Memory Lane (Someone Else's)

I go away . . . . but I do come back. If there were a clinic or a 12-step program for what I had, I would have checked myself in. But some s*** you just have to live through. Collecting material for an autobiography titled, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, is never easy, and it had better be a hell of a lot more fun to read about than live through or it's gonna be a real short run.

Anyway, part of re-entering the real world is getting back in touch with the digital one. Hmmm. Actually, I've been distracted by a digital one, but this digital one was definitely on the other side of the looking glass. In catching up with those who live in this one, I found I was late noticing a pointer from one of the best friends I've never met to a story by another I can't even call friend, yet, but for whom "fellow traveler" doesn't seem a stretch.

Out here in the "blogosphere," you occasionally run into a post with value for what it says. You occasionally run into one with value for how it says what it says. Rarely, some kind soul points the way to one that has value on both levels. I owe Chap a debt of gratitude for pointing the way to this Nov 27th post over at Neptunus Lex. If you're from the South and over, say, 40, it's worth the read for what it has to say. If you're someone of any age moved by well-above-average skill with the language, it's worth the read for how it says it. If you're in both categories, pour yourself a cup of coffee, set aside five minutes, and read. Don't read the way you might normally skim one of several blogs you'll peruse during your day. Read slowly, the way you might savor a good single-malt scotch and a fine, easy-drawing, maduro cigar. Take your time. You won't regret it.

Black & Gold Invitational, 2007

I've been busy doing lots of different things lately, but this was some of the most fun. That same trip to NC that produced the great signage also produced this thrown together all AF 14-way. It's a little rough in the beginning, especially when one of the less experienced jumpers slams into base, but the base held and everyone eventually got in. That'll be me at the bottom end in the nine o'clock position waving my legs to signal break-off for the outer jumpers.
Our USAF 14-way, Laurinburg, Nov 2007

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Indescribable

I know that this blog has few readers who don't know me personally and who don't know where my life has been lately. So, let me share, just a little. I said on New Years this year, that I thought 2007 would be the most profound year of change I'd seen in as long as I could remember. It's shaping up that way.

I've been busy finding my way back to myself. I've been getting to know my daughters better than I ever have. More importantly, they've been getting to know me--not me filtered through anyone else's eyes, but through their own, seeing me, perhaps, in some ways, for the first time.

Anyone who knows me, knows I pretty much don't get nervous. I've crashed cars, experimental planes, come out of a coma that was supposed to be final, twice opened a reserve chute less than two seconds from impact (the last time, only a month ago). People asked if I was scared. The answer's always been honest--"Not really. I was busy."

Only twice in the last two years could I really confess to being no kidding nervous to the point of knowing it. The most fascinating thing about it is how much it's surprised me.

Once was orbiting a stadium packed with 50,000 people, waiting to jump in with my class flag. I'd planned that jump for more than five years. That the reality of it set my heart to pounding nearly out of my chest, with nearly 800 jumps behind me already then, was itself almost surprising enough to calm me down. I rarely even got excited about jumps any more, let alone nervous. Don't get me wrong, I love every jump. But mostly, they're calming now, centering more than exciting. I never did figure out what made that one so different. But I haven't forgotten the feeling.

Today, I've figured it out. That feeling's back. What it is, is the waiting. Having set events in motion that you've imagined again and again, the time almost here finally, yet nothing to do for the moment but orbit, door open, knowing you're about to step out into thin air again, but this time, into the irreconcilable flesh and blood of a reality you've imagined a thousand times. A thousand times a thousand. It's the waiting. Nothing to hear but the pounding of your heart in your own chest. A thing you've grown personally and professionally unaccustomed to. Ground rush is less frightening.

Today, I'm like the little boy, who having behaved badly in church, is being carried out by his dad, and passing the last pew, throws one last glance and plea to the parishioners, "Ya'll pray for me." I may not land on target this time. I may not land standing up. I might not, I'm afraid, even make the stadium. By I am, by God, going out the door the second that green light comes on.

"You know who you are."

Sleep Now

I'm not certain I would ever have preferred any method of putting my daughter to sleep other than slowly swaying/dancing around our living room with her head nestled under my chin and me singing "Never Die Young" with James. But . . . there were those nights when I had to sit outside her door in order to keep her mother from going in to answer her heartbreaking cries of "Mooooooommmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyy." Hey, I don't know where that advice came from, and I'm not sure whether I was any more in favor of it than my wife. I think I was more like the crew that was tasked with lashing Odysseus to the mast and stuffing their own ears with wax. Only no wax for Dad, and don't think a father's heart is any less torn by those baby siren cries.

If only the Dream Team had existed then. With a mission of "Creating a World of Great Sleepers . . . One baby at a time," here's what they have to say:

We know how confusing it is to be a parent these days--especially when it comes to the "right" way to get your baby to sleep. When our children were born we read an exhaustive number of sleep books, tried almost every sleep method in existence and found ourselves with babies who were mediocre sleepers.

After we finally "figured it out" (and exited the fog of sleep-deprivation) we realized that helping your child be a good sleeper can be simple and anguish-free. So, we formed Dream Team and dedicated ourselves to helping other parents figure out their child's sleep. The result? Well rested, happy children and parents who feel confident, recharged, and connected.

If you have a baby between 4 months and 2 years of age, you should check out their web site. If your babies have aged out of that bracket like mine, you should check it out just to see the most brilliantly innovative consulting gig I've seen yet (and to lament how much easier your life might have been if only they'd been around then). Co-founder and very smart mom Conner Herman is a colleague from my blissful days in the graduate English program at U.Va., but something tells me reading The Canterbury Tales aloud in Middle English at bedtime isn't what this is all about. Check it out.

