Jumble

Posted on October 19, 2017 by John Swinburn

I have more things to say than I can put into words.
My thoughts are jumbled, random, unconnected.
I’m soaked in confusion, amplified by world events
and streaked with fear and anger, and muddled by beads of
hope so small I think they have little chance of
surviving the turmoil and chaos of raw bewilderment
that cascades down my brain like a waterfall.

Posted in Poetry, Writing | Leave a comment

Pendulum

Posted on October 9, 2017 by John Swinburn

The bob of our pendulum is a razor sharp disk,
cutting the air with its long swings before
gravity and time curtail its trajectory,
when it cuts our ties with time and
severs the cables that bind us to this life.

Mathematicians and physicists calculate the
motions of pendula, predicting with certainty
the moment at which gravity and mass and friction
conspire to end their movements, turning
motion into stillness, cousin of death.

No calculus can forecast the moment at which
the bob of our pendulum will cease its
relentless pursuit of a goal we cannot
understand, a thirst for something language
cannot describe, for words never reach the end.

Posted in Poetry, Writing | Leave a comment

Bless Our Souls

Posted on October 7, 2017 by John Swinburn

David Brooks is a New York Times op-ed columnist and frequent guest on NPR and PBS programs. In my view, he usually holds centrist Republican viewpoints, though he tends to run a little more left of center than what I used to consider Republican perspectives. Today, he tends to run considerably more than a little left of center when compared to what I hear from Republicans in Congress. But he’s no progressive, by any means. At least not in my view. The fact that he’s so rational in stating his positions, especially when they are counter to mine, is one of the reasons I respect him. Some of my left-leaning friends revile him as a Republican puppet; I see nothing like that in him. My perspectives usually differ sharply from his. But something he wrote in his New York Times op-ed yesterday, brought to my attention by a friend, entitled “Guns and the Soul of America” really resonates with me.

Brooks cited research that indicated explosive growth in the percentage of Americans who supported gun rights and a drop in the percentage supporting gun control. In 2000, according to a Pew survey, 29 percent of Americans supported more gun rights and 67 percent supported more gun control. By 2016, 52 percent supported more gun rights and 46 percent supported more gun control.  Brooks contends that the reason for the shift is that industrialization swept over the country more than a century ago. Monetary policy became the proxy for the fight over values and identify ushered in by industrialization. The tensions between people in agriculture and industry and those outside those spheres has been growing ever since. Though he didn’t say it, I think Brooks would argue that technology in recent years has exacerbated the divide, causing people in agricultural and industrial America to feel that their way of life is being threatened by postindustrial society. Brooks says their fear is legitimate.  Members of those threatened segments have seized on issues like guns, immigration, and the flag as launchpads for their attack (“counterassault,” to use Brooks’ term) on postindustrialization’s attack on their cultural values and identity. Guns, he says, are a proxy for broader matters and simply represent a touch point for larger social issues.

Brooks asserts that the only way to address the divide “is to forge some sort of synthesis
on the larger postindustrialization/populism war.” He does not suggest how to forge that synthesis, but I wrote the following to my friend about my reaction to the article:

My gut tells me it might begin with a lessening of the shrill screams on “my” side of the argument about guns and hyper-patriotism/nationalism. Acknowledging that people “might” have legitimate concerns about cultural dislocations involving things like gun rights, respect for the flag, etc., could temper the rage that seems white-hot on the right. But, at the same time, I think it’s important that what I believe are legitimate positions of the left and the moderate center not be dismissed.

Acknowledgement must not equate to acquiescence. I suspect the fervor of progressives, particularly those on the far-left fringes of progressivism, has in part fueled the fear of people who find themselves at the opposite end of the spectrum. The same is true, though, at the other end of the spectrum. When I see alt-right demonstrations that seem intent on instilling fear in progressives, I find that they work; and I become more intent at calling out what I consider stupidity, racism, irrational nationalist fervor, etc., etc., etc.

The solution eludes me. Frankly, I’m not sure there is one. But I am as close to certain as I can be that ratcheting up the tensions by moving more and more toward opposite poles will do nothing but make things worse. Perhaps a chorus of intelligent, rational, centrist voices from inside our political system would help. First, we’d have to find those intelligent, rational, centrists and put them in office. Perhaps a chorus of intelligent, rational, centrist voices from inside other social institutions would help. Churches, the news media, well-regarded authors and actors and others who really ought not so heavily influence our culture but do, nonetheless.

It ought to be obvious that screaming and name-calling and accusations thrown at a group of people will generate like responses from the targets of abuse. But we (and I include myself in that “we”) tend not to think in response to such barrages but, instead, to react. So it should come as no surprise to progressives that our shrill reactions to shrill voices will generate responses that are even angrier and more shrill. Conservatives ought not be surprised when progressives react the same way. But we’ve all allowed our emotions, not our intellects, to rule our responses. As a result, the people on both sides of the divide who do not think for themselves but, instead, allow others to think for them, just get louder and louder and more and more firmly ensconced in their positions.

Who are those rational leaders who will guide us out of the darkness? I wish I knew. Let me think on it through my fingers. From the “left,” I’m having a bit of a difficult time. As much as I agree with the ideals set forth by people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, their hyper-partisan words prove to me they are not the ones. The place to look for possible candidates in Congress is among those Democrats and Independents castigated by those further left as “turncoats.” The place to look for possible candidates on the right is among those Republicans and Independents castigated by those further right as “turncoats.” That is, moderates.  Ideal candidates would be Democrats elected in traditionally Republican states and vice versa. People already on the national scene might include people like John Kasich, Governor of Ohio, and John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado. Ohio has been a swing state (that went for Trump in 2016 but for Obama in 2012). Colorado has gone between Republican and Democrat in elections past, voting Democrat in 2016. Hickenlooper is a Democrat but one, I would argue, who could be considered moderate on many issues. There’s been talk in the media that he and John Kasich might be members of a two-party ticket in 2020.

Whether the two Johns join forces or not, they could be among voices nationally who might soften the conversations about guns, patriotism, etc. Both of them already have targets on their backs by people at the fringes of their respective parties, but they might be able to temper the conversations. Despite the massive numbers of posts on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, I believe the vast majority of Americans have more moderate voices than their more vocal cohorts. Perhaps, just perhaps, the more moderate people who refrain from joining the political conversations (or, the fray, as it were) might just join in and insist on respectful conversations in which facts matter more than volume and in which civility counts more than contempt.

David Brooks’ article was about guns and the soul of America. Bless our souls. Does America even have one?

