Category Archives: Essays

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Trouble in Husby

(This was written by contributor Eric Gandy, a resident of the Stockholm suburb, Kista. These are his observations and impressions, in prose-poem form, of an adjacent community, Husby, where there has been civil unrest for five days as of this posting).

A heavy morning shower has rinsed the dust from the grass and leaves. The air is full of the smells of spring, the rotten earthy smell of last year’s vegetation and the perfumes released by the new generation of flowers and leaves.

Suddenly a new odour attacks my senses – are there cows nearby? Further up the hill I meet a herd of Highland Cattle and Herefords lying in the lush green grass, silently chewing their cud, winter diet of sour silage now forgotten. All are facing in the same direction, as though toward Mecca. But see only the grey motorway bridge, which is nearing completion, perhaps observing the progress made since last autumn.

In the distance, giant the earth-moving machines are putting the final pimping touches to the brutal concrete flyover. The cows’ silent whisking of tails and monotonous chewing appear lethargic when compared with the drone-like swooping of the black swallows overhead. Their target is the flies which are constant followers of the herd.

Police sirens in the distance reveal that all is still not calm in nearby Husby, after nights of rioting. The usual stuff – burning cars, smashing windows and the usual culprits – disaffected youth.

Today the area has been invaded by a herd of media people, on their annual visit to a problem suburb. Like the cows, all facing in the same direction and chewing their cud. The hooligans have got more media space than the local activists, despite their organisation named Megaphone. Unfamiliar with press attention, the moderate activists call for understanding and an end to structural segregation and discrimination. But this is repeated against a backdrop of a masked hooligan, Molotov cocktail already burning. Give us jobs, give us education, stop police brutality, we want a public enquiry and apology by the police, or else…  The tired politicians trot out their patent solutions from afar, safe in their electronic havens, while the media hacks speed off to make their six o’clock deadline.

–E. Gandy

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On Promises

There are promises from the heart, and promises from some other place which, for the sake of differentiating here, I’ll call the “mind”.

One might quickly assert, having accepted this differentiation for the sake of discussion, that promises from the heart are to be more trusted and desired. This, especially, since we don’t yet know where the other promises come from.

I will argue the opposite.

It’s an easy rebuttal to note that the most solemn of public promises are those contained in the traditional marriage ceremonies, and yet in the USA around 50% of new marriages will eventually end in divorce. I have promised, three times now, “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”

To promise to love. Can one really make this promise? Is the heart the most constant of guides in our lives? Will the loved one, or oneself, be eternally lovable?

We don’t promise to love our children, yet we will love them through times more trying than we would endure in a marriage. How often have you heard phrases like “we stayed, or are staying, together for the sake of the children”?

Take another solemn, public promise: that made by all members of Congress and employees of the federal government upon taking office:

Congress Oath

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

For the year 2010, the Gallup Poll found that only 19 percent of respondents thought they could “trust government in Washington to do what is right… just about always, or most of the time”. Of course there may be no correlation between an individual’s oath of office and the public’s general perception of government performance. But then, why not? I think it fair to say that this public oath has no value except where the oath-taker might be charged with gross dereliction of duty, or of treason.

Using these two examples, I assert that public promises are suspect in value.

What about private promises?

The most important glue between humans is that of trust. Will we show up on time? Will we return that book when promised? Will we complete our assignment? Will we keep a confidence?

If questions like these can be answered in the positive, then we are bound ever closer together. If not, we drift apart.

Do these promises come from the heart? Or do they come from a deeper place, one that involves us as members of a clan, or tribe, or species—the collective “mind”?

Promises build expectations. Disappointments build distrust and bitterness.

Be careful what you promise.

Likewise, be careful of what you expect from others.

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Women (in my household) don’t know how to use a dish-washing machine

They don’t prepare the dishes and pots and pans properly, and they don’t stack them in the machine for maximum effectiveness and efficiency. There’s more, but here is how it is properly done.

