Across the Years

My mother was a remarkable woman who didn't profess big dreams beyond day-to-day happiness and a good life for her family. When my folks were married in the late '40s, the world was an unusual place. The Great War was over, Dad was out of the Navy, and America still held a Rockwellian charm as it slide toward the Korean War, the idyllic '50s, and the rise of Elvis.

Because Mom and Dad grew up during the Depression, some of the hard-learned lessons of that generation seeped into the atmosphere of our house and family. Some of my classmates literally had grandparents that were my parents' ages.

Mom was an artist. That is where I got it. She could draw and paint (yes, they are different), and I was in awe of her talent. For a time during my youth, Mom worked at a local department store, and she decorated and arranged the long display windows with meticulous dedication and impressive results. We were often stopped at the grocery store (or on other local outings) for townsfolk to chat with Mom about how they loved her current windows, or thought this or that particular touch was clever or well executed. I regularly saw the positive influence of a job well done and appreciated -- the pride she took in her work. (If she were with us now, oh how she’d love to talk with her granddaughter about fashion and accessories!)

I miss Mom. But, I can hear her distinctive laughter across the years, and I’ll always cherish the fond memories of her that will comfort me for all my days remaining.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

No Man is an Island

Three Septembers ago, I headed down to Houston in the wake of Hurricane Ike. My brother-in-law and his wife evacuated from their home on Galveston Island (six blocks from the seawall) to his older brother's house in north Houston -- where, as a result of the hurricane's winds, several trees fell on the older brother's house and garage, trapping their cars.



My sister-in-law was in the midst of an important medical treatment, and since there was no power at the residence in Houston or anywhere near it, and since their car was block in a tree-attacked garage, I drove down to evacuate them from their semi-evacuation. (I was hailed as a hero for bringing several bags of ice.)



The creepy aspect of the day was the complete lack of electrical power. Once I moved below Buffalo on I-45, there was nothing. A surprising flow of traffic headed back to the Houston/Galveston area clogged the interstate and stacked up in lines at every exit, in hopes of having selected the right exit to score some gas or food.



But, no. 

I left the interstate to drive over to the small town of Madisonville, thinking I might purchase a stash of D cell batteries -- a hot commodity in powerless Houston. I theorized that most of the travelers would not swing out to Madisonville, since it was not visible from the interstate.

I was right. I encountered no traffic. But, I also encountered no power. Nada. The town was electricity-less.



In Huntsville, it was worse. I think there was a collective belief that power/food/gas would be available at this more sizable city. But, no. A long queue of cars snaked back up the shoulder of the interstate, waiting their turn to take the first exit.



When travelers discovered no power/gas/food, they rolled down the service road paralleling the interstate, hoping the next exit would magically, inexplicably prove to be the oasis of power/food/gas they needed.



I rolled on.



No power in Conroe. No power in The Woodlands. No power.



"Captain Trips," I thought.



I got in and got out, having topped off my tank before getting on the interstate in Buffalo.

It was just a few weeks later when I took by brother-in-law back to Galveston Island for a look-and-leave, when authorities allowed residents (with photo ID) to enter the island and assess their property. We had to be off the island by 6 p.m.

But, heading out the causeway as I-45 approached Galveston Island was a very surreal scene. What were once upscale yachts and boats were tipped on their sides in the median of the interstate. A collection of hull-damaged vessels lined the shoulder of the road. Sailboats with broken masts lay scattered about and abandoned.

It was crazy.

Tiki Island, which you pass en route to Galveston, was once a bustling community of condos on stilts and a crowded marina catering to the weekend-home crowd. Everywhere were piles of belongings heaped up next to the homes where they once resided. That became a common theme: people dragged their possessions to the curb.

Once we rolled onto Galveston, there was more of the same. Boats where they should not be. Trees lying down. Businesses and homes all over the island had vomited their innards into semi-organized trash piles for contractors to collect and haul away.

I felt like I was intruding on the misery.

We rolled slowly down Broadway, taking in the sights of loss. When we finally turned to corner into the right neighborhood, it was the familiar scene. Furniture and clothes and appliances and belongings spilled out of the homes and lined the sidewalks, as hurricane survivors moved in and out like a colony of ants.

At first glance, my brother-in-law's home didn't have any obvious damage, though I could see the avocado tree in the backyard and tipped over toward the alley. He spoke to his neighbors. All their homes were on the ground level. They all theorized his house might be okay, since it was elevated.

We cautiously entered, expecting to see things tossed about and knocked over, general disarray, pillows and papers swollen with water. But, everything seemed in fine order on first inspection.  The lack of complete destruction was incongruous with the scene in neighboring homes.

We wanted to celebrate, but we feared we were somehow overlooking something.  Of course, there was damage.  Insidious destruction that didn't present itself at first glance.  Not the kind of bombastic devastation seen on news channels, but structural and other complications that would ultimately cost quite a bit to rectify.

We taped up the refrigerator and hauled it to the curb. I coated his yard and underneath his home with heavy-duty mosquito spray. We turned his water back on and checked the faucets. We also got up on his roof, having seen some shingles on the ground in his side yard.

As the curfew approached, we cleaned up and got organized to leave the island, rolling slowly north in the line of others who had come for the day to do what repairs they could.

A Decade Hence

It is not having been in the dark house,

but having left it, that counts.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    * 

What began a decade ago as a bright Tuesday morning full of promise, soon quite literally exploded into a new age for Americans.  In a moment of great separation, thousands of souls were gone without goodbyes.  We were thrust into an era of heightened vigilance and suspicion -- one in which we were all fully aware of the willingness (and eagerness) of our enemies to kill themselves as along as it meant they could kill some of us at the same time.

As a nation, we froze in bewilderment at the images and reports of planes flown into buildings or falling from the sky in the Pennsylvania countryside.

It was quite an incomprehensible demarcation that drew a sharp line dividing life before that day from life after.

The twin towers of the World Trade Center, symbolic stanchions of our nation's spirit, thundered down into the bedrock of a new millennium's zeitgeist.  Families floundered in the face of irrevocable absence.  Citizens struggled to cope with the scope of atrocities and the audacity of such enmity.

For a brief period, we Americans were drawn together and united in a collective huddle, cloistered like a crowd drawn to a beacon in the darkness of oblivion.  We shambled forward in a global cortege, numb with vulnerability and uncertainty, but increasingly finding our resolve.  That dark day has been countered with foreign policies, military actions, and covert special operations that have retaliated against organized terrorism with great consequence (from Bush's coalition of the willing to Obama's daring Abbottabad raid) -- despite the expected casuistry from opponents.

On that September day, when I was scrambling for the latest news about attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center, my oldest daughter was in third grade.  A decade later, she lives in the Chelsea District in Manhattan, not too far (not far enough!) from Ground Zero and potential targets like Penn Station/Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building.  So, the anniversary of atrocity brings an extra dose of anxiety for me this year, this day.

Citizen of That Other Place

Everyone...holds dual citizenship 

in the kingdom of the well and 

the kingdom of the sick.  

Although we all prefer only 

to use the good passport, sooner or later,

each of us is obliged, at least for a spell,

to identify ourselves 

as citizens of that other place. 

-- Susan Sontag

It has been humbling to suddenly find myself rife with all manner of health issues and confined -- perhaps a strong word, but that is how I feel -- to a hospital for weeks and weeks.

An unexpected abdominal pain begat a series of tests that uncovered quite a list of issues.  I've likened it to taking your car for an oil change and being told you need to replace the driveshaft and get a new transmission.

But, there is a silver lining around my cloud:  some things were inadvertent discoveries (rather than issues sussed out because they caused trouble), which makes for a better prognosis.

