Vulnerability

Posted on November 27, 2019 by John Swinburn

I am accused, from time to time, of being afraid of being vulnerable. I’m told that I fear exposing my vulnerability would challenge my maleness or my “manhood” or my sense of personal man-centered strength. And I’ve bought into the suggestion, wishing I weren’t so reticent to expose my weaknesses. But I’ve also considered that being vulnerable is not considered a positive attribute by a huge swath of the population. Consider two primary definitions:

Vulnerable (adjective):

  1. capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt, as by a weapon: a vulnerable part of the body.
  2. open to moral attack, criticism, temptation, etc.: an argument vulnerable to refutation; He is vulnerable to bribery.

Admittedly, “capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt” is not as damning when one considers the “weapon” might be psychological. But, still, it’s an acknowledgement of weakness. Weakness is not an attribute most people, men or women, strive to achieve. So what is it with the encouragement to allow oneself to be vulnerable?

The question is rhetorical. Authenticity brings with it vulnerability; when we are real and true to ourselves, we expose parts of ourselves that are, by nature, vulnerable. We open ourselves up to be wounded. And while that opens us up to pain, it also opens us up to intimacy that’s impossible to achieve while holding a shield in front of us. I know this to be true. Yet, still I (and most men, I think) cling to that shield and hold it firmly in place for protection.

I hear and read about men today making comments, in response to any revelation of vulnerability, like “you’re a snowflake,” or “buck up, buttercup” or other such derogatory comment meant to embarrass or demean expressions of emotional vulnerability. Those comments come from people who, in my view, hide their own vulnerability both from the world and from themselves. I suspect their hard outer shells protect equally hard inner shells. And, in my biased way of judging, I think that hard inner shell takes the place of intelligence and intellect, leaving an empty hulk incapable of empathy, compassion, or caring. Yeah, I’m pretty judgmental.

But, back to vulnerability. What would it take for men to be willing to open up about their fears and concerns; what would it take to acknowledge fragility where it exists? And what would it take for us to accept vulnerability and fragility as normal, natural, but temporary, states? I think we need more women in positions of power and authority. And those women should not model themselves after hard-nosed men but, instead, after soft-hearted women. And they should express disdain for the practice of concealing emotions or holding them out, away from view. Eventually, men would get the message. Maybe.

When I’m told I need to open up more, to expose my vulnerabilities, I think how easy it is to give that advice but how hard it is to take. Our society has long devalued vulnerability, in men especially. Breaking through to change that valuation is incredibly hard. And who are the people who tell me to expose my vulnerabilities? Women, generally, who see cracks in an otherwise solid shield surrounding me. They seem to think it would be easy to just pick at the crack in the shield and peel it back like removing the shell from a hard-boiled egg. In fact, that “egg” was cooked too long, so much of the shell is permanently attached to the tissue beneath. Ripping off that shell will entail tearing away big pieces of the egg inside. But the shell must eventually come off. The right women in power might accelerate the process.

 

 

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Scale

Posted on November 26, 2019 by John Swinburn

A July 23, 2003 article in The Telegraph touches on the scope of what we see through telescopes in a clear, dark night sky:

There are 10 times more stars in the night sky than grains of sand in the world’s deserts and beaches, scientists say. Astronomers have worked out that there are 70 thousand million million million – or seven followed by 22 zeros – stars visible from the Earth through telescopes. The total is said to be the most accurate estimate yet of the number of stars.

The scale of our own Milky Way galaxy is incomprehensible to me. And consider that all the stars we can see with our naked eyes are in our own galaxy. The only other galaxy we can see from the northern hemisphere is the Andromeda galaxy. We don’t see the individual stars in Andromeda, just its faint light, a tiny glow in the darkest night sky. The Milky Way is home to around 400 billion stars and is 120,000 light years across. I can relay those numbers but I cannot truly understand them; they are too enormous for my tiny little brain to comprehend.

The scale of the known universe is beyond me. There’s a reason we bandy about the term “astronomical.” For me, the term means vastness with no limits; an exponent of “huge” so large it cannot be expressed with even the most advanced mathematics and physics and metaphysics.

Scale. How can we possibly believe, in a universe so incomprehensibly large, that the tiny speck upon which we live matters beyond the immediate? Our time and our impact on the physical universe is so small it is impossible to understate. Hell, we could somehow figure out how to blow up our own Moon and the universe wouldn’t even shudder.

Carl Sagan and many of his contemporaries, as well as those who have followed in his footsteps, grasped the magnitude our humankind’s stupidity, I think. They realize that, in all the vastness of space and time, the tiny dot we call Earth is the only home we have ever known and the only one we will ever know. An acknowledgement of that simple understanding should become the mantra that begins our day every day. If we were to start every day with an acknowledgement of just how unimportant we are, we might not make so many blunders under the mistaken impression that what we do ultimately matters. We would, instead, begin each day expressing wonder at this enormous universe which we cannot begin to understand.

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Another Try: Wisdom

Posted on November 24, 2019 by John Swinburn

Wisdom involves knowledge, but knowledge alone does not constitute wisdom. Wisdom is the abstract application of knowledge with discernment. That is, wisdom is not just knowledge, it’s knowing what to do with knowledge.

As I am wont to do when I wonder how important a concept has been to me, this morning I began counting the number of posts on this blog which include the word “wisdom;” I stopped counting at fifty. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a number that large when checking on the frequency of word usage on my blog.

Apparently, wisdom matters to me. But the impressively large number of posts in which I’ve used the word suggests that I’m still trying to determine why the concept is so meaningful to me. I keep turning it over in my mind, trying to uncover what the concept of wisdom really means; and whether I possess it in any substantive way.

I think I’ve written before that I believe wisdom arises from knowledge and experience. Experience is key, I think, in the formation of wisdom. The application of the lessons of experience to experiences not yet faced exemplifies wisdom. An understanding of cause and effect requires wisdom.

The first paragraph above refers to the abstract application of knowledge. By that, I mean understanding the probable impact of a concept before it has been applied.

In reading what I’ve written so far, I realize how esoteric my selection of explanatory words appear. But the concepts are not abstruse ideas. It’s simple, really, yet I continue to attempt to struggle with how to express it in simpler terms. And it’s not just how to express it that is such a challenge to me; it’s how to really understand and internalize and apply the simple concept to myself. It is one thing to know how to behave; it is another to behave in that way. It is one thing to know how to think; it is another to let that knowledge guide how and what one thinks.

Perhaps the reason I’ve having such a difficult time with “wisdom” is that I’ve been trying to express the concept in abstract terms, rather than in practical terms. No, that may play a part, but it’s more than that. I suppose part of the problem is that I am by no means the poster boy for wisdom. Quite the contrary, I may provide the example of what happens when knowledge takes a wrong turn and ends up in an impoverished village in Ecuador instead of Tokyo, Japan, the intended destination. There, that’s practical, although somewhat irrelevant to the discussion, I suppose.

I wrote a poem in August last year (2018). I entitled it “Wisdom.” I think it is the closest I’ve come to an adequate explanation of wisdom. Perhaps I should just stop seeking more definition of an idea already fully explained.

Wisdom

August 8, 2018, by John Swinburn

Wisdom grows not from the tender love of nurturing care,
but from abject neglect and brutal abandonment spun
on life’s loom from frayed spiritual kudzu that tries to
choke and strangle resolve.

Wisdom struggles upward from the darkest depths of the soul,
breaking through impenetrable layers of heartache and failure
toward the open skies of an open mind ready to accept answers
in the absence of questions.

Wisdom sheds arrogance and conceit during its journey from
certainty, through hesitation and ambiguity, toward doubt and
the knowledge that enlightenment is temporary and all answers
are clothed in fallacies.

Wisdom understands enough to comprehend that we know nothing,
even as we build temples to celebrate the knowledge we one day will
cast aside when we find what we will believe are truths hidden
beneath layers of dogma.

Wisdom is vapor—an imaginary mist arising from tears falling on
white-hot convictions that decay into doubts when confronted
with arguments and evidence, both credible and absurd—gossamer
smoke in a hazy sky.

Wisdom is experience adjusted for failure and tempered by success,
an age-worn garment woven from the tattered remains of youth and
the anticipatory shrouds of that inescapable conclusion to
which all of us come.

 

Posted in Poetry, Wisdom, Writing | Leave a comment

Living in a Dead Man’s Journal

Posted on November 22, 2019 by John Swinburn

He wrote the following in his journal on November 14, 2009:

I wish I could bring myself to reveal all the secrets I’ve kept locked away for so very long. One day, perhaps, I’ll write a memoir, though I suspect the revelation of all those secrets would require an autobiography—a lifelong accounting of mistakes and undisciplined decisions that, taken as a whole, would describe unforgivable flaws in the hope they would be forgiven. Anger with no source. Lust with no limits. Rage born of low self-esteem and fear. So very, very many faults and weaknesses and such a paucity of strengths.

He left the journal open and on top of his desk, no doubt intending to continue writing in it the following day. But he did not return the next day, nor any day, because he was killed that evening when he stumbled onto the subway tracks, just as an express train sped through Clearwater Station.

Some might call the man’s death tragic, but I doubt he would have considered it so. In fact, I question whether he stumbled and fell onto the tracks or, instead, deliberately jumped in front of the train, knowing he would never have the strength to reveal all of those secrets. We’ll never know, of course, but reading his chaotic entries that describe an almost manic-depressive pattern of thinking, the evidence suggests his death might have been intentional.

