photo: Paul Wade
So I have a confession to make. I took a peak at today's letter before reading it.
I had decided to make a Manhattan as part of this evening's reading and I didn't want to have done that and then have had the letter be about something that made that seem crass or inappropriate.
Which feels a kind of extreme amount of stage managing to be doing on one level, since much of this is about what is.
It turns out it's V-E Day in the letter - 8 May 1945. So in fact a cocktail is highly appropriate.
I feel off though. I suppose some of it is the weight of historical knowledge. Knowing what is still to come in that particular conflict.
And also being where we are, here, now, in this present war.
Which isn't really a war - at least certainly not in the sense that that one was.
Manhattans are strong drinks.
There was a time during my PhD when I was drinking on a night, in the cocktail bar across the street from my house where I lived at the time. In contrast, I have not touched the vermouths I used to make this since I moved them to this flat 9 months ago. I feel a bit less than sober as a result.
I was reflecting the other evening on my relationship with alcohol. It's not problematic in the way that's measured by "should you stop drinking" quizzes, but I admire people who break up with it and I sometimes think I should too. I've taken long breaks and been fine. I've even met strangers and made friends like that, so I know it's possible and I'd be fine. But there is something in the conviviality that I think I would miss. And it is the case that I have met or bonded with many of my favourite people over a dram of something.
Though it is demonstrably the case that Manhattans and I are not the close chums we once were. That's fine, I think.
Hmmhm.
That's something that shows up in a lot of the letters. Hmmhmhm.
There was a section I didn't read today. Just a few lines. It was about the Japanese now needing to surrender. I found it ugly, in a way that couldn't be explained away by "oh that's how lots of people talked in the 1940s."
Then again, Jack is in the South Pacific. How is one supposed to talk about one's enemies, the people you are ostensibly trying to outmanoeuvre or kill before they kill or outmanoeuvre you? Like literally.
When I was in high school, a guy I knew who was a year or so ahead of me joined an ROTC programme. He had been lovely and sensitive but when I saw him after basic training he had an entirely new vocabulary for discussing "the enemy", things I had never heard him say before.
Surely you can go to war over political or ideological differences without demonising the enemy, without denying their humanity. But I suppose it's more efficient to dispense with it. That's hideous.
But then there's the matter of killing. Does it sanction it somehow? Can it? A sort of psycho-emotional self-defense mechanism?
Of course even more peaceful times we haven't dispensed with the de-humanising, have we? Immigrants, people on benefits, it's the same response, isn't it?
I'm super fun tonight, aren't I? We should add bourbon and stir every time.
Until next time, I remain,
Your man.