Deron Bauman: I think I’d like to start by talking about Liberal Arts 2.0. It’s an idea Jason Kottke proposed as a way to give context to what he does — and in some ways to describe the relatively newish intersection of technology and culture — and something you explored and expanded in a book. Can you talk a little bit about it, the inspiration for the book, as well as how you think about the subject now?

Tim Carmody: So, Jason never really came up with a definition of Liberal Arts 2.0. I’m not totally sure we did either. In both cases, it’s more of a family resemblance concept than anything else.

I think everyone involved in writing the book, and the discussion before or afterwards, took a slightly different relationship to it. There was also a Wired article that Robin Sloan and Alexis Madrigal and a few others wrote afterwards that might have called it “neo-liberal arts” or something like that. And even Steve Jobs got into the mix later, when he said Apple was about the intersection of technology with the liberal arts. I doubt he saw our little book — maybe he knew about Jason’s motto — but it’s clearly something in the zeitgeist.

Really, it’s about having a humanist relationship to changes in technology and media. It’s the sense that there are things we can learn and things we have learned from those changes that are happening to us now. And it’s the feeling that we have to figure those out for ourselves, and the best way to do that is by making things — whether it’s a website, an app, or a little book.

As Tim suggests, nobody has quite pinned down a precise meaning, but it is certainly in the air and is exactly what I was tackling in 2009 when I was particularly fascinated with the intersection of epistemology and design.

The web is not, despite the desires of so many, a publishing medium. The web is a customer service medium. “Intense moderation” in a customer service medium is what “editing” was for publishing.

It’s certainly how clusterflock is modeled, aggressive vetting of both content and comments.

I was utterly incapable of producing a single decent blog from 2011. It’s Nice That? Nope, started in 2007. Bobulate? Ancient, born in 2001. That’s when it struck me: I have 23 folders in my reader but I only occasionally read from three of them. Unless The Sickness strikes me, I can’t be bothered to fiddle with the rest for want of time. Besides, I don’t trust blogs for the good stuff, I trust people. But, of course, declaring the best new person of 2011 doesn’t make any sense, so I am forced to become something of a cheat…

If you are anything like me, you got sick of steampunk around the same time you stopped reading Boing Boing. My initial delight with steampunk is almost certainly connected to my love of good sci-fi and fantasy. The connection between magic and technology is nearly essential for the genre, if only for two reasons:

1. My techno-scientific geek brain knows that the devices like airships couldn’t work without some sort of alchemy.
2. The technology often is so advanced, despite its analog bent, that Clarke’s third law applies.*

But after hundreds of cosplay pictures and derivative movies, comics, and video games, the novelty began to wear. Yet one day, about a year ago during a quiet afternoon of unemployment, I found myself playing a game described thusly, “In an apocalyptic steampunk future, you are a privateer ferrying goods across treacherous airspace. Protect your airship and yourself from an onslaught of pirates, and safely reach your destination to reap the rewards.”

Admittedly, by the description, I was expecting something RPG-ish, a simple, stripped down Skies of Arcadia(an exceedingly wonderful Dreamcast game), but Guns of Icarus was decidedly not that and my expectation certainly explains some of the other reviews you can find online:

You’ve already imagined something more spectacular than Guns of Icarus can offer. This third-person action game’s midbattle story panels may hint at such a time and place, but the game itself is a one-note diversion that tips its full hand within minutes of starting your first play-through. As it stands, there is a bare-bones version of the game you can already play for free within your Web browser.
– Kevin VanOrd, Gamespot

There is really no story here at all. Each level has a little postcard before it with some trite description of the hardships of that region, but there is no explanation whatsoever of the main character’s (note that I don’t use the word protagonist) motivations. Why is he delivering cargo? Why does it have to be in a Zeppelin? Who is he delivering to? Why does he commit suicide-by-pirate at the end? Why did he bring cargo with him when he went off to die? No explanation is given for anything, and the entire campaign is over in about 20 minutes.
– CB Droege, Icrontic

These descriptions are as accurate as they are misguided. The game was originally developed for a web browser. I have never found a robust story in a browser based game (please prove me wrong), let alone one that lasts more than twenty minutes. Their beauty tends to be in simple, repetitive game mechanics, something fun to pick up now and again, play a quick round, and then get back to work. If that’s the standard, then this game shines brilliantly.

There are only really two game mechanics, shoot the attacking pirates and repair your ship. Each mission is measured by distance between the two locations you are carrying undescribed cargo to and from. En route you are assaulted, depending on difficulty, by three different sorts of aircraft who damage your will damage your engines (which will eventually halt your progress forward), cargo hold (you get ship upgrades, if you have enough cargo left over), rigging, and the zeppelin (which will make you explode). The longer the route you take in the campaign, the more upgrades you get, and the more prepared you are to go Into The Breach.

You can’t not die in The Breach, the entire point is to survive as long as possible by killing by managing your time killing air pirates and repairing your ship. Your distance meter ticks up, rather than down, and the further the distance, the further the bragging rights. The best part? Multiplayer co-op (up to four) with url-based invites which, combined with Twitter, would make it incredibly easy to have a mid-afternoon pick-up game.

Totally worth it for five bucks (originally, ten for the full version), especially if you can sucker a few friends to buy it on a quiet Saturday afternoon. And, if this game does tickle your steampunk funny bone, you should be aware an MMO is in development.

