The Architecture of Oppression

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The Pentagon, US Dept of Defense Building (Wiki commons)

The Pentagon, US Dept of Defense Building (Wiki commons)

Fascinatingly, NSA leaker Edward Snowden, about whose actions many people feel highly conflicted, has a GED–a General Education Diploma, commonly known as a General Equivalency Diploma–not a high school diploma. Why is that such a big issue? Are our high schools so wonderful? If so, why the extremely high dropout rates and failures in literacy? Retrospectively, it may not have been the best decision I ever made, but I finished high school in three years, merely by taking two accelerated English classes instead of one in my junior year. High school seniors are still typically marking time, kept in a holding tank where they will (hopefully) stay out of trouble as they mature. The unusual high school keeps the rare senior engaged and interested throughout the entire senior year. This is uncommon, or the phrase “senioritis” would not be a much-used phrase in the U.S. I earned a diploma from a well-respected high school, but I was never a high school senior.

Edward Snowden probably never had great respect for so-called authority figures because he did not complete high school in the traditional manner, nor did he complete college, goes the argument. Edward Snowden has, by this argument–like many home-schooled children and college drop-out, Bill Gates–been insufficiently indoctrinated. Alice has stepped through the looking glass again: If we do not want to live in a police state, should we not all question authority all of the time?

A less elegant phrase for “architecture of oppression” might be “entrenched, abusive structures of authority.” Why should we not openly know what many of us have suspected, that there is constant surveillance of private citizens’ every spoken or written word.

We were informed that every Tweet would be stored in the LOC (Library of Congress) archives. Fair enough. We know full well that Facebook and other social media sites will continue, like the Dementors of Harry Potter novels, to suck every possible bit of information about us, and store it in its data bases. The rules of social media will constantly change, so that we can never keep our privacy settings up-to-date. We can, however, eschew social media. But few of us can take a year, or even a week, at Walden Pond and forgo emailing or conversing with our colleagues, family, and friends. So the government’s illegal snooping affects us all, no matter how innocent. No, I am no Libertarian: far from it. But I do think our military-industrialist Capitalist State has gone too far.

The government exists to serve us. It is a “government for the people.” So what is this all about? Fear. Irrational fear, unlike the perfectly rational knowledge of gun control advocates. The First Amendment appears to be written fairly well, but is blithely disregarded. The Second Amendment appears to be written, as it was, for the post-Colonial era–the British might come back!–and is interpreted to and beyond the letter, in an absurd and harmful fashion, resulting in deaths of innocent civilian Americans every day.

Let us all reread the great, thought-provoking novel about social conditioning 1984 written by Aldous Huxley in 1931, and published in 1932. The government’s attacks on the improperly conditioned, the slightly freer thinkers, is merciless in 1984, just as we can be certain that our government’s actions against Edward Snowden will be. In the meantime, let us not, like sheep follow the herd. Let us not castigate, but rather thank, Edward Snowden for revealing half-suspected truths that we have every right to know.

Embodied Religion

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By Jule_Berlin (originally posted to Flickr as [1]) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Ponte Maceira on El Camino by Jule Berlin (via Wiki Commons) Share Alike

I continue writing about pilgrimage: embodied religion in nature. Serenity itself? Yes. There is beauty in nature, and oneness with nature that those who don’t hunt or fish or climb mountains might not otherwise access. There is beauty and peace in nature, and even fear, in nature that those who go on an evening stroll might wish to deepen or face. In deepening one’s connection to the land, one may deepen one’s connection to a transcendental God, or to the immanental god within.

And all those pilgrim symbols, from staff to cross, and pilgrim paths, within European borders do other, less obvious work. They provide a moving tableaux, a visual demonstration of Christianity as a physical presence. European pilgrimages connect European nation to nation, not undermining the all-important nationalism or nationhood, but reinforcing pan-Europeanism. There is also, surprisingly, something dark that bubbles up in pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is not only a simple and age-old act of putting one foot in front of the other, and circumnavigating a region by foot. It is also often a political act. In some cases it is, and has been, a political act for the good. Sometimes a political act against gender constraints keeping women at home. At others a political act of defiance against circumscription by Vatican authority, commanding the laity at what place, and how, they must worship.

Pilgrimage in Europe, meditative walking, may be broadening, ecumenical, and inviting. It may also be exclusive. Going on European Christian pilgrimage generally does not exclude atheists, agnostics, and seekers. In most cases, however, pilgrimage in Europe is Christian pilgrimage and excludes those of other faiths.