 

Posted in Essay, Politics | Leave a comment

Mom’s Birthday

Posted on September 28, 2017 by John Swinburn

My mother was forty-five years old when I, the sixth child, was born. I cannot even imagine the stresses she must have endured, rearing six children from birth through young adulthood. Each of us required at least eighteen years of discipline, instruction, tolerance, and of course love. That is the equivalent of one hundred and eight years devoted to her children. She would have been one hundred and nine years old today if she were still alive. But she died at age seventy-eight. It’s hard for me to believe that she’s been gone thirty-one years.  And it’s stunning for me to finally realize she gave her children more time than she had to give. On this, her birthday, I offer another reminder of one of her favorite flowers, yellow roses.

Posted in Family, Love | 1 Comment

Gingerly Approaching a Moroccan Cooking Binge

Posted on September 3, 2017 by John Swinburn

Last night, our meal’s main course was Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemon, Olives, and Harissa. I made the harissa, which delivers one of my favorite flavors,the day before. I served the chicken over brown rice, alongside a few cucumber spears, some sliced tomatoes, and sweet peppers. I was generally satisfied with the meal, but not as thrilled as I had hoped and expected. I think it was the brown rice; its consistency wasn’t quite right. Perhaps my lower-than-expected satisfaction derived from the fact that the fresh ginger I used wasn’t really fresh. I bought it a week or more ago and wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. When I unwrapped it yesterday to grate it, I discovered that it had deteriorated considerably. Though I was able to salvage enough for the recipe, I question whether the stuff was adequate for the task. My experience with the unsatisfactory ginger led me to explore the “best” ways to preserve fresh ginger. My research suggests these as the best ways:

  1. Plant fresh, unpeeled ginger in potting soil. That, from what I’ve read, will keep it quite fresh and will probably result in the growth of some foliage.
  2. Place fresh, unpeeled ginger in a zip-lock bag, squeezed to remove as much air as possible, and put the bag in the refrigerator’s vegetable crisper.
  3. Immerse peeled ginger in a glass jar of vodka.

All three methods, according to the sources I found, will keep the ginger fresh for at least eight weeks.

I discarded the ginger left over after I made last night’s meal. So, I need to add ginger to the shopping list, along with ground coriander seed. I’m sure there’s more. But that will do for now.

My current fixation on Moroccan food shows no signs of diminution. For breakfast this morning, I used last night’s leftovers, which actually tasted better today than last night. I plan to make several other Moroccan dishes in the weeks to come, provided my wife does not tired of my experimentation. On the menus will be: Lamb with Couscous, Moroccan-Style Spiced Shrimp, Chickpea and Tomato Stew, and Méchoui of Lamb with Charmoula. I made enough harissa to last through all of them, provided I do not use it first in any number of other dishes I think would benefit from its rich, spicy flavor. The odds are good I’ll have to make another batch (or two) long before I get through the menus.

This morning, we’re attending the annual “water ceremony” at the Unitarian Universalist church. It will be our first “water ceremony.” My gut tells me it will be far too woo-woo for my taste, but we shall see. I’ll wager no one in the church this morning, aside from my favorite wife and me, had home-made Moroccan food last night. I’ll even up the ante and wager than no one else had the same breakfast we had this morning, either.

I’m getting slightly better at writing by speaking, but I still can’t seem to do fiction that way. I long for my wrist, arm, and shoulder to get over whatever it is that’s bothering them. Tomorrow, I may seek out a chiropractor.

Posted in Food | Leave a comment

Clenched

Posted on August 24, 2017 by John Swinburn

Dangling from a mesquite shrub on the edge of a cliff, nothing below me but sharp rocks a thousand feet below, I reach up for that helping hand that’s not there. It’s dark here on the precipice, dark and lonely, a single grip away from salvation or eternity. I hear the sounds of stones hitting the rocks far below, pebbles that slid with me to the edge but, unlike me, weren’t saved by a stunted tree whose relentless determination to survive allowed it to live in a place unfit for survival. My right hand, the only thing between me and death, is losing its grip on the branch. My left hand, reaching up must appear to the circling vultures to be waving at them, calling to them to wait just a little longer. “Your meal will be available shortly.”

Why did I come, alone, to the desolate landscape of southern Arizona? Why did I climb those cliffs and expose myself to rattlesnakes and demonic heat? Why was I so careless with that last step, the one that resulted in my slide down the steep slope to the edge? I allow myself these pointless thoughts instead of struggling to pull myself up.

“Hold on! We’re lowering a rope!” The voice must be in my head. I am alone. No one is here.

“When the rope gets to you, grab it!” It’s unmistakable. It’s a human voice. A woman’s voice.

I reply. “I can’t see you. Where is the rope?”

“It’s almost there. You’ll see it in a second.”

And then I see it. It’s a thick hemp rope, a good inch thick.  As it gets closer to me, I see that it’s tied like a hangman’s noose.

Her voice spills over me again. “See it? Grab it and put it around your neck. We’ll pull you up.”

I grab the rope with my left hand and slip it over my neck as instructed.

“Okay. I’ve got it.”

“Let go of the tree.”

Sweat drenches the bed. My chest moves with labored breathing. My heart beats fast. I try to speak, but my mouth is frozen in fear. But I’m alive. And my dream is just that. My right hand cramps from the grip on that tiny mesquite limb.

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Leave a comment

Mourning, Anger, and Bleak Despair

Posted on August 18, 2017 by John Swinburn

Today, this day after the monstrous attacks in Barcelona and other parts of Spain, I mourn for the dead and injured and their friends and families. And I mourn for civilization, an experiment our species going terribly wrong. We are collectively breeding monsters and religious zealots whose beliefs are so utterly appalling that they merit nothing but contempt. It’s not just the religious, either. It’s the racists and misogynists and bigots of every stripe that claim to protect “their own” but who, instead, do everything in their power to denigrate and enslave people who do not share their skin tones or twisted sense of morality. Fear and anger, fueled by the narcissist in the White House, contribute to the swirl of ugliness that’s enveloping our country and the world as a whole. I read, a short while ago, that the victims of the attacks in Spain are from thirty-four countries. The psychotic bastards who conduct these attacks are killing and injuring people at random, without concern as to who they are. For all they know, their own families could be among the crowds they attack. These monsters are living, breathing representations of human garbage. Try as I might, I cannot find it in myself to understand their motives; I cannot find it in myself to think these people could ever be “rehabilitated.” The deserve, at best, to rot in solitary concrete cells, fed just enough so they don’t starve and never allowed to venture more than four feet from the sandpaper mat on which they sleep. Yes, it’s revenge, I suppose. And it’s punishment. And it shows not an ounce of mercy on my part. Today, I feel no mercy for the perpetrators of the attacks in Spain, nor for the domestic terrorist who took the life of Heather Heyer. For that matter, I have no compassion for the hordes of white supremacists and their ilk who stormed Charlottesville, Virginia, provoking the counter demonstrators with their nazi salutes and shouts of “blood and soil.” The chant of blood and soil  is an adaptation of the nazi chant of Blut und Boden, which signifies ‘purity’ and ‘homeland.’ What pitiful scum of the earth. 

