The Web Log of R. Christopher McCammon

Christopher Goes a-Progress

2005-11-06T17:05:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I got hit by a car. Actually, that’s not quite true. “I got hit by a car” is a useful bit of shorthand, but it’s more accurate to say that the car presented itself in my immediate path so suddenly that I had no recourse but to hit it. I was on my bicycle, moving at considerable speed down M Street in downtown Lincoln when a car squirted out from a blind alley. The breaks did their utmost, but it was too late. My tire kicked the driver’s side front hubcap. Unable to continue, my bicycle left me to continue forward progress unassisted. I did well enough without it. Crossing the hood, I watched my loafers trace a half-circle across the sky. “This has got to look so crazy to whoever is driving this car,” I thought and then “Will I stop now?” Not quite. Reaching the far side, I descended like the morning dew upon the pavement below. I leapt to my feet, the crunchy riffs of Drive-By Truckers' “Lookout Mountain” still pounding through my iPod. I felt like a trillion dollars. The driver was halfway out his open window, eyes wide. “HOLY SHIT!” he screamed, “Dude, are you okay?” More ejaculation than proper reply, I shouted “THAT WAS AWESOME!” A crooked grin cracked half his face, not quite reaching the terror in his eyes, “I guess you’re okay.” “Yeah, I guess I am . . . my wrist is a bit scratched, but that’s all.” I walked around to retrieve my bicycle. “Oh, good – I didn’t dent your car.” “Aw, I don’t care about that,” he said. “It’s a piece of shit.” I grinned back at him. “Well,” he said, “have a good one. Don’t . . . um . . . get injured or anything.” Today I have a bruise halfway between my wrist and elbow – it’s a little sore. It was absolutely worth it. PS. There are supposed to be various and sundry spaces between the paragraphs of this entry. I don't know what happens to them when I post. Feel free to imagine that spaces are present wherever you feel their absence. I know I do.

Elementary

2005-11-01T19:20:00.000-06:00

Today I spent approximately fifteen minutes debating a fellow graduate student about whether or not we can safely affirm that Sherlock Holmes has exactly two nostrils. You will be glad to hear that I was on the side of right - shoulder to shoulder with those who strike their chests and shout "RUBBISH!" when someone asserts that Sherlock Holmes, for all we know, had three nostrils. And we scoff at the medievals with their angels and pinheads.

He Ain't Heavy - He's My Cross

2005-10-26T14:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I passed a man on the sidewalk. He was carrying a large cross - mabye twice his own height. Scrawled from top to bottom and side to side were various apocalyptic slogans, all in bright colors. It was odd how he carried it: slung over his shoulder, one arm draped across the center-piece. There was nothing at all golgothic in his stride. Though it stuck jauntily into the air some ten feet or more behind him, he walked as if the cross were no more a burden than an umbrella in the rain.

The Insanity of the Irish

2005-10-22T17:11:00.000-05:00

"The person who is excessively fearless has no name . . . He would be some sort of madman, or incapable of feeling distress, if he feared nothing, neither earthquake nor waves, as they say about the Celts." -Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (1115b25)

The Return of the Player

2005-10-01T23:31:00.000-05:00

I have become The Player’s regular confidant. Almost every day he finds me. Our conversations always begin in the same way.

“Mind if I sit here for awhile?”

“Not at all,” I say, “Go ahead. I can’t really talk too much—I’ve got tons of school stuff to do—but you’re welcome to sit.”

Most people would take this as a not particularly subtle hint to come back later. He never does.

So he sits.

I continue with my studying.

For a few minutes he will sit in respectful silence. Then he opens up.

“I tell ya . . .”

Boy does he ever.

The two most remarkable monologs this week were as follows: (I) his recent enjoyment, on the self-same day, of a massive t-bone steak and a visit to “The Night-Before Lounge;” (II) the terrifically lewd comments of his coworkers about passing females. Monolog I was notable for the truly disturbing ease with which his appreciative description moved from the steak to the stripper’s breasts and back again in an ever-broadening snowball of detail. Unfortunately, there was significant cross-polinization of metaphor in these descriptions. He was deeply moved. Monolog II had mostly to do with a coworker’s expressed desire to top a female acquaintance with the postural assistance of a fence-post.

“I laughed for half-a-hour,” he said, “People kep’ walkin’ by and saying ‘Wassofunny?’”

“And you couldn’t really tell them, could you.”

“No-friggin-way, you betcha I could not! No-fa-riggin way!”

Some joys we must keep to ourselves.

A Player in the '80s.