Today, as in ages past, it is the pluralism of Christians and Muslims living together in Europe that is being worked out. Is walking an act of territorial inscription? Probably in part, yet it is much more, and adds much that is positive to the individual and communal good. Pilgrims are certainly more than border control
agents.

So What?

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“So What?” This potent paralytic neurotoxin, two short words, has the power to silence. The expectation of excellence has silenced many voices.

Basic scientific research has an untidy answer to this question: “We don’t know yet, but if we fool around with this experiment, or these compounds, long enough, something interesting is bound to turn up.” Nothing is funnier, or more damning, than stories of anthropologists seeing elaborate dances or performative displays by “primitive” people. To be fair, anthropologists no longer look for “primitive” people or “primitive” religion; that characterizes armchair sociologists of 100 years ago. It is still the case, however, that groups of people will put on acts for visitors, anthropologists, tourists, or pilgrims.

Just think about New Orleans. Would NOLA be a constant party, and would there be tours of “swamp people” if tourists weren’t interested? Unlikely.

In any situation, it is possible to find exactly what one seeks in order to say, “That’s what!”, rather than “It’s confusing: some people behave in one way and others in a contradictory manner.”

The same is true of the world of words, thoughts, and ideas, eventually destined to be put down in writing. Though the subject is intriguing, there may be no clear answer. More than likely there are multiple, conflicting, or both/and answers versus either/or answers. Similarly, the end product is neither always in mind, nor what is finally realized, when artists, composers, architects, and gardeners engage in their creative processes.

Once in Yellowstone National Park, I stared into the clear bubbling turquoise pool of hot water bubbling up from far beneath the earth’s surface. The water in this pool is free of visible impurities, springing straight, it seems, from the very center of the earth to view, unmuddied, unmuddled.

As writers, we sometimes lose ourselves, and our ideas flow freely, expressing an inner truth of which we were ourselves unaware. But our minds are no clear turquoise pools. The detritus–of our personal and social lives–that attaches itself to our ideas help make them noteworthy, entertaining, and interesting. Had the novels of Jane Austen and of Philip Roth, for instance, not carried all the markers of each writers’ social experience, place, and station, their novels may have remained largely unread. Every word we write is a peek, sometimes “through the looking glass,” at other times, “through a glass darkly,” to our unique perspective. How well we bring that to light is a different matter.

My quarrel here is with academia. “So what?” has been unanswered, and will always be. But in writing for an academic audience, “So what?”, is the question to which we are trained to respond. The chorus of hoary sages shakes its communal head at such trivialities as “Because this is interesting, new, beautiful, reflective of the society from which it springs.” Placing our subject in the larger social context, or “scholarly conversation,” is indeed helpful to reader and writer alike.

But the question “So What?” has a deadening effect. Instead, I will seek, in all I write and think, to respond to “Tell me more.” And to explain why a concept, not yet played out, not yet complete, not with a carefully selvaged hem, is interesting, and work from there. There are always loose ends to tuck in. Ideas and theories, once seemingly complete, unravel into the hypothetical when new thoughts or ideas are introduced. How does one build an academic life without becoming “another brick in the wall, and living Pink Floyd’s immortal accusation? Long ago, the anonymous authors of “London Bridge” knew that even “bricks and mortar” would not keep it from falling down. The final word will never be spoken.

My Slow (Boring) Life

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Earth Pacific Globe (Wiki Common

Earth Pacific Globe (Wiki Common

Blues, basketball, bunnies, beer…honestly, how boring can it be? On a Saturday night, the comfortable isn’t always enough. I need to be outside of my comfort zone. There are more and less productive ways to get there, and I am up for either one!

More true confessions: sometimes I get bored on the days when I decide to practice the slow and simple life. It’s just that simple. Or I’m just that simple. Simple enough to write about my supposed simple life on my iPhone 5!

I biked to the pool, did a little claim-jumping–chairs, good spot, the usual–biked to the library, borrowed some books and a DVD, biked home to grab forgotten items & prevent DVD from melting, and back to the pool. The public pool. St. Circe is now boring herself to tears. So sorry, dear readers!

While others slept, Simple Circe was lavishing tender loving care on peas and romaine lettuce. If the tomato plants are wilting, you know it’s bad! A direct western exposure on a 90-plus degree day means over 100 degrees in the sun. Then time to hang the laundry on the line. For the record, my donated second-hand, mini-Miele did the wash. No down by the river, brook, or trough today or any other day. As mentioned, one woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.

