Pop Culture

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Something I was reading recently made me ponder how we become acquainted with culture, particularly pop culture.  I can really only speak for myself, but I know television had a lot to do with it.  We were a family of humble means and with three young boys to entertain, television often came to the rescue.  There were the usual Friday night Brady Bunch and Partridge Family lineup and Sunday’s Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and perhaps Wonderful World of Disney duo.  Lots of other stuff got mixed in there, too, I’m sure.  I watched Dark Shadows after school and the original series of Star Trek. Gilligan’s Island was a big influence, as was Get Smart.  All of these have come back to me as an adult, and in some ways define my outlook.  It’s kind of scary, actually, the power television has.

Specifically, however, I had recently read something mentioning James Bond.  How did I find James Bond?  It must’ve been on commercial television broadcasts of the Sean Connery movies, but I knew enough to pick up these titles at Goodwill when we went there on a Saturday, clothes shopping.  Always more interested in books than other things, I remember running my eyes over the spines in the book bins.  I quickly learned to recognize, and snap up, the Dark Shadows books.  I also somehow learned the canon of Ian Fleming James Bond novels.  Perhaps there were lists inside the cover of the paperbacks I bought.  Little boys and spies require no explanation, but how did I learn there were twelve Fleming novels?

From Dr. No trailer, Wikimedia Commons

Since the first film, Doctor No, came out the year I was born, I was a bit late to the party.  Still, as a child I recall being scandalized, and confused, by the sex scenes in the books.  I was after the spy action, not the “mushy stuff.”  Reading TV Guide like Holy Writ, I tried to make sure I could see the movies when they happened along.  In my mind there was one corresponding movie to a book.  Whoever got there first cast it in bronze.  I was offended on seeing Casino Royale for the first time.  It was a comedy.  And what was David Niven doing as 007?  And was that Peter Sellers in there too?  The Fundamentalist brain, it seems, understands only one way of doing things.  Growing up I spent entirely too much time watching television.  I shouldn’t be too harsh about it, however.  It’s likely how I came to know anything about popular culture, even if it was seen through the humble lens of the working poor.

Science, Religion, and Ghosts

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August starts to suggest autumn.  Even with record-breaking heat, the quality of the air definitely suggests fall is on its way.  Ghosts are on our mind.  So a recent story on Religion Dispatches explores how ghost hunting is tied to enchantment.  In “What a Spooky Summer Trend Says about Enchantment in the Late Modern U.S.” Daniel Wise considers how, unlike predictions made to the contrary, science and rational thinking haven’t eradicated spiritual outlooks.  Church numbers are down, yes, but belief remains alive and well.  I have to wonder if the reason science and religion don’t get along is that specialists in the one really don’t know as much about the other as they should.  That, and once someone moves from private to public intellectual they think they have the authority to speak on that which they haven’t studied.

My role as experiencer, on the religion side of the artificial science-religion divide, is one of often being told why my field of study isn’t rational.  Those on the religion side sometimes lash out and retort that science is also based on belief.  What it really comes down to, as recent elections have shown, is how many people you can convince you’re right.  With the evidence of climate change all around us, many of us in the middle wonder how deniers can still exist.  They often take their information from somewhere else.  Many literalists groups, and other religious specialists as well, teach that this world isn’t the final reality.  There’s more going on than meets the eye.  As Wise points out, many find their own evidence of this in ghosts.  Most scientists simply dismiss the possibility without really looking into it.

Religion tends to be more experiential.  Those who practice it know it’s real because they feel it.  And they can be rational about it.  No doubt scientists feel similarly about the material world and their discoveries about it.  A funny thing happens, though, when you reduce it to only the physical.  Religion and science should have nothing to fight about, and they might well not if each side weren’t to make absolute claims to the exclusive truth.  Ghosts are a good middle ground.  Why can’t we admit that we just don’t know?  It’s no sign of weakness to be honest about such things.  Ghosts have been seen and reported for all of human history.  If they’re spiritual they can’t be measured yet, not in any real way.  As autumn creeps in, perhaps we should ponder such things.

