Donkey's Clubhouse

The Namesake

2008-06-22T20:54:00.004-04:00

Names are curious in that they often have to serve a twofold and contradictory purpose. Primarily, names are used for the purposes of disambiguation. Thus, for example, by addressing our comments to “John,” everyone not-named-John knows that we are not addressing them. Additionally, we know this book is not communal property, because “Stacy” wrote her name on it. But at the same time, names are also used for the secondary purpose of creating ambiguity, or unity, where otherwise, no apparent relation may be obvious. Thus, for example, if I were to present you with a given 3 year old girl from Ethiopia, you might not be able to tell me anything about her. If, on the other hand, I introduced her as “Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt,” you might be able to tell me quite a bit about her by her name alone. Thus, our names concurrently distinguish us from some people while yoking us to others.

However, can we rightly claim that names carry no significance beyond their utility as outlined above? Shakespeare presents an affirmative argument to that question in the mouth of the character Juliet during her famous balcony dialogue with her love Romeo:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
…
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Juliet argues that it would be possible, and, in some instances, prudent, to negate one’s name by sheer will alone. For Juliet, identity exists wholly apart from one’s title: ‘thou art thyself, though not a Montague.’ While it is not at all clear what Shakespeare himself thinks of this question (Juliet does, after all, end up dead), it is clear that many others disagree with Juliet’s reckoning.

In the movie The Namesake, the lead character, played by Kal Penn, struggles to discover the significance of his name. Under Bengali tradition, a child is given two names – a legal title (or, “good name”) to be used in official documents and a nickname (or, “pet name”) to be used by close family or friends. Penn’s vacillation from one name to another is an outward expression of an internal struggle for cultural balance so emblematic of most first generation Americans. Penn’s restlessness (and correspondent nameless-ness) is only cured when he discovers the true meaning of his name, how it relates to his father’s life experiences, and how this will shape his identity going forward as an Indian-American. This movie makes the unmistakable statement that identity is inextricably linked to one’s name.

This week in Sunday school, we watched a video by Rob Bell that also explored the relationship between name and identity. (I’ve attached a preview above.) In many ways, it represents the middle ground between Romeo and Juliet and The Namesake. For Bell, our true name, which carries significance as to our identity, is often buried under layer and layer of meaningless labels. Indeed, the great majority of names we apply to ourselves – be they related to our job, our education, or even our emotional or physical state – do not reflect our true essence as individuals. Thus labels such as ‘ivy league graduate’ are shed like layers of clothing in much the same vein as are labels such as ‘homeowner’ or ‘one who is HIV+.’

Bell begins, “In the ancient near east, your name was more than just words. Your name was identity. Your name was reflective of your character, your substance, the very fiber that made you you. Your name told who you are.” Jacob of Hebrew Scriptures pretends to be his elder twin brother Esau in order to secure his father’s inheritance. He is pretending to be someone he is not. Later in the story, after Jacob wrestles with ‘an angel’ or a mysterious ‘man’ (depending on the account) for an entire evening to a stalemate, an angel blesses Jacob by renaming him Israel, meaning ‘one who wrestles with God.’ That is his true identity.

The above description reminds me a lyric by Hafiz, the Persian poet:

At night if I feel a divine loneliness
I tear the doors off Love’s mansion

And wrestle God onto the floor.

He becomes so pleased with Hafiz
And says,

“Our hearts should do this more often.”

Lending some credence to the above, of course, is that Jacob’s namesakes from Hebrew Scriptures – the Israelites, “the people who wrestled with God” – were interchangeably referred to as “God’s chosen people.” A mere coincidence?

Above I suggested that names served a twofold purpose – to disambiguate and suggest unity. But here, we see a third purpose. Names can also be used to assert identity or establish one’s essence. That is to say, when we can truly identify ourselves without relation to other institutions or organizations or outside influences, then we can truly begin to live as individuals, we can truly begin to shape an outward countenance reflective of our inward essence alone. That, I pray, is no easy task.

But the formula is clear. Wrestle with your God (whatever his name). Struggle for righteousness and justice and virtue (however you’ve come to understand them). Bite and claw against all of the things that you deem important, against all the things that give you joy, for they also give you their name: you are their Namesake. And in wrestling like that, you cannot help but discover yourself, not as the world labels you, but as you really are.

Road Trips, New Homes, and Mystical Experiences

2008-06-06T22:59:00.011-04:00

Beautiful reader, it’s been too long. Let’s catch up.

My two week road trip to find a new home turned into a month long adventure, due to some car trouble and inclement weather. All in all, I ended up visiting 24 states and countless cities. The lifetime tally of states-visited now sits at 41. The 9 remaining states are Alabama, Louisiana, Wisconsin, The Dakotas, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii. Not sure when and how I’ll pick up Alabama and Louisiana, but the other continental states are on the radar for this summer. Stay tuned.

Of course, the purpose of my trip was the daunting task of finding a new home, which turned out to be quite easier than anticipated. Contestant number one was Denver, CO. I hated it. First, on my initial approach into the city from the south, I got snowed in. I have a lot of experience driving in the snow – having cut my teeth in New York and Boston – but snow in the Rockies is quite different than snow in New England. In New England, snow is heavy and wet, which means that, for the most part, it falls straight down, turns into slush upon hitting the warm pavement, accumulates rapidly, ices over, and is slow to melt. The slush and ice make the road very slick, which means that one needs to pump the break early and avoid sudden changes in direction. Easy enough. In Denver, the snow is dry, which means that it doesn’t stick to the ground, but it is also light, which means that it will whip sideways and upwards, depending on even slight wind currents. Such swirling snow makes visibility impossible. So, while my four wheel drive car and I were ready for slick roads, there was nothing we could do to combat zero visibility. When the snow subsided, I discovered that Denver is shrouded in perpetual smog and is perched atop a 50 mile strip mall stretching south to Colorado Springs. This is exactly the type of poor urban planning from which I was seeking refuge. If I wanted highways and sprawl, I’d move to Atlanta! I would like to tell you more about Denver, but I had to leave abruptly when I learned that another storm was blowing into the city that evening. I ended up passing through Denver again on the way back, and, you guessed it, I got snowed in again outside of Vail, CO. Indeed, Denver’s only redeeming quality, to me anyway, was its close proximity to Boulder, which had much to offer in the way of charm and was far more dog-friendly than its neighbor to the south.

While there were only 3 “official” contenders, I decided to have an open mind about the other cities that I happened to visit on my trip. I was particularly impressed by Salt Lake City and the entire state of Utah for that matter. I also found Nashville and Little Rock to be fun places. Boulder, which I mentioned above, was also impressive. However, none of these cites boosted themselves into serious consideration for a permanent move.

The second official contender was Portland, Oregon, which was amazing in every way. Indeed, I was so impressed that I decided that I would not even need to visit Seattle (the third contender). If I was moving, it would be to Portland. Since I’ve returned home, people ask me how I decided upon Portland and I tend to drone on about how it is an exceptionally well-planned city, how it’s walk-able, how it has great public transportation, how it’s so green, how it’s so dog friendly, how there are almost exclusively independently owned shops and coffee houses, how it houses the world’s largest bookstore (Powell’s), how it has a great music scene, etc. That is all true. But the praises of Portland are most concisely recorded in Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz.” Miller, when asked to explain his decision to move from Houston to Portland, pointed to a topographical map and concluded (I’m paraphrasing), “I live in a place that’s flat and brown. I want to go somewhere that’s green and lumpy.” Greater Portland is geologically exciting, teeming with rivers and forests and even volcanoes! And as Miller surmised, that’s how home should be: green and lumpy

There you have it. I’m moving to Portland at the end of the summer.

***

It took me one week to trek all the way across the country from Chapel Hill, NC to Portland, OR. While it was supposed to take me just one week to get back, it ended up taking three. On the second day of my return trip, my engine seized up 25 miles east of Winnemucca, NV.

Being the Ant that I am, I packed all kinds of survival kits in my car. I had plenty of bottled water, a few days worth of food, several blankets, a first aid kit, and all kinds of tools, including a battery device to jump my own car and supplies to patch a flat tire in the unlikely event that I blew out two tires in the same catastrophic event. Of course, given my lack of know-how, I could not fix a car engine, so all of my survival kits were useless at the moment. Actually, the only time I used my tool kit during the whole trip was to duct tape a hole in the driver’s seat of my car. The only time I used my first aid kit was to bandage my finger, which I had cut while duct taping the hole in the driver’s seat of my car. I had to have my car towed back to Winnemucca.

It was around 7.00pm on the Saturday before Easter when the tow truck dropped me off in town. The only mechanic still on duty told me that my engine was shot and would need to be replaced. To install a new engine would cost almost three times the value of my car, so that option was out. A used engine would likely approach the total value of my car, but an exact figure would have to wait until the junkyards reopened on Monday. I did not want to wait until Monday, so I asked if there was some other way for me to get out of town tonight. The last bus out of town had already left. The last train out of town was due in an hour, but it wouldn’t allow me to take my dog on board. The rental car agency in town was closed for the weekend, but even when they opened on Monday, they would not permit me to take the rental car out of state. The nearest airport was 3 hours away and there was no way for me to get there. Even if there was, I could not fly with my dog on such short notice. Then the mechanic turns to me and says, and I kid you not, “I’ve got a delivery to make in Elko on Monday morning. I can have my boys give you a ride on the hay truck. You can rent a car there.” Hay truck? The only way out of Winnemucca is on the back of a hay truck?

While I was open to the idea of ditching my car and hitching a ride on a hay truck out of town, this did not turn out to be a viable option either, as the rental car agency at the Elko airport also did not permit out-of-state rentals. My prospects looked bleak. I then recalled a conversation I had with a church friend who encouraged me to try and find God on this trip. She said that I should try to talk to him while I was bored and driving through corn fields in Oklahoma or something. She was not the first to suggest that I try to ‘talk to God,’ but I’ve always responded to such suggestions by saying that I would ask God to do something impossible, so that I’d know it was really him talking back. I often mentioned asking God to have a friend of mine find sunken pirate treasure in the middle of a city street. This, I reasoned, was a legitimate request, because I was not gaining personal wealth by this request - a friend was – and it was something that could not be explained other than to say it was done by the hand of God in accord with my prayer request. But I also knew that God, unlike a Genie, was not likely to grant such a wish.

Still, Easter Sunday was said to be a day of miracles, so I made up my mind to do the following. I would get into my car and insert the key into the ignition. I would then say the following, “God, maybe you’ve been trying to talk to me all this time and I didn’t notice or I refused to hear, but I’m in kind of a bind right now, so if you want to say something to me, then I’ll listen.” Then, I would turn the key and the car would start. It would be a miracle! That’s how I pictured it and that’s what I resolved to do. It’s worth a shot, no?

