After 10 days of quarantine we have hooked up with the grandkids at their lake house in Washington State. Life changed instantly. After days of literary red meat from Shakespeare to Defoe U found myself reading Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. We were playing “shark face” and “bear hugs” in a hot tub calibrated to a kid friendly 90 degrees. We had pillow fights and lizard battles while frozen pizzas bubbled in the oven. How suddenly a seventy year old curmudgeon can become seven again ! There are fe things better than a loving regression.

I have been described as a grim person but even the most casual observer of my recent behavior would have too conceded that this old boy still has some silly fun left in him. We showed up at the kid’s house with presents for them but it was their gift to me that resonated. When an eight year old allows you to play with him there is no higher sign of acceptance. I was also forced to remember that early morning fishing is pretty much a panacea…it can cure all your ills.

Perhaps the best cure for pandemic induced low-grade depression is a return to family. Tomorrow I have a home schooling task. It’s my turn to follow my wife in describing the history of my family for the kids. They will get some Irish history, some tall tales and I will get to enjoy my memories. Perfect. Once again I will get the greatest reward.

AS I write this the kids are in the lake on floating toys. A pink flamingo, a green crocodile and a blow up pizza slice are each sporting a kid that is splashing and squealing. Joyful noise. For the moment worries and low grade anxiety take a back seat to being. The pigeon is driving the bus and there is no concern about routes or speeds or estimated times of arrival. Again, perfect

This is a simple thank you to some wonderful children.

Gotta go…the hot tub is almost at 90 degrees.

Factoids are brief, trivial nuggets that may be true …or not. They are quick jabs of info that penetrate and they are essential in many ways. In the banquet of an open conversation, factoids are little chunks of hot pepper that wake up the intellectual pallet and add a spicy edge to the dish. They are exciting ingredients in a recipe for communication. Who woiuld not be amazed to hear that the Spanish National Anthem has no words? Who would not want to know that it would take 1,200,000 mosquitos each sucking once to completely drain the average human body of blood ?

In the interest of improving our virtual cocktail hours, I will suggest tailored factoids for each Gang member. No names will be used but each member will recognize the factoids that apply to them. The Gang of Eight will soon be masters of the factoid.

Let’s begin.

#1) Eleanor of Aquitaine is the world’s most remarkable woman.

Drop this conversational bomb and follow up with the factoids: Eleanor was a Queen for 65 years. She was the Queen of both England and France. She commanded a body of 300 women in the 2nd Crusade. She had 10 children including King Richard the Lionheart and King John. She was the patron of squads of poetry and artists. This Gang member can enhance the repartee if they read Thomas Costain’s four volume History of the Plantangenets. Imagine a conversation spiced with these unique flavors !

#2)

Archimedes designed the first cruise ship.

If any Gang member is an expert on water the fact that Archimedes designed The Sircusia for King Hiero of Syracuse. The ship was 180 feet long and carried over 1,900 passengers. The boat had a gymnasium, a spa and luxurious staterooms., You can throw in the Law of Fluid Mechanics: buoyant force on a body immersed in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid the body displaces. Embellish further with a tangential reference to the famous Archimedian treatise On Floating Bodies. I can almost hear the cries of Eureka!! in your next conversation. PS- 68.7 percent of our planet’s water is trapped in glaciers. Go forth and astound your friends.

3) There is a formula for Beauty.

You already have an eye for what is decorative and striking but these factoids will help you sell your talent to family and friends. Beauty as we know it must have the following qualitie ; color, shape, pattern, line, texture, weight, balance, scale, proximity and movement. Imagine the delight when you are asked to consult on the purchase of pillows or tile grout and you trot out these meaty aesthetician’s terms. The joy is all out palpable. If any conversation on the subject begins to flag, throw in a quote like this one from the venerable Confucious: ” Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.” That will close the deal.

