How to Type a Stereo

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In the early days of publishing, type was set by hand. Individual letters, inserted backward onto plates, were used for printing the positive of a page. Printers could make as many pages as desired, but once the letters were released, it was time-consuming and costly to arrange them all again. If a book (principally) was expected to sell well enough for reprints, a plaster or papier-mâché mold was made of the page. This could be used to cast a solid metal plate of the pages to store for future print runs. This solid plate was known as a stereotype. Every copy from the plate would be exactly the same. When the plate was no longer needed it could be melted down and recast. The origin of stereotyping is a useful reminder of what happens when we preconceive a notion. For example, if I write “computer programmer” there is probably an image that comes to mind. No matter how many stereotypes confirm that mental picture, it isn’t true to the original.

Photo credit: Roger and Renate Rössing, Deutsche Fotothek, via Wikimedia Commons.

A piece by Josh O’Connor on Timeline, “Women pioneered computer programming. Then men took their industry over,” tells the story. Back in the early days of computing, when programming was seen as the menial labor of swapping out cables and plugs, it was “women’s work.” When it became clear how complex this was, and how many men didn’t understand it, the job was upgraded to “men’s work” and women in the industry were replaced. Stereotyping wasn’t just for boilerplate any more. The unequal assumptions here have led to a situation where computer engineering jobs still overwhelmingly go to men while women take on more “gender appropriate” employment. Any task that requires mental calculus benefits from input from both genders. One’s reproductive equipment is hardly a measure of what a mind is capable of doing.

Stereotyping is so easy that only with effort can we force ourselves to stop and reevaluate. The computer industry is only one among many that has been remade in the image of man. Our archaic view of the world in which everything is cast metal should be softening with the warming of intellectual fires. A large part of the electorate in our technically advanced nation admitted it just wasn’t ready for a woman in the role Trump is daily cocking up. It will take more hard lessons, perhaps, before even men can be made to admit that women can do it just as well, if not better. Stereotypes, after all, are eventually melted down to make way for new words. This may be one case where literalism might be a reliable guide.

Light and Dark

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Prophets, mothers, messiahs. A new religion for a new world. While these may not be main themes of Robert Repino’s new novel D’Arc, they’re clearly there in the background offering verisimilitude to a world turned upside down. Continuing the diegesis created in his previous two novels Mort(e) and Culdesac, Repino again shows an uncommon awareness that when survival becomes difficult people (and animals) turn to religion. Many fiction writers create worlds under stress and pretend that characters simply forget the religious option. That may be realistic on an individual level, but as history shows, not on a societal one. People—and mutated animals—are meaning-seeking beings. D’Arc doesn’t shy away from this fact. In a wildly integrated world of different species coping with consciousness and opposable thumbs in various ways, religion naturally arises.

If you haven’t been initiated into Repino’s universe, it begins with a virus and/or a plot—themselves religious—which allow animals to become bipedal and to grow human hands. They can talk and reason and they show us a true reflection of who we are. D’Arc, the female companion of Mort(e), finds her way in a world under threat. Planning to speed up global warming in a dramatic way, the aquatic antagonists conspire to melt the ice caps to flood the entire world. Repino knows the value of the flood story and uses it to full advantage. Along the way we meet beavers who’ve developed a religion that functions between water and dry land. Indeed, as a species their religion defines them as much as their engineering skills. This is a world that’s just been through war and instead of reconciling all species, there remain those (most notably humans) who can only live with their own superiority. This is a complex universe.

The hero of this tale, D’Arc, is sympathetic to the religious sensibilities that have sprung up around her. She herself is a character prophesied in this world where Mort(e) is messianic. There’s a scripture in the background somewhere and theirs is a world without embarrassment about it. There’s also plenty of action and adventure—the war with no name is really not over—but there’s a subtlety to the narrative as well. When things go awry many people do assume they’re alone in the universe and try to find their own way. It’s equally true that many look for meaning in a structured form of belief where all of this has been foretold. Such worlds, to me, seem to be more honest to the human condition, even when the characters are cast as talking animals.

