Lars, girls, and reality

I saw this movie about a week ago, and it made an impression. Yet one wonders whether it is worthwhile, appropriate, or necessary to write about it. Would it be a tragic loss to not chronicle a remarkable thing such as this movie or my reaction to it? It isn't new, up for awards, or part of the zeitgeist. I should see it a second time, because sometimes, like with "Broken English," I am so affected by seeing a movie once that I think it's better than it really is. But "Lars and the Real Girl" is something special, I swear.

"Lars" is a bit like the inverted reality of "Truman's World" but smaller, quieter, and both inverted and turned inside-out. No, it's not, it's the complete opposite of "Truman's World," but it works on some of the same planes. It tells the story of a man/boy whose circumscribed world is about to burst open in unpredictable ways. It lets the audience see inside the psyche of the character and witness his struggle with identity, especially in relation to other people, including whom he can trust, touch, and confide in.

But never mind the comparisons, this is an altogether different (and better) movie. The aesthetic leap for me was not just suspending my own disbelief in order to enter the world of the film but seeing the characters suspend their disbelief, cultural blinders, prejudices, common sense, fear, and logic to treat a fabrication as reality. Beyond pretending, they bought into the game.

Sorry to intellectualize it unnecessarily, but that's what art does, and that's what play does, and that's what friendship does. Every homo ludens wants someone to play with, to enter a magic circle where imagination reigns and something becomes possible. Instead of treating people as objects - pretty or homely, smart or stupid, nice or nasty, good vs. evil - in a world of liking this and not liking that.

Mad dogs, Englishmen, and old jocks

What goes out in the midday sun? I'll take Old Sayings for 100, Alex.

It's a hot Saturday morning in central swingstate, and you have a meeting at the Old North Church in the morning and another meeting in Worthmore at noon, so you stop at home and, feeling your oats, decide to bicycle to the second one. Heck, it's not that far (6-7 miles), and in the shade of my decision-making brain, it's not that hot.

Kids, do not do this at home. This is not the Tour de France or the Tour de Lance or even the Tour de Grandview. But if you do, please factor into your decision: distance, temperature, wind, time of day, road surface, hills, and the continuous need for water, water, water. Anyone using common sense knows this, or should, hence the Old Saying about rabid canines and arrogant imperialist.

It started to sink in about halfway down Schlock Road, the convenient diagonal traffic artery with a designated bike lane leading directly from Methodistville to Worthmore. Since cycling creates its own breeze, it wasn't the heat itself that got to me, but after a couple of small hills the energy just drained out of my legs, and my whole body kind of shrank into a lower gear.

It's a strange somatic sensation, and I have learned the hard way that putting more effort into the movement does not make up for the oxygen debt when heart and lungs stop supplying enough ATP to the muscles. I've tried it, and it doesn't work. What does work somewhat is to relax the upper body by not leaning heavily on the handlebars, to breathe slowly and deeply, and to keep pedaling, just not so fast.

It's not rocket science, and my friend wasn't crushed that I got to Scottie McBean's at 12:10 instead of 12:00. In fact, we had a very productive conversation about a couple of small snags in the process of publishing his book. We talked about illustrations, permissions, digital files, and the medium being the message; I sweated through my T-shirt, cooled off, and rehydrated.

To add a bit of drama to an otherwise ordinary day, I got a call from my mate at McBean's about a minor emergency at the mall. So after my meeting, I took the side of the right triangle straight north toward Polaris, instead of the hypotenuse home to Methodistville. Note to self/others: Skankus Road is perhaps the worst place in central swingstate for a bicycle, a crumbling pot-holed two-lane thoroughfare in a busy residential/commercial corridor.

Next time I'll go a different way, but it was a straight shot to Macy's, and we unlocked the keys from the car so we could both be on our way. By this time I had also realized that my choice of headgear was totally wrong. Kids, on a 90-something degree day, wear something other than a heat-absorbing, polyester, nonbreathing, black Buckeye baseball cap, even though the block-O deters drivers from running you off the road.