–

*For the non-geek: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

White House counterrorism adviser John Brennan’s press briefing transcription in full, or, if you prefer, here is the video.

Alex Madrigal in the Atlantic:

We treated the killing of a man who promoted the killing of thousands of Americans like a game with no consideration of the past or future costs. In other words, on night one in our nation’s capital, Osama bin Laden’s death did not change the face of the American body politic. We’ll see if it has a greater impact on our politics.

Tim Carmody at kottke.org:

This guy — this son-of-a-bitch who murdered thousands of people here ten years ago and helped murder many more all around the world — has us so twisted up that we do not know how to feel about him, or ourselves, at all.

And our inability to come together, and to talk about that, which was already latent in the way our media work, and all the more amplified by what ten years of this twisting and torturing, and being twisted into torture and then lying about torture, only makes it worse.

The front pages from over 800 newspapers world-wide for Tuesday, May 03, 2011.

Megan McArdle, over at the Atlantic, suggests that the MLK, Jr. quote may be fake (Update: see @jmadly and Carmody’s article, and an interview with @jmadly):

A quick Google search turns up lots of tweets, all of them from today.  Searching Martin Luther King Jr. quote pages for the word “enemy” does not turn up this quote, only things that probably wouldn’t go over nearly so well, like “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.” I’m pretty sure that this quote, too, is fake.

Photo of President Barack Obama and staff receiving an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden. Hillary Clinton’s face is striking (turns out, she was probably just coughing). Der Tzitung actually photoshopped Hillary out (they now regret it).

A man unwittingly live tweets the raid on Osama bin Laden. The tweets are aggregated in order over at the Almighty Link.

A collection of images, from all over the world, responding to his death.

The NYT discusses the operation:

The tensest moment for those watching, he said, came when one of two helicopters that flew the American troops into the compound broke down, stalling as it flew over the 18-foot wall of the compound and prepared to land. After the raid, the team blew up the helicopter and called in one of two backups. In all, 79 commandos and a dog were involved.

Dogs of War.

Navy Seals:

SEALs are capable of great violence, but that’s not what makes them truly special. Given two weeks of training and a bunch of rifles, any reasonably fit group of 16 athletes (the size of a SEAL platoon) can be trained to do harm. What distinguishes SEALs is that they can be thoughtful, disciplined and proportional in the use of force.

Osama bin Laden probably didn’t use his wife as a human shield:

Hours later, other administration officials were clarifying Brennan’s account. Turns out the woman that was killed on the compound wasn’t bin Laden’s wife. Bin Laden may have not even been using a human shield. And he might not have even been holding a gun.

Filling out the narrative of Operation Geronimo:

But he said he was also struck that Bin Laden was not prepared for the kind of attack the commandos carried out. “There was no escape route, no tunnels, not even false rooms in the house in which to hide,” he said. “It makes you wonder: at what point did that extra degree of vigilance he had get dulled by routine?”

Life in Abbottabad, the city where bin Laden hid.

Mike Allen, over at Politico, gives us a good sense of what the compound looks like, plus a comprehensive narrative of the operation and the events leading up to it:

Contrary to the intelligence community’s long-held belief that bin Laden was in a lawless “no man’s land” on the Pakistani border, bin Laden had been hiding in a three-story house in a one-acre compound in Abbottabad, about 35 miles north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Officials describe it as a relatively affluent community, with lots of residents who are retired military.

UCLA geographer Thomas Gillespie calculated an 88.9% chance that Osama was in Abbottabad back in 2009:

“The theory was basically that if you’re going to try and survive, you’re going to a region with a low extinction rate: a large town,” Gillespie says. “We hypothesized he wouldn’t be in a small town where people could report on him.”

“It’s not my thing to do this type of [terrorism] stuff,” he says. “But the same theories we use to study endangered birds can be used to do this.”

MIT hosts Gillespie’s paper Osama bin Laden: An Application of Biogeophic Theories and Satellite Imagery in .pdf form.

The Guardian’s obit for Osama:

His life was one of extremes and of contradictions. Born to great wealth, he lived in relative poverty. A graduate of civil engineering, he assumed the mantle of a religious scholar. A gifted propagandist who had little real experience of battle, he projected himself as a mujahid, a holy warrior. A man who called for a return to the values and social systems of the seventh century as a means of restoring a just order in today’s world, he justified the use of advanced modern technology to kill thousands through a rigorous and anachronistic interpretation of Islamic law.

A nice diagram (below) from the DoD background briefing for senior officials.

The WSJ has a series of photos from after the operation, much of it comes from a short video off a Blackberry.

Reuters also has some photos of the compound after the conflict, including a couple dead men lying in pools of blood (you can click the link without seeing the images).

From The Economist (see, also).

Mets & Phillies players exceedingly confused as the news of Osama’s death trickles through the stadium.

What really happened at Tora Bora? How bin Laden first alluded us:

Having reconstructed the battle–based on interviews with the top American ground commander, three Afghan commanders, and three CIA officials; accounts by Al Qaeda eyewitnesses that were subsequently published on jihadist websites; recollections of captured survivors who were later questioned by interrogators or reporters; an official history of the Afghan war by the U.S. Special Operations Command; an investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and visits to the battle sites themselves–I am convinced that Tora Bora constitutes one of the greatest military blunders in recent U.S. history.

