Results of Ruminations

Macbeth , act 5, scene 5: I have supped full with horrors. Heather Heyer has become a martyr, killed by domestic terrorism, though it ought to be noted that the hatred on display in Charlottesville has claimed many lives. The heritage that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists claim to be defending is one of barbarism, slavery, mutilation, rape, and death. I have walked among the concrete coffins meant to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Nestled in the heart of Berlin, within walking distance of both the Brandenberg Gate and the rebuilt Reichstag--the building whose burning gifted Germany to Hitler and set history's course for genocide, nuclear devastation, and more--I shivered as much from the weather as from the location. There is a specter that haunts Berlin: One of regret, of shame, of unwillingness to forget but also one of determination to create a new definition of what it means to be German. Berlin struck me as a place that had woken up from a nightmare that s...

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...

I have returned from my time in Europe, studying World War II with some of my students and my wife. It was a remarkable, painful, enjoyable experience--one that I tried to carefully document, in the hopes of remembering it better and longer. Returning home to a snow-drenched Utah was difficult, particularly when I remember that not 48 hours ago I was standing in Stratford-upon-Avon and feeling whole. It was illusory, of course, and temporary. Nevertheless, I'm glad I went. I'm happy to be home safely. There's much to return to, much to recall and to rebuild. I wrote in my journal daily whilst away, but I haven't put a lot of time into essays, save one on Sachsenhausen and another on Normandy . Being away from the daily effort of trying to improve my writing via the radical practice of writing more ended up a larger hardship than I expected. It was one thing to write, in the exhausted fugue of a jet-lagged tourist, the broad strokes and quick details of my day. It...

11 January 2017--Sachsenhausen concentration camp As the bus trundled through the sleepy German village, snow fell in whispering piles, collecting on the steep peaks of the colorful houses. Gayle slept on my shoulder as we drove through an Advent calendar. On the German radio, American music played. The British band Depeche Mode came on, singing softly. "People are people so why should it be / You and I should get along so awfully?"  We were headed toward Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp about an hour outside of Berlin. The snow made navigating the narrow roads stressful, so I tried to pay attention to my window, rather than the front of the coach. The students dozed or chatted softly, playing with their phones or thinking their thoughts. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the future prisoners of the camp, who also arrived in cold and snow, but without the comfort of a warm bus, a recent lunch, or even a coat. We disembarked, the snow slicing between ...