First, one must survey the damage, slowly and with love; this is a worthy task that deserves full attention and respect. Let us enter the kitchen the morning after a tumultuous evening, and view the task at hand.

The smell of garlic, of course, pervades all. This is not at all unpleasant to the lover of the stinking rose, despite its lack of freshness. It’s a reminder of the delicious aroma and taste of the garlic butter one has, the evening before, spread like a golden glaze over the thick beef steak, cooked rare and bloody, the juices flowing over the helpless plate.

The acidic tang of red wine dregs rising from many glasses complements the garlic, offering a stimulating olfactory duo to accompany the task.

Before organizing all the things in like groupings, one must have a clear and clean working area. The counter surrounding the sink must be rid of condiment bottles, salt shakers, clean instruments and implements, and stale food not put away the evening before as it should have been; all surface detritus should be wiped clean for the next step. One cannot think and plan clearly with a cluttered work space.

Next, open the dishwasher and examine it. Are there clean or dirty things in it? If clean, put them away. If dirty, make sure they are lodged in the proper places for maximum use of space. Most importantly, the bowls should occupy the tines that are more widely spaced than those to be occupied by the plates. The short utensils should be in the shallow compartment of the utensil basket, and the longer ones in the deeper slots.

Take the utensil basket out of the dishwasher! Yes, it’s all right to do this. With the basket in hand, walk around the kitchen to put all the utensils in the basket, in their appropriately-sized compartments. After rescuing all the visible utensils (there will always be laggards where you don’t expect them), and before putting the basket back into the empty dish washer, stand over the sink and run water over the most egregiously encrusted utensils to knock off the big chunks. This will help your dishwasher’s plumbing to last longer. Having done this, now put the utensil basket where it belongs.

One must think of this as an industrial process. For instance, don’t constantly open and shut and reopen the cabinet under the sink to put scraps and trash in the waste bucket. Pull the damn thing out and set it in the middle of the kitchen table! Now, put all the visible trash into it, including scraps from the plates and bowls. After scraping detritus from each plate and bowl, stack them in like grouping on the counter near the sink. Once you are reasonably certain all the major trash is in the bucket, put it back under the sink. Now put all the dishes and bowls in their proper places, always trying fit as much as possible into the machine.

This is no time to worry about keeping one’s hands clean, or worry about dropping scraps on the floor. The latter will be swept and probably mopped after everything is in the dishwasher and the pots and pans scrubbed and put away. (Attention women: never put a pot or a pan in the dishwasher. They need to be scrubbed by hand. I’m referring, of course, to pure metal pots and pans, not the ones coated with Teflon, or the like; we all know these must be done by hand.)

Glasses and cups that are sturdy enough for the dishwasher should be stacked as closely together as possible in the upper tray of the dishwasher. Water, especially under pressure, is very clever and can reach into the smallest spaces, and even force glasses apart to get at every square millimeter of them. If there is room, I will lay long utensils, ones that have holes for hanging in their ends, alongside the glasses with their holes placed over the tines of the tray to secure them firmly to the tray.

As the kitchen table and the counter become clear of plates and all other implements, place the pots and pans neatly on the counter next to the sink. (Leftover food in these will already have been put in the trash or, properly wrapped, in the refrigerator).

Before closing the dishwasher, look around for laggards, including in the dining areas and any empty bedrooms. Don’t disturb sleepers; they will just get in your way and want to talk with you as you are trying to do your sacred work.

Put all the laggards in the remaining available space in the dishwasher, put the soap pellet in its pocket and close the latter, then shut the door and turn the machine on. What satisfaction!

Now to the pots and pans.

This can be a joyful exercise, if one’s attitude is correct. In my household, none of the others cleans pots and pans; they just stack up in the sink, or on the stove, waiting for me to do something about them, which usually takes me five minutes.

The Teflon pans are the easiest. Never use detergent except in dire situations. Detergent is bad for you and the environment. I hate the smell of detergent. I Imagine my precious bodily fluids being snatched away by the clever detergent molecules to bind them with water that gets flushed away by my nose, out of which always runs mucous, copiously, when I use detergent. Just scrub the pans with a brush very diligently and completely while running hot water over them. Then wipe them vigorously with paper towels. Put them away.

