Myspace Is A Social Networking Music Media Essay

Myspace Is A Social Networking Music Media Essay 1.0 INTRODUCTION In 2003, MySpace began. It was created by a small group of programmers who already had work in eUniverse, MySpace has grown by leaps and bounds. MySpace soon became one of the largest online companies. It was all due to the dream of Thomas Anderson and some of his friend who was members of Friendster and already had everything they needed to get started and create MySpace. In July 2005, MySpace was bought out by Rupert Murdochs News Corp. They changed the companys name to Intermix Media. News Corp is owned by Fox Broadcasting. Later, in 2006, Fox launched a UK version of MySpace. They successful attempt at adding the UK music scene to MySpace. Later they also release MySpace in other country. Currently, MySpace head office is in California. They are in the same building as Fox Interactive Media. They only have 300 people working for them, but they have gain over 200,000 new users everyday and have over 100 million users worldwide. Nowadays, MySpace is considered as a social networking website that provides us a highly personalized experience in entertainment. Besides that, MySpace also helps to connect music, celebrities, TV, movies and the game that we love. MySpace is easy and convenient for every user. It is similar to Friendster which allows their users to pick or build their favorite theme themselves. Furthermore, MySpace also allows users to upload their video, music, photo and other else that they want to share with other MySpace users. Games are also provided for users. There are many different kinds of games in MySpace. Some of the MySpace users expand their social network through MySpace. Some of them also use MySpace to connect with their long-distance friends. In short, MySpace is a social networking website that is very convenient to us. We can play game, watch video, hear music and do other things in MySpace. 2.0 MySpace Music Music is MySpaces territory. There have huge of artist and band pages. Some artists have millions of friends and the pages allow streaming music, artist control over the look and feel of the site and etc. MySpace also have  music streaming, playlists, downloads, merchandise sales, ring tones and other features.  (Facebook v. MySpace in the U.S. Market: The Music  Factor, Michael Arrington, Aug 22, 2008) MySpace Music is allowed users to search their favourite music by city. Besides that, MySpace users are allow to download music, link to news articles, and concert information and musician advertisement on MySpace Music website. MySpace creator, Anderson, makes no distinctions about talent level. He allowed anyone with music that can be downloaded can post on MySpace Music. (Website looks to get the word out about Pittsburgh musicians, By  Rege Behe, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, February 25, 2011) 3.0 ARTISTS Artist is a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination. They have their own official profile in MySpace. Their official profile is allowing MySpace users to know their recently situation. 3.1 How To Search The Favorite Artist Step 1: For those who already had their MySpace account, go into MySpace website (www.myspace.com) and login with your account. For those who dont have their MySpace account, go into MySpace and press sign-up. Step 2: No matter you are login or sign-up, you will enter your homepage. After that, you will see a bar on your top page, find the Music word, and click into it. Step 3: You will see a search box on your right hand side, type your favorite artist inside the box and press search. Step 4: Waiting your result come out. 3.2 The Results That I Searched Based on the topic, I had chosen the artist that I loved. I chose Britney Spears in this time. Britney Spears is my favorite artists all the time. She is an American recording artist and entertainer. I have followed the steps above to search the artists that I love. I found that is showing 3517 result for Britney Spears. In 3517 results, there were including artists, albums, songs and music videos results. For artists, there were 1000 results about Britney Spears. And the song, there were also 1000 results. Besides that, it had 526 results for the album and 1000 results for the music videos. The results just like the picture show on above. For artists part, I pressed the Most Relevant beside the artist results; I saw that had some related results about Britney Spears, but it was some only. I saw the Britney Spears official MySpace profile on the first and other was just a normal profile named Britney Spears. For songs part, I chose the Most Popular to find out what is the most popular Britney Spears song. As the results, I found that Britney Spears popular song was Womanizer, Circus, If You Seek Amy and other. The ranking was based on how many times does the song plays. Other side, I also chose Most Recent to find out what is the most recent song. The most recent song was based on the latest Britney Spears album. I found that had Circus, Lucky and etc. For the albums part, I chose Most Popular and Most Recent, but after I click in, I realize some of the album was not about Britney Spears. After that, I chose Most Relevant to find out Britney Spears album. There had Britney, Circus, Blackout and other albums. There had a Buy Album button under the all of the albums. We can download the album songs from MySpace to iTunes or Amazon MP3 and it cost $7.99 per album. For the music videos part, I click Most Popular to find out what is the most popular video. I found that some of the video was not about Britney Spears MV and some was some people recorded and posted the video that they sang. After that, I chose Most Recent. I found the result almost not Britney Spears MV. Therefore, I chose Most Relevant, I can see that most of the Britney Spears MV was found. There were Hold It against Me, Gimme More and etc. 3.3 Visit Britney Spears Profile I visited Britney Spears official MySpace profile, and I saw above of the profile, there had Britney Spears status. It will update what does Britney Spears done recently and let all MySpace users know her situation. Besides that, I found Britney Spears has 706989 friends on MySpace. She had so many friends because when we add her as a friend, the system will approve us automatically. But compare to some top artists, such like Eminem, Britney Spears not much more than him. I also found there were 925 people like this profile on Facebook. It might be used for promote Britney Spears MySpace page on Facebook. On the general info there, there had some details such as last login, profile views, records label, type of label and etc. It is give some general information to those who visited her profile. After that, I followed the step as the picture on my left. I went into the Music page and click Featured. I saw that had some songs on the playlist such as Till the World End, Hold It against Me, 3 and etc. Those songs put on featured playlist were the recommended songs. The songs those in featured playlist were recommended by Britney Spears. It might be some songs took from her albums as a theme song to promote her albums. For example, the Hold It against Me album, Britney Spears chose the song named Hold It against Me as her album theme song. But some of the songs in featured playlist are not exactly the theme song of the album. It might be the nice songs in her album. After searching the songs, I search the featured video. I followed the step in the picture on my left, click Videos. I found that already had a featured video when I came inside the page. The featured video is Hold It against me. This music video just came out recently. It was Britney Spears new album music video. Britney Spears had recommended her new album music video to all users of MySpace. Besides that, we can follow the video. When you follow the video, it is mean that you already like the video. The result of how many people like this video will show under the video. Other, you also can share this video on Facebook by click to all Facebook users. 4.0 PLAYLIST Playlist is a collection of songs from a music library created by users. MySpace also allow all users of MySpace to create their own playlist. 4.1 How To Create Playlist It might have some ways to create playlist. The proper way had shown as below: Step 1: Login into MySpace. After that, click My Stuff. Step 2: You will see Create Playlist. Click it. Follow the picture on above Step 3: Click the Add New Playlist, type your playlist name and press OK. Step 4: Your playlist have been done. The other way to create playlist is find the song that you want. You will see a + button, click it. After that, a box will come out. If you want to create a playlist and add the song into the new playlist, click Create a playlist, and type your playlist name inside. Then, click Add. Your playlist have been created. 4.2 Add Song To Playlist It is so easy to add song into the playlist. It might have some ways. The easier way was after you create a playlist, just searched the song that you want on the search box. Your results will be shown. After that, drag or drop the song that you want into the playlist. The other way to add songs into the playlist was you just saw the song that you want, click the song. You will see a + button, press it. After that, an Add to playlist box will come out. Choose the album that you want add into, then click Add. Beside these two ways, it also might have other ways to add song into playlist. Add song to playlist, it will let MySpace users easier to find the songs to hear that already save in playlist. 4.3 Edit Playlist After you created a music playlist on MySpace, you might need to edit it some times. Up to your playlist, it might have somethings can change. For example, you can change your playlist name through press the name of playlist, then edit it.Besides that, you also might add some description on the playlist to dsicribe the playlist that you created. There were also have three buttons named Share Playlist, Buy Playlist and Make Private to let you choose. Share Playlist can let you share your playlist to MySpace itself, Facebook, Twitter and Digg. The Buy Playlist was allow us to buy playlist which created by ourself. The prices were depends on how many songs we add into our playlist. Last, there was a button named Make Private. After you click that button, you will not share your playlist to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or Digg. The playlist just can play by your own MySpace account. In additional, you will also can delete songs which you dont want in the playlist. It was so easy to delete. You just need to click a x button behine the song name. Then the song will delete. You can just see the picture as below. 