This Ubiquitous Apocalypse

The pinnacle of the semester for Rhetoric class. Any topic was fair game. I sketched the beginnings of a couple others, but being an eschatographer, this was the one that got written.

I love the fact that into the bibliography I slipped a conversation which took place at a most curious and delightful monthly gathering in Chicago. Of course, I gave the Holder of Court a pseudonym to protect the guilty.


~•~


Writing & Rhetoric I
Opinion Research Paper
Final Draft: December 13, 2007 (1.5 Draft; okay call it 2nd draft if you must)


THIS UBIQUITOUS APOCALYPSE

Apocalyptic thought permeates Western culture. Despite repeated prophecies concerning the end of the world, so far there has not been a consensually noticeable Armageddon. From the Y2K Problem back to early Zoroastrian cults, we experience this astounding religious and political expectation. From these repetitious cries of imminent doom we could suppose that Belief is far more powerful than Experience; no matter how many prognostications that the end is nigh come and go with so much fanfare, the impending Apocalypse never quite arrives. And yet this repeated failure doesn't stop us from collectively being taken down that road to the end of the world again and again.

So welcome aboard the Armageddon Express, we'll be making a few stops in our brief examine of Apocalyptic beliefs before we reach the End.

2012 is coming. Are you ready?

•

Humans have long been fascinated with the end of the world. For as far back as records existed of thought and belief, eschatological thought has existed. The world's first single-god religion, Zoroastrianism, believed that there were two forces in the world, one lead by the Supreme God of Light, Ahura Mazda, and the other by the destructive spirit, Angra Mainyu. According to Zoroastrian theology, the two forces would eventually have a sort of a show down between the Righteous and the Wicked, and a Final Judgment of all souls would be leveled upong all humans, living and dead. This is clearly the foundation for the future eschatological beliefs of Judaism and Christianity, which both include a Judgment before God, and a personal penance, punishment, or exaltation of the soul.

This divine judgment in Zoroastrian belief was that each "person is accountable, eschatologically, for his actions" in life (Lampden, par. 4). This is the foundation of other Apocalyptic belief systems which hold that one's faith would not always supersede their actions in life and a last-minute conversation might not save them the damnation which awaits non-believers of whatever eschatology might be the case in point.

Prophets of Zoroastrianism proclaimed such a battle and judgment would one day befall human, but records left us do not declare they ever set a date for such an event, and, it can be surmised from the state of the world today, that this Final Judgment probably did not occur. But it did give rise to the three most dominant religions who focus a great deal of theological attention on the on-day-soon-will-be-here Eschaton.

With Judaism, religious belief and politics would become forever intertwined, and despite six thousand years of denial, it has never been untangled. According to eschatology student, Eric Redding:

Religion and politics are, and have always been, one and the same. Communism, Capitalism; Socialist, Fascist; Democratic, Republican; Lords, Commons -- these are the bodies of theology and politics. Communism died a rapid death. The infection of Judaism and Christianity are slow, lingering illnesses. The American religion, Capitalism -- worship of the Bank Accounts and Bottom Line -- is a virus that has almost vectored itself out of existence ... killing its adherents with extreme indifference and vitriol prejudice.

Although this is seemingly stated in an empirical and sarcastic manner, it rings true to the nature of belief, if not absolute veracity. But we might be jumping ahead a bit in our tour of the end times. Let's step back from talk of American Capitalism and consumerism and return to early Judaism and examine their end of the world beliefs.

In the Babylonian Talmud -- the Hebrew Book of Law compiled during their exile in Babylon -- it states an early example of the belief that the end times are near and a savior will come to smite the evil which stands against True Belief. "When thou seest a generation overwhelmed by many troubles as by a river, await him, as it is written, when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him; which is followed by, And the Redeemer shall come to Zion." (Talmud, Sanhedrin 98)

So eager were the early Hebrews to have their Mashiach, their anointed Messiah, appear, that prophecies and foretellings are sprinkled through the books of the Torah. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and almost all of the Book of Isiah contain references to the coming Messiah. They believed that the human soul was immortal, living on beyond the death of the body. When the Messiah arrives, those of the Olam Ha'zeh, "this world", alive or dead, would be transported to Olam Haba, the "world to come". The coming of the Messiah would also result in destruction to, if not the entire world itself, then the power structure which is in place at the time the Messiah appears. This expectation of upheaval reveals itself in the very word we use for the end of the world. Armageddon comes from a Hebrew word that names a specific place. The valley of Meggido, beneath a mountain peak of the same name, Har Meggido ("Mount Meggido"). Armageddon. The place where the end of the world begins. Or at least, the end of the ruling class.