Only, when I arrived at the mechanic and told him I was going to see if the car worked today, he laughed and said there was no way it would start. He even rebuffed my contention that Easter was the day on which miracles can happen. I was a bit flustered and hurriedly got in my car and turned the key without saying any of the things I had planned on saying. The car didn’t start. Easter or not, there would not be any miracles in Winnemucca this Sunday.

It appeared that the only way home was if I got my car fixed… which would take a week. There was no way I was staying in Winnemucca for a week, so on Monday, I left my dog in my motel room, hopped a 3 hour bus back west to Reno, where I found a regional car rental agency that allowed me to go to Salt Lake City, Utah. I then drove the 3 hours back east to pick up my dog, checked out of my motel, and continued on to Salt Lake City some 5 hours away. There, I was able to get a new rental contract that allowed me to travel to other states and return my car back in Reno. I spent the next week meandering through Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. This was the Russian doll segment of my trip - the doll within the doll, the small road trip inside the big road trip. . .

***

I was in Boulder, CO on the last day of my small road trip when I stumbled upon this curious bookshop called Lighthouse Books. The bookstore caught my eye because it claimed to specialize in “ancient wisdom.” That’s my kind of bookstore! When I tried to go inside, I found that they were closed for the day. I made a mental note to return first thing in the morning, before hitting the road back to Winnemucca.

On the next day, I found the store open for business and I excitedly bounded down the stairs into the showroom. What immediately caught my eye was a large banner to the left of the stairwell which read, “Psychic on Duty!” I thought to myself, “Oh no! It’s one of those stores.” But perhaps the sign was pointing to something metaphysical that was about to transpire here in the aisles of a bookstore in Boulder, CO – a bookstore that, for right or for wrong, claimed to be so close to the Light.

Before I started my trip, I came across a poem from Rumi entitled "In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo Dreaming of Baghdad." The gist of the story is this. There was a man looking for God. Try as he might, he was not able to find God in his hometown of Baghdad. He spent his days on the city streets wailing for God to come show himself, but God did not. When angels questioned God on why he didn’t answer this man’s sincere and heartfelt prayers, God said, “Because that’s how a man should seek Me! Wailing in the streets! Crying with all his heart! Let him stand as an example to the others as to how one should look for God!” Still, God was somewhat troubled by the fact that the man himself did not know that his strife was so pleasing to God. God devised a plan. The next day, an angel appeared to the man and told him that an amazing treasure was buried in such-and-such location in the far off city of Cairo. The poor man, hardly within his means as it was, undertook the long sojourn. By the time the man reached Cairo, he was reduced to a brow-beaten beggar. As he was wandering the streets at night, he was picked up by a patrolman who was looking for a thief. Imagine the incredulity of the police officer who was told by the beggar that he was not the thief but was in town because an angel had appeared to him in a dream with instructions to travel to such-and-such a place. Only, rather than consider the man a suspect in the recent robberies, the police officer said, “You fool! I had the same dream that I should go to Baghdad to such and such a place,” and the officer offered the exact address, “and an angel told me that I would find a treasure there. Only, I never listened to the stupid dream, but you did. And now look at you – a lost beggar in a far off town!”

The resolution to the story is this. The address in the far off town that the police officer so flippantly dismissed in his dream was the exact home address of the man before him. God sent this man on a long journey so that he would realize that the real treasure – his presence before God – was under his own roof all along. I was open to this possibility for myself, as well.

As I walked down the second aisle of Lighthouse Books, I saw the psychic sitting on a chair with her back toward me apparently staring off into nothing. This lady purports to know the future and the past, the known and the unknown, and I asked her, “Do you know where the books by the Sufi’s are?” She pointed to my left shoulder, and I turned around to see a book of golden color, entitled simply, “The Gift.”

I opened the book and beheld the inscription by the author:

I am
A hole in a flute
That the Christ’s breath moves through –
Listen to this
Music.

The third poem read, in part:

If your heart really needs to touch a face
That is filled with abundance
Then why didn’t you come to this
Old Man sooner?

For my cheek is the universe’s cloister
And if you can make your prayers sweet enough
Tonight

Then Hafiz will lean over and offer you
All the warmth in my body
In case God is busy
Doing something else
Somewhere.

Why complain if you are looking
To quench your spirit’s longing
And have followed a rat into the desert.

If your soul really needs to touch a face
That is always filled with compassion
And tenderness
Then why,

Why my dear
Did you not come to your friend Hafiz
Sooner?

***

Largely, I reported all of the above – the stuff about going on a long road trip, about searching for God, about trying to find a home, about breaking down in Winnemucca, about trying to stumble upon significance, about praying for a miracle, about being stranded in the desert – to provide context for the poem on page 273 of The Gift, entitled Bring the Man to Me, which reads:

A Perfect One was traveling through the desert.
He was stretched out around the fire one night
And said to one of his close ones,

“There is a slave loose not far from us.
He escaped today from a cruel master.
His hands are still bound behind his back,
His feet are also shackled.

I can see him right now praying for God’s help.
Go to him.
Ride to that distant hill;
About a hundred feet up and to the right
You will find a small cave.
He is there.

Do not say a single world to him.
Bring the man to me.
God requests that I personally untie his body
And press my lips to his wounds.”

The disciple mounts his horse and within two hours
Arrives at the small mountain cave.

The slave sees him coming, the slave looks frightened.
The disciple, on orders not to speak,
Gestures toward the sky, pantomiming:

God saw you in prayer,
Please come with me,
A great Murshid {Teacher} has used his heart’s divine eye
To know your whereabouts.

The slave cannot believe this story,
And begins to shout at the man and tries to run

But trips from his bindings.
The disciple becomes forced to subdue him.

Think of this picture as they now travel:

The million candles in the sky are lit and singing.
Every particle of existence is a dancing alter
That some mysterious force worships.

The earth is a church floor whereupon
In the middle of a glorious night
Walks a slave, weeping, tied to a rope behind a horse,
With a speechless rider
Taking him toward the unknown.

Several times with all of his might the slaveTries to break free,
Feeling he is being returned to captivity.
The rider stops, dismounts—brings his eyes
Near the prisoner’s eyes.
A deep kindness there communicates an unbelievable hope.
The rider motions—soon, soon you will be free.
Tears roll down from the rider’s cheeks
In happiness for this man.

Anger, all this fighting and tormenting want,
Mashuq,{Sweetheart}
God has seen you and sent a close one.

Mashuq, {Sweetheart}
God has seen your heart in prayer
And sent Hafiz.

Admittedly, I’m skeptical that God “talks” to people in the direct manner popularized by mainstream Christianity. By way of contrast, when the ancient Greeks wanted to know the will of the Gods, they had to seek the mediation of an oracle. The latter conception would make it somewhat plausible that if God were to contact me, it would be through the direction of bookstore psychic and through the mouth of a 14th century Persian poet named Hafiz of Shiraz.

As I was leaving Lighthouse Books, the man behind the counter, who did not advertise any psychic ability himself, said to me, "I will speak to you as if you were my own son. Use the question 'why?' like a shovel and dig deeper and deeper into your true self. That's how you can attain self-knowledge." Then, after a pause, he continued, "But it appears that you already knew this." I returned to Chapel Hill with a metaphoric shovel in hand, perhaps one that I already owned. And while I did not unearth buried treasure or bear direct witness to a miracle, through the help of a Winnemuccan mechanic, a bookstore psychic, a bit of adversity, and 6,000 miles of road, I did find The Gift, an ancient poet/teacher, a fair amount of life experience, and, most importantly, a new place to call home. I'd say it was a good trip!

Kahlil Gibran

2008-02-28T00:54:00.009-05:00

The Ghost of Kahlil Gibran

Last Sunday, I had about 20 minutes to kill before my Ultimate Frisbee game, so I stopped by Borders to do a few minutes of aimless browsing. I noticed a new addition to the poetry shelf published by Everyman’s Library. Everyman’s Library is a subdivision of Randomhouse and boasts the motto, “With 100 volumes, a man may be intellectually, rich.” Of course, this motto made more sense back in 1906 at the publisher’s founding when 100 volumes would only cost 5 pounds, and would, thus, be available to every man. Now, however, it costs $2,219.45 for 100 volumes, meaning that you need first to be financially rich before you can be intellectually rich. Still, I do trust their selection of the best books by the best authors. The particular Everyman’s volume that caught my eye on this afternoon was “The Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran.”

I cracked open the book to a random page and was immediately taken by Gibran’s style and content. In the first chapter of The Prophet, the mysterious title character is asked by the townspeople to describe the nature of love to which he replies:

…Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning…

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast….

But if you fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Whoa.

In other chapters, the Prophet expounds upon marriage, work, joy, good and evil, law, freedom, friendship, and self-knowledge. This book is perfect for me! I wondered how I didn’t find it sooner. Indeed, I often peruse the poetry shelves at bookstores and I had never once noticed the name Kahlil Gibran. Given my fascination with religiously and ethically themed poetry, I suppose it was destiny that Mr. Gibran and I crossed paths eventually.

Only, upon learning that the book was priced at $30.00, I decided that destiny would have to wait for another day, and placed the book back on the shelf. I figured I could find a cheaper soft-cover online or at the local used book store another day.

With instant gratification temporarily postponed, I attempted to sate my curiosity by doing some research on the author, which is something I never do. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Kahlil Gibran is the third best selling poet of all-time, behind only Lao Tzu and Shakespeare! It’s practically a miracle that we didn’t run into one another until now.

Gibran was born in Bsharri in the mountains of Greater Syria (presently Northern Lebanon) to a Maronite family. The Maronites are a Christian sect that traces its roots back to ancient city of Antioch, which was the original seat of the Christian Church under the patriarch Peter the Apostle. Years later, when the Muslim’s came through, the Christians in Antioch had a choice to make: create a political alliance with the Pope and, thus, garner military protection from the Church in Rome or remain independent and face possible Muslim conquest alone. Those that re-aligned themselves with Roman Catholics came to be the Maronite Church, while those that remained independent become the Syrian Orthodox Church. Gibran owes his upbringing to the former, while I owe mine to the latter.

I also learned that when Gibran immigrated to America as a young boy in 1895, he lived in Boston’s South End, which was then home to Boston College, my undergraduate alma mater. Not only that. Gibran had a long love affair, if seemingly one-directional, with a woman named Mary Haskell, to whom he had written innumerable letters. She held onto the letters and her diaries from the time even after her relocation to Savannah, GA and well into old age. She would bequeath the entire collection to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, just down the street from where I presently live. Strange.