(And hopefully, John DeVille will appreciate the title's nod to his inferior-to-The-Matrix-but-still-interesting Dark City.)

Getting to Know Me

It occurred to me this morning, that when I give out this blog address as a good way to learn a little more about me, I may not necessarily be doing a good thing. Few blogs are more eclectic than this. A movie, book, wine, cigar, or restaurant review one day, personal narrative another, straight up ponderings on life, death, and politics on another. And then, some days, like yesterday, just something thrown in there because one of my readers gave me a hard time for being silent for over a week (connectivity was as short as time while shepherding a skydiving team to an invitational meet halfway across the country and spending every available evening with my off-to-a-nearby-college daughter). There's also the pseudo-anonymity of a pseudonym made necessary by my official position elsewhere. I strive to keep my posting appropriate enough that no lines are crossed, but even so . . .

All that said, I'm contemplating adding a box to the right margin that will collect the more introspective posts that I believe reveal something of the character of their author. Until I have time to do so, however, here's a short list of some I think belong there. If you're a regular reader and think there are obvious choices I've left off, please send me an e-mail or comment, and thanks for hanging in there. Doc

• See Off This Mountain (Part One) with links from there to Parts 2 & 3
• In Memory of Randall Combs
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• Seasons of Love
• Natalie Portman
• In the Valley of Elah

That's a fair start.

You Don't Say

Back from five wonderful days in Laurinburg, North Carolina, with trips to Wilmington and Charlotte to break things up. Skydiving every day. Got to see my daughter on three of those five days. Witnessed a night pyrotechnic parachuting demonstration by the Golden Knights that impressed even me, and I'm hard to impress.

I have to share the funniest thing we saw. Growing up with an English professor, my girls have a keen appreciation for words. The oldest liked this sign so much, we had to go back and take a picture.

You think?

Schneier: "Upon Further Review

The ruling stands."

I'm grateful to two readers who took the time to make extensive comments, thus pointing out places in which my original post might need some elaboration. Having provided a link to the comments in that first sentence, I'll jump straight to a response, which because of its own length, I'm offering as another post, rather than a continuation of the comment string.

Gentlemen, and I mean that sincerely,

First, thank you for taking the time to respond. The dialog is why I'm here at all.

John first. You are an intelligent man. Now put that intelligence to work making a serious effort to separate cause from effect, real problem from other related and co-existent yet somewhat independent problem.

I'll explain. And keep in mind that how much I can say with regard to my own opinion of current leadership is limited by both prudence and law. That said, I think I can address the problems in logic & rhetoric here without necessarily tipping my hand.

The need for vigilance is an effect. But it is an effect, not of "the fulcrum . . . found in the Office of the Vice President, the Oval Office, and the former office of the SecDef." It's an effect of the reality imposed upon us, not even by 9/11, but by the continued existence and planning of the sorts of groups that planned and executed 9/11. 9/11 didn't cause anything. It was a wake up call. It was, itself, an effect of our complacency and hubris. The fulcrum you lament is not a cause of the need for vigilance. To some extent, it's an effect of that need. That fulcrum may exploit the need, politically. That fulcrum may choose to fan the need for vigilance into an unhealthy hypervigilance for political purposes. I'm not denying that--neither the fanning nor the unhealthy aspects of living in constant fear. But Mr. Schneier's ill-thought-out attempts to shift the blame for the inconvenience these new realities impose on us to the very people whose lives, jobs, and consciences are most affected by them, and to lull us back into a business-as-usual complacency by labeling even a genuinely necessary level of watchfulness, as you put it, "a terrorist victory by virtue of forfeit of reason" is every bit as reprehensible a journey to the other end of the spectrum.

Somewhere in between lie both sanity and safety, or at least as much of either as we are going to find in this new world. The responsibility then, of those of us who possess some skill at thought, argument, and persuasion--whose frontal lobes are still fully functional and engaged--is to steer our friends, neighbors, and countrymen toward that rational, realistic, middle ground at every opportunity. I am not a believer that the way to balance lies through competing extremes. The way to balance lies through moving both sides closer to the middle.

Your penultimate paragraph provides its own undoing in the word "potential." "To regard all strangers as potential 'Islamofascists' and every hefty bag as a potential bomb is to bring the real madness of the battlefield home which I thought was the overall objective of why the occupation is continuing." I'll make only a casual note of my disappointment in the rhetorical dishonesty that allows you to employ a line of administration spin in which I know you don't believe to do a bad job of trying to make a point, and move straight to dismantling the point itself: An ever-present awareness of such potential is not madness; it's prudence. I would hope that more than 99% of the time, we'll prudently engage our frontal lobes and conclude that the probability of the potential being reality is low enough to be summarily dismissed. But awareness of the potential is not madness. To be paralyzed by that awareness is, literally. In its most acute form, it becomes agoraphobia. If you really don't believe that prudent awareness is possible without paralyzing paranoia, then you have a much lower opinion of your fellow citizens than I. Again, the key is to constantly make the effort to rationally separate the new realities of our world from the irrational political extremes to which those realities are all too frequently put.

Like our mutual friend Barry, I have long eschewed political affiliation, largely because of my disappointment that neither side seems capable of refraining from whatever willful conflation of cause and effect best serves their own cause at the moment--common sense, mental health, and true national interests be damned.

Mr LandruBek,

I don't think I have missed the point at all. And, while you add some disingenuous extras designed to imply that my disdain for Mr. Schneier extends to everyone who reads his blog as well, which it clearly doesn't, I'm happy to say that you pretty much get mine.

