ironicisms

Poetry
Is easy, like cake, or whores,
Except not like cake, more like
The frosting or the roses
Pretending to be frosting, that sweeten
and sour --
Or something like that.
I don't actually know much
About whores.

Experience
Is tripe. As if Emily Dickinson
Had to go anywhere
And Hemingway died in his bed.

this poem is new and out of season

I was trying to think of something to say about magic squares at the first day of science camp, but I got distracted. So a poem popped out instead (so it IS like magic . . . kind of). At any rate, for lots of nifty arithmetic, check out the wikipedia page on magic squares. Also included are magic turtles, Roman deities, and crazy Germans. You might even like it.

Please don't judge my poem too much, since I don't claim to be good at this. Suggestions are welcome. I already dislike lines 2 and 3 more than the rest.

TS

Virgin Winter

Fledgling snow whirls drowsily,

Polarized jumble knocked from full-nest sky,

And breaks with the morning,

Glistens brightly, forms white transparencies

Fractured over aspirations,

Jettisoned upon those dark strands.

Such vagrant adolescence

Hopestruck and enveloped in her rising,

Her dancing, brighting eyes.

Drivers, Kittens, and Thieves: Our Modern Life

Well. First off all, despite the post title, this post has nothing to do with Rocko. Sad, I know. It may trend that direction as time goes on. Why? Well. It turns out graduating from college has left me with no pressing creative or academic demands and more time than I know what to do with. So, of course, it's back to the blog that I made once in a fit of irrationality -- and never posted to again -- because, well . . . why not?

This is an essay I wrote in the fall (2010), now a memoriam for the house I no longer live in, if you will. I'll be posting thoughts, essays, stories (if I ever finish one), and poetry (if I ever like one) as the mood strikes me (frequently, I hope). For now -- a slight tirade against modern egapathy (I just made that word up, and I did not use it in the essay itself. That said -- I like it.). The poem is a recent addition, since the essay made me think of it.

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
-- Talking In Bed, Philip Larkin

How My Cat Was Sold On the Internet

(and related musings from the road)

The small campus of Hillsdale College lies just outside the downtown area of the small town of Hillsdale, which itself lies within the small county of Hillsdale – which, perhaps merely to break the trend, lies in the very average sized state of Michigan. In any case, my apartment is perhaps 200 yards away from that small campus, and between my front door and the first set of classroom buildings lies exactly one road. So one might make the assumption that my walk to class each morning passes without any incident, at least most of the time. So I assumed, at least, when I signed the rental agreement: it's not as though I am trying to cross a street in New York or Bombay. Unfortunately (and to my great displeasure), in making this assumption I was terribly wrong.

To frame the problem mathematically: the nearest intersection of major roads to my point of crossing is approximately 120 steps to the east, and it takes me (approximately) 10 steps to cross from my sidewalk to the sidewalk on the opposite side, going north. Given my experience hiking, I know that when walking to class, I am traveling at an average rate of 3.5 miles per hour. So if distance equals rate times time, and we measure distance in steps covered, then my ratio of steps covered to rate of speed is .35. Almost daily, however, there is a car pulling across the intersection and towards my crossing point as I step out into the street, and almost daily there is very little distance between me and that car by the time I reach the opposite side. Which is only to say, applying my ratio above (where our time of travel is approximately equal), the car in question must be traveling at an average speed of 42 miles per hour across those 120 steps – though the sign clearly says 25.

This is frustrating for a number of reasons, and not included among these reasons is the simple fact of law. I, too, am known to drive ten miles over the speed limit, especially on the highway. I am not a backyard cop, nor am I some kind of legalistic whistle-blower. I am, however, someone who appreciates being able to cross the street without fearing for my extremities, someone who does not appreciate being sprayed by standing water during the wet part of the year, and – perhaps most importantly – someone who does not appreciate dirty looks when I am clearly doing nothing wrong. By all means, drive 45 miles an hour in a 25 zone, but don't start shaking fingers at me and honking your horn when you have to slow down so that I can finish crossing the street in safety, if not without discomfort. As far as I can tell, this is a reasonable agreement, if you are aware of the basic terms.

For the most part, then, it seems as though the most logical explanation for the average speed of cars on this road is a kind of illiteracy – an inability to contextualize the statement “SPEED LIMIT” and the two digit number “25”. It is a simple application of Ockham's Razor, and the most charitable I can imagine: drivers around the intersection of College Street and Manning Street at the entrance to Hillsdale College simply cannot read the signs, and are therefore unaware of the rules. They cannot help but find me a nuisance, an interruption of their all-too-proper driving protocol. According to their standards, I am showing great discourtesy, even as they are making the same transgression according to mine. I should feel obligated, in the context of charity, to forgive them their various offenses if they were, in the most literal sense, idiots. We are speaking different languages: I am the sea and they are the wind.

And yet. All of these people operating vehicles are driving around a college campus, and so it is safe to assume that a large number of them are students of the college. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a population of young men and women uniformly expected to understand The Odyssey and Hamlet would be unable to interpret such simple words as “speed” and “limit.” They know the language as well as I do, and they are certainly not idiots – though their driving is particularly marked by occasions of both sound and fury. Ockham's Razor fails to explain this phenomenon, and my efforts toward charity prove themselves to be misplaced. Fully willing to concede an average (or even above-average) level of intelligence, then, I am still left with a sort of dilemma: why am I standing on the other side of the road, wet and out of breath after scampering away from yet another vehicle hell-bent on starting my morning with an uncomfortable rush? And why in the name of all that is good and beautiful are they the ones angry at me?

