Here’s a copy of the letter I sent to Maura Healey, Michelle Wu, and my state senator and state rep. We are in for a deadly winter in New England if our state and local governments don’t start planning for an entirely foreseeable crisis.

I’m writing with an urgent concern for the upcoming winter. As I write this, the average price of heating oil among the companies I’ve checked is between $5.50 and $5.75 per gallon. This is about $1.50 more per gallon than I’ve ever seen before.

I’m aware that the price hikes are tied to the war in Iran, which is not a local issue. What is a local issue, though, is that these prices will almost certainly result in deaths this winter.

That may sound hyperbolic, but I don’t believe it is. Many people in old homes, especially those on fixed incomes, cannot come up with an extra $300 every time they have to refill their oil tank. I’m afraid that people will either freeze in their homes or die when space heaters start fires or perhaps from carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to start a fire in a long-disused and possibly-unsafe fireplace.

As I said, I know nobody at the local level is to blame for this situation. But we now find ourselves in a situation where our neighbors are at risk of dying this winter, and I believe we have a responsibility to prevent that outcome.

I don’t have a specific policy recommendation, but I would really like to see our elected officials talking about this and making plans before this entirely foreseeable emergency unfolds. I’m certainly hoping for a mild winter, but we need to be doing more.

Thanks for your attention to this critically important matter.

The New Yorker’ın kurgu editörü Deborah Treisman’ın derlediği kitaptan ikinci seçimim William Maxwell’in “Love” adlı hikâyesi. Sevginin en masum hali, bir öğrencinin gözünden okuyucunun kalbine dokunur ve seçilebilecek en yalın sözcüklerle karşımızda durur.

Love- William Maxwell (1983)

Tahtada bir ad belirir —Palmer metoduyla— yazılmış bir isim: Miss Vera Brown. Bir öğrencinin ağzından dökülüyorsa en sevilendir, en mutlu edendir. Anlatıcımız, bir öğrenci, beşinci sınıfın öğretmenini “hercai bir menekşeye” benzetiyor. Ah, bu çiçekler, her hikâyedeler.

Öğretmeniyse, sınıfı Alvin ve Sincaplar’a. Eski bir çizgi film (1983) olduğunu anlıyoruz ve bir metinden bir kültüre ait yeni şeyler öğreniyoruz. İşte gerçek zenginlik.

Öğretmen, sınıfa her döndüğünde masasında öğrencilerin bırakmış olduğu türlü nesnelerle karşılaşır. Bu bazen büyük bir elma, su matarasına yapıştırılmış bir yıldız çiçeği ve çiçeklerle süslenmiş bir kutu. Anlatıcımız söylememesine rağmen birçoğunu hayal edebiliyoruz; notlar, çizimler, kalpler ve süslü çıkartmalar…

Yazarımız William Maxwell’in başlıkta kastettiği “sevgi” işte tam burada ama sözcüklerle değil (eylemlerle) açığa çıkıyor. İznin olur mu Maxwell, hikâyenin adını “Sevgi Dili” diye değiştirsek?

İlerleyen satırlarda öğretmen, yönetmeni D. W. Griffith olan Hearts of the World (Dünyanın Kalpleri) filmine öğrencileriyle birlikte gider. Mekânı okul (sınıf) olan bir hikâyede, yazar niye bu filme referans veriyor olabilir? Hikâyeden yine bir şeyler öğreniyoruz. O da filmin, 1918 tarihli bir savaş-dram karışımı bir propaganda filmi olduğuna dair “izlemeden edindiğimiz” bir bilgi.

Ertesi gün öğrenciler, “asıl” öğretmenin masasında oturan “vekil öğretmeni” görür. Günler geçip gider; öğrenciler, öğretmenini özlemiştir ve hiçbir şey konuşulmamıştır. Bu duygu “vekil öğretmen” için de çok zorlayıcıdır. Bir pazartesi sabahı, öğretmen zorlanarak, “Miss Brown’un hasta olduğunu ve dönem sonuna kadar gelemeyeceğini” tüm sınıfa söyler.