The man behind Osama, Ayman al-Zawahiri:

For Zawahiri, bin Laden was a savior—rich and generous, with nearly limitless resources, but also pliable and politically unformed. “Bin Laden had an Islamic frame of reference, but he didn’t have anything against the Arab regimes,” Montasser al-Zayat, a lawyer for many of the Islamists, told me recently in Cairo. “When Ayman met bin Laden, he created a revolution inside him.”

According to Press Secretary Jim Carney’s full description of the operation, it appears that Osama wasn’t armed.

The Muslim Brotherhood, in refering to bin Ladin, used the honorific ‘sheikh,’ according to Eric Trager, a Fullbright fellow of Political Science in Egypt, this should demyth some perceptions about the organization:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s response to bin Laden’s death may finally end the mythology — espoused frequently in the U.S. — that the organization is moderate or, at the very least, could moderate once in power. This is, after all, precisely how Muslim Brothers describe their creed — “moderate,” as opposed to al-Qaeda, which is radical. “Moderate Islam means not using violence, denouncing terrorism, and not working with jihadists,” said Muslim Brotherhood youth activist Khaled Hamza, for whom the organization’s embrace of “moderate Islam” was the primary reason he joined.

Jon Stewart’s response is not what some would suspect, I, er, suspect.

Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, argues that in a post-bin Laden world, Obama now needs to pull troops out of Iraq:

The Arab Spring has demonstrated that the Arab masses yearn for liberty, not thuggish repression, for life, not death and destruction, for parliamentary democracy, not theocratic dictatorship. Bin Laden was already a dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War and the age of dictators in which a dissident such as he had no place in society and was shunted off to distant, frontier killing fields. The new generation of young Arabs in Egypt and Tunisia has a shot at a decent life. Obama has put the US on the right side of history in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya (where I see crowds for the first time in my life waving American flags). People might want a little help from a distance, but they don’t want to see Western troops deployed in fighting units on their soil.

The bin Laden Raid has been a substantive intelligence boon, finding 10 hard drives and more than 100 storage devices (DVDs, removable flash drives, etc.):

The intelligence find is a jolt to bin Laden’s network that could force its terror operatives to move into areas or initiate communications that make them more easily detectable.

Sadly, the above article is behind the paywall. If you don’t have any access to the WSJ, then here are a few tidbits that I haven’t seen elsewhere:

Pakistani authorities in Islamabad, the capital, have custody of the four women and six children who survived the firefight, a senior U.S. administration official said. They also have some files and information that the Navy Seals didn’t take, he said.

Pakistani intelligence officials are interrogating bin Laden’s 12-year-old daughter, Safia, who saw her father killed by American forces, according to a Pakistani intelligence officer. Safia was with her mother, the official said, and receiving medical treatment.

A U.S. Embassy official in Islamabad said the U.S. hasn’t asked Pakistan to hand over bin Laden’s family members to American officials.

Pakistan’s foreign office said they would be returned to their country of origin.

Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, wrote an Op-ed, Pakistan did its part, in the Wasington Post:

Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as as it is America’s. And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.

The secret deal between Pakistan and the US:

Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

“There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him,” said a former senior US official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations. “The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn’t stop us.”

“We don’t need to spike the football” – President Obama on not releasing the photos (see, also, the NYT):

You know, we discussed this internally. Keep in mind that we are absolutely certain this was him. We’ve done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden. It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool. You know, that’s not who we are. You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies. You know, the fact of the matter is this was somebody who was deserving of the justice that he received. And I think– Americans and people around the world are glad that he’s gone. But we don’t need to spike the football. And I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk. And I’ve discussed this with Bob Gates and Hillary Clinton and my intelligence teams and they all agree.

Here is Carney’s full press briefing on the photos.

Jack Shafer, ironically, agrees with Rumsfeld:

I don’t advocate the photos’ release because I think it will convince the unconvincible that Bin Laden is dead or because I desire a “trophy” or a football “spiked,” as Obama puts it in his 60 Minutes interview. I’m for the publication of the pictures because they’re an essential part of the war on al-Qaida. Withholding the photos and couching their suppression in the name of national security misjudges what makes al-Qaida tick and infantilizes the nation. It also sets a precedent for “news that’s too gruesome to reveal.”

Was the killing of Osama legal?

The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, has criticized the White House for its public handling of the killing. He recently wrote on Twitter, “White House still hasn’t clarified: OBL ‘resisted’ but how did he pose lethal threat to US forces on scene? Need facts.” This may be a worthwhile thing to know for broader ethical or policy or tactical reasons, but it is not the most pertinent question when judging the action against our existing military laws. The key legal question is not whether bin Laden was armed before he was killed, or even whether or not he posed an immediate “lethal threat,” but whether he was “positively identified” before the trigger was pulled, and whether Holder is accurate when he says that “there was no indication” that bin Laden was actively attempting to surrender. Those are the more relevant facts. And if there is a formal inquiry into the incident, this is what it will undoubtedly seek to establish.

