The Books noticed me

Something amazing has probably happened. The refracted light of maybe-greatness has struck me dumb. Here are the details:

I saw a concert by The Books at Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, NY on March 31 2010.

Then I wrote a reflective article (see the previous post) on the experience and The Books artistic process for my radio station's blog at Syracuse, WERW 1570 Word Press, of which I was editor.

I posted the following blurb on The Books' Facebook fan page.

Though heroically unlikely, I'd love if you (The Books, but also anyone else) would read my (pseudo) intellectual piece on your music and show of March 31st at Cornell. Found here.

Yesterday Nick Zammuto or Paul de Jong of the duo The Books or somebody else representing The Books or representing Zammuto's new project read the article and wrote:

Bradley... thats such a bad ass article you wrote man! seriously... one the best i ever saw! good work! Please take some time to check out Nick's new project... the new album comes out April 3rd 2012 under Temporary Residence! hope you enjoy man!

I responded:

This really means a lot to me. It really does. I had a saccharine freak out, flying around the apartment whooping, smiling like enlightenment. And as verbose as my old writing is. And my new writing, come to think of it. Thank you for the attention and the kind words. All best wishes to both of you and best of luck on the new venture. You have my support.

I hope it wasn't mere promotion and that somebody (preferably Zammuto or de Jong) actually read the piece and means what they wrote. It's nice to be recognized, especially by those you admire.

Quotations: action, production

Note: Many of these are from the website of Elisabeth Fosslien. Look for a justification of this move later.

Kingsley Amis: For once in his life, Dixon resolved to bet on his luck. What luck had come his way in the past he'd distrusted, stingily held on to until the chance of losing his initial gain was safely past. It was time to stop doing that *.

Mawi Asgedom: Like any dream, you have to start believing that you can do it. You don't quite know how it will turn out but you start anyway. Discipline is your best friend. If you have the discipline to write two pages every day, after 150 days, you have 300 pages. I actually use this in my speeches to show students how important discipline is. Something small, writing two pages, if done repeatedly can become something big, a 300-page book. That's my motto for success: dream big, do small, every day.

Saul Bellow: what he preached at me...the thing to do: not to dissolve in bewilderment of choices but to make myself hard, like himself, and learn how to stay with the necessary, undistracted by the trimmings *... A description: wild internal disorder, or even with the fact that he was quivering. And why? Because he let the entire world press upon him. For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible... At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful supermachinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you enjoyed delicious old-fashioned values? You - you yourself are a child of the mass and a brother to all the rest. Or else an ingrate, dilettante, idiot. There, Herzog, thought Herzog, since you ask for the instance, is the way it runs. On top of that, an injured heart, and raw gasoline poured on the nerves... The busy bee has no time for sorrow *.

Samuel Clemens: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than the ones you did do... so throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails... explore, dream, discover.

Benjamin Disraeli: Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Seth Godin: Comments and Twitter are like a Fresnel lens. You can use them to focus attention if you’re very disciplined and very good, or, if you’re like me, you’ll end up finding your energy and attention diffused into a maelstrom, lost to the winds of inanity, anger or trivia. * The first thing you do when you sit down at the computer: Let me guess: check the incoming. Check email or traffic stats or messages from your boss. Check the tweets you follow or the FB status of friends. You've just surrendered not only a block of time but your freshest, best chance to start something new...the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals, not to hear how others have reacted/responded/insisted to what happened yesterday * .

Samuel Huntington: Some people may say that people in glass houses should not throw stones... I do not mind performing a useful function by throwing stones and thus encouraging others to move out of their glass houses, once I have moved out of mine (jstor p. 304).

Rudyard Kipling: [Lurgan Sahib] 'By doing it many times over till it is done perfectly--for it is worth doing' *.

Somerset Maugham: In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously. I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals if I could only have change -- change and the excitement of the unforeseen (*).

Haruki Murakami: [Colonel Sanders] "We're talking about a revelation here...a revelation leaps over the borders of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is move from reason that observes to reason that acts. That's what's critical" (255)...

[Kafka] "But I've always tried to get stronger."
"That's very important," the brawny one says, "Very important--to do your best to get stronger" (386).

Janwillem van de Wetering: Good luck comes to those who keep trying.

Ad astra.