Henry Justice Ford, via Wikimedia Commons

Finding Freedom

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I recently discovered The Incarcerated Christian website.  To be more factual about it, the women who run the site (Robin Mitchell Stroud and Debra Levy Martinelli) reached out to me about an interview concerning Holy Horror.  I hustled on over to the website to see what it was about and I was impressed.  In my own fumbling way, I would describe their use of “incarcerated” as people damaged by Christianity.  Imprisoned by various groups that require later healing.  Far more than a religion, Christianity has, of course,  become a cultural system removed from the teachings of its founder—the Trump administration made this abundantly clear—and bent on power over the lives of others.  In its efforts at control it leaves a lot of damaged people in its wake.  I must say that my interview with them convinced me that they really get what I was trying to do with Holy Horror.

Not that I have a great deal of confidence in my ability—life leads you to question such things—but a lot of my writing is on more than one level.  Here on this blog, several of my metaphorical pieces have raised objections from readers who took what I was saying literally.  Isn’t literalism often a problem?  In philosophy class we learned to call it “naive realism.”  Things may not be what they appear to be.  Getting underneath the surface requires some digging.  Maybe that’s why I enjoyed being on an archaeological dig so much.  To anticipate the posting of the interview a little bit, what some people automatically associate with horror is lack of depth.  In fact, much of horror runs into the profound, for those willing to watch.

Part of it, I must say, is that horror attracts outcasts.  The “Christianity” that dominates western culture actively seeks to create outcasts.  Creating, even if imaginatively, “the other” is a way of asserting one’s own superiority.  Reading the New Testament somehow I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind.  The cultural Christianity we see today has very little to do with Jesus.  “Believing in” has replaced listening to his words, or doing as he did.  Throughout the Gospels, if I recall correctly, joining the movement was voluntary.  They wanted to make the world a kinder, more compassionate place.  Look around at those who wear the badge loudly these days and tell me if that’s what you see.  What does all of this have to do with horror?  Listen to the interview when it’s posted on the podcast in October.  Don’t worry, I’ll let you know.  In the meantime, your hours spent on The Incarcerated Christian will be rewarded.

Witchfinder, Generally

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In Holy Horror I describe the “unholy trinity” of movies that figure strongly Christian themes: Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen.  These movies span 1968 through 1976 and all were extremely successful.  Another writer earlier dubbed another three horror films from the same era the “unholy trinity” (I didn’t realize I was being trite) of folk horror: Witchfinder General, The Blood on Satan’s Claw, and The Wicker Man.  These three were low budget and not particularly successful at the box office.  They’ve all become cult classics, however.  I suppose that together these six films help mark the late sixties and early seventies as the beginning of a new realm of horror films.  Folk horror continued to exist but wasn’t terribly common.  It has recently been given a high profile by The Witch and Midsommar.

Of all of these films Witchfinder General stands out as the least obviously marked by horror tropes.  It’s set as a fictionalized account of the historical Matthew Hopkins, a man actually responsible for about a fifth of all British witch executions in the seventeenth century.  There’s nothing really supernatural in the film and its horror reputation is attributed to the cruel tortures depicted—these really pushed the envelope in 1968.  Not only was Rosemary’s Baby released that same year but so was Night of the Living Dead, another defining horror film.  The sixties were a chaotic time—the birth pangs of a new outlook that is still being resisted by many politicians.  We all know about the music of the era, but the cinematic impact was also immense, as these six films show.

As different as they are, these two trinities all feature horror that is fueled by religion.  Although this had been pointed out earlier in the century, people were now being made aware that, apart from the good religion does, it also brings potential evil into the world.  There’s no question that misguided over-protectiveness of Christianity led to many, many innocent deaths.  The more cynical might note that the Christianity being “protected” is actually key to an economic system that benefits the rich—that supports the interests of the wealthy.  The historical Matthew Hopkins was the son of a clergyman.  Apart from his reprehensible role in rekindling the witch trials in England, not much is known of his life apart from his preoccupation will executing “witches.”  As time has gone on, we’ve unfortunately circled back toward the religious conflicts in the folk horror trinity.  Watching horror may yield some valuable lessons.  

worth a mention

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It is always gratifying to see a review of a book you’ve written.  This is one area where I’ve struggled since I tend to write between categories.  Outside the discipline itself religion is a pretty suspect topic, treated with some embarrassment among academics.  Combine that with another subject (meteorology, horror movies) and journals that specialize in either discipline tend to ignore it.  Horror Homeroom, however, has proven a collegial place to explore the connections between horror and religion.  A review of Nightmares with the Bible, by John Morehead, has appeared there, and I’m honored by the attention.  When you write books between discipline boundaries you wonder what people think of them.  When they’re priced stratospherically you will wonder a long time.