This returns us to touch again on the point made connecting such religious beliefs to political ones. Even if the entire world is not destroyed when the Messiah battles the Adversary ("Ha-Satan", in Hebrew, meaning "accuser", "adversary", and "wanderer") at Armageddon.

Not all of the various sects of Judaism believed this way. The Sadducees, for example, did not believe in the afterlife, which put an incredible kink in their believe of the Messiah coming to bring a Judgment upon the world. But one particular sect of Judaism could be considered an Apocalyptic cult. The Essenes saw the world in much the same way the Zoroastrians before them did. Light was the representation of God, and Darkness was evidence of the Adversary. It is widely thought today that the Essene cult was the origin of many teaching later attributed to Yeshua ben Yosef, more commonly called Jesus Christ.

Even making a cursory examination of Christianity and Apocalyptic thought would take up the pages a a lengthy book, so for our Express ride through the sights of the end times, we will have to make only very brief mention of several names, and only a pause for one or two events to look more closely at them.

In the first 1500 years of Christianity, there were no less than a few thousand declarations that the End had come. The early Christians believed their Messiah would return in their lifetimes, and such expectations continued through the next generation. This is when the most famous work about the end of the world was written.

The Book of the Revelation was penned by John of Patmos sometimes between 68 and 96 CE. It's unforgiving tone and blood-thirsty images of torment, torture, and destruction became the template for Apocalyptic belief which followed. Visions of half-human, half-animal beast, swarms of insects, rivers and oceans of blood, and crumbling mountains and towers would become the benchmark for all future attempts to describe what was going to befall this world, if not tomorrow, then very, very soon.

Following John of Patmos in Christian millenarian prophecy were the sects of Priscillianism, Montanism, the Cathars (to name but a very few), and eventually the Millerites, which gave rise to a number of Christian sects and religions that are still dominate today.

For brevity's sake, this Express view of the Apocalypse will not be stopping at the stations between John of Patmos and the Millerites, but suffice it to say, the Cathars, in particular tie together the past of Zoroastrianism, Hebrew sects, and early Christian belief with the threads of modern millennialism, connecting the Templars, the Crusades, and our modern obsession with conspiratorial beliefs.

We stop again then with the Millerites, a Christian denomination that began in the early 1800s in New York State. Adventists, Millerites, and Mormons all began at roughly the same time, in the same general vicinity, leading historians to deduce that so many versions of Christian religion sprang up at the time due to people applying the ideals of democracy to religion, bringing us back to the point made that religion and politics have long been intertwined.

The Millerites believed that Jesus Christ was soon going to return, and His return would mark the beginning of a thousand year earthly reign in which evil would be purged from the world and a new age of God-fearing (i.e. loving) people would be the only ones left. This is a direct association of the end of the world with the imagery within the Book of Revelation. The leader of the Millerites, John Miller, had picked/deduced a specific date for the return of the Christ. October 22, 1844. More than 100,000 people sold their homes and land and worldly possessions in order to be unencumbered when the Savior arrived.

When this date came and went without Jesus Christ showing HImself to his followers, the event became known as the "Great Disappointment". Many reasons were cited as to why Jesus hadn't shown up, but the result was the same. The Millerite movement was ended, but it gave rise to a number of other denominations in its place, including the Second Adventists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Seven-Day Adventist Church. It also did not stop further prognostications that the End was still so very nigh. It also marked the modern age of what might be called obsessive insanity concerning the end of the world.

From Montanus with Priscilla and Maximilla to Joachim of Fiore, through the ultimately infamous Templars and the oft-misquoted Nostradamus, to the modern day rantings of Lahaye, Robertson, Lindsey, Clare Prophet, Applewhite, etcetera etcetera religio ad nausea -- the attraction of the chiliastic myth has experienced a spectrum of cries and warnings and prognostications. Such experience might show us that another call that the End is all kinds of Nigh is just so much millenarian myth and mirage. Yet there is something about an Imminent Apocalypse that makes most people hope for themselves to be numbered with those who will be "saved" -- who would survive and find the world a living paradise, free from those they would deem as reprehensible people -- whatever qualifies as reprehensible according to their cosmological framework. Through a belief in such a Final Judgment that will befall others (but never those who are truly saved), history and current events both assume meaning, and the horrors of both become bearable. Wether it is by fire, flood, famine, virus, extraterrestrials, or asteroid impact, the end of the world is always said to be near, but so far, despite constant calls that the End Times are here again, they have never quite arrived. So, as can be shown by this repeated cycle of Armageddons -- when people clamor about living in the Last Days like so many moths fluttering to a gasoline-fueled flame -- Hope is a far more powerful force than is Experience.

