For the 15

I don't have much to say this time around.  I've been going through the motions of preparing for a senior recital, and I've been going through the motions of finishing the last few classes I need to graduate, even though Biology has nothing to do with either politics or music performance.

The truth is, I ache.  I ache in a deep way that only a few people in this school can understand - or choose to understand.  Music people, Biology people, Comm people, Psych people, Bible people...there are a few people in nearly every friend group, major, and class who understand what I'm getting at.  Should we just roll over and say "Oh well?"  I thought that's what we should do last semester, until one of my dear friends and favorite professors fell out of my life, just like so many others have this past year.  There's not much we really can do.  So I'll just sit over here in my corner of the Den and make some noise.  I know I'm not alone.

Afraid, cowering in plain sight,

Hiding from ethereal unknowns.

Previously our pride, but like

a lion shorn, our colors worn

Now become our shame.

Friends, mentors, melt away like

spirits, the young forgetting who

Once led our vivacious pack.

Those men with manes targeted,

Made mediocre in a moment by

the will of an iron pen.

The convenience of hypocrisy,

The death of justice at the hands

of a mere formality enrage

Those left behind – gold memories

Stained Red.

We few hide defiantly in

the shadows of our Den,

barring our teeth at the bones

thrown to us from the poachers’ table.

Some are dragged away for show,

and eventually we all jump through their

hoops, kings made stooges.

Would that there were Prides left to

laugh at our Circus, but extinction

breeds nothing but an audience riveted to

this momentary drama.

I count down the days until this collar of

chain rusts away – Time its only key.

My mane once shorn surfaces again,

Teasing and tantalizing, tempting me

with new life.

A choice remains, for the 15:

Do we keep our collar, fondly recalling

Our might being smothered into nothing

larger than a house cat? Or

shall we leap through our last hoop,

roaring in contempt at the Board that

holds the remains of our rusted chain?

Suddenly a snap!  Sally forth or

sit in silence.  I ask no pardon

for my

Roar.

The Intrigue of a Puddle

I was thinking about the transition of my life from where I was to where I've been on the short walk to music history this morning, and this poem resulted.  Take it at face value.

The Intrigue of a Puddle

It's odd the men who sometimes inspire, 

And today Springsteen comes to mind.

Reliving Glory Days and winding back time,

Ignoring decisions driving down to the wire.

Future career, struggles, and a ring,

But walking to class, a puddle calls.

Video games, for the first, numb grade's sting,

Responsibility stumbles; good health stalls.

Am I young or a decrepit old man,

Rushed through my prime years of life?

A constant fight for Purpose and Meaning,

But wondering if larger letters even matter.

No five-line message in this mess,

What you see is what you get.

What little sleep comes fraught with nightmares,

A mirror darkly reflecting mind and soul.

Come drown with Bruce and me,

Forget the toll of Death's bell.

The Deadly Pen

Ink on a page,

Not soldier but sage,

Consequences of words,

That millions have heard:

The deadly pen.

Towards the end of this school year I was approached by a member of the staff of Bryan College who was in charge of the international affairs of the school.  Having lectured in one of my international relations classes a week or so earlier, he wanted to know if, based on my knowledge of international politics, I would be interested in going to Austria for an internship there with the Red Cross.  From the start I was skeptical about going overseas, as money has always been an issue for me.  I live on a summer-to-semester type lifestyle, spending everything I earn during the summer on school.  However, I felt as if I was at a point in my life where I needed something drastic to change my perspective on where I am, what I believe, and where I am going, so I told him I would go, even though my bank account had less than $100 in it at the time, and the flight alone was going to cost a minimum of $1,500.  I had a little over a month to find $2,000, but I had to say yes or no up front.

In total faith, I said yes.

Now here I am, nearly three months after that large personal leap of faith, sitting on a small bed in a Red Cross station in Neusiedl, Austria, having completed most of my project work.  Did this “simple project” change my perspective on where I am, what I believe, and where I am going?  Absolutely.  And it also changed how I view the condition of the world.  How could I not write about it?

I have been told that the spiritual state of Europe is drastically different than that of the US.  I admit that America isn’t exactly in a spiritually healthy state – far from it – but I had no idea how radical the difference actually was.