4) Too Intense for Women

Librarianship was thought to be too daunting for what was perceived as, ” the weaker sex.” In today’s patriarchal milieu this pronouncement will undoubtedly start an exciting conversation. Follow up with a few timely factoids: Librarians were encouraged to develop ” Librarian’s Hand” – a handwriting focused on simplicity and clarity. Keep punching with jabs like these: There is a library of smells in France or the Joanina Library in Portugal maintains a resident swarm of bats to prey upon insects known to be destructive to books. Your listeners will be STUNNED.

5) I Wood if you Wood
When discussing your next project build some factoids into its structure. Slyly drop your factoids as questions… did you know that the dovetail joint goes back to ancient Egypt? While your listeners are grappling with that turn up the pressure with some of these beauties: The most expensive wood is African Blackwood … it costs more that $25,000 dollars per cubic meter. Or wax historic with this factoid : Charles Darwin is credited with inventing the first office chair …in 1800 he added a set of wheels to his parlor chair. Talk about building friendships!

6) Pepsi Challenge

You know your soda pop from the drug store counter right up to the Pepsi Challenge but some factoids will give you the opportunity to make your knowledge resonate. As an expert on Orange Soda try stirring in some factoid ingredients. Be coy when you ask, “do you know about the fascist soda pop?” In the run up to WWII an embargo was placed on Germany. Since the Coca Cola company could not send their recipes or ingredients to the Thousand Year Reich. They had to develop a concoction of ingredients native to Germany and came up with Fanta Sodas. Composed of beet sugar, whey and apple pomace the Fanta’s soda empire was born. The popular Fanta Orange -perhaps their most famous variety was unveiled in Naples, Italy in 1955 after a bumper crop of Italian oranges. Drop this zinger next…is it a coincidence that Fanta and its most famous variety were produced in fascist countries? What did Hitler and Mussolini know and when did they know it? Bottoms up!

7) Irishmen Make the Best Husbands

The average man gets married in The Old Sod at the age of 36.1 years. This rather late move is made because Irish boys respect Ma too much to take a wife any earlier. Irishmen come from one of the world’s true matriarchies and these lads are taught to respect women from birth. From Boudica to the present day Ireland honors its women. This is a good start for a marriage. Further, an Irish traditional ballad offers this fact; ” marry in September’s shine and your living will be rich and fine.”

And that’s a fact.

In 1722 Daniel Defoe wrote about the bubonic plague that ravaged London in 1665. In his Journal of a Plague Year, Defoe offered this observation of people living in a unforgiving maelstrom of disease: “their fears were predominant over all their passions and they threw away their money in a most distracted manner upon those whimsies. “

In 92128 Defoe’s observation is manifest in the careening Amazon, Fed Ex and UPS trucks that briefly halt in front of homes where the quarantined indulge what passions they can. Tupperware, throw pillows, books, KN95masks and a bounty of other products land on the porches of the those afflicted by the virus anxiety. This spate of consumerism suggest that we are desperately seeking normalcy and control in the midst of chaos. It is satisfying in the extreme to find that our passions can be requited in spite of everything.

A smart purchase gives us comfort and a quick delivery restores our faith. The Londoners of 1665 must have had their own coping mechanisms. Today – in a capitalist society – our happiness is weirdly tied to the acquisition of goods, and fortunes are being made by those who know how to satisfy our acquisitive passions. In fact, the deliveries have become quotidian in both senses of the word – “daily” and “mundane”.

An entire wall of my garage is now lined with bales of paper towels and we have throw pillows festooning every piece of furniture from sofa to chairs to bed top.

Yet, I don’t minimize the need to throw some money at whimsies. It makes perfect sense. The other day we got six large bottles of ketchup delivered to our front door and I knew it was time to order a similar delivery of ground beef…way leads on to way. Friends have ordered tools and toys that make their fears dissipate. This seems as good a way as any to survive the plague. Defoe said, ” fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.” Maybe…

I am currently awaiting a number of deliveries and I make no apologies for it. Again, Defoe catches my drift. “The height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm without.” So find your calm and dig out your credit card. You have always wanted one of those heap filter air cleaners.

