The Wounded Screen

Layers from the other side. A photograph can be a very personal and revealing thing. To have someone casually tell you what they see in it--putting your own labels and thoughts onto its meaning---might feel like a violation. One should simply accept the gift for what it is, and what it wants to be, appreciating it as such unless invited to provide one's thoughts. In this case, I invite my readers to provide their own thoughts on anything I write or post here, as that is the point of putting it here.

The folding rice paper screen that, even as I write this, is allowing me the comfort of not having blinding morning sun in my eyes on the porch, is one I bought years ago when we first moved down to Arizona. I bought it online and it arrived in a long slender cardboard box that I purposely kept for moving purposes. 

At that time we lived on a house on the crest of a ridge in Fountain Hills with a million dollar view over the valley of the Verde River.  My office room was on the south side of the house and was flooded with sunlight all day.  Even then I mainly used it as a room divider, and it was always inside.

When we moved down here to the Valley, I needed it for the outdoor patio in the mornings to create shade. I wanted to leave it up all the time, for privacy as much as shade, but the wind can knock it down, especially at night. More often than not, it impales itself on the posts of the bamboo privacy screen gainst which it is braced, or on the side posts of the rocking chair, and thus receives yet another puncture wound in the rice paper.

The first time it happened, I was disturbed and sad, mourning the loss of my screen's pristine state. I researched the best way to repair the rice paper, but I never got around to it. I decided I could live with it, as the paper still closed so as to function for shade. So the hole remained. Then it got another, and another. Now looking at the screen one sees at least half a dozen such wounds. I barely notice them anymore, except when I care to look

For now I try to keep it from receiving more wounds. This requires the discipline of remembering to go out to the porch before bed and take down the screen, folding it against the wall, since night time is when the wind is mostly to knock it down. 

Also I've better mastered the art of placing a chair next to it in such a way that it will stay upright in most winds, and will not fall over and impale itself on the rocking chair once again.

I have a sentimental attachment to it. I do not want a new one because it will get punctured as well. Also there is a Japanese style which amounts to an appreciation of broken pottery that has been repaired, in such a way as to highlight the brokenness rather than hide it. I always have to look it up. It's called kintsugi. To make my screen a kintsugi screen would repair actually repairing it, which is not likely to happen at this point. Most likely the current one will be thrown out as junk when we leave here, whenever that is. It seems absurd to imaging moving such a damaged item. Until then, I can sit in its shade, and when I too feel wounded and punctured, I can commiserate with it.

Outside Over There---3: Goblinland and its Rules

The place the book Outside Over There that is called "Outside Over There" I shall here call Goblinland for convenience. The conflation of a (vague) place in the story with the the story itself is a Sendak signature, as we shall see. We are already disoriented, our attention misled, and floating backwards like Ida.

In the framing story, the father and mother are perhaps the most signficant characters, the way the court characters are in say, A Midsummer Night's Dream. But let's take a different view  Let's suppose that even within the context of the story (Ida-centric), that a framing story of papa and mama is equally fantasy? Ida is running two concurrent fantasies, or one within another. I think we can take that interpretation. We are invited to do this by Sendak I think because the extreme fantastical level of Goblinland which carves out a broad space in which a more conventional parallel once-upon-time story papa-was-at-sea story can take place, and the two levels of fantasy interact with each other. 

In the framing story, the characters and story obey human rules. But in Goblinland, the rules are unfamiliar to us. We have to be taught them explicitly. But somehow we feel like we ought to know these rules already, like what goblins look like and how to drive them away. There is a sense of humiliation in being unfamiliar with the rules of Goblins, even the fact that they look like babies. I certainly didn't know that. Of course it's all made up, one says, but that is beside the point. The point is that feeling of disorientating and humiliation that we ourselves experienced as children, and still often do as adults, when we don't know the rules but somehow feel like we ought to already know them. Everyone knows about goblins, silly! As children we often feel as if someone did not give us the memo we were supposed to have. As adults we know this is simply how the world works. One learns to shrug it off. But as children we don't necessary know that it is ok not to know something. This is maybe why children tease each other when they see someone ignorant of certain rules---because ultimately it feels like a matter of luck whether one has learned certain rules by the time one encounters the situations in which one needs them.