Long ago I started to notice how often religion came up in horror contexts.  I’ve also been aware for a considerable time that although horror has lots more fans than religion does, the discipline hasn’t been considered a “respectable” one.  (Yes, scholars are open to prejudices as well.)   I’ve tried to keep up as well as I can with books written about horror and I’ve done my homework on the religion side, I think (although I continue to study).  The two crowds (horror and religion fans) tend to be about as opposite as you can find.  I’m learning the wisdom of publishers firsthand—if you do interdisciplinary work instead of broadening your reach you’ll find that neither discipline will touch it.  Especially if one of those disciplines happens to be religion.

Nevertheless, this is a celebratory post.  Rarely do my books get written up.  Holy Horror has been out for over two years now and not one academic review has appeared, not even in Reading Religion, where readers can request review copies.  McFarland, my publisher for that particular volume, doesn’t do much with religion and apparently doesn’t send review copies.  So I’m thrilled that Horror Homeroom has published a review.  I am genuinely curious as to what others think about my ideas.  Not only has the internet thrown a kind of lifeline to those of us without academic libraries, it has also given a voice to those the academy would rather not recognize.  Does religion have anything to do with horror?  It most certainly does.  Does horror fear anything?  Yes, it fears religion!  And so the two have much to learn from each other.  My thanks to Horror Homeroom for putting the review out there and I hope some may comment upon it.

Music Time

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Although I love music I rarely have time to listen to it.  My work demands concentration and if I have music on I have trouble paying attention to the task before me.  I awake early to write, and if I try to listen to music while expressing my thoughts through my fingers I find myself conflicted.  I work until supper and the debriefing time that follows work is often fraught—we’re all experiencing frustrations with our new, pandemic reality.  By the time supper’s over, I’m ready for sleep and one of the things that can keep me awake is an ear-worm.  Awake predawn the next day and repeat.  On rare occasions when I have a thoughtless task to complete on my job, I’ll be able to put on some tunes.

Photo credit: Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and the Sun, from Wikimedia Commons

When that rare syzygy came the other day I put on MCR, or, for those who like to spell things out (such as me), My Chemical Romance.  Every time I listen to MCR I wonder why I don’t do it more.  I suppose it’s because I have only two of their albums and I don’t want to wear them out.  What struck me as I listened to The Black Parade was how religious language sometimes creeps in, even when the band is secular.  This is important because rationalists have long been trying to dismantle religious thinking, falsely associating it with only certain amorphous groups such as “Fundamentalists” or “extremists.”  Religion, however, is very much a part of being human.  If we deny it, it simply crops up in another form.  It may take some time for the new shape to be recognized, but when it is it’ll be called religious.

I often wonder why universities, which are supposed to be such curious places, tend to show so little interest in religion.  It’s like that embarrassing uncle at a family gathering—the one everyone else avoids.  Still, our political system is run by religious ideology—take a look at the Supreme Court and try to deny it.  Our daily life is suffused with it like the air in a room with a scented oil diffuser.  Religion is all around us and the academic response tends to be “meh.”  I might be less distressed by this lack if it could be demonstrated that people are becoming less religious, but they’re not.  MCR doesn’t (in the albums I have) exude religious thoughts often, but they are there.  They also appear in other secular music, almost as often as sex and drugs.  If only I had more time I might be able to listen for more examples.  Right now, however, it is time to get to work.

