Bright Morning Research Articles

Greater sensitivity of the circadian system of women to bright light, but not dim-to-moderate light.

Women typically sleep and wake earlier than men and have been shown to have earlier circadian timing relative to the light/dark cycle that synchronizes the clock. A potential mechanism for earlier timing in women is an altered response of the circadian system to evening light. We characterized individual-level dose-response curves for light-induced melatonin suppression using a within-subjects protocol. Fifty-six participants (29 women, 27 men; aged 18-30 years) were exposed to a range of light illuminances (10, 30, 50, 100, 200, 400, and 2000 lux) using melatonin suppression relative to a dim control (<1 lux) as a marker of light sensitivity. Women were free from hormonal contraception. To examine the potential influence of sex hormones, estradiol and progesterone was examined in women and testosterone was examined in a subset of men. Menstrual phase was monitored using self-reports and estradiol and progesterone levels. Women exhibited significantly greater melatonin suppression than men under the 400-lux and 2000-lux conditions, but not under lower light conditions (10-200 lux). Light sensitivity did not differ by menstrual phase, nor was it associated with levels of estradiol, progesterone, or testosterone, suggesting the sex differences in light sensitivity were not acutely driven by circulating levels of sex hormones. These results suggest that sex differences in circadian timing are not due to differences in the response to dim/moderate light exposures typically experienced in the evening. The finding of increased bright light sensitivity in women suggests that sex differences in circadian timing could plausibly instead be driven by a greater sensitivity to phase-advancing effects of bright morning light.

Bright light therapy and early morning attention, mathematical performance, electroencephalography and brain connectivity in adolescents with morning sleepiness.

Adolescents typically sleep too little and feel drowsy during morning classes. We assessed whether morning use of an LED bright light device could increase alertness in school students. Twenty-six (8M/18F) healthy, unmedicated participants, ages 13-18 years, (mean 17.1±1.4) were recruited following screenings to exclude psychopathology. Baseline assessments were made of actigraph-assessed sleep, attention, math solving ability, electroencephalography and structural and functional MRI (N = 10-11, pre-post). Participants nonrandomly received 3-4 weeks of bright light therapy (BLT) for 30 minutes each morning and used blue light blocking glasses for 2 hours before bedtime. BLT devices were modified to surreptitiously record degree of use so that the hypothesis tested was whether there was a significant relationship between degree of use and outcome. They were used 57±18% (range 23%-90%) of recommended time. There was a significant association between degree of use and: (1) increased beta spectral power in frontal EEG leads (primary measure); (2) greater post-test improvement in math performance and reduction in errors of omission on attention test; (3) reduced day-to-day variability in bed times, sleep onset, and sleep duration during school days; (4) increased dentate gyrus volume and (5) enhanced frontal connectivity with temporal, occipital and cerebellar regions during Go/No-Go task performance. BLT was associated with improvement in sleep cycle consistency, arousal, attention and functional connectivity, but not sleep onset or duration (primary measures). Although this was an open study, it suggests that use of bright morning light and blue light blocking glasses before bed may benefit adolescents experiencing daytime sleepiness. Clinical trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov ID-NCT05383690.

0314 Late Evening Room Light and Sleep Restriction Reverses the Phase Advancing Effect of Bright Morning Light in Adolescents

