Happy time-change-did-I-miss-the-rapture joke week to those who grew up celebrating. In the meantime, it’s:

In this issue

• A request for Christmas stories

• Cool people I know

• Getting metaphysical, metaphysical

• Sonic wardrobe considerations

• Western Canadian punk rock

• A fall-time playlist

• A demonstration of self-control by resisting a Pokemon pun when introducing a Mr. Ketchum’s brief music review

• A repeated caption contest that previously went mostly ignored

What my friends do

In the first issue of the newsletter I asked you, my dear readers, to share any interesting accomplishments. Being the modest lot that you are, I’m going to have to jump in and do the bragging for you. I’ll start with a few.

• Bethany Dearborn Hiser does the important work of trauma-informed spiritual care and burnout prevention, the theme of her book From Burned Out to Beloved. Her website is here.

• Shayna Jones is a storyteller, theatre actor and playwright. Her recent project Black and Rural chronicles experiences of Black rural Canadians.

• Dan Steenburgh composes choral music. His website includes arrangements and some recordings.

• Matt Malyon runs Underground Writing, a creative writing program for incarcerated folks and others.

• Melissa Hafting (who, admittedly, I only know through many emails about bird sightings) has a forthcoming book called Dare to Bird. She has a remarkable eBird list of 454 bird species seen in BC.

• AN (Amy) Muia writes beautiful fiction, recalling the warmth and humanity of one of our mutual favourite authors, Alan Paton. You can read her short story, “The Vermillion Saint.”

• Carolyn Amantea is a small-town municipal councilour, so make sure to get out and Rock the Vote next election if you live in Warfield, BC, The Jewel of the Kootenays.

God, being and nothingness

It seems like the topic of belief and doubt resonated with some readers. I thought I would follow it up by wading into one of the themes that has guided my searching.

One important question I’ve come across is this classic philosophical puzzle of ontology (the philosophy of being): why is there anything at all? Or why is there something rather than nothing?¹ This is not asking how the universe came to be as it is, not a question of the Big Bang or quantum processes or physics at all. “Not how the world is the mystical, but that it is,” says Wittgenstein. Is there any real reason why there should be anything at all?

Nothing, or nothingness, is a really slippery concept. It’s natural to picture a state of nothingness as a sort of vacuum of space. But the absence of particles within space and time would not really be nothing. Nothingness is more profoundly empty than that. As an example, 20th-century Russian theologian Sergei Bulgakov considers the concept of nothingness in light of the Christian tradition of creation out of nothing. Bulgakov argues that there really can be no such thing as a state of nothingness:

The question of why there is something rather than nothing presupposes that nothingness is the most likely state of things (or, I guess, lack of state). Or, put otherwise, there's no obvious reason to expect that there should be anything at all.

The dominant classical theist response to the question of why there is something rather than nothing is that God is the source of existence. I have found some arguments in this vein convincing.

One argument goes something like this (my training is not in philosophy, but I’m doing my best): there is something rather than nothing. All things and processes are contingent, not self-caused or self-reliant; no thing exists without being caused. Either the chain of causes extends back infinitely (which seems implausible) or it has a beginning that is self-sufficient, requires no cause. (Note: this argument is not primarily about going back in time, but about going back to more fundamental causes).

Many philosophers and religious thinkers expand on this. God (taken to be the first cause) must be not be changeable, not subject to time, not be made of composite parts (so must be one), not constrained or limited in being (hence, infinite); is both transcendent of being and immanent to all that exists. In short, God is the uncreated, limitless ground or source of being, being itself, “I am that I am.” Here concepts of God as creator in the monotheistic faiths, Brahman in Hindu traditions, the One in Neoplatonism, and other ideas of the one source of being may all be in deep agreement, before differences in particular theologies and cultures and claims of revelation.

David Bentley Hart speaks of the “purely negative deduction about God, at the end of a progressive logical elimination of everything that makes finite reality contingent in its very essence: conditionality, composition, mutability, boundaries and contrasts and exclusions and so on.”³ In other words, the traditional grandiose ideas about God’s infinite nature can be arrived at through a process of reasoning in contrast to the finite world.