2005-09-13T21:44:00.000-05:00

People tell me things. By people I mean strangers. By things I mean odd things/strange things/unexpected things. Apparently I have a face that says to the burdened world, “Go ahead and tell me about that stuff – I won’t mind.” This is not surprising really, given that my face is modeled very much along the lines of my father’s, and people have always told him things. The face stands him in good stead as a minister - and as a father, for that matter. What follows is one of the more startling recent examples of this “Go ahead and tell Christopher” phenomenon.

The other day I was sitting outside a coffee house in downtown Lincoln. A man shuffled up to me. His eyes, behind smudged glasses, were dull and bloodshot. The teeth you could see along the margins of his chapped lips were crooked as Stonehenge and yellow.

“Mind if I sit and talk with you for awhile?” he said. “Not at all,” I replied. So he sat. And he talked.

"See that?” He pointed to a dark circle of ink on his forearm.

“Sure. What is it?”

"I got tested for a disease.”

“A disease?”

“Yeah, it’s called . . . um . . . well . . .” He squinted. After several false starts, he managed to pry a disease-sounding name from his unwilling memory—“I think it’s tribino . . . chronomona . . . itis . . . kenosis”—then immediately rejected it. “Aw, I don’t remember what it’s called. I think it's in your bones.”

“Ah.”

“It’s one of them diseases where if you got it, you got it and if you don’t got it, good.”

It wasn’t obvious what to say at this point. I gave it my best shot: “Well, that sounds like a pretty good description of most diseases.”

“Well, I don’t got it.”

“Um . . . good.”

“Yep.”

At this point, the conversation took an unexpected turn—though I can't say I know what an expected turn would’ve been, given the prelude.

Suddenly he looked at me very earnestly: “Man, wasn’t it great back in the '80s when you didn’t have to worry about diseases? I mean, you could have sex with any girl you wanted, and you just didn’t have to worry about it.”

Now, I suppose it is possible for the scythe of time, over twenty years, to rough-cut a man’s features so that an Adonis circa 1985 could look like this man in 2005, but it occurred to me that the fear of disease would not have been the only obstacle in the way of his having sex with any girl he wanted – even in the roaring '80s.

“Well,” I said, “I was just a kid during the '80s.”

He went on without considering my reply: “I mean, there was no AIDS or nothing. It’s not like now.”

All at once he started. “Am I boring you?” There was real concern in his voice. I take it he was used to boring people.

“Oh, no – not a bit.”

It was absolutely true.

He smiled.

After a few moments' silence, he remembered where he left off and picked up the thread. “Now, you gotta use a rubber. I mean, that’s what I do. Every time . . . well, unless I know the girl pretty well, then I don’t bother.”

I managed a nod.

A red car pulled up to the curb. “Well, that’s my ride,” he said. “Nice talking.”

He waved and walked away.

Pains Nobly and Ignobly Got

2005-09-13T13:19:00.000-05:00

I am in pain. There are two possible explanations for this, one of which is normal and perhaps even noble, the other of which is neither. Normal, perhaps even noble explanation: I spent three hours yesterday painting our new house. This involved stretching to reach the trim along ceilings and lying down to reach the trim along the floor. Moving repeatedly between these positions might explain why my back aches as it does. Neither normal nor noble explanation: I discovered that when I pressed my bare back into our wooden floors, the former would become sealed to the latter. A quick sit-up would break the seal, producing an unmentionable but extremely amusing sound. (Yes, that sound exactly.) I was so amused that I repeated the sound-producing motion for approximately ten minutes, laughing heartily all the while. Perhaps I should mention at this point that I do not often perform quick sit-ups, which is perhaps part of the reason why my bare back seals so easily to wooden floors. Of course, these explanations are not mutually exclusive. Pains may be nobly and ignobly got, and at the same time.

Here My Face, There My Face

2005-08-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

Today a woman walked up to me in the coffee house and said, "I'm sorry, I know this is an odd thing to say, but haven't I seen you somewhere before?" I counter-queried: "Do you have any idea where?" "Maybe at school," she said, peering into the space above my head as if it contained the school in question, "in statistics. I don't know." I replied: "I've not taken any classes in statistics. So I'm afraid I don't know either." She laughed nervously. "You just look really familiar. I had to ask . . . now I'm embarrassed." "Please don't be," I said, "it's a question I get a lot." It's true - once a month at least. It is hard to say why. My face is not particularly generic. My lips are overlarge. My nose is crooked, as are my teeth. I wear thickish glasses. I have a long scar on my chin. Even so, I would like to meet all these people who look like me. We should all get together and talk about our odd face over a beer.