Stay passionate.

Human beings love to measure things. From Noah and his cubits to the New York Stock Exchange we crave the sense of certainty that comes with a really good set of quantifications. The lengths, depths and breadths of things help us feel a bit more certain about things. This is how I found the Bedding Barometer. Lately, in 92128, sleep and its implications has come to the center of life’s concerns and the retail bedding industry has its own measuring device for retail trends and customer preferences. A solid half of the Gang of Eight are currently in the fight for a better mattress and a better sleep.

The industry has its own set of formulas and calculations that serve to explain mattress firmness, blanket weight and sheet thread count. Apparently-as we age- sleep and its accoutrements have become a complex engineering problem. Many Lil Abners are running around testing mattresses, thumbing duvet covers and fluffing pillows. What used to be a simple exercise of flopping down on almost any surface and grabbing forty winks has morphed into a maze of decisions and experimentation. Should one buy a Queen a King or the ridiculously self indulgent California King? Is Egyptian cotton the best? Which is better the 12 or 20 pound weighted blanket? The mind boggles.

Of course, age is a factor, as we must soothe our aging backs and correct the slight dysplasia that we now have in our hips. Sleep has become a “life style” concern. The functional must be in harmony with aesthetics and the choice between goose or eider looms. Some mattresses are so big that we must call on our friends for help transporting the pillowed platform into the house and then to the bed frame that is so stylish. Needles fly as we decide the best way to knit the travelled sleeve of care.

All of this is another victory for capitalism. Mattresses can exceed $5,000 and sheets -and other fittings- can cost as much. We are juicing up the Bedding Barometer.

The Bard once observed that: “(sleep) is the main course in life’s feast and the most nourishing,” so why not get the finest china and silver for the event? We are creating an environment not furnishing a room.

It is not absurd to think that wars are won and lost due to a poor sleep. The Gang has much to say about sleep these days and it is perfectly fitting. It goes with the other things that become important as you grow old. Aquinas said it best: ” sorrow can be alleviated by a good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine ”

The Gang of Eight knows a good vintage, a good soak and an expensive bed are all related and vitally necessary if one wishes to prosper. I am waiting for the phone to ring so I can be recruited for the next mattress move.

Sleep tight .

More than 50 years ago I sat in a fourth year Latin class facing the daunting task of translating Cicero’s Oration against Cataline. In 63 BC , Cicero was a Roman consul who was taking apart a competing politician in detail. It is a brilliant example;e of oratory and nothing can be bore timely for us in this crazy age. The translation goes something like this: ” Othe times! O the morals. The Seanate understands these things , the Consul sees them; yet this man still lives. He lives? Indeed, he even comes into the Senate, he takes part in public debate , he notes and marks out with his eyes each one of us for slaughter. ” In a series of four orations, Cicero exhorts Romans to see things as they are and to take action.

A version of this oration can be found today on Facebook , in the mouths of a host of talking heads and in the pages of the Washington Post, the New York Times and in a mass of other media vehicles. One question still remains…what is to be done? In a later oration , Cicero asks the timely question directly:”How long will you test our patience…how long will you fury make sport of us”?

How long, indeed.

As we see the assaults on our hard-won national values Cicero’s question speaks volumes. When will we act? The tremendous list of transgressions perpetrated by a single individual and his small group of Myrmidons appear to have us all cowed into passivity. As our values are, “marked for the slaughter’ there seems to be a terrifying lack of will to resist. another question naturally arises because of our fatal ennui: Who are we, after all? The time has come for action and answers. We have covered every disgusting mile from pussy grabbing and the caging of people of color all the way to bounties on our troops to black shirt law enforcement on our own city streets and we have no plan other than a dubious election to put a stop to the madness.