Anlatıcımızın ağzından şu sözler dökülür:

“We meant to have her four our teacher forever. We intended to pass right up through the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades and on into high school taking her with us.” (353)

Maxwell bu dili çok masum ve bilindik bir yerden kurar. Aynı sınıftaki arkadaşı Benny’nin ailesinin yardımıyla adresini bulurlar. Bir yabancının (yaşlı bir kadın) yönlendirmesi sonucunda onu gördüklerinde, Miss Brown’un sanki “onları tanımadığı hissine” kapılırlar. “Flick recognition” dediği sahnede anlatıcı şu sözlerle karşımızdadır:

“She managed a flicker of recognition but I was struck dumb by the fact that she didn’t seem glad to see us. She didn’t belong to us anymore. She belonged to her ilnesses.” (354)

Arkadaşı Benny, soğuk bir tonla, “Umarım en yakın zamanda iyileşirsiniz,” der. Bir hafta sonra, Lincoln Evening Courier gazetesinden, “23 yaşındaki Miss Brown’un veremden vefat ettiğini” öğrenirler.

Ve hikâyenin kapanışı, bir çocuğun dünyasındaki “mezarlık” betimlemesiyle biter. Bu betimlemede mezar taşları vardır: “Sevgi dolu hatırasına” diyerek örnek verdiği: “In loving memory of, infant daughter of, beloved wife of” olarak çoğalan taşlar…

O taşlar arasında, o gün kapıyı açan yabancının, öğretmenine sadakati bir çocuk gözüyle gözlemlenmiştir ve öğretmenin anısına yaşatılan bir çiçeğin özeninde; hatırladıklarını kolay kolay unutmaz.

Bahsi geçen eserler:

A CENTURY OF FICTION IN THE NEW YORKER 1925-2025 EDITED BY DEBORAH TREISMAN. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.

Görselde kullanılan fotoğraf Barbara Burkhardt’ın William Maxwell, A Literary Life adlı kitabın kapak görseli, yayıncısı: Illinois Üniversitesi Yayınları.

There was sunlight today, gods be thanked!

And look, I did one unit of work, listening to music. Teleconferencing.

Drinking coffee

And somewhere around me, life is going on chaotically.

And even as I try my best, chaos has got a strong hold here, it’s a constant struggle to bring order

And I have got my head full of chaos too

And there’s just the endless struggle to bring order everywhere,

a task which is doomed to fail.

but it could be, that which looks like chaos, on closer inspection is in perfect order, like

The ants

#poetry

I oscillate regularly from one extreme to the next, there is no in between. Whether it lasts for a few hours or a few days, even a few weeks, my optimistic outlook shatters in an instant. Was it because my clothes were too tight, which made me feel disgusting and re-triggered my body dysmorphia? Or was it due to the overstimulation of the world, or understimulation of mundane work activities? It could be a combination of everything, which is what I tend to subscribe to. All these factors mixed together leads to my breaking points, which are inevitable. Though I understand the inevitability of mood swings, I loathe them with every fiber of my existence. I become disappointed, disillusioned to the point I can see nothing but negativity in front of me. Woe is me, blackness and doom I have succumbed to. There are two versions of me akin to Jekyll and Hyde. They fight with each other for control over my personality. Who will take over and prevail for long enough to color my experiences? One is kindhearted, compassionate and understanding. The other repeats nothing but expletives and death wishes. I suppose there is the third version, which is my higher self witnessing it all happen in real time, calmly longing for resolution she knows will come sooner or later because this oscillation is ingrained and predictable. She patiently waits for the two to cease fighting. She is always ready to pick up where we left off: motivated, inspired, intuitively caring for me through stasis. How do I return to her? The only way is through. I have only ever seen the journey through the highs and the lows. There is no stopping. I have seen the return to myself time after time, yet my ego demands and directs my attention on the turmoil. I wish I could turn it off, this oscillating ebb and flow of emotions. If there was an off switch though, I doubt I'd use it. I wouldn't learn very much about myself if I played the good girl all the time. There is no light without darkness. So I play in the dark precariously and somehow... I make it out every single time. I am never the same, and I wouldn't want to be either. The change is deliciously uncomfortable and I wear it on my sleeve.

