In this far ranging and fetching introduction to the term “swerve”—the first of two (saving its application to Lucretius and his brand of Epicurean thought to our next meeting)—we carve around the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79 CE), the nature of sermons, the polysemy nature of the term, Brancusi’s “Bird in Space,” the Bill Murray-cast film adaption of “The Razor’s Edge,” Ross Macdonald’s short story “The Guilt-Edged Blond,” Paul Davies’ HOW TO MAKE A TIME MACHINE, The Hardy Boys, Dashiell Hammett’s “Flitcraft Parable,” the literary term “volta,” Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex,” John Ashbery, chance and chaos processes, and variation on a line by Robert Creeley. To note, this call to swerve chronologically is our first session.