Ode d' Sandal

If a pleasant experience is like a perfectly fitting shoe,

 what is a perfectly fitting shoe like?

This is my tenth and last summer

wearing a perfectly fitting pair of sandals.

They are falling apart.

One could say they are under their last legs.

Any sure footedness I've experienced

this decade of summer walking

is due in large part to these

hard working and uncomplaining sandals.

Goodbye friends. You will be missed.

Free Book

I've always wanted to write a book wherein I quote Sartre, Solomon, and Simon Cowell. Well, here it is: Stealth Drawings: The Existential Quandary of Being Stared At.  29 pages of miscellaneous quotes from philosophers, psychologists, and theologians illustrated with over 100 clips from 30 years of sketching. Follow this link and type "stealth" in the search menu. During check out make up your own password. Let me know if you hit glitches.

Fountain Pen as Mediator

I lost my favorite pen last week, looked for it feverishly without success despite this great web site: how to find lost things. For seven long days I had a sour attitude while taking client notes, writing in my journal, and making lists using inferior and off putting writing implements. I couldn't take it anymore and in a panic finally ordered two more similar pens off the web. Yesterday I pulled a shirt from my closet and in the pocket was the missing pen! Birds chirped, the sun came out, and my funk was lifted. I even spotted rainbows and unicorns in the back yard.

Why the obsession with this favorite pen? For 50+ years I've been an obsessive doodler, scribbler, and note taker and have tried hundreds, maybe thousands of different tools for writing—from crayons to key boards, from easy to smear crow quill and Speedball dip pens to Design Markers loaded with toxic xylene for quick drying, from maddening Rapidographs that clog to exotic grades of graphite sticks and felt tip markers. Nothing beats the fountain pen I discovered two years ago (Lamy details to come). Here’s why I’m a dedicated fan.

It’s comforting to hold a pen. Like a security blanket I find holding a pen oddly soothing. I type like the wind but the keys clatter, my sentences bump into each other, and important rough drafts disappear thanks to the too-easy-to-use delete button. A fountain pen makes me slow down and think.

A fountain pen is a low tech device, operable in dim light. Computer screens emit serotonin-boosting light and journaling at night by hand in dusky lumens has a calming effect. Plus, when I change the ink cartridge there’s a gradual appearance of the new color—turquoise, red, purple, blue or green (see photo). One takes one’s entertainments where one finds them.

Most importantly, fountain pens glide over paper surfaces effortlessly. Years ago I was a sign painter who dreaded jobs where I had to apply lettering to rough surfaces—splintered wood, untreated boards, and gritty cement walls. It’s like these surfaces resisted my artistic efforts. I know we shouldn't personify paper surfaces; they hate it when we do that. But I still get the feeling that writing surfaces are fussy; I believe that paper resents intrusive pencils, bossy ball point pens, and demanding gel pens.

But the fountain pen! Ahhh. A smooth flow of rich, opaque ink is one of life’s finer pleasures. You know those electronic devices we see on TV with several needles wobbling back and forth—seismographs, lie detectors, EKGs? I believe the rolls of paper on which those wavy lines appear welcome ink with pleasure because the data is applied with grace, delicacy, and finesse. Fountain pen ink is applied the same way. It is not imposed or forced upon reluctant paper; it flows, it glides, it is laid down with grace. And the paper cooperates! It’s the difference between plowing furrows in hard clay and gently planting seeds in prepared soil.

Writing instruments bring together two disparate entities that need help connecting: synapses and stationery. The fountain pen is the perfect media—from which we get the word mediator—accurately mediating between what brains think and what paper receives. By presenting with clarity and gentleness a writer’s thoughts, and representing to the brain how the writing surface is responding, a symbiosis takes place. Whether the surface is a note card, onion skin, or cheap note pad, a fountain pen does the job with artfulness, class, and elegance. It’s a marriage made in heaven.

Lamy details. One need not—but could—spend $10,000 for a collectible fountain pen. After years of experimenting my favorite fountain pens are made by Lamy, $26 - $235 each (ink is extra). I buy the $30 models and love them.

