Just As I Was

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It was kind of a game. A game to teach us about important people, living or dead. The fact that we were playing it in high school history class, taught by one of my favorite teachers, made it even better. Everyone wrote a name on an index card—a person in the news or somebody from American history in the past. A student sat facing the class while the teacher selected a card and held it over the student’s head, so we could all read who it was, all except the chosen one. Then s/he would ask questions to guess whose name was written. I remember very well when the teacher picked up my card and read it. He said “that’s really a good choice!” The name led to a bit of joshing. “Is he alive or dead?” the student asked. “How can you tell?” joked our teacher. It was the one name the selected student couldn’t pin down, no matter how many questions she asked.

It’s fair to say that Billy Graham had a profound influence in my life. As a curious—and very frightened—child, whenever his crusades were on television I would watch, transfixed. I responded to his altar calls at home. Multiple times. My emotions were overwrought and I’d awake the next day feeling redeemed, for a while. I had no real mentors in my Fundamentalism. Ministers preached, but they didn’t explain things. Not to children (what was Sunday School for, after all?). All I knew was that when the rhetoric reached Hell, and the possibility I would die that very night, repentance seemed like the only logical option. The reality of the choice—a black and white one, no less—could not be denied. Either you were or you weren’t.

Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University via Wikimedia Commons

As my point of view eventually shifted around to that of my high school teacher—I was in college at the time—I began to realize that Graham’s version of Christianity wasn’t as monolithic as it claimed to be. Once you experience other people’s experience of religion, if you’re willing to listen to them, it’s pretty hard to hold up the blackness and whiteness of any one perspective. Over the years Graham tainted his pristine image in my eyes by his political choices. His son now stands as one of Trump’s biggest supporters. Now that Billy Graham has gone to his reward, I do hope that the Almighty doesn’t hold his mistakes against him. He had no way of knowing that his sermons were terrorizing a little boy in western Pennsylvania into a career track that would never pan out. Largely because other followers of Graham’s so decided. It’s kind of like a game.

Getting Medieval

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Who doesn’t have a devil of a time keeping up with technology? My day is divided in almost Manichaean terms between having internet access and not. Once I climb on that New Jersey Transit bus—they don’t have restrooms, let alone wifi—I enter radio silence for God knows how long. Once safely ensconced at work, I once again have the net but I can only use it for work. The even longer commute home spells the end to internet access for the day, since supper and sleep await at the other end of the line. So when websites change in the course of a day or two, it’s difficult to keep up. The other day, for instance, I noticed on Wikipedia, in an article about the Devil, that the dark lord has a coat of arms. “That,” I thought, “would make an interesting blog post.”

That idea, like most of mine these days, had to be put on hold until after work. And between after work and getting ready for work again, the delay lasted a week. Maybe two. Then I went back to the page and the reference was gone. I can still remember that the coat of arms had three frogs on it—somewhat unfairly to amphibians, I felt—and I even recall precisely where on the page it was. When I finally had time to look it up, it was no longer there. Cached pages used to be easy to find, but who has time any more? There’s a reason that people of my generation still prefer print books. Yes, there are times when it’s difficult to remember where you read something, but at least the reference is still there when you open the cover again. It hasn’t vanished in a pique of editing enthusiasm. The strangeness of it all was worthy of comment—a coat of arms was a sign of medieval prestige. There’s no doubt that the Devil had his day in the Middle Ages.

I hear about people being bored in retirement. I’m so busy, though, that I’m going to have to request a desk in the afterlife. Not that retirement’s anywhere within sight, but I have so many projects going that I don’t know when I’ll ever have time to finish them all. Even a holiday weekend’s too short to make much of a dent. I don’t need another technologically driven mystery to occupy any more of my waking hours. Looking for a Wikipedia factoid that was deleted doesn’t make it any easier. They say the Devil’s in the details, but that presumes you can find the details where you left them. And if you happen find the reference, can you please also keep an eye out for my car keys?

