The Mighty Kindle

Well, I admit I was a skeptic, one of those dinosaurs who vowed never to give up the beauty, heft and reassurance of the "book." I knew I would always prefer the printed word in traditional hardback or trade paper, but always ON paper. So now I must confess. I've been seduced. Seduced by the convenience of a slim, stylish rectangle of technology that calls up the title I've been reading in an instant. No scouring the house for the last known resting place of the volume in question, no gnashing of teeth that I forgot the one book I wanted to finish while traveling. It's all so seductive. But the real siren's song of the Kindle is instant gratification. In less than a single minute I can have whatever title my heart desires in my hands, on the screen of my Kindle, ready for me to delve into without a moment's delay. For a bibliophile this is true bliss. Of course there's always the issue of addiction. Technology makes it so easy to, with the click of a few keys, have any number of desired titles in your possession. The need for self control can become a problem--until the credit card bill arrives.

Who Am I?

The descent into dementia is the cruelest of all maladies. The things that make us who we are are our experiences; our memories, our knowledge and our talents. What are we when all this is lost? How insecure and frightened must the person descending into the clutches of Alzheimer's be. What must it be like to look into the faces of people who love and care for us and no longer know them. How lonely an existence to be constantly confused and lost. It is a particularly cruel fate when the person afflicted has always been intellectually curious, always seeking knowledge and understanding of the world around him or her. There are those who debate the existence of hell. There is no doubt in my mind: this is hell.

A Fearful Nation

Sunday, October 10, 2010

When I was a child we didn't know where the key to our house was.  We lived on a farm and whenever we went into town or various members of our family were in the fields, we never thought to worry about locking the door.  What if someone came to visit?  In the rural south not everyone had a telephone.  It wasn't necessarily due to poverty but often because the telephone company wouldn't go to the expense of running phone lines down every county road.  Saturdays were when our mother would drive into the small local town to grocery shop and pay bills.  We had an uncle who, without warning, invariably showed up on Sundays, always just in time for dinner (which was our noon meal).  I don't think I got to eat anything other than the wing of the chicken until I was in my early teens because of his visits.

The Nature of Names

Monday, September 27, 2010

A name, the right name, can stick in the memory forever. Think of Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird or Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire. But there are place names which stay with us just as tenaciously. My favorite for a long time has been The Hairy Lemon. It's a bar in the heart of Dublin and the image it evokes is, to say the least, very graphic. You have to wonder if some enterprising pub owner sat around for days trying to name his new establishment and opened the refrigerator to discover a lemon long past its prime, growing hairy tendrils of mold. Or maybe the name stays with me simply because it was James Joyce day in Ireland when I happened upon the Hairy Lemon and every would-be bard was quoting from one of Joyce's works from every street corner and, of course, pub. I recall feeling a bit hairy myself the next day.

Passages

August 16, 2010

Last week I attended a good old fashioned Irish wake at Little Flower Catholic Church.  It was followed by the last rites of passage for my friend's brother. The church, for all it's unredeeming architecture on the exterior, has on either side of the alter two of the most beautiful icons I have ever seen, one of Mary and the infant Christ, the other of Joseph with Christ as a child. The lighting made the details and artistry of these two scenes appear jewel like.