5.0 SAFETY TIPS MySpace is a lifestyle social networking that contain over millions of peoples. All of the users in MySpace include you and me are playing a very important role in keeping the community safe. Safety Tips is a webpage in MySpace that helping us to know how all MySpace users can keep safe while playing social networking like MySpace. On this page, you will find some safety information, tips and some resources to navigate online communities. MySpace promise that to keep MySpace users safe online through unique safety features and technology, partnerships with safety organizations and law enforcement, and our support of new laws that will nurture the growth of online safety tools, education and research. 5.1 For Parents and Educators Millions of people are using MySpace. Some of them are teenagers. They have their own personal MySpace profile. As a parent or educator, you may worry about what do teenagers do with MySpace. Do they safety while playing MySpace? There are a lots of question might be come out from parents and educators. For parents and educators, MySpace have already set some rules and regulations for teenagers. For those teenagers who want to register a MySpace account, must be at least 13 years old. Those teenagers are below 13 years old are not permitted to register. MySpace provide this rule because those teenagers are below 13 years old is not mature. They dont have analysis skill to analyse what can learn and what they cant learn. In additional, MySpace also will automatically assign a Private Profile for those users are below 18 years old. Private Profile means that only account users will know their last name or email address can contact them or view their profile. This information will not show to other MySpace users. MySpace needs to protect some teenagers are below 18 years old. It is because their personal details might be stealing and contact with them. No matter how many rules and regulations that MySpace had set, parents and educators must keep looking on their child. It is because rules and regulations just have little helps. The most important is parents and educators must always communicate with their children. They need to talk with them always and ask what they doing with MySpace. 5.2 For Teenagers MySpace is a public space. It might have some stranger add you as friend. For teenagers, you might not put your contact number, house address and something easy to contact you in MySpace. It will let stranger easier to find you. Besides that, you also not take some harmful picture and those pictures with your uniform. It can cause stranger go your school to find you. Furthermore, teenagers might protect your privacy. Remember set your profile to private which lets only your friends can view your profile. Teenagers also might only accept friend invitations from people you know and trust. Moreover, if teenagers see those inappropriate contents, they should tell their parents or adults report these kinds of thing to MySpace. Inappropriate contents such as violence picture, sexual picture and etc. These  will affect the  thinking of  teenagers. Think before you post. Teenagers must think before what you have post on MySpace. When you uploaded something on MySpace, it can downloaded by someone else. Hence, teenagers might not post anything that they dont want show to other. 6.0 CONCLUSION MySpace is a social networking that provide us highly entertainment such as music, video, games and else. There had huge of people become MySpace members. MySpace created in 2003 until present. MySpace is similar with Friendster. Both of them also can let users design layout themselves. The most famous application in MySpace is MySpace Music. MySpace Music can let us search the artist that we loved and add the artists song into our playlist. We also can buy artists songs and artists album through MySpace. MySpace Music will also have Top Artists, Top Albums and Top Videos in MySpace. Before I do this assignment, I dont know what MySpace is. According to my opinion, MySpace just is a social networking. But, after I do my assignment, I feel that I was wrong. MySpace is not only a social networking. It is also a place that helps us connect with our favourite artists. We can know what our favourite artists do recently in MySpace. Through doing this assignment, I also know we can create a playlist that we want in MySpace. Besides create playlist, I know how to add songs into playlist and edit playlist. Furthermore, I also know how to find the artists result that I want. I found that MySpace really have many benefit for those who like music. Music is a part of our life. We can search the artist latest songs on our artists MySpace profile. MySpace really is a good website to us. I will introduce this website to all of my friends to share the benefit.

Bag of Bones CHAPTER TEN

Around nine o'clock, a pickup came down the driveway and parked behind my Chevrolet. The truck was new a Dodge Ram so clean and chrome-shiny it looked as if the ten-day plates had just come off that morning but it was the same shade of off-white as the last one and the sign on the driver's door was the one I remembered: WILLIAM ‘BILL' DEAN CAMP CHECKING CARETAKING LIGHT CARPENTRY, plus his telephone number. I went out on the back stoop to meet him, coffee cup in my hand. ‘Mike!' Bill cried, climbing down from behind the wheel. Yankee men don't hug that's a truism you can put right up there with tough guys don't dance and real men don't eat quiche but Bill pumped my hand almost hard enough to slop coffee from a cup that was three-quarters empty, and gave me a hearty clap on the back. His grin revealed a splendidly blatant set of false teeth the kind which used to be called Roebuckers, because you got them from the catalogue. It occurred to me in passing that my ancient interlocutor from the Lakeview General Store could have used a pair. It certainly would have improved mealtimes for the nosy old fuck. ‘Mike, you're a sight for sore eyes!' ‘Good to see you, too,' I said, grinning. Nor was it a false grin; I felt all right. Things with the power to scare the living shit out of you on a thundery midnight in most cases seem only interesting in the bright light of a summer morning. ‘You're looking well, my friend.' It was true. Bill was four years older and a little grayer around the edges, but otherwise the same. Sixty-five? Seventy? It didn't matter. There was no waxy look of ill health about him, and none of the falling-away in the face, principally around the eyes and in the cheeks, that I associate with encroaching infirmity. ‘So're you,' he said, letting go of my hand. ‘We was all so sorry about Jo, Mike. Folks in town thought the world of her. It was a shock, with her so young. My wife asked if I'd give you her condolences special. Jo made her an afghan the year she had the pneumonia, and Yvette ain't never forgot it.' ‘Thanks,' I said, and my voice wasn't quite my own for a moment or two. It seemed that on the TR my wife was hardly dead at all. ‘And thank Yvette, too.' ‘Yuh. Everythin okay with the house? Other'n the air conditioner, I mean. Buggardly thing! Them at the Western Auto promised me that part last week, and now they're saying maybe not until August first.' ‘It's okay. I've got my Powerbook. If I want to use it, the kitchen table will do fine for a desk.' And I would want to use it so many crosswords, so little time. ‘Got your hot water okay?' ‘All that's fine, but there is one problem.' I stopped. How did you tell your caretaker you thought your house was haunted? Probably there was no good way; probably the best thing to do was to go at it head-on. I had questions, but I didn't want just to nibble around the edges of the subject and be coy. For one thing, Bill would sense it. He might have bought his false teeth out of a catalogue, but he wasn't stupid. ‘What's on your mind, Mike? Shoot.' ‘I don't know how you're going to take this, but ‘ He smiled in the way of a man who suddenly understands and held up his hand. ‘Guess maybe I know already.' ‘You do?' I felt an enormous sense of relief and I could hardly wait to find out what he had experienced in Sara, perhaps while checking for dead lightbulbs or making sure the roof was holding the snow all right. ‘What did you hear?' ‘Mostly what Royce Merrill and Dickie Brooks have been telling,' he said. ‘Beyond that, I don't know much. Me and mother's been in Virginia, remember. Only got back last night around eight o'clock. Still, it's the big topic down to the store.' For a moment I remained so fixed on Sara Laughs that I had no idea what he was talking about. All I could think was that folks were gossiping about the strange noises in my house. Then the name Royce Merrill clicked and everything else clicked with it. Merrill was the elderly possum with the gold-headed cane and the salacious wink. Old Four-Teeth. My caretaker wasn't talking about ghostly noises; he was talking about Mattie Devore. ‘Let's get you a cup of coffee,' I said. ‘I need you to tell me what I'm stepping in here.' When we were seated on the deck, me with fresh coffee and Bill with a cup of tea (‘Coffee burns me at both ends these days,' he said), I asked him first to tell me the Royce Merrill-Dickie Brooks version of my encounter with Mattie and Kyra. It turned out to be better than I had expected. Both old men had seen me standing at the side of the road with the little girl in my arms, and they had observed my Chevy parked halfway into the ditch with the driver's-side door open, but apparently neither of them had seen Kyra using the white line of Route 68 as a tightrope. As if to compensate for this, however, Royce claimed that Mattie had given me a big my hero hug and a kiss on the mouth. ‘Did he get the part about how I grabbed her by the ass and slipped her some tongue?' I asked. Bill grinned. ‘Royce's imagination ain't stretched that far since he was fifty or so, and that was forty or more year ago.' ‘I never touched her.' Well . . . there had been that moment when the back of my hand went sliding along the curve of her breast, but that had been inadvertent, whatever the young lady herself