Having “officially” finished Visions of Vocation by Steven Garber about a week ago (I don’t count a book as finished until I’ve read the epilogue, acknowledgements, etc.), I came across a quote near the end that I hadn’t ever considered, and it spurred a train of thought that manifested itself in several circumstances throughout the next week that I find extremely insightful into the European way of life.

 

To say it very plainly, over the next century and a half, scores of millions lost their lives because of the misreading of the human condition and history at the heart of Marx’s critique, and the world as we know it has been radically and wretchedly affected by his misunderstanding the nature of vocation and therefore occupation, of what life is about and therefore what our lives are about.  In the early twenty-first century, there is almost global acknowledgment of this truth.

-Steven Garber

Marx himself never advocated violence as a means of accomplishing his visions, but still, his work was misinterpreted on such an enormous scale that literally millions of people lost their lives.  Marx’s pen was one of the most deadly instruments in all of history.  Words have consequences that are much more far-reaching than any of us could ever imagine.  They affect our way of living on such a grand scale that entire cultures will pattern their lives after the words of just one man.  It has always been this way.  Every great nation to rise and fall has seen a great artist rise up from its glory or ashes, and thereafter shaped the way that nation has progressed, and such artists of eloquence are inevitable.  Marx was one of the last, but there is a new culture rising.  Who will be next?  What will the words be that shape the coming generations?

I have always been one to consider deeper questions about life, especially after I joined a speech and debate team.  The question “Why?” is one that I am very interested in, but for a long time, it was just a matter of intellectualism.  I wanted to ask “Why?” until I understood the theological implications of any belief, because, at the very root, even if it is buried very deep, every human being has some theological view.  That question used to be one for debate and argument, but after being in Austria for some time, my perspective on that one simple word has drastically changed.

When one of my gracious Austrian friends heard that I was soon to finish my last book I had brought with me, Visions of Vocation, they generously brought me a whole stack of English books they had used to learn English earlier in life.  Gulliver’s Travels and Treasure Island were among the pile, as was the book The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman.  Being intrigued by the title and the short description on the back of the book, I started reading.  From the beginning, it was obvious to me what Weisman believes: we are the result of a huge cosmic accident.  Somehow the evolutionary chain altered 3.9% of our DNA, slightly altering us from chimpanzees.  The entire book wrestles with the question of whether or not the world will miss us once humanity is inevitably obliterated.  “Is it possible that, instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us would miss us?”  This question, whether Mr. Weisman intended it to be or not, is inherently one that rings deeply of a search for Purpose.  It is a question that asks “Why are we here?” and “will anyone care once we’re gone?”

With Weisman’s philosophical questions still ringing in my ears, I set off for volunteer duty at a local festival in Gols, Austria.  My only job there was to collect monetary donations for the Red Cross at the entrance of the festival, and so for four hours I got to do one of the things I love best: people watch.  I saw all sorts of people, as one is apt to do at any festival, but one young man stands out in my memory.  He couldn’t have been any older than 16, and he was wearing a plain blue t-shirt that, on the front, said in big, white, capital letters, “WHO AM I?”  I’m not sure he spoke English, and so I’m not certain that he even understood what his shirt said, but in my mind, that made the entire scenario even more heart-wrenching.  At our very core as humans, even if we are totally unaware of it, we are programmed to ask and to wonder: who am I?  Why am I here?

The next day, I was brought by the President of the Burgenland Red Cross to the national headquarters of the Red Cross in Vienna.  Another student from Bryan joined me, and both of us considered the day a time for our superior, the President, to show us off to his superior: the General Secretary of the Austrian Red Cross.  The meeting went well, from what we saw, and after we were finished, the President showed us into a room that housed the Director of International Affairs for the Red Cross, as a special favor to us, as both of us are interested in International work of some kind.  The Director had prepared for us a 45 minute presentation on his work, and towards the end, he gave us the opportunity for questions.  At this point, after reading and seeing the things I had, I knew that very few people in Austria take religion – specifically Christianity – seriously.  Almost always there is only one church, usually Catholic, per town.  There might be one Protestant church for every five towns, and attending the after-church social at the local coffee shop is nearly more important than actually attending the service itself; I know because I experienced it.  With these facts swirling around in my head, I asked the Director of International Affairs, “Why?  Why do you do this?”  The fact that many of the staff at the Austrian Red Cross volunteer countless hours was not lost on me; there had to be a reason that was more insightful than “helping people feels good.”  I was not disappointed.

