Beware the Irish of March

First of all, a shout-out to those of you who downloaded my latest novel and emailed me your personal comments. Like the sanitation truck that stops by once a week to grab up my plastic garbage receptacle with big metal tongs, then empties the contents into the truck's trunk, your comments were just about as all over the place as where the truck drops my green plastic container. Sometimes in the ditch, sometimes in the gutter, sometimes on the street and many times back where it started. I'll do my best to incorporate your suggestions without spending a lot of time reworking the whole story in order to squeeze in a few of your highly humorous side stories and subplots. If you don't see your input in the final version, then keep in mind that your insight and inspiration will weave the fabric wrapping the next novel-sized "monster in a box."

So forth and so on, I go forth.

Last night I watched the movie, "King of California," and now wonder which comes first, a person's blindness to the mainstream which leads to a peripheral view of life, a sidelong glance at the world; or a subtle rejection of commonness that comes with personal awareness.

After watching the movie, I dug into the Barthelme biography and saw the phrase, "woolly-headed intellectual." Hmm...

Someone once observed that, like many uncommitted people, I have a chameleon-like personality, adapting my external characterizations to match those around me, indicative of a nonassertive childhood. But don't we all? [I suppose not. Some of us came out of our crib with rock-solid personalities riveted to our exteriors.] In my lifetime, I've observed academic friends of my father travel overseas on teaching junkets and return in the space of three months with a distinct accent reflective of the country and regional dialect where the professors taught. We humans are adapters, malleable, more like lumps of clay when we're young, but for those unformed ones in their adult years, they continue to allow themselves to absorb the surrounding culture, reshaping their lives and those around them.

So what causes some people to adopt a persecution complex? A primary school mate of mine moved to Israel recently and established contact with me via facebook. I congratulated him on his newfound home and his Russian bride. He thanked me for my humor and posting the pictures of our days together in high school, bringing back memories of our high-jinks (like the time I wore a faucet on my forehead after a teacher told me my brain must be full from thinking too much). Then, when I cracked a joke, comparing the Katyusha launching out of neighboring countries into Israel to a kid standing at the entrance to the American pentagon-shaped military headquarters and throwing firecrackers, laughing that in both cases (Israel and the U.S.), the responses would be out of proportion to the initial action because the larger countries saw life through the eyes of ICBM ownership ['Our guns are bigger and we're going to use them on you,' so to speak], my friend announced to his facebook friend network that I was typical of those who didn't clearly see that God (Yeshem?) was using the latest conflict to put His Chosen people back in line, and implied that the day of doom was soon arriving. He dropped me as a friend and then completely removed himself from facebook.

His actions remind me of the side comments I heard from my Irish friends when I spent time with them away from work, in the casual setting of a pub or a friend's home. Despite the recent success of the Celtic Tiger (now since run away), there seemed to be the constant undercurrent theme of remembering the 800 years of oppression by the British. "We 'ates the English," some would jokingly say with a slight sneer, usually after six or eight whiskeys chased by a beer.

In a few weeks, the Western world will celebrate St. Patrick's Day, a day to remember the British subject who apparently brought to the Emerald Isle the ceremony of pinching your mates if they don't wear green on a certain day of the year. He also chased out the snakes while he stomped around preaching about spending eternity in the golden halls of heaven, a mighty pretty sight for those who spent their days sloshing through the mud to cut peat for fuel. He seems to have inspired those averse to farming to gather in stone huts and write scryptic odes to each other whilst under the watchful eye of wealthy landowners who wanted glowing, gold-leafed gospel tales to show off to their wives and lovers.

Speaking of adverse theories and persecution complexes, I met a few scientists whose theoretical proposals (yes, I meant to say it that way) almost made me laugh. When I was a teenager, I read many books of science fiction. After a while, I got bored with the stories because they'd go off on explanations of new technologies (that the writers had obviously pinched from the pages of Popular Mechanics or Popular Science) or alternate universes where the laws of physics we know don't exist. Well, I suppose I wasn't the only one reading those tales of yore.

A couple of years ago I attended a briefing about an experimental satellite that would orbit Earth and look for gamma-ray bursts. I had met a few of the fellow attendees in my life before the briefing - in fact, one of them lived in a house across the street from me (but he moved out of the house before I moved into mine). Therefore, I had more than a preconceived notion about the crowd I'd see at the briefing - methodical, rational investigators of basic science. Boy, was I wrong! When you put a bunch of scientists and engineers together from all over the world, you get a mix of language confusion that makes some people say things they didn't mean to say.

At a reception after the briefing, I stood with Italian, Japanese, American and German nationals. Although most of them spoke English, they didn't all understand the nuances and multiple word meanings. Thus, when an Italian scientist was talking about measuring the level of gamma ray energy, a Japanese scientist asked for clarification about the word energy. Then, two Americans and one German argued the origin of the word. Before I could ask them to slow down, the three of them explained to the group they had discovered an energy source that was outside the realm of wave-based energy as we know it. The Japanese nodded their heads and the Italians shook their heads -- I couldn't tell if any of them grasped what the other three were saying. I sure didn't. I just mentally pictured all the science fiction stories with their crackpot theories and wondered if these three (two men and a woman, by the way) had been sniffing too much moon dust.

At the thought of dust, I coughed.

Everyone turned to me. I just shrugged and smiled, knowing better than to open my mouth and prove that at least one of us in the group was a fool.

"You don't believe us, do you?!" asked an American.

Again, I shrugged. I had no counter theory or humorous story to bounce off them, deflecting their praise or criticism like I usually do.

The German looked around the group. "You zee, dat is vat vee are facing mit our colleagues. Ungläubigkeit. Uh...disbelievingness."

Fortuitously, my wife called my name, giving me the excuse to step away from the conversation before I was dragged into the depths of alternate universes.

= = =

I had forgotten about that conversation until I woke up this morning. Last night, in a dream, I met Helen and her family as they were doing something... in the light of day, I have only a faint glimpse into that unreal rainy scene we were in. [Sorry, Helen. I know we had a good talk but the words we exchanged have faded into my dreams.]

When I woke up, I recalled walking around the reception from two years ago and hearing a few words that now make sense. [Thanks, Helen, for reminding me, in your way.]

One of the Americans was talking to his wife and daughter (in fact, it was the American who used to live on my street). He told them that some of the other scientists had encountered the same mysterious energy during their laboratory experiments but had put their observations aside so that they could stay on schedule with their development of components for the satellite. Now that all of them had time on their hands, they had separately but simultaneously looked back at their notes and realized that what they had seen would have significant impact on the world. The American had combed through online databases and found a report related to the Large Hadron Collider, stating that the LHC would disrupt the space-time continuum as we know it, exposing the new energy source and revealing to corrupt governments the means to create cheap destructive weapons. The American's wife and daughter looked at him in astonishment. The daughter asked her father if he was in danger. He told her no but he had to report to Washington D.C. the next morning and would be gone for several weeks. [Oh, if I haven't told you already, the American is of Irish descent.]

= = =

I don't have a persecution complex but I'm going to join those of Irish descent and celebrate St. Patty's Day - not in the way the saint would have intended, of course. In my celebration, I'm going to think about what those scientists said and perhaps wonder aloud (maybe even too loud) if those deeply-committed scientists really knew what they were talking about or do they suffer persecution delusions akin to other devotees of a deeply religious bent. At the same time, I've got to find a calendar and figure out when the full moon is this month. Just because no one's out to get me or put me in my place doesn't mean I should avoid being suspicious or superstitious! ;^)