The Writer's Poke

I suppose it's inevitable. When you go over the same ideas again and again, they become rather cliched. Their meaning and value, assumed, never questioned. In the forward to The Best American Spiritual Writing 2008 , editor Philip Zaleski claims, "Everyone recognizes the figure of the religious hypocrite, mouthing prayers or offering devotions with no attention to inner meaning." Is it fair to call such people hypocrites? I would prefer to call them victims. When you've been told your whole life that the Son of God (who is actually God -- or a part of God -- himself) gave up his human life to forgive the sins of humanity, is it hypocritical to act as though you possibly can understand what this means? A few lines later, Zaleski seems to acknowledge that even the "average schlep in the pews, ignorant of theology and innocent of mysticism, praying with half his mind on his girlfriend or his gold game, has nevertheless amassed, week by week and year by year, a bank...

We walked into the shop and were overcome by the intense smell of incense. Dragon statues, pentagrams, herbs, and other stereotypically-wiccan paraphernalia were visible wherever the eye landed. But visible only in dim shadows as the outer windows of the store were covered with thick black drapes, and there weren't any florescent bulbs being used inside. The light seemed somehow organic, as though not coming from any discernible source. My friends quickly tired of this store, but I found it compulsively fascinating. When they left to explore the next shop down the street, I stayed to talk to the shop mistress working behind the counter. She looked 16, but I'm sure she was in her mid-twenties. Her hair was jet black, her skin was pale, and the the inverted star necklace she wore around her neck was not an accessory common seen in central Illinois. Around the corner and mostly out of sight was a man much older than her. I could sense that he was keeping watch over his "prope...

Hard to believe, but it's been 25 years since I made my one and only pilgrimage to the Mecca for Chicago Cubs fans, Wrigley Field. To this day, I can still name more Cubbies from that season's squad than I can for all subsequent squads combined. The Cubs have had good teams since 1984, but perhaps this team stands out in my memory because it was the first good Cubs team in my lifetime. As yet another baseball season begins, I doubt that I'll much care after opening day. Something about the first game of the season seems so vitally important, for about a second. Then, the realization soon kicks in that these guys will be playing another 160 games over the next six months. How much importance can any one game have in such a long season? Some time in July, right around All-Star Break, I'll probably check in to see how the Cubs are doing. As long as they are ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals, I won't much care if they're in first- or next-to-last place. If they someh...

The speaker (white, male, and past the prime of his life) moved from the shadows to the podium and began his talk. He wanted to impress upon his audience how important faith is. Faith, he told those still awake, is what keeps us going. It is the belief that there is an ultimate answer. Doubt, on the other hand, is the opposite of faith. Doubt causes us to needlessly question what those with faith believe to be true. How dare they. According to the speaker, faith and doubt cannot inhabit the mind simultaneously . You can have faith, or you can have doubt, but you simply cannot have both. One ends up consuming the other. Oh really? Can the mind only sustain faith or doubt, or is this a classic "either/or fallacy"? Assuming you can only have faith or doubt, which would you choose and why? "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. " -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

I just noticed that Quentin and Mariah share a birthday today; note that the woman next to Quentin in the above picture is not Mariah . As far as I can tell, Mariah and Quentin live in parallel universes. Quentin celebrates year 46, and Mariah remains the same: eternally 12.

Stultify and Stupefy are two perfectly good verbs that have life only in song lyrics. I've never uttered them in a real conversation, nor do I know anyone that has. Nevertheless, fans of Lisa Loeb and Disturbed (and yes, you can be a fan of both), recognize these words -- although they might not have an exact definition for them if asked what they mean. I always assumed that "to stultify" meant basically to cause mental stagnation. As it turns out, this is the approximate second definition , but the first definition actually means "to make, or cause to appear foolish or ridiculous." Stupefy sounds like it could refer to the word stupid, but the exact definition is more closely related to the word "stupor," as in to "put into a stupor." Would you rather be stultified or stupefied? Take some time to develop and justify your response. "The so-called clergy stupefy the masses....They befog the people and keep them in an eternal condition o...

Students in my Advanced Composition classes write argumentative essays; I tell them that I won't grade them on the position that they take, but I also remind that that not all positions are equal. Some have difficulty taking a position at all. And when I remind them that they need to acknowledge and refute opposing points of view, sometimes they simply acknowledge all points of view without clearly staking their claim to one. Not all positions are equally valid, however; this might sound rather subjective, but arguing, for example, that sweatshops are "good" is not really a defensible position to take. One student attempted to take that position, though, citing that it beat the alternatives. Sweatshops, for example, allowed the economies in third world countries to grow, gave the workers a living wage of $1 per day, and kept children from even worse fates, such as the sex trade. He thought he was making a strong case. How does being an American color ideas of right and w...