•

In our generation today we have seen a plethora of Apocalyptic proclamations, and our popular media has been inundated with it. From Orson Welles narrating a documentary film on Nostradamus through the run of Hollywood films in the late 90s, such as Deep Impact and Armageddon, to more recent television fare, The Invasion and Jericho. Media programs and audiences never tire of being told the world might end tomorrow. More importantly than popular shows, the dire side of Apocalyptic belief can be seen in the Heaven's Gate suicide cult with their belief in UFOs landing to save the chosen people to the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, burned alive because of their so-called "fringe beliefs". In 1999, millions of days and countless amounts of time was devoted to fending off the possible massive, world-wide computer failings due to the Y2K Bug. And our next Western Pop Culture End Times date has been linked to the Maya Calendar, which New Age thought has told us to expect another end of the world on (or around) December 21, 2012.

2012 is the next stop on our Apocalyptic Express. But if we miss that one, don't worry. Another end of the world date will surely follow.


Bibliography

"Apocalypse!" Frontline.

Dir. William Cran &. Ben Loeterman.
PBS. 22 Nov. 1998.

The Holy Bible: King James Version.
The Tanakh: International Jewish Library Edition.
Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy:

Apocalyptic Visions
in Contemporary America.
Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 2003.

Boyett, Jason. Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse.

Orlando, FL: Relevant Books, 2005.

Grosso, Michael. The Millennium Myth:

Love and Death at the End of Time.
Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1995.

Lambden, Stephen. Encyclopaedia Iranica:

"Eschatology." Ed. Ehsan Yarshater.
1996-2007. 19 Nov. 2007 .

Nelson, Chris. A Brief History of the Apocalypse.

"1999-2005." 19 Nov. 2007 .

Redding, Eric.

"Putting out the Fires of the Apocalypse
with Rhetorical Gasoline".

Synphoria Discussion.
Chicago, August 18 2007.

· • ·

Gulyás

This was the Big Essay About Food for the semester. I'm not a person deeply involved with food, for the most part (although I miss having full access to a good kitchen where I currently live), but when this assignment came along I thought back to one of the finest meals I ever had, late night and very hungry(!) in Budapest.

Notice, if you will, the subtle insertion of a Lovecraftian line in an early paragraph. If ever an entire country was primed to be a Lovecraft setting, Hungary would be it.

~•~

Writing & Rhetoric I
Essay #2: Writing to Explain and Support an Opinion or Belief
Final Draft: October 23, 2007 [3rd draft]

GULYÁS

Since arriving in Budapest, I've found Hungarians to be a baffling portrait of contradictions. Is it possible that a meal could be a metaphor representing an entire county and its culture? I look at the plate of gulyás set in front of me, smell the rich spices in the steam coming off it. I've heard stories of this country's history for the past few days, and yet I still can't figure out what I think about Hungarians.

Where the dark hills rise wild outside of Budapest, it is not difficult to imagine the herdsmen with their open fire-pits, boiling boar meat off the bone. The flames curling up around a huge black iron pot, a shank of boar stewing in water drenched with capsicum peppers, and if a caravan had come or gone through the area recently, salt and onions. The herdsmen would boil the spiced water for hours--until the meat melted off the bone--and then pick out the tender pieces leaving the water to boil down into a broth. The meat would be laid out and dried, then cut into small cubes and then reintroduced to the broth water. More capsicum peppers--dried and cut, called paprika--and the dish would soon become gulyás, the most commonly associated food with the Magyar nation. Ethnically distant from their surrounding neighbors in Central Europe, even the English name of their country conjures thoughts of food. Hungary. And their culinary staples reflect well their wild, and often extremely violent, history.