The Director told me that religious help had always angered him.  He told me that he had traveled all over the world – to India, Africa, Haiti, and many other impoverished areas, and he told me that seeing people live in squalor made him want to do something about it.  He could work elsewhere, but always those people were in his mind.  It was at this point that the President spoke up.  “You see boys,” he said, “I have volunteered at the Red Cross for forty years not necessarily because it is always fun.  I don’t need to work at the Red Cross because I have another job that supports me.  I need to work at the Red Cross because it gives my life some sort of purpose.”  That is all he said.  The Director nodded in silent agreement, and then turned the conversation elsewhere, as if my question of Why was something that he perhaps thinks about every now and then, but isn’t totally reconciled with his answer.

During my stay in Austria, I made many new wonderful friends.  I love my new friends so much, but I also ache for them.  Many of the young men my age who work in Jennersdorf will do what they are doing for the rest of their lives: work as grocery men for money, volunteer at the Red Cross to fulfill civil service and feel as if they have some sort of Purpose, receive a pension, free healthcare, and a free education, get married, and live their lives just as countless people before them have lived their lives.  To some degree, this simple life is a relaxing one, but even being here just one month, my mind constantly screams at me: BUT WHY?  Why do you do what you do?  Do you only live, work, and die?  What is it that gives your life Purpose?  Why will your life matter once you are dead?

The Austrians and Germans have a great respect for Rainer Maria Rilke.  His work is often read at celebrations, and no wonder.  He asks and provides obscure answers to questions that people wonder about but do not vocalize.  “…be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”  What a sad way to live.  Why live your life hoping that you will one day stumble across the Answer to Why?  That is the beauty of the world we live in.  There is an Answer.

There are two options for our life.  1) We live, we work, and we die.  There is nothing else to life; we are merely a cosmic accident that has no Purpose to pursue.  No vision to our vocation.  If this is the true option, then dear reader, I urge you to logically live: party hard, for tomorrow we die.  This isn’t true only in Europe.  Today, one of my favorite actors, Robin Williams, committed suicide.  He was depressed beyond all logic because he believed his life had no purpose.  But something deep inside of me and inside of you screams to us that there is more to life than that.  Why else do we search?  Why else do we long for more?  2) There is an Answer that desperately needs to be found.  Now.  Not one that can be gradually lived into, for our lives are but a breath: here today and gone tomorrow.  Your life needs a Purpose, and it can have one that reaches even beyond the grave.

Each generation has an artist of eloquence that shapes the way our culture progresses.  Marx’s pen was one of the deadliest weapons our world has ever seen.  His position of power is just waiting to be filled, and honestly, there are millions of aspiring authors who would love to fill it.  It will be filled by someone; it is inevitable.  I would be lying if I said I do not want my words to have the same weight and power as Marx’s did, but I would also be lying if I told you that my words are the Answer.  The wonderful thing is that the true Artist of Eloquence has been among us for as long as we have existed.  There is much greater Purpose waiting for you than volunteering for an organization.  There is answer to Who you are and Why you are here, and if you honestly and actively search for it, it will find you.

So perhaps, dear reader, you have gained a small amount of knowledge in the last few minutes.

Knowing what you know, what are you going to do?

Combating Reality in Grinder and Grains

Dear Reader,

I can't tell you how much I've missed writing you.  So much has been on my mind of late, and I haven't found the words or the poetry to express what this vortext is doing to my upper grey matter (yes, I did invent a new word; do you like it?  Yes, "grey" is better spelled that way.  "Gray" just looks too harsh.).  However, let the record show that, talks with fathers (mine), wonderful authors (specifically F. Scott Fitzgerald), and a surprisingly pleasant change of atmosphere do me wonders.