Or is that confused, conflicted Circe? Despite my promise in an earlier post, my artichoke has yet to save the world. The little things we do just aren’t enough. They may be enough to assuage our guilt for a short while, &amp are, I firmly believe, never in vain, but they are not enough.

One “simple-lifer” around here just took a two-hour nap–yes, I’m jealous! That’s a simple act I would emulate if I only could! He is equally unconflicted about this evening. His unwavering plan is to watch the Pacers and Heat. I will join him. Watching a fast-moving basketball game slows down my own spinning wheels.

You knew the Pacers were going to win, didn’t you? They are an unusual team: A lot of 3-guards or small forward types. Coach can neither go big nor small, just medium-large. My greatest delight is to watch a ball-handler, a shooting point guard. But aside from more rimming out, it wasn’t a bad game. It is now Sunday, and I am still wrapping up Saturday.

What I cannot wrap up today or tomorrow is how I can remain a woman so divided: from franchise (corporate) sports late last night to a long hot morning picking organic strawberries and snap peas in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) field.

“Think Globally. Act Locally” is a fine sentiment, along the lines of “charity begins at home,” but we now live in a “glocal” world. The global is local, and the local–act, purchase, and vote–resonates globally. We first-worlders, whether in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Denmark, or Germany, are but well-intentioned hypocrites unless we adopt radically different lifestyles.

See you at the Bread and Puppet Theatre later this summer? Or maybe along El Camino de Compostela? More opportunity for thought. But does raising political awareness and allowing oneself meditative pilgrimage time bring about change? Maybe you will have moved into your solar-powered geodesic dome house, and I will be left to puzzle alone.

Can You Come Out and Play?

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Denver Harvard Gulch Outdoor Pool (Wiki commons)

Denver Harvard Gulch Outdoor Pool (Wiki commons)

No, my friends don’t put it exactly that way these days. “Let’s hang out” is also passé. The brilliant weather calls to me wordlessly. The birds call, the sun shines, hoodies and jackets are shed. Friends call, and I dutifully stick to my work schedule. Usually, that is. Right now I am as bad as a high school student with “senioritis” when invited to come out and play.

On an typical day a friend may ask whether I am going to the gym, the pool, taking a walk, want to have a cup of tea, or a drink in the garden. There are even a few with whom I work collaboratively. I also receive invitations to concerts, to parties, to celebrations & ceremonies as well. But neither obligations nor preplanned events are daily temptations.

Everyone who works from home is subject to many of the same temptations, interruptions, joys, and frustrations. Kids who normally have no interest in mom suddenly have important information to convey. If I snap that I’m in the middle of something, I’m beset by guilt moments later. If I drop work and engage, likewise. The kitchen table office just isn’t working that well, but that’s where I work most of the time.

Friends are more understanding when the reply is “busy working.” It was always more tempting to hang out with friends than with parents as a kid. Some things don’t change. The family reconvenes at dinner and night time, but as an adult, it is more difficult to find friend time.

The temptation to spend time with a friend who also leads a semi-solitary creative life writing, composing music, creating art, as a university professor, or running a business from home is always there. Yet we almost always resist. We all work, or at least attempt to work, more than do those who “go” to work. We simply never finish because we have allowed ourselves the dubious luxury of doing the dishes or laundry, or the definite luxury of reading or listening to music for pleasure and because we have the kind of work that is never done. Like parenting.

The lettuce is wilting again though I watered it twice yesterday. It is so hot and sunny that I must hang out the laundry to bake rather than using the dryer. Be right back!

Two friends texted me about swimming in our community pool yesterday. Lap-swimming is hardly the most social occupation, but playing chicken is strictly forbidden at our public pool, so we have a hasty exchange or wave before or after we swim laps. Maybe this is my summer of learning more than a back dive! At 6:15 yesterday, I missed one friend who came & left a little earlier. The other–a swimmer, as opposed to someone who can swim–was swimming when I arrived and still swimming when I climbed out. We did catch up on a few things while rinsing off in the locker room.