Abstract Introduction Late bedtimes and sleep restriction are common during adolescence, particularly on school nights. We examined circadian phase advancing effects of bright morning light (ML) with increasing doses of evening room light exposure and sleep restriction due to late bedtimes. Methods Adolescents (n=38, 21 girls) aged 14.1 to 18.0 years completed a 14-day protocol during summer vacation. On days 1-7, they slept at home on individualized 10-h sleep/dark schedules. On days 8-14, they lived in the laboratory. On day 8, we measured their Dim Light Melatonin Onset (DLMO). On days 9 and 10, they were put to bed 1.5h (n=9), 3.0h (n=12), or 4.5h (n=8) later and kept awake in room light (104±11 lux at the angle of gaze). Wake time was unchanged; thus, sleep opportunity was shortened to 8.5h, 7h, and 5.5h, respectively. The fourth group (n=9) kept their baseline bedtime, were not exposed to any additional evening light (EL) and were not sleep restricted. On day 11, all groups were put to bed and awakened 1.5 h earlier and were exposed to intermittent bright ML (three 30-min exposures; 8599±885 lux). On each subsequent day (12 and 13), sleep and ML were advanced 1h. Thus, there were 3 days of a gradually advancing sleep schedule and bright ML. Final DLMO was measured on day 14. Results The 0h EL group showed a large DLMO advance (2.2±1.0 h), but the advance was reduced in the 1.5h EL group (0.5±0.6 h). DLMO delayed in the 3h EL group (-0.9±1.1 h). There was a large phase delay in the 4.5h EL group (-2.6±1.2 h). Phase shifts differed among all groups [F(3,34)=36.7, p&amp;lt;.001]. Conclusion Circadian rhythms of adolescents were advanced when they were exposed to bright ML and a gradually advancing sleep schedule, as shown in many studies of adults. However, when kept up later in ordinary room light, the same advancing sleep schedule and bright ML did not produce as much of an advance. Phase delay shifts occurred when bedtimes were 3h or 4.5h later. EL and sleep restriction can reverse the advancing effect of bright ML. Support (if any) R01 HL146772 (Crowley)

Bright Morning Lighting Enhancing Parasympathetic Activity at Night: A Pilot Study on Elderly Female Patients with Dementia without a Pacemaker.

Exposure to bright morning light (BML) entrains the master circadian clock, modulates physiological circadian rhythms, and reduces sleep-wake disturbances. However, its impact on the autonomic nervous system at night remains unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of BML exposure on parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity at night in elderly women. This nonrandomized controlled pilot study included female participants aged ≥ 60 years who were diagnosed with a type of dementia or cognitive disorder, excluding individuals with pacemakers. The treatment group was exposed to 2500 lx of BML, whereas the control group was exposed to 200 lx of general lighting. We measured heart rate variability to quantify ANS activity. The treatment group displayed significant increases in high-frequency (HF) power (Roy's largest root = 1.62; p < 0.001) and nonsignificant decreases in normalized low-frequency (LF%) power. The corresponding nonsignificant decreases in the low-frequency/high-frequency (LF/HF) ratio and cognitive function were correlated with PSNS activity (Roy's largest root = 1.41; p < 0.001), which improved severe dementia. BML exposure reduced SNS activity and enhanced PSNS activity at night in female participants, which improved cognitive function. Thus, BML therapy may be a useful clinical tool for alleviating cognitive decline.

0630 A 4-Week Sleep Intervention that Advances and Stabilizes Sleep Timing Leads To Meaningful Improvements in Pain and Physical Function in People With Fibromyalgia

Abstract Introduction Fibromyalgia is characterized by chronic widespread pain, mood and sleep disturbance, and affects over 20 million Americans. Pharmacological treatments (antidepressants, antiepileptics, opioids) often have small treatment effects and adverse side-effects. Exercise therapy requires significant patient motivation, and psychotherapy requires specialized personnel. Here we report on a randomized clinical trial in which we tested a 4-week sleep-wake scheduling intervention with either a dim or bright daily 1 hour morning light treatment. Methods Fifty-four adults (52 females, 18-78 years) meeting ACR 2011 diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia completed a 5-week protocol. In the first week each participant slept at home, ad lib, on their usual sleep schedule. Thereafter, they followed a fixed sleep schedule and a daily 1-hour morning light treatment (randomized to dim or bright light). The sleep schedule advanced each participant’s individual sleep-wake timing by no more than 1 hour, and focused on stabilizing sleep timing. Participants were monitored with wrist actigraphy throughout the study. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, 2 weeks and 4 weeks after the intervention. Results The 4-week intervention resulted in an average 36-minute advance in participants’ sleep timing in both groups (ps&amp;lt;0.001). Night-to-night variability in sleep timing also significantly decreased in both groups (ps&amp;lt;0.01). Pain and physical function improved equally in both groups (Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire-Revised, PROMIS Pain intensity, PROMIS Physical Function, ps&amp;lt;0.01). Across both groups, a greater shift in morningness (Owl-Lark score) was associated with a greater reduction in depressive symptoms (PHQ-9; r=-0.45, p&amp;lt;0.001). No significant side effects were reported in either group. Treatment expectations were not significantly correlated with symptom improvement (all rs nonsignificant). Conclusion Results suggest that 4 weeks of an advanced and stabilized sleep schedule can lead to meaningful improvements in pain and physical function in people with fibromyalgia. The addition of a bright vs. dim morning light treatment did not further increase symptom improvement. A reduction in depressive symptoms during the intervention may have contributed to the improvements in pain and physical function. Sleep-wake scheduling should be further explored as a potentially feasible, acceptable and effective adjunctive non-pharmacological treatment for fibromyalgia. Support (If Any) Grant awarded from NINR R21 NR016930.

