Into the Slipstream

When Fall comes around, I am reminded of my childhood time in Kentucky. Or rather, when I am in a place where Fall comes around since it didn't really last year when I was in India, and sometimes in Austin it was a blink of the eye, but here in Belgium, Fall is a serious season, spanning several months with a multi-colored display of foliage and the world-famous orchard harvest from the Haspengouw areas. Belgium is replete with trees and when the Fall falls, there are a LOT of leaves.

Today, I saw a group of kids playing in huge piles of leaves that they had made. However, given that this is the Time that it is, they of course were filming it all on smart phones, probably sending uploads to everyone within seconds of having just plunged into the swiftly decaying midden heap of leaves.

Back in the day, in Kentucky, of course we did not have the smart phones to share our experience, but it was such great fun to rake up giant piles of Poplar, Maple, and Oak leaves and taking off like Charlie Brown go flying into them, smelling the damp, musty, earthy aroma that is unmistakably the perfume of Autumn's enchantment.

Though this is no new sentiment, it is again through the eyes of youth that we realize how jaded we can become, how needy we are for entertainment, for something to happen, for something to mean something, for Time to go by and we "got something done," and for the sense of feeling guilty for wanting to do something silly or fun, or taking the Time to rake up a whole pile of leaves, just for the sake of scattering them again, like Buddhist monks spending weeks on a sand mandala, only to whisk it away with a dry branch.

We want permanence in an impermanent world. What is wrong with this picture? I was thinking about what it would be like if one had grown up in an equatorial region and then for the first time, without anyone telling that person what was happening, to then travel somewhere where the Summer turned to Fall. Think about that. It would seem as if literally the entire world was dying! What a shock that would be. It would signal the end of the seemingly permanent status of sun up/sun down at 6 and 6 with the same temperature all year round. Suddenly, the impermanence of Reality would be thrust upon you. Without warning, that would be overwhelming to say the least, not to mention Winter.

I was talking with my daughter the other day about the difference amongst the divisions of Time: seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years, etc. We were talking about how the mo(o)nths are related to the Moon and the year to the Sun. There was an eclipse the other day in Australia, which thinking of Twain, is yet another instance of thrusting the seemingly permanent existence of the Sun and/or Moon into a tailspin of impermanence and Chaos. Again, imagine the impact of that if one did not know what was happening...

But, that is like our lives and memories. We try to fix some sense of pattern upon an ever-changing stream of vicissitudes, grasping at the bank of the river of Time as we float on down, having the bank of the Present "seem" to recede in the Past.

And, then, at times, with the smell or sight, those two come crashing together in some Proustian digression, as when I thought back to diving headlong into the leaves in our backyard in Brownsboro Farms outside of Louisville. But, as soon as it was there, it was gone and I was back in Antwerp, nearly 40 years later...

The seasons do bring out reflections if we let them, or they can signal hope, or for others despair. Yet, they will continue, and to stubbornly hold onto the Summer, when the Fall is here, is futile. Let go of the bank and enjoy the ride down the slipstream... 

In a Fog

Living in a foreign country has many challenges.

Belgium has no shortage of them.

Currently I have just moved from probably one of the most amazing neighborhoods in northern Europe, that of the Zurenborg area of Antwerp to another beautiful neighborhood, but without the dynamics of life that my former place had. I am sad, but at the same time, the move was necessary. I am closer to my daughter's school and she has more of her own space.

However, I am in a fog about where exactly I fit in in this society. Am I an ex-pat? Yes and no. Am I a conjugal EU citizen? Yes and no. Am I merely an American who has found himself as a stranger in a strange land? Yes and no.

Recently there were elections for the local level and Bart De Wever was voted in as the new Mayor of Antwerp. Make no mistake, Mr. De Wever is extremely intelligent, but I question his motives. Being part of the nationalistic movement, he wishes that Flanders succeeds to its own "country". Now, not that it could not do so, but it is a bit odd being mayor of one of the few cities that literally has representation from almost every country on the planet. There are residents from 173 countries in this city. Think about that. Seriously, let that sink in.

And, yet, the city just elected an elitist, exclusionary mayor. I am confused. Antwerp has been a world center for 500 years. I seriously doubt that Rubens, a friend of the Mayor at the time would have supported such exclusion. Known to be fluent in about 8 languages and was the diplomat par example, Rubens was what made Antwerp a city on the map.

I don't know what will happen with Antwerp and/or Flanders. I fear the tribalism that is rampant, but it is a sign of the times. All the while, Europeans are criticizing America for being narrow minded, Europe in the background is becoming more and more limited in its scope.

People in glass houses should not throw stones I guess is the motto... Or, when in a Fog, don't drive too fast...

