The last few months I was in Iraq I was stationed on this tiny-ass FOB (FOB Givens, on the border with Jordan) way out in BFE. There was a mosque right next to our perimeter, and the mosque’s minaret overlooked our entire position, which was somewhat unsettling for us.

The Minaret overlooking the FOB.

At the time, I was working a 12-on, 12-off schedule. For twelve hours, from 1800-0600, I stood watch in the COC (Command Operations Center), monitoring the satellite uplink and the shortwave radios, and (since the Sergeant of the Guard liked catch a few Zs at night) regularly conducting radio checks with the guards posted on the roofs of our buildings. Most of the time I was one of five or so people awake on the entire FOB, which was a bit disconcerting in the event that anything seriously ill went down in the night.

Looking toward the Jordanian border, marked by the lights just beyond the structure in the middle ground, at night.

I’ve always been a night owl, so the late shift didn’t bother me. I was posted on that watch because I was a digital communications guy, not a radioman, so there wasn’t really anything else for me to do on the FOB, making the job was mine more or less by default. It was something of a vote of confidence in my sense of personal responsibility, since I was directly responsible for keeping us in contact with Camp KV, the next nearest base, which was over two hours away. Help would be a long time in getting to us, should something really bad happen, but apparently I enjoyed enough of the platoon commander’s trust to be the one guy who absolutely had to remain awake through the entire night.

The longest part of the night was always 0300-0500. The platoon commander sometimes stayed awake until 0200, but by zero three the last guard shift had taken their posts and just about everyone else on the FOB was asleep. I’d call the guard towers every so often to make sure no one was drowsy, or in need of coffee, but other than that I was generally left to my own devices. I read books on politics and issues of The Atlantic my dad regularly sent me, listened to music on my laptop, and stepped outside every so often for a tobacco snack. Cigarettes were cheap out there. I could get two packs of Sumers and a two-liter of Syrian orange soda for under two bucks at the local Iraqi truck stop, and my habit had grown over the deployment to about two and a half packs per day.

The minaret at night [at center], marked by the green and blue lights.

My habit was to get a radio check with the other base just before 0500. Around that time, the muezzin at the mosque would begin chanting the adhān for Fajr, the prayer at sunrise. I loved to go stand outside under the slowly lightening sky and smoke, listening to the eerily beautiful call. Though I didn’t know the meaning at the time, the last line of the adhān is “As-salatu khairum minannaum” - “Prayer is better than sleep.” The call to prayer always filled me with a sense of peace, because, ironically, an hour after the call began my relief would show up, and I’d retire to my rack in the squad bay for a few hours of sleep. For me, the call represented the end of the last hour of the day I could enjoy as my own, uninterrupted by the demands of others, the oppressive and ever-present heat of day, or the noise of a lively squadbay intruding into my fitful sleep as I lay beneath my poncho liner.

Given the events which unfolded yesterday in Iran and carried on into the night, and finding myself awake at this early hour of the morning, I feel it somehow appropriate to remember in my own prayers the Iranians struggling for a greater role for civil society in their country. And although I don’t smoke anymore, before I go to bed I’ll listen to the adhān again and remember what my life was like five years ago in that corner of the world. I hope the events of the next few days change the political climate in the Middle East for good in a way my own country hasn’t accomplished in the six years we’ve been meddling over there.

The tumult in Iran has lasted late into the night, and yet, here in America, the cable news networks are firmly in fire-and-forget weekend programming mode. Larry King was on during his regularly scheduled slot this evening, MSNBC is running it’s standard “documentaries” on prison life, and CSPAN-3 was airing an interview with former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who has been dead for over ten years.

Meanwhile, here’s the main page of CNN.com, which might as well be a representative sample of America’s perspective on the world:

That’s right. A (counter?-)revolution may well be brewing in Iran, and in CNN’s best judgment, Americans should be more interested in the bankruptcy of a national chain of amusement parks.

Sometimes I marvel at the extent of our national self-absorption. Is any other country on Earth as staggeringly ignorant and dangerously influential as ours?

Oscar Peterson has died. There will be numerous obituaries in the coming days, lauding a “jazz giant,” “one of the greatest jazz pianists of the 20th Century,” or even “the best damn jazz pianist in the whole world,” and while all these tributes will be well-placed, they don’t sum up the loss I’m feeling tonight.