Today our glorious Olympic-sized pool and diving well both open for the first weekend of summer. Not only will I bring goggles, cap, and lap suit, but a beach towel, sunglasses, snack, phone, earbuds, & a book. But what I really plan to do is unabashedly hang out and play. The time has come to rouse my inner child. I hope my friends can come out and play, too! Still undecided about working on those bikini lines :/)

Draw the Circle Cozy and Close

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Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts (Wiki Commons)

Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts (Wiki Commons)

“I have traveled extensively in Concord, Massachusetts.” –Henry David Thoreau

This is the first of his birthdays since May 29, 1930 that my father will not himself be present to celebrate. We are having another memorial of sorts. How fitting that his birthday often falls on Memorial Day. Though not a Jewish family–or so we have been led to believe–we have borrowed and slightly altered a Jewish tradition: We light candles next to a photo of our family members on the days of their birth, rather than the day of their passing. We borrow, in slightly altered form, the yahrzeit candle tradition of reverence and love.

Today I lit a candle by a photo of my parents together, earnestly hoping (“very superstitious,” I know) that this would bring no harm to my healthy, youthful mother. No sooner had I left the house, than I remembered that I had turned off every light at home, but forgotten to blow out the candle. Ironically, I was with a friend who lost her home to a house fire caused by a similar seemingly harmless act. We had a quick whispered discussion, and decided that since it was a tea light in a tea light holder, my home was probably safe for a short while.

I have been sleepless and obsessed, searching through photos of my father to bring to our family dinner tonight. It hasn’t been easy. I have no photo quality printer at home, and have no printed photos from later than the year 2004. My hope was to find one of him with each of his two children and five grandchildren. Almost every photo of my father is with my mother. He was not only a faithful, but an adoring, husband. Perhaps he took his adoration to an extreme, but my mother never minded. Nor did she complain about the last six years of being homebound with him. Though exhausted and sad, she did not even complain much about the weeks in surgical suites, months visiting a rehabilitation center, and finally, long days in the hospital room. At the very end, she crept into his hospital bed and sang him to sleep.

My father was a fortunate man, who had no need to look far for happiness and pleasure. The little goslings wandering across a field were his great joy while in the rehabilitation center. At home he loved “all creatures great and small.” He was overjoyed by the sight of birds at the feeder and even the (pesky!) deer eating the farmer’s crops and my mother’s flowers.

One of his best friends took his family on a sailing trip with an unknown destination and ended up in Tahiti for seven years. My father was quite content navigating his small sailboat back and forth across the lake closest to his home town. The world around him, the people with whom he lived and worked, were sufficient. A professor by profession, a devoted reader–especially to his children when they were small–a musician in earlier years, and music aficionado later, and lover and learner of foreign languages, he was content with a drawing his circle close.

When we were small, my father read great works of poetry and literature to us. Small-minded he was not. The literary works to which he introduced us were mostly selected according to his age and gender, so I became quite familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling,and Charles Dickens as a child. My brother’s favorite was Edgar Allen Poe. But I was also treated to Alice in Wonderland and My Secret Garden. It was my pleasure, later in life, to introduce him to The Chronicles of Narnia, and his favorite, A Wrinkle in Time.

If not visionary, my father was kind. If not entirely able to understand a growing and grown daughter, he was encouraging of her endeavors. Though he did not read his mother’s Bible, I have read it “in part.” And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity (Corinthians 13:13, KJV). Though unengaged in the maneuvers of “principalities and powers” (Romans 8:38), he embodied the values of faith, hope, and charity in his actions towards those close to him.

The poems from the Wind in the Willows were among our favorites when I was little. Ratty’s “Ducks’ Ditty,”with “Ducks’ Tails, Drakes Tails, Yellow feet a-quiver” was a special favorite. Just now, I looked up to see a rabbit slowly, casually hopping by. While I am a bit concerned that Cottontail is hopping around my one unfenced garden bed, father would have been delighted to see the little creature.

Slim Pickings: No Overthinking

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The solar panel is not for sale!

Yesterday, Memorial Day, those at home–two young adults and two less young adults–rolled out of bed fairly late, just before 9am. It was yard sale day and time for the gleaning of salable goods to begin. The lack of planning ahead didn’t bother me at all. Who needs over-anxious bargain hunters–known in garage sale parlance as “early birds”–pounding on the door at 6am?! It was a lovely day for their garage sale. Happy because spontaneity obviates overthinking, I got right to work helping to collect appropriate personal and household items.

This was a morning of the constantly misplaced tea cup. No easing into the day with a cup of tea and book or newspaper on the front porch. Tables on which to display items were dragged up from the basement; blankets and tablecloths on which to display other items covered tables and were spread on the lawn. The clothes line never materialized, so the clothing was not optimally displayed. It turns out that people do not look at dresses hanging from tree branches. A rejected shoe rack was a late find. The shoes might have received more attention had that been unearthed sooner. Unlike when we had garage sales in California, no one asked whether we had any swords or weapons to sell. The multi-tool offered for sale does have a small knife and was one of the first items to sell.

