Author Archives: The Medievalist

On randomness

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The nature of a random event is both complex and chaotic, but again, predictable in a certain way. When you flip a coin, the result is both random and predictable because you will get either a head or a tail, but never know which one since all events are individual and isolated, independent, and do not foreshadow in any real way what the next result might be. Sometimes we use the word “random” to refer to unpredicted outcomes such as rain shower on a sunny day or an unannounced visit from weird Aunt Hortensia who normally lives in Portland but just happens to be in Minnesota for the weekend for no apparent reason. Nevertheless, neither the rain nor the visit are random, being more a part of predictable chaotic patterns to which we may not be privy. They seem “random” but if we had more information, we would understand how they might be “strange,” but certainly not random. Teenagers love to abuse this word to describe events that seem tangential or extraneous to them, but then again, it’s because they don’t see a bigger picture. The idea of randomness has bothered me every since I read The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1927) which tells the story of a number of people who are killed when a bridge collapses. “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below,” but is any of it random? The people are relatively unrelated and their stories and lives are all incredibly different, but they all die together when the bridge collapses. The question that the novel proposes, I suppose, is the random nature in life’s events–is there a meaning to it all or is it all random? How was it that those five people were all on the bridge at the same time and that the bridge decided to fail at that moment. At the end of Conan Doyle’s “The Cardboard Box,” Holmes remarks, “What is the meaning of it, Watson?” […] “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.” So sometimes, life looks really, really, random, even when, perhaps, it’s not.

On randomness

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The nature of a random event is both complex and chaotic, but again, predictable in a certain way. When you flip a coin, the result is both random and predictable because you will get either a head or a tail, but never know which one since all events are individual and isolated, independent, and do not foreshadow in any real way what the next result might be. Sometimes we use the word “random” to refer to unpredicted outcomes such as rain shower on a sunny day or an unannounced visit from weird Aunt Hortensia who normally lives in Portland but just happens to be in Minnesota for the weekend for no apparent reason. Nevertheless, neither the rain nor the visit are random, being more a part of predictable chaotic patterns to which we may not be privy. They seem “random” but if we had more information, we would understand how they might be “strange,” but certainly not random. Teenagers love to abuse this word to describe events that seem tangential or extraneous to them, but then again, it’s because they don’t see a bigger picture. The idea of randomness has bothered me every since I read The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1927) which tells the story of a number of people who are killed when a bridge collapses. “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below,” but is any of it random? The people are relatively unrelated and their stories and lives are all incredibly different, but they all die together when the bridge collapses. The question that the novel proposes, I suppose, is the random nature in life’s events–is there a meaning to it all or is it all random? How was it that those five people were all on the bridge at the same time and that the bridge decided to fail at that moment. At the end of Conan Doyle’s “The Cardboard Box,” Holmes remarks, “What is the meaning of it, Watson?” […] “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.” So sometimes, life looks really, really, random, even when, perhaps, it’s not.

On the blank tile

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There is a very well-known board game in which contestants put words on a grid that interlock, and they score points and play against one another. Each player has seven tiles, each with a little black letter on it, except for a couple of blank tiles that can be used by players as any letter at all–wild cards, so to speak. The playing board is a colorful grid marked with special squares such as “double letter” or “triple word” and players win by using both the grid and their letters to the greatest advantage, which is all very straight-forward, but just like chess, knowing the rules and developing a strategy are two different things. The blank tiles, which show up sporadically, are a strategic mystery in almost every sense. What point value, for example, constitutes using a blank? Thirty, forty, fifty? Or do you only use it for a seven letter bingo which brings in an extra forty or fifty points? The blank tile is a kind of promise for things to come, a bonanza of points yet to be achieved, an investment in the future. Yet, the blank tile is also a mystery because it doesn’t have a value at all–no points are associated with playing the blank. Even a lowly “a” will get you one point any day of the week, but the blank must derive its value from the other tiles being played. The blank tile brings no value of its own, so while it might be a “z” in “zeta”, that particular “zeta” won’t be worth more than 3 or 4 points. So the blank tile continues to be blank in many ways, unwilling to give up its chameleonic identity, blending with the other tiles as players plot their next moves.

