Tagged: books

The Pathetic Way To Go

They were all in his bedroom.

His brother was the family’s steady anchor, permanently tarred to the deep floor of the ocean of unknown outcomes. He had flown in four years ago, without stopping—without even thinking—to even pack a carry-on. He had stayed bedside throughout the recent wars, throughout the fires, throughout the droughts, throughout the pestilence, throughout the famine. Nothing had moved him; nothing could move him. Nothing would move him. In the four years that had passed, he aged ten. He was worn threadbare. He was balding. He was broke. His wife had left him after the first year. His children hardly knew him. But he was there. And there he seemed destined to remain.

But it was his sister, whose lightest smile always seemed to be returned as though seen through the closed eyes, that wove the siblings together. It was his sister who fed both brothers, his sister who changed the sheets, his sister who replenished the water and flowers of well-wishers, his sister who put on a happy face—indeed never once betrayed an awareness that today wasn’t the best day.

And today, this day of days, was about to be the best day.

His mother and father had arrived last night, cutting short their long-delayed vacation to some distant paradise without hesitation. He was their son. They had only ever left his side, for the first time in years, after finding in his Bible a single page of scripture with a note indicating that “their happiness” was his “heaven”.

All his cousins and aunts and uncles had rushed to be there as soon as word had spread. It had not mattered to any how many planes, trains, boats, or cars it took. No matter the skyways and byways, no matter the cost, they were there.

His wife sobbed and sobbed. Her life was miserable before him and had been perfect with him. She did not know, she could not imagine how she would ever carry on after. So she wept, she cried, she sobbed, she cried, and finally she wept some more. Everyone who knew him and knew of him understood her pain.

The room went silent as his eldest daughter appeared in the doorway. No one could remember the last time he had heard, let alone seen, her. But somehow she knew. Somehow she came. The dim, flickering candlelight revealed the jewelry that had first confused her identity. But when she turned and tossed her backpack aside, the sweet jingle of countless keychains she had affixed, along with the rustle of laminated letters that hung from every zipper confirmed what all were hoping—after so many years away, she came.

His other children were still on their way. The current project that engaged the pair, the world’s two greatest, most creative, most motivated, and most delightful members, had necessitated their delay. In fact, it wasn’t until the world heard and fed the wildfire rumor of the gathering in that room—and for whom and wherefore—that the people pleaded, risking their own detriment by forestalling the work, for the siblings to now travel to where all knew their hearts already lay.

“He’s awake.”

The barely audible whisper was first heard by his sister, as she was handing a fresh coffee to its speaker, her weary, ever so weary, brother—one that never did arrive.

The porcelain mug’s landing on the plush carpet pronounced a soft sound at which his wife, the ever inconsolable and fairest of all to assume that noble title watchman, raised her tear-streaked face. When her fingers rose to wipe all evidence of unhappiness away, the visitors communicated the only news that such action could betray throughout the room as quick as light, yet as soft as feathers.

Right when his brother turned to repeat the announcement, his eyes landed on them. They had just arrived.

“Come! He’s awake!” He repeated as he motioned the children to come and directed the crowd to open a path.

“My dad!” his daughter said, her cheeks uncontrollably wetted with tears of joy.

“Father!” his son declared. Revealing a relationship that transcended time and space—indeed one that could not be rocked by consciousness itself—he added, “We did it! The world is saved.”

Seeing him seeming to make an attempt to raise his head, his brother said, “Rest. It’s no time to exert yourself, good brother.”

“As always, good brother,” our hero began, acknowledging their secret greeting, courageously and with a knowing smirk, one long-since absent and missed, “You’re wrong. It is time; for time is short.” His breathing was burdened with immeasurable truth.

In the history of time, the tides of all oceans had not swelled so much as to fill what all present saw pour forth from this dearest, this loyalist of companion’s eyes. Turning to the room, he cried with exuberance so far only matched by the warming Sun, “He’s right!” he declared. “He’s always right. It’s why I love him.” The very walls joyfully echoed the contagious rapture spread unto all. And then feeling along the bed until his hand touched the familiar, strong, able, and trustworthy hand of childhood, he squeezed with a tenderness not unnoticed by our hero and turned back and said, “You’re right. What would you have us do?”

“Bring her to me.”

At once his oldest now became the focus of the room.

“Help me up, brother. One final time.”

The room gasped as they watched. His mother fainted.

At last he was sitting at the head of the bed. And she was there.

“Da-”

“Shh—” he interrupted, eyes earnestly declaring the sad truth that all were too kind to admit. “Don’t speak. Know that in all these years, wherever your travels took you, I was there too.”

“Oh, daddy,” she cried. “I knew you never abandoned me. I always knew. I just didn’t know how to come home.”

“There, there, my beautiful girl,” he said, bravely keeping his tears at bay.