might think about it. ‘Shite, you don't need to tell me that,' he said. ‘But . . . ‘ He said that but the way my mother always had, letting it trail off on its own, like the tail of some ill-omened kite. ‘But what?' ‘You'd do well to keep your distance from her,' he said. ‘She's nice enough almost a town girl, don't you know but she's trouble.' He paused. ‘No, that ain't quite fair to her. She's in trouble.' ‘The old man wants custody of the baby, doesn't he?' Bill set his teacup down on the deck rail and looked at me with his eyebrows raised. Reflections from the lake ran up his cheek in ripples, giving him an exotic look. ‘How'd you know?' ‘Guesswork, but of the educated variety. Her father-in-law called me Saturday night during the fireworks. And while he never came right out and stated his purpose, I doubt if Max Devore came all the way back to TR-90 in western Maine to repo his daughter-in-law's Jeep and trailer. So what's the story, Bill?' For several moments he only looked at me. It was almost the look of a man who knows you have contracted a serious disease and isn't sure how much he ought to tell you. Being looked at that way made me profoundly uneasy. It also made me feel that I might be putting Bill Dean on the spot. Devore had roots here, after all. And, as much as Bill might like me, I didn't. Jo and I were from away. It could have been worse it could have been Massachusetts or New York but Derry, although in Maine, was still away. ‘Bill? I could use a little navigational help if you ‘ ‘You want to stay out of his way,' he said. His easy smile was gone. ‘The man's mad.' For a moment I thought Bill only meant Devore was pissed off at me, and then I took another look at his face. No, I decided, he didn't mean pissed off; he had used the word ‘mad' in the most literal way. ‘Mad how?' I asked. ‘Mad like Charles Manson? Like Hannibal Lecter? How?' ‘Say like Howard Hughes,' he said. ‘Ever read any of the stories about him? The lengths he'd go to to get the things he wanted? It didn't matter if it was a special kind of hot dog they only sold in L.A. or an airplane designer he wanted to steal from Lockheed or Mcdonnell-Douglas, he had to have what he wanted, and he wouldn't rest until it was under his hand. Devore is the same way. He always was even as a boy he was willful, according to the stories you hear in town. ‘My own dad had one he used to tell. He said little Max Devore broke into Scant Larribee's tack-shed one winter because he wanted the Flexible Flyer Scant give his boy Scooter for Christmas. Back around 1923, this would have been. Devore cut both his hands on broken glass, Dad said, but he got the sled. They found him near midnight, sliding down Sugar Maple Hill, holding his hands up to his chest when he went down. He'd bled all over his mittens and his snowsuit. There's other stories you'll hear about Maxie Devore as a kid if you ask you'll hear fifty different ones and some may even be true. That one about the sled is true, though. I'd bet the farm on it. Because my father didn't lie. It was against his religion.' ‘Baptist?' ‘Nosir, Yankee.' ‘1923 was many moons ago, Bill. Sometimes people change.' ‘Ayuh, but mostly they don't. I haven't seen Devore since he come back and moved into Warrington's, so I can't say for sure, but I've heard things that make me think that if he has changed, it's for the worse. He didn't come all the way across the country 'cause he wanted a vacation. He wants the kid. To him she's just another version of Scooter Larribee's Flexible Flyer. And my strong advice to you is that you don't want to be the window-glass between him and her.' I sipped my coffee and looked out at the lake. Bill gave me time to think, scraping one of his workboots across a splatter of birdshit on the boards while I did it. Crowshit, I reckoned; only crows crap in such long and exuberant splatters. One thing seemed absolutely sure: Mattie Devore was roughly nine miles up Shit Creek with no paddle. I'm not the cynic I was at twenty is anyone? but I wasn't naive enough or idealistic enough to believe the law would protect Ms. Doublewide against Mr. Computer . . . not if Mr. Computer decided to play dirty. As a boy he'd taken the sled he wanted and gone sliding by himself at midnight, bleeding hands not a concern. And as a man? An old man who had been getting every sled he wanted for the last forty years or so? ‘What's the story with Mattie, Bill? Tell me.' It didn't take him long. Country stories are, by and large, simple stories. Which isn't to say they're not often interesting. Mattie Devore had started life as Mattie Stanchfield, not quite from the TR but from just over the line in Motton. Her father had been a logger, her mother a home beautician (which made it, in a ghastly way, the perfect country marriage). There were three kids. When Dave Stanch-field missed a curve over in Lovell and drove a fully loaded pulptruck into Kewadin Pond, his widow ‘kinda lost heart,' as they say. She died soon after. There had been no insurance, other than what Stanchfield had been obliged to carry on his Jimmy and his skidder. Talk about your Brothers Grimm, huh? Subtract the Fisher-Price toys behind the house, the two pole hairdryers in the basement beauty salon, the old rustbucket Toyota in the driveway, and you were right there: Once upon a time there lived a poor widow and her three children. Mattie is the princess of the piece poor but beautiful (that she was beautiful I could personally testify). Now enter the prince. In this case he's a gangly stuttering redhead named Lance Devore. The child of Max Devore's sunset years. When Lance met Mattie, he was twenty-one. She had just turned seventeen. The meeting took place at Warrington's, where Mattie had landed a summer job as a waitress. Lance Devore was staying across the lake on the Upper Bay, but on Tuesday nights there were pickup softball games at Warrington's, the townies against the summer folks, and he usually canoed across to play. Softball is a great thing for the Lance Devores of the world; when you're standing at the plate with a bat in your hands, it doesn't matter if you're gangly. And it sure doesn't matter if you stutter. ‘He confused em quite considerable over to Warrington's,' Bill said. ‘They didn't know which team he belonged on the Locals or the Aways. Lance didn't care; either side was fine with him. Some weeks he'd play for one, some weeks t'other. Either one was more than happy to have him, too, as he could hit a ton and field like an angel. They'd put him at first base a lot because he was tall, but he was really wasted there. At second or shortstop . . . my! He'd jump and twirl around like that guy Noriega.' ‘You might mean Nureyev,' I said. He shrugged. ‘Point is, he was somethin to see. And folks liked him. He fit in. It's mostly young folks that play, you know, and to them it's how you do, not who you are. Besides, a lot of em don't know Max Devore from a hole in the ground.' ‘Unless they read The Wall Street Journal and the computer magazines,† I said. ‘In those, you run across the name Devore about as often as you run across the name of God in the Bible.' ‘No foolin?' ‘Well, I guess that in the computer magazines God is more often spelled Gates, but you know what I mean.' ‘I s'pose. But even so, it's been sixty-five years since Max Devore spent any real time on the TR. You know what happened when he left, don't you?' ‘No, why would I?' He looked at me, surprised. Then a kind of veil seemed to fall over his eyes. He blinked and it cleared. ‘Tell you another time it ain't no secret but I need to be over to the Harrimans' by eleven to check their sump-pump. Don't want to get sidetracked. Point I was tryin to make is just this: Lance Devore was accepted as a nice young fella who could hit a softball three hundred and fifty feet into the trees if he struck it just right. There was no one old enough to hold his old man against him not at Warrington's on Tuesday nights, there wasn't and no one held it against him that his family had dough, either. Hell, there are lots of wealthy people here in the summer. You know that. None worth as much as Max Devore, but being rich is only a matter of degree.' That wasn't true, and I had just enough money to know it. Wealth is like the Richter scale-once you pass a certain point, the jumps from one level to the next aren't double or triple but some amazing and ruinous multiple you don't even want to think about. Fitzgerald had it straight, although I guess he didn't believe his own insight: the very rich are different from you and me. I thought of telling Bill that, and decided to keep my mouth shut. He had a sump-pump to fix. Kyra's parents met over a keg of beer stuck in a mudhole. Mattie was running the usual Tuesday-night keg out to the softball field from the main building on a handcart. She'd gotten it most of the way from the restaurant wing with no trouble, but there had been heavy rain earlier in the week, and the cart finally bogged down in a soft spot. Lance's team was up, and Lance was sitting at the end of the bench, waiting his turn to hit. He saw the girl in the white shorts and blue Warrington's polo shirt struggling with the bogged handcart, and got up to help her. Three weeks later they were inseparable and Mattie was pregnant; ten weeks later they were married; thirty-seven months later, Lance Devore was in a coffin, done with softball and cold beer on a summer evening, done with what he called ‘woodsing,' done with fatherhood, done with love for the beautiful princess. Just another early finish, hold the happily-ever-after. Bill Dean didn't describe their meeting in any detail; he only said, ‘They met at the field she was runnin out the beer and he helped her out of a boghole when she got her handcart stuck.' Mattie never said much about that part of it, so I don't know much. Except I do . . . and although some of the details might be wrong, I'd bet you a dollar to a hundred 1 got most of them right. That was my summer for knowing things I had no business knowing. It's hot, for one thing '94 is the hottest summer of the decade and July is the hottest month of the summer. President Clinton is being upstaged by Newt and the Republicans. Folks are saying old Slick Willie may not even run for a second term. Boris Yeltsin is reputed to be either dying of heart disease or in a dry-out clinic. The Red Sox are looking better than they have any right to. In Derry, Johanna Arlen Noonan is maybe starting to feel a