The Magyars came to this valley and began conquering the area and its surrounding regions, and have ever since been struggling to keep the place they carved out for themselves in the midst of Slavic people. I admire them and feel reviled by them at the same. I think this paradox I feel towards them is inherent in their own personalities. They see themselves as conflicted by opposing natures.

This becomes evident to me when I sit down to have dinner. Their food and drink reveals something of this paradox to me.

It's pronounced goo-yash, and in English it sounds much more frightful: goulash. Gulyás is a meal comprised of tender chunks of meat stewed in fat stock (cooking oils will not render a similar taste as fats will), spiced with salt, pepper, and the mainstay of Hungarian food: paprika. Along with garlic, onions, and red peppers, gulyás is served on its own or over pasta noodles. It is one of the simplest of foods to make, and one of the most difficult to get right. And the complex flavors it provides belie the simplicity of its preparation.

Paprika is a powdered sweet spice made from capsicum peppers, and can be found in almost every Hungarian dish. Most red sauces in other countries is formed from a base of tomatoes. In Hungary, the red sauce is a result of meat fat seasoned with paprika. Like the national character, the spice is both peppery and sweet at the same time.

Heavily spiced food and a history of brutal violence. If it were that alone, I wouldn't find Hungary so perplexing. The hook, as it were, in my opinion of them, comes from the sweet white wine from a region called Tokaj. Tokaji is a sweet white wine that differs from other desert wines in that fine Tokaji doesn't leave a sugary aftertaste. King Louis XV of France called it, "Vinum Regum, Rex Vinorum"; "Wine of Kings, King of Wines".

This leads me back to the paradox I see in the Magyars. Spicy red peppers and sweet white wine. Hungary is comfortable in this schism. It is a country which continually rates among the top ten in both sexual satisfaction, and in suicides. The passion and self-hatred struggling within. The Magyar people who came to settle this region have given birth to legends of ferocity and savage murder, from the fictional character Count Dracula (who was of Hungarian descent, just living in Romania), to the non-fictional "Blood Countess", Elizabeth Báthory, who killed perhaps more than two hundred young girls because she thought their blood might keep her youthful. Some of the most impassioned, powerful music I've ever heard comes from Béla Bartók and Franz Liszt, but there's also a signature song of lost love and suicide written by some almost forgotten Hungarian composer and made famous by Billie Holiday; "Gloomy Sunday".

Beauty and suicide. Gulyás and sweet white wine. Every nation has its share of violence and bloodshed, but few live so comfortably with it as the Magyar nation of Hungary.

After walking the ancient streets of Budapest, hiking in the mysterious hills outside of the city, and seeing a lot of the passion and anger of the people here, I think their food and wine speak of the country's sins, past and future. I smell beauty and passion in the scent of the chilled Tokaji in front of me and think of contrasts as I look at my plate of gulyás. I imagine the taste of bittersweet passion as I bite into a mouthful of history.


· • ·

Gratitude

This Rhetoric assignment was to write a letter to someone in order to thank them for helping us in some manner.

I immediately composed this note of gratitude. It still slams me in the chest and leaves me staggering for breath when I think back to that evening and how many seeds were planted, to be cultivated with experience and travel, and the harvest coming only years afterward...

The synchronicity of composing this at a building which overlooks Grant Park was not lost on me.

~•~
[second draft]


33 E. Congress
Chicago, IL 60605
October 16, 2007

Allen Ginsberg
245 Mount Olivet Avenue
Naropa, Earth


Dear Allen:

Thank you for asking me to join you for dinner. It was one of those uncanny synchronicities, of course, you recognizing me. After a five minute phone conversation the night before, it was damn eerie when you stopped to talk to me after the poetry reading. I only called the radio station where you were being interviewed because I knew the dee-jay, but then suddenly you were on the phone and I just stumbled through my silly question. A real question. "What are you doing before the reading?" I asked, "I'd like to hang out and talk." As if we had know each other for years. We hadn't ever met.

I enjoyed your poetry reading, of course. Best public reading I'd heard then, or even still to this day. Afterward, everyone milling about here and there, I clutched my notebook and hovered around where you were talking to some stiff academic types. Suddenly you stopped in mid-conversation and turned around to face me. "You called me last night," you said, with absolute certainty. I clutched my notebook of poems a little tighter; seventeen years old and talking to Allen-Fucking-Ginsberg!