It is the interaction between the Goblinland story and the framing story that drives the forward the plot and resolves it. One leaks into the other. It is Ida's learning of the rules of Goblinland that lets her escape with her sister. This feels elusive in me, but somehow very tangible--this sensation of trying to understand the fules of the world, and adopting a shadowy subset within an imaginary world to play them, tinker with them, until one is tuned appropriately to the demands of the world. In this case, the framing story provides the resolution and lesson in the form of a tautology---for important rules, it is important to know the rule in advance. This can require adult foresight to teach kids. Once Ida knows what she is supposed to do, both in Goblinland and the rule world, she had no problem following through on it. Her learning of the rules regarding protecting her sister flow from the dynamic back-and-forth between the two fantasies. 

When I first read the story I was ashamed somehow that I didn't already know about goblins and what there rules were. I missed out on my goblin lore, and Sendak is going to educate me. This shame is exactly what I felt like as I child when I didn't know the rules I was supposed to play by, because I was never taught them. I say taught them, because as a child I could learn anything that was taught to me, but learning things on my own, things I didn't even know I was supposed to know, was what caught me in snares. All of that came back as I was reading the book.

Summer Adjustments

As I type this, it is just before seven a.m. Normally I would be heading down the car to drive into work, but today I will work from home, I decided.

As I sit here I am hunched down so as to be behind the pillar that rises in the middle of the balcony. That is because the sun has risen over the neighboring building and is bright in my face, forcing me to squint. All winter long, I forgot what I relearn each year, which is that in summer, for the few three or four hours of the day, the patio is flooded with sunlight. It will be too bright and too hot to sit in the rocking chair.

Thankfully I have the trusty rice paper screen, which has been leaning against the wall folded up all winter gathering dust. In a few moments, I will walk over and put it up against the little bamboo privacy fence for support, and brace it with a chair so it doesn't fall over in the merest breeze. Then the patio will become a haven of shade and be very pleasant until it becomes hot, and then I will have to turn on the fan. 

Outside Over There---2: Papa and Mama

 When I first leafed Outside Over There reading it, the two characters that fascinated me the most were the father and mother . They are strongest characters in the framing story in which Ida's story plays out, both in the real world and in the goblin realm. 

The very first words of the book are "When papa was away at sea." Upon reading this I knew that one of the fundamental themes of the book would be the absence of the masculine authority. One can read everything that takes place in the story as being a consequence of this.

On the next page, we meet the mother, who has retreated to the arbor. At least that's what it looks like. In the absence of the masculine hierarchy, the feminine is overwhelmed bearing the full responsibility of order and retreats to the garden. The mother's posture is one of defeat. Her gaze is out to sea, towards her absent husband.  Initially it is she who has turned her back on the children as seen in that plate, so it is little wonder her daughter will do the same to her sister. The goblins have already taken notice of this weakness, instigated by the absent father, and have brought their ladders to assault. All the dysfunction is on display. Even the dog is placid while the goblins romp.

The core issue is then misattention. Being a sailor is an honorable occupation, and for the father to be at sea is not considered true abandonment. Because of this, the crisis will be muted and rectifiable. The goblins can be turned around and defeated. Yet it is still a willful absence, a placing of his attention elsewhere, and we will need a willful restoration of his presence to allow the feminine to solve the crisis.

In this sense, I imagine the title Outside Over There to be perhaps what the mother, in her melancholia, tells Ida when asked where her father is, and perhaps what Ida tells her baby sister. "He's outside...over there," while gesturing to the sea. The vagueness is what lets goblins enter, from their own land of vagueness.

Ida's horn is fascinating to me. When we see her in her bedroom, she holding it (while ignoring her sister) in such a way as it looks like a hand mirror. The mirror is the very symbol of the feminine, and in fairy tales, we learn that one dysfunction of the feminine is self absorption into a mirror. Once her father's voice is heard, however, it becomes the (masculine) trumpet that sends the goblins in flight. It reminds me of the horn blown by Gideon in the Bible. The instrument itself is arbitrary. It is the righteousness by which she uses it that matters.

Also it is fascintaing to mo that the re-establishment of communication from the father apparently happens simultaneously in both the dream realm of the goblins and in the real life framing story. This is what re-establishes the proper order in the family, where the attention of all is focussed in the right place. 

I love the contrast of the mother initally in despair the arbor compared to follow up plate when she receives the letter from her husband. Her change is posture is striking. She is flowing with life again. That's all it to fix things---the father's letter that does not even specify a time for his return. With merely the genuine anticipation of the return of the masculine, the feminine, no longer overwhelmed, is able to spring into effective action and the demons are banished.

Morning Glow

I went to bed asleep last night feel utterly peaceful and happy. Slept well, waking a couple times, but in the good way, where I noticed the clock and settled back into sleep with the same peace I had in the evening before. In the morning it was there too. 