He kept more than one journal. The one on his desk was the one in which he hinted at his secrets, but never fully revealed them. Another one, whose entries imply yet a third and fourth journal that I’ve not yet found, exposes them. His expressions, hidden from the world in that journal stored in a safe, assert he did not want to hurt anyone by revealing his secrets. He had been unfaithful to his wife on multiple occasions; as far as he knew, she was unaware of his infidelity. He was an alcoholic, though he was able to hide his disease from almost everyone but his wife, who finally seemed to turn a blind eye to his heavy drinking. He believed he suffered from depression, but thought his was a mild case of the illness in comparison to other, more desperate souls and, so, he never sought treatment.

***

Kilmer Transom was complex. His journals divulge an inquisitive man, but one who skipped from topic to topic with such frequency that he never seemed to fully engage in what one might call “deep thinking.” He skirted the edges of profundity, but never took the plunge into the depths of the pool. He said of his own interests, “they are quite broad but remarkably shallow,” acknowledging his inability to conjure sufficient mental energy or mental capacity to delve deeply into anything.

After spending six months reading Transom’s journals and interviewing his wife and his daughter, I came to believe I knew Kilmer Transom better than anyone else ever did. As odd as it may sound, I came to consider him one of my closest friends, though we never met.

[So, perhaps this will serve as the foundation for something I will finish writing one day. If nothing else, it gives me enough of a skeleton to allow me to start packing some meat on the bones. The narrator, who will at some point be revealed to be a newspaper investigative reporter, will be a “stand-in” for the protagonist, Kilmer Transom. The POV will switch between the narrator and Transom, with Transom’s POV presented through both his writing and the narrator’s interpretation of Transom’s writing. More to follow, perhaps, one day.]

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The Effects of Fire on Fuel

Posted on November 20, 2019 by John Swinburn

A screed. A diatribe. A rant. An inflammatory evangelical oratory capable of inciting fury.
An opportunity to express the ferocity of my feelings without having to defend them.

That’s what I’m looking for. An occasion to bitterly complain without offering rational or
realistic solutions to the complaint; I want to bitch, loudly, to anyone in earshot and
to anyone who can read my words on a page or screen.

I need to assign blame to someone or something outside myself.

I attack perpetrators, not problems. Miscreants receive my wrath, but problems are
set aside, wrapped in a protective, noncombustible blanket–left for another day of rage.

I feel pressure squeezing me like I am inside a canvas balloon, as if my problems are
external and I am an innocent witness.

I react with words that set off, in my head, emotional explosions to release the pressure.

Those explosions don’t release pressure. They release kerosene and matches, sparks
and nitroglycerin, hydrogen and flames.

And so I dance in a pool of gasoline, slinging fireballs into the liquid at my feet,
consumed by flames I light with my own explosive words.

One day, only ashes will remain, evidence of the effects of fire on fuel.

I wrote this specifically to read at tonight’s Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee. I hope I have the opportunity.

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People Who Need Help and People Who Give It

Posted on November 19, 2019 by John Swinburn

We fed 167 people lunch today. Not really; we just loaded the donated food onto plates and into bags and distributed it to 167 people who came to the window of Jackson House. It’s hard for me to believe it; in a town of only 35,000 or so, 167 people needed to get donated food in order to eat lunch. And there are probably many more who didn’t make it to the window to sign in and pick up a plate of brisket and green beans and macaroni and cheese and a little dessert bag filled with a muffin or two. I wasn’t at the window, distributing the food. But I watched. And I kept it together most of the time, wondering what those folks’ lives must be like, having to come to a food distribution center just to be assured of getting a lunch. Twice, though, I had a hell of a time keeping it together. Once, a guy who is obviously beset by mental problems came to get his food; I just felt so bad for him. He must be on his own, but he lacks the skills and the resources to live on his own. So he scrapes by, living on the street, relying on the goodness of people like the folks who donated today’s meals. Another time, a young mother came to the window with her small child. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that the kid was in the midst of a cycle of poverty from which he may never escape. Yet the mother and the kid were both smiling and happy and genuinely cheery. How can that be?

I have never heard of Turf Catering until today. The company is the one that donated enormous volumes of barbecued brisket, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, and who knows what else. The only reason I know the name of the company is that I asked John, who’s in charge of the Jackson House kitchen. He had picked up the food from Turf Catering. There was enough food for today and another day or two to come. I was stunned and impressed and deeply appreciative of a company that would donate so generously. Turf Catering is a long-time Hot Springs business. It is a family-owned (Wolken family) business that has been in operation since 1929. And I’d never heard of the company or the family. Obviously, though, the people in the company contribute to this community.

I don’t know that I’ll volunteer every time the church needs volunteers to staff the Jackson House kitchen, but I suspect I’ll make it a habit. And I suspect Janine will, as well. She signed up to volunteer first; I simply tagged on to her volunteerism.

Here’s the thing, though. Jackson House prepares and distributes lunches five days a week. And the numbers of recipients of the food, though not consistent, are large. Donors like Turf Catering are desperately needed to ensure that Jackson House can feed people who desperately need help. The homeless. The mentally handicapped. The unfortunate poor. People who just caught a bad break and didn’t have a safety net of family or friends to fall back on.

Were there some lazy bastards among the recipients; people who simply don’t want to work? Maybe. But I don’t care. I believe the vast majority were people who just need a hand up and for whom an expression of support and compassion is enough to keep them going for another day. I’d much rather feed someone who doesn’t really need it than to refuse someone who really does.

Posted in Generosity | 2 Comments

Under-the-Knife Anniversary

Posted on November 19, 2019 by John Swinburn

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the surgery I underwent to remove a cancerous tumor from my lung and, with it, the lower lobe of my right lung. All indications are that the cancer succumbed to the surgery and its follow-up treatments: six weeks of radiation treatment and four courses of chemotherapy. The aftermath of the surgery and the subsequent treatments remain with me in the form of periodic pain (absolutely tolerable), shortness of breath, and a chronic cough. I can’t be sure the chronic cough is related to the treatments, but I’ll be willing to bet it is. Maybe one day the doctors will figure out the cause and, better still, a treatment that will eliminate the cough without sacrificing my quality of life in the process. Even though it has been a year now, I still find it hard to believe I had lung cancer. It just won’t completely register in my brain. But I know it’s real. I know I experienced it. Yet it’s still surreal in some respects. Odd, that.

I have a follow-up appointment in three weeks with the surgeon who performed the surgery. Unless he has surprises me, I assume this will be my final visit with him. I vaguely recall that he said something to the effect during one of my other two follow-up visits with him.

I wrote last month about the approximate anniversary of my diagnosis of lung cancer. I guess I’m writing again so soon about another anniversary because cancer is still very much on my mind. I’d rather forget it, but that’s not likely to happen. Fortunately, being “on my mind” does not translate to being “psychologically or emotionally burdensome.” It’s just an ongoing acknowledgement of my illness and its treatment. Nothing terribly grim and depressing.

While I’m acknowledging the anniversary, I’m not celebrating it. Not yet. Not for quite a while yet.

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Honesty

Posted on November 19, 2019 by John Swinburn

Honesty is dangerous, especially when it reveals flaws once hidden.
Honesty is ruinous when it shatters trust and breaks the bonds of love.
Honesty is a toxin we best not ingest if we hope to stay alive in a world
in which poisons murder the authentic and cripple the sincere.

We live in a fantasy world, one in which fidelity and honesty and
virtue flow through our veins in place of treachery and deceit and vice.
We live in a kingdom governed by fools who believe in fairy tales,
who seek peace and justice in a world blighted by war and corruption.

In this sad fantasy kingdom, civility clashes with coarseness.
Propriety battles with discord and misbehavior so crude that streets of
gold blushed and turned grey and ragged like weathered lead.
When rain washes those streets, our wells fill with poison.

Where are we and how did we find our way to this sovereign domain?
We are the rulers here in this dominion of our own making.
We fought and won the right to govern a place rich with surrenders,
a place where victories are spent on building monuments to deception.

 

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Roller-Coaster

Posted on November 18, 2019 by John Swinburn

A group of people from the Writers’ Club and a few spouses will come to the house this afternoon for wine and hors d’oeuvres and a read-around. We’re expecting to have around thirteen people, all-inclusive. Early this morning (up again at 4), I started looking through what I’ve written recently to select something to read. I’ve written very little fiction of late and what I’ve written would probably take much less time to read than the agreed five minute limit; I want to fill the time available to me. So I scrolled through recent blog posts and selected a few to consider.

I was surprised, as I read the one of them aloud, I could not keep my composure. Something about it unleashed an emotional torrent I did not expect. I tried two more times with the same results. Obviously, I’ll not read that one; I would appear a blubbering fool. Usually, when I write something that kindles a strong emotional response, I know it as I write it. While I knew when writing that post that it was an emotional topic, I did not know just how much emotion it would provoke when I read it aloud. Odd, that. At any rate, I opted to keep that one silent. No matter how much I tell myself it’s okay to be emotional, I can’t convince myself that other people feel the same way. I’ve watched men express such emotion and I’ve seen the people around them fidget in excruciating emotional discomfort and embarrassment.

The one I chose is a tad longer, but still falls within the five minute limit. I wanted to read a different one, but a quick review revealed it would take considerably longer than five minutes to get through it.

The larger-than-normal-for-our-house group size requires me to do a bit of rearranging of furniture before people arrive late this afternoon. In order to have adequate seating, we’ll have to drag dining chairs into the living area and will have to pull a few chairs out of the master bedroom. And I’ll have to wrestle the monster recliner, the one we bought for my comfort as I recovered from chemo and radiation treatments, out of the way. While I like the recliner, it’s time to get it out of the way; it’s huge and heavy and utterly intrusive. But I do not want to get rid of it, because I like sitting in it and relaxing. I’m getting old and lazy.