"Yeah, that's right," I replied, and then without further comment, you asked what I had to show you. The poem I had my notebook open to--with back story ready to tell--didn't thrill you at all. Grimace beneath your long gray-streaked beard and screwing shut your eyes as if to obliterate some Lovecraftian squeamish thing from memory of your sight. Then, instead of a signature, you autographed the page with a quote in your tiny lettering: "No ideas but in things." W. Carlos Williams.

I have to admit, when I saw that, I was crushed. I muttered something to myself and perhaps you saw the sting in my own expression. "Listen," you said, "we're going to get a bite to eat, you can join us if you want." I almost said no.

Can you imagine where I might have headed in the greater scheme of things if I hadn't gone out that night? I wouldn't have the same reflection in my rear view mirror as I traveled on down the road from there, that's for sure. Well, probably. I just wouldn't have done it with the same lessons in my head.

So that was me, then: eating red beans and rice with Allen Ginsberg in Mobile, Alabama. I couldn't believe it, though I was much too cool to ever let on as to how I felt. It was all just so...like old friends hanging out. You had this habit of closing your eyes when someone was speaking to you. It was more than a little disconcerting, but you explained it as being a means to shut out distractions so you could focus completely on what someone was saying to you. Not paying attention to this or that nor thinking of what you were going to say when they stopped talking, but really listening to what was being said. I liked that, having never been much of a person for chit-chat anyway. Not thinking about Back Then, or Maybe Tomorrow, just right Here and Now.

Which was why I leapt right in with the magnitude of my question from the start--

--You who had been on the road with Kerouac and Cassady, on the bus with Kesey and the Pranksters, hanging out with Tim Leary, and Abbie Hoffman, and in Ashrams in India and Communes in Poland...I thought for certain you'd have something to say in response to my Great Question: "What do you think happens to us when we die?"

Without hesitation you snapped your reply, "Absolutely nothing; we turn to carbon and nitrogen and feed the earth."

Second time in one evening my expectations were crushed. I was still dazed from that comment when you managed to slip away from your local guides and snuck out the back of the café. Someone brought a joint and we shared a smoke outside in the alley. Laughing about serious things and being serious about the humor in the world, you pointed out the building where the FBI had offices in Mobile. The very same building where you had been for your radio interview when I called, and--years later--where I would work at that same radio station; WZEW 92.1.

Even if we had never crossed paths again, it wouldn't have made the lessons I learned that night any less profound, but running into you again some years later--you remembered me, again--and we talked briefly. Like running into an old friend. And that's when I learned a little more.

You were not someone to provide answers for others, especially poetic seventeen year old kids just starting out on their own paths. Your quips to me were a way of saying, "Do not follow in the footsteps of the Masters; seek what they sought." And from my hurt responses to such comments, I developed my own Buddhist Truth: "If you have no expectations, you cannot be disappointed."

How much I've learned since then. How far I've come. Coast to coast hitchhiking. Beyond this country's borders in travels on my own. Never satisfied with having learned enough; seen enough. And now, in one of your old haunting grounds, I'm in college in Chicago. At Michigan and Balbo, just across from Grant Park. And I still reflect on my conversations with you.

My ontological spiritual quest: regardless of what we believe or place our faith in or hope or dream or love or fear about what comes after this life, there is at least one fact in nature. When people die they become (something akin to) carbon and nitrogen and are gone. Anything beyond that is our conjecture, our faith, our prayer. What will happen other than that is for each and every one of us to find out at some point. Anyone who tells you different probably wants something from you.

I've often refer to the quote you scrawled in my notebook of poems. I didn't understand it for several years. "No ideas but in things." I think I have learned it now. Ideas should be represented in the manner of what they are. Allusions and metaphors and symbols are fine, but what of the thing which lies beneath the image? Direct experience of something, rather than experience by proxy. And sometimes, I think maybe the there are no things but in ideas. Whatever meaning it, or anything has, the important thing is not in discovering the answer, or even an answer, but in continuing to ask the questions.

Anyway, it's not been fifty years since Howl was published, and even in this day of crass vulgarities spewing forth from prime time network television, your poem is still considered to be too obscene to be read on the radio. I'm not sure if that's funny because of its pathos, or if its pathetic because its so funny. The power of words on paper. But more important to me, personally, are the words we shared together. They are a major reason of why I not only write what I do, but also why I breathe and think and love and continue to believe.

Words are magic. Why else would it be called spelling?

I just wanted to express my gratitude for the magic you brought all of us; left for us.