The greatest emotional toll so far has been my inability to join my family on our scheduled New York City trip to move our daughter to college.  We had a lot of fun planned.  Though, I think we front-loaded the itinerary, because we knew it would all conclude with a moment wherein we had to wish our daughter well, tell her we love her, then turn and walk away to head back to Texas -- leaving her in the The City That Never Sleeps, knowing that we, too, might have trouble sleeping.

During my hospitalization (i.e., confinement), my family and I have had unprecedented support from friends and relatives.  The blessings of their presence and care have been almost overwhelming.  I realize how wonderfully privileged we are to be surrounded by such abiding love and sustaining grace.

August & Everything After

August comes in like a lion, like no August before.

In July, during the high holy heat days of summer, an epiphany explained the odd fermata of the recent months -- the long, lingering wait.  I've spent most of this summer in a sort of slumped expectancy, knowing that August would bring that fateful trip in which my daughter moves across the country to begin college (and also, in essence, her adult life).

I'm simultaneously excited for her and forlorn that she'll live hundreds of miles away.  I've the complex intertwining of happiness for her big step and sadness that it means, on some level, she's moved on from being my little girl and progressed into being her own woman.

I've been dreading being apart from her.

I know this is the order of things. I know it is an inevitable moment and an occasion for all the appropriately positive emotions surrounding exciting beginnings.  But, when something begins, it usually signals that something else has ended.

Three Score & Four

Today is the 64th anniversary of my parents' wedding.  My Uncle Fisk officiated the ceremony.  His wife, my Aunt Grace, was there.

They are all four deceased.

Yet, today, I find myself fondly recalling them all.  And, that can be a tremendous comfort to an otherwise aching realization of how long they have been removed from among the living.  And though it can be written off as cliche, I find that telling anecdotes of their wit and adventures and good-natured deeds brings them back to me and to others.  In some small, but reassuring way, that keeps them near.

The Sound of a Crescendo

My iPod offered up Michael Jackson’s "Leave Me Alone" the other day.  And now the opening chords keep replaying in my mind.  And the jaunty chorus, replete with images from the music video.

It’s been more than two years since the announcement of Jackson’s death and the blitz of media coverage that followed.

While I was in college, a friend coaxed me into drawing a portrait of Michael for the wall above her bed.  She had the specific dimensions in mind, having already purchased a frame that suited the sensibilities of her college student chic motif.  She defined the medium (pen and ink) and chose the subject -- but allowed me the hallowed artistic license with regard to concept and composition.

I'd just painted the Queensryche's OPERATION: MINDCRIME logo on the back of a denim jacket (high-vogue, I know) for a buddy and was a little reticent to be on the hook again for someone else's artistic whimsy.   But, hey, I was in college, too.  A bag of potatoes and peanut butter sandwiches lose their tummy-tempting allure after so many weeks.  And I figured some cash in the pocket could translate to food in the fridge.

So, after a brief period of hesitation, I set about the task.  Soon after I began the piece, she left school, and I never heard from her again.  I remained unpaid, so the piece consequently remained unresolved.  Spurred by the tides of the 24-hour news cycle I recently unearthed the drawing, nearly two decades after I began it.

It wasn't like the man had not made music (and music videos) that peppered the years of my life.  At the time, he had not descended into the tabloid fodder, courtroom circus, and plastic surgery mishap that now defines him to younger people.  And by younger, I mean those who did not live through the infectiousness of Off the Wall, the omnipotence of Thriller, the tour de force of Bad.

"He was a dynamo," I tell these kids.  "Hit after hit.  He influenced what people wore and how they danced."

"He's a freak," they rejoin.  A familiar chorus from those who know him only from the days he was topping Internet headlines and not Billboard charts.

He was a powerhouse of pop hits, a cultural event, a consummate showman, and the Fred Astaire of Motown.  Even if you can't stand him, the facts (e.g., charts and sales) speak for themselves.  Of course, all of that has since been tainted by allegations of pedophilia and the public transmutation to a racially vague androgyne.  He was a monster to some, a deity to others, and a bank to many.

The exuberant and playful vocals of his Off The Wall tracks gave way to the visceral catcalls, verbal ticks, and syncopated grunts that marked the era of his affected sour-faced macho posturing, as if to plead:  "I'm so vulgar that you have to be convinced of my manliness."

Thus, he was King of Pop and King of Paradox.  It seemed as though he wanted to physically become Diana Ross -- maybe her alter ego, Dirty Diana.  Later, he verged on a black-wigged Carol Channing or drug-addled, Glaaaadiatorrr-spewing Elizabeth Taylor.  His famous Peter Pan Syndrome became less first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-'til-morning and more a darker fantasy of wealth and self-loathing.

In the end, for me, it seems healthiest to brush all those perceptions aside.  Perhaps his greatest transformation was not his surgically altered physical appearance, or the frequent video theme of Michael-becomes-panther/Michael-becomes-giant-robot/Michael-becomes-werewolf/Michael-becomes-sand/Michael-becomes-theme-park/Michael-becomes-sexual-entity sequence.  Perhaps his greatest transformation was via his influence on music and its byproduct, music videos...and possibly the single, sequined glove industry.

The Long Now and the Eventual When

The Clock of the Long Now ticks ever closer to existence.  It is back in the news again.

I blogged about it long ago (The Blog of the Long Now).  But, it is laughable and quaint to think of last November as a long time ago, when considering the expansive longevity proposed by those at the Long Now Foundation who envision the clock tracking time for millennia to come.

It seems there's a new location for the 10,000-year clock, courtesy of benefactor Jeff Bezos (of amazon.com fame).  Excavation has begun at a West Texas site north of Van Horn, where Bezos owns land around his secretive Blue Origin spaceport.  Builders are drilling an access tunnel to the location deep in the earth where the clock will mark the progress of time for thousands of years.

The audacity of this project is quickly realized if you attempt think back 10,000 years ago and imagine a device, structure, or mechanism that might abide the slow march of time to present day.

Catcher in the Wry

Several years ago, I read The Catcher in the Rye mainly out of obligation.  For me, part of the problem was the pervasiveness of the hype that this slim novel was going to rock my world.

I liked it.  But, because I didn't love it, that somehow tempered the mere like with something more akin to dislike. 

I did, however, remind myself that the unprecedented persona of the book's narrator peeled back the curtain on scornful, suspicious youth displeased with authority and perceptive of hypocrisies.  It brought in conventions that were groundbreaking at the time – things we've seen trotted out ad nauseam in mediocre television, countless films, podcasts, party anecdotes, lame stand-up routines, after-school specials, and late night television monologues.

That said, I remained fascinated with the cult of personality around the reclusive author.  J. D. Salinger's hardcore mission to remain apart from the celebrity his work brought him fueled the mystery.  His Harper Lee-act served as reverse-psychology to lure dedicated fans.

Plus, it seems roundly purported that Salinger wrote many works during his decades of self-imposed exile -- works never seen by anyone.  Though, since his death last year, I expect those undisclosed manuscripts will no-doubt come to light and fill the coffers of his beneficiaries.

Soon after Salinger died, I read about a Shane Salerno’s Salinger documentary (assembled over several years embracing the same cloak of secrecy the author himself demanded).  The documentary is scheduled for release later this year. It's possible I'll gain more pleasure and entertainment from the documentary than I did from the book.

The Time Traveler's Life

When I reached the 15-year anniversary of service with my corporation, I was allowed to select a gift from several options.

I don’t wear a watch, opting to tell time via my cell phone.  And jewelry has no big appeal.  A battery-powered drill emerged as the leading candidate until the kids lobbied hard for the telescope.

Last summer, we hoped to get a dramatic show from the Perseid meteors that streak through the night sky most prominently in August. Since the kids always stay up late during the summer, we all slipped on shoes and rolled out after midnight to find a rural area that would offer less of civilization's ambient glow.  But, the lunar albedo was illuminating so much of the sky, I'm sure it impacted the visibility of the Perseid meteor shower.