The Box of Broken Dreams

2005-07-15T09:24:00.000-05:00

In my favorite coffee house there is a plastic box for cast-off books. Usually, it’s full of weathered harlequins and a few thrillers. People around here seem to throw out their old paperbacks thematically. So, for example, one day there were two stacks of books in the box. All the covers in the first stack featured Native American braves; all the covers in the second featured pirates. The women featured on the covers in both stacks looked pretty much the same. Maybe the person who dropped them off got up one morning and said, “I have too many harlequins featuring Native American braves and pirates. I think I’ll throw them out and replace them with harlequins featuring plumbers and methodists." On another occasion somebody dropped off a dozen or so novels all named for different states: Mississippi, Utah, Texas, Kansas, etc. Beneath the name of the state on each cover was a subscript in italics, something like "Passion ignites among the dirt and corn, setting the prairie ablaze."

In the box today I saw a slender hardback. It’s cover is an unornamented red with faded gold lettering on the front cover that says,

Nicholas Sinclair Crossing the Water

The book contains page after page of black and white photographs. Each, without exception, is of web-like tree branches over frozen streams. Inside the front cover I found a penciled inscription, six words in a single column:

For Anne with love from Nicholas

“This,” I thought, “is a relic of tragic romance.” Nicholas – perhaps even Nicholas Sinclair? – gave this little volume to Anne as token of a love now deceased. Why else would she have deposited it in the cast-off box with the braves and pirates? Of course Nicholas may have deserved it. Perhaps for all his skill and sensitivity with black and white photography he was a disastrous lover. Certainly there is nothing about skill and sensitivity as a photographer which entails skill and sensitivity at much else. All the same, I couldn’t help but feel for poor Nicholas. He seemed a tortured soul. Thomas Hardy might have wandered hand in hand with the Brontë sisters from page to page of Nicholas’ web-like braches and frozen streams. For all this, Anne would not have him. I took the book. I will put it on the shelf with the copy of Tolkien’s Silmarillion I found on the cast-off shelf of a library in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Inside its cover is this inscription:

To Linda Here's something to keep a part of you in fantasy, while the coming year brings you new realities. Love always, Brad

Nicholas, Brad . . . may your inscriptions bring forth better harvests in future.

Christopher Is in the Men's Room, All Is Right with the World

2005-07-13T15:55:00.000-05:00

I had a strange experience today. During one of my numerous coffee-inspired trips to the Men’s Room I began to think of two friends of mine. They were once romantically connected and made a lovely couple, but had come to a parting of ways earlier this year. I am glad to report that happier days have dawned. Time, that great healer, has rallied round for some neat restitching of fond hearts (as Wodehouse would say). Contemplating their happy reunion, I thought of the ancient verse, by some poet I could not then identify, “The lark is on the wing/The snail is on the thorn/God is in his heaven/And all is right with the world.” Even as the last two lines made their way across that mental screen on which such thoughts are transcribed, I glanced up. Just above the toilet were scrawled the words, “God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.” The reading and the thinking of these words occurred independently but with something very like simultaneity. It was one of those moments when mind and world seem to fuse, when Kant’s noumenal and phenomenal magically coincide. I have had similar experiences. For example, I once saw a man on the sidewalk dancing, to all appearances, to music playing inside my car which he could not have heard. Comparable experiences, gentle readers? Do tell.