Let there be blue-depleted light: in-patient dark therapy, circadian rhythms and length of stay

SUMMARYLight is the most important environmental influence (zeitgeber) on the synchronization of the circadian system in humans. Excess light exposure during the evening and night-time affects secretion of the hormone melatonin, which in turn modifies the temporal organization of circadian rhythms, including the sleep–wake cycle. As sleep disturbances are prominent in critically ill medical and psychiatric patients, researchers began to examine the impact of light exposure on clinical outcomes and length of hospitalization. In psychiatric inpatients, exposure to bright morning light or use of blue blocking glasses have proved useful interventions for mood disorders. Recently, knowledge about light and the circadian system has been applied to the design of inpatient facilities with dynamic lighting systems that change according to time of day. The installation of ‘circadian lighting’ alongside technologies for monitoring sleep–wake patterns could prove to be one of the most practical and beneficial innovations in inpatient psychiatric care for more than half a century.

OUR TOWN

OUR TOWN

Self-improvement, and: Taking Care of My Mother, and: A Note Regarding Your Collection of Sparrows, and: Providence Hospital, Portland Oregon

Self-improvement, and: Taking Care of My Mother, and: A Note Regarding Your Collection of Sparrows, and: Providence Hospital, Portland Oregon Michelle Patton (bio) Self-improvement When you went to the gymI smoked all the Marlboro Redsand drank the last beer, thinkingof your salty beard. Now we don't eat meat,you quit smoking, and I read self-help books.There is but one small leverin the damned city of my brainand I can't quite find it. You call me Cheswick,say when the ash of my cigarette gets long like that,it's a sign of mental illness, like your father,his ash curving dangerously round the bend.Mine, I tap at just the right moment,still a prisoner to this grammar, this lacklusterlanguage of the lucid and the sane.Now my cigarettes burn your new car,yellow my fingertips, cloud the airbetween us; but I still lovethe snowy filters, boozy with red lipstick,the little punch to the chest, little rebels in the blood.Smoke with me tonight, let's smolderunder a moon that burns a holeclean into the night sky. [End Page 177] Taking Care of My Mother It's 110 in Fresno, and when I checkOn my mom, she has rippedThe DO NOT TOUCH signOff the thermostat and turned the heat on again. I tape it up and we spend hoursTrying to find her cigarettes. I find new jeansUnder the mattress, and her green sewing kitIn the hall closet. These days, she misplaces My name and asks where I was born,But this green sewing kitHas been in the same spot for 40 years,Complete with thimbles and thread. When I open it, I see my motherAs she used to be, glasses on her noseFingers quick and capable on the needle,The smell of bread filling the house.Back then her oven still worked, back then She would give me a ball of doughAnd let me braid it while I watched herKnead and roll, and knead and rollThen brush butter on the golden loaves. Later at Walgreens, I take too longLooking through each aisle for somethingThat might change my mother's life.I settle on more tape and cigarettes [End Page 178] And a pair of warm slippers.When I give them to her, she holds themLike a baby and says, a gift for me?In a few days I will force her From her house, and she will hit meAnd curse me, say I am not her daughter,But for now she saysI was always her favorite. A Note Regarding Your Collection of Sparrows I've spent this morning listening to your sparrows,the ones you asked me to check for form and number,but each soft bird I lifted distracted me with gossipabout your heart, the other cities you've loved, the other women.Only one sparrow mentioned me at all, and quietly,amid the little beating of its heart, I heard my nameand the name of this town where you've settledfor scrambled eggs and middle-aged love. I'm not sayingI'm not embarrassed of all the romance novelsI read in my 20s, and how much I wanted to be your great city,or at least your pretty good city, like Brusselsthat bright morning we woke from crazy dreamsand crazy fights to climb out onto the fire escapewith coffee and cigarettes, me in my thrift store dressof pale yellow, the old city was below us, and the sleepstill warm in your eyes. If someone told me that story,I would envy that couple their crazy fights, their sunlit morning,and maybe love is only a story, one told to a friend,or to ourselves in the dark before sleep, before we waketo find the other whistling and making eggs. [End Page 179] Providence Hospital, Portland Oregon After the second stroke, my father's voiceIs the soft lamplight of childhoodLike the night I confessed to stealingAnd he said in the dark...

