Boria Sax's Blog: Told Me by a Butterfly, page 2
June 10, 2018
Dinosaurs and Human Destiny
The 1854 “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations,” better known as “The Crystal Palace,” in London was an extravaganza designed to showcase technological marvels, as well as to demonstrate Britain’s leadership in innovation. If there has ever been an event that marked the birth of modern, commercial culture, it is this spectacular display. The building was designed on the model of a cathedral, and effectively elevated commerce to the status of a religion. And, rather like the gargoyles on facades of Medieval churches, giant models of dinosaurs were placed outside. They were meant to be the greatest of anachronisms, examples of savagery and remote times, added to dramatize how far humankind had come.
After the exhibition closed, the Crystal Palace, together with the dinosaurs, was moved to the London suburb of Sydenham. The building was destroyed by a fire in 1936, and only the model dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures remain, as a reminder of the fragility of human accomplishments. The statues also became the prototype for hundreds of dinosaur theme parks throughout the world.
We see ourselves in dinosaurs, probably even more than in glass palaces filled with the latest gadgets and sales. We identify with the mighty saurians to a point where, our actual ancestors, the mammals living alongside them, seem hardly to merit more than a brief mention in our textbooks. Dinosaurs are, in our view, the only animal besides ourselves to have ever had dominion over life on earth. Their size and power seem to correspond to our vaunted intelligence, while their biological variation corresponds to our cultural diversity.
Finally, we view the dinosaurs, like ourselves, as essentially tragic. All their majesty could not save them from extinction, when an asteroid crashed in the Yucatan Peninsula 65 and a half million years ago. We are tragic as well, because, as the Crystal Palace illustrates, our achievements remain very tenuous, and we are, like the dinosaurs, at the mercy of natural forces far more powerful than any we control.
The key attraction of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs was the iguanodon, the second dinosaur to be named and the largest known at the time. In 1853, as the Crystal Palace dinosaurs neared completion, Benjamin Waterhouse-Hawkins, who directed their construction, decided to celebrate by hosting a New Year’s Eve dinner party inside his sculpture of an iguanodon. Paleontologist Richard Owen, as the guest of honor, sat in the head of the dinosaur. As the party continued well into the night, the party of slightly stuffy officials and scientists, their inhibitions loosened by alcohol, joined in a song:
A thousand ages underground,
His skeleton has lain,
But now his body’s big and round
And there’s life in him again!
Chorus:
The jolly old beast
Is not deceased
There’s life in him again.
His bones like Adam’s, wrapped in clay,
His ribs of iron stout;
Where is the brute alive today
That dares to turn him out? (Chorus)
Beneath his hide, he’s got inside
The souls of living men;
Who dare our saurian now deride
With life in him again? (Chorus)
Waterhouse-Hawkins later recalled that, ‘the roaring chorus (was) taken by the company in a manner so fierce and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief that a herd of iguanodons were bellowing . . .’. The revelers entered into the spirit of the iguanodons, which had become almost a single being as they galloped together across a plain.
It was still only a few decades since Georges Cuvier had proclaimed his Theory of Extinction, which may well have caused greater existential anxiety than Darwin would, about half a decade later, with Origin of Species. For most of the eighteenth century, most scientists had believed, following Linnaeus, that species were eternal forms, which had been ordained by God. But dinosaurs seemed to confirm the idea of Cuvier, that species were transient as the lives of men and women.
All of the repressed anxiety about the fate of man found an outlet in the song of the iguanodon. It was a proud, if not entirely confident, affirmation of human exceptionalism, as if they were to say, “We human beings can not only build wonders such as railroads and crystal palaces, but we can even resurrect the dead. And we shall not allow extinction.”
That is also the message of the hundreds of dinosaur theme parks scattered throughout the globe from Bangkok to Novosibirsk, as well as in entertainments in which people live alongside dinosaurs, from The Flintstones to Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs in them share our pathos, as doting mothers, and our ruthlessness, as relentless predators. We still seek to gain immortality, as a species, by conferring it on our avatars in the remote past.
