Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut

Source of book: I own this.

 

I received a box of books by Vonnegut when a colleague downsized, and I have been working to read through them as I get time. I went with Jailbird because I found a Franklin edition at a library sale, and figured I should read that one next. I also have a cheap paperback from that box, and that is the one I took on a recent backpacking trip - it was light and small, and I really wouldn’t have been particularly sad if it got damaged. (Say, from falling in a lake. Unlikely, but you never know…) 

 

Jailbird is all about the Watergate scandal, plus a bit about the Labor movement a generation before that. The main protagonist is the fictional Walter F. Starbuck, a minor government official, who is wrongly convicted in the scandal because compromising documents were stored in his basement office. 

 

We get Starbuck’s backstory, which ends up involving the Labor movement and Sacco and Vanzetti, his marriage to a holocaust survivor, and his estrangement from his only child. After that, his trial and imprisonment, and his post-prison life which takes a bizarre turn. 

 

A bunch of other stuff is brought into the book during its many digressions. Including the Radium Girls. Surprisingly, the book mentions Roy Cohn in a mildly positive light. (As being a good attorney. Not a good person, which is an impossible case to make. But he was also a shitty lawyer too, a true embarrassment to the profession for his ethical nihilism.) 

 

I also learned a new thing from this book: the cocktail known as a “pousse-cafe.” Have you ever heard of it? I guess they were a thing back in the day. They seem to me to be more about the visual aesthetics than drinkability, but your mileage may vary. 

 

The narrative is strangely linear for Vonnegut, and lacks aliens. Kilgore Trout does make a token appearance, using a pseudonym, and with details that contradict the facts in other books. 

 

I have mixed feelings about the book. On the positive side, it truly sets forth Vonnegut’s political ideas, particularly his support for labor against capital. It also has some brilliant satire of society and government. A few of the characters, including the protagonist, are memorable. 

 

On the other hand, it lacks the human connection that I found in previous books. Slaughterhouse-Five is somewhat autobiographical, as Vonnegut lived through the firebombing of Dresden himself as a prisoner of war. It feels viscerally real. 

 

Likewise, Breakfast of Champions explores mental illness and how people descend into conspiratorial thinking. With characters patterned after Vonnegut’s family, it also feels personal and real. 

 

While I found Starbuck to be a compelling character, his constant dissociation and lack of change meant he felt at a distance. A few other characters flirted with connection, but they were in and out of the book fairly quickly - specifically the four loves of Starbuck’s life, who were fascinating, but then disappeared before you really got to know them fully. 

 

Perhaps this was Vonnegut’s intention - and he himself thought Jailbird was one of his best books. I just found it a bit harder to find that connection and realness that was so apparent in the other books. 

 

This is not to say the book is bad - just not as good (in my opinion) as the others of his I have read. 

 

There are, of course, some great lines - Vonnegut is always incredibly quotable. 

 

Starbuck, after World War Two, admires the new American army and its ostensible goals. Enjoy the snark. 

 

They were to be a thunderbolt with which we could vaporize any new, would-be Hitler, anywhere in the world. No sooner had the people of a country lost their freedom, than the United States of America would arrive to give it back again. 

 

This was written, of course, after the disaster of Vietnam…

 

There is also a digression about a Black prisoner of war held by China. I won’t get into all the details, but this line from the man in question is great. 

 

“They wanted me back, you know,” he told me, “because they were so embarrassed. They couldn’t stand it that even one American, even a black one, would think for even a minute that maybe America wasn’t the best country in the world.” 

 

Some things never change, I guess. 

 

This one is more funny than satirical. 

 

The function of a tuxedo, in fact, is exactly that: to put the wearer into an alternate universe.

 

There is also a strange story about Einstein and auditors (divine auditors, actually), which has an interesting conclusion. 

 

The story was certainly a slam at God, suggesting that he was capable of using a cheap subterfuge like the audits to get out of being blamed for how hard economic life was down here. 

 

The book ends with a rather bizarre twist. I won’t spoil most of it, but there is a bit about the debacle of trying to leave a giant corporation to charity. 

 

What, in my opinion, was wrong with Mary Kathleen’s scheme for a peaceful economic revolution? For one thing, the federal government was wholly unprepared to operate all the businesses of RAMJAC on behalf of the people. For another thing: Most of those businesses, rigged only to make profits, were as indifferent to the needs of the people as, say, thunderstorms. Mary Kathleen might as well have left one-fifth of the weather to the people. 

 

This is a perceptive observation, and gets at one of the reasons that Communism failed. Yes, of course, there are all kinds of problems - Communism was implemented as essentially a religion, and a fundamentalist one at that, rather than as a tool. 

 

But it also retained so much of industrial capitalism that it ended up mostly being a worse, totalitarian form of it. Vonnegut is right - the very structure of industry rigged to make profit isn’t improved because you make the government run it. And hierarchy-based business just changes hierarchies with ownership. 

 

Whether or not you believe that society can go back to a time before industrialization or reverse the trend toward consolidation in business, what is clear is that 18th and 19th Century economic theories and tools have proven wholly useless in addressing the issues we currently face. And that goes for both unregulated capitalism and utopian Marxism. 

 

Vonnegut satirizes both in this book, but doesn’t have clear answers to suggest. I think he is right about that. Solutions will need shifting more power to labor and away from the billionaire class, for sure, but the exact solutions will need to be discovered pragmatically, not ideologically. 

 

Interesting book. Not his best, but worth reading. 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Source of book: I own this

 

In 1858, if you had predicted that Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. would be only the second most famous Oliver Wendell Holmes, you probably would have been laughed at. After all, he was a famous wit, a respected and influential physician, researcher, and academic. Oh, and his poems too were wildly popular. 

 

So what happened? Well, nothing that would tarnish the reputation of Oliver Sr. Only that his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. would be appointed to the Supreme Court by president Theodore Roosevelt, serve for 30 years with distinction, and become one of the most cited and most revered justices (particularly by us progressive sorts) of all time. 

