Already Dead

With this exchange in an episode of HBO's Band of Brothers, the indomitable Lt. Spears convinces a feckless, nearly catatonic Pvt. Blithe to finally take up arms and fight:

- You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?
- I was scared
- We're all scared... You hid in that ditch because you thought there was still hope. But, Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier; without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.

I don't recall this conversation in the book—it's been years since I read it, it may be in there—but I'd always assumed it was a Spielbergian addition to the scenario in the vein of "war is hell and turns good men into monsters". Regardless, it was a memorable moment in the series for me, and one that came to the forefront of my mind on two occasions:

July 2001. 

It was the heart of winter in New Zealand where I was working on an animated TV series. I'd rented a house overlooking the Pacific and rode daily into town on my Triumph Trophy 1200 which, against all common sense, I'd shipped over from Europe.

My Trophy 1200  in the driveway, Omaha Beach, N.Z. 2001

Now, the country roads in NZ tend to be paved in the old school way of laying down tar, covering it with loose gravel and letting the local traffic tamp it all down into a semi-solid roadway. Typically at bends in the road you'll find random patches of naked tar where passing cars have thrown off all the gravel. These bald spots are ultra slick when wet and although in a car you'd never even notice, on a bike they can be deadly.

So, leaving work early evening, it's already dark and pouring down rain, I slip into my rain gear and saddle up. Traffic is light so I'm ripping along nicely on the open road heading into Matakana towards the causeway, anxious to be home and warm and dry as I lean into the last turn before entering the town at, oh, I'd say it was about 110 km/hr when my rear tire slides out on a tar patch.

Anyone who's done some dirt riding knows this feeling and what to do (keep the throttle open, steer into the drift and enjoy the thrill), but it's one thing to have a 125cc dirt bike under you and another altogether to be perched atop a half ton of steel and rubber on a dark country road in the pouring rain.

As the rear end slid up alongside me, I somehow overcame the natural, very strong desire to roll off the throttle—which would have been catastrophic to my health—instead I held steady as the tire regained purchase, got up on the pegs and went into a violent tank-slapper for what felt like 100 meters, which scrubbed off most of my speed and so I ended up rolling through town at a nice safe, legal speed as the shakes ran through me as unimpeded as the Wehrmacht through Europe in 1940.

By all rights, I should have been thrown into the ditch, neck broken and drowning in a foot of water with a mangled machine pinning me down, unseen, unnoticed, unloved and unsung.
I'm just not that good a rider.

All this to say that, for me, the past decade has been gravy. Bonus minutes.
In my mind, I'm already dead  (although thankfully not entirely without mercy, compassion nor remorse) and those times I've been tempted to whine and whinge and moan over life's little scrapes— like divorce and starting life anew at 46 with financial and professional concerns—somewhere in the back of my mind I return to that bend in the road, the driving rain and that split second conviction that this will be either instant death or lifelong paralysis... and so I guess I can make it through another day. Maybe with a little spring in my step, even.

Which brings us to:

August 2011.
Suppose you haven't been feeling particularly well for some time now. Perhaps even for years, if you think about it, but, well, you soldier on, don't you? Suck it up and keep moving forward. This is a man's world.
Until the day when you can't walk up a slight incline without stopping three times to catch a breath. You sit a moment to rest and you see that your ankles have swollen to the size of grapefruit. No, this is when you call the cardiologist. And when I say "you" I mean "me".
Which is what I did.
So, after auscultation, EKG and a very thorough echocardiogram, the diagnosis came down with the weight of a thousand broken hearts (as it were) : Chronic constrictive pericarditis with cardiac cirrhosis.
Prognosis: Eventual cardiac arrest
Treatment: Pericardiectomy. Which is performed via open-thorax surgery. 