I heartily disagree with your interpretation of Mr. Schneier's post as intending to allow for the subtleties of security in this new century. The very examples he uses seem to preclude that. Further, I am decidedly not a believer that security is a zero sum game. Personally, I find the very concept of zero-sum is a thing that tends to limit thinking. I find it most often employed by those whose powers of reasoning are sadly limited, or else I find it too frequently used to mislead others who depend on those in a position of trust (realizing that I refer to our ideal government rather than that lesser of evils which we usually provide ourselves as voters) to guide them. If you are committed to that concept of security, then, as you say, fine, we now know where we stand and we have little to talk about. But, if you aren't too irredeemably wed to that zero-sum construct, let me try to give you another way of thinking about things.

To think of security in that way would mean that while the bomb squad was dismantling imprudently placed Lite-Brites, they were therefore unable to respond to some other more urgent and real threat elsewhere. I'm not aware of such a threat going untended at that time. The real choice was, I think, to, in an abundance of caution, have the bomb squad respond to this and exercise the unique capabilities they possess, put their training and equipment to some use, or, at some risk of loss of life and infrastructure, let them keep twiddling their thumbs waiting for their pagers to go off. That sir, is not a zero-sum choice. Zero sum implies that to do one thing, I must not do another equally important and pressing thing. Yes, everyone, including those responsible for our security, must always choose between options for how to use their time, but until every option becomes equally urgent, we have not reached the state of affairs implied by your statement that "security is a zero sum game." Succinctly put, you are simply wrong to think that. At least part of my issue with Mr. Schneier, beyond his dismal choices of examples to make his points, is that it seems zero-sum is exactly the way he wishes you, and all the rest of his readers, to think of these things.

You accuse me of thinking of our citizenry as sheep. I don't think of our citizenry in any such broad and limiting way. Some are sheep, some are wolves, some are snakes, and some are eagles. I think our citizenry is, on the whole, quite capable of thinking for itself and for recognizing and reporting potential threats and deciding what merely "different" behavior may not merit further investigation. Mr. Schneier's disappointment that he can no longer don his fishing vest, fill the pockets with modeler's clay, run wiring from pocket to pocket and then walk unmolested through an airport or courthouse, I must sadly admit, exceeds my capacity for empathy.

Your assertion that a tilt toward over-reaction in favor of under-reaction "will hamstring secruity efforts" is not wholly without merit if one takes it as a reminder to security officials themselves to be vigilant against that state of affairs. But your choice to assume it will, in fact, be wholly unchecked, and therefore we must abandon that tilt immediately, is as fine an example of a slippery slope fallacy as a composition instructor might ever hope for. You seem to think that the world is populated by nothing but sheep, security professionals included.

Finally, you are quite right that I deliberately turned the common meaning of CYA for rhetorical effect. That's not quite the same as misconstruing. Had I thought you wouldn't notice, I could be accused of playing unfairly. Apparently though, I give you and all the other readers out there, more credit than you think.

So, for the time being, I'll stand by my original post, and my original opinion that Mr. Schneier's conduct, with his implications that security is a zero-sum game and that citizens are just too sheeplike to simultaneously be vigilant and discriminating and are therefore teetering on the edge of agoraphobia in danger of falling over with every warning to be watchful, is every bit as reprehensible as the alleged fear-mongering of which John DeVille accuses that fulcrum he so detests.

Flag on the Play: Schneier Gets It All Wrong

This started out as a comment on a post over at Enrevanche, but just got too long. So, if you're coming to this fresh, you can either dash over to Barry's place and read the post, which is actually an excerpt from a longer article, filled with so many fallacies, some factual and some logical, that I hardly know where to begin; or, you can trust me to convey the gist fairly. Personally, I'd rather you read the original to keep me honest. At any rate, here is how it opens:

We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats.

I'm sorry, but, "Uh-oh, flag on the play. It looks like Doc just tossed a Bullshit Flag. Here's the official call from the field: 'If you act different [sic], you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong.' GET USED TO IT."

Let me explain. I particularly liked the example of the girl wearing a circuit board and carrying a fistful of PlayDoh. Hello!! I looked at the photo. I might know it's not a bomb, but I wouldn't expect everyone to. Used to be you could do really off the wall stuff and be considered eccentric. Now you can do really off the wall stuff and be considered eccentric, or possibly, scary and dangerous. Why? Because it used to not be possible to conceive of any but the most insane among us killing innocent people indiscriminately using things we'd never thought of as weapons. Now, that's one of the world religions (I'm not picking on Islam, so don't start working yourself into a religious tizzy). I simply mean that wanting to blow yourself up and take a crowd of people with you whose main attraction is that they did nothing in particular to deserve it other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time is no longer merely an isolated psychotic condition.

So, how do we combat that? Well, the term is becoming overused, but it's still the right term: vigilance. Whether you say "Be Vigilant," "Be Watchful," or "Be Suspicious," matters, but only in terms of connotation and perception. In terms of denotation and actual action, not so much changes. So, expect a new campaign soon, one that will change all the terms with which we refer to the new role of the citizen in keeping us all in one piece (along with our dams, powerplants, landmarks, etc). Look for an effort to find some wording that makes us all feel a little less like Big Brother, while still urging us to do essentially the same things.

Is there something wrong with that? Absolutely. But it's not the fault of "the authorities" whose "CYA attitude" and "knee jerk" responses Mr. Schneier laments. Those reactions are hardly knee jerk. They're well thought out, carefully planned, and even rehearsed. Why? Because that Y in CYA stands for "your" Mr. Schneier. That's your ass their covering. Yours and everyone else's who has nothing in common with you except having done nothing at all to deserve being being blown out of their clothing as they go about their business.

