I have no lid upon my head, but if I did, you could look inside and see what's on my mind.

The title of the last post was an orphan. A bit without a form. Without development.

So I tried to start with it.

But I've been having trouble writing here. (Hence the posting of old stuff.) So it didn't go anywhere. Or. Anywhere lengthy.

So. I now have more orphans. More bits for development. Mostly, because of the prophecy, about religion.

These are them. As I wrote them.

*****

In place of leaves/ we should burn/ pages and pages of prophecy.

Written around the time a friend of mine killed himself. The end of 2004.

From 2003.

I wrote this for a rally I didn't attend. Or. As it's been said. I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

[Clicking on it should bring it up larger. Apologies. But it being small was the only simple way to keep its formal integrity.]

This is me, without my hair.

It has been a relatively recent revelation for me that I tend, perhaps more than others (perhaps only because I do it on paper), to romanticize my past. I re-present it. I create characters. For myself and for others. The truth is in it all somewhere, more or less buried. And that is the essay I will always be writing.

This is something recent. It's an excerpt of something unfinished. And it is, itself, unfinished. It's probably in need of revision. I can't tell yet. Though, I should note, melodrama is part of the topic -- so at least some of the melodrama you find will probably remain.

*****

I’d tried desperately to avoid falling in love with this girl. I’d refused to say it aloud. I would find myself thinking it, almost verbalizing, with my mouth in her hair and my leg thrown over hers in a way that seemed utterly unique to the harmonizing contours of our bodies. And I would stop myself. I would not let myself speak the words. I’d thought (it seems so silly now) that would be enough. Enough of a wall.

It wasn’t.

And then because of that—because of all the willful stoppage—when I finally let the words emerge (and still, it was only in writing, at first, that I allowed myself to do it then), it was, for me, a culmination. It was a climax. This was, I was thinking, consciously or not, the zenith of something.

(Despite the break-up we’d rationally made official two weeks earlier.)

(Despite the outward awareness that this was a redundant ending (emphasis to no avail, in the end), and not the holding pattern of sorts I somewhere deeply imagined it to be.)

(Despite the rest of the words I’d written, listing the reasons I was glad for her sake she was leaving – not lies at all, but truths impugned.)

Then, for me, finally: Here was the moment.

Her tears—the suddenly sad kind (though due to nostalgia, I now recognize)—told me her eyes had immediately scrolled to the final line. Those three words. But she read, too, my listed reasons. And then, “I love you too.” She said it back. And then my tears came. And it was exactly as, I thought, it should have been. Two star-crossed lovers, I was thinking, torn apart by circumstance. How unbelievably sad. Forget the months of repressing feeling, attempting not to feel. How unbelievably sad. Forget the supposed indiscretion. How unbelievably sad. These two people were losing each other and neither of them wanted it that way. How unbelievably sad. I thought.

How unbelievably sad.

Because if my “I love you” was a peak finally crested, hers was a valley. Mine was a “Look! See what I can say to you after all this time!” And hers was simply an “Of course.” Of course she loved me. We’d known each other five years, spent countless hours lying in each other’s arms, finally dated for eight months, living together most weekends. Of course she loved me.

But her love for me was, then, unexceptional. While my love for her had grown extraordinary.

So what I heard from her then was what fit with my own feelings – the same love despite tragedy I’d finally acknowledged myself. When what she’d spoken was truly love despite failure. For her, she still loved me, but we’d failed.

Rescuing the cliche: A love poem becomes something else. Perhaps.

Both are untitled. Due, mostly, to laziness. (But I'll take suggestions, if you like.)

Now then, Version 1:
And, post-revision, Version 2:

An excerpt from something I can't help but like, despite Vivian Gornick thinking it sucks.

I have this picture framed next to my bed. For six years now it’s been framed and next to my bed. I took it when I was twelve – I was into photography then. It’s of Venice Beach in L.A. Not the commercial areas. The beach. Sand and the ocean and the hills. I have no idea why, but there was only one person on the beach besides my family and I, and the family friend showing us around. Maybe he’d taken us to a private beach. I don’t know.

Anyway. I like the picture because in the foreground there are these tracks. Three tracks, like a wheelbarrow would make. They start, real heavy and thick, at the bottom of the picture. And they sort of trail off right where the foreground turns to the background – there’s a word for that place, but I don’t know it.

One night, junior year, while studying history, I caught Becca staring at it. The picture. The tracks. They’re pitiable, she said.

Pitiable? You mean pitiful?

No, I don’t. And she went back to her book.

And I wrote, “Ours is a history of self-defined triumphs.”

Anyway. I like the picture because I don’t understand it. Either the wagon—or whatever made the tracks—started in the middle of the frame, where the tracks stop, and moved downward – in which case it’s not at all clear how the wagon got there to begin with. Or, the wagon started somewhere below and moved upward and stopped where the tracks stop – but then it’s not clear how the wagon was taken away.

People generally like the picture. They like the tracks, they say usually.

It’s not the tracks that intrigue me. It’s where the wagon’s gone.

Posting this for lack of anything else to do with it at this point.

I wrote this I guess probably about a year and a half ago. It's a speech/lecture/presentation I created to give to one of my classes. I never gave it. Because, in part, it over-does the drama and under-does the truth. But I think it has something to offer. And there's a line in there about an epidemiology of ideas that I like.

I was reminded of this speech by something I said a few days ago. Over-dramatic and under-truthed advice to med students: 50% of what you learn here will be wrong in 4 years...The trouble is, no one knows which 50%.

I'm not in med school. But that advice seems more true, somehow, out and about. If only because this piece extends that advice beyond med school, I like it.

******

Several of you have asked me recently why you’ve been learning for two years that the “so what” of your papers should come in the conclusion, only now to be taught that it should be introduced from the outset and incorporated throughout.

Well. The answer is simple: it’s complicated.

Each of us, in many ways and each of us in our own ways, are resistant to growth. Which does not make us unmotivated or apathetic, or even at all abnormal. Although it does make us somewhat obstinate.

But it makes sense, I think. Growth is difficult. Especially when it feels like it’s happening quickly, or when it feels forced upon you. Both of which are feelings that abound during high school. I remember that. I get that.

But let me tell you, as one who is just enough more experienced than you, it doesn’t get easier. It continues to feel forced sometimes, and it seems to happen more quickly, if you can imagine. In that way it gets more difficult. Though you come to expect it, and eventually, to accept it. And more slowly, usually, to embrace it.

And so your obstinacy, our obstinacy, is understandable. But still regrettable. And ultimately it cannot, it will not, hold up.

We have to grow. It’s not a choice. Especially not in today’s world, where what you learned yesterday often no longer holds true tomorrow.

A professor of mine at Brown, Professor Beiser, was fond of telling us, a large but discussion-based philosophy class, that students are often told on their first day of medical school, “Fifty percent of everything you learn here will be completely wrong when you graduate in 4 years…the trouble is, no one knows which fifty percent.”

He was right. He is right. No one knows which fifty percent. No one knows what will be obsolete tomorrow or next week or next year or 5 years from now when you graduate college and enter that elusive arena known only as “the real world.”

He often ended class with that statement. No one knows which fifty percent.

The message was clear. It didn’t just apply to med school, where the application was obvious and often physical.

Viruses mutate. New medicines are developed. Vaccines are created. New methods of surgery are invented and put into practice. And all of this can be traced via epidemiology.

But Professor Beiser was talking about something more. The mutation of problems. The development of new methods of action. The creation of new solutions. An epidemiology of ideas.

Albert Einstein once said, “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” This from a man, let us remember, whose theories and advocacy were instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb, the use of which Einstein always condemned.

What level of thinking brought us the atomic bomb?

E = mc2. The idea that energy and mass are relatively equivalent. The notion that an enormous amount of energy could be produced by, could be harnessed from, a tiny bit of mass. The imaginative theorizing it took to conceive of a chain reaction caused by splitting an atom, an iota of the universe, splitting that, a chain reaction that could destroy a modern city.

“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

Change is constantly upon us. Yesterday’s means are forgotten. And yesterday’s ends are merely our starting point.

E = mc2. Discovery led to the opportunity for destruction. Which led to the opportunity for power and for warmth. Which led to the opportunity for terrorism. Which has led to the opportunity for a global response.

A response that no one really knew how to initiate.

A response that has begun to fall flat.

Or which has simply stripped off its global colors and reverted into yesteryear’s provincialism.

When E equaled mc2. And that was enough.

A global response. Which no one knows how to reinvigorate.

Because our leaders have reverted to yesterday’s means. Repackaged, perhaps. Our bombs apparently have greater intelligence now. Which means, I suppose, that they know when they destroy innocent lives.

“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

“The release of atomic power,” Einstein also said, “has changed everything except our way of thinking.”

