Like There's No Tomorrow: Dancing Edition

"Never be a tightwad when your fear is the price for awesomeness."

--Me

I got to my soccer class late today. For the big-numberth time.

Nic Arrhenius, my coach, happens to be an Olympian. He threw discus for Sweden in Beijing. Not bad, huh? He’s probably the coolest coach I’ve had, though I once had a pretty cute coach in basketball--that wasn't too uncool either.

“You’re late, Bentley,” the big guy said.

“I know.”

He’s grinnin' though. I love people that can pick up the “irresponsible kid that really doesn’t mean to do things bad he just kinda does” vibe from me.

“You’ve got, lets see…absence, tardy…tardy, tardy, tardy, absence, tardy today…you’re approaching failing out, man.”

“Shoot…yeah. I was wonderin' about that.”

I asked him how bad my grade was getting docked, since usually you drop after a couple absences (and a few tardies add up to an absence), and about how making things up worked again. I figured it must be pretty bad if I was already approaching total failure.

“Well,” he smiled, “actually because of the swine flu going around this semester the entire department cancelled all docking penalties having to do with attendance.” (As if other people having the swine flu had made me move to class in slow motion--lol.) He laughed cause he knew exactly how much I was getting away with and didn’t deserve to, but also because he was glad I was. Mercy can’t rob justice, but the best people wish it could, I think. Coach is the best. “You always feel like he’s on your side--probably because he is,” I mused once in my notebook after he didn’t count me tardy when I was “pretty close”--haha (for probably the third time at that point). I just love it when people are cool like that.

“So, uhh, where am I at then?”

“Well, there are three classes left, and you’ve got 4 absences” (counting the 6 tardies that count as 2 absences between them, besides my real absences), “and there are only three class periods left.” Then he started laughing out loud. “Basically, if you can make it to class on time for one of those three class periods, you won’t fail soccer.” “And I’ll get an ‘A’?” I asked, grinning. “Yeah, you’ll get an ‘A’.” A well-deserved one. Heh.

Pray for me my friends--with your help I can make it. And for those of you who've already borne the swine flu just to help me out, thank you--you've done enough.

Speaking of suffering, I’ve always wondered about how to feel about blessings that come because other people have suffered or done something wrong. Kinda weird. Sorta like the time I was in O’Flaherty’s Pub in Dingle, Ireland, and it looked exactly like the Shire everywhere outside on the Emerald Isle and the inside of the pub was wooden and quaint and had mugs and tables whereon lively spry hobbits would certainly dance and I wanted the people there to do so more than anything. A local band was even playing authentic Irish folk music and singing ballads. THIS WAS THE SHIRE SO HELP ME. But no one would dance. A few people who’d stayed at the hostel longer than my friends Emma, Whitney and I had come down with us for some traditional Irish pub-tales--I asked them if people ever danced. “Not usually.” I furtively watched the old people drinking their ale. I knew they had it in them. They’d dance. If they’d keep drinking.

“So shoulder the sky, my lads, and drink your ale!” I thought, but then I felt bad. That’s not a good wish. But it’s not like I could help anything. Well, I suppose I could stand on a table myself and quote scraps of D&C 89, but I figured that wouldn’t do much but irritate people and engender opinions that the church was narrow-minded and ludicrous in that scene. Maybe I was wrong. Whatever the case, I stayed another hour and a half nurturing the guilty hope that they‘d drink themselves into dance. If it wasn‘t wrong for them to do it (where there is ignorance there is no law), was it wrong for me to benefit from it? Nah.

Like the way some other BYU chums and I would pay our non-member, Korean roommate Jae so he could buy Little Caesar’s for us on Sundays. He wasn’t sinning. And we were just giving him the opportunity to serve, and bring others joy, and be a Christian. “Give the gift of giving” as a recent BYU devotional speaker calls it. So all of you judgers out there, I ask you whether you have given as much as I. Probably not. And you didn’t get pizza either--we did because we did what was right (3 Ne. 13:33). For those who didn’t judge, I confess we actually didn’t pay him off but it would have been funny and probably the right thing to do.

But anyway these Shirelings wouldn’t DANCE. They drank for hours and wouldn’t DANCE! I wanted Hobbit-time! What's the point of all that alcohol, all those spirits, if it doesn't put any spirit in ya? Anyway, my masterplan failed and someone finally me if I wanted someone to dance so bad then I should. So I did. All by myself.