Despair. That describes what I feel.

Posted in Rant | Leave a comment

Desierto

Posted on August 16, 2017 by John Swinburn

I watched Desierto tonight. It’s not an uplifting film. It’s an action/horror film whose premise is that a group of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the U.S. are forced to abandon the truck in which they are being transported. Because the truck broke down, they must walk. A deranged man who patrols the border with his dog, looking for rabbits to kill, stumbles upon them and, with the help of Tracker, the dog, tracks them down and kills most of them, one by one. The entire film follows the murderer as he takes immigrants out with a high-powered rifle. The ending, even though it’s satisfying to the extent that the criminal bastard gets his (at least we think), is not satisfying. It’s a depressing film that ruins an evening. It did not help that, for the first 45 minutes, most of it was in Spanish that, try as I might, I could not understand because the voices were so low and my translation skills remain badly rusted, with some holes through the walls of my translation pipes. After 45 minutes, I discovered that my “display subtitles” had been turned off. The remainder of the film made more sense, but did nothing to improve my opinion of it. It wasn’t bad, really, but it was most assuredly not good in the sense I wish it had been.

 

Posted in Film | Leave a comment

A Taste of the Globe

Posted on August 16, 2017 by John Swinburn

My global gastronomical journey restarted yesterday afternoon when my sister-in-law came to the house with a bottle of Babich sauvignon blanc, some grapes, crackers, and a couple of cheeses. We added to the feast with garlic-and-jalapeño-stuffed olives. As we sat at the dining table, looking out over the back deck to the trees and distant fields, I said it felt much like our experience last year with my brothers and sister and sister-in-law in France. Just whiling away an afternoon with conversation and wine and simple foods. I remembered the markets in the south of France where we bought olives and meat and bread and vegetables. And images flashed in my mind of huge outdoor markets where we saw more fresh seafood and fresh vegetables and spices than I’d ever seen before. It was exquisite. The recollections of France and the experience of seeing and buying and eating food propelled more thoughts of foods I want to make.

I wrote above that my journey restarted yesterday; it began while we were visiting friends in Fort Smith recently. There, we talked food as we often do and the conversation turned to paella. I expressed a desire to own a paella pan and an even stronger desire to have access to fresh seafood like mussels and shrimp and squid and octopus and to a source of saffron. My generous friends offered to let us borrow their paella pan. We declined, but said when we find a source for fresh seafood suitable for paella, we will invite them to rush down to visit and bring the paella pan with them.

In today’s mail we found an issue of Food & Wine dedicated to Spain. Any discussion of Spanish food includes the obligatory conversation about paella and tapas, and the issue that came in today’s mail does address those dishes. But it covers so much more. Reading it made me long for queso manchego, jamón Ibérico, grilled octopus (pulpo), and dozens of other dishes. I may get serious about learning more about foods from different countries and cultures and cooking and serving them in our home. I might have to translate the name of our kitchen, which we call French Kangaroo, to canguro francés or kangourou français or, because I’ve been quite enamored with Moroccan cuisine of late, الكنغر الفرنسي.

 

Posted in Food | Leave a comment

A Diverse Ending

Posted on August 15, 2017 by John Swinburn

We saw the  Earth shudder when the first nuclear blast took place. Though we were only a few hundred miles above Earth, we could tell something ghastly was happening below us. The Earth winced, like a person stabbed with a sharp knife. Subsequent nuclear blasts popped up like measles spots in rapid succession, painting the surface of the planet I once called home with seething pockmarks. Even from space, we first heard Earth’s sigh, as if it was taking in news of its child’s death. And then we heard the shriek. The shriek of a planet undergoing transformation. A shriek so loud and so hideous that it never leaves the ear. It is imprinted on the brain as if it were burned into the psyche with a hot branding iron. That shriek told us all we needed to know. There was no going home again. We could either perish in the space station or we could take the spacecrafts designed to return us to Earth and use them to seek out other places to live the rest of our days. That’s what we did. Three former U.S. citizens, two former Russian citizens, and one former Italian citizen. We launched within ten hours of the nuclear holocaust below us. We left, not knowing whether our families were alive or dead, but assuming they were dead or dying. The horrors of an all-out global thermonuclear war were obvious to us; there was nothing to return to. And so we headed out, looking for something or someone who may or may not exist.

 

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Leave a comment

Who Are We?

Posted on August 13, 2017 by John Swinburn

Calvin stood motionless as he observed the magnificent beast walk past him, just a few feet away. Apparently, the unicorn did not see Calvin. Otherwise, the animal would have bolted. Instead, it was the picture of serenity as it grazed on fresh clover. The creature’s back shuddered from time to time,  spraying morning dew that had gathered on its haunches into the air. Calving reached over his shoulder and, in slow motion so as not to draw the beast’s attention, drew an arrow from the quiver hanging on his back. He slipped the knock of the arrow into the bow string, carefully placed the shaft in the arrow rest,  and pulled back on the string.

What in the name of God am I doing? I’m about to kill a unicorn. This is insane.

Whether it was his thought or the motions of his arms that triggered the unicorn’s response, something alerted the animal to his presence. Suddenly, the unicorn raised its head. Its neck turned toward Calvin and its eyes fixed on him. In less than the time it takes to blink, the rampant beast was on Calvin, its hooves pummeling him. It knocked Calvin to the ground and stepped on the bow, snapping it in pieces like a matchstick. The animal drew back and lowered its head and then charged toward Calvin. The spiral horn punctured Calvin’s chest, piercing his sternum and snapping his spine before exiting his back. It raised its head with Calvin impaled on its horn. Spinning its head in semi-circles, the beast cast Calvin’s body into the air. Its gleaming white horn covered with Calvin’s blood, the animal rushed toward the creek. It dipped its horn into the rushing water and rinsed away the blood.

The unicorn lived to a ripe old age. Never again did it encounter humans carrying hunting paraphernalia. It died in its sleep on a winter evening many years later, after a delightful dinner of clover and spring water. Calvin, as you might have guessed, died before he was cast off the animal’s horn. We don’t know who mourned his death; perhaps no one did. And we have no idea why he was in the enchanted forest with a bow and arrow. Actually, we don’t even know where this enchanted forest is. And we have no information about Calvin’s surname; we assume he had one, but that’s not certain. The newspaper accounts of his demise have yet to be written. Perhaps in another time his obituary will appear in a small-town newspaper; that might reveal something about his background, his family, and other tidbits about his life that will make his passing more meaningful than it has been heretofore. What we do know about Calvin is this: we know his first name, we know he carried a bow and a quiver of arrows, and we know he was about to kill a unicorn before having second thoughts about such an undertaking. And we know he died, impaled on the unicorn’s horn. Why should we care about Calvin? And why should we care about the unicorn? The answers to those questions rest not with logic, but with whatever generic empathy we hide deep in our hearts. Maybe it’s there. Maybe it’s not. If we live our lives in accord with soulless logic, the tragedy of Calvin and the unicorn that killed him do not matter. Nothing does. And that’s the pity of it, isn’t it?