My dad and I were talking about the Great Depression not too long ago; I expressed the idea that President Hoover's ideological views made him inflexible. This inflexibility made it impossible for him to act when action was necessary. Dad insisted that the Great Depression was part of a world-wide phenomena, and that Hoover had little control over what happened. Then Dad played his trump card. He had lived during most of the Great Depression; therefore, his view was more accurate than mine. So it brings to mind a question: Does lived experience matter? If you were alive, even say, just as a child in a small, isolated community, does that make you more of an expert than, say, someone that didn't "live it"? All of us see life through our minds; some of us have memories of events to draw from, but memories are subjective; memories can be misinterpreted . Perhaps it takes someone that hasn't "lived it" to be able to "know it" more objectively? How ...

Most scientists believe that the universe is expanding -- at rates that most people cannot comprehend. The current edge of the known universe can only be measured in billions of light years, which is something that I personally cannot wrap my head around. Equally frustrating, the stars we see in the sky may or may not be there, may or may not still exist. By the time their light reaches Earth, all we're really witnessing is a twinkle to a distant (in both space and time) past. We live in a vastness that most people acknowledge but never study. We perceive a reality that only exists in hindsight. Most of what is "real" cannot be known, cannot be seen. Whereas Socrates premised that prisoners in his Allegory of the Cave could somehow be freed from staring at shadows that they mistook for reality, none of us will be able to escape the illusion of the Universe. What role or function do you serve in the bigger picture? "The universe is an intelligence test." -- Timot...

"Friend" is one of those words that people use rather liberally. How many friends do you actually have? On Facebook, for example, I currently have over 150 friends; most of the people on the list mean something to me, but I'm not sure "friend" is the correct term. Perhaps "connection" would be more accurate, although that doesn't feel entirely right either. In Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, author Chuck Klosterman notes that we barely know most people we call "friends." Most people, he claims, we could sum up in a sentence. That's a scary thought, and one worth seriously pondering. How many people do you know that you couldn't "summarize in a sentence"? What makes these people different from "one sentence friends"? "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive." -- Anais Nin

I'm sure a comic genius like George Carlin or Steve Martin has already made a joke about this, but if so, I'm not aware of it. So let me share this semi-original thought with you: Imagine you're in a courtroom, and a clown has just taken the stand. A lawyer walks up to the clown, asking him to speak honestly, "in your own words." "Booga sentri sooma sah," says the clown. Okay, the point is this: none of us has our "own words." Those of us that speak English use a common language, but that doesn't necessarily make communication that much easier. The meaning of words change. Think, for example, of how older folks sometimes complain that "words don't mean the same thing that they used to." This isn't a new phenomena, by the way. Take a look at the Oxford English Dictionary sometime, and you'll discover the origin and evolution of any word you care to explore. And as Bill Clinton showed us in the 1990s, even the most simpl...

When you learn something, you stop thinking. And that's a problem. Take this rather innocuous example: Your 3rd grade teacher tells you that you cannot start a sentence with "And." And from that point on, you might never start a sentence with "and" for the rest of your life. You have "learned" that it's wrong to start a sentence with "and," and you simply never question it. Why should you? After all, you learned it, right? I use this silly example to illustrate a much greater point. Throughout our lives, we "learn" things all the time, and what we learn affects everything else that we might think we know. But consider this: if you're working on a math problem, it's important that you are using the correct formula. You'll never obtain the correct "answer" without an equation that's probably developed. And yet, many people go through life working under faulty assumptions. Even more dangerous: some of us e...

Call me polite, but when I address a male who is my elder, I like to use the word “sir.” Mr. John Hershberger would have none of my politeness. When I was a senior in high school, he was my Economics instructor. This was an “honors” level class, and I only mention that as a way of suggesting that the students in the class sometimes used their brains, and sometimes read a textbook, and sometimes did their homework assignments. In other words, we weren’t the typical mindless zombies that you might find in a basic Consumer Math class. But at some point prior to my matriculation into this class, Mr. Hershberger decided that I was a sarcastic hooligan, and that my number one goal in life was to undermine his authority. He probably came to this dramatic conclusion after he substituted once for Mr. Parker, the chess coach. He saw how rowdy the chess team could get, and he knew I was the ringleader of that amazingly unpredictable and chaotic group. So it should have come as no surprise when Mr...

Perhaps the best thing about Type O Negative’s Dead Again is the album’s title. Actually, sometimes I’m a bit slow, and it took me more than a couple of years to realize that the title is probably a play on the phrase “Born Again.” To be born again means something different to an evangelical Christian than it does, say, to a Hindu. But captured in the idea is the concept of a second chance. Both are, in fact, different ways of being “reincarnated,” if I can use the term rather loosely. The concept of being dead again, however, is somewhat more obscure. Sure, people that are reincarnated must theoretically die over and over again, or do they? I don’t know much about the actual belief, but as I imagine it, when a person dies, their reincarnated essence automatically and simultaneously “zaps” into another body at the same moment. Therefore, the death is little more than illusionary. It’s a matter of simple physics, right? This is all getting rather deep. TON’s pun, simplified, most likel...

