In The Beginning Was The Word

Two weeks to Election Day.

But slightly more important to me than who will win and what issues will prevail then is my daughter Sarah, who this morning had to go see her pediatrician because last week she got the outside of her right knee sprained during a soccer game. So Martha took her there out of school and she's back again, and she has to stay off her leg as much as possible. When I brought the kids home last night and after dinner we had their reading at home to do, Sarah mocked being so bad off that she pulled herself forward on her elbows to a stack of books from the shelf that had fallen Monday morning to pick out something to read me. I say "mocked" because I wondered aloud whether Sarah would have pulled that stunt on Martha had she been the parent there and not me. Her response? Probably not.

Evolution: A Comedy.


I would add this as a subtitle to Tom Wolfe's latest work The Kingdom of Speech (ISBN 9780316404624). It's not a novel, but a journalist's account of how the idea of natural selection most often associated with Charles Darwin developed. Now Darwin himself didn't use the term "evolution", and getting the idea into print/19th century mass media was partly a co-opting of Henry Wallace's stated idea and Charles Darwin's twenty-year-old intention, but he had class advantages. Also, D came before W in the alphabet. And while there are many things that evolution (I use that term here because it's the one most people know, though I find it awkward) doesn't explain to the point of it needing more faith that many religions, the focus of this book is on language.


In the beginning was the word. Or was it?


Wolfe continues with the development of genetics and how that lent to keeping evolution from fading out of the educated eye -- the idea of human beings and other primates having common ancestors -- and its nephew linguistics, which is pretty much a 20th century phenomenon. It won't make me read more Noam Chomsky, but it does make me realize how seriously and covetously a few specialists can behave, especially when the theses of their professional lives are on the verge of being upended by missionary-turned-anthropologist Daniel Everett, whose lengthy interactions with the Amazonian Pirahã tribe have blown many conceptions of what a thriving culture should have out the window. No artifacts. No numbers. A language that doesn't encompass any time beyond the present moment.


Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes.


THAT book about Everett's thirty years among the Pirahã I must check into (or check out, like I did The Kingdom of Speech) at the earliest opportunity. Apparently that is their version of "good night". But for the month of November -- National Novel Writing Month starts a week from today -- probably not. Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith’s debut book of poetry also doubles as a novel about the life and perspectives of his grandfather Lý Loc in The Land Baron's Sun (ISBN 9781935754350) as well as those around him, especially his seven wives. Born and raised and mostly thriving in 20th century Vietnam, Lý Loc born to a land baron whose children thought he made the sun rise has his life story rendered with none but a simple flourish. It's got a great style we'd do well to emulate in our work.


Martha let me keep the photo of her in her bathing suit.


Jeffrey's response when we were going through our photos Sunday was priceless. We came across this photo and I pled with Martha to not throw it away because -- how I worded this is important -- I hung it over my bed when I lived in Florida, Jeffrey: "THE BATHING SUIT OR HER?" Well, considered that he was there at the time to say this, I'm guessing that my bed was not under a tree or a gallows, where it would have to be for me to hang something there ... and being back at school after a four-day hiatus now, the kids seem to have mellowed enough (for now) to actually talk to me and not fight over what they do or don't get to do. I live for the more than one word answers, and not let the ego get in the way.

It just takes some time to realize,

David