What I didn't do on my summer vacation

1. Grow six kinds of peppers and two kinds of tomatoes in a well-prepared garden.
2. Go for long bike rides every weekend to exotic places like Mt. Gilead, Millersburg, New Philadelphia, Peninsula.
3. Put a new screen/storm door on the front door of Om Shanty.
4. Replace the ancient gutters on the northeast corner of the house.
5. Paint the garage.
6. Paint the back exterior (siding and trim) of the house.
7. Cut several low-hanging and damaged limbs off the three maples trees, thus letting more sunshine in and replenishing the woodpile.
8. Winterize the workshop with new stovepipe; organize the tools and miscellaneous materials into a usable space.
9. Go camping in northern Michigan, swim in Pencil Lake, check out my friend Chip's church in Traverse City, maybe even a side-trip to da UP, eh?
10. See Sam Shepard's play "Kicking a Dead Horse" at the Public Theater in the East Village; see the "Book/Shelf" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art; listen to a free jazz concert at Madison Square Park; see a Shakespeare play in Central Park; have a drink at Thor on Rivington Street.
11. Cruise the Baltic with stops in Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gdansk, Riga, Talinn, Vilnius, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg.
12. Buy a community pool membership and swim laps three times a week until I can swim half a mile, thus preparing for the triathlon I won't compete in this year. Or next.

NOT nostalgic

It was still light out after taiji class at the temporary Rec Center, and it was a Thursday night, when everybody is tired and it isn't the weekend yet, and it doesn't take much. It was a nice group of long-time students, some of whom are new to each other but each brings their own experience to the mix, and it was fun to practice together.

My venture south on High Street before going home was ostensibly to check out the Park of Roses for a place to meet outside for the rest of the summer. My class needs a place to practice between mid-July and the beginning of fall, when they reopen the renovated Rec Center, and I think the gazebo will do nicely. But it was the slice of Clintonville life on the way there that pulled at me.

You pass the library first, and it was bustling as usual. Then there's a long line of tennis courts, and every one was in use. Down the hill toward the meadow are ballfields, runners, walkers, dogs, bicycles, the occasional frisbee, and the entrance to the Park of Roses, where a throng of sari-wearing Indian girls were meeting at the shelter house and spilling out into the garden. It was a fine summer evening in a great urban park, and I miss it.

I had another errand to do, so I drove to the coop and bought flour, cheese, honey, and beer. On my way out the door, I saw Zelda's friend Max running down Calumet, said hello, he said hi back. It's a neighborhood, and I don't live here anymore, so I go home to the suburbs for supper.

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Joan Baez walking up High Street? Okay, if you insist. It was the week the U.S. invaded Iraq so that Bush II could be a wartime-like president-like, and there was an antiwar event downtown. It also happened to be the week of a Baez concert at the Palace, and as I was walking to the demonstration, there she was beside me, walking with two friends. I asked her if I could shake her hand, and before her companions could put me in a headlock, she said okay. She's pretty tall and has really long fingers. I said I loved her work, she said "Me too," and that was that.

Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague

Turns out Zelda and two friends are looking at apartments in various parts of town, and at least one of them is a duplex in Clintonville right near the coop. Maybe they'll live there and maybe they'll opt for somewhere else. Her mother and I are gone for good.

Get over it. It was ten years, and it was no bed of roses, and it's been another five since then. Maybe in another five years I will feel that way about Methodistville.

People of the Library

Jesus loves me, yes I know,
Cuz the Bible tells me so,
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
The Bible tells me so.

Before I offend everyone I know by saying things I'll later regret, let me just say that this is probably the first song I learned to sing. I clearly remember singing it in Sunday School at Middle Class Methodist Church in River City, Wisconsin, probably in kindergarten. It was foundational in our training as nice kids. Do kids still sing it? Does it still have the epistemological effect of teaching us that we know that x is true because it says so in a book?

I'm completely sure that this lesson was taught with the best intentions. I also remember that as the place where I learned to color inside the lines. And they say art isn't as basic as reading and math. The minister was the kindly Rev. Winslow Wilson, whom I've always associated with the scholarly Pres. Woodrow Wilson, go figure. I seriously doubt whether Rev. Wilson or any member of his flock was deliberately waging cultural imperialism, although there is no doubt they were on a mission.