WaPo quotes officials on what exactly the soldiers saw when they entered Osama’s room:

U.S. officials provided new details on bin Laden’s final moments, saying the al-Qaeda leader was first spotted by U.S. forces in the doorway of his room on the compound’s third floor. Bin Laden then turned and retreated into the room before being shot twice — in the head and in the chest. U.S. commandos later found an AK-47 and a pistol in the room.

“He was retreating,” a move that was regarded as resistance, a U.S. official briefed on the operation said. “You don’t know why he’s retreating, what he’s doing when he goes back in there. Is he getting a weapon? Does he have a [suicide] vest?”

SEO centered websites are caching in on Osama’s death, making more humble and useful sites (like mine?) less findable:

Imagine that, you write 35 200-word posts featuring the words “Bin Laden” in the headline and they pull in traffic on the day it’s one of the most searched terms ever.

Were any of those stories really about technology? A few, maybe. But none were given the actual attention that a story of such magnitude deserves. It was a pure traffic/SEO play.

This is the state of tech blogging these days. It’s shifting more towards a mixture of quick-posted nonsense and pure SEO plays.

A map of the compound has been recreated in Counter Strike: Source, a first person shooter. Too soon?

Keith Urbahn speculative tweet triggered a series of “retweets and conversations that would beat mainstream media as well as the White House announcement.“

We Simones are an exceedingly practical, if not irreverent, folk regarding death. Case and point: last year, over Christmas dinner, we discussed who would be the executor of my father and step-mother’s will without blinking and an eye (thankfully, my sister got the short end of that stick). And, not two days ago, my father taught me the meaning of the word “gorked” in the less than pleasant context of a cyclist hit-and-run. I believe we both chuckled at the folk etymology of the word.

Yet I also happen to abhor the euphemism ”passed” because it seems to defang the reality of the situation (but also because my mind always supplies “gas” after it) and have flat-out wept at far too many contemporaries’ funerals for a man at the age of thirty.

This is all to say that I have a hard time taking any sort of artistic expression about death seriously since it tends to be heavy-handed. Melodrama is particularly unforgiveable in my aesthetic. So, you might imagine my skepticism about the French RPG, Winter Voices, about dealing with your father’s death.

Literary in tone, I can’t help but wonder how the French would feel or whether the ending will come off as silly as Flaubert’s A Simple Heart. (Alas, je ne parle pas français.) Still, after nine hours of play, whatever literary ham-fistedness existed was forgiven or, at least, justified since RPG actually means more than just turn based combat with number crunching.

The game begins just after your father’s funeral I found myself wandering in my small, northern, childhood town talking to childhood friends and neighbors. My humor attribute was high, so I had a number of dialog options ranging from laughing to cold and stern. (There is actually an acheivement named Les Aubes Sont Navrantes: “Sob or Sniff 20 times.”) And, while I haven’t determined whether or not those responses actually change the game or your character, I did find myself wanting to make my character contextually aware and consistent.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the small town trying to piece together the NPCs relationships (daughters, sons, wives) and how I know them. The Lisakki’s, for instance, were nice people. Magnus and Maija offered there condolences and the elderly Jesper was exceedingly kind to me once I reminded him he attended my father’s funeral yesterday. Even Stig was kind, despite the obvious distaste his wife, Kati, has for me (I should have known better than to talk to her, she’d alway been a bitch to me, apparently).  Fed up with Kati, I decided to go visit the foreigner and friend of my father, Olov to piece together a little more of who my father was.

Two things then struck me.

First, I actually wanted to roleplay. I became involved in her relationship with the town. I didn’t select dialog options that were more expedient or beneficial for “the best ending.” (I not sure if there was such a thing and I am pretty sure I don’t care.) And it didn’t feel like the “I need to talk to everybody” new town grind.  Tell me. When does that happen?

Second, the way that Winter Voices actually handles bereavement is brilliant.

When I think about days past, when dear friends were lost, and the days following the news, I recall a sort term near-schizophrenia. Laughing and fine one minute,  a turn of phrase, a peculiar movement of a hand, a familiar place would unpredictably force old memories of the person in my head. The pressure would be unbearable, the condolences meaningless, and joy dead. There was not way to beat these feelings, you just had to let them pass.

While simply interacting with people yields experience [points], the traces of those conversations or places you find yourself may, themselves, evoke memories (encounters). Persistent Memories or Negative Feelings hound you, slowly draining your energy, and the ground itself may contain Buried Tramas (traps). The goal, consequently, cannot be to destroy or kill (memories always persist!), but to survive. If you do, you gain experience [points], but if you don’t, the game simply continues without any bonus since you learned nothing.

The primary survive skills are Repel, which simply pushes memories (enemies) away, and Anticipation, which mitagates the damage received. But, as you level, your skills do become more sophisticated. For example:

Betrayal: “You deny your own personality in favor of a better one. This skill prevents enemies further than 4 tiles away from you to attack you. This skill lasts until you are damaged
Coolheaded: “You assess the situation and handle problems one after the other. All enemy are pushed back except for the closest one.”
Consolation: “You find solace in what is left, which makes you gain Energy. This potency of this skill is based on Charisma.”

And your character’s attributes are equally interesting: Humor, Will Power, Memory, Perspicacity, Charisma, and Intuition, each of which has a very important role in encounters. My favorite, Memory, is of chief importance since the better it is the more experience you get, but also makes you more subseptable to damage.