Cussing in the Choir

2005-05-26T15:10:00.000-05:00

In view of a certain controversy I unwittingly spawned this week, it seemed appropriate to revisit the occasion in my childhood when I heard a particular word for the very first time. For those unfamiliar with the sweet cadences of southern accents, I have included subtitles. In the fall of my ninth year, the Baptist Church I attended started a “Patch the Pirate Club.” This was not, as you might think, an attempt to reach out to the gay and leather communities of Middle Georgia. “The Patch the Pirate Club” was a children’s choir curriculum based on the inspirational adventures of Patch the Pirate and his rollicking crew of Christian buccaneers, including Peewee Pirate, Sissy Seagull and Wally the Whale. Evidently untroubled by the tensions involved in the notion of Christian piracy, Patch and his gang spent their days singing infectious little songs about virtue. Some of my favorites were “I Love Broccoli” – which I once performed as a duet at a talent show for homeschoolers – and “I Pledge My Heart to America,” a stirring anthem to Peewee Pirate’s decision to crash a hot air balloon, Kamikaze-style, into a dirigible which was about to destroy the Statue of Liberty. (In the end, he didn’t have to because the Nazis or Communists piloting the dirigible were so moved by his attempted sacrifice that they pledged their own hearts to America right there on the spot.) In real life, Patch the Pirate was a Baptist minister who lost his eye to cancer. On his first Sunday back in the pulpit, sans eye and plus patch, a cheeky youngster yanked on his blazer and asked, “Say, are you a pirate?” With admirable charity, Patch replied, “Why, yes I am.” Thus a legend was born. Our Patch the Pirate club met once a week to learn inspirational new songs and to be better pirates of the cross. We even got to wear billowy white shirts and red sashes. One week I ended up sitting next to Jay Smucker. Together with our fellow shipmates, we belted out yet another inspirational favorite. But something was troubling Jay. Brow furrowed over his thick glasses, all at once he leaned over and said in an earnest whisper, “Dijjuw heeyer whuht Mork Wawluhbee cawled Mehtchull Mack-Cou?” [“Did you hear what Mark Walaby called Mitchell McCou?”] “Naw,” I replied. “Hee cawled heeyim a ‘EFF-YOU-SEE-KAY FUHACE’” [“He called him a ‘F-U-C-K Face.’”] Jay went on, his already magnified eyeballs rendered planetary by the sheer evil of Mark Walaby. I was nonplussed. Given that Mark Walaby was the culprit, I knew whatever had been said must be a manifestation of sheer evil, but further than that I could not penetrate. I spelled the word aloud to myself: “eff-you-see-kay.” I rolled it around in my head. I had never heard it before. “Whuhts wrawng withayutt?” [What’s wrong with that?] I asked. “WHUHTS WRAWNG WITHAYUTT?!” Jay shot back, obviously stunned at this gaping lacuna in my moral education. Although he had raised his voice almost to a scream nobody noticed because the other young pirates continued their rollicking inspirational favorites at several hundred decibels per second. Unaccustomed to standing at the receiving end of such outrage, I stood my ground: “Yeah, whuhts wrawng withayut?” Now Jay was nonplussed. He blinked, causing a momentary eclipse of his twin planets. That Richard Christopher, the son of a minister, did not grasp the badness of Mark's verbal display cut him to the quick. “Brothers and sisters,” his gaping stare seemed to say, “this ought not so to be.” In answer to my question, he could but shake his head and mutter “Hee cawled heeyim a eff-you-see-kay fuhace! I mean, hee cawled heeyim a eff-you-see-kay fuhace!” For my part, I took advantage of the roaring pirates to explore the sonic potential of this new word. “Fuhuck fahace,” I intoned: “Saunds lick duhuck fahace.” [“Sounds like duck face.”] Amused by the rhyme, I chanted “fuhuck fahace, fuhuck fahace, quack, quack, quack.” Jay shot me a look of purest horror. “Yoower gawnda gittin saw muhuch truhubble.” [“You are going to get in so much trouble.”] He never sat by me again. PS. Oh, it took almost twenty years, but Jay was vindicated . . . “eff-you-see-kay” finally got me in trouble just this week.

The Weblog of Wickedness

2005-05-25T11:20:00.000-05:00

Gentle Readers: In a recent post entitled "Kip is Christopher" I quoted a woman I overheard while lunching at a Subway in Chicago last month. I quoted her in full. The quote included a series of expletives. If my mother and sisters are to be believed - and they usually are - including this quote in the post offended certain people. Apparently, there are those who desire that I refrain from all such language in future.

With all due respect, I must politely refuse. If anyone who reads this post was among the offended, I must warn you that such language may periodically appear on this weblog. If you honestly feel that you will be harmed by encountering such language, you should not read my posts, as there is the off-chance that you may encounter it here. If my use of such language damaged your good opinion of me, that good opinion did not correspond to fact and needed to be damaged.

With charity toward all and malice toward none,

Christopher

Anna and the Kink

2005-05-20T10:41:00.000-05:00

I am reading Anna Karenina right now with a group of friends from undergraduate years. One of my professors invited us to join him in reading and discussing it together. The first 127 pages have brought me considerable pleasure and some token enlightenment as well.

However, there are complications which attend the reading of AK just now. First of all, it is the Oprah Winfrey Book Club of the Sensitive Selection of the Present. This invites cheeky comments from strangers who see you reading it. "No," I tell them time and again, "I am reading this book because my professor and friend Cliff suggested that I read it. Oprah is not my friend."

And speaking of cheeky, the other difficulty is with the book cover. It features a rather fuzzy photograph of a woman's knees, with lilacs (?) tucked between. Due to its general fuzziness and the fact that the title starts halfway down the knees - "ANNA" - it manages to look an awful lot like either T or A. The thing about T & A is that they invite stares and/or comment. "The woman on that book has purple flowers stuffed up her butt," the furrowed brows of Lincoln seem to say. "That guy reading it - what a perv."