These days, the culture wars are not between Asia and the West, the Haves against the Have-nots, fundamentalist Christianity against fundamentalist Islam, northern hemisphere capitalists vs. southern hemisphere colonials, or conservative Right vs. liberal Left. I think it's the People of the Book versus the Other People.

I'm not sure what to call the unorganized, uninstitutionalized, non-card-carrying rabble who do not base their beliefs, policies, and practices on a single inerrant, authoritative text. The POB have plenty of choice names, however, for the OP: primitive, anarchist, pagan, heathen, savage, you've heard them all. It seems every 'ism' spends most of its time proving itself superior to those lesser creatures, that is, when they're not killing them.

Notwithstanding the long and cherished rivalry between various peoples of various books, well known and thoroughly chronicled in their heated accounts of crusades, jihads, purges, reformations, inquisitions, purifications, revivals, awakenings, schisms, holocausts, hejiras, and diasporas, it's the noncombatants who have suffered most. The folks who haven't bought into either rival faction touting either rival text.

Despite their sectarian conflicts, these cultural warriors were all monotheists, imperialists, authoritarians, and People of the Book. They have so much in common! They were all on a holy quest to convert, subdue, civilize, educate, save, and enlighten the poor, confused, benighted, ignorant, deluded, uninformed Other People. Their major premise was: In the beginning was the word. The minor premise is: And the word was written in my book. Completing the syllogism is the conclusion: Buy my book and do what I say.

The irony for me, personally, is that I'm in the book business. I edit books, I read books, and I like books. I choose to spend most of my time with books. I was in school (and occasionally out for recess) the first 40 years of my life. I liked school, and the bulk of my schooling consisted of the traditional readin' and writin'. I've always encouraged that bookish model of formal education, and to some extent it has rubbed off. My kids work in bookstores. Books pay the bills. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Like making laws or sausages, however, if you get inside the process even a little bit, you lose the idealized notion of the book as a pure source of wisdom. Please. There are good books and bad books, like there is good and bad art, music, movies, and theater. There's only bad TV, sorry. All have their flaws, and all have a point of view, a bias, an agenda, a historical context, and a market. Most could use a good editing, and many are either lies or bullshit or a combination of the two.

The difference hit me in the face on a Friday evening at the end of a long and exhausting work week. I was sitting in the back yard enjoying a Rogue Amber Ale and slowly letting the sensations of being in the garden return me to myself from the workaday discursive drain. Birds flew in and out of the yard, light and shadow played on pine and redbud trees, hosta and daylilies danced their quiet riot in opposite corner beds. I wondered out loud what I would do without this space where words don't rule.

Of course I will return to work on Monday morning and complete the terms of my sentence. But this is not the name of the game, it's an epiphenomenon within the world-as-garden, and the Other People, who are not People of the Book, know this.

So to put this in a logical framework: there are two kinds of people in the world. Some actually believe that in the beginning was the Word, and then God created the heaven and the earth, rivers and seas, grasses and trees, birds and beasts, and two innocents in a garden. Others believe that earth and sky, wind and water, flora and fauna, naked apes pulling weeds came before language. The flesh made word.

Let me end this on a note of affirmation, even if it's too little too late. Just as humankind once turned the corner from neolithic to agrarian culture, then turned another corner in the Gutenberg revolution of printed text, we are in the throes of a digital revolution, yet books are still valuable treasures. Not just one book, but lots of them. Let a hundred flowers bloom. There's a library in the garden.

