Rangeman Talks to Some Kids

 Rangeman continued to walk all over NYC, wearing the watch which gave him superpowers,

swimming across the rivers, climbing trees and fire escapes and other structures to rescue cats, and spreading his superhero message: "Be nice!"

One day, in Brooklyn, he heard a bunch of small children yelling, "Rangeman! Rangeman!" He ran in the direction of the voices, trying to see what the emergency was which called for his superpowers. The children were pressed up inside a playground fence, jumping up and down and shouting his name. 

Eventually Rangeman figured out that there was no emergency, and that the children were just excited to meet him. "Okay, children," he said, "have you been being nice?"

The kids talked excitedly all at once about how being nice had accomplished so many amazing things in their lives. 

"It's great being nice, isn't it?" Rangeman asked, and the little kids jumped up and own and yelled their agreement. 

Then Rangeman noticed another group of kids inside the playground fence, a little way away, watching quietly. Nervous smiles, hands in pockets, a few pimples. These kids were older. Looked like junior high, maybe. Rangeman had already had some experience with kids in this age group. He knew they could be skittish. He knew that occasionally, kids in the junior high age group got the notion that being nice was uncool -- somewhat like Tony Stark, it suddenly occurred to him. Rangeman called over to the bigger kids, "And how about you? Have you been being nice?"

One of the older kids yelled back, "Did you really choke Tony Stark?" This question occasioned a ripple of nervous laughter among the bigger kids.

Rangeman sighed. "Yes, I really did choke Tony, a little bit. A couple of minutes after I met him. It was wrong for me to do that. Completely wrong."

Another one of the bigger kids yelled, "So why did you do it?"

"He was being a dick. A real dick. But that's no excuse! Tony has a lot of problems. Some people think billionaires don't have problems. But the truth is, Tony's parents both died when he was a kid, his dad had put a lot of pressure on him before that, he has a radioactive thing in his chest and he'll die if it comes out -- in short, children, he has a lot of exactly the same kinds of problems everybody else has. 

"None of that is any excuse for him being a dick. But him being a dick is also no excuse for me, or anyone else, to choke him. It's important to be nice even when it's very hard to be nice." 

After a short silence, the older kids all began shouting excitedly, about how he was right, about all of the problems which had been solved by their being nice, how awesome it was to be nice...

They fell silent again. One of the older kids asked, "Hey, Rangeman. Are you crying?"

"Yeff. I'm crying," Rangeman said, the fluids having turned the s in yes to an ff. Somebody tossed a package of Kleenexes over the fence. Rangeman said thank you, turned away to blow his nose, then faced the kids and said thank you again.

"Why are you crying?" one of the smaller children asked. "Are you unhappy?"

"No," Rangeman replied. "I'm crying because I'm very happy." He sensed that maybe the children didn't understand, so he explained: "Sometimes you get so happy that it's overwhelming, and it makes you cry. But it's not a bad thing. Not at all. You kids here -- all of you," he added, and waved his arms to include both groups, "are so awesome, that it makes me very happy."

A teacher had noticed that a grown man was talking to some children through the fence and approached to shoo him away, but as he got close he realized who it was. "Hey, Rangeman!" he shouted.

"Hi," Rangeman said back. "Outstanding bunch of children you have here."

"You got that right!" the teacher emphatically agreed.

"You got any cats need to be rescued?"

"No," the teacher said, "as far as I know, for now, all of our cats are good."

Rangeman walked away, and called over his shoulder, "Well, if that ever changes, you know how to contact me."

"That's right, Rangeman!" the teacher called back. But after a while he realized that, actually, he had no idea how to contact Rangeman.

RANGEMAN!

This is how an ordinary guy became the superhero Rangeman.

The ordinary guy lived in an apartment in NYC. There were three idiots who hung out on the front steps of his apartment building and harrassed people. The ordinary guy didn't have any reason to be intimidated by these  idiots, because he was a huge ordinary guy and strong as an ox. But he was very timid. He tended to go around with his head down and his shoulders hunched. 

One day he left his apartment and walked past the idiots, who were harrassing a young woman. They had taken her purse and were tossing it around, playing a game of keep-away. The ordinary guy hurried past, ashamed that he was afraid to do anything. 

Suddenly he was face to face with a gnarled figure in a hood who blocked his path on the sidewalk and glared at him. Lightning lit up the edges of his silhouette and thunder boomed as he looked at the ordinary guy and held up a Casio G-Shock Rangeman GW94001,

and said, "You really need this. I'll spare you the unboxing. Here," he said, and fastened it on the wrist of the ordinary guy, who suddenly became Rangeman. Thunder boomed again as lightning ominously lit the edges of things. 

Rangeman unhunched his shoulders and held his head up high. He turned around and returned to the entrance of his apartment building. "Give the lady her purse back and stop bothering her," he said. And because he was about as big as all three of the idiots put together -- and not fat. He was cut -- they did as he said and mumbled apologies and slunk away. The young lady gave Rangeman a big smile.

"Hey," the gnarled figure shouted, "I didn't just give you that watch. Hundred bucks. That's a good price. It's almost new."

Rangeman paid him and they parted with a friendly handshake.

A little while later, Rangeman was in Stark Tower, giving the Avengers a hand. Tony Stark pointed out a work station which had been set aside for him, with a desktop computer plugged into the big Stark/Avengers computer with its large screens looming over everything.

"Thanks," Rangeman said, as he took a few Casio gadgets from his backpack and arranged them in his station. "You all probably know that I'm autistic. That shouldn't be much of a problem, I hope. But I have a few quirks which I'd like you to respect. For instance, if you could just not touch anything in my station. I know it's silly, but it'll help me to concentrate and do a better job for you, and..."

And right on cue, Tony Stark, because he is a dick, because he had a traumatic childhood, had picked up a G-Shock which Rangeman had laid down in his station. "What's this -- Casio?" Tony asked, sneering at the inexpensiveness of the brand.

"Well, um," Rangeman said, "I've made a few modifications, but yes, it's a G-Shock..." and then Rangeman's voice trailed off, and he sighed and decided to just cut to the chase: he reached out, grabbed Tony by the larynx, and began to choke him just a little bit. "What's that, Tony?" he asked. "I can't make out what you're trying to say. Are you annoyed with me, because of the choking? Does it make you feel like I'm disrespecting your boundaries? Yeah, I can see how it might feel that way. Hey, imagine if you had specifically asked us all not to choke you, five seconds before I grabbed your larynx. That would've made it even worse, wouldn't it have? Are you getting my sarcasm, or have I already cut off too much blood flow to your brain?"

Tony let go of the G-Shock he had taken. Rangeman caught it in mid-air, set it back where it had been, and let go of Tony's throat. Tony gasped and bent over double as his face gradually returned to its normal color. Rangeman asked him, "Do you have a better sense of my boundaries now?' Tony coughed and nodded, nodded and coughed, and Rangeman shouted, "I HOPE SO!"

Once he had recovered his voice, Tony turned to the others and asked, "Were you going to step in at some point?"

"Why?" Captain America asked. "New Guy looked like he had the situation well in hand."

"Needed to be done." "I've been this close to choking you for months, Tony," others chimed in. Thor, Falcon and others. "Well done, New Guy!" "Wow, check out these guns! Oops, I'm sorry I didn't ask first."

"It's fine," Rangeman said, smiling, and even starting to laugh as the level of backslapping, muscle-squeezing, hair-tousling and general friendly rough-housing among big guys intensified. "It's obvious that you care and don't want to intentionally annoy me. And that alone makes a big difference."

"It DOES, doesn't ?!" "Did you catch that, Tony? Intentionally annoy other people less, get choked less!" "See how that works?" "I think New Guy's gonna be Employee of the Month!"

My Latin Novel

I've completed 2 novels: the first one, short enough that perhaps I should call it a novella instead of a novel, is entitled Salvation and is about Pontius Pilate and Jesus. In my version of the story, Pilate and Jesus are friends, and a lot of other details are different from the traditional story.

My second novel is entitled The Independents. It's about the friendship which develops between a very successful Hollywood movie director, one of Amurrka's most highly-acclaimed poets, who at the beginning of the story is becoming homeless, not for the first time (this is my sarcastic comment on haw badly Amurrka treats its poets. Seriously, in a whole long list of other countries, poets have it better than they do in the US), and a former Mafioso who doesn't want to be a thug anymore, and is on the run from his former associates, and some other people.

