Running for Your Life: Take the Long Way Home

Here are a few thoughts for Holy Week/Passover” 

• Convenience isn’t always your friend. Make time to take a different (i.e. longer) route to work, to your morning coffee bar, to your appointment with 1/ prospective employer, 2/ loving spouse, 3/ therapist . . .
• Buy some stationery, stamps (both national and global) a better-than-average pen, set your smartphone aside, write a note and mail it, surprising 1/ mom, 2/ your best friend from high school, 3/ a pal waiting to hear from, say, a publisher about a book she’s written, or a woman about a job.
• Log on to YouTube and listen to “Take the Long Way Home,” to wit,“Does it feel that your life’s become a catastrophe?/Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy/When you look through the years and see what you could have been/Oh, what you might have been,/If you’d had more time.”
• Also listen to Neil Young’s “Cripple Creek Ferry.” Repeat.
• Let this be the last list you read all day. Listen to your heart. Listen to your heart some more. Think about what you heard.
• For longer than you thought possible, don’t “do” anything.

 You smiling yet?

Next: Running for Your Life: Wolves and Bearst.

Running for Your Life: What Must Not Be Said

There are things that cannot be said.

For example: that considering the number of strongly disapproving citizens, especially those in the deep pockets of evangelical America, the theocracy that liberal America holds in contempt, of the homosexual lifestyle, it would seem that group would focus on what it viewed as the distaste of Anderson Cooper’s intimate personal life than what it views as the more conventional vulgarity of the porn star, during that much-hyped 60 Minutes interview on Sunday (March 25).

Not making any moral judgments here, you understand. Simply drawing attention to why it’s possible that a vast number of American voters might find a way to distract themselves from the story of the president and the porn star. Also, given the story is at its root bedroom voyeuristic, it seems fair game to mention Cooper’s openly declared sexual preference.

So this part of the story goes off the liberal mainstream: to Fox News, to white supremacist news sites … the partisan divide widens and deepens every day. There is no single topic we will not pollute as partisan, agreement is illusory with contempt the way of the land.

Next: Running for Your Life: Take the Long Way Home

Running for Your Life: Keep On Keeping On

Am running and stretching out the twinges, the muscle tweaks; am there now.

What is true about the evolution of type; man and wolf, the mind and muscle, the development of muscles.

What do the anthropologists call it, morphology, the branch of biology of the structure and form of animals and plants.

Eons of routine behavior, of course, in the event of early man and wolf, they must, in order to survive, be true to their learned responses; to hunt to live, the skill in tracking, in concert.

The ultimate selfless effort, each, the wolf and early man (The First Domestication http://bit.ly/2IQczK1); has a role to play in displays of strength and wisdom, the success of this aggregate knowledge is nothing short of survival.

If only early man’s conquerer, Euro-man, were to carry on with this methodology; man and wolf together as compatible social systems; then the wolf would not be sidelined in the way she is today.

She becomes like all other allies, co-opted by Euro-man the destroyer. Not the disrupter because in the event of that there is an acknowledgment of a power threat that one is looking to frustrate and hopefully upend.

There is no endgame but to acquire.

Consider, though, the Elon Musk option. There is some hope that he will/could yield to his science/genius side when the time is right.

Although watch how those with vested interests act to such a threat to their power, their very lifeblood.

(How NCAA student-athletes will never be honored with the dignity that they deserve; lawyers, college endowment funds and most tellingly, broadcast media elites will never cede that power. The capitalist order of moneyed “nobility” will never yield.)

Next: Running for Your Life: Take the Long Way Home

Running for Your Life: A Word About Knees

Take care of them.

Sounds simple, and yeah, given that I’ve been running for 40-plus years, pounding these essential joints into what should by rights be sundered to ligament if not bone dust, I’m one to talk.

But after my Halloween 2015 knee collapse on a treadmill during which I was pushing this 60-plus body to 30-plus speeds, faster, stronger was my motto for those first 39 years of running.

The way I came back from that knee injury, something I’ve spent a good deal of time writing about in this space, changed all that.

Now I try to take care of those joints. With better, less worn running shoes, compression socks to ease leg pounding (No shin splints!) and Velcro patella straps to help keep the knees stable from foot strike to foot strike, stride after stride.

Oh, and as I slow down, know that my butt is more aligned with my stride below, rather than behind it, with my chest pushed out, in sprint mode.

Relax. After all, this is Running for Your Life.  

