Category: Writing

So, What Was I Doing Last Week?

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I remarked a couple of times last week (here and here) that I was away from my normal place in the Texas Hill Country. I also noted that I would make some report of what I was about while I was away. I try to be a man of my word, to do what I say I will do, and so I note that I was in Baltimore, Maryland, attending the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum. Since my day-job is managing a tax preparation and bookkeeping office, it’s the kind of thing that makes some sense for me to do; since my company paid for me to go, I really had no reason or ability to say “no.”

Charm City, indeed…
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Most of the time that I was in the City that Reads (I’ve seen it called such), I spent either at the Forum or asleep. I don’t travel so well as I used to, after all, and I’ve gotten very much out of the habit of walking a walkable city, so getting to do both was taxing. (Pun intended. I’m a dad. Deal with it.) As I’ve commented to some people since I made it back home, “My body remembers that I used to do things; it doesn’t remember how I used to do them.” So much said, I was glad of the exercise; I got a lot of cardio in, and carrying my luggage back and forth gave me a couple of solid strength-training sessions. And it was good to remind myself that, yes, I can actually do things that aren’t behind a desk every now and again.

I took copious notes while I was in the Forum sessions, training from graduate school reasserting itself. So much is helpful; I was able to bring a lot of information back with me. There is the challenge, though, of transcribing my notes into a useful form; I was concerned with recording information, and now I have to organize it. I’m back at my day job, so while I can make some time at the office to attend to the project, I do have other work to do that was put off for the time away or that has come up since I got back; it will be a little while before I have the notes set up so that I can actually use them–two forms, most likely: a printed form and an HTML document. Cross-referencing is a thing for me, as those who read much of the other materials I have in this webspace see.

I did get out and do some other things, though. I made a point of getting around to local eateries in the Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, and Otterbein areas, trying to avoid the ones that seemed “touristy” in favor of those that looked like they cater to folks who live in the area. It was a good choice, I think, even if I did end up eating and drinking far more at a time than was good for me. I did have the experience while in Federal Hill of running into a group of regulars at one pub who all come from Texas–two of them from the Hill Country, even. It was not something I expected to have happen, but it’s something I’m glad did happen.

(I also tried to make a call of courtesy to a fellow franchise office in Pigtown, but I found the place had not only closed but vacated, so that didn’t work.)

It’s not as if I didn’t do any “touristy” stuff, either. I spent a day touring the Inner Harbor, climbing aboard and through historic ships moored there. There was a commissioning ceremony getting going on one of the ships, so I didn’t spend as much time aboard her as I might’ve done–I didn’t want to be in the way, even though nobody was trying to chase me off–but that gave me time to tour the others and provided for fewer other folks to move around. (One of the ships is a WWII-era submarine, so space was tight, and I am bigger than I probably ought to be.) Nor was I immune to checking out some of the Babe Ruth and Edgar Allan Poe stuff, the latter of which really shouldn’t be a surprise; I was an English major, after all.

In all, it was a good time, and I’m glad to have done it in itself. I don’t know that I would go at the same time of year, though. I missed out on a few things at home while I was away, and I did have some fun with deadlines when I got back; I’d rather avoid those issues if I can. And I am a homebody; it was not long until I got to a point that I missed being with my people. It made coming back a good thing, even if it has taken me most of a week to get back to myself and who and what I need to be.

I’m there now, at least for now, and happy to be so.

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A Sonnet Composed Idly

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Instead of sitting staring at the screen,
I should take pen in hand and ink a page
Or more than one. If I do truly mean
To make myself a writer and assuage
The guilt I feel, give voice to the rage
That swells between my arms–too thin and weak
To do much to avail against a cage–
Then I cannot let myself be so meek
As to withhold my voice. Of fear I reek,
I know; I smell myself. Yet I am keen
To make of myself more, and I will seek
Some way in which my value can be seen.
But I cannot command that others look
At what I scribe on screen or in a book.

Not quite, but close…
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A Robin Hobb Rereading Series, Entry 467: Assassin’s Fate, Chapter 8

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

Following another excerpt from Bee’s dream journals, “Tintaglia” begins with Reyn calling on Fitz and the Fool in their chambers to note the arrival of the Tarman. Details of the liveship’s berthing are reported, and Reyn excuses himself. Afterwards, the Fool rebukes Fitz for having gotten him drunk and prepares to meet with Thymara as Amber.

