hey, i said "shhhhhushhhh!"

After a pleasant day at the Fort Frederick 18th Century Market Fair, up Indian Springs, Big Pool way, gawking at sutlers' wares and costumed French and Indian War reenactors, my father took me to closing night of the Silver Spring Stage production of Peter Morgan's play Frost/Nixon, directed by Kevin O'Connell. It was an excellent production marred only by the audience. I don't really want to belabor the faults of the many people around me and recount my several related bon mots, which, while clever, would not show me in any better light than all those bourgeois cretins.

But it bears noting that, in a setting where all already are agreed that making voluntary noises is disruptive and disrespectful of the performers and audience if not downright antisocially rude, and one party in that audience seems to have forgotten this or to have other priorities for a moment, those among the erstwhile silently attentive righteous who would make noises in order to correct the offender's behavior are no help at all. This, though, is standard: Someone will whisper or mutter to the person next to them, and two or three people will shush at that person.

the word for the savages

every People call themselves “the People”
we are the People they say and can’t believe they
call themselves “the People” too, instead of something
more descriptively true, like the primitives or the savages.

the Language of the People lacked the word for
people-who-are-not-people-as-much-as-we-are-people
until a foreign word meaning in its foreign tongue
“the People” was adopted for that purpose.

with phalanges like these . . .

big trouble

20-something latin american guy wearing an athletic jersey and a red backpack, with short hair and a string of faceted glass beads hanging over a tattoo of the name elvira on his breast bone approached me at the bus stop to ask for a cigarette. i had a shoulder bag and a duffel, and roll my own cigarettes from loose tobacco, which i carry in a pouch with papers in my pocket, so the one i was smoking at the moment i had rolled back in the apartment before pocketing the gear and carrying the bags out to the bus stop.

i didn't have any at hand to offer but the one i was smoking; i offered it. he looked at it a little skeptically, "no marijuana?"

"not marijuana," i told him and he took it.

he wanted to both walk away and stay and talk and tried to do both. "are you some sort of professor or something - you look like a professor?"

"no. i am an underemployed attorney."

the way he wanted to both stay talking and leave reminded me of some situation in which it has seemed that a person was trying to decide whether i was an easy target or not. i am ambiguous. he repeated "attorney" like it was a new word; i wondered whether to say "abogado" but just repeated "attorney" with him.

"you are not the pilot who deported my brother, are you?"

"no."

"you look like a traveler." then, with a sequence of expressions that i cannot duplicate i think he told me about his brother . . .

he seemed to say that his brother had been arrested - "got in a lot of trouble" - for discharging a firearm "over there" - he gestured to the area surrounding the front of my apartment building, "do you see that a/c unit?" he certainly seemed to gesture to the courtyard of my building, then suggested that his brother had shot at it (i pictured my own a/c unit, half-way out my bedroom window). then he hastened to comfort me - "not at any person, no -" he mimed shifting his aim from me up into the air, at about the right angle to send a bullet through my window and into my ceiling. but i was aware of no such bullets in my decade in the unit. there have been some gunshots in that time.

anyway, i said, "he got deported for that?"

"bad trouble! that's what he did," miming again, "blah! blah-blah! blah! big trouble!" then he suggested, i think, that he and his brother were involved in a crew, and that it was leading to big trouble: "i should stop hanging with that crew," he said, and finally wandered off . . . into the courtyard of my building - as though he were a tenant or visitor intent on entering - and out of my sight, for a while, during which i wondered whether he lived in the building, or visited regularly, or had any association of which i ought already to be aware. i also wondered briefly whether the brother he mentioned was that homeless man squatting in the stairwell whom the tenants association had had barred and then arrested, before he came back back down the courtyard steps and, apparently talking to those whom he passed, continued on down the street.

if only there were a way to find out

When we came to a factual dispute among our many long conversations, as a good friend and I do as regularly as we get together, we used to wager one six-pack of beer -- which party's preference controlled the particular type of beer may, at times, have been part of the wager, too, but I recall a six-pack of budweiser as the standard, like that kilogram in France.