Ever since their discovery, we have used dinosaurs as a sort of code, with which to speak of the eventuality of human extinction, a topic that has perhaps been too threatening to confront directly. But disappearance is the eventual fate of all species, and ours is now constantly confronted with imminent threats. We may destroy ourselves through a nuclear war, or through provoking an environmental collapse. We could genetically engineer ourselves out of existence. We might also perish, in the grand manner of the dinosaurs, through some cosmic accident such as an asteroid colliding with earth. We might also evolve into something else, though any biological successor will probably know less about us than we know about the dinosaurs. Perhaps a large part of the reason why we memorialize the dinosaurs in countless theme parks, as well as displaying their bones so prominently in museums, is out of a secret wish that, when humanity has long perished, some successors may do the same for us.
And how might we prepare ourselves for the end of humankind? Perhaps in the same ways that we, as individuals, prepare ourselves for death. These include reflecting back over our lives, settling accounts, reconciling with adversaries, and doing what we truly love. Finally, we prepare ourselves by extending our understanding beyond the narrow confines of our lives, to those who live before we came or after we are gone. And, in so doing, we recognize humankind as a perpetual work in progress, together with all of the cultures and nationalities that make it up. This awareness of transience can add pathos as well as flexibility, joining us not only with people in other cultures but other forms of life as well. It extends cultural diplomacy beyond the boundaries of our species to other forms of life, whether past, present or future.
I would like us to continue on earth, at least until we can learn to exit with dignity and grace. Let us at least become fully “human” before we cease to be so entirely. Let us gain the wisdom to better understand our place in the cosmos. Let us, in summary, pass on in a manner worthy of the dinosaurs.
Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs
Boria Sax
After the exhibition closed, the Crystal Palace, together with the dinosaurs, was moved to the London suburb of Sydenham. The building was destroyed by a fire in 1936, and only the model dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures remain, as a reminder of the fragility of human accomplishments. The statues also became the prototype for hundreds of dinosaur theme parks throughout the world.
We see ourselves in dinosaurs, probably even more than in glass palaces filled with the latest gadgets and sales. We identify with the mighty saurians to a point where, our actual ancestors, the mammals living alongside them, seem hardly to merit more than a brief mention in our textbooks. Dinosaurs are, in our view, the only animal besides ourselves to have ever had dominion over life on earth. Their size and power seem to correspond to our vaunted intelligence, while their biological variation corresponds to our cultural diversity.
Finally, we view the dinosaurs, like ourselves, as essentially tragic. All their majesty could not save them from extinction, when an asteroid crashed in the Yucatan Peninsula 65 and a half million years ago. We are tragic as well, because, as the Crystal Palace illustrates, our achievements remain very tenuous, and we are, like the dinosaurs, at the mercy of natural forces far more powerful than any we control.
The key attraction of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs was the iguanodon, the second dinosaur to be named and the largest known at the time. In 1853, as the Crystal Palace dinosaurs neared completion, Benjamin Waterhouse-Hawkins, who directed their construction, decided to celebrate by hosting a New Year’s Eve dinner party inside his sculpture of an iguanodon. Paleontologist Richard Owen, as the guest of honor, sat in the head of the dinosaur. As the party continued well into the night, the party of slightly stuffy officials and scientists, their inhibitions loosened by alcohol, joined in a song:
A thousand ages underground,
His skeleton has lain,
But now his body’s big and round
And there’s life in him again!
Chorus:
The jolly old beast
Is not deceased
There’s life in him again.
His bones like Adam’s, wrapped in clay,
His ribs of iron stout;
Where is the brute alive today
That dares to turn him out? (Chorus)
Beneath his hide, he’s got inside
The souls of living men;
Who dare our saurian now deride
With life in him again? (Chorus)
Waterhouse-Hawkins later recalled that, ‘the roaring chorus (was) taken by the company in a manner so fierce and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief that a herd of iguanodons were bellowing . . .’. The revelers entered into the spirit of the iguanodons, which had become almost a single being as they galloped together across a plain.
It was still only a few decades since Georges Cuvier had proclaimed his Theory of Extinction, which may well have caused greater existential anxiety than Darwin would, about half a decade later, with Origin of Species. For most of the eighteenth century, most scientists had believed, following Linnaeus, that species were eternal forms, which had been ordained by God. But dinosaurs seemed to confirm the idea of Cuvier, that species were transient as the lives of men and women.