In the dark I did not see the moon, only in the glow from the edge of the window frame, that promised it would swing into view shortly. Not at all days are like this, but some are.

Full Moon Swung to the South

 Making coffee this morning consisted of turning on the electric kettle, then realizing I should just drink the ample leftover coffee from yesterday, so I reheated it in the microwave, fumbling with the invisible buttons in the dark from memory and managing to do just about everything except heat up the coffee.

During my brief time at the kitchen window, I noticed the glow at the edge of the window frame. Leaning over the sink I saw the just-past-full moon over the rooftop of the building, sitting far the south of where I'd been accustomed to see it. 

This is how it works, of course. In summer when the sun is furthest north, and highest in the sky, the full moon will be just the opposite---low in the sky, and to the south. A vice versa in winter, when the full moon rides high in the sky, as if taking a spin along the path of the absent summer sun.

I know all this in my mind, but there is something startling about seeing it for real, I time I do. Such is the way it works, the wonder of knowing and the reality of seeing it.

Outside Over There--- 1: The Title

Before we start, a few facts---the book was published in 1981  Since this is a children's book, we should look at demographics---we can always look at that, but with children's literature is probably more compelling. Where the Wild Things Are had been published in 1963, a year that lands as a transition from the old Western civilization to the new one, the end of the Baby Boomer generation and the beginning of GenX, and whatever meaning or lack of meaning one may ascribe to that. Likewise the year 1981 has traditionally come to mark the transition from GenX to Millennials. We may make use of this later, but for now, with regard to what any of these labels may mean, if anything, let's just make a note of it. In any case it is interesting to me that Sendak's work span this era of history in a significant way.

Let's also note that 1981 is late in the Sendak timeline. Even looking at the cover, it is obvious that the years have granted Sendak a mastery of drawing he did not possess in his earlier works. One might call this the development of the "High Sendak" style, as opposed to say, the "Low Sendak" line sketches of Open House for Butterflies, published twenty years before.

The Low style leverages the roughness to create an invitation to a loose-edged world we can step into, the way the roughening of language invites us into a poem. By contrast the High style drawings of Outside Over There, especially of the human figures, are lush beyond anything one might have anticipated in Sendak's earlier work. It is more conscious of its own power to overwhelm our senses, and reminds one of the pre-Raphaelites in its attention to organic detail in form and color. Like those artists, It evokes a distinctly spiritual quality.

Then there is the title: Outside Over There. Three adverbs in a row. We can abbreviate it OOT. Looking at those initials on the page they seem wrong somehow, compared to, say, WTWTA or OHFB.  Even remembering the title this morning, I struggled remembering what the first 'O' meant. Using only these adverbs gives it an vagueness of being beyond a place. We want a story to be somewhere, whereas we have a no-placeness. Until I committed the name to memory in a way that stuck, I found myself fumbling with the title:  Somewhere...there. Or more practically What happened to Ida, as I called it. But let us not put ourselves in place of the author yet. Let us trust that Sendak knows what he is doing here. He has earned that at least.*

Outside of what, though? We will learn in the course of the text that the phrase refers to the dreamlike realm of the goblins.who steal babies and spirit them away into their realm, the girls being married to goblins as brides. 

But we can and should expect another layer of meaning to "outside" here. Perhaps we can make more of it, when we get into the story, much of which takes place in the "real world" outside the goblin realm. 

*this is nothwithstanding the schools of literary theory in which one considers the intentions of the author to be of no value in one's own evaluation of the work.

O Fatima

 This morning when I awoke at my usual time at 1:30 am, I could hear the distant night construction in the undeveloped desert as if it were just outside. I remembered the date was May 13. So I got out of bed and made my way to the outdoor porch with my iphone, The air was temperature and comfortable. I sat in the rocking chair and opened the Youtube app on my phone, and then brought up the Fatima Live Stream. 

"Just like the old days," I thought. There was a time I did this almost every morning. That was back in 2021, when I was working the godawful job at Olive. I can say the name now that the company is out of business, having blow through a billion dollars of startup capital. That's what you get when your company is run by sociopaths, several of which made my life miserable for half a year. My workday began at 5 am, by my choice. So I would get up at 2 am just to get some peace and sanity in the calm darkness before subjecting myself to the sociopathic abuse. I had been required to watch their onboarding videos in which they described their aspiration "to be the Apple of medical data." Now their domain name is for sale.  I could buy it and be the new Olive of Nothing. 