Speaking of moving heavy recliners, my lower back is giving me fits this morning. I must have bent down wrong or otherwise wrenched the muscles intended to express anger and dismay at negligent bodily abuse. The pain and my weakness my present a problem in getting that monster chair out of the way. I will overcome it, though, one way or another.

Before our guests arrive this afternoon, both my wife and I will make some hors d’ouevres to share with the group. She plans to make a dip that goes with sliced apples. I intend to make small spicy cheese balls that are made to look like lollipops by stabbing them with straight pretzel sticks. I’ll also make some deviled eggs. I might do a veggie tray, as well. I know one of our guests is bringing shrimp; I suspect another will do the same. I explained that I would provide light hors d’ouevres and a bit of wine, but offered that guests could bring their own to share, if they wished, for more substantial nourishment. I probably should have suggested pot-luck hors d’ouevres so I would not feel compelled to make more than we might need. Maybe next time.

This morning’s sunrise was nothing short of spectacular. Brilliant streaks of bright orange, pink, red, and grey filled the southeastern sky a couple of  hours after I got up. The streaks were punctuated by enormous plumes of distant cumulus clouds whose colors were like those of the streaked sky. It was breathtaking. I’m glad my wife got up early to call my attention to the sky; I wrapped up in this blog post, oblivious to the world outside my window.

I’d better get busy preparing for the day.

 

Posted in Emotion, Writing | Leave a comment

Being Better or Dying Trying

Posted on November 17, 2019 by John Swinburn

This paragraph completes this post; I wrote this paragraph after I wrote the rest of it. I write this to remind myself, and anyone else who stumbles on these words, that I have to write in order to know what I think. I started this post full of piss and vinegar, ready to take on the task of dramatically improving my self-discipline. As I typed, and as I thought things through, my thought processes changed and my perspective on my intended project changed. I can be my own most difficult stumbling block.

All right, here it is. The beginning…again. The hatching of the plan. The way I’m going to approach discipline, willpower, and self-control (all of which are one and the same, I suppose).

Here’s my reprise of (or replacement for) my “Doing Without” project, which I began in mid-2013. The idea at the time was to test the boundaries of my self-discipline. How far could I go in depriving myself of things I enjoy but that might have a deleterious impact on my physical or mental or intellectual health? Perhaps the question was not so much “how far could I go?” as it was “how much self-control am I willing to exert over myself?” Whatever the question, I did a reasonably good job of it, depending on how one measures success. That’s all I’ll say about that. But here I am again, doing something similar; but I’m modifying it to test my mettle in different ways.

I’ll “do without” a favorite activity for one month, then add another the following month, then yet another the third month and, finally, another the fourth month. The “doing without” will grow with the addition of one thing each month. Here’s what the plans looks like for now:

  • Month 1: No coffee; replacement: tea
  • Month 2: No coffee+no alcohol; replacements: tea + water
  • Month 3: No coffee and no alcohol+no meat; replacements: tea and water + high volume of vegetables
  • Month 4: No coffee and no alcohol and no meat+no television; replacements: tea and water and a high volume of vegetables + walking

This will translates into four months without coffee, three months without alcohol, two months without meat, and one month without television. That can only improve my health. Especially the removal of alcohol and meat. Perhaps I should switch coffee with meat so that I will have fewer clots of cholesterol pumping through my veins and arteries. Well, let’s leave well enough alone for the moment, shall we?

But, first, how do I establish the appropriate measures for the replacements? For example, how much walking will I need to do to replace the time I spend watching television? The problem as I see it is that watching television is an inconsistent thing for me; some days I watch three or four episodes of a favorite Netflix series and an hour of news, while other days I watch nothing. Oh, well, I’ll figure something out.

I have to ask myself whether replacing activities is a good idea. It’s as if I’m exchanging one dependency for another. I remember thinking that when I first started the project in 2013. My consumption of iced tea grew exponentially when I stopped drinking coffee. I seemed to need something to fill the void left by the removal.  I’ll give that some more thought.

The next question, of course, is when “Month 1” begins. Time will tell. And I may modify the plan before I begin.

It occurs to me that I might find it beneficial to either replace or supplement the plan with this one: Add something to my routine each month to enhance my intellectual or physical well-being. I could add daily exercise or modify my daily routine to ensure at least a hour or two of reading fiction (my consumption of fiction has declined considerably in recent years). Or I could begin a daily meditation practice. Or I could opt to learn something new, like how to play pickleball or how to build and fly radio-controlled model airplanes. I’m stretching here. I don’t want to test my discipline so much that I’m destined to fail; anything new has to hold at least a modicum of interest for me.

In the final analysis, the plan has to mean something. Why am I intent on doing this? What good will it do for me, or for others? Is this just an exercise in futility, or will it have a profound impact on how I look or feel or fit into the world? I have a feeling that I’m using the project as a way to trick myself into doing something I should have been doing all along without the drama of the project. Why don’t I just start walking and work on exercising more control over my diet and get more exercise? Because…self-discipline. Or the lack thereof. So the project may be trickery, but it’s trickery of the sort I guess I need. Setting goals is easy. Achieving them, not so much.

Obviously, I need to give this matter more thought. Yesterday, I thought all I needed to do would be to set out a plan and follow it. Today, as I conceive of a plan I find that my mind is disjointed; I question my own motives and I wonder whether the idea of “doing without” has any real, long-lasting merit. I think it does, but I can’t quite articulate what the merit might be.

Ultimately, I suspect this whole thing is about becoming a better person. That should be easy. I don’t need a plan or a project to do that. A change in behavior, here and there, and it would be “mission accomplished.” But that’s superficial. My interest is in change that’s deeper, life-altering; something that will improve me from the inside-out. I think everyone wants that. And I think most people who actually give it dedicated thought realize that we’re all trying to be better throughout our lives. We’re in pursuit of being better or dying trying.

I’m going to rethink this concept. I may move forward with it; I may not. Whatever I decide, though, I will decide after exploring the idea and myself much more thoroughly.

 

 

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Unit 42

Posted on November 16, 2019 by John Swinburn

I just finished watching, for the second time, the first episode of the first season of Unit 42. I watched the episode several months ago and enjoyed it immensely, but somehow got sidetracked, as I am wont to do, and didn’t keep it up. Tonight, I decided I wanted to continue the effort, but I had forgotten almost everything about the first episode. I tend to do that. All I need is 24 hours to utterly obliterate my memory of a television show or a movie. It’s a bad, ugly, miserable flaw. At any rate, I opted to renew my experience with the program. Again, I enjoyed it immensely. It’s not what I’d call high-end television, but it’s a solid French-language police drama with plenty of action and intrigue. Nothing that requires much thought, just a program that requires some attention and an appreciation of plot.

So….I’m just taking a break before I launch into episode number 2. And I will. My only concern is that, after two glasses of wine, I might not recall episode 2 tomorrow, which will require me to watch it again. This could go on for weeks. But it won’t. Because I will watch the entire episode and will plan (and execute the plan) to watch subsequent episodes in a timely fashion.

***

Tonight is Saturday. Many people are out with friends or family, kicking back and enjoying the weekend. But not me. Instead, I’m at home, watching a French-language television program while my wife is watching who knows what (or reading who knows what) in her nest retreat. Sometimes, I think we live in different epochs. I know I do.

***

A load of clothes has finished washing AND drying. As I was putting away the clothes, it occurred to me that I haven’t communicated directly with my blood and non-blood nieces and nephews of late. I don’t know why that entered my mind, but it did. I need to make a point of letting those folks know I think about them often. I don’t want to impinge on their lives, but I do want them to know the geezer uncle thinks about them frequently. How does one do that without seeming like a geezer uncle? Especially a distant, not-awfully-close uncle? I don’t know. I’m asking for a friend.

***

Last night, I had a bizarre dream. I won’t bore you with it; I told my wife about it and she found it strange and inexplicable. The upshot of the dream is that I was lost in a parking lot and I wasn’t sure where I’d gone when I left my car. Except I knew I had to be somewhere in short order to deliver a speech on behalf of (?) my church’s minister. I realized, in the dream, I might be dreaming. That was a strange element of the experience.

***

Sadness envelopes me like a damn hot, uncomfortable blanket. I don’t know why. I loathe this feeling of isolation and anguish. It’s not a normal Saturday night feeling. Jesus, I think I need to down an ounce or three of Black Jack Tennessee whiskey; that should put me back right with the world. But first, I have to watch another episode of Unit 42. And maybe it will dissuade me from swilling Black Jack.

Posted in Film, Television, Television series | Leave a comment

Harissa in the House

Posted on November 14, 2019 by John Swinburn

Tonight’s menu will include lemon harissa chicken. I made a batch of harissa paste a few days ago, something I’ve been intending for at least several weeks and more probably several months. Making harissa paste is not hard, but it takes a bit of time and patience, and I tend to get little dabs of the dark red-orange stuff on my clothes during the process. It involves using a number of dried peppers. Most recipes call for at least one dried pepper or another that I can’t find, so I substitute. For that reason, every batch of harissa I’ve made has a slightly different flavor from every other batch. That doesn’t bother me, though, because every batch I’ve made so far has been extremely pleasing to my palate.