(for Tania, Goldie, Jack, Georgia, and Grey) – may you rest

Sedative Ketamine Rainbow

My dogs, my loves, my deers

These were your last memories, and I could only think to pick up shards of glass as you laid in urine.

Hardly the time.

I know how to clean like Glenn Gould plays the piano or how Howard Hughes knows germs.

I wish I had kept the stains, kept the beds. I wish I had made daisies of your golden deaths.

#poetry

(revised from the chapbook Ghostpins, 2019)

I must be completely mad.

I've spent the better part of September creating what has amounted to a 40-page document that details builds and things that need getting made to get the studio in order.

Why am I like this?

#journal #studio #cairo

Retour au post de guet, la fenêtre d’un studio loué dans une minicité (chambre-salon, cuisinette, douche-WC) ou [soi se tenant dans le fond du couloir] l’embrasure commune de la porte d’entrée. On piste du regard et de l’ouïe, non l’entièreté physique de la ville immense, inembrassable d’un coup, mais sa nuit, le trou de la ville-nuit, en quoi ‒ ou plutôt qui ‒ défilent, pareils aux nuages dans la troposphère, le questionnement [de soi], tel épisode de fantasmes que l’on tourne en séries, la marge équivoque des songes, une poussée de confiance ou de désespoir, et surtout l’image de la ville, qui voile son inconnu.

[Soi devant cette image mouvante.]

#Fenêtresurville #Didascalies

 

---

Photo “deep forest 2” by the-photon-trap is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

too much tech is like escapism for our underlying human issues.

Somebody at church Wednesday night told me something I wrote on Facebook was labeled AI-created. Or AI-influenced. Or AI-something or another.

I laughed.

“Well, I use SpeakApp.”

And yes, apparently there’s some AI under the hood. I didn’t even realize that when I started using it.

I just knew the thing was useful.

I talk.

It listens.

Then it hands my words back to me.

That’s it.

I originally started using it because I’m a preacher and a hospice chaplain. Sometimes I need to remember exactly what was said. Sometimes the conversation is serious. Very serious. Sometimes I’m trying to determine whether somebody might hurt themselves:

“Do you intend self-harm? Do you have a plan, a tool, a device that could remove you from us or your pain?”

Words matter in those rooms.

So I started recording my thoughts and conversations when appropriate, then going back through them.

But somewhere along the road, I discovered something else.

I could write while driving.

Not typing.

Not staring at a screen.

Talking.

Like I’m doing right now.

SpeakApp is recording every word.

Later, I’ll go through it. Clean it up. Cut the fat. Straighten the crooked sentences. Make it sound like me.

I know exactly how I like to write. I love the voice of Pulp fiction. Noir.

Short sentences. Hard stops. A little thunder dripping off the edges.

Remember Mickey Spillane? That old noir style?

Somebody once asked me what pulp fiction writing sounded like. Years ago, before I started going to church, I used to give them this ridiculous example:

“She walked into my office. She was hot. Hotter than hot. She went through men like most men go through cigarettes.”

People laughed. They were supposed to. It was over the top. That was the point.

I wouldn’t write something like that today–too worldly. But I use it as a fairly good example of the writing style that I am most familiar with, the one that captures my “writing voice” and forges it into a hammer of vengeance when the need to make a point is paramount.

Pulp fiction writing isn’t trying to win a literary prize. It moves. Fast.

“He came through the door asking questions. I answered with my right hand. He wouldn’t be asking another one for a while.”

Swing the sledgehammer. Bang. Move on.

Bruce Willis could do that kind of thing on Moonlighting. Quick. Sharp. No wasted motion.

And frankly, I think that kind of writing works today because people’s attention spans aren’t exactly getting longer–thank you, X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter).