Posted in Fiction, Philosophy, Writing | Leave a comment

Blue Eyes

Posted on August 12, 2017 by John Swinburn

Her penetrating eyes were talons. Once they had him in their grip, he was helpless. Though he was a victim, he was willing prey. He treasured every glance, every sweep of her eyes across his face. She knew the power of her gaze and she used it with aplomb. When she looked directly in his eyes, he felt she was reading his thoughts. Or that she was planting ideas in his mind, ideas her husband mustn’t ever know were there. She controlled him with her beautiful blue eyes, those emissaries of longing that burrowed into his soul as easily as a hot knife slices through butter. Her stare could bring a smile to his lips. And just as quickly, her eyes could arouse in him a palpable desire so fervent he could barely control himself. But he had to. Her husband and his wife weren’t blind; if he allowed his stoic face to waiver, revealing molten desire, carnage would follow.

Trying my hand at writing a bodice-ripper paragraph.

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Leave a comment

Five Years

Posted on August 10, 2017 by John Swinburn

This post, number 2415, marks the fifth anniversary of this blog: August 10, 2012 marked my first post here. I’d written hundreds of other posts on other blogs I’d started years earlier, but that first post on a blog that bore (and bears) my name seemed special. By obtaining a URL representing my name, and by committing to a year of hosting, I felt that I was doing something special. And I was. I acknowledged to myself that I called myself a writer. I’d been a writer long before that, but I was afraid to acknowledge it, for fear of being “found out” as someone who writes, but who’s not really a “writer.” A writer, in my view, was someone who wrote AND published. An author, in other words. A writer who had not been published was not serious. Not committed. Not good enough to call himself a writer. I’ve gotten over most of that. I’m serious about writing. I’m committed to writing—my writing—but I’m not sure I’m sufficiently committed to the craft that I’m willing to sacrifice a great deal of my time to improve my skills. And I’m not sure I’m truly good enough to call myself a writer, at least not good enough to consider myself a writer in the same league as one whose books I might buy. I realize that lack of self-esteem as a writer is no help to me. And I realize, from time to time, I’m better than I often think. Sometimes, I read what I’ve written and I’m delighted to have written it; proud that the words spilled from my fingers in the order they did, in just the right context and with near-perfect relation to the ideas I was trying to convey. Here’s to more of those instances of pride and delight. Five years on, I’m still writing and I’m relatively sure that will continue for the foreseeable future. As I plod along, stitching together what I’ve written in to what I hope is a coherent whole, I’ll remember to be proud on occasion that I’ve gotten this far. If nothing else, I’ve developed a modicum of discipline.

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment

Cars

Posted on August 6, 2017 by John Swinburn

I drove a car, which my neighbor had borrowed  from a friend, to the gas station. Actually, he had traded vehicles with another friend; he had let his friend use his nondescript sedan in exchange for the use of his friend’s RV. It’s a long, convoluted story, but I’ll tell it the best I can.

My neighbor wanted to take a vacation in an RV. His friend who owned an RV agreed to let my neighbor use his. I agreed to look out after my neighbor’s house while he was away. The day after he and his wife left, I was inside his house, watering plants, when they returned. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.

“Jesus, you scared the hell out of me! What are you doing back so soon?”

“It’s a long, ugly story. We discovered, during a monstrous downpour, the windshield wipers don’t work. And something’s wrong with the shocks; Jenny got motion sickness just being in the passenger seat for an hour. And I got too close to the side as we were crossing a bridge and broke off the side rear view mirror. There’s more. Lots more. We just decided we’d had enough. It’s gonna cost me a fortune to have the damn RV fixed, so I can’t afford to take a vacation. Anyway, I left the RV at the shop to get it fixed. I borrowed another buddy’s car to tide me over.”

“I’m not sure I completely understand what you just told me, but I get the gist of it. I’m sorry that happened. But your plants are doing fine.” I nodded to the geraniums, water pooling in the saucers beneath the pots in which they were growing.

“Since you’re here, would you mind doing me another favor and taking the car down to get gas? It’s almost empty. I would have stopped to gas it up, but I would have had to cross heavy traffic and I was just fried.” My neighbor held out a set of car keys, assuming I would take them. I did.

“Sure, happy to. Anyway, you’re parked behind me, so I can’t get to my car.”

I pulled on the door of the 1980 Corvette, surprised at how hard it was to open. It felt heavy; an unfriendly introduction to the car. When I sat down, the leather seat was hard and unyielding, as if petrified from non-use. The engine started easily, but I heard the unmistakable sound of consistent misfires as I pressed on the accelerator. I coerced the monster into reverse and backed out of the driveway. The steering wheel fought with me as I tried to maneuver the car into the street.

My neighbor watched me drive away. He must have wondered why I turned right instead of left at the stop sign.  So did I. There are no gas stations in that direction. The moment I made the turn, I realized my mistake. I’ll have to make a u-turn up ahead, I said to myself. Because I was driving a Corvette, I expected the car to respond assertively when I punched the accelerator to the floor. Instead, it coughed and heaved and, very very slowly, gained speed. When I neared the spot where I wanted to make the u-turn, I pressed on the brake pedal. It was just as responsive as the accelerator. The car seemed reluctant to slow down, so I pushed harder as I spun the steering wheel to the left. Somehow, I managed to catch my sleeve on the turn signal lever as I whipped the wheel. The stalk broke off and slid into my sleeve. Distracted by the mishap, I failed to notice that the turning radius of a 1980 Corvette is radically greater than the turning radius of a 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier. The car jumped the curb on the opposite side of the street, jarring me to my core and, I discovered later, bending the wheel rim. The front bumper barely missed a palm tree, but the grass in front of the tree was torn to shreds by the car’s tires. I looked in the rear view mirror as I straightened the car in the street to see a box truck barreling toward me at high speed. I punched the accelerator to the floor. Again, the car coughed and wheezed, but then suddenly took off like a rocket.

According to the police officer, the car had reached sixty-five miles per hour by the time it reached the far end of the school zone. Fortunately, I missed the children in the cross-walk, but that apparently was not enough of a positive outcome for him to give me a pass. The officer, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, pushed me into the back of the squad car, lacking the decency to hold my head down in the process. The bleeding stopped shortly after we arrived at the police station, but the lump remained for weeks.

I offered to pay to have the turn signal stalk repaired, but I stood firm on refusing to pay for the wheel rim; it’s my contention that I should have been told about the large turning radius.

I’ve received no response to my phone messages. And every time I knock on my neighbors’ door, they turn out the lights and draw the shades. And, yes, it’s okay for me to go as far as next door. The ankle monitor sends an alert only if I go more than two hundred feet from my house.