Late bedtimes prevent circadian phase advances to morning bright light in adolescents

ABSTRACTWe examined phase shifts to bright morning light when sleep was restricted by delaying bedtimes. Adolescents (n = 6) had 10-h sleep/dark opportunities for 6 days. For the next 2 days, half were put to bed 4.5 h later and then allowed to sleep for 5.5 h (evening room light + sleep restriction). The others continued the 10-h sleep opportunities (sleep satiation). Then, sleep schedules were gradually shifted earlier and participants received bright light (90 min, ~6000 lux) after waking for 3 days. As expected, sleep satiation participants advanced (~2 h). Evening room light + sleep restriction participants did not shift or delayed by 2–4 h.Abbreviations: DLMO: dim light melatonin onset.

To See and Be Seen: In Conversation with JEB

666 Feminist Studies 44, no. 3. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Lana Dee Povitz To See and Be Seen: In Conversation with JEB August 12, 2017; a hot, bright morning. Ariel and I disembark at the train station in Takoma, DC, and head toward the waiting car. In the driver’s seat is one of the most important photographers of lesbian lives in the United States, Joan E. Biren, popularly known as JEB. Decades before social media made images of nearly anything accessible to nearly anyone with a web connection, JEB published Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians in 1979—in her words, “The first lesbian [photography] book that was going to say LESBIAN on the cover and have real people with real faces and first names on the inside.”1 A videographer later in her career, JEB made her mark traveling around the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s with her Dyke Show.2 Formally titled Lesbian Images in Photograph : 1850–the present, this constantly evolving visual and audio performance featured between three hundred and four hundred slides of lesbians or lesbian-like women from 1850 to the present.3 At the crest 1. Joan E. Biren, phone interview with Ariel Goldberg, October 10, 2017. Transcript in author’s possession. 2. JEB toured with the Dyke Show in the United States and Canada from 1979 to 1985. See Sophie Hackett, “Queer Looking,” Aperture 218 (Spring 2015): 40–45. 3. Ibid. On “lesbian-like” women and finding lesbians throughout history before the consolidation of the identity category, see Judith M. Bennett, “‘Lesbian-Like’ and the Social History of Lesbianisms,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9, nos. 1–2 (January–April 2000): 1–24; David M. Halperin, “The First Homosexuality?” in his How to Do the History of Homosexuality Lana Dee Povitz 667 of the women’s liberation movement, audiences crowded together wherever they could to see the show—in living rooms, garages, church basements , community centers, and feminist bookstores—sitting rapt on the ground or on folding chairs. For many in these all-women spaces, JEB’s slides were the first images of women like them they’d ever seen. It’s Ariel who has arranged today’s interview, doing research for the book they’re writing about the influence of the twentieth century’s LGBTQ photographers on contemporary mainstream image culture. Ariel Goldberg is a photographer and poet who crisscrosses New York City working as an adjunct on different college campuses. The more they tell me about JEB in the weeks leading up to this meeting, the more I sense something genealogical afoot. Each representing the white, Jewish, middle -class,antiracist-lesbian-grassroots activism of their respective eras, both JEB and Ariel are self-taught, collaborative , and accountable to their circles of activist/artist friends. They pursue projects with or without (usually without) institutional support and brim with interests that hover between marginal and hot. As for me, I’m a historian, tagging along for the ride. I know little about photography, its practitioners, or its technologies, but I’m dipping into a new research project about the impact of social-movement participation on activist lives. And, aware of JEB’s role as a documentarian of (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002): 48–80; Leila Rupp, Sapphistries : A Global History of Love Between Women (New York: New York University Press, 2011); Valerie Traub, Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). See also Cait McKinney, “‘Finding the Lines to My People’: Media History of Queer Bibliographic Encounter,” GLQ: Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 24, no. 1 (January 2018): 55–83. For a discussion of queer desire for belonging based in literature, see Christopher Nealon, Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion Before Stonewall (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001). Ariel Goldberg, by Lana Dee Povitz. 668 Lana Dee Povitz social justice movements, including women’s and gay liberation, as well as her theoretical contributions to the early lesbian-separatist collective known as the Furies Collective, I am curious what this veteran activist life looks like now. Ariel and I speculated about JEB on the ride down from New York. We know she...