I am beginning to despair of a non-violent solution and I hate to admit that we can not control this situation.

There are those that are fighting the good fight but they are few and weakly supported. Our final choice is becoming starker and more immediate. We either move toward the light or embrace the darkness. If we believe that the,”arc of history moves toward justice” we must be prepared to exercise the political will necessary to reverse the current vector.

Make a choice. Act.

Early this morning just about when my eyes rose above the rim of my coffee cup, I found myself on the edge of a covid inspired jeremiad. Boredom, loss of spontaneity and the prospect of another day of social distancing had me on the slippery slope of self pity and low-grade depression. Just as I was about to push over into the downward spiral I glanced up and was saved the trip. The window sill in the kitchen was lined from end to end with homegrown tomatoes and red peppers. As I took in the wonders of the produce, the birds began to sing and the sun crested the mountains that we see from our front porch.

As often happens, a line from Shakespeare came to me… ” people usually are the happiest at home.” Agreement was instantaneous. What-after all-was I missing? The fact that I couldn’t sit in a loud restaurant waiting for an overpriced Reuben or go to a chain store for some retail therapy didn’t hold a candle to the opportunity to water my raised beds and chat with my wife. My observation of the denizens of 92128 suggested that this was not a troubled time, rather, it was a rare chance to connect with what the folks call the simple pleasures.

All around me people were gardening, remodeling, scrubbing, scouring and washing the required white mini-vans that are the cars of choice in this sunny clime. People were actually busy and most seemed happy about it. In fact, the neighborhood had become a large charcuterie board bearing new tastes and a surprising variety of options. People were happily munching away at things that made them happy and the fact that the party was private didn’t seem to temper their positive view of the day’s fare.

I realized that I needed to rethink my idea of entertainment. There is joy in framing a picture or making biscuits from scratch; from the kind of experiences that are normally busy lives make impossible. Thoreau put it well when he observed, “the man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.” As my morning coffee kicked in, my awareness of this truth began to waken. Most of my joys -the ones that really mattered- were as free as could be. The challenge was to adjust my thinking to accommodate them.

For years, my favorite thing has been my morning talks with my wife and they are as free as the air. A much needed reminder came my way this morning, a reminder of the richness that is free to everyone.

I am very excited…tomorrow I plan to shine my shoes.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.”

The god of Israel lays this commandment before Moses and it is no surprise, since humans will create statues in all cultures and in all eras. “Graven” means carved and carving is intentional, it is done for many purposes but a purpose always exists. In various media- stone, wood, clay, bronze- people will memorialize other people in three dimensions. It is not a question of whether an image is going to be created, inquiry comes after the obvious fact that statues are not going anywhere. More to the point, are the obvious questions of why ? who? where? and when? are these images created and placed.

Choice (who) of subject is revealing and it implies a group of qualifications that makes one statue worthy. Chief of these qualities are: heroism, uncommon achievement, intelligence, patriotism, moral symbolic value and martyrdom. Every statue candidate will have all or some of these qualities. Why? This question has to do with intent. Statues are ways to uplift, remember, educate and -often- to oppress. Where? is also critical. The Statue of Liberty is perfectly placed near Ellis Island and The Pieta is in Saint Peter’s Basillica…perfect. When? reminds us that there are perfect times to unveil our statuary. Anniversaries, eras and epochs are memorialized.

The current controversy about statues should be understood in light of the pertinent questions. The fight about Confederate statuary will reveal much. Lee, Jackson, Forrest and other noted rebels have been deemed worthy of graven imagery and there is a reason: the re-writing of history. Lee is seen as a figure that possesses most of the required elements for remembrance if you believe in The Lost Cause. A concerted effort has been made to create a context for Confederate heroism and patriotism. Historians like Douglas Southall Freeman and to a lesser extent Shelby Foote have encouraged us to see R.E Lee as a military genius patriotically fighting for an ideal. In fact, Lee rejected command of the Union Army to lead an armed insurrection against a country he swore an oath to protect. His army was in the field to support slavery (see Edmund Ruffin) and he was defeated by Meade, Sherman and Grant, unconditionally. Jackson plunged his men into every maelstrom and gained his victories by sheer aggressiveness. His flanking move at Chancellorsville was a brilliant military move but he also is stained by treason. Forrest was a slave seller that is often credited with founding the KKK.

