Kudos to A Subtle Armageddon

One Dave Smith offers one of the most impressive interpretations of my book A Subtle Armageddon: 

A Subtle Armageddon: Book 1 of the Infinity Series by Charles Martin Cosgriff was an interesting story about a man's discovery of personal freedom. Using the character "Man," he lays out an allegory of self-discovery in an atmosphere of strict control in a world where all is premeditated, prescribed, and predetermined to be the best path to follow.

While the storyline is compelling, following Man as he travels through his life, waging an internal battle with a "voice" that continues to make attempts to bring him back into line with the prescribed path, I found something even better.

In the beginning, Man had no concept of anything, not of his surroundings, not his purpose, and not of himself. So Cosgriff has the task of describing the most mundane things as Man, who is not even Man at this point, discovers them, takes note of them, and makes some kind of sense of them. I marveled at his skill in the writing craft when he applied language and writing mastery to do this, while keeping sophisticated readers interested, without losing them. Yes, it was a slow starter for sure. But I remained interested because of how Cosgriff did this. He was not able to use a common term like library or shadow, for example. He had to find a way to describe a shadow as it is discovered anew by Man. And he does it well, time after time. Taking the well-known and writing it as if it were unknown is an incredibly difficult undertaking.

There is certainly a political commentary within A Subtle Armageddon, hearkening to A Brave New World for sure, maybe a little bit of Atlas Shrugged. Based on the preview at the end of the story, that is what is in store for at least book 2 of the series.

I give A Subtle Armageddon: Book 1 of the Infinity Series by Charles Martin Cosgriff four stars because of his ability to describe familiar, well-known, mundane items in our world as if they had never been seen before. The book breaks into a brighter, more adventurous arc by the end of this Book. There is certainly hope that Book 2 will be as good.

I really like this analysis. See for yourself here to find out if Mr. Smith's thoughts are accurate.

Me? Yes, I think he says it well. I think he gets my self imposed starting point: the man in the story begins as a completely blank slate and grows from there. Nature is a great teacher.

Happy Anniversary?

Large companies, and I suppose small ones too, like to brag about any lack of accidents at their establishments. That's all right of course, and long term safety is a good thing. Yet how we frame things affects perspective.

Most of us have seen or worked at places with signs that announce, 'Accident free for 107 days' or the like. Of course, good for them. Then I saw a sign which proclaimed 'Accident free for 365 days' and my first thought was, are you celebrating the first year anniversary of an adverse incident?

Have a laugh, and have a great Friday, although you may obviously need to look somewhere other than here for the former.

The Real Meaning of April 22

My birthday, April 22, is also Earth day. As a philosophical conservative I get a bit of teasing over that fact. But hey, I'm for good stewardship of the Earth. I'm just not for vaguely pagan claptrap.

Political swipes aside, I have discovered a better meaning to my date of birth. April 22 is In God We Trust Day. By act of Congress on April 22, 1864, it was declared that these United States could add the words In God We Trust to our currency. No, I do not remember its passage. I'm not that old.

In God We Trust Day. I like that better. And you will be reminded of it every April 22 from here on out.

Reminiscing

This old boy turned 66 today. I suppose technically I'm not there until 4:30 this afternoon, the time I came into this world in 1960. A few more hours of 65 won't hurt.

I can't say that I've always been happy with my life choices. If in looking back you can't find at least some regrets you're probably not looking hard enough. Yet on the whole I'm all right with what I've done. 

Staying in the family business may have been the most critical decision in my life. Financially, I could have done better for myself and my family, and that does prick at my conscience a bit. But it's one of those choices which, overall, I think has been good.

Standing just inside the door of the old barn this morning, I could see Joe holding court, cigarette in hand, from his seat by the coffee table. There was Uncle John whom we call Zeke atop his perch of steel parts boxes, reading the morning Free Press. Me Pops was on the phone handling a customer while me brother Phil toiled at a bench vise, hitting a cable fitting a few too many times in showing it who was boss. Both my sons were there doing whatever as Uncle Patrick pushed a broom. And I haven't even gotten to all the other characters, welders and sewer cleaners and various employees who came and went. They all made the Shop memorable.