It was pathetic, but it was semi-bold. I imitated the bit of LOTR scenes I could remember, which didn’t work because I mostly remembered two hobbits carousing arm-in-arm in circles (and no one was dancing with me) raising mugs to the hearty cheers of onlookers (except my audience was just staring awkwardly); then I tried some postmodern moves that definitely didn’t go down; then I threw in a shimmy; and then I called it quits. It was all I had. But right before I slunk away in shame--which I definitely did--I stuck me neck out a little further to see if I could entice some old English lady onto “the dance floor” with me. Cold-blooded. Grandma was an ice queen. How often do you get a lively, brawny, visionary American inviting you to dance a jig? The call went unanswered, but it did not go unissued. I did what I could.

I had dreams of rousing the entire tavern into a scene no less merry nor glorious as I do not doubt but what Merry and Pippin would have done--boots stomping, hands clapping, chandeliers swinging, fires roaring, ale pouring, and laughter bursting from every looking-on heart. I wanted to be like my heroes, but I failed.

I think I failed because I feared. I think the onlookers could sense that lack of total commitment. I was willing to stick my neck out, but not to go down on the ship burning. In the end, I was just a little bit bluffing.

When I go back someday, I’m not sure what I’ll do, nor how it will “go down in Hobbit town.” Maybe I’ll learn a few moves to legitimize the dance floor as such. Seriously, what if I just jumped on a table and started jigging in my heartiest most happily abandoned way? Could they resist that? Maybe. But maybe then I’d bust out an irresistibly lively song on guitar (which I haven't learned yet :), an invigorating folk song that will have all the lads and lassies looking at each other with romantic volatility (even the older ones). Maybe that will fail too.

So the songs and dance steps I'll learn won't be a foolproof masterplan but that isn't my real hope for next time. My hope is that next time, when they call my bluff, I won’t be bluffing, and then before they know it they won’t be dancing in my dreams alone but on their tables as they always should have been. Why? Why, well haven't you heard Merry and Pippin's warcry? “For the SHIRE!”

And if they don't, I'll dance on my burning shipdeck, saluting, until it sinks into the grim-bluest grave. "Oh Captain, my captain!"

But fear not, my friends: they'll probably dance. And I'll probably get to class on time--at least I'm going to try.

Epilogue

And if for some inscrutable reason you desire a more eminent/credible source to cite, try this powerful quote by Murray often misattributed to Goethe:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!"

- W. H. Murray, from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)

Thoughts of a Man

I wasn't surprised to find the top 35 moustaches of all time at theartofmanliness.com, but I was surprised to find some authentically sincere wisdom, particularly on how a man knows when he has "found the one." The guy quoted his father-in-law as saying,

“Marriage is not about finding a person you can live with, it’s about finding the person you can’t live without.”

It's true. Not that I speak from experience, but I think this expresses what I have always felt. So thank you, ye manly men, for enlightening your comrade.

Also, my roommate Kent was cleaning up other people's leftovers the other day: he said it was training to be a good dad. I nodded in approval and said, "Indeed: Patriarchal." Not a bad thing to be. So far the only thing that rivals it are "epic" and "mythic" and perhaps "megalithic."

Subway Saga: 2009

Perhaps my favorite hike with Old Glory flying above it: The Subway.

Dave and I had talked for years about it. It wasn't until we made friends with a business major (Sir Evan Fitzpatrick) that someone took care of business and organized an expedition. Fortunately, I had done it before, so we didn't need a guide. Unfortunately, that was over a decade ago when I was in Teacher's Quorum.

Drew + Jenny, Evan, Dan King, Curtis Crabtree, Hillary Schmutz, Tyler Winterton, Dave Carter, me. = awesome.

We carpooled.



The Subway starts in desert, then dips down into an amphitheatre of white rock, then a gully and sandy trail, then a red rock amphitheatre (you'll note the British spelling), then eventually a 300 foot almost vertical descent off a ridge into the gulch.



Fun was had; friends were made; casualties were avoided; adventure was embodied.