“I kept everything,” she added suddenly. “It’s all there. Every gift. Every letter. Every book. All the socks. It’s all in the bag. I wanted you to see it.”

As his eyes followed her gesture to the bag she had worn in, the answer to Earth’s oldest question, “Is there anything this man can’t do?” was finally answered. The levy broke. The man couldn’t hide his joy.

(To be continued…)

Goldilocks and the Three Americans

Once upon a time, there was a family of the smallest of sizes, but perfectly intentioned, who lived in a neighborhood-

“That’s not how it goes, Dad!”

“I’m not telling the story we read, A-; I am answering your question about the noises the cameras make.”

“Oh.”

-Whenever these smallest of sizes, but perfectly intentioned, families went out from their house—whether to school or stores or restaurants—they worried about yellow-haired girls who they had heard about when they were children-

“Goldilocks has yellow hair!”

“That’s right, A-. That’s who the noises are supposed to scare aware. You see, Goldilocks is supposed to think, ‘I don’t want to deal with whatever those bears are up to. So I’ll find a house without cameras.’”

“This house doesn’t have cameras!”

“Good eyes, A-. That’s right. If I were Goldilocks, I’d try that house first.”

“You’re not Goldilocks!”

“I know. I’m just answering your question.”

“Oh.”

“You know, A-. I don’t mind sharing with you that besides adding talking cameras to the cornucopian display of my opulent wealth, that story is why I don’t trust any Yellow-Haired women.”

“Look, Daddy!”

“Okay! What? I see a truck.”

“Goldilocks is in that truck!”

“That’s right. I didn’t finish the story.”

-And no one ever saw Goldilocks ever again. But sometimes, when the light is just right, you can see Yellow-Haired women driving white trucks. So if ever on your camera screen you see a white truck in your driveway…hide your porridge!

The Right Kind of Start to the Day

Santa brought my daughter a prism for Christmas this year. Where’d he get the idea, I wonder?

If you guessed, “Who is Isaac Newton?”, then you guessed right! Of course, it wasn’t the legendary Isaac Newton who noticed apples, but the historical person Isaac Newton who recorded his thoughts and experiments for posterity, who painstakingly measured the wavelengths of colors with a prism and analogized gravity to a slingshot.

This morning my four year old daughter, A-, ran from the sunny window of my bedroom and promptly returned with the prism to try to make rainbows.

Naturally, no one needs to make rainbows with a prism anymore. This is because (despite morons abounding) to all important parties, color measurements—and even light measurements—are as solved as shoe sizes.

But the ability to see? That is truly rare. But my daughter has it. And who gave it to her? That’s right. Her very own Santa Claus, otherwise known as Dad.

It was the right kind of start to the day.

****

Oh, and I finished that other EPIC COLLECTION(!!!) of X-Men I mentioned.

For posterity, one effect that occurred while reading these 450+ pages of comics was the ability to see the rather finite amount of “types” these stories can have. IE, after you exhaust good vs evil in the plain sense, you have to move on to plot devices like making a good guy character seem evil, but lo and behold it wasn’t really the good guy, but the bad guy all along through some obvious and ingenious use of their powers! And then they also introduced the concept of using an entire comic(!) for a character in the story to tell a (in this case bedtime) tale involving slightly altered characters etc. Is that called meta, but inward; instead of breaking the fourth wall? In any case, time for a break from the Uncanny X-Men! (Don’t worry, Strangest Super Heroes of All, I still love you guys.)

I Like My Life

Not halfway through January and here is what I have been able to knock out.

Let me be for the first to say I read way too many comics in the last two weeks. That X-Men “Epic Collection” was 500 pages. I am over halfway finished with another, not pictured. I only started reading comics recently because of trying to completely cut movies. But I can fully admit that they are or can be a bit juvenile and unsatisfying when read at the pace I have been conquering them. If you’ve ever tried to binge watch X-Files, then you know what I am talking about.

Grant’s memoir was amazing and astounding on nearly every level. What a time to have been alive.

Einstein, as I have said, was life changing.

The Second Jungle Book was, on the whole, better than the first. I will probably read only the first Mowgli story of the First and then jump to the Second with my kids when they are a ready. (Ricki-Ticki-Tavi is in the Second.)

Hiawatha can be skipped if you can call to mind any of Hollywood’s best Indian monologues from the 90s—I’m thinking specifically of the Last of the Mohicans’ “at the birth of the Sun and his brother the moon” moment when Hawkeye is wooing Cora. But it clearly was deeply influential and is therefore a must-read classic if you’ve got the time. (It’s a poem, but can basically be read as if a novel.)

Leviathon is unlike anything you have heard about it. I have to rank it tops—just clearing Einstein—as far as what you absolutely must read if you have always been interested and merely await a kick in the pants for motivation. Einstein is life changing for the reason that afterwards you will join me and an exceedingly few others in feeling good because “now you know”. But what you now know kinda reinforces the fact that you aren’t that interested in keeping up with quantum physics and beyond.