Because of my propensity for dyeing the garments I’m wearing while making it, I prefer to wear my most embarrassingly worn, stained, and tattered clothes during the process. And I did.  Frankly, the taste of harissa warrants wearing a white tuxedo during the process of making it, if necessary. It’s that flavorful. And it has infinite uses. Tonight’s use, as I mentioned, will involve just two tablespoons of the stuff, along with a few other herbs and spices and, of course, chicken. I’ll marinate chunks of chicken breast for a few  hours in the harissa concoction and then will cook them in a sauce pan on the stove top. I’ll also make some white rice. If the oven cooperates, I’ll roast some veggies which I’ll place atop the white rice and, finally, the spicy chunks of chicken. Well, not finally. I’ll dress the chicken with a few globs of yogurt and garnish the dish with parsley, sliced olives, and capers. That should make a nice dinner.

Though I did not make a particularly large batch of harissa, using only two tablespoons tonight will leave plenty for other dishes. For one, I want to try to replicate a harissa salsa that we used to get from Trader Joe’s (thanks to my niece) but is no longer available. Based on the ingredients list on the jar of the salsa, though, I think the likelihood of an exact match is slim. I also want to make a few other North African dishes in which harissa is a key ingredient.

If the world were just, and we know it is not, I would have a gas stove on which to cook. And I would have a North African tajine in which to cook North African cuisine. I’ve never used a tajine, but I understand its conical shaped top allows the steam that arises during cooking to recirculate and moisten the food being cooked, intensifying the flavors.

I’ve read that another dish, one I’ve made many times before but without using harissa, is especially good when amped up with harissa. Shakshouka (spelled any number of ways) is an Israeli dish that I understand originated in North Africa. It is, essentially, a conglomeration of tomatoes and spices in which eggs are poached. At least that’s how I describe it. I can imagine how incredibly flavorful a breakfast of shakshouka could be if the tomato-based sauce in which the eggs are poached had an ample dose of harissa in it.

There are more recipes and more uses for harissa, of course. Many more. I suppose I’m in one of my cycles of craving North African food. That happens sometime. Perhaps it occurs when I awaken, get up, and get dressed in the wee hours of the night, as I did last night, thinking the night was done. I’ll have to search my journal-like entries in this blog to find out whether there’s any truth in that.

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Cluster

Posted on November 13, 2019 by John Swinburn

One of the many benefits of rising early, aside from luxurious isolation and time to sort out the mysteries of life, is the opportunity to cook for one. I have no objection at all to cooking for two, or even more, but cooking for one allows selfish pleasures the freedoms impossible to find when attempting to satisfy the tastes of others. This morning, for example, I grated a small potato and cooked it on the stove-top in a bit of oil, making an order of hash-browns for one. But I did not stop there. I sprinkled the crisp little potato pancake with smokehouse pepper (store-bought), then made a condiment comprising ketchup and Cholula salsa, which I tend smeared on top of the potato. None of this would have been possible had I not gotten out of bed at 4:30. Had I arisen later, I would have missed that selfish indulgence for reasons too convoluted to explain without writing a novel-length explanatory post.

Even so, the mere fact that my wife was sleeping in the next room prevented me from indulging myself even more. Had I been alone in the house, I might have taken bacon from the freezer and turned a simple order of hash-browns into a festival of flavors. But the aroma of bacon cooking would surely have awakened my wife, who would have been moderately annoyed at having been roused from her slumbers for a too-early (for her) breakfast. I prefer to eat early. She prefers to ease into the day, sipping on her first mug of tea until it is gone, before having breakfast. And I like big, hearty, over-the-top breakfasts. She appreciates far more moderate early-day meals. I subscribe to (but rarely practice) the philosophy that one should “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.” In practice, I tend to eat breakfast like a prince, lunch like a pauper, and dinner like a starving king presented with a feast. That practice, by the way, merits radical change.

***

Again this morning, my mind launched into a serious consideration of cobbling together some of my writing into a collection of fascicles. I wrote about fascicles a few years ago, by the way. I just checked; it was more than five years ago. It has been that long ago (and probably much longer) that I declared my intent to publish some of my writing, grouped together by topic or theme or other relational attribute. Five years and nothing of consequence has been done. Well, nothing of consequence I can show anyone. Unless I show the directory and file structures on my computer; there, I could reveal the work I’ve done thus far. I never got very far, though. If I were to approach it again, I would have to start from scratch. Ach.

***

I know of no actual connection, except the family name, between my family and the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. That notwithstanding, I find some of his poetry fascinating. For instance, this from Atalanta in Calydon:

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.

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Lost Knowledge

Posted on November 12, 2019 by John Swinburn

Have you ever considered the enormity of the volume of knowledge that once occupied your brain but is no longer there? The encyclopedic size of missing knowledge is simply beyond comprehension. Where does it go? Does it reside somewhere in the ether, information unaffiliated with one’s brain but extant, somewhere, nonetheless? Or does it simply disappear as if it had been a huge soap bubble, launched by a playful child, that suddenly pops and vanishes into thin air?

The information contained in the knowledge that once filled our heads continues to exist, but it exists outside us. For example, I once knew the names of all of my elementary school classmates. Yet I no longer know them. Those classmates still living continue to have their names (though, admittedly, some may have changed), but my knowledge of their names is gone. Some people might argue that my knowledge of those names still resides inside my brain; it’s just inaccessible to my memory until some internal or external trigger unlocks it and lets it flow freely to my recollections. I can buy that to an extent. But what about my former knowledge of chemistry from high school? No matter what the triggers, that knowledge is gone, never to return. I might be able to replace it with a regenerated duplicate, but it’s not the same knowledge. That stuff’s gone.

Knowledge isn’t just data. Knowledge can include images and smells and tastes. Those things seem to have a relationship, at times, to data knowledge. A smell, for example, can spark a memory of knowledge that seemed long since lost. I recall an occasion in the past when I smelled a perfume a classroom teacher years earlier had worn; the instant I sensed that smell, I was flooded with memories of the teacher and the classroom. The same experience of being flooded with memories has happened in other circumstances. Years ago, I regularly thought about former coworkers when an aroma provoked recollections of them. Usually, the memories were of women, because they were the ones most likely to adorn their skin with alluring fragrances. That doesn’t happen much anymore, probably because men and women both are less likely to wear perfumes and colognes these days.

I do not want to make too much of odors sparking memories, because memories constitute knowledge that remains locked up inside us. What interests me even more is the knowledge that seems to simply be gone. Where does it go? What happens to it? Is it possible that it merges with someone else’s knowledge and slips into that other person’s brain? That sounds a little too woo-woo for me, but I acknowledge that it’s possible. I also conceded that the possibility exists that some knowledge simply vaporizes; it returns to the atoms and molecules that once constituted it. That is, the knowledge simply dissolves into the universe.

Ancient civilizations knew, collectively, how to do things we no longer know how to do. For example, the ancients in Egypt knew how to construct monstrous pyramids. Today, we can only guess how they did it. Obviously, they had the knowledge about how to get it done and, in fact, did it. But that knowledge is gone. Or, perhaps, it’s locked in the human remains inside sealed chambers in which mummified bodies are kept. That brings up an interesting consideration: is knowledge a physical “thing,” or is it simply an artifact of the ways in which cells and neurons and electrical impulses in the brain are configured? In either case, I can imagine a point beyond which one’s brain simply cannot accommodate the volume. If a physical “thing,” the brain must eventually run out of room for it. If an artifact of configurations, the available configurations must have some limits, if for no other reason than configurations have limits (I assume, anyway). So, neither answer makes a difference. Not really.

Let me take a brief detour back to smell and the memories they can trigger. I think the memories may not be triggered by smells. Instead, I think smells may activate emotions that, in turn, prompt memories. It could be the other way around. I really have no way of knowing. But I do know I feel what I thought were long-buried emotions when I encounter certain smells. And those emotions carry with them (or are carried on) memories. I bring this up because I consider emotions part of the body of one’s knowledge. Emotions, while not necessarily equivalent to data, abound with information. And that information, like the kind we normally associate with data, can be lost. Or hidden. And, perhaps, relearned.

I still don’t know where all my lost knowledge has gone. I suppose I’ll never know. But I miss it. I do. Even the pieces I don’t remember having lost. I miss them, too.

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Thinking of Food

Posted on November 11, 2019 by John Swinburn

I’m making miso soup for breakfast again today. I made a rather disappointing batch two days ago. Not nearly enough miso paste, I think, and perhaps not enough tofu and mushrooms. I will try to rectify those deficiencies this morning.

Ideally, I would accompany the miso soup with a bit of fresh salmon and, perhaps, a few slices of cucumber. Unfortunately, I did not think of the salmon and cucumber until this morning; we don’t keep such stuff around unless we have an immediate plan to use them. Well, that’s not entirely true. I suspect we have a few salmon fillets in the freezer, but I’d have to thaw an entire fillet; that’s too much for breakfast. So, we’ll make do with the soup. Maybe I’ll jazz mine up with a spoonful of sambal oelek. And I might splash a little soy sauce to mix in with my bowl of soup. I realize my additions might render my soup inauthentic. So be it. All food today is fusion food; we just have to get over the idea that my fusion is inferior to or superior to anyone else’s food.

This morning’s miso soup is in sharp contrast to last night’s dinner of New York strip steak—cooked on the grill—and potato, broccoli, and cauliflower. And we accompanied dinner last night with a bottle of very good mourvedre (AKA monastrell) wine. The wine was an especially night treat. Miso soup may be just what I need to lower my cholesterol after an eight-ounce steak.

I’m getting in the mood to make hearty meals that also are healthy. I think that will take the form of more seafood, more vegetarian, and more soups in general. Last winter, when I was out of commission in the kitchen for the most part, I did not engage in my usual winter ritual of making lots and lots of lentil soups, each one spiced differently so as to make essentially the same soup taste radically different from one another. I missed that. So, I think I’ll plan on doing it this year. My wife mentioned it the other day; she missed the lentil soup fests, too. The only downside to making those soups is the amount of cutting and chopping required. I use so many veggies of so many types that my hands get stiff from all the knife work.