I've started quite a few other novels, including 2 which I started writing on this blog: a novel about angels, and a novel about 2 autistic men in London in 1900.

And then, there's my Latin novel, the novel I want to write in Latin, but I'm not sure whether I'll ever be fluent enough in Latin to do it right. I've been thinking about this one since long before I first heard of Capti by Stephen Berard, published in 2011, still the only novel I know written originally in Latin which has been published more recently than the 18th century. (Berard has promised that Capti is just the 1st of 7 novels he will write in Latin -- how long must we wait for the next one?!)

This novel will start with a preface, in Latin, by a member of a Native American tribe from the southwestern US, which is noted for having produced many first-rate Classical scholars. The preface is written by the editor of the text which comprises the bulk of the novel. The editor notes that it's not surprising that his tribe is rather adept at the Latin language, because it has been their native language for 1000 years. Very few academics outside of the tribe believe that they have been reading, writing and speaking Latin for 1000 years, but it is the truth, and the text which comprises the bulk of this volume is further evidence that it is true: it is the text of a recently-re-discovered manuscript which had been lost for a very long time, which contains a copy of the journal of the man who taught the tribe to read, write and speak Latin 1000 years ago. In the late 10th century, the author of this journal was a restless young European nobleman. He was restless in great part because he had read the Latin Classics, which depicted an ancient Roman society in which people could follow any religion they liked, or any combination of religions, or no religion whatsoever; whereas, in 10th-century, the young nobleman and everyone he knew was either a Christian, or pretending to be, because otherwise, they would be tortured and killed quite horribly.

At the beginning of the journal, the nobleman writes about how he has heard that there are non-Christians far to the north in Europe. He packs up a trunk with manuscripts of all of the Latin Classics known to him and heads north. He has many colorful and dangerous adventures. Everywhere he goes, he tries to teach Latin to whomever he meets who isn't already fluent in the language, and he has copies made of the Classical texts and urges his students to make still more copies and spread knowledge of the wonderful literature of ancient Rome.

For the most part, he finds few people who are interested in the training he offers. At times it is very difficult for him to keep possession of his treasure, the trunk full of Classical manuscripts. But he keeps it.

After teaching Latin to a few pagan Vikings and not having much hope of further spreading interest in his cause, he hears about an upcoming voyage. The Vikings have discovered a strange, non-European land, far across the bitterly-cold ocean to the west. He manages to get himself aboard a ship going to those strange lands. When the Vikings abandon their settlement in the strange Western land and sail back to Scandanavia, our narrator stays, and travels west with his trunk full of treasure, full of manuscripts. After many further travels and many more adventures, managing to find an individual or 2 here and there who are interested in the teaching he is offering, finally, in the area which present-day Arizona, he finds an entire tribe who are eager to meet him, who have heard of him, and who want to learn to read and write and speak Latin. And there he spends a long happy time, among a people who copy all of the Classical manuscripts, and master Latin with a joyous eagerness, so much so that, while the European nobleman, although no longer young at all, is still alive, they have adopted Latin as their new first language.

And that's my Latin novel. Or should I swell with hubris and over-ambition at my advanced age and the not-very-advanced stage of my skills in Latin, and nevertheless refer to it as my first Latin novel?

Scenario For a Mockumentary About People Obsessed With Heavy Slam Balls

The first subject is a great big guy, about 6 foot 3, 300 pounds, who is constantly carrying a 45 lb slam ball -- much like this one --

-- around with him, as he putters around at home, as he socializes, as he shops for groceries -- and also as he mows his small lawn with a non-motorized push mower. He's not always able to carry the ball on one of his shoulders and push the mower at the same time, and he ends up dropping the ball, pushing the mower for a couple of paces, and then retrieving the ball, and repeating the whole process.

While the man walks down a sidewalk with the ball on a shoulder, the interviewer is off screen, but we hear his voice: "Why don't you just leave the ball at home when you do things?"

The big man acts surprised, as if the answer were obvious. He sputters for a while before getting the words out: "If I left it at home, I'd miss it!" He looks toward the offscreen interviewer, frowning and shaking his head as if the question had been completely bizarre.

Next we see a young woman carrying around a ball like this one --

-- around the office where she works. She's rather small and slender, but has some muscle tone from working with the ball. There's a montage of her carrying the ball around while she struggles to do other things which are more routine in office work. There is a fair amount of grunting, groaning and sweating. One of the woman's co-workers, a man, says that he could see how it would be difficult to carry around an 85 lb ball all day, but was it really this tough? The offscreen interviewer informs the man that the "85" on this particular ball does not refer to pounds, but to kilograms. This ball, the interviewer tells the man, weighs over 187 pounds. The man is silent. He looks both shocked, and sincerely sorry that he had made any disparaging remarks about how difficult it was to do what his coworker is doing.

Finally, there is a man standing on a large yard in front of a large house. The lawn is dotted with dozens, if not hundreds, of yellows balls like this:

Like the woman in the previous segment, this man is not large, but his muscles have become somewhat defined from working with theses balls. He explains to the offscreen interviewer that each one of these balls weighs 300 lbs.

"It's strange," he says, "but each and every one of these balls was given to me, paid for and shipped to me by someone else, and in each case, the donor has been anonymous. It's strange, because, you know -- I'm a billionaire! These 300-pounders aren't cheap, but I could very easily have afforded to buy all of them for myself."

From offscreen comes the interviewer's voice, asking whether the man has donated any of these balls to gyms or other organization or individuals. The man is plainly shocked and appalled by the question: "Donated?!" he replied. "But -- these balls are mine, don't you see? I've bought plenty of other slams balls and given them away, but these ones are mine!" He stares in horror at the unseen interviewer, and asks, "Would you donate your pets or your children?"

We cut to another scene. The tension from the previous moment appears to have passed. From offscreen the interviewer asks whether the man can actually lift these 300 lb balls off of the ground. The man smiles at the question and exclaims, "I can certainly try!" He rushes over to the nearest ball, squats down next to it in the proper position for lifting something like this, or like an Atlas stone in a strongman competition: ball between his feet, bending with his legs until he can put both hands under the ball, holding his head up high and sticking his butt out to keep his spine braced. After a long moment of strain, during which the camera zooms in very close to the ball, daylight is clearly visible between the ball and the ground. The man splutters, "I got it off of the ground!"

And then suddenly he drops the ball and falls full length face down onto the lawn beside the ball. With his voice muffled because his face is pressed down into the lawn, the man says, "I think I may have injured myself."

Local Heroes

He sat in his tux in the gaping hole of broken glass in the storefront of her father's store, a little before dawn of a long night of galas and receptions and paparazzi and other photographers and movie stars and politicians and billionaires, sat there ready to fend off would-be looters or stray cats or owls or whoever else might try to violate the perimeter. She showed up before the cops did, and I watched the two of them, unnoticed, I'm pretty sure, from the black shade under the old oak across the street. I'd been watching them for most of our lives. You couldn't help but stare. They were godlike, even now, pushing 50: just a little bit more good-looking, graceful, charming and witty, both of them, than mere mortals could ever hope to be. She hiked up the skirt of her ball gown as she stepped around little piles of glass behind him, inspecting the damage. She stopped once and touched his shoulder and he shrank involuntarily at her touch. It still seemed she could make him nervous; she, and nobody else I knew of. They spoke for a little while, their voices just a little too low for me to hear what they were saying.

The three of us had gone to the same public schools in this neighborhood in Brooklyn. They were three grades ahead of me, king and queen of the proms, took turns as class president, and most likely to everything. I know now that nobody's lives turn out as expected, but even with huge expectations, their lives hadn't disappointed. She went from the kind of photographer whose pictures are shown in art galleries to a weather girl when arty photography wasn't paying the bills. And although she got the job because of typical weather-girl va-va-voom, amazingly, she subverted the job with feminist irony and wit, and was also actually way above average with the meteorology. Besides the usual reasons, people actually watched her because her forecasts were more accurate than the rest. From weather girl she moved very quickly to local reporter to anchor to network reporter to... what she is, there's only one. She hosts a weekly network news show and frequent specials. She's outspoken about politics. She might become President. And all along, she's made a point of not hiding her very active sex life. She said she made a point of not hiding it because when a man was active in a similar way it tended to make him a hero, and she refused to allow herself to be shamed for something natural and healthy, and more to the point, something a man would be admired for.