But Hobbes! Hobbes is life changing regarding its implications for your daily decisions—especially in the political part of life. I’m suggesting that, especially for Christians, a careful reading of Hobbes will more likely inspire you to pursue righteousness for the right reasons than any sermon you’ve heard or any other book you’ve read—ever.

Two Ideas For Books

Whether all experience it, or just certain personalities out of those who get the idea to write, I have learned that in the beginning of the career of unsuccessful writers there is a strong desire to not “let the cat out of the bag” too early. There is a belief that “I have a good idea and it is so good that someone else might profit if I share it before it’s for sale by me.”

But I have been blogging for over a decade now, and helped a few others with their books, and I am convinced that all that is hogwash. Life is just too complicated for a single idea, unaccompanied by the innumerable trappings of fate, to succeed.

To prove this, I share that recently I have had two ideas for books. These are prompted by a desire to somehow manifest that reading the classics has tangible results at a level somewhere below “advance of our civilization”. (Implied- civilization definitionally cannot advance if it is built on lies or ignorance of itself—so read the classics! It’s all at stake!)

Firstly, I want to write a book called “Union” that has a chapter for each, of what I have to believe would be at least twenty, type of artificial union between materials that man has developed. Knots, screws, nails, velcro, glue, epoxy etc. When I write it, the descriptions would be quick reads and informative. But the result would be the perfect contemplative admixture of “so what?” with “if we can figure out mating materials, why can’t we figure out relationships?” I have to believe—contrary to all evidence in my life—that we can figure out human relationship/union.

Secondly, I want to write a book—which may be uber short—which highlights a theme which I have seen in the bios of all the authors in my Great Books of the Western World and companion set Gateway to the Great Books. The theme being, the fact that the authors spent the entirety of their lives learning (as opposed to our deeply unreflective “go to college” mindset) coupled with often epic intellectually-based struggles well into old age. Each chapter may just be one page, often only one sentence. IE Hobbes – Forbid from publishing in his mother country from 70 yrs old to 91 yrs old when he died (don’t quote me, this is from memory and may be wrong on all points). The trick to this book is creating knockout punch sentences without getting repetitive.

****

“Go to college.” Ha. What a joke.

If you want to run with this, do it. I dare ya.

A Year of Reading in Review

As promised, so far as I remember and/or marked, here’s what I read in 2024. The colorful books with the banner “not for resale” really were just since October—I’ve been on a tear of late. Same with the comic books; when I cut movies (for the most part), I had to find something light and so chose comics that I always wanted to read. You don’t see a few others from a “Predator vs. Black Panther” series and an “Alien vs Avengers” series. A collection of Jack London is the two-page table of contents pic that starts with “The Yukon” and ends with “White Fang.” The individual “First Reading” etc are from the Great Ideas Program. And the table of contents of essays are from Gateways to the Great Books companion set to the GBWW.

I may post again with an answer to the question, “So what did all this reading do for you insofar as tangible results, Captain?” For today, I want to share an infamous quote by Faraday. When he was asked, “What is the point of this discovery of yours?”, he responded, “What is the point of a child?”

Happy New Year!

On Reading “The Divine Comedy”

Oh sweet Book, thou mantlest thyself with a smile, by what ardentcy dost thou require my time whose arrow, aimed right or left, loosed evermore sheathgone, anon to crawl, broken mirror upon, ever opening virgin wounds ere disconsidered more believable than metamorphastication of hell’s lord to heaven’s Supreme Good, be collected!

“Comedy in the Old Sense”, A Review of Joker: Folie à Deux, Directed by Todd Phillips

Everyone knows what a tragedy is. The word has kept its meaning through the years. The meaning of comedy, however, has not held constant. In a sense, this change is no different from how the concept of heat as substance was discarded in favor of heat as motion upon experimental data which confirmed there was a difference between temperature (strength) and heat (quantity).

Anyone know in what sense comedy was used in the past, say for such a work as Dante’s Divine Comedy? That’s right, “a happy ending.” That story has a happy ending. (Spoiler: It ends in Heaven.)

That is the sense that I mean when I chose to title this review, “Comedy in the Old Sense.” I do not mean that the film is funny.

As a family man, I do not get to the movie theater much these days, so I had to wait, like the rest of you, to watch the movie on a streaming service (co-worker’s account). So I was more than well-versed in the terrible reception of the highly anticipated film. While I would like to believe my critical eye is objective, I offer some backstory to the tardy review because I cannot deny that I came into the movie with a different mindset and much lower expectations than the World before me. Truth be told, by the time I watched it, I needed to prove everyone wrong. I needed to see the genius.

And so here it is.