At the risk of sounding trite, it’s not our bombs that need greater intelligence to encounter the problems of today and tomorrow. It’s us. We must grow. Beyond E = mc2. Up and upward. Outward and together. We must grow forward as time moves forward.

We must continue to learn as quickly as we discover we are wrong. Life today is, it must be, a continual process of acceptance and adaptation and discovery.

Answers are inherently elusive and essentially transitory. Life today must be fueled by questions. How? Why? So what?

And so, in the interest of such eternal cycles, we too have in this space today come full circle. The question we started with: Why, it’s been asked, are we learning to incorporate our “so whats” throughout our papers?

Because you must grow as the world around you grows.

Because your writing should mirror life. The time has come and gone for the process of offering an idea, offering evidence in support, and then explaining why it was important at the end.

Discovery is no longer slow enough to allow you to hint at significance in conclusion.

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, proposing that the creatures currently inhabiting Earth had descended from the first life on the planet in a continuous process of variation and natural selection. The third to last paragraph of this groundbreaking work ends with the simple line, “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”

Almost 150 years later, there is no longer time for such understatement.

James Watson and Francis Crick published an unassuming one-page paper in Nature magazine in April of 1953. The paper was titled, “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.” The structure of DNA, the biochemical backbone of Darwin’s theory, had been exposed. The paper concludes, “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."

Over 50 years later, there is no longer time for such modesty.

Discovery is no longer slow enough to allow you to hint at significance in conclusion. You must have a good grasp, and your reader must have a good grasp, on the significance of what you’re saying as you are saying it.

Because by the time you get to the end, you’ll need to be asking new questions.

Darwin took twelve years before he published The Descent of Man in 1871, in which he applied the theories from On the Origin of Species directly to the question of human evolution. Twelve years.

You can’t wait twelve years. “So what” has become day by day. And so it must, to make it concrete, become paragraph by paragraph. You can’t wait twelve paragraphs to suggest the significance of what you’re saying.

Conclusions are where you pound home the “so what” that you have worked to describe and to demonstrate gradually. And then, today, the conclusion is where you ask, “what’s next?”

Darwin ended On the Origin of Species with a passage that seems fitting as an ending here as well, though I will shorten it and must acknowledge twisting it for my own devices.

“Judging from the past,” Darwin writes, “we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for…the greater number of species…have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct.”

There’s a bit more, but, first, in a slanted take on “what’s next,” I offer you here Professor Beiser’s reminder: No one knows which fifty percent.

“There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin continues, and I offer as a more hopeful outlook, “…whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Because I don't want to write, I'm posting something old.

Love notes make great epitaphs/ when excerpted, we could fill boxes/ labeled lifetimes with misplaced nametags.

I have now, after almost a month, almost fully moved in to Studio 5, Room 307.

My clothes are in drawers, my books are on shelves, my tv and dvd player are hooked up, and I have three different ways to fill the room with music. (Five, I suppose, if you count the dvd player and the PS2.) My fans are strategically placed. I have groceries. Empty boxes worth saving are stashed under the bed. My Dylan blanket is spread across the couch, as it should be. And the monkey has found a place to hang.

Of course, there are still broken down boxes waiting in the middle of the kitchen floor to be taken outside to the dumpster. Dirty clothes--in two piles, one in my closet, one in the bathroom--wait for me to buy a hamper. Most of my shoes still remain in the white plastic trash bags in which I brought them out here. The ironing board is still in the plastic it came in, and the majority of the pots and pans are still in their original bubble wrap. I still need to buy a lamp.

Framed and unframed pictures and posters still lean against the walls, waiting to be arranged more permanently. Those are, in fact, the same framed and unframed pictures and posters that spent fourteen months in Chicago leaning against the walls of that apartment. I didn't hang them up when I moved in. And the weeks and months passed. And eventually it seemed silly to hang them up when I would be taking them down again fairly soon.

In that apartment--the one in Chicago--I still had boxes left to be unpacked when I was moving out after over a year. I just brought them to my car and moved them to the next place.

Well, one of the next places. The lease on the place in Old Town was up on June 30th, and I wasn't supposed to be here in California until August 22nd. So I had nowhere to live. I spent a week or so with a friend in the city, living out of a suitcase. Then I went to Europe with that friend for almost three weeks, living out of a suitcase. Then, upon returning to Chicago, I lived (out of a suitcase) on my mom's living room couch in the suburbs for about four weeks.

Living on that couch was a peculiar experience. It was the same couch I'd napped on most days after getting home from middle school and high school. That was in what my family now refers to as 'the old house.' The house I lived in from age two until my sophomore year of college.

Making the nostalgia ring more loudly during my nights in my mom's new living room was the work I was supposed to be doing. Her house was filled with boxes of my things. Boxes from Old Town. Boxes still packed from Brown two years earlier. Boxes that had been in a storage unit for years.

Those were the worst. Boxes of things from infancy onward. My baby book and the report on corn I wrote in the third grade and the fabricated family tree my dad provided me in the sixth grade and the Bulls championship game from 1996 on VHS and all my graded work from high school. I threw much of it out. That was the endgame of the project. Downsizing. There just isn't room for it all anymore.

Everything I didn't want (or couldn't bring) with me out here had to stay in boxes at my mom's place.

My mom's place is her third since moving out of 'the old house' at the end of 2001. They've gotten progressively smaller. My sophomore year at Brown, I went home for Thanksgiving to a home I'd never seen before. It was a two-story condo in Buffalo Grove. It had a master bedroom and smaller bedrooms for me and my sister. I lived there on school breaks that year and during the following summer. Then she moved to a two-bedroom in Lincolnshire. My sister took the second bedroom. I never lived there.

I don't remember when during my junior year she moved to that second place, so I can't recall where I lived on school breaks that year, but I know I spent the summer before senior year at my dad's place.

My dad's place was his second since moving out of 'the old house' in December of my senior year of high school. (The first was a small, one-bedroom apartment whose temporary nature, after a year or so, haunted him as an apparition of permanence. He had to move. So he found a new place.) It was a two-story condo in Deerfield -- two bedrooms, one of which became mine. I lived there during breaks my senior year as well.

And the summer after my senior year, and for eight months after that, I continued to live at my dad's place. (Somewhere in that time--I believe, though I can't really remember--my mom moved to her current place in Wheeling. Still two bedrooms. One still my sister's.)

At the end of eleven months, I packed up that which wasn't still packed (Over school breaks and summers for the previous couple of years, I'd essentially lived out of my suitcase and a laundry basket. I never brought home much beyond clothes, some books, my computer, cds, and video games. And living with my dad for those months after college, I guess I just didn't get out of the habit.) and moved to the place in Old Town.

My sister moved out of my mom's place sometime after that, leaving my mom with a new den, nee second bedroom.

Somewhere in there then my dad moved to his current place, a block away in a two-story condo that is almost entirely identical to the previous one -- but with a larger master bedroom and the second bedroom set up as his office.

And sometime in there (rather immediately, I think), I enjoyed the city, enjoyed Old Town, enjoyed the place there. But, in small part because I was living well beyond my means, it never ceased to feel like a hotel.

And fourteen months and a trip to Europe later, and I was living on my mom's living room couch -- because the couch in the den was less comfortable (it's the one I used to read on in our 'library' in 'the old house'). And besides, my boxes filled the room.

There are far fewer of those boxes now. Somewhere among them, stashed in the closet of my mom's new den, are two rather small ones marked 'memorabilia' and a couple of shoeboxes marked 'pictures.' Among my many books and old trading cards and warmest clothes, they wait.

And now I'm in California. Almost moved in. With my framed and unframed pictures and posters leaning against the walls.

Wondering where I'll go to when I go home for school breaks.

One more, and then I promise something else.

From the margins of a college notebook.

A poem from June.

Article 1, section 6.

[Temporarily removed for revision.]

Confessional: an unspecified moment.

I recently had this moment. This moment in which I realized the extent of my self-absorption. This moment in which I realized I'd spent several months of my life not paying enough attention to the uniqueness of my personal lens. (Would be "too much attention," but my concerted attention is unfailingly skeptical.)

So the moment took place in the midst of a meal. And, more specifically, in the midst of a lie. Ironically. The lie was somewhat innocent. (Meant to stave off tears -- the innocence. But the tears were my own -- the somewhat.)

The lie was about timing. I was acknowledging knowledge. I said I'd known something for a while, whereas I was really realizing it as I said it. (Though the while was unspecified, I think it would be a stretch for a few seconds to constitute a while.)

And it worked. In terms of staving off tears. Though the knowledge itself, as opposed to the timing of its acknowledgement, caused some as well. But not my own.

The substance of the knowledge in question is not really the issue. (In fact, its relative insignificance only underscores the real issue.) Suffice it to say that it explained any number of things that had seemed, up to the point of acknowledgement, utterly unexplainable. The inexplicable aspects of those things (happenings, statements, views) had diminished over the course of the previous months, but only in so far as time refocuses the mind. With focused effort (whether wallowing in self-pity or anger), those actions and remarks and opinions remained unbelievably incoherent.