 

I mean, in addition to broadly supporting civil rights in general and writing opinions which have stood the test of time, he is the originator of the “free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic” line. 

 

But don’t forget about Oliver Sr. either. I suspect kids these days don’t read his poems for school like I did, but they really should. I enjoyed his writing in high school, but really hadn’t ended up with any of his works in my library - they just aren’t that readily available in hardback. 

 

A bit about Senior. He grew up in New England, the son of a minister, and grew up reading literature. It is unsurprising that he started writing poetry young - he was a descendent of America’s first published poet, Anne Bradstreet. 

 

His father had hoped he would go into the ministry himself, but, after a miserable year at the Calvinist Phillips Academy, where he wrote that he deplored the "bigoted, narrow-minded, uncivilized" attitudes of many of the teachers, he was accepted into Harvard, and studied law. 

 

(Throughout his life, Holmes would deplore Calvinist doctrine - particularly that of “total depravity,” which he noted led to madness and suicide. I am completely with him on this.) 

 

He found he did not particularly enjoy law, however, and preferred writing poetry. Around this time, he had his first big hit with “Old Ironsides,” which is credited with preserving the USS Constitution, which was scheduled to be dismantled. I memorized this poem for school back in the day, although I can only recall a few lines now. 

 

Despite this success, he never seriously considered a literary career. He switched to medicine, and opened a practice, but ended up spending his time primarily as a teacher and researcher. As a result, he became a famous reformer. I won’t get into all the details, but he worked to end the use of bloodletting as a treatment (his research and that of others led to the conclusion that it was useless), discredited homeopathy as the quackery it is, and studied childbed fever - publishing his findings a few years before Semmelweiss came to the same conclusion in Europe. 

 

Oh, and he coined the term “anesthesia.” 

 

As a teacher, he was well beloved by his students, but his tenure also caused controversy on two occasions. 

 

He had the audacity to advocate for the admission of women (gasp!) and African-Americans (double gasp!) to Harvard. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful, as the good old boys had no desire to open their club. 

 

Other fun facts: Arthur Conan Doyle named his famous detective after Holmes. 1809 was not only the birth year of Holmes, but also Poe, Tennyson, Edward Fitzgerald, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, and William Gladstone. What a year that was. 

 

The one blemish I could find in his belief system is that he was not an abolitionist. He naively believed that slavery could be ended peacefully, and found abolitionist rhetoric to be inflammatory. So, kind of the “white moderate” MLK found distasteful. He was, however, a supporter of the Union. 

 

In any case, a man who was a true original, and the kind of thinker I aspire to be: preferring evidence to dogma, advocating for equality, and enjoying witty conversation with other thinkers. 

 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table had its origins in 1931, with a pair of essays in The New-England Magazine. These would later be reworked and incorporated in part into the later series that would become this book. 

 

In the 1850s, Holmes, along with a “who’s who” of New England writers - Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Stowe, Emerson - founded The Atlantic, which many of us still read. These essays were then published in the magazine, and later collected into a book. 

 One of many delightful illustrations by Raymond Holden in my edition

It is a bit difficult to categorize the essays. Are they fiction? Non-fiction? The problem is that they are written ostensibly by the title character, who is not exactly Holmes, but not exactly not Holmes either. They partly tell a story of characters in a boarding house. Which resembles one Holmes lived in in the 1830s, and was filled with characters similar to those in the essays. So sort of fiction there. 

 

But also, the essays are mostly wit and opinions, which is non-fiction, and poems, which are, well, poetry. 

 

Since I am not entirely certain, I think I will have to index this under all three categories, and let the reader decide. 

 

Further complicating the way the essays read is that the narrator is not the only voice. There is “the professor” who is the central character of the sequel, who might be Holmes, but is played for laughs quite often. The professor’s poems and writings are often spoofs, parodies, and intended to be amusing in no small part because of how seriously the professor takes them. 

 

The book is amusing in a gently comedic way - Holmes is out to poke light fun, not be mean-spirited. Society, particularly upper-class New Englanders like Holmes himself, is the butt of the jokes.

 

The one sour note in the book is probably unavoidable. Holmes was a man of his times, and there are a number of casual assumptions about women and various minorities that are really cringe. I think I have referred to these as “casual racism” and “casual sexism” before, and I think that is the best way to describe them. These are just base assumptions that few white males of the time would even have noticed - and indeed, female authors often assume the same gender stereotypes to be true in their writings.

 

It is what it is, to a degree, and the best I can say is that future readers will undoubtedly read what we write in our own time, and cringe a bit at our blind spots. I’ll also note that Holmes isn’t hateful at all - he means no harm, but doesn’t even notice his assumptions.

 

Despite these flaws, and despite the fact that I vehemently disagree with Holmes about whether puns are a good form of humor, this book really is incredibly witty. There are so many great lines, percipient observations, and insights into human nature. The man had a way with words. 

 

I’ll share my favorites. 

 

In addition to an introduction by Van Wyck Brooks, my Heritage edition contains three of Holmes’ prefaces: the original in 1858, a later edition in 1882, and one more in 1891. I love a line from the second one.

 

And now, for the first time for many years I have read them myself, thinking that they might be improved by various corrections and changes. But it is dangerous to tamper in cold blood and in after life with what was written in the glow of an earlier period. Its very defects are a part of its organic individuality. It would spoil any character these records may have to attempt to adjust them to the present age of the world or of the author. We have all of us, writers and readers, drifted away from many of our former habits, tastes, and perhaps beliefs. 

 

As I occasionally re-read posts on this blog, I am struck by how much I have changed over the last 14 years. I hope for the better. This is why the only edits I make on past posts is to correct typographical errors. Any other notations preserve the original and just add a comment from the present. 

 

So, with that, let me share my favorite witty passages. 