Now, all you have are the pots. You should use detergent for these, but sparingly. The main ingredient in washing pots is elbow grease. Don’t be afraid to use a metal scouring pad while running hot water over the offending detritus in the pot.

Put the clean pots on the clean sink, upside down, to drain and dry.

Have a cup of coffee.

Wasn’t that easy?

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Weltschmerz

I am suffering from weltschmerz, a condition my father often had when we lived five awful years on Third Avenue and 48th Street in Brooklyn—before we returned home to San Francisco in 1951.

Much of this feeling stems from my perception that all is not quite right with the country I love: the United States of America. There are many articles in the press and opinion journals about the current or inevitable decline of the USA, and a lesser number of writings refuting this.

Certainly the press sells papers by the implicit motto “if it bleeds, it leads”, and this is only a reflection of ourselves. There seems to be a wretched excess of such “news” in recent months. Perhaps my years have accumulated too much of what the press presents and I have grown sour.

As an antidote I have spent part of this day celebrating the USA through listening to words and, mostly, music.

I have celebrated with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, James Earl Jones, and Abraham Lincoln, among others. These are some of the many people who speak to me of the America I love.

I listened to James Earl Jones recite A Lincoln Portrait, accompanied by the music of Aaron Copland. I listened also, with tears streaming, Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.

I read again Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, part of which is spoken in A Lincoln Portrait.

I reminisced on my many listenings to Bernstein’s West Side Story, about which I have written. Yesterday I viewed a film on the life and work of Bernstein which celebrated his loving investment in the musical education of Americans, especially the young.

I mentally reviewed the work of George Gershwin whose joyous music buoyed me in my youth, and even still: Porgy and Bess; his Piano Concerto; Rhapsody in Blue which I played inexpertly on the piano at age 15; and others.

I reminisced about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his famous speech, but even more so about his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, which I have also mentioned in my writing.

Other people and occasions travel through my mind as I continue to struggle to regain my balance under this cloud of weltschmerz.

These memories, and the music and words I listened to, did help, but I still am searching for what there is now in the USA that is similar in nature to what I have written about here. When the youth of today are my age, what will they remember to make them grateful to have spent their formative years in the USA? What memories of public figures and what music will bring tears to their eyes?

Perhaps some young people will respond to this, teaching me to see what they may see as a positive answer to this question.

Ron Pavellas
Stockholm
20 April 2012

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To the seven-year-old growing toward adulthood

Learning

School is helpful, especially in reading, writing and arithmetic.  School can give you the tools you need to later explore the world and begin your life-long learning.

Read books of fiction. These will prepare you for learning in the world.

Be open to mentors in all things that interest you. Teachers can be such. More often it will be an aunt, or uncle, or older cousin or older neighbor—or just someone who appears unexpectedly in your life. Mentors are people who have done the things you might want to do and who are willing to show you, directly, how they have done it.

If something interests you, go for it with all your energy and passion until you feel you know it, or enough about it, or until you may lose interest in it.

There is no one right way—find YOUR way.

Love will happen

You are surrounded by love, even if you can’t define it or sense it. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for love.

You will love, and you will “fall” in love. There is a difference, but that’s all you need to know. The experience of “falling” will teach you the difference. It may not happen until you are very old, but more likely it will happen when you are young. Don’t worry about it, don’t search for it, just be open to it.

Be useful

The greatest reward in life is in knowing you have been useful to someone. It takes time to develop skills in being useful, but one can always be polite and respectful of others, which helps them feel comfortable. This is useful.

What’s your Type?

Whatever type of person you think you are, or think you want to be, all types of people are necessary or these “types” wouldn’t exist. Don’t worry about it—just be your “type.” Later on you will just be “you.”

Don’t wobble

The balance between your need for Freedom and your need for Safety will determine your politics and the course of your life. Test these needs against each other as often as you can before you leave home so that you can be certain where to place your feet and how to direct your energies. Accept yourself and others in all their, and your, differences.