You want them to protect you. You pay them for it. They have begun, as a group, to begin imagining the previously unimaginable on a daily basis. Why? Because that psuedo-religion out there has been at it for a while already. They have a head start. Our anti-hijacking training ten years ago taught us to cooperate. Always cooperate. What might have been different if the training had taken into account the potential use of a fuel-laden airliner as a weapon? Who can guess. Herein lies the problem with another of Mr. Schneier's "points," that, "People have always come forward to tell the police when they see something genuinely suspicious, and should continue to do so." How, pray tell, are we to know what looks suspicious anymore. The obviously suspicious is the least frightening.

I'm as saddened as you are at this new need to view everyone whose actions are out of the ordinary with extra scrutiny. It's sad that I have to teach my daughters that if they're ever stranded by the side of the road and someone stops to help them, that they should get in the car and lock the doors and talk to their possible good Samaritan through a closed window. But that's the reality we live in. You can adjust, or you can call my daughters ungrateful and rude.

Personally, I choose to adjust. When I've come upon a woman or youth in such a situation, I've tried to think what I would want them to do if they were my son or daughter or wife, and then not to be insulted when they act as if I might be an axe murderer. I try to modify all my actions in such a way as not to threaten, and I'm not at all insulted if they never get out of the car or unlock the door. I'd rather they not. Frankly, I might be a little wary of them. I can call for help and watch over them until the authorities arrive, or, if that makes them nervous, I can drive on.

By the same token, it may be sad, but if I choose to wear a circuit board on my sweater and carry a handful of something with the same consistency as C4 in my hand, I'm not going to be surprised when the cops surround me. I might kick myself for not stopping to think how I could look to others. I expect, if I keep my cool, I'll have a good laugh over it later.

Covering your ass Mr. Schneier is not an easy job. There was a day when such acts were inconcievable. Perhaps we'll see that day again. Until then, be watchful, be thoughtfully scrutinous of extraordinary behavior, be whatever euphemism makes you, in your new role as anti-terrorist, feel less threatening or less a puppet of the doom mongers you seem to think we are, because it is, Mr. Schneier, your role, whether you want it or not. To reject it, is to embrace the role of victim. And you are wrong, sir, to cast aspersions at those who ask for your help in this battle, or who have decided that it's better to assume the worst and then back down than to under-react then have the task of calling parents and loved ones. We study, study, damn you, events like the Virginia Tech massacre. If that unpleasant professional task tends to tilt us toward overreaction, then so be it. I'll accept that. I know parents who expect it. Demand it. I happen to be one of them.

We all wear many hats. Parent, soldier, journalist, anti-terrorist observer. It's not as if you're being asked to turn in your sister for being a Republican or voting for Bush, but you do try to make it sound that way. You make it sound as if the "relentless campaign to convince ordinary citizens that they're the front line of terrorism defense" is some effort of those who really hold the front line to shirk their jobs. I'll grant you one thing: I'd like to believe that those who share my profession are the front line. I'd like to believe that what we do, in intel, in ops, in forward locations, under fire, at great risk, is the real front line. I think that campaign, in as much as there is such a campaign, gets one thing wrong. Ordinary citizens aren't the front line. You're told that to make you feel more important and to avoid frightening you more than is absolutely necessary. Fact is, you're the last line, the inner perimeter, the nanny in the closet with the baby and the cell phone while the burglar ransacks downstairs.

And I'll close by violating a rule of mine and following a rule of mine. I detest name calling, especially when it serves as a stand-in for well thought out argument or debate (I hope I can safely avoid that accusation at this point). On the other hand, I also despise those forms of euphemism which rather than seeking to soften bad news, seek to conceal the moral cowardice that refuses to call things by their rightful name. Thus, when you say, "Causing a city-wide panic over blinking signs, a guy with a pellet gun, or stray backpacks, is not evidence of doing a good job: it's evidence of squandering police resources," then I can't help but recall that at least one of those "blinking signs" was placed on a support girder under an interstate and over a bus depot and when I remember that, I think I would be shirking my duty if I did not say, straight out, you sir, are an idiot.

Instead of bewailing the need for watchfulness that terrorists have foisted upon us all, and the necessity of exercising more caution than ever and risking the occasional overreaction, I suggest that you use whatever influence you have to move people toward more objective self-scrutiny. Don't you think, that if the advertising whiz kids had stopped and thought about it for a minute, they might have foreseen how that device might appear? That maybe an airport isn't the place to invent new forms of adornment that involve things that are, any way you look at it, similar to the components of some IEDs? They didn't think. She didn't think. Okay. I can forgive that. But for you to then lay blame on those charged with covering your ass for what you consider over-reacting? That, I have a problem with. For that, I have to throw the bullshit flag.

James Taylor

My cheeks hurt.

There's not really any way to convey, in mere words, the magic of James Taylor concert.

The first time I took my daughters to a JT concert, it was at Wolftrap in Virginia. One was just eight. The other, not quite five. From their earliest days, they knew James Taylor. More nights than not, if the oldest had trouble getting to sleep, I would dance around the living room with her in my arms, her head on my shoulder, singing along with James's newest album. "Sing the cowboy song, Daddy," was a frequent request at bedtime. Before she could speak in complete sentences, she could say, "James Taylor, Daddy, James Taylor." I honestly think, after "Mommy" and "Daddy," "James Taylor" may have been the third and fourth words she learned.

When tonight's concert wrapped up, finally, after about four encores, with a quiet, acoustic "You Can Close Your Eyes," I was sitting in the audience, with my arm around the shoulder of the my youngest daughter, whose cheeks also hurt from smiling, feeling like pretty much the luckiest father in the world.

Sometime, I'll chronicle the James Taylor soundtrack of my life, eras marked by albums, synaesthetic memories in which image and sound and emotion blur into a single remembered whole. Life in a gentle musical blender.