Sometimes one of us would win, sometimes the other. It didn't matter, for we meant to drink that six-pack together; in such cases the purpose of the bet was served: to provide the occasion for more conversation to spawn fresh dispute generating new bets and so still more fora for more discussion debate dispute wager beer and . . . research (. . . and so on)!

But, as often as not, dear reader, it would turn out that our question was poorly phrased, which is to say that the point upon which our dispute had arisen represented our shared (or divergent) error with respect to or mutual ignorance of the subject at hand.

'k bye!

Once, a woman I had been seeing long enough to breach some of our cultural body taboos called me while I was studying. “Hi,” she said. “How are you?”

There were several volleys of the basic small talk exchange formula, then another salvo was voiced, with a change in tone that made my hair stand up, made my solar plexus sink in alarm: “What are you doing?”

By syntax, this should be just normal “fine, thanks, and you?” territory, but something in her tone made me stand up and go to the window of my darkened bedroom, replying “reading,” as I walked. Maybe it was the sound of traffic outside my window, faintly audible in delayed stereo over the phone line.

Straight out of film noir, I stood to the edge of the window, out of the wash of light and line of sight of the street, and kinked sufficient space in one of the plastic venetian slats to peer through.

“I see you,” I told her, “or, rather, your car.”

lectures from Radio New Zeland!

A modest sampling:

Galileo Lectures - The mystery of the first stars

Brainstorm Interviews - Neuromancing

Smart Talk Panel Discussions - Innovation and (Economy, Food, Education)

Talking Heads Lectures - Language, Memory, Continuity

Darwin Lectures - The storytelling ape

E = mc² Lectures - Einstein

Martin Lord Rees' view of the impending future

Sir Paul Nurse discusses two notions of creavolution

and a lot more! Listen listen listen, learn learn learn.

(see also)

Separately, in other news, Thomas Breuer says nuclear power is not compatible with democracy, insofar as democracy requires open societies, which, in turn, cannot provide the level of security that the magnitude of the uninsurable risk presented by operation of a nuclear reactor demands, while Michio Kaku seems to get a little . . . schadenfreude-y . . . whilst predicting doom (and hawking his new book of near futurism).

fun with the bratii and antihumor

cast: E__ - 12; P__ - 11 ; K__ - 9(ish?); S__ - 6(ish?); J__ - 9 mo.

Fun with the bratii was had this year on two occasions while they stayed with their parents at my parents' house this holiday. On Sunday, Xmas day observed, J__ and I met, discovering many common facial expressions, vocalizations and gross gestures. We communicated a lot, saying who knows what but apparently enjoying it. By today - when my sister hosted a new year's eve party at our parents' house for whoever on her huge mailing list was in town (as it turned out, not too many, but with a bevy of additional kids) and available for 9 hours - J__ was comfortable enough with me to grab my fingers to pull herself upright. And comfortable enough standing there with my fingers to permit her mother to fetch a camera and then actually mug for the shot. Then, as her mother turned away, she decided to let go with all of her hands at the same time. I fleetingly imagined the scenario in which, at my touch and out of the view of her parents, J__ should first stand, and then take her first steps, right then/there! So, out of consideration for my sister, I pushed her over and told her never to trust anybody, and her mother came over disapprovingly to stop the crying jag. Seriously, I did not push her over. I did experience the fantasy developmental milestone scenario. But, in fact, when J__ let go, she was not properly balanced. I had been trying to keep one finger in her no longer grasping hand, and was not ready for her to fall, but did manage to, not particularly gently, catch her. We were both surprised by that too.

associates' choir list

Q: who is the composer whose work you're working through in choir?

A: We're working our way through "the Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems", Tudor being defined as roughly 1525-1625 - the 'golden age of English church music': Weelkes, Gibbons, Philips, Parsons, Byrd, Farrant, Tallis, Tomkins, Mundy, etc. Then "European Sacred Music" (1500--twentieth century non-English, mostly Latin and German): Bach, Brahms, Bruckner, Faure, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Monteverdi, Mozart, Palestrina, Rossini, Schubert, Stravinsky, Verdi, etc.
Very heavy music for this particular church. Why do you ask?