This is a rare disease and consequently rare procedure. Although it's easy to find a surgeon with vast bypass experience, those who've performed many pericardiectomies are few and far between. Thankfully, my cardiologist, who would have been content to treat only the symptoms for the time being, went out of his way to find a surgeon who was not only an old-hand, but also head of the department. Who with deadpan cool, dissolved any apprehension I may have felt about committing to the surgery, at our first meeting.*


And so, Already Dead Doctrine met cold steel of surgeon's scalpel two months later. After cracking open my thorax like a lobster tail and removing the calcified, thickened pericardium my cardiac function was fully restored, and the procedure was, on the whole, stress-free. For me at least; my family was not so serene.




*Kudos to Dr. Deleuze and the entire cardiology department at St.Joseph's, the Pros from Dover.

Style and the Elements Thereof

CHAPTER ONE


“Fewer.”

Her eyes followed mine up to the TV then back. “Huh?”

“He said 'less players'. It’s fewer.” I turned a little to look at her straight on.

A stare has never been blanker. “What?”

“If you can count something, then you use fewer. Otherwise less.”

She studied the scene on the TV for moment. Sportscasters in a booth. She spoke without looking back at me.

“Money” she said softly.

My turn to give her an empty look.

“You can count money but, like, I have less money now that I just paid for this drink.”

“You can count dollars, I said, ten dollars, twenty dollars… And when you spend some you have fewer of them. Now if all the rupees on earth should somehow vanish,” I spread the fingers of my two hands in a poof gesture, “you could say there were fewer monies in the world--”

“Well I guess it’s a common mistake” she cut me off. “Why nit-pick?”

“It’s just not that hard to get it right, but they all do that nowadays, politicians, talk show hosts, even best-selling authors - you’d think they’d have a better ear for the language.” I shrugged. I wasn't even sure of my premise, but now I was all-in.

The barman slid her drink across to her. She took a small sip and looked back towards the group she‘d come in with.

“Nits are the little, tiny eggs of head lice” I said, “They lay hundreds of them and they stick to the hair shafts down near the scalp. So someone would have to sort through another’s hair - strand by strand practically - and grab the nits and slide them off one at a time…”

I mimicked the gesture pinching thumbnail to index.

“…you can see chimpanzees doing it for each other in the zoo. Nit-picking. We forget about how it used to be. People, poor people rich people, had lice. In their hair, in their pillows and beds and clothes… That’s where lousy came from, you know? Full of lice. We, our culture, today, we forget these things, the origins…”

Her hand was moving up to her scalp but stopped suddenly when I glanced over at her. I smiled. This was going well, I thought.

She was much more interesting to look at up close, long black hair like a Cherokee squaw in an old childhood picture book and a nose I might be tempted to call equine, but softer.

Yes, I liked her nose. It was not the norm of the day, re-sculpted in some clinic from the same picture-perfect insipid model and I liked her better for that. That was a good sign. It probably meant the rest of her was natural too. Her lips were a pulpy pout of gloss with — at this very moment — more than a hint of disgust. That was fine.

“Gross.”

She turned away and rejoined her crowd and I elbowed back in to the bar. The barman, who had been watching this exchange looked me up and down.

“Dude?”

“You have no idea.”

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Interesting. I submitted this once before and was likened unto the writing of David Foster Wallace.

A Chance Encounter with Irony

The brunette walking towards me is Linda. Spanish for pretty, and that she is, but it's a name from her mother's generation and rarely given over here. She flashes a smile of recognition from behind her mirrored aviators. The last time I saw her, I guess two summers ago (she's been away somewhere), she was wearing gaudy, over-sized Chanel sunglasses.

I wink back.

She's wearing skinny jeans so tight I can read the contours of every object in her pockets. On the right, a cellphone, of course. Not an iPhone. I'm guessing an LC Viewty and — judging by the vibes I'm getting off her — the pink model. Left side, it looks like 3 euros & change and a small Bic lighter. No key ring and she's not carrying a bag but I'm not sure what to make of this; perhaps she knows she'll always find an open door somewhere.