As I Myself Might Say

Among the books I'm reading is yet another that I want to recommend, not to everyone for their own reading, but to everyone who'll be buying a Christmas present or stocking stuffers for any budding young gentlemen this season. I picked it up and leafed through it at Jos A. Banks the other day and had to bring it home. As a Gentleman Would Say, by John Bridges and Bryan Curtis is meant to be, I think, more of a coffee table book than a reference work--entertaining and informative at the same time. It's not written to be funny, in the manner of the once bestselling Official Preppy Handbook, which invited that crowd and all its imitators to laugh heartily at themselves or risk being shamelessly laughed at. But it is frequently funny, primarily when it offers examples of what not to say. For instance, take this passage that I'm sure I'll never personally find useful, but is illustrative of the whole:

WHEN A GENTLEMAN IS TURNED DOWN FOR A DATE . . .

He does not say:
"Okay, then what about next Friday?"
"What's the matter? Am I being to pushy?"
"But I though you said you liked pro wrestling."
"Well, you certainly don't know what you're missing."

But he does say:
"I understand. Maybe we can do something together some other time."

In affairs of the heart, a gentleman attempts, above all else, never to appear desperate. If he senses that he is being given the cold shoulder, he does not continue in pursuit of a person who has little interest in his attentions. If he does sense that there is hope for a second chance, he waits a few weeks and then tries again, making sure not to refer to his previous bad luck.

The book is subtitled "Responses to Life's Important (and sometimes awkward) Situations," and has chapters such as, "On the Job," "Wining and Dining," "In Times of Sadness," and so on. The excerpt above comes from the chapter on "Affairs of the Heart."

It can't, of course, cover everything, nor does it need to. What's important is the mode of thinking it inculcates. Think of it, in its repeated contrasting of what not to say with what to say, as something of an antidote for the overdose of flippancy our culture is awash in through media such as VH1, MTV, text messaging, and so on. Somewhere in McCarthy, one of the characters states that all formal manners have as their goal the prevention of bloodshed. Here's a little book that's a step in the right direction.

I have at least one nephew who's a fine young gentleman already, but he can look forward to a copy of his own this holiday season.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Among the books I'm reading at the moment (having recently finished the last Harry Potter) is the new work by Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Some books I work my way through and have little to say about. Some, I'll offer quotes from, or insights from, but with the caveat that it's not worth reading the whole work to get that little bit. This isn't one of those books. I enjoyed The Kite Runner. I'm enjoying this newer work even more.


Most writers have a forte (some don't, being universally mediocre in every respect, but the better ones do), a particular aspect of the craft in which they excel. Separate from that unique strength in their writing, most also have a particular theme they wish to explore, sometimes in just one work, sometimes across a lifetime of work. (Cormac McCarthy for instance, has spent a lifetime trying to reconcile the existence of God with the depravity of man. Or, in the case of Philip Roth's, if man were not a sexual creature, Mr. Roth would have nothing to write about--even his lamentations on old age and death find a way to revolve around sex.) In the case of Dr. Hosseini, his greatest skills lie in the areas of storytelling--plot and narrative--and in the development and exploration of character. And it is the latter in which seems to lie his particular interest. Yes, he has set his stories in Afghanistan, and they are interesting, at least in part, for the glimpses they offer us of that war-torn country and the intersection of events there with the lives of the characters he creates. But setting a story in an interesting place doesn't make one an author worth reading, an author who works are likely to last.


What makes Dr. Hosseini worth reading is his fascination with human nature. With its complexity. With its resilience. In many respects, the aspects of human nature that fascinate Dr. Hosseini and motivate him to write, to explore, are opposite of those which drive McCarthy or Roth. Love (the variety of which sexuality would only be an expression rather than the whole) and guilt fascinate Dr. Hosseini. Misplaced, misguided, frustrated, deserved and un, absent from places that it should be and present in places you wouldn't expect it. And so, both his theme and his forte become character itself. Happy union for us.


The importance of the setting in all of this is not so much what it contributes to the quality of the novels, but that it makes the novels available to us. The stories and the characters therein would be just as compelling were they lifted out of Afghanistan and placed in Biloxi. Then again, I may be selling the setting a little short in saying that, for what Hosseini has done in these works, even more in the second, is to make the land of Afghanistan, the country itself, a character capable of both love and guilt. As such, with Afghanistan so ever-present in our headlines, the books have a compelling interest to publishers that they might not otherwise have possessed. I'm grateful for that. And any critique that realization implies is meant not for the author or his novels, but for the industry on which they depend. The works are worthwhile in their own right, perhaps even great. Whatever their success owes to their setting is incidental at best.


And the settings are especially poignant for me. I've been to Kabul. I've walked Chicken Street, with a boy no older than Hassan as guide and translator. I've shopped there for old weapons--Enfields from wars a century or more ago. When Hosseini's young protagonist reflects on the division of Kabul into sections ruled by rival warlords, I flash back to a conversation I had with an Afghan translator, Abdullah, in 2002, at the airport in Kabul, during which he recalled the very same thing, and hoped aloud that Western forces would remain in his country long enough to secure the peace until the people of Afghanistan could secure it for themselves. A generation, he predicted, would be needed. Time to educate a generation of women the education of whom the Taliban had considered anathema--a generation of boys bred mostly to the trigger. I've driven and walked the rutted streets of Bamiyan. I've stood beside tall poplars and gazed in awe across the green valley at the holes in the side of the cliff--huge, upright, reverse sarcophagi where once the Buddhas stood (and atop which Hosseini's characters stand), now gaping tributes to the scourge that was and is the Taliban. I've posed for a photo in the shadow of the fortress of Shahr-i-Zohak, the Red City. I've been lost in the countryside after sunset, and driven through small villages where the face of Ahmad Shah Massoud still looked back from the sides of buildings. I've walked the ground in Jalalabad, and watched the traffic passing on its way to and from Pakistan. I found that country fascinating enough overall, that not long ago, I volunteered to return for a year in a job that would have not simply allowed me to see virtually all of that land, but obligated me to, and afforded me the opportunity to learn the language to boot. Unfortunately, the timing of the assignment and my own mandatory retirement prevented it.