Next: Running for Your Life: Brooklyn Calling

Running for Your Life: Street Book Pathway

'Twas a found book on our Brooklyn streets, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything by James Martin.

What is the validation of a life?

The quiet of indifference, the wisdom of discernment, the rewards of obedience to a code of ethics in contrast to the everyday clubby chat of the smug and self-satisfied.

Here, though, is the rub.

It is not a static phenomenon. You do not graduate and move on to an elevated plane of achievement. Rather, life is a work in progress.

When Jesus said, “Follow me,” he did not have in mind empty vessels, servants to sit idly by and wait to hear, to accept. A true mission would only come to those who think independently, and act according to the dictates of their moral compass.

A championship ice hockey team (It is the runup to the Stanley Cup playoffs, after all!) is filled with players who are not static, are moving their skates, thinking one-two-three moves ahead, because the picture of that science is visible to those who believe, who trust in their skill, practice and, most important, their teammates.

These are the players who will be rewarded with games won, yes, but rich in the knowledge that they are playing like champions. The light will shine both on them and in them, make it possible for them to get better as players, to realize a potential beyond their dreams, something that is, in and of itself, a blessing.

Next: Running for Your Life: A Word About Knees

Running for Your Life: Notes About Coetzee’s “The Schooldays of Jesus”

Herein lies the message of the strange villain Dimitri in Coetzee’s “Schooldays”: He is the person paralyzed by guilt, something that is at the core, and he knows it; that it can’t be fobbed off on his sad, lonely childhood, that it (the feeling of being unloved by your own flesh and blood) is not the driver of Dimitri’s tragedy, when in a fit of madness (unhinged passion, because, what, pray tell, do we REALLY know about what the human heart is capable of doing, both in grace and evil) he strangles his one true love who has miraculously come to him.

Technique to study: Simon, the narrator, the everyman, without him we don’t live as fully the extremes of the other characters, who like electrons swirl around, bombarded by stimuli, and we, the readers, are the neutron, the neutral being. Simon is simple, ordinary. We are moved to feeling for him, of course. Someone we can relate to; and perhaps more important, feel superior to. (The mass appeal message of the performance show that with The Simpsons made Fox TV what it is today: American Idol.)

Next: Running for Your Life: Street Book Pathway

Running for Your Life: Rough Road to Reddit

Journalism – the wonder of the news – captured my fascination when Globe and Mail reporter John Fraser began sending his dispatches from China in the late 1970s. It was an exciting time of global promise. China during the Democracy Wall movement. Jimmy Carter was president, the Cold War still on but somehow less vicious than the preceding decade.

Fraser wrote in a fashion that was described to me as like a charismatic man who stops you on the street, grabs you by the lapels, and proceeds to tell you what the hell is going on. If there was bullshit in it, I couldn’t detect it. I was 23 and intoxicated with the idea of working in the same business as John Fraser. Literally, chasing a passion, following my bliss, as myth maven Joseph Campbell advised.

Now in 2018, forty years on, what have we got? Newspapers? Magazines? Is that how 23-year-olds get their news?

Nope. We’ve got Reddit, Facebook, Twitter. Here’s an education, the big read in the current New Yorker by Andrew Marantz http://bit.ly/2GoKuZs. Call Marantz a John Fraser throwback, somebody who has not lost the thread of what it means to chase the story. Damn thing is how and where do 23-year-olds in North America get their news? Go ahead, read the story.

There is a direct line from the collapse of the Democracy Wall movement to the rise of autocracy, of hate spheres of influence enabled by “news” sites like Reddit.

Still, I’m a diehard believer in the power (and the glory) of the honestly conveyed story. I mean, what other choice do I have?

Next: Running for Your Life: Notes About Coetze’s “The Schooldays of Jesus”

Running for Your Life: Lock And Free

The other day I broke a logjam. I don’t often suffer from writer’s block – as eye-rolling readers of this blog can attest – but there it was.

To dangle metaphors, I’ve been spinning wheels at my home writing desk. Uncertain (more than usual) and making excuses to myself for why it was I wasn’t getting a lot done – as in new writing, beyond keeping up my old-school correspondence with friends and family.

Park Slope is a mecca for street-abandoned arts and crafts: tables, thrown clay pots, books of all conceivable types, paintings, you name it.

I’m walking T, our special needs coonhound mix, when I saw a small wood panel oil painting. It struck me as being pretty cool – but I was in a hurry and at first went past at a fast pace, T leading.