Posted in Fiction, Writing | 2 Comments

Smoked Jerky

Posted on August 5, 2017 by John Swinburn

Jerky in the rawIf the Universe is decent, kind, and caring, these strips of eye of round I marinated for twenty-four hours will be—seven hours hence—delicious, mouth-watering beef jerky. The kind of jerky I used to seek out on long, aimless road trip through Central Texas.

I put these strips of meat in the 170°F smoker, stoked with mesquite chips,  a quarter of an hour ago.  Soon, the smoker will reveal occasional wisps of smoke, signaling the start of the process of drying and gently cooking the meat. During that time, the aroma of mesquite will meld with the beef and its marinade (sugar, salt, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, jalapeño, cumin, garlic, etc.). The result—again, if the Universe is decent, kind, and caring—will be a joyous experience one has no right to expect, but for which one is eternally grateful (if one is fortunate enough to have the process conclude as desired). I may post photos of the result of my experiment. This, my first effort to make jerky, shan’t be my last.

Posted in Food | Leave a comment

Seductive Spices

Posted on August 4, 2017 by John Swinburn

“What the hell are we going to do with three pounds of goat shoulder?” Geneva’s tone revealed her doubts about the gift from Jacob’s friend, Katrina.

Jacob flashed a conciliatory grin at her. “You needn’t worry about it, darling. I’ll figure something out. And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”

Geneva scowled at the package Jacob had placed on the counter, then at Jacob. “Fine. But if I don’t like it, I’ll expect you to buy me dinner out. I’m not going to pretend to like it just because she’s your friend. Katrina is a little weird, if you ask me. Anybody who raises goats just to kill them and eat their corpses is a little ‘off.’ And it’s even more bizarre when they give pieces of the dead animal to their friends.”

Jacob smiled as he said, “You’d think you were a vegetarian from the way you talk. I’ve seen you greedily rip the meat off baby back ribs like you’d been trained by a hyena.”

His smile was not returned. Geneva stalked out of the kitchen, leaving Jacob in peace to figure out what to do with the unexpected gift.

“Well,” he said to himself, aloud, “I know she likes Vietnamese goat curry. But we’ve got no lemongrass and there’s not enough coriander seeds. Hmm.”

Jacob pawed through the spice cabinet, then rummaged through the pantry and the dry vegetable drawers, pulling items out of each. Then, he foraged the refrigerator. When he’d finished, the counter was littered with ingredients: cooking oil, the salt container, a large can of curry powder, a jar of allspice, a tin of thyme, two onions, two habanero peppers, a piece of ginger root, a can of coconut milk, a can of crushed tomatoes, and five Yukon Gold potatoes.

After all the ingredients he wanted were on the counter, Jacob turned his attention back to the goat. He cut it into two-inch chunks, spread it out on the cutting board, and sprinkled it liberally with salt. All righty, then, that’s ready to go. On to the next step of the battle.

He chopped the onions, cubed the potatoes, peeled and minced a two-inch piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped the head of garlic, and diced the habanero peppers. Then, Jacob mixed the spices in a white soup bowl: eight tablespoons of curry powder and one tablespoon of allspice seed. He pulled a large pot from the rack that hung over the kitchen island, put it on the stove, and turned the burner to medium high. He measured a quarter cup of corn oil into a cup and poured it into the pot.

While the oil was heating, Jacob patted the pieces of goat dry with a paper towel and then he measured two tablespoons of the spice mixture into the hot oil. Almost immediately, the sweet fragrance of curry powder and ginger and hot oil permeated the kitchen.  During the next thirty minutes, he carefully browned the pieces of goat in the oil. When a few pieces were brown, he set them aside in a glass bowl and started another set. By the time they had all browned, the kitchen was awash in the odors of allspice and seared goat, along with the pungent aroma created when curry powder meets hot oil.

Geneva peeked her head into the kitchen from time to time during this process, sniffing the air but saying nothing.

When all the goat meat had browned, Jacob turned his attention to the onions and habanero peppers, browning the onions in the same pan in which he’d browned the goat meat. The aroma of cooking onions, coupled with the odor of curry and allspice, filled Jacob’s nostrils. Oh my god, this is wonderful.  I hope she likes it. I think she will.

The addition of the minced ginger and garlic to the pot resulted in another burst of aromas, the melding of which seemed to act as a magnet for Geneva. “What are you doing in here? It smells like you’re emptying our spice cabinet into that pot.”

Jacob turned toward the door when he hear the sound of her voice. “Leave me be, woman. I’m making something you won’t like so I can eat it all by myself. You’ll get your dinner at McDonald’s just as soon as I’m done.”

“The hell I will! You’ll take me to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse if I can’t tolerate that swill.”

“You won’t have to tolerate this swill for awhile. It won’t be ready for another two or three hours.”

Geneva spun around in the doorway and, in her trademark stalk, left the room.

Jacob poured the meat and bones back into the pot, along with the coconut milk, tomatoes, four cups of water, the remainder of the curry powder mixture, and a tablespoon of thyme. He stirred the mixture, inhaling deeply of the fragrance from the pot.

“Okay, I’m done for awhile.  The last thing I’ve got to do is add the potatoes after the meat’s done. Then it will take about half an hour or so for the potatoes to cook.”

He got no response. He stepped out of the kitchen and into the front room. On the coffee table, Geneva had left a note. “I’m going shopping with Maggie. I’ll be back in about four hours.”

***

By the time Geneva returned home with Maggie, the neighbor who unbeknownst to Geneva was infatuated with her husband, the meal was ready to eat.

“Care to join us for some Jamaican goat curry, Maggie? I’d love to know what you think of my cooking skills.” Jacob, fully aware of Maggie’s infatuation, did all he could to encourage it.

“Thanks, Jacob. I’d love to,” Maggie answered, a look of regret immediately registering on her face as if to apologize for accepting the invitation without Geneva’s concurrence.

“Yes, please do join us,” Geneva said. “You might have to come back and help Jacob finish this stuff off, too. He always makes stuff too hot for me. I know you and Jacob both have an affinity for making things hot.”

Jacob snickered under his breath at his wife’s response. She has no idea how true that double non-entendre is!

The three of them, sitting at the dining table, tasted the finished dish.

Maggie’s eyes grew wide. “Wow, this is really great! I love it! My compliments to the chef.”

“Actually, the stuff is supposed to get better over a day or two so that the flavors have time to layer and blend just right. The recipe made enough for eight servings, so you might want to come back day after tomorrow to have it again, just to compare.” Jacob glanced at his wife.

Geneva nodded. “Just as I thought, it’s too spicy for me. I’ll eat this serving, but I think you owe me a trip to Ruth’s Chris when I get back from visiting my sister in Cambridge, Jacob. Maggie, you should plan on coming back to finish this off with Jacob.