And then this moment. A lie between bites. And everything started to make sense.

Over the course of the next couple of days, more and more elements of my recent past began to fall into place. I found myself considering them as I daydreamed away from my reading. But not obsessively. I could still shut them off and go back to the text in my hands.

I smiled as the pieces fit together. I grinned at my lack of self-awareness. (I pride myself on my observant nature. And I can't help but think this was a semi-conscious effort. What that means ought to be another entry here.)

And. It's ok now.

(I can't help, too, but wonder whether this moment could have come months ago. Or whether the months without it somehow allowed it to take hold in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

I don't know. But. It's ok now.)

That's the real issue.

This is not from Article I.

In the ambivalent light of the gas station—bright as day under the roof over the pumps, but dark alongside the garage where I’d parked—his five o’clock shadow may be an actual shadow. I reach in the driver’s door and pop the hood.

“How long you been driving it?”

“Tonight, you mean? Only about twenty minutes.” I let him lift the hood. Even after you hit the button, there’s a latch in front that always gives me trouble.

He seems surprised when it won’t just lift up. I don’t say anything. He struggles with it for a moment and then figures it out.

“Yeah,” I say, “there’s a latch there in front too.”

He sets the hood lift into place (I always call it the kickstand, but I’ve learned) and starts unscrewing the coolant cap.

“You sure you want to open that so soon? Can spray up into your face, can’t it? If it’s too hot?”

“Should be fine.” I take a step back.

I wince as he removes the cap. But nothing sprays out. He fools with a couple things under the hood and goes inside without saying anything.

I step closer and look at my car’s inner workings. I see where the washer fluid goes.

The five o’clock shadow (it’s real, I notice, as he steps out of the light beyond the door) comes back out with a flashlight and fools with what seem to be the same things again.

It’s warm for December but I keep my hands in my pockets (I hadn’t dressed for being outside) and try to appear as though I could disassemble and reassemble a carburetor if I should so desire.

“Coolant level’s fine. Not full, but not low at all. I could put in some more if you want, but I don’t have the same stuff as in there.” He looks at me for a decision.

“You don’t have it?” I stall.

“You’ve got pink stuff in there. I’ve got the blue. Should be fine.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to mix colors.” I smile. He looks back at the car. I try to dispel the air of homosexuality I had created. “I guess if it’s not low, might as well not chance mixing coolant types.” No reaction. I continue. “If you don’t think it’s really necessary, I guess we should just leave the pink alone.” Too far. So much for hetero. He screws the cap back on.

I step up, remove the hood lift, and drop the hood into place. He’d stepped to the door. “Well thanks,” I offer. He nods, and disappears into the light.

I fall into the driver’s seat with a shrug. “You have a good night too.” I speed out of the parking lot. I’d been late already.

Article I, section 5.

About a year ago I had a conversation with one of my best friends that went something like this:

“You don’t really believe Jesus Christ was the son of God, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you don’t actually believe he died and was resurrected and was actually God’s son, do you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m just asking. Do you actually believe all that stuff? That all that really happened?”

“Well. I guess so. I don’t know.”

“Jesus was the son of God. You believe that.”

“Well. Yeah. That’s one of the main points of my religion. So I guess so.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I guess. I think so. Why?”

“Just wondering. I’ve been thinking about this religion stuff a lot recently.”

And then I asked her: “What denomination are you, again?”

She laughed. “I’m not sure. Once we moved here— I think we’re Presbyterian now. But I don’t really know what that means.”

Article I, sections 3 & 4.

When I was five, maybe six years old and my sister was seven or eight, my parents asked us if we wanted to continue going to Sunday school. Both of us said no. So we stopped. That’s all there was.

A few years later, I quit little league after being hit by the ball three times in one inning (while batting, while running, and while pitching) – despite what it sounds like, I was actually quite a good baseball player. Anyway. I remember that being disappointing to my father.

***

In seventh grade, my best friend and I climbed into my mom’s car after the first of what would be many bar mitzvah services that year. My mom asked how it was and my friend replied, “It was okay. It was mostly in some weird language.”

“That’s Hebrew,” my mom said. I’m pretty sure I knew that, because I remember thinking how stupid my friend was. But I’m not certain.

My other best friend in middle school had her bat mitzvah at a Reconstructionist Jewish temple in Deerfield. At least I think it was Reconstructionist. Whatever it was, the point is they never used the word God. Through the whole service. No God. Though there was some Hebrew, so I can’t be entirely sure.

Another of my friends was jealous that so many of our classmates were having big parties that year, so her parents threw her a huge thirteenth birthday party in their enormous backyard – complete with DJ, dance floor (yes, outside, they had one assembled on the lawn), lunch, and thirteen birthday cakes. She invited everyone in our class, as was the custom.

My parents asked if I wanted a big party also. I said no. I didn’t need one. Besides, I wouldn’t be thirteen until eighth grade. I’d be last. And it would just make me feel different.

So I spent my thirteenth birthday in my basement with my close friends. We ordered pizza and played strip Twister and watched “Mallrats” and “Empire Records,” and I fell asleep with a girl in my arms for the first time.

Article I, section 2.

I have an older sister. She lives in the city and I see her a bit, but not much. I have parents, divorced, living in different suburbs. I see them every couple of weeks. I have grandparents – two of them, my mom’s parents. I see them for holidays usually, either for dinner or for dessert. Beyond that, my family has never extended very far.

I have three aunts and two uncles. My mom’s sister, Laurie, who lives in Baton Rouge now, I think, and whom I haven’t seen in years. She’s married to my Uncle Elliot, whom my dad recently and succinctly described as a “lying, cheating, criminal piece of shit.” They have two kids, both adopted, both living in Texas, but not in Houston where they grew up. In a few months those two will have had three weddings between them, none of which I’ll have attended.

And then there’s my dad’s two sisters: Janice, whom we not very affectionately call crazy; and Deborah, who’s married to my second uncle, Howard. They live in Highland Park and have three kids who live in nearby suburbs. Those three kids—average age about thirty-five—have ten kids between them, all at or under the age of six. I see them on holidays too, either for dessert or for dinner.

Three aunts, two uncles, five first cousins, and now ten little kids. There are, of course, others. But that’s the extent of the family I’ve ever really known. I can call up bits of recollections of Fourth of July parties at someone’s house – a great aunt’s, if I’m not mistaken. Probably the same one I used to get twenty-five dollar checks from every birthday (the cards still arrive, but the cash flow stopped at twenty-one). She lives in Florida, but I couldn’t tell you where. There were other kids now and again, I know – Matt, and maybe a Danny. I assume they’re cousins of some degree or another, but really I have no idea.

Beyond those original sixteen (who barely go back two generations)—now twenty-six (the little kids pushing forward one generation)—I don’t have much concept of what families usually call the family.

Now. Sure. There’s some stories I know about the people who came before me. Mostly from my dad’s side. They were the interesting ones. My great-grandmother, Rose B___, went to Birmingham one spring and came back in the fall with my infant grandfather. No one knows who his father was, though people say his name may have been Carl. My grandfather died young, before I was born. But while he was alive he claimed old Carl B___ – that’s another thing, actually. No one’s sure where the name B___ came from. That is, whether it was Rose’s maiden name or her married name, or, for that matter, if she was ever married to my grandfather’s father at all. Anyway, my grandfather – his nickname was Weasel, and even my mom would call him Papa Wease. Papa Wease would say his father, Carl, was hung in Denver for stealing horses.

Rose was an interesting character, even beyond the mysteries of my grandfather’s conception. She owned a delicatessen on Maxwell Street for years. Actually, she owned the whole building. Her deli was on the first floor, there was a restaurant on the second floor, and she lived (with her kids and a man named Jack) on the third floor. A wealthy woman. But my grandfather was a spendthrift and a gambler.

My favorite story about the two of them comes from the late 1920s. Back then, companies used to sponsor baseball teams – and other sports teams. The Chicago Bears were once the Decatur Staleys, named for the company that ran the team, the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company.

But anyway. You had to work for the company to play on the team. My grandfather, Weasel, wanted to play for the baseball team of some bank or other where Rose had all her money. So Rose, a significant customer, arranged for the bank to give her son a job. But he didn’t want a job, he wanted to play baseball. So he played, but he never went to work. And the bank fired him. Rose stormed in and demanded he be reinstated. She promised he would show up to work. So they did. And he didn’t. And they fired him again. And Rose stormed in again. This time the bank firmly said no, so Rose withdrew all her money in cash. A few days later, so the story goes, the stock market crashed, the banks closed, and people lost everything. But not Rose.

A new series of as yet indeterminable length.

So. It's been a few months since I've written. In public. Since I've self-published.