In the right situation, you could use this and have a blast…
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Later, Fitz and Lant go out into Kelsingra, Fitz thinking to revisit the map-tower familiar to him, having lost the map Chade had given him in the bear attack. Their progress is interrupted by the reported arrival of Tintaglia, whom Fitz and Land discuss as they move to join the throng of those greeting her return. They see Reyn, Malta, and Phron greet the dragon, and they witness Tintaglia discover the changes that have been wrought in Phron, to her annoyance. Fitz answers her challenge, and he knows he faces death before the arrival of Heeby offers a distraction.

The dragons’ conference somewhat mollifies Tintaglia, who decides not to kill Fitz. Fitz presses for information, and it is revealed that Tintaglia also lacks knowledge of Clerres. She purposes to seek it after she is tended and issues directives to that effect, sending the Elderlings scrambling to fulfill them. Fitz, shaken, considers what he has learned and retires, Lant and the Fool tending him. They confer about events, and the Fool makes himself available to answer questions about Clerres that Fitz puts to him, laying out more of its structures and development. Prilkop’s experience in Clerres and the Fool’s are contrasted.

Over the next days, the Fool lays out more of his knowledge of Clerres to Fitz. Details of its physical layout emerge, as does more about its organization. The effort of recall exhausts the Fool, however.

Fitz sorts and considers what he learns from the Fool about their objective. He takes stock of his supplies and other resources, advised about the latter by Spark. Lant and Perseverance include themselves into Fitz’s planning, and the Fool seemingly cannot refuse a bitter joke.

The present chapter reads to me, at least partly, as an attempt to paper over some plot-holes introduced not long before. The antagonism between the Servants and the dragons does seem like something that other dragons than Heeby would remember, yet even Tintaglia, who did not suffer the over-long time as a serpent that affected so many dragons so badly, does not have memory of it. (Icefyre could be expected to, as seems to be the case in the chapter.) Comments about dragons’ memories in the present chapter seem calculated to account for the gaps in knowledge, offering what seems a reasonably neat explanation of why such a thing hadn’t come up before. This is in a Watsonian sense; the Doylist is, of course, that Hobb is making it up as she goes along. It’s a work of fiction, though, so so much is to be expected; there’s really no other way to go about doing it. But I appreciate that such an effort is made.

Relatedly, I appreciate that the present chapter makes so many explicit references to earlier events. One of the things that I have tried to do throughout my rereading is point out where a text refers to its predecessors; it’s something of a habit from my days trying to be a scholar that I try to cite sources and trace ideas, even if it’s not something I necessarily do in a formal and rigorous way most of the time at this point in my life. (Witness this, for example.) Admittedly, the earlier parts of the Realm of the Elderlings novels cannot do as much of this as later parts; the simple fact of having more to refer to makes reference easier to carry out. But even later parts are not always good about such things. This is not itself bad; a new work does need to have new things to say and new ways to say them. Still, the idea of multiple novels and series working within a common milieu suggests that there ought, at times, to be acknowledgments of the common threads moving among them. That the present chapter makes such acknowledgments, and that it also attempts to address how the new ideas it contains can fit in with what has already been established and asserted, reads to me as a good thing.

It’s not the only thing that does, but it certainly does.

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Some More Thoughts While I Am Away

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I‘m still out of pocket, as might well be imagined, and I am going to post about what all I’ve been doing while I’ve been away from home. I’ll need to finish up before I do, however, and I’m not done yet. So much said, I did have an idea pop up, and I figured I’d spend some time getting it out down so I can keep track of it for later. Hence what follows.

Really nothing to do with what’s going on…
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That I’ve long played roleplaying games, particularly tabletop roleplaying games and their online-forum-based iterations has not been a secret by any means. I’ve written about it in this webspace more than once, after all, and usually in favorable or better terms. I’ve noted, too, that I also run such things, developing milieux and situations in which players can navigate characters to collaboratively tell stories, hopefully such as they’ll recall fondly years later. And like many people who concern themselves with narratives, I often find myself looking for new stories to tell–or to set up.