Jacob noticed Maggie’s face flush. My hope has been fulfilled. She likes it.

 

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Writing | 1 Comment

Fresh Joys and Unending Tears

Posted on August 1, 2017 by John Swinburn

I love sitting outside on the screen porch at the intersection of dusk and darkness. I sit listening to the frogs and toads and insects and who-knows-what make a cacophonous racket in the trees and hillside just beyond the deck. If I needed to concentrate, the noise would be deafening, too loud to allow me to focus. But I recognize that, when I sit there, I have no power to control the noise, so my options are to go inside to the television or radio or music or to sit outside in self-silence, experiencing the exceptional volume of nature. Nature has a reputation for quietude. The reputation is undeserved; she is a howling beast, replete with screeches and screams and rumbles and roars that earn their Hollywood reputations for instilling fear and admiration.

When I sit outside, I become part of the cacophony. I’m a piece of the noise. And that’s perfectly okay; I like serving as a silent instrument in an orchestra.

In an ideal world—a world that mirrors my dreams and expectations—I’d sit there and listen to the music of the earth while sipping a glass of cold sauvignon blanc or cabernet sauvignon or Jim Beam whisky. Last night, though, the sauvignon blanc fairy failed to deliver and other wines did not find their way into my house, in spite of the directions I left for them. So, instead, I sipped cold gin, enhanced with a touch of fresh lime juice. There’s nothing wrong or immoral or even offensive about drinking gin. I’m in favor of it.

Aside from the absence of complete darkness—or, if you prefer, the presence of  incomplete light—the early morning differs from night in another way. The discordant orchestral cacophony gives way over night to a gentler, much more quiet, harmonic hum, interrupted on occasion by a bird  call or a dog’s bark or cattle lowing from the pastures below.  Morning beverages differ, too, from those of the evening. I can’t remember the first or the last time I had gin or bourbon or wine of any kind early in the morning, for it has never happened. My beverage of choice in the morning is, usually, strong French roast coffee. When I’m feeling especially energetic (and if I also happen to have the right fresh espresso-grind coffee in the house), I’ll have an espresso or three. But that’s rare. Normally, it’s just coffee.

I was waxing philosophical about sitting outdoors in the evening, listening to the sounds of nature. Somehow, that morphed into an exposition of my evening and morning drinking preferences and habits. Recently, I spoke to someone about how my writing tends to drift from rabbit hole to rabbit hole. That’s not the case (usually) when I’m writing fiction for which I’ve predetermined the story’s general direction or know specifically where it will wander. But when I produce my stream-of-consciousness, journaling-style word dumps, I tend to wander. I think my thoughts ricochet off one another, causing new ones to form and releasing others held captive by others. There’s value to be gained by writing such deviance; somewhere among the millions of pieces of crushed and worthless stone may be found a gem. The effort to unearth it from its rocky grave and then polish it so that it at least reflects light may be enormous. But, I hope, worth the expenditure of mental and physical energy.

The following quote is widely attributed to Franz Kafka, but they actually are the words of Anne Rice, from the preface to a collection of Kafka’s works:

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather,  follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Those words move me beyond my ability to explain why. Some words, experiences, or even images feel like messages from a kindred spirit, or God, which I think is the same thing. No, of course I don’t believe that literally. But figuratively, I’ll take that belief to my grave.

That thought reminds me of an experience I had this afternoon. Among an otherwise decadent day of sight-seeing in the Arkansas capitol and eating lunch at an expensive restaurant, we experienced something that moved me. We went to the Butler Center Galleries in downtown Little Rock, simply to see what was on exhibit; we went to be entertained, I suppose. And we were. And we were delighted by incredible art. And I was crushed by an exhibition called, “The American Dream Deferred: Japanese American Incarceration in WWII Arkansas.” The exhibition featured art of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in Arkansas during World War II, as well as objects from the Arkansas internment camps. My reaction to the exhibition was the same as my reaction to the Border Cantos exhibit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, though not as intense; this was a smaller exhibit. My eyes could not help but fill with tears as I read about and thought about the people who—only because of their ancestry— were imprisoned. This situation is not new of course; it has gone on for centuries. But the idea of this sort of thing happening in the United States rips me apart inside.  Slavery. Japanese-American internment. Mexican and Hispanic mass deportation. Muslim demonization. Shit. Where do I live?

The reason sitting outside, listening to nature’s noise, is so appealing is that it deadens the noise I hear when I hear humans being humans.

One day, when I attempt to expose my writing to the world, I’ll have to have a thicker skin than I have tonight. My skin tonight is as thin as a whisper; a rumor of brutality draws blood.

Posted in Stream of Consciousness | Leave a comment

Lost Among Serpents and other Reptiles

Posted on July 31, 2017 by John Swinburn

A bizarre merger of odd dreams into a nightmare

A young woman from Australia, who worked for my company years ago, was visiting. We were in someone else’s house. I remember windows looking down on a street below. And I remember strange stairs leading up to an area of the house where I was staying; each step was split in two, so that each tread of each step was at two different levels.

Someone, I don’t know who, was missing and we could not reach them. The young woman and two or three guys (I knew who they were, but do not recall) wanted to go somewhere, but needed the other guy who they could not reach. I agreed to let them use my car to try to find where he might be. They were in a hurry and I needed to get something out of the trunk. I threw my winter coat in the trunk for a moment so I could look for whatever I was seeking, but forgot it.

They drove away and just as a heavy snow began failing. Interspersed within the snow were balls of hail. I heard peels of thunder and flashes of lightning. I decided to walk home; I thought I wasn’t far and I needed to get there so I could prepare to go pick up paintings at Garvin Woodland Gardens. I started off and got completely lost in an enormous high-rise complex. I knew the complex was part of a university connected to several large businesses. Anyone in this area must be rich, I remembered thinking; they were part of what some would call “the upper crust.” The business people around me had a demeanor that said they were rich, rich, rich and they were proud of it. I went through various office building doors that led me to more areas in which I knew I did not belong.

I walked outside one of the buildings into a large, grassy area. It suddenly occurred to me that I could use my phone to see where I was. Just as I pulled it out and opened the map app, a guy rushed past me, chasing after a snack slithering along the ground (there were a lot of snakes visible on this stretch of open ground, full of green grass). He started tormenting the snake he was chasing, using one of the sticks that snake hunters use to snag their prey. This snake was a rattle snake, I could  tell by the tiny couple of rattles at the end of its tail. Suddenly, the snake struck at him and got him. He started screaming “it got me,” and pried it off, using his stick, which he waved around with the snake writhing at the end. This commotion riled up an alligator that was in a shallow pond nearby; it came at me, fast. I tried to kick at it, but it got hold of the bottom of my shoe and started shaking it. Someone else came up to try to help me, but just as he tried to put something on top of the alligator, the alligator released its grip. I thought it was going to lunge at me, so I jumped down on it with my elbow on the top of its upper jaw and pushed with all my might down on it, locking its mouth shut. I was expressing fear, frustration, appreciation all at once. That’s when I woke up. My wife started shaking me at the same time; I guess I was making noise.