Neptune is naked

The fragrance of chlorine pervades the hall, reaching the front desk where you acquire the key to your second-floor "cabin." You're handed a towel, robe, some inexplicable variety of place-mat. And then you enter the hall. From above, one's tempted upon first impression to be reminded of a Sultan's harem: blue ceramic tiles, imperious pillars, small cafe tables, and naked bodies frolicking about in a large pool on the ground-floor. But there's no odalisque here, just naked men in the lanes, swimming vigorously one-after-the-other around in circles, like ducklings, pale asses cresting.

I'm at Yrjönkadun uimahallii, Helsinki, Finland, apparently the oldest swimming hall in the Nordic region. Built in 1928 in the classicism style (whatever that means), it was renovated in 1997-9 to retain its original appearance. In late 2001, bathing trunks became optional.
Nonetheless, what the deuce? Well, first of all, the exquisite classicist architecture is something in which to revel. Second, visiting the hall is about getting in touch with (figuratively speaking, c'mon now!) one's natural nude male species being. Third, there are off-the-chain saunas: steam, electric, and, best of all, wood-heated. And all for 6€ (student price), it cannot be beat!

The first surprise was that the female assistant led me to my "cabin," on the second floor, past naked or toweled men, overlooking the pool. It turns out mostly ladies, but some men, meander about cleaning, organizing, and serving beer and food to the patrons. It makes sense: the pool switches between male and female days, evincing something of a femme or feminist bias in that there are four of the latter to three of the former. I wonder if the male workers are here on lady days?

The "cabin" itself was like a curtained off corner in a hospital room, a curtained cubicle along the wall. It was outfitted with bed, locking drawer, and clothes hooks and coat-hanger. The second surprise was that the front-facing curtain was gossamer. In fact, this surprise was not a surprise, because the hall is or has been known for its gay activity. By publicizing the private, the see-through curtain maneuver stamps down on covert sex. All for the best, all for the best.

Naturally, the first thing was to take advantage of the sauna - steam then wood - and only after that, to go for a swim, and finally to repeat the double sauna in the same order to finish off. This procedure is time-tested and mother-approved. The steam sauna was crowded in the cheek-to-cheek kind of way where buns are not exactly touching, but a quantized distance is achieved in which an undeniable magnetic or gravitational sensation is palpable. The steam soothes the throat and relaxes the body but is not quite hot enough to bring about the indispensable sauna cook. Wood-heated wins the cake as my favored sauna because it gets maximally hot without what can be the harshness, or singing touch, of the regular electric.

After the initial steam soak and burn, I hit the pool. Finding myself stranded directly behind an exceptionally slow fellow, and therefore his buttocks and free-floating private bits, I deduced that I was in the turtle-speed lane and decided to hitch myself to the hare line. I found that more agreeable but slightly too fast, like a race, the Goldilocks just-rightness eluding me. But alas, beggars can't be choosers, and I settled in for a hard swim in order to earn my final steam and roast in the saunas.

All in all, it was an experience in the same way eating lutefisk is an experience (somebody make sure I do this before I leave the Nordic north). I do not risk controversy in proposing that Americans are more naked-averse than Finns (or Europeans more generally). I believe this is slightly unfortunate. At the same time, the Yrjönkadun uimahalli experience is foreign and slightly out-there even for most Finns. Nonetheless, it is a traditional, relaxing, social, and idiosyncratic past-time with a lot going for it only limited by vague awkwardness and Puritan prejudice.

Suomi

So I live in Suomi, also known by its Swedish name, Finland. I get paid to study and research vector X of interrelated intellectualities. X? A farrago. I embrace obscurantism. There are many things which deserve to be buried and left unexhumed.

Specifically, I am studying the philosophy and methodology of social science. Most people have no idea what this means (perhaps I will attempt to explain in upcoming posts). I also twiddle from time to time with down-and-dirty methodology, such as Bayesian probability and statistics, Markov chains, and evolutionary game theory. Most people have no idea what these mean either. Nor should they. One doesn't need Bayes' rule to deduce that I am most likely to jettison or fail out of all of the above (this has already come to pass!). Above all, as a rule of thumb, one should avoid becoming impressed.

Nonetheless, I am grateful to everyone who has helped me. Ant hills are really cool.