It’s occurred to me before, and doubtlessly to no few others, that things like trade shows and research conferences offer good settings for such things. By their nature, they draw people together who have common interests but diverse backgrounds and skill sets; they necessarily address questions often in the roots of games, namely “Why would my character be here?” and “Why would these characters be together?” (“You meet in a tavern” is classic for a reason, but it doesn’t necessarily explain a whole lot.)

Too, by their nature, such events are necessarily focused. Most every conference I’ve attended, and I’ve been to more than many folks, has social events and entertainment available, but all of them have had a primary focus and purpose. They’ve had structure that allowed flexibility of approach to it. Roleplaying games operate with a tension between the two; there is and has to be structure by the very nature of the narrative of which the roleplaying game is but one form, but it is impossible to anticipate all player approaches and foolish to disregard most of them. (There’s always the potential for someone to be a jerk…) As with the character-gathering, the narrative focus of a game would reward or be rewarded by setting it in something like a research conference.

Additionally, such events as research conferences, while requiring substantial setup, often handle themselves once they get going. Attendees have clear expectations, and if it is the case that people will violate them, they are yet familiar with them; people know what they ought to do, even if they don’t necessarily do it. Forum-based roleplaying games, by their asynchronous nature, reward setting up events that run themselves; that is, they do well if they set up so that players can do the event without the game’s administrator having to be much involved during the event.

I’m sure there’s more that I could say, and I might could come back to this later on. It may not be scholarly, but not all of my somedays are such…

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Some Thoughts While I’m Away

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I‘m currently away from home for work, and I’ll write about that after I’m back, but there were some thoughts I wanted to get down while they were still relatively fresh. I’ll be your indulgence, dear reader, that I refer to some work I’ve done elsewhere online, here. It’s an older piece, one written when I still had some hope that I might secure an academic position but had begun to have my doubts, and it reads very much from that time in my life. But the central idea in it still obtains, I think.

A good job candidate, most likely…
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Said idea is that people ought well to hire those trained in the humanities for work outside of them. Yes, it is the case that those who are trained in, say, English studies won’t likely have coursework in accounting or management. But it is also the case that, even in an age of increasing reliance on so-called AI and putatively data-driven micromanagement, those trained in such fields bring habits of mind with them that are useful in any number of endeavors.

I will be vain (surprisingly, I know) and use myself as an example. (I know, at least, that I have permission to do so.) My degrees are all in English, as I’ve not tried to hide, and my formal training was in how to make sense of the works of the past and how to understand what they still say to readers far removed from those for whom they were composed or by whom they were recorded. It is the case, to be sure, that a number of my extracurriculars spoke to the work I do now; I had to write grant applications and budgets before leaving academe, had to account for money. But what of it I did, I did through trial and error; I later learned better ways to go about such tasks, and I use them many days in my day job now.

That I was *able* to learn those ways, though, and to do so quickly and completely enough to come up to competence is a direct result of having done the work of earning my degrees. I learned how to learn, how to find information and to make sense of it at speed, in the process of composing a thesis and a dissertation. Knowing where to look and how to look is something that came from years of pouring over documents and slotting their contents together, finding the questions they do not ask but probably ought to if they’re going to say what they say.

How this applies to my day job most is in dealing with all of the documents I address daily. Yes, I’m sure there are programs that (purport to) sort and collate documents, but I suspect they read only as well as their programmers–and there are folks with worse handwriting than mine. I suspect they aren’t able to follow implications and suggestions individual documents can offer, not only from the words on the page but also from the qualities of the pages themselves. I know well they can’t help their readers make the leaps of understanding they need to make to best orient themselves in the world. But I have some success that way (I said I was vain), and I do attribute much of it to my earlier formal training.

None of this is to say that more targeted training is bad; there’s a reason I’m away from work at the moment. But it is to say, again, that the humanities are far from useless fields. They have value in themselves, and I continue to espouse them, but I also know the context in which I live–and I know that any hope of listening has to come from some commonality. A person can’t pick up what isn’t set where they can get hold of it,  however strong their grip might be.