But that’s not all. I also learned that Gibran had two schools named after him, both in New York. One school, which has come under some scrutiny, is located in a Lebanese enclave in Brooklyn where they teach all the students Arabic. The other school is in Yonkers, NY, which has an insignificant number of Lebanese immigrants, if any. Of course, the more immediate connection to Yonkers is that it is the town in which I was born and raised. Very Strange.

I google mapped the school and it turns out that not only is it in my hometown, not only is it in my particular neighborhood, but just as with the other parallels in this post, it, too, is just down the street from where I once lived. I called my dad to ask him if he remembered a school named Kahlil Gibran Elementary in our neighborhood and described its location in relation to our old home. He said, “Yeah, that’s where you went to second grade.” What?

I looked into this, and it is, indeed, where I went to second grade. Only, then it was called Public School 28, or PS 28, according to the primitive school naming system of New York in the 1980’s. Apparently, I went to Kahlil Gibran Elementary. Bizarre. This guy has been coming to get me all my life!

Wisdom: 98¢ of Best Offer

I ended up finding a few Kahlil Gibran books at a local used book store. I’m amazed at how affordable used books can be. Rather than fork over $30.00 for the new copy of Gibran’s collected works at Borders, I was able to buy 6 of Gibran’s books at the used book store for $13, including one that isn’t in his collected works.

The hardcover copy of The Prophet I ended up finding cost 98 cents. Ninety-Eight Cents!

Think about that. Some celebrated author writes down everything he knows about the nature of love and work and God and friendship and marriage and good and evil and that’s the resale value! Less than a dollar! Wisdom comes that cheaply!

Meanwhile, if I wanted to buy Zombie Nation, which IMDB ranks as the worst movie of all time, I would have to spend $12.99 at Amazon. What value do these things have for a man? An economist would say that Zombie Nation is 13 times more valuable to a man than The Prophet, as evidenced by all relevant market factors. Then again, I never cared much for economists.

All in the Timing

This past weekend, a grad school friend was in town for a visit. The last time she was in town, she took me to the above mentioned used book store for the first time. I have since become a big fan of the store.

While we were in grad school together, this same friend mentioned that I might like the writings of Rumi. I looked into it at the time, but didn’t care much for him then. Recently, however, I re-discovered Rumi and I now find him to be an incredibly insightful writer.

In contrasting the spirit and the body, Rumi writes:

Don’t feed both sides of yourself equally.
The spirit and the body carry different loads
And require different attentions.
Too often
We put saddlebags on Jesus and let the donkey
Run loose in the pasture.
Don’t make the body do
What the spirit does best, and don’t put a big load
On the spirit that the body could easily carry.

Elsewhere, he comments on love:

The way of love is not A subtle argument. The door there Is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles Of their freedom. How do they learn that? They fall, and falling,
They’re given wings.

There is definitely a thematic parallel between Rumi and Gibran. Indeed, Rumi wrote “wheat remains wheat through the threshing,” which is certainly pointedly evocative of Gibran’s description of love in The Prophet, or vice versa. I suspect that Gibran drew inspiration from Rumi.

Two things occur to me.

First, a person’s appreciation for literature is so intimately tied to where they are in life at the time. I can make a library of all the fine literature that was wasted on me in my high school days, before I had developed any sort of palate for anything worldly. Indeed, I may today have a greater appreciation for Joyce and Faulkner if I hadn’t had the misfortune of first attempting to approach them with 16 year old eyes. I am certainly thankful that I did not discover the likes of Rumi, Kabir, and Gibran until after I turned 25. I’m curious to learn what it will be like at 50 to happen upon an upturned rock and have my eyes alight upon an old literary treasure for the first time. Will it feel just like this? Or does this sensation improve with age?

Second, if I am truly haunted by the ghost of Kahlil Gibran, it stands to reason that the ghost might wait until I first learned to appreciate Rumi before he revealed himself to me. Granted, I would genuinely be surprised if ghosts really do exist in this manner. However, if ghosts do exist, it would come as no surprise to me that I am haunted by an early 20th century Lebanese-American mystical poet. All in all, that actually sounds eerily plausible.

Westward Bound

2008-02-14T21:05:00.002-05:00

Counting My Blessings

Last week, I decided that it’s time to move… far away.

I’ve been in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) for over 5 years now, and this place has been very good to me.

First, with regard to my education, I was able to complete a marketable and versatile degree from a well-regarded university.

Second, with regard to my profession, I was fortunately enough to muster the support and encouragement necessary to stray from the beaten path and attempt to undertake my own business venture, which, to date, has not been an outright failure but, instead, has been quite rewarding.

Third, with regard to my personal life, I was lucky enough to fall into and gracefully out of love, while at the same time, making great friendships, which I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life.

Fourth, with regard to my spiritual life, I had something of a religious renaissance and have been able to reengage the eternal questions of my youth and early college years, which, for whatever reason, had been shelved for a number of years.

Fifth, with regard to my intellectual pursuits, I was fortunate in finding the resonant voices of authors such as Jack Gilbert, Stephen Dunn, Rumi, Kabir, Carl Dennis, and Tony Hoagland, in addition to challenging singer-songwriters such as Josh Ritter, Alexi Murdoch, Damien Rice, Joe Purdy, and Mason Jennings.

Most importantly, I’ve learned a great deal about myself as a person over the past 5 years: my strengths and weaknesses, my proclivities and disinclinations, and the effects, both positive and negative, that each of these may have in a community of others.

Indeed, I have much for which to be thankful. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel as though the best that this place has to offer me may be behind me. True enough, the revolving door of faces that comprises a transitory place like the Triangle may serve you well in trying to understand yourself in counter-distinction to others, but, having put away the mirror, I’m finding that it’s a difficult place to take root. It’s time to go.

***

Searching for Pearls

Of course, deciding to leave is only one-half of the equation. The other half asks: to where?

What occurred to me almost immediately is that I am in a privileged position at this point in my life. Until now, my decisions on where to live had to be reconciled with the desires of others to have me: my parents, my college admissions board, or my graduate school admissions board. But now that I work for myself, that I don’t have to consult with the desires or employment needs of a wife or serious girlfriend, that I don’t have to consider the educational opportunities of children, and that I don’t have to apply to a school or employer, I can pretty much point to any place on a map and move there. The world is my oyster!

Well, that’s not exactly true. Because most foreign countries would require that I kennel my dog for 3-6 months to ensure that he is not transporting a communicable disease overseas, I think I’ll limit my search to the US, to save him that fate. Still, the country, if not the world, is my oyster!

***

Packing the Caravan

Ever since high school, I’ve had this vision, perhaps inspired by then-required-reading such as On the Road or Grapes of Wrath, of packing up the Buick (or horse caravan) and heading West on Route 66 until I found what I was looking for. Somehow, that ideal has remained until now, even if I don’t own a Buick and most of Route 66 has been turned into Interstate 40. Thus, I resigned myself to leaving the East Coast and began considering the Midwest destinations of Madison, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Denver; the Western destinations of Austin, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City; and the Pacific Northwest destinations of Seattle and Portland.

Seeking to avoid bitter winters, I eliminated Madison, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Having little desire to live in a desert, I eliminated Texas and Phoenix. And desiring a certain degree of diversity, I eliminated Salt Lake City. The remaining options are Denver, Seattle, and Portland.

While I’ve read a good deal about each city, I’ve decided that the best course of action will be to visit each city for a couple of days before making a decision. Accordingly, I’ve planned a two week cross-country road trip for mid-March. Portable internet will definitely come in handy for the start of March Madness and for blogging. Here’s a look at my tentative itinerary with overnight stays flagged in green.

View Larger Map

While I will keep an open mind for all the places I visit, the early favorite seems to be Portland, Oregon. Indeed, all week, I’ve been singing along to the song “Boston” by Augustana, while changing the lyrics to: “I think I'll go to Boston [Portland]/ I think I'll start a new life/ I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name/ I'll get out of California [Carolina].”

Additionally, this trip will take me through 18 states, 12 of which I've yet to step foot in. I'll hopefully get to visit with some friends that have been scattered throughout the country. And, I'm sure, I'll encounter more than a few interesting characters on the road. I'm very excited about the move and everything associated with it. Wish me luck.

MLK Day

2008-01-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Deep in the South, where Interstate 575 dead ends into State Route 515, about 70 miles northwest of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta, in Pickens County, in the land that used to belong to the Cherokee, there lies the unincorporated town of Tate, Georgia, which, though otherwise nondescript, is home to a rather fine marble quarry.

***

On February 12, 1809, two uneducated farmers living in a one room log cabin in southeast Kentucky gave birth to the boy who would become our nation’s 16th president, until his untimely death due to complications stemming from a gunshot wound he had sustained the evening prior while watching a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in the Northwest Quadrant of the District of Columbia.

The last photograph taken of Lincoln, due to a crack in the photo-plate, quite prophetically, shows a line bisecting his head in the exact place a bullet fired from the gun of John Wilkes Booth would enter his skull. He was 56 years old.

***

On January 15, 1929 a young Baptist preacher, named Michael King, and his wife, living in a humble home in the bustling metropolis of Atlanta, in the land that used to belong to the Cherokee, gave birth to a boy, Michael King, Jr., who would grow up to be a noted civil rights activist until his untimely death due to complications stemming from a gunshot wound he had sustained hours prior while talking with a friend on a balcony outside room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

The man’s last words to his musician friend were, “Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty." The song to which he was referring begins and ends:

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.

33 years prior to the shooting, when Michael. was six years old, his Baptist father changed his own name and the name of his first born son to honor a famous protestant reformer. And by the time he was wheeled into a Memphis hospital, a lifetime later, it was too late to save him, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was dead at age 39.

***

Starting in 1911, large blocks of stone were hauled from limestone quarries in Indiana and marble quarries in Colorado to a patch of swampland between Virginia and Maryland, near the nation’s Capitol Building, which had been drained and set aside for the purpose of housing a monument honoring the contributions and achievements of our 16th president. The formal construction of The Lincoln Memorial began in 1914, when the first stone was put into place on what would have been Abraham Lincoln’s 105th birthday.

The crowning jewel of the monument is a 19 foot 6 inch reproduction of the likeness of Lincoln himself, comprised of nearly 200 tons of single-source white marble drawn from a quarry just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, near Stone Mountain, in the town of Tate.

***

The pivotal year for the Civil War was 1963. In January of that year, Lincoln signed his Emancipation Proclamation, which effectively freed all slaves of the Confederate States of America. Then, in November of that same year, Lincoln delivered perhaps the most famous speech in American history, a short two minute address during the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It began, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” and concludes, “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

***

By the time the Northern troops marched past Tate, about 40 miles to the West, during the War of Northern Aggression, as it was characterized in those parts, the war was largely decided. Atlanta, one of the last Confederate strongholds, would fall in July of 1864, the final major victory before General Sherman would march his troops, largely unimpeded, all the way to the sea by winter. Thousands of freed slaves are reputed to have followed Sherman all the way to Savannah. The Confederate Army would formally surrender just a few months later at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865. Civil unrest came to an end and the black man had his freedom secured by a series of Constitutional Amendments created by acts of the United States Congress.

