..."

Having trouble viewing this email? click here to read online.

Good morning!

Welcome to May. It's our favorite month of the year, filled with warm breezes and cool nights. Flowers and trees blooming and the sense that everything is possible.

We hope that this epistle brings you a bit of joy and discovery and thank you all for reading and playing along with us.

From the Lake” #1, by Georgia O’Keefe. 

Just wanted something soothing to get you started this month.

Marilyn vos Savant was…well, a Savant. Brilliant. IQ 228, maybe higher than anyone – ever. She went on to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the “World’s Highest IQ,” and, as a result, gained international fame.

Despite her status as the “world’s smartest woman,” vos Savant maintained that attempts to measure intelligence were “useless,” and she rejected IQ tests as unreliable. In the mid-1980s, with free rein to choose a career path, she packed her bags and moved to New York City to be a writer.

Here, she caught a break: when Parade Magazine wrote a profile on her, readers responded with so many letters that the publication offered her a full-time job.

In September 1990, she devoted one of her columns to a reader’s question, which presented a variation of the Monty Hall Problem:

“Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, “Do you want to pick door #2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?”

“Yes; you should switch,” she replied. “The first door has a 1/3 chance of winning, but the second door has a 2/3 chance.”

Though her answer was correct, a vast swath of academics responded with outrage. In the proceeding months, vos Savant received more than 10,000 letters — including a pair from the Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information, and a Research Mathematical Statistician from the National Institutes of Health — all of which contended that she was entirely incompetent. Here are just some of those statements – from Ph. D’s and….more.

You blew it, and you blew it big! Since you seem to have difficulty grasping the basic principle at work here, I’ll explain.

After the host reveals a goat, you now have a one-in-two chance of being correct. Whether you change your selection or not, the odds are the same. There is enough mathematical illiteracy in this country, and we don’t need the world’s highest IQ propagating more. Shame!

May I suggest that you obtain and refer to a standard textbook on probability before you try to answer a question of this type again?

I am sure you will receive many letters on this topic from high school and college students. Perhaps you should keep a few addresses for help with future columns.

You are utterly incorrect about the game show question, and I hope this controversy will call some public attention to the serious national crisis in mathematical education. If you can admit your error, you will have contributed constructively towards the solution of a deplorable situation. How many irate mathematicians are needed to get you to change your mind?

You made a mistake, but look at the positive side. If all those Ph.D.’s were wrong, the country would be in some very serious trouble.

You are the goat!

Maybe women look at math problems differently than men.

The outcry was so tremendous that vos Savant was forced to devote three subsequent columns to explaining why her logic was correct. Even in the wake of her well-stated, clear responses, she continued to be berated. “I still think you’re wrong,” wrote one man, nearly a year later. “There is such a thing as female logic.”

Here’s the thing. She was right all along. Great story here: https://priceonomics.com/the-time-everyone-corrected-the-worlds-smartest/

Sorry, the 60’s die hard.

This is just a suggestion to turn on your air conditioning.

Right now, we’ll wait.………………..



Good. Now, if you got ice cold air coming out of your AC unit, you may scroll down to enjoy the rest of the newsletter.

HOWEVER – if the air was warm – or you heard noise that made your skin crawl – give us a call right now and we’ll do an AC tune-up as soon as possible. Better do this now – rather than waiting til it’s 94 and humid! 

Call 860 813 9122

Salaries Americans say they consider the minimum to be "financially successful"

Kevin Kelly (born 1952) is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and a former editor and publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture. He’s shared a bunch of travel tips – you might find helpful this summer:

If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance.

When visiting a foreign city for the first time, take a street food tour.

Crash a wedding. You are not a nuisance; you are the celebrity guest.

The most significant criteria to use when selecting travel companions is: do they complain or not. Even when complaints are justified - no complaining. Complaints are for the debriefing afterwards when travel is over.

It’s always colder at night that you think it should be especially in the tropics. Pack a layer no matter what.

Spend more time in fewer places than a little bit of time in a bunch of places.