All of the repressed anxiety about the fate of man found an outlet in the song of the iguanodon. It was a proud, if not entirely confident, affirmation of human exceptionalism, as if they were to say, “We human beings can not only build wonders such as railroads and crystal palaces, but we can even resurrect the dead. And we shall not allow extinction.”
That is also the message of the hundreds of dinosaur theme parks scattered throughout the globe from Bangkok to Novosibirsk, as well as in entertainments in which people live alongside dinosaurs, from The Flintstones to Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs in them share our pathos, as doting mothers, and our ruthlessness, as relentless predators. We still seek to gain immortality, as a species, by conferring it on our avatars in the remote past.
Ever since their discovery, we have used dinosaurs as a sort of code, with which to speak of the eventuality of human extinction, a topic that has perhaps been too threatening to confront directly. But disappearance is the eventual fate of all species, and ours is now constantly confronted with imminent threats. We may destroy ourselves through a nuclear war, or through provoking an environmental collapse. We could genetically engineer ourselves out of existence. We might also perish, in the grand manner of the dinosaurs, through some cosmic accident such as an asteroid colliding with earth. We might also evolve into something else, though any biological successor will probably know less about us than we know about the dinosaurs. Perhaps a large part of the reason why we memorialize the dinosaurs in countless theme parks, as well as displaying their bones so prominently in museums, is out of a secret wish that, when humanity has long perished, some successors may do the same for us.
And how might we prepare ourselves for the end of humankind? Perhaps in the same ways that we, as individuals, prepare ourselves for death. These include reflecting back over our lives, settling accounts, reconciling with adversaries, and doing what we truly love. Finally, we prepare ourselves by extending our understanding beyond the narrow confines of our lives, to those who live before we came or after we are gone. And, in so doing, we recognize humankind as a perpetual work in progress, together with all of the cultures and nationalities that make it up. This awareness of transience can add pathos as well as flexibility, joining us not only with people in other cultures but other forms of life as well. It extends cultural diplomacy beyond the boundaries of our species to other forms of life, whether past, present or future.
I would like us to continue on earth, at least until we can learn to exit with dignity and grace. Let us at least become fully “human” before we cease to be so entirely. Let us gain the wisdom to better understand our place in the cosmos. Let us, in summary, pass on in a manner worthy of the dinosaurs.
Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs
Boria Sax
May 22, 2018
"The Falcon" a Medieval German Lyric
I have contracted to write a cultural history of birds (i.e., bird-human relationships) for Reaktion Books in London, and I am at once excited and a little daunted by such a massive project.
I may begin with the poetry of birds, which often follows a clear pattern. Romantic poets often described the experience of seeing or hearing a bird in rapturous terms, as an ecstatic annihilation of the self, not unlike falling in love or religious ecstasy. That thrill of identification is usually followed by a sadness at being, after all, confined to a human form.
One of the poems that I would like to begin with is "The Falcon," written in Middle High German by a poet known as Der von Kűrenberg in the twelfth century. I believe it is one of the most beautiful lyrics in any language, but I was not satisfied with any of the available translations, so I have made my own:
SONG OF THE FALCON
For more than a year, I nourished my falcon.
I tamed him, according to my will.
But, when I had dressed him up in gold,
He ascended and flew away.
Since, I have seen my falcon
Flying with silken jesses on his feet,
Still gleaming in red and gold.
May God unite those in search of love.
translation©Boria Sax 2018
The poet is usually described as a knight or a minnesinger, but nothing at all is actually known of him. Perhaps the speaker, and even the author, is female and that the poem is a sort of allegory about courtly love. The falcon represents either her son or her husband, who is away on a crusade. The speaker could also be a man whose daughter has married and left home. Falconry in the Middle Ages was popular among both knights and ladies.
The way that I am inclined to understand the poem, however, is more literal. Falconers have told me that it is not unusual to have their falcons simply fly away, and - despite all the time, money, and emotion invested - they accept the loss as an act of fate. The lady (or gentleman) in the poem has lost a falcon, yet believes that it was right for the bird to claim its freedom and hopes that it will find a mate.
I may begin with the poetry of birds, which often follows a clear pattern. Romantic poets often described the experience of seeing or hearing a bird in rapturous terms, as an ecstatic annihilation of the self, not unlike falling in love or religious ecstasy. That thrill of identification is usually followed by a sadness at being, after all, confined to a human form.
