1,000 words

Someday, when I grow up and get a big boy job, I'm going to sit at my laptop and have a party. "The Great Untagging." I've been tagged in 533 photos of Facebook (lots more, actually. These 533 are those my mother is least likely to find objectionable...). It's not that I'm doing anything bad in the pictures; mostly, I'm making silly faces and generally being a college student. Even so, they probably aren't the kind of pictures that a professional person wants following them around. Actually, I'm not just wild about some of them now, --like the shirtless Christmas card photos-- but that's just part of the deal when you're an undergrad with silly friends and a little free time.


There's a part of me that will be sad when it comes time to remove my name from all those photos. I'm not ashamed of any of them; in fact, it makes me glad to flip through them and remember the situations they capture. Even the unflattering ones. Even so, the true measure of an important photo in this digital day, is the photo you like enough to print. Of all the 533 pictures of me on Facebook, maybe 10 of them have ever been printed. Fewer than 100 of the 5,000+ photos on my hard drive have ever been sent to the printer. A facebook photo is cheap. A printed photo is a treasure.

If you're like me, you sometimes marvel at how well documented your life is. Cameras everywhere, photos on every phone, blog, profile, and laptop. At 22 years old, though, I'm coming late to this party: I have a nephew who at the ripe old age of 13 months has probably had his picture taken more than most A-list celebrities. The child is a rock star. I'm generally pretty far removed from the world of child-rearing, so I had no idea: there's the newborn photo shoot, the birht announcement, the one-, two-, three-, four-, five-, and six-month photo shoot. There's the mom-and-son session, the family photo, the dad-and-son shoot, the Christmas card, the birthday invitation, the first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Veteran’s Day, the first Black History Month, and the first Pearl Harbor Day. The first tooth, step, laugh, solid meal, intelligible word, haircut, and boo-boo. He had a personal DVD slideshow at his first birthday, which played on a loop near his three over stuffed photo albums. He might as well have his own facebook, for all the albums devoted to him.

Then there are the prints. Crazy as I think it all is, I can’t really complain about those, because they come to me in the mail every month or so and I just can’t resist oooh-ing at his pudgy little cheeks. Every picture finds its place, either on a wall, tucked in a book, or in my wallet. The printed picture is maybe the most powerful piece of paper anyone is every given, because it simply cannot be thrown away.

What kind of a monster gets a picture of his nephew, smiles nostalgically, and chucks it in a bin? We’re talking serious staying power. At the bottom line, it’s a 20 cent card. But it feels like so much more. We shake our heads in confusion when we remember the people in bygone days who refused to allow picture taking for fear that part of their soul would leave them. What a silly idea!

Not so fast. You try throwing a photo of your dear grandmother into the rubbish bin—see if you don’t feel like a monster. We attribute a measure of personhood, of attachment, to printed pictures. They’re like money—some terrible offense if discarded.

Looking up at the wall next to my desk, I’ve just discovered that I don’t have a single print of me and my nephew together. I’m headed to Texas next week for a visit—four days ought to be enough for 1 or 2 (hundred) shots.

P.S. If a picture’s really worth a thousand words (even though I think they're actually worth a lot more) then here’s a few to round us out:

Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Paper Pictures Forever.

The Pages of Personhood

Speaking of paper that defines us.  At about four o'clock on a Friday morning not long ago, a very dear professor of mine welcomed a new child into the world.  Just minutes old, this baby was assigned its very first piece of paperwork, a document which confirms a legal identity for the state and all parties with whom the baby does business, basically forever.

I guess it must be true that people existed before birth certificates, but the idea of not having one now seems absurd.  How did people verify their identity when they applied for a passport?  How did kids register for school?  What in the world, in the days before birth certificates, did a Notary Public do for a living? 

A Birth Certificate is a funny thing.  It is a piece of paper which one must have in order to acquire a lot of other pieces of paper.  It is important, not just for a person beginning their life, but for any person at ay stage of life.  It establishes, immediately, one's citizenship, one's name (as well as initial weight and height), and one's parentage.  Even so, if you asked me to locate mine today, I'd have to tear my whole house apart.  Clearly, it's a significant piece of paper, but it is significant in a "put it in a drawer and never look at it" kind of way. 

Some people spend their entire lives trying to escape the place they came from.  Others are so consumed by the place of their origin, their family history, their cultural comfort zone, that they never progress.  Neither person would deny that birth narratives are significant.  The Christian faith retells its favorite birth story every December, of a man born under most unusual circumstances, who throughout his life was tied to the place from whence he had come: Jesus of Nazareth.

I've successfully written this whole post without in any way identifying my professor's new progeny, which was at least a little harder than I at first imagined it would be.  The child's already got a paper trail, no point in prematurely creating a digital footprint to match.

