bootstrap

Welcome back,

Seymour Taft awoke in his armchair seconds before sunlight oozed through the gap below his slanted blinds and lit his groggy face. Blinking, rubbing his eyes, and yawning, he considered closing the blinds all the way, or at least making them even. Cheryl had said that leaving them crooked would wear them out faster. Seymour had no particular interest in the durability of his blinds, but the nebulous sense that he was doing something wrong set him on edge. And besides, it would be nice to be able to sleep without the sun waking him up. That's it. That's what he would do. Start the day out right, even up the blinds. Do the little things, and the big things would take care of themselves. Someone had said that to him, and he believed it. Today would be the day.

Who knows where such a simple action could lead him. His limited imagination brimmed with possibilities. Maybe, bouyed by his first small success so soon after the day started, he'd go down to the lake and sign up for sailing lessons. Finally get that haircut he'd been wanting and change his whole look. He didn't have much money, but with a little searching and a little effort, he could refresh his wardrobe, dress real sharp and go out on the town. Start exercising again. Eat right. So much to do today.

The day's possibilities cracked Seymour's torpor. Popping out of his chair, he quickly showered, dressed, and flew out the door.

Until the tides turn,
walter

pointing

Hello my friends,

One of the most beautiful places on Earth is Point Lobos, on a cloudy day at sunset. Ocean plants, caught between tides, are lashed by relentless surges like palm trees by tsunamis. Cypress trees grow on serene clifftops, gathering mist in their branches. Although the sky is gray, the waves churn the ocean water bright blue. Standing on the hardened sandstone, in the cold severity, I am overwhelmed by rushes of sadness, then calm, then hope.

Good night,

walter

heresy (radio edit)

Blessings friends,

Me and my buddies Matt, Marcus, and Junior were walking into the city the other day, and we could have used a good meal. We'd spent most of the whole day walking, our feet hurt, it was hot, it was late, and to be honest we were getting a little sick of each other. Tensions were running high. I asked what time it was. 21:19 by my watch, spat Marcus. You use twenty-four hour time? Yeah, it's nice to get that ambiguity out of the way straight off. Must save you plenty of trouble not having to remember if it's day or night. Shove it. Besides, said Matt, you're about two hours off. I keep telling you to change the battery in that expletive deleted watch. It's actually 11:20. That late already? We should get moving. Expletive deleted, I'm hungry! yelled Junior, louder than necessary. No one responded. We were all hungry.

I think Junior smelled it before any of us even saw it; it was dark and he always had a pretty good sniffer. He got a little antsy as we trudged up to the little moon-lit shape. Well look at that, boys! A fig tree! Sweet salvation! Junior almost hopped out of delight. Short-lived joy, however. A thorough examination revealed three half-buried rotten figs by the base of the tree, and nothing else. That's when Junior lost it. I mean, completely lost it.

He picked up a rock from the ground and smashed the tree, over and over. He tore each leaf individually from its branch, and then snapped the branches. We kept telling him it wasn't even fig season, but he couldn't hear, or didn't want to hear. Finally, after a furious minute, he tore the battered, frail remains from the ground, pulling up clods of dirt with the roots, threw the tree aside, and sanity returned to him. He's usually such a nice guy.

We were all silent, until Matt and Marcus burst out with sudden congratulations for his exploits. They were honestly amazed. Did you see that? How did you smash it up so quickly? You're crazy, man! We walked the rest of the way with a sense of triumph coursing through the group, but I just couldn't get behind it. The next morning, I found my way back, and carefully planted what remained of the tree. I brought some water from the nearby stream. I said a few encouraging words, and a few of apology, and left. I haven't been back since, but someday I'll find that tree again. Maybe eat a fig or two.