She was always very generous with her time and help for people starting out in the business. For me, for example: she hooked me up with my first TV cameraman gig, said, "Okay, I'm vouching for you, Champ, don't let me down," and gave me a smile which made me shiver, and a kiss on the cheek which made my heart pound, and made me want to make sure I didn't let her down more than I've ever wanted anything in my relatively lukewarm life. I guess I didn't let her down. I'm still employed as a cameraman and occasionally lately as a news segment producer.

He became a tennis god right out of high school. He became world famous right away, and rich from product endorsements and commercials. The fame and money had much more to do with his looks than with the quality of the tennis he played, as was the case years later with Anna Kournikova. And just as with Kournikova, if you complained that he wasn't such a great tennis player, you were missing the point.

His tennis career didn't last nearly as long as Kournikova's: he had been a pro for just a year and a half when he severely broke his racquet arm in a car crash. All the bones in his forearm were broken through in several places each. It's not often that an arm fracture is so severe as to require hospitalization. They kept him in the hospital for a week just because of his arm.

And during that week -- how much on purpose on his part, I still have no idea -- pictures of him behaving inappropriately with several female nurses and one female doctor -- not all at once -- became public. He had already been seen out and about with many different women during his brief tennis career.

His arm never healed enough for him to play tennis vigorously again, but very soon it had healed enough so that he could type, and soon he was writing newspaper stories good enough to surprise people who'd had him pegged as an airhead stud. Besides the reporting, he began to publish well-received short stories and novels. The combination of his reporting and his looks lead him pretty soon into the same TV-news world as his former schoolmate.

Neither of them ever had time for a day of college.

Then, in their late 20's, after a decade of each of them having very famously dated a lot of people, it happened: very strangely, he suddenly fell very publicly, extremely awkwardly and embarrassingly, and unrequitedly, in love with her. He sobbed like a baby in front of live TV cameras when he was supposed to be reporting stories, talked about her and cried on talk shows -- which certainly didn't discourage talk shows, the vultures, from booking him. He made about as big a public spectacle of himself as possible without getting himself fired from all of his gigs. She stayed composed, and was about as nice about it all as anyone could be who honestly just didn't like him that way.

The crying and making a spectacle of himself lasted for months. Then finally he got a grip on himself and started to behave more normally again. But it seemed obvious that he never got over her. He kept right on with his extremely busy romantic life. He kept right on with that even during the crying and saying embarrassing things phase. But he never seemed to see a contradiction there.

They both went on being godlike -- Olympian -- in their sex lives. That very night, one of his latest relationships had gone very public, with a just-turned-legal former gymnast. She was dating an actor not much older than the gymnast. The general public reaction seemed to be that whoever they dated was not being used, but was very, very lucky. The young women who'd been with the former tennis god, the young men who'd been with the former artsy photographer -- they all seemed to wander around in a blissful daze, as if they been blessed by supernatural spells most of us can never hope to experience.

And during his public freak-out over her 20 years earlier, although she didn't return his passion, they became good friends, and they had stayed very good friends, with that unrequited thing hanging there between them the whole time. Strangely, that kind of made sense.

This evening, this long night of galas and other parties, he had ended up with some others of us from the neighborhood, and we all rode the subway together in our tuxes back to Brooklyn, and someone had a football, and he had for some reason been standing in front of her father's old store when someone fired a pass which sailed over his head and was thrown hard enough that it actually shattered the decades-old plate glass storefront. Her dad's appliances and furniture were exposed to the night air and potential looters and stray cats and owls. He immediately took out his phone and dialed 911 and sat down amid the broken glass to guard his beloved lady's father's store. Why had he been standing right there waiting for someone to pass him the ball?

You're Not Always As Young As You Feel

"Okay, we're getting ready for the 4th quarter of this barn-burner between the Boston Celtics and the Phoenix Suns, and we've had a lot of good guesses to our trivia question: Who is the oldest player in the history of the NBA? but no correct guesses. And I'm really not surprised, because this was a tough one."

"Well, you know, age is just a number anyway."

"No, age is more than just a number."

"You're as young as you feel."

"Again -- untrue. Sometimes some people feel young who are in fact very old. The same way that sometimes some people feel pretty who are not."

"Oh, come on!"

"I'm just being real here."

"Well, if we're being really real here, I've got to call you on that one, because beauty is irreductably subjective."

"Well played, Sir, you are absolutely correct. But age is irreducably objective."

"I grudgiungly concede the point."

"Anyway, people guessed Robert Parrish, Kevin Willis and Dikembe Mutombo, and those are all very good guesses. Those guys are all in the top 5."

"I guessed Nat Hickey."

"Yes, and so did a few of our callers. Hickey was the head coach of the Providence Steamrollers in 1947-48, in the very early days of the NBA, and he put himself in in 2 games, and he was nearly 46 years old at the time, and, until, let's see, until about 10 years ago he was the oldest player in the history of the league."

"So somebody broke Hickey's record in 2007 --"

"2006."

"2006. I'm trying to think of guys who'd been in the league for a long time in 2006. You already siad it wasn't Willis or Mutombo."

"This is a tricky one.'

"Stockton?"

"No."

"Malone?"

"No."

"Grant Hill?"

"No. Okay, I'm going to end your suffering soon. One reason why this is so difficult is because most of the oldest players in the NBA, or the oldest players in most major league sports, have been All-Stars, superstars. This is a solid player, no doubt, or they wouldn't keep hiring him. He's solid, but he hasn't started very many games. As a matter of fact, over the course of his career, he hasn't even appeared in as many regular-season games as he's sat on the bench. Not injured reserve, but active and sitting out the games on the bench."

"You mean?"

"And he's played in this game, tonight."

"You mean Steven Bollinger?"

"That's correct. Steven Bollinger is the all-time oldest player in the history of the NBA."

"I didn't realize he was that old. I mean, yeah, he's got a few grey hairs, he's obviously not a kid -- wait a minute. Wait just a minute. You said Hickey had the record until 10 years ago?"

"I did say that."

"Has Bollinger held the record for 10 years?"

"Yes he has."

"That means he's -- holy shit!"

"Careful, we're on the air!"

"I apologize, ladies and gentlemen. You're trying to tell me that Steven Bollinger, journeyman reserve point guard for the Phoenix Suns, is 56 years old?!"

"Yes. Except, someone who's been in the league as long as he has, I think you refer to him as 'veteran' instead of 'journeyman.'"

"I stand corrected. 56! Wow, no wonder his knees and elbows and wrists are all taped up so often."

"I was talking to him before the game and he said he wished there were some way they could also wrap a hip. Says it might be a trick hip that finally ends his career."

"Did he say that he hurts all over most of the time?"

"As a matter of fact, he did. Not in a whiny way. He wasn't complaining, we were just talking about what it's like to be 56 and trying to keep up with all of these -- kids, from Bollinger's point of view. He actually called me 'Kid,' too. I didn't mind that, because -- well, because he's freakin' old!"

"So, he was drafted -- when, along around the mid-80's? Where did he play in college?"

"He didn't play college basketball, and he wasn't drafted. He declared for the 1979 draft out of high school. 10 rounds came and went and he wasn't drafted, but he managed to get himself a tryout with the LA Lakers, made the practice squad, and by the time the 1979 regular season started, he was on the roster. And he's been either on an NBA roster or an NBA injured reserve, not just every season, but every day of every NBA season since."

"Wait a minute -- he's not the oldest and also the youngest player in NBA history, is he?"

"4th-youngest. And he's also been very outspoken about how he thinks college athletics are a bad deal for athletes. He's called it a brilliant scam to keep from paying professional athletes. And if you look at other countries and how they tend to have a number of different professional leagues for each sport -- very much like how there used to be very many different minor leagues in baseball before college baseball eliminated a lot of them --"

"-- Except that in other countries, instead of minor leagues belonging to a major league franchise, all the teams are independent of one another..."

"-- And teams move up and down from one league to another based on their season records. Exactly."

"Right. So... Steven Bollinger. My goodness. He does not look 56 years old from the neck down. Good for him. 1979 to 2007... So he's in his 38th season in the NBA. I'm guessing his lead in the record category of longest career as a player in the NBA is rather substantial."