To book a train anywhere in the world outside your home country you first stop should be The Man in Seat 61– a sprawling website which will help you book the train you want. (Wow, it’s true)

If you are starting out and have seen little of the world, you can double the time you spend traveling by heading to the places it is cheapest to travel. If you stay at the budget end, you can travel twice as long for half price.

When asking someone for a restaurant recommendation ask them where they eat. Where did they eat the last time they ate out?

Thomas Jefferson wrote, Travel makes a person wiser if less happy.

I’ve always had this hunger to be more engaged. Not necessarily more happy, but more engaged.

Let’s talk filth.

Have you any idea the kind of dirt, dust, pet hair, mold, dandruff or old Cheetos that may be sleeping in your home’s ducts?

It’s astonishing what kind of nightmares are up there.

Way before

Right after

More importantly – let’s talk about your health.

You’re breathing that stuff!

If you suffer from breathing issues like:

• persistent core throats,

• sinus issues,

• coughing,

• asthma,

• allergies and more

you need to make sure your ducts are clean!

And Daniels is ready to help.

Look at the picture on the left. Imagine…breathing that daily!

If you haven’t cleaned your ducts in 3-5 - (OMG - 10!) years – or more - let Daniels do a complete cleaning program. 

A total cleaning of your system takes 3-4 hours. In the process you’ll reduce pollutants that you are breathing daily and increase the comfort of your home – immeasurably.

Call us today. Schedule your complete duct cleaning and breathe easier (and healthier) all year long.

CALL TODAY

(860) 813-9122

One of the top 3 actors of his generation. Fantastic. Who is he? Tell us here and you may win a coveted $25 Amazon gift card.

In 1963, photographer Melvin Sokolsky famously captured a series of images for Harper's Bazaar featuring models seemingly floating through Paris inside a Plexiglass bubble, suspended from a crane, a surreal and iconic moment in fashion photography. 

Here's a more detailed look at the "Bubble" series:

•  The Concept:

Sokolsky, known for his innovative and surreal approach to fashion photography, wanted to bring the medium into the realm of dreams and poetic illusions. 



•  The Execution:

The "Bubble" series involved a model, Simone d'Aillencourt, encased in a Plexiglass ball that was suspended from a crane, creating the illusion of floating. 

• The Inspiration:

The dreamlike scene of a floating bubble was inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych by the early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch. 

• The Challenges:

Sokolsky faced some logistical and technical challenges, including the need to prove the concept worked and the potential for mishaps like the bubble accidentally being lowered into the Seine River. 

• The Legacy:

The "Bubble" series is now considered a landmark in fashion photography, showcasing Sokolsky's ability to blend fashion with surreal imagery and pushing the boundaries of the medium. 

More here: https://www.wired.com/2014/02/throwback-thursday-retro-fashion-retrofuturism-collide-1963-bubble-series/

(Yeah, we’ve run this before, but we just think it’s so freakin’ cool)

Seven books to get you started on reading – and relaxing – and enjoying the Spring weather!

The Illegals:

Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West

by Shaun Walker



Walker’s fascinating and meticulously researched book details a century-long Russian project to infiltrate Western society by planting deep-cover spies — or “illegals” — to live for decades under false American identities in places like Hoboken, N.J. .

The program began in 1922, when Lenin was still pacing the Kremlin corridors, and continues today under Vladimir Putin, who seldom met a Soviet relic he didn’t want to polish up. 

Sorrowful Mysteries:

The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the Twentieth Century

by Stephen Harrigan



This personal, engaging new book by a novelist and journalist explores the enduring power of the Virgin of Fatima, the apparition reported by three Portuguese children over the course of six months in 1917.

Harrigan — who was himself fascinated by miracles and holy relics during his Catholic childhood in 1950s Texas, before adopting a more skeptical view — suggests that the popularity of the Fatima cult was helped by a political battle between Catholic traditionalists and secular republicans that was raging in Portugal at the time.