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Intimations of Mortality

My sister Diane died on July 8 of this year, not quite two months ago. She was 68.

I am past the major grieving, I believe—several weeks have passed since my tears have welled up unexpectedly.

I may still be surprised by some sudden emotion, but there are now only persistent evocations of times shared with Diane, and of her forceful and positive spirit.

I no longer can forward to her a YouTube presentation of a popular singer or a clip from a TV comedy show of long ago, nor receive any from her. When I experience something that evokes a time we shared, I can no longer email or telephone to her about it.

She is really gone, but my sympathetic nervous system has not yet absorbed the fact of her permanent absence on this side of the great divide between life and death.

I have read and written and spoken occasionally on the subject of death, always in the abstract—for I haven’t yet experienced it, nor had anyone whose writing I have read.

With the extinguishing of Diane’s earthly presence so suddenly and completely, I feel closer to death. It is not as abstract to me as before.

When our parents died at advanced ages, these deaths were expected and even welcomed, for their last few years were difficult in each separate circumstance.

Not so with Diane’s death. She was younger than I by five- and-a-half years.

I have begun to imagine my spirit suddenly being extinguished. What can it be like? It is a very strange feeling or perception. Will the soul survive and, if so, in what manner?

I have known people who dwelt on the subject of death overly much in my view, or for my continuing interest. Will I now become such a person?

As I write this I wonder what lesson there may be in this new feeling or perception. What comes immediately to mind are the several aphorisms I have read and quoted, all tending toward this conclusion:

Death is always at your left hand (as Don Juan Matus remarked to Carlos Castaneda), so accept it and live life as this were your last moment.

Granddaughter Sydney learned a variant of this recently in Bible camp; she repeated it at the memorial we held for Diane in Sydney’s home.

To me this does not mean to become a pursuer of transient pleasures. Rather, it is to continue to act and build upon values that will have some lasting usefulness, at least for a few generations beyond.

I wrote the following during a low period, some 16 years ago:

Will It Be a Good Death?

When all the patterns close around me,
As my spirals play out all their energies,
When the sun no longer burns inside me,
And the waters cease coursing through me,
Will we cry good tears and say goodbye without regret?

Will it be a good death?

I pray it will be a good death
For the sake of my soul,
And the souls of my children, and of their children,
And of others who love me.

I pray my life will warrant a good death.

Will those with whom I am love-connected say,
“It was a good death: There was honor and completeness”?
Will they peacefully help my spirit to reunite with
The Great Everything?

To die a good death I must live a good life:
Be brave, be true, my soul;
Help me toward that good death.

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Certain Communications: Man/Woman

I’m talking about when a man needs to expound upon a sudden flash of an idea, a vision, a plan, a fantasy.

When I am struck, or imbued, or captured by an idea, I need to see it out loud, develop it, expand it, take side trips, have thoughtful pauses and, eventually, come to completion at the point where I have, at least temporarily, exhausted my energy on the subject.

Most men I know will nod their collective head in the presence of the expounder, and make some noncommittal grunts and other sounds peculiar to each to let him know they are still alert and want to give the impression they are still listening.

Women, on the other hand, want to be part of the action, want to partner with their man on this little adventure. Therefore they interrupt, take side trips not intended by the man, and innocently make turbulent the flow of ideas and words emanating from his little moment of creativity.

Further, other things will interrupt if the man does not choose his moment carefully.

If we are at dinner, for instance, the children will have no hesitation to demand Mom’s attention for the most trivial or transitory of things. This, of course, means the polite and gentle father, husband, man, stops his discourse until this moment has passed.

For some men such as I, when in a certain state, these interruptions and interjections and sidetracks cause a bottling up, a damming of the flow of images and ideas. This can turn things toward the bad, so the experienced man says–I’ll continue this later.

But the woman, who can multitask and hear and understand all things simultaneously, insists on the man continuing.