Hopefully,
walter

ruins

Bon courage,

On the northern tip of Africa, near some of the most productive agricultural lands of the ancient Mediterranean, a small horn juts into the open sea. The phoenicians settled there, and laid the foundations for an independent colony, Carthage. Over time, it became one of the most important cities in the world, the head of an empire that rivaled Rome. Rivaled, but eventually succumbed. After a three year siege, the city fell. The Romans systematically burned the buildings to the ground, destroyed the walls, and (likely false) salted the earth to prevent any crops from growing. The Romans maintained a presence among the ashes for the next hundred years, ensuring that anyone who attempted to settle in the region was killed. Then, they built the city anew, right on the same spot. They spent thirty years building the public baths, importing the best marble from around the entire empire. Now, here's a poem

I met a traveller from an antique land who said,
In a vast and barren field, a tethered mongrel,
Whose mewling protest rolls and fades
Unheard among the wastes,
Will die the solitary witness
To a majesty's disgrace.
So I called the old dimwit's bluff,
Not wont to trust too soon,
And went out to his described place.
I found a happy barking dog and a market
selling the best tangerines I've ever tasted in my life.

Delicious,
walter

evaluation

Good morning,

My thoughts have recently turned to self-evaluation. A great help, I received a selection of comments from last quarter's students. I will reproduce a smattering of these comments below.

• always willing to help
• Walter is the shit
• On occasion, Walter would not know what I was asking for help with.
• very helpful, fast-acting, friendly
• David is very approachable, very helpful, and is an excellent tutor. Thanks David!
• helped me figure out the answers without explicitly giving them to me

Average score: 4.66/5

Looks like I've got a lot of things to ponder.

Humbly,

walter

planar

Dearest friends,

I am recently feeling like a protagonist in a written work of popular Japanese fiction. I am not aware of any wells in my proximity, so finding a dry one would be asking too much. Instead, I will tell you a brief story about Yubtumbo, the flattener.

Yubtumbo was the sixteenth son of a seventh son, and thus, by the divine laws of such things, he was shipped to a monkery for proper training. Sweat-slicked from the labor, his mother had hardly seen his face before he was swaddled, bundled up, and given over to the care of the nurse who would accompany him to the mountain-top palace of the holy. Weaned quickly, he was separated from the nurse at the earliest opportunity and devoted wholly to the monks there.

Even as a young child, he excelled in all his lessons. His treatments of history were insightful and eloquent. Mathematics came easily to him. During discussion, his contributions were concise and biting; other students were careful not to inadvertently profess an opinion counter to Yubtumbo's. The respect of his peers and superiors, of everyone who met him, came easily, despite his peculiar behavior.

Yubtumbo refused to sit, or stand, or even raise his head. Remaining how he had been placed by his nurse as an infant, face up on his back, he moved everywhere like a snake. Every movement he made slowly, with great effort, but without changing his altitude at all.

Because, ultimately, Yubtumbo, the flattener, hated changes in altitude. Famously guarded about his reasons, Yubtumbo avoided all discussions about his inclination toward planarity. Once, though, a new student at the monkery asked Yubtumbo, "Yubtumbo, your motivation puzzles me. Why do you move as you do? Why avoid moving up or down when it seems so much trouble to do so? Are you not simply trading one type of effort for another?" Yubtumbo paused a moment, it is said, before chuckling sincerely and responding, "Yes, my friend, I understand your concern. And yes, dear boy, you have hit the heart of it. Trades, though, are not as simple as you say. They are a series of shared choices, negotiated between two or more parties for the sake of advancing each participant in some way. These choices are informed by the preferences of the parties, which in turn are informed by bias, evidence, judgment, and imagination. Perhaps the day will come when you will understand my preferences, and the parties with whom I am negotiating." Yubtumbo smiled again, and ended the discussion with a distant, unwavering gaze.

He passed many happy years there, prostrate in the monkery, until one day, the sixteenth day of the seventh month, he started floating up, up, up. His gaunt shape was first a line against the sky, and then a dot, and then a speck, and then he was gone. And so it was that Yubtumbo, the flattener, the great leveler, passed into the heavens. All those he left behind there in the monkery gave him daily sacrifices of altitude. And Yubtumbo was pleased. When the monks thereafter needed help with obstacles, physical or metaphorical, they called upon their friend Yubtumbo to flatten the paths before them, and he did.

good night friends,

walter