Walking Raven

My Buddy

A few days ago I was awakened by a ringing telephone. The Caller ID began to prepare me for the news. If the person on the other end was indeed Tina, then, it was more likely than not someone we both knew from our days at the firm was dead – it was just a question of whom. Sadly, I was right. I still find it hard to believe it was Ed. He was one of the most physically fit individuals I knew, having, for instance, participated in the La Luz Trail Run at 60. (Heck, he was the only lawyer I knew who had an undergraduate degree in physical education.) The last time I saw him, he was down to 5% body fat and playing golf everyday. That he suffered renal and congestive heart failure is just wrong.

For those of you who don’t already know, Ed was the second-named partner of Sager, Curran, Sturges & Tepper, P.C., the law firm I joined as an associate in 1987 after winding up my clerkship with Justice Mary Coon Walters. He signed his pleadings “Edward T. Curran,” and whenever he did so in my presence, I would hear in my head Tennessee Tuxedo declaring “Edward T. Curran” — which was funny because in contrast Ed had a high, almost lilting voice.

Ed was a good lawyer, and I learned much under his tutelage. You had to earn his respect. I can still remember what seemed like hours (no, now that I think about it, it was hours) sitting across from him being grilled about a particular case only eventually to be asked, “Kristine, did you even read the file?” The turning point for me came when I wrote a coverage opinion which he rejected out of hand, refusing to believe anyone would find insurance coverage under the circumstances. I rewrote it as he requested, but continued to maintain that I was right the first time around. We took the case to trial, and, though a valiant effort was made by the two of us, and I almost convinced the judge to use my version of a jury instruction, which, if read, might have saved the day, we lost for the reason I advised in the first place.

More important, Ed was my friend, or as he once referred to me (and I admit I melted when he did), my “buddy.” What’s unusual about that is I think I can safely say we were near polar opposites. Ed was 26 years my senior (we shared a birthday) and a conservative Republican Irish Catholic. He would, among other things, often make the most tongue-in-cheek sexist quips (and he’d come a long way as I was often told by others who had known him “back then” when such utterances weren’t tongue-in-cheek). I used to say that with Ed, the symbols contradicted. I can honestly say that I never felt he treated me as anything other than a colleague and an equal. Moreover, he was one of the kindest (dare I say, sweetest?) human beings ever, and I adored him.

Ed’s obituary underscores his passion for Notre Dame Football. I, too, can attest to this passion. Indeed, one day we went out for lunch and, before returning to the office, we stopped by the house of one of his friends so he could show me the cap that then-Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz had worn when he coached my alma mater’s Golden Gophers.

Ed retired shortly before I made partner in 1993. He soon after announced the move to Arizona. We saw each other sporadically after that. I’m pretty sure the last time I saw him was in 1996. I had moved back to Minneapolis and he and his wonderful (and I think it’s somewhat accurate to say, long-suffering) wife Barbara came up to attend an Elder Hostel. Barbara had grown up in Minneapolis and I remember spending a wonderful day touring the Twin Cities in search of her roots, including the Hill House in St. Paul. We may have spoken by phone a couple times after that and then, as is so often the case, just lost track of one another.

Last week, the Bar Bulletin contained a Clerk’s Certificate with Ed’s address and phone number. I’m still not sure why, as it really wasn’t new. Nonetheless, it prompted me to want to call and check in. I got as far as actually picking up the phone, but stopped short of dialing the number. I’m not sure if I would have had an opportunity to talk to Ed had I completed the call, but at least it would have still been a possibility.

Unfortunately, my health precludes a trip to the memorial service in Arizona, but my thoughts will be there. I miss my buddy.

The First String Quartet (Metaphorically Speaking, Of Course)

At some point, I either read or heard about a professor at Columbia who lectured about something called “string theory” while accompanied by a string quartet. I conducted some additional research and learned the professor was a theoretical physicist named Brian Greene who had written The Elegant Universe (“Universe”) about string theory (a/k/a superstring theory or M-theory) or, the “theory of everything” — “everything” being comprised of Planck-length vibrating strings.1 Growing up a Midwestern Lutheran with family ties to both Luther and Saint Olaf, sacred music played a large role in my life. Even today, if I get an “earworm” it’s often something from The Messiah. Consequently, I found it exciting that science appeared to be getting closer to discovering/explaining a phenomenon I have had no trouble believing exists (metaphorically speaking, of course) — the “music of the spheres.” I immediately obtained a copy of Universe.