This does not ease his distress. Rather, the man feels forced to continue with a much narrower and more focused stream of energy so that a reasonable conclusion can be reached quickly.

On learns about and from such things over and over.

Sudden enthusiasms are dampened if the setting and the mood isn’t carefully chosen–but there goes spontaneity.

What to do about it?

Write!

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Novel Dissection

”I am writing a novel.”

This is what I say to someone who responds to my self-identification as a writer: “Oh! What are you writing?”

The other, more frequent and annoying, question is: “what have you published?”, as if one cannot be a writer unless one’s writing has been vetted and approved by some authority—or at least the sensitive writer can infer this.

To take care of the second question I have self-published a book of 80 pages containing short writings of the last 20 years or so—Short Stuff: Stories, Poems, Memoirs & Essays. I deem myself as the authority in this instance.

So now I can devote more focused attention to “my novel.”

As the more frequent reader of this blog knows, I am a member of the Stockholm Writers Group, a 20-year-old voluntary association of native English speakers in and around Stockholm, Sweden. Currently, most members are in varying stages of writing a novel, although any writing form is OK for us to critique and encourage. As the least experienced writer in the group I have many examples to guide me in the development of my own novel. Also, there are many books, workshops and articles available telling us how to address the various elements of any writing: character, plot, point of view, voice, setting, rhythm, etc.

There is a natural tension between what wants to flow, unfettered, from the creative center of the writer, and all the writing rules and guidelines, some of which are subjective and conditional, or even dated.

I have written a sufficient number of words for my novel to create a book, but I have not yet engaged in the discipline of putting it all together in such a way that someone might want to read it, much less publish it.

So here I sit, chafing at the rules and taking a detour to read (for the second time) a book written in an unusual way but which has been successful. This is Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout.

This book is seen by most reviewers, including me, as 13 short stories all linked by the presence or mention of the main character, Olive Kitteridge. The book won a Pulitzer Prize and has been a best seller despite some rather negative reviews, especially as regards its form. I like its form; it gives me the courage to write similarly or at least differently from the norm, since I already had begun to do so, willy-nilly. I have a lot of interesting characters all of whom are linked to a central figure who undergoes a significant transformation.

When I was in my 20s I devoured the writings of Henry James and fantasized about writing similarly. Now, his writings are not much popular outside the college classroom and, in any case, I do not have James’s character and background. I must write from who I am and from where I’ve been.

In Olive Kitteridge, the time sense is not constant, but not confusing. We begin in the in present, go quickly to the past, and then work back to the present in the first chapter. Throughout the book the unknown, unidentified narrator “looks over the shoulder” of the various characters, but also presents an omniscient overview, like a movie camera moving in and out of the setting. We are sometimes over the shoulder of one character, then immediate over the shoulder of another. Henry James did not do this. The current rules of writing do not advocate such variability, as far as I’ve seen.

It is a dilemma. I want to write the way that is natural to me, and with a discipline that does not make me unhappy. Yet, I do want others to read my writing. Their expectations must be met; but I resist writing for an identified market, or imaginary groupings of people. Perhaps I am writing for people with no expectations.

My current audience is, and may remain, the members of the Stockholm Writers Group (SWG). Three days from the writing of this essay or memoir, on Wednesday evening, 6 April 2011, eighteen more pages of my novel will be critiqued by SWG, along with a similar number pages of a colleague’s almost completed novel.

I do like this feeling of going on an adventure, of beginning something without knowing its outcome. As I tell my friends and acquaintances, I now travel through life with few expectations. This way, there are few disappointments and often some nice surprises.

See you along the way…?

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The Beauty of Numbers: A Memoir

08-08-08

August 8, 2008 was a special day in Stockholm. The telephone area code for Stockholm, within Sweden, is “08-”. There was organized and spontaneous fun and foolishness, such as water pistol fights between Stockholmers and groups of people from the north of Sweden.

Numbers have always fascinated me. I became aware of them first, and significantly, in kindergarten.