Also the night before we went to Cedar's Shakespearean Festival and saw "A Comedy of Errors," which was ruddy brilliant and hilarious. We bought some tarts: blackberry and cream are the best, I say. It feels like a little pocket of England with its gabled concession stand, Globe-ish outdoor theatre, cross-laid brick courtyard, and ivy creeping up the occasional sign or lamppost. "Wench up, lads, there's tarts to be had!" Dan King and I made a merry time of it, I must say. Evan and Hillary were exemplary models of propriety and not being as merry as me and Dan. Just kidding.














So anyways, the Subway boasts an underwater tunnel.




Some heroic-stance provoking scenery (all of those are bona fide hero-poses, except one--what is Tyler doing?).



Some slip-n-slides. (Tried to upload but file problems)

And random other cool waterways and falls.





It's just a beautiful place. 8 miles of it.

Elephant House

Emma and I were separated from everyone else when we had better artistic taste than them. We left the art gallery early, intending "to do Turner right" (he's my favorite and the best British painter--thanks Tobes for introducing me) in London, but then no one else came out the same door or something. After lunching on a nearby bench overlooking the valley in the middle of Edinburgh, she was kind enough to accompany and guide me to the Elephant House, where everyone else had already gone, without me hearing about it, to pilgrimage to JK Rowling's original room of inspiration for Harry Potter. Here, he was born. And believe me, it was more magical than Shakespeare's birthplace, which we saw later. Not to hate on old Bill, to be fair, I've just read a lot of him lately; I just missed Harry.

Emma thought she was too cool to cast "Avada Kadavra" at the helpful photographer, but I didn't; either that or she just forgot her wand. She probably didn't know it was a muggle.

The entrance to the cafe is just off an Edinburgh street, but because it's on a hill, out the back window you look down on the view in the back. If you've ever wondered where Harry Potter was born, you'll look no further. The pics are a little weak; sorry. You step into the cafe; there is a narrow room with a bar on the right. Follow the hall to the back, where it opens up into a room with about 6 tables, and 3-4 big windows in the back. Light streams through them into the lively diners' area. Out the back window, Edinburgh Castle looks more than just a little bit mystical, and the graveyard just beneath you seems beautiful, in some weird way, for some strange reason. It is just a gripping sight; it's beautiful. You're just amazed at such a collision of wonders all out of one cozy cafe's window's view. It was like it was meant to be. Welcome to the world, Harry. He must have been bubbling about in her mind every time she saw the sight. Every time she took a dish to that window table, she must have been thinking up the secret passageways, the youthful adventures, the poignancy of dear ones' deaths, and the overriding beauty of courage and heroism, and purity of heart. It was that view which was so cool to me: even cooler than the Scott monument.

Shades of Stonehenge

The ravens conspire atop these megalithic ruins—they definitely know something. They’ve seen something, or perhaps their knowledge has only been passed down by oral tradition through the years. These black shadows, which swoop from monolith to monolith—and sometimes to nests wedged in cracks beneath cross-stones, which bridge the towering slabs of rock—are the sole survivors in a race of witnesses. No human knows what they know, what has transpired here.

There is a green magic about this place. Though much is ruin, enough remains to cue one’s mind to what it used to be. The east side’s outer wall stands with three bridging stones on top; the next inner ring (there are at least three concentric circles in all) is composed of stone slabs which are about half the size of the outer towers—that is to say, still twice my height—then there are two spires that are only as thick and tall as me. As I walked through it, that is to say, the main gate—which the sun pierces at the high summer solstice—I felt moved; I have no idea why, or in what way. I’d forgotten the wonder I had for this place when I was a dreaming boy, until that abrupt moment.

Not a flock but a horde of ravens emits a living cacophony of shrieks as one traverses the tunnel that is yet a hundred yards from the henge. It brings to mind dark incantations of druidic rituals, and I muse that maybe these are the shards of spells once heard by these birds’ forebears, that now live only in the ravens’ lore. The way it echoes in the tunnel is so eerie that for a second I actually seriously wonder if they were involved, or still could be. The sun is still not up, though there are predawn rays.