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A Robin Hobb Rereading Series, Entry 466: Assassin’s Fate, Chapter 7

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

Another brief excerpt from Bee’s dream journals precedes “Beggar.” The chapter begins with Bee considering her isolation in Chalced as she continues to hide from Dwalia and her company. Wolf-Father continues to advise her as she reconnoiters her surroundings and assesses her own condition, but the advice he can give is limited by geography.

Do you hear the people sing…
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As the area stirs to daily life, Bee reflects on what she knows of Chalcedean events, including the overthrow of the previous rulership. Bee plots to present herself as a mute beggar and sets about securing funds and food. There is some success at that task, and Bee finds some comfort briefly before recalling her encounter with the Fool and its ending.

Bee rests, waking late and retreating to where she had previously reconnoitered. She takes stock of her situation and moves to address it, sleeping again to wake in tears in the night. To Wolf-Father’s comments, Bee responds angrily, and the next day sees her venture out into Chalced for food once again. Danger presents itself to her, and Bee observes the work of other beggars and thieves in the local market. At Wolf-Father’s insistence, she rejects an offer of seeming kindness made to her, and she withdraws once again to where she had hidden before.

The following day, Bee ventures out again and is robbed of what few coins she has. Thus reduced, she seeks out a target for theft and makes an attempt at stealing bread to feed herself, securing a loaf but being apprehended for doing so. Bee is made to give some account for herself and is taken into custody awaiting sale as a slave to offset the damage her theft has caused. The captivity is not as bad as could be, as Bee is fed decently and not otherwise accosted, and she confers with Wolf-Father, who urges her to rest and heal as she can.

Bee wakes still in captivity and recovers somewhat. Another day passes with her imprisoned until Dwalia arrives to claim her. Bee realizes again the effect Vindeliar has on people and shuts herself against it, although at the cost of closing out Wolf-Father, as well.

There is some humor early in the chapter. The exchange between Bee and Wolf-Father–Bee’s “They have no forest” being met by Wolf-Father’s “This explains much about the Chalcedeans”–brought a chuckle to my lips as I read it again. There’s a long tradition of forests in fantasy literature, of course, and while the woods often offer danger, the danger they offer is of an easily understood sort; the lack of it is a separation from “the normal,” of regard for and connection to life and the natural world, which does speak to the caricature of evil that Chalced has been presented as being. That’s not the humor, though; the joke is in the flatness of the response, the assignment of so much wrong to such a simple thing. The juxtaposition jars, and the jarring prompts laughter, easing acceptance of the idea–which is one of the things humor is apt to do.

On the topic of Chalcedean evil, the present chapter does seem to indicate that some reforms are underway, although the country cannot be called “good” even in the wake of Chassim’s accession. Slavery still remains an accepted practice, and kidnapping seems still to be prevalent. But it is at least not the case that Bee faces assault while awaiting sale, as other volumes in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus make clear is a likelihood, or that she finds herself possibly the next meal for the rulers of the area. Chalced remains evil under Chassim, but it is less evil than it had been under Andronicus, and there is something that resembles hope for its further development even in the changes already clear from the text.

If Chalced’s evil might be mitigated (although, again, not erased; it is still a bad place), that of Dwalia is assuredly not so. She continues to resort to outright domination, via Vindeliar (who cannot be said to be in full possession of his faculties despite his power, and I am put in mind of parallels to Thick; there might be something in reading the characters against one another), as well as selling off others in her company to secure her own convenience. To be certain, even the “good guys” in the Realm of the Elderlings will use their powers to relieve others of their free will; the Skilling Verity does against the Red-Ship raiders offers no few examples, and Fitz himself is not always or even necessarily kind with his powers. (What Nettle does can only be dimly guessed at, even if her king has a distaste for disreputable methods; what an interquel such things might present!) I find myself asking if Dwalia is more evil only in that she demands another do such work for her…but that I am obliged to ask such questions only deepens my engagement with the text and the corpus of which it is part, and that is something that speaks well of them to me.

