9...

9 is 9 or 9

A birthday letter written to Sir Ian Arthur Blum

As wine is inclined to refine the fine line between the equine on the Rhine and the brine found when you dine, it also encourages a Congo line that smells nothing like Georgia Pine and endures the tine of a certain utensil when you dine.  I don’t expect your face to shine when receiving this, for it’s not Tarzan on a vine nor John Frances Appleby tying his twine.  In fact, you may whine for it’s not beer in a stein but that’s fine, because this is now yours, not mine.  As your friend and subject of a future shrine, I would not only go to the Mason Dixon Line or the International Date Line risking a speeding fine, I would climb a Sierra Lodgepole Line, endure an electromagnetic delay line, risk my personal credit line, and stand in an employment line, for you buddy.  I may not be Chris Pine and provide an Enterprise for you, but I did work there, rain or shine.  My powers aren’t divine nor as unique as the acoustic delay line in Johnny Cash’s “Walk the Line” or “Boy with a Coin” by Iron and Wine.

You are the backbone of America’s Heartland - nein, the spine.  Without it, there would be no roads to assign a sign warning us to watch out for crossing swine.  There would be no sewer line, or it would only intertwine less orderly than an alkaline assembly line for batteries that are being made for ine (Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering).  You could say you are the sine, or even the cosine for the structure of our modern society, to not agree is malign.  To combine both thine state of mind from the first paragraph’s first line about wine with a number I will decline to let shine for it’s as explosive as a naval mine and as bright as a rock found in a Nunavut mine, I will resign this letter and resign my writing to this fate of mine, that the only number one greater than eight has become your destiny, for the stars will align and you will be the benign ruler of billions, after your twenty-seven-year tradition in celebrating birth, twenty-one days before mine.

 

Your copain, Stevennea, IX

 

It's a...

It's a Celebration!

Ah yes, celebration!  The dictionary’s definition of celebration is as follows:

cel⋅e⋅bra⋅tion  [sel-uh-brey-shuhn] –noun

1. an act of celebrating.

Um, well that doesn’t really help us much.  As with many words or topics in this world, we all have our own definition.  It relies on interpretation and perspective; but also what dash on your life’s timeline you are at.  As a young child I remember receiving toys at certain times of the year, not really knowing or caring why.  As a teenager I began to appreciate receiving these gifts because I knew why we were celebrating; but because my interests changed so frequently I was never able to appreciate the tangible gifts to their fullest deserving.  Once I left home, I learned I didn’t really want these tangible gifts because I felt I didn’t deserve them.  Now we’re getting older and realizing it’s not us that matters, it’s those who are giving us these gifts that really matter.  It matters to them that you appreciate their thoughtfulness no matter how useless or ugly the gift is.  Now we’ll get older and we will be the ones doing most of the giving; and the roles then become reversed.  Our whole life will be revolved around giving to others and enjoying their reactions to the useless/ugly items you give them.  Finally, we will grow out of that stage and become numb to the idea of giving and receiving, it’s a time we all hope will be spent with loved ones who can give you a gift without involving tangible items or even written words.

I have had the privilege of witnessing births, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, birthdays, and sadly, deaths, in the past year; and I expect to witness all those again as my friends and family reach pivotal points in their lives.

Why don’t we begin with our favorite annual celebration that recognizes the amount of life we’ve lived since our birth…

 

Do Not Read...

Do Not Read This Post

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Why is it that whenever we are given instructions we immediately think of doing the opposite or find a way to do it differently?  Is it the fact that whenever we’re told to do something our mind wanders or is it just our fondness toward dispute?  The more specific an instruction is the more we wish it were vague.  The more ambiguous an instruction is the more we want to know.  I ask you to go right, you think left.  Do you go left or right?  Is right the same as left?  It is when you’re looking to the left of someone, because that’s really their right.  Is it right to correct someone who’s giving you instructions?  Instructions are given because a lead has to be followed.  In order to follow a lead, instructions have to be given, and sometimes in order for you to know if those instructions are correct or valuable is to not follow them and observe the consequences.  Do you try those first and expect to fail or do you fail expecting to succeed?  Do you succeed in failing because you can’t possibly fail at succeeding?  Is there a need to fail some of the time?  If failure never happens how do enjoy success?  Success is the triumph over failure, but failure is also a triumph over success.  Failure is a need.  Your eyes may fail, as you grow old, but they don’t really fail you.  They may just get worn out.  They succeeded in giving you sight for many years, but did you ever thank them?  Joni Mitchell wasn’t the first to realize what we’re given before it has left us.