"He is nowhere near the lead in most games played, but in number of seasons played, he is 17 years ahead of Robert Parrish and Kevin Garnett."

"17 years and counting."

"Yes. You are correct. You are incorrect when you say that age is just a number and that you're as pretty as you feel, but when you're right, you're right."

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Fiktion Wichtig Nehmen Ist Albern, Aber Das Tue Ich Noch

SPOLIER ALERT! LIES ZUERST HESSES SIDDHARTHA, ODER KOENNTE FOLGENDES EINIGES FUER DICH SPOILEN!

Ich erinnere mich nicht mehr, zu welcher Zeit ich anfing, Literatur sehr wichtig zu nehmen. Ich weiss nicht mehr, wann ich begann, selbst Fiktion zu schreiben. Mit 8 Jahren schrieb ich das Drehbuch zu einem kurzen Filme, vielleicht was das mein erster Versuch als Author, vielleicht nicht.

Ich erinnere mich sehr genau, wie mir so um 1987 oder '88, als ich 25 oder 27 Jahre alt war, ganz ploetzlich, in einem Klassenzimmer in der University of Tennessee, Knoxville, wo wir Aenglistik sehr wichtig und gewichtig nahm, von einem Augenblick zum naechsten, das ganze mir komplett albern vorkam: zwei Jahrhunderte frueher hatte ein englischer Dichter ein Gedicht geschrieben, und nun nahmen wir das Gedicht sehr ernst.

Ich gar nicht zuletzt. Es war ein honors course, ein Seminar fuer Fortgeschrittene unter Tennessees Studenten, fuer Studenten, die Gedichte besonders ernst nahmen, und ich hatte sie vielleicht gar ungewoehnlich ernst genommen auch verglichen mit diesen anderen honors students. Es kann sein, ich erinnere mich nicht genau, dass es mir alles ueploetzlich doof vorkam, als ich selbst mitten in einem von den praetentioesen Spontan-Reden war, mit denen ich in solchen Seminaren gar nicht scheu war.

Oder vielleicht sprach zu diesm Augenblck die Professorin, oder ein/e von den anderen honors-Student/innen.

Das Bewusstsein von der peinlichen Eitelkeit und Leerheit des ganzen hat mir seit nun fast 30 Jahren nicht losgelassen. Trotzdem, bliebe ich in diesem Seminar, machte meinen Bachelor of Arts zu Ende, machte einen Anlauf auf graduate school. Ich habe tratzdem noch wir vor Fiktion geschrieben. Ich habe gar zwei Romane zu ende geschrieben, unter wohl mehr als einer Dutzenden, welche ich angefangen habe.

Aber seit diesem einen Augenblick der Eleuchtung und Entzauberung ist der Anteil der Fiktion scharf gesunken unter dem, was ich geschrieben habe, und die der non fiction gestiegen.

Diesen Tag sprach ich privat mit dieser Professorin darueber. Sie schien mich nicht zu verstehen. Ich habe bisher keinen Aenglisten oder Germanisten oder Dichter gefunden, der aehnlicher Meining zu sein scheint.

Ich las also Hermanns Hesses Siddhartha, in der Hoffnung, es wuerde mir helfen, endlich den sehr hoch geschaetzten Romancier auch schaetzen zu koennen, und zuerst ging alles gut. Aber als mir klar wurde, dass die Titelfigur Siddhartha nicht Siddhartha Gautama, aka der Buddha, war, sondern ein Zeitgenosse mit gleichem Vornamen und einigen Aehnlichkeit der beiden Biographien, und dass dieser Roman keine Biographie des Buddhas ist, fing mir an, sauer zu werden.

Leider mag ich Hermann Hessens Screiben immer noch nicht. Vielleicht sollte ich es doch aufgeben, herausfinden zu wollen, was es dann so besonderes on Das Glasperlenspiel ist.

Vielleicht is Hesse einfach nicht fuer mich.

Warum? Vielleicht weil ich nicht noch den Dingern suche, nachdem er und die beiden Siddharthas suchten. Ich suche nicht nach Erleuchtung, sei es, weil ich schon erleuchtet bin oder sei es weil ich gar nicht einmal verstehe was Leute meine wenn sie "Erleuchtung" sagen, oder warum auch immer: ich suche nach anderen Dingern. ("Moechtest Du Erleuchtung bekommen?" "Nein, danke sehr, Magister. Um ganz ehrlich zu sein, wuerde ich sehr viel lieber ganz grosse Mengen von Geld bekommen, als Erleuchtung.")

Vielleicht finde ich den Zugang zu Hesse nicht, weil er Theologe oder etwas Theologenaehnliches ist. Leser dieses Blogs kenne meine Allergie gegen Theologisches sehr gut. Wenn Goethe und Nietzsche ueber Theologie schreiben, verstehe ich sie sehr gut.

Alles, was ich mit Sicherheit ueber die Sache weiss, ist, dass ich Siddhartha ca 30 Seiten Lang mochte and dann stets weniger, und dass ich jetzt gar keine Lust habe, mehr von Hesse zu lesen, und dass ich es lieber mit Aristoteles Πολιτικά versuchen mag, und mit einigen anderen vorchristlichen griechischen Authoren, die hier in Ausgaben von Teubner und Oxford und Loeb und Anderen rumliegen. Eigentlich wurde mir gestern gar prickelnd nach Aristoteles, lange bevor ich Siddhartha zu Ende gelesen hatte. (Wustest Du eigentlich, wie schwach die Handschiften-Ueberlieferung von Aristoteles' Politik ist? Um 1930 schrieb H Rackham: "The oldest evidence for the text is a translation in barbarous Latin by a Dominican monk of the thirteenth century, William of Moerbeke in Flanders [...] The five best extant Greek copies are of the fifteenth century [...]" Seitdem haben Funden von Papyri dies aufgebessert, aber nicht um vieles.)

Alternate Histories Of The 20th Century

It was Oswald Spengler who got me thinking about the things which led to this recent blog post about the Imperial election of 1519 and also to this one, about early 16th-century Europe more in general. I was flipping through the Untergang des Abendlandes when I came across, on pp 192-3 of this edition,



a passage which is silly even by Spengler's standards: first the assertion that Columbus had very nearly made his famous voyage of discovery for the French instead of for the Spanish; then, the assertion that if Columbus had sailed for the French, Francis I would, without question, have been crowned Holy Roman Emperor instead of Charles I of Spain becoming Emperor Charles V, and then some absurdly specific pronouncements of the differences in history which the different outcome of the Imperial election would have caused, such as different, French styles of diplomacy dominating the age instead of the Spanish diplomacy, and different, French wars happening instead of the Spanish wars which did happen, and that we would think of French people who had never been born instead of Philip II, Alba, Cervantes, Calderon, Cervantes and so forth; and finally, that the "inner logic" of the age, which had to find its "ultimate expression" in the French Revolution -- "or an event of analogous content" would not have been affected by any of this.

Yeah! Spengler could really talk some mess, he was a thoroughly un-profound person who managed to pass himself off, for a while at least, as one of the deepest thinkers of the 20th century. But what he wrote is interesting. It just doesn't have much to do with the original, groundbreaking study of history which Spengler claimed it was. It's alternate history, which is not a study of history, but a genre of fiction.

Sometimes the difference between a deep novelist and a silly historian is very simply that the novelist freely admits that what he is writing is fiction, and the historian doesn't admit, or, worse, doesn't even realize that he's writing fiction. I'm not saying that Spengler could have been an interesting novelist, I'm saying that he was, and that it's a real shame that his work is considered to be non-fiction. That has only added confusion to a world which already contains much too much confusion.

Many books have been written about Jesus. They're all fiction. I myself have written one of them, a novella. The less-deluded and/or more honest among those of us who have written such books have admitted that we were writing fiction. It's not just that no one knows enough for sure about Jesus to fill even a short book -- we don't know anything for sure about him yet, not even whether or not he existed.



So, I sometimes imagines alternative scenarios of the 20th century. Mostly ways in which less war might have occurred. I have no idea what, if anything, is actually to be learned from such fantasies:

I've spent quite a lot of time imagining the Allied invasion of Anzio in World War II going much differently. I imagine General Patton in charge of the invasion instead of the General Lucas who was its commander in real life, and squandered the tremendous opportunity gained by the Germans having not noticed the invasion at all and having practically no troops in the area. Instead of moving quickly from the beachhead, expanding it and taking as much territory as possible before the Germans reacted, Lucas inexplicably stayed on the beach offloading equipment for two days, until the Germans had the beach surrounded, and the Allied troops there were sitting ducks and were slaughtered.