Colonel Tandja’s Country

Colonel Tandja’s Country Peter Chilson (bio) Not long ago, a man I used to know lost his job and went to prison in the space of a few hours. Months later and just as abruptly he returned home, charges dropped, with little explanation. His name is Mamadou Tandja. He was once a colonel in the army of Niger, a West African country more than twice the size of France and covered mostly by the Sahara. He became, years after I met him, the twice democratically elected civilian leader of an African nation state—an anomaly on a continent of dictators. Tandja’s ten-year reign over Niger ended February 18, 2010, during a cabinet meeting at the gleaming white presidential palace overlooking the Niger River in Niamey, the capital city, when shortly after noon mutinous soldiers blew open the palace gate. This began, The New York Times reported, “a day of gunfire, explosions and nonstop military music on the radio” during which a few soldiers and civilians died. Mutineers burst in on the cabinet and hustled Tandja to a car, unharmed. They kept him a few days at an army base before moving him to house arrest in the servants’ quarters of a palace villa, and accused him of taking more than $100 million in foreign aid and other funds. A year later, in March 2011, Niger’s military rulers demoted Tandja again, this time to Kollo civilian prison outside the capital. There, among thieves, at the age of 73 he awaited trial, complaining of poor health and harsh quarters—until May, when he left Kollo a free man, all sins forgiven for lack of evidence. Yet the criminal stain, the notion that he took the money, haunts me. I feel betrayed by a man I had hoped stood for something. For two years I was a teacher in Niger’s Tahoua region, which Tandja ruled through drought in the 1980s. Governor Tandja owned a spot in the mind of every civil servant, [End Page 89] tangling us in fear, desire, and guilt—fear of being noticed and punished as if we all deserved a stint behind bars; desire to be blessed by his power; and guilt for not working to his standards. Tandja jailed a clerk for losing track of rice stores, an act that made him a man of the people, protector of the food. He locked up others for keeping unclean offices. He jailed a farmer jaywalking on a rural road as his motorcade approached. One man I knew was imprisoned for having a broken water faucet when Tandja visited his home. To my knowledge, no one he sent to prison died, but to this day I cannot decide whether to despise or admire Tandja. He has wandered a Shakespearian path, sometimes Richard III, ruthless and vindictive, or Prince Hal, triumphing over personal vice to lead a country. Tandja-the-devil drank hard and pilfered food aid as his people went without. Tandja-the-last-honest-man tried to be everywhere at once for his people. Under Tandja, half of Niger’s 14 million people starved in a famine he claimed the international press invented. Yet I cannot condemn him. It’s easy to damn a leader for negligence in a land for centuries mired in drought and ethnic conflict. Niger ranks 186, second from last (above the Democratic Republic of the Congo) on the 2011 United Nations Human Development Index—a measure of life expectancy, education, literacy, and standard of living. After a half-century of independence and billions of dollars in aid, Nigeriens barely scratch a living in Saharan heat. They die young in a nation, the borders of which were drawn in 1904 by Frenchmen so frustrated by persistent poverty that they later dubbed Niger a “phantom colony.” Colonel Tandja’s country. I first met Tandja one bright morning in March 1986, when a desert-brown light tank rolled to a stop and cut its engine outside a concrete school building in Bouza, the village where I was a Peace Corps English teacher working with fifth-graders. My students and I watched through the French windows we’d opened to cool the room...

The End of The Holocaust

The End of The Holocaust

Obituary Prof. Syed Ali Haider (1962 2013)

On a bright morning of 18th February 2013 we lost a renowned and talented vitreo retinal surgeon Prof. Syed Ali Haider along with his younger son Murtaza Haider from the crown of Pakistani Ophthalmology. Nobody even, who met him once, can forget the energy and sincerity in handshake of this handsome man. He was anintuitive leader, excellent ophthalmic surgeon and exquisite medical teacher.