I struggle to grasp the rationale for some of these claims, but I nevertheless think that the case for a source of existence is compelling. The picture of the immanent and transcendent God, the source of being rather than “a being,” makes deep sense to me.

But there are plenty of critics of arguments for classical theism in response to the question of existence. Some have questioned whether infinite causal regress is really so impossible (sometimes this kind of criticism is too focused on causes in time). Others have asked if the question of why there is anything at all is really a meaningful question, or have argued that nothingness is too incoherent or too unscientific a concept to assume.

A New Atheist talking point has been to ask, “If God created everything, where did God come from?” This objection is a pretty bland straw man, but it does point to the difficulty of language describing God as uncreated. The need for abstract terms and negatives to describe God (infinite, ineffible, uncreated, indivisible, immutable) can appear like linguistic gymnastics.

And not all religious believers understand God this way, especially those attached to literal interpretations of creation stories or anthropomorphic depictions of God. Other varieties of Christian theology have dealt with the problem of evil in the world raised by classical theism by limiting ideas of an infinite God. These include “Open Theism,” where God’s knowledge of the future is limited; or “Process Theology,” where God changes alongside creation; or depictions of spiritual warfare, where God is the most powerful being in a cosmic battle with other powerful beings on the same plane. And modern thinking as a whole, religious and otherwise, tends to understand the idea of God as simply a (supreme) being within the universe or existence.

I am so far unswayed by these objections, for a variety of reasons. But I also think that I probably haven’t yet encountered the best objections to classical iterations of the “cosmological argument.” I’m still looking and thinking about this question often. The case seems strong, but the case is not closed.

And it’s not as though the answer to this question leads a person straight to the Nicene Creed. There are many other questions to ask about God and religious belief.

Lest this seem too abstract and removed from daily life, simply asking the “why” question has been something of a spiritual quest. If it is true that God is the ground of all being, then God is nearer and more direct to my experience than anything else. At times when I have been unable to pray with any conviction, I tried to meditate on the astonishing fact of existence.

In Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before, the seventeenth-century protagonist survives a near-fatal animal attack and lays recovering on a wrecked ship:

1, This question of ontology shouldn’t be confused with what gets called the “Ontological Argument” for God’s existence, associated recently with philosophers such as Alan Platinga. It is an analytical argument of God’s necessarily existing in light of the possibility of imagining an infinite being. I’m not a trained philosopher or logician, but the variations of that argument that I’ve read seem dubious to me, and apparently can, according to some philosophers, be argued equally successfully to the opposite conclusion.

2, Sergius Bulgakov, Bride of the Lamb, 44.

3. Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, 110. Hart’s book is dedicated to elucidating and defending classical theism in its various religious guises. It has been one of my main guides in thinking through this question. But I mention Hart with a caveat: Hart is wittily merciless to his ideological opponents. If you read long enough, and it may not take long at all, you will find your own view on the end of one of his attacks. Sometimes his mockery verges into the territory of bad faith, except that his arguments are so often compelling. But I guess you already know how I feel about highbrow takedowns. Hart is a giant of that genre.

4, Eco, The Island of the Day Before, 467-468.

Listen for the bird pants

I’m walking down a gravel trail through brushy open woods, ears attentive, listening for bird sounds. I freeze when I hear a quiet, rising, whistled “whiip,” the call of a Swainson’s Thrush. But it’s November. Swainson’s Thrushes, the bards of long summer days, are quietly whistling their winters away with the Tinamous in Nicaragua or Colombia or Bolivia. There was no bird; it was the sound of my swishing pants.

In summer especially, but really any time of year, birders rely on hearing to find and identify bird species. Identification of birds during summer breeding bird surveys is 90% aural, and it is the same through many walks through bird-filled woods. We work to learn the difference between each “seep” and “sit” and “tip” and “pit.”

Apparently I’ve been blessed with particularly keen hearing, thanks perhaps to my musical background. I also owe this to my younger age and still-intact inner ear hairs and nerve cells (in spite of playing drums and bass in bands in my teens and twenties). I’m regularly mocked by older birders for hearing birds that aren’t there. On one bird count with A Rocha in Surrey, BC, I marched the team of other birders down a trail to a bush to point out that, in fact, this singing Orange-crowned Warbler is not imaginary, thank you.

