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.