The movie, unlike its predecessor, is pure comedy. As no one wanted to see that, because no one expected that, everyone missed it. Regardless of its initial reception, like the Divine Comedy, literally for the exact same reasons, I offer that this comedic work is an instant classic and will stand the test of time even more-so than Joker. Because we do like our happy endings.

Time for a proper [SPOILER ALERT]. (But I’d keep reading because the movie is better when not a mystery.)

Joker is the bad guy. And the bad guy dies.

That’s right. Good guys win; bad guys lose. That’s a happy ending, right? Well, the final scene in Joker is that a fanboy fellow asylum-mate unexpectedly (perhaps only to Arthur Fleck) kills Arthur.

Get it? From this old perspective, the first movie is a tragedy, because Joker, while arrested, clearly wins. But in the sequel, the continuation of the story, he dies. The bad guy loses—which is what happy endings require. So it’s a comedy.

If the film misses any mark, it is that the “good guy” remains nebulous. Is it Batman (meaning merely our awareness of the character since he is not in the film)? Is it rule of law in general? A jury trial in particular? Is it truth-telling in the face of fear? Is it truth in general? We aren’t really told, so it’s anyone’s guess.

That’s the broad strokes. But I want to hit some minutia for posterity’s sake.

Hollywood is messing up on casting right now (GLADIIATOR being the other major instance). Certain actors are too talented for small roles. In Joker: Folie à Deux, the problem is Gleeson. His character was fairly important to the story, but his past credits are too distinguished. The polish he brought resulted in him standing out like a sore thumb. It was all tease, no climax. Let’s not do that again.

In America’s on-going battle of the blondes, Hollywood thinks Margot Robbie could only be topped by Lady Gaga. (This isn’t criticism, just acknowledging who’s hot and who’s not—according to our betters.) This is interesting. Gaga did a perfectly fine job in the film. We probably can just admit she did a perfect job. But I’d say she risked more than she needed to on this role—even as she should be flattered beyond belief.

I recently watched Alien: Romulus as well. I am not sure why I didn’t review it—it is good. But I am very sure that the first time I saw the xenomorph appear I thought, “Man. That is so beautiful. Probably the best looking bad guy ever.” Update: after watching Joaquin Phoenix with the makeup on and hair green and charisma maxed out, I’d say it’s a tie. Joker is just beautiful. I’m telling you, keep an eye on how this movie is received down the years. We like beauty, as a species.

Let’s end on a philosophical note.

In the film Red Belt, the martial art’s instructor goes through a list of, “If you stand here, can I strike you? If you stand here, can I strike you?” Etc. This continues, of course, until he positions his student outside of striking distance and concludes, “So don’t stand here (anywhere close).”

Joker is killed by the nicest-to-him inmate (not Batman or the police or the law), precisely when/because his guard is down. I just can’t help but wonder, “WTF, over?”

Why do we hurt each other?

Some Outstanding Quotes From Recent Reads

A book I have always dreaded is, “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington. I viewed it like the pet shop snakes Pee Wee didn’t want to rescue from the fire. I could not have been more wrong. It is astonishing. (For the uninitiated, it was written around 1900; Washington was a former slave turned champion of education and recognized leader of the Negro people in the times that followed their big day.)

“The white man who begins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole Nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South.”

(Pause here to consider the fullness of love captured by those words.)

“Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.”

And I add this next one with a special eye affixed on Black Jesus himself. (Please recall this was spoken by a former slave. No bed, no bathing, no shoes, no toothbrush, no mealtimes. Scratchy shirts, no education. Etc etc.)

“The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial forcing.”

That begs repeating.

“The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial forcing.”

(It’s only natural to take a quick break before continuing to the next quote.)

Long ago I bought Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, partly out of interest, partly to impress a girl. I never opened it that paperback copy. But a beautiful hardbound copy was in my Great Books set and the guided reading propelled me to taste and see. So I finally had a chance to discover what it’s all about. Couple to this that back in Seminary (Evangelical, not Catholic) the phrase “intellectual assent” was thrown around like “please and thank you”, usually in a smug, “Faith isn’t just intellectual assent”. (This was said in conversations about apologetics and sharing the Gospel in general.)

“Now the act of believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the Divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God…”

For the thousandth time then, say it with me, “We’re all just little repeaters”. It’s depressing in a way. But it’s also fun to track down the true creators among us.

Next and last for today is Jack London’s White Fang. I can’t recall if I ever read it. I know I watched a movie from the 90s by the same name, but to suggest it was based on the book I am reading would be criminal.

(Keep in mind this quote is about a wolf *wink*.)

“But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of which was growth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growth demanded disobedience.”

(Another long pause for contemplation is only natural here.)

I write these posts for me. But I confess to you that today I write with the hope of spurring someone, anyone on to the delight of reading Up From Slavery and White Fang. (Aquinas is too much for anyone not professionally interested.)