In those days I often watched the daily live stream from Fatima. On most normal days they just have the Marian precession and the hymns. I enjoyed watching during my morning prayers. I had visited Fatima on a whim back in 2009 when I had gone to Europe and landed in Portugal.  I had my backpack and was on a tight budget. Finding cheap lodging was a must. Back then I was just young enough to be comfortable in hostels. At Fatima, it turns out that the lodging is primarily for pilgrims. It is cheap. One gets a basic room with a bed and bathroom, but not much else. Dining is all done in a common cafeteria room so you sit next to other pilgrims who come from all over the world in groups. I loved that experience.  There are many such pilgrim hotels on the edge of the plaza. 

At night I went outside and saw the candlelight procession around the plaza. I joined in at the end and followed them until they reached the little modern shelter over the wooden shack where the three children first saw the apparition of the Virgin on May 13, 1917, and continued to see it until October 13 of that year. I didn't know any of that at the time. It was just a novel experience, but it was moving to be a part of the pilgrimage. Twelve years later, the daily live stream of the mass and daily daylight procession while I worked at Olive became part of my routine, while I compared my misery to the days when I roamed Europe with a backpack, even as forty-five-year old man. I've gotten way more than I my share of that. Working at Olive felt like everything had caught up to me, and life felt bleak. The daily Marian video stream kept me going.

Today of course the plaza was crammed with pilgrims, as full as it gets. They use metal fences to allow the precession through the pilgrims who carry the flags of their nations. I was pleased to find that not only was I able to understand much of the spoken Portuguese, but that I understood it better than I remember. That's the way language learning works. Sometimes you get better by a passive method.

Happily this morning I had begun watching in time to hear the familiar Fatima hymn being sung by the crowd in unison.There were banners celebrating the life of Pope Francis and announcing the joy of having come for the pilgrimage. 

During the mass, various priests of different nations took turns reading the Gospel passage. The languages were all ones I had studied in various degrees, including Polish, where the only words I recognized was "Blessed be...",

I watched about an hour and went back to bed, thankful that I didn't have to work with sociopaths at 5 am.

Ironwoods in Bloom

 This morning coming out of the rear gate of the complex, I was greeted by the spectacle of the ironwood across the street full in bloom.

"Right on schedule," I thought, remembering the date. I had learned several years back that the second week of May sees the flowering of the pink blossoms. 

Driving towards the stoplight at Pima I perused the remaining patch of undeveloped desert and saw more pink blossoms. It was a satisfying beautiful spectacle, augmented by the fact that I appreciated them in the context of the mechanical rotation of the solar calendar. I made a note that I should go out to visit my ironwood, the ironwood, which once had a secret that I protected.

Stump Tables

 Very quiet on campus this morning, even after I slept in a little and came in later than usual. It is break between spring and summer sessions. The bagelry in the student union was just setting up, its light still dark. Probably best as I didn't need a bagel, but was seeking the comfort of ritual.

The only activity, besides the ongoing maintenance of the Cape Verde Pines, were little hints on ongoing multiple commencement exercises in progress. The parking lot of the performance arts center had signs indicating my usual entrance was exit only today, presumably for the increased load.

Next to the Union, a section of the metal tables was cordoned off and the tables had white tablecloths, in anticipation of the event. Nearby the stumps of the date palms that had been cut down at waist height were covered with a black cloth to make a small high stable, with flowers on top. A nice effect.

The Arabian

Today for the first time I was at the Arabian Library, a branch of the Scottsdale Public Library. I had recently gotten my library card and used it immediately online to place a couple books on hold, which were at the Appaloosa branch. 

It's a short drive from me, just on the other side of Bell Road, just to the east east side of Westworld. In fact just for fun I cut through Westworld on the secret through-streets that get you to the Arabian. 

The Arabian is a very nice library, built in classic Scottsdale courtyard style. Metallic, rust-covered, and angular.

I picked up my two holds and then decided I might as well look around. I noticed the books that were displayed first as you come in the door were about Jewish history month. Front and center was a biography of Mel Brooks. If I didn't have a ton of other material right now, I'd think about it.

The library had several nice indoor spaces connected together in an interesting and appealing floor plan. Very dim inside the children's room. Felt very cavelike.

Regular nonfiction in traditional stacks, thankfully. I found the science section and added two books more I found there, including Quantum Physics for Dummies.

I tried to do self checkout, but I didn't have my required pin code. So I had the librarian scan them. Three weeks on all of them.

A very pleasant outing for a Sunday. I will go back to the Arabian any time, and I must also see the Appaloosa. 