There was only a sporadic streak of meteor activity that night, during our post-midnight outing.  It was somewhat disappointing, because I ultimately felt like the payoff wasn't commensurate with the commitment to staying up into the middle of the night (since I had work the next morning) and driving out for a decent vantage.

Our oldest climbed up on top of the vehicle, no doubt thinking that being a few feet closer to the heavens would improve her view.  The rest of us wandered around nearby with our faces lifted toward the stars.

And though there weren't that many meteors, I was transported...

1.) I traveled through time to my military days, when, as a soldier in the field, I'd use night vision goggles (NVGs) or night optical devices (NODs) to view, through the green and grainy image enhancement, a nighttime sky bright and blanketed with countless worlds and distant suns -- so numerous that they crowded into every available space from horizon to horizon.

2.)  I was taken back to junior high school, when summertime campouts often involved staring up at the night sky for long hours, while we talked.  Inevitably, we saw shooting stars (i.e., meteors, no doubt) and tracked the movement of satellites orbiting high above:  steady dots slowly and quietly soaring overhead.

Believing & Not

I've looked up and observed such a beautiful and bizarre vision of cloud formations and coloration, that I was certain if I were to paint an exact representation of what I saw, viewers of the painting would scoff and say it wasn't realistic.

Sometimes, real life offers us less believable things than the fictions and fantasies we imagine.

Back in April, I printed a longish article ("A Murder Foretold," by David Grann, from NewYorker.com) based on a quick look at it. The piece appeared to be in-depth reporting on the assassination of a well respected corporate attorney (Rodrigo Rosenberg) in Guatemala. I was also intrigued by this quote:

“Guatemala is a good place to

commit a murder, because you

will almost certainly get away

with it,” a U.N. official has said.

I took the printed copy along on a recent trip and read it on the flight. I couldn't believe what I was reading. The tale of events that led up to Rosenberg’s murder, and the political backlash in the wake of his death, took a series of unexpected twists that made the entire story so fantastical as to challenge your ability to accept it as true.

This is destined to become a fascinating movie, since it already has the hallmarks of a Hollywood script. I’m still considering the murky machinations that set the whole thing in motion.

In related entertainment, I also happened to stream a movie from Netflix a few weeks ago (All Good Things) via our Wii.  And the movie plot was rife with unexpected tangents and redirections -- but, as it turns out, is based on true events from the life of Bobby Durst.

Rites of Passage

All around the country, kids are embracing their summer vacations.  For some, that means packing it off to camp, bunk beds, cabins, chow halls, crafts, archery, swimming, etc.  There were a few hot Texas summers in my youth when I spent a week or two at camp.  I always did well with the crafts, and, with some apprehension, navigated the delicate social constructs of camp-society.

Though I look back on those times fondly, I'm glad those weren't the all-summer camps I've read about since.  I've always had the impression -- from movies and television -- that it is typical in some regions of the country for kids to pack off for a summer-long camp, filling the gap between school years. I had adventures waiting in my own neighborhood back home -- so, camp was just a momentary diversion.

The accident happened on the last evening of my last year at summer camp. We all went out on a hayride to a nearby farm, where we'd have watermelon and (I don't recall specifically, but I'm guessing here) sing around the camp fire.

While frolicking at the farm, some of us spied a hay ring tipped up on its end like a spinning hamster track. So, I hopped on it and started walking up one side to roll it as though I were in 2001: A Space Odyssey or, in more current context, a Cirque de Soleil act.

Other campers thought I had a keen idea and piled onto the hay ring with me. With several people rocking the ring in competing directions, I lost my balance and planted my hand on a jagged piece of the ring's metal structure.

It didn't hurt severely, but it hurt. And when I got off the ring and held my hand up, it was rapidly filling with a pool of blood, like a dark wine seeping from my skin. That freaked me out a bit, but it also seemed oddly incongruous, because it looked really bad, but it didn't feel really bad.

I trotted over to a counselor, who seemed more panicked that I was. She rounded up some other counselors, and soon I was being whisked away to a hospital in the nearest town. First, we had to go back by the camp to retrieve my file with its medical information like the date of my last tetanus shot and a signed note from my parents that the counselors could seek medical attention on my behalf.

I got 12 stitches and a souvenir scar across the meaty part of my palm.

The whole ordeal took a long time. When I returned to camp, the other campers had completed their hayride/farm visit and were already in the big meeting hall for a dance on our last evening at camp.

When I walked in, lots of kids came over to talk to me and ask about what had happened. It felt nice to believe that they were genuinely interested or concerned, though it also seems likely many of them just wanted to get the lowdown on what happened, whether or not that had any interest in my well being.

Dad picked me up the next morning. "What happened to your hand?"

"I got cut. And I had to have some stitches, but it's okay."

Somehow, I felt adult-like by being able to explain something happened, but there was no real cause for worrying -- everything was going to be alright.

I Spied an Unfortunate Man

There's a certain stark beauty to the West Texas desertscape. It's a vast, sandy scene of tumbleweeds and shrubs dominated by rocks and boulders and occasional mountains rising up from the floor of desolation. Drivers headed west on Interstate 10 are drawn into bleak and barren stretches of isolation only broken by tiny communities offering scarcely more than topic for conversation.

Somewhere out there in the relentless heat, I spied an unfortunate man sitting in the middle of the seldom-traveled service road that ran parallel to the highway. Advancing drifts of sand obscured the edges on both sides of the road and threatened to altogether erase the existence of the road. Weeds rose from between the cracks of pavement negleted by cars and trucks.

The man in tattered clothes sat legs akimbo, like he participated in some Apache tribal ceremony. He was slumped over with the poor posture of the defeated. His head hung low. As if the man was no longer capable or willing to carry it, a nearby backpack sat askew.

I kept driving -- like every other would-be Samaritan speeding to their important destinations. The way I recall it, I released my foot from the accelerator. Part of me knew I needed to slow down, to stop, to offer help. But, I never even got far enough in the process to apply my foot to the brake pedal.

"Nah," I reasoned. "Could be a serial killer."

I sped away. At the time, my wife and infant daughter were awaiting my arrival in El Paso. I couldn't risk getting carved up by some homicidal lunatic as a result of my charitable goodness. Yet, I haven't really moved on. I see that guy in my dreams -- sometimes when I'm fully conscious and trying to displace that memory with something more innocuous.

And here's the bothersome part: sometimes when I relive that scene, I am the guy.

Unbidden Lessons

With my daughter’s recent graduation and forthcoming cross-country move, I’ve been somewhat reflective.  It’s caught me by surprise how we’ve suddenly found ourselves with a grown daughter who is about to flee the nest for big dreams and adventures.  Guess we always figured we’d have our kids here with us, because that’s how we’ve known it for so long.

As she and her classmates split up and disperse for different colleges and different paths, I’m reminded how she’s about to learn one of life’s lessons.  There are people we meet and relationships that we build which last for a chapter (or chapters) of our lives, and there are those that remain a constant thread throughout.

Consistently, life's pleasantries and moments of joy are dependent on the dramatis personae that share your stage.  So, it is with a forlorn mixture of emotions that I consider all the remarkable people that have sat next to me in life before moving on to other places and other times.  I miss so many of them.

Honestly, I've been quite fortunate to know exceptional people whose friendships were bright and warming -- whose frequent and uplifting presence never seemed to last long enough.

Relationships can make your life wonderful and joyous in a way that may even make you feel undeserving at times.  So, placing your bottom line elsewhere may also misplace your opportunity for true happiness.