Lucas sounds like a quartermaster to me. My alternative version of events begins with someone convincing Eisenhower, before the invasion, that Lucas is all wrong for the job -- that he's a quartermaster, not an invader. This insight allows Eisenhower to transfer Lucas without hurting his feelings: he says to Lucas: "There's been a change of plans: our warehouses and depots in Naples are in a disastrous state. It's a huge clusterfuck, supplies aren't moving at all. It's imperative that things change down there immediately, and you're just the guy to go in there and kick some ass and get everything organized. We'll have Patton or somebody do the Anzio landing." Calling it a "landing" instead of an "invasion" to stay as close as possible to Lucas' mindset and ward off any clue he might have that any of this has to do with a weakness of his.

So, Patton lands on January 22, 1944 and immediately zooms off toward Rome, 30 miles away. Instead of the Germans holding Rome until June as they did in reality, Patton takes the city in the early morning of 24 January. In reality, with the Allied troops stuck in Anzio, the abbey Monte Cassino, in a pass in the high mountains mountains to the south-east of Rome, was where the Allied advanced was held for months and tens of thousands of Allied soldiers died. In my alternate version, after Rome is taken, the Allies quickly surround Monte Cassino by occupying the width of the Italian penisula west to east to Monte Cassino's north. The abbey is completely cut off from all supplies and reinforcements on February 8, surrenders on February 14, and a domino effect of Allied momentum and German surrenders accelerates until German soldiers in Berlin rebel and kill Hitler and Germany surrenders before the D-Day invasion can even take place.

Another alternate history does away with World War II altogether, by completely changing Hitler's personality. After World War I, while Hitler is spying on radical groups for the German army, one of which groups in real life he would join and which would eventually become the Nazi party -- instead of all of that, he happens to meet a theatre troupe, falls in love with an actress, becomes an actor, shaves off the moustache ("I don't think it looks good even on Chaplin," his girlfriend and co-worker says), and the exposure to the theatre melts his icy heart, love and tenderness drive out the rage and hatred which were there, WWII never happens.

Or we could go back further and do away with both world wars: instead of assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess Sophie, which led to World War I in real llife, Gavrilo Princip, aggrieved at Austria's domination of the Balkan Slavs, misses. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie are unharmed. Princip is not executed because Franz Ferdinand himself, after much exertion, convinces Emperor Franz Joseph to spare his life. Franz Ferdinand visits Princip in prison. Often. Princip notices that the Archduke has become thinner. "I hope it's not because you've fallen ill," he says politely. "No," Franz Ferdinand replies,"I've been exercising more and eating more sensibly. Having come so close to being killed and survived, I felt as if I'd been given another chance at life. I've given some very serious thought to what I want to do with what time I have left." "And why did you give me another chance?" Princip asks. "Because," the Archduke replies, "I felt that there was enough good in you that it would be wrong to completely give up on you. And also because I feel that the enmity between your people and mine must end. We both want life to improve for the Serbs, don't you realize that?" Princip doesn't believe anything the Archduke says for a while. But gradually he sees an earnest man grappling with monstrously huge matters of politics, where before he had only seen a monster. He's moved to much more comfortable quarters, and he and the Archduke, to the amazement of the world, become friends. Years later, after the Archduke has become the Emperor, Princip is freed. Franz Ferdinand oversees the gradual and peaceful dismantling of the Empire, letting the various Southern Slav nations become states of their own.

All the tremendous energy which was spent in the world wars in real life, and all of the ingenuity which went went into developing ever-deadlier weapons, in my fictional version goes instead into peaceful exertions in science and engineering and the arts. In real life Ferdinand Porsche made a hybrid-electric car around 1900; in my fictional version, plug-ins have largely replaced gasoline-burning cars and airplanes, and coal-and-oil burning ships, by 1920. By 1925, between wind, solar, tidal and geothermal power, there is scarcely any demand for petrochemical fuel anymore, neither for vehicles nor factories nor to heat homes. The air becomes cleaner, the climate doesn't destabilize. The Black Hills of South Dakota remain un-strip-mined. Communism spreads, peacefully. The Internet is in hundreds of millions of homes and offices by 1940. By 1960 there is no longer any need for currency, and human hunger and homelessness are no more. By 2015, some of the brighter chimpanzees and gorillas have begun to write and publish books.

HOLLYWOOD!!!

"Whaddya got?"

"A mob comedy with somebody like DeNiro in the lead."

"Like Analyze This! ?"

"Definitely in that ball park."

"Lovin it."

"DeNiro's definitely a crook, he's connected, but he's not violent like most of his gumbas. He's a con artist."

"Lovin it more."

"Long cons, elaborate schemes, very theatrical. The Sting, Spanish Prisoner, think those kinds of jobs. But he cons the wrong guy. He didn't know it, but the last guy he ripped off is the son of a very high-up boss. It doesn't matter that he gave all the money back and apologized, the insult is still too grave -- all his friends are trying to kill him now. So he uses his skills as a long-con guy, and invents an identity he can use to hide. He figures, where is a place, a milieu, seldom frequented by wise guys? The fashion and beauty industry. He creates an identity like Dr Whatsisname, the guy with the miracle youth cream, who has the infomercials with Cindy Crawford and the melons."

"Yeah. I know the guy you mean. I can't think of his name either but I know who you mean."

"Yeah, so he's pretending to be someone with a European accent and a miracle anti-aging treatment, except he's not nearly as smooth as Dr Magic Melons. Much more like Jacques Clouseau, except louder and angrier. And he actually does get women to look a lot better, but it's not because of the 'special extract' he's claiming he made in his lab, which is actually Lubriderm put into vials he gets from a place that stocks chemistry labs. The Lubriderm does no harm to the ladies' skin, but he makes himself look like an age-defying genius with 2 things: 1, the placebo effect, pure and simple. He tells the women he's got a miracle cure, and they believe it's miraculous because they want it to be. 2 is where the loud angry yelling comes in. He waves his arms and yells at his 'patients' that in order to 'activate' the full effect of the 'extract,' they have to drink a lot of water and eat a lot of vegetables and exercise and stay out of the sun and so forth -- whatever they should've been doing to keep their skin looking nice but they weren't. So of course they look much better. And DeNiro takes credit for it. And DeNiro says that he uses the 'extract' himself, and people look at him a little funny, cause, ya know, it's DeNiro. He's not exactly peaches and cream. But then he adds that he's 105 years old and he didn't start using the 'extract' until he was in his 80's, and everybody's, 'Wow, he looks so good for a 105-year-old man.' And he gets a job as a columnist for a health & beauty mag. This is the gumba-free zone he's blending into for camouflage. I see somebody like Katherine Heigl as a scrappy, good-hearted co-worker, and Cate Blanchett as the over-the-top tyrannical publisher."

"Yes! I see it! Yes! Which one is the love interest, Heigl or Blanchett?"

"Hell, he's a con man -- why not both? Heigl because she's less than half DeNiro's age and this is a Hollywood movie, so it's practically a law that she has to fall for him hard, and with Blanchett, I see the two of them haggling over his contract. It has a clause where Blanchett's rag gets a percentage of any writing he does for anybody else. What percentage? He says, 'How about 10 percent.' She says, 'I was thinking more like 15.' He gives her a killer fake-French smile and says, 'Well zen -- how about 20?' And Blanchett has a little shudder like she's just had an orgasm sitting there."

"Oh, baby! Sold! Sold! Erica! Get in here! Call Bob DeNiro, Katie Heigl, Cate Blanchett and Bobby Zemeckis. Tell em to call me, I got a comedy for them with a script like they never dreamed about. Listen! Very important: tell each one of them that the other three are already committed, you got that? Okay, get outta here, go do your magic with the phones, Sugarpants. So, Mr Genius Writer, my new best friend, you got a title already for this blockbuster?"

"Of course: Moisturize This!"

"YES! This masterpiece is gonna go from pitch to production faster than any movie since Roger Corman stopped doing crank!"