It’s almost 7:15. My wife usually would be up by 7:30 (and lately much earlier), but she was awake for a couple of hours last night, so she may be late to rise this morning. But just in case, I’d better get to work on the miso soup.

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Practice Practice Practice

Posted on November 11, 2019 by John Swinburn

“If things had been different, we might have had an affair. Or something even more lasting.” Garrick’s head bowed slightly as he spoke, as if his neck was giving way to the weight of a sigh.

Stella’s reply would remove any hope Garrick might have had for a speck of compassion.

“Well, of course! That statement cannot be disputed because, if things had been different, all manner of circumstances might have changed. You might have been mortally wounded in Vietnam if things had been different. You might have achieved fame or notoriety as a firebrand actor if things had been different. If things had been different, you might have spent twenty years in a Moroccan prison, subject to daily floggings and frequent rape. My point is, things were what things were. Stop your goddamned moping and live in the present!”

Garrick had not suggested he might have had an affair with Stella “if things had been different.” He was reminiscing about a mostly unhatched relationship with Monica Noburnshire, whose marriage with her husband, Paul, had been on its last legs when Garrick met her. Garrick was too young and inexperienced to recognize Monica’s interest in him at the time. Her advances were not sufficiently overt for him to believe that she actually had an interest in him. She was four years his senior and had the face of a movie star. Garrick was transfixed by her long blonde hair; he imagined running his hands through it as he kissed her passionately on the lips. But that was only his imagination. He was too shy to even hint at an interlude with her. Especially since she was married. And he was almost engaged.

Still, when she invited him to drive her sports car back to the office from lunch and then put her arms around his neck as he sat in the driver’s seat, he could imagine his fantasy turning to reality. Later, when their budding relationship was consummated after an after-work drinking binge at a nearby club, he thought reality and fantasy had become one. But something happened to quell the relationship. He didn’t remember what it was. It may have been something consequential, but it could just as easily have been the result of what had always been destined to be a one-night fling.

That it ended without intention had always bothered Garrick. His gloomy recall and his propensity to ask “what if” during the conversation with Stella drew her wrath and her reply. She was having none of his appetite for reminiscing about unfulfilled hunger and the possibility of love. She continued her tirade.

“You always wonder “what if” things had been different. Well they are always different. Different from what they might have been. Every breath you take is different from every other breath. What if the last one was exactly like the one before it? Well your life might have taken a sharp turn and you might have ended up in the gutter, begging for nickels. But it’s just as likely that nothing of the sort would have happened. I wish you’d get over this constant questioning about how your life would have been different if something or other had been different. It’s impossible to know!”

“Don’t you ever wonder how your life would have been different, Stella, if you’d make different decisions along the way? I mean, what if you had taken the job with the airline instead of staying with the bus company? You can never know, of course, but don’t you wonder?”

Stella’s look of exasperation preceded  her words. “No, I don’t. Because it’s pointless. I didn’t take the job. The bus company folded and I lost my job. But the same thing could have happened with the airline. Wondering “what if” is the utterly pointless undertaking of fools.”

“So I’m a fool for contemplating how my life might have been different had I made different choices? You’re even more callous and uncaring than I thought.”

 

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Awakening to Light

Posted on November 9, 2019 by John Swinburn

I can hear slivers of sunlight cracking through the predawn darkness. Daylight is attempting to pry open the edges of a sealed chamber; a cavity in which night spent an eternity blocking the sun’s rays. Once light begins to flood the sky, the bright flow can’t be extinguished until it has run its course.

The air around me becomes a spherical prism, spinning waves of light in sharp circles that dance off everything they touch. Each breath I take fills my lungs with particles of light that traveled incomprehensible distances from stars I can’t even see. Those radiant specks from the far reaches of the universe merge with drops of the sun’s visible energy, bathing me in the detritus of the Big Bang.

The impossible task of explaining the transition from secrecy to truth and from darkness to light and from distance to proximity falls to me; I am not up to it. I am incapable of explaining my understanding of infinity. I cannot express how far into the night I can see when the sun is hiding behind a veil woven from threads of danger and risk.

There will come a time when I will be unwilling to try anymore. I will give in to the allure of stepping off the bridge between pain and paralysis. Then, the sharp edges of life will spill away in a mist, illuminated by what’s left of the sun.

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Convolutions

Posted on November 7, 2019 by John Swinburn

Cooksie Sherwood slaughtered his opponents in the mayor’s race. Not literally. At least not all his opponents. But when his closest competitor, Ivory Lambrusco, was found dead in the front passenger seat of an overturned two-seater Mazda convertible, questions arose. Lambrusco did not own the car. There was no one else in the vehicle when the police arrived. The car had last been sold as a salvage vehicle a few months earlier, to Sherwood’s former campaign manager, Elizabeth Dole, yet its ownership was questionable. Dole was, apparently, on vacation in Italy when the crash occurred and she claimed she left the car with an auto restoration firm in Houston before she departed for Venice. The firm went out of business while Dole was away.

Despite all the headlines surrounding the mayor’s race and the death of his chief rival, Sherwood won handily, capturing almost eighty percent of the vote. He slaughtered his opponents.

A few months after the election, photographic evidence surfaced that Sherwood and Dole had been together in Houston when Dole supposedly was  in Vienna and Sherwood ostensibly was on vacation with his wife in Mexico. The photographic revelation turned the tide against Sherwood. Within months, he was recalled and Dole was arrested, charged with the murder of Ivory Lambrusco, even though evidence that a crime had been committed seemed slim; Lambrusco was found dead in an overturned car. And then Sherwood was arrested as an accomplice to the crime. All of this took place under a new acting mayor, MaryLou Treat, who had been Sherwood’s pro-tem during his brief tenure.

One might be forgiven for assuming this mayor’s race was just another story of political intrigue and big city gang-style crime. But this mayor’s race was for the chief elected officer of the City of Giddings, Texas, population roughly 5,700. The intrigue surrounding murder and the mayor’s race put an unwelcome spin on the city’s motto—Giddings, Texas: Experience Hometown Hospitality.

Fortunately for Giddings’ city manager, Leroy Scotsman, the entire ugly episode took place while Scotsman was on medical leave. Scotsman had been blowing leaves out of the gutters on the roof of his house when he disturbed a bat. The bat flew into his face and bit him. Scotsman swatted the bat to the ground and, in so doing, lost his balance and fell to the driveway below, breaking bones in both legs, his left arm, and his right hand. The responding medical team recovered the bat, which was determined to have had rabies. So, Scotsman was required to undergo post-exposure prophylaxis, an involved process over two weeks. Scotsman was heard several times during the ordeal with Sherwood and Dole saying, “I picked absolutely the best time possible to get rabies and fall off the roof.”

The position of mayor of Giddings is largely ceremonial and the position only pays $150 per month, so it’s hard to imagine jockeying for power and prestige played any part in Ivory Lambrusco’s death. Regardless of the motive, the circumstances surrounding Lambrusco’s death and Sherwood’s arrest caused enormous furor in Giddings. With Lambrusco out of the race, the four remaining challengers to Sherwood each garnered roughly five percent each.

[My attention deficit disorder or short little span of attention or whatever it is that makes it damn near impossible to maintain an interest in anything I do for more than about 45 minutes—90 minutes on a good day—has kicked in. Perhaps it’s that I’ve written myself into an inescapable corner, marked with impossibilities and unlikelihoods. Or perhaps I’ve milked as much as I can milk out of the words I’ve used thus far. Whatever it is, the story will remain untold. Who knows why Ivory Lambrusco died? Who knows who really killed her? Was Leroy Scotsman involved somehow? Was his rabid crash into a concrete driveway simply a diversion? And what about MaryLou Treat and Elizabeth Dole?  Why was Cooksie Sherwood so interested in becoming mayor of Giddings? And why were there six candidates for a largely ceremonial position? Too many questions and not enough answers. I may write about a simpler city next time: Mumbai or Rome or Weslaco, Texas.]

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Keepers of Private Notebooks

Posted on November 4, 2019 by John Swinburn

Yesterday, I read parts of something Joan Didion wrote in 1968, entitled, “On Keeping a Notebook.”  One excerpt in particular struck a chord with me:

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

Except for the assertion that they/we are “rearrangers of things,” I think her words describe me. That, and the fact that most of my “notebooks” are private only to the extent that few people ever find them or take time to read them. Yet in spite of the discrepancies between her words and my reality, she seemed to describe me; or, at least, a snapshot of a part of me.

But Didion’s words could describe almost anyone at some point in his life. Certain attractive phrases, whether written about oneself or not, tend to be treated as if they were crafted specifically to share one’s secrets with the world.  The use of words in such a clever way takes a special skill that, while not necessarily rare, is not particularly common. Writers of horoscopes possess that skill, enabling them to write convincingly in a way that every gullible reader believes the prognostication was intended solely for her.

In reading Didion’s thoughts as she recorded them, it occurred to me that she and I share many of the same questions about why we spend the time and energy to preserve our thoughts. But I don’t really know. Though I try to believe I keep notes strictly for my own personal future reference, I fear I’m doing it in lieu of begging to be noticed. I seem to be asking an unidentified audience, in a roundabout way, to pay attention to what is on my mind today. Rather than attempt to produce a publishable collection that might offer to a disinterested world insights into the man I am right now, I write and horde what I’ve written. Some day, someone may stumble across what I’ve written and find it interesting and enlightening and worthy. And, then, the significance of my chaotic thought-bombs might finally be recognized for what they are worth.