Are you beginning to see the internal logic here? There is no magic or technology overlayed on the world (yet, anyway) to make the game “fun” or the near meaningless game mechanics of [insert JRPG* here]. The game mechanics themselves are not only analogies to real life experiences, but also perichoretically interact in game in ways appropriate to their names out of game. Every encounter is not simply a way-point between cutscenes, but an integral part of the story: the game is not analogically separate from narrative.   So, if there is any way to call this game innovative**, that’s it, the game design and narrative are shaking hands.

If more game studios played by Beyondthepillars’ rules, the narrative junkies of the game review world wouldn’t know what to complain about. Games would feel whole.

The first episode of Winter Voices is available for Mac or PC on Steam for five bucks.

—-

*For the record, I am an unabashed JRPG fan.

**For some reason, any glowing game review made online about an indie game must contain the nearly vacuous phrase “innovative.” This is me fulfilling that quota.

This morning, around eleven, I rolled out of bed and into my computer chair to peruse this morning’s news. I took a sip of water—only to realize it was from yesterday evening—when it struck me: I hadn’t written this week’s Idler piece. So, I rolled up my sleeves, gave myself a good stretch, and promptly made breakfast, took a shower, cleaned my room, organized my bookshelves, and went for a bike ride (code for 800-yard stint to a coffee shop for two hours reading of The New York Times). Hours later, here I am, writing this piece.

Now that I think about it, if you replace the Idler piece with any given project and add a hangover for good measure, you have pretty typical Andrew Simone morning. So, just for fun, let’s imagine I am going about my usual routine but also happen to be a mimic octopus.

Now, if you debachelorize me, give me two human kids and make me a mimic octopus who is trying to hide the fact that he’s an octopus, you’ll begin to get a feel for the hilarious indie game, Octodad.

It is a short game—maybe an hour long—so I am going to avoid spoilers so you can get the full experience. I will, however, mention that the controls are terrible. The middle mouse button toggles between feet and hand mode, the left and right mouse buttons select which “arm” or “leg” you want to move, and the mouse movement manipulates them. And, while that makes walking across the room or picking something up an absolute chore, it also happens to be precisely the point.

The game is the struggle with the controls.

This game is quietly brilliant. The developers realized the best way to communicate the times and trials of the modern octopus was to make the man behind the mouse frustrated through the mouse. (All I wanted to do was walk to the kitchen without arousing suspicion!) It’s another case of the game mechanic perfectly fitting the narrative which, as you know, is what I think makes for a worthwhile game.

Octodad is free for the PC.

UPDATE: They are making an Octodad 2

Reprinted in memory of Salinger.

There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. She used the time, though. She read an article in a women’s pocket-size magazine, called “Sex Is Fun-or Hell.” She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand.

She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.

With her little lacquer brush, while the phone was ringing, she went over the nail of her little finger, accentuating the line of the moon. She then replaced the cap on the bottle of lacquer and, standing up, passed her left–the wet–hand back and forth through the air. With her dry hand, she picked up a congested ashtray from the window seat and carried it with her over to the night table, on which the phone stood. She sat down on one of the made-up twin beds and–it was the fifth or sixth ring–picked up the phone.

“Hello,” she said, keeping the fingers of her left hand outstretched and away from her white silk dressing gown, which was all that she was wearing, except mules–her rings were in the bathroom.

“I have your call to New York now, Mrs. Glass,” the operator said.

“Thank you,” said the girl, and made room on the night table for the ashtray.

A woman’s voice came through. “Muriel? Is that you?”

The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. “Yes, Mother. How are you?” she said.

“I’ve been worried to death about you. Why haven’t you phoned? Are you all right?”

“I tried to get you last night and the night before. The phone here’s been–”

“Are you all right, Muriel?”

The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear. “I’m fine. I’m hot. This is the hottest day they’ve had in Florida in–”

“Why haven’t you called me? I’ve been worried to–”

“Mother, darling, don’t yell at me. I can hear you beautifully,” said the girl. “I called you twice last night. Once just after–”

“I told your father you’d probably call last night. But, no, he had to-Are you all right, Muriel? Tell me the truth.”

“I’m fine. Stop asking me that, please.”

“When did you get there?”

“I don’t know. Wednesday morning, early.”

“Who drove?”

“He did,” said the girl. “And don’t get excited. He drove very nicely. I was amazed.”

“He drove? Muriel, you gave me your word of–”

“Mother,” the girl interrupted, “I just told you. He drove very nicely. Under fifty the whole way, as a matter of fact.”

“Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?”

“I said he drove very nicely, Mother. Now, please. I asked him to stay close to the white line, and all, and he knew what I meant, and he did. He was even trying not to look at the trees-you could tell. Did Daddy get the car fixed, incidentally?”

“Not yet. They want four hundred dollars, just to–”

“Mother, Seymour told Daddy that he’d pay for it. There’s no reason for–”

“Well, we’ll see. How did he behave–in the car and all?”

“All right,” said the girl.

“Did he keep calling you that awful–”

“No. He has something new now.”

“What?”

“Oh, what’s the difference, Mother?”

“Muriel, I want to know. Your father–”

“All right, all right. He calls me Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948,” the girl said, and giggled.