The Idea That Stories In The Bible Are Metaphors Is A Contemporary Myth

Nota bene (That's Latin. It means "note well."), I'm not saying that I believe that Noah built an ark and saved all those animals, or that Samson killed all of those people with the jawbone of an ass. I'm saying that the authors of the Bible, and ancient Jews and Christians, and also most Jews and Christians and Muslims until pretty recently, believed those things happened. Of course, the fundies still believe it. But there has emerged this other group within these religions which still believes in God, and still believes that the Bible is the most important book in the world, but not only no longer themselves believe things like the stories of Noah actually happened, but also are insisting, not only with straight faces but also with advanced degrees in theology and sometimes, unfortunately, in other fields as well, such as Biblical Studies or even ancient history in general, that those stories were ORIGINALLY WRIITEN AND UNDERSTOOD as metaphors, and that literalism and fundamentalism are aberrations from the main traditions of these religions, when, in plain fact, they are not aberrations but holdovers, continuations of the old beliefs.

Where does this recent belief in the non-literal intent of the Bible authors come from? Like other irrational religious beliefs, it comes from an unwillingness to face certain realities. In this case it's an unwillingness to see the ancient world for what it was, the unwillingness to see the similarities between the Abrahamic religions and other ancient beliefs, and the unwillingness to see how much primitive ancient mentality has been brought into our own time by those religions.

Some people believed that Hercules actually existed before Christianity came into the Graeco-Roman world and stomped all over the local religions of which the tales of Hercules and Zeus and Athena and Hermes were a part. In the case of metaphors and fiction, it's clear to both the authors and the audience that the stories are made up. Not so in the case of myths and religion. The Greeks and Romans, many or most of them, believed that lightning and thunder were giant spears hurled by Zeus (whom the Romans called Jupiter), that when the seas became stormy it was because Poseidon (Neptune to the Romans) was agitated, that Aphrodite (the Roman Venus) looked after people in love, and so forth. The Greeks and Roman pagans were much more tolerant when it came to open discussion of religion than were the Christians who wiped their religions out, and so every now and then an ancient Greek or Roman philosopher would express his opinion that all the stories about the gods were nonsense and that no rational person should believe they existed -- but these philosophers were expressing minority opinions, they were going directly against the grain of their society at large. There's no reason to believe that most pre-Christian Romans and Greeks didn't believe in the literal existence of many, many gods and goddesses. The city of Rome in particular was famous as home to a vast number of religions collected from all over the Empire, and many individual Romans each worshiped many different deities. Some of them worshiped Jesus along with many other deities, before Christian authorities made it very plain that to properly practice Christianity meant no longer worshiping deities of any other religions, and, in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, destroyed the many temples of other religions which stood all over the Empire.

There's no RATIONAL reason to believe that the tales of the supernatural in any ancient religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, began as anything other than stories which were believed to be literally true. An irrational reason to believe that they began as fiction and metaphor, with everyone understanding that's what they were, is to deny the distance between the literal belief in them on the one hand and modern knowledge of how the world works on the other, and to insist that the Bible and the Koran are full of "timeless wisdom," and do not merely reflect the worldview of people who believed -- really, literally believed -- that what happened to them was the result of the actions of a huge supernatural Being, and that angels, actual winged angels, watched over us, and that after we died we would be judged and sent to a paradise to live in joy forever or to a pit to be tortured forever, a pit run by an evil angel who'd been expelled from the paradise, and so forth. It's as clear as can be that the founders of these religions and the authors of these holy texts literally, unmetaphorically believed all of that, just as the Graeco-Roman pagans literally believed that their gods lived on Mount Olympus and frequently came down in disguise from the mountain to take part in human affairs. One thing which these ancient books actually can tell us is how far we've come in our understanding since the time when they were written.

That is, of course, some of us. Clearly, others can't get through a single day without making things up. Luckily for very many of them, today just as thousands of years ago, religion offers them jobs.

Draft of a Novel, ch 2, pt 1

And so a protective detail was assigned to Michael, in addition to the one now protecting Giuseppe. It was thought best to separate Michael and Giuseppe for the moment. The most urgent task right now, besides protecting the two of them, was to figure out what Seraphiel wanted with Michael. For the time being Michael was being kept in a dimension not accesible to humans, with a guard of about twenty angels, most ranked higher than Michael and more powerful than him. It was a strong guard, a sign that the situation was being taken seriously. But it was also much simpler than keeping him among the billions of humans, hiding him among them like a needle in a haystack. If anyone had assumed that Michael could possibly have been important enough to the other side for them to start a full-scare war over him, then they would've hidden him among the humans, and kept moving him from place to place. Here the other side could see him and his guard quite plainly.

In such a situation some angels might have been insulted to be held in plain view, in open acknowledgment of their lowly position in the grand scheme of things. Not Michael. He had no illusions about his place in the world. Besides, he was bothered about something else right now: Ellen kept laughing at him. She had been one of the dozen who showed up in Giuseppe's kitchen when he called, she had come with Michael straight from there to here, and ever since his stuttering attack when Giuseppe said that Seraphiel was looking for him, Ellen had not stopped giggling.

Michael liked Ellen. A lot. He was heterosexually oriented, and he had had a big crush on her for about a century now, he just found her to be very, very beautiful and witty and smart and wonderful. He hadn't told her yet about his feelings, but he hadn't been in a relationship with any other female angels in the last century, either. He was taking his time.

And now here she was laughing in his face for being afraid, and mocking his stutter in front of all the other angels. "Uh-eek! Ick! Ack Ook!" she said, holding her side which apparently was starting to hurt now, because she had been laughing so hard for so long. "You sounded just like a character in an old Warner Bothers cartoon, when they start to sputter and babble in fear!" She wiped a tear from her eye. "Aw, don't be cross! It was adorable!" She stepped in close and squeezed his arm and rested her head on his chest as a few last waves of laughter came out of her. And suddenly Michael wasn't annoyed at all anymore, not in the slightest. Now he blushed and was perfectly happy, and felt that his feelings for her must be perfectly obvious to her and to anybody and everybody else who was paying the slightest bit of attention to them, and he didn't care, he wasn't the slightest bit embarrassed any more, only perfectly happy. Just as he had been at many other moments in her presence over the course of the last century.

He didn't know if she felt romantically attracted to him. But it was obvious that she liked him at least a little. She didn't have to spend nearly this much time with him. He put a hand on her back as she rested her forehead on his chest, spent from the laughter, and he kissed her on the top of her head. He had never kissed her lips. He was very happy. She seemed very happy, too. Happy to be with him? or was she just a happy, well-adjusted angel generally? He didn't know, and he wasn't worried about it. Generally speaking he wasn't worried about much when she was around.

Now, to be sure, there was this alarming business with Seraphiel. A recording angel, sent from somewhere up in the higher ranks, was there waiting to interview Michael, to open the investigation officially. He sat down across from Michael, Ellen sat down beside Michael and squeezed his hand reassuringly, the official's eyes went back and forth several times between Michael and Ellen, he looked as if he might be considering asking who she was or asking if he could speak to Michael privately.

Draft of a Novel, ch 1, pt 3

Michael took a few steps through dimensions which people can't see or feel and few people can imagine clearly, and dropped back into our three dimensions down the block from his friend Giuseppe's apartment outside of Rome. Giuseppe seemed to be at home almost all the time, his apartment was usually relatively quiet and dark, Giuseppe rarely entertained and didn't seem to mind when Michael came over, and he had a couch. When Giuseppe let him in Michael headed straight for that couch, and was asleep before Giuseppe could fetch a pillow and a blanket.

When he woke up there was a pillow under his head and a blanket over him. He felt his cheek: the stubble was gone. Giuseppe hadn't shaved him while he slept. The act of sleeping grooms angels. Michael had gone to sleep feeling grimy and unkempt; now he felt clean and neat. Besides his stubbly beard having gone away, his hair was now clean and neatly arranged, and his fingernails were shorter again.

His clothes, however, were of this Earth, and they still bore the funk of his late exhaustion. He heard Giuseppe moving dishes in the kitchen. "Can I get a change of clothes from you?" he called out.

"Of course, my friend. You know you can. You don't have to ask."

"Thank you." Michael went into Giuseppe's bedroom and began to change.

Giuseppe called out, "Just put your dirty things in the hamper, like before."

"No. I think this time I'll take them with me and throw them away in a dumpster. Trust me, I don't think you want them, they're past washing." Michael put the dirty clothes in a bundle in the hall outside the apartment door. Stretching luxuriously in Giuseppe's fresh clean clothes, he came into the kitchen and asked, "How long was I out?"