I hope I’m not that guy. The one who hopes someone else will decide, after I’m long gone, that my words had merit, after all. But I’m afraid that’s exactly who I am. A coward. A man who thinks he has something to say, but who’s afraid to suggest it aloud for fear he’ll be proven wrong in the avalanche of derision that follows. So, instead, he hopes someone else at a different time will take up his cause. Not knowing precisely what that “cause” is, he is utterly incapable of taking it up for himself.

I’ve never been fast on my feet like a practiced trial lawyer. On the one hand, I long to be quick-witted and sure-footed, capable of stinging rebuttals and irrefutable arguments. But on the other, I am leery of people who possess those attributes and skills. They are too much like carnival barkers, manipulative swindlers for whom life is a competition in which only the strongest and most Machiavellian survive. They prize winning above all else, even when “winning” causes devastating misfortune to befall their adversaries. Adversaries. That is the problem; they classify everyone as either supporters or adversaries. Everyone must take sides because every act is a competition, a rivalry designed only to determine winners and losers.

My reliance on “private notebooks” is the alternative to bravado and certainty, but it’s also an opportunity to safely avoid the dangers of competition and confidence. I can express strong opinions and defend them fiercely, all the while knowing my opinions can change when new evidence comes to light. A trial lawyer doesn’t have that luxury; he can’t opt to join the prosecution’s team at mid-trial  in the face of new and damning evidence of his client’s guilt.

The more I think about it, the more certain I become that my private notebooks do not offer evidence of cowardice and fear that my ideas and thoughts will go unnoticed. No, my private notebooks simply document the fact that I am unwilling to condemn uncertainty or to label equivocation an unforgivable flaw. A willingness to consider that even distasteful positions might have merit is, in my view, a strength. But it’s a strength that’s hard to defend when one is beset by sure-footed swindlers who equate uncertainty with weakness. As for me, though, uncertainty is a quality to admire. It speaks to one’s flexibility and open-mindedness. But one’s uncertainty can be used by one’s so-called opponents as a cudgel, if one is not careful. And if one is not fleet-of-foot and sharp-of-tongue. So keeping private notebooks, where arguments can be recorded and explored and, when appropriate, disemboweled with relish.

I could go on and on (obviously) without reaching any concrete conclusions. I do that a lot. Keepers of private notebooks, I suspect, generally are adept at stepping gingerly around concrete conclusions. But I may be wrong.

 

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Fragmentary Evidence

Posted on November 3, 2019 by John Swinburn

The fact was not new to me, but like so many facts, it had been lost in the shuffle between truth and lies, reality and fiction, and experience and fantasy. The easiest way to remember it, I think, is to say this phrase: “It’s not plural.” That is, the term is “Daylight Saving Time,” NOT “Daylight Savings Time.” Yet we’ve allowed an error to enter our lexicon as if it belonged. Rather than casting it out like the blatant mistake it is, we’ve treated it with appreciation and respect, allowing it to spoil the language like unrestrained mold spoils cheese.

Next, we’ll permit the use of “supposably” in place of “supposedly,” which already is being done by too many people too frequently. Yet we can’t simply ban the use of “supposably” because, much to my chagrin, it is a valid word. It does not mean the same thing as “supposedly,” but it does mean something. To some people. But not to me. But to others, it can mean “capable of being supposed.” Whereas, “supposedly” means “accepted as or assumed to be true.” The easiest way to avoid confusion is to refuse to accept the legitimacy of “supposably” in all but the most base and substandard English. That, of course, is fundamentally wrong, but as long as one knows it’s wrong and insists on doing what one can to reframe the language so that it conforms with at least a modicum of intellectual superiority, it’s okay. So says me, the arbiter of the proper use of the English language as it escapes from my mouth, my pen, and my fingers.

Today’s “Word of the Day,” as specified by Dictionary.com for this day (November 3, 2019) is obumbrate, pronounced ah-bum-brāt. It is a verb meaning “to darken, overshadow, or cloud.” Judging from the example sentences from Dictionary.com, drawn from materials published in the eighteenth century, I suspect it is not in especially widespread use today. But that may change, especially if I have anything to say about it. In fact, I may start using it regularly in conversation, causing listeners nearby to assume I am simply bragging about what I assume is my extraordinary vocabularly.  The assumption would be wrong, of course, in that I am doing no such thing. Instead, I am trying (almost certainly without success) to popularize an arcane term. I might say, for example, “Whenever I think of the imbecile in the White House, the thought causes my mood to obumbrate like the sky when fierce storms approach.”

I rather doubt I’ll remember the proper term for saving daylight, nor will I recall that supposably is a valid word; nor, I suspect, will I remember the definition of obumbrate, thought I might be able to guess it based on its inclusion of “umbra,” which suggests darkness to me (I don’t quite know why, but if I “take umbrage,” I feel like a shadow is being cast).

If only language were the most important thing on my mind around the clock, I think I would be a happier human being. I would smile more frequently, in spite of the four-foot-wide diastema between my two top front teeth. Speaking of diastema, I wonder why the word always refers to space between the teeth in the upper jaw (at least that’s what I think of)? Is there a word for space between teeth in the lower jaw? I’m sure I could find out, if I had sufficient interest in the subject, but apparently I don’t, inasmuch as I’m ignoring the opportunity to look it up; Mother Google and Father Bing are right here at my fingertips, for God’s sake, yet I won’t take the time or energy to explore and thereby expand my knowledge. Quite the shame, it is, my mental slothfulness.

Everything I’ve written this morning, thus far, offers at least fragmentary evidence that I am either as dull as a soup knife or as stupid as a bowl of half-witted fungus. Nothing I’ve written has even a hair’s width of intellectual value. Even in a world in which the intellectual equivalent of porridge were considered mind-numbingly brilliant, my blather would be labeled insensate and boorish. Yet, still, he persists. Mindless drivel, flooding from his fingers in wave after wave after brain-stopping wave.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt an intense aversion to the suggestion that writers “ought” to “write what they know” and steer clear of venturing out to explore the unknown. I think the advice (which, despite hating it, I’ve sometimes bought into) is reasonable for low-creativity wannabe writers whose capabilities are apt never to reach the level of nearly adequate. But, for people who are at least moderately creative and who have spent their entire waking lives using their native languages, the advice is stifling and unnecessarily restrictive. The advice minimizes opportunities to make glaring mistakes and to learn from them. I know, I know. Who the hell am I to argue against advice that has, for years and years (perhaps centuries), been given by very good writers to others who want to be good writers? I can’t answer that question with anything remotely persuasive. But, still, I feel very strongly about it. In fact, I would encourage just the opposite; write what you DON’T know and then read what  you’ve written. You’ll quickly learn what sounds wrong; you’ll learn what to avoid in the future.

Okay. It would be nearly seven o’clock in the old scheme of time-keeping. But it’s only nearly six o’clock in the new scheme. I think it’s time for me to stop exercising my fingers and, instead, to start exercising my mind. Or, perhaps, exorcising my mind.

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Friction

Posted on October 31, 2019 by John Swinburn

I enjoyed last night’s Wednesday Night Poetry. My set, though shorter than the thirty minutes I expected, allowed me to read most of the poems I planned to share. Fortunately for me, eleven people from Hot Springs Village came to show their support. Without them, the crowd would have been rather sparse; but with them, the chairs were comfortably filled, with only a half dozen or so empty ones, as best I can tell.

Naturally, the people who came specifically to support me were complimentary of my reading. And so were a few of the “regulars.” As nice as it is to hear positive feedback, I know from experience at Wednesday Night Poetry that the expectation is that all feedback will be positive. That’s the point; to offer support and encouragement. And I suppose suggestions for improvement in that environment would be equivalent to critique, which would go against the grain of the event. Yet I had the sense (why, I don’t really know) that my reading was hollow. I had real trouble getting through one poem, based on the experience of scattering my late sister’s ashes in the Gulf of Mexico. I don’t think that reading was hollow. But the rest? I wish I could get some honest feedback. Ah, well, I guess I’ll have to find an honest critic who doesn’t care about hurting my feeling.

Last night was event number 1605 in its thirty-year history. And tomorrow night a special event will follow, celebrating the life of Wednesday Night Poetry’s founder, Bud Kenny, who died on October 2nd; a Wednesday, of course.  At the appointed time, 6:20 or so, I (along with nine other readers stationed at different galleries throughout Hot Springs) will read one of Bud’s poems and will proceed toward the Superior Brewery, where the celebration of his life will continue. I expect the event to have quite a following; they’re arranging for shuttles to move people to and from remote parking. We shall see.

***

As I consider the people “in my sphere” who showed up last night, it occurs to me that some people seem to have a gene for empathy and grace and kindness and compassion and a host of other attributes that lend themselves to being supportive. Very few of the people who came to show their support are extremely close to me; in fact, there aren’t many people who are. But to the people who showed up, that doesn’t matter; they came because they couldn’t imagine not being there to support someone within their sphere of care and compassion. They came even though the weather was sloppy and the roads were wet; they came even though the Astros were playing in the final game of the World Series, something rather important to some of them. That’s just the kind of people they are. And that’s the kind of person I try to be, though not hard enough. I want to be there to show people support and compassion and appreciation; to offer evidence they matter.  I think I sometimes fail to take that into account when planning what I will do with my day. I should more frequently ask myself, “Would my presence in support of someone help them recognize they do, indeed, matter in this world?”

