Beam me up, Henry!
How strange today seems now. The transmission in my car died today. Or at least, that is what I think happened. I really don’t know. But last week the transmission in Beth’s car died and by all reports my car was not responding in the same way as her car was not responding. Except that my Grand Caravan was also leaking very ugly bodily fluids. So I called the AAA, and they towed my vehicle all the way home—where it was deposited at my local garage where I hope it will be found by the mechanic in the morning. So, whereas this morning I was trying to wonder how to pay for my new lenses, now I am wondering how to pay for a much more expensive transmission. And the lenses seem in comparison like an easy purchase. And, besides, I suppose I’ll need them to see the check I’ll have to write for the transmission!
Dealing with the transmission—or the ex-transmission, as the case may be—and the tow truck, consumed several hours while younger daughter attended a Bar Mitzvah party. Older daughter suffered through the tow. So, rather than spend a leisurely morning reading and studying and writing, I paced about outdoors wondering about transmissions and bank accounts and tow trucks. Now, I really don’t have the patience for serious work—should be reading Spinoza or dealing with course work which begins again after tomorrow, Spring break, alas, now over.
I have recently finished two new books about Concord, Massachusetts during the early to mid 1800’s. One was by Susan Cheever, entitled American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, and the other by Samuel Schreiner, entitled The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and the Friendship That Freed the American Mind. I don’t think I’ll deal with the books right now—not in the mood to do that work here.
And perhaps there is nothing substantive in my perception, but it strikes me that the appearance of these two books right now in our history suggests a psychic need to call up this incredible intellectual center of American life. I mean, we need so much to be reminded that we actually have an intellectual history in this age of George W. Bush. Perhaps both authors seek some haven from the nightmare of the present in the seeming remarkable paradisiacal presence of the most incredible population in American culture in a tiny sleepy Massachusetts town 20 miles from Boston. And I know there have been other intellectual havens in our history—the New York intellectuals in the 20th century, for example. But imagine walking out of your door at any time and come upon Bronson Alcott, Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and the myriad more that came to Concord to be with these minds. And bodies, too, as Cheever suggests. John Brown came to Concord to speak and raise monies for his raid on Harper’s Ferry. Alcott and Thoreau went to jail rather than pay their taxes to a government they believed were acting immorally! He got some. Where can we go today to be in such midst except some universities? Okay, I’ll rescind that last statement; we know that the politics of the university is so bitter because the stakes are so small! We can’t look where I am presently employed. Nor am I enamored of any other campus about which I have heard or read. Dylan writes, “The world of research has gone berserk/Too much paperwork.” How does he always know?
But in Concord, Massachusetts the stakes were enormous: they were creating the intellectual America. And these books, perhaps, are pursuing that world with great desire and hope. And what exactly is the difference between hope and desire, after all?
A scattered post for a scattered day. There is the hope that I only blew a head gasket (what is that?), and didn’t burn out the transmission. Is that hope and desire?
Dealing with the transmission—or the ex-transmission, as the case may be—and the tow truck, consumed several hours while younger daughter attended a Bar Mitzvah party. Older daughter suffered through the tow. So, rather than spend a leisurely morning reading and studying and writing, I paced about outdoors wondering about transmissions and bank accounts and tow trucks. Now, I really don’t have the patience for serious work—should be reading Spinoza or dealing with course work which begins again after tomorrow, Spring break, alas, now over.
I have recently finished two new books about Concord, Massachusetts during the early to mid 1800’s. One was by Susan Cheever, entitled American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, and the other by Samuel Schreiner, entitled The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and the Friendship That Freed the American Mind. I don’t think I’ll deal with the books right now—not in the mood to do that work here.
And perhaps there is nothing substantive in my perception, but it strikes me that the appearance of these two books right now in our history suggests a psychic need to call up this incredible intellectual center of American life. I mean, we need so much to be reminded that we actually have an intellectual history in this age of George W. Bush. Perhaps both authors seek some haven from the nightmare of the present in the seeming remarkable paradisiacal presence of the most incredible population in American culture in a tiny sleepy Massachusetts town 20 miles from Boston. And I know there have been other intellectual havens in our history—the New York intellectuals in the 20th century, for example. But imagine walking out of your door at any time and come upon Bronson Alcott, Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and the myriad more that came to Concord to be with these minds. And bodies, too, as Cheever suggests. John Brown came to Concord to speak and raise monies for his raid on Harper’s Ferry. Alcott and Thoreau went to jail rather than pay their taxes to a government they believed were acting immorally! He got some. Where can we go today to be in such midst except some universities? Okay, I’ll rescind that last statement; we know that the politics of the university is so bitter because the stakes are so small! We can’t look where I am presently employed. Nor am I enamored of any other campus about which I have heard or read. Dylan writes, “The world of research has gone berserk/Too much paperwork.” How does he always know?
But in Concord, Massachusetts the stakes were enormous: they were creating the intellectual America. And these books, perhaps, are pursuing that world with great desire and hope. And what exactly is the difference between hope and desire, after all?
A scattered post for a scattered day. There is the hope that I only blew a head gasket (what is that?), and didn’t burn out the transmission. Is that hope and desire?
posted by Alan A. Block at 4:52 PM
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