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A Robin Hobb Rereading Series, Entry 465: Assassin’s Fate, Chapter 6

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

Following a brief excerpt from Prilkop’s writings, “Revelations” begins with Fitz recuperating slowly from his exertions in the Skill. Residents of Kelsingra continue to ply him for healing that he dares not open himself to perform, and Amber joins Fitz in his chambers for brandy one evening, resuming the identity of the Fool when the pair are in private. They confer about Fitz’s unwillingness to resume Skilling while in Kelsingra, surrounded by the memory stone, and Fitz guides conversation toward the Fool’s experience of Clerres. Prilkop’s ancientry is noted along the way, as are tendencies of Kelsingrans and Rain Wilders to become lost in the memories that are stored in the stones of the Elderling cities. Parallels are drawn to August and Verity Farseer, and the pair discuss the Fool’s resumption of being marked by Skill.

A great loosener of tongues, this…
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With some guild, Fitz steers conversation back towards Clerres, and the Fool reminisces about his upbringing and his introduction to Clerres. Details of the island and its inhabitants are provided, and some information about the prophecies that led the Fool to Buckkeep emerges. More details of Clerres are evoked, although to the Fool’s pain, and Fitz learns the Pale Woman’s name, Ilistore. He also learns of how the Fool and Prilkop were treated and won over when they returned to Clerres at length, with the Fool remarking on how he had managed to conceal Fitz even amid his accounts to the Servants. Fitz’s fraught presence in prophecy receives more attention, and the Fool somewhat drunkenly opines on the strangeness of being cared for by Farseers. Still sodden, the Fool tucks up against a willing Fitz who watches as he falls asleep.

The present chapter is not the first in the Realm of the Elderlings novels to bear the title “Revelations.” Indeed, it’s one of the more common, if not the most common, chapter-title Hobb uses; it appears in Assassin’s Apprentice, Golden Fool, and Dragon Haven. Had I the time at the moment to read the four chapters against one another, I think it would prove of interest; I’m not sure there’s any presentation or independent publication potential in such a work, but that hardly stops me from doing much or any of what I do to dabble in literary criticism and interpretation anymore. Time constraints, however, do, so I will add this to the towering pile of scholarly somedays that has grown up as I have worked through my rereading. I really do have a lot to do, and far less time to do it in than I might prefer…but that’s true of all of us, I think.

As might be expected from a chapter titled “Revelations,” there is much exposition in the present chapter. Details of Clerres are welcome, even if they reinforce what seems to me still to be a simplistic ponerological stance as regards the place and its people. More nuanced, perhaps, is the treatment of Prilkop in the present chapter. I believe I’ve commented before about Hobb’s tendency to have characters who are pushed into positions of subservience and opprobrium be marked, to have color and tincture added to them; Jamaillian and Chalcedean enslavement practices come to mind as examples, and I’m sure that skimming my records would point out more. (Another scholarly someday is indexing all of this stuff, which will be a project on its own, to be sure.) Here, Prilkop is a counter-example, the eldest of his people and the most successful in his goals being denoted specifically by his darker skin. It is a neat inversion of the fantasy commonplace of whitening with greater achievement (eg Gandalf’s transformation from the Grey to the White), and I’m sure there’s some reading thereof that will annoy no few people with its putative wokeness. There’s yet another scholarly someday to plumb therein (and if someone’s already done it, I’d love to know).

I seem to collect more and more of them. Ah, to have time for them all!

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A Robin Hobb Rereading Series, Entry 464: Assassin’s Fate, Chapter 5

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

After a brief excerpt from Bee’s dream-journal, “The Bargain” returns to Fitz as he readies himself for a meeting with the people of Kelsingra. He finds himself pleased with preparations undertaken by Spark and others. Perseverance asks Fitz after Spark and the Fool and their fluid identities, the boy enheartened by the man’s considered answer and behavior. The Fool and Lant join the group, and, after a few comments about Lady Thyme that confuse Lant, the group moves to meet with the leading Traders in the city.

Once again, the lady’s not nearly so pleasant.
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Fitz, the Fool, and their company are conducted to a meeting of the dragon keepers, who are named and described as some introduce themselves. Others join, and dinner is served, over which conversation commences. Discussion is made of Fitz and the Fool’s errand to Clerres, and Reyn and Malta, grateful for the death of Ellik for his treatment of Selden, offer their aid to the group, and it is fulsome. It does not extend to a gift of the dragons’ Silver, however, despite Amber’s request for the same; it does, though, take in the conveyance of messages to Dutiful, which bespeak the prospect of Skilled healers and open trade, as Fitz and Amber remark as they retire for the evening.