 

I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arithmetic and algebraical intellects. All economical and practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula: 2 + 2 = 4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general character of the expression a + b = c. We are mere operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead of figures. 

 

This gives a bit of the style of the Autocrat. As does this one:

 

What are the great faults of conversation? Want of ideas, want of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you think. I don’t doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found spoil more good talks than anything else; - long arguments on special points between people who differ on the fundamental principles upon which those points depend. 

 

This, by the way, is why I mostly avoid engaging with right wingers. We disagree on the fundamental principles - indeed the very nature of truth and reality. 

 

It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how much study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not more than this. Now, most decent people hear one hundred lectures or sermons (discourses) on theology every year, - and this, twenty, thirty, fifty years together. The clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except what they preach themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, simply for want of religious instruction. And, on the other hand, an attentive and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, might become actually better educated in theology than any one of them. 

 

He later makes a quip about his own tendencies. 

 

I will say, by the way, that it is a rule I have long followed, to tell my worst thoughts to my minister, and my best thoughts to the young people I talk with.

 

This next one is part of a longer discussion of memories and how they affect - and scar - us. 

 

The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories is in a direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their apparent age runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as they increase in magnitude. 

 

How about this one as well?

 

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. 

 

***

 

Don’t flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them. 

 

Then, there is this one, about having overindulged on a particularly excellent pie. 

 

I took more of it than was good for me, - as much as 85º, I should think, - and had an indigestion in consequence. While I was suffering from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, and a theological essay which too a very melancholy view of creation. When I got better, I labeled them all “Pie-crust,” and laid them by as scarecrows and solemn warnings.

 

***

 

Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. I don’t know what it is, - but it is a fact, that most writers, except sour and unsuccessful ones, get tired of finding fault at about the time when they are beginning to grow old.

 

On occasion, the Autocrat borrows bon mots from other writers. In this case, Sir Thomas Browne. 

 

“Every man truly lives, so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself.”

 

Perhaps a reminder that this isn’t some modern “woke” affectation - great thinkers for centuries have noted that all of us thrive better when we are able to live in accordance with our own gifting and true self. 

 

There is another passage that talks about our tendency to compare ourselves with our early friends - “how far we have come.” It is both quite funny and yet pretty pointed. 

 

There is one very sad thing in old friendships, to every mind which is really moving onward. It is this: that one cannot help using his early friends as the seaman uses the log, to mark his progress. Every now and then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string of thought tied to him, and look, - I am afraid with a kind of luxurious and sanctimonious compassion, - to see the rate at which the string reels off, while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow! and we are dashing along with the white foam and bright sparkle at our bows…

 

Here is another hilarious moment:

 

A lyric conception - my friend, the Poet, said - hits me like a bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine, - then a gasp and a great jump of the heart, - then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the head, - then a long sigh, - and the poem is written. 

 

On this subject, he compares poems to the great violins (and to a Meerschaum). 

 

Now I tell you a poem must be kept and used, like a meerschaum, or a violin. A poem is just as porous as the meerschaum; - the more porous it is, the better. I mean to say that a genuine poem is capable of absorbing an indefinite amount of the essence of our own humanity, - its tenderness, its heroism, its regrets, its aspirations, so as to be gradually stained through with a divine secondary color derived from ourselves. So you see it must take time to bring the sentiment of a poem into harmony with our nature, by staining ourselves through every thought and image our being can penetrate. 

 

The meerschaum and Stradivarius are mentioned in one of the poems in this book, another I read and enjoyed as a kid, “Contentment.” 

 

You never need think you can turn over any old falsehood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid little population that dwells under it. 

 

Fascinating how the Trump Era has done this - his lies have revealed the disgusting and deplorable underbelly of America. Another currently relevant quote:

 

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, - and the fools know it.

 

This one too:

 

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. 

 

And one more! Holmes is on a roll here. 

 

I made a comparison at table some time since, which has often been quoted and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts. 

 

(Holmes notes that he later discovered Thomas Moore had used the simile some time before - they realized the same thing independently.)

 

But yes, this has, unfortunately, been my experience over the last decade. 

 

Another passage that I found fascinating was the one on class. Holmes shared some of his age’s assumptions that some people were just naturally better than others, and thus became rich and privileged through their own merit - this is a key American myth. 

 

What I did find interesting is that Holmes saw better than others that privilege feeds on itself - if you grow up privileged, you have advantages that look a lot like merit that you can pass on to your children. As an example in my own life, because I grew up with literate parents, I was exposed to books very young and started life out better read than my peers who had parents trying to learn a new language. 

 

This is by no means a reason I feel ashamed - no rational person truly hates the good things they have, and an education isn’t soul-corrupting the way excessive wealth is. But I also recognize that it is an unearned advantage. Thus, I want to help others who didn’t have it to succeed at learning as well. 

 

Here is what Holmes had to say: 

 

Money kept two or three generations transforms a race, - I don’t mean merely in manners and hereditary culture, but in blood and bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in which children grow up more kindly, of course, than in close, back streets; it buys country places to give them happy and healthy summers, good nursing, good doctoring, and the best cuts of beef and mutton. 

 

That’s pretty progressive thinking. 

 

Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative virtues. It is good to abstain, and teach others to abstain, from all that is sinful or hurtful. But making a business of it leads to emaciation of character, unless one feeds largely also on the more nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence. 

 

Another way I would put this is that legalism - that “negative virtue” - makes one feel self-righteous without having to actually be virtuous. In the subculture I was raised in - and indeed, as current events show, this is endemic to conservative religion in this country - focus on abstaining from things - and demanding others do so - entirely has taken the place of empathy and loving one’s neighbor. 

 

An interesting note here is that Holmes deplored the temperance movement. The above quote may explain why. 

 

You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask your opinion really want your praise, and will be contented with nothing less. 