"About twelve hours."

"No."

"Yes. You arrived a couple of hours before I went to bed, and I've been up again for a while."

"Well, I feel wonderful."

And then he perceived that Giuseppe, on the other hand, did not feel well at all. Whatever the problem was, Giuseppe did not seem inclined to talk about it, or to let Michael see that he was upset. Instead he said, "I'm having coffee, will you join me?"

"No, thanks." They both were silent for a while, until Michael said, "C'mon. I can see auras. I'm empathic to a certain degree. It's my job to know when people are troubled. Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or make me spend five minutes figuring it out myself?"

Giuseppe would not meet Michael's gaze. Finally he said, "Seraphiel was here to visit me."

Angels' bodies are different from ours, they're much more durable in most ways, immensely impervious to heat and cold, for example, but an angel can still shiver from fright. Sometimes, if they're very afraid, they'll even stutter a little. "N... Nuh... nu-nu-nu... ayyehh. eh-eh-eh, " Michael said. He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears and his throat and his chest and his legs. He took a minute to calm himself, and then asked Giuseppe, "Ssss-Ssss-Seraphiel of Toledo, you mean? Seraphiel from Spain? Was here in this apartment?"

"Yes."

"But you're not at all inclined to..." As with some humans, moral relativism had spread among some angels. Michael was generally inclined to speak of the practical, concrete implications of given actions, and not to use words like "evil," which traditionally had been applied to this Seraphiel, who was named after the first Seraph and who had been causing trouble in Spain for several thousand years, was rumoured to know Satan personally, who according to some was part of the original Legion who followed Satan out of Heaven, Seraphiel who was seven feet tall and very thin and wiry and had a greasy black pointed beard and fangs, actual fangs like a vampire...

It was rumoured that Seraphiel had not slept in more than three thousand years.

Michael called out the news, and in the twinkling of an eye a dozen angels were crowded into Giuseppe's tiny kitchen. "We'll protect you, " Michael told Giuseppe. "We will guard you."

"I know you will," Giuseppe said.

There was something Giuseppe still had not said. This still did not make sense at all. As Michael had been about to say, Giuseppe was not at all inclined to the sort of thing Seraphiel had to offer: material riches and power, mostly, to be given to those humans willing to follow Satan and Seraphiel and others on their side, and to engage in treachery and violence, to fight and distress their fellow human on behalf of these disgusting, dirty angelic beasts. Giuseppe was one of those rare humans would could see angels on both sides, but he saw the Satanic ones only out of curiosity and the desire for knowledge, not because he was tempted to work for them. And so, conversely, an angel like Seraphiel would not be tempted to waste his time on Giuseppe. Finally, Michael got Giuseppe to meet his gaze. "What am I missing here?" he asked.

"Seraphiel wasn't here for me, " Giuseppe said. "He was looking for you."

"Ittuh.. ittuh, Fffff... ffff... Ahhh, yahhh.... N-, nnn-, nn-, n..."

Chapter 2, Part 1

Draft of a Novel, ch 1, pt 2

"Can I ask you a few questions before you go?"

"Sure."

"What's your name?"

"Michael."

"Oh my. Are you the Archangel Michael?"

Michael laughed. "No. No, no, no. I'm quite a few ranks below the Archangels. In fact, I can't remember whether I've ever actually seen an Archangel."

"So, were you named after the Archangel?"

"Yes, I was. A lot of angels are named Michael. A lot of us are named Gabriel, and there are a lot of Raphaels und Uriels and Remiels, too."

"So, there are seven Archangels?"

"Twenty-five, at least. Sorry, I'm bad with numbers, I don't know the exact number. But it's a lot more than seven now. There were seven for a few centuries, and then more got promoted."

"How many angels are there altogether?'

"There are thousands who are based here on Earth."

"Based on Earth -- do you mean that there are others on other planets?"

"Who knows? I don't. You humans, you wonder whether there are creatures like you on other planets, and we angels, we wonder too."

"So you're not all-knowing?"

"No, no! Not even close!" Michael rubbed the stubble on his chin nervously, hoping she wasn't going to ask him any questions about God.

"But you knew about me and Joe."

"It's our job to help people out, to the best of our ability. Really, people can help each other about as well as we help people. They just, um... They just don't, sometimes. People can see that you and Joe would be a good couple. Another human could've given you a little nudge toward each other like I just did. But nobody was taking care of that, so it came down to me."

"Well, thank you very much."

"It's my pleasure, really. Always glad to be of some use."

"So, are you a Cupid?"

"No. no, just a regular all-purpose angel."

"Heh. Yeah, I thought you looked a little big for that. So, where are your wings?"

"Ah, that's a very common misconception. We don't have wings. There are creatures from other mythologies that have wings. Ancient Egyptian deities, Mesopotamian beings. People started to assume that we do too."

"You said mythologies. Do those Egyptian and Mesopotamian creatures exist?"

"I don't know. All I can tell you for sure is that I can't remember ever seeing any of them. Or any Cupids, either."

"I see."

"But speaking as a creature that's often said not to exist, I'm hesitant to jump to the conclusion that someone else is purely imaginary. If you see what I mean."

"Sure. Why jump to conclusions? So you get around pretty much like we humans do?"

"No, we have some advantages there. Do you know about Stephen Hawking?"

"British physicist, confined to a wheelchair, frequent guest-voice on 'The Simpsons'?"

"That's the guy. And you know about how he discovered wormholes?"

"But wormholes were theorized long before Hawking."

"Oh. Oh. Sounds like maybe you know more about it than I do. So, a wormhole is like a shortcut in time-space?"

"Right."

"Well, we angels have all sorts of shortcuts, compared to humans, because we travel in more than three dimensions. I'm sorry, I'm not good at physics. I don't know if this has anything to do with wormholes. But we can take a couple of steps in other dimensions, and in three-dimensional terms, we've traveled thousands of miles."

"I get the idea. Are all angels male?"

"No, about half are male, half female, like you humans."

"Do you you mate like we do?"

"No, it's a little different with us."

"Do you eat?"

"That's a little different, too. We don't have to eat. If one of us eats something, it's usually just because we're curious about how it tastes."

"Do you sleep?"

"Sometimes we do."

"It just occurs to me, I'm gabbing away at you, and you look beat. You really look like you need some rest. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's my pleasure, really. Don't think for one second that humans are the only ones who get something out of exchanges like this."

She came up to Michael and laid a hand on his, and they both sighed with pleasure at the touch. Yes, these encounters were good for the angels, too. "Okay," she said. "But get some rest now, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Chapter 1, Part 3

Draft of a Novel Whose Protagonist is an Angel Named Michael, ch 1, pt 1

This woman was a difficult case: her moods were fragile and changed abruptly, and Michael was concerned that he might do nothing other than upset her greatly. A couple of times he considered just giving up on her and moving on to the next case, but giving up and moving on was not really his style. She had just loaded a washing machine, she hadn't brought a book with her today, and hadn't found a magazine or newspaper laying around. For the next few moments at least her mind would be very open, looking for something to do. This time was about as auspicious as he could hope for if he was wasn't going to wait indefinitely. And the woman had been waiting long enough for this problem to be solved. Michael materialized in the laundromat, sat down a couple of chairs away from her and pretended to look around the place randomly, but made sure that their eyes met long enough for him to smile and nod.

She said to him, "Your aura is very interesting."

Was it really interesting to her? Could she see his aura at all? Frequently it was not clear whether a human was seeing an aura, or just had a very vivid imagination. Michael's aura was a steady, deep blue at the moment; the woman's aura was jerkily shifting color and intensity, somewhat reminiscent of a pre-cable television with bad reception. Her distress was palpable.

"Is it really?" Michael asked, and leaned toward her, trying his best to look non-threatening.

She moved to the chair next to his and said, "Let me read your palm."

Michael hadn't expected an opportunity like this to present itself so soon, and he didn't feel completely prepared, but he felt he had to seize the moment. It occurred to him that the problem here might not be entirely the woman and her loneliness, as he had been thinking, but also his own indecisiveness. "Let me read your palm," he said. He took her hand and wrist in both of his hands and performed a simple manipulation to soothe her nerves. At once her aura stopped flickering like a bad TV picture; for a while it was a dark brown-green, but then it settled to a pleasant, mild yellow-green. Perfect.