Then I stopped and guided T back the half-block to where I picked up the painting, oils of T brown and scarlet. A still life object in the foreground. The painting fit snugly in my T string bag I carry that is full of plastic bags and assorted canine playthings – and off I went to finish my errand.

Now the painting is tacked to a place of honor above my writing desk. Before putting it up, I resurrected a photo of me as a young man, serene-looking smile on my lips, my left hand resting against the cover of “A WRITER’S DIARY,” by Dostoevsky, a book that brings back a flood of warm memories.

The image is of a brass lock that has been opened. There is no key, so it would be foolish to think of it ever being locked …

Next: Running for Your Life: Notes About Coetzee’s “The Schooldays of Jesus”

Running for Your Life: A “Hump Day” Poem

A Profession *

By Jamie Baxter

The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.

-        Shigeo Shingo

Thank you for giving me this opportunity          in the world of work

I will endeavor    I will strive   I’ve put hands on parts of my body

and committed   It is a noble pastime to work   few would disagree

though some might shun   not I   Recognizing my own potential

I have become a corporate citizen   The office square fills with workers

at lunch   wandering from their desks into the highest point of the sun

though often in the form of rain   Some days I staple my work to my desk

so I can slowly unpick it   There’s so much to look forward to

like watching Thomas fail    What a thrill it is      not being Thomas

His eyes back    from the bathroom blare     I save files and am constantly

printing or making notes at easily remembered meetings      Sometimes I strip

in the toilet cubicle   only to redress     but there is a moment

I care very deeply about this company    whose name     I will research

My lunch is almost ready to be removed from the photocopier    What a thrill

to receive so many different looks during the course of a day   from the same set

of people     I am very focused on being here    My emails are always leaving

and move through the one language I know     and few others

I’m vaguely aware of    I’m always being asked for advice   how did you

get a job here      how do you define failure or success     When the red

of the clouds fades to pink during the 4 o’clock winter sunsets and everyone gathers

by the windows to take in the view I tut and shout    make sure they get back to work

I’m always making coffee       and throwing it away   I don’t drink coffee

* London Review of Books, Feb. 8, 2018

Next: Running for Your Life: Lock And Free

Running for Your Life: On Going Long

I thank my lucky “starts” every other day.

That’s what I do. Run every other day since 1977 – or thereabouts.

There are times when I’m just dead tired. Or a little sick.

But I lace up the shoes and go for a run. Without fail.

Thirty minutes, the absolute shortest period of time. Or up to an hour and a half, given my current fitness level.

I’ll be pushing that in the weeks ahead, when the weather gets a little warmer, the sun stronger.

Knees, check. Hammies, check. Back, check. Wind strength during steep uphill, check.

Out the door in compression socks, patella bands, orthotics. Much slower than I was in 1977.

But steady. And ready. Every other day.

Next: Running for Your Life: Lock And Free

Running for Your Life: Physics? Really?

You never know when it’s going to happen.

An insight. The charge that breaks up the logjam.

It’s why I read. And read.

Not as an completist. As in, start something and take it to the end every time.

I’ll skim so much. Content being what it is. Pure surface, if you can handle that oxymoron.

The other day Pankaj Mishra wrote what I thought would be a throwaway review of a book of canned essays by Ta-Nehishi Coates. It wasn’t.

Rather, Mishra’s piece was a clear light of intellectual radiance. It is called, “Why Do White People Like What I Write?” and yes, it was a review/essay in the London Review of Books, my readers’ guide to our cockeyed galaxy.

I won’t reprint it here. Look it up and do so yourself. Or don’t. It’s all the same to me.

Know this, though. That reading Mishra (yes, I did a blog post in praise of Mishra’s “Age of Anger” book last June) gives me the clearest explanation of why it is I find myself so disgusted by and dismissive of politics and corporate journalism that I long for something better to feed my brain.

Thus, physics and maths. Here in the past few months I’ve started (and finished!) the following titles:’

• ·        Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos

• ·        A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

• ·        The Jazz of Physics by Stephon Alexander

• ·        Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli

And a few years ago, a book I return to:

• ·        Ripples on a Cosmic Sea by David Blair and Geoff McNamara

And a favorite,

• ·        Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace

Read pure and applied science. Make calculations. Get excited about something real! Something divinely human! Throw off the cynicism! Be great again!

Next: Running for Your Life: On Going Long