Ellis Island

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A few years back we made a trip to Ellis Island. This is a common field trip here in New Jersey, although none of my immediate family passed through this portal. The most recent immigrants in my own heritage seem to have arrived by the early 1800s. In any case, Ellis Island is an impressive location. Now a museum, you can wander through the rooms and get an idea of what newcomers faced after a long and trying ocean voyage. What struck me the most was that large numbers of people were turned away for mental problems. I suspect mental illness of one sort or another is unnervingly common among human beings, and our current frenetic pace of life probably only exacerbates the situation. Still, I wonder if we really have a clear grasp on what is “normal.”

As humans become more adept at understanding their own brains, a need for more precise definitions asserts itself. A friend recently sent me an article suggesting “Neurologists Have Identified Brain Lesions That Could Be Linked to Religious Fundamentalism” on Science Alert. The article my Mike McRae ultimately doesn’t suggest that brain damage is the answer to Fundamentalism, but the story reminded me of an unscientific observation by one of my seminary professors decades ago. Harrell Beck once said something along the lines of Fundamentalism isn’t a theological position, it’s a psychological problem. Indeed, those who fall into the literalist camp have a preternatural urge to see things in black and white. Rules that can’t be violated, even if it means your deity’s an angry old God. With literally Hell to pay if you’re wrong, the right course of action is strikingly clear. Only life’s seldom so simple.

We study our brains but we don’t have a baseline for normal. I can’t believe that waking before dawn to catch a bus to work a job that pays less than a successful high school degree in other states is a good bet by anybody’s standard measure of normalcy. Those who read probing biographies find that even our brightest and best have quirks they didn’t wear in public. Surely the physicians on Ellis Island had some guidelines in mind when they were turning away those who didn’t measure up to the standard of what an ideal American mentality should be. Although Ellis Island shut its doors over half a century ago, it’s clear that even if we kept some unstable candidates out, we’ve done a stellar job of growing our own. And that can be taken as truth by faith alone.

Beat the Press

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Like many people, I’ve been re-reading 1984 and wondering what’s going on in a country I thought I knew. With clear evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the chief executive, Republicans have been closing ranks to ensure that bullies rule the playground. It couldn’t have been clearer than it was in Montana this past week. In a special election to replace one of Trump’s few appointees, Republican Greg Gianforte won the election the day after being charged with assault. This, despite being unendorsed by major Montana newspapers after attacking a reporter. In this world of alternative facts, the press is the real enemy. Those who support what’s going on in Washington are either badly deluded or unable to understand how proposed budgets will effect them. And the idiocy goes rolling along.

Our nation is weary. Headlines that could be pulled from MAD magazine appear and we count on our fingers the days until the midterm elections to try to introduce some kind of balance to this wildly yawing ship of government. You get the sense that newspaper editors are looking for anything to say that makes sense. Totalitarian governments always seek to discredit the free press. I learned about propaganda in high school, but apparently that lesson has been missing from the curricula of many schools where one man’s lies are as good as the facts of an entire nation. I admit to being a bit disoriented myself. I’ve got a life to lead and I can’t trust my government—I know, welcome to the Stateside Bloc. Can someone tell me what’s really going on?

Perhaps the most disturbing element of all of this is that the GOP is showing its true colors. Democrats aren’t perfect—not by a long shot—but they have never tried to rob the electorate of their rights and obfuscate to the point that the Father of Lies himself could take early retirement. There are books that explain this, but the Republican Party doesn’t like books and discourages reading any literature that it doesn’t sanction. Trump can completely contradict himself in Tweets and his handlers say “No, he didn’t” and that’s good enough for pushing an agenda through. Even Spicer’s lies aren’t extreme enough. We’re mainlining deception and can’t stop. Reporters can be thrown to the ground and the electorate stands and cheers. Tell people what they want to hear, and since facts are the same as opinions casting a vote is the same as throwing a punch.

Incident at the Wailing Wall

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While reading about Jerusalem lately, I recalled my first visit to the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall is the only standing part left of the temple that Herod the Great refurbished on the site of the temple originally built during Solomon’s reign, destroyed by the Babylonians, and rebuilt under the Persians. This was called the “Second Temple” because the first had been razed and although Herod had basically rebuilt it, the second one had never been destroyed (that would happen a few decades down the road). Today the Wailing Wall, the western wall of that magnificent temple, is a sacred site to Jews, and to not a few Christians. My visit took place in 1987. I was volunteering on a dig at Tel Dor, and on a free weekend I’d taken the bus to Jerusalem with some friends to look around.