***

In 1963, exactly 100 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and made his famous Gettysburgh Address, our nation was still struggling to give form to Lincoln’s vision, when a young black Baptist preacher then living in Birmingham, Alabama climbed the limestone steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looked down upon 200,000 supporters, engaged the eyes of history, and began his own speech that would ensure that those men, some hundred years before, had not died in vain. In the shadow of a larger than life marble rendering of Lincoln himself, fashioned from white marble taken just a stone’s throw from his birthplace, King, Jr. began his speech, in homage to Lincoln, “five score years ago.” Then, during his 16 minute speech, King Jr, an unlikely figure in an age long overdue, gave breath and ‘soul force’ to the calcified remains of Lincoln’s 100 year old dreams.

King concluded his powerful speech addressing the nation as a whole, asking that the echo of freedom be permitted to reverberate through “the mighty mountains of New York… the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania… the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado… the curvaceous slopes of California.” And when he turned his attention to the pressing needs of the South, he began with the land that used to belong to the Cherokee, the place of his birth, the home of the marble that shapes Lincoln’s countenance, and its highest peak: “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

But King’s vision of freedom extended beyond black and white, beyond the color of people’s skin, as he concluded, “And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Finally, a century removed, this nation had ‘a new birth of freedom.’ Just two months later, acts of Congress would topple the oppressive Jim Crow laws of the South, and separate was no longer equal.

***

Here in the present, as I reflect back upon our nation just 45 years ago, it's hard for me to imagine how different life must have been then. It's also hard to imagine that such cruelties were commonplace, and even legally sanctioned, just 45 years ago.

But at the same time, as I view the partnership of my affluent and nearly-exclusively white church with an modest inner city nearly-exclusively black church, I have to wonder why some things are still the same. I can't help but wonder why there are any instances or circumstances under which, even today, after all we've been through together as a nation of brothers and sisters, it's all too easy to picture how life must have been 45 years ago. In his speech, King, Jr. warned against the 'tranquilizing drug of gradualism,' and stressed, instead, the urgency of Now. 45 years ago, "Now" was "the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children," and, yet somehow, it still is.

Paperwhite Narcissism

2008-01-20T02:35:00.001-05:00

The past few weeks have been chock-full of adoption stories. First, a book I’m presently reading, Free of Charge, comments favorably on adoption, with the author asserting his theological belief that his two adopted children were “meant to be,” seemingly chosen by the hand of God. Second, the girl with whom I’m reading said book has shared her own passion to adopt a child and shared some family stories about adoption. Third, some friends and I went to see the movie Juno, which is about the trials of a high school girl that gets pregnant and decides to give her baby up for adoption. (By the way, I recommend that you go see Juno, but I don’t particularly endorse the book.)

In all the conversations that followed each respective story, I have steadfastly maintained my position on adoption: it’s nice and all (for you), but I really, really want to have my own kids. I even recall going into some degree of detail, suggesting, first, that my worldview was shaped in part by the few evolutionary psychology classes that I took during my formative undergraduate years, which suggested that part (if not all) of “the meaning of life” is to replicate your genes. Second, if I may say so, I’m rather fond of my particular genes and I imagine I’d be equally fond of the genes that comprise the woman I will eventually marry; consequently, I’d be rather fond of the gene-milkshake we could make together. Thirdly, I have a desire to look at the face of my son or daughter and see a family resemblance.

All three of my points boil down to the same thing: narcissism. While I recognize that there are plenty of children that need to be saved from difficult situations, I would still rather make a new kid, who looks like me and is more likely to act like me. Such a position, if not the most empathetic, does seem to be the majority rule, with most parents viewing adoption only as a last resort. And while I will resist the temptation to make an appeal to normative ethics (i.e., “c’mon, everyone’s doin’ it!”), I will point out that a certain measure of self-admiration, even when at the expense of empathy for others, is necessary for self-preservation, and may even be a component to healthy self-esteem and a keen sense of self-worth.

The key here, however, is that the level of self-admiration must be healthy. Personally, I would place wanting-to-have-my-own-kid on the “good” side of healthy narcissism, though I understand how others may disagree. On the flip side, I’ve certainly encountered enough research to suggest that people learn to love what’s theirs, if only because it is theirs, no matter how they came to possess it. That would seem to suggest that adoptive parents are able to love their children every bit as much as non-adoptive parents. But if we love something only because it is OUR something, then isn’t that, too, just another form of narcissism, if only one step removed? Maybe. But, if it’s with respect to an adopted child, I would argue that that, too, is a healthy form of narcissism.

My point is this. Yes, it is narcissistic for me to want my own biological child. Guilty as charged. However, it is also narcissism that permits an adoptive parent to love their OWN child more than every other child in the world. But that just shows that narcissism isn't all bad. Indeed, sometimes it's quite healthy, and even necessary.

And then, there’s the unhealthy kind…

***

The story of Narcissus, as recounted by Ovid in his “Metamorphoses,” goes like this. The most beautiful nymph of all bore a son whose name was Narcissus. His mother asked a prophet if her son would live well into old age, to which the prophet quizzically replied, “If he does not know himself.” By the age of 21, Narcissus was so handsome that he was courted by numerous maidens and nymphs. However, due to his hard-hearted pride, he would not permit even a one to touch him.

Meanwhile, Zeus was not showing quite the same discretion when it came to nymphs, as he often partook of one or two in his spare time. So that his wife Juno would not catch him, ahem, in flagrante delicto, Zeus told Echo to distract Juno with long-winded stories until Zeus’ bedmate could escape undetected. Eventually, Juno wised up to what was going on, and punished Echo for her part in the deception. For all eternity, Echo would not be able to initiate conversation, but would be forced to double the voice of anyone she hears and return only their last words.

One day, Echo happens upon Narcissus in the woods and immediately falls in love with him. However, because she cannot initiate conversation, she has to follow him around, seemingly forever, until he happens to speak first. Their conversation, in abbreviated form, goes as follows:

“Is anybody here?” asks Narcissus to the woods.
“Here,” replies Echo.
Then, after some more beating around the bush, Narcissus cuts to the chase, “Why do you avoid me? Let us come together!”
“Let us come together.” returns Echo, at which point she reveals herself and passionately throws her arms around Narcissus, as she was so eager to do all along.
Narcissus, completely disgusted, pushes her away and rebukes, “Let me die, before thou should’st have the enjoyment of me!”
To which Echo must sheepishly reply, “May’st though have the enjoyment of me!”

Echo, for her part, was completely devastated and vowed never to show her countenance again. She remained hidden in the woods until her very bones fell to nothing and all that remained was her voice.

Others, too, would fall in love with handsome Narcissus to the same effect, until one spurned lover prayed to the gods, “So let him love, so let him not enjoy what he loves!” When that prayer was answered, Narcissus was made to fall in love with his own reflection in a spring. His love object would laugh when he laughed, would cry when he cried, would reach out for him when he reached out for it; only, he couldn’t actually hold it. Narcissus asked the woods if anyone in the history of mankind had ever loved so tragically, to which the woods remained silent. Still, Narcissus would not leave his reflection. He did not eat. He did not sleep. He simply lay by the water, gazing at his own reflection, while realizing that the only way out of this cursed affair was to leave his body, for his death would be the death of them both.

Narcissus took one last look at his beloved and with his final breath, he uttered, “Farewell,” to which, Echo returned, “Farewell.”

His sister would come to bury his body the next morning, but instead of his body, she found a yellow flower with white leaves encompassing it in the middle.

***

The other day, I was cleaning out a closet when I happened upon an old vase, in which I used to have some rocks and a few bamboo chutes. I dusted off the vase, filled it with water and rocks, and set out to the grocery store where I had purchased the bamboo some years ago. Unfortunately, the grocery store no longer carried bamboo, but, as I was walking out of the store, my eye happened to catch a discount cart with 3 plants, each priced modestly between $2 and $4. Though my “green thumb” has been able to summarily kill any plant I have brought into the house within 10 days - except for bamboo and cacti, two of the most virulent of plant species on earth - I decided that this plant might be worth a $4 gamble.

It's been 3 days now and the plant is not only alive, but thriving. Indeed, she probably now has twice as many blooms compared to when I bought her. I have to admit, however, that I had to move her from the kitchen counter, where I'll often sit and do work for hours, to the dining room, because she had become so fragrant that it was giving me a headache. She is rather charming to view from a distance, however, what with all her white and yellow blooms.

And, upon looking for care instructions, I noticed a label which, quite appropriate for the week, read: Paperwhite Narcissus. I've decided to name her Echo.

Intimacy and Androgyny

2007-12-01T17:05:00.000-05:00

Last week at young adults, we were discussing the topic of intimacy between men and women. To a large degree, the conversation devolved into women asking men to be more like women: to enjoy talking on the phone for hours at a time, sharing feelings, etc; and men asking women to be more like men: to enjoy watching sports for hours at a time, to love playing Halo, etc. That is to say, many were of the opinion, implicitly, that intimacy between men and women would be more fluid if they were both androgynous, which is to say, both male and female, or, effectively, neither male nor female. That’s a losing proposition to begin with, and besides, where would be the fun in that?

Pardon, my optimism, but I am of the general option that we should focus on each other’s strengths, rather than seek to rectify each other’s shortcomings. Thus, for instance, rather than say that men are emotionally shallow, perhaps we would be better served to consider them as being emotionally resolute. Conversely, rather that state that women are prone to bouts of fancy, perhaps we would be better served to consider them as having a great degree of emotional flexibility. This is not a mere rhetorical ploy, but it has its utility, as well. For instance, imagine that one was befallen by some measure of tragedy and needed to talk about it. If one wanted the listener to be relatively unaffected by the news, to be a pillar of strength against which to lean, for instance, one might seek a male ear. If one wanted the listener to empathize and cry with them, to serve as a measure of consolation, one might seek a female ear. Thus, rather than asking all of humanity to grow more androgynous, individuals would be better served by recognizing the strengths and weaknesses belonging to each gender and learning where and when such strengths would be best utilized.

Of course, any psychologist or sociologist will tell you that there is far greater within group variability than between group variability. Hence, the degree of difference between all men and all women tends to be less than the difference between any two randomly selected individuals of the same gender. That is, individual differences are too nuanced to be accurately reflected in the average differences between two large groups such as men and women (or any such crude grouping, really). Averages are blunt instruments. Accordingly, stereotyping in the manner above is not a substitute for getting to know people on an individual basis. There is no replacing that. However, understanding group tendencies is a quick and dirty place to start. Of course, before we can being to utilize the strengths of each gender, we must come to understand what strengths each gender brings to the table, or, more broadly, we must begin to understand the way in which our other halves come to view the world.