“It isn’t funny, Muriel. It isn’t funny at all. It’s horrible. It’s sad, actually. When I think how–”

“Mother,” the girl interrupted, “listen to me. You remember that book he sent me from Germany? You know–those German poems. What’d I do with it? I’ve been racking my–”

“You have it.”

“Are you sure?” said the girl.

“Certainly. That is, I have it. It’s in Freddy’s room. You left it here and I didn’t have room for it in the–Why? Does he want it?”

“No. Only, he asked me about it, when we were driving down. He wanted to know if I’d read it.”

“It was in German!”

“Yes, dear. That doesn’t make any difference,” said the girl, crossing her legs. “He said that the poems happen to be written by the only great poet of the century. He said I should’ve bought a translation or something. Or learned the language, if you please.”

“Awful. Awful. It’s sad, actually, is what it is. Your father said last night–”

“Just a second, Mother,” the girl said. She went over to the window seat for her cigarettes, lit one, and returned to her seat on the bed. “Mother?” she said, exhaling smoke.

“Muriel. Now, listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Your father talked to Dr. Sivetski.”

“Oh?” said the girl.

“He told him everything. At least, he said he did–you know your father. The trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things he said to Granny about her plans for passing away. What he did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda–everything.”

“Well?” said the girl.

“Well. In the first place, he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital–my word of honor. He very definitely told your father there’s a chance–a very great chance, he said–that Seymour may completely lose control of himself. My word of honor.”

“There’s a psychiatrist here at the hotel,” said the girl.

“Who? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. Rieser or something. He’s supposed to be very good.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Well, he’s supposed to be very good, anyway.”

“Muriel, don’t be fresh, please. We’re very worried about you. Your father wanted to wire you last night to come home, as a matter of f–”

“I’m not coming home right now, Mother. So relax.”

“Muriel. My word of honor. Dr. Sivetski said Seymour may completely lose contr–”

“I just got here, Mother. This is the first vacation I’ve had in years, and I’m not going to just pack everything and come home,” said the girl. “I couldn’t travel now anyway. I’m so sunburned I can hardly move.”

“You’re badly sunburned? Didn’t you use that jar of Bronze I put in your bag? I put it right–”

“I used it. I’m burned anyway.”

“That’s terrible. Where are you burned?”

“All over, dear, all over.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I’ll live.”

“Tell me, did you talk to this psychiatrist?”

“Well, sort of,” said the girl.

“What’d he say? Where was Seymour when you talked to him?”

“In the Ocean Room, playing the piano. He’s played the piano both nights we’ve been here.”

“Well, what’d he say?”

“Oh, nothing much. He spoke to me first. I was sitting next to him at Bingo last night, and he asked me if that wasn’t my husband playing the piano in the other room. I said yes, it was, and he asked me if Seymour’s been sick or something. So I said–”

“Why’d he ask that?”

“I don’t know, Mother. I guess because he’s so pale and all,” said the girl. “Anyway, after Bingo he and his wife asked me if I wouldn’t like to join them for a drink. So I did. His wife was horrible. You remember that awful dinner dress we saw in Bonwit’s window? The one you said you’d have to have a tiny, tiny–”

“The green?”

“She had it on. And all hips. She kept asking me if Seymour’s related to that Suzanne Glass that has that place on Madison Avenue–the millinery.”

“What’d he say, though? The doctor.”

“Oh. Well, nothing much, really. I mean we were in the bar and all. It was terribly noisy.”

“Yes, but did–did you tell him what he tried to do with Granny’s chair?”

“No, Mother. I didn’t go into details very much,” said the girl. “I’ll probably get a chance to talk to him again. He’s in the bar all day long.”

“Did he say he thought there was a chance he might get–you know–funny or anything? Do something to you!”

“Not exactly,” said the girl. “He had to have more facts, Mother. They have to know about your childhood–all that stuff. I told you, we could hardly talk, it was so noisy in there.”

“Well. How’s your blue coat?”

“All right. I had some of the padding taken out.”

“How are the clothes this year?”

“Terrible. But out of this world. You see sequins–everything,” said the girl.

“How’s your room?”

“All right. Just all right, though. We couldn’t get the room we had before the war,” said the girl. “The people are awful this year. You should see what sits next to us in the dining room. At the next table. They look as if they drove down in a truck.”

“Well, it’s that way all over. How’s your ballerina?”

“It’s too long. I told you it was too long.”

“Muriel, I’m only going to ask you once more–are you really all right?”

“Yes, Mother,” said the girl. “For the ninetieth time.”

“And you don’t want to come home?”

“No, Mother.”

“Your father said last night that he’d be more than willing to pay for it if you’d go away someplace by yourself and think things over. You could take a lovely cruise. We both thought–”

“No, thanks,” said the girl, and uncrossed her legs. “Mother, this call is costing a for–”

“When I think of how you waited for that boy all through the war-I mean when you think of all those crazy little wives who–”

“Mother,” said the girl, “we’d better hang up. Seymour may come in any minute.”

“Where is he?”

“On the beach.”

“On the beach? By himself? Does he behave himself on the beach?”

“Mother,” said the girl, “you talk about him as though he were a raving maniac–”

“I said nothing of the kind, Muriel.”

“Well, you sound that way. I mean all he does is lie there. He won’t take his bathrobe off.”

“He won’t take his bathrobe off? Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess because he’s so pale.”