It was late Friday afternoon. I was on my first trip overseas, and, like most fresh-eyed youngsters, photo-documenting as much as I could. I raised my camera. A guard walked up to me. “No pictures on the Sabbath,” he said. He had a machine gun and I didn’t, so there was no arguing the point. Besides, I had just finished the roll. (Does anyone out there remember film cameras?) I stepped into the shade of an alcove to change the roll. A couple of Hasidic men stopped me. “No photos on the Sabbath,” they warned. I assured them I was just changing my film. It was clear, however, that no more pics would be snapped. I rejoined my party and took out a notebook—at least I could jot down a few impressions. Another guard approached, “No writing on the Sabbath,” he said.

This episode has stayed with me over the years. With Trump’s international tour, I’m reminded that I’ve always striven to avoid the “ugly American” syndrome. I respect the local rules. The incident at the Wailing Wall, however, was a case of religious rules, wasn’t it? Does the enforced rest of the Sabbath apply to Protestants? Indeed, I’d been warned that if I didn’t catch a bus before sundown I’d never make it to Jerusalem on a Friday evening at all. Conflicting theocracies have led to more than their share of international sorrow. Why not take the high road and simply absorb what is going on around me? There’s a profound wisdom in that. Travel should inform our worldview. Those who encounter walls should stop and consider all they might mean to all who will eventually face them.

Seven Deadly

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If your outlook contains the word “supremacy,” I would humbly suggest, it’s time to rethink your philosophy. Borne of a deep insecurity—or overweening pride, which may be the same thing—the idea that one characteristic of this complexity we know of as being human makes one group better than another is misguided. No recasting of the terms makes it any better. No matter from which angle you shine the light, belief in superiority always looks ugly. As someone the world has classified as a “white male”—and often I wonder what that’s supposed to mean—I can’t understand why that categorization defines me more than any other. This came home to me once when I walked past a black supremacist gathering where the leader was none too shy about saying what his adherents should do to “the white man.” Does anyone deserve to be judged for their genetic makeup? You can’t just change your genes.

When I look at human beings my cones fire more than my rods. Black, white, or shades of brown? I’m not denying that historical wrongs—horrendous evils—have been done. Was it because of racial disposition or because of ignorance? I think there’s only one way to answer that. When our children are raised in mixed racial environments prejudice tends not to appear. Although the world seems to be reacting against globalization at the moment, sharing a classroom with those who are different lessens the desire to lob missiles in one another’s direction. Being a supremacist is an argument against your own case. It’s one of those ironies that rusts when exposed to the air. We’re different from one another, not better or worse.

Back in the medievalist days among the European sect, seven sins were identified as particularly pernicious. They were so bad as to be called deadly. One of them, it seems to me, is worse than all the others. Pride does very strange things to people. Does technological achievement make anyone better than anyone else? Sure, it may make someone a more efficient killer, but in what sense does that make them any better? Indigenous populations—and I’m not advocating that weirdly self-aggrandizing “noble savage” mentality here—get along just fine until modern technology arrives. It shows us what the other has and I do not. Another of the deadly seven is greed. It may be worse even than pride. I have to wonder if, when you get all of the deadly sins together, do they argue among themselves which is the best of the worst? All sins, perhaps, come in grayscale instead of black and white. Is a superior sin ever a good thing?

Revisiting Frankenstein

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There’s nothing like going back to the classics. Many people don’t realize that one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It has never been out of print. As a novel it has its issues, but the tale strikes something deeply responsive in readers. And the story may not be what you think. You see, the movies have made Frankenstein’s monster into something Shelley never intended. Indeed, today’s Frankenstein monster is pieced together from various monster images, just like the mad doctor’s original creation.