***

The temperature outside is only 33 degrees right now and is expected to top out at 47 later today. The forecast for tonight’s low is 29. Despite the chilly temperatures, clear skies probably will make the day feel warmer and more pleasant than yesterday: gloomy, bone-chilling, and unpleasantly nippy. I hope I’m right. I’d like to get out and about today. Even though I left the house yesterday for an errand or two and then went out last night, I felt confined and controlled, as if I were a dog on a short leash.

Speaking of dogs on a short leash, I met someone last night, my sister-in-law’s new male friend, who has a small dog; a fifteen-year-old wire-haired something or other. It sounds a little like the dog I imagined in a blog post I adapted and read last night. The dog (my story’s dog) was named Cinnamon. I’m waffling back and forth about whether I should get a dog. A small dog. A pocket-sized dog. A companion that enjoys being in my presence. And, of course, whose presence I would enjoy. A house-trained, pleasant-mannered, affable dog. Yeah. Well, I’ll think about it.

But the weather makes me wonder; would I be willing to walk Cinnamon on cold, rainy days? Do I have the patience to take good care of a dog? I would not tolerate anyone, myself included, ignoring or abandoning or otherwise mistreating a dog. Yeah. Well, I’ll think about it. Like I said.

***

For reasons unknown, we were without water for a time this morning. After I explored the crawl space under the house to no avail, I called and left a voice message with the public utilities department. And then my wife called the next door neighbors, who also had no water; during their conversation, though, the water came back on. And while they were talking, another neighbor called and left a message, asking whether our water was on. Obviously, the POA turned off the water for a short while, then turned it back on, but we have no idea why. The absence of flow from the tap, even for a short while, calls attention the the fact that water is important; vital, in fact. Yet many people around the world don’t have the luxury of water flowing from the tap. In fact, many don’t have the luxury of clean water, period. They may have to walk miles to get water of questionable quality from a community well. Do we realize how incredibly fortunate we are?

A return call from the POA revealed the problem; there was a major water main break. And they are issuing a precautionary boil order until tests can be done to verify the safety of the water from our taps.  Getting a taste of the third world lifestyle we’re attempting to create with intersocietal friction and hatred.

***

Fires rage in California. Egos rage in Washington, DC. War rages in Syria. Does Earth’s population realize we could solve virtually all of the problems that face humankind and the planet at large if we only opted to cooperate with one another? No. I guess not.

Posted in Stream of Consciousness | Leave a comment

Lacking Cinnamon

Posted on October 24, 2019 by John Swinburn

Coffee isn’t quite enough this morning. If the world were just, a cinnamon roll would accompany the coffee. And a pocket-sized dog, belonging to a neighbor, would have found its way into my house to provide company as I enjoy the bitter-sweet pairing of caffeine and sugar. Alas, the world is an unjust assemblage of accidental moments, cobbled together at random and without discernible purpose. Yet we still complain, even in the knowledge that our complaints have as much impact on our experiences as raindrops have on the temperature of the sun. No cinnamon roll, no dog. Only coffee, its bitterness blending with my own. But if the neighbor had the dog I imagined, its name would be Cinnamon. That much I know with certainty.

Last night, as I listened to some incredibly moving poetry read by a few remarkably talented people, I longed to have their abilities to conjure tears by weaving words together. That’s what they did. They weaved words together in such a skillful fashion that the audience (at least this member of the audience) could not help the tears spilling. Stories, told in the form of poems, revealed brutal childhoods, fragile emergence into teen years, and adulthoods looking back with regret to early years. Poignant stuff. And the readers were either exceptionally good actors or their stories were so genuinely painful that some of the readers, too, spilled tears as they told them.

The Featured poet was actually a pair of poets, two women who married one another while they lived in Arkansas but before the Supreme Court decision that recognized gay marriage. They left Arkansas one weekend and got married in another state (California, I think), then took a red-eye flight back to Arkansas on a Sunday so they would teach their college classes on Monday morning. I found it mildly interesting that they got married on October 21 (six years ago), my birthday.

Several of their individual poems were about their relationship. They read separately. Their poetry and their styles were starkly different from one another; both were superb poets. Both have published several books and chapbooks of poetry. Before I forget, I want to record their names: Nickole Brown and Jessica Jacobs. They are no longer teaching full-time; they write. Both, though, teach on occasion, I believe. They live in Asheville, NC. I may go there one day, just to buy their books from them directly. I had to leave last night before the second open-mic section, so didn’t have the opportunity to buy their books and have them autographed. Ah, well.

I was asked to read last night. Fortunately, I came prepared in case such a request came; I read four micro-poems I wrote and posted here in early August, The reading took slightly less than the allotted four minutes.  Next Wednesday, I will be the Featured Poet, with thirty minutes allotted to my reading. I haven’t yet selected my readings (and probably haven’t even written a few I will end up reading). Two nights later, I will participate in a remembrance service for the man who began Wednesday Night Poetry, Bud Kenny, thirty years ago, on February 1, 1989. The current emcee, Kai Coggin, asked me to read one of Bud’s poems at one of the area’s art galleries and then lead a procession to the Superior Brewery, where we’ll celebrate his life with more readings, etc. A fitting celebration for a good man.

The four micro-poems I read last night are, for the record:

Perspectives on Judgment and Trust      

Asking for someone’s help is either an overt
admission of weakness—a confirmation of one’s
inabilities, frailties, and flaws— or a
poignantly human expression of a
belief in love and a risky act of imperfect
contrition for one’s fundamental humanity.

Secular Worship
It took me more than half a lifetime to fully embrace the
validity of the concept of “love they neighbor as thyself”
and to realize its morality is the bedrock of humanity.
It took me just as long to understand that loving thyself
is harder than the rock upon which our humanity stands.
But the key is to stretch toward that unreachable goal
through secular worship—seeking truth in the labyrinth
of ideas that form the basis of morality as we define it.

The Arc of Justice
First, we have to acknowledge that justice is a fiction,
an attempt at reaching agreement on a concept based not
on fact but on perspective. Justice is our jaundiced view
of a “fair” world seen through the lens of greater or
lesser experience, privilege, and generosity.
Next, we have to find commonalities between our perspectives.
Finally, our mutually, but radically different, blurred fields
of vision must be excluded from our images of justice.
Only then can we see the possibility of an arc of justice.
And that arc of justice, though shortened by the exclusion of our
differences, still is almost impossibly long.

Innocence
Before they are taught how “cute” they are,
before they become actors who perform in return
for gushing appreciation and blind adoration,
they are heart-breaking in their purity.
In their explosive honesty and endless joy,
children show us we already had what we then foolishly
seek for the rest of our harrowing lives.
Adulthood is a curse, punishment for ignoring
the beauty of true honesty and unconditional acceptance.
We spend a lifetime unlearning lessons we knew from the start.
If only we’d just held on to that breathtaking innocence.

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Poetry on My Mind

Posted on October 22, 2019 by John Swinburn

The reason I am drawn to many songs has only a little to do with the tune, though the tune and the way it is delivered can matter. The lyrics matter far more, though. Good song lyrics are, quite simply, poetry put to music. Whether standing alone on a page or accompanied by the sound of an instrument or an orchestra, poetry can extract from my too often hard heart a gentle melancholy that sweeps over me like a wave that deepens with every word.

But “gentle melancholy” is too sweet a phrase to describe the anguish that some music/poetry unleashes in me. A line from The Boxer, by Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon (Simon wrote the lyrics) extracts from me both the gentleness and the anguish of which I speak:

“I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises.”

Those words tear at my heartstrings the way a hawk’s talons claw at the flesh of a fresh-caught rabbit. That’s an ugly image, isn’t it? And it’s an unfortunate comparison, yes? Imagining oneself in place of a dead or dying rabbit being torn to shreds by a powerful force over which one has no control. A bloody, gruesome, sickening image. But monstrous images erupt, even the most beautiful poetry, when words intersect with emotions and mood at just the right angle. Anguish and melancholy emerge from the very same words at the very same moment, giving rise to a powerful emotion capable of smothering hope and hatred under the same blanket. What’s left, after the last breath is gone, is raw, aching emptiness.

They’re only assemblages of words.

But poems gather words together to form weapons just as capable of savagery as the beasts who cobble syllables together. And poets can weave healing bandages out of syllables, dressing emotional wounds with curative sounds that sooth the soul. This brings to mind the question of what constitutes a good poet and a bad poet. Do bad poets torture with their words? Do good poets use words to offer succor and to console tangled emotions? Good and bad are ambiguous words, just like the rest of the poet’s language arsenal. Good poetry arises from the skillful use of words as paint; words have color and hue and density. Bad poetry? That’s hard to say. Perhaps bad poetry springs from insufficient emotional attachments to the relationship between words and the world in which we live. That is, of course, nonsense but it’s as reasonable as anything else I’ve read. In my present mood, I’d say there is no bad poetry, only poetry whose words do not please my ears or my emotions; that does not mean someone else cannot find pleasure where I find none.

I think “good poetry” is intensely personal; either it means something of profound importance to the reader/listener or it triggers a profound and meaningful thought. Good poetry stretches one’s mind beyond one’s immediate horizon; it takes us out of our isolation and throws us into the wider world where we are not alone. But not always. Good poetry can pour concrete around our self-made bunkers, reinforcing our solitude and plunging us deeper into isolation. So, if poetry can “behave” in such conflicting ways, how can we properly label it? We can’t. Yet there’s obviously a difference between a simple two-stanza rhyming poem and an epic free-verse poem. While poetry can be complex and many of the various forms of poetry certainly are worthy of study, a reader need not be conversant in the complexities of form to understand and appreciate poetry. One of the most well-known villanelle-style poems, Dylan Thomas’ Do not go gentle into that good night, is somewhat complex in form, but any reader can appreciate the poem without understanding the style. For my own record and recollection, here’s what the Poetry Foundation says about villanelle: “A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain.”