**********

I made a mix CD for a girl friend the other day. She liked the mix, but pointed out that, like most mixes made by guys, the playlist was dominated by male voices. Of the 18 songs on this particular mix, there were only 3 songs by female artists. True enough, my music catalog is almost entirely male. Of the 9.4 days of music that makes up my itunes collection, there are only 11 female artists represented.

She is working on rectifying the problem by making a mix for me made up exclusively of female artists. It will appropriately be named “Estrogen,” and will surely help me gain perspective on my better half.

*********

More to that end, I decided to buy a book of poetry written by a female to see if it was all that different than all of the books of poetry written by males which I have consumed over the years. I picked a collection entitled “Strike Sparks” by Sharon Olds, whom I encountered on The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keilor. I opened the front cover and found myself knee deep in issues that were decidedly feminine in nature.

The first poem was about spousal abuse. The second poem was about growing up with a sexually abusive father. A little further in, there was a poem about what it’s like to have a miscarriage. There was a poem about what it feels like for a mother to envy the youth of her daughter, and another that recorded the burgeoning of a female orgasm, while another documented what it feels like to fall in love with a man. I realized that many of the issues dealt with in the book were things that I could never experience first hand simply by virtue of the fact that I am male. Even if I was immediately present to the event – say a woman was falling in love with me – my experience of the event would be markedly different than hers. Indeed, my perspective is the mirrored image. My knowledge about her experience is limited to how able a given woman can articulate her side of the story to me.

The most remarkable poem for me to read was one entitled “New Mother” about what it’s like for a woman to make love for the first time after having a baby. To begin, it was a great poem, if a bit racy. But it was eye opening, because I never once stopped to consider what that would be like. The beginning of the poem documents the new mother’s fear and uncertainty, which are each allayed by the new father’s patience and tenderness.

All of you so tender, you hung over me,
over the nest of stitches, over the
splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who
finds a wounded animal in the woods
and stays with it, not leaving its side
until it is whole, until it can run again.

I also liked the title poem, “I Go Back to May 1937,” from the perspective of an abused child that goes back in time to the day of her parents wedding. Initially, she wants to stop the wedding, having knowledge of all of the hurt that is owed to it. But then, defiantly, she assents to the marriage, choosing instead to live, to endure the suffering, and to write about it.

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar make of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips back in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it - she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to die. I want to go
up to them there in the at May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like male and female
paper dolls and bang then together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Chew on that one. Tomorrow morning, I get my hands on the "Estrogen" mix CD and I expect it will be equally eye opening. Stay tuned.

Matt Wertz

2007-11-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

(Fall Concert Series, Part III)

Matt Wertz is another act out of Nashville, whose style is characterized as “acoustic pop.” I think that means that it gets your toes tapping, even though the lead singer plays acoustically. I generally don’t like pop music, so I guess Matt Wertz defines the upper limit of my pop-palate. While playing it in the car, the preacher’s daughter commented that she thought he sounded a bit like John Mayer, which I told her was impossible, because I hate John Mayer.

I then recounted the story from grad school when some friends and I went to a Counting Crows/John Mayer show, and how we left early on principle because Counting Crows were opening for John Mayer, instead of the other way around. We had nearly fled the scene before John Mayer started playing, but due to some car trouble, we had to suffer through the first couple of songs of his set. The exact details are fuzzy and even recounting this abbreviated version of the story is traumatic enough. In any event, the preacher’s daughter is a big fan of John Mayer and she was not amused by my story.

That being said, Jason Mraz may be a more appropriate comparison, which is to say, this is good, happy music to listen to while falling in love, or with the windows down while driving down a windy country road. (After writing that sentence, I paused to consider the possibility that falling in love is much like driving down a windy country road with the windows down. I even entertained the possibility that falling out of love is much like being stranded in a parking lot at a John Mayer concert. The jury is still out on both questions.)

My favorite songs are “The Way I Feel,” which had the whole crowd singing, “Carolina,” which he was only too happy to play in Chapel Hill, and “Heartbreaker,” which is the first song of his that I had heard. I don't have any of his albums, so can't recommend any of them. But take a listen to those singles. If you’re looking for something deeply introspective, you won’t get it here. But if you’re in the mood for a little sugar, take a listen. Here’s his myspace.

The War

2007-11-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

(Fall concert series, part II)

The War was formerly a local Chapel Hill band of some repute named Starting Tuesday. They have not yet released a full length album under their new moniker, but they do have a 5 song EP, which is solid top to bottom. I was amazed by how much energy these guys put into a show. At more than one point, I felt like the audience was being bludgeoned by the riffs of a trio of guitarists, in a good way. For one of the songs, they invited the audience play percussion as the tech’s rolled out two 20 foot sticks of 4” PVC pipe and several dozen drum sticks. These guys are definitely my favorite local band, even though they’ve since moved on to Nashville. If you like The Fray, you should check these guys out. “Goodbye July” and “Satisfied” are my favorites. They, too, are available on itunes and myspace.

Meiko

2007-11-06T21:54:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned earlier, I caught two of Brett Dennen’s shows when he came through town in September. I feel like it’s necessary to give a plug to his opening act, a half-Japanese girl from Georgia named Meiko. Truth be told, I don’t actually know if she’s half-Japanese. She could be three-quarters or perhaps one-eighth, but I like to consider her one-half, because, if nothing else, it reminds me of the opening line from my favorite Weezer song/video, El Scorcho, which is worth watching if only for the chicken dance the drummer does during the breakdown.

Meiko, for her part, did not do a chicken dance, but she nonetheless had great stage presence, despite her unassuming personality. Indeed, the fact that she was slightly uncomfortable up there only made her more endearing and even downright funny at times. This, of course, is on top of the fact that she’s a talented singer and song writer, with a voice that was made to sing about heartbreak. My favorites are the tracks “Under My Bed,” which laments a recent breakup, “How Lucky We Are,” a ballad pregnant with hope, and the brutally honest Untitled Track about a hopelessly unhealthy relationship from the perspective of a hotdog. Yes, a hotdog. Adding to her charm are the facts that she has a stripped down under-produced style, has refrained from signing with a major label, and keeps a blog! What’s not to love? Keep your ears peeled for her. I understand she’s all over the soundtracks for TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy. She’s blowing up! In the meantime, hit her up on itunes or myspace.

Fall Concert Series

2007-11-06T21:52:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, I love love love live music. Unfortunately, since I live in a college town, good live music is only available seasonally. Musicians and their agents assume (and rightfully so) that few students are around during the summer months, so they pass over Chapel Hill when booking summer tour dates. The upshot, however, is that the fall brings an influx of great bands. I’ve been averaging a show a week for the past two months or so. It’s been fantastic. My next few posts will rundown some of the acts.

Timely Wisdom

2007-10-01T21:47:00.001-04:00

When I was in law school, I took a trip to Cincitucky (the "Cincinnati" airport is actually in Kentucky) to coach one of our Moot Court teams. Prior to the first round, my team was getting a bit nervous. They had also noted that I tended to read books of poetry and philosophy, which is strange for a law student, because we were assigned so much reading that the last thing anyone wanted to do was read for pleasure, except me, apparently. One of the girls on my team asked if I could read them something wise from the book I was reading, something that might give them inspiration or calm their nerves. At the time, I was about half-way through a collection of poems by Carl Dennis. I opened the book to a poem entitled "The Peaceable Kingdom," cleared my throat, and began:

You tear open the hood and stare in.
The fuel pump's clogged with flowers.

I gently closed the book, set it aside, and looked up at my team, who, quite predictably, went on to dominate the contest, claiming first place, while taking 2 out of 3 of the most outstanding individual performances.

Sometimes it matters what you say. Other times, it does not.

Life in Sepia

2007-09-24T01:19:00.000-04:00

I went into an antique store in Carrboro the other day, not looking for anything in particular, but just to browse. I don’t frequent antique stores, because, frankly, I don’t generally like old things. But, every once in awhile, I’ll pop into such an establishment, mostly in the hopes of finding a really good deal on something unique. To be honest, I hope to find an Antique Road Show caliber priceless work of art, which I could score for a nickel. No such luck this time around. This particular store was the size of a small closet, did not have any art, and was populated mostly by porcelain china - not something in which I have interest. I did a quick loop around, said hello to the merchant, and was walking out the door when a tin full of photographs caught my eye.

One of the first photographs I saw was of this fellow. I looked at the back of the photo for context clues – who he was, where he was, what town he was in, what year the photo was taken, etc. However, all I found was the curly cursive of a woman’s hand which read “Daddy at work.” It was not immediately clear to me what daddy did for work, however. On one hand, he appears to be wearing a white collar of a modern day Catholic priest, so that was certainly an option. However, it was a very old photo, and it was certainly possible that everyone wore big white collars to work back then. I tried to make out some of the book titles on his desk for clues, but to no avail.

Still, I was taken in by the photograph. I certainly like black and white photography and this particular photo had a unique sepia tonality that appealed to me aesthetically. Oddly though, what really drew me in was that I found myself identifying with the man in the photograph. Was he a lawyer? A writer perhaps? I have this silly dream of one day having a really sweet library with leather bound books. I suppose I always placed myself in a scene like this. Strange. I needed to find out more about this guy, so I kept leafing through the photos.

Here is our protagonist in a group photo, again sporting his big white collar. Apparently, he was quite the hit with the ladies! We also get our first glimpse of the family dog – an Irish Setter.

Here is his wife, presumably, teaching the dog to shake. I take it that she is the woman whose handwriting appears on the back of some of these photos.
On the back of this photo are the words “Mother and Dad.” You will note how men’s fashions have remained completely unchanged for quite some time. I’ve never, in my lifetime, encountered anyone wearing her outfit, however. He has a distinct jaw line and big ears. She has bags under her eyes. But notice the way she leans towards her husband. They have been married a long time, I suspect, but still, if you glance at it quickly, you may mistakenly think they were holding hands. I think that’s neat.

It occurs to me that this family is quite wealthy. From some of the other photos I gathered that this family goes on vacation quite a bit and it appears that they even had several horses. Also, a lot of these photos are candid snapshots, taken at a time when only those in the aristocracy would have had cameras. Plus, they had an automobile! A convertible no less! Check out the fashionable headwear. The guy in the back is wearing a leather Indiana Jones hat, while the driver is ready for safari. Notice any other clues in the photo? Take a closer look.

Find it? New York license plates. That’s a big clue. Also, it gives you the year: 1919, suggesting that license plates used to be issued yearly and proving that these photos are nearly a hundred years old. We’re getting somewhere now.