The guy she's with I've seen around the neighborhood. We've never spoken but mutually acknowledge our existence. He's also wearing skinny jeans, though thankfully not as tight, and a teeshirt with the anarchist logo silk-screened across the chest. I wonder how much he paid for it. Peeking out from the right sleeve just above an atrophied bicep, what looks from a distance like it might be a barbed wire or celtic armband tatoo turns out to be a Peanuts comic strip.

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

She is Expected to be OK

A Los Angeles television reporter was struck in the hand by a BB gun pellet Saturday afternoon while delivering a live weather report, officials said.

Two teenagers were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the shooting, Fontana police told The Los Angeles Times.

Yes, I suppose you could conceivably kill someone with a BB gun. If you were to swing it by the barrel and repeatedly strike them on the head, for example.

... Police arrested two boys, ages 16 and 17, for assault with a dangerous weapon, a felony, KABC said. The boys, whose names were not released, were released to their parents.

Uh, so which is it?
Are the police trying to cover all eventualities or is this simply the media doing it's usual bang-up job.

How about just laughing the matter off or, if you're really peeved, chasing the ruffians them around the block shouting empty threats? Well, no. Can't be too cautious: they may have also had slingshots.

Thankfully,  we read:

KABC-TV Channel 7 reporter Leanne Suter was taken to a hospital after she was hit about 6 p.m. while standing on Summit Avenue near Interstate 15, KABC said, adding she is expected to be OK.

And, naturally, the Sheriff's department was mobilised:

Police, with the assistance of a San Bernardino Sheriff's Department helicopter, pinpointed a house possibly involved. Officers found several BB guns inside the house, KABC said.

No word on whether the SWAT team was called out too.

On a camping vacation many long years ago, my dear old Dad bought me a Daisy BB rifle and I spent a week tramping around the woods, shooting holes in leaves, trying to ping empty cans and the like. After returning to suburban New Jersey, I gave up trying to potshot squirrels in the back yard, and the rifle languished for decades in some damp corner of the cellar.
Until recently. My mother, trying to reduce a half century's worth of useless stuff, came upon my trusty Red Rider and panicked! You see it is now a felony to possess such an unlicensed weapon in that state too.
Rest assured, several lawyers have been retained and we are researching all options and I feel certain that we can come to some accord with the ATF and NJ Firearms and Compressed Air Authority that will not require excessive jail time.

These are the times in which we live.

Great Opening Paragraph...

People smell all kinds of ways before they have burned, but only one way afterwards. As the Army boys lead Waterhouse down into the darkness, he sniffs cautiously, hoping he won't smell that smell.
...and Neal Stephenson saves it for chapter 89.

Kirsten's Creative Clutter

How can she work like this? How can she live like this?
Surprisingly, not as poorly as one might imagine; unsurprisingly, not as well as she might aspire to.

Picture if you will a 100 m2 square or slightly rectangular workspace: Three walls painted snow white support birch-wood bookshelves.
A pale hardwood floor, charme perhaps or white maple.
The remaing wall consists of floor to ceiling windows leading out to a shaded terrace. Dead center of the room, a large uncluttered, square birch worktable of the simplest design stands on a square seagrass rug. There is ample space to circumnavigate the work area unimpeded and a golden retriever colored square cotton mat off to the side, also a cream leather sofa, floor lamp and glass-topped coffee birch table.

This is my ideal zen workspace.

My actual workspace resembles nothing like this, of course: Extension cords and USB cables snake through sheaves of dusty scribbled notes circa 2008, widgets and doodads cover all horizontal surfaces and beneath the furniture lies dog hair so thick and matted that I could cold-press it into the purest of Qwlghmian blankets.
En somme, it looks an awful lot like the photo above.
I call this leading by example.

Dog in the Path of Unintentional Street Art

Unintentional Street Art

Finger Painting

So I installed Autodesk SketchBook Mobile on my new Galaxy SII. The big, bright screen makes SBM a surprisingly fun and usable app although it will take some practice drawing with fat, greasy digits on a plate of glass.








Hmm... that does bring to mind this:




...which I suppose might be something to shoot for.

First mobile post

With photo.

Street Art on a wall - rue des Cinq Diamants.

First

first!