I've not even finished Hosseini's newest work yet, but I can't imagine that anything in the second half is going to change my recommendation. Read it. Read it whether you care about Afghanistan or not. Read it for the glimpses it offers of the human heart, independent of culture, of setting, of time itself.



Chicken Street

Abdullah. An interesting convergence that only struck me now: an American whose given name means "bearing Christ" and an Afghani whose name means "servant of Allah."


The fortress of Shahr-i-Zohak, the Red City.

Looking across the valley at the empty hole where once a great Buddha stood.

Natalie Portman

I've been quiet for a bit. Not because I haven't been writing. I've been up late writing almost every night. But you can only write so much in so many different places or to so many different people. I started to title this entry "What I've Been Reading," and though this qualifies, I'll save that for a separate post.

Today's Parade contained a great little piece by Natalie Portman, titled simply, "What I've Learned (So Far)." Among those things she's learned was "Always Maintain a Sense of Hope."

Sometimes it’s hard to maintain a sense of hope. It’s impossible to know the outcome of anything: You have no idea whether the life you impact will go on to bring peace to the Middle East or will go blow up a building. All you can do is act with the best intention and have faith. Maybe it’s selfish, but I just don’t think it’s worth living if you don’t feel like you can change something. It’s a choice you can make: to have joy, to find joy and to spread joy.

I've spent much of my life being disappointed by pretty women with little depth. It will likely take me another lifetime or two to really learn not to expect physical beauty and internal beauty to be at least somewhat correlative. It's a lesson Ms. Portman doesn't really help with. Aside from being a talented actress (I've rarely come away from a film with her in it that I didn't think her contribution probably the most memorable thing about the entire effort--including the thoroughly depressing Closer, in which she held her own against equally beautiful and admirable Julia Roberts), she may be one of those rare people who's very existence makes it easier to believe in what she says. She makes it easier to hope that, in some cases at least, the two do go hand in hand.

If Everyone Cared

A few days ago, a friend was driving her 15-yr-old son home from school. On his notebook computer was a music video by Nickelback. She found it so moving she asked me to find it and see it. I found it moving enough to share with you. I've had the album since it came out (Nickelback has to be, pretty much, the ultimate guys' band on the air at the moment), but I hadn't seen the video. Enjoy.

Opinions on Science Fiction

A few days ago, I tossed out a subtle challenge, proposing that The Matrix was the best science fiction film of the 20th century and inviting alternative proposals. John deVille picked up the gauntlet. His nominees, originally offered in a comment, are reproduced below in toto, in blue, with my answers embedded.

Best sci-fi films? 2001, Blade Runner, Dark City, Altered States, Being John Malkovich, remake of The Fly, and The Thing all trump the warmed-over Lewis Carroll pop philosophy flick that is The Matrix.The Matrix is clever, beautifully photographed, with groundbreaking effects. But the messiah theme is subjected to far too many build-ups, resulting in an anti-climatic climax, and Reeves and Fishburne deliver wooden performances worthy of a CGI creation but not flesh and blood.

I have to respectfully disagree on a number of points here. Latched onto that whole rabbit hole thing did we. Not sure I've ever seen Lewis Carroll and pop philosophy strung together quite like that. :-)

Personally, I enjoyed both actors. But then, I detest (and I only use that word because I can't think of a stronger one) Jeff Goldblum. So whatever merits The Fly may have had as a movie, it lost me through casting.

At least The Matrix is self-critiquing of the whole messiah theme. Want a gross manipulation of that motif? See The Green Mile. No self-critique there. And all used to send the wrong damned message in a subtle enough way that nine out of ten people I've ever pointed it out to hadn't even realized how badly their emotions were being manipulated to make Susan Sarandon clones of them. I would have cried at the end with everyone else, but I was way too busy being pissed off at what had just been attempted on me and successfully perpetrated on everyone else in the theater.

2001 trumps The Matrix in terms of groundbreaking cinematography and concept as well as score and philosophical depth. Granted, there are deathly lulls but it succeeds as a work of art where The Matrix fails in that one might need or want to watch The Matrix twice but 2001 has far more captivating depth requiring multiple viewings.

2001 doesn't trump anything. Who the hell decided that Stanley Kubrick was a director? Here's an idea, if only we'd gotten Kubrick and Goldblum together for a film. Now there would have been something to see. But I can do better than mere personal invective. The sheer overratedness of Kubrick aside, I believe The Matrix surpassed 2001 in all three of the areas you mention. In cinematography, The Matrix was the first film to really take "bullet-time" photography in particular and CGI in somewhat less seminal ways, to their very edge. We see these things now in productions as mundane as commercials, but that first shot--with Trinity suspended in mid-air as the camera angle moves around her then continues the action--is something few of us who saw it will forget. The technology seems simple and mundane now, but not then. Score, I would argue, is simply a matter of taste. Certainly that of The Matrix is as strongly linked thematically to the movie as anything in 2001. Concept and philosophical depth? Give me a break! "What is real? If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." Reality is the central question here. I will venture that the Wachowskis are far deeper thinkers than Kubrick. (Of course, I can only venture that by ignoring the long downhill slide into intellectual mush that is the sequels. You'll note that I didn't say "the Matrix Trilogy." I avoided that, not only because the sequels belong to separate century, but also because, while fun, each is philosophically and intellectually less than its immediate predecessor.) Multiple viewings? I'm not tired of The Matrix yet, and it's been almost ten years and I've seen it countless times. Perhaps its greatest strength is its total lack of paradox. Name one more film about either time travel or virtual reality that doesn't trip over itself somewhere. Name me one place where The Matrix does.