A Windy Day

 The hot season having arrived, this morning I migrated my morning coffee drinking out to the porch, sitting in the rocking chair and listening to the howling of a strong wind. Where does such a wind come from? It seems out of place. As such the temperature is mild on the porch.

As I drink my coffee I pick up the copy of George Saunders short stories that arrived from Thriftbooks a couple days ago, and which I placed on the patio table just for thisv ery moment.. I think it came from Thriftbooks, at least. One loses track. I bought it alongside a copy of The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor. The latter I started last night before bed, reading "The Geranium," which turns out to have been her first published story, written at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1946. I completed it all before falling asleep, which is an accomplishment for me, as often reading knocks me out right away. I liked her description of the main character's image of New York City before he went to live there with his daughter. It reminded me of the kind of image I had had of that place before I went to live there and experience it first hand.

George Saunders---I have a close friend, or formerly close friend, in Portland who loves George Saunders. He has read all of his works and eagerly awaits new ones. Or least he did as of the last time I checked. I know this from his social media posts back when I was on social media. 

I have this idea that I read George Saunders I will understand my friend's mentality more and maybe we can be friends again. So I bought Saunders collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. This morning over coffee I read the title story, which was a little over twenty pages. 

My friend is a voracious reader, though, so who knows what I'll learn about, when I see him. Probably many authors I've never heard of. I look forward to that.

One Hundred Degrees Fahrenheit

 Yesterday, Friday, was what I consider to have been the first day of "oppressive heat." It is when one goes outside and experiences the absurd sensation of feeling like one is being roasted in an oven. Perhaps the oven is on the low setting, like yesterday, but it is still like being roasted in an oven.

In June, the temperature is likely to achieve what I call the "11 handle"---temperatures in Fahrenheit in the 110s.  June is typically the hottest month of the year here, the peak of the "dry heat." Later in the summer, in July and August, it slightly more humid and thus the temperature doesn't get quite as high, but it is just as uncomfortable, if not more so, because the slight amount of humidity makes it hellish. In June it is as dry as anything you experience.

In June 2016, our first summer here.it hit 120 in parts of the valley. We were living up in Fountain Hills, which is at almost two thousand feet, several hundred feet higher than the valley, so it's inherently cooler. Still it got within a few degrees of the 12 handle. Everything just shuts down. Planes at the Phoenix airport could not take off because the atmosphere is not dense enough at that temperature. Or least that's what I heard. Signs goes up on businesses saying they cannot operate at that temperature. The air conditioning breaks down easily and at that point one must evacuate the premises. 

Our place there had a pool. During those really hot days, it was almost impossible to stay in the sun, so swimming was difficult, but I thought I'd go for a dip. The water was like a warm bath, but not yet uncomfortable. The pool thermometer was about ninety. I had to keep myself in the water at least up to the neck. 

What made it unbearable was the reflection of the sun off the water, which was impossible to avoid. It was like being in a solar oven as well as a regular oven at the same time. I could stay in the pool only by using by silver Golite backpacker's umbrella, which is very light by design, holding it in one hand white it rested on the water, so it made a shelter for me from the sun. Only then could I relax in the water

At those temperatures if there is any breeze at all, it feels like one is standing next to a bar-b-cue grill. One feels the breath of Hell in the hot blast on one's face. 

Of course if you out on the trail then, you are likely to cause physical harm to yourself die without extreme caution. It's the heat equivalent of Antarctica.

Today it was only 100, though, at the hottest part of the day. We've reached the 10 handle. But it felt slightly oppressive. So we have 20 degrees to go to get the "12 handle". The me of five years ago would have said, "bring it on, I love it." The current me is less enthusiastic about, in part because of personal health issues, but also because it doesn't seem so novel anymore. But maybe this year I can embrace it. Of course it might be a big bust and the best we get is 113 on a day or two. Life will go on.

Pure Imagination

Note I originally wrote a longer version of this, but in making a minor edit I accidentally erased a huge chunk of the middle and couldn't restore it properly, so I pulled it off to rewrite it, but I think I'll just post what remains, as it is probably better this way anyway. It included a link to this cool video about why the song is so beautiful, in terms of music theory, which I barely understand.

I had been thinking of the late Gene Wilder, a great actor, and I found myself singing this song the other morning as I drove into work, fumbling over the lyrics I remembered. For some reason it punches me in the gut like no other song. and takes me to some special place from my early childhood that makes me want to break down and even sob with a collage of dredged up emotions, as if everything lost and mourned can be remembered and regained in some magical way. I can imagine myself croaking out this song with my last breath on my deathbed.