I had the good fortune to realize through someone (my mother, I think), that the location that my favorite coffee-shop in my hometown used to occupy was again filled, and it was taken by a mom-and-pop cafe.  I was deeply saddened when the coffee-shop had left its previous home (a 100 year old house), in exchange for a larger, warehousey building (there he goes again with the weird words...).  The coffee's quality suffered, and the atmosphere there took a change for the worse, in my opinion.  However, I am currently sitting in the very corner of Grinder and Grains Cafe (where, if I ignore the windows looking outdoors to my TN home, I feel as if I'm in a lodge in the Swiss mountains), and I am one of two patrons currently frequenting the quaint establishment.  The coffee here is satisfactory, and the chicken tortilla soup is exquisite.  I feel quite safe here, much as I do at Harmony House back on the Hill; for, as far as I know, this little cafe has yet to be found out by a large amount of people. I think I have found a treasure, and I revel in that fact.  A painting of a couple embracing under an umbrella adorns the wooden wall near me, typical coffee-shop music floats softly through the age-old house, and here I write.  Alone, but with my books, words, and thoughts to keep me company.

Lately, I have been feeling extremely...lost.  I know this sounds like the same words over a different tune (I suppose that would be an inverted form of strophicity?  For those of you wondering, I did just modify the word "strophic" to fit my needs), but I guess being at home, countless engagements of people younger than me (some of those old friends, an ex, or just people I used to consider much less mature than myself), my drawing near to the completion of my time on the Hill, and just a general lack of preparedness (or so I feel) for the future has amplified those feelings even more than normal.  For those of you who understood that previous sentence on the first try, I commend you.

At any rate, I have been wondering recently whether or not I am a child of the millennial generation, and how that will affect me in the near future.  I attribute much of the faults of that generation to a complete immersion in technology for most of their life (specifically feelings of entitlement and narcissism), and while this may not be completely accurate, from my experience it has had a large role in their upbringing.  While I generally do not think that I have been immersed in technology my entire life (I barely knew what the internet was until I was 15, and never had any type of phone or gaming system until at least my 16th year), I do feel as if I am an extremely immature person surrounded by people of a maturity unknown by most people in my generation.

I have friends in college about two years younger than me who are married and awaiting their first child.  And here I am watching/playing Pokemon (I even ordered Ash's hat), playing Legos, dressing like I'm still in my early teens, and relying on my parents for a lot of my livelihood while I'm in college.  And I can't help but ask myself if I'm somehow behind...if I've done something wrong.  Is it wrong to have the kind of fun I'm having at my age?  Should I grow up and move on to more serious things?  I have sworn most of life that I'll be wearing Converse from now on out, and I'll be a goof even when I'm old and white...but...why am I here and they are up there ahead?

I read The Great Gatsby (a MUST read...I don't care if you've seen the movie) and I read things in it like, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself…he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” and I wonder (because that is exactly how I am...constantly Romanticizing everything, just as Gatsby did) if it is indeed possible to form a Platonic version of me: to forget my past on such a level that I can become the man I've always dreamed I could be.  That vision is nothing like Gatsby's in physical grandeur.  I don't want the house, the wealth, or the people...but to be a man that is worth remembering.  I want to do that as a Christian, and I know I should be constantly tempering what I think and desire by God's Word.  And I do.  I guess I don't feel the comfort a lot of people say they have in it.  I think God requires of us the blood, sweat, and tears that worldly people shed on their own personal ambition.  I think service for Him is the end goal, but we are still required Gatsby's ambition if we want to be truly successful for Him.  I feel like I have shed quite a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, but lest you think I'm feeling entitled, I do not say I deserve anything; rather, I query to the void what those wounds, labors, and tears have accomplished.  Who am I because of my past?  Or should I shed my past and become my own man?  ...some questions that are probably best left to hindsight.  Yes, it is 20/20...but it sure takes a long time getting here.  I guess growing up takes a lifetime.

Pokemon and pranks,

But to be frank,

Immature and irresponsible?

Is growing up logical?

Combating Reality.

Here I sit, comfortably musing in a new favorite place of mine.  I am listening to Pavarotti's rendition of "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot" for the 12th time since I've been here, and I refuse to look up the lyrics.  

Why?

"I have no idea to this day what [he is] singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think [he is] singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, [his] voice soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."