I have been writing. Not all pieces I'd want you all to see. At least not with my name attached to them.

But I thought it was time to share something.

So. A couple months back I assigned my juniors a personal essay with the following prompt: What does it mean to you to be a young, American Jew today?

One particularly cheeky student suggested that were I to write such an essay it would be quite short (since I have occasionally vocalized my disinterest in and lack of conscious affiliation with Judaism). I laughed. Then I thought about it. And I decided to try to write the essay as well.

It came out in fits and starts, bits and pieces, phrases and scenes. As per the usual. I usually write in chunks. And I didn't finish by the due date. But I read to them what I had (after some of them shared theirs). And now I offer it to you. In fits and starts. A series.

So. Without further ado. Section 1.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Growing up, religion played no part in my friendships. As a kid, I’m sure I couldn’t have told you which of my friends were Jewish and which were Christian and which were anything else. I guess it never seemed important to them, so it was never important to me. My family belonged to a temple for about six months, I think, when I was about five. And then not. I never went to services, not on holidays, not on any days. As far as I know, none of my friends went to temple or church either – though I realize they must have, if many eventually had bar and bat mitzvahs. Actually, the first time I remember going to services at a synagogue it was for a classmate’s bar mitzvah in seventh grade. Now that I think about it, I never went to a confirmation – until high school, when I went to my girlfriend’s brother’s confirmation. It felt just like a bar mitzvah, but without the extravagant party.

But anyway. I never paid attention to my friends’ religions. And it seemed like they didn’t either. Even when I got older, and I could tell you who was Jewish, for example, I couldn’t tell you at all who was Reform or Conservative or Orthodox. And I’m just as far from knowing who amongst my friends is Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Unitarian or Catholic. In high school I had an acquaintance named Mohammed. Only recently, when I ran into him at another friend’s house while he was discussing the similarities between Islam and Unitarianism, did I consciously put together that he was Muslim.

Mohammed was in Political Science with me sophomore year of high school. He sat next to the door. There was no seating chart; that’s just where he sat. The teacher used him as an example all the time. The death penalty. Abortion. Torture. Whenever we discussed something bad happening to somebody, Mohammed was the somebody our teacher used to make the example personal. He would say something like, “Imagine that we just killed Mohammed by lethal injection,” and for physical emphasis he would send Mohammed out into the hall and make us look in silence at Mohammed’s empty seat. To pound home that we were killing someone. That capital punishment wasn’t just theory. People died. People were lost. We killed Mohammed quite a few times that semester. Now, with my, and the world’s, current sensibilities, Mohammed seems like a bad choice. But he wasn’t a Muslim then. He was Mohammed. He just sat closest to the door. And maybe that’s the point.

An open(ed) letter.

What follows below is an email I sent to a student in response to a conversation he initiated with me this past Friday. The conversation concerned a quotation that has been posted on my classroom bulletin board since August, but which has only recently been noticed by most students. The quotation is as follows, attributed to Noam Chomsky: "If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all." The recent spate of attention was prompted by an anonymous student's covering the quotation with a piece of paper reading "CENSORED." The piece of paper was moved from elsewhere on the bulletin board -- a board denouncing censorship, which includes a handful of other quotations in addition to the one in question.

I left the board in its modified state, and pointed out the obvious irony of the anonymous act to my classes. One student approached me to discuss the issue further. We did so; and upon further reflection, I sent this email.