Oh well, if we are not ready to suffer for art, to be misunderstood by the benighted masses, what are we?

Kip is Christopher

2005-05-18T15:43:00.000-05:00

I was in Chicago two weeks ago for a philosophy conference. It was very much as I left it, I'm afraid. In the year or so since I left for Nebraska, I had wrapped not a little sentiment around my memories of Chicago. It got unwrapped, and in a hurry. People in Lincoln, Nebraska don't scream at each other on the streets and in restaurants. ("Motherfuckin' bitch I'm gonna call y'manager and get y'ass fired!" Just unpleasant.) I rather like it that people in Lincoln, Nebraska don't scream at each other on the streets and in restaurants.

I was the object of some screaming myself . . . well, not screaming really - more like barks or yips. The trains in Chicago have two levels, one above and one below, as is often the case with levels. I boarded one of these trains and took a seat below.

Instantly, there was a bark from above. "Hey you!" I looked up, giving my skull a nice crack on the back of my seat in the process. There was a teenage girl dangling over me, her ample midsection pressed into the rail. "Know what?" says she, "You look just like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite."

Perhaps some of you managed to avoid lapping up this little film last summer. If so, a quick Google search of images will show you exactly why I found this comment disconcerting. Kip in Napoleon Dynamite looks like three quarters weasel mixed with a quarter of child molester: not exactly a look I cultivate.

I was a bit nonplussed in the aftermath of her remark. Blinking, holding the back of my head, I looked up at her. "I suppose that's about the nastiest thing anyone has said to me in sometime." "Well," she shot back, "I could have said you looked like Deb." She grinned, retreated from the rail and was immediately reabsorbed into the mass of teenage bodes from which she emerged.

Good to be back in Lincoln. My bicycle only has one level.

PS. Thanks to my friend Jason, who reminded me that I had neglected this weblog for too long.

Christopherus Absconditus

2005-05-03T13:54:00.000-05:00

My apologies for the long absence. The end of the Spring semester is upon me. Hobbes, Kant and about fifty undergraduates have been playing lacrosse with my brains (or perhaps racquetball - it is difficult to tell).

At any rate, I should have my brains to myself again after this week.

Talk to you then.

Take from seventy springs a score . . .

2005-04-06T21:08:00.000-05:00

I don't know their names - I suspect many of them are some kind of magnolia - but the trees are in full bloom now . . . a bit past their prime, in some cases. My favorite blooms are large and ivory white, with a touch of crimson toward the bud.

I feel a great sense of loss this time of year - such beauty just off the sidewalk and yet so inaccessible. There is no time to stop. Sometimes I could wish to be disembodied, to hang among the branches, to watch their buds become blossoms and leaves in their turn, in absolute quiet.

It was cloudy today. I passed a row of such trees - six or so. The branches moved with the wind, and the ground beneath was strewn with petals. It was was grave and lovely.

"Now, of my threescore years and ten, twenty will not come again . . ."

Yes, Mr. Housman, I know.

Not that it does any good.

Kant on Sex and Booze

2005-03-29T17:44:00.001-06:00

They (by "they" I mean writers of philosophical biographies of Kant) say that Kant, far from the shrunken introvert of vulgar chariacature, could be quite the bon vivant and had an active social life. Here are some insights he apparently gleaned during these trips around the block.

On Sex: "Sexual inclination . . . is, in fact, the strongest possible sensible pleasure (6:426)."

On Booze: "Drunkeness . . . arouse[s] imagination to an active play of representations (6:427)."

In the immortal words of the lascivious deep-voiced man of Twix commercial fame, "Oh yeah!"

No Anecdote Today

2005-03-25T17:30:00.000-06:00

Dear readers, my apologies - I'm drifting in and out of meta-ethics.

Dear readers, my apologies - for a terrible paraphrase of a very nice song from our friends at REM.

There will be no anecdote this week because I am frantically preparing to write an exam this coming Monday.

A Poem for Sunday

2005-03-20T20:07:00.000-06:00

Palm Sunday, 2005 Today you stood Behind the desk And spoke of Christ the King: A King of Peace, Meek and Mild, A Donkey-Rider. But that is not What you meant. Today you said He brings a peace Just like our own: With white flags Of surrender or Red flags soaked In rebel blood. Have you never Seen his cross? The Donkey-rider, Bludgeoned By palms and Brazen Hosannas, Scorns our war And our peace for sacrifice; Scorns our weapons for five wounds Scorns our blood for his.