 

For pithy quotes, I will end with this one, which is quite the fascinating observation. Ignore the casual racism, and note the point.

 

Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I suspect. The shade of a palm-tree serves an African for a hut; his dwelling is all door and no walls; everybody can come in. To make a morning call on an Esquimaux acquaintance, one must creep through a long tunnel; his house is all walls and no door, except such a one as an apple with a worm-hole has. One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation between these two extremes. In cities where the evenings are generally hot, the people have porches at their doors, where they sit, and this is, of course, a provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dispositions, belongs really to mean temperature. 

 

Indeed. One can, of course, expand the idea to that of clothing, and note that the cultural chauvinism of northern Europeans continues today, insisting that more coverage is more “civilized” or even “godly.” 

 

I would be remiss without featuring a few poems. There are many I left out, including some witty parodies. But these three are my favorites.

 

Sun and Shadow

 

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,

         To the billows of foam-crested blue,

         Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,

         Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue:

         Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray

         As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;

         Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,

         The sun gleaming bright on her sail.

 

         Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,—

         Of breakers that whiten and roar;

         How little he cares, if in shadow or sun

         They see him who gaze from the shore!

         He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,

         To the rock that is under his lee,

         As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,

         O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.

 

         Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves

         Where life and its ventures are laid,

         The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves

         May see us in sunshine or shade;

         Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark,

         We'll trim our broad sail as before,

         And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,

         Nor ask how we look from the shore!

 

Holmes lived in an era of incredible scientific change, and also of demographic and cultural change. I admire that he seems to have adapted to that change better than most men then and now. This poem captures the combination of hope and anxiety at what lay ahead. 

 

The Chambered Nautilus

 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

 

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

 

I love this one for so many reasons. Nautiluses are really cool creatures. They do indeed build themselves a new chamber as they outgrow each old one, until there is a spiral of old apartments. For Holmes, this is how we are to live our lives and cultivate our souls. Rather than trying to stay stuffed in the same box we started, we should build new ways of thinking and being as we grow and change. 

 

Finally, this hilarious poem that so few seem to know about these days. On the surface, it is a humorous story - and I have used it to describe how a certain appliance we had once fell to pieces all at once in multiple areas. 

 

But it also is a metaphor. Some have said it represents a satire of New England rationality - an overemphasis on logic and objectivity. 

 

Others, however, see in it a takedown of Calvinism. And, indeed, an entire way of doing theology. By trying to make every part strong, a theological superstructure often goes to pieces all at once. This was true to a significant degree of my own deconstruction. Whether it was merely a characteristic of theological superstructures in general, or the result of a perfect storm of events that shook me to my core: my parents’ rejection of my wife, the rise of Trump, a child coming out. 

 

However you wish to see it, enjoy.

 

The Deacon's Masterpiece Or, The Wonderful One Hoss Shay

 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,  

  That was built in such a logical way

  It ran a hundred years to a day,

  And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay,

  I'll tell you what happened without delay,

  Scaring the parson into fits,

  Frightening people out of their wits, —

  Have you ever heard of that, I say?

  Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.

 Georgius Secundus was then alive, —

 

 Snuffy old drone from the German hive.

 That was the year when Lisbon-town

 Saw the earth open and gulp her down,

 And Braddock's army was done so brown,

 Left without a scalp to its crown.

 It was on the terrible Earthquake-day

 That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

 

 Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,

 There is always somewhere a weakest spot, —

 In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,

 In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,

 In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still,

 Find it somewhere you must and will, —

 Above or below, or within or without, —

 And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,

 A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out.

 

 But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,

 With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")

 He would build one shay to beat the taown

 'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';

 It should be so built that it could n' break daown:

 "Fur," said the Deacon, "'t 's mighty plain

 Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;

 'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

   Is only jest

 T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

 

 So the Deacon inquired of the village folk

 Where he could find the strongest oak,

 That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, —

 That was for spokes and floor and sills;

 He sent for lancewood to make the thills;

 The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,

 The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,

 But lasts like iron for things like these;

 The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," —

 Last of its timber, — they could n't sell 'em,

 Never an axe had seen their chips,

 And the wedges flew from between their lips,

 Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;

 Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,

 Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,

 Steel of the finest, bright and blue;

 Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;

 Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide

 Found in the pit when the tanner died.

 That was the way he "put her through."

 "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

 

 Do! I tell you, I rather guess

 She was a wonder, and nothing less!

 Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,

 Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

 Children and grandchildren — where were they?

 But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay

 As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

 

 EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; — it came and found

 The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.

 Eighteen hundred increased by ten; —

 "Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.

 Eighteen hundred and twenty came; —

 Running as usual; much the same.

 Thirty and forty at last arrive,

 And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

 

 Little of all we value here

 Wakes on the morn of its hundreth year

 Without both feeling and looking queer.

 In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,

 So far as I know, but a tree and truth.

 (This is a moral that runs at large;

 Take it. — You're welcome. — No extra charge.)

 

 FIRST OF NOVEMBER, — the Earthquake-day, —

 There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,

 A general flavor of mild decay,

 But nothing local, as one may say.

 There could n't be, — for the Deacon's art

 Had made it so like in every part

 That there was n't a chance for one to start.

 For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,

 And the floor was just as strong as the sills,

 And the panels just as strong as the floor,

 And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,

 And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,

 And spring and axle and hub encore.

 And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt

 In another hour it will be worn out!

 

 First of November, 'Fifty-five!

 This morning the parson takes a drive.

 Now, small boys, get out of the way!

 Here comes the wonderful one-horse shay,

 Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.

 "Huddup!" said the parson. — Off went they.

 The parson was working his Sunday's text, —

 Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed

 At what the — Moses — was coming next.

 All at once the horse stood still,

 Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.

 First a shiver, and then a thrill,

 Then something decidedly like a spill, —

 And the parson was sitting upon a rock,

 At half past nine by the meet'n-house clock, —

 Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

 What do you think the parson found,

 When he got up and stared around?