I may feel like I'm institutionalized in Shawshank right now.  But regardless of the circumstances I'm in, and no matter that I feel as if I'm in a pond but pining to be in the ocean, I'll keep doing my best to be who I want to be, and who He wants me to be.  Join me?  I really could use the company.

Lost in the Evidence

Tin man in Tin armor,
City-loving farmer,
Eagle Scout and musician,
Questions, queries, unanswered ambition:
Finding Me.

Christian, Oldest child, Romantic, romantic, Ginger, goal-oriented, focused, trumpet player, brass lover, Romantic era, big orchestras, principled, sap, music-lover, deep thinker, broken and bandaged heart, lover of family, big brother, patriot, UT fan, athlete, double-major, possible grad student, heart-breaker, player, exhausted, confused, obnoxious laugh, affectionate friend, flirt, sweet-tooth, afraid of needles, spiral staircase lover, fictional writer, aspiring poet, confidante, goober, goofball, addict, extrovert, touchy-feely, writer of letters, liar, lover of politics, movie collector, nostalgic, smeller of books, natural leader, public speaker, improv, classy, jazz, farmer, Eagle, hard things, Legos, Zelda, Simple Things, Beauty in the small, Words, capital letters, etc., so on, and so forth.

Afraid to commit,

Risk completely spent,

Hide in my shell,

Wish them all well:

Protecting Her.

Who is my Her?  I don't know.  Who am I?  I don't know.  Where am I going?  I don't know (this reminds me of a negative version of the Zoboomafoo theme song...).  But I do know that whoever she is doesn't want the Me I know now.  And so I try and protect all the Hers out there.  But I fail.  I wonder why the terrible things happen.  I wonder why the dragons of my life persist.  But I keep pressing on, still not knowing, still hoping to be a better Him.

"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.  Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us."  -Rainer Maria Rilke

...one day later...

P.S. (Because sometimes other things need to be said that are too curtailed to say in another post...and besides, who posts two posts within a day of each other, really?)

The English language is crazy.  I made a little note at the end of my International Relations Notes that says the following:

Baloo blew until blue.  Write rite right. The board is aboard the bored board.

What?

Also, have you ever wondered what would happen if you mixed up tenses in English?

I did that tomorrow, you know.  I will go to the store yesterday.

I hear the makings of a Lewisesque story.  My mind has been down the Rabbit Hole of late.  Which would explain away the "good-heavens-I feel-like-I-fell-off-a cliff-after-that-mood-change" post script you just read.

C'est la vie.

Live the Question: Pursuance of Art

"When God created - and in that way made the perception of beauty and the human creation of art possible - he gave art a place in this world in which we live; and that world he called good.  Art is here because God meant it to be here."  - H.R. Rookmaaker

Imagine: as soon as God created, Art came into being.  It was the first thing to truly exist in our Universe, in our Reality.  Sure, He made Light first.  But in the same words he breathed Light into being, Art took shape too.  There was no war, no worries, no struggle.  In God's perfect Universe, alongside everything He created, there was Art.  God called this world Good.  Perfection centered around existence, praise to God, and Art.  After the Fall, that changed.  War and worry were added.  Our focus was violently shifted.  But Art is still out there, just waiting to be pursued.

In our society today, the arts are being mercilessly cut and removed from our education system to make way for the "essentials."  But really, when God created the Universe, were social studies, Language, Math, and Science the focus?  Not at all.  They were all in the working background.  I do not mean to say that these disciplines are unimportant; on the contrary, these disciplines hold the fabric of the Universe together.  But they are not the zenith of God's beautiful creation.  Always, there is Art.

There are some great people throughout history who have not forgotten this truth: Art is made to be pursued.
 Art is the capstone of every civilization.  In every Golden Age, the pinnacle is creativity.  Why do we remember the Golden Age of Athens or of Rome?  Great philosophers, sculptors, orators, painters: artists.  The nearest any civilization has come to perfection is always highlighted by the deepest Creativity.  There is a quote that is floating around on the internet: "When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort, he simply replied 'then what are we fighting for?'"  The quote isn't verified to actually be Churchill's, but even if it isn't, the truth of those words has resonated in my head ever since I first read it.  Why on earth are we cutting funding to the Arts?  What then, are we fighting for?  Are we abandoning our Golden Age?  It seems we are no longer pursuing what characterizes the things that give the Lord deep glory.  It seems we are no longer pursuing perfection.