Certainly my least noble but most eccentric Finland moment was attempting to cross the Vantaa river by bridge at Pikkukoski beach in Koskela. As banal as that sounds, in fact, I attempted to cross by hand: that is, hand over hand along one of the lateral I-beams (see image below for clarification). Queerly, the beam got progressively fatter towards the middle until it was truly obese, and my arms were swinging widely beyond the shoulders. I happened to attempt this feat the day before Halloween. The water met me chilly.

I am also guilty of turning the duvet cover on my bed into a pumpkin for the aforementioned October festivities. If I may say so myself, it turned out passably well. Pillows rounded me out. Some industrious friends cut out a face with black felt so I was a jack-o-lantern rather than merely an unmarked gourd. I set forth in company with Lyndsey Hoh and Lyndsey and John Helling. We made a jolly and bizarre quartet: pumpkin-face, the gnome, the mime, and the greaser. On our long haul from Koskela to a  party in city center, we witnessed not a single other costumed crusader.

Fortunately, I have multiple contingents of industrious friends. Some Sergeis - one Russian, one Ukrainian - were kind enough to host a kind of Russian night. It all started in the sauna, which is apparently Slavic as well as Suomalainen. However, we (John Helling and Felix Horns also being present) were to discover that the sauna rites vary from place to place. As it turned out, the Ruski had harvested birch branches from the motherland (St. Petersburg), which were liberally moistened during the first 45 minutes of sauna in the hot water bucket. Throwing this water onto the coals not only generated the familiar heat-sensation humidity but also, imbued by the birch, a lovely fragrance. Eventually the time came for ritualistic scourging: unleashed with the branches upon the back, buttocks, legs, and soles of the feet of a person laying stomach-down on the upper bench. One could call this sensation refreshing.

After cleaning up the carnage of birch leaves, we headed upstairs (nearly every Finnish apartment building has a sauna on site) for the second course: vodka. There were some other things thrown in, such as chicken legs and salami, potatoes, home-pickled cucumbers and mushrooms (thanks to the Russian Sergei's mother!), olives, raw garlic (actually I'm the only one that ate this) and, last but not least, chunky lard slices on bread. Salty and delicious!

These are highlights characteristic of a blessed existence here in the upper latitudes. Other nice things include but are not limited to: superlative office, bike, bucolic urbanity. About time Suomi is naked and unbounded.

Alien insect invader

It is not often that one comes into contact with an alien creature. With a beast so repugnant and otherworldly, whose existence belies any earthly explanation. Tonight I came jaw to mandible with such a beast. Train your eye to the image above to see the creature in question. Suppress your repugnance as I relate the circumstances of my alien encounter.

Consider the bathroom. Although not the most pleasant and beautiful of places, I submit that there is a special serenity to the bathroom. Not just any bathroom, but one's own bathroom. It is something of a sanctuary, a place of ritual and ablution, a place of utmost peace and aloneness. In a word, the bathroom is a safe place. Or so I thought.

This very evening, I was in my bathroom. I was in a state of Zen, brushing placidly, at peace with my surroundings. All of a sudden, to my shock and dismay, I realized I was not alone - I perceived a beast menacing me from the shower knob. If I screamed, you can hardly blame me. Not only was the illusion of immaculate security shattered, the agent of destruction was an alien creature of unparalleled repugnance. Having seen the artist's rendering, you cannot but agree with me. Obviously, the monster is not of this world.

Naturally, my second reaction was to document the happening - it's not everyday that one encounters extra terrestrials. It is thanks to this enterprising impulse that you are able to view the beast in all its glory.

I cannot look at her but experience a shudder. The obsidian bug-eyes, the mandibles, the sinuous, probing antenna, formidable carapace, and hairy legs. Note the amputated posterior hindquarter - most likely a battle wound. What kind of demonic, alien freak?!

Although it took only moments, when I had returned from examining the photos on my computer, the beast had disappeared. I suspect that it recognized my superior fighting capabilities and slunk off back down its hidey hole -the drain pipe in my bathtub.

I accepted the creature's capitulation, craven though it may be. I decided not to eradicate the beast in a horrific wave of inescapable water. Who am I to kick a living thing when it's down? Empathy is the supreme anti-sin, of which even insects are deserving. If my challenger has retired to regenerate its blighted limb, so be it: I will accept her challenge anew when she returns!