So here I am. Driving down the road. I just dropped Vinnie off after chemo. I’ve already been doing chaplain work.

Now I’ve got to get home, grab my stuff, put on my little suit—the one that works for preaching and chaplain work—and head back out for a big meeting.

And through all of it, I’m talking. Capturing thoughts while they’re still warm. Before they disappear. Hands on the wheel. Voice in the App.

Because that’s the strange thing about writing. Every writer eventually develops what they call their “writer’s voice.”

You can study writing. Get an MFA. Get a PhD. Sit in classrooms and discuss “writer’s voice” until the coffee gets cold.

But this? This is literally my voice. My actual voice. Coming out of my mouth while I’m driving down the highway at 65 mph.

Then I take that spoken voice and hammer it into my writing voice. Cut a word here. Move a sentence there. Drop another one. Let a little pulp-fiction thunder drip down the page.

And then I post it.

So now I’m curious. What will Facebook call this?

AI-created? AI-assisted? AI-influenced? AI-derived?

Who knows? Who cares?

The thoughts are mine. The stories are mine. The experiences are mine. The voice coming through the microphone is mine. The machine just helps me catch it before it gets away.

And because of the voice recording, I’m writing more than I have in years. That matters to me.

Because I’m not sitting behind a keyboard trying to remember what I was thinking three hours ago. I’m catching the thought while it still has blood pumping through it.

I talk. I hit the red button. SpeakApp cleans up the dead air, the “uhs,” the pauses, the hiccups and coughs, and some of the verbal wreckage.

Then I go to work.

Sometimes I’ll even hear a preacher on YouTube say something worth remembering. I can capture the material, work with the transcript, and move what I need into Google Docs for my own notes and my own personal Bible study.

For a preacher, this thing is a toolbox. And don’t us guys just love tools.

A hammer doesn’t build the house by itself. A microphone doesn’t preach the sermon. A pen never wrote a book without a hand wrapped around it.

And software doesn’t have my memories.

It didn’t live my life. It didn’t drop Vinnie off at chemo today. It didn’t walk into hospice rooms yesterdays. It didn’t hold the hand of the dying patient, or lead that wayward soul into the Sinner’s Prayer. It didn’t stand behind my pulpit. It wasn’t there.

I was.

So call it whatever you want. AI-assisted. AI-influenced. Machine-polished.

I don’t particularly care. I’m still the guy behind the wheel. Literally.

And figuratively.

SpeakApp just helps me catch the words before they blow out the window.

Then I take them home… and make them thunder.

(Thank you, Jenny, for telling me that. I dedicate this blog post to you and our interactive Bible study questions at Wednesday Night Bible Study.)

---

photo © Martina @Marty75@pixelfed.uno

Upon rereading A place I cannot yet go, I noticed my framing through the use of the word yet. Such a small but profound word. Yet is not soon. Soon measures distance on a clock, the ticks that jump from second to second, as if time were some supreme mechanism ticking toward an appointed hour. But time is less a matter of gearworks than of celestial motion, bodies turning in relation to one another — souls intertwined despite and because of their geometry. Yet asserts not when but where, a place behind a door that only one key can open, and that key belongs to a particular hand.

Yet is also an admission, in both senses — the first, confession; the second, entry. Admissions have their own geometry, opening only at certain alignments of and by certain bodies, filtering the song from the noise, the performative from the real, and the heart from the heartless.

I'm listening to a very special playlist again, songs gathered across lifetimes, realities, and synchronicities. Some would call it nostalgia. I call it communion. I can't go home yet, can't be there together, and yet I can still feel it through the music — confirmation of bond as connection and destination. Perhaps that is how one remembers a place not yet reached, by looking back to look forward, listening patiently for the key to finally turn.

#Intermundia #Anomalology

---

By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

Wills Cross Roads, Alabama

En Dan Dit

'Nou de kop is er af' zei de beul staande bij het Håk™ hakblok tegen de ceremonie meester aan het begin van hun eerste werkdag op het gerenoveerde podium van het juridisch staatstheater.