After a lapse of many decades, I decided to read Frankenstein again. It must’ve been in my tweenage years that I’d last done so. I recall putting the book down thinking how sad it was. Something happens, however, when you return to a book after a span of many years. This time I was looking for the mad doctor and hoping to determine if the monster deserved that title at all. The story won’t let any easy answers come. Victor Frankenstein is a young, impulsive man carried away by an idea. He doesn’t contemplate the consequences of what he’s doing. It’s like buying a dog without considering that you’ve just realigned your priorities for several years. Not noticing that his growing creation is hideous to the eyes until it’s too late, he simply abandons the creature without a word. (The parallels with an absentee father should be obvious.)

The creature—monster is a bit harsh—wants acceptance. He isn’t a mute brute with bolts in his neck. He’s not a robot. He is Adam kicked out of the garden with no Eve. He doesn’t start out evil. The rejection of his creator forces him to murder in a desire for revenge. Shelley’s world was deeply influenced by the Bible as well as Milton. Religious concepts are constantly under evaluation. The child of radical parents—her mother was one of the first feminists on record—Shelley questions everything here. No doubt in Victor’s mind he’s created a demon. Or has the monster created Frankenstein? Until the very final pages nobody else actually sees his monster, or at least hasn’t seen him and lived to tell about it. What fuels the creature’s fury is rejection. Evil doesn’t just happen in the world of the mad doctor.

Sympathies are divided in Frankenstein. We feel for the monster. His creator never apologizes. Never reflects that he somehow shares (or completely owns) the blame for the sad fate of that which he’s created. Living under a Frankenstein presidency, these unanswered questions hang thickly in the air. Lack of foresight seldom ends well. The monster isn’t always who you assume it to be.

Ironically

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Irony is a national resource that’s in abundant supply. Those who inadvertently create it may be the least equipped to appreciate it, but that’s ironic, isn’t it? Time magazine used to be considered conservative. That was before the days when telling the truth was, by definition, liberal. A few weeks ago the famed news magazine ran a cover that was aimed at those of us who remembered the same cover that same week 51 years earlier. It read: Is God dead? That cover ran in the wake of a new wave of theology that perhaps may have been the last time that discipline held any public interest. Some thinkers had been tinkering with the idea that God might not be there. That was newsworthy.

Nature doesn’t work in round numbers, so just over a half-a-century later we found ourselves in a possibly even more dire world than one without God. This one has no deity, but it does have Donald Trump. Addicted to lies like they’re opiates, our commander-in-chief contradicts himself at 45 rpm. Comey was fired for mishandling the Clinton files. Then, moments later it was because of Russia. Then, moments later, I had been planning it all along. Kellyanne applauds from her alternative fact bunker. No truth may penetrate here. And we call this the free world. Where there is no truth there can be no freedom. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, riding on the tsunami of disinformation, are loving the surf. Not a word from the thumbs of the president can be trusted.

Truth used to be an anchor. Now ships just drift. You can never tell whether they’re headed to North Korea or not. The GOP, in true American style, is attempting to rig the voting mechanism of this country so they can never lose power again. “It’s democracy,” they lie. They propose new health-care laws to which they will be exempt. Somewhere deep in these twisted pipes is a value long rusted shut. It’s rusty because it’s made of irony. And should that valve ever be wrenched open again we’d understand that draining swamps is a very bad idea. Yes, mosquitoes and other bloodsuckers may abound, but they’re all a part of the natural order of things. The dragonflies eat the mosquitoes and the fish eat the dragonflies. The greatest fish story of all is that the Republican Party believes in anything beyond its own supremacy over the entire nation it is lawfully bound to serve. Ironically, God’s not here to see this.

Mothers’ Daze

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Washington’s war on women has made this Mother’s Day especially poignant. As hard as it is to believe, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell had mothers. I can’t comprehend any male being anything but grateful and humble in a woman’s presence. Don’t accuse me of idolatry—I know women aren’t perfect. Neither are men. Especially not men. Mother’s Day isn’t an excuse to treat our moms as less-than-special other days of the year. We sometimes forget that life is a gift. And we should always say “thank you” to those who give. Pregnancy isn’t easy on a woman’s body. Indeed, until recent times childbirth was the number one killer of women. At some periods in history female life expectancy was only into the twenties. Giving birth is a self-sacrifice. We would do well to remember that daily.