 The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,

 As if it had been to the mill and ground!

 You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,

 How it went to pieces all at once, —

 All at once, and nothing first, —

 Just as bubbles do when they burst.

 

 End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.

 Logic is logic. That's all I say.

 

In the Heights (Stars 2024)

There is a certain dark irony about seeing this musical by an American with Puerto Rican ancestry just days before a Trump rally obviously (and thus intentionally) patterned on the infamous 1939 Nazi rally at the same location. During the opener, a comedian (should I say “alleged” here? He wasn’t remotely funny…) let loose with a series of racist jokes, including one at the expense of Puerto Rico. 

 

In The Heights, of course, is all about immigrants in New York City that come from that part of the Caribbean. Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States - although a shocking percentage of Americans do not know this.* But also the Dominican Republic, which is known for producing some of the world’s best baseball players, among other things.** And Cuba. 

 

The musical was the first effort of Lin Manuel Miranda, who would become world famous a few years later with Hamilton. Miranda wrote the first draft of In the Heights while a college sophomore. That version was performed at school, and a few people with connections to both the school and professional theater saw it, and asked Miranda to expand it into a full length theater. Along the way, Quiara Alegria Hudes joined the effort, and ended up writing the book to go with Miranda’s music and lyrics. 

 

A few years later, the musical opened off Broadway before starting a Broadway run in 2008. A star was born. Miranda starred in the lead role, and won awards for both his acting and his writing. The rest is history. 

 

My wife saw this musical at The Empty Space some years ago, and was impressed by how they managed to fit a huge blockbuster into that tiny space. I had a schedule conflict, so this was my first time.

 

I have to admit, it did seem that it needed stage space, and it was definitely nice to have a fairly large live band backing the singers. Overall, this production was outstanding and a real pleasure to experience. 

 

The plot has a lot of the standard Musical tropes. Shy boy meets girl, loses girl, and gets her back. Boy from the wrong social class wins the higher class girl, but experiences rejection from her father. Matriarch holds everything together, and when she dies… you get the idea. Nothing wrong with these stories, and it was nice to see such a normal story in a context where you often see oppression become the only topic of discussion. 

 

(I’ve discussed this in other posts: it is easy for stories about minorities to become all about the bad stuff - and these stories are necessary. But it is also necessary to tell the other stories, of ordinary people and their ordinary universal human experiences of love, family, aspiration, sorrow, and reconciliation.)

 

I won’t get into the plot further than that, other than to mention that the characters are what drive the plot - and the characters are memorable and delightful. 

 

The set for this one was one of the best I have seen Stars do over the years. It really nailed the look of New York City, and in particular the little Barrio touches needed for this setting. I grew up in Los Angeles, which is different in many ways, but there were parts of that set that all I can say is, if you know, you know. Someone involved in this production did some homework. (Bethany Rowlee - local theater veteran who does everything apparently - designed the set, so kudos there. I wish there was an official photo of the set.) 

 

The cast included both some usual suspects and some new faces - lots of young people in the ensemble. It was nice to see both. 

 

I’ll start with the main guy, Nick Ono as Usnavi. He played this role in the Empty Space production, so he seemed thoroughly comfortable throughout. Honestly, I can’t think of anyone else in town better suited to the role, which requires acting, singing, dancing, and rapping. I loved Nick’s performance, from the physicality of the dancing to the clarity of the lyrics. 

 Usnavi (Nick Ono) and Benny (Zachary Alva)

This was my first time seeing my legal colleague David Torres on stage - he’s been there before, but I missed it. As the old school father, Kevin Rosario, I wondered at times if he was playing himself. I’ve known that type all my life - including the complexity between machismo and tenderheartedness. Also, Torres sings pretty well, which I did not know. The legal community should be proud of the job he did on stage. 

 Kevin (David Torres) and Camila Rosario (Sharida Rejon-Rodriguez)

It has been a long time since I saw Rosie Ayala in anything, so it was great to see her back on stage. As Abuela Claudia, she got to showcase her incredible alto voice. 

 Nina Rosario (Isabella Pelayo) and Abuela Claudia (Rosie Ayala)

I’ll also call out the two young female leads, Isabella Pelayo as Nina, and Jenny Rejon as Vanessa for outstanding vocal work. Serious torch song chops. 

 

Zachary Alva as Benny, Paddie Patterson as Sonny, and Benjamin Ha as Graffiti Pete made me smile. 

 

Lots of other singing and dancing and acting that was good - I really can’t think of any sour notes. Everyone was prepared and on their game, which says a lot about the careful prep work, including good vocal coaching and choreography. 

 

I have to mention the band as well. I know many of the people in it - it’s a small musical community here. This production had a lot of difficult rhythms, but the group was tight all night. Good stuff, and I want to say again how much I appreciate those local theaters who still hire live music. 

 

In the Heights runs one more weekend, so I encourage local folks to go and see it. You can get tickets here. 

 

*Note: when our kids were little, we had a group of homeschool families that took field trips to various places in the Los Angeles area. The father in one of the families is from Puerto Rico, so my kids at least know quite a bit about it. Most of their other friends did not, however.

 

**Note: something the notorious (and now thoroughly dead) racist and misogynist agitator Phyllis Schlafley complained about. 

 

A Chance to Right a Wrong

All of us have done at least a few things we regret during our lifetimes. (Well, except sociopaths…) 

 

For me, two of my biggest regrets have been votes I cast. I talked about the first one, my vote for Proposition 187 during my first ever vote. It was one time I knew I was violating my Christian values, but, because of where I was politically at the time, I voted that way anyway. I regret it, and would certainly not vote that way again. Fortunately, the court system invalidated most of the law, and at this point, I haven’t had a direct opportunity to re-do that vote - other than opposing Trump and MAGA like I do now.

 

The other vote I cast that I deeply regret was voting for Proposition 8 back in 2008. This was the one that outlawed same-sex marriage. 