Hey Jude

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Reading Jude the Obscure was, at times, like reading my own biography. Authors strive for that effect, to be sure, but Thomas Hardy hits close to home on this one. I don’t mean in the aspect of marrying the wrong woman and losing his true love, but rather in the sense of what Jude was meant to and couldn’t be. For any readers behind on their Hardy, Jude Fawley was an orphan who grew up with scholarly abilities but no connections to university folk. Teaching himself Greek and buying what books he can afford, he eventually moves to Christminster (Hardy’s version of Oxford) in order to begin his studies at the university there. His application is summarily rejected because he is a working-class nobody who would be happier not overreaching himself. He then decides to try to become a parson only to find that path blocked to him as well.

Okay, so that’s a bit brief for a 400-page novel, but you get the gist of it. Hardy, according to the introduction, added the university theme later since the novel’s main focus is on the hypocrisy of the church regarding marriage. Both Jude and his true love (and cousin) Sue end up marrying other people who make them miserable. They each separate and then live together and raise children until tragedy causes Sue to have a religious conversion and return to her first husband. Jude dies in obscurity, as the title warns. Hardy was famous for his anti-church sentiments and Jude the Obscure was one of his most criticized works. The university theme, however, was the part I just couldn’t let go.

Being from the working class you may not have any idea how higher education functions. Even with raw talent and ambition, there are so few places available that you can easily find yourself in the rejected pile. Jude fatefully moves back to Christminster, hoping on some deep level that he’ll be accepted. That never happens although his fellow stone-cutters know that he is just as learned as the professors who regularly parade through town. The author didn’t intend to write cheerful stories. The friend who first suggested I read Hardy’s work knew about that tendency. The world is a place of comfort for some and struggle for others. Like Jude, those on the outside just can’t see what’s wrong with their own earnest application to be counted among the educated. Like any country club, however, the real point of it all is to learn how to game the system. Like taking a sad song and making it, well, better.

Apologizing for Whatever

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Maybe you’ve felt it too. The insecurity of liking something other people don’t. Having grown up an Evangelical, I had to try to explain myself at multiple points for liking scary stuff. I love Halloween. I spent my young Saturday afternoons watching monster movies on our black-and-white television. After losing a long-term job at a decidedly gothic seminary, I began consoling myself with horror films. I don’t know why. I also don’t know why other people shun those of us with this particular habit. It’s not like I’m going to make you sit down and watch them with me if you don’t want to. You don’t even need to buy my book, and if you do (thank you!) you don’t have to read it.

One of the issues I’ve often grappled with is why “Christians” dislike horror. Reading the accounts of the martyrs is way worse than almost anything I’ve seen on screen. Revelation, let’s face it, is a horror show of Schadenfreude and ultra-violence. The Calvinistic idea that God would create the vast majority of people to burn in an eternal Hell of fire for reasons best kept to himself (yup, he’s a guy) is hardly charitable. So why do Christians say you shouldn’t watch horror? One of the observations from this lowbrow viewer is that the message behind horror is often good. Moral. Ethical even. We have trouble getting around the form of the message to see its substance.

I seldom talk about horror movies. Maybe that’s why I write about them so much. But the fear of judgment remains strong, even with maturity. The lurking Evangelical fear is that watching horror will entice the young to become interested in evil. I think it’s fair to say that all Christians are somewhat fascinated by evil—where does it come from? Why doesn’t God stop it? Horror films seldom glorify the monster. The protagonists, often flawed, fight evil and sometimes succeed. Do I really need to justify this interest at all? It’s no exaggeration to say that, although no longer an Evangelical I still feel the weight of both their stares and those of others who can’t understand why a nice guy watches such unbecoming things. My book doesn’t answer those kinds of questions, but it may contain implicit answers within. Of course, you’ll only know that if you read it. Not that I’m asking you to do so—it doesn’t even have a title yet.

Title-less

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I’ve been offering a few teasers about my forthcoming book. One of the reasons for not making an announcement is that the title hasn’t been settled yet. It’s pretty hard to promote a book without one. I’ve written enough about it that readers can tell it’s about horror movies. The publisher is McFarland, an independent academic publisher that specializes in pop culture and has an impressive list concerning monsters and other frightening things. Once we get a title down, I’ll say more. In the meantime, I can take the opportunity to say a bit more about the publishing industry. Not that people generally ask me about it, but I suspect many authors secretly want to know some insider tips. If not, I suspect there’s one or two other blogs to read today.