Fitz spends long composing his letter to Dutiful with circumspection, after which he and the rest await the Tarman for conduct down the river. As they wait, Rapskal repeatedly attempts to press them, and Fitz realizes he must press the Fool for details of Clerres. Perseverance and Motley have an encounter with a dragon that the boy relates with some delight, and Fitz finally has an encounter with Rapskal in which the latter apologizes, convinced by Heeby of his intentions towards Clerres. Rapskal also offers Fitz advice about dealing with the memories that speak from the stones of Kelsingra before conducting him back to his chambers.

In Fitz’s chambers, he and Rapskal confer about the dragons and their memories. Hearing Rapskal’s yearning for something to enhance Heeby’s memories, Fitz recognizes an avenue through which he can find more information about what he will face, and he moves along it, learning more about the bond between keeper and dragon as well as about earlier depredations of Clerres and its people. The possibility of other populations of dragons and their systematic elimination is raised, and Rapskal notes continued doubts of Fitz and his party. But he, having been urged to do so by Heeby, gifts Fitz vials of Silver. As others arrive, he takes his leave with ominous words, and Fitz secures the gift.

Fitz’s group regathers and exchanges news. The theory that the Servants had systematically destroyed dragons is voiced and discussed, and new dangers begin to present themselves to Fitz’s mind as he purposes again to press the Fool for details about Clerres.

The conversation between Perseverance and Fitz early in the chapter regarding the fluid presentations of Spark and the Fool attracts attention for me, as might be expected. After all, I’ve commented no few times on how the issue of gender presentation pops up and confounds characters, including some who probably ought to know better (perhaps most recently here, with reference to any number of earlier portions of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus). That Fitz seems finally to have accorded himself to the Fool’s fluidity is a good thing, although I have to wonder at his arrival at it–but then, he did recently have some transformative experiences, so perhaps something shook loose in him to bring him around. Perseverance’s easy faith in the prince he serves…if I was ever so trusting, it has been a long time, indeed.

The related joke about Chade as Lady Thyme, playing on Lant’s ignorance, comes off as being a bit mean-spirited, the more so because it juxtaposes with the aforementioned acceptances. I like a good joke, and the timing of the humor is not out of line, but it is pointed in a way I’m not entirely sure Lant has coming this time. Other times, yes, because Lant has been and can be a pompous ass, but not this time.

(The thought occurs, or reoccurs, that Rosemary becomes an excellent name for someone trained by Chade, and the question of whether there had been a Parsley and a Sage before rises for me. Hobb is of an age to have access to the reference…)

The theory Rapskal motions towards and that Fitz and the Fool discuss openly, that the Servants in Clerres purposefully destroyed the dragons, perhaps as a self-protective measure, intrigues. In retrospect, it does seem odd that a people as demonstrably widespread as the Elderlings were–consider the map-rooms in Kelsingra and Aslevjal–would be undone so suddenly even by a cataclysm that reshapes the coastlines; a more spatially restricted dragonkind and Elderling civilization might well be undone by a volcano, but even a supervolcano would struggle to completely kill off what seems an intercontinental body. Even with the clearly large passage of time involved–remember that the Elderlings are attested in early Six Duchies materials, and there is enough language change between those materials and Fitz’s present that translation is an issue–there should be more evidence of the Elderlings and the dragons that made them available than seems to have been the case. Armed with foreknowledge, however, a dedicated and malevolent group might well be able to seize upon the opportunity presented by a massive natural disaster to enact a genocide and work towards something like a damnatio memoriæ–and the Servants, as has been repeatedly demonstrated, are a dedicated and malevolent group.

While I still contend that Hobb moves in many ways away from the Tolkienian fantasy literature tradition, I do think that there is some motion towards the bones in his soup in this–and I remember that Hobb grounds herself in having read Tolkien, too…

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A Yet Further Rumination on Labor Day

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Once again, the time has come for me to wax loquacious on the subject of work. I did it last year at around this time, just as I’d done in the preceding years, and there’s no reason for me not to do so this time around. As it happens, I’m actually in the same lines of work this year as last, which is nice; not having to retrain for a new job all of a sudden is a good thing, and getting better at a job held for a while is a better one.

