Leave Of That Voice

No, said Tobin. The gifts of the Almighty are weighed and parceled out in a scale peculiar to himself. It’s no fair accountin and I dont doubt but what he’d be the first to admit it and you put the query to him boldface.

Who?

The Almighty, the Almighty. The expriest shook his head.

[...]

Oh it may be the Lord’s way of showin how little store he sets by the learned. Whatever could it mean to one who knows all? He’s an uncommon love for the common man and godly wisdom resides in the least of things so that it may well be that the voice of the Almighty speaks more profoundly in such beings as lives in silences themselves.

He watched the kid.

For let it go how it will, he said, God speaks in the least of creatures.

The kid thought him to mean the birds or things that crawl but the expriest, watching, his head slightly cocked, said: No man is give leave of that voice.

The kid spat into the fire and bent to his work.

I aint heard no voice, he said.

When it stops, said Tobin, you’ll know you’ve heard it all your life.

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

Domenico DeMarco

I was in New York over the weekend. For lunch on Saturday, my friend and I took the Q train out to Brooklyn (way out, almost at Coney Island) to get pizza at Di Fara. First things first, Di Fara is incredible pizza; the best I’ve had anywhere. What actually makes Di Fara particularly remarkable is the man (pictured above), Dom DeMarco. Dom’s been running the place since 1959. He’s 69. He’s been there since he was 19 making great pizzas by hand for 50 years and his, I believe, are the only hands to touch the pizza before they go in the oven.

Di Fara is a small, unassuming corner shop on Avenue J in Midwood. It’s crowded and there’s little seating. Most people are happy to stand and wait, watching while DeMarco works his deceptively simple craft with hands that must have rolled out tens of thousands of pies. I got there a little bit after they opened and still waited about an hour. Waits during rushes would be unbearable to non-enthusiasts, but people wait. I think that’s as much testament to the respect DeMarco’s earned as it is to the quality of the pie.

How much does a man have to love his work to do it, day in and day out, for 50 years? While wildly popular, he can’t be doing it for the money. He’s pushing 70, in and out of the hospital, and still at it. I’ll count myself lucky if I find something to love half as much as Dom loves his work.

Their Wondrous, Fragile Life

In Memoriam, J.F.K.

This bullet is an old one.

In 1897, it was fired at the president of Uruguay by a young man from Montivideo, Avelino Arredondo, who had spent long weeks without seeing anyone so that the world might know that he acted alone. Thirty years earlier, Lincoln had been murdered by that same ball, by the criminal or magical hand of an actor transformed by the words of Shakespeare into Marcus Brutus, Caesar’s murderer. In the mid-seventeenth century, vengeance had employed it for the assassination of Sweden’s Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of the public hecatomb of a battle.

In earlier times, the bullet had been other things, because Pythagorean metempsychosis is not reserved for humankind alone. It was the silken cord given to viziers in the East, the rifles and bayonets that cut down the defenders of the Alamo, the triangular blade that slit a queen’s throat, the wood of the Cross and the dark nails that pierced the flesh of the Redeemer, the poison kept by the Carthaginian chief in an iron ring on his finger, the serene goblet that Socrates drank down one evening.

In the dawn of time it was the stone that Cain hurled at Abel, and in the future it shall be many things that we cannot even imagine today, but that will be able to put an end to men and their wondrous, fragile life.

Jorge Luis Borges

The More Commonplace Sobriquet

Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask. … I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

I’ve been thinking about relationships. About how and to what extent I actually know anyone and they me. About the implications of a relationship based on a trust in things that may or may not be founded in truth or capricious whimsy and how responsible one should be for the reliability of that trust. As elementary as it may sound, I’ve been realizing how much of a deliberate choice it has become for me, in each instance, to decide what or what not reveal to someone and how or how not to extend cordiality. As rational as I like to think I am, these choices are rarely made on the basis of any form of rationality, but on bias and favor. Understanding the rational nature of these choices is one matter, the execution of them in a rational manner another. I think I’ve stumbled upon another of many rudimentary, yet inscrutable personal conundrums: pride.

(I was debating whether or not to go with an image from the graphic novel or the excellent film adaptation, but opted for the former out of respect for the original source material.)