Syncretism

One of the things that I hear all too often about myself is that I am “not a typical American…” One of the things I have noticed living abroad is that many cultures love to throw around that phrase, “typical American,” as if 300 million people are all the same. I have realized too that the more I am in such cultures, I tend towards using the “typical” brand as well. And, well, there are clichéd and stereotypical Americans, Belgians, Italians, Indians, and so forth. So, it is a bit of a Catch-22.  So, no I am not a “typical American,” though at times, I am very much so.

However, what living in various countries has done for me is to learn a sense of syncretism, or bringing lots of viewpoints into my own belief system. This, of course, infuriates a purist, who will lament me as not taking a stand. Or, like Jim Hightower is attributed as saying that the only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow line and dead armadillos.

Well, count me in with the fallen armadillos. I am neither pro-American, nor Anti-American. I am neither for religion, nor against. I am neither Republican, nor Democrat.

Well, who the hell am I? What do I stand for?

I believe in the process and the bigger picture, one, that as Kant said, is just too damn big for us humans to comprehend. I will not take a stand on the big questions as the jury is still out for me. Is this world Good, or is it Evil? I don’t know, it is still going along, and will most likely do so long after the last human is scratching his or her cranium thinking about that question.

Though it is impossible to really, really, really live just in the moment, I do try. Yes, I am a product of my Past and the composition of my Future hopes, dreams, and desires, but we really only can process what is happening now, as we cannot change what has, nor fully predict what will.

Yet, with the combination of what we have learned, and what we wish to do, that informs us at every moment, fleeting as it may be, and gives us choices to make. Perhaps that is where I am a “typical American,” as I do believe in choices, and I do believe in the precepts of Freedom and Independence that shaped my country, regardless of the atrocities against such concepts that it itself has incurred upon itself and others.

Do we contradict ourselves? Yes, we do. As Walt Whitman wrote, “Do I contradict myself? Very Well, then I contradict myself.” We fear contradictions, and I know that I am guilty of that, both contradicting myself and pointing it out in others. However, it is the apparent contradictions that do bring a variety to our lives, for better or for worse. The best thing we can do is to learn to incorporate such diversity and contradiction into our lives, so that we can continue to move forward, and to avoid being paralyzed by the thought.

Hey Man, Can you Spare some Change?

Well, another election, another election that I am not living in America. Coincidence, or not? Not sure myself on that one.

During the 2004 elections I was living in Castiglione Fiorentino, a quaint hill-top hamlet in Tuscany, teaching for a Study Abroad consortium of Italart under the auspices of The University of Texas at Austin.

I am neither Democrat, nor Republican, but choose to choose upon the issues. Some candidates from either party are always the better choice from one’s own party line. And, there are those who are on the fringe who also have something to say.

Recently, I was made an “honorary” member of a highly prestigious English university’s water polo team due to a very random turn of events, which I will digress to at another time. However, something came out of that chance encounter that I have wanted to address for some time now.

During the course of the evening following the water polo tournament in which I was made such a figure for this team, I was showing them around Antwerp and providing them with a balanced tour of fun and information about a town I truly love. However, at one point, things took a rather odd and somewhat sinister turn.

When we were at one of my favo(u)rite cafes in town, De Muze, for some reason the conversation switched to politics, and took on an accelerated anti-American stance which bore its hydra-like head from a comment I had made about Plato’s Republic that the danger of a democracy can be a tyranny, and that his solution, much to the acclaim of those monarchists amongst us, was that it was an enlightened Monarch, or solitary ruler.

Well, if history is to serve us well, perhaps the one and only enlightened “Monarch” was Marcus Aurelius, a man who struggled with his designation above all others and who spent his “free” time steeped in philosophical pursuits in line of Epictetus and others about the real Stoic nature of the way things are.

However, what happened, and I will not rehearse the entire events as not to make certain characters the protagonist and others the antagonist, it came down to my country, the USA being excoriated by a group of highly educated, yet naïve British youths and a few overly opinionated Belgians joining in the fray to tell me how bad my country was and that it had in fact already morphed into a tyranny from a democracy because of our two-party system that was “one.”

If you have caught your breath now, which it took me longer to do than four games of water polo after over four years hiatus from the sport, I tried to rejoinder, only to be “boo-ed” down by the Brits and passively-aggressively snubbed by the Belgians. The kicker was that NONE of these people had ever been to the USA, thus it was all theoretical, and I have been and lived in everyone to theirs...

My country a Tyranny? Wow, I think not. Which brings me back to the origin of this thought. When I was in Italy and Bush II “won” the election, the atmosphere was demoralizing at best. We found out that all ex-pat votes for that election did not make it to the polls, a margin that would have easily tipped the scales.

