Lattice Posting

Valentine's Day has come and gone. Tere was going to knit me something in the last few days, which is like a dual shot of things I don't need -- whatever she was going to knit, and deadline-induced panic and frustration. I cover enough of the latter territory on my own.

I asked, as plainly as I've stated it for years in some form to each of the members of my family, "Would you just get me something I've been asking for for years? The shipping will cost more than the goods, and together they won't crack ten dollars. I think no one's paid attention to my request because it's seemed too inconsequential. I'd rather get something that obviously means something to me than someone buying me something that doesn't."

This holy grail? A copy of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book. I cut my teeth on it when I was about 11, and I wanted it not only for reminiscence but also because it's a wonderful snapshot of New York City before all the bad neighborhoods downtown went yuppie and beyond. Lo and behold, yesterday I received a copy for Valentine's Day. Not one of the original versions with the black cover, but still the typesetting was the original plates. I'm looking forward to reading back through it.

One of the things I remember reading as a yute was about making sandals from old tires, and I did happen to open to that page today while walking back to my office. I then sat down in front of the current manuscript, not 20 seconds later, and read,

"[Name] had a pair of sandals made here—the peasant kind that’s common to this area (wait till you see them—they’re so ugly, they’re neat!). Anyway, his feet are so big that the shoemaker was just amazed. The night we went to get them fitted to his foot, half the village came to look. The shoes are made with tire treads for the soles."

The Lattice Strikes Again

I'm copyediting a book that deals with national issues in 1943–1945. One of the players is Edward Stettinius, who for a time was secretary of state under FDR and Truman, and whom I have never heard of until this book.

I was distracted for a moment and landed upon Wikipedia's page for people from Staten Island. 

• Edward Stettinius Jr. – Chairman of US Steel; left to become Secretary of State to FDR Administration; former home is now Staten Island Academy, Todt Hill. . . . [from the famous people from Staten Island page]
• Stettinius grew up in a mansion on the family's estate on Staten Island and graduated from the Pomfret School in 1920 after which he attended the University of Virginia until 1924. [from Stettinius's page]

I doubt his former home is now Staten Island Academy, because Staten Island Academy tore down its original big schoolhouse-type structure, which very well could have been a home, in the 1970s and rebuilt its entire campus — unless the school has purchased one of the grand old Vanderbilt-era homes that borders the now much more developed campus than existed there when I lived over the hill from it.

Perhaps the former Staten Island Academy structure was Stettinius's family estate, in which case that's where I attended first through fourth grades. I had repeating dreams of launching off the tops of the big stair landings there and being able to fly. And in real life I held Beth Leventhal's hand in second grade and spoke of marriage. Years later we were in summer camp at the same place and time and both were so painfully shy we couldn't even look at much less speak to each other. 

Doubling Down on the Lattice

I'm working on a book -- without giving away too much -- about student poetry, and regular visitors to this space are well aware of my feelings about most verse, even that written by adults. Frankly, I'm not a fan, once you leave the canon (Western or Eastern). Sorry to say it, but there it is. I'm convinced that much of the poetry that appears in the New Yorker, for example, would never receive an airing if not for the contributor's name.

I also work not infrequently (a construction, I've come to learn, that baffles nonnative English speakers) at a local 24-hour bakery that must have Pandora's Great American Songbook on repeat, because I hear the same music every two hours, including what seems like thrice-hourly versions of "Mack the Knife." The bakery also presents serious distractions that earplugs can't cancel out, such as coeds from the local universities. One is about eight feet from me right now, blissfully unaware of the letch typing near her.

But down the row of tables I see another student agonizing over a laptop. As I just went to replenish my coffee, I noticed one of the books he is working from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry. I can't quickly formulate a witty response to that setup, but trust me, it's not for lack of material.

Ah, well. Back to the coed -- uh, I mean, work.

Theological Lattice

Indexing consecutive books, one of which is rather intolerable and dense, while the next is breezy and ethereal. First is where Christian theology meets nuclear physics. Interconnectedness. Second is where Christian theology meets Zen Buddhism. Interconnectedness.

Monk at Gethsemani to blogger six years ago: "People keep trying to fit themselves into holes. They need to look at what's behind the holes. The rush to organized religion will ruin you."

More Lattice

The author of the previous book is the first index entry in the next book. Is it any wonder that I don't know what day it is?

Fog's Rolling In

The present book I'm indexing and the last two -- from three different publishers about three different topics -- have some of the same entries and subentries. I gave up trying to remember which client I'm working for a few days ago (not that it should matter that much), but I'm growing very confused.

I'm also getting older. As I tell mi esposa these days, "I've sat down . . . and I can't get up."

Not an endorsement.