One of the poems that I would like to begin with is "The Falcon," written in Middle High German by a poet known as Der von Kűrenberg in the twelfth century. I believe it is one of the most beautiful lyrics in any language, but I was not satisfied with any of the available translations, so I have made my own:
SONG OF THE FALCON
For more than a year, I nourished my falcon.
I tamed him, according to my will.
But, when I had dressed him up in gold,
He ascended and flew away.
Since, I have seen my falcon
Flying with silken jesses on his feet,
Still gleaming in red and gold.
May God unite those in search of love.
translation©Boria Sax 2018
The poet is usually described as a knight or a minnesinger, but nothing at all is actually known of him. Perhaps the speaker, and even the author, is female and that the poem is a sort of allegory about courtly love. The falcon represents either her son or her husband, who is away on a crusade. The speaker could also be a man whose daughter has married and left home. Falconry in the Middle Ages was popular among both knights and ladies.
The way that I am inclined to understand the poem, however, is more literal. Falconers have told me that it is not unusual to have their falcons simply fly away, and - despite all the time, money, and emotion invested - they accept the loss as an act of fate. The lady (or gentleman) in the poem has lost a falcon, yet believes that it was right for the bird to claim its freedom and hopes that it will find a mate.
May 21, 2018
Leaves, Just Leaves
This may never get beyond the stage of a daydream, but I am think about writing a book, or just a chapbook, of poetry about leaves. It could be an occasion for some neat illustrations.
White Plains, NY 10601
WHICH LEAF?
And I said, “Let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day”
---Patrick Kavanagh
One leaf will float on a stream.
One will be impaled on a branch.
One does not fall, but rises
And then falls, to ascend again.
One is still partly green, and glossy
Enough to flicker in the slightest hint of sun.
Of another, nothing is left
Except a stem and veins.
They are bronzed, auburn, or pallid,
Orange, ginger, or lichen blue.
One leaf is intensely red, another almost white
With a faint touch of beige.
They will lie, not quite still, upon the field,
Like dying warriors, amid the drumming
Of crickets and the hiss of wind,
Till every sound is muffled by the snow.
Blanketed by ice, the leaves must sleep.
We are their dream.
Copyright ©Boria Sax 2018
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
White Plains, NY 10601
WHICH LEAF?
And I said, “Let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day”
---Patrick Kavanagh
One leaf will float on a stream.
One will be impaled on a branch.
One does not fall, but rises
And then falls, to ascend again.
One is still partly green, and glossy
Enough to flicker in the slightest hint of sun.
Of another, nothing is left
Except a stem and veins.
They are bronzed, auburn, or pallid,
Orange, ginger, or lichen blue.
One leaf is intensely red, another almost white
With a faint touch of beige.
They will lie, not quite still, upon the field,
Like dying warriors, amid the drumming
Of crickets and the hiss of wind,
Till every sound is muffled by the snow.
Blanketed by ice, the leaves must sleep.
We are their dream.
Copyright ©Boria Sax 2018
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
May 8, 2018
New Edition of Crow
Crow has recently been republished by Reaktion Books in a less expensive, second edition, with a new introduction. In this history of human cultural relationships with crows, I have tried to make a bit more explicit, what I believe is the major theme of the book. The human relationship with crows is more reciprocal than with any other creature, because no other animal is intellectually interested in us to the same extent. They constantly study us, with the result that they can recognize and long remember human faces. It is nearly impossible for chimpanzees to understand the gesture of pointing with a finer, but crows, like dogs, understanding this without being taught. The book had previously been translated into Korean, traditional Chinese, French, Arabic and Turkish. Translations into Czech, Spanish and simplified Chinese are forthcoming soon. For a short time, Amazon has dropped the price to about $5.50
Crow
Crow
March 8, 2018
Poetry, Once Again
As I slowly start to approach my 70s, I am increasingly preoccupied with memories, with the things that I constantly had to push back from my mind, in order to concentrate on the practicalities of work and social life. For a time, I was devoted to poetry. Though I never entirely stopped writing it, I largely ceased to publish or give public readings. Poetry has become a highly competitive world, into which I did not wish to be drawn. I wanted poetry to be about solitude, not performance or social commentary. But now, with much of the pressure lifted, I am starting to pursue it once again.
copyright©Boria Sax 2018
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
copyright©Boria Sax 2018
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
February 13, 2018
Even Time Must Change
What is Time?