Here’s how I was trying to process it.  Too many, I think, heavily weight the notion that a chosen vocation is a means of determining their value in an unofficial caste system of financial and social worth.  Yes.  Do something that makes you happy.  That is, your work should be fulfilling, and your job ought to revolve around something at which you are skilled.  But, without good people, it will always be shallow and empty.  Sure.  You could make a lot of money and have the best of personal gadgetry and property.  But, you need exceptional and uplifting people to enrich your world.

An important threshold in life is understanding the role and value of relationships, in my humble opinion.  You may be trying to push your six-figure salary into a seven-figure salary, or live in a lavish mansion, or reside in the hoity-est of toity neighborhoods, or have children whose only friends value them for their possessions, but the stanchion of enduring happiness is...

Well, you get the idea.  Or you don’t.

In Memoriam

Patriotic Americans exist in all walks of life and socio-economic classes -- the highly educated and the undereducated, from inner city neighborhoods and urban sprawl subdivisions to rural communities.

People find many ways to express their allegiance to our nation and the freedoms it has symbolized down through the generations, since our founding fathers first conceived and gave voice to the principles that guide us today.

This Memorial Day weekend, many will take time to honor those who gave their lives in service of our country and its ideas.  Cities, communities, neighborhoods, and families across the nation will pay tribute to fallen members of our military in individual acts, intimate gatherings, and grand ceremonies.

Some of us will place small flags on veterans' graves, while others attend crowded assemblies, sing the national anthem with flags waving over local memorials, or pause for a quiet and reverent moment of remembrance and prayer.

If you are grilling steaks in your backyard, frolicking at the beach, or simply enjoying the day off by taking in a matinee and eating at a favorite restaurant, it only takes a few moments to consider our forebears and those who have fought, undaunted, for our nation and its citizens.

allegretto vivace

Because I've been enjoying audio books during my commute, I've collected a backlog of my regular podcasts.  So, it was just the other day when I finally heard a recent episode of This American Life that had a brief segment near the beginning wherein a father was teaching his young daughter how to ride a bike.

I can remember teaching my daughters the essential art of bicycling.  It seems like just the other day, instead of so many years ago.

Tonight, our oldest daughter graduates from high school -- another milestone in what is proving to be a banner year for her.

During a single week in February, she had her 18th birthday and received her acceptance letter from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Manhattan's Chelsea district.

Both of those figurative Acme anvils landed squarely on my head.  It's hard to believe she's 18 -- that she's legally an adult, a young woman.  And it's difficult for me to process the fact that she's NYC-bound.

Her fashion industry dreams are best served by her pursuit of a degree at FIT, which can be an important boon on her resume and help her connect to significant internship opportunities.  So, I’m trying to temper my anxieties and apprehensions with the intellectual argument that children will grow up and pursue their own lives.

Do we want her living in New York City, where she will arrive knowing no one?  Do we want her to learn what it is like to be far away from family and get sick or injured, when you are still learning what it is like to be on your own?  No and no.   But, we’ve every confidence she will thrive and achieve, and we’re happy she can follow her dream.  (I just hope I can afford it!) 

Later in life, I want her to be able to look back and say that we supported her dreams -- that we were not naysayers, but rather yaysayers.

It seems only a matter of weeks ago that I was teaching her to ride a bike, running along side her, willing her to succeed, and hoping to be there to rescue her at the last minute from scraped knees or bruised elbows.

On The Road (Again)

More road offerings...

When is the last time it happened to you?

It seems a surprisingly frequent phenomenon.  The lone shoe.  Lost or discarded without its mate.  Often left on a roadway somewhere for further indignities of multiple crushings from traffic -- passersby who also disregard the shoe.

It has a story.

And no one who squashes it with their tires will ever know who wore it, what it looked like when it was new, the places it traveled, the miles it walked wrapped around the foot that bought it -- doing what it was meant to do.

It's likely that typical drivers will not even acknowledge the lone shoe.  At most, it exists only in their subconscious, unregistered, unremarked.

Did it come to an untimely end?  Or had the course of its purpose concluded under the orchestrated hand of Providence?  Was the certitude of its fate controvertible?  Is this where it was meant to be all along, waiting for me to take its picture?

Spectator's Lament

In my youth, I scoffed at essays and documentaries, casting them aside as mere instruments of academia that amounted to nothing more appealing than obligations of study.  But, through the years, I've found myself seated at the other side of the table.  I think it is fair to say I'm sometimes exuberant over a collection of essays or unexpectedly finding particularly well phrased composition by a favorite essayist.  Likewise, I'm on the perpetual quest of the knight-errant seeking the next documentary that might otherwise slip by in the clutches of obscurity.

I generally monitor upcoming broadcasts of Independent Lens on PBS.  They often show terrific documentaries, and I've been able to TiVo some that are among my favorites.

If I think someone has the proclivity toward it, I will drown them in praises of Helvetica, a history and evaluation of the font, with a look at typeface design -- which I've previously discussed in this journal.   Wordplay reveals people passionate about constructing and completing crossword puzzles (something I was never interested in until I saw the documentary). Most recently, I watched Between the Folds, which is a fascinating documentary about origami and people who've accomplished great works of art and found lessons of life in the simple act of folding paper.

I see a documentary about crosswords, and I'm compelled to do them and create them.  I see a film about origami; I'm desperate to fold paper.  I reckon I need to steer clear of those History Channel programs about serial killers.

I see a Chuck Close exhibit, and I want to paint again.  I'm inspired to take the stage again after attending a terrific night of theater. 

And there's this odd episode: one day, after listening to the beautiful songs on a Yo-Yo Ma CD, I lamented the fact I never learned to play the cello.

Being inspired by others' creativity and talent sounds like an uplifting experience.  But, there's a darker side, too.  I'm repeatedly confronted by my role as spectator, when considering how many people are doing amazing things.

Patterns of Misfortune

A gas station not far from my office often has a better price  than most other places I encounter on my usual routes.  In these times of elevated gas prices and length commute, I stopped there one evening  after leaving work.

There was a truck parked on the opposite side of the pump I was using to top off my tank.  And a conversation caught my ear.

A kid (probably 10 years old) walked up and stood at the driver's window.  It sounded like he said, "They don't have 100s."

Though I'm not a smoker, I did have the colorful experience of working as a clerk at a convenience store while in college.  So, I was aware of the soft-pack/hard-pack/100s/menthol-type options available to purchasers of cigarettes.  And this seemed curious to me, because I figured the kid was too young to purchase cigarettes anyway.

"What are you talking about?"  The large woman behind the steering wheel practically berated the boy.

A teenage girl leaned over from the passenger seat and joined in: "Did you check the other side?"  She was also yelling in the unpleasant tone of someone both entitled and annoyed, though I would perfer other adjectives to describe her.

The boy was trying to get in a word of explanation, but he was interrupted by the bumpkin who was driving. "Did - you - check - the other side!?"  I could practically hear the interrobang fall out her window and explode on the asphalt.

Still, amidst the barrage of questions from the truck's uncomprehending occupants, the boy tried to explain himself.  The hefty woman driver cut him off again with her venom:  "Just go pay for muh damn gas!"

I knew the unspoken part of that imperative was to come back and pump the gas, too.

And here's the thing:  this boy was mentally retarded.  I'm not sure the acceptable way to phrase that, but the bottom line is some condition or disorder or accident left him with very low functioning skills, i.e., his mental faculties had been retarded in their development.  Speech problems.  His lurching walk suggested he had a problem with motor skills, too.

This kid reminded me of a friend's son who'd ingested some ant poison as a toddler.  After several intense and uncertain days at a hospital in Dallas, my friend's son pulled through to the point that they knew he would survive.  But, the doctors explained there had been irreversible brain damage, and they would have to wait to get a better idea of the extent to which the damage would effect his development.