I’ll admit up front that I tried unsuccessfully to interest agents in this book. At least four wrote back to tell me it was a great idea, but a writer without a platform is like, well, an editor. I help other people get their ideas published—always a bridesmaid, as they say—physician heal thyself. When I realized I was wasting months trying to find a professional to promote my book, I decided to revert to the tried and true. When you want to know who to approach about your book, look at the spines of the books you read to write yours. Who are the publishers who produce books in this area? Sometimes the interests of a publishing house will change with the editors, so the more recent your comps, the better.

Horror sells. My project wasn’t really mercenary in that way, but rather it was the result of years of watching horror, usually by myself, and finding some commonality in the films. What exactly that commonality is will, I hope, become clear once I can freely write about my book topic. Others, you see, could swoop in and take my thesis—a perpetual fear of someone who barely has time to scribble out a blog post a day. Finding the time to write books in the off-work and off-commute hours is a real juggling act. In my case, perhaps a jugular act. Without an agent, I turned to McFarland. Many of their books helped me form the ideas for my own. Besides, they have a Scottish connection, and that means something to this old Edinburgh alum. If you want to get published, it helps to know the players. That may become even a bit easier once I’ve got a title.

Winter Blossoms

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Audur Ava Olafsdottir is a remarkable novelist. Iceland, of course, is held to be the most literate country in the world. I began reading Icelandic fiction of a considerably earlier period while living in Scotland. There was still a trace of Scandinavian heritage from Viking days discernible there, particularly in the Orkney Islands. I started taking on reading challenges three years ago. Given that I spend many hours a week sitting on a bus, it seemed natural enough to put my time toward a specific goal. The Modern Mrs. Darcy’s reading challenge encourages me to move beyond the bounds of my usual fare. One of the categories for this year’s challenge is a translated book. I enjoyed Olafsdottir’s Butterflies in November so much last year that I selected The Greenhouse for this year’s translated offering.

The story of two young people who accidentally have a child together, the tale makes effective use of religious imagery in reflective ways. The young man takes a job in a monastery rose garden in a remote country. When his one-night stand visits him to have him watch his daughter while she finishes her thesis, everyone notices how miraculous the child is. She even bears a striking resemblance to baby Jesus in the painting in the chapel. The narrative is gentle and reflective. The monks are drawn out of their scriptorium by the beauty of the roses and the child that is so intimately tied up with them. There’s nothing preachy, or even overtly religious here. It’s a simple reflection that religion pervades life, even in secular Europe.

One of the saddest realities of the present is that religion has made itself so odious to so many. Human beings are naturally inclined toward religious thoughts and behaviors. When any form of orthodoxy enters the picture, though, it begins to fall apart. The young couple, unmarried—not even girlfriend and boyfriend really—transform the town they’re in, making it a more habitable and humane place. They’re not condemned for “living in sin.” Even a priest admits things can get pretty complicated where relationships are concerned. A coming of age novel, The Greenhouse has Icelandic magic that comes through even in translation. Olafsdottir is a novelist who doesn’t feel the need to apologize for describing what is plainly obvious to those who pay attention: religion is all around us, and it need not be something to condemn. In fact, if cultivated without the acidic soil of orthodoxy it might even make the world a better place.

Becoming Biblical

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The average reader has difficulty sorting out what’s biblical or not. For example, when Cyrus Scofield began putting 4004 BC [sic] as the date of creation in his annotated Bibles, people thought the date was biblical. It was, literally, “in the Bible.” I used to tell my students that there’s a cultural belief that everything bound between the covers of a Bible is biblical. If so, I’ve just become biblical myself. I must say, it comes with mixed feelings. For the many people with whom I’ve worked on the New Oxford Annotated Bible, having their names inside is an expectation. Employees, however, sometimes make it in, too, in a prefatory way. I was touched to see my moniker there, on Bible paper, amid Holy Writ. Almost life-changing. A little scary.

Imagine a post-apocalyptic world. (I know, it’s easier now than it was just a few short months ago.) What if all books were wiped out except a copy of the book fondly abbreviated NOAB? Some Leibowitzian monk might come across it, and, recognizing that it’s sacred dare to open it, not comprehending the language but eager to begin again. Am I ready to be in such a book? Nobody reads prefaces, I know, but this is the widest circulation my humble family name has ever achieved. In there with Joseph, Job, and Jesus. It’s heady stuff. I’ll be on the shelves of used bookstores from now on. For a guy who’s books have been printed only in the 300 run range, this is dizzying. And not too bad for being only an administrator. None of my deans ever made it into the Good Book.