All else is iron, wind and flame;
Time, only, is made of water,
But, unlike streams, the moments may not flow;
Time might become a lake, a stagnant pond, an ocean,
A glacier or a hurricane, a foggy day.
Time itself must change.
So wrote an alchemist, centuries ago;
A single drop of rain falls on the page.
©Boria Sax 2017
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
All else is iron, wind and flame;
Time, only, is made of water,
But, unlike streams, the moments may not flow;
Time might become a lake, a stagnant pond, an ocean,
A glacier or a hurricane, a foggy day.
Time itself must change.
So wrote an alchemist, centuries ago;
A single drop of rain falls on the page.
©Boria Sax 2017
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
January 28, 2018
Illustrations
I have added some of the illustrations to my recent books Lizard and Imaginary Animals on Goodreads, and they are found respectively at:
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/work/...
and
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/work/...
I would be delighted if anyone care to comment on one of the graphics and start a conversation.
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/work/...
and
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/work/...
I would be delighted if anyone care to comment on one of the graphics and start a conversation.
January 20, 2018
A poem about Sing Sing Prison
For about a decade and a half, I have been teaching at Sing Sing Prison, a maximum-security facility in Ossining, New York. As one enters the prison, one is searched and must walk through a metal detector. Then, after about half and hour wait, one is taken to the school. In the hallways, there is a perpetual feeling of tension, but it dissipates very quickly as class begins. The students are among the most engaged that one is likely to find anywhere in the world. Any pause in a lecture is filled with questions, and there are never any of the awkward silences that are the bane of conventional undergraduate programs.
And yet, a writer by vocation, I have felt little urge to record the experience in print. Part of the reason is a pragmatic one ─ the possibility of legal complications. But there is also a concern that to write about the experience might mean to exploit it. Perhaps all that comes down to a feeling that these days, where cameras are everywhere and the internet is ubiquitous, some things should be left to direct experience.
But, one experience that has stayed with me is, on the very first day I was to teach, looking up and seeing the strands of barbed wire glittering over the fence. The sight has haunted me for years, and this week I wrote a poem about it, which I feel called to share:
Perhaps some things are best left not quite silent, yet barely said.
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
And yet, a writer by vocation, I have felt little urge to record the experience in print. Part of the reason is a pragmatic one ─ the possibility of legal complications. But there is also a concern that to write about the experience might mean to exploit it. Perhaps all that comes down to a feeling that these days, where cameras are everywhere and the internet is ubiquitous, some things should be left to direct experience.
But, one experience that has stayed with me is, on the very first day I was to teach, looking up and seeing the strands of barbed wire glittering over the fence. The sight has haunted me for years, and this week I wrote a poem about it, which I feel called to share:
SING SING PRISON AT NIGHT
Luxurious stems of gleaming steel
Wind up and loop around the top and sides of walls,
Like vines circling the boughs of trees.
The metal gleaming in the starlight,
Is beautiful, yet it should not be so.
Such loveliness could temp a prisoner
To ascend till he was shot, and fell
To leave a drop of blood suspended from a point. . .
A Christmas berry on a holly branch.
Perhaps some things are best left not quite silent, yet barely said.
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
January 13, 2018
The Mythical Zoo in Chinese
I am thrilled to see my book The Mythical Zoo out in Chinese translation, my third book to be published in that language. It is part of a series published by the Chinese Mythological Association with Shaanxi Normal University Press, other volumes of which are devoted to Chinese, Celtic, Australian, and Japanese Myth.
At times, I get a little tired of being me. I also, from time to time, get the feeling that "me" might not be who I really am. My books, particularly those in translation, are a sort of alternative self, a person that, had I just lived in a slightly different sort of cosmos, I might have been. They have their own lives. They can go places where I cannot go. They can say things that I would never say, and meet people with whom I would never associate. Somewhere, there is a Chinese "me," and all that I can do is wish him well.