little whoopsy in the morning. If so, she does not speak of it to her husband. I see Mattie in her blue polo shirt with her name sewn in white script above her left breast. Her white shorts make a pleasing contrast to her tanned legs. I also see her wearing a blue gimme cap with the red W for Warrington's above the long bill. Her pretty dark-blonde hair is pulled through the hole at the back of the cap and falls to the collar of her shirt. I see her trying to yank the handcart out of the mud without upsetting the keg of beer. Her head is down; the shadow thrown by the bill of the cap obscures all of her face but her mouth and small set chin. ‘Luh-let m-me h-h-help,' Lance says, and she looks up. The shadow cast by the cap's bill falls away, he sees her big blue eyes the ones she'll pass on to their daughter. One look into those eyes and the war is over without a single shot fired; he belongs to her as surely as any young man ever belonged to any young woman. The rest, as they say around here, was just courtin. The old man had three children, but Lance was the only one he seemed to care about. (‘Daughter's crazier'n a shithouse mouse,' Bill said matter-of-factly. ‘In some laughin academy in California. Think I heard she caught her a cancer, too.') The fact that Lance had no interest in computers and software actually seemed to please his father. He had another son who was capable of running the business. In another way, however, Lance Devore's older half-brother wasn't capable at all: there would be no grandchildren from that one. ‘Rump-wrangler,' Bill said. ‘Understand there's a lot of that going around out there in California.' There was a fair amount of it going around on the TR, too, I imagined, but thought it not my place to offer sexual instruction to my caretaker. Lance Devore had been attending Reed College in Oregon, majoring in forestry the kind of guy who falls in love with green flannel pants, red suspenders, and the sight of condors at dawn. A Brothers Grimm woodcutter, in fact, once you got past the academic jargon. In the summer between his junior and senior years, his father had summoned him to the family compound in Palm Springs, and had presented him with a boxy lawyer's suitcase crammed with maps, aerial photos, and legal papers. These had little order that Lance could see, but I doubt that he cared. Imagine a comic-book collector given a crate crammed with rare old copies of Donald Duck. Imagine a movie collector given the rough cut of a never-released film starring Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. Then imagine this avid young forester realizing that his father owned not just acres or square miles in the vast unincorporated forests of western Maine, but entire realms. Although Max Devore had left the TR in 1933, he'd kept a lively interest in the area where he'd grown up, subscribing to area newspapers and getting magazines such as Down East and the Maine Times. In the early eighties, he had begun to buy long columns of land just east of the Maine-New Hampshire border. God knew there had been plenty for sale; the paper companies which owned most of it had fallen into a recessionary pit, and many had become convinced that their New England holdings and operations would be the best place to begin retrenching. So this land, stolen from the Indians and clear-cut ruthlessly in the twenties and fifties, came into Max Devore's hands. He might have bought it just because it was there, a good bargain he could afford to take advantage of. He might have bought it as a way of demonstrating to himself that he had really survived his childhood; had, in point of fact, triumphed over it. Or he might have bought it as a toy for his beloved younger son. In the years when Devore was making his major land purchases in western Maine, Lance would have been just a kid . . . but old enough for a perceptive father to see where his interests were tending. Devore asked Lance to spend the summer of 1994 surveying purchases which were, for the most part, already ten years old. He wanted the boy to put the paperwork in order, but he wanted more than that he wanted Lance to make sense of it. It wasn't a land-use recommendation he was looking for, exactly, although I guess he would have listened if Lance had wanted to make one; he simply wanted a sense of what he had purchased. Would Lance take a summer in western Maine trying to find out what his sense of it was? At a salary of two or three thousand dollars a month? I imagine Lance's reply was a more polite version of Buddy Jellison's ‘Does a crow shit in the pine tops?' The kid arrived in June of 1994 and set up shop in a tent on the far side of Dark Score Lake. He was due back at Reed in late August. Instead, though, he decided to take a year's leave of absence. His father wasn't pleased. His father smelled what he called ‘girl trouble.' ‘Yeah, but it's a damned long sniff from California to Maine,' Bill Dean said, leaning against the driver's door of his truck with his sunburned arms folded. ‘He had someone a lot closer than Palm Springs doin his sniffin for him.' ‘What are you talking about?' I asked. †Bout talk. People do it for free, and most are willing to do even more if they're paid.' ‘People like Royce Merrill?' ‘Royce might be one,' he agreed, ‘but he wouldn't be the only one. Times around here don't go between bad and good; if you're a local, they mostly go between bad and worse. So when a guy like Max Devore sends a guy out with a supply of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills . . . ‘ ‘Was it someone local? A lawyer?' Not a lawyer; a real-estate broker named Richard Osgood (‘a greasy kind of fella' was Bill Dean's judgment of him) who denned and did business in Motton. Eventually Osgood had hired a lawyer from Castle Rock. The greasy fella's initial job, when the summer of '94 ended and Lance Devore remained on the TR, was to find out what the hell was going on and put a stop to it. ‘And then?' I asked. Bill glanced at his watch, glanced at the sky, then centered his gaze on me. He gave a funny little shrug, as if to say, ‘We're both men of the world, in a quiet and settled sort of way you don't need to ask a silly question like that.' ‘Then Lance Devore and Mattie Stanchfield got married in the Grace Baptist Church right up there on Highway 68. There were tales made the rounds about what Osgood might've done to keep it from comin off I heard he even tried to bribe Reverend Gooch into refusin to hitch em, but I think that's stupid, they just would have gone someplace else. ‘Sides, I don't see much sense in repeating what I don't know for sure.' Bill unfolded an arm and began to tick items off on the leathery fingers of his right hand. ‘They got married in the middle of September, 1994, I know that.' Out popped the thumb. ‘People looked around with some curiosity to see if the groom's father would put in an appearance, but he never did.' Out popped the forefinger. Added to the thumb, it made a pistol. ‘Mattie had a baby in April of '95, making the kiddie a dight premature . . . but not enough to matter. I seen it in the store with my own eyes when it wasn't a week old, and it was just the right size.' Out with the second finger. ‘I don't know that Lance Devore's old man absolutely refused to help em financially, but I do know they were living in that trailer down below Dickie's Garage, and that makes me think they were havin a pretty hard skate.' ‘Devore put on the choke-chain,' I said. ‘It's what a guy used to getting his own way would do . . . but if he loved the boy the way you seem to think, he might have come around.' ‘Maybe, maybe not.' He glanced at his watch again. ‘Let me finish up quick and get out of your sunshine . . . but you ought to hear one more little story, because it really shows how the land lies. ‘In July of last year, less'n a month before he died, Lance Devore shows up at the post-office counter in the Lakeview General. He's got a manila envelope he wants to send, but first he needs to show Carla DeCinces what's inside. She said he was all fluffed out, like daddies sometimes get over their kids when they're small.' I nodded, amused at the idea of skinny, stuttery Lance Devore all fluffed out. But I could see it in my mind's eye, and the image was also sort of sweet. ‘It was a studio pitcher they'd gotten taken over in the Rock. Showed the kid . . . what's her name? Kayla?' ‘Kyra.' ‘Ayuh, they call em anything these days, don't they? It showed Kyra sittin in a big leather chair, with a pair of joke spectacles on her little snub of a nose, lookin at one of the aerial photos of the woods over across the lake in TR-100 or TR-110 part of what the old man had picked up, anyway. Carla said the baby had a surprised look on her face, as if she hadn't suspected there could be so much woods in the whole world. Said it was awful cunnin, she did.' ‘Cunnin as a cat a-runnin,' I murmured. ‘And the envelope Registered, Express Mail was addressed to Maxwell Devore, in Palm Springs, California.' ‘Leading you to deduce that the old man either thawed enough to ask for a picture of his only grandchild, or that Lance Devore thought a picture might thaw him.' Bill nodded, looking as pleased as a parent whose child has managed a difficult sum. ‘Don't know if it did,' he said. ‘Wasn't enough time to tell, one way or the other. Lance had bought one of those little satellite dishes, like what you've got here. There was a bad storm the day he put it up hail, high wind, blowdowns along the lakeshore, lots of lightnin. That was along toward evening. Lance put his dish up in the afternoon, all done and safe, except around the time the storm commenced he remembered he'd left his socket wrench on the trailer roof. He went up to get it so it wouldn't get all wet n rusty ‘ ‘He was struck by lightning? Jesus, Bill!' ‘Lightnin struck, all right, but it hit across the way. You go past the place where Wasp Hill Road runs into 68 and you'll see the stump of the tree that stroke knocked over. Lance was comin down the ladder with his socket wrench when it hit. If you've never had a lightnin bolt tear right over your head, you don't know how scary it is it's like havin a drunk driver veer across into your lane, headed right for you, and then swing back onto his own side just in time. Close lightnin makes your hair stand up makes your damned prick stand up. It's apt to play the radio on your steel fillins, it makes your ears hum, and it makes the air taste roasted. Lance fell off the ladder. If he had time to think anything before he hit the ground, I bet he thought he was electrocuted. Poor boy. He loved the TR, but it wasn't lucky for him.' ‘Broke his neck?' ‘Ayuh. With all the thunder, Mattie never heard him fall or yell or anything. She looked out a minute or two later when it started to hail and he still wasn't in. And there he was, layin on the ground and lookin up into the friggin hail with his eyes open.' Bill looked at his watch one final time, then swung open the door to his truck. ‘The old man wouldn't come for their weddin, but he came for his son's funeral and he's been here ever since. He didn't want nawthin to do with the young woman ‘ ‘But he wants the kid,' I said. It was no more than what I already knew, but I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach just the same. Don't talk about this, Mattie had asked me on the morning of the Fourth. It's not a good time for Ki and me. ‘How far along in the process has he gotten?' ‘On the third turn and headin into the home stretch, I sh'd say. There'll be a hearin in Castle County Superior Court, maybe later this month, maybe next. The judge could rule then to hand the girl over, or put it off until fall. I don't think it matters which, because the one thing that's never going to happen on God's green earth is a rulin in favor of the mother. One way or another, that little girl is going to grow up in California.