 

This election, I am able to vote again on the issue, and I am voting to remove Proposition 8 from our laws. (It is dead due to the Obergefell case, but we all know that the extremist right wing Supreme Court is eager to take that right away from people along with reproductive rights, so California is getting ahead of things by enshrining a right to marriage - including interracial marriage, which some Republicans are now saying should be decided by the states.) 

 

This is a chance for me to right a wrong I did. And I am doing it. 

 

So why did I vote for Proposition 8 in the first place? Well, it’s complicated. I have known LGBTQ people for my entire life, and my parents actually raised me to reject hate. However, they were (and still are) wedded to the belief that God forbids sex outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage. And, unfortunately, as time went on, they got more bigoted about it. This is one reason we are estranged: my mom in particular has been non-accepting of her LGBTQ grandchildren, and indeed blames my wife for their identities. (This has been debunked, and even Exodus International, the infamous “conversion therapy” promoter, has admitted that this is untrue, and apologized for slandering parents by blaming them.) 

 

In any case, I was and am a product of my upbringing, and my deprogramming and deconstruction from the more harmful political and religious beliefs didn’t happen all at once. I was still not ready at that point to let go of my belief that gay sex was inherently sinful. (Even if I didn’t believe that orientation was something you chose or could change - I was Side B for those who know.) This changed, ironically, because of an anti-gay sermon my former pastor gave. 

 

There was another reason, though, that gave me doubts about gay marriage that didn’t come primarily from religious bigotry. 

 

At the time, I was still doing a lot of family law, and one of the realities of that system is that fathers are devalued. This could be a whole post in and of itself, but the fact still remains that the sexist view that women are more suited to child care than men governs most custody decisions. (There is all kinds of legalese about this, and the sexist child care practices in most marriages is a huge factor as well.) 

 

So, for me, being mostly familiar with lesbian couples who had children - remember, this was 16 years ago, so Pete and Chastain Buttigieg were in the future and gay fathers had pretty much zero visibility. Thus, I associated gay marriage in part with the further marginalization of fathers in their children’s lives. 

 

Looking back, I was wrong about this too. And I recognize that I was still harboring some gender essentialist views, as well as discounting the role of non-parents in the lives of children. 

 

So yeah, I was wrong. But at least on this issue, my “wrong” was coming from a better place than the “gay sex is sin” bigotry. 

 

I will also point out that I watched very little television at that time (actually, still watch very little television) and completely missed the nasty, hateful ads - which are essentially being recycled to target transgender people now. I wonder if I had seen the level of vitriol and slander directed against gay people, if that might have changed my mind? The same way the level of vitriol directed by my former pastor against LGBTQ people in that sermon woke me up and changed my mind forever. 

 

Whatever the case, I am deeply sorry for the way I voted, and welcome the chance to make that wrong right. 

 

If some good is to be drawn from this, it is that over time, I have recognized why I voted to harm others, and now do my best to check that every time I vote - to consider the effect on vulnerable people particularly when I consider what I think might be best for people like me. 

 

This is also why I hold out some hope that people can indeed change and grow in a positive way. My parents have chosen not to, and I suspect that they will continue to choose not to, because their identity is so tied to their particular religious and political ideologies. If love for their grandchildren couldn’t change their minds, can anything? But I know others who have in fact changed because of their love for a child or a grandchild, and I hope that this will eventually lead to the elimination of this particular bigotry against people who are after all just a normal and natural part of humanity. 

 

Get out there and vote for love and not hate!

 

The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae

Source of book: I own this

 

Janelle Monae is one of our modern day polymaths - they are an award-winning musician, an actor, and a writer. 

 

The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer is linked with two other works by Monae: their album Dirty Computer, and their short film of the same name. All of these have as their themes issues of race, sexuality and gender, and totalitarianism. In part, they were inspired by the ongoing efforts by the American Right to silence the voices of people of color and queer people - such as the efforts in Florida and Texas to ban books, and the teaching of the existence of systemic racism or LGBTQ people. 

 

There are five stories plus an introduction in the book, the first two of which approach novella length. The stories all take place in the same dystopian future, although the characters and story arcs do not overlap. 

 

The basic framing is a United States in the future, when technology and humanity have merged into a new form of fascism, led by the totalitarian-utopian New Dawn. It is unclear exactly the nature of this entity. Is it government? Religion? A giant corporation? And perhaps that is the point - all three have merged into the same thing.

 

New Dawn seeks, as all totalitarian-utopian systems do, to bring utopia through violently produced total conformity. In this case, largely through purging the memories of people. If they cannot remember, they can do what the should without baggage. Or something like that. The theory is a bit murky. Which is pretty realistic for cultic ideologies in general. 

 

What isn’t murky is who is suspect in this world - the “dirty computers.” Who naturally need cleaning. As in our own world, people of color, and black people in particular are viewed with suspicion. But even more than that, LGBTQ people are highly suspect. And if you are black and queer, well…

 

Within this world, a variety of characters occupy the margins. Some are clinging to respectability. Others are blurring the lines. Others have gone all the way to the dark side (so to speak). Still others are in that liminal space heading one direction or another. 

 

Many - indeed most - of the characters are queer. Some are non-binary, like Monae. Others are transgender. Most are somewhere on the gay to bisexual spectrum. And most are female - indeed all of the protagonists are either female or on the fem side of non-binary. This is, I am sure, intentional. 

 

The book takes for granted that queer people exist, and that they are a natural part of humanity. But, like in our own world, they are hated by many for being…different. 

 

The stories can be dark at times, but overwhelmingly have an undertone of hope. This is something we white people often struggle with. We see the encroaching darkness and tend to feel hopeless and overwhelmed. Because we have so long been the dominant group, and are used to being free and prosperous and taken seriously, the prospect of being subject to fascism is terrifying. But for black people and queer people here in the United States, they have never been free in that way. Not free from lynching and hate-based murder. Not free from discrimination. Not free to say whatever they want without risking their safety. So this is nothing new.