Venus’ upper atmospheric dynamical structure from ground-based observations shortly before and after Venus’ inferior conjunction 2009

Investigations on the dynamical structure of Venus upper atmosphere were carried out by infrared heterodyne Doppler wind measurements shortly before and after the venusian inferior conjunction on March 27, 2009.The Cologne Tuneable Heterodyne Infrared Spectrometer (THIS) has been installed at the McMath–Pierce Solar Telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA to detect non-local thermodynamical equilibrium (non-LTE) emission lines of CO2 at a wavelength of 10.5μm. These solar induced emission lines originate at a pressure level of 1μbar corresponding to an altitude level of 110±10km. From the frequency position of the spectral lines we directly derived Doppler winds without any additional information. The high spatial resolution with a field-of-view of 1.6arcsec compared to an apparent diameter of Venus of 57arcsec allowed to collect information at different latitudes of the illuminated planet.Line of sight wind velocities between 189±11m/s and 41±14m/s were detected along the illuminated evening (western) limb in March and along the bright morning (eastern) limb in April. Single observations at the evening and morning terminator do not show a systematic difference of wind velocities. The measured wind is uniform at low and mid latitudes. In March a lower mean value of 134±1m/s was found compared to April where we retrieved a value of 141±1m/s. Poleward of a latitude of 50° we observed a strong decrease in wind speed down to 41±14m/s.In addition to the pure line of sight wind velocities we used the observing geometry for additional interpretations regarding a global flow from the subsolar point to the antisolar point (SS–AS flow) and a global retrograde superrotational zonal wind (RSZ). The estimations indicate a dominating SS–AS flow with a maximum wind velocity at the terminator of 138±1m/s at low and mid latitudes. No indication of a global RSZ component was found. Corresponding wind values for the latter yield wind velocities in the zonal direction between+20m/s (retrograde direction) and −20m/s (prograde direction) at different latitudes. An inversion of the wind direction is in disagreement with a global RSZ behavior.The comprehensive dataset was used to investigate short term wind variabilities and changes up to 58m/s within few days were found. We included a detailed comparison of concurrent single position observations with sub-millimeter measurements (Clancy, R.T., Sandor, B.J., Moriarty-Schieven, G. [2012]. Icarus 217, 794–812) suggesting a cross terminator gradient at certain latitudes. A detailed interpretation of the observed time dependent behavior by global circulation models including wave activities will be addressed in future work.

The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez)

The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez)

Vicissitudes, CA

Vicissitudes, CA Bryan Hurt (bio) 1 Brandon and Kara went hiking but were unprepared for the physical challenge. "Hiking is hard work," said Kara. She cupped her hands and drank from a limpid mountain stream. "But it's awesome," she said. "Nature rocks," said Brandon. They were in the San Gabriel Mountains and from their elevation could see Los Angeles and the smog in the distance. In Los Angeles city people lived in tiny apartments. The tiny apartments had tiny windows and the tiny windows had tiny curtains which blocked the prying eyes of neighbors. The curtains, sometimes, needed to be ironed. Brandon didn't own an iron. He thought about this. Nature, he thought, is good because it's simple and expansive. Brandon came to the mountains to find enlightenment. Enlightenment, he learned from his yoga teacher, could be found in nature. Kara thought Brandon needed stimulation. She liked him, she said, but was tired of his moodiness and constant napping. Kara took off her overshirt and sat on a rock in the sun. Underneath she wore a tank top that Brandon admired on account of her breasts. Kara has nice breasts, he thought, even if we are just friends. A cloud moved away from the sun and a yellow sunbeam shined on a nearby tree. "Look at that tree," said Kara. She pointed to the tall luminous pine. "There's so much meaning in that tree." 2 The next day Kara was sick with dysentery. Brandon visited her at the hospital. He gave her a bouquet of flowers and asked how it was going. "I have dysentery," said Kara, "because microorganisms have invaded my intestines via my stomach." "Montezuma's Revenge," said Charles. "The lesson," said Charles, "is never to drink from a limpid mountain stream." Great, thought Brandon, Charles is here. [End Page 33] 3 A few weeks later Brandon met Kara and Charles for dinner at a macrobiotic restaurant on La Brea. They sat at a small round table and looked at their menus. "I love macrobiotic food," said Kara. Charles said: "Macrobiotic food is my favorite." Brandon didn't know about macrobiotic food. He looked at his menu. What's seitan? he thought. "I'm thinking of ordering the tempeh with miso-cured tofu cheese," said Kara. "On the ciabatta?" said Charles. "It's a carb," he said. Charles was a personal trainer. Not so long ago he moved to Los Angeles from Orange County to expand his client base. This is how he met Kara. First she was his client. Then his girlfriend. Soon they'd be moving in together. "But I've lost five pounds," said Kara. "Because of the dysentery," she said. "In fluids," said Charles. Charles said: "Fluids don't count." Kara pulled her hair away from her neck. Her neck was slender and featured an array of beauty marks. "Then I'll get the seitan wrap," she said. Charles ordered the chopped salad. When it was Brandon's turn he couldn't decide. In a panic he ordered the tuna roll. But I hate sushi, he thought when the meals came out. Charles said something about politics. "I dislike the president," he said. "Garfield was my favorite president," said Brandon. "James A. Garfield?" said Kara. "President from March to July of 1881?" "From Ohio?" she said. "That's the one," said Brandon. He said: "I think he would have proven to be an effective leader if he'd been given the chance." Charles put his hand on Kara's knee. "That's funny," said Charles. "Garfield's killer, Charles Guiteau, is my favorite presidential assassin, and it's not just because we share a name." He said: "Did you know that Guiteau killed the president because he was sexually frustrated?" "How awful," said Kara. [End Page 34] Brandon poked his tuna roll. "Don't you agree, Brandon?" said Charles. "Agree?" "That sexual frustration is awful." "I thought Guiteau killed Garfield because he wanted to be ambassador to France," said Brandon. "Please," said Charles. He said: "Everyone wants to be ambassador to France." 4 The next day Brandon woke up to the bright morning sun shining through his bedroom window. He...