That Infinite Concatenation Of Events

I reflected that in the language of a god every word would speak that infinite concatenation of events, and not implicitly but explicitly, and not linearly but instantaneously. In time, the idea of a divine utterance came to strike me as puerile, or as blasphemous. A god, I reflected, must speak but a single word, and in that word there must be absolute plenitude. No word uttered by a god could be less than the universe, or briefer than the sum of time. The ambitions and poverty of human words – all, world, universe – are but shadows of simulacra of that Word which is the equivalent of a language and all that can be comprehended within a language.

The Aleph and Other Stories – The Writing of the God, Jorge Luis Borges

Insomnia

I actually don’t get insomnia much these days. I fall asleep relatively quickly, but I wake up several times in the night and my sleep is very not restful.

In the past year, on the few occasions where I find myself feeling particularly morose and, at the same time, being unable to sleep, I’ve tended to occupy myself by messing around with my camera and taking pictures of myself (this is about as emo as I get). This is kind of an interesting pattern I’ve noticed. It’s unusual for me to find myself unable to articulate something and that this drives naturally into visual expression is curious.

Or, I really am just pretty emo. In fact, I am currently sitting in the dark, staring into space, and listening to Thomas Newman’s elegiac score to “Road to Perdition.”

A World I Never Knew

How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?

Under The Banner Of Heaven

I recently finished Jon Krakauer’s “Under The Banner Of Heaven.” In it, Krakauer (also the author of “Into The Wild”) writes about the religiously motivated murder, that took place in 1984, of a woman and her infant child at the hands of two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers that claim divine mandate. He uses this as a capstone for the framework of a detailed outline of the religious violence that is woven throughout the history of Mormonism in America. Without commenting on the theological and epistemological issues regarding Mormonism, I think the most salient point raised is how the two brothers were motivated psychologically by their beliefs.

The end of the book recounts the arguments raised at the trial of Ron Lafferty, the older of the brothers. The defense’s main strategy was to employ the insanity plea, while the prosecution attempted to prove that the Lafferty brothers were decidedly sane. The defense argued that Ron’s religious beliefs and claims of frequent divine revelations were so outlandish and self-serving that they were symptoms of schizophrenia, which drove him to murder. The prosecution countered this by asserting that, while Ron’s actions were clearly unusual, they were highly logical in the framework of the Mormon indoctrination he’d received his entire life. The case drew national attention because the court’s decision would set precedence for these explosive questions:

…if Ron Lafferty were deemed mentally ill because he obeyed the voice of his God, isn’t everyone who believes in God and seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well? In a democratic republic that aspires to protect religious freedom, who should have the right to declare that one person’s irrational beliefs are legitimate and commendable, while another person’s are crazy? How can a society actively promote religious faith on one hand and condemn a man for zealously adhering to his faith on the other?

While reading about the history of Mormonism, I found myself being struck by how fantastical and ridiculous much of it sounds. Joseph Smith’s revelations seem almost laughable several hundred years later to an outsider of the faith. After some thought, however, it occurred to me how outsiders of Christianity might feel the same way. The metaphysical overtures often offered in defense of religions notwithstanding, I think the most important epistemological concern for those contemplating religion is to be able to justify one’s faith outside of indoctrination and tradition. This is something I’ve struggled with for the past couple of years: walking the fine line of striving for a purer independent understanding of faith without abandoning the church altogether.

In the last pages of “Heaven,” Krakauer interviews a Mormon apostate who comments on happiness and religion:

“If you want to know the truth,” he says, squinting against the glare, “I think people within the religion [...] are probably happier, on the whole, than people on the outside.” He looks down at the red sand, scowls, and nudges a rock with the toe of one shoe. “But some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”

I always thought this was Disney World or something when I was younger.

Okay

Joel: I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.
Joel: Okay.
Clementine: [pauses] Okay.

The Gym Is Not A Dance Club

I was at the gym after work today. In between sets, during some exercises, I do burnouts. Burnouts are a calf exercise in which you stand on your toes and hop in place a hundred or so times. It’s good for your calves and keeps your heart rate up. While doing these, a Lil Jon song (or some other piece of equally crunk, sonic garbage) came on the speakers. After a few seconds, I realized that I was hopping along to the beat of the song. There was virtually no one else in the gym, but I felt stupid. So, I stopped.

The end.