It’s interesting to me that I emerged from a rather low, grim, somber mood simply by unleashing my inner academic. I started out grey and withdrawn; simply by exploring, intellectually, what poetry does to me emotionally (or, rather, what my emotions draw out of poetry, I suppose), I got a little color in my cheeks. I’m not bursting with enthusiasm and gloriously happy with the day just yet, but at least I’m not quite as forlorn as I was. Though, now that I think on it a bit, there’s a reason I was not especially chipper. I could bounce between depression and moderate contentment if I were to allow it. That would suck all my energy, though, so I’ll try not to bounce back and forth between two competing emotional states.

 

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Dammit, In Two or More Parts

Posted on October 20, 2019 by John Swinburn

It has always been so: because I tend to want to please people, my answer to requests is more often “yes” than “no.” The foundation of this need to please is beyond me; people generally do no reciprocate, nor do I earn respect, genuine appreciation, or other benefits of consequence from my willingness to help. Yet I continue to say “yes” far more often than “no.” That’s going to change. I will measure the merits and costs of my responses before I give them. And “no” will become the norm.

I am in the midst of fulfilling an obligation I did not have to accept. In fact, if my plans had not changed out of necessity, I could have ignored the obligation without guilt. But our decision to return to Hot Springs Village instead of embark on a much-desired and, frankly, much-needed road trip left me little room to maneuver. The obligation is this: as “team leader” of a small group of UUVC members, I am responsible for organizing content for and staffing information tables for an Eco-Fair a week from today. In addition, I am to give a 3-minute summary of our group’s purpose and activities. Neither task would be particularly onerous except that the other group members, all of whom said “yes” to participation, seem to have no qualms about ignoring their offers to participate. So, unless I get unexpected offers of help this morning, I will do the project alone. It’s not particularly burdensome, but it’s not something I would have chosen to do. Except I said “yes” to the urging that I be group leader.

The same set of circumstances, with a someone different level of support (thankfully), took place with regard to handling the long range planning committee. The work is not especially burdensome, but I retired seven years early, in part, to escape committee work.

I’ve said all this before. I’ve complained before. I’ve promised, before, to say “no” in future when approached to do things in which I have no interest and for which I have no patience. Yet I’ve failed in my commitment to lose my concern about pleasing others. I seem to have a sense that I will be labeled a monster if I refuse requests for help. And maybe the label would be deserved. And maybe it would be a hurtful label. But at least I would be free of time-sucking tasks that have little to no intrinsic value. I would be free to take road trips without concern that I might be unable to meet annoying obligations. I would be free to return early without worry that an early return obligates me to engage in meeting those annoying obligations. I think I’ve convinced myself this time. I need to get a tattoo on my wrist, advertising my response to requests for help: “No, I Have Other As Yet Unknown Plans.”

***

I spent some time this morning looking online for rental houses in Ajijic. I found an interesting place on AirBnB, Casa De Schroeder en Ajijic, that can be had for $802 for the entire month of February. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths, mirador, views of the lake and the mountains; quite a place. I looked for houses for sale, too, but the cheapest I found in Ajijc was $175,000; it was not particularly attractive. In fact, only those priced above around $300,000 looked appealing to me. I guess I have expensive taste. And I know I have resources like those of an ascetic. Such is life.

Quite apart from my rental/purchase search, I came across a collection of clever bathroom signs depicting men’s and women’s restrooms. While quite clever, I thought the creators of the signs would do well to visit a foreign country where English is not the primary language before settling on the signs. Many of the signs required more than a little thought to figure out what they meant; and without English as one’s primary language, mistakes might easily be made. I don’t think many of us think of such things on a routine basis. Only after visiting another country and seeing different signs for bathrooms do we become aware of how easy it is for “cleverness” to be absolutely confusing for people who don’t speak the language. I realize, of course, many of my fellow countrymen, bigoted pricks that they are, would say it doesn’t matter; “if they come to this country, they ought to speak the language!” Yeah, and if I visit Ethiopia I ought to perfect my Amharic before making the trip. Where in the hell has our human compassion gone? Our human decency? Achhh! I get angry just thinking about it. So, I shan’t think about it any more for the time being.

***

Speaking of language and Ajijic, it occurs to me that I might want to go someplace else if in my travels I expect to begin to develop fluency in Spanish. Too many people along the north side of Lake Chapala are English speakers; I mean, so many people speak English that Spanish is not urgently required to get by. That’s good and bad.

***

As I glanced out the side window just now, I noticed a doe wandering by. Then, another one ran by, startled by a car. And then a third and fourth and fifth came down the hillside. I do love watching deer wander by my house. There’s something calming and deeply serene about the movement of deer, even when they are fleeing real or imagined danger.

***

Time to take a shower and shave. Well, another cup of coffee first while my wife takes her shower. And then off to church. That place that wants me to say “yes” when I want only to say “no, never!”

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And Then There Was Beer…

Posted on October 19, 2019 by John Swinburn

The flight from Guadalajara to Dallas was uneventful. The reception in Dallas by the U.S. Government bureaucracy was upsetting in the extreme. Customs and immigration, both of which have been recipients of obscenely enormous investments in recent years, demonstrated the extent to which massive investment dollars can be used to dramatically increase the cost and reduce the efficiency of processes. It seems to me the process of examining incoming travelers’ assertions and documents has been made much, much, much more expensive (through the use of technology) while having been made slower, less logical, and more annoying. I feel confident in saying the processes in place now, coupled with the expensive systems in their support, suggest graft and greed. Yes, I do tend to bitch and moan about stuff that merits bitching and moaning and loud complaints.

Once we were released from the clutches of the airport TSA types, we were delivered to our car, parked in a seedy motel parking lot for a week. From there, we took back roads for many, many miles to our motel for the night; a Best Western in the heart of Addison. The location was perfect, in that it is only blocks from Flying Saucer, where I have been working for seven years to drink 200 different beers, thereby earning a plate on the ceiling, memorialized with wording of my desire. That night, I had three more beers (numbers 196, 197, and 198), leaving only two more before I have my very own plate. My beers that night were: Firestone Walker Old Man Hattan; Real Ale Brewing Fresh Kicks Hazy IPA; and Bell’s Best Brown. The first, by far the most expensive, was my least favorite. My favorite was the Fresh Kicks. The following day, after a few morning errands, we hit the road toward home. We stopped at the Flying Saucer on Lake Ray Hubbard at lunch time, where I completed my beer journey: I drank a Bear Republic Further Thru the Haze and a Leinenkugels CanoePaddler (the latter the ONLY bottled beer of the 200).  I hope to return to Dallas sometime in the Spring or Summer for my long-awaited plate party. And I hope to be joined by a few friends; one or two who shared the drinking journey and a select few more who will, I hope, appreciate the experience.

The journey to and from Ajijic and our time spent in Ajijic and Dallas was impacted the effects some prescription drugs had/are having on my wife. Enough said; she braved the trip and my brief forays into beerland and I appreciate that.

Our time in Ajijic was delightful and I want to spend more time there. When I return, I think I may make the trip solo and stay for a month or two or three. I could use some solitary time to assess the experience. That may or may not happen; we shall see.

Our trip was to have included an additional several days in Dallas and a diversion to Fort Smith to visit friends but, thanks to prescription drugs, those planned add-ons were abandoned. I will not let too much time pass before we recapture those plans and experience them as they were intended provided, of course, medications do not interfere again. And, of course, I have yet to sufficiently address my damned cough. An upcoming visit with my primary care doctor may lead to another visit with a specialist who, if the Universe is my friend, will finally identify the cause of and find a solution for my cough.Time will tell, as it always does.

***

I plan to document our trip to Ajijic, but now’s not the time to do it. That will require more focus than I’m able to give the matter at the moment. Instead, I’ll mine my psyche for a few moments, hoping the walls and ceiling of the mine don’t collapse on me in the process.

Last night, I finished watching El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. I started watching it while I was in Mexico, during a day when I felt rather poorly and when my wife and a few others fled Ajijic for the attractions of Tlaquepaque on the southern fringe of Guadalajara. I suspect I might have enjoyed it more, and understood it better, had I watched (again) the last episode of Breaking Bad before I began watching the movie. But I didn’t and I was therefore lost from the start. I just don’t remember television and movies with any detail, so a movie that starts with a scene that requires recollections of the closing moments of a television series that ended six years earlier is not a hit with me. At any rate, I watched the entire movie and was not entirely displeased with it. But I think I might watch it again, after watching the last episode of BB.

I envy the creators and writers of Breaking Bad. They were able to construct a compelling tale that incorporated an enormous volume of symbolic elements, carefully stitched into the story line in a way that makes symbolism fun! I am confident the writers engaged in lively conversations about how to include symbolism throughout the series. The way I see it, they did so without being blatantly obvious, yet in hindsight the symbolism is blatantly obvious! Great fun, I think. I’d like to have access to some creative writers who feed off other creative writers so that the sum of their efforts is greater than the individuals’ contributions. Wish. Wish. Wish. Why wish when you can wonder? I wonder?

***

I’m off the rails here. I have an enormous amount of “stuff” on my mind but I’m incapable of putting it down. So I’ll put away my keyboard, reheat my cold coffee, and read the news. That will jack up my blood pressure to unsafe levels, I’m sure.

Posted in Beer, Travel | Leave a comment