I would have been five years old to enter kindergarten, so it was probably September, 1942, just after we had moved into the new housing project near the “Cow Palace” in Daly City, bordering the the southern-most part of San Francisco. These were built for the “war workers,” including shipyard workers, as dad was for the duration of the Second World War. The rows of two-story concrete apartments were new and wonderful then, each family having its own separate living quarters, but connected and neighborly with the others. I did miss, however, being also with Uncle Harry, Aunts Bee and Angie and Grandpa. My sister Diane was then just an infant and not much use for company.

Kindergarten was a short walk away from 1822 Sunnydale Avenue, in the Visitacion Valley Community Center. The class was well disciplined. I enjoyed it, especially at the beginning of each day. Every morning, after the students had been brought to silent, standing attention by the teacher, we did three things: we recited the pledge of allegiance, our right hands, respectively and respectfully, over our hearts; then, hands still in place, we sang God Bless America—

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

And then, we recited the times table, from 1 to 12. This is where I fell in love with the number nine.

Consider the sequence: 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99, 108. Look at those digits! Each set of digits in each number adds up to nine or, in the case of the number 99, when you add the digits together you get 18, the digits of which number follow the same pattern. This was magic to me. I seemed to be the only one to see the magic in this, so I pretty much had this all to myself.

Eleven was interesting too, but only in a way more obvious to everyone else. It was too simple, until after 110. I could not intuit what the sequence should be after this multiple of 11, so I had to actually remember the next two numbers by burning a special place for them in my brain: 121 and 132.

Twelve was interesting too; it seemed a very royal kind of number, very grand. I especially liked 6×12=72. I could see, then or later, that seven of the nine digits felt comfortable inside 72: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9. This left out 5 and 7, which made them kind of exclusive and special. I began to see that 7 was a particularly special number for me because I was born January 7, 1937. I took seven as my lucky number.

Number 5 seemed to be a sort of building block for so many things in life. A nickel was 5 pennies, and I liked nickels for their size, weight and shininess. There were two nickels in a dime and, magically again, five nickels in a quarter and, wonderfully, ten nickels in a half dollar—an awesome coin with the beautiful “walking liberty” on one side and the strong and powerful eagle on the other. It was sort of like a mother and father coin. Then, there were twenty nickels in a dollar, the same number as all my fingers and toes. I also liked the image of Thomas Jefferson on the nickel; he has such a nice and bold profile. I liked his home in Monticello, pictured on the back of the coin, too. We heard about his home in school.

In later classes, when I was bored (and this was often), I would doodle numbers on a piece of paper. I was always looking for patterns. One day I started to write down number is a row, starting with 0, then 1 and added the two previous numbers together to make the next number, and so on:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144…

I later learned that this was a well-known sequence, famously formulated by the mathematician Fibonacci, around the year 1200 A.D, although it was also in use in ancient India. This sequence and pattern is found in nature, everywhere, such as in the spiral curvature in the growth of flowers and sea shells; and, it is basic to the concept of the golden section, developed by the Ancient Greeks and Leonardo da Vinci in art, architecture and music.

Back to the number 5: even though 7 is my lucky number, I prefer to use 5 when gambling at the roulette table. Here is my usual pattern: I buy 20 chips of low value (50 cents or a dollar each) and plan for a minimum of four bets of five chips each, and a maximum of five bets.  I place one chip on the number five, and one chip each on the four corners of five, giving me ¼ of a chip bet on the numbers  1, 3, 7 and 9; ½ of a chip bet on numbers 2, 4, 6, and 8; and the value of 2 chips on number 5. I let the wheel spin four times, and if I haven’t won any chips, I leave the table. If I have won some chips, I leave the table after five spins. It’s always a thrill to hit number five and win 70 chips.

When I visited Japan in 1956 and 1957, during my stint in the U.S. Navy, I noted that the tea sets I was buying for my relatives back in California were all of five cups each. I was used to six in a set, but five seemed very intriguing to me. I later learned that even numbered sets are considered unlucky.

