Howdy Pilgrims,
The calendar reminds those of us in the United States, and nowadays folks elsewhere, to contemplate our blessings. There is much for which to be thankful. But across traditions, the harvest is hardly in as darkness falls, and one is left hoping for the solstice, the turning towards light and warmth. In my tradition, Advent is about to begin, the season of awaiting the Christ child, importantly child, and not here yet.
Expectancy has been on my mind. Much of life is spent waiting for something, and one cannot know just what, because it has not happened. This is true, always, but on some occasions the uncertain but near is especially keenly felt. Wars, weddings, pregnancies . . . we wait, and feel our waiting, maybe longing. Perhaps the hymn I have felt the most, “Emmanuel shall come to thee o Israel,” has been sung for well over a thousand years. It is too much to say that in our anticipation we are all monks, regardless of faith (or waiting for faith), but maybe we are all Israel. Worth contemplating. As it were.
Much writing has gotten done since my last newsletter, with little to show for the effort. Maybe I will, in time, maybe I won’t. Writing experimentally, I literally do not know what I am doing, and I am not sure, when I stop, if I’ve done it yet. So writing happens in the hope that some moment of clarity, of confidence, will come, that I will come to know that this is right. So far, it has not happened. Even well intentioned readers are little help, for the same reasons. Maybe it cannot be done. Or not like that. Or not by me. And a letter of comfort became an essay that I decided was too grim to publish. Some recreational cooking led to notes for a cookbook, maybe, well, a book about food, drink, sociability and a sense of time, that friends keep urging me to write, which is sweet of them, and maybe I will . . . but nothing to show there, either.
I spent a few weeks alone in the mountains in a futile effort to get ‘er done, as the contractors say. Too long. And not done. (No jokes about The Shining. Not funny any more.) No dogs, but a pair of young mule deer bucks and then a doe and her adolescent fawn came in close for a few days to keep me company. Comfort animals, I guess. The doe jumped into the half acre or so we fenced in, a place for letting the dogs out, especially at night, without conflicts with wildlife. At least that was the idea, but in fact the fence neither keeps adult deer (or presumably any of the other large animals) out, nor Michael in. The fawn, however, would not jump that high, maybe did not know that it could. So the fawn skirted the edge of the fence, looking for a hole, while the doe grazed inside, unbothered. The doe may have been pregnant again, waiting herself, and trying to distance the fawn, helping her (?) grow up. Be that as it may, eventually the doe would relent and jump back over to rejoin the fawn, an almost languid leap, if that is even possible. I saw this leap more than once, but failed to photograph, and could not have captured its weird slowness.
I’ve started an audiobook version of Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy and a Sense of the Modern. It looks like Amazon has it on sale! Black Friday and all that. Just saying. Anticipation – the effort to imagine what could go wrong, so that one might be prepared – is intrinsic to the practice of security, and leads to all sorts of problems, for the simple reason that the future has not happened yet. And yet “security” must happen today. So security rests on an insoluble epistemological problem, an imaginative anxiety, a fear of failure, even paranoia with reason. Scaring oneself.
With some effort, I acquired the audio rights to Getting Through Security from Routledge, the book’s publisher. Our plan is to release the first few chapters as podcasts, and in due course, the entire text as a reasonably priced audiobook.
Even if you’re not interested, you really should hear my buddy Vince read the publisher’s introduction. He sounds like Rod Serling, a fellow central/western New Yorker. Security in the Twilight Zone. Too perfect.
E11 Getting Through Security Part I
In 1995, when our son Thomas was born, my late grandmother Sarah (a serious pianist) composed a short piece for her first great grandchild. The handwritten score emerged in the excited anticipation of Thomas and Ailie’s daughter, “due” on December 4. A friend of theirs, Marci Scalise, recorded the piece, attached, and so now it is a song for Violet. Ailie also had it made into a music box.
Grandmama was the eldest of a large brood. Her youngest sibling, Jane, is with us yet, almost 100, and as they say, still sharp, still at home, albeit with accommodations. Amy and I visited her in August. Deo volante, we will see five generations in being.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Bert,
"Writing experimentally" is a grand objective. That said, I noticed something about your Signal today. With few exceptions, you don't use adverbs -- this is good.
Verbs are honest, the stronger the better. Adjectives are useful, but should be served up in moderation, with caution. Adverbs are a sign of dissembling, thus to be rooted out.
Writing constitutes a bridge. From the cacophony in our brain to the chatter in our reader's. Made coherent by anticipating the capacity of our reader to let us in.
In thanks and appreciation,
Alan