“My goodness, he needs the sun. Can’t you make him?

“You know Seymour,” said the girl, and crossed her legs again. “He says he doesn’t want a lot of fools looking at his tattoo.”

“He doesn’t have any tattoo! Did he get one in the Army?”

“No, Mother. No, dear,” said the girl, and stood up. “Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow, maybe.”

“Muriel. Now, listen to me.”

“Yes, Mother,” said the girl, putting her weight on her right leg.

“Call me the instant he does, or says, anything at all funny–you know what I mean. Do you hear me?”

“Mother, I’m not afraid of Seymour.”

“Muriel, I want you to promise me.”

“All right, I promise. Goodbye, Mother,” said the girl. “My love to Daddy.” She hung up.

“See more glass,” said Sybil Carpenter, who was staying at the hotel with her mother. “Did you see more glass?”

“Pussycat, stop saying that. It’s driving Mommy absolutely crazy. Hold still, please.”

Mrs. Carpenter was putting sun-tan oil on Sybil’s shoulders, spreading it down over the delicate, winglike blades of her back. Sybil was sitting insecurely on a huge, inflated beach ball, facing the ocean. She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years.

“It was really just an ordinary silk handkerchief–you could see when you got up close,” said the woman in the beach chair beside Mrs. Carpenter’s. “I wish I knew how she tied it. It was really darling.”

“It sounds darling,” Mrs. Carpenter agreed. “Sybil, hold still, pussy.”

“Did you see more glass?” said Sybil.

Mrs. Carpenter sighed. “All right,” she said. She replaced the cap on the sun-tan oil bottle. “Now run and play, pussy. Mommy’s going up to the hotel and have a Martini with Mrs. Hubbel. I’ll bring you the olive.”

Set loose, Sybil immediately ran down to the flat part of the beach and began to walk in the direction of Fisherman’s Pavilion. Stopping only to sink a foot in a soggy, collapsed castle, she was soon out of the area reserved for guests of the hotel.

She walked for about a quarter of a mile and then suddenly broke into an oblique run up the soft part of the beach. She stopped short when she reached the place where a young man was lying on his back.

“Are you going in the water, see more glass?” she said.

The young man started, his right hand going to the lapels of his terry-cloth robe. He turned over on his stomach, letting a sausaged towel fall away from his eyes, and squinted up at Sybil.

“Hey. Hello, Sybil.”

“Are you going in the water?”

“I was waiting for you,” said the young man. “What’s new?”

“What?” said Sybil.

“What’s new? What’s on the program?”

“My daddy’s coming tomorrow on a nairiplane,” Sybil said, kicking sand.

“Not in my face, baby,” the young man said, putting his hand on Sybil’s ankle. “Well, it’s about time he got here, your daddy. I’ve been expecting him hourly. Hourly.”

“Where’s the lady?” Sybil said.

“The lady?” the young man brushed some sand out of his thin hair. “That’s hard to say, Sybil. She may be in any one of a thousand places. At the hairdresser’s. Having her hair dyed mink. Or making dolls for poor children, in her room.” Lying prone now, he made two fists, set one on top of the other, and rested his chin on the top one. “Ask me something else, Sybil,” he said. “That’s a fine bathing suit you have on. If there’s one thing I like, it’s a blue bathing suit.”

Sybil stared at him, then looked down at her protruding stomach. “This is a yellow,” she said. “This is a yellow.”

“It is? Come a little closer.” Sybil took a step forward. “You’re absolutely right. What a fool I am.”

“Are you going in the water?” Sybil said.

“I’m seriously considering it. I’m giving it plenty of thought, Sybil, you’ll be glad to know.”

Sybil prodded the rubber float that the young man sometimes used as a head-rest. “It needs air,” she said.

“You’re right. It needs more air than I’m willing to admit.” He took away his fists and let his chin rest on the sand. “Sybil,” he said, “you’re looking fine. It’s good to see you. Tell me about yourself.” He reached in front of him and took both of Sybil’s ankles in his hands. “I’m Capricorn,” he said. “What are you?”

“Sharon Lipschutz said you let her sit on the piano seat with you,” Sybil said.

“Sharon Lipschutz said that?”

Sybil nodded vigorously.

He let go of her ankles, drew in his hands, and laid the side of his face on his right forearm. “Well,” he said, “you know how those things happen, Sybil. I was sitting there, playing. And you were nowhere in sight. And Sharon Lipschutz came over and sat down next to me. I couldn’t push her off, could I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, no. No. I couldn’t do that,” said the young man. “I’ll tell you what I did do, though.”

“What?”

“I pretended she was you.”

Sybil immediately stooped and began to dig in the sand. “Let’s go in the water,” she said.

“All right,” said the young man. “I think I can work it in.”

“Next time, push her off,” Sybil said. “Push who off?”

“Sharon Lipschutz.”

“Ah, Sharon Lipschutz,” said the young man. “How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire.” He suddenly got to his feet. He looked at the ocean. “Sybil,” he said, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll see if we can catch a bananafish.”

“A what?”

“A bananafish,” he said, and undid the belt of his robe. He took off the robe. His shoulders were white and narrow, and his trunks were royal blue. He folded the robe, first lengthwise, then in thirds. He unrolled the towel he had used over his eyes, spread it out on the sand, and then laid the folded robe on top of it. He bent over, picked up the float, and secured it under his right arm. Then, with his left hand, he took Sybil’s hand.