I step out of the rings to survey the stony ruin, now broken into mostly solitary obelisks, again. The ravens continue their surveillance but their watchful cries are drowned out by a new noise. It is the noise of screaming, primal energy; it is constant, and it is power; it is the raw roar of power. For half a second I turned to see what it was, and had I not, I do not know if I could have recognized sounds from a freeway sloped down to me. When you looked at the henge it didn’t sound the least bit mechanized, or intelligible. It was the sound of pure energy, that, despite being intangible, was somehow apprehended by the senses. The power rushes in to answer the summons to this place: it is like water deep in the earth, and Stonehenge is the earth-power’s well. I feel it is being drawn.

I return to the great circle, reflecting on what once had been. I sit next to one of the smallest monoliths, pondering the aura about—and especially the magic within—this place. I notice a single, sable feather in the dewy grass. I consider fingering it, then instinctively look up and see the dark sentinels, not unaware of my intentions. One presiding obelisk stands taller than all others—it was once co-ruler, but its crown and mate have long since fallen. Now they’re broken at its feet. A stone of sacrifice lies near the innermost circle. The epicenter is rough grass, strange and short-shorn between the stones. The stones too are witnesses; and though they are mute, perhaps they know more than the ravens, for they were the very observers. They were there.

The dawn has come, and now the primal roar from the nether fields, broken incantations from the black-winged priests, and a rising ray have pierced the henge to its very center. A throaty hum emits from something deep within the rocks, or maybe the earth. I whirl from stone to stone, seeking its origin. Cries grow shriller, and the ravens flock to the center, spitting curses, bloody curses. Their shrieks and blackness mix with misty light from through the eastern arches; the energy streaming in from all directions, through the arches, draining the earth, almost seems to power these cries into a shadow o’er the stone of sacrifice; yet there is no shape to shade it, nor does the shadow lean on the rock—it hovers in the air. The materializing shadow is pulsating now; it is an ethereal blackness, though transparent. There is a shape to it. I recognize it. A cowled, menacing, cruel cloaked figure—it is a Druid.


I retreat to before the stone where I’d been sitting, but the sounds roar from beyond the circle stones. Spirits rage through the curving corridors, trapping me within the sanctum. I recoil, aghast—pillars rise to former places; missing stones shimmer into reexistence; the two great pillars are reunited, and their immortal crown returns. The Druid smiled in dark satisfaction as awful power and dismal glory rematerialize: Stonehenge was reborn. Then, though the storm of screams continued unabated, a frigid voice pierced mortal blood. The Druid spoke to me.

“My summons is nigh unto complete. And YOU, son of blood and dust, will be the first to face the Fate. Unluckiest of your kind”—here it laughed, convulsing with sadistic glee—“If you cannot defy the unbridled fury of the earth, Our rule will be restored to this world. Again we shall reign from here, from this, Our ancient Throne of Stone. ”

The rasp of its immortal mind assaulted my inner thoughts. My soul was desolation, the world beyond the roaring henge, oblivion. Only a few words in answer required almost all my courage:

“Why me?”

“You are the unlucky one. Every thousandth year the fairest virgin is drawn here, drawn to die at dawn, or defy the earth—this or all the earth will pay.”

Then It grudgingly added,

“Incidentally, your race has never looked better.”

I conceded it graciously, then declared,

“Well then, I shall defy the earth. Let it be now.”

“So be it, mortal. Now,” it continued, “BACKFLIP!”

I was standing amidst the innermost stones; my shadow lay upon the altar whereon other beauties had once been slain. My muscle bulged and burst sleeves; spirit steeled and unknew fear; eyes squinted and pierced time. Rum thing—in retrospect, it was funny—I don’t think the earth was truly against me. She must have claimed me as her own, for as I channeled my thoughts, nether energies convalesced in my corpus and I became pure power overwhelming.

“If I die,” I thought, “this was a good day to die. And if I do not, why then, this was a rad day not to.”

“You bad, cracka, you bad,” mused the Druid, while his head grooved like a voodoo hobbit from MGMT’s “Electric Feel” music video (or maybe an extra from “Renegades of Funk”).

My outstretched arms rose until my hands had traced an arc perpendicular to the trail of the sun, and as my hands touched, all of Earth’s power thundered through my fists and I exploded into the pure Platonic form of backflipness—it was, as if for the first time, known to Earth.

Stones screamed and creation roared—the Druid with his hardcore frown nodded His otherworldly approval—and my feet erupted into a volcanic reverse arching kick, THE Backflip, and I landed levitating on the air an inch above the ground.