"Wow," the woman said. "What was that?"

For a moment Michael was about to tell her that what he had done, any masseur or accupressurist could have done, although unfortunately few of the human ones were skilled at such things. He had to remind himself to do what he had come there to do. Mentally he repeated to himself the old saying: when you're up to your ass in alligators, sometimes it's hard to remember that you started out to drain the swamp. In this case the alligators represented Michael's own issues, his confusion and indecisiveness --

Focus! he told himself. Here we go: "I'm an angel," he told her.

Good, he'd managed to get this far without freaking her out. She seemed to believe him, and she seemed to be receiving the information calmly. "Are you my guardian angel?" she asked. She was as open as she could be, he hadn't had to do anything more than that little wrist massage in order to gain her full attention and trust. So why did this seem so hard? Why was Michael so scattered?

Focus! Michael told himself again. Do what you came here to do, and you can analyze yourself later! "Ah, no, I'm not your guardian angel. I'm just here to help you out with one thing. Look, I know you're lonely. I know you've been lonely for a long time. I'm just here to tell you to go and talk to Joe."

"Joseph Manelli, the guy who works in the office across the street?"

"Yes. Talk to him. Next chance you get. As soon as you see him leave the office. He's a nice guy. You're a nice person. He's lonely, too. Something nice could happen between you, you just have to get his attention. Just -- talk about the weather or something. You don't have to throw yourself at him or degrade yourself. Just be there, and something will happen, something good."

"He's the guy. Why can't he take the initiative? Why aren't you over there talking to him?"

"I'm talking to you about this because Joe doesn't believe in angels. He wouldn't be able to see or hear me. You should wait until you're with him for a couple of years before you mention me to him. If you ever mention me at all."

"Joe and I are going to be -- really together? For years?"

"Yeah. It'll be really good. He's a sweet guy. Not particularly open to metaphysical things, but -- "

Michael touched her forehead and mumbled a blessing in Latin, figuring that would work well in this case. For a moment his aura and hers were both pure white. Could she really see auras? he wondered. Then he started to prepare mentally for the next case.

Chapter 1, Part 2

Chapter 1, Part 3

Chapter 2, Part 1

Eee-beee-DEEEEE!

A newscast

ANCHORMAN: The world bids farewell to a dear friend tonight.

Over the ANCHORMAN's shoulder a screen shows a picture of a white-haired man, grinning open-mouthed with his eyes squeezed shut, wearing a nice but disheveled suit and a St Louis Cardinals baseball cap worn sideways, with the caption: "Richard Simpson, 1963-2037."

CUT TO:

CLOSE-UP of ANCHORMAN

ANCHORMAN: Richard Simpson was a talented scientist and a hard-working executive. (CUT TO: MONTAGE of still photos of a young, dark-haired RICHARD working in chemical laboratories and at computer keyboards, receiving a diploma, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase in the company of other young execs.) After receiving degrees from Cal Tech and Cornell, he began to rapidly climb to corporate ladder at Dow Chemical Company. But all that suddenly changed (CUT TO: grainy video footage showing RICHARD and others execs in hard hats and business attire, inside a factory. RICHARD is holding rolled-up blueprints, talking and pointing. Factory sounds are audible below the ANCHORMAN's voice.) one day in 2010. Just by chance someone was videotaping that fateful meeting on his or her cell phone. (A LABORER in dirty work clothes walks by RICHARD and his group, carry something large and long over his shoulder.) A freak accident (The LABORER turns suddenly as if someone has called to him, and hits RICHARD in the front oh his helmet with what he's carrying, like a bat hitting a baseball. We hear a loud collision and a sharp grunt.) changed Richard Simnpson's life forever. (The video zooms in, first on RICHARD's hard hat lying on the ground, shattered in front, then on RICHARD, lying on his back in a pool of blood with both hands over his face.) Richard Simpson would never solve a mathematical equation or make a presentation to a board meeting again. (CUT TO: EXTERIOR SHOT of a hospital) Years after the fact, Sarah Morgan, the nurse on the trauma ward where Richard Simpson was treated, (CUT TO: MEDIUM SHOT of middle-aged SARAH MORGAN in a nurse's uniform.) gave this interview.

SARAH MORGAN: He regained consciousness after 10 days. He stayed on the ward for three months, and he never said anything but "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!"

CUT TO: MONTAGE of still and video footage of Richard, in various attire, in various situations, at various ages. In all shots of RICHARD from this point on, he is smiling and wearing a St Louis Cardinals baseball cap sideways.

ANCHORMAN: And for the past 27 years, to the best of my knowledge, he has never said anything but "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!" (The montage shows footage of RICHARD dressed in the white running gear of an Olympic torchbearer, plus the sideways baseball cap, bearing the Olympic torch.) It remains a mystery just exactly how Richard got himself into all those situations. (Instead of running in one direction as a torchbearer is supposed to, RICHARD is running around in circles, waving the torch at frightened onlookers who scream and run back, evading the fire. RICHARD stops and looks at the fire, evidently fascinated, tries to touch it, yelps in pain, then smiles again and runs around in circles while officials try to gain control of him, smiling and yelling "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!") Perhaps, in some way in which the science of neurology cannot yet grasp, a part of his mind which used to make him a brilliant scientist and executive now became brilliant at gaining him access to exclusive areas of life. (CUT TO: A tennis match at center court at Wimbledon. In the middle of a point, a large and ungainly ball boy runs into the middle of the court, batting at the ball with his hands, chasing after it like a toddler. At first the players are upset, but then it seems that RICHARD's childlike excitement and happiness are contagious. The PLAYERS begin to laugh. The crowd begins to laugh. The UMPIRE, in the middle of a stern admonition to the gentleman to please remove himself, begins to laugh. Shot of the crowd include QUEEN ELIZABETH, trying to retain her composure, but eventually she too begins to laugh and to clap, as RICHARD runs excitedly around the court, chasing a great number of balls which somehow have spilled all over the court, and repeatedly shouting "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!") Even, very famously, the headquarters of the United Nations.

CUT TO: INTERIOR of the United Nations General Assembly hall. The ISRAELI AMBASSADOR and the SYRIAN AMBASSADOR are in the midst of a heated argument. Suddenly there is a loud shout of "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!" The camera, its operator apparently momentarily disoriented, swings around wildly before settling on RICHARD at the podium, dressed like a diplomat except that his suit is somewhat disheveled, and for the omnipresent, sideways baseball cap. RICHARD, grinning broadly, jumps up and down excitedly behind the podium and repeatedly shouts "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!" Shots of Richard are interspersed with shots of the assembled diplomats. Like the the players and officials and the crowd at Wimbledon, at first they are upset and confused, and then they relax and start to laugh.

CUT TO: 2-SHOT of the ISRAELI AND SYRIAN AMBASSADORS TO THE UN.

SYRIAN AMBASSADOR: (In Arabic with voiceover translation) I was very angry with my colleague. Both of us (Exchanges glances and nods with the ISRAELI AMBASSADOR) were very angry. But then this, this fool was suddenly there with his childlike grin, jumping up and down behind the podium and yelling "Eee-beee-DEEEEE! Eee-beee-DEEEEE!" And, like everyone else, I began to relax, and then to laugh. And I looked at my colleague from Israel, and I saw that he, too, was shaking with laughter. And suddenly, you know, I felt our common humanity in a way I hadn't before. That evening the two of us met one-to-one for the first time. Before you knew it, our families had become friends.

CUT TO: MONTAGE of Richard: running around the stage at the Academy Awards with an Oscar, while the crowd howls with laughter and applauds; excitedly kicking a golf ball around the 18th green at Pebble Beach during a tournament; in the Space Station; wearing a judge's robe and the baseball cap over a judge's wig in an English court; etc.

ANCHORMAN: And so the Middle East embarked upon an unprecedented period of peace. And so, all over the world, we've laughed a lot more, and cut each other a lot more slack.

The MONTAGE winds up with several consecutive shots of RICHARD shouting "Eee-beee-DEEEEE!"

CUT TO: ANCHORMAN, with the same screen of RICHARD and the dates of his birth and death with which we began the newscast.

ANCHORMAN: Yes, ee-bee-dee, old friend. (CUT TO: FULL SCREEN of the shot of white-haired RICHARD with birth and death dates.) Ee-bee-dee.