† Put that way, it gave me a very nasty little chill. Bill slid behind the wheel of his truck. ‘Stay out of it, Mike,' he said. ‘Stay away from Mattie Devore and her daughter. And if you get called to court on account of seem the two of em on Saturday, smile a lot and say as little as you can.' ‘Max Devore's charging that she's unfit to raise the child.' ‘Ayuh.' ‘Bill, I saw the child, and she's fine.' He grinned again, but this time there was no amusement in it. †Magine she is. But that's not the point. Stay clear of their business, old boy. It's my job to tell you that; with Jo gone, I guess I'm the only caretaker you got.' He slammed the door of his Ram, started the engine, reached for the gearshift, then dropped his hand again as something else occurred to him. ‘If you get a chance, you ought to look for the owls.' ‘What owls?' ‘There's a couple of plastic owls around here someplace. They might be in y'basement or out in Jo's studio. They come in by mail-order the fall before she passed on.' ‘The fall of 1993?' ‘Ayuh.' ‘That can't be right.' We hadn't used Sara in the fall of 1993. †Tis, though. I was down here puttin on the storm doors when Jo showed up. We had us a natter, and then the UPS truck come. I lugged the box into the entry and had a coffee I was still drinkin it then while she took the owls out of the carton and showed em off to me. Gorry, but they looked real! She left not ten minutes after. It was like she'd come down to do that errand special, although why anyone'd drive all the way from Derry to take delivery of a couple of plastic owls I don't know.' ‘When in the fall was it, Bill? Do you remember?' ‘Second week of November,' he said promptly. ‘Me n the wife went up to Lewiston later that afternoon, to ‘Vette's sister's. It was her birthday. On our way back we stopped at the Castle Rock Agway so ‘Vette could get her Thanksgiving turkey.' He looked at me curiously. ‘You really didn't know about them owls?' ‘No.' ‘That's a touch peculiar, wouldn't you say?' ‘Maybe she told me and I forgot,' I said. ‘I guess it doesn't matter much now in any case.' Yet it seemed to matter. It was a small thing, but it seemed to matter. ‘Why would Jo want a couple of plastic owls to begin with?' ‘To keep the crows from shittin up the woodwork, like they're doing out on your deck. Crows see those plastic owls, they veer off.' I burst out laughing in spite of my puzzlement . . . or perhaps because of it. ‘Yeah? That really works?' ‘Ayuh, long's you move em every now and then so the crows don't get suspicious. Crows are just about the smartest birds going, you know. You look for those owls, save yourself a lot of mess.' ‘I will,' I said. Plastic owls to scare the crows away it was exactly the sort of knowledge Jo would come by (she was like a crow herself in that way, picking up glittery pieces of information that happened to catch her interest) and act upon without bothering to tell me. All at once I was lonely for her again missing her like hell. ‘Good. Some day when I've got more time, we'll walk the place all the way around. Woods too, if you want. I think you'll be satisfied.' ‘I'm sure I will. Where's Devore staying?' The bushy eyebrows went up. ‘Warrington's. Him and you's practically neighbors. I thought you must know.' I remembered the woman I'd seen black bathing-suit and black shorts somehow combining to give her an exotic cocktail-party look and nodded. ‘I met his wife.' Bill laughed heartily enough at that to feel in need of his handkerchief. He fished it off the dashboard (a blue paisley thing the size of a football pennant) and wiped his eyes. ‘What's so funny?' I asked. ‘Skinny woman? White hair? Face sort of like a kid's Halloween mask?' It was my turn to laugh. ‘That's her.' ‘She ain't his wife, she's his whatdoyoucallit, personal assistant. Rogette Whitmore is her name.' He pronounced it ro-GET, with a hard G. ‘Devore's wives're all dead. The last one twenty years.' ‘What kind of name is Rogette? French?' ‘California,' he said, and shrugged as if that one word explained everything. ‘There's people in town scared of her.' ‘Is that so?' ‘Ayuh.' Bill hesitated, then added with one of those smiles we put on when we want others to know that we know we're saying something silly: ‘Brenda Meserve says she's a witch.' ‘And the two of them have been staying at Warrington's almost a year?' ‘Ayuh. The Whitmore woman comes n goes, but mostly she's been here. Thinkin in town is that they'll stay until the custody case is finished off, then all go back to California on Devore's private jet. Leave Osgood to sell Warrington's, and ‘ ‘Sell it? What do you mean, sell it?' ‘I thought you must know,' Bill said, dropping his gearshift into drive. ‘When old Hugh Emerson told Devore they closed the lodge after Thanksgiving, Devore told him he had no intention of moving. Said he was comfortable right where he was and meant to stay put.' ‘He bought the place.' I had been by turns surprised, amused, and angered over the last twenty minutes, but never exactly dumbfounded. Now I was. ‘He bought Warrington's Lodge so he wouldn't have to move to Lookout Rock Hotel over in Castle View, or rent a house.' ‘Ayuh, so he did. Nine buildins, includin the main lodge and The Sunset Bar; twelve acres of woods, a six-hole golf course, and five hundred feet of shorefront on The Street. Plus a two-lane bowlin alley and a softball field. Four and a quarter million. His friend Osgood did the deal and Devore paid with a personal check. I wonder how he found room for all those zeros. See you, Mike.' With that he backed up the driveway, leaving me to stand on the stoop, looking after him with my mouth open. Plastic owls. Bill had told me roughly two dozen interesting things in between peeks at his watch, but the one which stayed on top of the pile was the fact (and I did accept it as a fact; he had been too positive for me not to) that Jo had come down here to take delivery on a couple of plastic goddam owls. Had she told me? She might have. I didn't remember her doing so, and it seemed to me that I would have, but Jo used to claim that when I got in the zone it was no good to tell me anything; stuff went in one ear and out the other. Sometimes she'd pin little notes errands to run, calls to make to my shirt, as if I were a first-grader. But wouldn't I recall if she'd said ‘I'm going down to Sara, hon, UPS is delivering something I want to receive personally, interested in keeping a lady company?' Hell wouldn't I have gone? I always liked an excuse to go to the TR. Except I'd been working on that screenplay . . . and maybe pushing it a little . . . notes pinned to the sleeve of my shirt . . . If you go out when you're finished, we need milk and orange juice . . . I inspected what little was left of Jo's vegetable garden with the July sun beating down on my neck and thought about owls, the plastic god-dam owls. Suppose Jo had told me she was coming down here to Sara Laughs? Suppose I had declined almost without hearing the offer because I was in the writing zone? Even if you granted those things, there was another question: why had she felt the need to come down here personally when she could have just called someone and asked them to meet the delivery truck? Kenny Auster would have been happy to do it, ditto Mrs. M. And Bill Dean, our caretaker, had actually been here. This led to other questions one was why she hadn't just had UPS deliver the damned things to Derry and finally I decided I couldn't live without actually seeing a bona fide plastic owl for myself. Maybe, I thought, going back to the house, I'd put one on the roof of my Chew when it was parked in the driveway. Forestall future bombing runs. I paused in the entry, struck by a sudden idea, and called Ward Hankins, the guy in Waterville who handles my taxes and my few non-writing-related business affairs. ‘Mike,' he said heartily. ‘How's the lake?' ‘The lake's cool and the weather's hot, just the way we like it,' I said. ‘Ward, you keep all the records we send you for five years, don't you? Just in case IRS decides to give us some grief?' ‘Five is accepted practice,' he said, ‘but I hold your stuff for seven in the eyes of the tax boys, you're a mighty fat pigeon.' Better a fat pigeon than a plastic owl, I thought but didn't say. What I said was ‘That includes desk calendars, right? Mine and. Jo's, up until she died?' ‘You bet. Since neither of you kept diaries, it was the best way to cross-reference receipts and claimed expenses with ‘ ‘Could you find Jo's desk calendar for 1993 and see what she had going in the second week of November?' ‘Td be happy to. What in particular are you looking for?' For a moment I saw myself sitting at my kitchen table in Derry on my first night as a widower, holding up a box with the words Norco Home Pregnancy Test printed on the side. Exactly what was I looking for at this late date? Considering that I had loved the lady and she was almost four years in her grave, what was I looking for? Besides trouble, that was? ‘I'm looking for two plastic owls,' I said. Ward probably