Born to Fly

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WikiTree is a web-based, free genealogy site.  I’m too busy these days to do much digging, but it’s hard not to stop and consider it once in a while.  Some years back I put some family information on it, and every great now and again—I don’t have a sense for the timing—I get notices that include “degrees of separation.”  It seems I’m always about twenty-some degrees removed from famous people.  In August they were featuring aviators.  I’m about as close to Orville Wright as I am to Amelia Earhart.   Then there was Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, better known as “the Red Baron.”  What always surprises me about these charts is that they never follow the path you’d expect.  My ancestry is about half German, but Richthofen is attached through the other half, predominantly Celtic.  As my wife pointed out, we must all be about this far removed from each other.

Genealogy can be enticing.  It’s got an air of mystery and discovery about it.  I suspect many of us hope we’ll find that we’re connected to someone famous, even if we never meet them.  My cousins remember visiting Melvin Purvis’ house when they were kids.  An ancestor of that generation was married to his sister.  But what of all those who never become well known?  Are they any less important because they don’t have books written about them, or movies that feature them?  Isn’t simply connection enough?  And the matter of being connected can often heal wounds.  It’s harder to hate someone whose house or childhood you shared.  This is a profound lesson from looking at how humans have loved each other.  We tend to get fixated on the mechanics, but it seems to me that the love is the important part.

I’m not a statistician, but I find that genealogy helps me feel connected.  We are all, of course, connected at some level.  That’s one reason it’s so distressing to see the hatred being carefully nurtured by our government for political ends.  Black lives do matter.  They are connected to white lives in often unexpected ways.  Despite what 45 says, race is a human construct only.  We are all human and we each have inherent worth and dignity.  This isn’t rocket science.  Good leadership brings together.  Poor leadership divides.  So my twenty-something-th cousin was flying around shooting down airplanes in World War One.  My other twenty-something-th cousin was trying to show that women can do just what men can do.  Which is a better model to follow?  It’s the one that promotes love.

Keystone

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I don’t carry many keys.  Working at home has that distinct advantage, and combination/electronic locks of various kinds are becoming pretty standard.  I do wonder about the impact this has on the keyring industry, though.  Not a fan of bulky rings of keys and fobs in my pocket I tend to stick to novelty keyrings for entertainment purposes only.  A few years back, before we’d considered moving to Pennsylvania, we picked one up that was shaped like, well, the Keystone State.  Laid out like a tiny, very large scale map, it lists the big cities and some tourist sites.  Since you seldom hear people say, “I’m going to Pennsylvania for vacation” you might well wonder about the latter.  The reason that we bought this novelty was one of the places listed: Oil City.

Currently around the 82nd most populous city in the commonwealth, Oil City isn’t a place most folks would look for.  It is near the birthplace of the oil industry, thus its name, but it doesn’t seem to have the tourist draw to merit a keyring fob.  I grew up very near Oil City, and I attended Oil City High School.  It’s a pleasant enough town, although it has been ravaged by big box stores that left its downtown the haunt of ghost store fronts.  Many of the big boxes then left because the area has been economically depressed for decades.  It’s an example of the kind of victims that capitalism tends to leave behind.  The fob on which this “map” is printed is plastic, likely a byproduct of petroleum.  That industry had its start in this area and when larger oil fields were found elsewhere it simply moved on.

The keyring had been stuffed into a box within a box, well forgotten before we moved to Pennsylvania.  While going through some things the other day, it surfaced once again.  I had a key needing a ring, so it was put to use in its native state.  Often I ponder how oil has played into my life.  Pennzoil still had a headquarters in the area, and refineries dotted the river valleys, but larger fields with bigger payoffs lay to the south.  My gypsy-like family didn’t settle in the region because of oil.  Not part of the petroleum industry, we simply lived in its shadow.  I haven’t visited the area for a few years now, at least not to appreciate the life of a town that helped initiate the modern world, but then was quickly forgotten.  Even keyrings can tell a story.