The Mythical Zoo: Animals in Myth, Legend, and Literature
神话学文库·神话动物园：神话、传说与文学中的动物 平
At times, I get a little tired of being me. I also, from time to time, get the feeling that "me" might not be who I really am. My books, particularly those in translation, are a sort of alternative self, a person that, had I just lived in a slightly different sort of cosmos, I might have been. They have their own lives. They can go places where I cannot go. They can say things that I would never say, and meet people with whom I would never associate. Somewhere, there is a Chinese "me," and all that I can do is wish him well.
The Mythical Zoo: Animals in Myth, Legend, and Literature
神话学文库·神话动物园：神话、传说与文学中的动物 平
January 8, 2018
Contacting the FBI (from Stealing Fire)
"In 1999, I contacted the FBI, requesting their file on my father. Nearly a year later, when I had almost forgotten about my request, I finally received a phone call from an FBI representative. She graciously explained to me that they had two dossiers on my father, which together amounted to over 2,500 pages of material. To declassify the entire file would take more than five years. If, however, I would modify my request and be content with approximately 750 pages, which the FBI judged the most significant and important ones, the request for information could be processed within six months.
Why, I wondered, did releasing the files need to be so complicated? After all, it was over half a century since my father’s acts of espionage had taken place. By the time I spoke with this FBI representative, not only Theodore Hall and my father but also almost everybody else who had been involved was dead. Any interest in the case was, or at least should have been, historical rather than strategic. But I didn’t feel like agonizing over their reasons for the delays and readily amended my application.
Over a year passed, and still no files arrived. Despite repeated phone calls to the FBI, I received only bureaucratic assurances that my request under the Freedom of Information Act was being processed. Finally, I wrote to the FBI again, and within a week the files, a repository of forbidden knowledge, like that of the nuclear bomb itself, were in my mailbox.
I felt like a child lying in bed and listening to a violent argument going on in the next room. Ought I really to be reading such material? Was I trespassing? Few people have ever been able to come as close to revisiting their childhoods as I did by going through those papers from the FBI. Odd phrases preserved in the files evoked long buried, at times painful, memories, which are far too private for me to ever explain. As I read the files, I was torn between anger at and sympathy towards my father.
I had entered an eerie world of subterfuge, a parallel dimension accompanying everyday life yet seldom intersecting with it, like the world of spirits in traditional lore. Almost every document was stamped 'secret' or 'top secret,' and had entire sentences, at least names, blocked out. Often, a page was hardly more than a collection of black lines, with only an enticing phrase or two still readable."
Stealing Fire: Memoir of a Boyhood in the Shadow of Atomic Espionage
Why, I wondered, did releasing the files need to be so complicated? After all, it was over half a century since my father’s acts of espionage had taken place. By the time I spoke with this FBI representative, not only Theodore Hall and my father but also almost everybody else who had been involved was dead. Any interest in the case was, or at least should have been, historical rather than strategic. But I didn’t feel like agonizing over their reasons for the delays and readily amended my application.
Over a year passed, and still no files arrived. Despite repeated phone calls to the FBI, I received only bureaucratic assurances that my request under the Freedom of Information Act was being processed. Finally, I wrote to the FBI again, and within a week the files, a repository of forbidden knowledge, like that of the nuclear bomb itself, were in my mailbox.
I felt like a child lying in bed and listening to a violent argument going on in the next room. Ought I really to be reading such material? Was I trespassing? Few people have ever been able to come as close to revisiting their childhoods as I did by going through those papers from the FBI. Odd phrases preserved in the files evoked long buried, at times painful, memories, which are far too private for me to ever explain. As I read the files, I was torn between anger at and sympathy towards my father.
I had entered an eerie world of subterfuge, a parallel dimension accompanying everyday life yet seldom intersecting with it, like the world of spirits in traditional lore. Almost every document was stamped 'secret' or 'top secret,' and had entire sentences, at least names, blocked out. Often, a page was hardly more than a collection of black lines, with only an enticing phrase or two still readable."
Stealing Fire: Memoir of a Boyhood in the Shadow of Atomic Espionage
Told Me by a Butterfly
We writers constantly try to build up our own confidence by getting published, making sales, winning prizes, joining cliques or proclaiming theories. The passion to write constantly strips this vanity
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