Anecdote by Request

2005-03-18T11:58:00.000-06:00

The anecdote I will relate this week is not that I had planned. Ever sensitive to the demands of the reading public, this Friday I will relate an anecdote requested anonymously last week. But first, some significant stage-setting is necessary. This week’s anecdote takes place inside a massive Christian school in the Chicago suburbs. It takes place inside a massive Christian school in the Chicago suburbs for a very simple reason: through all four years of my undergraduate career I lived in the bowels of a massive Christian school in the Chicago suburbs. I slept in an old office, cooked my meals in the home economics classroom and showered in the “Visiting Referee” bathroom. I realize that such living arrangements are slightly off-normal, but for purposes of this anecdote I must ask you to accept the fact. Perfectly understandable questions like “How did you come to live in a massive Christian school in the Chicago suburbs?” must be bracketed. Have you accepted and/or bracketed? Good. On we go. One Sunday morning, toward the beginning of my four year stay, I set off from my office/domicile to shower. As it was Sunday morning, the school was entirely deserted. As it was entirely deserted, I felt free to walk from domicile to shower in nothing but the smallish white briefs it was my appalling habit to wear at that time. I arrived at the shower without incident. I showered. I dried. I re-donned the same smallish white briefs.* No sooner had I done so when wave upon wave of horrific shock surged from tip to top of my freshly-scrubbed frame. And why? I realized that not only was I without any clothes save briefs, I was without my keys. This is understandable, considering that your typical briefs are sadly unequipped with anything substantial enough for storing a set of keys (I mean, one could drop them inside with the boys, but such is not the way of comfort – not at all). Understandable or no, I was without my keys. Now, to be without ones keys is common enough. You might well ask why the discovery that I was without keys produced such horror. And I might well answer that to be without keys may be annoying, but to be without keys inside a massive Christian school in the Chicago suburbs in which every door locks when closed and in which every phone one might use to call for help is behind such locked doors, this is something more than annoying. It is horrifying . . . especially when all that stands between the tender parts and the cruel mercies of a heartless world is smallish white briefs. I had a plan. I would sprint like a madman through the long deserted hallways of the massive Christian school until I arrived at the front desk (a distance of approximately a quarter-mile). There was the only phone in the building not behind locked doors. Upon arrival I would call the security guard at home and wait for his arrival under the aforementioned desk. Humiliating? You bet, but better than roaming the hallways of a massive Christian school for twenty-four hours, to be discovered on Monday morning by teachers and schoolchildren curled up against the lockers in nothing but smallish white briefs. It is at this point in the story that there are crankings and perhaps whirrings backstage. “What is that sound?” you ask. It is the deus emerging ex machina. Against all hope, when I slumped back to my domicile in desperation, I discovered that the door had not latched. This was amazing. It always latched. I think the prayer of thanksgiving I uttered at that moment was the sincerest of my life to date.

Very soon after this incident I made the switch to boxers. Such are the ways of providence, luring us from bondage to freedom through dangers, toils and snares.

*Gross? Of course, but after all I was a young undergraduate.

On Saint Patrick's Day

2005-03-17T12:44:00.000-06:00

To the fellow who first got my fathers and mothers tangled up with Christianity, a thousand years ago and more: Slainte.

This Morning, on the Bus

2005-03-15T16:31:00.000-06:00

This morning I rode the bus downtown. When I stepped through the door and looked down its length for a seat, approximately forty small eyes looked back. The back was crowded with children.

They all got off at the very next stop. As they filed past, two by two, a boy stopped and touched my arm. His face was light brown, with dark eyes and hair cut short. His glove, resting on my sleeve, was about an inch too long on every finger. "Do you want to come with us?" he half-whispered. "No thank you," I replied, "I cannot today." Then he was hurried off with the others.

Air Communion

2005-03-14T12:13:00.000-06:00

There is a little girl that sits in front of me nearly every Sunday. She is, without doubt, the merriest Presbyterian on this terrestrial ball. She dances through every hymn, even "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." That takes some doing. I wonder what she hears?

Yesterday, during communion, her mother did not allow her to partake. Undaunted, she waited until the "Take and eat . . . Take and drink" and did so with verve - only with virtual elements. She gulped down invisible bread, smacking her lips afterward, and drained an invisible cup with a loud slurp.

God forgive me, sometimes I wonder if I'm doing much more.

Probably less.