As I sat behind the wheel of my car in my usual spot the ASU parking lot, I tried to think why it was so emotional impactful. I realized that the entire depth of the song comes from the first line: "Come with me.."  The song is not just an appeal to the power of imagination. It's an invitation to a shared world of imagination. If you grasp this, you will get the whole idea of the movie itself---a lonely, broken, wounded man with a vision of a world from his imagination, who made that vision of that into reality, and who yearns to share it ("Traveling in the world of my creation"). But he can share it only with those worthy enough to accept this gift. So he issues invitations, seemingly random, but somehow we learn that maybe they aren't so random after all. One by one his invitees prove themselves unworthy and are expelled from his imaginative vision. At the end, there is only one left, to whom he will put the biggest test of all. When the last surviving candidate succeeds, only then do we see the Wonka character, the inviter, instantly reveal himself and his true intentions all along. 

I think this all reveals something profound---that the most satisfying aspect of imagination is that it can be shared with others. As children we learn this, and attempt this, but we are often beaten down by rejections of our creative imaginations from others. We learn to be cynical, to keep them to ourselves, protecting ourselves from the pain we experience trying to invite others. At some stage we may stop inviting even our own selves to these worlds. 

If I could criticize contemporary children's books and movies, my impression is that they focus too much on empowering of children to use their imagination for themselves, something that can ultimately be only marginally satisfying in my estimation. You can do anything. Stand on your own and roar. Conquer the world. Blah blah blah. Seriously, it's about conquest? Somehow I always hated those messages as a kid. They felt manipulative to me. I sensed they were what adults wanted us kids to think about, so adults could pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves for molding kids the right way.  All the while it felt like a form of power and control to me. OK, it is I who am cynical, but there is something almost demonic in the frequent adult obsession about molding the way kids play. 

The sharing of this imaginative vision with others is a nuance that is not as easily packaged into political and religious ideologies of any kind. It is potentially deeply painful step in which one might risk one's entire self image.  

On an archetypal level, it the basis of all courtship and romance. The young man falls in love with a young woman and imagines a future with her. He invites her to take his hand step into that vision with him, for the rest of their lives potentially. This is a process that seems to have broken down in our culture. 

Likewise, that risk is the basis of all art, one could argue, whether paintings, novels, movies, etc.---an invitation to share a vision. It is how one becomes a creator. 

From that risk it comes potentially the ultimate form of un-aloneness, and perhaps the most deeply satisfying thing on earth we can experience.  If you want to see paradise, simply look around a view it, sings Wonka, as he himself looks around, seemingly alone in this thoughts as the others ignore him. Yet we see he is viewing them enjoying his imaginative creation. Paradise.

Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three...

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Traveling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world there's nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

From the words you might think Wonka is simply advocating the power of escapist fantasy for personal satisfaction. Anything you want to, do it. 

But his actions belie this interpretation, as I mentioned above. His paradise is the sharing of the vision. He changes the world outside himself by inviting others into his (including his invitation of the Oompa Loompas as refugees under his protection). 

So finally, here's the original scene from the movie. 

Would you like to hear my tale? I will tell you, the whole thing if you want. But my invitation is conditional. With each word I tell you I will be watching your eyes, to see if you are with me. If not, I will not bother to continue, and you will never notice as my voice trails off and we switch subjects. But if you pass my test, and you laugh and cry at the places that I thought only I could laugh and cry, and at other places that you yourself discover in my tale, places of pain and joy that I had not even noticed, then you will earn a kind of trust from me, one that I yearn to give to someone. Then I may let you imagine it along with me, and if you have a story, and you invite me into it, I might help you imagine it too, if you want, and maybe our imaginations will even mingle together.

AI has come for me

Rumble now has AI to generate automated summaries of podcasts, or least on the Badlands Channel. I feel naked and exposed.

In the first-ever Friday night edition of Spellbreakers, Matt Trump kicks off the weekend with a deeply personal and freewheeling exploration of nostalgia, geography, politics, and classic Americana. Broadcasting solo, Matt uses the episode as a canvas to reminisce on his college days in Oregon, share reflections on his life as a physicist and AI researcher at Arizona State, and explore the cultural and political shifts unfolding in both Oregon and America at large.