The morning after, on the intelligentsia newspaper, La Repubblica, it was black, with the caption that more or less said, “Darkness falls upon America.” That was echoed across the European continent. Whereas the days before when I went to get a coffee in the morning at the local café, and was greeted warmly, suddenly, because I was American, everything changed. I felt it. The students felt it. My ex, who is Belgian, did not, and said I was exaggerating. Well, it was visceral. Being American, post Cold War, is not the exciting, engaging experience it was for several decades. Now, one needs to be aware, for if not, things can turn on a dime, as they did with my cadre of water polo mates from across the Channel.

When Obama was elected I was living in Antwerp again already. I remember the moment, as some remember Kennedy being shot, the Space Shuttle exploding, or whatnot, but I remember it well. I was driving my mother-in-law’s car at the time and heard the speech from Chicago. The radio announcer from Studio Brussel began to cry. I began to cry. Not because Obama was “my man” but because I realized that Change came come to America, and it does. Maybe not in Washington, but it is still a country that shows us we can be who we want to be.

Europe, in general, is toe the line. Status Quo. I see it every day and am amazed about how, as an American, I think about other solutions to problems, but, Europe remains the Old World. America the “New World” and India, a place that changed my life in many ways is the “Real World.”

I get caught up in the mundane. I have to. You have to, dear reader, that is a fact.

However, is the mundane the “real”?  I think not. America is  not a tyranny, Europe is not better off, and “Asia” (a very dubious title) is not a new emergent threat. Guess what? It’s been there for a very long time. Wake up people. Change is what you make of it…

I Was Born in the U.S.A.

I was indeed born in the USA, as was my daughter, though she has the added dimension of also being half-Belgian, and by extension, for the time being (meaning the fate of the EU that is), European. Both are something that some may forever see as a boon and/or a bane, a blessing and/or a curse.

For my own case, I have experienced both sides, being the recipient and the progenitor of vitriolic effusions about my homeland, but on the flipside, have also over Time, and as a result of extended travel to other ports of call around the world, have also respected and admired the uniqueness of a country like the USA and likewise defended it tooth and nail at times when I realized an antagonist knew next to nothing about my country. It is not an exaggeration to say that no other country on this planet has existed as such, nor will. Like it or not, the USA is something special. That is not out of grandiosity or patriotism, but rather from my own experience.

Before I traveled extensively, as I have done in the past quarter of a century, I was, however, rather naïve and “patriotic” about America (and yes, I fully understand and respect the various Americas such as northern North (Canada), Central and South, but for convenience sake, I speak now of America, the 48 contiguous states and the final two stars on the flag, Alaska and Hawai'i). But, when the rest of the world speaks about Americans, they usually are referring to those of us from the US.

When I first truly went abroad, when my sister married her first husband in Scotland, I landed on the parallel universe of the Plymouth Rock of my ancestors, that is, Victoria Station in London. I will never forget the ensuing rush of emotions and confusion and fascination that raced through my mind. I had re-arrived… My ex-wife often described a similar experience when she arrived in JFK for an AFS year abroad experience. Even if we do not land in the same place, it is interesting to know that we often can feel more at home in a completely foreign culture than the one we have grown up in., whether we are from there or not

Such was the case, and such, such were the days.

Over the years, if nothing else, I have gained new perspectives on being American and not-being American, and the middle road of just Be-ing me. It is a process and a journey, about which I have written, photographed, talked, listened, and just sat, thinking about.

The issue of my daughter’s own mixed heritage came up front and center as we flew into Brussels yesterday and were greeted in a very unfriendly manner at Immigration because we were only traveling with her US passport and not her Belgian one as well. She has made this trip nearly a dozen times in her young life already and nearly half of them alone with me and this was never an issue, until this individual made it so. The frustration lay not in the fact that we were accosted, but the way he spoke to us as “Americans” who just thought that we could waltz into Belgium. Well, I pay Belgian taxes and have paid my dues otherwise, so it rang very falsely in my ears.

But, I am also aware of the enormous struggles of Immigration from people going into the US as well, most directly my ex-wife, who is Belgian and my dear friend who is Colombian by birth and the trials and tribulations her family experienced over the years.

It is a tricky thing, the place where one is born and what “nationality” one actual is. For now, my daughter fits in perfectly in America as an American, speaking American English, but the second she sets foot in Belgium, she is “European” and speaks fluent Flemish. I have never had that luxury as all of the languages I have studied have been constant efforts and consequently I am perennially the “foreigner.”

Our language, our mannerisms, our political views, our religions convictions, our food habits, ways of dress, thoughts on sex, thoughts on marriage, thoughts on cultural heritage, views of family structures, economic situations, and countless other things all add up to the calculus of who we are and where we “fit in” or don’t

For me, I was indeed born an American, though in a Native American hospital, the one white baby in there at the time, from what I have been told and perhaps from the beginning at times I have been the odd one out. Going back and forth from the US to Europe and recently India provides me each time with a new perspective, both about the boons and the banes, and everything in between.