*****
~~~~~,

Our conversation on Friday morning remained in the back of my mind through this weekend, until this afternoon when it erupted once more into my conscious and deliberate thoughts.

What troubled me was twofold: one, your characterization of Chomsky and his views; and two, your assertion that his very name in attribution has no place on the wall of a Jewish school with a mission that explicitly supports the state of Israel.

You characterized Chomsky as a man who supported an outspoken Holocaust denier and who denies that the state of Israel should exist. As I suspected at the time (but did not vocalize, for lack of readily available evidence), I think both your claims about Chomsky's opinions are false.

With regard to your first claim about Chomsky, the affair to which I assume you were referring (and if I'm wrong, please tell me) is that in which Chomsky (in 1979) signed a petition supporting Robert Faurisson's rights of freedom of speech and expression. Faurisson is, you would very fairly say, in compiling his views, a Holocaust denier. Chomsky, however, is not. As Chomsky wrote in 1981, in response to this affair:

Faurisson's conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in the Middle East?, where I describe the holocaust as ‘the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history’). [1]

To say that Chomsky “supports a Holocaust denier” suggests that he supports the content of that denier’s denial. But that is simply to skew the facts — or, more accurately and more semantically, to stop too soon. That is, Chomsky does not support a Holocaust denier. Rather, Chomsky supports a Holocaust denier’s right to deny the Holocaust — and to do so vocally and in the public sphere. Chomsky does not support the content of the denial; he supports the existence of denial as a form. He supports the existence of speech, and specifically of dissent, even when he vehemently disapproves of what is being said. As he wrote (the sentence that follows the quoted sentence above):

[I]t is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. [2]

Similarly, in response to your second claim about Chomsky (that he asserts the state of Israel should not exist), I urge you to look more closely at Chomsky’s views. His views are quite nuanced, and both practical and theoretical. He wrote in 2003 (a statement that seems, in my admittedly brief research, to be representative):

On the matter of legitimacy and recognition, once the State of Israel was established in 1948, my feeling has been that it should have the rights of any state in the international system: no more, no less. [3]

Granted, he qualifies this view with specific opinions on the particulars of international border recognition. But with respect to Israel’s existence as a state, he does not hem or haw. That said (to head off a possible objection), Chomsky does not acknowledge the state of Israel’s “right to exist.” But that is an objection stemming from political theory: he does not acknowledge that any state has a right to exist. That right, he suggests, is limited to human beings.

All that is to say: I think your characterization of Chomsky is erroneous.

But ultimately that is not what most troubled me about our conversation. What has kept our conversation in my mind these last few days was your suggestion that Chomsky’s name has no place on the wall of a classroom in a Jewish school. Chomsky, though, is one of the most well-known Jews in the world today. His work has revolutionized thinking (and spawned counter-revolutions) in the fields of linguistics and psychology. He is an outspoken and important political, social, and cultural critic. And yes, he says some things and holds some views you disagree with (though perhaps, as described above, fewer than you may have thought).

But we need to acknowledge people we disagree with; we need to confront their ideas, not ignore them. And we need to accept—and further, we need to embrace—their right to shout their ideas from streetcorners and op-ed pages. The quote on the wall of our classroom does not support the content of any of Chomsky’s views (whether you agree with them or not) except his re-formulation of Voltaire’s famous aphorism: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” With that in mind, you’ll note the parallel between the wall of quotes in our classroom and the list of signatures on the petition signed by Chomsky in support of Robert Faurisson’s rights.

But beyond the abstract reasoning for allowing the quote to adorn the wall of our classroom, note the practical consequences. Are you not taught in our Jewish school to question dogma, to investigate meaning, to parse texts, to converse with peers and teachers and the writings of your ancestors? Well, Chomsky’s name on the wall of our classroom has created conversation. It has led to discussion and argument. It has led people to speak and act in support of their values and opinions (some anonymously, and some—more courageously—in person). And that is the value I support most vigorously: the preservation of the marketplace of ideas, through which civil discourse will travel slowly but surely toward something like Truth.

That, to me, is education. If that is not Jewish education, I say to you that that is a shame.

So, should Chomsky’s quotation be on the wall in a classroom of a Jewish school? I should hope so.

---------------------------------------------
[1] http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19810228.htm
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200309--.htm
**Another, uncited, reference on the “Faurisson Affair”: http://www.chomsky.info/letters/1989----.htm
**You will, no doubt, notice that these references are articles cited on Chomsky’s official homepage. Still, in my admittedly limited research, these articles seem to be reliable artifacts of Chomsky’s words and views.

Isn't "Black (insert day of the week here)" supposed to denote catastrophe, chaos, and confusion.

[This post has been a long time coming. And is now, I suppose, a bit belated. But perhaps now--when we all turn a hesitant, noncommittal eye toward the new year and its inevitable resolutions--is as appropriate a time as any for some holiday excoriation.]

My last post--though, granted, it was a while ago--was about Thanksgiving. The novel notion of taking one day out of the year to simply give thanks. For what we have. And even, I suggested, to embrace that which we have but rarely acknowledge.

A national day of thanksgiving. A great idea, I said. And I still think so.

A day on which even the Native Americans got along with the Pilgrims (or so says the national myth). A day on which families come together (for better or for worse). A day that we all look forward to (though most of us just for the food).

A day followed by its indebted opposite: Black Friday.

Black Friday!? Is this the day when the Native Americans came back to slaughter the Pilgrims in their tryptophan-induced stupor? Or (heaven forbid) when the Pilgrims slaughtered the noble savages? Or, more likely yet, when the Native Americans succumbed to the blight of the disease-ridden food served by the Pilgrims?

No. no. no. Black Friday, we are told, is merely the day--traditionally, and however morbidly named--on which retail establishments start to turn a profit for the year. The huge number of sales on the day after Thanksgiving here in the kindly old U.S. of A. finally puts stores into "the black" in their accounting manifests.

Now. As a teacher of literature, I ask my students to look for the arc of a story. To look for change in a character, progress or regress. To consider order (or disorder), why one event follows another. To consider whether it has to.

Thanksgiving. Black Friday. National holiday of offering thanks and remembering what we have. Day off from work to kick off the holiday shopping "season" during which we all spend a month on an old white man's lap (metaphorically or not) spouting off lists of what we want, what we want to upgrade, or what we want two more of.

This season is not marked by changing weather or the gradual (but always seemingly sudden) blossoming of flora. This season is kicked off by gluttony and marked by greed. And often sloth. And always envy. And it ends with either wrath or pride (depending on Santa's whim or your parents' bosses' reluctant generosity). And, no doubt, lust is in there somewhere.

Those Catholics were (are?) on to something. And yet. Wait a second. Isn't this holiday season (a quick nod and a shuffle of the feet to you 'War on Christmas' folks on both sides of that aisle) ostensibly a celebration of Christ? I can't seem to recall the Beatitude that goes, "Blessed are those who get everything they desire year in and year out, for they are just that deserving dammit."

Now. I can smell your knee-jerk, accusatory defensiveness. And yes, the gifts I got a few days ago are nothing to sneer at. And I will enjoy them. And I'm not returning them all and donating the proceeds (though, as Peter Singer's moral compass kicks in, perhaps I should). And I'm not in money trouble by any but the most perverted North Shore-ian stretch of the imagination.

I'm just saying it's ironic. The juxtaposition. And we don't ever notice the irony. A day of thanksgiving. And then a day of getting out of bed at 4:30am to trample people (literally) at the front door of Best Buy to get the last DVD player that's free after instant savings and instant rebates and mail-in rebates and a coupon from the paper before the guy down the street can get there because he can't get out of the house before 5:15am because he has to walk his dog and the dog won't go before 5 o'clock.

It just seems so wrong. Shouldn't the thanksgiving last a month and the gift-buying and -giving last a day? (And maybe be price-capped at a card?)

Practical? Perhaps not. Not with our current "it's-the-thought-that-counts-(but-only-when-I-don't-like-it)" socialized mentality. But it could be.

It should be the thought that counts, really. Still, I always complain when people plant trees for me in Israel because, well, because I think that's stupid. But I wouldn't mind donations made in my name to charities I support in theory or in reality. And that could be done in one day. And it wouldn't have that seven deadly sin thing hanging around its personified neck.

Am I disallowing holiday gifts for me from now on? I'm not sure. Maybe I am. I like gifts. But there are always others more in need.

Perhaps I'll personalize my altruistic utilitarianism, Professor Singer. Perhaps I'll take a cue from my calendar. (11/7) Accept birthday gifts. (11/25) Offer thanks. (12/25) Request donations/gifts for others more in need.

I'll give it some more thought. And I'll let you know.

But the current order of things has to change.

Thanks for that.

A national day of thanksgiving. Proclaimed as such by the President. Each year. As per tradition.

And each year this nation of ours is--or at least should be--thankful for different things. And, as per a different sort of tradition, each year--from January to November--too many of us do our best to forget to be thankful. We criticize the abundance of chaff (however rightly), and don't stop to recognize the wheat in our midst.

We offer reprobation for slow governmental response to disaster without recognizing the good fortune of having a government that can respond at all. Or of living in a society that expects help from its government, rather than expecting neglect.

We yearn for new national leaders but do little to support local leaders we agree with who may just be the next crop of national leaders.

We complain about the high price of gas without really realizing that we're still able to afford it.

We lament the futility of the "peace process" in the Middle East from the quite-a-bit-more-than-relative safety of water coolers in Morton Grove, IL.

We protest a war without acknowledging the majestic fireworks of our nation's pre-emptive first-strike capable...

Ok...so not that last one. That damned war will be the death of us in one way or another. But the rest of them. I was serious. Too often we criticize without taking time to be thankful.

Thanksgiving. Giving thanks. All at once. In unison. What a concept. It's nice of President Bush to offer us a day to do so.

A national day of peacegiving would be nice too, but...ok...sorry...I'm biting my tongue (or my fingers, as the case may be).

The revolution will not be televised.

[Disclaimer: "Yesterday" no longer actually refers to yesterday. But it took me a while to figure out where this was headed. But now it looks as though it's here to stay. Oh I believe in...]

Yesterday. My grandfather turned 92. So first: happy birthday, Papa! (Not that you'll ever read this...being 92 and all.)

But moving on.