Not only did I get a lot of time with family, but so did my brothers and my sons. Would my boys have known Paw Paw as well if I had not stayed? Would I know Joe and Zeke and Craig and Price and old Arthur Williams and Stanley, Willie Deal and his boys and Chuck Bias, as well? I can't say enough about late Fridays at the Shop when Dad would decide to call it a day at 3 PM and we'd nurse coffees and simply talk to each other until the more formal quitting time arrived. I wouldn't get that in an office or classroom.

You can't prove a negative, so who knows what friendships and opportunities I may have missed. But you know what? Life was just fine as it was. I wouldn't do it different.

Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

This or something similar has probably happened to other parents. Hopefully it was with equally uneventful results.

When our oldest was in second grade, he stopped his mother and I one morning and proudly told us that he had made his own lunch for school that day. We did all the proper oohing and ahhing which parents should, praising him for his effort. Still, when he turned his back my wife thought it best to have a look at what he had packed.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay.

A napkin, good.

Apple, very good.

A bottle of beer. Okay, that of course had to be switched out for a juice box. We then explained to our son, kindly because we didn't want to ruin his pride at being otherwise considerate, that he was too young for beer and that the school wouldn't allow it. He was okay with the explanation.

Can you imagine how quickly we would have been called to social services though, if she hadn't checked his lunch box?

Jethro Psychology

There was a Beverly Hillbillies marathon on this weekend. What better time can you have, I ask, at 3:30 on a Sunday morning than watching Jethro Bodine being psychoanalyzed?

"What is your relationship to your mother?" the Doctor asked.

Incredulous, Jethro replied, "I'm her son." The show went on, the basic story line being that the psychologist must be interested in dating Jethro's widowed mother because she was all he asked about during the session with him.

You gotta love it.

I'm not going to argue that The Beverly Hillbillies was particularly inspired. Well, maybe I am. The mockery they made of modern psychology in that episode was a hoot, under the guise of the fish out of water premise of the whole series. It left you wondering who's the real yokel.

Not to disparage worthwhile psychology (which I suppose has its merits) but people need to be able laugh at themselves, be able to poke fun at even, perhaps especially, things near and dear to them. We don't do that enough anymore. 

And it shows.

April 19, 1775

On this day in 1775 the American Revolution began in earnest. The militiamen, the ordinary citizen soldiers of Lexington and Concord, turned back the more organized and more highly trained British, harassing them all the way back to Charlestown outside of Boston. The Shot Heard Round the World had been fired. April 19, 1775 had secured its place in American and World history.

The significance of this event cannot be underscored enough. To date, it lit the lamp of almost surely the only large scale revolution which has had any modicum of positive success. Most new nations sink into anarchy, more terrible tyranny, or simply the same old same old with a new face after a known form of government falls.

To be sure, even our Revolution was subject to severe trials early on. It was no certainty that a civil government based on popular will would result from the breaking of age old ties. Yet somehow it did; I believe that it was American Exceptionalism through Divine Providence that our nation rose from those battles as it did.

I do not mean this as an insult towards other people and nations who have or are now seeking similar freedom and respect. I know that we aren't and never have been perfect, and that there are and have been other rightly proud and blessed peoples and countries. But the fact is that popular uprisings need more than simple change. They need enlightened leadership. They need more than mob mentality. Any dictator with charisma and organizational skills can turn crowds to their will quite readily.

The colonists had rational leadership. The colonist themselves were on the whole reasonable people. They were able to overcome the occasional rabble to form a stable, reasonably free nation. And that's exactly what makes April 19, 1775 so memorable. Our revolution is truly unique in history. It was essentially founded 251 years ago today.