Exit Zero:

Stories

by Marie-Helene Bertino

The stories in Bertino’s death-haunted and very funny new collection frolic in the nether zone between fantasy and reality: A woman’s estranged father dies and she discovers a unicorn living in his yard; balloons float into a character’s garden carrying cryptic messages from who knows where (“YOU SEEM LONELY,” “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK”).

These and other premises verge on precious, but the prose is photorealistic enough to neutralize the taste of sugar. 

Crumb:

A Cartoonist’s Life

by Dan Nadel



R. Crumb’s underground comics, as exemplified by characters like Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and the big-footed amblers from the “Keep On Truckin’” cartoon, were instrumental in shaping the counterculture of the 1960s and beyond: His Zap Comix, not for kids, read like a stoner version of the Sunday funnies.

Nadel’s sleek and judicious new book is an ideal, definitive biography, revealing a fascinating and complicated figure who scratched his own psyche and uncovered America’s unruly id. 

Notes to John

by Joan Didion

Drawn from Didion’s previously unpublished reflections on sessions with a therapist, “Notes to John” — addressed to her husband, John Gregory Dunne — is at once slightly sordid and utterly fascinating, as it shows the celebrated author (who died in 2021) grappling with her legacy, her anxiety and, especially, her longstanding maternal concern for the well-being of her troubled daughter, Quintana Roo, who died at 39 of complications from pancreatitis.

Though written with Didion’s constitutional meticulousness, the book is less a finely cut sapphire than a cloud of diamond dust, sparkling even as it complicates our view of an important figure. 

More Everything Forever:

AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity

by Adam Becker

Becker, a science journalist, subjects Silicon Valley’s utopian pipe dreams to critical scrutiny in this smart and wonderfully readable new book, which traces the various plans advanced by billionaire tech entrepreneurs in their grand bids to “save humanity.” From artificial intelligence to colonizing outer space, the animating force behind such projects is what Becker calls “the ideology of technological salvation.”

He argues that Silicon Valley’s preoccupations have created their own kind of warped ethics, offering transcendence without regard for practical limits or conventional morality. 

Hardly Creatures:

Poems

by Rob Macaisa Colgate



Books of lyric poems work like museums: We wander, we investigate, we marvel at our favorites. Colgate’s exciting, sometimes shocking debut collection makes that comparison explicit — imagining the book as a museum devoted to disability access, a space made of language.

These poems attend, delightfully and exceptionally, to extraordinary bodies and to shared physical needs. Better yet, they attend to the joys, the constraints and the weirdness of new and old poetic forms: Colgate can roll accounts of his life into ghazals, stack them in abecedarians, shuffle them into sestinas or drop into a cascade of intimate truths. 

(Thanks to the NY Times for these suggestions)

We’re going easy on you this month. Tell us what this little picture quiz says and if your correct answer is selected, you’ll receive a $25 Amazon gift card. Last month Fred T and Jon S plus 48 of you correctly identified Robin Weigert and Kim Dickens from Deadwood, while Patty Z and Kristin H and only 36 of you solved the tough Trinity Quiz – which was that all the punts (boats) were named with the number 3 in mind (representing, as it would, The Trinity)



Good luck this month.

“Herons” in Murano glass.

Birchbark Biting.

This is why you open this newsletter.

It is an Indigenous artform made by Anishinaabeg, including Ojibwe, people -Potawatomi, and Odawa, as well as Cree and other Algonquian peoples of Canada and the United States.



Artists bite on small pieces of folded birch bark to form intricate designs. Indigenous artists used birchbark biting for entertaining in storytelling and to create patterns for quillwork and other art forms.

Artists chose thin and flexible pieces of birch bark. This kind of bark is easiest to find in the early spring.

Using the eyeteeth to bite, the bite pressures can either pierce the bark pieces into a lace or just make certain areas thinner to allow for light to pass through. If the bark piece is carefully folded, symmetrical designs can also be made onto it.

In the 17th century, Jesuits sent samples of this artform to Europe, where it had been previously unknown. The practice remained common in Saskatchewan into the 1950s.