Here is some extended family, perhaps. You’ll again notice the varied headgear. It appears to me that the guy to the left is expressing some concern that the camera may steal his soul, while the little boy appears in desperate need of an outhouse. I would also like to point out the dirt road, the high socks, and the older boy’s kerchief. Sharp.

This house features prominently in many of the photos. I take it to be their residence. The two-tiered wrap-around deck is pretty neat. Also, the type of trees will remind us that we’re in New York, where deciduous trees dominate, as opposed to this part of North Carolina, where evergreens have run amuck.

Here’s another photo of a house. I’m not sure if it’s the same house as the previous photo, only from the rear and after Autumn. They do both have twin chimneys and two-tiered wrap-around porches though. Here’s the best clue so far though: on the back are the words “Taken November 10, '19 Peekskill, NY"

Here’s the strange part. I’m in an antique store in Carrboro, North Carolina looking at these photos taken in Peekskill, NY. According to google maps, that is a distance of 556 miles, which, by modern conveniences, it would take an approximate 9 hours and 23 minutes to traverse. I have no idea how long it would take by the standard of 1919, nor can I fathom a guess as to how these photos ended up so far from home. However, you may remember that I, too, grew up in New York, only a 30 minute drive from the scene of this photo! Not only that, but some of my high school friends lived in Peekskill, so I would often go up there to hang out and rouse rabble. I knew I felt a strange connection with our protagonist. We’re practically neighbors, though admittedly 100 years removed.

Here’s the final picture I’ll leave you with. It’s the latest one I could find. It has a stamp from the Westchester Photo Finishing Company dated May 8, 1942. On the back is written “Bernard, Bobby, and Richard.” The boys are all grown up, and the young contemplative Bernard from photos previous is now a proud papa, his face lightly weathered by time.

One more note of interest. I found a pair of photo jackets belonging to two separate now-defunct photo studios in Kingston, NY - Pennington Studio and Safford & Scudder. My guess is that "Safford" is John Milton Safford and "Scudder" is Robert Scudder Newton, each prominent medical doctors from Ohio that moved to New York in the late 1800's and co-wrote a rather famous work "A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Women." Admittedly, I have no guess as to why their names were used for a photo studio.

Finally, one of the sleeves carried the slogan “Pictures taken NOW will be priceless 25 years from now.” I found that pretty ironic because nearly 100 years later, they sat in a tin box with a sign that read “Photos: 50 cents each!” And that was before the merchant took a liking to me and told me she’d sell them to me at half price! Considering that the photos cost 6 cents a piece to develop back in 1919, and factoring inflation, I’d say I made out like a bandit at 25 cents each.

Oh, I also got a last name off the sleeve – Chappell. Bernard Chappell is the man in the photo.

This whole episode reminds me of a Jack Gilbert poem entitled “Relative Pitch,” in which a man stumbles upon a ruined mansion in Virginia. He tries to imagine the way the house used to be and restores it, wondering if he “discovered maybe the kind of life the house was.” He concluded, “Strangers leave us poems to tell of those they loved, how the heart broke, to whisper of the religion upstairs in the dark, sometimes in the parlor amid blazing sunlight, under trees with rain coming down in August on the bare, unaccustomed bodies.”

And other times, it seems, the poems that strangers leave us are in sepia.

Games of Redeeming Features

2007-09-21T17:27:00.000-04:00

I try not to write about sports on this blog, but circumstances have dictated that I take up the pen in defense of my beloved New York Metropolitans in the form of an open letter to fellow New York Mets fans, and the New York and National media, respectively, and anyone else who will listen.

Dear Friends,

I have been a rabid Mets fans as long as I can remember. I have rejoiced in the 100 win seasons of the mid-1980’s and I have suffered through the 100 loss seasons of the 1990’s. I witnessed the absurdity of Bobby Valentine’s fake moustache, the rain delay hijinks of Robin Ventura, and the infamous career of he-who-shall-remain-unnamed but, if named, whose name would rhyme with Barmando Aenitez. I sat in my college dorm room in Boston and watched Kenny Rogers walk Andruw Jones with the bases loaded to end the NLCS. I was among the 55,000 that nearly brought Shea Stadium crumbling to the ground from the sheer elation we collectively expressed when Endy Chavez performed a miracle, and I rode the #7 back to Manhattan in stunned silence after Adam Wainwright’s curveball extinguished all of our hope. I can do the Teufel shuffle. When I pitched my eighth grade team to a championship, I threw my mitt skyward, just like Jesse Orosco. My favorite color is orange. I love baseball and I remained true to my team through good times and bad.

Right now, we’re going through a bad time. The Mets have lost 6 out of the last 7 games in crushing fashion. What was once a comfortable 7 game lead with just 17 games to play has dwindled down to a skinny game-and-one-half lead with 10 left to play. No team in the great history of the game has ever blown a lead as big as 7 games this late in the season, and the Mets are dangerously close to “accomplishing” that without precedent. The fallout has been that many people in the New York media, but especially the fans, have gotten caught up in pointing the finger of blame at anyone and everyone surrounding the organization – the general manager, the pitchers, the batters, the fielders, those too injured to do any of the above, and especially the manager. I suspect that a great many have even jumped off this sinking ship entirely. However, it is the blood lust in the voices and words of those that have remained that have troubled me the most. The majority of Mets fans, or perhaps only the loudest, has begun to speak of their team with utter contempt. Allow me to dissent.

Baseball is a long game, played over a long season, played over the course of a long career, and it’s a game at which you are only marginally more likely to succeed than fail, if even that. That is, relative to other sports, baseball is, by definition, wrought with an incredible amount of failure: a hall of fame batter fails to get a hit 70% of the time; a hall of fame pitcher gives up a run every three innings; a great team still loses around 40% of the time. Yet, it is in the very face of this failure that baseball presents an opportunity for success. As Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Murphy always used to remind the listener, “Baseball is a game of redeeming features.” If you make an error in the field, you may get to bat in the bottom half of the inning to win the game. If you make a bad pitch, you may get a chance to get the next guy. If you lose today, there’s always tomorrow. If you don’t do well tomorrow, there’s always next year. But everyone, EVERYONE, will get a chance to both fail and succeed. It is the very nature of the game.

My fellow Mets fans that are ready to string up this player or executive in a public square are losing sight of this fact. And with it, they are also losing their ability to enjoy the game. When you cease to view baseball through the specter of redemption, you lose the ability both to deal with loss (e.g., Cubs fans) and appreciate victory (e.g., Braves fans). For those, I suggest you watch football instead, where the great majority of the plays result in positive yardage and a great team can win 90-100% of their games. But that is not baseball. Every baseball team goes through stretches where no one can do anything right, seemingly. And the team and its fans just need to weather that. Earl Weaver, long time manager for the Baltimore Orioles, when faced with the prospect of putting in a pinch hitter that was 10 for his last 20 versus another hitter who was 0 for his last 20, was reputed to have said that one would be better off using the less successful of the two, because “he was due.” That hope, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, is what makes baseball unique and, to me, what keeps the game enjoyable. In what other sport could one make such a brazen claim?

Point is, the New York Mets, and each of the individual players that have been stinking it up as of late, will get a chance to redeem themselves. Whether or not they will remains to be seen, but it is guaranteed that they will at least have a chance. It begins tonight when Pedro Martinez, who himself is trying to comeback from a career threatening injury, takes the hill. Mets fans, please channel some positive energy in the direction of Miami tonight, for, if nothing else, being a sports fan gives you the opportunity to be hopeful. Being a baseball fan, in particular, lets you witness redemption.

With that said, Let’s Go Mets!

Neat German Ad

2007-09-18T16:27:00.001-04:00

It's worth watching twice.

Brett Dennen

2007-09-13T23:43:00.000-04:00

Last night, I went to see a Brett Dennen concert at the Cat’s Cradle. Here’s all you need to know about how cool Brett Dennen is. Earlier that afternoon, he did a free show in support of the local independent music store, at which he relied almost exclusively on requests from the audience. That’s pretty neat in itself. But in addition to that, immediately preceding the late show, he set up on the sidewalk and played for people waiting in line. Few things in life beat good, free, spontaneous music.

When he was taking requests at the early show, I asked him to play the song “Someday,” an upbeat-toe-tapper off his latest album, which includes the lyrics, “I may be weary but I am not weak/I can sing a song of suffering/Baby, a song unsung is dancing on the tip of your tongue/My salvation's ahead of me/I can feel it calling me/I know that I/I know that I will be ready.” You can see why I would request such a song. It’s right up my alley! Well, he looks me right in the eye and says, “Aw man, are you sure you want to hear that one?” Assuming that he’s looking for a little encouragement, I give him an emphatic head nod, as if to say, “Heck yeah, man! I love that song! I love you! Heck, I love love, man!” I mean, it was just a head nod, but that’s what I was trying to communicate; and he’s a hippy: he’d understand my vibe.

Having received my vote of affirmation, he then turns to the audience and says, “Shoot! OK, here’s the deal.” At this point, I start mentally back-peddling. Oh no, I think, I laid it on too thick. I should have left out the part of the head nod that was about loving love. A simple, Heck-yeah-head-nod would have been plenty, considering the circumstances. I seemed way too eager. Poor form. And, really, do I even love love? I mean, I like love, I want to spend time with and get to know love, but was I being honest when I blurted out that I love it? I got a little caught up in the moment. I start doing my more understated “Heck yeah! I like love.” head nod, but it’s too late, for he’s already re-directed his attention to the audience. “Ok. Well, I recorded that song, but wanted to leave it off the album, because I didn’t really think it fit with the rest of the songs. But, the producers [read: “suits”] wanted it on there, so, well, that’s why it’s on.” At this point, if I were able to un-request it, and put in a new request for any other song on the album, or perhaps if I was able to simply pass my turn on to the girl next to me, I would have done so. However, that wasn’t an option. I didn’t know how to communicate any of those ideas via head nod, and I wasn’t about to try to talk over him, for I had ruined his show enough as it was. No, I was married to my choice, and so was he. As he tried to remember how the song began, he said, “I’m not sure I’ve ever played this live before.”

What this all amounts to is that my one speaking line in the TV show was immediately followed by the sound effect, “Wah! Wah!” after which the audience gasps in disbelief. Momentary embarrassment aside, I don’t regret having asked for the song. After all, it provided some timely comic relief, as a whole record store was given the opportunity to laugh... at me. But that seems a fair price to pay in exchange for the song you want to hear, I suppose. In the end, he played it really well and the audience cheered louder after that song than any of the others. Much appreciated. The late show, with the full band, and without requests, was even better. It was a great day for music.

However, I am left with the uneasy sense that in the eternal struggle between fledgling artist and suit-and-tie-corporate-record-label, I’m (apparently) siding with the man. Yikes.