These Boots Were Made for Walking

While walking around the South Bank here in London, one of the heels from my boots fell off. This reminded me of the very last day in Varanasi after 10 weeks in India and that one of my sandals that I had worn every day, broke. Things fall apart.

Heidegger's essay, "The Origin of a Work of Art" deals with the concept of the difference between functionality and Art, where it crosses over, where it does't, inter alia. However, he discusses Van Gogh's painting of a pair peasant's shoes and how they are worn with "care" and serves a purpose. That the painting was a reflection of this purpose. When our tools break, we recognize their functionality and their purpose, specifically when we need said tools. Such as being several miles away from where you need to be an your shoe heel falls off, or some such example.

These boots have served me quite well, and if you look closely, you will see that those are not the original soles. In fact, I have gone through two soles on each and at least as many heels and the sides are splitting.

I have walked. I love to walk and I do so several miles on any given day, and when traveling, that may reach 10-15 in large cities, in addition to a great deal of public transportation, such as the Tube here.

If you know me, you know that I will wear things until they are in shambles if it is a favorite article of clothing, such as these boots. When something serves us well, we should appreciate that, and I appreciate these boots, so I felt that they should have a posting of their own.

Things do fall apart, when the center cannot hold, and I have learned that when certain things break, then it is Time for certain changes. I have not decided the fate of these boots as I will soon be going to Texas and New Mexico, where for the most part I will be again wearing sandals everywhere. Whether they gain yet another life remains to be seen. Or, they will be retired with my sandals from India.

Gap Minded

Without a doubt, one of the most memorable things that people bring back from London is the experience of the Tube, the Underground Metro system that became a transportation icon when the famous schematic was drawn up by Harry Beck in 1931, for the paltry sum of five pounds for his efforts. Now one of the most recognizable maps in the world, most modern Metro maps are modeled after Beck's simple topological design, revolutionizing the way the world look at a transport system.

In addition the half-inch thick painted "Look Left" and "Look Right" designations at the majority of central London streets to avoid hapless American from becoming hood ornaments for Aston Martins and the ubiquitous London Taxi Cabs, the ever-present "Mind the Gap" warning of disembarking from each Tube car is another icon of navigating London transit logistics.

And, what would a trip to London be without a round on the Tube?

Today, after having an incredible full English Breakfast, it began to pour down rain, so I had already planned to make some stops, and there was no better time than the present to duck underground on the Underground for two hours and step out at various stations.

It is always interesting to see how the populations evolve and change along the routes from working-class end-stations like Stratford to the upper-crusty Oxford Circus or Acton to Mile End, with all points in between. Entire mini-demographics emerge, sometimes one stop at a time, others so gradually that suddenly you feel as if you have moved into a different country altogether. At South Kensington where women are still donning Ascot head gear to blue-collar outlays of East Ham, you can see the world in an hour.

Here are a few of the icons that I encountered along the way, minding the Gaps amongst the various peoples one encounters while in London.

Going to Market

Yesterday I went to one of the various markets in Antwerp that have become a weekly experience for me.  It is probably one of the most important and visceral aspects of living in Europe as an American that I experience on a regular basis. It is the romantic view of wandering through life at a different pace and assembling the details of daily life one by one at various stalls and shops.

Although not all part of the market, I gather my goods from a sundry of places, over time, and it is a nice diversion from the modalities of the impersonal life that we often live in modern society.

I get my coffee ground at Helios, circa 1925, the Felix blend, dark and robust. I get my green chiles that are similar to Hatch chiles at the Turkish market store. I get my cheese at the cheese vendor on the De Villegas market on Thursdays and Saturdays. I get my parothas at the Tamil store next to the laundry mat that I do laundry on the Driekonigenstraat.

Most importantly, I get my flowers, on a weekly basis, at the market.

Getting flowers is a privilege. It is the epitome of a culture that has the luxury and aesthetics of making it a business of buying and selling something that grows in the wild to be part of a market economy. I do not begrudge this as I LOVE flowers. I love flowers on so many levels, and that was what I enjoyed so much in India was that flowers were a daily part of life. 80% of the women in Madurai wore flowers in their hair, EVERY day. Flowers were strewn over the streets, over piles of shit, worn as garlands, and adorned every devotional statue or commemorative piece at every street corner. Flowers were, literally, everywhere.

Belgians do like their flowers, that much is true, but it comes at a cost. Like eating, Belgians are not known for being lenient, and TV shows such as Komen Eten and Smaak Politie are testament to making sure that eating is regimented, criticized and enjoyed at a cost.