Email Discover

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One of the interesting things that happens to religion editors (yes—there are occasionally such things!) is that we receive emails from well-meaning evangelicals trying to convince us of the truth of their religion.  I don’t get such emails too often, but they do come with, as the commercial used to say, “occasional irregularity.”  These emails often tend to be long, as if someone who reads books for a living needs excessive verbiage to be shown the truth, and a bit rambling.  They claim to show, sometimes scientifically, why their version of Christianity is the only true one.  As an editor you have to pay attention until you find out whether it’s a book proposal or not (generally they’re not), because it’s good form to reply to all actual proposals.

Just as I’m about to type about not knowing why people do this, I recollect my own evangelical youth.  I was a charter subscriber to Discover magazine.  Growing up in a town where science was considered an unnecessary luxury, I was fascinated by it.  We had no local bookstore, and our town didn’t even have a library.  I subscribed to Discover and read several articles from each issue.  I was, however, troubled that the editors of the magazine seemingly weren’t aware of the proofs of Christianity.  I had Halley’s Bible Handbook in front of me and it stated in no uncertain terms that all of this had been proven.  I considered all of this to be my responsibility, so I wrote a letter to the editor explaining that the Bible really had been proven true.  If they’d accept that their great magazine would be even better.  They elected not to publish it.

The point is, deep down I understand this compulsion to convert.  My thinking has matured with the hundreds of books and articles I’ve read on the subject, but I can’t forget the evangelical terror of my childhood.  For the good news, it was pretty scary.  Of course, advanced study of the Bible—learning the original languages and their ambiguities—casts the whole thing in a different light.  Those who don’t share the evangelical view may have had an enlightenment of their own.  The thing is, admitting this doesn’t feel as good as claiming to have all the answers.  Admitting to having questions, to some forms of Christianity, seems to be admitting weakness.  And so I sit, reading through rambling emails that are well intentioned, but pointless.  I wonder if they read Discover magazine too.

A Decade of Augusts

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Well, my July post with past quotes was so much fun I decided to do another.  Owen Chadwick once told me—or was it his brother Henry? They both came to my house—“One writes so many things.”  This was in response to a question asking the gentle knight about something he’d written in one of his many books.  Indeed, one does write so many things.  Now you can pick and choose which ones you want to read, in case you weren’t with me then.  And without further ado these are some of the things I wrote ten years ago this month:

“As I forcefully released the confused (and slightly gooey) insect back into nature, I had a moment of Kierkegaardian aangst that the job I’d recently applied for would now go to someone else.”https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/02/graven-images/ 

“Mandrake roots are often claimed to have anthropomorphic qualities – just how anthropomorphic depends on the imagination and how many the viewer has ingested.” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/04/man-and-womandrakes/ 

“Several years later I find myself having been subjected to a variety of orthodoxies and the only thing they seem to have in common is the conviction that all the others are wrong.“ https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/05/ortho-right-or-ortho-wrong/ 

“Jesus, meet Shamash. Son versus sun.” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/08/assyrian-dreams/

“The lowly slime mold of the genus Physarum has a combination of multiple sex-controling genes mixed with several different types of sex-cells, leading to a bewildering 500 different sexes. You’ve got to wonder what the Physarum bar-scene is like!” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/11/anat-kali-and-the-violent-femmes/ 

Words of wisdom

“As I later reflected, perhaps this is what my life would have been like if I’d had some ability and taken to the stage instead of rocking the glamorous adjunct professor gig.” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/12/profit-priest-and-the-king/

“Curious enough to watch the movie, I steeled myself for the macabre and terror, but although there were gory scenes it was no more disturbing than the Republican National Convention.” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/15/cenobites-and-angels/

“So standing over the carnage of an Ezekielian valley of damp exoskeletons, I recalled the bees of the Bible. (May their entomological souls rest in peace.)” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/18/thy-will-bee-done/ 

“Religion has been a fine-turned handle that humans have used to get a grip on death.” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/22/memento-mori/ 

“I’ve seen carnivorous, chrome-plated bumper Jesus fish eating the peacefully walking Darwin fish!” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/23/biblical-black-lagoon/ 

“My favorite is Larry Smith’s Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, now available in a revised and expanded edition! Exponential conciseness!” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/29/six-word-memoirs/ 

“That was like a slap from the Buddha — the proverbial sound of one hand slapping.” https://steveawiggins.com/2009/08/31/rock-of-ageism/ 

While I don’t plan on doing many of these clip shows, it’s sometimes rewarding to look back and see what was going on a decade ago.  Who knows?  We might’ve even learned something since then.