Here's one of his songs from the Album "So Much More," which I highly recommend. The lyrics to this song in particular are phenomenal, but the CD is great from top to bottom. (I couldn't find an 'official video,' so this will have to do.)

Go check out Brett Dennen’s music and go see him when he comes to a town near you! Just remember what not to ask for.

More on Religion/War

2007-09-07T16:53:00.000-04:00

Dancing Monkeys, Redux

2007-09-07T16:34:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, I put up a video about dancing monkeys. To me, it was a great example of satire. The purpose of satire is to use irony and sarcasm to expose human folly and vice. While the goal may be similar to that belonging to other modes of speech, we generally permit this genre of social commentary more leeway than, say, a political debate. Perhaps it can be argued that our desire to harshly criticize a particular work is inversely proportional to that work’s entertainment value. Because satire tends to amuse, we tend to be less critical towards it. This is why, I suspect, that comedians and satiricists, can get away with so much.

Take, for instance, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” written back in 1729. Swift comes up with a rather clever solution to abate the poverty, homelessness, vagrancy, panhandling, and general hopelessness that plagues the city of Dublin’s lower class. He proposes that the poor be permitted to sell their babies to the rich. Such a solution would not only serve to unburden impoverished mothers and provide them with disposable income, but it would, at the same time, be to the public benefit of the rich, for, as Swift notes, citing an American with direct knowledge in such matters, “a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.” And while the audience is captivated by his analysis of the economic benefits of infanticide and cannibalism, Swift slyly exposes the injustices of the tenant-landlord system, addresses the import-export imbalance, discusses the prevalence of abortion in the slums, and shines light on the radical indifference the rich have for the poor. It’s a truly brilliant essay, delivered in a style of speech that permitted him to discuss issues that he would not have otherwise been able to.

I believe the monkey video is of a similar vein. While it makes some bold, eye-catching metaphysical claims – humans are insignificant in the grand scheme of things and God, at least as far as humans conceive him, does not exist – the video’s overall purpose is focused right here on earth, where human vice and folly have run amuck. For instance, he notes the fruits of human “potential” and “cleverness” – fiber optic technology, pyramids, sky-scrapers, phantom jets, the Great Wall of China, and an American flag on the moon – have done little or anything to cure humanities’ true maladies – unhappiness, hatred, racism, religious intolerance, loneliness, and war. Indeed, our continued focus on the trivial – taller buildings, faster modes of transport, longer walls, bigger pyramids, American Idol – only serves to distract us from the reality of our situation. Moreover, the greatest opiate of all, that which allows humans to sleep peacefully at night in the face of all our follies, is the Ptolemaic notion that the entire universe was made for the inhabitants of a tiny blue rock circling a tiny star in a tiny solar system in a tiny galaxy, as though it lay at the metaphysical center of The Grand Plan, the notion that, at the end of the day, despite our countless missteps, and continual denial thereof, a benign force will set things right eventually, and we are, therefore, justified in whatever we do.

What is not immediately obvious, however, is that such a suggestion is not anti-religious, nor is it anti-god, per se. It is, however, a stinging criticism of the way in which modern religions have come to understand their gods and humanity’s place in the universe. Of course, there is no reason to believe that the way that we do religion is the only way it can be done. It is at least possible that humans can conceive of a God, the worship of which would promote peace and understanding, tolerance and acceptance. The question is, do religions today advance these goals? Or, do they, more often than not, lead to dirision, hatred, and eventually war?

One of my best friends from high school, who is an atheist, once made a similar argument that religions cause wars, which, I, at the time, strongly opposed. I countered that to the extent that religion is a factor in war, it is likely more of a post-facto justification given by governments to curry support for a war that they already deemed tactically necessary; but also, if religion did not exist as such a justification, governments would drum up some other one. But the video made me question my original stance and I wondered if I could find any evidence for-or-against the proposition that religion still causes wars, even in civilized, educated modernity. I decided to do a little research, but immediately ran into some methodological problems. What exactly constitutes a war? What should be the threshold for ‘significant’? Should I consider the religion of the government in power or the religion of the majority of a country’s citizens? But most problematically, I had no way to ascertain the single proximate cause of any war.

Having noted some methodological problems, I will nevertheless push forward and consider US armed conflicts from 1950 onwards. According to this website, there have been 13 battles matching that description. One was against a predominantly Jewish country, two were against predominantly Buddhist countries, four were against predominantly Christian countries, and 6 were/are against predominantly Muslim countries. Using that method of counting, it seems that the US is quite democratic in choosing which religions to battle against. We may even be tempted to conclude that religion is not a factor at all.

However, I quickly realized that each of the “conflicts” against Christian countries seemed to be more of the peace-keeping variety, as opposed to the war-waging variety. This fact is borne out in the number of US casualties, which, in terms of the four conflicts in Christian countries, numbered 27, 6, 19, and 23. That is to say, in the past 57 years, the US has lost a total of 75 soldiers in battles in four separate Christian countries. (The Israelis claimed nearly half as many soldiers when they mistakenly bombed an allied US navy vessel in 1967, which accounted for 33 deaths, and the only US-Israeli “conflict,” and for which, mind you, there was no US retaliation.) In contrast, battles on Muslim soil have taken over 4,500 soldiers and counting. Battles on Buddhist soil have claimed over 14,000 soldiers. And, if we are counting dollars spent, rather than lives lost, which would then include the Cold War against the atheistic USSR, then this ceases to be a comparison at all, as Christian conflicts are dwarfed effectively into non-existence. Determining causality of a war is admittedly beyond my expertise, but it appears to me that if someone wanted to make the argument that religious difference strongly correlated with the number of lives lost or the number of dollars spent in US armed conflicts since 1950, then it appears that they would have plenty of fodder on which to base their argument.

Indeed, the notion that religiosity and bellicosity are strongly correlated is not a new one. Way back when, Plato suggested that society should actively encourage a vision of a blissful afterlife, for such a conception allows citizens to be fearless in the face of death, which, consequently, makes them good soldiers. Of course, this Platonic ideal can be taken too far and has often resulted in the senseless loss of lives of both soldiers and civilians for reasons and by tactics that no rightly-conceived god (seemingly) could ever justify.

Finally, I would like to address two points that Nathan raised in his comment on the video. First, as to the video’s internal consistency, my reading of the video is that it is, indeed, consistent. Where it mentions human potential, I do not think it is with reference to a transcendent moral standard. Rather, I think he is referring to human potential with sarcasm. The word potential is punctuated with the picture of an American flag on the moon, as if to say, so what? Even our greatest achievement (arguably) still amounts to nothing! In that sense, I think the video is consistently non-transcendent. Of course, if the author was not being sarcastic when he talks about human “potential” and “cleverness,” then Nathan would be correct in his criticism. I suppose it depends on how you read it. Secondly, as to the point of whether a Nihilist can rightly claim to be the only possessor of Truth, the answer is yes, precisely because a Nihilist doesn’t believe anyone is in any better position to judge Truth. Therefore, Nietzsche can say whatever he wants, but he is a monkey, too, as the video admits, and so is Ernest Cline. If nothing else, Nihilists are rather even-handed that way. Everyone’s a fool, even the one calling everyone a fool.

Lastly, when I put up the video, I did not realize that some people may be offended at the suggestion that all gods were made up. If you are a Nihilist, you probably agree with the statement. If you are an Absolutist who thinks that your God is the only true God, then you should at least see the partial truth in the claim, as it applies to everyone but you. And finally, if you are a Relativist, who thinks that everyone is seeing different aspects of the same God, then you likely have room in your heart even for those who see an absence of god, and, besides, you are likely not easily offended, you granola-eating hippie. Just kidding. You know I love you all and did not mean anyone individually any offense. Such things are meant to provoke thought rather than offense. My apologies to those who received it otherwise. Now, who wants a baby?

Dance Monkeys

2007-09-04T17:09:00.001-04:00

I thought this was pretty interesting...

Googlemercial

2007-08-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

If you don’t use Google Reader, you’re not living life to the fullest. I’m serious. If you subscribe to many blogs that update sporadically (like mine, for instance), you need this utility. Tired of traveling all the way across the internet to your favorite blog, only to find that there was nothing new to read? Not to worry. Google Reader will tell you when anything new is posted! Tired of typing all of those w-w-w’s and can’t remember if it was a forward slash or backslash in your favorite blog’s URL? Not to worry! With Google Reader, you only have to type it in once to subscribe initially! That’s right. Set it and forget it! After that, the reader will snag the latest posts from your favorite blogs and deliver them to your email-like inbox! This may be the best invention since the remote control.

But wait! There’s more! You can clip Google Reader to your personalized google homepage, so you’d be getting real-time updates every time you open up your browser!

But wait! There’s more! Google Reader is enabled with Google Gears. What is Google Gears? It is an application that allows you to use the internet, even when you don’t have an internet connection! It essentially works like podcasting, in that it downloads what you need when you have an internet connection, so that it can be accessed when you don’t. Now you can read your blogs while commuting to work. Brilliant. Plus, this way you won’t have to get your hands dirty setting up the alternative – Google’s G-flush technology.

No purchase necessary. Just click here or click on the "subscribe" icon in the upper right hand corner of this page.

What will the good folks at Google think up next?

Taoist Proverb

2007-08-07T16:14:00.000-04:00

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
- Zhuangzi, Chapter 26.

What I Do and Do Not Remember

2007-07-30T11:56:00.000-04:00

I remember sleepovers at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I remember being given warm milk just prior to bed, because New York City was an ugly place back in the 80’s, and the chemicals in warm milk help a child sleep through the crack-heads blasting boom boxes and the gunshots splitting the night air. Indeed, I have no recollection of such things. I distinctly remember the big, white bathtub in my Aunt’s bathroom. I remember the low frequency buzz I encountered when I filled it to the top and plunged my head under water. What was that noise? And why could I only hear it when under water? I imagined that as the lights of this vast metropolis were ignited, their tiny filaments would vibrate and give off, in addition to the light, a practically inaudible sound. The massive network of copper pipes in the city’s sewer system, then, would harness all of the little tiny sounds and would, for some unknown reason, conduct them up to this eighth floor apartment, where, with the aid of my water-and-cast-iron-bathtub-receiver, I could go under and listen to my city burn. And glow.

I also remember being happy for the smell of hotdogs in the morning, back before I knew what hotdogs were made of, or cared, back when I would cover everything on my plate in ketchup.

I remember those pink strawberry frosted donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts as belonging to my childhood.

I remember walking upside down on my hands at recess and that one time I fell off the monkey bars and bumped my head. I had heard sports announcers talking about concussions, and I wondered if I had one. Because they never described what one feels like, I couldn’t be sure.

