Category Archives: Essays

What he left behind was a stack of fifty-five steno notebooks, spiral-bound at the top, which are filled with barely legible script written in ballpoint pen or fading pencil—written on both sides of the pages, written from front-to-back and then from back-to-front. There’s no indication which notebook comes first or really any trace of chronology at all. The writing starts close on the left side of each page and goes as far as possible to the right edge. Many pages are erased, then written again. He cycles through a series of childhood traumas—many times described in exactly the same words, but also in dozens of variations. He surrounds these memories with diverse abstract ideas and facts about world religious history and doctrine, speculative theology, physics, astronomy, ancient philosophy, archeology, farming economics, and anthropology—to name just a few. It’s as if these random notes unconsciously shield him from the acute pain of his most closely held childhood memories. Continue reading →