Surely there’s some grim responsibility that accompanies becoming biblical? Some consummation devoutly to be wished? Looking around at my fellow biblical characters, I’m not so sure. Many cases of men behaving badly surround me. None of them, I expect, had intended to be biblical either. Time and circumstance led to their elevated status. Modern biblical people tend to be famous only among their own guild. Some gain wider recognition, to be sure, but none share the name recognition of those recalled by the unknown recorders of sacred scripture. I’ve written books of my own, and been acknowledged as a scholar and editor in other peoples’ books, but never before have I found myself in such exalted, if accidental company. Where does one go from here? A Herostratus of Holy Writ? I can’t help but wondering if Jeremiah started off working in a cubicle.

Parks and Wreck

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It was a bit of a shock to see Bethel Park on the list. I make no bones about being a Democrat. I’ve supported progressive causes on an evolving journey since high school. When I saw the news that Conor Lamb is a worthy contender for the 39th district seat in my native western Pennsylvania, and that this area is “deep red,” I had to look it up. A special election’s coming up and the district is leaning a little blue. Historically, until 2010, it had been Democrat territory. But Bethel Park has other associations for me. My wife will pardon me, I hope, for saying it was the home of my first girlfriend.

As a naive and thoroughly Pauline Fundamentalist, I always believed marriage was against God’s will. The Bible says as much. Still, Paul magnanimously allows for marriage to those who “burn.” I’d felt the heat once or twice as a boy becoming a man, but I’d adequately stifled it with Scripture and the comparative fires of Hell. I was strong. I would never marry, I told myself. College up to that point had involved a cenobitic separation of the sexes in an all-male dorm on a campus where the rule was to sit with a Bible’s width between a guy and his girl. I met her at church summer camp where we were counselors together. She was from the city—Bethel Park is a suburb of Pittsburgh—and I was a kid from what she called “Roosterville” (the town of 900 souls was actually technically “Rouseville”). The ways of love, I was learning, were liberal.

To a point. That relationship limped along for a couple of years. I got on with my life, attended seminary and met my wife there. Bethel Park, I knew, had been named from the Bible. Bethel was the place of Jacob’s dream, the original stairway to Heaven. My first lady friend was impressed with my biblical knowledge—it was really about all I had to offer. Things improved after meeting the woman I would marry. Boston would remain a blue city while Bethel Park would degenerate from purple to red. When did this happen? The working class boy from Roosterville believes in equal rights for all. And now District 39 has a decision to make. Will the stairway to Heaven be limited to those who can afford those swank suburban houses? Or will the district remember its heritage that was blue from 1969 until we had our first African American president? “This,” Jacob muttered “is none other than the gate of Heaven.” Or, it could be, just another brick in the wall.

My Bee’s Keeper

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I’m not proud of it. In fact, truth be told, I tear up a little bit when I think about it. It happened so long ago, but it was a casual act of violence that made me feel big at the time. It wracks me with guilt even today. I killed a bee. For no reason. It was a summer’s day and I was following after my step-father, who’d just taken us for a haircut. Step-dad always wore a crew-cut and disliked hair on boys and men. I’ve always hated haircuts and when I saw a honey bee on a clover flower after leaving the barber shop shorn I stomped on it. I was maybe twelve. That act of senseless violence has never left me.

I’d been stung, you see. Many times, in fact. One incident was particularly dramatic. My mother had driven my brothers and me out to the woods to play with our dog. We made up a game, the way kids will, where my brothers would throw a stick and I’d race our dog to try to fetch it first. I was actually in the lead this time and stepped on a rotting stump to keep my marginal edge. The stump was home to a colony of yellow-jackets and they swarmed out, just like in the cartoons I used to watch. Before I realized what was happening I fell to the ground with multiple stingers burrowing into my bare legs. Our dog was covered with bees and we weren’t sure he’d even survive. At home Mom had me soak in a hot bath because there was a prayer meeting that night at church that we couldn’t miss. I was allowed to take a pillow to sit on over the plain wooden pew.

