10 x 10

What is now?



10 x 10 describes the present in a global way that shifts according to the moment and partly -- based on your interest.

another way visual culture overdetermines our sense of where and who we are....but its a pretty cool surf.

secret agent visits basement office of professor

at obscure college in small town ohio.

or

a short story about how top level security clearances are obtained in our government.

said agent seemed to be lost wandering up and down the hallway of our little nook in the basement when I arrived yesterday. He wore an ill fitting red striped shirt and paisely tie and had not gone easy on the donuts nor had a haircut in the last month.

He smiled too much, seemed confused by almost everything he saw, and had to refer to his notebook to ask me the three standard questions which he apparently asks everyone who he talks to.

He was trying to obtain security clearance for a student who had dropped out of college after taking my course a few years ago (one more of the masses I've inspired to drop out and turn on or zone out and....something).

He asked questions about was this person dependable, trustworthy, loyal?

He never came to class or turned his work on time, I said.

The agent laughed. I had clearly misunderstood his question. This was about *security clearance*.

So he got right down to the point:

Had he ever mentioned family or friends who were foreigners?

I stared blankly at him. What kinds of conversations does he imagine happen between professors and students these days?

Apparently he recognized my blank stare. He set forth in a long hypothetical scenario which included, you know, maybe an Uncle that maybe he mentioned having a job with intelligence from Cuba or Latin America. You know? Something like that?

No. I said, wondering if maybe this was candid camera. Only there's no room in this cramped little basement office for a camera. Nothing like that was ever said.

Well you never know, he chuckled.

He ripped off the legal sheet that he had been "writing" on and placed it in a manilla folder. He asked for my personal information and debriefed me to let me know that if my student should ever request access to his personnel file, he might see that I had given him a favorable recommendation. (I had?)

When he lifted it into the light, I could see through the legal sheet that there was only one long word written at the top of it. What would that word look like when it was retyped for the "official report" in my student's file? I wondered. What was that word?

He profusely thanked me, and with some great effort managed to climb out of the yellow chair.

No wonder we need more layers of bueracracy to direct intelligence efforts. With agents this sophisticated and methods this nuanced, I can see the need for at least three more layers of middle management...

sequel

no point in reading the sequel unless you start with the original, right?


so....it was late:



i was tired of grading...



so i...







fulfilled a little dream?

for the real story, i must thank my friend Marcia -- who cheered me up when her life was crappier than mine.

International 250 Loop

Ding.

Says the microwave in the back room by the copier. My cupasoup is warm.

Ba-Ding.

Say my office notifications. Joe, my student will be by in 22 hours and 4 minutes says the reminder.

Enh! Enh! Enh!

Screams my alarm clock each 5:30 a.m. Wake up, it demands, or push snooze and feel like a lout all day because you didn't start the day writing.

These are nice clear messages, yes? Ding. Ba-Ding. Enh!

I have, like most of us, railed against the depersonalization, the over-mechanization of our world embodied in these odd robotic noises, but today I'm thinking that if God would (on occasion, mind you) utilize the helpful Ding! or the warning Enh!, I'im thinking that life would be a little less complex.

.

I left the office at 11:30 p.m. last night. I was bleary eyed and swerving North up Cleveland Avenue with only occasional traffic passing me. The surreal glow of streetlamps, storefronts illuminating all the nothing pooled along the whole two mile stretch from the college to home.

Suddenly I noticed in my rearview mirror that one of the SARTA busses was tracking at about the same pace as my car. Well, I actually can't confirm that there was really a bus, because what I really noticed was that the digital display from the front of a SARTA bus was flashing backwards messages at me in my car mirror (I never actually turned around to confirm it: yes, that's actually a real bus....).

At first I didn't read the messages. Didn't think of it really. Too difficult to read backwards flashing messages while driving 35 mph, anyway...

It was only after I decided NOT to read the flashing messages that I thought of what a cool sequence this would make in a film. Character reading his destiny backwards in a rear view mirror in the middle of the night as he keeps pace with the Local Transport Authority. Such a David Lynch moment, I thought.

And then I glanced up in the mirror. It was still there. Still keeping pace. What were the chances? I tried to read and drive at the same time. I realized that this bus was actually flashing LONG sentences that were intermittently flashing and scrolling across the digital display. And I'm realizing that it is VERY hard to drive at constant pace, in a straight line, when you're very tired, and still successfully read the front of a scrolling flashing bus marquee.

Crap! I thought. It makes complete sense that God finally decides to contact me in THIS way on THIS night -- when I'm least expecting it. Have you read the prophets? Divine revelation is, apparently, if you're believing their accounts alot more like a David Lynch movie and a lot less like a Christian Book Store.

I scrutinized the blinking dots which string together backwards letters which string together....

who knows WHAT!?! God's will for my life? A warning? A prophecy?

All I get from it is:

"International 250 Loop. Loop. Loop." (that last bit was flashing.)

.

Have you noticed how frequently God's been making contact recently? Besides those direct lines to Gdub and Dick Cheney...he's been talking TONS to of folks on TNN, a hell of a lot of preacher-types, he's been telling a couple of my students to drop out of school, and the other day, he told my friend Cristin's co-workers that he had actually given her a cold and then thrown out her back with a sneeze, all just to deliver a message.

I love that when God talks to OTHER folks with messages for me. I just always find it so curious how God seems to agree so thoroughly with what THEY think...

I guess the upside is that at least God's using the kind of specificity and clarity to them that they think that they can go ahead and give me a little Ding! or Enh!....

.

International 250 Loop.

I've poured over and over it. What does it mean!? I mean what are the chances that a bus in Canton Ohio is going to be flashing the words "International" anyway? It's clearly got to be code.

Or what are the chances that a bus is still runnin routes in the middle of the night? What were those long sentences that I forgot to read?

.

I once attended a church where people spoke in tongues fairly frequently. Things would be a bit quiet after a song and all of the sudden, out of nowhere -- shoutin:

"Shun - diddy - un - die - diddy - eu - phleur. Shun diddy I un diddy I un die."

and usually another silence then somebody else, or the same voice would clarify what had been said.

It was always relieving, after such a jolt, to find out that in general these were affirming messages: God loved us. Had good plans for us. Something was about to happen. Change maybe. Something good was about to happen and change would be coming. And probably we should put aside our sins to focus on this good and coming change.

I once, at a study group at this church, happened to mention that I really appreciated the Christian Mystics. Later my good friend Mark-the-elder, graciously suggested that maybe he should have tried to help me speak in tongues a bit more. I told him that wasn't so much what I had in mind. I just really appreciated writers who were able to sense revelation in the sensory experiences of the world.

And recently, I've been a whole lot less impatient about getting any special or personal words from God. I've been pretty contented to get the sort of vague affirmations of love and grace that are couched in sunrises, good wine, great conversation and a well-made pancake.

But now I've got to get a new strategy.

Is anyone out there seeing anything that I'm not seeing?

International. 250. Loop.



.