Fate’s Victims

Fate’s Victims Robert Cooperman (bio) Andromache as the Flames Consume Hector I can’t bear to watch the flames eating you like a snarling cur once the battle’s done. Dead men’s blood soils the bright morning dew. Instead I turn my eyes to the clear blue sky, but smoke from your pyre blots out the sun. I can’t bear to watch the flames eating you. I recall when I was first ushered through Troy’s halls, our lives together just begun, but now your dead blood soils the morning dew. We were shy as mice, but our love soon grew though you were fine silk and I homespun. I can’t bear to watch the flames eating you. It pained your heart to see the lengthening queues of hungry subjects as the war wore on, and dead men’s blood soiled the bright morning dew. I grieve amid this royal retinue, since you’ve left me alone with our small son. I can’t bear to watch the flames eating you, your dead ashes falling, staining the dew. [End Page 580] Hector’s Ghost Consoles Andromache after She Fails to Kill Herself at His Funeral Rites My darling wife, though you cannot hear me here on Lethe’s blessed forgetful shore, we’ll soon be together again and free of the world’s cheap glitter and mockery: the war glory I sought, a tawdry whore. My darling wife, though you cannot hear me, I have the dark knowledge of what will be: the Greeks will loot and rape and kill—and more. But we’ll be together again and free in Elysian bliss, shaded by soft trees while zephyrs blow and sweet melodies pour into our souls, though now you can’t hear me. Part of me wants to tear my hair and weep for all my dear ones lost in endless war; but I’m happy here, forgetful and free. Don’t rush off toward eternity; no mere mortal can go against Fate’s law, my darling wife. Though you can’t hear me, we’ll soon be together again—and free. Touring Omaha Beach Guns and men are silent now, thank the Lord, if indeed a god’s the one we should have thanked when that steel storm of shells and bullets roared And men drowned, their bodies washing ashore, their once-alive eyes staring, still and blank as the guns now, no thanks to a good lord— [End Page 581] if there is a god who watches, assured, and assuring us this world’s not a prank when that steel storm of shells and bullets roared And madmen tried to kill innocent hordes: devil-troops pitiless as sharks circling planks. But the guns are silent now, thank some lord, or, better, brave men who wielded the truth’s sword and stormed that beachhead in their righteous ranks accompanying the steel storm that roared And rang out in that last virtuous war, won without an indifferent god who shrank. [End Page 582] Robert Cooperman Robert Cooperman’s poems have appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, Louisiana Literature, Slant, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Ranch Wife. Copyright © 2011 University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, 37383

Light treatment prevents fatigue in women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer

Fatigue is one of the most disturbing complaints of cancer patients and is often the reason for discontinuing treatment. This randomized controlled study tested the hypothesis that increased morning bright light, compared to dim light, would result in less fatigue in women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Thirty-nine women newly diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancer were randomized to either bright white light (BWL) or dim red light (DRL) treatment and were instructed to use the light box for 30 min every morning throughout the first four cycles of chemotherapy. The Multidimensional Fatigue Symptom Inventory was administered prior to the start of chemotherapy (baseline), during the chemotherapy treatment week of cycle 1 (C1TW), the last week (recovery week) of cycle 1 (C1RW), the chemotherapy treatment week of cycle 4 (C4TW), and the last week (recovery week) of cycle 4 (C4RW). The DRL group reported increased fatigue at C1TW (p = 0.003) and C4TW (p < 0.001) compared to baseline, while there was no significant change from baseline in the BWL group. A secondary analysis showed that the increases in fatigue levels in the DRL group were not mediated through nor associated with changes in sleep or in circadian rhythms as measured with wrist actigraphy. The results of this study suggest that morning bright light treatment may prevent overall fatigue from worsening during chemotherapy. Although our hypothesis that overall fatigue would improve with bright light treatment was not supported, the lack of deterioration in total fatigue scores suggests that bright morning light may be a useful intervention during chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Percy

Percy

Chester Himes’s The Third Generation : A Dystopic Domestic Novel

For the sake of argument, imagine that you sit down to read a novel, and it opens with the following paragraphs: Spring was in the air. The bright morning sunshine had dried the dew and warmed the ground, and crocuses, bordering the front brick walk, bloomed in yellow flame. Rosebushes along the front picket fence were heavy with buds, and the tiny lacquered leaves of the spreading elderberry tree trembled as if in ecstasy. Everything seemed dazzlingly clean and dressed for an occasion. Beyond the vivid green of the sprouting grass the small frame house glistened with fresh white paint. The faces of two small children pressed wistfully against the front windowpanes gave eyes to the house. It was a pleasant house, and one could imagine it having eyes, and smiling, too, on such a morning. Professor Taylor rented it from the college president. (7) What kind of story would you anticipate from this? A sentimental tale in which the mother does her part to make the world a better place by educating her children with loving kindness and gracious moral examples? A British tale of a decorously impoverished gentleman's daughter who overcomes countless obstacles to finding love and succeeds in fulfilling a marriage plot? Given these opening paragraphs, it would be reasonable to anticipate either of these plotlines. However, these paragraphs actually open Chester Himes's 1954 novel The Third Generation, and rather than developing the serene domestic ideal portrayed in this scene, Himes proceeds to explode it. Born in 1909 into an educated, middle-class African American family in Jefferson City, Missouri, Himes spent his childhood in many locations in the Midwest and the South, as his father moved between teaching positions at various agricultural colleges. He attended Ohio State University but withdrew before he graduated. There are varying accounts given as to why he left, but perhaps the most likely story is that university officials asked him to leave the school after he brought some of his classmates to a combination speakeasy-whorehouse, where he then became involved in an altercation (Margolies and Fabre 25). Shortly after leaving college, Himes was arrested and convicted for armed robbery, serving eight years in prison. After his release from prison, he worked at various jobs and at the same time wrote and published. However, his writing offered him little in the way of financial success. Disgusted with the endemic racism of the United States, he moved to France, as Richard Wright and James Baldwin had before him. There Himes wrote a series of detective novels, which garnered him the literary notoriety and financial success that had eluded him in the United States. Himes is best known for this Harlem detective novel series, published in the late 1950s and 1960s, which features the detective duo Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, who are propelled through violent, absurdist plot lines. Early on in his career, however, Himes wrote protest novels, most notably If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), which features a young African American man who works (as Himes had) in a California shipyard during World War II. Critics have categorized Himes with other mid-twentieth-century social protest writers, such as Wright and Ralph Ellison, whose naturalism builds on the literary tradition of Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair. His early novels, including The Third Generation, exude a palpable rage similar to that found in Wright's Native Son (1940) and Ellison's Invisible Man (1952). The Third Generation has received very little critical attention, and scholars who have written on it have focused mainly on the autobiographical nature of the novel. Although The Third Generation is indeed autobiographical, as a novel it would benefit from being exposed to additional critical approaches. In this article, I will focus on how Himes takes a literary-historical domestic paradigm and almost literally destroys it. …