thought I was talking to him, but I'm not sure I was. ‘I know that sounds weird, but it's what I'm doing. Can you call me back?' ‘Within the hour.' ‘Good man,' I said, and hung up. Now for the actual owls themselves. Where was the most likely spot to store two such interesting artifacts? My eyes went to the cellar door. Elementary, my dear Watson. The cellar stairs were dark and mildly dank. As I stood on the landing groping for the lightswitch, the door banged shut behind me with such force that I cried out in surprise. There was no breeze, no draft, the day was perfectly still, but the door banged shut just the same. Or was sucked shut. I stood in the dark at the top of the stairs, feeling for the lightswitch, smelling that oozy smell that even good concrete foundations get after awhile if there is no proper airing-out. It was cold, much colder than it had been on the other side of the door. I wasn't alone and I knew it. I was afraid, I'd be a liar to say I wasn't . . . but I was also fascinated. Something was with me. Something was in here with me. I dropped my hand away from the wall where the switch was and just stood with my arms at my sides. Some time passed. I don't know how much. My heart was beating furiously in my chest; I could feel it in my temples. It was cold. ‘Hello?' I asked. Nothing in response. I could hear the faint, irregular drip of water as condensation fell from one of the pipes down below, I could hear my own breathing, and faintly far away, in another world where the sun was out I could hear the triumphant caw of a crow. Perhaps it had just dropped a load on the hood of my car. I really need an owl, I thought. In fact, I don't know how I ever got along without one. ‘Hello?' I asked again. ‘Can you talk?' Nothing. I wet my lips. I should have felt silly, perhaps, standing there in the dark and calling to the ghosts. But I didn't. Not a bit. The damp had been replaced by a coldness I could feel, and I had company. Oh, yes. ‘Can you tap, then? If you can shut the door, you must be able to tap.' I stood there and listened to the soft, isolated drips from the pipes. There was nothing else. I was reaching out for the lightswitch again when there was a soft thud from not far below me. The cellar of Sara Laughs is high, and the upper three feet of the concrete the part which lies against the ground's frost-belt had been insulated with big silver-backed panels of Insu-Gard. The sound that I heard was, I am quite sure, a fist striking against one of these. Just a fist hitting a square of insulation, but every gut and muscle of my body seemed to come unwound. My hair stood up. My eyesockets seemed to be expanding and my eyeballs contracting, as if my head were trying to turn into a skull. Every inch of my skin broke out in gooseflesh. Something was in here with me. Very likely something dead. I could no longer have turned on the light if I'd wanted to. I no longer had the strength to raise my arm. I tried to talk, and at last, in a husky whisper I hardly recognized, I said: ‘Are you really there?' Thud. ‘Who are you?' I could still do no better than that husky whisper, the voice of a man giving last instructions to his family as he lies on his deathbed. This time there was nothing from below. I tried to think, and what came to my struggling mind was Tony Curtis as Harry Houdini in some old movie. According to the film, Houdini had been the Diogenes of the Ouija board circuit, a guy who spent his spare time just looking for an honest medium. He'd attended one s? ¦ance where the dead communicated by ‘Tap once for yes, twice for no,' I said. ‘Can you do that?' Thud. It was on the stairs below me . . . but not too far below. Five steps down, six or seven at most. Not quite close enough to touch if I should reach out and wave my hand in the black basement air . . . a thing I could imagine, but not actually imagine doing. ‘Are you . . . ‘ My voice trailed off. There was simply no strength in my diaphragm. Chilly air lay on my chest like a flatiron. I gathered all my will and tried again. ‘Are you Jo?' Thud. That soft fist on the insulation. A pause, and then: Thud-thud. Yes and no. Then, with no idea why I was asking such an inane question: ‘Are the owls down here?' Thud-thud. ‘Do you know where they are?' Thud. ‘Should I look for them?' Thud! Very hard. Why did she want them? I could ask, but the thing on the stairs had no way to an Hot fingers touched my eyes and I almost screamed before realizing it was sweat. I raised my hands in the dark and wiped the heels of them up my face to the hairline. They skidded as if on oil. Cold or not, I was all but bathing in my own sweat. ‘Are you Lance Devore?' Thud-thud, at once. ‘Is it safe for me at Sara? Am I safe?' Thud. A pause. And I knew it was a pause, that the thing on the stairs wasn't finished. Then: Thud-thud. Yes, I was safe. No, I wasn't safe. I had regained marginal control of my arm. I reached out, felt along the wall, and found the lightswitch. I settled my fingers on it. Now the sweat on my face felt as if it were turning to ice. ‘Are you the person who cries in the night?' I asked. Thud-thud from below me, and between the two thuds, I flicked the switch. The cellar globes came on. So did a brilliant hanging bulb at least a hundred and twenty-five watts over the landing. There was no time for anyone to hide, let alone get away, and no one there to try, either. Also, Mrs. Meserve admirable in so many ways had neglected to sweep the cellar stairs. When I went down to where I estimated the thudding sounds had been coming from, I left tracks in the light dust. But mine were the only ones. I blew out breath in front of me and could see it. So it had been cold, still was cold . . . but it was warming up fast. I blew out another breath and could see just a hint of fog. A third exhale and there was nothing. I ran my palm over one of the insulated squares. Smooth. I pushed a finger at it, and although I didn't push with any real force, my finger left a dimple in the silvery surface. Easy as pie. If someone had been thumping a fist down here, this stuff should be pitted, the thin silver skin perhaps even broken to reveal the pink fill underneath. But all the squares were smooth. ‘Are you still there?' I asked. No response, and yet I had a sense that my visitor was still there. Somewhere. ‘I hope I didn't offend you by turning on the light,' I said, and now I did feel slightly odd, standing on my cellar stairs and talking out loud, sermonizing to the spiders. ‘I wanted to see you if I could.' I had no idea if that was true or not. Suddenly so suddenly I almost lost my balance and tumbled down the stairs I whirled around, convinced the shroud-creature was behind me, that it had been the thing knocking, it, no polite M. R. James ghost but a horror from around the rim of the universe. There was nothing. I turned around again, took two or three deep, steadying breaths, and then went the rest of the way down the cellar stairs. Beneath them was a perfectly serviceable canoe, complete with paddle. In the corner was the gas stove we'd replaced after buying the place; also the claw-foot tub Jo had wanted (over my objections) to turn into a planter. I found a trunk filled with vaguely recalled table-linen, a box of mildewy cassette tapes (groups like the Delfonics, Funkadelic, and. 38 Special), several cartons of old dishes. There was a life down here, but ultimately not a very interesting one. Unlike the life I'd sensed in Jo's studio, this one hadn't been cut short but evolved out of, shed like old skin, and that was all right. Was, in fact, the natural order of things. There was a photo album on a shelf of knickknacks and I took it down, both curious and wary. No bombshells this time, however; nearly all the pix were landscape shots of Sara Laughs as it had been when we bought it. I found a picture of Jo in bellbottoms, though (her hair parted in the middle and white lipstick on her mouth), and one of Michael Noonan wearing a flowered shirt and muttonchop sideburns that made me cringe (the bachelor Mike in the photo was a Barry White kind of guy I didn't want to recognize and yet did). I found Jo's old broken treadmill, a rake I'd want if I was still around here come fall, a snowblower I'd want even more if I was around come winter, and several cans of paint. What I didn't find was any plastic owls. My insulation-thumping friend had been right. Upstairs the telephone started ringing. I hurried to answer it, going out through the cellar door and then reaching back in to flick off the lightswitch. This amused me and at the same time seemed like perfectly normal behavior . . . just as being careful not to step on sidewalk cracks had seemed like perfectly normal behavior to me when I was a kid. And even if it wasn't normal, what did it matter? I'd only been back at Sara for three days, but already I'd postulated Noonan's First Law of Eccentricity: when you're on your own, strange behavior really doesn't seem strange at all. I snagged the cordless. ‘Hello?' ‘Hi, Mike. It's Ward.' ‘That was quick.' ‘The file-room's just a short walk down the hall,' he said. ‘Easy as pie. There's only one thing on Jo's calendar for the second week of November in 1993. It says ‘S-Ks of Maine, Freep, 11 A.M.' That's on Tuesday the sixteenth. Does it help?' ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Thank you, Ward. It helps a lot.' I broke the connection and put the phone back in its cradle. Yes, it helped. S-Ks of Maine was Soup Kitchens of Maine. Jo had been on their board of directors from 1992 until her death. Freep was Freeport. It must have been a board meeting. They had probably discussed plans for feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving . . . and then Jo had driven the seventy or so miles to the TR in order to take delivery of two plastic owls. It didn't answer all the questions, but aren't there always questions in the wake of a loved one's death? And no statute of limitations on when they come up. The UFO voice spoke up then. While you're right here by the phone, it said, why not call Bonnie Amudson? Say hi, see how she's doing? Jo had been on four different boards during the nineties, all of them doing charitable work. Her friend Bonnie had persuaded her onto the Soup Kitchens board when a seat fell vacant. They had gone to a lot of the meetings together. Not the one in November of 1993, presumably, and Bonnie could hardly be expected to remember that one particular meeting almost five years later . . . but if she'd saved her old minutes-of-the-meeting sheets . . . Exactly what the fuck was I thinking of? Calling Bonnie, making nice, then asking her to check her December 1993 minutes? Was I going to ask her if the attendance report had my wife absent from the November meeting? Was I going to ask if maybe Jo had seemed different that last year of her life? And when Bonnie asked me why I wanted to know, what would I say? Give me that, Jo had snarled in my dream of her. In the dream she hadn't looked like Jo at all, she'd looked like some other woman, maybe like the one in the Book of Proverbs, the strange woman whose lips were as honey but whose heart was full of gall and wormwood. A strange woman with fingers as cold as twigs after a frost. Give me that, it's my dust-catcher. I went to the cellar door and touched the knob. I turned it . . . then let it go. I didn't want to look down there into the dark, didn't want to risk the chance that something might start thumping again. It was better to leave that door shut. What I wanted was something cold to drink. I went into the kitchen, reached for the fridge door, then stopped. The magnets were back in a circle again, but this time four letters and one number had been pulled into the center and lined up there. They spelled a single lower-case word: hello There was something here. Even back in broad daylight I had no doubt of that. I'd asked if it was safe for me to be here and had received a mixed message . . . but that didn't matter. If I left Sara now, there was nowhere to go. I had a key to the house in Derry, but matters had to be resolved here. I knew that, too. ‘Hello,' I said, and opened the fridge to get a soda. ‘Whoever or whatever you are, hello.'

Modern or Herbal Medicine, which is better?

The United States is a country which revolves around innovation, inventions, and furthering our society to make a profit. Many people come to America to work, and make money. One very profitable, and very popular industry is drugs. From illegal to legal, completely natural to completely synthetic, the list of drugs is endless. Large drug companies produce many drugs daily. Some of these drugs make it to the consumer market, and others are rejected. Drugs can be very costly, and at the same time very dangerous. Every time an advertisement for a new drug arises, the list of side effects are endless. I will center my paper on the history of medicine, and compare natural medicines versus modern medicines. Is one truly better than the other? Any problem somebody might have, the doctor will have a pill to fix it. How bad are these pills? And could natural state forms of medicine be better? Medicine, and other forms of medicine, came about many centuries ago. Even before the Romans and the Greeks, each society of people had their own forms of healing. Although these forms differ drastically from our modern medical practices, they did have benefits. Back in the time of the Romans, there was no germ theory, and they simply believed that illness occurred from not keeping a healthy body and mind. They did not make any connections between diseases and germs, but they did try to stay physically fit. A well known Roman named Celsus once said â€Å"A person should put aside some part of the day for the care of his body. He should always make sure that he gets enough exercise especially before a meal† (Medicine in Ancient Rome 7). The Greeks and Romans shared some of the same concepts on health, and even traded slaves that were known as the doctors of the day to be used in each household. Although they did not use much in the way of medicine, their persuasion on public health was beginning to start a medical revolution. The Romans large focus on public sanitation and staying healthy would later give a boost to medical advancements once each society of people has become more advanced. Advancements in medicine and technology seem to be divided by country. For the Americas, physicians and other medical enthusiasts began finding and iscovering cures for diseases which would later turn into our modern medicine with pills and injections for almost anything. China was another big player in the medical field, and their focus seemed to be more on natural medicines. As time goes on, whether each culture had a stronger focus on natural medicines or modern medicines, both topics seemed to have blended into each society. M odern medicines are more widely used today than most herbal remedies, and this may be from the convenience, the benefits, the wide availability, or just because it is what we are used to. Most people today if asked what herbology is, they would be clueless. People may look at the study of natural remedies as â€Å"primitive† or â€Å"ineffective†, but in reality it is the center stage for what our modern medicines have become. According to Dr. John R. Christopher, a 30 year veteran herbalist, â€Å"in 1965, over 130 million prescription drugs were written which came from plants†¦ that over 75% of the hormones used in medicine today are derived completely from plants† (Herbs vs. Modern Medicine 3). According to dictionary. com, herbology is the study or use of the medicinal properties of plants. Herbology predates any other forms of medicine, even before humans written history. This has been proven with the discovery of a neanderthal found in Shanidar Cave, Iraq. A neanderthal, which is just before humans in our evolutionary line, was buried approximately 60,000 years ago surrounded by great quantities of pollen of multiple plants. The astonishing part about this discovery, is 88% of the substances found in the burial are still used in modern herbal remedies (Solecki 880). Natural remedies have proven highly successful in China over time, with much credit given to the Yan Emperor, or Shennong. He was given the name Shennong because it means â€Å"the divine farmer†. Throughout his life, he tasted hundreds of plants to discover medicinal purposes, and was very influential upon his people to encourage farming. He was credited with discovering hundreds of medicinal and poisonous plants, which were later published in The Divine Farmers Herb-Root Classic. This publication lists 365 medicines derived from minerals, plants, and animals, and is one major reason why Chinese herbology has been so successful (Historical Figures 1-3). With such an extensive time-line using natural medicines, why has our society taken such a drastic turn to newly synthesized drugs? Synthesized drugs are the golden egg of the modern medicine of today. Modern medicine has many parts to it, but the two main parts I see important are the drugs, and the procedures. As advanced as our society is within the medical field, there is much to be hidden. With herbology, many of the discoveries of new medicinal plants and substances were literally from self experimentation, such as the work of Shennong. With western modern medicine, it is not just that simple; they do not just use natural plants and minerals. With the help of modern technology and years of medical advancements, scientists can pinpoint certain compounds, and tweak them in the lab to get the desired effect of the drug. Much credit needs to be given to the people who develop drugs, because they do have positive outcomes for treating and curing diseases/illness. However, if you ever watch a commercial for a new drug, at the very end they read off the side effects very fast, and sometimes the negatives outweigh the positives. Given that Americans love money and the commodities that can be acquired with money, drug companies are truly out for the profit to be made on drugs. For example, think about Ian Read. He is the new CEO of Pfizer, the worlds largest research based pharmaceutical company. He made a grand total of twenty five million dollars in 2011. Pfizer has been recognized in many countries for being green, efficient, and a great work environment for employees. They are largely recognized for the drug maraviroc, which is used to treat HIV successfully (FiercePharma 1). Although this company is successful in making drugs, do they do it for the money or to help people? To answer this, we can take a look at Ian Read again. What does he enjoy more: helping sick people, or getting that 25 million dollar paycheck? The answer is obviously money, because he is cutting the companies budget by 1 billion, including dropping 4200 employees, and cutting severance packages (FiercePharma 2). Nothing about Ian in any description of him shows him actually helping people, because his company is so large he only has time to focus on the money. The ethics of large drug companies in western medicine are flawed terribly. Ian Read is a good example from drug industries of modern medicine practices because he is widely known, and the company he controls is looked at as a â€Å"better† drug company. But just to show the flaws in this, take a look at David Winston; the founder of Herbalist & Alchemist. With almost 40 years of training in Cherokee, Chinese, and Western herbal traditions. He has had a clinical practice for over 30 years and is a herbal consultant to physicians throughout the USA ad Canada. President of Herbalist & Alchemist, Inc. an herbal manufacturing company, he is also founder/director of David Winston's Center for Herbal Studies, which features highly respected Two-Year Clinical Herbalist Training Program. He is an internationally known lecturer and teaches frequently at medical schools, symposia and herb conferences (Herbal Therapeutics 1). David, unlike Ian Read, is very active in his studies. He is c onstantly teaching others, and practicing what he teaches. A web search for David will show his accomplishments and how much he is devoted to natural medicine. However, a web search for Ian brings up everything money related to his business. These two individuals differ greatly in the field of medicine, and expose the beliefs and goals of both sides of medicine. Differences aside, they both work towards the same goal; healing. Western medicine and herbal medicine can be looked at as brother and sister. A brother and sister share the same bloodline, as does western and herbal medicine. However, the shared â€Å"bloodline† for modern/herbal medicine would be the active chemicals and compounds in the drug/herb. Many drugs that are created in a lab are derived from a compound found in nature. For instance, compare the drug quinine of western medicine to Peruvian bark of herbology. The