Social organization outside the home was conveniently male early on, but not necessarily so. Without our mothers none of this would’ve been possible at all. Why do we fail to give back when we’ve been given so much? Yes, our moms are special to us, but women everywhere are mothers, daughters, and sisters to all of the men out there. To be human is to be both female and male. How could we ever forget that? How is it possible to use woman as political bargaining chips as if one person has any kind of right to tell another how to use her body? When we look at mom do we see only a physical body? Do we not see a mind? Emotions? Love? How can we look into the face of all that and claim that men are in any way superior or deserving of more than their share of power and prestige? Mother’s Day should be a revolution.

I don’t mean to be combative, but I’ve been pushed into a corner. From my earliest days I’ve felt women were stronger than men. Being raised by a mother on her own can be a revelatory experience. I emerged with nothing but gratitude for the sacrifices one woman had made to be called a mother. If any men have forgotten that lesson, use this Mother’s Day to repent. If you’re alive to read this, or to share it, you have a mother to thank. And tomorrow’s no excuse to forget that and act as if this one day were enough to show gratitude to those who have taught the human race to love. It’s Mother’s Day, but so should every day be.

See Around Us

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There aren’t too many people that I consider personal heroes. Those that I do have earned the sobriquet in odd ways, I suppose. That makes them no less deserving. Rachel Carson became a hero because of The Sea Around Us. Published over a decade before I was born, it was a book that I treasured as a teen—or even as a tween, had the word existed then. I was no literary critic, but her style and lyrical writing drew me in and my own love of the ocean I’d never seen was kept alive through her words. Mark Hamilton Lytle, I think, shares my evaluation of Carson as a hero. The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement brought out much of what I admired, and still admire, about her. A woman in a “man’s world,” she became a scientist with a gift for literary finesse. She struggled, she believed, and she died far too young.

Lytle’s book builds up to the publication of Silent Spring, which appeared just two years before Carson’s untimely death. I picked up Silent Spring as a tween as well, but only read it within the last few years. I knew this book had nearly singlehandedly launched the environmental movement, but as the shame of modern life constantly reminds me, I’d been too busy to read it. Born the year it was published, and not terribly far from where Carson herself was born, I had an affinity with the book that strangely kept me from it. It isn’t easy to read, even today. Especially today. With a government ignorantly rolling away all the environmental safeguards that six decades of careful thought have put into place, we need Carson now as much as we did in the 1960s. Her modern critics, as might be expected, tend to be men.

Carson showed that a woman can change the world. Those who disparage her stunning work claim that her following is a religion, not science. Carson was a rare scientist who saw that everything is interconnected. There may be some mysticism to this, but for those willing to admit it, we feel it to be true. On the eve of environmental degradation that will, in a perverse kind of justice, possibly wipe us out, we need to return to the fine words and clear thinking of one woman who took on industrial giants to give a voice to the people. We do have a right to determine what happens to our planet. Lytle makes the point that Carson was like a prophet. For me the comparative preposition can be removed altogether.

Who Cares?

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With all the petitions going around I’m getting a bit dizzy. I won’t go to the doctor though, since I think Trump may be a pre-existing condition. In any case, seeing all these petitions gives me an idea for one of my own. I suggest a petition that says members of congress should not have a health plan. Now wait, hear me out—I’m not vindictive, just practical. Apart from the fact that some of them have been kept alive and active well past their sell-by date, these are people who are supposed to represent us, right? How can they represent what they don’t understand? For a few years after being sent down from Nashotah House I had no medical insurance. Cobra was rightly named because it was more fatal than a bite of its namesake snake. If I had anything go wrong, well, dying was always an option. How many of our “representatives” understand that? When’s the last time they had to stick their fingers between the seats on a public bus to look for change? It’s far easier to pull it out of your constituents’ pockets.

Like everything out of the White House since January, this hasn’t been thought through. Let’s see if I’ve got this right: the rich want tax breaks so they take away the healthcare of the poor people who work in their factories. The poor people die. They can be replaced with cheap labor from south of the border, but we need to build a wall to keep them out. And all of this is going to cost quite a bit so we have to tax the poor people to pay for it. Wait, the poor people are dead. Look, guys, you’re not rich unless you have someone to compare yourself against. I’ve never been to the country club but I bet it’s pretty hard to putt if your green looks like my front lawn.