UPDATE (Nov. 3, 2010): The narcoleptic freak returned last night only to find Brad in full martial mobilization. I stumbled upon the beast apparently harvesting or sowing some unspeakable evil from or into my washcloth. I approached with a glint in my eye and she moved. For a gimp, I was astonished nearly to the point of defecation by her alacrity. You know what they say: you can't fault a guy for sharting in moral peril. After doing a somersault or other aerial maneuver too fast for my eyes to follow, our bitch (a veritable Grendel's mother) clung to the bottom of the cloth, batlike. Taking my life in my hands, I used kitchen tongs to sweep the washcloth and passenger into a bucket. Once inside the rabid roach whizzed about like a pinball in circles. It must be that she was dazed, perhaps by the light, for to have climbed out and brought the attack to my eyes would have been the work of a millisecond. Using the tongs to grasp the side of the bucket, I swiftly clothed myself in bathrobe and rushed to exit the building. Take a second now to appreciate my superhuman concern for species rights. Even in open war, I avoid murder. If I was muttering imprecations in the stairs, what of it? Admittedly, it wasn't very gentlemanly or empathetic to start screaming, "Get out! Get the fuck out of my bucket! Fuck you," when I reached street-level. As if in conciliatory response to my hysterics, the beast transported herself beneath a leaf. I picked up my bucket, and the battle was concluded. VICTORY!

Wait, UChi has a humanist advisor?

I received this correspondence moments ago:

Welcome to the University of Chicago!

My name is Josh Oxley, and I am the Humanist Advisor for the University of Chicago. You're receiving this email because you, sometime in the past few months, either self-identified as secular/humanist/atheist/ect, or expressed interest in the Secular Student Alliance.

My job, as part of the Spiritual Life Office at Rockefeller Chapel, is to be a resource for secular students on campus. Often non-believing, freethinking students are ignored by universities. That's a mistake, and one I'm glad the University of Chicago isn't making. We freethinkers have questions of meaning, belonging, identity, and those other aspects of being human, and it's my role to help you in any of those conversations.

If you're wondering about any of these questions, looking for places to plug-in with like-minded people, or have other questions, feel free to send me an email and set up a meeting. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts throughout the year, and I hope to see you around campus.

Get involved, find balance, and enjoy!

Josh Oxley

Humanist Advisor, Spiritual Life Office

The University of Chicago

It's true, I have aligned myself with the Secular Student Alliance. And I do believe that I should be as proud, candid, and transparent about my (non)religious views as anybody. And yet, trepidation... Presumably, if you're here, reading, you know me, want to know me, or prefer candor to obfuscation. My agnostic atheistic non-religious humanistic doctrine ideology philosophy thing is no special revelation. My religious views come up in conversation with some frequency. I think it's important to represent (but never to impose, sermonize, proselytize (except in the regular way which is implicit in all forms of rhetorical communication)).

I digress: Josh Oxley. Humanist Advisor. Awesome! Not for the first time, and hopefully not for the last, I'm proud of my university. For the first time, I feel my perspective and loosely bound cabal is represented, welcomed, and validated. Apparently, this is the first time such a post has existed at this university, and UChi is the fourth university nationally to adopt such a program. We're not talking about a student organization. This is an officially sanctioned staff position. Granted, the Rockefeller Chapel (the Gothic awe-and-fear-inspiring masterwork) makes all other outfits seem amateur, but this is what I call progress: how splendidly legit.

It's nice to know that somebody out there is swinging for you and, it should be noted, all humanity. That is, these people are explicitly interested in aiding those who have "aspects of being human." Succor is available for all.

Of course, humanism is not the exclusive territory of secular ideology. Religious figures are often (or always?) at the forefront of humanist endeavors. Consider the Catholic church's anti-Pinochet ferment during the 1970s, or the progressive and humanistic Christian (principally Catholic, again) involvement in Argentina during the dirty wars and Operation Condor.

Even I owe a personal debt of gratitude to Christian humanist philosophers: theology teachers during middle and high school (Catholic school, y'all) who fostered my intellectual growth disproportionately and with great success. Little did Father Matt Guckin know that, while he idolized Aristotle, I was employing arch Sophistry on all of his papers. Or maybe he did know; perhaps he was proud - he taught it to me. (Thanks also to the Augustinian friars of Malvern and Paul Peterson, especially). Again, there's another side - I'll always lament that blighted year of Christian Morality - which has its own other side, and so on into a strange loop, but I'll not get into that.