On the blank tile

Posted on by

There is a very well-known board game in which contestants put words on a grid that interlock, and they score points and play against one another. Each player has seven tiles, each with a little black letter on it, except for a couple of blank tiles that can be used by players as any letter at all–wild cards, so to speak. The playing board is a colorful grid marked with special squares such as “double letter” or “triple word” and players win by using both the grid and their letters to the greatest advantage, which is all very straight-forward, but just like chess, knowing the rules and developing a strategy are two different things. The blank tiles, which show up sporadically, are a strategic mystery in almost every sense. What point value, for example, constitutes using a blank? Thirty, forty, fifty? Or do you only use it for a seven letter bingo which brings in an extra forty or fifty points? The blank tile is a kind of promise for things to come, a bonanza of points yet to be achieved, an investment in the future. Yet, the blank tile is also a mystery because it doesn’t have a value at all–no points are associated with playing the blank. Even a lowly “a” will get you one point any day of the week, but the blank must derive its value from the other tiles being played. The blank tile brings no value of its own, so while it might be a “z” in “zeta”, that particular “zeta” won’t be worth more than 3 or 4 points. So the blank tile continues to be blank in many ways, unwilling to give up its chameleonic identity, blending with the other tiles as players plot their next moves.

On a hot summer night

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Last night I couldn’t get to sleep at all, to coin a phrase. It is summer, course, and this is what summer is about: not sleeping because it’s just too hot–the bed is hot, the room is stifling, and no matter what posture you adopt, it is uncomfortable. Your neck is sweaty and sticky. Your head pounds just enough to keep you awake. You roll onto your side, trying to find that perfect posture that will bring sleep. Nothing. The minutes tick by. Maybe you should get up and read for a bit? Maybe a cold shower? Maybe you should eat something? You ponder all of this and all of a sudden you realize you have been in bed for an hour and you are still awake. The summer insomnia of a hot July night has you in its grasp, and you are helpless to escape. Once you realize what is going on, you not only can’t get to sleep, you now know that you can’t get to sleep. You have become self-aware of the problem, and sleep has sailed away into the night, leaving you on the shore of consciousness with no hope of getting off of that beach anytime soon. You obsess with being awake, which, of course, just aggravates the situation. In the meantime, morning is getting closer and closer, the night is still hot and humid, and now you are the only one still awake except for a few night creatures who wake up after dark. The garbage truck comes by. A few partiers are finally returning home after a long night debauchery and dissidence. You should be asleep. You should be doing your best simulacra of death, but you can’t, and you catch of glimpse of Phoebus nudging up to the horizon.

On a hot summer night

Posted on by

Last night I couldn’t get to sleep at all, to coin a phrase. It is summer, course, and this is what summer is about: not sleeping because it’s just too hot–the bed is hot, the room is stifling, and no matter what posture you adopt, it is uncomfortable. Your neck is sweaty and sticky. Your head pounds just enough to keep you awake. You roll onto your side, trying to find that perfect posture that will bring sleep. Nothing. The minutes tick by. Maybe you should get up and read for a bit? Maybe a cold shower? Maybe you should eat something? You ponder all of this and all of a sudden you realize you have been in bed for an hour and you are still awake. The summer insomnia of a hot July night has you in its grasp, and you are helpless to escape. Once you realize what is going on, you not only can’t get to sleep, you now know that you can’t get to sleep. You have become self-aware of the problem, and sleep has sailed away into the night, leaving you on the shore of consciousness with no hope of getting off of that beach anytime soon. You obsess with being awake, which, of course, just aggravates the situation. In the meantime, morning is getting closer and closer, the night is still hot and humid, and now you are the only one still awake except for a few night creatures who wake up after dark. The garbage truck comes by. A few partiers are finally returning home after a long night debauchery and dissidence. You should be asleep. You should be doing your best simulacra of death, but you can’t, and you catch of glimpse of Phoebus nudging up to the horizon.

On stroller blocking as an Olympic sport

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Call them whatever you want–useful, weird, bulky, broken–but baby strollers are going to be a new Olympic sport at the next games in Brazil in 2016. Just like bobsledding, there are different modalities, but all have to do with how well the driver of the stroller can block a sidewalk, a supermarket aisle, a street, an escalator, there will be different landscapes in which the stroller athlete will have to successfully block anyone from getting past them. The Olympic committee hasn’t finalized the rules yet, but some of the different modalities will be mother, baby, and dog, or mother, baby, and grandmother. They are also planning modalities which include other siblings, multiple family members, and fallen toys. Strollers will be categorized by cost, construction, width, and size of tires. All team members will have to be from the same country. There will be a special modality for colapsable strollers, people who eat ice cream, and mothers who cannot stop talking on their cell phones. Crying babies in the rain will occur on the final day of competition, featuring cross mother-in-laws, lost fathers, a dog pooping, the police, and multiple neighbors of varying sizes. There will be a special modality in which the parents carry the child and push an empty stroller while they both talk on their cell phones, the dog pees on grandma, and the older sibling skins her/his knee while rollerskating. Stroller blocking is not for the weak of heart, and all participants must where helmets (and men must wear hard cups). The sport has been criticized in the past for its overt violence.