With the state of Oregon as a central character, Matt takes listeners on a tour of the Willamette Valley, recounts the strange symbolism of Oregon’s state capitol, and advocates for unity over secession in the face of eastern Oregon’s push to join Idaho. He blends this civic reflection with commentary on Trump’s evolving relationship with Israel, race and free speech in America, and the importance of cultural memory.
In a highlight moment, Matt dives into a musical tribute to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, analyzing its symbolism, romantic energy, and portrayal of mid-century American ideals. He even plays the film’s opening number, “Bless Your Beautiful Hide,” as part of his broader campaign to remind listeners of the joy and courage in American storytelling.
Backed by sponsors BlockTrust IRA and Safe Streets, and peppered with audience shoutouts, movie trivia, and TCM reverence, this episode feels like an intimate fireside chat, equal parts homespun history, media commentary, and heartland revivalism.
Spellbreakers Friday nights have arrived, and Matt’s determined to make them count.

Note: "Classic Americana" would have been a better and more appropriate name for my show, but I'm stuck with this one, which is fine. It was suggested by my erstwhile cohost, who, unbeknownst to me when we came up with the show, was banking on turning me into a Flat Earther, and against the physics community at large---or at least exposing me and taking my scalp as a witless defender of the establishment. 

Library of Memories

 My thoughts while waking in the wee small hours this morning turned to remembering the public library in Fort Collins, my hometown in Colorado. They were mostly sad and wistful thoughts, because I have such good memories of that place, stretching over many years, such as going there with my mother when I was junior high school, and sitting in the car out on the curb with my books waiting for her to come out. More significantly, when I returned to live in Fort Collins in 2005, I found myself visiting the library quite a lot for research I was doing with a friend. My library card got a lot of use there. By then they had begun using a computerized system for check-out, and one could renew books online. But they still had the old card catalog available if you wanted to use it, sitting in its familiar place at the top of the stairs to the second floor. The reference section was the same.I knew where the newspaper microfiche was, and the old city directories. 

One of the first things I did upon return back then was go on a spate of reading books I had been assigned in college, or attempted to read in the past, but did not finish. I was particularly lonely during those years, being divorced and in my forties, and the library was a comfort, in part because it connected me to the past.

Already by the time I had returned in 2005, it had begun to transform into being not only a library but a day shelter for the homeless---a novel issue in Fort Collins at the time. In high school, one had to go to a big east coast city to see that. But it was not a serious problem yet, as it would become for almost urban libraries in the years ahead. I remember walking by one of the free use computers being used by a gentleman there and seeing porn on the screen. It was a watershed movement. Even if I were going to look at porn, which I don't, the idea of watching it in full view of people passing by in a public library was scandalous to me.

The last time I was there, which was three years ago, we stayed in a boutique hotel in downtown (something that was never a convenience in the old days).  We walked over to the library. I was excited to go back there, because I was looking forward to the comfort of the memories. Inside I found the library utterly changed to point that I don't recognize it. The interior had been completely remodeled. Gone were most of the stacks, the collection dispersed to other new branches on the edge of town, with modern buildings and huge parking lots---much more convenient that driving into the narrow streets of Old Town. The remaining stack were sparse and only chest-high. Never again would one be able to wander through the narrow aisles feeling the books towering over one's head. No doubt that was hard to surveil. Who knows what was going on there.

What had been the entire fiction wing was removed and replaced by comfortable chairs for reading and using one's laptop. The whole place now felt like a bookstore, with pods of books on display highlighting the interests and, of course, the political causes, of the staff.

The old historical reference section, including  the city directories, was removed entirely and relocated to a newly built museum center a mile away, accessible only by car. I was told the materials there were available to the public for two days a week in the afternoons, or by special appointment. It would never again be something one could do spontaneously while visiting the library. Nobody ever thinks of these things but me.

Of course the old card catalog was no where to be found. The younger librarians on the staff had probably never used one. I asked one of the librarians what had become it, as I felt it was a valuable piece of history, that captured the collection of the library at a certain epoch. She didn't know. I could tell it didn't occur to her that it had any meaning. "I think part of it is being used as decorations in the garden of the one of the head librarians." 

I walked out there devastated, feeling as if I had come back to find the place ransacked by vandals. There was no continuity with the past. I don't think I will ever go back there. Why would I? There is nothing left of what I remember.

Does that matter? I think it does. A public library should be a continuity in time. I was glad at least that I did not live in Fort Collins while this was going on, and have to witness it happening. 

Now in my mind, when I think of the library, I have in mind two overlapping images, one of the old and one of the new. They flip  back and forth in my mind. 