Hm, death may be a pre-existing condition…

If the government wants to lead, it needs to consist of people like us. That’s why I say we should petition the members of congress to forego their own health care. The day after the House vote I had an email from my Republican representative. He said, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for it.” Well, we live in a day of government-sponsored prejudice. All Republicans are alike. Enjoy it while you can, 45 sycophants. Midterm elections are coming up and I’m going to send a petition to the newly elected Democratic majority. If I’m feeling faint in the meantime I’ll just put my head between my legs. That’s what our elected officials are doing.

Good Newsists

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In the interest of avoiding conflict thereof, I cannot yet give a review of Randall Balmer’s Evangelicalism in America. Since I’m writing a review of it for Reading Religion, I’ll use it as a springboard into a topic that should concern all who believe in religious freedom. One of the resounding themes of Balmer’s treatment is that Evangelicalism, after it wedded to the Religious Right, lost its soul. Those are my words, not his, but the sentiment’s about right. For anyone who wasn’t politically aware in the 1980s, it may seem a surprise that religion didn’t enter into politics before that decade. With the exception of the fear of the Catholic in the case of John F. Kennedy, religion wasn’t used as a political wedge until the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The Religious Right, unhappy with the born again Southern Baptist in the White House, moved to solidify the Evangelical bloc.

Evangelicals had been an underground movement for half a century. Many had no idea what being “born again” meant when Carter first claimed the sobriquet. Balmer points out that it was the threat of the withdrawal of tax-exempt status to discriminating Christian schools that led to political action. Bob Jones University, fearful of racial intermarriage, didn’t admit African American students. Leaders of the Religious Right saw the loss of tax-exempt status as a move against their sacred segregated culture and a push that required a shove. Coopting the abortion issue (historically Evangelicals had supported women’s rights, including the right to abortion in many cases), they nailed together a platform for political activism which put women “back in their place,” kept racial “purity,” and romanced a total aberration in Christianity—the “prosperity gospel.” All of this is well documented. And well hidden.

Looking at Evangelical politics today, abortion—the control of women—has become THE issue. It’s hard to believe, as Balmer amply illustrates, that Evangelicalism used to be allied with the Social Gospel. It was a religious view with a conscience and it supported issues that are now polarized as “liberal” and leftist. This shift came about gradually, but not accidentally. There were political players—Balmer names names—who had one goal in mind, and that goal wasn’t Jesus or what he’d do. It was the sweet prize of political power. Evangelicals, you see, are born followers. A leader with a strong voice can lead them just about anywhere. Many Evangelicals today would deny their more liberal history, but it is right there for anyone who’s willing to learn something about who they once were.

United States of Ego

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We all know the type. The guy who brags that he can do something complex without all the study and “hard work” (scare quotes theirs) necessary beforehand. When he starts strutting his stuff, and realizes that it is much harder than he thought, he has to find a way of backing down without losing face. We all know somebody like that. Now we all know somebody like that by dint of his being in the White House. Politics, like most complex things, isn’t as easy as it looks. When you’re president of the United States, backing down quietly’s not an easy thing to do. Why not start a nuclear war instead? Better dead than read, as the saying goes.

Thing is, braggarts may convince others that they don’t know what they’re talking about, but they’ll never convince themselves. The truly sad thing is we’ve never lived in a country where it was possible to buy your way to the White House before, based purely on ego. Don’t get me wrong—I know that every president has to be an egoist to some degree. What the previous 44 have had, however, is considerable knowledge of politics. Even the dumbest of them read. They knew this wouldn’t be some simple task that you could simply wing, like a business deal. You have to do homework. A lot of it. And it’s not easy. Even the relatively simple life of a professor of religious studies requires years of training. Hours and hours and hours of reading and thinking. Believe it or not, it’s hard work.