The two started to walk down to the ocean.

“I imagine you’ve seen quite a few bananafish in your day,” the young man said.

Sybil shook her head.

“You haven’t? Where do you live, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Sybil.

“Sure you know. You must know. Sharon Lipschutz knows where she lives and she’s only three and a half.”

Sybil stopped walking and yanked her hand away from him. She picked up an ordinary beach shell and looked at it with elaborate interest. She threw it down. “Whirly Wood, Connecticut,” she said, and resumed walking, stomach foremost.

“Whirly Wood, Connecticut,” said the young man. “Is that anywhere near Whirly Wood, Connecticut, by any chance?”

Sybil looked at him. “That’s where I live,” she said impatiently. “I live in Whirly Wood, Connecticut.” She ran a few steps ahead of him, caught up her left foot in her left hand, and hopped two or three times.

“You have no idea how clear that makes everything,” the young man said.

Sybil released her foot. “Did you read `Little Black Sambo’?” she said.

“It’s very funny you ask me that,” he said. “It so happens I just finished reading it last night.” He reached down and took back Sybil’s hand. “What did you think of it?” he asked her.

“Did the tigers run all around that tree?”

“I thought they’d never stop. I never saw so many tigers.”

“There were only six,” Sybil said.

“Only six!” said the young man. “Do you call that only?”

“Do you like wax?” Sybil asked.

“Do I like what?” asked the young man. “Wax.”

“Very much. Don’t you?”

Sybil nodded. “Do you like olives?” she asked.

“Olives–yes. Olives and wax. I never go anyplace without ‘em.”

“Do you like Sharon Lipschutz?” Sybil asked.

“Yes. Yes, I do,” said the young man. “What I like particularly about her is that she never does anything mean to little dogs in the lobby of the hotel. That little toy bull that belongs to that lady from Canada, for instance. You probably won’t believe this, but some little girls like to poke that little dog with balloon sticks. Sharon doesn’t. She’s never mean or unkind. That’s why I like her so much.”

Sybil was silent.

“I like to chew candles,” she said finally.

“Who doesn’t?” said the young man, getting his feet wet. “Wow! It’s cold.” He dropped the rubber float on its back. “No, wait just a second, Sybil. Wait’ll we get out a little bit.”

They waded out till the water was up to Sybil’s waist. Then the young man picked her up and laid her down on her stomach on the float.

“Don’t you ever wear a bathing cap or anything?” he asked.

“Don’t let go,” Sybil ordered. “You hold me, now.”

“Miss Carpenter. Please. I know my business,” the young man said. “You just keep your eyes open for any bananafish. This is a perfect day for bananafish.”

“I don’t see any,” Sybil said.

“That’s understandable. Their habits are very peculiar.” He kept pushing the float. The water was not quite up to his chest. “They lead a very tragic life,” he said. “You know what they do, Sybil?”

She shook her head.

“Well, they swim into a hole where there’s a lot of bananas. They’re very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I’ve known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas.” He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. “Naturally, after that they’re so fat they can’t get out of the hole again. Can’t fit through the door.”

“Not too far out,” Sybil said. “What happens to them?”

“What happens to who?”

“The bananafish.”

“Oh, you mean after they eat so many bananas they can’t get out of the banana hole?”

“Yes,” said Sybil.

“Well, I hate to tell you, Sybil. They die.”

“Why?” asked Sybil.

“Well, they get banana fever. It’s a terrible disease.”

“Here comes a wave,” Sybil said nervously.

“We’ll ignore it. We’ll snub it,” said the young man. “Two snobs.” He took Sybil’s ankles in his hands and pressed down and forward. The float nosed over the top of the wave. The water soaked Sybil’s blond hair, but her scream was full of pleasure.

With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported, “I just saw one.”

“Saw what, my love?”

“A bananafish.”

“My God, no!” said the young man. “Did he have any bananas in his mouth?”

“Yes,” said Sybil. “Six.”

The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil’s wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch.

“Hey!” said the owner of the foot, turning around.

“Hey, yourself We’re going in now. You had enough?”

“No!”

“Sorry,” he said, and pushed the float toward shore until Sybil got off it. He carried it the rest of the way.

“Goodbye,” said Sybil, and ran without regret in the direction of the hotel.

The young man put on his robe, closed the lapels tight, and jammed his towel into his pocket. He picked up the slimy wet, cumbersome float and put it under his arm. He plodded alone through the soft, hot sand toward the hotel.

On the sub-main floor of the hotel, which the management directed bathers to use, a woman with zinc salve on her nose got into the elevator with the young man.

“I see you’re looking at my feet,” he said to her when the car was in motion.

“I beg your pardon?” said the woman.

“I said I see you’re looking at my feet.”

“I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor,” said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.

“If you want to look at my feet, say so,” said the young man. “But don’t be a God-damned sneak about it.”

“Let me out here, please,” the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.

The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.

“I have two normal feet and I can’t see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them,” said the young man. “Five, please.” He took his room key out of his robe pocket.

He got off at the fifth floor, walked down the hall, and let himself into 507. The room smelled of new calfskin luggage and nail-lacquer remover.

He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.