Platypus of Truth

I cannot trade, my hands are empty. All I have are these, Broken memories, Little fragments red and gold and the scent of maple smoke Rising from forgotten chimneys in the valley of the soul Who will take them? Who will take these wampum beads?    This blog is a house of memory.  Like the Sybil, I write down my thoughts on leaves and store them away for safe keeping.  As the Sybil found out, memories left unattended scatter, become disordered, and are lost.  This was Augustine's problem as he constructed his Confessions : how can a being distended in time hope to draw all his members together and make his confession before Almighty God?  The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci wrote a whole book on memory in order to convince the Confucian scholars that Western learning had something to offer them.  Things are always slipping away from us, both as individuals and as a community.  Humans die and forget, and thus the ability to remember is pr...

Following our successful viewing of Labyrinth , my wife and I moved on to another fantasy film classic, The Neverending Story .  Once again, this is a film that I grew up with but that my wife did not.  Since she doesn't bring a wealth of nostalgia to the viewing, her insights are fresh and astute.  Speaking for myself, they help me see far more about the film than I would otherwise.  This is to tell you that this blog post owes its best features to my spouse even though I'm the one who roomed with film majors for six years. The Neverending Story isn't as complex a film as Labyrinth in its plot, art direction, or moral.  This isn't a defect, merely an artistic choice.  The plot especially is quite thin and serves merely as an excuse for creating a series of highly evocative tableaux.  These set pieces are masterfully crafted with all the rich glory of pre-CGI special effects.  The recurring motif of slowly unfolding clouds and music is worthy o...

Have I always had an appreciation for civic space?  I don't know.  What I do know is that I've been thinking about it recently.  The sudden changes in Houston's weather have made it an ideal time for visiting the botanical gardens near my home.  Sudden hot spells bring out all the flowers in a riot of colors.  Sudden cold spells drive most of the people away so that the wife and I can enjoy a quiet and lingering stroll.  If I had my druthers, I'd spend a fair part of every week in the botanical gardens and the arboretum with quick jaunts over to the library and Starbucks.  Well, so much for my selfish little fantasies.... I grew up in a town where fifteen percent of the land was set aside as open space.  Much of the geographic center was taken up by ancestral farms.  In addition to all this wonderful, rural space, it was (and still is) common practice to let the forest grow up where it will.  There were also the wonderful cemeteries, t...

The other night, I had dinner with a friend I haven't seen in fourteen years.  He's the still the same guy he always was -just wiser and with a few rough edges ground off.  The main thing in his life was always Jesus and Jesus is still the main thing now -but deeper, more truly so.  We spent a little time reminiscing about times past and a little time catching up, but mostly we talked about what mattered to us now. There are friends you lose along the way and then they're gone.  You meet them again and realize that the distance is too great.  Others come back after years and the connection is still there. We had our own Round Table when we were young -swords flashing in the sunlight.  We dared, we dreamed, and then we were broken.  Since then, I've wandered far and wide; always new faces, always other minds.  Poor Sir Bedivere trying to tell his story.  But the old order changes and keeps us from becoming corrupt.  Aeschylus was righ...