At the market, then, this Saturday, I went to my usual stall, and was feeling very happy about the selections. However, there was one middle-aged (50-60 year-old woman) who was getting very upset about the wait. She began drumming her knuckles on the metal counter of the flower stand that we were all (about 20 of us) were waiting and begin to become more and more vocal about how long SHE had to wait. Well, last time I checked, we were all waiting, but what I see more and more here is that it is always about ME and not about the whole scenario. We were ALL waiting, just as long. At one point, only ten minutes or so on a very, very busy market day, the woman vociferously leaves the line and yells, and I do mean yells, at the three women behind the counter that have been busting their asses to get to everyone as soon as possible that it is beyond reproach that they did not have someone dedicated to people like herself who just wanted a ready-made bouquet and that god forbid they gave individual attention to the details of making individual bouquet, something which to me makes this particular flower stand impressive, and she then says that she will never come back to this so-and-so vendor. And, she leaves in a huff, without her flowers, despite being next in line.

What happens next was the telling tale of the devil in the details. Not only did the remaining customers not discard the actions/words of the woman who left as such as an aberration of norms, but suddenly there was a wave of negativity from the group and they all began to bitch and complain to the people behind the counter for having to wait, etc. etc.

I am unforgiving in this mentality and it disgusted me. We had the luxury and the wealth to wait in a line of beautiful flowers, of which you can see below and people decided to use their voice of dissent and anger instead of gratitude for what they would soon be enjoying.

It makes me ill.

If you cannot wait for flowers, nor realize that you are lucky enough to enjoy a gift of nature at any cost that enhances and beautifies your life, then the only flowers you will ever appreciate will be those on your grave.

Like Ferdinand the beleaguered bull from the children's story, flowers are the portals to beauty and to stopping and enjoying life. If you cannot, then I am very sad for you.

Small Deaths

In a few days will mark the 7th anniversary of my father’s death .

I was living in Castiglion Fiorentino at the time, and had just returned to Austin for a job interview at the Harry Ransom Center, where I would soon become the Curator for Academic Affairs for a few years. During the interview process, of which there were several days, I was walking down Duval street, near where we had lived for many years and were renting out our house and I was staying in the garage apartment, and Charlton, a friend of the family, pulled over in his car and told me that people were looking for me, my father was in the hospital.

He died soon afterwards in Louisville, Kentucky, where he had been living, racing cars, teaching surgery, and living hard as he always had. I remember calling my ex-wife at the time, who was visiting Rome with her mother, and just said, “He didn’t make it.”

I flew to the funeral, attended it, gave a eulogy along with my sisters, and then went back to Austin, finished the job interview process, then flew back to Italy, where we were wrapping up an eventful two years, for better and for worse, with a small death of our own, and was about to repatriate to the US for what would just be a couple years before coming back to Europe, this time here in Belgium.

While I was a visiting professor at L’Università di Bologna, I had the pleasure of teaching a course on James Joyce’s Ulysses with the eminent Joycean scholar Rosa Maria Bosinelli, for whom I am grateful for introducing me into the international community of Joyceans in Italy and Europe.

It was during that course that I was able to flesh out the Ulysses portion of my book on James Joyce, and specifically with regards to the chapter that is often colloquially called “Circe” within the novel and is often considered to be the chapter that ushered in the post-modern within the novel. Superficially it is a play within a play, but that is nothing new, and Joyce already makes the cameo of such a literary device in the “Scylla and Charybdis” chapter, directly given the nod to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” which itself plays a critical role in the novel, and most certainly in “Circe” as well.

My book is about the relationships of Memory and Death in the works of James Joyce, and how like the Ancient Greeks believed, we die two deaths. One death is the physical death, the small death, but the big one, is if we are forgotten. To truly kill an Ancient Greek was to forget him or her after his or her death.

Thinking about my father this week, there is still something hanging over me, as what happens with Odysseus. Odysseus learns from Circe that he must go to the Underworld and to propitiate a hungry ghost, that of Elpinor, a minor character at best, before he can unlock the lips of the dearly departed to find out more about his own Fate in the world of the living. Elpinor was amongst the partying crowd of Odysseus’ sailors, who in their revelry, got drunk and Elpinor fell to his death from a second-story roof, breaking his neck. The point was, though, is that Elpinor’s ghost was unquiet, or hungry, because he had been forgotten when the ships left again to try and return to Ithaca. As such, Odysseus had to pay homage to his ghost and to appease the Shades of Hades in order to continue with his own life.

Although I buried the hatchet with my father when he was alive as I remember our last conversation very well as it was from a small phone shop in Castiglion and for the first time in my life, instead of asking “why are you doing x, y, or z?” and this time the “x” factor was “living in Italy,” he just seemed genuinely happy for me. I am also very happy with my eulogy and that I was able to deliver one, given the timing of it all.