Impulse purchase

If you've been thinking about possibly buying something, let's say a new tent, just hypothetically, you know, after all these years of using the old Sears two-person (one person really) backpacking tent, if the opportunity presents itself and the price is right and the stars align, and it's not really a plan or even a strong desire, but you stop at Dick's on the way home from church on Sunday just to see what they have in stock, not even thinking of making a decision, and you even leave your wallet in the car, knowing that you won't need it because we're just here to gather information and see what's out there, and once you make it past the basketballs (only $15.00) and the full line of canoes and kayaks (who knew there were so many kinds, sizes, lengths, depths, girths, and how those dimensions relate to speed, maneuverability, and lateral stability?) you find quite a variety of tents, and some of them are drastically reduced in price, and all of them are less money than you thought you would have to spend, so you start comparing, just for the sake of argument, the Field and Stream brand to the Quest, narrowing it down to two or three designs in the same general size and price range (quite reasonable actually), and the salesman, a nice guy named Justin, offers some helpful information about the easy assembly of the Quest but the superior quality of the Field and Stream, yet there is a Coleman that is both larger and less money than both, with most of the same features and a killer warranty to boot, and why not get a little more tent for a little less money, so you carry it out of the store in the handy carrying bag and set it up in the backyard right away of course, and it really is easy to put up and spacious enough for a small revival meeting, and you're not really sure what the old lady will say when she gets home and sees it, but it sure seemed like a good idea at the time, and this will allow us to go up to northern Michigan any time without having to arrange to rent a cabin, so under the circumstances, is it still an impulse purchase?

It's only castles burning

Don't let it bring you down,
It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning,
And you will come around.
(Neil Young, "After the Gold Rush")

On the fourth, the thirty-second anniversary of our meeting, Gven Golly and I went out for pizza. Half veggie and half spicy chicken and not bad. I think our first pizza was from the Mellow Mushroom that weekend in Atlanta, and it had sliced fresh tomatoes. We were both helping my sister Jo Jo move when the forces of the universe - and my conniving brother in law - brought us together.

Anni-versary (year-turning) 32 times around, and this one was fairly spontaneous. It was raining on and off, so I did some laundry, pulled some weeds, transplanted some vegetables that had planted themselves from compost. Other people celebrated the signing of an important historical document by lining State Street in their rain ponchos and umbrella watching other people parade through Methodistville on behalf of the Rotary or whatever club they want to promote by waving the colors.

While it rained, I played with the remote and stumbled across an old movie worth watching, quickly becoming hypnotized by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo - the architecture of posh San Francisco, the clothes, all blue suits in dark red rooms, and the strange interplay between a crazed James Stewart and a crazed Kim Novak in her big green car.

When it was time, I tore myself away and we went out for pizza, but no real restaurants were open; I guess all the right-thinking people were doing barbecue or blowing things up, so we ended up at Donato's, which, I'm sorry to say, does not have the vibe of the Mellow Mushroom. By the time we got home, the fireworks had started, so we walked across the street and joined several little groups of neighbors in the little park on Park Street with oak trees for all eight of Ohio's presidents (we stood by McKinley) and watched the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air.

It was barely past the twilight's last gleaming and nowhere near the dawn's early light, and there happened to be another decent movie on TV, so we watched 1776, the film version of a Broadway musical that I saw with my Mom many years ago at the Fisher Theater in Detroit. I remember it being very good on stage - unpretentious, insightful, and funny - and the movie actually did the play justice. The characters of Franklin, Adams, Dickinson, and Rutledge were especially revealing of their regional, intellectual, and class differences, all of which shaped the great compromises that followed.

On the fifth, Gven and I made it to a friendly gathering at Julie's house for drinks and dessert. I was so immersed in a project that I didn't know if I would go, but I was pleasantly surprised to complete enough of it to call it a day and energized enough (by the work or by the party, I don't know) to have a really good time.

What project? After about four years of contemplating, speculating, and ruminating, I finally got around to setting the first two posts of a pergola on the brick patio. Various design ideas have been pergolating all that time - sorry, that just had to be said - finally culminating in decisions about dimensions, materials, and placement.

On the sixth, the weather held, so I added a horizontal piece to the two posts and strung the electrical line from the house to the garage that has been disconnected for about a year, looping it through a screw-eye on top of one of the nine-foot posts. For me, this is a major engineering feat. The fun part was finding out that the circuit breaker I thought was for the garage was not, and I have a melted tip of a Swiss Army knife to show for it. So I threw the main breaker just to be on the safe side.