 

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone pointed out that the United States has from its inception taken fascist approaches to certain issues. Starting with the Native American Genocide. So Trumpism is nothing new. It just hasn’t been directed at most white people. 

 

This isn’t to say that the US as it stands now is the equivalent of Nazi Germany, or Pinochet’s Chile. It just hasn’t been as universally free as we like to pretend.

 

And thus, while we white folks aren’t used to having to be part of a resistance movement, people of color always have, as have queer people. So, we should expect to hear some amused “welcome to the club, cracker” directed at us. 

 

All of the stories were co-written with other established - although young - science fiction authors. Each of these writers is either female or non-binary, and none are white. 

 

I am not sure how the writing was split between Monae and their co-writers other than that each co-writer worked on one story. There are some differences and similarities in the styles between each story, but nothing that one can specifically point to as belonging to one particular co-author. I suppose just like in the stories themselves, everything good is a collaborative effort. I’ll note each co-author as I discuss each story. 

 

The Memory Librarian (with Alaya Dawn Johnson)

 

The title story is the story of Seshet, the rare black woman working for New Dawn in that capacity - she stores and archives memories. Her world is turned upside down when she is introduced to Alethia, a member of a rebel group, who subsequently becomes Seshet’s lover. But time has a weird way of working in these stories, and memories are rarely what they seem. 

 

Among other themes in this story is the question that is often faced by members of marginalized groups in our society: where is the line between working for a better society and collaborating with evil? I imagine that many black cops struggle with this question in their own careers. 

 

One scene in this story stands out to me. Alethia takes Seshet to what is essentially a rebel gay bar. (Hey, like…Stonewall?) It is a rather alien experience, even for someone like Seshet, who still retains some of her memories from before. 

 

After midnight, the bar is overwhelmed with a new crowd, diverse in a way she’s not used to seeing in downtown Little Delta (and certainly not in the corridors of the obelisk): the oldest must be in his seventies and the youngest still a teenager; all shades of brown, Black, and beige; men in dresses and women in sharp-cut suits and others who defy any gender categorization at all. She pretends not to notice. With New Dawn, any gender nonconformity is enough to get you a deviant code appended to your number - dirty computer, recommended for urgent cleaning - and she doesn’t want to flag anyone tonight. 

 

So much of this theme resonates with me. The religious subculture I was raised in was freaked out about any bending of gender. And indeed, a form of gender nonconformity was the main reason my mother rejected my wife and later my queer kids. It is a central core belief of fascism too, of course, and of fundamentalist religions around the world. Woman, know thy place. 

 

But we all know that these rules are for the peons. Leadership can do whatever the fuck they want - including prey on children - without consequence. 

 

Clean citizens of New Dawn aren’t supposed to enjoy same-gender love, but she’s hardly the first official to bend those rules; she’s not even the only one in Little Delta. 

 

Another theme in this story - and indeed the book as a whole - is the meaning of memory. Monae says they were inspired by Phillip K. Dick’s writings about the unreliability of memory in creating the specific world of memory manipulation in this book. They also explore how we manipulate our own memories. 

 

No one remembers everything. And what’s too painful to remember, you can simply choose to forget. All Seshet does is use their own mental blocks as the bulwark against whatever she wants to hide from their consciousness. It’s like a wall of fire in one of Terry’s old video games with a treasure safely hidden inside. Here’s the trick: if the flames burn on the fuel of your own shame, not even mortal terror can make you brave the heat. 

 

We all know people who have done this. (My parents are in deep denial about how things went down in our relationship, for example, claiming things I experienced never happened.) But also, if we are honest, we know this protection mechanism works for us too. 

 

Eventually, Seshet meets up with one of the leaders of a resistance group, Doc Young. He greets her with a “Welcome to the upside-down kingdom.” This was a bit startling, but also entirely appropriate. 

 

As an aspiring Christ-follower, I know what he proclaimed was exactly that: an upside-down kingdom. One not based on hierarchy but on mutuality. One that was made up of the marginalized and downtrodden and excluded the rich and the religious bigots. Exactly the opposite of the Christian Nationalist movement of today. 

 

If Christ were here today, he would one hundred percent be hanging out with the people of color, the homeless, the addicted, the LGBTQ people. And calling white conservative “christians” out as brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs. And he would be murdered by them all over again. 

 

One of the macguffins so to speak in this story is an antidote to the mind wiping drug Nevermind. With memories precious and difficult to retain, the ability to recover what was lost is a huge thing. And threatens the entire existence of New Dawn. 

 

“Now, is that a drug or a bomb?” 

 

By analogy, this is why the right wing is so terrified of books by people of color, women, and LGBTQ people. (The overwhelming majority of the targeted books are by these groups.) The memories, the stories, which are a collective memory put down on paper and shared with others, threaten the entire edifice of white male cishet supremacy. 

 

Nevermind (with Danny Lore)

 

Danny Lore may be the best known of the co-writers in the book, at least to me. Not that I have read any of their stuff, but the name has been around a bit. 

 

This particular story, written by two non-binary people, is all about a question that has roiled even the progressive subculture. What is a woman? And who gets to decide that? 

 

For the right wing, of course, these questions are dismissed as stupid. A woman is a human who was assigned that sex at birth, and now has to live with that. 

 

But for the rest of us, particularly if we have had regular interaction with intersex or transgender people - or even have explored the actual science of sex and gender with an open mind - know that the question is a lot more complicated. 

 

This story involves a commune at an old hotel in the desert. Its residents are marginalized rebel sorts who are “women and women-aligned” as the book puts it. They hide from and defend themselves against New Dawn, and work mutually to support themselves through salvage and handcrafts. 

 

But who is a woman? 