I have been searching for who I am for quite a long time, as most of you are aware if you read any of what I write.  Recently, however, I have decided that I want to be a music professor.  I love music; it is my Art.  I love writing; it is my Art.  Pursuing a graduate degree in music theory or music history (or both) is a place I can write and perform, and I can influence coming generations towards things that truly matter.

Like finding and using their Art for a Purpose that really matters.

And learning when a word needs to be capitalized.

I've been reading a lot of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" recently (sincerely thankful a dear friend gave me that wonderfully insightful book), and I was led to the following quote that helped solidify in my mind that I'm on the right track.

"You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

I am not claiming to have The Answer.  I assume that will not come until very few breaths remain in me.  If any.  But I do know I feel as if I have been given some new sense of direction, and I am following it.  I feel somewhere deep within me that it is leading me toward the Art that I have, for most of my life, greatly enjoyed but thought I would someday have to give up.  A part of me feels an odd sense of completion that I am being pushed in a direction that will not require me to give them up, but instead to pursue them.  To pursue my Art - my offer of praise to the ultimate Artist.

The past few weeks I have had small glimpses into the true definition and existence of Art with a capital A.  I am immersed in its beauty in ways I never believed possible, and in ways that nothing else can achieve.  I have no witty or strategic way to incorporate the following three poems I wrote under music's influence.  As you read them, try to imagine the most beautiful and all-encompassing thing you've ever experienced.  These are the feelings I have tried to capture.  I feel as if I'm in the middle of a vortex of words of pleasure, and in reaching my hands out I can only grasp a few.  Know that many more wonderful words and feelings still rage about me.

Overwash and flow,
Sing, violin's bow,
Flood my senses,
Beautiful, yearning, pensive:
Intense musical pleasure.

Shiver down the spine,

Whisper in time,

So much pleasure,

Measure after measure:

Musically Aroused.

Back of the mind,

Rolling in time,

On or off the seat,

Plagued by the beat:

Drum fill.

I don't know for certain where I am going.  I don't know the answer, but I am living the question.  

I am pursuing my Art.  

Music and words dance constantly through my head.  Lord, please don't let the dance stop.

Considerations of the Letter 11

Today I am considering things that start with the letter 11.    But in all seriousness, nonsensical, and homicidally verbagiousness (that’s the characteristic of verbing you know, and not technically upon my considerations as it does not start with the letter 11), the musings and mischiefs of Carroll and I (specifically of Alice and JTY), have made its way into my imagination and Scarlequain, AH, 11!

Slayed the Jabberwock,

Put the Question to Spock:

 Why is a Raven like a writing desk?

Hatter, Harry, Hammer, to the test:

J.T.Nonsensical.Y.

Life is better with the wing of an angel around one’s neck, I daresay.  Indeed, a little known fact of Poe’s crow and the cow’s low is just that.  You suppose Alice slayed the Jabberwock in a day?  Wing your way up the spiral stair, and away from Absalom’s stare.  Where is your Muchness, young one?  Why is a Raven like a writing desk?  Why do all the Spocks in the world know An Answer?  Is there an answer?  Did Poe write on both?  I’m more inclined to think there is a B in both and an N in neither.

And now Much One Young, you shake your bean and mutter something mean.  But being mad isn’t bad, in fact you’ll be quite happy, if not sappy, to realize that the best usually are.  Mad, I mean.  And probably saps too, if the two winds blew blue too.

Is there a moral to this story, this ridiculous tirade?  Something Deep you can dive in, some philosophical spin?  More than you know, your Muchness.  I hope you’ve found it by now.  I hope you’ve answered your Question.

Eh what?  Wake up you say?  My friend, you just heared the time of day.  But I’ll tell you a nary, this old storator will.  There once was a boy.  And not just any boy.  This boy had powers untold.  What were they?  Well, I’m sure you’ll find out; today I am considering things that start with the letter 11.