Posted in Dreams | Leave a comment

Mi Escritura Estraña

Posted on July 30, 2017 by John Swinburn

When I took the hummingbird feeders out this morning, I was surprised at how cool it felt to walk outside. The indoor/outdoor thermometer read 67 degrees, a much more civilized morning temperature than recent morning lows of 76 or more.

The temperatures in the mountain village of Mexico, south of Guadalajara, where my brother lives, are only a few degrees cooler this morning than we have here. But the daytime highs there reach only the high seventies, occasionally topping 80. By the time we visit in a few months, the average daytime highs will have dropped to the mid-seventies and the nighttime lows to the low sixties or below. The hottest month there is May, when the highs reach the mid-eighties and the average lows stay in the low sixties. That’s a climate I could learn to love.

According to an online language instruction website, duolingo, I am thirteen percent fluent in Spanish. While I wish it were true, I think my level of fluency is considerably less. My ability to understand and communicate in Spanish, though, actually is far better than the speed with which I can do it. I can force myself to understand and make myself understood to a limited extent, but it’ a slow process. I imagine the speed of my Spanish communication is akin to the speed of swimming—with boat anchors tied to both arms and both legs—across a large lake filled with blackstrap molassess.

I am sure I have the intellectual capacity and lingual flexibility to learn to be conversant in Spanish, though I am less certain today than I was ten or twenty years ago. But what I possess in capability I’m afraid I lack in discipline. I’m undisciplined in so very many ways. And on top of that, I’m more than occasionally contumacious. Now there’s an adjective that, unfortunately, describes me. It’s defined as “stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient.” Surprisingly, to me, Google Translate offers a Spanish translation: contumaz.  Perhaps before I engage in a serious attempt to learn Spanish, I should become fluent in English. Most English-Spanish translation resources refer to terms like subjective, indicative, imperative, perfect, perfect continuous, preterite, etc., etc. Even though  my mother was an English teacher who worshiped at the altar of grammar and insisted on diagramming sentences, I resisted learning the terms. I remember saying to someone (not her), “there is no reason to call a word a gerund; just call it an ‘ing’ word.” I think, now, a more thorough understanding of the structure of the English language and the terms used to describe verb conjugation might have served me well.

But I’m not writing about a lifetime devoid of English verb conjugation, am I? Probably not. Yet I cannot say with certainty what I am writing about. The weather? A trip to Mexico? Learning languages? It could be any or all of the above. It’s just my strange writing, mi escritura extraña.

Posted in Stream of Consciousness | Leave a comment

Lion

Posted on July 28, 2017 by John Swinburn

I do not follow film. I do not wait with anticipation for announcements of Oscar nominations, nor do I track predictions about which new films will be the latest and greatest contributions to filmdom. I guess that’s the reason I’d not heard of Lion until quite recently. It was the film screened tonight at the monthly Film Night at the Unitarian Universalist Village Church. I was more than impressed; I was stunned by the film. The writing, the cinematography, the story, the whole damn thing! What an astonishing story! What a heart-breaking story that both rips one’s soul to shreds, and then offers an opportunity to believe in the uplifting power of perseverance coupled with good luck!

I am so glad I watched the film. In a sense, it was deeply depressing and heart-breaking, but it injected bits of hope into that ugliness. I left feeling embarrassed for my recent ennui and hopeful, knowing that only by trying will we learn whether our efforts will be successful.

Posted in Film | Leave a comment

Envision

Posted on July 27, 2017 by John Swinburn

Constraints exist only in one’s imagination.
Possibilities have limits only in the mind.
If a person can conceive of time travel,
he can travel forward in time, carrying
a notebook in which to record his reality.
Circumstances impose boundaries only when
we let them bind doubts to our dreams.
Stories I tell myself shape the future
in ways impossible to measure without
tools I create in my imaginations.
Even old men build bridges to infinity,
using ideas to form structures clad with words.
Accomplishments rest on visions fed by wishes.
Hope is the calculus of fantasy, scrubbed
clean of impossibility and polished with
inspiration and unbridled ingenuity.
Envision a future and it is yours.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Venezuelans and Their Food

Posted on July 26, 2017 by John Swinburn

Earlier today, an article on the National Public Radio website about a food common in Venezuela, called arepas, launched my exploration of the dish. Several recipes later, my interest grew beyond food as I became increasingly intrigued about the current state of affairs in the deeply divided country. I tried to find reliable, unbiased information about the recent plebiscite and the Maduro government’s response to it. Regardless where I looked, I questioned the legitimacy or the veracity of the news. from BBC to NPR to a couple of English language “news” websites dedicated to Venezuelan politics, nothing was sufficiently comprehensive, nor sufficiently absent judgmental language, for me to feel I was learning what’s really going on in the country.

Much of what the major international news organizations write about the country seems to be fed to them by the governments of the countries within which they operate. BBC reports on what the British government says. NPR (one of the news outlets I’ve come to trust almost completely) reports on what the U.S. government says. I have absolutely no confidence in a word that comes from the present U.S. administration; it is steeped in blatant lies. And when I read Venezuelan media, the claims that effectively say “we report only facts and do not allow bias to enter our reporting” are immediately crushed by blatantly biased reporting, both pro-Maduro and anti-Maduro. Despite my inability to find news I can trust (or my inability to trust news I can find), I think the days of Nicholás Maduro as President of Venezuela are numbered. Of course, I’ve thought the days of Donald Trump’s presidency were numbered in the low single digits since his inauguration and I was wrong about that.

The upshot of all this is that I wish I knew more about Venezuela and its immediate future. And I wish I had more confidence in the news media. I am not about to start calling every media outlet “fake news,” but I think many media outlets are allowing themselves to be manipulated into becoming just that. Part of the reason can be traced to people like me, people who choose to get their news “free” online, as opposed to paying the very reasonable (and very expensive) prices of newspapers. And, for that matter, television news. We ask advertisers to pay for news; we feel they should pay for our access to information.

This little side-show has gone in an altogether different direction that I envisioned when I started. I’d really like to find a source for the pre-cooked white corn flour necessary to make arepas. I suspect that won’t be hard. And I’d like to assemble a collection of recipes for several fillings I can use for arepas. I suspect that, too, won’t be hard. And I wish I could share some of the arepas I make with the hungry people of Venezuela. Because I think they are in far greater need of arepas than I.

Posted in Compassion, Food, Justice, Politics | Leave a comment

Distant Broden

Posted on July 25, 2017 by John Swinburn

Lina waited for Broden to continue.