  

Plato didn’t exactly get his assumption of democracy correct; but he did succeed in making us think about the plausible negative and positive possibilities it possesses - but c’mon, how many oligarchies are out there anymore?  South Africa was the last to try it, and perhaps they succeeded; but then how can apartheid really work in the modern globalization-enriched world we live in?  Civilization, as a whole, will continue its success, but it will never succeed.  If it were to succeed we would have nothing to look forward to.  Is space really the final frontier?

                                  

We fail and succeed, succeed and fail.  It’s as rhythmic as John Coltrane’s performance at Café Montmartre.  Accept failure, but don't expect to accept success except when you're in your final moments of life.  Realize alphabets may never be selfless; and your son, Tom, may one day have a grandson named Tommy Thompson.  You can’t be worried about failure when it’s inevitable.  You only have one life and no matter how you live it, as long as you get out alive, you will succeed.  While there is no definition of success, as it ultimately relies on self-definitive recourse and a vat of lineage resource, I can suggest a starting block with these four things you can attempt to omit from your everyday life - Regrets, Secrets, Lies, and Twitter.

Man and His...

Man and His Names

So did some of our American last names derive from Europeans not knowing how to differentiate from each other and not being able to clarify who is who? Let’s say there are two Toms in an English village back in the early 1200’s and someone yells out, “Tom just got attacked by a wild boar!” Well, now two families who have a Tom are really upset when only one has to be. This is a problem, yes; but a pretty preventable one if these folks had last names to specify which Tom has pancreatic bleeding from a wild boar tusk. What if there’s a village with people who aren’t creative enough to make up a new name and only know names currently in existence? To prevent a problem of misplaced concern, parents probably specified who is who in a family with like names by adding possession to their kin. Let’s give the example of a father and son with the same name of Tom. The father, Tom, can boastingly name his son, Tom’s Son. Now there is Tom and Tom’s Son.

I would usually place an exclamation mark at the end of a word describing a successful end-result at this point but not everyone has one son, especially in an era where most men want to carry their lineage and carry it far. So, what if there is a second boy, did they call him Tom’s Son Number Two? They could have, but that would be even weirder. Maybe they added a second well-known name to Tom’s Son -like David or Henry. Now there is David, Tom’s Son. This sort of name makes sense when Tom’s sons are being introduced. But as the young boys venture out on their own they will begin to encounter problems when introducing themselves. “Hi, I’m Henry, Tom’s Son!” The person on the receiving end of this introduction is inevitably going to be confused/not know/not care who Tom is. So now David, Tom’s Son is going to have to figure out how to introduce himself and get a normal reaction while still respecting his father by keeping his old man’s name. Although writing was practiced mainly by nobles and the wealthy at this point in history, Henry, Tom’s Son would have to eventually write down his own name during his lifetime. As this realization materializes into the acting of endorsing, David will modify his name to simply David Tom'sson, like the Hawai'ians do. And as the world’s denizens, like Tom’s adventurous sons, travel the following years many variations of Henry and David Tomsson will form. The damn French will shorten it to Tomson and once Tom’s sons travel further, the Germans will complicate the name by adding an h, making them Thomssons and the Greek love p’s; so they will make David, Tom’s son, Thompson.

Many decades later different complications will arise in the form of re-instituting the original Tom’s Son’s father, Tom. There will be people like Tommy Thompson, the US Secretary of Health & Human Services, holding Tom’s original name while flaunting his ancestor’s name within in the same name; but the difference is, this time when someone yells out, “Tommy Thompson just got attacked by a wild boar!” only one family is upset while the rest of the people around are only confused as to why there’s a wild boar loose in D.C.

You’re Welcome.

One Night in Paris...

One Night in Paris... Idaho

Why get caught up in the bustle, rustle and hustle of France’s City of Light when you can engage in the quality middle-of-nowhereness lifestyle Paris, Idaho so warmly provides?  With 576 people in this Idahoan town there are plenty of interesting people to meet and things to see.  Who needs Montmartre when you can go to Harry’s Antiques?  Why check out the impressionist paintings at the Musee D’Orsay when you can go to the Paris City Hall and take in historic pictures of the irrigation plowing for potatoes and sugar beets?  No need to cross the Atlantic to visit the famous Red Light district and watch a show at the Moulin Rouge when you can admire Parisian women showing off their skills for The Bear Lake Pageant at The Paris Tabernacle.  Sure the French food at Aux Lyonnais or Chez Jenny is exquisite and world-renowned but you can’t beat good old traditional Mormon cooking at the Sandstone Pioneer.

The two can make for a rapturous argument about how great the differences in similarities and similarities in their differences are; but the bottom line is the towns of Paris are prestigious and beautiful in their own ways.  These morsels of propitious municipalities should be seen as places to visit in one’s lifetime whether you’re on a road trip through America’s potato land or exploring through Le Hexigone. 

 

Bon Voyage!