The final cut.

"Yo, Phobos, get over here. Got a bunch of new releases from Hollywood."

 

The Hand that writes.

I was asked about writing a religious novel -- not one with religious themes, but a straight-up story where faith is crucial to the plot. And I have to say, while I would love to write a Ben Hur or The Robe or a story set in the modern day where a character's faith is central to the plot and miracles occur, I don't think I'm qualified to write such a thing. I'll tell you why. 

It's not because I don't have faith. I believe in God, I believe in Christ. But I also can't speak for them. A writer of this kind of work generally wants to show the miraculous, if subtle, work of God in action in the characters, and I think that'd be presumptuous of me. I'd be a terrible scriptwriter for the Almighty. 

Little Sally is dying! But her father comes to You and prays! Okay, now here's the scene where You heal Little Sally.

Sally [dies]

What? 

Well, it happens. We know it does and we're sorry it does. God is sorry it does. Dickens was sorry it did when he killed off Little Nell. (Oops, spoiler alert!) It's a fallen world and all too often the very best, most sincere prayers have to be answered with a no. (See also: Gethsemane.) Am I as a writer supposed to decide when God would make that decision? Am I to mislead readers into thinking that's how it works? I get sore enough when I read a historical novel where figures of the past are made to dance to the author's pipes rather than act as the real men and women would. One best-selling novel I refused to finish because I thought it did such a poor job with famous men of the past. If we can't get, say, Wellington right on the page, how are we going to get the incomprehensible God?

This I suppose is why Catholic writers like Evelyn Waugh and Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy didn't write stories where God reaches in and produces desired outcomes. And yet they are (or some are--looking at you, Evelyn) infused with Christian life in one level or other. However, I don't think I'm up to writing those kinds of books, either. 

Faith is the most important thing in my life, and it surely can be found in one form or other in my writing. I just don't think I can make it the utter focus of a book without falling into error. And if I should lead my readers into error, kindly put a millstone around my neck and drop me in the Hudson. I aim to entertain, not lead others in bad directions. 

Dog countdown.

Sometimes it would be nice to have mild superpowers when dealing with dogs. Nothing major, like being able to speak with them or magically ball up the shed fur and roll it in the neighbor's yard. No, maybe like being able to see a glow on the ground ahead where something of interest to the dog lies, so you can slow down for him, or pull him out of the way before his nose gets it. It might save some unpleasant encounters. On windy days like we've had this weekend, it would be a safety feature -- my dog's nosedar gets screwed up when it's blustery, and he'll sometimes reverse direction so suddenly it can twist me like a corkscrew. Wait! I missed something! Damn it, kid, don't break formation! If we went past the target, we'll bomb it on the way back! 

But the best imaginary superpower would be to see how many steps are left before the dog has to 💩.

Under normal healthy conditions -- that is, the dog has not been sick or stuck inside a long time -- dogs always have to walk around a lot before they do the deed. People think they're looking for the perfect spot, le bon endroit, just as Flaubert always sought the precise word, le mot juste. But I am convinced they need to take enough steps to get the missile loaded and ready to fire. It would be helpful to have an idea how many steps are left, especially when time is short or the weather is lousy. It would help me to have patience, knowing when the ordeal would end.

This would be great to know for ourselves sometimes, actually. As WebMD notes, "Exercise helps constipation by lowering the time it takes food to move through the large intestine." You could just check your number before you hit the treadmill. You wouldn't need Metamucil anymore, and thank heaven you'd never need to even consider something like this:

Yes, it's real. I had no idea they had 
competitions.

But alas, my number-viewing superpower is just a pipes dream. I'll just have to be patient with little Izzy as I await his hitting the magic number of a morning. It's usually not too onerous -- he's what we used to call a regular guy. 

Sign of the times.

Well, it certainly was windy in New York yesterday. 

[Audience: HOW WINDY WAS IT?]

It was so windy you could hear the air whistling through our governor's head, playing Billy Preston's immortal "Nothing from Nothing."

As I knock these words out it's a little after six p.m. on Friday. The temperature is dropping to below zero, bringing the ruinous winds, and there are 57 power outrages posted on the local utility company Web site. We've been lucky -- so far. If the electricity goes out our gas furnace can't go on. And we only have one dog to cuddle up to -- everyone knows you need at least three for a bad cold night. 

To show you just how bad the wind was on Friday, here's one of the big signs in our area as I saw it at eleven in the morning:

That sign's been up for over a decade and I don't remember it ever getting whipsawed so badly, not even when hurricanes have crawled up this far north. My wife thought some large projectile must have been flown right through it, but I don't think so. I am not sure if it's appropriate or ironic that the one fix-it store in the shopping plaza, Home Depot, had its sign completely blown out. 

Side view -- I don't know what those signs are made of but they were coming off like shredded cloth.

Mean as this cold snap is, it's not supposed to last. By Sunday we should have a high of 44. That'll feel like a day in Daytona by comparison. 

Stay warm out there, my friends. Human beings are only able to survive this kind of thing because God gave us the brains for it. It's our only natural defense against the elements. Regarding intelligence: I wonder sometimes why half the population of New York doesn't die when the weather gets rough. I've seen how they drive. 

