Results of Ruminations

This past week, I had a lot of interesting moments. I went on a writing retreat wherein I wrote over 40,000 words in three days (with some bonus writing while I was at it, putting the end-of-the-week total at 47,500 words and change). I was hoping to write an essay about that. I had a chance to meet my dad in Manti and enjoy a dinner with him and my family, somewhat unexpectedly, and then, during that time, had some introspection that made me think more clearly of what and how I write. I'm reading a couple of books that have me pretty excited ( The Last of the Doughboys  and Building God's Kingdom , if you care to know) and I was thinking of maybe drafting a few hundred words about either one. An old Spider-Man comic came to mind that I was thinking I should reread, then do a close reading on it. (It comes from a comic published in 1994.) I mean, my Spider-Man essays don't pull in a lot of readers, but the point of these posts are more for my own growth as a writer, ...

ADVISORY: This is a political post. Knowing that many of those who read my essays aren't of the same political stripe as I, it feels natural to give a warning about what I'm discussing today. Additionally, I'm going to be talking about racism and the way I see it codified within the institutions that many people continue to endorse.  Water, Water, Everywhere... The other day, I heard part of a distressing story on NPR . It's lengthy, but I encourage you to listen to the story, particularly the first two minutes or so. The exchange between Nena Eldridge and the reporter, Laura Sullivan, is heartbreaking. SULLIVAN: "Why do you have all these water bottles?" ELDRIDGE: "Uh..."  That response tells you a lot about what's going on in Eldridge's mind, and the tone of her voice manages to imbue the monosyllabic stutter into something that's equal parts embarrassment and shame, with perhaps a slight overtone of frustration. Eldridge is obvio...

This article shocked me. I know that is click bait on my part, but you should go back and look at it. Can you conceive of an American war* in which over 2 million soldiers' lives were lost? Can you then imagine them not being remembered? A memorial to commemorate the names of the fallen would be, were it to be modeled after the Vietnam War memorial, over eight and a half miles long.  This memorial is about a quarter of a mile long. Picture source . I finished my annual rereading of All Quiet on the Western Front . It's always a difficult read, and the last fifty pages are particularly grim, if only because of the hopelessness that permeates it. The pity of war is rendered so starkly there that I feel my teaching of the topic is in some ways superfluous. Nevertheless, I feel I have an obligation to teach about the First World War with as much sympathy and detail as I can muster, if only because it is so often misremembered by America--and almost forgotten by German...

When I was a kid, I watched a massive amount of television. I remember watching TV even when I didn't want to watch what was on. Sitcoms were bittersweet: I liked a couple of them, but it also meant that cartoons were over for the day. I watched Mr. Belvedere and Charles in Charge . I spent time with Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I liked Full House  (and totally crushed on Stephanie) and even tuned in to Home Improvement. Okay, so by saying "a couple of them", they obviously made a difference in my mind. Thinking back, the melange of TV shows I used to watch is essentially the feverdream fodder for " Too Many Cooks " , isn't it? Growing up with sitcom families, I did what (I think) most people do with shows and movies they love: They assume that there's a parallel between the lives on screen with reality. For example, I was always shocked and a little discomfited when one of the TV adults drank coffee. As a card-carrying Mormon family...

If you don't count the calendar shifts, today marks the 2,061st anniversary of the death of Julius Caesar. I'm not a classicist, but I hang out with one, and today he dressed in black. He discussed the events of that fateful day in Roman history, explaining what transpired, why they did what they did, and the consequence of Caesar's assassination. Today, I discussed the events of a different assassination, but not one less consequential: The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo 103 years ago this June.   In the podcast lecture series I'm listening to, we covered the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who was, along with the rest of his family, best known for their Shakespearean performances. We don't know if Mister Lincoln had read Julius Caesar , but it's almost certain that Booth had. Not even a week ago, someone breached the perimeter of the White House, though his motives aren't necessarily fatal. Still, ther...

Guy Sajer: Too many people learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves...One should really read such accounts under compulsion, in discomfort...One should read about war in the worst circumstances, when everything is going badly, remembering that the torments of peace are trivial...One should read about war standing up, late at night, when one is tired. If you don't recognize the name of the man who gave that quote, you would be forgiven. He only wrote one book : The Forgotten Soldier , a memoir of his own experience as a German infantryman during World War II. When I studied the World Wars at university, this was the only assigned text (aside from the textbook, because who reads those, honestly?) that I couldn't finish. Part of my struggle was practical: It's a long book and I wouldn't devote all the time I needed to in order to finish it off. The other part was emotional: Sajer has some incredible stories about the war, but it became more and more bleak t...

I started listening to a podcast about the Civil War. At first, I was a little disappointed, because the course wasn't about the entire conflict, but instead the closing month--April 1865, to be exact. I thought of letting it go and exploring something else instead, but I soldiered on, listening to the first of the fourteen episodes. Immediately, I was confronted with a new reality. Unless you've not read much of my work, you probably already know that my strongest historical areas are the sweet-spot of British history: the Renaissance. History that touches Shakespeare--anything of the British Isles, including his Richard II  and onward--is something that I really enjoy. I even have a greater interest in Roman history because of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar  than I would for any other reason. After Shakespeare died, the poetic torch was passed to John Milton, which means that my interest goes pretty much from Richard II to James II. That's my favorite--nay, I should say...

Today is International Women's Day, as well as A Day Without Women. As a self-professed feminist, this is my kind of jam. I've been poking around Twitter off and on throughout the day, and it's been great to see how many cool women have impacted history. Some are cool bits of trivia: I have some LeGuinn on my shelf. I realize that I'm remiss in my sci-fi cred by not reading her stuff yet. Some rake insipid criticism over the coals: I love how happy she looks. Like, that's why feminism matters...in part. Some brought a painful history into a compassionate light, which reminds me that one of the greatest losses misogyny has caused humankind is that it has deprived deserved recognition of the kindest, strongest people who have ever lived: That quote, though. No one I know marched, struck, or did much besides do their normal thing, though I made sure to wear red to mark the occasion and demonstrate my solidarity. It wasn't much--most people didn...

I happened upon this article from The New Yorker  by floating around Twitter today. It really shook me up, though not necessarily because of what it described, but the process that I've been (inadvertently) a part of. I teach history, but I focus on European civilization more than anything else. I fold in some additional aspects of world history--a sprinkling of Africa, Meso-America, and Asia creep in, but mostly as they intersected with European movements. This is a traditional approach to history; its biggest shortcoming, I fear, is that it's assumed as being the  history of the world, rather than a  history of the world. That is, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with having a Eurocentric version of history, provided that it's understood that it's one of many, equally valid ways of appreciating the past. In the course of teaching history this way, I know that there are gaps and assumptions. This is the nature of teaching: Anything I teach ...