92 years old. Two years into his tenth decade. Even without the constant clicking of the oxygen tank brazenly announcing the passing of every few seconds, it's enough to get me thinking about time. About time.

He was born in 1913. Born into a world that would erupt--in the first year of his life--into what would come to be known as the First World War (the first of many as it turns out, though only the first of two by name).

Less than a year earlier, the additions of Arizona and New Mexico brought the United States up up to 48 stars on its flag. (Numbers 49 and 50 wouldn't make an appearance for almost 50 more years, until my father was nearing teenager-dom...which is also disconcerting time-wise.)

My grandfather was a teenager during Prohibition and the Roarin' Twenties.

He was in his late twenties when FDR spoke of a day that would live in infamy.

And he was in his late eighties when that sort of language was finally used again. And again. And again. In disingenuous, propagandistic syndication.

He was in his late forties during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- middle-aged when Charles de Gaulle waved away evidentiary photos of missiles in Cuba, saying, "The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me."

Forty-five years later, who would do that today? Who would say that?

He was born with the assembly line; I was born with the personal computer. He was raised amid influenza; I was raised amid AIDS. He was told penicillin would be his life's cure-all; I am told genomics will be mine. He was born ten years after the Wright brothers' first flight; I have already seen the first outer space tourists return from their travels.

He was barely five years old when the following words were heard from the President:

"What we demand in this war...is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression."

His first President, Woodrow Wilson, set out this "program of the world's peace" while at home he set up the U.S. Committee on Public Information which ordered the Palmer Raids in 1919, he had Eugene V. Debs arrested, he supported the American Protective League, and he pushed the Espionage and Sedition Acts through Congress.

Who would say that today? Who would do that?

He was barely five years old. I am now twenty-three.

92 years. He has seen radios turn to TVs turn to color TVs turn to VCRs turn to DVDs turn to Tivos turn to video iPods.

The Birth of a Nation to Fahrenheit 9/11.

And the more things change.

Digital audiobooks and other divine gadgetry.

First of all, apologies for what may seem to be shameless plugs throughout this post. But. I don't stand to gain anything from said plugs. So perhaps that takes some of the shame away. Or adds it back in. My cliches are leaving me defenseless -- I hate when that happens.

That said.

First.

I've come across this website called Audible.com that offers digital audiobooks for download. You can stream the files from the internet, listen to them on your computer, transfer them to an iPod, or burn them to cds. Full, unabridged books. Popular books. Fiction, Non-fiction, and everything in between. The service is marketed mostly, much like the books on tape of old, to commuters -- a group I have enthusiastically joined, as it was a requirement of leaving the suburbs. So I'm considering joining up (a proposition made all the more enticing by the free iPod Shuffle offered with a six-month registration). I haven't been able to read much recently--outside of the books I assign for class--and I figure the just under two hours I spend each day driving back and forth to the city could perhaps be better used than they currently are (morning: Howard Stern; afternoon: music).

I foresee only two problems. One: perhaps I need this driving time more than I think I do -- to relax and let my mind wander. In fact, perhaps the fact that I think I might need that time for such reasons means that I definitely do. And two: I'm not sure how I feel about audiobooks. I blame my father for this hesitancy. He has a huge book collection. If I like a book, I like to own it. I love pages. Dust covers. And I don't want to be in a position of feeling obligated (as irrational as it may seem to some of you) to buy a book in hard copy that I've already paid for in digital form. But. Then I think: maybe ethereal pages would be ok for certain books -- especially books my father already owns (a train of thought that comes to its morbid conclusion when, as per his occasional promises, I'll still eventually own the hard copies).

Second.

You can now text message Google. You've been able to do it for a while. Again, like Audible.com, this isn't news in the "new" sense of the word. But I've only recently discovered it. You can use the service for any number of things -- telephone numbers, driving directions, product pricing comparisons, stock quotes. But I've only ever used it for one thing: movie showtimes. So that's all I can speak to. And this is all I'm going to say about it. It's perfect. I can't think of a way to improve it. You text the name of the movie and a zip code, and within a minute or so you get a response with the closest movie theaters showing that movie (including addresses and phone numbers) and their respective showtimes. Simple. Elegant. Google.

Third.

Again, not news. Public bathrooms have become havens of cleanliness in recent years. Ok. Not really. But they're trying. Especially in nice places. Automatically flushing toilets and urinals. Sensor faucets and hand-dryers. And even, most recently, sensor paper towel dispensers. You still have to touch the soap dispensers, but that's ok with me -- because the soap is still clean, and cleaning. And all that is great. But here's the thing. Why do so many doors to so many public bathrooms open in? When they open in, as though this isn't obvious, you have to touch the door with your hands on the way out. After having, presumably, cleaned your hands. And that's where the problem is. Lots of people (mostly men, but women too, as sophomore year and coed bathrooms taught me firsthand, so to speak) don't wash their hands. And then they leave the bathroom -- touching the same door handle I have to touch with my freshly cleansed hands. All I'm saying is. If you can wave your hand and make the sink turn on, why can't we get those automatic doors they have at the supermarket? Or a garbage can behind the door to throw away the paper towel through which I touch the door handle? Or at least--at the very least--have the door open out?

Finally.

God. These last couple days--as I've been sitting at home, since work is closed for Yom Kippur (no work allowed, of any kind)--I've begun to think that people (some people, mind you, not all people) sort of use god as a gadget. An atonement gadget. Once a year. (Note: I'm writing of Jews here, obviously--and again, some Jews, mind you, not all Jews--but much of this is easily adaptable to other major religions.) The synagogues set up extra chairs. They dust off the extra prayer books. They put a person at the door. And they peddle their wares. And what is it they peddle? Atonement. In the name of god. You pay your money, they check your ticket (no ripping, ripping would be work, work isn't allowed), you go up the stairs into the theater straight ahead, you watch the show, and at the end of the night you leave your year's worth of sins with the indentation of your ass in your rented collective confessional chair. Or with the sweat under your chin, where it gathered beneath your hanging head. Or the scuff marks on the floor left behind by your shuffling feet. Buyer's remorse? God has become another gadget you need to buy an update for each year. It's the spiritual equivalent of Windows XP. Each Yom Kippur is a new "security pack." Put out by Bill Gates to stop the hackers of the world. Uh huh. Caveat emptor.

Peeling potatoes for god's sake.

[Aside: I haven't posted in a couple weeks in part because I wanted to let my last post sit for a while. I wanted it to be my statement to the world for a bit of time. But also, I wasn't sure how to follow it. Not because it was so great or anything, but because of its subject. It seemed too serious to follow with another silly extended observation about Tivo. So, a compromise. I'll jump back into it. But I'll write about something important. Here goes.]

I cut my thumb today. I was peeling potatoes and I went to wipe an errant bit of potato skin from the paring knife. And instead I sliced through the skin of my thumb. The tip. Right on the pad. A vertical cut, as though my thumb were my wrist and I was trying to kill myself.

So. It hurts a little. And it's difficult to get a bandaid to stay on the tip of your thumb. But that's not why this cut is so important.

Its significance lies in the reminder of how important thumbs really are. The opposable kind. Not just the silly fifth-of-five-index-fingers kind, like the hands on the "people" I used to draw in kindergarten. When moving your thumb and pressing it against anything offers you a sharp pain, when you're trying not to get the bandaid on your thumb wet, when you begin to avoid using your thumb on your dominant hand -- you really start to realize how useful the opposable thumb is. Someday, if you think of it, count how many times a day you do something you simply couldn't do (or, at least, not in the way you normally do it) without the ability to grip something tightly in one hand. You'll lose count. I promise. Some of you more quickly than others.

And if and when you do that little experiment (even if it's just a thought experiment), some of you will begin to think the following innocuous little thought: The opposable thumb is an amazing creation.

And then you'll come to a starkly defined fork in the road of logic. The first path is studded with randomly sprouting flora and punctuated by streams snaking back and forth asymmetrically. The second path is guarded by free-floating fiery swords, lit by burning bushes, and passes unceasing through split seas.

Science and religion, folks. Evolution and creationism. Natural selection and intelligent design. More similar than some of you may think (a nod to Blake, and a paper she seemed to always be writing for four years). But, ultimately, different.

Now. I'm not going to run through all the tired arguments. Ok. I am. But quickly.

Yes, the opposable thumb is awesome. That's why it's still around. And that's why it's around on the hands of the dominant species on the planet. The wondrous utility of the opposable thumb is a testament to millenia devoted to weeding out those without them. And the fossil record, along with the so-called living fossil record, offers plenty of evidence in that regard.

Or maybe god sat down (that's a funny image to me), took out a pencil, sharpened it (another funny image), and drew up a schematic for the human hand. And it had five index fingers. He set it down on a cloud and floated around it in a circle (again, funny), considering it from all angles. And he was about ready to go ahead and say, "Let there be hands with five index fingers!" when he had a second thought: How about an opposable thumb? He weighed the various pros against the obvious con of increased masturbation, and decided to go ahead with it. And thus came about the opposable thumb.

Well. Maybe. But there's no fossil record of that (no doubt because god, in his infinite wisdom, threw that original schematic into a burning bush). And like I said above -- it's a series of funny images to me.

But. Here's the main point.

Those of you who see the opposable thumb and exclaim, "Perfection! See! How could that be random!" You're the same sort of people who long ago saw a burning bush and exclaimed, "God is here!" rather than, "Lightning was here!"

And that's great. Whatever. I don't care. You're free to find god in whatever you like. The Bible, the Koran, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (another nod to Blake). I don't care.

But at least have the decency to acknowledge that it's belief.

And it's your belief. Not mine. So don't force it on my kids.

Keep your god in your special schools on Saturdays and Sundays.

During the school week--as I'm constantly telling my students--you need evidence for your arguments.

The Sound of a Clown Who Cried in the Alley.

Politics is important. The downward cycles of morality, of truth, of integrity, of true patriotism, and of true freedom spiralled fatally out of control this week and descended on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. Lack of preparedness, negligent planning, insufficient troop strength, communication breakdowns, inability to keep order -- this same dirty laundry we've all heard listed ad nauseum since March of 2003 has finally erupted violently out of our hamper here at home.