First Friday of the Anecdote

2005-03-11T11:06:00.000-06:00

In the life of most children raised by Baptists, there comes a time when they are too old to be kept in the nursery. This necessitates a move from what we called "Children's Church" to "Big Church." In my case, this move occurred round about my fourth birthday. It was not without incident - more precisely, without two incidents - the first of which is this Friday's anecdote.

The first incident in this series of two took place on a Wednesday night during "Prayer Meeting" - a more informal service with only marginally more prayer than usual, notable primarily for coming after a large meal in the "Fellowship Hall."

During one of my first Wednesday Night Prayer Meetings after the promotion to Big Church, sitting on the first pew beside my mother, I decided to pass the time by exploring the interior of her purse. It was large and beige. When opened it gave off pleasant odors - a mixture of lipstick and Double-Mint Gum. I should say at this point that my mother did not notice my explorations.

Among the objects I found toward the bottom of the purse was something longish and cylindrical, wrapped in paper. I withdrew it for closer examination. Its shape put me in mind of an object I had seen often between the index and middle fingers of Boss Hogg - the bald and white-suited villain of my favorite TV show, The Dukes of Hazzard. Too young to know that the enjoyment of cigars was frowned upon by the surrounding Baptists, I began to imitate the use Boss Hogg made of such longish and cylindrical objects. Imagining myself in the Boss' white suit and equipped with his massive belly, I patted my own artificially distended stomach and took long drags on the object, which I had tucked properly between my own index and middle fingers.

Minutes passed - who knows how many - and I continued to "smoke." Some of the surrounding Baptists noticed my activities. They seemed very amused. I acknowledged their attentions with a superior nod, my demeanor steadfastly Hogg-like. All at once my mother glanced down at me. She gasped. Whip-like, her arm snapped from her side to my lips, deftly removing the object and burying it in the depths of her purse, which she had simultaneously retrieved from my lap.

It was not until years later that I learned the exact nature of my offense. Whatever tolerance Baptists possess for the smoking of cigars, the smoking of tampons during Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting is even worse.

Ted Leo and the Demons

2005-03-10T10:11:00.001-06:00

I have a brother who is fourteen years old. I was twelve years old when he was born. Sadly, I don’t get to see him very often – twice a year, perhaps – but we keep in touch. The other day we had an interesting email exchange. “You should check out this band called Ted Leo and the Pharmacists,” I said. He replied: “Yes, I like them a lot.” And what was so interesting about this exchange? Some back-story: my parents and I shared some very eccentric views about the dangers of “rock music” during my formative years. Of course, eccentric views about the dangers of “rock music” are common enough among fundamentalists, but our views were eccentric even in the context of eccentricity. We believed that rock – specifically the “backbeat” characteristic of rock – is irresistible to demons. They flock to it like bees to the blossom. Only by stopping their ears or having fellow demons tie them to any available masts can they avoid swarming the nearest backbeat; and this works only if they are very quick – any hesitation and they are lost. Anyway, if you don’t want demons by the horde buzzing around your house, you’d best leave that rock music in the Pizza Hut where it belongs. (I actually thought I might use this demonic weakness against them. My plan: (1) secure self against corrupting influence of rock via hymns on Walkman; (2) play rock at high volume on stereo; (3) wait until every demon for miles is panting in heap around stereo; (4) suddenly switch stereo to hymns – preferably hymns played on harp by plain young female. The upshot? Massive damage to demonic psyche! Alas, like so many excellent plans, I never went through with it.) My folks and I abandoned such quasi-voodoo ages ago, but I had to build my knowledge of rock from scratch and I got a very late start. So, imagine my feelings upon the discovery that my young brother, despite his tender years, already knows his way around rather obscure corners of indie rock! The green-eyed monster chewed on me for some time. Ah well, at least he is listening to the good stuff - and I had to tell him about The American Analog Set.

A Poem for Sunday

2005-03-06T20:48:00.000-06:00

Talking Online with Jonathan, after We Both Forgot Ash Wednesday “GODISNOWHERE” Said the words against the light. “What do you see here?” you asked. “I see both” I said, “First one and then the other.” “I think he’s in the bread and the wine.” “When?” You asked, and so did I; We are sensible fellows. “On Sundays,” I said. “Hard to get more specific, But He’s there when I squeeze the bread in my hand, And my sweat gets mixed up with Him. Still there in that bit in my crooked front tooth, And the stain on the back of my tongue.”

The Day of the Anecdote

2005-03-04T11:06:00.000-06:00

My love of - nay, passion for - anecdote is notorious. I take as evidence for this the fact that I have often been taken aside by those nearest and dearest to me and prodded with gentle words of counsel like "Please, we have all heard that one." But, I must add that many of these same nearest and dearest, at other times and places, have prodded me with contrary advice: e.g. "Tell that story about X."