Over time, I have developed a liking for prime numbers and will always make a point of telling people that the number of their (or my) age is “prime:” 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97.

Now that we are in the digital age, with the number 2 as the basis for all the information we use, it gives me a warm feeling that I developed, in my high school years, a love of the powers of two. I also like the powers of three, but in a more limited sense. For instance, here is what I wrote to my youngest son for having achieved the age of three to the third power:

25 March, 2008

Alex, my son,

It is time for you to be inducted into the realm of 3³.  Do not be alarmed nor try to understand. You may feel confident in being able, almost by autonomic reaction, to conjure the words in your brain and/or your larynx and associated organs: “three cubed;” or “the cube of three;” or “three to the power of three;” and so forth.

These are all, of course, mere human representations of that which cannot be represented by humans, or by any known mammal. The closest one can imagine for comparison is the name given by the ancient Hebrews to the entity in “heaven” governing all humanly observable forces on Earth, YHWH, an unpronounceable set of symbols. But this is quite inadequate an example.

You will have a visitation of the appropriate emissaries of 3³, anon. They will not speak, but you will know. Go with them in confidence and trust. The initiation is physically painless but enormously instructive. Be open.

The rites you will undergo will prepare you for the next 3×5 years of growth and extracorporeal realization.

Thus begins the most important period of your life, wherein you will become eligible to receive the answers to “Life, the Universe and Everything,” at age 42.

Of course, I am preparing for the final rite, to occur when my earthly age, measured in solar years, reaches 3·3³.

Be cool.

Love,

Dad

Left to right: Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Alex Pavellas

Alexander Joseph Pavellas is a math tutor at U.C Santa Barbara

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Clothes Mark the Man

When I was managing hospitals and medical centers, I became conscious of styles of dress worn by young male accountants from what were then the “big eight” (now the huge four) auditing firms, and by other outside consultants. These styles were emulated by some people in my organization, primarily in the finance division.

Such styles varied over the years, and emphasis on specific items of clothing changed from time-to-time, but they seemed to center mostly on shoes, shirts and ties.

Penny loafers, with or without pennies, seemed the rage for a while, even if they (maybe because they) didn’t match the rest of the ensemble. Later, scuffed-up, unpolished but expensive brown shoes were ubiquitous among these chaps, no matter that brown shoes and non-brown clothing don’t go well together. Then penny loafers without the pennies came back.

Much earlier, in the 60s and 70s, skinny ties, usually by “Ernst” of San Francisco, became a distinguishing mark, especially if they were knotted and worn with studied carelessness.

The one shirt style that amused me was the very large, unfitted white shirt, lightly starched and not hampered by an obscuring jacket after the wearer arrived at work. The shirt would begin the morning rather well ironed, but at day’s end was quite wrinkled and tent-like in appearance, anchored at the neck and drooping over one’s belt line. This seemed to show how hard the wearer worked during the day.

I had my own style of dress too (one could call it my uniform): dark suit, white or light-colored shirt, modest striped tie with muted dark colors, no jewelry except for a slim wristwatch, and discreetly expensive black shoes with knee-length black socks. There were a few years where a three-piece suit was called for.

Sometimes a blue blazer and gray slacks were de rigueur.

Away from work, I became myself again: Levi’s (the preferred brand of jeans since my early youth), tee-shirt and sandals. Additional clothing depended on the temperature and venue.

At home, the main distinguishing characteristic in clothing from when I was a teenager is that the Levi’s are now clean. The ideal state for jeans, back then, was that they should be able to stand in a corner by themselves, structurally supported by layers of grease deposited through intimate contact with a motor vehicle. When worn, the jeans barely hung onto one’s skinny hips, much as with the current fashion of young people. But it was then déclassé to show underwear or bare skin as is the fashion now.

Now that I am no longer an employee of anyone or -thing, I have reverted to my natural state: ancient Levi’s, now soft and frayed (but not holey) with something on top and on the feet to suit the ambient temperature.

The boy and the old man have merged. Or, the boy has re-emerged.