There was a small flurry of late morning activity, and then things slowed down. We made and served brunch al fresco. When no new customers stopped by for a fairly long stretch, the yard-salers became a bit grumpy. The parent who had discouraged this enterprise from the beginning shared the information that yard sales were best advertised in advance. The professionals would be out bright and early with a well-planned itinerary, quickly scanning each sale for collectibles & items with resale value. Then the older sibling came around to do some bike repair and to protect his property–no selling that solar panel! He also offered sage advice: garage sales should be held on Saturdays. The garage sale hosts were off on a camping trip in another part of the state on Saturday, and very vague about the date and time or their return, so I gave no thought to planning ahead. This yard sale was either going to be a last-minute affair or not take place at all. Whatever the results, I thought it would be a “learning experience” for all, and that the birthday beneficiary of its proceeds would appreciate the effort.

Fortunately a second sortie of shoppers came by. Had they attended Memorial Day ceremonies or parades earlier? Were they finally free to sort through “one man’s trash” in search of elusive treasures? The latecomers were probably adhering to a different tradition within garage sale culture: Arrive late and the sellers will be very ready to bargain. Or maybe some of the handmade signs, belatedly posted at the top of a busy through street, directed traffic their way.

While it wasn’t a huge financial success, there is enough net profit to purchase a nice birthday gift. It was gratifying to see what grew to be a group of four working hard together–not a born salesperson in the group–and achieving some success through persistence. When the action was slow, they lounged in comfortable lawn chairs, listening to the Grateful Dead. The music was played on a portable iPod player powered by older brother’s single solar panel.

It is always fun to meet and greet neighbors as well as strangers passing through at tag sales. Having sold thousands of boxes of Girl Scout cookies and lots of wrapping paper, tubs of ice cream, frozen cookie dough and pizzas, it was rewarding to finally be a minor role-player in fundraising. Maybe the time-honored lemonade stand would have been a good addition, but isn’t the unwritten upper age limit on lemonade stands middle school? And who really wants powdered lemonade? We were spoiled by years of lemonade made from freshly-picked lemons. It is unlikely that our customers followed us east, but I personally can’t work up much enthusiasm for the sugary sweet stuff. If there is a next time, I think a chai and coffee stand might be a respectable addition and traffic-stopper for this older group of kids.

I’m not convinced that more lucrative is that important to them. Staunch environmentalists all, they would have been happy to see more of their outgrown clothing reused. They have not asked for my advice, but does anyone have suggestions for their next garage sale?

Dear Resistant Gardener

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Fothergilla Mt. Airy courtesty of Wiki Commons

Fothergilla Mt. Airy courtesy of Wiki Commons

What a funny banner ad in Gmail. Oh…it actually read “Deer Resistant Gardens.” So, there are simple solutions to cope with the deer, but what are we going to do about gardeners like me? There really are things growing in my garden. I catch Peter, or possibly Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail with nose pressed up against the netting wound around the raised beds both morning and evening. Still, I remain convinced that this is a secret society, that everyone else is gardening the “right” way, and I am going about it all wrong.

What vegetable should I plant next? Should I pull the ferns that are growing among the hydrangea out? The hydrangea do seem to be deer and rabbit resistant, as there they are, soon ready to bloom. The ferns are pretty, but it seems to me that they are choking the hydrangea. And I am beset by bigger questions: are any of these things native plants? Shouldn’t I be planting native plants?

Yes, I am a classic overthinker (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=overthinker.)

Seeds better not be RoundUp Ready, or they are not welcome in my garden. In that case, I prefer the dandelions and clover. Isn’t there a clever scientist out there who will defeat the evil Monsanto empire by making a RoundUp ready dandelion and spreading it, helter-skelter, everywhere? That could spell the end of RoundUp! After much consternation and Googling, I have determined that Burpee is still a family owned seed company based in Philadelphia. The two pots of Burpee bell peppers purchased for planting in the garden are, therefore, “ethical” bell peppers, non-GMO, and not RoundUp ready.

The time has come to stop thinking, be happy with my spring crop, soon ready for harvest, and start planting a summer crop. Not only do we have rich compost from our own yard waste and plant matter, but compost from our town’s compost program. We give them revolting stuff, almost any conceivable organic (carbon-based) matter and we have now had rich, black compost returned to us, filling our last, waiting garden box, to the brim.