Hymn to the Kleenex

Oh, friend-
no one gets as close to me as you.

So delicate, so clean,

Trapped, innocently, in a cardboard cage,
Like so many stacked beneath you.

In my hour of need, I search for you.

Urgently, I pluck you from your bondage.

Like the net beneath the trapeze,
you are my safety.

When I find you, all that is within me
spills into your generous arms.
Thick, viscous, it keeps me from breathing.

I fear that our friendship will ruin you.

I look down to see my friend,

and I am disgusted by what I see.

Dear tissue, I know you no longer.
Ashamed, I cover you with my hand.
Crumple you.
And toss you to your new cage.

A Page Immune to Fire

Most of the things we commit to paper are as temporal and disposable as the pages themselves.  Notes to ourselves, yesterday's candy wrappers, a newspaper rendered irrelevant by the passing of one day.  Tomorrow's trash.

It's interesting, isn't it, that "paper" in the hyper-plural sense of the word is invaluable to the basic functioning of our whole world, but the thing itself--the page in my hands--is wholly temporary.  Worth next to nothing.
Not everything we commit to paper is so fleeting.  In fact, some pieces of paper are so important that they come to define who we are.

The Constitution of the United States was drafted in September 1787, and declared by a three-year process of ratification to be the supreme law of the land.  In our time, when a single piece of legislation can fill 2,000 pages, the Constitution is surprisingly short (in fact, it's the shortest federal constitution in use anywhere in the world), and remarkably broad.  It establishes a framework, defines the government's most basic roles, and leaves the work of specific governance to the wisdom to the discretion of the next generation's leaders.

Our Constitution is the oldest in the world.  The Union is young, but this document which holds it together has endured far longer than any like it.

Of course, our reverence for the original draft of the Constitution is largely nostalgia--the Union would still stand if, by some extraordinary confluence of events, a moth snuck its way under the shining-green bullet-proof glass.  But even this, in the larger context of history, is signficant--the Constitution exists all over the place

I carry a paper copy of the Constitution in my schoolbag.  It was given to me by a professor of whom I am particularly fond, as a great instructor and a cherished advisor.  Bearing my ill-informed margin notes and uneven hi-lites, it goes everywhere I go.  How many through story have lived under a regime so transparent as to reproduce the law for everyone to see and hold?

It's an important piece of paper.  Indeed, it is a leaf which has sustained, encouraged, and protected our collective development for over 200 years. 

By comparison, how pathetic is that post-it note sitting next to your computer?

Your Lucky Numbers are 16 20 39 41 45 and 49

Today's post begins with a paradox:

I love fortune cookies.
There is absolutely no reason why I should love fortune cookies.
I love fortune cookies.

And not just the silly words on the paper in the middle. I'm talking about the crusty, near-flavorless origami crackers which house those little slips of paper. They're perfect. I especially love how they all seem to be dusted with a specially fine layer of fortune crumbs, which sticks to your fingers. Now, this isn't a food blog. I'm not really set up to do a review of the fortune cookie as a culinary experience, and I certainly don't want to know what goes in the making them. But the truth is, the fortune cookie is the perfect after-dinner delight. Light on the palet, small enough to be enjoyed quickly (and simple enough to be complimentary), with a charmingly subtle hint of vanilla.

If you, like most people I know, are more taken with the paper wisdom lodged inside the fortune cookie than with the cookie itself, then read on. I started this post with my paradoxical love of a nearly worthless food item. The greater paradox, though, is the paper fortune itself. We love them, exactly because they are often the dumbest thing we'll encounter on any given day. I understand the attraction, I suppose. A conversation piece, a quick laugh, a taste of mystery. Sure, whatever. But some people save these things. They stick them in their wallets, next to pictures of their grandkids. At the end of a deliciously Americanized Chinese dinner, who hasn't participated in the ancient ritual of reading aloud your fortune? Everyone reads, everyone lifts their eyebrows and makes a few odd sounds, and everyone laughs.

My latest fortune cookie promised that I "will be advanced socially, without any special effort." What? Is that a good thing? Why is that desirable, and how the hell would a cookie know that? My point here is twofold: first, there's no accounting for the fact that sometimes we just like stupid stuff. For me, it's Jim Varney movies, vanilla mint toothpaste, tetris, and fortune cookies. They're all stupid, and I love em. And that's okay--some people would argue that if you rounded up all the essentially pointless things a group of people does for entertainment, you might call that "culture."

Second, there are some pieces of paper that will never go away. At the end of time, when everything is computerized and the Matrix has taken over and the mining of unobtanium threatens to destroy Pandora, we'll all still be enjoying the one-line wisdom of some unknown factory worker like our parents did.

Hope your week is going great--stay tuned for a slightly more consequential piece of paper, coming your way this week.