Keer kerel, keer om, je verkeert in verkeerde kringen en daar doe je keer op keer verkeerde dingen.

Dikke Bult vers

De paardenknechten probeerden een merrie tot coopulatie te dwingen En dan en daar vanuit het niets horen zij engelen zingen... 'Help ons wij zijn van daarboven omlaag gevallen wij liggen op een hoopje tussen beide paardenstallen ik heb onder andere mijn enkel gebroken zij de hare verrekt of verstuikt en het raakt al ontstoken zijn bekken staat scheef en de heup is uit de kom en haar arm staat op een heel rare manier krom help ons alsjeblieft het was een behoorlijke smak help ons op de been en stel ons op het gemak we konden er niets aan doen de hemel brak open net op die plek waar wij onze trainingsrondjes lopen' De paardenknechten durfden er niet aan te beginnen ze raakten in paniek en zetten het op een rennen Teleurgesteld over het voortdurend uitblijven van verbeterende daden gingen ze zich vervolgens te buiten aan een scala van gruwelijke misdaden.

I haven't used Instagram in a long time. Kind of funny to note. When I typed that first sentence it said, I haven't looked at Instagram in a long time. I went back and changed it to used. It seemed more fitting, in the same sense as when a person says they haven't used heroin or cocaine in awhile. I kicked Instagram. Cold turkey.

It was part of my daily routine for a long time before I stopped. I would get home from work, and make something to eat. Then I would sit on the couch eating, and scrolling. One day I just randomly decided that I had enough of it. Wasn't even something I had planned to do that day. No build up or anything. I was just sitting there staring at my phone, and I thought, wtf am I doing?

No idea at all how long ago it was when I stopped. I guess there is likely a way to look that up in usage history data or something. I don't really care about it enough to bother. I don't miss it. It is interesting to think about how I could instantly live without it.

There were some okay things about it. A lot of good people post a lot of good content there. The biggest issue for me was the lack of control over what came up next. On top of the lack of control; it was very obviously being infiltrated by useless A.I. slop. That is likely worse now than it was when I stopped.

I was thinking about the words Artificial Intelligence. I found myself thinking of them on their own. Artificial. Intelligence. I had a weird thought that the thing we are calling Artificial Intelligence is not artificial or intelligent.

It is a bunch of massive computers, that are real. They have been fed things that their creators stole from us. Things that were created with our intelligence. It has all been converted into data. The things process that data with processors the size of warehouses, and their creators sell that as intelligence. And I guess we buy it.

They are like vampires draining things from humanity that we require for our existence. Where are they getting all the materials to build these things? Can those materials be used to make life better for humans in some way, and not for building massive computers? I don't know. Probably.

Draining water. Draining electricity. They say that they generate enough heat to warm the air around them. For miles around. Like we need that right now.

Do we need A.I.? Why?

It seems mostly so a tiny handful of rich a$$holes can be even richer than they already were, and so they can have more power, and more control.

Well, after 104 days since my last day of work, and 226 days total of waiting I finally got my approval.

Nothing changes right away, I need to wait for things to get processed and wait for the approval to get mailed. While this feels life changing (and it is), it is also a reminder of how quickly things can change. The unfairness that surrounds us each and every day. The prejudice and injustice. The bias that encircles this awful judgment. It feels like a relief, yet I continue to live with this lack of freedom. I have to hold myself at such high standards, and still, my life can easily be held on such a tight and delicate string.

I was terminated from my job, so I will need to start over again. As exciting as this is, it doesn’t just mean I can get back to work ASAP. It will take some time to get back to regularity and I need to have some time to find myself and really define what is important to me. While this is a great sign and all I have been waiting for, it is only the beginning. I now have to move on to the next step; the fight is not over yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I am feeling a huge wave of gratitude and relief. Beyond happy for the opportunities available for me… including maybe swinging a visit to a special someone.

Thank you for your message. I am currently out of office — but not for much longer.