Rejection at the Speed of Light

Today at 8:04 AM I submitted another humor piece to The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs column, this time via email and a .pdf. They replied with this chatty and upbeat note:

Thank you for submitting your work to The New Yorker magazine. Your message has been forwarded to the Shouts & Murmurs department. You should receive a reply within three months.

Forty four minutes later (8:48 AM) I received this rejection notice.

Dear Erik, We’re sorry to say that your piece, “Love Tests,” wasn’t right for us, despite its evident merit. Thank you for allowing us to consider your work. Best regards, The Shouts Dept.

Using the latest techniques of cognitive therapy I imagine several possible explanations for this swift sucker punch.

1. Susan Orlean, Woody Allen, and David Sedaris all submitted the exact same article just moments before me and editors are squabbling over which of these luminaries gets the by-line.

2. The unsolicited manuscript rejection committee saw Toy Story 3 over the weekend and now nothing is funny by comparison.

3. The New Yorker staff accidentally left their "automatic rejection" switch on and no one actually read the 760 words I slaved over this weekend; I've been sabotaged by technology.

4. By fantastic oversight on my part I forgot to tell them I was born in New York.

5. By fantastic oversight on their part they assumed nothing funny could come from a town whose tallest building is Ferndale Grain.

6. God wants me to have empathy for the rejects on American Idol.

7. Garrison Keillor's prediction is true, "The future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75."

8. The Shouts Dept. received 18 million unsolicited email submissions this morning and due to budgetary cut backs neither reader had time to savor my scintillating and witty prose.

9. In a science fictiony twist of fate someday New Yorker rejection notices will command big bucks on eBay rendering today's lost royalties a mere trifle.

10. Maybe my piece was so disagreeable they bent the three month rule and immediately rid their offices of my loathsome submission like it was anthrax. Meaning, it wasn't funny. Enough. For. Humor. Connoisseurs.

Ouch.

Coffee Aficionados

I drink instant coffee but don’t offer it to guests; I pull out my secret stash of the good stuff. Last Saturday, for example, I took from its honored place on the shelf our high priced coffee made for complicated machines that use measuring cups, filters, and glass pots. I don’t know how to run such machines so I asked our daughter Emily to make a pot of real good coffee for our son’s graduation party. She did and I thought all was well. At least I enjoyed my cup of this gourmet blend served only on special occasions.

When the party was over I was puzzled to see how much coffee was still in the pot but secretly happy; I had leftovers for the next few days! On Sunday morning I poured cold machine-made coffee into a mug and put it in the microwave. On Monday morning I did it again, polishing off the remains—good to the last drop.

Imagine my shock when Emily at a later family gathering informed me she didn’t drink Saturday’s coffee claiming it was inferior to fresh ground beans. We like our kids to be firm in their convictions but her smugness was one bean short of hoity-toity. I protested, “What’s wrong with that coffee? It’s not instant; it’s made for coffee makers!”

“Dad, that coffee is old!” she argued with more than a little fervency. “It smelled terrible!”

I said, “It wasn’t terrible. I reheated it twice since Saturday and it was great.”

At this news her husband Jason, all her siblings, and all their friends erupted. “What? You drank reheated coffee? The stuff Emily made from that old can?”

I marched into the kitchen, found the gourmet coffee, and presented it to them with flair, “What’s the matter with this can of coffee?”

Jason read it, “Fred Meyer Supreme Blend? They don’t even make that stuff any more.”

Daughter Olivia’s fiance Brandon removed the lid and sniffed. “This smells like old Saltine crackers and ground up twigs.” Elliot our 18 year old pulled some old Saltine crackers off the shelf for comparison purposes, apparently feeling this bolstered their case.

“But it’s two pounds, seven ounces of real coffee!”

Jason turned the can over and read, “Use before August, 2003.”

“You’re drinking coffee you got when Elliot was eleven!” came the cries. Apparently one is not supposed to drink, much less reheat, coffee that’s seven years old.