For me, Oscar Peterson is (not was - his recordings live on) the jazz piano. I don’t know for certain what the first jazz record I ever heard was, but if I was pressed to guess, it would have been Oscar, heavily favored, with the Modern Jazz Quartet or a Stan Kenton as distant, dark horse alternatives.

Though I’ve grown to love jazz and jazz piano beyond Oscar, for me he’s the touchstone, the Ark of the Covenant, something that I can always count on, the tower at the center of my ever-widening circular exploration of some of the greatest music ever recorded. No slight is intended to Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Bud Powell, or Horace Silver, but the small world that is my outlook on jazz will always be framed by Oscar and his piano. In particular, Oscar’s album Night Train spoke to my soul in some fundamental way at a crucial point in my musical development, and if it wasn’t for him, I might never have begun my love affair with the greatest musical form of the modern age.

I also owe my love of jazz to my step-dad, who, though he banned rock and roll from the house, was more than willing to share with me his knowledge of jazz, both as a brass instrumentalist and a life-long concert-goer. Kevin’s enthusiasm for Oscar’s work sparked my own interest well over a decade ago. Our relationship had always been a little strained, a little uncomfortable when I was a kid, and Oscar’s music was the first bridge between us. Nights spent in the living room listening to Oscar really brought Kevin and I closer, something I’ll always be thankful for.

Kevin’s seen Oscar a few times in his life, probably at least once in each decade of the Seventies, Eighties, and Oscar’s post-stroke Nineties revival. I have never seen Oscar live, nor will I ever have the opportunity now.

No matter how long I live, this will be one of my greatest regrets.

Farewell, Oscar. You helped me build two relationships I’ll have for the rest of my life, and so your contribution to my family is never forgotten, I’ll try to build these same relationships with my children.

About a month ago my friend Tim invited me to be the “conservative” co-author of his blog, Dammit. I was initially hesitant to accept because I didn’t want to disappoint him the way I’ve disappointed myself here, but I realized that I needn’t force myself into a daily, or even every-other-day, posting schedule. Tim’s matchless daily work on his blog wasn’t something I wanted to step on even if I did have the drive necessary post that regularly, so a loosely bi-weekly interval between my posts seemed a good middle ground.

I’ve enjoyed writing for Tim’s blog immensely, and I’ll be continuing to do so. I suggest you read the blog as it stands, so I’m not going to link directly to any of my posts, be they past, present, or future. I will post the occasional plug for Dammit should anyone take a backroad on the Interwebs and wind up in my driveway, looking for directions.

I can’t emphasize enough how refreshing Tim’s work is in my eyes. He deserves a much larger readership than he currently has, and I hope he has the endurance I could never muster to keep going until someone with sufficient enough a following gives him the exposure that he deserves.

One of the surest ways to kill off any blog readership one might have is to quit posting for seven months. I’m sure the dearth of new content here has done the work of the harshest of winters in this part of the worldwide digital vineyard. The cycle of inspiration and desolation of the mind is as inevitable as the change of the seasons, but warmer climes have been much more hospitable for anyone who might have been moderately interested in what I had to say.

I make no promises of regular content this time. With school obligations, a wedding to plan, and occasional co-authorship of another blog my life is much more hectic than the last time I attempted to grow anything here. Although the time appears right to till the earth again and resow the seed of thought, I’m not certain of the outcome. I might eventually grow something capable of yielding a few bottles of table wine, but history says I won’t.

That’s fine. When I originally bought this digital plot I had the idea to build it into some kind of digital obschina, a collective intellectual project that would feature not only my own writings and thoughts, but those of acquaintances, friends and relatives. That vision is more humble now, or at least more realistic. What I have here is a binary hobby farm, something to work on when I’m intellectually engaged. Maybe I’ll occasionally bring a crop to market, but my existence isn’t dependent on it. Instead, I’ll be able to create something small for myself and concentrate on the craftsmanship instead of the constancy. I can put up some supplies to get me by during the lean months, and in the mean time we’ll see how the grapes fare.
If you’re in the neighborhood, you’re welcome to come in for a glass of wine and some biscuits and preserves.