So, the boy at the gas station not only had to endure the complications of his diminished capabilities, he had to fumble through life with that belligerent beast as a mother.  Sometimes burdens seem insurmountable.

Sigh.

Commute Canticle

A highway that stretches through rural towns in my part of the state carries me most of the distance to my job.  The cattle and fields and hay and pastures and farms and ranches and creeks and ponds and small town businesses constitute much of the scenery I see each day on my commute.  Sometimes I see stranded motorists in need of help, or on some occasions, I’ve encountered an accident scene.  

One morning, I had the opportunity to engage in a rescue mission.  I spied a hardback book on the side of the road as I sped passed.  I saw the telltale white square on the spine that told me it was a library book.  After doubling back to check it out, confirmed it was an errant library book, abandoned so close the speeding traffic.

I hopped out of the Jeep and discovered Anne Rice’s Blood Canticle, an apparent confluence of the Mayfair Witches and the vampire chronicles. It was from the public library in a nearby town.

The stamp on the card inside the book’s cover indicated it was due back to the following Monday.  I wondered what circumstances conspired to leave it on the shoulder of a highway. 

I returned it.

The Emperor of Ice Cream

Last month, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer received the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

Back in November, Dr. Mukherjee was interviewed by Terri Gross on NPR's Fresh Air.  They re-broadcast the show in the wake of the award.  Terri really did her homework and brought many well informed questions that pierced the medical jargon and targeted the most crucial insights. And Dr. Mukherjee is extremely articulate and carefully answered the questions in a very instructive way that didn’t disregard the laymen listening. 

The book seems thoroughly fascinating and worthy of the Pulitzer.  It traces the history and understanding of the disease, as well as some of the development of many modern treatments (including dramatic new treatments).  In the interview, Dr. Mukherjee briefly discussed research done to examine how cancer evades a patient's immune system and what can be done to assist the immune system in engaging the disease.

Aural Time Travel

Howard Jones released Dream Into Action at the end of my senior year in high school. Though my '79 Cutlass Supreme Brougham had an inexpensive stereo, that cassette sounded so clear and pure when I turned up the volume. I loved it. It was like the soundtrack to a pivotal time when I was truly embarking on life.

The next year, when I was in college, HoJo released One to One. Discretionary funds for buying music were hard to come by. Heck, any funds were hard to come by. I remember getting food was a big priority in those college-student days. Kentucky Fried Chicken sold chicken-on-a-biscuit for only 39 cents, and two of them amounted to a chicken sandwich. The best days of the week were when my  roommate would bring home leftover pizza from the restaurant where he worked.

Despite the hard-to-come-by funds, I saved my money and bought that tape as soon as I could. There's something magical about the right music -- how it can be more important than food.  Especially when you are young. I got a lot of play out of One to One in those struggling times. I listened to it constantly, and it often remained in my stereo for the entire weekend commute between where I was living and my hometown.

While on vacation last summer, I scored a CD of One to One for $3.99. I never thought I'd hear those songs again, because I didn't think the album was made available on CD, except for a limited run.

Listening to those tracks a quarter of a century later amounts to an aurally invoked time machine. The vocals are like a wormhole to a different time. The beats take me back. That was a chapter in my life when I was working as a clerk at a convenience store, picking up 22 hours on the weekend, while attending college and (allegedly) focusing on class and studies during the week.

I lived in a horrible little apartment with a bud from high school who was going to the same college. We watched David Letterman every night on a 9-inch black and white TV that I got for Christmas the year I was in the 5th grade.

If only all the roaches and crickets in that on-the-cusp-of-condemned apartment complex would have contributed toward our rent. It would really have reduced my monthly expenses.

The cost of my jaunt back in time was merely $3.99, thanks to Howard Jones and his synthesized sounds.

Cairn O' The Cosmos

I have a cairn on my office desk.  It is of my own making.

I scavenged the trio of rocks from Goleta Beach Park just north of Santa Barbara several years ago when a good buddy and I were dispatched to the west coast under a delightfully narrow scope of responsibility.  The late-game need for us meant the only available hotel room was on the beach.  We were merely hired guns, so to speak, who had the particular credentials to help edit a series of documents whose delivery date rapidly approached.

We had more free time than usual on that trip.  So, I took him to some of the places that I'd previously visited -- Goleta Beach Park among them.  I picked up three surf-smoothed rocks that were partially submerged in the beach sand.  And now they are stacked on my desk with such perfect appearance that a viewer might consider the result to be a fabrication, a novelty store sculpture.

Each stone's slight variation of hue divided by interstitial shadows.  A tiny tower.  An ellipsoidal, stone snowman.  A mysterious monument.

I'm certain it has a grander meaning.  I'm certain.

My Own Maxinkuckee

After flying over the lake of his childhood summers, Kurt Vonnegut remarked: "That wasn't the real Maxinkuckee down there. The real one is in my head."  

That quote has really meant something to me through the years, as I try to conjure apparitions of my past and make some sense of them.

Kurt Vonnegut died four Aprils ago at the age of 84.  With my calendar boldly proclaiming APRIL, my thoughts are haunted by the ghosts of my parents, and the vignettes of my early life that now seem so distant as to belong to a movie I saw in a previous existence.

But, my grandmother, father, and mother all died in consecutive Aprils.  Dad was just a few months older than Kurt Vonnegut.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I had a dream in which my parents were alive again.  I was riding my old red bicycle (with chopper bars and banana seat!) near my childhood home, though I was my full-sized, fat, adult self.  My sister and friends and cousins (who appeared in the dream) were all adults, too.

At one point in the dream, it was revealed to me that my mother had died the night before, and I simply hadn't been told until that moment, because others were shielding me from the grief, cloaked in the motives of their good intentions.

Friends and family were gathered in a neighbor's large home.  I sorta wandered through it in a stupor, not really speaking to anyone.  It was on my mind that I needed to find my dad and comfort him, though I never saw him in the dream.

I woke up sad.

But, of course, it has been more than fifteen years since my mother died. It somehow never occurred to my dream-self that I'd already buried both parents -- that my father preceded my mother in death, and would therefore not have been a survivor of her death, as he was in the dream.

How do dreams do that?  How do you convince me of things that are not so, foist me into some alternate, anomalous existence populated with circumstances incongruous to the reality I know.

Catch-22: The Ethics of War

Global hotspots are the new black.

Though it typically isn't the sort of flashy news peg to get much attention, it is true that the U.S. Army understands the power of non-violent opposition. Sounds silly, I know. I mean, it's an army -- and shouldn't that intrinsically imply the use of force? Well, yes. But, I guess the lesson is that force isn't always violent.

To wit: understanding the complexities of local socio-cultural nuances and mores will go a long way to better enable soldiers operating in that environment. Therefore, sometimes government contractors, such as social scientists and specialists, are imbedded with combat units to help develop non-violent options for stabilizing chaotic areas.

In 2008, an incident happened in the southern Afghanistan village of Chehel Gazni, about 40 miles from Kandahar. I read about it months later.

A couple of Human Terrain Team contractors (Don Ayala and Paula Loyd) were on a foot patrol when one of them, a female (Lloyd), approached a local, Abdul Salam.

[This is the part of the story where I pause to remind you that these contractors are culturally knowledgeable and specifically tasked with seeking non-violent ways to help quell local disorder.]

Ms. Loyd was suddenly doused with a fuel jug Salam was carrying. And Salam set her on fire.

Loyd's fellow contractor, Ayala, apprehended Salam and detained him. But, when a soldier arrived on the scene a few minutes later and reported that Loyd was badly burned, according to an Army Criminal Investigation Division affidavit: "Ayala pushed his pistol against Salam's head and shot Salam, killing him instantly."

Loyd later died from her wounds. Ayala was taken into custody and charged with second degree murder in the shooting of Salam.