Blade Runner doesn't have the groundbreaking effects but the pathos and acting of Ford, Hauer, and Sanderson deliver a solid punch. Scott's future urban landscape is genius. FWIW, I prefer the "corny" version with the voiceover to the "director's cut."

Love Blade Runner. Don't have anything bad to say about it. Probably the best shot you took in the whole salvo.

Dark City is one hell of a creepy yarn. It was what the Truman Show should have been. I'd put it on par with The Matrix.

Ooooh. Haven't seen it. Thanks. Now I know what to rent the next time I need a new sci-fi fix.

Altered States is corny but the concept still delivered what the best sci-fi does. So-so acting, creative effects, but one does have to like Ken Russell. I did; novelist and screenplay writer Paddy Chayefsky didn't and had his name removed from the credits. Either on par with The Matrix or a notch below.

At least "a" notch. Loved the movie. Not sure I'd consider it sci-fi though. Will say that it almost inspired me to give the isolation tank a try the last time I was in your neck of the woods. Can't remember the name of the place, but it's in downtown Asheville, downhill from the Mellow Mushroom pizza parlor. Was with my in-laws and didn't have the time . . . but I'll be back.

Being John Malkovich has none of the razzmatazz but is far more metaphysically interesting and challenging the old "what if we're all brains-in-a-vat?" problem. The use and execution of puppeteering to make points was far more captivating and moving that anything I saw in The Matrix which I found to be almost bereft of emotion. Who gives a shit whether a soulless lead and a soulless supporting cast beat the bad guys?

I'm sensing some real negative energy here, John. Let it goooooooooo. :-)

The always overlooked The Fly featured a virtuoso performance from Goldblum which Reeves is clearly not capable. His transformation was as gorgeous as it was terrifying and it closed with a wallop. The Matrix closes with a nod to the sequels, neither of which delivered because the set-up was philosophically lame.

Okay, you've used "virtuoso" and "Goldblum" together in the same sentence here, which, while an undeniably remarkable accomplishment, still makes no sense.

The Thing is a B movie, a goddamn good one. Great ensemble cast, with over-the-top cornball acting reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen. Carpenter's calibration of horror was genius backed up by a serviceable score. Give me a six-pack of PBR and I'll rewatch The Thing this afternoon over The Matrix.

I think, at this point, our transition from the genre of sci-fi to that of horror is more or less complete (to say nothing of where we've gone with the beer--I'm a Makeson man, myself). Not that the two can't mix (sci-fi and horror; not beer and near-beer). Alien is superb. And Aliens is one of the few sequels ever made that might arguably surpass the first in the series. After that though, we start downhill into the valley of sequel hell, in some sort of perverted race to the bottom with Rocky, who, I'm sad to say, is back in the lead. (You know, I actually joked about 15 years ago that my children would one day ask for $20 to see a Rocky sequel. I overestimated the effect of inflation on the price of a movie ticket, but not the resilience of the champ. Please God, let his next opponent take a .357 magnum into the ring and finish him. Hmmm. "And the nominees for Best Actor are Jeff Goldblum, Sylvester Stallone, and Barney Rubble." Q: How will we ever decide? A: Just give Paulie a vote.)

And would Fight Club count as sci-fi, because it clearly kicks The Matrix's sorry celluloid, single-serving ass, except I'm not supposed to talk about it.

:-) (It took me a minute because it's been a while.) But no, I wouldn't count it.

But I'll conclude here by saying thanks for taking the time to have an opinion. I may disagree, but anything from the keyboard of another hardcore Deadwood fan is at least worth making the effort to disagree with. Peace bro.

What Kind of Reader Are You?

Not a fair test, really, for an English professor. For questions six and seven for instance, I needed a button that said "All of the first three above" (I've read all of the Harry Potter books, btw, and happily, none of the fourth choice for question six).

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Literate Good Citizen
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Live First, Then Write About It

Life has been busy!

Saturday night at a Loreena McKennitt concert as part of her Ancient Muse Tour. What a beautiful artist and person! And what an incredible group of musicians. If you're anywhere near one her upcoming perfomances, go!

Sunday at a friend's neighborhood Oktoberfest, where I spent an hour or so in a great conversation with one of the neighbors and learned near the end of that conversation that his brother is the bassist for Rage Against the Machine. I think he was genuinely surprised when I said, "No kidding! They have a great track on the soundtrack from The Matrix." (Hands down, btw, the best sci-fi film of the 20th century. Period. And yes, I've seen all the classics I'm probably going to hear about in comments. Bring it.) That event closed off with about five of us standing in a circle and smoking cigars.

Monday was devoted to a 208-mile ride through the mountains with eight squadron mates. I sold my KZ-900 years ago, but you can rent Harleys, and it was worth every penny. The weather was as perfect as the company.

All in all, I don't feel all that bad for not getting around to the blog over the weekend. You gotta have a life if you're gonna have anything to write about.

Kaziah Hancock

A friend steered me to this video today. Her nephew, (an English major and fan of Blood Meridian, so clearly a man of impeccable tastes) is also a producer at MTV and working on some project involving this artist, who does incredible oil portraits of our fallen soldiers, at no cost to their families.

Enjoy.

Prof Pausch's Last Lecture

I've played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon before, and you'd think as many movies as I watch, I'd be better at it. This is sort of like that, only there are just two degrees of separation here.