By the age of seventeen months, Octavia knows the word “poopy.” “Did you go poopy?” I can ask her. And if she has, she’ll say, “No?” It’s important here to translate. “No” to Octavia, and I’m sure to most babies, has a variety of meanings, and the meaning depends solely on the inflection or emphasis used. “No!” means no; but “No?” has one of at least three distinct meanings – yes, maybe, or no. But in Octavia's case, “No?” generally takes the first definition – that is, it mostly means yes. So, when she says“No?” to "Did you go poopy?" she usually heads down the hallway to the bathroom that contains the changing table. This system worked great for about one week. Then Tavi realized that she could lead her unsuspecting parents to the bathroom just by saying “No?” She could be completely dry, completely poop-free, and technically, she wasn’t lying when she said “No?” But you just knew that she relished her new-found ability to make us follow her. And as someone that doesn’t...

Creative folks work so hard, but it’s depressing. Most creative works have limited commercial value. In other words, the book you spend a year (or more) of your life writing might have the shelf life of a loaf of bread. A novel, for example, might retail for $24.95, but a few months later, that same book will probably find its way to the bargain bin for six bucks. How can something initially priced at $25 lose 75% of its value in less than a year? It’s not just books. The same thing happens to movies. Opening night, you’ll pay good money to see the latest blockbuster. When it’s released on DVD, you’ll still pay a price to own the privilege of owning the film; but a year down the road, you’ll be able to watch the movie for free on TV, or to rent it at the local gas station for a buck. Maybe it’s wrong to attach a commercial value to “art,” but let’s face it: movies, books, and other creative pursuits are turned into products. And the next product is always hitting the market place the f...

The English language contains far more words than necessary. All told, there are between 500,000 and 1 million words in the English language. How many words does the average college-educated speaker of English know? Perhaps 20,000, or 2-4%. Now brace yourself: How many words does the average college-educated person use on a regular weekly basis? Maybe 2,000. Around 7,000 languages are still spoken around the world today, although roughly half are expected to go extinct by century's end. The Tower of Babel crumbles. But the full potential of English certainly has yet to be realized. Is the universalization of English a bad thing? Should languages be protected like other "endangered species"? "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." -- Benjamin Lee Whorf

She can't speak many words, but she is capable of making many meaningful expressions. Every time she sees a kitty cat, she makes sure that everyone has the pleasure of seeing it. Every time she sees a ball, or anything that is round and remotely looks like a ball, she points it out. The girl sometimes has the ability to surprise, like the first time she called out for apple sauce by name, or when she recognized Elmo even though we never watch Sesame Street at home. Having a little vocabulary doesn't stop her from getting what she wants; it doesn't stop her from excitedly approximating sounds to express what she needs or sees. Baby talk, in other words, is about more than clearly-pronounced words. It's about facial expressions, foot-stomping, pointing, and the simple joys of toddler-hood. What can you learn from a baby, toddler, or young child? "My friend has a baby. I'm recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant." -- Steven Wrig...

While this isn’t necessarily a major trend in the music world, it is an interesting trend in the music world that matters most to me: mine. Over the past year or so, some of musicians I enjoy have started releasing demo material from the archives. First it was Winger, which released Demo Anthology . Instead of simply releasing a greatest hits collection, Kip and the boys gave us something special: a two-disc collection of some of our favorite songs – in a way that we hadn’t heard them previously. Different lyrics for some songs, different arrangements... awesome. Next came Stryper with The Roxx Regime Demos . These are demos of the songs we would come to know on The Yellow and Black Attack . Finally, Lisa Loeb re-released The Purple Tape, which first came out in 1992 -- originally not on a major label, and in cassette tape form only. What is so cool about demos? They’re raw; producers haven’t over-polished the music; and what we get to hear is the artist’s intensity, passion, and pote...

Once a month, the LDS do something called a Fast and Testimony meeting. For one hour, members of the church have the opportunity to share their testimonies, either at the podium up front, or with a portable microphone at their seats in the audience. Sometimes these meetings start out quite slowly, but go on they do. Even if no one volunteers to speak, everyone will remain seated for the entire period. If the silence goes on for too long, people tend to look around, wondering who will break the tension by sharing their testimony. So what is an LDS testimony? Basically, it is a statement of belief. Everyone that gives a testimony shares their individual stories, but all assert the following: 1) I know the church is true, 2) I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and 3) I know that Book of Mormon is the word of God. Some people give their testimonies every month, while others rarely speak, but when they do, they sometimes get pretty emotional about it. Why the emotion? Perhaps they...