That is an intense situation. If you try and imagine being embedded in a combat unit in a war zone of a hostile region, seeing your friend doused with fuel and burned, it doesn't seem too far outside the likely human response to dispatch the guilty party. War tends to involve moments of killing.

I realize there are complexities here that prevent this from being a simple black-and-white issue. And, I can't say for sure what I would have done in a similar situation -- which is to say I could have very well done what Ayala did in a reactionary rage. It seems it isn't too far of a stretch to imagine that, in that moment, he was so emotionally overwrought as to be unstable, and, one might say, temporarily insane…and to consider that Salam bears some responsibility for inciting the incident via the heinous attack on Ayala's coworker (which resulted in the coworker's death).

Rules of engagement (ROE) can plague any person operating in a hostile zone. Someone removed from the front lines can easily determine, on some academic technicality, that a given incident qualifies as murder, whereas another event is justified as a "part of war."

It all furrows my brow.  It seems we put our military personnel in circumstances where the expected course of action is to become a casualty.

An Assumption of Soundness

Sometime between the April 1994 death of my father and the April 1995 death of my mother, I made a discovery that entwined a combination of poignant triggers. It was like wading into an emotional estuary with competing currents of love and loss.

I found a letter in the back bedroom of my childhood home that Dad had begun writing me while I was overseas. He never finished it.

I don't know if the missive was being composed near the day of his death from congestive heart failure, or if it had already waited weeks or months for him to return and conclude it before his life had its own conclusion.

His typically bold and forthright penmanship appeared shaken and uncertain. Descenders and ascenders belied his unsteady hand.

It seems that somewhere along the path of my own life, I discovered my parents had grown old. Their old age often startled me when I arrived for a visit, an undeniable reminder that the world had moved on from the simpler times of my childhood.

Dad's letter talked about golf and the golf balls he fished out of the creek along the fairway on the first hole. His letter insisted that I be careful while abroad and return to them safely.

I was pleased to have that correspondence. But, since the intervening months between its composition and my receipt of it brought my father's death, it held more metaphysical weight than it would otherwise.

Both my father and his father died when their own hearts turned on them after decades and decades of dedicated and faithful duty -- the daily thrumming and pumping in their chests. It occasionally makes me curious about my own heart and its unknown intentions.



After a while I found myself becoming nostalgic
for the way I thought I remembered it being
between my heart and me, a kind of continuum
of body and mind, an assumption of soundness,
that sense you have as a child of being in such a
full, weighty recline within yourself that things
like sitting on a porch or swinging in a hammock
seem unsettling redundancies.   -- Charles Siebert, A Man After His Own Heart

The Ocean of Our Unknowing

I first heard of Don Miller while on a business trip in Waco.  He wasn’t there.  But, I visited the University Baptist Church, and the pastor mentioned his book, Blue Like Jazz, and read this from the frontmatter.

I never like jazz music, because jazz

music doesn’t resolve.  But, I was

outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland

one night  when I saw a man playing

the saxophone.  I stood there for fifteen

minutes and he never opened his eyes.

After that, I liked jazz.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love

something before you can love it yourself.

It is as if they are showing you the way.

I like that.  The sentiment and the way he packaged it.

So, I’ve since become a full-on follower of Don Miller and his spiritual exploration, his presentation of questions and observations and theological ruminations.  I like the way he refuses to find contentment in the merry acceptance of the doctrine bequeathed by elderly men.

And I follow his blog, too – enjoying posts like THIS ONE and THIS ONE (from the time his dog, Lucy, took over blogging duties).

His recent book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is now available in paperback.

What story are you telling? from Rhetorik Creative on Vimeo.

This Miller quote has stuck with me from Through Painted Deserts: “It turns out the droplet of our knowledge is a bit lost in the ocean of our unknowing.”

This & That

In 2009, I listened to a Slate Audio Book Club podcast about Nicholson Baker's most recent book, The Anthologist. I followed that up by hunting down and reading a review in the New York Times.

Sounded appealing. I figured I'd one day buy it or pick up a copy from the library.

Around that same time, I'd begun mulling over e-readers, not quite convinced I wanted one. But, I was curious. And, like my plan to read The Anthologist, I figured I'd do it one day -- I'd take the plunge and get an e-reader. Not soon, mind you, but eventually.

In my curiosity, I poked around online to see what assessments there were about Amazon's Kindle. Somewhere, I encountered a reference to a Nicholson Baker article for The New Yorker about his experience evaluating the Kindle. Kismet, I figured. I'd already learned that some people were reading electronic books on their iPhones -- and that topic also surfaced in the Baker article.  Plus, there was general hubbub in those days about something called an iPad (which I have since bought for my wife).

So, I read the article, which was the "cause" that begat a few "effects." It reinforced my notion that I'd be waiting to see which direction e-readers veer. It also made me seriously consider that an iPhone (or iPod Touch) could supplant an e-reader-specific device with added functionalities. But, it also thoroughly encouraged my interest in Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer (which Baker discusses reading electronically).

Thus, when I spied an audio book of The Lincoln Lawyer on a shelf at the library near my office, I promptly seized it. And I found it an outstanding companion on my daily commute.

Now, there's a movie of The Lincoln Lawyer about to hit theaters.  And it looks good.  I know all the plot acrobatics, but I still expect to enjoy the movie.

I still haven't read The Anthologist, thought I have enjoyed several other Connelly novels.  And, though my wife has an iPad, all the collective murmurings of the masses these days is about the iPad 2.

No Oscar for You

The Academy Awards happen tonight.  In fact, as I type this, there are undoubtedly throngs assembled for the red gauntlet, er, I mean carpet.

One of the awards not given during tonight’s telecast, or during the earlier (and apparently less television-worthy) technical awards, is the Best Trailer Oscar.  There is no such statuette for that category.  But, there should be.

There exists such skilled visionaries that the most mundane of movies are made to look absolutely dazzling and tantalizing through the wizardry of trailer editing.  Carefully selected images and scenes are edited together with well crafted voiceover copy so as to convince the viewer that he or she will not be satisfied with life until the advertised film is experienced in full.

Curse them and their mastery!

I gave away part of my life and soul on a meandering, dour piece of cinema called BLINDNESS.  It would have worked much better as a 10-minute short -- or perhaps a trailer.

It was, in fact, the trailer of the film that convinced me it was an artful undertaking with social commentary and the dogged persistence of a band of citizens determined to get to the bottom of evil-doing or some grand governmental (or corporate) conspiracy.  Woo-hoo! Sign me up!

Indeed,…sign me up for a film like that when someone makes it...because this was merely the product of the seed of a good idea.

I felt that the screenwriters were on the road to developing something, when they sorta gave up any grand aspirations and settled for merely puttering around within the confines of a partial conceit that they never nurtured into its full potential.

Blabbity-blab-blah.  (Yawn.)

Yet, when I cautioned people not to get suckered into the cinematic mire, it was brought to my attention the film was based on a well-received, award-winning novel.  That leads me to call on the time-tested cliché that suggests the book is better than the movie.  Sadly, however, I'm drained from any impulse to approach the book open-mindedly, because of my burdensome encounter with the movie.  

Desktop Surgery

I sometimes listen to audio books during my commute. And, since the Jeep's stereo plays cassettes and CDs, when I browse the library selection, I can choose from either format.

Recently, twelve tapes deep into an audio book, a garbled sound revealed an issue with the cassette spooling. Indeed, when I ejected the cassette, there was stretched and twisted tape. So, I put it on my operating table desk and opened it up for a little corrective tinkering. I did that more than once in the '80s to rescue an oblivion-bound cassette.

I think it was my familiarity with the process that encouraged me to jump right in and take care of the problem.

There was some odd time-travel-ish aspect to the tape surgery...like a souvenir from a bygone era.