Prejudice, Technically

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I must admit that I received my first “smart phone” with more than a little trepidation.  It was going on a decade ago and I didn’t know my app from a hole in the ground.  What was this thing that was a telephone and yet so much more?  I carry it around with me, nevertheless, and I use it for the very occasional text, for a camera, and when it was younger, as a geocaching device.  My sense of distrust came from being a user of personal computers for many years.  There would be constant upgrades and renewals and each would cost you something.  You don’t buy just a smart phone, you buy a liability.  This Luddite screed arises from my attempts to get my boarding pass for my flight yesterday, with a special shout out to United Airlines.

Things change.  I’m cool with that.  Still, “checking in” for a flight has always meant your ticket was secure.  When I went to check in yesterday, for the first time ever United Airlines allowed it only through your smart phone and only via its app.  The app is free but my phone is of such an age that the app won’t work with it.  I received the confirming text stating I wasn’t checked in.  Wasn’t that exactly the same as the status at which I’d started?  Why then did I spend half an hour of my Saturday trying to select a seat and telling it I am a vegetarian?  (Vegans, it seems, are from another planet.)  At least I didn’t have to specify a non-smoking row.  I realized as I hung up that I was being shamed for not updating my phone.

You see, capitalism thrives on forcing the purchase of new things.  If you wear clothes that are out of style (guilty as charged!) then you aren’t playing by the rules.  If your phone is too big or too small (yes, size does matter), or if it flips open instead of being accidentally awakened when slipped out of your pocked, you’re a Luddite.  If you can’t afford an update (which no longer fits in the pocket of a guy my size) you deserve to be shamed.  You can’t check in.  You have to stand in line and proclaim to all, “I didn’t upgrade.”  I still use an iPhone 4S.  It does what I need it to do.  United Airlines doesn’t think so, however.  Most of the apps have ceased to work.  Now it is once again simply a phone, pretty much back where I’d started.

Tintinnabulation

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On a summer’s day when I can work with the windows open, I hear the bells of a local church.  We haven’t been in our current location long enough to know for sure, but they seem to come from the direction of the United Methodists.  Around noon each day they ring out hymn tunes to which I often find myself filling in the words.  These are traditional hymns that I’ve known from childhood, and there’s an easy familiarity about hearing them, although my own spiritual journey may have taken me in different directions.  The sound of bells is so pleasant, I think, that nobody really objects.  Then I wonder about what I thought.

Music in public places does impact other people.  Consider the heavy metal or rap booming out of a passing car with the stereo turned up too high for human consumption.  Or jazz in the park.  Music impacts other people.  What, I wonder, is the message those of other religions hear along with these old hymns?  Do they suggest more than the praise of the locals for their version of the Almighty?  Is there some subtle proselytizing going on?  Is the music for members of the parish only, or can outsiders hear it and be free of obligation?  In many ways this encapsulates, I believe, the conflicts rife throughout our nation.  Traditionalists who see nothing wrong with “white” Christianity spreading its message but who object to a mosque being built in their community would likely find church bells comforting, even if they personally don’t attend.  Those from the outside, meanwhile, hear a message of cultural superiority.

Some sects feel compelled to praise God vocally, often and enthusiastically.  Their religion insists they do so.  Hymns ringing from the steeple, even if they’re not exactly your brand, participate in that mandate.  The deity likes to be adored.    (Think Psalms.)  This specific divinity, however, isn’t alone.  Perhaps beyond the bounds of where these sound waves flatten out to inaudibility, there are others with religious beliefs often older.  They too have rules about how to behave.  They may not be friendly to those who come bearing a new message of a new truth.  Globalization follows in the wake of technology and no god beyond the laws of physics oversees tech.  Our smartphones have made the world a much smaller place.  In such tight quarters, sounds carry.  Church bells, innocent as they seem, may be heard as a war cry.  But I wouldn’t suggest such things on a day so pleasant that I can work with my windows open and listen to the bells.