‘cooed,’ as Jake puts it: ‘Hi-i-i-i.’

“Hello?”

“Hi-i-i-i.”

“Oh, hi. I thought you were going to call back after your guest left.”

“He did.”

“So fast? It wasn’t five minutes ago.”

“Yeah.”

“Who was it?”

“Jake. Came by to hang out a little.”

“Was he just leaving?”

“Oh, well, you know, not, uh, really, on the one hand, while on the other, literal, hand, he was, in fact, just leaving, a few moments ago, before I called you back; and by now, he has gone.”

“Asshole. You know what I mean. Not before you called back, but when I called you.”

in the beginning the word

Tim: (crossing 16th street, addressing stranger crossing in the opposite direction) Have you read your bible today?

stranger: Actually, I have.

Tim: (stopping on the double yellow line, directly in the path of stranger, who turns as he continues walking past) What did you read?

stranger: (walking backwards, as Tim and Linda turn and follow stranger to the side of the road) Well, I skimmed through a whole bunch looking for a particular passage, and wound up reading the beginning of all the gospels.

Tim: What passage were you looking for?

stranger: I think it was the beginning of Mark or Luke, “in the beginning was the word and the word was god and yadda yadda yadda."

Tim: That’s the Gospel of John, “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with Go—“

stranger: Well, I guess it would have to be, wouldn’t it; if I read the beginning of all the gospels looking for it, it would have to be John.

Tim: You know, what’s interesting is that in the original Greek, the “Word” is not a word like we’re speaking in now, but the Logos.

stranger: Huh.

our mutual friend

yesterday she gave me the best gift anyone has in ages:

She turned to me and said,
"I'm taking a poll:
Do you think I'm a negative person?"

imagine my glee. my answer was "Oh, absolutely!"
and then she tried to argue with me,
and i produced and argued from evidence.

at my consent

Dear Norm,

You exist only with my consent and
only to protect me from tyranny on terra.
A document codifying this relation
(and highly celebrated in this nation)
sets out the obligations of your post.
Some have said the Constitution
protects rights of Citizens, and
this is true too, but derivatively:
what the Constitution protects, Norm,
is your job, so long as you agents
faithfully see to your duties.

This is to inform you that lately
your work has been slipping. Until
further notice you are on probation:
Before returning to your duties
please REREAD the entire Employee
Manual and Code of Conduct and
schedule a meeting with your supervisor
(that's right: We, the People!) for
the qualifying exam, and if you pass
to reaffirm your oaths of office.

What we would like to see from you
moving forward is a greater resolve
in adhering to the letter the spirit
and the principle of those documents.
In addition, you will be required
to rectify recent egregious errors
committed with respect to several
specific articles enumerated therein.
Your continued government here is
contingent upon your satisfactory
completion of these obligations.

Dubiously,

Anne Archer

angel & the kaffiyeh

Dear Norm —

Angel, who lives next door
to my mother, asked me whether I am not too scared
to wear a beard and my kaffiyeh, these days, openly
as she warns her sons against.

I turned my blue eyes on her and said, "No."

"I tell my sons" — the veteran and
the hot-rodder — "they better not."

My mother did not understand.

Angel — you remember Angel, Norm, my brother,
the lieutenant, called your tips line that time
Washington trembled under the sniper threat, thinking
her husband has a white hardware van
with a ladder to the roof, and neither
distinguishing "arab" from Persian

(as some Americans sometimes may not),

nor knowing they are Christians like him,
not that knowledge of their putative religion
— (can arabs even be Christians, Norm?) —
would have allayed his dutiful suspicion,
but they all turned out not to be the snipers.
That time.
Norm, you recall
the American reservist and the Jamaican runaway, right?
You recall Angel, Norm — she

allowed, to my mother, as how the kaffiyeh
— my jihadi scarf — when worn by an arab,
or a person indistinguishable from an arab
to the untrained glance, might be regarded as
a political expression (more than fashion statement
or practical cold-weather apparel) of solidarity
with certain arab children with rocks, and, maybe,
met with hostility
in isolated pockets of American civilization,

so that Angel
fears for her sons’ safety
here, in the capital’s suburb.