But listening for birds often does involve hearing birds that are not there. Swishy and squeaky clothing is the most shameless imitator of Pine Siskins and Pine Grosbeaks and Chestnut-backed Chickadees. Tinkling keys have on more than one occasion convinced me that I am being followed by flocks of tiny, and even tinier-sounding, Golden-crowned Kinglets.

Birds and birders aren’t the only noise generators out there. Once in Chilliwack, listening for Western Screech-owls, I head a short series of the high, monotone toots of a Northern Saw-whet Owl. Or it was the beep of a truck backing up? And was that a Short-eared Owl at dusk or the yip of a coyote?

Birds are the most notorious and impressive bird imitators. Mimics like Catbirds, Jays and Starlings are sonic magicians. On a Christmas Bird Count I stared into the sky in search of a distant Bald Eagle, only to see a Steller’s Jay in a hedge just feet above me doing a quiet impression. In Creston, I kept a list of thirty-odd bird species that one neighbourhood Starling imitated (American Wigeon, House Finch, White-crowned Sparrow, Virginia Rail, Western Meadowlark and Blue Jay, among others).

And some birds make a lot of different noises. I’ve heard those truck-beeping Northern Saw-whet Owls whine, hiss, trill, yip, bark, meow and chirp. The potential for audio confusion led the late bird world record-holder Phoebe Snetsinger to withhold her records from consideration in protest to allowing identification by call and song to be counted on personal bird lists. Bird songs, the longer complex summer sounds, are usually safer from this confusion. But you never know when jackets or frogs or candy wrappers or squirrels or another birder pulling a prank will sound just like the bird you are listening for. Or Swainson’s Thrush pants.

Bird names (for birds)

Speaking of Swainson, in earlier times many bird species were named by European ornithologists and taxonomists for other ornithologists, explorers, royal patrons or friends. Birders in the US and Canada are familiar with the names Wilson and Barrow and Steller and Vaux and Hutton and Audubon and Cassin and LeConte and Anna and Lewis and Rivoli and Brewer and Townsend and Williamson and Cooper and Clark and Bullock (that’s a name!) and Brandt and Lucy and Baird and Woodhouse and Say and Franklin and Morelet and Hammond and Bewick and Bonaparte and so on (no, not that Bonaparte, but related to that Bonaparte).

Some names honour the hunter who shot a specimen or the ornithologist who described a new species. Many other names could be pretty arbitrary. But I do appreciate some of the first names; Spencer Baird named Virginia’s, Grace’s and Lucy’s Warblers after family and friends of himself and other ornithologists. It’s unfair to name birds after your loved ones, but also nice.

Beyond the arbitrary and colonial naming process, some advocates have called for rethinking the honorific bird titles named for historical figures with troubling pasts. The McCown’s Longspur, named for a Confederate general, was re-dubbed Thick-billed Longspur a few years ago. A committee of the American Orthinithological Society (AOS) was formed to decide what to do with bird names from other eponymous figures like John James Audubon, who owned slaves, or John Kirk Townsend, who raided Indigenous grave sites to collect human remains alongside his collection of bird specimens.

The decision, announced this week, is to replace all the US and Canada eponymous names with descriptive bird names. I very much agree, and I think this is much better than a piecemeal approach. A new committee will be responsible for the Adamic task of naming. Apparently the process will involve some public consultation. In the meantime, here are my bird name suggestions. AOS, take note!

Music of the decade: the trilogy: the conclusion

This is the last in a series of music reviews for 2020s albums. Thanks to those who shared!

Home Front - Games of Power

This Edmonton, AB duo creatively bridges hardcore punk with the melancholic side of synthy 80s new wave and post-punk and it really works. Some songs play like punk songs but with synth bass and arpeggios and airy, jangly guitars. Others sound like Joy Division or Depeche Mode with more energy (and readers will know how delighted I am with such 80s plundering). Most of the lyrics are classically punk rock and anti-capitalist (“Land rights, segregation / Games of power/ 
Keep us poor, keep them rich”). Others process hurt and loss with a little more insight than the young 80s post-punks they are emulating (“A discipline you have to mine /
 A gift from my elders
 who say be patient / Healing takes time”).