However, I still have part of his ashes here in my apartment, and there is something that I have yet to do. One of the few trips that I took with my father, and one of the few decent moments of that trip, was to Scotland when I was giving a paper in Dundee at a James Joyce conference there. We traveled some afterwards and one of the places we went was the battlefield of Bannockburn, where King Robert Bruce (whom my father dearly hoped we were named after, me being a Junior to his Senior, though he went by Bob) and his Scottish highlanders gave it to the British in the turning of the tide for Scottish Independence in 1314.

It was on that battlefield that I really sensed the power of place, or being in situ for an event in Time. My father was transformed, and I believe that that day he saw Robert the Bruce and his armies fighting. He was on the battlefield of Dharma , and the godhead of History was revealed to him. It was one of the times that I saw my father cry, though not the self-pitying maudlin crying that he was wont to do after too many beers, but tears of a lost Time and a lost Place.

It was then that I made a promise to myself to one day take his ashes, should he be cremated, which he was, to that field and to scatter them. I am sure that I will bring a recording of “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes or have a live piper go with me, for my dad would play that at screechingly loud volumes when he was enthused by the mood, and I believe that then I can put his ghost to rest, or at least the part of him that is with me in my apartment in its small urn. Though a small death in the grand scheme of things, he was my dad, and I loved him, faults and all.

I Saw Something Nasty in the Woodshed

Everyone's got one.

A woodshed that is.

We've all got our own paralyzing fears that have dictated our lives for so long, and we replay them over and over in our minds, injecting a soul-numbing toxicity into our well-being, but for what?

The problem with woodsheds is that we often spend too much time worrying about every else's woodshed instead of our own. We wonder, "what could be in his woodshed?" Or, "I bet her woodshed is dirtier than mine..." And, so on.

I had a woodshed in Austin, Texas, where we lived for many years. Our home was built in the 1930's era by hand by the original German owner. It was, as is typical, a wooden house on a pier and beam construction. Hand-crafted and felt like a home. Soon after moving in, we converted the garage, which was a euphemism for a gigantic cockroach apartment complex, complete with multi-plex theater, full-service gym, a few restaurants, a park for the little cockroaches, and, well, you get the picture. So, I gutted the garage and had Ed the construction guy from North Carolina, along with his hired-gun electrician, John, who inexplicably wore women's underwear and drove a Corvette, renovate the space into a utility area, darkroom, and guest bedroom with bathroom.

In order to not then just have a blank wall where the garage door used to be, I went to Home Depot (which was Builder's Square at the time) and got me a woodshed. (Actually, it was a toolshed, but that doesn't work for this extended metaphor from the movie...so, it was a woodshed). And, with some finagling, I put it together and soon had a bona fide, particle-board woodshed, complete with shingles. I painted it to match the color scheme of the house, which was semi-legendary in our neighborhood I might add, and voilà and voici, there was a woodshed that blended into the house.

However, there was one problem, it was of inferior quality to the house. It looked good and fine on the outside, but on the inside, it was a mess. Try as I might, there was no getting rid of the roaches in the woodshed, and the other myriad of insects, including termites. We had the entire grounds treated for the termites, and it worked for the house, but the damage was done on the woodshed. It continued to rot out over the years, and continued to get junkier and junkier, despite my feeble efforts to clean it out.

So, one day, after many years of having a sub-par woodshed, I emptied it and I tore it down. Razed it to the ground in a triumphant heap of debris and had it carted away with a neighboring construction project. Then, matched the old paint, re-painted the side of the garage and had two window put into that façade. Suddenly, it was a new garage apartment. On the outside, it looked great. On the inside, there was light and air.

Often we try and we try to maintain an old woodshed, or keep shoving junk in there and closing the door, thinking it will just go away, but it doesn't. Sooner or later, we have to tear the woodshed down. Raze it to the ground, and build up something better in its stead.

I admired the craftsmanship of that house, and I insulted it by placing a cheap, knock-off, fake woodshed next to it. A coat of paint won't cover the defects, so it was time to go.

Tearing down the woodshed gave me new perspective on things. You can see new possibilities which were clouded before, and when you don't have the woodshed any longer to throw your junk into, then you stop collecting junk.

Something to learn from the clip below as well. When we are so wrapped up in our own misery, we forget the world around us. Moreover, perspective is a wonderful thing to gain.

Keeping the Fire

I just returned from northern New Mexico, which is where I was born, and is easily the least "American" place in the contiguous 48, but at the same time, could only be found in the US.

I guess I don't have much to say beyond a simple list of the things that are so dear to me there for now.

--Kiva fireplaces

--More stars at night than you can shake a stick at

--Green Chile

--Shed Red sauce

--Chile Rellenos

--Sopapillas

--Ponderosa Pines and Douglass Firs

--Aspen, with or without leaves

--Deer, Elk, Turkeys (and Bears, oh My!)