In order to answer that question, I choose only to observe the egocentric nature of people today – of whom these drivers are but a sample. It is a symptom of a culture which does not understand the underlying notions of courtesy and discourtesy – notions which provide any culture’s very foundation. In the drivers' eyes, I am at fault, if only because I am me, and they are them, and I am not. My existence as a person, to whom some deference might be shown, never comes up as a blip on their XM radar: I am but a chunk of flesh in the way of their morning destiny, a fly in their double-espresso, grande, two cream no sugar, shot of vanilla flavoring, Costa Rican blend Starbucks coffee supreme. Once again – I am not.

I don't mean to indict anyone in particular, certainly no specific drivers residing in the town of Hillsdale near Hillsdale College in Hillsdale County, Michigan. Much to the contrary, my first goal here was and still is to be charitable – lest I fall into the very habit of mind that I now criticize. I am, however, concerned with the common notion that their arrival to work within thirty seconds of their intended time-frame is vastly more important than my safe conduct across one street. Which is not to say that I consider my being on time more important than their being on time – or my comfort more important than their punctuality – but that it is possible to live in a world where we both are on time, and neither one of us is wet, out of breath, or angry. I concede, in my scampering, their human desire to avoid humiliation and tardiness; I only ask the same in return. It is not the actual event that bothers me – people are waterproof, clothes are washable, and if I have to run too fast, I know where I can find Gatorade. It is rather the thought, or lack thereof, which causes the event in the first place that leaves me a bit unsettled.

I am only observing the trend – that common courtesy has somehow become uncommon, lost in the great expanse of camera-phones, American Apparel brand, “Coexist” bumper stickers, Coldplay t-shirts and automated iPod dispensers. It seems we are quickly forgetting what it means to be considerate, becoming increasingly unaware of persons outside our individual selves.

A slight divergence, but an appropriate story nonetheless: three years ago (2007), after a summer spent working at Boy Scout camp, I returned home to find that one of my neighbors had sold my cat on the internet.

From her perspective, the action appeared perfectly rational: she had found the cat wandering through her yard and wanted to find a home for it. Through a popular animal adoption forum, she quickly contacted a new owner in my area, and the deal was made. There was no longer a cat in her yard, she had found it an owner, and all was well with her world. For my neighbor, there was no longer any problem. Yet it seems such a small request to ask that, before driving the cat to a home 15 miles away, she ask her closest neighbors if they were missing a cat, or if they knew who someone who was. (Since we live on adjacent parcels of land ranging from two to five acres, she would have to make maybe five phone calls, a walk less than 200 yards down a few homely country lanes). For her, the result would have been the same: the cat having a home, her not having a cat. For us, her immediate resolve to eschew real human contact made all the difference: my mother still has not allowed my father to get her a new cat.

Perhaps my neighbor did not do anything particularly wrong – there was no moral or legal transgression in her finding a home for a lost domestic animal – but she did not do anything right or good either. It never crossed her mind to ask her neighbors if they were missing a cat; the idea of being considerate, of having what was once called common courtesy, never once crossed her mind. She was, like so many people today, living by the lowest standard of perceived obligation. She was content to be a neutral.

What I am suggesting, then, is that many frustrations, insults, lawsuits, and cat-nappings are caused less by a culture intent on rudeness, but rather by a cultural inability to define itself as anything other than not wrong, not bad, not untrue. Everyone wants everyone else to know one simple thing: “I am not a bad person.” But what a way to define oneself – not by the potential for good, but the absence of a potential for evil! We are encouraging each other not to desire to excel in our existence as human beings, and our goods are becoming not merely opposite, but defined in terms of our evils. We recognize charity because it is not theft. The foundation of our collective morality – and thus legality, community, and thereby culture – has become, in every sense, a negation.

Maybe, I should think, instead of honking and four letter words, we should ask the guy on the side of the road if he needs a ride for the next couple miles – even if we know he will refuse. Maybe instead of trying to get rid of the cat, we might take care of it for a few days. But more importantly, we cannot forget that the guy on the side of the road is a person, just like ourselves, and that stray cats usually have owners, if not good ones. These people are, in fact, people. They exist. If you prick them, do they not bleed? To determine your relation to a complete stranger by the harm you do not do him – and the potential harm he does or does not do you – leaves us in a terrible place, one where cats are sold on the internet without even the slightest remorse. Perhaps we should consider a new perspective as we make our way across and down roads, asking not what we should not do to the guy on the side of the road, and asking what we can do for him.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was set upon by theives. They took his things, stripped him of his clothes, and went away. Some men walked by, causing him no harm, and went on their way. But a Samaritan saw the man, bandaged his wounds, and took him to the inn – all at his own expense. One of these men has been praised for generations, has been called a neighbor, and is known for his mercy; the others have been condemned since this story was first told. The question is not whether we can manage to abstain from intentionally causing others to suffer: the question is whether or not we will go and do likewise – and what we will become when our actions form an answer.