I suppose these whippersnappers today may eventually find themselves reminiscing about rebooting their iPods.

A Long Day's Journey Into Yum

Recently, I soaked some black beans in water overnight, then piled them into a crock pot with a jar of salsa and some water. Let 'em slow-cook (on low) all day. Then, after they'd been in the refrigerator overnight, there was a certain creaminess around the beans that finely capture the spiciness of the salsa.

MMMmmmmm.

I reheated the beans, plopped dollops of them on tortilla chips, sprinkled with cheese, and slid them in the oven for a few minutes.* Once out of the oven, I've included a bit of sour cream and made many nacho meals out of this. They lasted a long time, and I was sad to see my supply get low. 







_______________________
*Perhaps not the most photogenic foodstuff, but righteously tasty. Feel the tasty!

A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama

I read a review of The Canal Builders when it was first published.

The book's author, Julie Greene, examines the workers who converged on Panama, displaced the earth, civil-engineered locks, and connected Atlantic waters with Pacific waters via a man-made artery through the Panamanian isthmus.

Aside from the fact that this is exactly the sort of thing that fascinates me, and its guarantee to conjure the oft'-quoted palindrome (see blog entry title), I have a more personal cause to read about the lives of the workers who made the canal a reality.  My paternal grandfather was among them.  He went to Panama to work as a telegrapher.

I love that.

My grandfather -- born in the 1880s -- died when I was around 8 years old.  I wish I had known him as an adult, because I think we would have had a strong connection.  He looked a bit like E. B. White.  And his physical similarity to one of my literary heroes has only served to heighten the myth that I've nurtured through the years.

When I first learned of the Panama connection, I was mesmerized by the notion of my grandfather working on the canal.  I conjured many fantasies (none of them based on any knowledgeable source) of what it might have been like for him.

This month marks the 122th anniversary of my grandfather's birth.  My dad was the youngest of his siblings, arriving later in my grandparents' lives.  And Dad was 44-years-old when I debuted on the planet.  So, the generations have been stretched out through the decades, ensuring that I have little insight and considerable curiosity about my grandfather's life.

Lone Star Life

One of my favorite recent discoveries is a PBS program originating out of Austin.  The Daytripper is a 30-minute show that highlights the opportunities for interesting and fun daytrips from the Austin area.  Granted, from out in East Texas, the destinations of the show could hardly be a jaunt in the confines of a day.  But, they are great to know about for future opportunities when out and about in Texas. 

The host, Chet Garner, is equal parts endearing and goofball.  Many episodes can be viewed on the website (linked above), and new installments are boradcast on Saturday mornings (for those watching PBS on KERA in Dallas).

The Daytripper recall a show from my youth, when I watched the earlier incarnations of what has become Texas Country Reporter, a human-interest news show that explores the backroads and backstories of fascinating people around the state of Texas.

There was the guy who built his home from a decommissioned missile silo in West Texas, the old barber in East Texas who's been clipping hair for decades and decades, the tasty eatery in Beaumont, the centenarian porter at a regional airport who still makes his way to work everyday and helps people with their luggage. Stuff like that.

The host, Bob Phillips, is personable -- and, for me, his distinctive voice (sounding like it is perpetually trapped mid-gulp) and inflections have become synonymous with these sorts of down-home segments.

A particularly fascinating episode profiled John Wells, a former fashion photographer from New York who has staked out a life for himself near Study Butte, Texas, just outside Big Bend National Park amidst the austere West Texas landscape, sometimes desolate, sometimes starkly beautiful, sometimes both.

There are those who can't fathom forsaking their shopping malls, conference rooms, office buildings, department stores, mega-multi-movie-plexes, and other so-called accoutrements of civilization. But, Wells instills a purposeful drive to reconnect with nature and the purity of a self-sustaining life.

It would seem, looking from the outside, that such an existence highlights both the boon and bane of solitude, occasionally conjuring its darker cousin, loneliness. But, some people are better suited for limited opportunities of face-to-face interaction. And Wells manages the tether of DSL to remain connected via the Internet.

He still exercises his photography skills, too, keeping his daily blog lively and documenting life around The Field Lab.

The Road to Helvetica

A buddy recently gave me a DVD of a documentary that I love: Helvetica. It is about the history and cultural impact of the seminal typeface.  And I dig the soundtrack, too. (El Ten Eleven.)

Typeface.  That's what we called it back in the day, when I was in college in the '80s.  I mean, I seldom used the word "font."  At least, not until I was more familiar with computers. 

These days, if conversational topics drift into college days, people always raise a quizzical eyebrow if I mention that my most difficult course was not chemistry or microbiology or theoretical physics (okay, I didn't take that last one...it just helped make my point).  The most difficult, absorbing class I took was called BASIC TYPE.

A designer drove to the university campus once a week, and for four hours each Tuesday evening, I did my best to impress -- or at least not offend.  We drew letters.  With nary a computer in the room.  We drew typefaces with pencils and worked to tighten hand skills, living for x-heights and serifs and descenders and such.

This was in the days when not everyone had a computer.  In fact, most people didn't.  And available computer programs didn't make typeface usage and design more accessible to the population.  If you wanted something, if you had a vision, you drew it.

Our first assignment was both specific and broad in its parameters.  We had to draw two boxes.  The border for each box had specific weight (or width), with the top and sides being different than the bottom border.  But, each box's border had different dimensions from the other box.  Inside the left box was a body part.  Inside the right box was a typeface.

Students asked for clarification:  "Do you want words?  Or just letters?"  "Should the body part relate to the word or typeface?"  "Does there need to be a physical resemblance between the body part and the letter?"

The instructor wouldn't say.  He simply explained that he wanted to see what we would do.

This is what I did.

My critique went okay when compared to the thrashing that many students received.  Two girls left the room crying.  Four people dropped the course.

The instructor told us that we had to have the skill, not just the will. 

I think he meant that just because you liked to doodle during your math lecture in high school didn't mean you should become an art major.  Or, more specifically, you may not have what it takes to make it.  Just because you liked the artsy crowd and the image of the crowd, you weren't automatically gifted with talent.

My first big project used Railroad Gothic.

I spent many, many hours each week hunched over my drafting table, leaning in close to the vellum to examine curves and edges and intimate areas of negative space. I was always very pleased that I didn't fail that class.  But, it did help me understand that perhaps my destiny wasn't to become a designer or professional illustrator.

Mark-ups of an early effort.

More mark-ups of a version with the candles in place

A reverse Photostat of the phrase.

Pathologies of Frustration in the Balance

This week, in The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash draws notable comparison to the precarious events in Cairo's Tahrir Square with the pivotal moments of the Velvet Revolution.

Ash notes: "The Arab arc of crisis, from Morocco to Jordan, is Europe's near abroad." The migrated relatives of Egypt's revolutionaries have spent recent decades settling in Spain and France and England. If a revolution brings down Egyptian autocracy, a newly freed population can more easily mingle among the European lands and feed those economies and cultures.

However, Ash cautions that if the uprising fails, "then tens of millions of these young men and women will carry their pathologies of frustration across the sea, shaking Europe to its foundations."

Modernization and reform stand in opposition of autocratic and theocratic rule. An irate people stand in the streets, defy the curfew, and seek to shape the future of their nation. Meanwhile, I'm fretting over long-delayed yardwork, how to secure the latest personal technology, and whether I should go out for lunch or heat up that microwavable dinner.

Enter, Stage Right

Do you ever consciously or subconsciously assign your own leitmotif?

Periodically, when walking down the hallway at work, or sitting at my desk typing an e-mail, or pulling the Jeep into traffic, I hear the opening strings of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" in my head -- the forthright drums giving them a sense of purpose and expectation.