Your words mean a lot to me.

Thank you, Allen.


your old friend,

~kírk~


· • ·

"I Believe..."

This was an assignment to write a response for NPR's on-going series "I Believe..."

Extra-credit for submitting it, which, of course, I did. And it came as no surprise, as I stated within the framework of the response itself, NPR wouldn't touch it. I did, however, receive an email back from NPR that seemed to have been written by a person, stating that, although several of the editors found it more rational than most rants and more funny than most attempts at humor they receive, they would not use it for their program.

~•~
(3rd draft)


Writing & Rhetoric I
Reading Response #2: "I Believe..."

"I Believe..."

I believe that laughter is a holy, divine human trait.

I believe that it is not unpatriotic to say that I am sick and tired of hearing about September 11, 2001 as if it were the worse day in human history. There were worse days than that, even in American's short history, and there will probably be days which will be considered worse yet to come. I believe that a bunch of schmucks boarded airplanes that morning and flew them into buildings killing more than 3000 people they'd never met or spoken with. I believe that calling someone like Rudy Giuliani a "hero" is derogatory to people who actually do something heroic, like firefighters who, on thousands of other days not called "September 11, 2001", enter burning buildings in an attempt to save life and property of others they may have never met or spoken with. I believe that politicians who so casually use terms like "heroes" or "innocent victims" are likely the same people who continually turn a blind, arrogant eye to the rest of the world's (and their own country's) poverty and pain while they line their pockets with money not legitimately theirs and take profitable advantage of the misery and sorrow of those affected by tragedies such as September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and the continual daily hardships of not having enough food or adequate health care.

I believe that the worst terrorists in the world hold elected and appointed offices. I believe that exchanging liberty for the promised illusion of security is a large step on the path of a totalitarian society. I believe that Democrats are really no different from Republicans, but are probably more inept, although feel slightly more guilty about their incessant greed.

I believe that Bill Clinton is a liar, but he lied well, and with many witnesses.

I believe that George Bush is a poorly-spoken liar, but has enough witnesses to intimidate people from challenging his badly told lies.

I believe that anyone who compares Hitler, Nazis, and/or the Holocaust to anything other than the likes of Pol Pot, Stalin, China, Khmer Rouge, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur displays ignorance, and, regardless of their skin color or religious trappings, comparing the Holocaust to something that is not a regimented genocide automatically disqualifies the speaker from rational, intelligent discussion. I believe that criticizing the nation of Israel does not even remotely make the critic anti-Semitic.

I believe that there are only two sources for almost any human action or thought: Love and Fear.

I believe that NPR isn't going to touch this essay with a ten foot pole.

I believe that yesterday can remind us all something about what we (hopefully) have already learned. I believe that today is wonderful, regardless of the weather or what I may or may not have to do before it has passed. I believe that tomorrow, like yesterday and today going to be another beautiful miracle.

I believe that whatever happens, I'm still going to laugh.


· • ·

A Coffee-Stained Life

The first English course I took was a rhetoric class with a theme that semester: reading and writing about food.

~•~

Writing & Rhetoric I
Essay #1: Writing to Explore the Self
September 27, 2007
First Draft

A COFFEE-STAINED LIFE


It's a divine ritual: measured amount of coffee beans; the proper grind; good water; correct temperature—rolling, but not boiling. After brewing, give it a few minutes to settle. Then draw a mug three-quarters full. Heavy splash of cream. Sit and ponder things, or set my pen to paper—usually a café napkin—to externalize the thoughts in my head and heart. The basics of my ritual.

I take another sip of coffee and stare out the window. It's snowing so hard I can't see across the street. A little after four in the afternoon and the static whiteness of the blizzard is fading to a pewter gray. I've been sitting here in the bookstore since eight this morning with pots of coffee and zero customers. It's almost time to call it a day. Finish performing this ritual.

Pouring another cup of coffee, I watch the steam swirling as it rises from the dark surface. I pour cream in and watch the spinning liquid cloud, changing shades from black to seal to bistre to sepia. Albino coffee, I call it. A lot of cream.

When I take my seat back by the window and hear the fingernail tapping of icy wind on the glass, I take a sip and taste the slipstream rush of history, culture, warmth and possibility. The sacred bean; the devil's cup.