For me too much religion was like too much ice-cream: brain-freeze and body-purge inducing.

I digress: It makes sense for there to be a force for secularism on this university campus, to fill breaches, to unite, to do what religious folk do for each other. This rectifies what has long seemed to me to be a dearth in social-secular movements and organization. Word up to my active Secular Student Alliance and Humanist Advisor. Stand strong, find balance, and represent.

Chi town

Yes, I have cornrows.

Three weeks ago, I moved from the sunny exurbs of Philadelphia to the windy south side of Chicago. After escapades, explorations, and the accumulation of mundane habits, some reflection is called for.

The weather here has been clement. There was heat, to be sure. And sweat. But by and large it's been balmy, swelter undermined by brisk breeze. Chicagoans take advantage of the happy climate: biking, running, and walking along Lake Shore Drive, sailing, swimming, frolicking about. I met an Ohioan runner hanging from a tree who eulogized the lakeside; he claimed Cleveland's is overbuilt and underutilized. Consensus is that Chicago's pretty and well planned for play and commerce. At least, during the summer.

Second, there is this business of mid-western hospitality. I'm predisposed to view this thesis with some skepticism. It goes against my assumption that people are pretty generous and pleasant nearly everywhere.

I recall positing to Pedro Cuperman - eminent Argentine scholar of language and literature at S.U. - that, "People are like pretty nice everywhere, man." I then attempted to get out an anecdote about some Turkish farmers inviting my family and I, and our interpreter and bus driver, into their home for fresh natural honey, bread, and tea; we had picked them up in our van. Before I could articulate the details, Cuperman shot me down with an ad hominem of sorts - my claim was mud on the grounds that my family and I are Caucasian bourgeois chumps. And I'm a man-cherub. His point was that other people sometimes have distinctly less rosy realities. He's right.

Race affects grades of positive or negative responses. It depends on the place and person. In my limited, prosperous, educated, and white experience, Chicago people have been hospitable, helpful, and garrulous, be they white, black, or brown. I could illustrate with a yarn or two, but I'll desist. Let me mention, though, that the by chance twice-met Bahá'í cyclist who invited me over one evening for a barbecue party, spiritual chat, and music session is definitely the tops. She and her friends were heroically welcoming.

I were different, so would be my experiences and impressions.

I've been all over the city. I'm making it mine or myself it or something like that.

Cars are great for exploration and destination-achieving. My parents had one and so did a guest. They helped me penetrate Pilsen (lil' Mexico) twice. The best way to see things, however, is from the ground: engulfed in the delicious effluvium of the city, trodding the pavement, part of the masses, with edifices towering around. Walking is effective when combined with public transit (gotta love the El). Together these have helped me cross many a neighborhood, hitting destinations such as Myopic Books, Gramaphone Records, the Bahá'í place of worship, Sultan's Market, and all of Hyde Park. I also run around a fair bit. The bike is my standby most of the time. But I did take an accidental 50 mile ride which smarted of betrayal. The water in Wilmette (a northern suburb) freezes bone marrow in mid-September.

A former new acquaintance now seemingly new friend raised the issue of identity the other day. He pondered identity shifts and re-inventions. Grad school, he postulated, is a good time to do such things. Then he asserted that it wasn't quite his bag - he had found himself pretty well content with himself already.

I think I might very well have found a pretty stable me, a long-term me, but I'm not sure - I'm open to new things. I think. I hope. But instead of identity reformation or reinvention, it has been more interesting recently to adjust superficialities and then record people's book-by-the-cover appraisals.

For example, my friend gave me cornrows the other day: flat, tight, beautiful braids which hug my dome like furry snakes. This allowed my face to emerge from the lion's mane and reassert its prominence. I'm told the braids - aka Chi rows - made me more fierce and stylish looking. And when I removed them (to be ambushed by immediate hypochondriac terror at ultra post-cornrow hair loss) I suddenly became or appeared to become more approachable, friendly, amiable. In short, I went from sharp and fearsome to soft and cuddly. My imagined personality, it turns out, had taken on the physical characteristics of my hairdo! And hairdo determinism being in my power, I can now tweak my perceived personality as much as my hair allows.

In Chicago, I'm a superhairo.

Even more importantly, I'm happy.