The other evening at the dinner table, my wife, who works in a tutoring program with local high school students, said one of the kids asked her what her theme would be is she could have a song played whenever she enters a room.

At professional baseball games, sometimes the players select a few bars of a favorite tune to blast over the speakers as they move from the on-deck circle to the batter's box.  I've always wondered what I'd choose in such a scenario (certain, though, I'd never have to wrestle with such concerns of professional athletes).

Darth Vader gets an imperial theme to accompany his presence in the Star Wars movies.  Brünnhilde and Siegfried are likewise musically announced in Götterdämmerung or Wagner's earlier operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Should I go with gravitas?  Or whimsy?  Or perhaps a regal brass fanfare?

I'm still mulling.

Belongings in Bags

When you go to an ER because you've caused a severe auto accident, and you're all banged up, sometimes you arrive strapped to a gurney with your clothes cut off.

This happened to me nine years ago. The EMTs cut off my new Christmas clothes at the scene to examine me for compound fractures or any other injuries. It was freezing that night. (Once I was pulled from the back of the ambulance, it seemed as though I was left restrained on the gurney in the frigid weather of the hospital portico while the EMTs debriefed the nurses outside the ER.)

Anyway, when they release you from such an ordeal, they give you a bag of your belongings. It contains the possessions off your person, even if they’ve been shredded up by EMTs doing their job.
I saw someone handed his belongings bag the other night on TV, like a mom giving her third-grader his sack lunch as he heads out the door for the school bus -- or a prisoner emerging from his senetence and receiving the scant items of a displaced life, a former self. 
 
I find it a very existential exercise, to receive such a thing. It presents quite metaphysical scenario: summarily sent you on your way with a tidy bag of what represents you.

Opsimath & the Art of Jeep Maintenance

I've never been much of an auto mechanic -- or, truthfully, a mechanic of any kind.  Lately, I've more assertive and involved in diagnosing and finding solutions to trouble with my Jeep (thought I have to admit I really haven’t had much trouble with it until now).

After a recent episode, it seemed as though I was less a repairman than someone who tricked the Jeep into working properly.  My engine light came on, and the Jeep sort of stuttered, sputtered, and struggle of as I tried to coax it into accelerating.

From poking around online, I learned of a few possible culprits. But, the Gordian knot loosened some when I discovered a little trick for Jeeps.  If the engine light comes on, put the key in the ignition and (without turning it far enough to start the engine) turn it ON-OFF/ON-OFF/ON, leaving it in the ON position the third time.  Then, a code (or codes) will display where the odometer is located.  And these codes will indicate why the engine light came on.

I received two codes:  P 0301 and P 0302. A little cyber-sleuthing revealed the causes for these codes (misfire in cylinder 1, misfire in cylinder 2).  So, I learned a bit about distributors and how computers work on automobiles these days, and I devised a plan.

I disconnected the battery for about five minutes, hoping to reset the engine light and essentially restart the computer to its default settings.  If the engine light codes weren’t telling the computer there was a problem, I theorized, perhaps it wouldn't be attempting to advance or retard the timing of the cylinders. Next, I promptly purchased the most expensive fuel injection cleaner I could find and poured it in the tank.

I did all that right before my commute home, so the fuel injection cleaner would have a chance to work its way through the system.

There have been no recurring issues since my ruse.  All's well that ends well.

A Coupon-Induced Quest

When a buddy sent me a coupon in the mail for $5 off a purchase at Half Price Books  (HPB), I insisted to myself I was only buying one book.  I want to buckle down in 2011 and read through the stack of books piling up unread on my shelves and desk.  Then, I’ll venture out to buy some more.  I immediately knew what I wanted to buy -- a book whose mere mention was practically taboo where I lived on the brass buckle of the Bible Belt, simply because it had the word satanic in the title.

I recall when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for blasphemous novel The Satanic Verses, at the end of the '80s.  In a Vanity Fair article, Christopher Hitchens posited that the fatwa was issued in a bid to regain some Islamic street cred after reneging on his vow to never sign a treaty with Saddam Hussein.  Suddenly, with the utterance, Khomeini recast himself as the Defender of the Faith and shifted focus from his dealings with Hussein to the outrage of a novelist's heresy.

While I never heard the expected news of Rushdie's murder, what I didn't know about until reading the Hitchens article, was the deaths of "supporting cast" players.

The fatwa didn't merely suborn Rushdie's murder, but was "fat" enough to encompass those "involved in its publication."  Khomeini might have tossed in those "who read the blasphemous text," too, had that not opened the door on complicated explanations about whether or not he had read the offending novel himself.  If so, he'd call for his own death.  If not, how could he know?

The Japanese translator of Rushdie's novel, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death.  Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was knifed in Milan.  And The Satanic Verses publisher in Norway, William Nygaard, was shot thrice in the back outside his home in Oslo.

After reading about the plot of the lyrical novel, it has intrigued me enough to read the object of all the controversy, the frothy calls for censorship, the religious indignation -- except it was not to be found at the few HPB stores I visited.

Instead, I picked up and carried around the 2007 edition of the Houghton Mifflin Best American Essays, edited by David Foster Wallace, whose 2008 death was a profound disappoint me to me.  

Just a few days before his death, I spoke with a friend about Wallace's measured and thorough "Host" essay. We both praised it for being informative and fascinating.  It not only gave me a lot to consider, but I felt it armed me with new, detailed insight where I previously had none at all.

(Read the essay here.) [1]

Typically, death is a tragedy.[2]  I mean, there is always grief for those survivors left to make sense of the loss.  The perplexity of processing it is compounded in cases of suicide.  (I was also inexplicably affected by Spalding Gray’s suicide. [3]) Answer-searching seems more complex, more futile when the deceased was not the victim of a random accident, disease, medical complication, or other likely causes of demise -- ones that can be accounted for, even if it is ascribed to the profound misfortune of time and place wherein a freak accident cuts a life short.[4]

Then, I spied on the shelf an edition of the Billy Collins book of poems, Picnic, Lightning, which had one of my favorite pastoral paintings for cover art:  “Newburyport Meadows,” by Martin Johnson Heade.  For years I have been a fan of Billy Collins, whose poetry never fails to buoy me with phrases and imagery.  The serendipity of the cover art suggested perhaps I should purchase that book instead of the essay collection.

But, the quest concluded when I found a book I have wanted for some time, Fred Kaplan’s 1959: The Year that Changed Everything.

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[1] Though it was originally published in Atlantic Monthly, I read the article in the collection New Kings of Nonfiction, edited by Ira Glass of NPR and Public Radio International's This American Life.

[2] I say "typically" because for some persons severely wounded -- on a battlefield or in a remote area, for example -- or inflicted with a painful and terminal illness, there seems to be some comfort for survivors knowing their loved one is no longer suffering.  And, for a would-be assassin killed in the act of attempted murder, tragedy hardly seems the appropriate word.

[3]  I read an article about Gray that revealed some of his habits and perceptions...and some of the circumstances that led up to his disappearance.  Previous to that, he already held some fascination to me in his talent as a monologist.  It was heartbreaking to imagine what his wife and children were coping with in his final months, throughout the period of his disappearance, and beyond the discover of his body.  But, Gray’s suicide came as no real surprise, though the finality of such an act reverberates through the emotional landscape of all who knew and cared for him.

(Read the article on Spalding Gray -- "Vanishing Act" -- from New York Magazine.)

[4]  I certainly don't intend to imply there aren't complex and seemingly unanswerable questions of survivors (i.e., friends and family) from non-suicide deaths.  It's just that the purposefulness of the deceased's actions is at once angering and inexplicable -- and, in some ways, a thing survivors are likely to wrestle with and continually imagine how they might have said or done something differently to redirect the deceased from that option to another one that involved living.