Now we have a chief executive tweeting that it’s hard to be president. Everyone, it seems, except 45, knew that. That’s why most people would never bother to run for the office. Our civilization utterly depends on experts. That surgeon that works on your heart, you swear, had better be an expert. Those guys who build the missiles we lob onto whomever we feel like, had better be experts. And even if your steak comes out of the restaurant kitchen poorly prepared, you send it back for expert treatment. And yet, we’ve elected the least qualified candidate who’s ever run for the office in over two centuries of history. His expertise: pleasing himself. Greed is a poor substitute for leadership. Even now that it’s crystal clear we live in a headless state, his supporters cheer him on. Let’s hear it for the poor uber-wealthy. Those guys need all the help they can get.

Blood Brothers

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Every once in a while I take a chance and write about music. I don’t do this too often since it’s a very personal thing, and as open as I may be on this blog, I’m not as accessible as I seem. We all need a place to retreat in this world, and Bruce Springsteen’s music is one of those places for me. Late last year, just after it was published, Springsteen’s Born to Run—his philosophical and revealing memoir—sold briskly for several weeks. Since it made its way into my stocking I’d been intending to read it since then. And putting it off. There’s something disillusioning about finding out your heroes are only human. The best among mine are heroes precisely for that reason. Gods need not apply. Overcoming my fear, I dove in.

Two things stood out in this autobiographical account: religious imagery looms large, and depression mingles liberally with it. I recall reading an early review where the writer expressed surprise that the Boss suffers from depression. I responded (perhaps out loud), “have you ever listened to his songs?” I became a Bruce fan because he sang about working class people. Bruce and I share that background. He knows that your roots never let you go. Indeed, roots are what keep you grounded. Many of my academic colleagues, I learned, were simply carrying on the family business—and a privileged business it is. Those of us who had to overcome poverty to get in the door were never really welcome in the ivory tower. You can’t help where you’re born, but you can sure be punished for it. Bruce understands that.

I’ve never been to one of his concerts. I don’t even like to listen to his music when someone else is in the room. There’s something deeply personal about communing with someone you feel understands you. Of course I’ve never met Bruce Springsteen. I probably never will. He won’t know the kind of influence he’s had on my life and I feel that I’m risking an awful saying so here on this blog. There aren’t too many heroes in my life. I’m not inclined to idolize people. In this memoir, however, Bruce won’t let himself become an idol. He’s not perfect and he takes pains to make sure that you know that. We were, nevertheless, raised in situations not dissimilar from each other. Unlike Bruce, I have no musical gifts. No, I’ll never likely meet him—and if I did I wouldn’t want it to be with other people around. Some things are just too personal that way.

Independent Bookstore Day

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Many modern mini-holidays are centered around things you might buy. I don’t mind that so much in the case of Independent Bookstore Day—of which I wish you a happy one. Quite by accident I found myself in an independent bookstore just last night, not aware I was prematurely celebrating. If anything might save us from the muddle we’re in, it’s books. We live in a society with plentiful distractions, many of them shallow. Books take some effort. They demand your time. They make you take some quiet space to think. Books came along with, and perhaps were the source of, civilization. Today we’re harried and hurried and frantic with an electric source of information and entertainment that never turns off. And we’re seeing the results of that playing out on an international scale. How different it would be if we’d grab a book instead!

The strange thing is that those inclined to action often suppose reading to be an utterly passive activity. The basis for human progress, however, has often been what someone has read. Surprisingly, books can be the source of progress. When we see reactionary elections taking place around the world, leaders who don’t read emerge as the hailed champions of regress. We’re living through that right now. Books can be dangerous. Think about it—you’re being given access, however briefly, to someone else’s mind. The combined power of minds is an impressive thing. If what I’m reading is anything to go by, the hive mind is a source of incredible strength. You want action? Put multiple minds together. There’s a reason that civilization has gone hand-in-hand with literacy.

In the wake of Borders going under, independent bookstores have started to make a comeback. Those of us who work in the publishing industry have to keep an eye on those numbers. A visit to a bookstore is all about discovery. Quite often I’ve walked in with a list in hand. When I exit my list has grown rather than shrunk, and the purchase I’ve made was likely not on the list to begin with. Independent Bookstore Day gives us a chance to think about how very much we do not know. Unlike those who claim power and brag that they don’t read, admitting that we have more to learn is the way toward progress. I may not be the most active man in the world, but I do recommend action in the form of getting to a bookstore. If we each do our part, we can’t help but to make the world a better place.