What is perhaps most interesting to me intellectually about this disaster is the quickness with which Americans--anonymous individuals, celebrities, journalists, politicians--have begun to criticize our government's response to this disaster. I remember writing, in September of 2001, the following byline for a column I titled "Another Side of a Devastating Coin":

by J_____ B_________ ’04 who has only now begun to be able to go beyond pure feeling and to intellectualize about this tragedy.
I wrote that on 9.19.01. And it wasn't a criticism of the government. It was a column mourning the global community I feared would lose several significant ties in the months to follow. The spirits of patriotism and unity overwhelmed criticism in the weeks immediately following 9/11. But in the wake of Katrina, Americans were beginning to place blame while the winds could still be felt. And no doubt something more could have been done. No doubt too much money was diverted away from the Army Corps of Engineers to support wars and tax cuts. No doubt there was a now-starkly-apparent underlying racism (and classism) that allowed those too poor to evacuate to be forgotten or ignored. No doubt our government failed us this last week.

And eventually we will have to address these monumental government failures. That time is now for some among us. Campaigns to effect changes in the bigger picture are ultimately perhaps even more important than monetary, in-kind, or volunteer contributions to the relief efforts.

But for most of us, the immediate picture won't get much bigger than New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, and now Houston and other cities that have accepted evacuees. And so, for now, we must do what we can.

In 1971 Peter Singer--now Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values of Princeton University--wrote an essay, entitled "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" (widely available on the web), in which he set forth the following argument:

"[I]f it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing."

It's time we all got our clothes muddy.

If you've read a newspaper, watched cable news, or checked google news in the last six days, you've heard the stories. Young girls raped in the Superdome. Corpses floating down Canal Street. An elderly woman in a wheelchair, draped with a sheet, in the sun, dead. A child screaming until he vomited as he was forced to leave behind his cherished dog. Two New Orleans police officers taking their own lives.

You've seen the airlift rescues and the helicopters dropping bottled water into flooded streets for those now homeless to collect. You've seen local officials breaking down during press conferences. And federal officials, as stoic as possible, providing what information they have.

You've also seen cities and states, schools and universities, individuals and corporations and foreign nations opening their doors and wallets. You've heard people placing blame and people pleading for assistance. You've heard the estimated death toll gradually rise into the thousands.

All manner of people and organizations have offered aid. In a matter of hours a few days ago, I received three emails: one from the iTunes Music Store requesting donations to the Red Cross; one from the Dave Matthews Band about a benefit concert in Colorado; and one from the people at MoveOn.org about the grassroots temporary housing program they're facilitating.

It's time we all got our clothes muddy.

One in five evacuees left their homes without shoes on their feet. People now housed in the Houston Astrodome are wearing pajamas and hospital gowns because they have no clean clothes. Children who have been promised placement in Texas schools will quickly deplete the supplies of those districts. Diabetics are without insulin; asthmatics are without inhalers. Employees are without jobs. Students are without teachers. Parishes are without priests. Children are without parents. And they are all without their homes.

These people need everything.

It's time we all got our clothes muddy.


And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
-Bob Dylan

(Hot times.) Oprah is a fish. (Summer in the city.)

(I've encountered a blogging dilemma: I have three things to write about, but there's not much of a connection between them. Actually. There's a connection between two of them. But not the third. I've decided to solve this dilemma very simply -- with the elegant use of parentheses. Now. Stop. Don't judge what you can't understand.)

(So the other night, I was making something to eat in the kitchen when I heard, from the street below outside my seventh story window, I heard a noise. A noise that could only be described as a scuffle. A bit of shrieking. A yelp or two. I hear my roommate get up from the couch and walk to the window. "Oh my god," she exclaims, "you've got to come over here. There's girls fighting in the street down there." Not uninterested, but not that interested, I finish what I'm doing and then casually approach the viewing post. The scene: directly below our balcony, but across the street, there are two groups of girls moving in packs eastward down Division. They are yelling at each other, things I can imagine quite clearly, but couldn't actually hear. They are each individually gesticulating quite wildly. But the strangest thing, from my god's-eye vantage point, was the seemingly choreographed staging. The girls periodically lunged at one another -- but not each on their own terms. The groups appeared to lunge, each girl a mere limb of a larger menace. On occasion this ballet would break down and a fist (or an open hand, or a two-handed shove) would breach the approximately two-foot gap regularly separating the groups. This went on for what was probably only about 25 seconds or so. At which point, my roommate (not me, I was watching the show, and waiting for them to break into song) thought aloud, "Maybe we should call the police?" And just then, Officer Krupke showed up and arrested one of the girls, which effectively shut up the rest of them. The show over, I went back to my food. Nothing like dinner theater. A true experience in this cosmopolitan city.)

I'm having this dilemma. I've always had a healthy disdain for Oprah's Book Club -- a disdain nurtured through the early years of contemporary novels-turned-bestsellers, and cultivated into a disgust with the Club's more recent reincarnation as a pusher of classics onto the unsuspecting hordes. In its original form, the Book Club annoyed me because She always seemed to point her all-powerful Midas finger at what appeared (judging by their covers, at least) to be romantic novels focused on strong central heroines -- books that would encourage battered (or bored) wives to leave their husbands and "find themselves." Silliness. And now, my disgust stems from the fact that all these wonderful classics of literature can no longer be found without an obnoxious "Oprah's Book Club" seal on it -- as though the author has posthumously won a Fulitzer Prize (yeah, the F is on purpose...think about it...little more...ok...good...now you get it).

So, most recently, She assigned the world "summer reading" -- three Faulkner novels (which come in a repulsively convenient OBC set now): As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Light In August. Now. Setting aside the fact that these happen to be some of my all-time favorite novels, including at least one top-fiver, that She has branded as the Israel of the summer of 2005 (chosen people and all...get it?). Setting that aside. She has also created a rather disturbing dilemma for me.

To guide the masses through Faulkner's masterful tangles of language, She has set up a website (or, more accurately, her people called some people who did lunch with other people, who paid some other people to set it up). Included on this website are several quite helpful and interesting items. Including: video lectures for each novel from various distinguished professors from various prestigious universities, interactive questions and answers with said professors (and not just short replies, but quite thoughtful responses), character descriptions, glossaries, biographical information on Faulkner...and the list goes on. There is, quite honestly, a wealth of information.

And. To further compound my dilemma. One of the professors featured (for Light in August) is one of my favorite professors from Brown, Professor Arnold Weinstein. This is awesome for two reasons: (1) he's wildly amazing, and I relish the opportunity to read more of his thoughts on literature; and (2) I took his class on Faulkner at Brown--the first time he ever taught it--and we read Light In August, and it's very cool to see lectures on the web that pretty clearly grew out of lectures I experienced in person (you know, cool in the "I knew him way back when..." kind of way).

Finally. Necessary background information. Last spring I taught As I Lay Dying to my junior English class. And this coming spring I will teach it again.

So now you understand my dilemma. You don't? Well, you should, but I'll spell it out. I really really want to use some of the resources on this website for my class. But it's Oprah's! Can I? Do I dare? Am I selling out? (A question that implies its own answer, and my already-made decision on the dilemma at hand.)

A good friend, when I accepted my current job over a year ago, suggested that I was selling out. My thoughts on religion. To Judaism. For money. I agreed.

So. If Adonai, for cash. Why not Oprah, for the education of my students. Seems fair.

(As my "life in the big city" bookend, I wanted to mention the following. Today, on a relatively innocuous trip to Osco for Polysporin and de-wrinkle laundry spray, I passed an equally innocuous Dunkin' Donuts. I paused for a red light outside said Dunkin' Donuts, and during this respite from walking I was approached by a shuffling man in a White Sox hat. He hadn't been speaking to anyone else, and after he said his bit to me, he went back to the wall of the Dunkin' Donuts, still without talking to anyone else. Meanwhile, there were plenty of people walking by, and plenty of people waiting with me for the light to change. Plenty of people, I should add, who were much the same age as me and with much the same look as I offer to the world. This is what he said to me, and only to me: "Hey man...want some weed? I got some good weed." To which I replied: "No thanks."

Now. I've been told by several people that there is nothing about me that proclaims: HE SMOKES WEED. And I've believed them -- not without a little sadness, I'll be honest, as I harbor a certain romanticism in my heart for hippies. So I ask you. All of you. And please comment. Was this just a random occurrence? Or is there something about me after all -- something that whispers some coded language leftover from the 1960s and adapted to this new millenium? I ask you.)

Update: Perhaps this is the year.

Going to that party with the colleagues after all.

But I'm bringing a book, god dammit.

Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.

First of all, a special prize to anyone who knows the first line that completes the quotation I've used for my witty quip of a post title. And an extra special something to anyone who knows where I first came across this lovely little witticism.

Now then. This post should be read in conjunction with the previous post about Tivo. (Actually, you really should be reading all of them in order. I know it's a complicated scroll-bar process, but it's worth it. Trust me.) Because I ended that post saying that while I should have been reading, I was clearly going to watch the Gilmore Girls. (By the way -- interestingly, to me at least, the aspect of this blog that has gotten the most attention has by far been the references to the Gilmore Girls.) That statement, though true, was -- unbeknownst to you all, which isn't your fault, but mine -- slightly ironic. Because over the last few weeks I have gradually rediscovered my love for reading. I have been able, on several occasions during these weeks, to sit down and read for several hours at a time -- something my relatively-addled mind has prohibited for quite some time. And all without the added comfort of Adderall! (Disclaimer: I've never actually used Adderall or other such drugs, though I have considered it, and at times it has been suggested -- not by anyone with letters after their name though.)

I've rediscovered the worlds you can enter through the pages of a book! I've even found myself thinking, while watching -- on separate occasions -- tv and a movie (in a theater, no less!), and I quote, "Books are so much better than this." Books! Better than movies! Just imagine. If you can. All the people. Living for today! Now. You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one! People are still reading! (Mostly self-help books, books for Dummies and Idiots, and the latest installment of "when will the little wizard get body hair in new places?" -- but still!) And I have re-entered this brotherhood of man. And I hope someday you'll join us.