--Colors

--Piñon in the air

--Mineral springs

--Camel Rock

--Sunrises and Sunsets over the mountains

--Ravens!

--The Slowness of Time

--The Vastness of Space

S.H.A.Z.A.M.!

I was moved to say, "Shazam!" today in a certain instance as it used to be one of my favorite interjections growing up in Kentucky, and what kid didn't want to be either Isis or Captain Marvel, seriously? They were the bomb. (I think that is clearly evinced by the popularity of the either real name or nickname of many women today across all races in America, that being Isis.)

Yet, like with many things, looking at things we knew in childhood can mean something quite different as adults. For me, the great challenge is to find the balance between the wonder of that little boy in Kentucky who wants to be Captain Marvel merely by shouting out "Shazam!" and the middle-aged man in Belgium who says it out of nostalgia, but had to go to Wikipedia to refresh his memory about the show, namely, what the hell does, "Shazam!" mean?

For many, it is a freakishly adept application out of an Orwell or Huxley novel that can "read" music on the radio and tell you what it is. I cannot even begin to fathom that one.

However, the original usage in the show was an acronym for S.olomon, H.ercules. Atlas. Z.eus. Achilles. and M.ercury. Whoah, now that is some power. These were the elders whom Billy Batson would invoke when he needed some extra star power to get the job done as Captain Marvel.

What got me thinking though, was, which "elders" would we call upon today? I am intrigued by the ones who were chosen then:

S.olomon, a wise and judicious lawgiver
H.ercules, a demi-God who had to prove himself through 12 Labors, (though ultimately went berserk and killed his wife,...not in the Disney version, but pretty status quo for a Greek Hero)
A.tlas, the metaphor for ultimate punishment of Duty
Z.eus, all-powerful sleaze bag
A.chilles, demi-God who begrudges his Duty in battle, til it becomes personal, then goes berserk and desecrates Hector's body, who, BTW is waaaaayyy cooler than Achilles
M.ercury, the messenger God, who lives between the Gods and Mortals, aka Hermes

Pretty interesting Rogue Gallery there, ranging from Justice to Injustice, Gods to Human, Power to Defeated, and fallen heroes.

So, whom would America pick now from the Pantheon of Gods and Demi-Gods? What qualities would we value above others? Which would we call upon in our Time of need?

More importantly, perhaps, would we use that council and experience to help others, or to help ourselves? How often do people call out to the Gods for the sake of others, without asking for something for themselves? I wonder. Does that go contrary to the very grain of who we are as Humans?

Since I am stuck in the 70s and 80s today it seems, one of my favorite LPs (Long-Playing, for you young'ins) was Rush's Hemispheres. Being a typical Rush concept album, it tells the story of the emergence of Cygnus X-1, which is the name of a massive black hole, as a New God within the Pantheon. There is a battle amongst the Gods and Goddesses, and the narrator, who becomes Cygnus X-1, watches on in horror and dismay at the dissolution of the Universe. The two main fighters are Apollo and Dionysos, which is clearly a nod to Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy.

Apollo, the God of Reason and Music, and Light battles with Dionysos, the God of Intoxication, Decadence, and Darkness, a thinly veiled metaphor of the individual soul, much like Plato's well-known allegory of the Soul as a charioteer trying to harness the power of a Light and a Dark horse to keep an even balance.

Ultimately, a new God is needed, Cygnus, who becomes "knighted" as the God of Balance, a perfect sphere of Light and Dark, much like the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang , something Light and something Dark. For Nietzsche, the clash of the titanic Gods of Apollo and Dionysos, the result was Art, forged out of a mixture of passion/intoxication and reason/restraint, Rausch und Rede.

I'll go with that. In essence, that is what Shazam! then is: a mixture of Reason, Passion, Strength, Failure, Success, Mediation, and Mitigation.

Not quite the Super Hero qualities that we see today, though paints a pretty good picture of the complexion of humanity, bringing the full spectrum of our qualities, the Good and the Bad into one, single phrase.

Shazam!

Oh Lord, Won’t you buy me an AFC Win?

Ok, I’m going to be the guy who unceremoniously farts in the Tebow rose-perfumed elevator which is currently stuck between floors. 

I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut and fingers off of the keyboards for this topic, and had hoped the beleaguered and bruised Steelers would do something to dispense of this media-induced malarkey, but alas, Big Ben and the Terrible Towel club couldn’t pull it off, so here we are with yet another week of talking heads yapping about Tebow “Magic.”

If you have been following the NFL this year, you will be well aware that this is most likely the greatest line-up of quarterbacks the League has ever seen, and that is inclusive of the fact that Peyton Manning has been sitting on the sidelines all season.

