Do You Fear What I Fear?

Christmas has an astronomical event: the Star of Bethlehem. But is this "Christmas star" real? EarthSky.org has some "explanations." Same with Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne, who wrote and composed "Do You Hear What I Hear" in 1962. What I always thought was a nineteenth century Christmas carol is a "plea for peace" inspired by the October Missile Crisis. Which is where this post began -- with yesterday's launch of Russia's Avangard hypersonic missile.

Originally I wanted to write about the term "avant garde" and how it has re-entered my life, beginning with a dinner I had earlier this month with Dr. Betts, who, with Dr. Bök, recently edited an anthology (Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries, 2019) that, like Bök's Ground Works: Avant-Garde for Thee (2002), grafts avant garde literary activity to nation. Following that, the book I am currently reading, where Avantgardista is the name given to a youth group in service of 1920s Italian nationalism -- in the form of the Fascist corporate state. And now this Russian missile system.

Do you fear what I fear? If you came of age in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s you might. But then, was I really so afraid that the world was only a missile launch from total annihilation? I'm not sure I gave it much thought. When you grow up thinking the world can end in minutes, you get used to it. I wonder if this accounts for the person I became, the one I undid, the one I fear I am re-becoming?