No, the really fun part was Zelda helping me connect the (cold) wires, the two of us standing nine feet up on stepladders, one pulling the wires together and the other twisting wires with needle-nose pliers and taping them tight. The moment of truth: Captain, we have power! Next weekend maybe I can get the garage door opener to work.

no good news, no bad news

This just in from Volunteersville:

The dahlias, gladioli, and daylilies are blooming. A pileated woodpecker was sighted in the front yard and a redheaded woodpecker and a hummingbird at the feeders in the back yard. Sister Jo Jo has been there this week to accompany Mom and Dad to their doctors' appointments, do some oral history interviews, and work on the ever-present jigsaw puzzle. She is as resourceful as she is good company.

Chas Golly saw Doc Justice this morning, and the CAT scan showed no significant change from the last scan two weeks ago or the one six weeks ago. So is the glass half-full or half-empty? Even fancy digital imaging technology doesn't show everything inside the man's skull, but it doesn't show any new bleeding or fluid, and that would be a problem. It also doesn't show a return to pre-injury shape and contour.

Since he is having no symptoms to speak of - at least he isn't speaking of having any symptoms, no dizziness, loss of balance, headaches, or disorientation - Dad has been declared fit to go back to his regular activities. He can play golf, work in the garden, drive the car, cut wood, carry water. And he is glad to be back in the game.

Actually he has been playing for the last two weeks with his Monday morning league, the Mulligans, although not at the level he would like. His energy is sufficient to make it around 18 holes, so endurance doesn't appear to be a problem. Yet he isn't getting much distance on his drives, and he isn't getting under the ball in general, so he's trying to correct the mechanics of his swing.

The Doc is waiting before putting Dad back on coumadin, the blood thinner that so many people use. He an atrial fibrillation, so the chambers of his heart don't completely fill and empty with each beat, and a little blood tends to pool up behind the valve that fibs. There is always a chance that stationary blood could form a clot that could then move somewhere, such as an artery in the brain, and do some damage, such as a stroke. Coumadin reduces the risk of a stroke, but it also increases the risk of the bleeding that was caused by his (unrelated) head injury. There is trouble if it's too thick and trouble if it's too thin, so the head has to heal some more before he resumes the heart medication.

Mom has her own issues, including a vitamin D deficiency and a number of foods she can't eat, and she has lost a few pounds. She has reduced her activity because she gets fatigued doing household tasks like cooking and cleaning, but there are things she would like to do if she had the energy, such as play a little golf and do more in the garden.

My parents are getting older. They have a lot of history, mostly healthy and active, but everything takes its toll eventually, and they are slowing down and wearing out. They have a lot of habits, mostly productive ones, but at some point any groove can become a rut, and it gets harder and harder, if not impossible, to unlearn one pattern and learn a new one. I doubt whether the little bit of taiji I showed Mom or the rehab program my nephew Max worked out with Dad can make a significant difference. Especially if they don't practice it. They do what they like to do, and it's been working pretty well for fourscore and seven years, so maybe they know what they need.

no beginning, no middle, no end

Therefore no story, just random bits of leftover language in search of a narrative thread. If not a story, then maybe a recipe: collect whatever sticks in memory, coarsely chop and saute in midnight oil, then simmer on low heat until the metaphors are transparent.

1. Everything has consequences - actions, inaction, decisions, indecision, thoughts, thoughtlessness.
Corollary 1.a. What the consequences will be, however, is never known beforehand.
Corollary 1.b. And seldom afterward.
Corollary 1.c. And then sketchily at best.

2. Having a body is like having a house. You have to work on it continually or it will fall apart, and you have to live in it (where else are you gonna go?), sometimes both working on it and living in it simultaneously, but often at different times, and not necessarily according to a schedule, at least not a schedule that is known ahead of time (see item 1 above).

3. Soon-to-be-wildly-popular consumer products just waiting for someone to design, build, and market: The Amazing Drumbrella - allows you to keep a beat and stay dry at the same time! The Amazing Drumball - looks like a basketball, sounds like a djembe! Play it solo or in a combo, compositionally or improvisationally. All you need is a floor!

4. What's on TV? The Sox sweeping the Cubs on the South Side after the Cubs swept the Sox on the North Side, a bit of drama in the preliminary rounds of women's tennis at Wimbledon, The Longest Yard, The World's Dirtest Jobs, What Not to Wear, an ad for The Dark Knight, not much else.