On stroller blocking as an Olympic sport

Posted on by

Call them whatever you want–useful, weird, bulky, broken–but baby strollers are going to be a new Olympic sport at the next games in Brazil in 2016. Just like bobsledding, there are different modalities, but all have to do with how well the driver of the stroller can block a sidewalk, a supermarket aisle, a street, an escalator, there will be different landscapes in which the stroller athlete will have to successfully block anyone from getting past them. The Olympic committee hasn’t finalized the rules yet, but some of the different modalities will be mother, baby, and dog, or mother, baby, and grandmother. They are also planning modalities which include other siblings, multiple family members, and fallen toys. Strollers will be categorized by cost, construction, width, and size of tires. All team members will have to be from the same country. There will be a special modality for colapsable strollers, people who eat ice cream, and mothers who cannot stop talking on their cell phones. Crying babies in the rain will occur on the final day of competition, featuring cross mother-in-laws, lost fathers, a dog pooping, the police, and multiple neighbors of varying sizes. There will be a special modality in which the parents carry the child and push an empty stroller while they both talk on their cell phones, the dog pees on grandma, and the older sibling skins her/his knee while rollerskating. Stroller blocking is not for the weak of heart, and all participants must where helmets (and men must wear hard cups). The sport has been criticized in the past for its overt violence.

On endings

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Unlike beginnings, which are plenty scary by themselves, endings are often poignant and solitary. You drive off, you walk away from an airport, you get on a train or bus, you stroll down a street never to come back. A car door slams, you lock the door and turn away. It’s over. We have all been through our share of endings–a job, a school, a friendship, a life–so we all have our anecdotes about moving on, saying goodbye, and picking up the broken pieces so that we can start again. Endings make us wistful and nostalgic because we are not always sure that the new thing ahead of us is better than what is being left behind. We are plagued by our memories which torture us into remembering all of those great moments in the past when we were, at least for a moment, happy. The constant truth is that all things end, no matter how we feel about them. Change is, perhaps, the only constant in most of our lives. As a teacher, students come and students go, and that’s the way it’s always been. As an ex-pat in another country, my friends have come and gone many times, and now are scattered to the four corners of the world. It is hard to stay in touch, and even with different digital media sites, it is still difficult to maintain a real friendship from seven thousand miles away. And when old friends finally make their last trip, it is equally difficult to say goodbye, especially when you have known them for more than fifty years. Yet those fifty years are also a monument to that friendship which has had to endure a lot of stuff, not all good, much of it very good. Mortality is, in the end, about endings, and that is the way it must be–one of those rules nobody breaks.

On endings

Posted on by

Unlike beginnings, which are plenty scary by themselves, endings are often poignant and solitary. You drive off, you walk away from an airport, you get on a train or bus, you stroll down a street never to come back. A car door slams, you lock the door and turn away. It’s over. We have all been through our share of endings–a job, a school, a friendship, a life–so we all have our anecdotes about moving on, saying goodbye, and picking up the broken pieces so that we can start again. Endings make us wistful and nostalgic because we are not always sure that the new thing ahead of us is better than what is being left behind. We are plagued by our memories which torture us into remembering all of those great moments in the past when we were, at least for a moment, happy. The constant truth is that all things end, no matter how we feel about them. Change is, perhaps, the only constant in most of our lives. As a teacher, students come and students go, and that’s the way it’s always been. As an ex-pat in another country, my friends have come and gone many times, and now are scattered to the four corners of the world. It is hard to stay in touch, and even with different digital media sites, it is still difficult to maintain a real friendship from seven thousand miles away. And when old friends finally make their last trip, it is equally difficult to say goodbye, especially when you have known them for more than fifty years. Yet those fifty years are also a monument to that friendship which has had to endure a lot of stuff, not all good, much of it very good. Mortality is, in the end, about endings, and that is the way it must be–one of those rules nobody breaks.