Now. While this may not seem earth-shattering to you -- the huddled masses avoiding the storms of your lives beneath the rain-soaked pages of my humble blog -- there's another layer of this onion yet to be peeled away. The reading I have been so diligently set upon completing has been (drumroll?)...for work! Now then. Talk about earth-shattering! This revelation may mark a new epoch of light in an otherwise procrastination-darkened worldview. Perhaps this will be the year that I don't fall behind in my work. (Or at least not more than most people.) Perhaps this will be the year that work comes first. (Or at least close to the top of the list.) Perhaps this is the year.

I gotta say. It would be most excellent timing. What with work. And applying to school. And then school. And such.

Perhaps this is the year.

And with that, I'm going to go read. To avoid going to a school year kickoff party with colleagues that I really don't feel like attending. It doesn't start till Tuesday. You can't cheat and start it on Sunday just because it's a party. That's not fair. Give me a break. I've got reading to do.

Too weak for Tivo.

Tivo should be a life-altering acquisition (ok, so I don't have Tivo...I have a DVR from Comcast...but DVR is an awful all-purpose word, whereas Tivo makes a wonderful noun and verb). Anyway. Life-altering, Tivo should be. Because it should free us from the schedules set up for us by corporate executives at the "Big 4" networks (FOX gets included now, right? I think so...though I'm not positive it gets caps-locked -- another good verb). Because now we can watch whatever we want whenever we want with just a few simple clicks on a remote control. And yes, all you naysayers out there will say, "But you could always do that. Ever heard of a VCR? Welcome to...whenever the hell VCRs came out."

Ok. First of all. VCR -- much like DVR -- makes an awful verb. Should have seen the demise of that machine from the beginning. Interesting sidenote: Beta -- much like Tivo -- would have made a much better all-purpose word. So perhaps Tivo will indeed, as the pundits and such have been saying for a year or two now, go the way of the dodo bird. If so, I only hope the name for the ill-fated machine remains in the common lexicon this time. Anyway.

Second. None of you people ever actually regularly recorded a tv show using a VCR. The only person I've ever known to do this consistently is my sister, who has stacks of video tapes somewhere that house a decade's worth of General Hospital. (Sorry if this outs you to anyone, sis.) Each morning before school she diligently made sure the tape was cued to the proper place and the program timer was set (two minutes before the scheduled start and two minutes after, to account for any errors in the tv's internal clock, and SLP mode, to allow for the least tape-consuming and shittiest recording possible -- fitting, actually, for this particular program).

Anyway. None of you ever did that. Only her. And even if you did, you know what a huge hassle it was. Tivo frees you from all that, sis. And to the rest of you, you can now avoid both the corporate programmers' schedules and the pain of forgetting to record the final episode of Friends where everyone realizes that Joey cannot possibly have actually gotten stupider over the course of ten years and they all sit down and cry because their crappy primetime paycheck has come to an overdue end. Who would want to miss that? Now you don't have to! Tivo to the rescue! With its wildly amazing "create a series recording" feature.

That, and the ability to pause and rewind and rewatch Janet Jackson's star-gilded right breast as many times as your nasty little heart desires.

It should be life-altering. In a good way. Freedom. Self-programming. What you want when you want it.

But in my experience, it's been more like: more than I've ever wanted, all the time. No. Wait. That still sounds good. Try again: a repulsive amount of crappy tv that I've never before felt compelled to watch and now can't seem to stop watching...like heroin after you've decided you want to quit, but can't quite bring yourself to get off the couch, undo that dirty yellow hose (why are these things always that dirty yellow color?) from your bicep, and walk down to the local methodone clinic. Yeah. That's more like it. They've made it too easy. I'm weak. My will to work cannot sustain itself in the face of this monster.

I should go read. But the Gilmore Girls are calling to me from 4pm yesterday. I could watch them whenever I want. But I will watch them now. As it records today's episode. So I don't fall behind.

New Study: Being poor sucks.

So I know I posted during the wee hours of this morning. But. I saw this and it sort of fit sort of a little sort of with the wee-hours post. So. An addendum. Here goes.

A study out of Pennsylvania State University (a study that spanned three decades and 20,000 people) has "discovered" that wealth does in fact make people happy. But not just wealth. Amassing more of it than your friends. That's apparently the key.

First of all. Duh. We should fund a study to "discover" whether pot-smokers giggle more often than sober people.

Secondly. Professor Glenn Firebaugh (sociologist at Penn State) and Laura Tach (graduate student at Harvard) also suggest that one strategy for attaining greater happiness -- rather than continually increasing your income -- would be to "hang out" with poor people. Yes. That's right. No. I'm not kidding. Poorer friends. That's what they suggest.

Apparently it's not so much about keeping up with the Joneses. It's about finding less well-off Joneses to begin with.

Maybe this whole "war on poverty" thing is misguided. What we should really have is a buddy program. Instead of "big brothers" we could have "rich brothers." At least half of us would be happy. We've made the rich richer for 6 years. Now let's introduce them to the poor people and make them happier too.

Again. All I'm saying is. There's toads invading Montana, guys. And storms move across this country from West to East.

Apocalypse this.

For the last year and a half or so, every couple of months I suddenly remember that CNN.com has an Odd News section. It's great. I recommend checking it out. But anyway. I've actually developed a fun little self-contained two or three day lesson (for a high school English class...the older the better) out of this news section and a book by Thomas Bernhard called The Voice Imitator. It's a creative writing lesson, writing short shorts -- helps kids discover rhetorical devices via imitation of Bernhard's style.

Anyway.

All that is to say: these are some news stories I've come across recently that are disturbing for various reasons.

Bill Capell (52 years old) is a retired grocery store clerk from California. He gets a call early one morning. The voice on the other end (a strange phrase that doesn't really make much sense when you think about it, unless we're talking about those things no one ever really used as a kid with the two cans connected by a long piece of string, but still a phrase I think in common usage) identifies itself as that of a British reporter. This reporter's voice informs Bill Capell that one of his cousins has passed away. Bill goes back to sleep. But should Bill get a similar phone call sometime in the near future (god forbid, if you believe in that sort of thing, Bill), Bill will suddenly be the Right Honorable Lord William Capell, the 12th Earl of Essex. Now that's no duke-dom or marquess-ship, but it's nothing to shake a stick at either, you might say (if, you know, the younguns refer to you as Gramps). Two catches (three if you count the fact that yet another cousin -- the newly-named 11th Essexian Earl -- would have to die for this to occur): (1) there's no money or estate involved, just the title and some symbolic honors; and (2) in order to become Lord William, Bill would have to give up his American citizenship (a powerful testament to the power of words, I should think). Which, of course, immediately brings to mind the following question: where does a grocery store clerk get off retiring at 52? That must be one hell of a retirement plan, Mr. Earl-in-Waiting.
.....
The Harry Potter series of books is apparently quite popular among the 510 prisoners (apologies: detainees) being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay. Several of the detainees (in searching through my mind for an alternate term, I came up with "roommate," which made me think a Real World Gitmo can't be far off) have read the series, and at least one has requested the movies. The 1200-volume Gitmo library, however, does not have the fifth or sixth book in the series (two additions that would no doubt help pass the time three years after having been picked to live in a cellblock, and have their mouths taped). Now, if you;ve been in a bookstore at any point during the last few years, you probably know how I feel about the world-sweeping Harry Potter craze. So it won't surprise some of you that I consider housing these piggy-bank destroying tomes in the prison library an offense that should be on a watch-list somewhere as a form of torture. But. With a less rabble-rousing sentiment, I wonder whether one might be able to garner heretofore withheld information from said Potter-addicts by dangling the Half-Blood Prince in front of them. I also wonder which would have outraged the American public more: (1) a new revelation about unspeakably un-American torture occurring in an U.S. internment camp; or (2) news that Book 6 had been offered to Gitmo detainees prior to the midnight release date last month.
.....
Not that this necessarily follows from either or both of the previous posts (post hoc ergo propter hoc, it's hardly ever true...my fellow West Wing'ers know what I'm sayin). But hardly ever ain't never, you know what I'm sayin? So here it is. Judge for yourselves. Thousands of tiny toads have invaded a small farming community in north-central Montana. There are so many of the toads on the ground that it is difficult at times to walk without stepping on them. So many that some lawns look as though the grass is moving and pulsating. So many that one resident offered the colorful comment that driving is a bit tough because the roads are slick and sticky -- because of what must be thousands of tiny smashed toad bodies that people have been unable to avoid running over with their SUVs. Now. I'm not saying that life is imitating art here (specifically, Magnolia). And I'm not saying that the (or any) apocalypse is coming.

I'm just saying a retired grocery store clerk might soon be in the line of succession for the British throne.
And so-called terror detainees can't wait to find out how Dumbledore dies.

A shaky beginning.

So my initial post (from several months ago), which was essentially a list of paradoxes, now becomes something less (one thing less, actually). No longer will the first post be the last. A shame, that is. Such a pleasant biblical phrase I, in turn, stole from Dylan.

So.

The sun is streaming through the big picture windows in my living room right now. The soft light turning the eggshell-white walls golden makes me feel as though this moment has been designated as a new beginning. It's also reminding me of the $230 energy bill my roommate opened this morning. It's also apparently freaking out the spider that's been dangling from a thread (literally...how weird) outside the window for about 4 days now. I would knock it down to its seven story plunge of a death (I have no moral compunctions about killing spiders, sorry folks), but I can't reach it from the terrace. And I've sort of become a bit attached to it. Now that the sunlight is freaking it out it has begun to shake back and forth and creep along the glass at a rather incredible speed. I've just now decided to name it Shakes -- like the guy in that movie Sleepers...love that movie. But don't get me wrong, I'd still kill Shakes if I could -- my hypocrisy only goes so far.

Anyway.

I was saying. A new beginning. I think this might be one. I hope so. I need one. Start afresh (I never know if that's a word or not, but I like it). Need to figure out where my life is heading. What my future will look like. More on that later. For now, I think I'll read a book. A literal beginning. If not new, as NBC (I think) used to point out in the summer, at least new to me. And that will have to be enough for now.

May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
-Bob Dylan