I have visited the gravesites of Lee and Jackson and no mention is made of their failures…in fact, Lee’s grave on the boundary of the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia rivals the burial sites of noted Greeks and Romans. History has been rewritten. The facts ‘overlooked,’ suggest the words of David Olusoga, history professor at the University of Manchester in the UK: “History, after all is a process not a position and it is not best written in bronze and marble. It is complex, plastic and ever changing, all things that statues are not.”

I celebrate the removal of Confederate statuary to a museum setting that encourages deeper thinking about racism and who we rush to lionize.

Finally we must consider the “Where” of the issue. Confederate monuments in the centers of our southern cities are meant to intimidate. Here the descendants of slaves are encouraged to know-and keep- their place. Would we place a statue of Ho Chi Minh at Camp Pendleton? Would our Russian friends put a statue of Hitler in Red Square? This is ludicrous in the extreme. The Lakota look up at a mountain representing the white men who stood in varying degrees for the political entity that tried to destroy them.

It is high time for a cleansing of our Nation’s visual space. In my home town there is a statue of Bob Hope and I hope to one day see statues of Groucho Marx and other people who made us laugh.

They are true heroes.

Rhetorical tropes need to be considered if we are going to survive these days. Rhetoric – in simplest terms – is the art of persuasion and tropes are figures of speech that make that persuasion more effective. America is a study in persuasion as we are constantly bombarded with sales pitches, political agendas and sycophancy. We seem to be the most persuadable people on earth. Plato called rhetoric the, “art of ruling the minds of men,” and our poor little minds are under attack from those who wish to rule us. We are defenseless against the onslaught. Hitler reminded us that, ” the broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.”

Rhetoric can lead us to believe that Hillary Clinton is a procuress operating a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor and listen seriously to the value of a Space Force. We are being played…relentlessly. Aristotle, Quintillion, Cicero and a host of other philosophers have mulled the effects of rhetoric on individuals and society. A short list of tropes that we encounter today might be helpful for us to clarify the scope and seriousness of the attacks upon us.

We all remember Spiro Agnew’s reliance on the trope of alliteration. “Nattering nabobs of negativism” is idiotic but memorable. Alliteration is almost a mnemonic device assuring that the message will not soon be forgotten. Trump’s use of litotes is clear in his “you won’t be sorry” message. Add metonymy to the list this creative figure of speech is used to implant an idea in one’s memory. Metonymy is a substitution such as “Top Brass” to indicate senior leadership in the military. Using “rapists and murderers” for immigrants is a perfect false equivalence executed with this device. Zeugma (using a single verb for many subjects) raises its ugly head as well. Such as, “we stiffened our defenses and resolve.” Don’t forget polysyndeton – multiple repetitions after a simple conjunction. i.e. “we believe in freedom and equality, and the message of our forefathers.”

During our shared covid experience we see a phenomenon first noted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “numbers serve to discipline rhetoric. Without them it is too easy to follow flights of fancy, to ignore the world as it is and to remold it nearer the heart’s desire.” Limiting covid testing is perfectly explained.

We do well to remember that our politicians constantly seek to persuade us to adopt a specific world view, to become “true believers” and we will do well to know their tricks. Rhetoric that is properly employed (Obama, MLK, Lincoln etc.) can inspire and delight while rhetoric harnessed for dark purposes can kill us all.

I agree with Euripides: ” In my opinion the unjust man whose tongue is full of ingratiating rhetoric merits the heaviest punishment.” Hopefully the unjust ones will be punished soon.