All of the updates and remodeling---no doubt they all made sense and were quite reasonable to accommodate the needs of an evolving community, as they say. The removal of my favorite historical materials was done in part to protect them, of course. But I wish they had found a way to preserve it all, the way it used to be, as a living archive of the way libraries once were  In my mind I want to keep the old version alive (with porn filters, however)..

From AI to Physics

 Today I volunteered to give a talk on AI for a conference on the ASU campus in two weeks. It will be in front of people who know more about AI than I do, and probably more than I ever care to. 

My boss, the project lead of the AI Acceleration team, was in the lab as he is on Tuesdays. I had gotten the email about reserving all day on Thursday the 22nd for the aforementioned conference.  I had no idea what it was about and asked my boss. He asked everyone in the lab if anyone wanted to give a talk for it. "It doesn't have to be about our projects," he said. "It can be anything about AI." 

There were no takers. 

He looked at me. "Matt, you want to give a talk about AI."

It was one of those moments where my impulse to say "yes" to a random idea kicked in. "Sure," I told him. "I love public speaking." 

So just like that I was now giving a talk about AI in two weeks. What on earth can I talk about?

On the drive home, I mulled it over. I barely know many details of the project we are working on at the lab. Anything about AI in general seemed ridiculous, given the background of the audience.

Finally when I got home, I realized that, well heck, I am a physicist, after all. I bet no one else there can say that. A moment's reflection made me remember my ongoing project to use ChatGPT to help write my talk and paper for next year's IARD conference.  I have barely begun that, but who cares. In the meantime I designed my own self-study course to relearn quantum field theory from scratch and finally master it after thirty years of frustration. I hadn't begun it in earnest yet, as I waiting for the textbooks to arrive, that ChatGPT suggested for me. The last one arrived today from Thriftbooks. This is perfect, I thought. It's exactly what the entire project at the lab is about---using AI for traditional classroom learning. 

Of course, now it means I actually need to initiate that program of study I mentioned. This means in a weird way that I will now be doing physics as part of my day job at a university. Somehow I managed to make that happen. Well, maybe. Let's not get ahead ourselves, Matt. 

I am excited about the idea, even though it would mean a lot of work. My switch from dread to excitement brings up the pessimistic suspicion that maybe my boss wasn't serious or that he'll forget he asked me. I am always on the lookout for that kind of thing, as if my very excitement over something will generate a cosmic force against it. That's a core part of mentality---never get too excited about anything happening. Be detached. Things seem to work out better when I suppress my excitement and remain indifferent, as if I need to fool even myself that I don't care. I was just explaining this to a friend of mine recently, in regard to some past behavior of mine.

But I am excited about it, dadgummit. I can't help myself.  I want to give an AI conference talk about using AI to write a physics conference talk. Tomorrow I will send a message to my boss confirming it. For tonight at least, I'm going to be excited over it.

Postcards of Rain

 Grey clouds this morning, and a bit chilly.  Coming down Broadway to campus, the rain begins hitting the windshield, almost enough to think about using the wipers. When I open the car door in the parking lot, I smell the delicious residue of the shower.

As I walk past the student union, I see the water drops that have lingered on the square outdoors tables. My marveling gaze follows them as I pass them by them, as if I'm a tourist in a national park. They should sell postcards of this, I think, proof that this actually can happen on a May morning.

1:28 AM

 Thoughts on God being Love itself, as per Church doctrine, and how each of us is loved beyond our comprehension by God.

Also, I think I have a dentist appointment today.

Canary Island Pines

Woke up feeling down today about my work, especially the meaningfulness of my day job, grasping for a bit of hope. After bagel and coffee on the terrace: what if I produce a laminated study guide for the most advanced physics topics, just for my own amusement? I could base them off the table of contents of the books I just ordered for my self-study course. 

A tiny little sign, obviously placed by someone with much better eyesight than me, and located ten feet up the trunk and behind a small retaining wall, told me the trees outside the Danforth Mediation Chapel are canary island pines. 

1:20 AM

 After last night I have come to conclusion that I must like waking up at exactly 1:20 AM every night, in pitch black, with a lingering wakefulness that lets me think in the utter stillness of the night without any sound. There's a peace and clarity I don't get at other times of the day. I'm almost beginning to look forward to it.

Temperate Spring

 It has felt like a temperate spring. Last night it was cloudy and there were drops of rain on the kitchen window. It's now the fifth of May and I have not yet switched from my office to the outdoor patio for my early morning prayer and mediation. At least I am not still running the space heater, but as of last week I was still turning it on for a few minutes to warm my legs.