I sat at a conference room table today at a sadly ill-attended meeting of the Faculty Forum at the academic institution where I taught for a total of eight years before moving over to the administration building. I haven't been in the classroom in over a year, but I still attend meetings of the faculty group, to which I still belong. Across from me sat Professor Barry Fagin. I wouldn't say we are friends, exactly, but we are certainly steadfast acquaintances. That is, though we come to the table from widely different disciplines (Computer Science and English), and seldom see each other away from these meetings, nonetheless, when we do run into one another, even off campus, we can still greet one another by name. And, more often than not, we find ourselves on the same side of most issues.

So, though I haven't yet watched the video to which I'm going to provide links here, Barry has, and Barry knew Professor Pausch well, and if Barry says, in his op-ed piece in today's paper, that I should see it, save it, and watch it with my kids, then I'll take his word for it.

For a small taste, here is a brief summary of news coverage, lifted from Prof Pausch's own site:

- There has been a lot of media coverage : The Good Morning, America piece is available here. Their followup piece (answering viewer's questions) is here. The Wall Street Journal article is here, their online video coverage is available here, their follow-up article is here, and a followup video is here. Steve Hartman and the CBS Evening News piece is here, with additional "only on the web" footage here.

The lecture is part of the Journeys series at Carnegie Mellon. And I look forward to having the time soon to watch it myself.

Here is the text.

Here is the video.

Deadwood really dead wood

So Deadwood is really over. So it goes. This from Cinematical via Kottke via Enrevanche:

I told McShane that as a fan, I felt completely cheated by this move on HBO's part. "You feel cheated? Imagine how I feel!" he replied. "We all do. We all do. It was one of those one-off jobs that you do which has got an extraordinary creative brain behind it, and it kept getting better, and the actors were great. It was a fabulous place to be and work. It was a workshop cum theater cum film. It was an extraordinary time. But everything has to come to an end, babe." So, there you have it.

It's still the best thing I've seen on TV in the last four years. If you haven't seen it, now's a good time to rent all three seasons. And be sure to watch the special features that come on the last disc for Season One.

Seasons of Love

I've been asked more than once to name my favorite season of the year. Enough times that for years now, I've had no trouble doing it.

My favorite season is: the beginning. I mean, when answering the question with regard to the calendar, those early days of every season when we first notice the change, embrace it even, as a welcome shift from something we've had enough of, finally, for at least one more year. Maybe that shift from autumn to winter, or from spring to summer is too subtle a thing to notice, really, a shift in degree more than kind. But those other two, we all feel, and most, I think, welcome. That initial bright day after the long, cold hibernation of winter when we notice the first green buds springing from gray branches and can finally step out the door without a coat and scarf, and the sun seems once again to hint at the days soon when it will light the world head on, rather than from around some cloudy corner. I like winter, I love snow, I find grey days, like Thoreau, more favorable for reflection. But, by the time spring comes, I'm ready for it. That's a real change, a beginning. The slide from spring to summer is a thing more subtle, insidious even. A first day may even escape notice; rather, suddenly, one day, we'll realize it's been summer for a week already, or longer. The same for that slide into gray and cold that doesn't so much mark the beginning of winter as let us know that we've been there for days or weeks already.

But autumn. Perhaps my single most favorite memory of the first home I ever owned is wrapped up in that beginning. I can remember sitting on the street in front of my townhome, the top down on a Carmine Red 1975 Triumph Spitfire, James Taylor's Dad Loves His Work in the tape deck, a glass of Dry Sack Sherry in my hand, and a cool breeze on my face. I probably sat there because, as yet, I had no patio furniture for my deck, nor even a couch for my living room, or table for the dining room. But no matter. From the deck, I would have missed the slant of the sun through the water oak and the rattle of the leaves on the pavement. Had I not been where I was, the smell of leather might not be so inextricably linked to those first days of fall for me.

Relationships have beginnings as well, but exciting as they are, I think I would say my favorite season in relationships must be autumn. Having survived the fragile excitement of spring and the turbulent storms of summer, those that make it to autumn are special indeed. Having made it that far, there is little doubt that they will last to the end of our winter as well. And just as with the calendar, there is something noticeable in those first days of a friendship's autumn, something softer about the light each brings to the relationship, something comfortable in the way an autumn friend wraps your heart in a blanket of acceptance. Like the cold air chilling the skin of your face while your body is safe and warm under a blanket at a mid-November football game, every other human interaction serves only to accentuate the warmth and safety of that friendship.

I closed an e-mail to one of those friends today with an expression, "Autumn hugs," that conflates both aspects of that season, calendar and relational, and that encompassed so much for me that I felt compelled to explain it. I share it here, only because, so far as I can tell, the limited audience of this forum hasn't expanded beyond a small circle of very close friends, all of whom can appreciate it. And though I may share it, the mental image it describes will always be inextricably linked to the friend that inspired it.

I think of an autumn hug as one of those moments we wish would last forever, outside on a deck in the slanting, yellow, muted light of late afternoon, paired glasses of some rich, buttery, cool chardonnay sitting on the rail, both persons in sweaters, melting into one another in no hurry, arms all the way around, one hand in the center of the back, the other gently stroking the back of a head, fingers entwined in hair, and a gentle, crisp breeze fanning that long hair across my face, the scent of which forms a medley with perfume, the just now decaying leaves and the hint of someone's first-of-the-season lighting of an upwind fireplace. A hug no special thing motivated. A hug that doesn't need to lead to anything else. The hug, the moment, the memory in the making of two hearts beating next to one another, is all. That kind of hug.

I will miss that this season.

And to accompany this rumination on seasons, I offer the following song from the musical Rent, which as soon as I hit "publish," I intend to watch, finally, having driven out to rent it between paragraphs above. Regardless of what the rest of this film does or doesn't have to offer, that one song is as good an anthem to friendship as has ever been written.

Here's wishing you all lots of those hugs.