We start and end our lives in containers. From the womb to the casket or urn we are encapsulated. We are also obsessed with containers as symbols of protection, generation and identity. We even have stores that contain – you guessed it-containers. As I cleaned the garage the other day in social isolation, I found a bag of bags and a box of boxes. A good metaphor for life is the Russian nesting doll. People inside of people.

Our language is all about what lies within. We want the ” inside scoop;” we dive deep into a subject and unpack our neuroses. At the most basic level, we, “feather our nests” and decline to put all of our eggs in one basket. This need to control, contain and ensconce seems fundamental to our nature and as Mark Twain pointed out, ” there is a lot of human nature in people.”

As I waded through the junk I had in storage it became clear that containerizing is a manifestation of the need for a kind of shelter. My bags, boxes, tubs, sleeves and Tupperware were there as a defense against chaos. Our fear of the oceanic nature of our lives motivate us to build fortresses and those fortresses are where we feel safe. On the bright side, treasures are more powerful in chests and good things do often come in small packages. The absurdity of owning over a hundred baseballs and a bag of bats is not lost on me but they are very neatly stored. I have limited shelf space and no room for racists, demagogues, exclusionists or folks of that ilk. They will not fit into my storage plan.

I hope someday to find the smallest doll that is contained in the matryoshka. That will be the moment of truth. Until that time I need to find a way to store the CDs that are scattered about my messy garage.

In my continuing battle to capture the small details of life in 92128, I quite naturally find myself ruminating on things a saner person would ignore. Today it was coffee. As a young divinity student I would often spend a rare Saturday off in the city of San Francisco. My high school years occurred, in part, during the Summer of Love. Trips (no pun intended) to the Haight were pretty heady for a sheltered Catholic kid. There was free speech and free love, bread baked in coffee cans by the Diggers, City Lights, free concerts in Golden Gate Park. It was also the year of the BUTTON. Buttons with peace signs and messages were everywhere and I chose one that fit me perfectly. The button did not say Nirvana Now or HELL NO WE WON’T GO. My button simply stated a timeless truth: COFFEE IS GOD. Needless to say this message was frowned upon in the confines of the Seminary, but no truer words were ever etched on a button.

Thomas Jefferson called the humble cup, ” the favorite drink of the civilized world” but my relationship with the brew – like a good Arabica – was a bit darker. My appreciation was existential. Every morning I asked the question, “should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?” This is a direct quote from that troubled French/Algerian, Albert Camus. Deep and dark just like I like it.

Today, as the coffee dripped into existence I decided to do some research. Coffee was first encountered in Ethiopia, then it flows throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The magic elixir entered Europe only after the blessing of Pope Clement VIII who determined that the drink was not the work of the devil. Christians took to coffee like a Catholic takes to dogma and it was only an instant (again, no pun) before the New World was awash.

Today coffee has become a form of magic. I decided to find the longest coffee order ever made at a modern Starbucks and the internet gave me this: “Quad long shot grande. Venti cup half-caf double cupped. No sleeve salted Carmel mocha latte with two pumps of vanilla. Substitute two pumps of white chocolate mocha and two pumps hazelnut. Half whole milking half breve. No whipped cream, extra foam with light Carmel drizzle. One scoop of vanilla bean powder with light ice….well stirred. “

I can see no difference between this order and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It has all the complexity of the Fathers of the Church and the music of the Latin Mass. Perhaps coffee is God after all. As Jonathan Swift said, ” coffee makes us severe, grave and philosophical. ” No different that than a Christian Catechism. I watch the lines forming at the local Peets and Starbucks and the eucharistic aspect of it all is not lost on me.

I feel vindicated. I should not have been punished for wearing a button that was patently true in its message. At least I avoided being burned at the stake…a dark roast indeed.

So enjoy your morning cup…it beats suicide and you may encounter the divine.