That incident was in my mind as I stepped on the innocent bee, gathering nectar that summer day. Immediately I regretted what I’d done. Its little body lay twitching in the grass. It had no idea who had killed it or why. My reason for doing so was lame, and long gone. All creatures on this planet are interconnected. We are killing off bees at unprecedented rates. Insect populations the world over are falling at truly alarming speed. We need our bees. We’ve tampered with nature to make it more productive and have ended up with killer bees instead. We’re now warming our globe so they can spread even as we kill off their more docile siblings. That summer sun of memory beats down on me as I consider what I’ve done, and I sincerely repent.

Photo credit: Jon Sullivan, Wikimedia Commons

Breakfast of Champions

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In my efforts to become vegan, I’m finding dairy to be the hardest element to replace. I’m reminded of this every morning since the day begins with cereal. Most people don’t realize that cereal for breakfast is largely of religious motivation. The original Kelloggs were Seventh-Day Adventists, and therefore vegetarian. To promote both health and animal-free diets, they gave a big push to the idea the day should start with cereal. It’s a touch dry, however, and water on your flakes leads directly to paste. So I’ve been experimenting with alternate milks. Often I use soy milk, but it has to be the right brand. Some of the offerings on the market have that oily aftertaste characteristic of soy beans. Not sure of the legality of hemp milk these days, I recently tried oat. Oat milk should taste like oats, i.e., it shouldn’t have much taste at all.

The moral crisis came as I poured it into my oatmeal. You see, there’s a biblical injunction to cooking a calf in its mother’s milk. This is the reason meat and dairy can’t be mixed in kosher settings. Scholars debate the basic concept behind this regulation. Like eating a bird and its eggs, some suggest, this depletes nature and should be avoided. At least one generation should have a chance to avoid exploitation. At least until it grows up. But what of the oats and their oat milk? Have I gone too far? What hidden principle am I violating, however unintentional, here? This is the problem with any religious thinking—taken to extremes it begins to break down. Some of the earliest gods, after all, were agricultural deities.

Agribusiness is huge. People gotta eat, right? And it is one of the most massive environmental hazards humans have ever concocted. Industrial farming is the largest producer of methane and the largest user of potable water, by far. Keeping animals for our food is literally destroying our planet. Religions, interestingly, quite often concern themselves with eating habits. It’s strange how most of them in this country are silent regarding what is obviously an ethical issue. After all, we adapted to the cereal for breakfast lifestyle because of religious conviction. It’s difficult to change eating habits. That’s my current struggle. I could pour the oat milk over corn flakes, I suppose. But then again, the Bible forbids mixing fabrics from different plants. What’s an aspiring vegan to do?

Augustine’s Secret Sin

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I’m curious: what do you think of Augustine? Augustine of Hippo was an odd blend of saint and sinner. I don’t mean “saint” in the sense of being so designated by the Roman Catholic Church, but in the sense of having reputable and progressive ideas. For example, Augustine argued that science, such as it existed in his day, had to be taken into account when understanding Christianity. If the Bible’s account of creation didn’t match what we knew of the world, then literalism had to go—that kind of thing. This was quite liberal for someone in the fourth-to-fifth centuries. He believed in reason, to an extent. The sinner side of the equation goes beyond his Manichean days, however. The sins I’m referring to are his dangerous and long-lasting theological assumptions that’ve helped to hold back civilization throughout history.

It was Augustine, for example, who gave us the idea of original sin being involved in sexual reproduction. The church has always been cagey on why we should reproduce when the second coming is right around the corner, but Augustine declared that from our very conception (which he couldn’t understand scientifically) we were tainted with sin. But that’s not the particular sin to which I’m referring. Augustine also spread the persistent idea that curiosity itself was a sin. Christianity, in his view, was a “need to know” religion, and curiosity about the natural world could lead to uncomfortable answers. He held this in tension with his belief that we should accept what science teaches, but there were many questions, he decided, we simply shouldn’t ask.