Thankfully, we have a doer as well as a thinker in the family. A Fothagilla Mt. Airy shrub now festoons the front border. The Fothagilla is a native plant–a native southeastern plant, and we are in the Mid-Atlantic region–but I am no longer resisting. The climate here is not that different from that of Georgia is it? Now I hope our Fothagilla Mt. Airy survives to show its resplendent fall foliage.

Northern Lights Blackout

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Subway Station of Husby, Stockholm Suburbs, Wiki Commons

Subway Station of Husby, Stockholm Suburbs, Wiki Commons

Sweet little Sweden is showing its dark side to the world. Swedish riots are currently chaotic, destructive, but not yet deadly. According to television, radio and newspaper media sources rioters are primarily youth born themselves born abroad or to immigrant parents. (The largest immigrant populations in Sweden are from the other Nordic and European countries, but it does not appear that Danes and Norwegians are currently being held accountable.) Counter-demonstrations, against violence, are also being held.

Sweden’s inhabitants are 15% foreign-born. Whether that statistic includes those of other Nordic lands is not made explicit in news sources I consulted today. When last in Sweden, I had  conversation with a woman I will call Anna-Lisa. I was visiting Stockholm and Gothenburg, Sweden’s two largest cities, on that visit, but not Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city. Anna-Lisa informed me that I “would not recognize” Malmö because there were so many Muslims on the streets. Those who do not practice Islam, feel oppressed by being labeled and identified with oppressive regimes–in Iran and lraq among others–that they have fled.

Anna-Lisa went on to say that “these people” don’t blend in well in Swedish society. They live in the same neighborhoods and their children attend the same schools. I replied that we have similar issues in the U.S. and that areas in which most residents are of a single, minority race, and are impoverished, were formerly referred to with the harsh, pejorative terms “ghettos” or “slums.” We now use euphemisms and speak of “urban blight” and the “urban poor,” along with “urban violence.” We are no longer blaming the victims, but we are also not taking any blame upon ourselves. Anna-Lisa vehemently objected, reiterating that “these people” choose their lifestyle. I wonder whether people actively “choose” the unemployment that is far higher among immigrants to Sweden than it is among native Swedes.

Southern Sweden, close to Denmark–which has a less liberal immigration and asylum policy than does Sweden–is also the area in which the Sweden Democrats first gained traction. There is now a growing backlash against immigrants in Sweden, fomented by this single-issue anti-immigrant party (sverigedemokraterna.se). The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats are not to be confused with the Swedish Social Democrats, the left-of-center party which had long led the ruling coalitions in Sweden until losing power in 2006 and again in 2010. (socialdemokraterna.se ).

Xenophobia is certainly not confined to Southern Sweden, nor to Sweden alone. Anti-immigrant parties exist,and are beginning to thrive, in other European countries as well. The “True Finns” are but one example. These parties seeks to propagate the myth of ethnic purity. That sounds familiar and very dangerous, does it not?

I recently visited Uppsala, which I am surprised to learn is now Sweden’s fourth largest city. Uppsala feels like the university town it is, but not like the city it has apparently grown to be since my last visit. In short, while by all accounts Swedes remain among the most contented people in the world, life in Sweden is changing.

A Luddite’s Lament: Doomsday Books

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in the style of e.e. cummmings:

doomsday books

when the number 2 pencils are sharpened,

the yellow pads spring sprightly to attention

ready to receive homage in leaden latin characters,

not characters produced with digital code, but analog.

analogously, alone, the writer, typing or writing,

threading by memory that fall day when the bicycle was blue and

the boy shook his hair back out of his eyes

while the girl held on & thought, maybe,

she had discovered love.

the three-hole punch is at the ready; the swingline stapler standing by its side,

while on the turntable neil young sings songs of remorse,

remorse, regret, reform, refrain

down by the river country girl.

the library’s hints and smells of bygone years

pages crinkled

crumpled

crisp

the dust

of ages, of pages, of time past, time forgotten, time imagined

time travel

time and again

doomsday

books.

–Circe

(I acknowledge my debt to Connie Willis author of Doomsday Book, published in 1993, and to Jack Finney author of Time and Again, published in 1970. Also Neil Young and Crazy Horse and Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, and for Neil Young’s songs “Down by the River” on Everybody Knows this is Nowhere and “Country Girl” on CSNY’s Déjà Vu.)