I told them both that the photos of arrested protesters
being led away from last year’s inaugural clashes showed
the plainclothes arresting officer to be

a big blue-eyed white man in a knit cap,
a baggy, olive-drab jacket, levis, and a kaffiyeh,
just like me,

so, if I were to be mistaken for anything,
it would probably be a cop or a spy;
but they were not mollified.

you're asking what, exactly?

Do you believe in the bible boy?

What?

I said Do you believe in the bible boy?

Are you asking whether I think that book you’re shaking in my face is the bible or –?

The bible – the bible! Do you believe in the bible boy?

By the bible boy do I correctly understand you to denote Jesus who is known as the Christ, or is there some other bible boy, perhaps a tent revivalist, comic book superhero, or local cable televangelist?

some qualification

“Do you think I’m shallow?”

“[a pause] With some qualification.”

“[a pause] That didn’t make me feel very good.”

“[a pause] Did you ask the question expecting my answer to make you feel good?”

“No, but [a pause] You’re an asshole.”

“Yes [a pause] with some qualification.”

“Without qualification, asshole!”

“OK.”

nah-uh!

everybody i talk to encourages me to agree with some combination of words they have strung together and voiced. the topic does not matter, it is my agreement that matters. it could be an articulation about abstractions like the weather, the economy, the conservatives or conservationists; it could be an exposition of some sort with a conclusion or moral, about how that jerk who parked too close to my car got his comeuppance or why inviting jesus into my heart is the right thing to do. the topic does not matter. agreement with the assertion, and thereby validation of the speaker vis-à-vis me, the listener, matters.

it is a handshake for people who have left their clubs, knives and flintlocks with their hide clothing in favor of abstracted aggression under the finer veneer of language.

confession: a one-party dialog

ASP: Bless me Norm, for I have been suspicious.


Norm (behind a screen): . . .


ASP: Norm, I have been suspicious. Suspicious.
Oh! I have acted suspiciously, sinfully
harbored suspicious thoughts. Bless me.


Norm (behind a screen): . . .


ASP: I have tinkered with tools at night
behind drawn curtains, burning the lights.
I have watched my neighbors, immigrants
all, through that one bent venetian slat.
Norm, I have stopped my car on the median
to take photographs, and eyed those eight
men in the minivan who may have been
changing a tire. Bless me Norm.


Norm (behind a screen): . . .

Fed FOP cold call

Dear Norm,

A woman called me today. She said that she was trying
to raise money from good citizens who want to stand behind
federal police officers under Homeland Security.

When I told her that I was great and asked how was she,
she said nobody ever asks her that. Maybe because of the
delay in the computer dialer, I advised she not take it

personally. She read the pitch and I let her.
Donations for the federal police F.O.P. who are the front line
and critical corps of Homeland Security. Do I want to be safe?

the HSA blimp

Dear Norm,

You didn’t believe me when I reported the black helicopters, even when their spotlights bathed your own cars on the commute, hovering in the sun while the trees writhed. You suspected I was intoxicated or embellishing when I reported the very bright very quick, crackling, rushing away early one morning as I took the parkway past the C.I.A. I probably did not even tell you how

strange things levitate over the Interstate ‘tween Shreeveport and South Shriver,
where the blazing skies have dazzled the eyes of many a Sunday driver,

so absurdly, so stupidly, unremarkably familiar were those two enormous cake molds, separated by a shadowy grille, dwarfing the strip mall’s garden of glittering industrial lampposts, and the lamps of the interstate, dwarfing those incredibly tall signs gas stations sometimes use so you can see them before the exit lane over the tree line as you rocket down the high. You wouldn’t have believed me; I tried not to believe me and tried not to look at cakes being baked, and learned self-cynical oblivion.