Perhaps in craven submission to my passion for - nay, addiction to - anecdote, or perhaps out of consideration for the contrary proddings of my nearest and dearest, I hereby declare Friday "The Day of the Anecdote." This does not mean, of course, that there will be no acecdotes on other days, but Friday will be a day holy to the anecdote, a day for the classic anecdote.

But the first of such Fridays will not be today. The first "Friday, Day of the Anecdote" will be next Friday. It will be interesting to see how many such Fridays will follow. Probably too many.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed before, any old anybody can leave comments. See below where it says "comments" or maybe "O comments?" Yes, right there. Well, you can click and write a comment, and I can read it later. So, especially on Fridays, you can leave anecdotes of your own. That would make me very happy indeed. After all, I've heard all mine before.

Bertrand and I

2005-03-01T16:41:00.000-06:00

The other night I dreamt of Bertrand Russell. I was mowing my parent’s lawn late on a summer evening, by the fence-row. He walked beside me, holding my left arm for support: that part of the lawn is treacherous, especially for a man dead thirty-five years. Contrary to fact, the lawn was strewn with flowering shrubs, heavy with blossoms. "Mind you don’t run them over,” said Bertrand. When I looked at him, his face was beatific: lined with wrinkles, framed with white, hair unruly around the ears. I knew somehow that he was a denizen of purgatory. "I'm making great progress," he said.

A Poem for Sunday

2005-02-27T14:33:00.000-06:00

The Carrion and the Crow My heart is a crow My ribs are black wings; They flutter, excited, Nearest to your blood. My round eyes roll Nearest to your flesh, No beak more fit than mine For this tearing.

The Problem of Evil

2005-02-26T15:02:00.000-06:00

Yes, my dear, that fellow on the right is William Shatner as Alyosha Karamazov. Why did not the world end the very day of this outrage? Perhaps you had better ask Dostoevsky himself.

On Reading Kant

2005-02-26T13:19:00.000-06:00

I am reading lots of Kant these days. Just now I am writing a short paper on his idea of the highest good; or, I should say, the highest good (italics all his--he does cherish his italics). Reading Kant with an eye to reconstructing his arguments is difficult. It is like someone took a very interesting argument, put it inside a metal box, and blew it up (it has to be a metal box, of course, in order to contain the explosion). My job is now to reassemble this very interesting argument from the fragments. Actually, it is impossibly optimistic to say that the metal box contained only one argument: I am probably picking through the fragments of several dozen all at once. Ah well.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2005-02-25T20:53:00.000-06:00

This is a poem I wrote earlier in the week: That Man The man sitting in the next booth: I cannot see his face, Only a neck like lunch loaf And leathery ears. Neither can I see his breakfast, Or perhaps his late-night snack But they are with me nonetheless. Sans machine, their ghosts Escape in my direction. They linger only moments, Then they fly. Thank God.

Apology (in the Classical Sense)

2005-02-24T09:10:00.000-06:00

Why have I started this log?* (What follows should be filed under the heading: Annoying Apologies Where a Dislike for Some Activity is Stated Just before the Apologizer Commences Self-Same Activity. I suppose this makes it somewhat less classical. Oh well.)

I am not a fan of diaries. One of the worst experiences of my young life was a long car trip during which I was forced to listen to Bridget Jones's Diary. After ten or so hours of "Ate v. good bacon dipped in Mayo. Shagged self by the hour. Hurrah!" I nearly gave myself up to nihilism and the void. In that order. But young women (always young and always women) often come with diaries into the coffee house where I spend most of my life. They have a seat and write for hours. Inevitably, they emerge with a glow of accomplishment about them, as if hard-nosed negotiations with Truth, Beauty and Goodness had ended with major concessions from T, B & G. Perhaps I envy them. Actually, I have started this log (1) because I love to write in an offhand and/or desultory manner; (2) because the writing I am required to do as a graduate student in philosophy is never offhand and/or desultory; (3) because keeping a web log seems an interesting way to indulge this love of the offhand/desultory. So, there you have it. In the immortal words of T.M. Scanlon: "The desire to be able to justify one's actions to others on grounds they could not reasonably reject will be satisfied when we know that there is adequate justification for our action even though others in fact refuse to accept it."

*I use the "log" instead of "blog" because I hate the latter. It is a very, very ugly word. It offends me.

Posting the First

2005-02-23T15:02:00.000-06:00

So, I've gone and done it.