drug quinine is derived from Peruvian bark, although it has been slightly modified in a lab. Both of these are used to reduce fever, specifically malarial fever. However, if you take too much quinine, you can go deaf or die. If you use too much of the Peruvian bark, there are no side effects. The tweaking of a natural substance in a lab to create a smaller more convenient drug may have the same healing properties of the natural substance, but there will be side effects (Herbs vs. Modern Medicine 7-10). When comparing two medicinal substances, whether a drug or an herb, one factor affects its use; culture. Western culture differs greatly from that of other countries. Americans live for today, and whatever happens tomorrow happens. When the subject of medicine is brought up while comparing different societies of people, it truly shows why each society chooses their methods. The American way of life is full of commodities and luxuries not needed for survival, and it is what we have grown accustomed to. Our thought process is lineal, being that all we look forward to is progress. The care for nature and the environment is not one of our biggest priorities, because we are too busy focused on furthering our society. Now when looking at Chinese herbalists, the Aztecs, the Cherokee, or any other people who practices natural medicine, the thought process is completely different. As opposed to the linear thought of the west, they portray more of a circular thought process. The value and importance of life is completely different within these cultures. Lifestyles differ greatly because they hold a higher respect for nature, and thoroughly care for the environment. Western thought is highly affected by our high technology society, because we live life so fast. Naturalists on the other hand, native Indians, and many other cultures whose society isn’t as advanced have a more simplistic view on life. What an American takes for granted, others may greatly appreciate. These different thought processes affect every part of each different culture's lifestyle, even down to each different form of healing. Western culture is so fast paced and careless that even taking a simple drug for an illness can be taken for granted. When we get sick, we can go to the nearest drug store a block or two away, and get the necessary drugs. They are prepackaged, and ready for consumption. Even for a simple headache, the average American will just take an aspirin. On the other hand, an herbalist may use the bark of a white willow, containing a natural form of aspirin (Herbs vs. Modern Medicine 11). Modern medicine in the west has become so successful because of the convenience, and it fits perfectly with our linear thought process. Indigenous people of underdeveloped countries who still currently practice herbology as their primary form of medicine hold completely different values on life; nature is highly respected, and there is more of a focus on people and nature. Money and commodities play a lessor role, and it is almost as if life is more simplistic. Natural medicines are so successful in these cultures because with such a large focus on nature in their daily lives, herbology fits in perfectly. These two completely different cultures and ways of life can be looked at in two ways; constructive and destructive. Modern medicine is destructive in many ways, from acquiring the medicinal compounds, creation of the drug, the testing process, and the final effect the drug has on a person. From a naturalist's perspective, it is destructive ecause many natural things are altered in the process, and ethics can be questioned. The entire process of creating drugs is just that of a culture who simply does not care about anything but the product. Any new drug to come to market has to go through many obstacles before it may become available to the public, and this includes experimentation and testing of the drug. â€Å"Much of conventional medicine has alw ays been based on a lie, or a series of lies. Babies feel no pain. Lab rats feel no pain. Monkeys are not conscious beings. Health knowledge is gained by dissecting living beings and identifying their parts. Take your pick† (The Dark History of Modern Medicine 8). It is this testing of the new drugs on animals and living things that brings ethics into question. Although they have to follow rules set by our government, who is really watching what they do? But most people wont think twice about it, because all they care about is getting their prescription filled, instead of thinking of what has been done in the process of making their prescription. This is very destructive because animals are unwillingly subjected to these drugs, with uncertain outcomes. It is also destructive, because the drugs produced do have side effects. Side effects can range from something as small is getting a little drowsy, to death. Little about the process of creating drugs is beneficial to nature or the environment, and although it may help a person with sickness, there are still drawbacks. Natural medicine on the other hand is constructive because it is solely based on nature. Whether somebody grows their own herbs for medicine, or finds them out in nature, nothing is hurt in the mean time. Most of the testing of herbs and their medicinal benefits have been from people willing enough to take them personally, completely getting rid of the need for animal testing. Medicine in a natural state is also very beneficial because there is not a list of side effects, and typically can cure the same illnesses. From the facts on both of these forms of medicine, natural medicine appears to have way more benefits and positive outcomes for nature and people, however there are some drawbacks. How readily available are these natural cures? It varies by country, and in the United states availability of all the herbs and remedies the Chinese use are not so easy to come by. Modern medicine is attained much easier, and there is a much larger supply. Master herbalists can be found as easily as it is to find a drug store, but they are more scarce. Also, credibility can be questionable of most of these herbalists because most are self employed, and there are fewer regulations concerning natural remedies. The benefit of modern medicine is convenience for the general public, because instructions are given for each drug, its uses, benefits, and side effects. With natural remedies, you have to put a lot more trust in the doctor, because natural plants do not come with fine print on them, nor can they promise to have the same medicinal power consistently. How the herbs are grown, stored, and cared for can affect the final outcome, and sometimes to cure a certain problem using natural remedies, it takes a few tries in combination with time. Pills have grown to dominate the medical field for many reasons, for better or for worse. Unless western thought changes completely, or drug companies somehow run out of funding, modern medicine will continue to dominate over natural remedies. Herbs are more safe for curing/healing isolated problems within the body, but modern medicine is much better for helping cure and control widespread diseases and illnesses. It would be hard to come to a conclusion on which is better, because there are so many aspects to medicine. When it comes to the benefit of the environment and the people included, natural remedies prove to be much more valuable. They do not only work hand in hand with nature, but the ethics and morals behind the study of natural medicine is more complete and has proven through history to be very successful in participating cultures. Modern medicine offers a quick fix to an illness and coincides with western thoughts and ways of life, but dedication to natural remedies has proven to offer a lifetime of wellness while keeping people aware of the benefits of nature. So is one better than the other? Each culture would have a different viewpoint on this. Instead of picking a side, would it be possible to combine them? If you mix something destructive with something constructive you can reach equilibrium and balance. Is such a feat attainable in the world of today?

Analysis of The Swallows - What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr Free Essay Example, 1250 words

Using language easy for an average to comprehend and including simplified scientific experiments, Carr reasons with the audience in issues capturing the media and technology. Chapters seven and eight vividly show Carr s indictment into the digital culture that has transformed the human brains into technology dependants. People depend on technology to handle even the slightest tasks (Carr 117). Chapter ten that explores the human elements, which promote reasoning indicates that the computers have eroded the deep and creative thinking by encouraging people to become rapid samplers of the information. In effect, the simple, yet comprehensive presentation of the chapters facilitate the capturing of the main themes in the book. The book has intertwined primary themes. The major themes the author presents include cultural criticism, technology and cognitive abilities, and intellectual history. The theme of technology and cognitive abilities is evident in the introductory chapters of the b ook. Notably, Carr sets out the book by presenting his personal experience with thinking. Carr has challenges with focusing, and his brain is unable to remember things as it used to do. Carr attributes the problem to the Internet. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of The Swallows - What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now The Internet has rendered many people shallow thinkers (Carr 55). Carr utilizes the scientific facts, as well as, research to implicate the new media and the Internet in changing the functioning of the human brain. The Internet has crippled the cognitive abilities and made people unable to focus. Cultural criticism features prominently in the book. The prologue quotes Marshall McLuhan gives a glimpse of the primary premise that the media alters the human perception and the nervous system (Carr 2). The theme unfolds in the succeeding chapters to demonstrate how the culture of technology has affected the way the people engage with each other. Carr has shown that people have embraced the culture of the digital natives to reexamine the principles, strategies, long-term outcomes, and perceptions that centers on the acquisition of the human.