If you pick the top 6 ranked quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Eli Manning, Matthew Stafford, and Philip Rivers, you will have an AVERAGE of 4,992 yards, 14 interceptions, 38 TD’s and a quarterback rating of 103. Those numbers are staggering if you have ONE quarterback with them on the stat books. If you know anything about NFL numbers, this should have made your jaw drop. Again, that is with the elder Manning sitting out for the season and Roethlisberger having a very, very bad season in comparison.

It has been quite a year for rookie Quarterbacks as well: Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, and T.J. Yates all have had outstanding years with nary the hype that previous rookies such as Matt Leinhart (who?), Vince Young (What?), and Sam Bradford (Where?) have recently had.

But, what is the story that all of the media picks up on? Tim Tebow and his “magic” and the fact that he kneels on the turf, which ludicrously beyond all possible words in my head can fathom, has become known as “Tebow-ing” as if he invented the single-bended knee prayer position. Excuse me while I existentially barf. 

I love good stories in Sports, I really do, but this is not a good sports' story, but rather a story which confirms how bankrupt America is in its ideas about religion and what is important in life. I really, and I mean really hope that an Omniscient, Omnipotent power is not busy taking sides on American Football. Seriously, people?

I know that this should not get to me, and in reality, it does not get to me, but it does make me pause long enough to sit down and write this out. What is fundamentally wrong with this picture? Many things come to mind.

Some secular, some sacred, some downright ridiculous and illogical.

On the secular front, this just stings of the American preference for spectacle over substance at times. And, this is a shame because Americans and America are not superficial, but boy, we sure do little to dispel that myth at times, this being a prime example. Why have we not heard more about  some of the other QB’s this year in relationship to the Tebow factor? Simple, his team has won several very late-in-the game close calls, and then he prays and suddenly it becomes magic, and a one-man show.

To be sure, Tim Tebow threw the final pass that won the game against the Steelers, but it was Demaryius Thomas who caught the ball and ran with it while his other teammates made the rest of the play with pass protection and blocking. Yet, to read the media reports, Tebow descended rejuvenated  from the heavens, threw the best pass ever known to man, (so it must be divinely inspired magic), and saved Denver’s pride while the stadium erupted into unbridled jubilation of the second coming of Elway, while even the great Elway himself cracked a smile.

The only truth to that hyperbole is the phrase, “the great Elway” because he was great. And, he was great over a long period of Time, and even when Denver lost, Elway was usually still great. He has come under a lot of fire for not (Te)bowing before the great, white Hope and heaping praise upon praise on him for winning six close games. Well, as in the case of this past game, if Tebow had been doing anything in the entire last HALF of the football game, Overtime most likely would not have been necessary. I just see it as, if he had not made the winning play (he is the damn Quarterback after all, it's his JOB), then he really blew the rest of the game. Fine, he “pulled the trigger,” but at that point, he and Roethlisberger had been playing Russian Roulette and they had cocked and fired five times. One of them was bound to get the shot off. One play does not win a game. The entire build-up to an Overtime is that two teams played either equally well or equally bad, or in this case, equally MEDIOCRE. This was not a good game. The Steelers literally limped into this game, so it was hardly a stunning surprise to seem them defeated. And, this was no miracle, nor magic, nor anything remotely divine.

Imagine what would have happened if Tebow had lain prostrate in the direction of Mecca, for example, after this play, before doing his victory lap (do you think Jesus did victory laps after his deeds?), praising Allah, instead of “the Lord”? We would be having quite a different discussion in the newspapers. Or, if he had busted out into an ancestral dance that he had been raised with? Or, if he thanked the great God Shiva for his all-powerful help. Or, had gone to a Santaria voodoo ceremony the night before, still having chicken blood stains on his hands.

What then, America, would you do? How would you respond?

The country I was born in claims to be based upon religious tolerance, but in cases like this, I believe that tolerance would be exhausted quite quickly.

The Dallas Cowboys, or affectionately known as God’s Team by the zealots of Interstate 30,  famously built a stadium so that God, while not organizing and running the universe, could idly watch the Cowboys....LOSE??? Oh, wait, so God doesn’t even like His/Her/Its own team?

The point is, I shouldn’t even know that Tebow is a believer, of any faith. This is Football, not the salvation of souls at hand.

But, the sadder fact is that this is what people will hold on to as religion. Is that so bad, one may ask? Well, in a word, yes. Yes, it is that bad. How can substituting a 24 year-old kid who kneels on the football field for any real look into the substance of faith, belief, or divinity be a good thing? It could only, and I mean only argued that it is a lesser of two “evils,” meaning at least people aren’t dying over this. That is about it. This is a damn football game.

Wake up. It’s not Tebow Time on my clock. 

This is not Divine Intervention, America. It's just a game. There are bigger, much bigger things in this world to be attributing such power to.