This recipe for music combination seems like low-hanging fruit. Has anyone done this before? A few dance-punk moments and overly Robert-Smith-affected vocals aside, it turns out to be exactly what I’m looking for.

For readers who don’t like heavier music, you could easily skip the harder-hitting tracks and have a nice soundtrack for a more mature version of 80s sadness.

Three tracks to listen to: Contact, Crisis, Face Value
Listen on Bandcamp

Dumb - Pray 4 Tomorrow

Laid-back lyrical surprise is at the forefront of this spry and witty album from Vancouver slacker indie punks, Dumb (or “pizza punks,” the name of a split project).

Over short, mid-to-fast-tempo lighthearted punk songs with catchy riffs, vocalist Franco Rossini spouts wordy turns of phrase with a wink. Through every unexpected line he rants and observes and begs to be pulled out of monotony. “I could really use a swim in a lake near Tacoma / or a big road trip down to Oklahoma,” he sings on “Sleep LIke a Baby.” Where Home Front is righteously political, Dumb feels resigned and bewildered. On “Pull Me Up,” Rossini mourns that he’s “gone through proper process / civil discourse isn’t helping… Feels like nothing ever changes / Pushing boulders / Picking clovers / Making bread.” His facetious frustrations turn inward on “Watch this Drive”: “I haven’t been taking any shots / I’m waiting for a natural sign.” Dumb is actually smart, but lacks some motivation and opportunities.

Vocals in a few songs are shared between different band members, but Rossini’s stand out (though I am partial too the cool, harder-hitting, bilingual “Pensar”). Most songs have a familiar, a slightly off-key, 90s vibe like Pavement, interspersed with occasional harder punk moments. The band’s energetic walking basslines and trebley guitars evoke the lighter side of ska-punk, so the occasional trumpet fits perfectly. Most of the 18 quick songs are about 2 ½ minutes long or less, and it is worth almost every garagey half minute.

Three tracks to listen to: Pull Me Up, Dropout, Sleep Like a Baby
Listen on Bandcamp

Young Oceans - Like History Instrumentals

Review by Craig Ketchum

I recommend Young Oceans’ Like History - Instrumentals. It’s terrific driving/writing/studying music. 

(Thank you, Craig. That is an underappreciated genre).

Autumn music mix

Since some of you mentioned enjoying the last playlist, I went ahead and made another. This mix is seasonally-themed. It’s less pumpkin spice, more barren aspen trees, dark skies and rainy sidewalks.

It is heavy on recent indie rock and a bit of indie rap because I initially created the playlist from my recent downloads on Bandcamp, only to find that you can’t actually share Bandcamp playlists. (Bandcamp itself was just acquired in a corporate takeover followed by layoffs. We’ll see what happens. For now it remains the best online platform for money to go directly to artists).

So, resigned, I reproduced the playlist with Spotify, interspersing the original mix with an array of other music (Dolly Parton, Anoushka Shankar, Tom Waits and Kraftwerk among others). You can also hear some of the music mentioned in this newsletter. Enjoy.

Listen here.

Caption contest… continues

I received only one response to the caption contest for this picture of two Solitary Sandpipers. So I’ll try one more time. If there are no other responses, we have a default winner.

Christmas/holiday stories

Do you have any entertaining, weird, funny, or otherwise interesting Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year/Festivus anecdotes to share? Please tell. The season is coming, and with it, I hope, a newsletter with your stories.

Stuff of the issue

• Onomatopoeia: Tink

• Bird insult: Dickcissel

• Book: Ken Kaufman - Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding

• Highbrow takedown: “[Ezra Pound] was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.” - Gertrude Stein, 1933.

• Porcelain figurine: Kittens with a ball of yarn

• Song: Charles Bradley - “Ain’t it a Sin”

• Birding hotspot: Peavine Creek and Marsh, Moyie, BC.

-Paul