5. The bread came out pretty well on Sunday. Sourdough responded well to moderate heat and high humidity, and the whole wheat cranberry was it's usual reliable self, in spite of (or because of) having no cinnamon or walnut, so I might live through the week. Timing and temperature are everything.

6. The soup came out okay too. Maybe it's the iron pot.

7. There was a guest speaker at the Old North Church, so I went to an open meditation at the Buddhist Center in Franklinton. I initially missed my exit, then it poured down rain, but somehow I got there on time. It took me three tries to find the right cushion, but then I settled in comfortably with a minimum of discomfort and distraction. Getting up to walk helped a lot.

8. There was tea during a kind of intermission, and I saw a couple of people I knew. Then Lama Kathy talked about not clinging to (the causes of) suffering and several related subjects. It struck me as kind of a dialectical process, involving cause, effect, solutions, steps in a practice, and happiness. Very practical stuff, and it resonates with things I've run into lately that Kant said, Jesus said, Aristotle said, Confucius said. Not sure what I'll do about it, except keep practicing.

Shocked!

Thursday: I checked out the Comfest schedule (looking for something that I did not find) and found, to my astonishment, that Michelle Shocked is headlining the main stage at prime time on Saturday. Make my day! Suddenly I have a specific, compelling reason to go.

Friday: I am psyched to go see Michelle Shocked, and Gven Golly is up for it, too, so we can share the excitement of seeing this quintessential punk-folk artist and cultural revolutionary in person. I've never seen her live, but I love her work. Her place in the schedule is sandwiched between other bands I want to see, so I'm looking forward to a great time.

Saturday: I listen to a couple of old CDs, "Short, Sharp Shocked" and "Texas Campfire Takes," while working around the house. Gven goes out to do some errands, and I go about my yardwork, laundry, and general chores. It rains, but it's no big deal, it's been raining on and off all week.

Then, due to a minor miscommunication, my projected departure time comes and goes, and Gven gets home about an hour later. "The secret to a long life is knowing when it's time to go," says one of her songs. Should we even bother at this point? I consult the oracle.

Better late than never, we drive in silence to Vickie Village and squat in a friend's vacant driveway, assuming that he won't mind since he's in New Mexico, and thuse succeed in parking a few blocks from Goodale Park, where we arrive halfway through the final song of Michelle's set. She and the band do "Anchored Down in Anchorage" as an encore, one of her most touching songs. It's clear that this formidable woman has connected with the rain-soaked but spirited audience here in central swingstate, and true to her word, she keeps on rockin'. I, however, am disappointed due to my own unmet expectations.

We walked around, saw a few people we know from work, from yoga class, from the old neighborhood, from church, from drum circle, from work. We stopped briefly at a few booths to looked into art, Buddhism, revolution. We listened to a couple of bands for a couple of songs, but somehow never quite got into the rhythm of Comfest. Still, it was worth going, just to bear witness that there are people still putting themselves on the line for their beliefs.

fear & loathing in central swingstate

Did you ever ask yourself, "What the %#&@* am I doing here?"

There is a blight on the landscape outside my window, right where I had gotten used to seeing a patch of trees between the steel and glass buildings and parking lots. A couple of months ago, the machines came and cut down all the trees, cut them up very efficiently into transportable pieces, and hauled them away, leaving a buildable strip of bare ground between the two adjacent parking lots with their steel and glass buildings. Around here they call that 'development'.

Most of the trees and fields in and around the formerly quiet village of Methodistville are being 'developed', that is, clear-cut, paved, cunningly designed to simulate little pre-fab cookie-cutter towns, and surrounded by acres of convenient parking. You know the scene: retail stores, chain restaurants, offices, and residential subdivisions, all tastefully landscaped and emblematic of economic growth, and everybody likes growth, right?

This is good, of course, or at least better than the alternative. Would I prefer the ghost-town architecture in large portions of Detroit and Cleveland? Or perhaps the transitional look so common in formerly thriving urban malls that are now empty, boarded-up, and looking for new uses. What am I complaining about? People around here have jobs, spend money, consume goods and services, and there are more people moving here who actually want to spend their money at those strip malls.