I never knew—never thought about—how the history of human civilization and coffee were so closely linked, I never considered the links of history and the beans—the pits of the berry—of the coffee plant were so tightly joined together. Not before walking into this small bookstore in this tiny tourist town and asking for a job.

West Yellowstone, Montana. The aptly named town at the west gate of Yellowstone National Park. Small town, seven hundred people in year-round population. In summertime the town would grow to about two thousand, and more than a million tourists would come through over the five months of summer season. In the winter, the population dropped, and, other than snowmobilers and a handful of cross-country skiers, the tourism was significantly less as well.

The bookstore and café was a family-run operation, a father, his son, and daughter (the mother recently passed away). I really just wanted to work in the bookstore, but when I asked for work, I was told that they only hired people to help out in the café. The back corner of the store had a slight rise and hardwood floor surrounding a wooden bar and several tall chairs in front. Espresso machine and a selection of bakery items; house special, baklava muffins.

"Ever work in a café before?" I was asked.

"No," I replied with a sarcastic grin, "But I have been to Seattle."

My irreverent humor and quick wit fit in well there and I was soon asked if I wanted to learn more and work in their coffee house.

Indeed I did.

I learned the difference from light roast to full city to French roasts. I learned that the temperature of the water meant everything in brewing. I also found out that humidity in the air can alter the pull of espresso and make it too strong or too weak. I learned that Lloyd's of London, the worldwide insurance company, began in Edward Lloyd's Coffeehouse in London more than a hundred years ago. I learned that western European coffeehouses may have never been introduced to coffee if the Ottoman Turks hadn't unsuccessfully attacked Vienna in 1683, and that many people from Seattle carry the attitude that Starbucks invented espresso.

Having always been fascinated with history—not the sort of sterile history a high school teacher attempts to illustrate with dates and place names associated with nothing relevant to the human lives involved with such events, but the sort of breathing history that is brought about by familiar people doing familiar things in a time and space other than now—I had more than a few moments of satori and giddy enlightenment in learning not only how to roast and grid and brew coffee, but also its place in relation to people through time.

I suppose part of my smitten attraction to coffee was that I felt transported by it, to places and times I hadn't considered before. The smell and taste and entire atmosphere of the beverage. The handling and surroundings of it could influence how it affected me (and thus, most likely, others as well).

The finest cup of coffee, the character of the room in which it was served. I came to want to create the perfect cup of coffee, the perfect setting in which to drink it.

And being a bookstore café, I felt doubly at home when I would bring in a freshly-roasted bag of coffee and begin the detailed, but not complicated, process of sublimating beans into dark liquid. I thought of it as alchemy. The mythic process of turning lead into gold.

But what I was learning was the sublimation of something greater than coffee and water. I was transforming myself.

I wanted to work in a bookstore because I love stories, learning about other times, other places, other lives. In working with coffee, I opened into an awareness of times and places—fires in the Persian desert with Sufi poets, Vienna at the dawn of its enlightened age, fin de siècle Paris, a burned-out café in a besieged Sarajevo at both ends of the twentieth century—the connection between the past, the present, and future possibility. Recurring cycles, which are played out in a similar manner over and over again.

I came to construct a defining ritual in my life. Coffee. Awareness. Creativity. I had become inspired. In awe of the most evident things hide the most glorious details that are all-too-easily overlooked: fractured shafts of light scattered through the leaves of the tallest tree in the forest; the warmth of the ground under barefeet on a summer's day; a strand of hair caught in the eyelash of a lover as they blink; the sky on fire at sunset after another wondrous ordinary day. The little things that sometimes go unnoticed but make up the best things in our lives.

The ritual of preparing coffee, of drinking it. Tasting the rush of history and myth and art and politics and religion and stories that I taste in the finest of sips, and the lingering flavor on my tongue is the potential of what comes next. What do I have to add to this steaming stream of heritage brewed along with coffee?

I find no sense of this in a quickly prepared drink in a paper cup. Hand over a drink and then bustle on to the next person in line. The rite of brewing coffee and sitting down is always a favorable alternative for me. Seated, relaxed, cup in front of me, and a pen spilling its ink across a café napkin as I write another line of poetic tale before taking another sip. Here's a half-written page/from my coffee-stained life, I write on the coffee-stained napkin, then pause to stare out the window at the blizzard blowing snow so hard I can't see across the street. It's been a great day, sitting here in the bookstore with two pots of coffee and no customers.

It's almost time to go, but I'm already home.

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