There are still some…
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As far as that job goes, things are better. I know more about the work I do, I do more of it, and word has spread and is spreading in the community that I have at least some idea what all I’m doing. I’m glad of that much, to be sure. I am still well aware, however, that the work I do is less work than the work a lot of other people do. For the most part, I plug away on my own in an office space, communicating with clients through email and making my workspace more or less commodious to myself. I don’t have to be on a sales floor listening to customers complain about things that they did wrong and now have to pay for; I don’t have to be out in the Texas Hill Country summer sweating and struggling. It’s an inside job with minimal heavy lifting, so how fitting it is that I should take the day off–and I did take the day off, more or less–is an open question.

Admittedly, given that my work is what it is and that most of those with whom I would have to conduct business are themselves closed, it makes sense that I would save on the utility costs associated with my being in the office. Since my wife and daughter are also both off from work and school, for much the same reasons, it makes sense that I would take the chance to spend time with them–which I am, and happily. And I am minded of some old wisdom that bids each and every one of us to take every opportunity to rest that presents itself.

So much said, I still find myself somewhat ill at ease with taking for myself a holiday intended to honor the laborers that have made this place. I am not among them, not anymore, although I yet rely upon them, as do many. What right do I, who do so little, have to be at ease, especially when many who work are even now at work–and some at work doing things because I have bidden them be done? At the same time, what good would it do for me to work now, to be at work now? Would my setting to the tasks that await me–and there are some of those, certainly–somehow ennoble me?

I do not know, and that uncertainty bothers me for several reasons. It’s the kind of thing that pervades my thoughts, not just today but on many holidays and observances. I try to set such things aside and enjoy what opportunities do present themselves…but there’s always the nagging voice in the back of my head, just loud enough that I can’t quite ignore it…

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On Another Football Season Starting

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The time of year has come again in the part of the world where I live for high school football. To be fair, the past couple of weeks have seen scrimmage games in my area, the local schools playing games to test themselves but not worry (so much) about season standings, but scrimmages do not get a whole lot of attention. The accoutrements that go along with high school games–the cheerleaders, the bands, and the stands filled with those groups’ parents and much of the broader community–are not on display for what amount to extended practices, although there are certainly some die-hards who attend them and watch as new players start to settle into their roles and teams begin to see how they function when they’re not playing against their own teammates.

Such is Friday vespers for the national religion of Texas…
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This week, at least here where I live, is the start of the regular football season. My local high school has an away game, and I’ll be attending it; the band program, of which I am a proponent and for which I do some boosting, has asked me to announce them at halftime once again, and I am pleased to do so. It’s a privilege to be asked, and to be asked again; it’s a privilege, too, to have the kind of flexibility of schedule as allows me to say “yes” to the request. I’m mindful of those privileges, mindful that they need not be mine, and I am mindful, too, that I have the opportunity to do some other good for the kids in the band than calling out over the loudspeaker that they are taking the field.

Last year, when I volunteered with the program, I did a fair bit to help the woodwinds in the stands. Reeds needed trimmed and replaced, keys and linkages needed adjustments and repairs, and tuning needed doing–all of which I was happy to help address. And, because the directors asked me to do it, I looked with such eyes as I have at how the students performed on and off of the field, making notes that I think were of some help to the program. They were able to pull off a superior performance at regional contest and gave a good showing at area (the next level up, for those not conversant in Texas marching band competitions), and I flatter myself that I had some small hand in it. Certainly I cheered for them as they entered and left the field, and I congratulated them when announcements came of how they fared.

Even if they didn’t advance, they gave a good showing, and that’s something of which to be proud.

I watch the games, themselves, of course. If nothing else, I know that how the local team does will be the subject of a great many conversations in town, and I do need to be able to talk to people hereabouts. But I am not at the game for the game; I’m there because I believe in the band program, and not only because my daughter is in it and looks forward to her own marching band days. I’m one of the many for whom band was a bright spot; I’m one of the many who has delighted in having a horn in hand, sitting among others and winding it to the joy of ourselves and others. I’m one of the many who has seen greatness emerge from behind flip-folders, and I want to see more of it happen in the world around me.

I do not think I can be faulted for it.

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