Religions have often come to this crux. Science has a strong explanatory track record. Religion is frequently based on old texts, written in an age when science was but an infant. As the power of rationality grew, the role of miracles shrank. Over time the proof of theological structures began to crumble. And since life was all about correct theology, those edifices had to be shored up against the onslaughts of reason. If this sounds hopelessly outdated, I’ll have to confess that many of my students at Nashotah House believed reason was tainted by original sin. Augustine had the answers they believed; somehow rationality had stopped with him. Human curiosity, Augustine felt, was a sin. All questions should’ve ended with his arguments. It’s this kind of theological bravado that gets us into the mess we find ourselves in today. Voting blocs that never question what their religious leader tells them. Never curious enough to ask “Why?” Augustine was a brilliant man, in many respects. He was also a sinner of the highest degree.

March On

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The day after the government shutdown, Women’s Marches were held across the country. Unlike the shutdown, these marches had been planned and anticipated in advance. They marked the anniversary of the Women’s March on Washington that spurred millions of people across the world into action just last year. I count it as a privilege to have been able to march with my sisters in DC last year, and yesterday again, in New York City. Religion gets a lot of bad press these days, but one of its truest aspects is that it invites you to participate in something greater than yourself. These marches are like that. They are all about social justice of the most basic kind. Not what divides us, but what brings us together. There may be historical reasons that women were kept from positions of leadership, but if we learn nothing from history’s mistakes we can call nothing we do progress.

It takes a lot to get me back to New York City when it’s not a work day. Nevertheless, the anticipation built along the way. Waiting for the train in Newark, we started to see pink hats at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. At Penn Station in New York they were everywhere. Strangers on the subway started conversations about the march, whether they were going or not. As usual, the program ran a little long and those who were near the stage grew impatient as they’d been on their feet for a couple of hours. Still, the messages were important to hear. Whoopi Goldberg was the star of the show this time, some might say, but all who stood up outside Central Park and gave voice to equality were stars.

The march itself lasted only a few blocks down Sixth Avenue, but the crowds were enormous. Although I held no clever sign, I knew that simply by being a body to march was significant. You see, the Women’s Movement isn’t about excluding anybody. It’s all about redressing institutionalized wrongs that insist “somebody else” is of less value than a white man who’s been able to exploit his way to the top. This system is corrupt and dehumanizing to all. Women see that. Woman say something about it. Women march. Yesterday thousands across the country marched for equal rights. Our government, controlled by one party—the white men’s party—couldn’t even figure out how to keep itself open. The differences between these two views of the world couldn’t be more obvious. I’m humbled and honored to be included on the women’s side.

Street Clearing

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Not driving to work definitely has its advantages. Although studies suggest commuting takes a great toll on hapless riders, the stress of driving in traffic—more often just sitting in traffic—also takes its pound of flesh, and more. A recent snowstorm had me reflecting on this. Once in a while I like to demonstrate that the male of the species is worth keeping around, so after the Bomb Cyclone that closed schools and offices in the trial-state area a couple weeks back, I went out to brush off and start the cars. It’s not that women can’t do this, but it’s more the fact that nobody wants to do it that motivated me. Besides, I have a secretly fond memory of the years of enforced, Dr. Zhivago-esque labor on our Lake Erie snow-belt blessed driveway. My stepfather’s shack sat atop a long, unpaved driveway. Ironically, although he drove the borough snow plow, he insisted that we boys do the shoveling at home. Maybe that’s where I get it. A poor family, our winter coats were substandard and aching fingers and toes, not to mention frozen faces, were pretty typical. I hated every minute of it. Or did I?

Bundled up against the arctic winds that had brushed a noticeable breeze past my face the night before (in the present-day) when I climbed into bed, I stepped out in first light. Immediately the cold found the small gap between my gloves and sleeves and began to work it’s chilling magic. Before the powdery snow was even off the car my fingers were numb and painful, reminding me of an unfortunate frostbite episode as a child. Unconsciously I found myself smiling. I’m no longer forced to do this. Kindness is a far better motivator than hate. At least as a renter I didn’t have to shovel the drive.

Afterwards, inside an apartment that we all habitually decry as too cold, I quickly warmed up. There’s a pleasure in doing something so that someone else doesn’t have to. I miss that, working in New York City. Focused on getting to work, it’s far too easy to step past those for whom even a glance is a blessing. Those who sleep in cardboard boxes on nights like that through which I felt an annoying draft, although secure inside. I see the police “evicting” tenants of paperboard towns even as I glimpse Trump Tower in the distance. The storm they called a Bomb Cyclone. We clear the streets quickly so that we might get back to work and make more money for the one percent. Studies show commuting is killing us. It seems the cold is doing so as well.