“Boom-shuckalucka,” said the Druid, still wearing his sneer of badness.

I nodded curtly in response, “Yeah, Bass.”

“Yeah, Bass.”

“My man.”

(Backhanded Peace Sign + Approving Sneer Back)

“Be cool.”

Then he moonwalked into the mist.

May humanity ever produce such breakdancers, and such backflippers—such heroes.



This is not my story. This is the story Stonehenge told to me. The last thing it showed me was this camera, mostly overexposed to pure awesomeness, which recorded the last half of the single most epic move known to mankind—the backflip that saved the earth. View it well, for it was this that inspired this story.

England is Blue

Mmmmmmm, just wanna tell ya bout that hurt deep down inside. I's (it is) gonna be comin in real soon...

Here in England, in a hotel with ten kids, just wound up singing the blues on camera, which moved me to start this. It also includes a harmonica debut, live, without training.

Peace be unto you,

Bentley

(round one of the blues was not recorded, so it doesn't all make sense)

Arthur's Seat

Behold the glory of Arthur's Seat--an eminence not far from Edinburgh.Sometimes, professors are irreverent.
The hike was great--our first of many. I used my chacos for the first time: they had been recommended by many, but it was Greg Littlefield's voice which cemented my trust of their worth. I actually scrambled up the side of it barefoot for awhile, because I thought it was something William Wallace would do, and I bet it's where he did it.

The view from the top, looking down on Edinburgh. Great view of Edinburgh Castle.

I squinted for one last look at the front entrance.

Then harder to view into a little chapel from the 8th century or something which was around the sweeping, swirling stone road down from the keep, to review my favorite stained glass window I saw that day:

Our group bonded. Katie Pitts and I were both Chacos novitiates, so we frequently did "chaco checks," to see how we were holding up. Katy A also began being noted as awesome in Scotland as we hiked up, and she was witty.

Edinburgh Castle and Scott Monument

Come on, come on big guy -- gettin some love from Scotland

From the sweet vennels we saw lovely things like the Sir Walter Scott monument, the biggest monument to a single writer in the world, "created to represent the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries, and to show the gratitude felt for him by Scotland," or something like that. He revived Scottish culture almost singlehandedly after their final war for freedom was crushed at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. Kilts and bagpipes were almost nonexistent, but Scott grew up on the border of Scotland and England, and he heard the old timers tell their tales of both the war and the true Scottish culture. He romanticized it so movingly that after his Waverley novels rocked the world and established the historical fiction genre, which eminents such as Victor Hugo and Leo Tolstoy wrote their magnum opei in (forgive my unwieldy latin: greatest works, I mean), that the world fell in love with Scotland so much that through it she was reborn.

As you can tell by this gallant lads face, Scotland is no place for mamma's boys.

The high keep in Edinburgh Castle is this: a monument to Scotland's fallen in World War I. The phrase over the inner entrance simply reads, "Lest we forget." You should read the "Beware of Pride" talk by Pres. Benson--that line is taken from Rudyard Kipling's poem, which I might add here in full sometime. The other tribute inside--where we couldn't take pics--which I loved best, was inscribed in stone, beneath stained glass windows, round and round a central tomb: "Their Name Lives."

"Some say that the age of chivalry is past: that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, 'I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt." -- Charles Kingsley

(I've only read this quote, but intend to read the rest:

http://articles.christiansunite.com/article11275.shtml)

Scotland was epic. We were very tired, all having just got in, but adjusted quickly to the massive British breakfasts consisting of eggs, bacon (ham), sometimes mushrooms!!! (as I learned to yearn and scream for in my heart like Merry and Pippin), delicious mueslix cereal, yogurt, juices--even rolls and cheese and meat if you want. I suspect I'm fatter. But I don't care!!!

Beginning with the Beginning, from the End

So what's better than a 374 hour flight including layovers? Getting to Scotland and meeting up with your bagpipe piping pal Jamie and heading directly to Loch Lommond herself for some rustic revelry and a Scottish revival hullabalooza in the presence of all the great Scots and as the lone American representative. Tell me you don't want Scotland to never die. Try it. As if Braveheart wasn't reason enough to love Scotland forever.