A few years ago, Jessi Golly turned me onto a book by Derek Jensen called Strangely Like War about the technological assault on forests in particular and a general industrial-era campaign for the conquest of everything wild.

In an economically privileged society like ours, this developmental frenzy is coupled with a kind of fortress mentality. If we just close off our borders, build a wall from San Diego to Brownsville, prohibit the speaking of non-English languages, and increase domestic surveillance, all our problems will be solved. While we're at it, let's incarcerate more law-breakers, increase the armed forces stationed abroad, command and control entire populations, and regulate social behavior. Why? To protect our freedom, of course.

I wonder whether there is a better place - hipper, more environmentally conscious, more architecturally interesting, more bike friendly - where the prime directive of civic improvement is something other than to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

But where else is there to go? And would I really want to? After all, there are reasons behind my being here. I have a job, a family that is connected to Methodistville and Central Swingstate, and even I - peaceful warrior for all that is simple, sustainable, and free (or at least cheap) - yes, even I have attachments here (GASP!).

Lots of cool places there are, Grasshopper. They say Mt. Olympus is kind of special. I understand Crete is fabulous. Norway has a very high standard of living, and Traverse City isn't bad. Everyone says Portland is great, and Asheville is very nice. I hear good things about Taos, the East Village, and New Zealand. Peninsula, Ohio, is very picturesque, and I've always wanted to see Nova Scotia.

Jessi really likes the Big Apple. I have a friend who moved to Seattle a couple of years ago and loves it. Another friend moved to Santa Fe this spring, and a third is plotting his next chess move for Prescott, Arizona. A friend at church is spending the summer preparing for a visiting professorship in Berkeley. Although we will miss her, I think it's mostly envy we're feeling. While writing this, I got an email from a couple of friends who just started new jobs in Chicago. So I know it can be done.

The trouble is, I would bring my own baggage to Shangri-La. You know, "wherever you go, there you are." There might even be a couple of irritating things about Portland or Halifax. If so, I'm just the guy to find them.

Private

It has taken me a long time, but I've finally figured out the true meaning of the right to privacy. Here's a hint: it's private. Members only!

Yes, Virginia, there really is a right to privacy. But there's a catch. Not everyone has it. If everyone had a right to privacy, it wouldn't be very private now, would it? It would be public, and what good is a right to privacy that's public? That would make no sense at all in our private enterprise system.

Therefore the Founders and the Framers, in their wisdom, saw the need for the right to privacy to be, yes, privately held, like a family business or a corporation that is not, repeat not, publicly traded. Again, if something as valuable as privacy were to be made available to everyone, it would never be the same, and in fact it wouldn't be what it is, which is private.

But I've already said too much. I mean publicly. But this little nugget of information explains a lot.

For example, it explains why a chief executive can (privately) agree with telecommunications companies to indiscriminately tap the phones of (private) individuals, using so-called data mining to listen in on (private) conversations without a court order, without consent, and without probable cause that said (private) individuals have even a remote intention of breaking the law. Which said wiretapping is, that is, breaking the law, except when Congress says, many months or years after the fact, that it's really okay, um, because the chief executive said so.

Ergo, the people with privacy have a right to privacy, but they don't have to tell anybody, because then their privacy would be made public, and that's bad because then it wouldn't be private. And the people without any privacy do not have a right to privacy, but they shouldn't be told that they have no right to privacy, because then their lack of privacy would be public, which would be an breach of the privacy of those who do have a right to privacy, such as the chief executive and certain telecommunications companies and others, who shall go unnamed to protect their privacy, as well as their right to invade other people's privacy, which those other people don't have a right to anyway.

I have it on good authority, because I read it in a book, that public employees have greater privacy rights than private employees. So let me get this straight: if I'm a private individual who works for a private company, my files are not private, but if I'm a public employee, or civil servant, who works for a local, state, or federal agency, then my files are private. Okay, now I get it.

That explains a lot. For example, it explains why Vice Fuhrer Cheney has official meetings to discuss national energy policy with oil company executives in his office in the white house, but he doesn't have to tell the press or anyone else what was said. Sorry, national energy policy is none of the public's business. That was private.