I remember when it was my turn to go up to the second floor kitchen with my nursery school teacher to help make the Kool-Aid. I remember how seriously I took the whole endeavor, how I believed all my fellow students were counting on me to mix it just right, and I remember my teacher lauding my industriousness. I’ve never again felt so self-important. I remember a little Asian girl asking me to marry her, but I can’t remember if I did.

I remember my kindergarten teacher telling us that she had just recovered from several months of blindness after a child hit her in the eye with a block. I remember her shoulder length blonde hair and the way she walked.

I remember my mother’s earnest attempt to teach me how to read 48 hours before my first day of school, so that everyone wouldn’t think I was dumb. I remember that I was then left back in first grade, if only for a day, after receiving straight F’s, at least until the school fixed its clerical error. My mother’s disgrace was only temporary compared to some other mother, who was told that her son’s A’s were actually F’s. And think of the boy, too, his unbridled joy, seeing all of those A’s on his report card, like some miracle brought to life. A Christmas in June.

I remember a Japanese friend named Mitoki in first grade. I remember that his mom made me take off my shoes when I went over to his house. I also remember that he had the neatest house you’ll ever see, which we promptly demolished during an indoor Easter Egg hunt. And I remember the perverse pleasure it gave me, at least to the extent that an eight year old can feel such a thing.

I remember that up to a certain point in elementary school, girls were just these relatively tall people that couldn’t throw a ball very well. I remember the girl in 4th grade that changed that. And I remember when, in sixth grade, I developed my first real crush on a girl, who, interestingly enough, could throw quite well, and who would teach me what it felt like to be reduced to a babbling mess, to be wholly uninteresting in another person’s eyes, and for that not to make one difference.

I remember the blue ring around my god-father’s dark brown irises. When he touched my head, they gave me his name, and told me that I would come to bare his character. I remember how they spoke of him like some hero out of a children’s book, and I wondered how I could live up to that. I still do.

I remember my mom’s eldest brother, how he was tall and sinewy, how he taught me the art of catching butterflies, fireflies, and dragonflies, all kinds of flies really, and how he taught me to swim, if only well enough not to die. We knew, I suspect, that he, for his part, would die soon, but I remember how it crushed my mother. It may have crushed her more than when her own parents, in turn, passed away. Perhaps because his death was first. Or perhaps because it was too early. Or perhaps because she knew that they would have to bury him and that there are few greater injustices in this world than for a parent to bury a child. For my part, I was relatively unaffected by the death of my grandparents, because I did not know them very well. My greatest sadness in the matter was when my mother told me that my dad, ever the stoic, upon receiving news of his mother’s passing, himself wept. Lessons of loss, to this point, I suppose, have been learned vicariously.

I remember the green grass at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows. I remember how I’d wear my mitt for all nine innings, hoping to catch a fly ball. This, despite the fact that we were so far up in the upper deck that even Casey himself could not reach us, not even with the benefit of two swings of his Mighty bat. I remember my mom, bless her heart, becoming a Met fan to connect with her son. And I remember penciling in the box score to show her when she returned from work. When I went off to college, she predictably stopped following baseball altogether, but every once in awhile, an old neuron will shake off the dust and fire, and she’ll ask me; “So, how are the Mets doing?” And just like that, it’s 1988 again. And one of these days, I suppose, they’ll win it all. And I’ll call my mom and tell her that we finally did it. The New York Metropolitans. My mother and I. World Champions.

I remember the hot July sun and how sometimes, as if for no reason at all, and without a single cloud in the sky, the rains would mysteriously begin to fall and just as suddenly stop. It was as if someone had nodded off at the control center, if only for a minute.

I remember the smell of snow in the New York air on the afternoon the trade towers were first bombed. My junior high school principle allowed us to go home early.

I remember that beautiful spring afternoon in college, when my favorite philosophy professor announced to the class that a kid in our class, the night previous, had taken his own life. I always wondered if things would have gone differently if, a week prior, when I had seen him at the gas station he worked at, I had told him that of all the kids in that class, he was the only one that I thought ‘got it’ better than I did, that I valued the contributions he made to class, and that one day I hope to be as well-read as him. I remember really feeling that way about him. And I remember, after receiving the news of his passing, wondering the implications of those facts. I cannot remember the kid's name, but I distinctly remember the way he pronounced the name Jean-Paul Sartre.

I remember my small victories on the athletic field much more so than my larger victories in academic arenas. I remember my one and only time on the all-star team in little league. I didn’t have a hit, but I did make a sparkling diving catch to my left from shortstop. It almost made me feel like I belonged there. I remember being on the mound and striking out the last batter in our junior high school championship game. And I remember throwing my mitt skyward, like I had seen on TV, which is the way that I perhaps even rehearsed it in my head, as though I had been waiting for such a moment all my young life, the way a caterpillar might daydream of what it must feel like to fly.

I remember getting a pencil tip stuck in my knee. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, because most American pencil manufacturers, by that time, had made the switch from dangerous lead cores to innocuous graphite cores, which would have been all these was to tell, except that we purchased these pencils from an airport in Munich. As a result, there was some concern over whether or not I would make it. My mom, who was then a nurse, and my brother, who would grow up to be a doctor of some renown, performed their first surgery together and extracted the lead tip without having to amputate my leg. They would perform their second surgery together a few weeks later when a black ant somehow managed to bury his head in that same knee. I survived; the ant did not.

I remember family trips to Niagra Falls, Hershey Park, Boston, and Disney World. I remember wanting to go over the Falls in a barrel. I remember eating so much chocolate I became sick. I remember getting caught in a blizzard so bad that we could not see but a foot in front of the windshield. Suddenly, on an otherwise unassuming winter afternoon in New England, our automobile seemed thrust into the perpetual battle between the iridescent and the monochromatic, itself an allegory for Good and Evil, and surely we were doomed, until Spring arrived, as it always does, just in time, to save us. But Spring, herself appearing to have a flair for the dramatic, waits patiently, or doesn't it seem, just long enough for the audience to begin to doubt whether or not She'll make it this time, to question whether or not this Winter will be the one that lasts forever. But I remember that snowy afternoon, before things got better, and how brilliant the inside of the 1988 Toyota Camry looked in a world that had become an overexposed negative. I remember eating dinner in a Princess’ Castle. I remember the weight and immensity of that over-sized wooden goblet, which my seven year old arms steadily tried to touch to my lips.

I do not remember having gotten old. Still, somehow, I can remember an entire lifetime. But this is enough. For now.

Guru Wanted

2007-07-29T23:50:00.000-04:00

I’ve recently discovered Guru.com: "the world's largest marketplace for freelance talent." It’s basically an amped-up version of the Craig’s List help-wanted section. You put up a post about what you need and people from all over the world bid for the job. I put up an ad for someone to take over here at Donkey’s Clubhouse. A writer from Thailand named Sirikit agreed to be my ghost writer for 6 Bahts per post, which is roughly equivalent to 20 cents American. Personally, I think I’m overpaying, especially in light of the sub-standard quality of work we’ve grown accustomed to here. But I think she’s the perfect person to replace me. Sirikit is a housewife from the province of Samut Sakhon, enjoys attending Muay Thai (Thai boxing) matches, loves the color purple, is fluent in Thai and has a “working knowledge” of English - all characteristics I would possess, if I was Thai. See, she’s perfect!

Also, Sirikit says that if you’re a reader of this blog, she’ll cut you a deal on any dissertations you need her to write on your behalf. She tells me that she’s an expert on all subjects, and who am I to doubt her?

Anyway, Sirikit, welcome. I’m looking forward to reading what “I” will be writing from now on.

Looking Under the Bed

2007-07-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

Have you ever noticed that if you have a particular subject on your mind, you seem to encounter things in life that speak to that subject directly?

Take for instance yesterday’s post about how religion has gone wrong by focusing too much on ideas rather than deeds. This afternoon, I went to Amazon to buy a book of poetry by Tony Hoagland. They suggested that I might like a book by a guy named Bob Hicok, of whom I had never heard. I looked up some of his poetry on Plagairist and found one entitled, “By Their Works,” about the waitress that served the Last Supper. She observes of subsequent patrons: “What a mess they’ve made of their faith” with all their talk of “Rome and silk and crucifications.” She contrasts their manner of speaking with the way Jesus acted toward her. Interesting.

Consider also that today’s episode on my new favorite podcast, The Writer’s Almanac hosted by Garrison Keillor, focused extensively on the work of Karl Popper, who was born on this day in 1902. Though I’m not familiar with Popper’s writing, I learned that in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies, “(Popper) argued that political leaders like Stalin and Hitler shared a mindset with philosophers like Plato and Marx in that they all believed that ideas were more important than individual people.” You’ll note that this is precisely the same criticism I levied against the Church in yesterday’s post: the church’s decision to focus on ideas made their subsequent human rights abuses almost inevitable.

And while the degree of parallel between my post yesterday and this morning’s episode of the Writer’s Almanac is interesting, it is dwarfed by the measure of coincidence shared by this blog and a previous episode of that same show. I went back and listened to the episode from June 18th, which, if you scroll down, you will note was my birthday. On that day, the poet being featured was no other than one Tony Hoagland, whose book I was to purchase this morning, when this whole ball of happenstance starting tumbling. Not only that! But the last time I mentioned Amazon, or Tony Hoagland for that matter, was back on August 21st, shortly after I purchased the book containing the very poem Garrison Keillor would later read on my birthday. The title of the book, if you recall, is, dun dun dun. Donkey Gospel. That’s right, Garrison Keillor, who, by at least one internet account, is the son of Batman, knew to read from Donkey Gospel to commemorate my birthday!

Because all happy accidents desire to be ruined by explanation, and because I have Rives’ presentation - also from yesterday’s post – on my mind, I’m working on a theory that Garrison Keillor is hiding under my bed and stealing my thoughts. He then sells them to Amazon or the American Poetry Foundation after somehow employing Google advertising. I’m still working out the kinks, but I think I’m on to something.

Dan Gilbert, in anticipation of this very post, I suspect, wrote a book that attempts to explain our tendency to attend to aspects of our environment that relate to matters already on the brain: “The brain and the eye may have a contractual relationship in which the brain has agreed to believe what the eye sees, but in return the eye has agreed to look for what the brain wants.” Gilbert draws his conclusion based on years of empirical research, which, to him, suggests that people have a very difficult time being truly objective, because their pre-cognitive biases determine which facts to attend to and which to ignore. This may, in part, explain why humans have a tendency to stumble upon so many coincidences. A fair point. However, in my defense, I’d like to point out that most of Gilbert’s research is conducted via questionnaires distributed to Harvard undergraduate students, and as far as I know, he is yet to look under my bed to determine what is or is not there.

Conspiracies Abound!

2007-07-27T18:00:00.001-04:00