True love.

 

The end of Christmas!

Sure, it's Groundhog Day (again!), but that's just a silly regional fun day. Today is also a more somber day, one on which we remember one of my favorite saints, Simeon.  

First of all, we should note that in medieval England, the Christmas celebration ended on Candlemas, February 2, forty days after Christmas Day. This may seem like too much of a good thing, but we have to remember that Advent was not a time of Christmas parties and general hoopla as it is now. Rather, Advent was like a mini-Lent, and not the celebration period. So for them, Christmas was the start of the festivities, not the end. I enjoy what we call the Christmas season (Thanksgiving through New Year's), but it really has turned the celebration on its head.

So what is Candlemas, more officially known as the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord? It's what it sounds like, the commemoration of Mary and Joseph taking the baby Jesus to the temple, which was the custom of the time, to have the baby consecrated to God. (This followed the 40-day purification period after childbirth, which enabled the mother to get over having birthed a child!) Since we don't know much about the childhood of Jesus, this does make a natural bookend to the Christmas season. 

At the temple, according to Luke, two saints are met: the prophetess Anna, and my man Simeon. There is something about Simeon I love. His extraordinary patience is admirable -- I have no patience, so I admire it in others. 

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.

This man was righteous and devout,

awaiting the consolation of Israel,

and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit

that he should not see death

before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. 

He came in the Spirit into the temple;

and when the parents brought in the child Jesus

to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,

he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:

    “Now, Master, you may let your servant go 

        in peace, according to your word,

    for my eyes have seen your salvation,

        which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:

    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

        and glory for your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;

and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,

“Behold, this child is destined

for the fall and rise of many in Israel,

and to be a sign that will be contradicted

--and you yourself a sword will pierce--

so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Pretty harsh words for Mary, but he only spoke the truth. The prayer to God, known as the Canticle of Simeon, is called also the nunc dimittis, from the opening words in the Latin vulgate -- "Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine" ("Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord").

So now Christmas is over. You may take down your decorations. I almost waited that long, but just because I was so busy -- the fake tree didn't retire to the cellar until January 20, I think.

Today's Feast of the Presentation is also called Candlemas because of the traditional blessing of the candles used in church at Mass. Parishioners are often invited to bring candles from home for this blessing, too. This comes from Simeon's declaration of Jesus as "a light for revelation to the Gentiles". 

So is it just a coincidence that Groundhog Day calls on Candlemas?  

Probably not. According to Dr. Wiki, the Germans had a superstition related to Candlemas, about its weather being the determinant factor of the timing of spring weather (although the Germans turned mostly Lutheran, they held on to Candlemas). This predictive belief got tied to the local badger, whose actions during Candlemas week would give them a heads-up on when they could expect to start planting. That got transferred with the Germans to Pennsylvania, and the preponderance of groundhogs rather than badgers led to the modern Groundhog Day. 

It's an interesting lesson for how we shuffle things around in the modern world. A period of fasting and preparation (Advent) becomes the period of feasting and merriment (the Christmas season) and a day of dedication and blessing becomes a day for a rodent to forecast the weather. I'm sure there's more to be made of this topic, but I'm cold and grumpy. Just walked the dog and I'm freezing. That little jerk in Punxsutawney had better not see his shadow today. 

A common problem.

I could probably write a post tagged to this image every single stinking day and not run out of material. 

But today's stupid is the American office worker who expects the company to love him/her/them/it/whatever. This is all the fault of Silicon Valley, and it's a rude awakening for many young workers. 

The sides in the stupid/venial fight between management and labor often shift in America. From the Gilded Age we had heartless companies and stupid workers. In the fifties the companies got stupid (assuming the good times would last forever) and the workers got venial, threatening strikes and getting so many cookies out of the cookie jar that the companies became hollowed-out bakeries. In the eighties and nineties, the companies got venial again, enjoying the ultimate flexibility of sending jobs out of the country and destroying factory towns across the nation, to the shock of workers. 

Into this brouhaha stepped the companies of the Silicon Valley, who promised a veritable heaven on earth for their workers. Sure, they would be expected to be dedicated, work long hours, and devote themselves body and soul, but they'd get everything they could want -- money, respect, free food, laundry services, and so on. 

Now the Silicon Valley companies are laying people off, cutting salaries and freebies, and the employees are running around with their dresses up over their heads. No one can believe that a company could do such a thing! Except companies have always done such things. Sometimes it's the only way they can survive. 

But the modern generation is as gobsmacked as a kid who gets dumped for the first time. I thought it was forever! That's because you were thinking wishfully and ignoring the lessons of history. 

Those of us who have worked in other businesses can't help but be a little schadenfreudey over the whole thing. I've been laid off three and a half times (one was a part-time job). It happens. The landscape changes. The rich people on top are not going to put their personal money into the company to keep the perks flowing, but even they can take a hit, and they might get defenestrated if it's a public company. It's messy. It's a financial and professional disaster. It's life. 

So don't be stupid. Don't throw yourself into all the team-building. Don't assume the good times will last and you can just relax and delete your résumé. Anyone can be dumb by nature, but willful dumbness invites retribution. It can rain stupid or venial at any time, so keep your umbrella handy.