Much of the version of the creation story as presented in my earlier Proxemics Entry was inspired by details culled from the pages of Universe. Thus, for instance, as I read about singularities, the scenes of heaven depicted by Milton in Paradise Lost came alive in my mind. I imagined the pre-Big Bang singularity as a place with God in the center surrounded by the heavenly host “praising God and saying [or rather singing, in perfect harmony], ‘glory to God, glory to God in the Highest’.” Handel, The Messiah. At the time, Satan and his rebel forces were responsible for the disharmony that caused the Big Bang. As I read, I also realized who, or, more precisely, what, many of my characters were. Turns out that during the initial explosion, certain strings manifested as celestial figures. Some of these string beings (“strings”) traveled from the edge of this universe to the Milky Way via a series of wormholes. Universe, pp. 264-265. The first stop was a smallish black hole in the middle of the galaxy. Id. at p. 81. There, they calculated the time of their arrival on earth by entering the black hole and hovering just above the event horizon for a specified amount of time and then climbing back out and continuing on to earth. Id. at p. 80.

There are hierarchies of strings, depending on the exact make up of their string structure.2 Some, including the more powerful “ethnic” gods; e.g., Zeus, Odin, and Trickster, have shapeshifting abilities. These strings are the Elohim or the “other gods” of the Hebrew Bible and other cultures. See Gen. 6:2, 4; Exodus 20:3, Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7 Hence Christ’s ability to “pass through the midst of the mob” that wanted to hurl him off a cliff or suddenly to appear in a locked room.3 Luke 4:29-30; John 20:19. In The First Voice, Jesus and Satan will both possess these powers. Other strings are consigned to their initial materialization. These strings are the Nephilim of the Hebrew Bible and other heroes such as Gilgamesh. Gen. 6:4; Num. 13:33. Melchizedek and Johanna are Nephilim. Some of the Nephilim have endeavored throughout the ages to impart knowledge of string manipulation to humans. The first practitioners of the art were the magicians, then the alchemists. Today, they are scientists and what, since The X-Files, we might call paranormalists.

Strings have the power to manipulate other strings, and so, for instance, turn water into wine, or stones to bread, or to multiply bread and fishes. John 2:1-11; Matt. 4:1-4; Mark 6:38-44. (Though as to the latter, I would like to believe that the people fed themselves on that day by each producing food s/he had brought but were initially reluctant to share.)

The key to string theory hinges on the existence of considerably more than four dimensions. Universe, pp. 184 ff. As I read Greene’s discussion of dimensions, I thought back to my Superman comic days and the Phantom Zone. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the fate of the planet Krypton’s criminal element, Wikopedia provides as follows:

As originally described, the Phantom Zone was discovered by Jor-El [Superman’s father] and used on the planet Krypton as a method of imprisonment of criminals. . . . The inmates of this dimension are cast into the dimension and reside in a featureless state of existence from which they observe, but cannot interact with, the regular dimension clearly. Inmates do not age or require sustenance in the Phantom Zone; furthermore, they are telepathic and mutually insubstantial.

In The First Voice, Elfredge will be charged with creating the circumstance whereby The Beast can be imprisoned in a similar dimension for a thousand years. Revelation 20:1-2.

As I hope you can tell by this entry, reading Universe proved to ba a defining moment for The First Voice. As I read and imagined the above, I knew it was only a matter of time before I would indeed put fingers to keyboard and endeavor to write my novel.
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1 A Planck-length is “small almost beyond imagination: a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. . . . To get a sense of scale, if we were to magnify an atom to the size of the known universe, the Planck length would barely expand to the height of an average tree.” Greene, Brian, Universe, p. 130 (Vintage ed. 2000).
2 Yahweh and the Holy Ghost/Great Spirit are not strings. Instead, they are composed of dark matter/energy. See, e.g., Universe, pp. 225, 235. On a related issue, Universe also enabled me to reconcile in my mind the apparent conflict of omniscience and free will by the explanation of that single electron simultaneously taking an infinite number of different paths from its starting location to its final destination. Id. at pp. 108-112. And then there’s also retrocausality (future events influencing present choices).
3 Until we humans progress in our ability to manipulate strings, our attempts to walk through seemingly solid barriers such as walls much rely on the phenomenon of quantum tunneling. The technique for such tunneling is simple; it requires only that an individual repeatedly walk into a wall. Eventually s/he would emerge on the other side. Unfortunately, success will come only after approximately 50 trillion attempts which would take longer than the current age of the universe to complete. See “Magic in Hyperspace: Walking Through Walls and Other Party Tricks.”

Copyright © 2006 by cko.