Sword Saints

Down with the wall

German class, sophomore year of high school. We watched, mesmerized, as giddy Germans shouted and danced and took pickaxes and hammers to the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall. That probably would have been a couple days after the momentous event that happened twenty years ago today, when the Berlin Wall crumbled, at least figuratively, and the Iron Curtain began to disintegrate. But I do remember watching the celebration right there in the classroom.

Six years ago we vacationed in Germany but did not make it to Berlin or any other parts of what had been East Germany. The sense we got, though, was that the reunification process was ongoing, somewhat painful, and very, very expensive. It was, and probably still is, a mixed bag.

And here we are, twenty years later. The twentieth anniversary has come and almost gone, and I've yet to see even a mention from any of our own government officials. That's hardly surprising, given our slow but inexorable slide toward the same type of system that built the Berlin Wall.

That wasn't the new heart I was looking for

The good news is that I slept deeply enough to dream last night. It was a weird one, a really long narrative compressed into what was probably a really short dream cycle. Some shadowy government agency was hunting me down for some reason unknown to me, all in breathless first person. Cut. The agents finally cornered me in a dark alley (of course), hit me with a tranquilizer gun, and dragged me in for interrogation. Cut. Several days later, it's gone third-person on me, and I'm watching my family receive and deal with the news of my death from clean-cut men in dark suits. Cut. Back to first-person, several weeks later, and I'm at my front door being welcomed back with tears and hysterics. I came to learn that I died during interrogation, but the men in black gave me a "new" heart that was leaky and defective in all kinds of ways and let me go. And so began the hunt for my original heart, just in time for my alarm to go off.

My takeaway from the dream: don't count on the government or any other human agency to give you a new heart. It's guaranteed to be defective.

Who knows, though, maybe I could figure out how to work the whole crazy thing into the plot of a story.

Life lessons from the undead

'Tis the season for zombies and vampires. I'm intrigued both by the ongoing cultural fascination with the undead and by the subtle shifts in perception of what were traditionally monsters. Vampires, in particular, have made the shift from horrifying and ugly monsters to dreamy angsty pretty-boys. I find that both annoying and troubling. (More on that here.)

It seems to me that both zombies and vampires reflect different facets of our cultural struggles. Zombies are always hungry but never satisfied; they are driven by instinct; they never rest; they are, in fact, consumed by their consumption. Theirs is an ultimately frustrating existence, and I think zombies might be a graphic portrayal of our (subconscious, perhaps) frustration with societal expectations, especially with respect to work and vocation.

Vampires, on the other hand, are symbols of sensuality and hedonism. Yes, they hunger, but they fill themselves and are satisfied, at least for a time, and usually accompanied by fabulously attractive and unaging companions. According to the Wikipedia entry for Vampire, "The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of sexuality and the perennial dread of mortality." That's hardly a surprise given our cultural youth-addiction and the ongoing pornification of, well, everything. Vampires are deathless hedonists. Of course they're popular.

The thing to remember, though, is that both zombies and vampires are dead creatures. Whatever life they have is merely a parody of true life. This is important when considering vampires, especially given the popularity of the Twilight saga and most other current vampire fare. Vampires (and zombies) are not characters to be emulated; they are monsters to be fought. What are monsters, after all, if not personifications of the evil in our hearts? We all have zombies and vampires in our lives, if we're honest enough to admit it. The question is, will we wage war against them? Or will we give in and be ruled by the hollow promise of undeath and reject life in all its fullness?

Wednesday haiku

Motivate myself,
and so learn to motivate
the lad and the lass.

Government doing as government does

I know a whole bunch of folk have their knickers in a wad about President Obama addressing elementary, middle school, and high school students next week. But come on. We're talking about government schools here. Is the education students are receiving politically unbiased throughout the rest of the school year? Really? And if not, why is it so upsetting that the chief executive of the United States government is going to address students in government schools? Please educate me, because it seems perfectly reasonable.

In the presence of the king

I've been slowly working my way through the Lord of the Rings books again and finally reached the last installment, The Return of the King. As I was reading, an exchange between Merry and Théoden hit me right between the eyes:

'I have a sword,' said Merry, climbing from his seat, and drawing from its black sheath a small bright blade. Filled suddenly with love for this old man, he knelt on one knee, and took his hand and kissed it. 'May I lay the sword of Meriadoc of the Shire on your lap, Théoden King?' he cried. 'Receive my service, if you will!'

'Gladly will I take it,' said the king; and laying his long old hands upon the brown hair of the hobbit, he blessed him. 'Rise now, Meriadoc, esquire of Rohan of the household of Meduseld!' he said. 'Take your sword and bear it unto good fortune!'

'As a father you shall be to me,' said Merry.

'For a little while,' said Théoden.

Tolkien wrote us a picture not just of the idea of a king, but of the swirling emotions that surround an encounter with the person of a king. Merry was from the Shire, which had no king. He probably knew as much about kings as we do, namely, what he'd heard from stories and tales and legends. Yet in spite of that lack of experiential knowledge he was overwhelmed by his emotional response and did the only thing he knew to do: pledge his entire self to this king. What an incredible metaphor that is for how I should respond in the presence of the King of kings.

Wednesday haiku

Reclaiming The Blade
turned my mind to my swords of
wood and the Spirit.

Wednesday haiku

The basic skills are
reading and writing and math,
except in Congress.

A novel idea

I love books, and I generally prefer something solid in my hand when I'm reading. The problem is, I can't always have the book in hand even when I have the time to read (say, when I'm giving the lass the last bottle of the night, or when I'm traveling and don't want to lug around an eight hundred page tome). In those situations, the Amazon Kindle app or the Stanza app on the iPhone are just about perfect. Compact, easy to carry, with enough light for me to read, but not enough light to wake up a sleeping baby. Perfect.

Now what would be even more perfect would be getting a digital download code for an electronic copy whenever I bought a book. Right now, if I want to read a digital copy of a book I own, I must purchase the digital copy separately. Even the movie studios have begun to bundle digital copies of movies (DRM-crippled though they may be) with DVDs.

So how about it, publishers? What I really want to buy is the author's story and words and ideas, and sometimes a brief switchover in format is awfully convenient. Or is there just too much money to be made selling the physical books and digital books separately?

Twelve

In the past twelve years, I have aged twelve years. Physically, at least.

In the past twelve years, I have lived in Atlanta for a little more than eleven of them.

In the past twelve years, I have been out of school for ten of them.

In the past twelve years, I have visited nine different countries. Eight if you don't count the one in which I live. Seven if you also don't count the one in which the only stop was at an airport.

In the past twelve years, I have lived in six different homes.

In the past twelve years, I have worked for five different companies and was laid off twice.

In the past twelve years, I have owned four automobiles. Three of them were Mazdas.

In the past twelve years, I have welcomed two children into the world, one of them on this very day.

The past twelve years would have been incomprehensible, nay, even impossible, apart from my one incredible, beautiful, talented, and loving bride. Happy twelfth anniversary to my incomparable Margo!