Addicted to Heaven

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I once wrote a scene—please don’t look for it; it’s never been published—in which a character awakes after attending a concert the night before. In my own life this kind of thing is very, very rare. Even when I had a full-time job in the relatively inexpensive Midwest, shows in Milwaukee were a bit out of our range for regular consumption. Here on the East Coast you have to scrimp and save to pull it off once in an every great while. In the scene I wrote, the character awoke wondering why the world looked so different the morning after. I’ve been pondering that because of my own recent Broadway experience, and a realization came to me. Such events involve an altered state of consciousness.

For all of science’s dowdy physicalism, there are very few practitioners who’d deny that altered states of consciousness exist. Nearly everyone experiences them. Perhaps the most common form is the dream. We know it’s not real, but most of us have had one or two that we just can’t shake. Upon awaking, going to work, dealing with the drudgery of everyday, we come home still feeling as if the preceding daylight hours were somehow less than real. Shows, some movies, and meaningful music can all induce alternate states of consciousness. Perhaps rare these days, but so can religious services. Such states continue after the event ends, and cushion our harsh reentry to “reality” with pleasant reminders that there’s something better somewhere else. Historically these moments have been highly valued. More so than even money. They’re addictive.

Attempts to induce such alternate brain chemistry through drugs are now a national crisis. One draw of opioids is their ability to bring on such altered states of consciousness. Our experience informs us that such things must exist, and they are likely behind the very idea of Heaven itself. The cost for altered states of consciousness is, of course, daily life. As physical beings we could not and cannot survive in a perpetual state of bliss. What is truly sad is that physicalism has convinced many that such alternative states are “not real.” Materialism leads, so often, to misery. The tendrils of altered states, however, interweave themselves among the synapses of our gray matter, sparking just often enough to make us realize that yes, those transcendent moments were just as real—if not more real—than this illusory world we daily inhabit. My character, awaking the morning after, was learning something she already knew to be true. Even if it was only fiction.

The Big Shill

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Once in a while I have to shill. As an erstwhile academic I’m aware of the cachet my employer bears for colleagues and the elite among the general public. Still, I find articles on the Oxford Dictionaries blog irresistible. I don’t work for the Dictionaries division, but I sometimes wish I did. A recent post by guest blogger Rebecca Teich discusses pulp fiction neologisms that have made their way into mainstream vocabulary. It’s not so much the individual words that interest me as much as does the phenomenon itself. Pulp fiction is antithetical to the sophisticated literature of the cultured class. Yes, there is status snobbery involved in such an assessment—we know those who find anything “common” to be vulgar and indicative of a lack of good breeding. The fact, however, that pulp fiction words make it to the mainstream belies the singular direction of cultural influence.

Many of us who grow up in working class families aspire to better things. We see (or used to see) on television and in movies how other people live. They have things and experiences that we covet. We work hard for many years to try to get there, often being kicked back down the stairs along the way. And yet we find some of our cheap, common vocabulary creeping into the consciousness of those who can afford better. There’s even a phrase for it. Guilty pleasures are those enjoyable books or other media that are really “beneath us,” but which we secretly enjoy. I post once in a while about Dark Shadows novels which are, quite literally, among the pulp fiction I grew up reading. They reached cultural cachet with a decidedly disappointing Tim Burton movie based on that universe, but regardless, they reached mainstream respectability.

Respectability. I suspect that’s what it’s all about. We want to be shown that our dirty collars and rolled-up sleeves mean something in this world of billionaire playboy presidents and congress that aspires only to greater wealth for itself. My first job, which I started when I was 14, involved physical labor. Brooms, paint rollers, and sledge hammers. I spent my evenings watching television and some of my weekends writing fiction. Pulp through and threw. Part of me finds its bliss in knowing that other rough-hewn writers have stamped their hallmark on the literary world by pounding out gritty stories of authentic human experience. Yes, I may be a corporate shill in this respect, but then, the shill is a respected member of the pulp fiction community.