 

The colony is betrayed when a cisgender TERF (for lack of a better term) decides to sacrifice a transgender member to New Dawn. Because she isn’t a “real” woman, and thus doesn’t belong. 

 

If you can’t link this to current events and public figures, well. (And note that the issue is gender - and racial - non-conformity - plenty of ciswomen fail to meet the definition of the bigots and are targeted for slander and abuse.) 

 

For a good bit of the story, the identity of the turncoat is unknown. Suspicion falls on various people for different reasons. The transgender character has unique mechanical ability, and thus would be the most able to fake a breach of the defenses. The former New Dawn member who escaped knows people on the other side. But neither of these is the traitor - and the lack of knowledge leads to fear…and other emotions.

 

She looked over at the other occupants of the Pynk Hotel. Fear stabbed her momentarily, but as was typically the case with her, it mutated quickly to righteous anger. It could be any of them…

 

While all of the stories use the metaphor of “dirt” - that is, contamination, uncleanness - this one perhaps is the most explicit. The residents of the Pynk Hotel are literally grounded through the dirt in an unspoiled cave. Dirt is their identity, and that is a double edged sword. 

 

Zen had once explained to Jane how violence from blushounds and guards wasn’t dirty by New Dawn’s standards. Dirt needed to be cleansed, and dirt was who you were, how you didn’t fit into New Dawn’s vision of the world. 

 

There is a lot of truth in this too. All of us are to a degree made up of our various flaws - or even differences. Yet these are exactly what fascism seeks to “cleanse.” It is no coincidence that this eventually leads to ethnic cleansing. Trump’s language about brown-skinned people “poisoning our blood” having “bad genes” and needing to be cleansed from our nation is textbook fascism. But the appeal of this to Evangelicals also comes from their obsession with “sin” and “cleanness.” 

 

Christ took direct aim at that worldview by insisting that the “unclean” of the world were the ones entering the kingdom, not the supposedly clean people who in reality were full of dead men’s bones. 

 

The vision of the Pynk Hotel - and indeed every resistance group in the book - is inspiring. Really, it is what the decent human beings throughout time have sought. 

 

We could create art and make love and help others do the same.

 

In contrast, the person who is eventually revealed as the traitor is obsessed with policing the boundary between Us and Them. “We cannot keep that outsider in the Cave!” 

 

“You were working to protect your own,” Jane said decisively. “But you decided everyone who didn’t fit your womanhood wasn’t worth protecting. Including me, I guess, because I damn sure don’t.” 

 

This line was stunning to me. It expresses precisely how my mother treated my wife, and how she drove her away from our family. Because my wife didn’t fit her precise definition of womanhood, she was not worth protecting. And so it goes…

 

Timebox (with Eve L. Ewing)

 

Unlike the other stories, this one has a very personal focus. A lesbian couple move in to their first apartment together, but things go wrong. 

 

They come from very different backgrounds. Raven is a nursing student who grew up in poverty. For her, there is never enough time to do everything. She is in school, she has to work to support herself, and she pretty much does all the household stuff. 

 

Akilah, on the other hand, grew up wealthy, and still has an income stream which frees her to work mostly as an activist and artist. And she acts like the man in the relationship - and that is not a complement. Content to let Raven do the housework, she fails to understand how overbooked Raven really is. 

 

Thus, when they discover that a room in the apartment has the ability to stop time, they fight over whether it should be kept secret at least until Raven finishes school - it is a game changer for her ability to do everything - or whether it should be used by the entire community. 

 

It is an ethical dilemma in a small narrative, very personal and intimate. 

 

Save Changes (with Yohanca Delgado)

 

This is a time travel story, more or less. There is a magic crystal which will reverse time once and only once for its owner. 

 

Amber and her sister Larry live with their mother, a former rebel leader. She was wiped of her memories by New Dawn, but something went wrong, leaving her an insane shell of her former self. Their father has died, so they are young people left essentially orphaned, and also outcast by society. 

 

Larry ventures out and becomes part of a resistance group, which meets in a forgotten corner of New York City. She convinces Amber (who has become essentially the adult in the family now) to go with her, and Amber’s horizons are expanded. But a raid leads to discovery, and the family has to act to avoid incarceration and wiping. 

 

There is a particular line in the story that struck me. 

 

The system worked because people gathered in the shady parts of the city, blighted places New Dawn didn’t think worth regularly patrolling, and the goal was to avoid bringing attention to them. The lucky thing, Larry and said, was that Black and brown neighborhoods like Harlem and Hamilton Heights were full of blind spots, magical places where you could make all the noise you wanted. 

 

Hey, kind of like our own world. Science Fiction, after all, isn’t really about what could be, but what is now and how that extrapolates. 

 

Timebox Altar(ed) (with Sheree Renee Thomas)

 

The final story in the book is about hope for the future. A group of four children, each orphaned in some way, living in a blighted town somewhere in middle America, discover a magical forest and the remains of the last railroad. 

 

The most mystical one creates an altar (or an ark?) out of the garbage. A mysterious person appears - a shaman from the future perhaps? And they guide the children to use the ark to travel to a possible future and learn about themselves. 

 

As a result, each is able to dream of making the world a better place in the post- that will follow the apocalyptic now. 

 

The theme is found in one line, and I think it is important to hang on to in our far too “interesting” of times:

 

Hope is greater than fear. 

 

And really, that is what is needed. We have no guarantee things will be okay. We have no guarantee we won’t be murdered for being different. Evil is real in the world, and as it always has, it is coming from those who fear difference and change and seek “safety” in conformity and hierarchy. 

 

But in all times, there have been those who dared hope of a better future, and brought it to pass in large and small ways. 

 

That is ultimately what this book is about. Whatever the future holds, those of us with hope and human decency must band together and work toward that better tomorrow, whether we succeed or not. 

 

I don’t read a lot of science fiction, although this year has been pretty good for it. However, this one is a good one, whether you are into the genre or not.