Brandon took the can and with flair dumped the contents into the garbage, “There! Now you can’t use it at all.”

Thoroughly chastened, I yielded. I couldn’t out-argue a mob of vociferous coffee aficionados, especially now that my secret stash was gone for ever.

So now I’m going to learn about coffee pots. I wonder how often one can reuse a filter and grounds.

The Joy of Cigar Smoking

Today our family celebrated our fifth and last child's graduation from High School. Elliot's older brothers have developed a hankering for cigars so I joined them (again). I gotta admit, there are three things about cigar smoking I find pleasantly otherworldly: 1) sitting still--it's hard to run around with lit stogies, 2) shooting the breeze in the back yard with guys age 18-29 --Vicki and I have great sons and daughters who hang with great guys, and 3) joining the ranks of great smokers of church history--Chas. Spurgeon, Soren Kierkegaard, R. C. Sproul, C. S. Lewis, and Gandalf. When I was a pastor I'd quip, "Smoking won't send you to hell; just make you smell like you've been there." I'm now eating my words. Apparently the smell of cigar smoke isn't as vile as I'd been lead to believe.

I also learned that my sons realized too late that--due to dad's lack of sense of smell--they could have smoked like chimneys all through their teen years and I'd never have known it. They prudently waited until legal age before lighting up.

Lennon and McCartney taught me to, "Curse Sir Walter Raleigh he was such a stupid get." Ronald Regan taught me, "Smoking Hippies dressed like Tarzan, looked like Jane, and smelled like Cheetah." Mark Driscoll taught me, "Cigar smoking + Christianity = Holy smokes!" (I made up that last quote). W. Churchill, T. Soprano, and D. DeVito taught me, "Close but no cigar!" And the young guys in my life taught me, "Clip off the ends, spit a lot, and drink lots of water."

Congratulations, Elliot! We're proud of you. We light up these tightly wrapped and finely aged Dominican Republic beauties in your honor.

Creativity in 5 Minutes

Jeff Warren's Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness includes a brief but nifty summary of the skills of the creative (p. 50). I list them here with elaboration.

1. Spontaneity: While contemplation and reflection are rare in our speed-of-light lives, one can think too much and too long. Fear of mistakes often paralyses creativity. Homework: try doing something impulsive this week (that isn't immoral, illegal, or fattening).
2. Effortlessness: I once wrote a letter to (and got an answer from) Kurt Vonnegut telling him how hard I laughed at his description of a woman, "whose greatest act of creativity was squishing old slivers of soap onto a new bar of soap." Creative acts need not be rocket science. Homework: Pay attention this week to all those tiny acts of creativity you do in the normal course of a day. If you can't find any, squish slivers of soap together.
3. Expressiveness: Social networking is fueled by expressiveness. Once I answered the question, "What do I care about people's daily breakfast menu?" I began to appreciate micro blogs as tiny acts of creative expression. Homework: post something on line this week; it lets your fans know you're alive and kicking.
4. Innocence: Creative people are typically too naive to know that something can't be done so they try it anyway. The result? The Wright brothers flying machine, Edison's incandescent light, Salk's vaccine, Dean Kamen's Segway, and Chuck Hoberman's sphere. Homework: don't let naysayers, party-poopers, or pessimistic drudges rain on your parade. Keep believing you are capable of creating new ways of doing things.
5. A lack of fear for the uncertain, ambiguous, or unknown: Control freaks, black and white thinkers, and the "highly certain" are generally not too creative. Homework: Instead of looking at the gray areas of life as threatening, see them as opportunities for creativity. A whole genre of Biblical literature is dedicated to ambiguity: wisdom literature (Job and Ecclesiastes in particular).
6. An ability to tolerate bi-polarities and to integrate opposites: Juxtaposing two different things unleashes all sorts of new ideas. Creativity is stifled when, for the sake of harmony, one polarity is ignored, eliminated, or discounted. Homework: this week list all the things apples and oranges have in common.