Net Worth

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Net worth—a strange concept for human beings—is calculated on the basis of how much cash you’re “worth.”  While on that lonely task of sorting through the attic, I came across many boxes of books for which we didn’t have room in our apartment.  Our guests, who’ve been few, feel obligated to comment on how many books we have, as if it’s an infirmity to be delicately broached.  Or for which something might be prescribed.  I grew up believing that what we call “net worth” should be assessed in how much a person knows.  Knowledge, not money, in my fantasy moments, would drive the world forward.  Books are cheap (generally, but you don’t want to know what I’ve paid for some of these volumes when I really needed them!) and don’t retain resale value, except perhaps in the textbook market.  They’re considered a throwaway commodity.

Although I didn’t read it, a recent bestseller claimed you could find happiness by removing clutter, and high on the priority list of things to ditch was books.  Will you ever read that again?  For me the question is rather, will I ever need to look something up in there again?  Surprisingly often the answer is yes.  Considering the fact that books are knowledge, they’re a remarkably good bargain for the price.  Regardless of clutter.  Perhaps that’s a kind of wisdom itself.  Books are heavy, though, especially in any numbers.  Weight means something.  What they contain has the potential of being priceless, even though it’s available to anyone else with a copy.

I used to watch Antiques Roadshow, back in the days when you could still get television reception with just an antenna.   You always felt bad for the poor hopeful who’d brought an old book, dreaming of riches.  Apart from handwritten manuscripts, books are mass produced, almost by definition.  The printing press, after all, was designed to produce multiple copies.  Sure, if you go back far enough, or you have a tome rare enough, you might get a nice price for it.  Everyone I saw on the Roadshow left with their disappointment worn obviously on their faces.  You’re better off buying a vase.  That’s only if your bottom line is your net worth, though.  If you want to strive for what’s really important in life, I’d go for the book almost every time.  Of course, while up there moving those boxes around I began to wonder about the net worth of a good back brace as well.

Plain Floods

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Erschrecklichewasserfluth

Floods are the stuff of legends. In fact, one of the most pervasive myths of all times is the world-wide flood. While some would see this as “evidence” that such an impossible flood actually occurred (some believing so fervently as to build replicas of imaginary arks), others recognize the flood as a basic human dilemma. We require water, and therefore we build our cities near a source of it. Rivers worldwide are prone to floods. While recently stuck in a holding pattern waiting for space for our flight to land at Newark, floodplains were more than evident from high above. My hometown regularly experienced floods when ice jammed the Allegheny River during the spring thaws. The floods of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were, literally, epic-making. A piece in the Washington Post rather surprisingly reports “Legends say China began in a great flood. Scientists just found evidence that the flood was real.” The story by Sarah Kaplan demonstrates the universality of unruly water.

I know little of Chinese history and mythology. There’s no reason, however, to doubt that stories of ancient floods were as common there as elsewhere. The flood is, pardon the Christianization, the baptism of civilization. Things have to be washed clean before “civilization” can begin. In this case, according to the story, Yu, the founder of China’s first dynasty, tamed the flood. Now scientists are finding flood deposits from the Yellow River that match the 1900 BCE time-frame of this mythical founding. We can be certain that some will latch onto this date noting how Abraham was said to have emerged shortly after the flood (Genesis chronology says Noah was still alive when Abraham was born) and therefore this is proof of the Biblical flood. Even Sir Leonard Woolley advertised that he’d found the biblical flood in the river deposits of Mesopotamia. When it comes to literalism, any old flood will do.

No doubt many ancient flood stories go back to some historical event. The world was never completely covered with water in human times (before that nobody was here to see), but it’s easy to understand how people might have believed it could have happened. Our view tends to be local, often at the expense of universal costs. Consider global warming, for example. It’s difficult for us to see something that impacts us as such a distance. Taking care of the planet is so hard when we realize just how big it is. Our neglect, however, will definitely cause floods to come. Our denial makes myths for future generations. Headlines millennia down the road, if anyone’s left to read them, will, I’m sure announce with surprise that the devastating floods we’re creating now were indeed real.