“Oh, he was just so totally in love with life. Why would a man buy a two million dollar car and then kill himself a week later? I mean, it just doesn’t make sense.”

“That puzzles me, as well,” Lina said. “But I was part of the forensics team that looked into the car. We found nothing mechanically wrong with the car.”

A vein rose on Broden’s forehad as she spoke. “I don’t doubt you found nothing wrong with the car. But how can that lead to a pronouncement that the cause of death was suicide?”

“I can’t answer that. I was not the one who made that determination. Tell me, does the pronouncement that your husband’s death was a suicide have any effect on your insurance settlement? I assume he had a life insurance policy.”

Broden’s eyes bore into Lina as she responded. “I can’t answer that. I haven’t even thought about life insurance. Fortunately for us—for me—money has not been an issue. If you’d like to check, though, feel free.  I imagine you already have. We both have policies issued by Länsförsäkringar. I don’t recall the amounts, but I doubt they were significant, at least not compared to our net worth.”

Lina had checked into insurance before the investigation had concluded. There was nothing to suggest murder for insurance money. But she had run out of ideas. She was, to use one of Eklund’s favorite sayings, “poking the bear.”

Weaving, again. Just weaving. I hope to open my blog one day to find a tapestry.

Okay, but now I have to explore that statement. What am I waiting for? What magical potion will string together for me all these disjointed snippets, vignettes that struggle to find relevance on their own? I’m not happy with myself tonight. I’m disappointed that I’ve not published anything, I’ve not even finished anything worth publishing, and I’ve allowed Donald Trump to keep breathing. Not that I have any control over that last item, though if I were a praying man I’d pray I did. I need to either find someone to guide my prolific, stream-of-consciousness writing or give it up and devote my attention to learning how to do body work on my newly-reacquired 1997 Ford Ranger XLT Extended Cab. I’m probably better suited to the truck. I can buy a new headliner for $260 plus shipping, install it, and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Or I can write snippets unrelated to anything else I’ve written, give myself a passing grade for literary accomplishment, and wish, unsuccessfully, I would accomplish something. The truck wins. It’s more expensive, but what’s money for except to spend?

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Leave a comment

Ophira

Posted on July 25, 2017 by John Swinburn

“If you look long enough and hard enough, you can find things to dislike about almost anyone. But you’d be looking for the wrong things. Instead, you ought to be looking for those shreds of likability hidden among the overgrowth of noxious weeds.”

That’s what Ophira Strunk said to me before she boarded a small freighter in Baltimore Harbor, bound for Norway. Ophira had an unhealthy attraction to Norway. At least that’s what I thought at the time. In fact, her attraction was not to Norway but to Stefan Ruud, a married man who had just left his wife, Elise, and son, Kennet. I learned later that Stefan, an oceanographer by training and a writer-philosopher by avocation, did not really expect Ophira to come to him. But he wished she would. He wished so hard she would that he took the extraordinary risk of leaving his family in anticipation of Ophira’s arrival. I, of course, felt deeply wounded when Ophira told me later she had left me for a married man she’d never actually talked to before she disembarked from the freighter in Stavanger. Later, though, when I learned more about what drove the two of them away from their respective spouses and toward one another, I was touched that they took risks the rest of us would never dream of taking.

Ophira was not my wife. Not formally or officially. We’d lived together as if we were married since 1975, though, so perhaps the state would recognize us as having a common-law relationship. When she told me she wanted to travel, alone, to Norway on a freighter, I tried to dissuade her from such an odd undertaking. She would have none of it, though. She was determined that she would take the trip, as she told me, “to explore parts of me I did not even know where there until just recently.”

Weaving. That’s what I may be doing. I may be weaving strips of story, thread by thread, into a tapestry. Or whole cloth. Or a tangle so utterly chaotic that it will become suitable for nothing but stuffing pillows.

Posted in Fiction, Writing | Leave a comment

A Short Treatise on Reconstructive Transplantation

Posted on July 24, 2017 by John Swinburn

The first experiments with what was once called “teleportation” involved enormous machinery into which a person’s body was inserted. This occurred long after the whimsical “teleportation” of characters in Star Trek brought the idea into the popular consciousness. Unlike the Star Trek characterization, the real process was much more involved and, in the early days, extremely dangerous. Estimates of the number of unsuccessful teleportations have ranged as high as two hundred thousand. To this day, no one is quite clear on what happened to the physical bodies of those who disappeared, never to appear in their intended relocations.

The term “relocation” is not, and never was, accurate. The proper term, reincarnation, was avoided because of its religious overtones, but that’s precisely what it was. Yet someone, no one knows just who, started using the term “transplant” to describe the process. It caught on, despite summoning chilling visions of organ removal and replacement. Regardless of its history of lost souls and erroneous linguistic identification, the process we now call “reconstructive transplantation” is as common as marriage and automobiles were in times past.

Today, reconstructive transplantation has reached an almost one hundred percent success rate. It is rare, indeed, to learn of a person disappearing during the initiation of the process and failing to reappear at the conclusion. It happens, but in the old days, people died in automobile accidents or wedding violence with greater frequency; the risks are deemed to be within acceptable limits.

Reconstructive transplantation (RT), in its simplest form, involves replicating every aspect of a person, including every single physical, mental, emotional, and experiential attribute. That includes memories (which, as we know, are bio-electrical). The data that record these attributes are transferred, instantaneously, from the reconstructive transplantation initiation equipment (RTIE) to the reconstructive transplantation receptor equipment (RTRE). Simultaneously, the RTIE’s laser essentially erases the individual who has been replicated at the same movement the RTRE replicates (like the old-style 3-D printers, but far faster and more elegant) the subject in his or her new location. As I describe this process, I hope you can see that it’s not a physical movement of the individual from one place to the next, but the actual elimination of the individual in one place and the recreation of the person in another.

One especially pernicious aspect of RT involves the occasional hiccup, in which the RTRE creates more than one copy of the subject. Because they are absolutely identical and their creation occurs simultaneously, there is no way to know which is the “original” and which is the “copy.” The legal system is still sorting out how to handle claims between the “dupes,” as we call them, for the rights to live the lives they both assert are theirs. At present, the admittedly unpleasant method is to allow each dupe a fifty percent share; one dupe lives the normal life for a week while the other is kept in a dupe suppression facility (kept in what amounts to a medically induced coma), and then the two switch places. The obvious problem with that is that the two accumulate vastly different experiences from week to week, making them different from one another. Eventually, the legal system will determine how to handle this. RT specialists have long called for immediate euthanasia in such situations, in which one of the two dupes would be selected at random and put to sleep, thereby eliminating the problem of experiential divergence. The ethicists are still working on that one.

The converse problem occurs when the RTIE eliminates data and the subject but the RTRE fails, for one reason or another, to capture the data. That may well be what happened to the missing two hundred thousand.

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment