"Aorta (fiery version)" - digital painting, copyright K. Aurencz Zethmayr
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Look at the finger, look at the finger....[spinning Memogate]
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Monday, February 21, 2005
The best minds of our generations....
I felt a strong vibe just before I steeled myself and told my brother that Hunter S. Thompson was dead, that I'd read it in one of my mailgroups and then in the daily headlines. Was just reminded--and then reminded again. It was a feeling of numb despair, and it wasn't mine...
I'm not sure what I'm hearing, what I'm feeling now. This is the sort of thing where you think, well, if even he couldn't laugh it off scathingly, what does that say about where the future stands, what are we facing here? Because I don't doubt for a second that it's the state of this nation/empire, even as the rest of the civilized world seems to be evolving and learning from its mistakes, that would lead an American of such stature to put a bullet through his head.
We are regressing here, backsliding insidiously via loopholes and legislation riders and myriad condonings back towards an idyllic-framed mediaevalism, feudalism, whatever will satisfy the demands of the rich and their corporate interests. Blink as a bill goes through and you'll see nothing changed on the surface--compare the national views of a week, a month, a year...and you start to see more than you want to. The various layers of state and federal and local obscure it, if you look too closely at one or the other--but see the big picture, and the big words, and the shapes are clear. And you ask yourself, if you haven't already, is this actually my country?--the one I used to believe in as an ideal??
And maybe the answer is no. Maybe the most certain thing in this brave new world is the acceptance of lies and those who spread them, and the vilification of those who assert that "the truth" has any meaning. After all, the truth changes nothing--it has not yet raised up any Senate Investigatory Committees or other dei ex machinae, because there is no independent power left in the legislature to move that mountain, no matter what our faith. The system has been gradually hamstrung while its citizens were distracted by war--the strings are all leading right into the White House, with all action under the 'yea or nay' shadow of a single political party that has been gathering its forces and wish lists for decades. We are even now living in a state of unconstitutional lawlessness, whatever the official line of the day might be.
In such a time as this, one longs for Victor Hugo, for Emile Zola, for Aldous Huxley, for Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for Albert Camus, for George Bernard Shaw, for George Orwell, for Eric Hoffer--for everyone who has stepped to the forefront of their times, boldly or subtly, and cut through the crap to say what needs saying. We want their voices along with Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Vonnegut, and all the rest of us here--everyone with the gift of words--to clarify, to show the subtle, to speak the truth and give it back its power before it's all stolen away in more distractions, more violence, less bread and more circuses but always the promise that we're getting better and better every day...
National improvement is not a natural process. It takes stern will and honesty, and willingness to plan for the future not for immediate gratification, whether it be misleading tax cuts or being able to gamble away your own retirement money unhindered. It takes looking at the needs of all people, regardless of whether they go to church or not, or how much they gave your campaign or that of your opponent--it takes intelligent humanity, not just the will of some God whose name and supremacy you latch to your cause...and "humanism" is not, must not become another dirty word, tainted with spin. Humanity is our ideal as humans, not a thing to be demeaned at every turn.
And it also takes the effort of those who will hold a nation to its own avowed ideals--the ones who will needle and nag, the ones who will deftly prick egos and tip sacred cows, and test whether people practise what they preach in this still-ongoing (till further notice) "experiment in democracy." To cite last night's "most controversial episode ever," this country may even owe a great deal of its remaining intellectual freedom (and even capacity, I daresay) to "The Simpsons"--and I've said more than once, the day when that show is forced off the air is the day that we lose all intelligent media in America.
But here we have another defining event--though "forced off the air" is perhaps too blunt and implicating a term for what has been technically ruled a suicide. And in the wake of this passing, perhaps we can make sure that his signature spirit of reckless inquiry and irreverence to all things arbitrary never leaves but only grows stronger now, pulling more people out of the wings and the shadows, off of the sidelines here.
There is too much to be done to let Hunter S. Thompson be forgotten...or Arthur Miller...or anyone who has written things that need to be spoken again, and firmly, and unmistakeably. Time to set about cutting the crap.
I'm not sure what I'm hearing, what I'm feeling now. This is the sort of thing where you think, well, if even he couldn't laugh it off scathingly, what does that say about where the future stands, what are we facing here? Because I don't doubt for a second that it's the state of this nation/empire, even as the rest of the civilized world seems to be evolving and learning from its mistakes, that would lead an American of such stature to put a bullet through his head.
We are regressing here, backsliding insidiously via loopholes and legislation riders and myriad condonings back towards an idyllic-framed mediaevalism, feudalism, whatever will satisfy the demands of the rich and their corporate interests. Blink as a bill goes through and you'll see nothing changed on the surface--compare the national views of a week, a month, a year...and you start to see more than you want to. The various layers of state and federal and local obscure it, if you look too closely at one or the other--but see the big picture, and the big words, and the shapes are clear. And you ask yourself, if you haven't already, is this actually my country?--the one I used to believe in as an ideal??
And maybe the answer is no. Maybe the most certain thing in this brave new world is the acceptance of lies and those who spread them, and the vilification of those who assert that "the truth" has any meaning. After all, the truth changes nothing--it has not yet raised up any Senate Investigatory Committees or other dei ex machinae, because there is no independent power left in the legislature to move that mountain, no matter what our faith. The system has been gradually hamstrung while its citizens were distracted by war--the strings are all leading right into the White House, with all action under the 'yea or nay' shadow of a single political party that has been gathering its forces and wish lists for decades. We are even now living in a state of unconstitutional lawlessness, whatever the official line of the day might be.
In such a time as this, one longs for Victor Hugo, for Emile Zola, for Aldous Huxley, for Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for Albert Camus, for George Bernard Shaw, for George Orwell, for Eric Hoffer--for everyone who has stepped to the forefront of their times, boldly or subtly, and cut through the crap to say what needs saying. We want their voices along with Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Vonnegut, and all the rest of us here--everyone with the gift of words--to clarify, to show the subtle, to speak the truth and give it back its power before it's all stolen away in more distractions, more violence, less bread and more circuses but always the promise that we're getting better and better every day...
National improvement is not a natural process. It takes stern will and honesty, and willingness to plan for the future not for immediate gratification, whether it be misleading tax cuts or being able to gamble away your own retirement money unhindered. It takes looking at the needs of all people, regardless of whether they go to church or not, or how much they gave your campaign or that of your opponent--it takes intelligent humanity, not just the will of some God whose name and supremacy you latch to your cause...and "humanism" is not, must not become another dirty word, tainted with spin. Humanity is our ideal as humans, not a thing to be demeaned at every turn.
And it also takes the effort of those who will hold a nation to its own avowed ideals--the ones who will needle and nag, the ones who will deftly prick egos and tip sacred cows, and test whether people practise what they preach in this still-ongoing (till further notice) "experiment in democracy." To cite last night's "most controversial episode ever," this country may even owe a great deal of its remaining intellectual freedom (and even capacity, I daresay) to "The Simpsons"--and I've said more than once, the day when that show is forced off the air is the day that we lose all intelligent media in America.
But here we have another defining event--though "forced off the air" is perhaps too blunt and implicating a term for what has been technically ruled a suicide. And in the wake of this passing, perhaps we can make sure that his signature spirit of reckless inquiry and irreverence to all things arbitrary never leaves but only grows stronger now, pulling more people out of the wings and the shadows, off of the sidelines here.
There is too much to be done to let Hunter S. Thompson be forgotten...or Arthur Miller...or anyone who has written things that need to be spoken again, and firmly, and unmistakeably. Time to set about cutting the crap.
"The Masque of the Mary Sue"
[This is specifically referring to the literary area of "fan fiction", but as usual I never quite stay within the lines...]
Bad...writing....hurts....
Physically and undeniably hurts to read it, and all the more so when you know it's being unfaithful to character/time/place/etc. as well. That's why I very rarely hang around any fanfiction that isn't very overtly erotic/intimate, and most-preferably slash at that....because anything that has a hint of authorial wistfulness, mental prudishness or conventional idealism in it tends to overturn the balance of aesthetics in really insidious if not blatant ways. And at least if it's just the 'original characters' developing relationships and making out, that means there's some halfway serious thought that had to go into planning and orchestrating the whole thing--not just plunking in someone new and shoehorning in a romance that has no firm basis in the rigours of actual character psychology.
I hate Mary Sues--I can smell 'em, I can hear their awkwardly eager manner of speech and self-description (oh, damn well do I know their scent after all this time with Ancient Pine Resin...or Pine-Sol, as represents both her Circean-solar nature and the natural desire to wash out all one's direct memory of her after parting ways. Fire may have purified 'salem's Lot, but I'm still working on the appropriate exorcisms for this one...)--and even when there's no one technically there in the verbal flesh, I can tell where her spirit lingers near, meddling and manipulating and making characters do what they never would in any saner state.
That is, the Mary Sue is the manifest Avatar of an immature ego trying to justify itself in words. I will give her that--after all, I was once in that stage myself, trying to make exact mirrors and reinvent the wheel before I started to see the keener and more fragmented reflections of selfhood all around me. Most of all signs in the world of human expression, the blatantly ideal and aggressively omnipresent Mary Sue character is proof that the authors do not yet know themselves as they naturally are, much less well enough to let other people/characters be as they naturally are. Because, of course, the Mary Sue is the center of her own universe as presented to others, and she displaces or warps all existing characters around her to suit her needs, whatever their normal and sane reactions would be to whatever she does--in short, there is never the slightest chance allowed that she will be rejected in the end, that her image will be objectively tarnished, that her dreams will fail, because she's not a real character in the first place--just an intrusion of the power/s-that-be into this appropriated world. Nothing can stand against her, not tradition nor fact nor logic. She is the incarnation of a determined Demiurge, and has all the attendant modesty of Jehovah (no matter what sweet and self-minimizing words may be put in her mouth at any given time--"Why me, out of all the other girls...?"--"I'm just a normal person..."--et cetera, ad infinitum...)
Why her?--because it's likely all the writer has of him/herself so far, and more than anything there's the fear of losing one's nominal "uniqueness"--and therefore every personal detail must be agonised over (insofar as one's capable of agonising), every facet polished exactly in the mind's eye, no matter how little of this preparation will actually cross over into the details of "reality" here. In a more experienced writer or actor this is called building the character--but here, where character itself has not yet been recognised and developed, this building is merely surface presentation, and the object beneath the gilding as insubstantial as a wraith...having as its closest legitimate relative the incorporeal form which tenants and vivifies the blood-soaked vesture and stiffened mask of the Red Death itself.
Edgar Allan Poe knew good writing when he saw it, and knew where to aim the pointer at a story's flaws. And no doubt he would recognise the Masque of the Mary Sue as well, as he had much experience in dealing with the society poetesses and authoresses of his day--I make no judgement as to their literary ability per se--since it has always been a tendency of the feminine awareness, or at least its typical situation, to write forth fantasies where there is no chance to live them out in the physical world. There might not have been the phenomenon of "fan fiction" in his day (unless it started covertly with Werther instead of with Sherlock Holmes), but I'm sure he would recognise the type.
Perhaps he might also--I do need to check my dates to be sure--relate it to a specific character--and one of the most famous in the history of first-person literature, that created by the pseudonymous "Currer Bell", aka Charlotte Bront:e. Is Jane Eyre a Mary Sue?--a governess like the author, poor and persecuted yet virtuous and rewarded in the end with the love of a brooding Byronic hero, her prime flaw being her "passionate nature", and the situations of her life being all-so-closely related to the popular novels and classics of her day?
But the answer there must be a subtle but certain "no"--because Jane Eyre is a real character in her own life, is plain and small and unvarnished and consciously self-doubting as to her own real character, suffers all the mistakes and slips and tarnishments of a real character, does not live in a fairytale world with a fairytale ending but deals with a world of tragedies and unrightable wrongs and disappointments like a real character--no, like a real person, let us say. Her existence is perhaps drawn from that of her creator, but she does not exist merely to live out vicarious pleasures and goals, whether of status or wealth, romance or unbounded popularity. She lives within a fully-delineated/shaded story, and its plot-shapes are not necessarily any kinder to her than to any other character, whatever old-fashioned contrivances within them may catch the eye. Her resemblance to Charlotte Bront:e is one of conscious causality, not of glossing-up and glorification...
And so perhaps Poe would recommend that book, as I do, to anyone looking to get past themselves and learn to write characters with actual skill and nuance and humour and details drawn out of a familiar world. It certainly couldn't hurt...
"Jane, here's your mission...."
("Onegin, Tatiana--you come too...")
Saturday, February 19, 2005
When the crazies and cults take over....
[Note: I'm not gonna say what I'm actually watching on TV at the moment (6.40pm CST, Chicago suburbs), because you might take this less seriously on account of it being catalyzed by a piece of pop culture...but I will say that this episode does have a slightly polarizing effect on a person's perceptions. Anyone who gets that reference wins the key to the planetarium...good for getting over those white nights...]
The frightening thing is not that there are fanatics and rabid ideologues in the world, or even the fact of their belief in itself, but the moment when you realize that you're in their world now, and that they've been pulling the strings far longer than you thought. When the insane becomes accepted routine all around you, and the sane is vilified and belied like the sun being just a big idealised table lamp, a lion being a hyped-up pussycat, and nothing you firmly believe in is given the credit of its own truth but just used as an empty shell of words, filled with whatever they want, shifting like desert sands in the prevailing wind...where hashisheen hold sway and no one calls their bluff, and maybe you even start to think, "well, what if they're right...?"--what if their vision makes some sense, what if the God or power they worship truly is the only thing and all logic and commonsense humanity dust in its sight...?
When you hear the urge of the herd boil up in chants and salutes and sacred signs, when the meaning of a single life becomes nothing atall compared to the great Leader, the great Idea...wherever men do not hold their own lives as forfeit for killing, but die--and fervently--so that they may kill, then the crazies have taken hold. It happens all over the world and we condemn it. It happens with strange names and foreign-looking faces and we call it evil. But what do we do when it happens under familiar names, and "in the name" of those things we dare not refute in themselves, things wherein we've invested our faith as well?
Have we the keen discernment to slice through the veils of lies and spin, the twistings of dogma, the elaborate irrationalities held over our heads and closing in around us? The strength to step upon the drug-laced fire and quench its mind-fogging fumes, no matter that we get burnt for our witnessing?
No need to go looking afar for our soul's greatest threat, or a clear and present danger--it's right in our own backyard, and stuck like a beam in our collective eye. We have met the enemy and he is us, and perhaps the best thing in the world is for all the crazies of the world to go gather at Armageddon and kill each other off in the name of their beliefs, and leave the world to those who actually value their own humanity.
But then...it's just as likely that all or most of the crazies are already far in cahoots, strange bedfellows true but under the covers all the same--and with them running things as they like, making over the world in their own puristic, fundamentalist, orthodox images...
Would that it were only a jarring dream, and not one played out in all these waking hours.
"The dreamers of the day are dangerous men..."
We badly need a few good dreamers now.
The frightening thing is not that there are fanatics and rabid ideologues in the world, or even the fact of their belief in itself, but the moment when you realize that you're in their world now, and that they've been pulling the strings far longer than you thought. When the insane becomes accepted routine all around you, and the sane is vilified and belied like the sun being just a big idealised table lamp, a lion being a hyped-up pussycat, and nothing you firmly believe in is given the credit of its own truth but just used as an empty shell of words, filled with whatever they want, shifting like desert sands in the prevailing wind...where hashisheen hold sway and no one calls their bluff, and maybe you even start to think, "well, what if they're right...?"--what if their vision makes some sense, what if the God or power they worship truly is the only thing and all logic and commonsense humanity dust in its sight...?
When you hear the urge of the herd boil up in chants and salutes and sacred signs, when the meaning of a single life becomes nothing atall compared to the great Leader, the great Idea...wherever men do not hold their own lives as forfeit for killing, but die--and fervently--so that they may kill, then the crazies have taken hold. It happens all over the world and we condemn it. It happens with strange names and foreign-looking faces and we call it evil. But what do we do when it happens under familiar names, and "in the name" of those things we dare not refute in themselves, things wherein we've invested our faith as well?
Have we the keen discernment to slice through the veils of lies and spin, the twistings of dogma, the elaborate irrationalities held over our heads and closing in around us? The strength to step upon the drug-laced fire and quench its mind-fogging fumes, no matter that we get burnt for our witnessing?
No need to go looking afar for our soul's greatest threat, or a clear and present danger--it's right in our own backyard, and stuck like a beam in our collective eye. We have met the enemy and he is us, and perhaps the best thing in the world is for all the crazies of the world to go gather at Armageddon and kill each other off in the name of their beliefs, and leave the world to those who actually value their own humanity.
But then...it's just as likely that all or most of the crazies are already far in cahoots, strange bedfellows true but under the covers all the same--and with them running things as they like, making over the world in their own puristic, fundamentalist, orthodox images...
Would that it were only a jarring dream, and not one played out in all these waking hours.
"The dreamers of the day are dangerous men..."
We badly need a few good dreamers now.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Preternatural trifecta beat....(Scavenger Hunt #1)
"Yes, but can I dance to it.....?"
Okay, people, this is where I'm gonna get a little bit idiosyncratic and leave a few pieces out of the referential puzzle, seeing as I'm just a downright evil & sinister smartass at heart. Takes two to tango, but I'm not inclined to show all my steps--so I think I'll just give you the keyword search instead:
Keyword Search Results (there, that was simple enough...)
And then I'll say, isn't it interesting how many of us constantly underestimate, aye, even undermine the intellectual capacities and aesthetic discernment of those who don't happen to fit an established mould of the type we want all proper luminaries to be, and can't even appreciate their known qualities without typecasting them into being something that can be handled, labeled, kicked around with impunity...?
Maybe it's the nature of the pop celebrity business, that rewards pseudo-crossovers into a constructedly "classical" space as well as those "wild & crazy" "outside the box" forays--but all the same must categorize for its own categorical survival, and heaven help us if the homegrown tomatoes should mix with the cultivated gladiolii...either way, it's seemingly much easier to assume an elitist pretension in someone's words the closer it looks like--or worse, is--the real deal itself.
That is, intelligence, clarity, acuity, sensibilities. We (the mass of us) don't want that sort of thing to spoil our boys, to ruin the drunken frat-party. After all, if they showed a credible intelligence...they might be, on some level, actually better and smarter than those who consume the fruits of their labour--hey, and their labour itself might actually have some seriousness in it, something like craft and discipline, instead of just being what some lucky people get to do while the rest of us work our tails off trying to get by.
The world at large loves idols of the heart, not the head. It weeps and laughs with Paula Abdul, and boos and hisses at Simon Cowell, and it insists that really, really....all the famous people whose movements we follow aren't really any smarter or subtler than us, not in that hairsplitting or morally scathing sort of way (think of Marlon Brando, for example, or Orson Welles...)--they can have some wisdom, perhaps, but it has to be the homespun-&-homely heartwarming kind, that encourages without challenge, that inspires without really implying pain, or risk, or danger along the way of dreams. Safe celebrities--that aren't really any "better" than us--just our betters somehow in this great hierarchy of attention and soundbites and significant trends.
It would disarrange the system, in short--much as if an errant but popular prince delivered a speech fit for Whitehall. Unsettlement. Uncertainty. Chaos...in short, you have a ghastly mess--which is why all our flowergirls, by the way (I know, I jumped movies there), are best-liked while they retain their lower-class accents and say no more than is comical or flirtatious. Should they turn trenchant and succeed therein, the whole place would go up in flames....
Sorry, didn't mean to torch it like that...nothin' like a little flamboyant intellectualism...but seriously, folks--why is it that we either overlook or coo over the stupidest things that an airheaded ditz says about her aspirations, but let someone say something halfway of real consequence and suddenly they have to be dragged down by that good old stereotyping of themselves? Are we living in Harrison Bergeron's time already, by the way?--oh but yes, of course we are...it's been a guiding theme through the ages since that little stroll through a field lopping off the tallest stalks of grain, making sure no one sticks up too high, too clearly.
But then...I'm a tall stalk of grain myself by nature, and I know firsthand how people love to cut things down.
Okay, people, this is where I'm gonna get a little bit idiosyncratic and leave a few pieces out of the referential puzzle, seeing as I'm just a downright evil & sinister smartass at heart. Takes two to tango, but I'm not inclined to show all my steps--so I think I'll just give you the keyword search instead:
Keyword Search Results (there, that was simple enough...)
And then I'll say, isn't it interesting how many of us constantly underestimate, aye, even undermine the intellectual capacities and aesthetic discernment of those who don't happen to fit an established mould of the type we want all proper luminaries to be, and can't even appreciate their known qualities without typecasting them into being something that can be handled, labeled, kicked around with impunity...?
Maybe it's the nature of the pop celebrity business, that rewards pseudo-crossovers into a constructedly "classical" space as well as those "wild & crazy" "outside the box" forays--but all the same must categorize for its own categorical survival, and heaven help us if the homegrown tomatoes should mix with the cultivated gladiolii...either way, it's seemingly much easier to assume an elitist pretension in someone's words the closer it looks like--or worse, is--the real deal itself.
That is, intelligence, clarity, acuity, sensibilities. We (the mass of us) don't want that sort of thing to spoil our boys, to ruin the drunken frat-party. After all, if they showed a credible intelligence...they might be, on some level, actually better and smarter than those who consume the fruits of their labour--hey, and their labour itself might actually have some seriousness in it, something like craft and discipline, instead of just being what some lucky people get to do while the rest of us work our tails off trying to get by.
The world at large loves idols of the heart, not the head. It weeps and laughs with Paula Abdul, and boos and hisses at Simon Cowell, and it insists that really, really....all the famous people whose movements we follow aren't really any smarter or subtler than us, not in that hairsplitting or morally scathing sort of way (think of Marlon Brando, for example, or Orson Welles...)--they can have some wisdom, perhaps, but it has to be the homespun-&-homely heartwarming kind, that encourages without challenge, that inspires without really implying pain, or risk, or danger along the way of dreams. Safe celebrities--that aren't really any "better" than us--just our betters somehow in this great hierarchy of attention and soundbites and significant trends.
It would disarrange the system, in short--much as if an errant but popular prince delivered a speech fit for Whitehall. Unsettlement. Uncertainty. Chaos...in short, you have a ghastly mess--which is why all our flowergirls, by the way (I know, I jumped movies there), are best-liked while they retain their lower-class accents and say no more than is comical or flirtatious. Should they turn trenchant and succeed therein, the whole place would go up in flames....
Sorry, didn't mean to torch it like that...nothin' like a little flamboyant intellectualism...but seriously, folks--why is it that we either overlook or coo over the stupidest things that an airheaded ditz says about her aspirations, but let someone say something halfway of real consequence and suddenly they have to be dragged down by that good old stereotyping of themselves? Are we living in Harrison Bergeron's time already, by the way?--oh but yes, of course we are...it's been a guiding theme through the ages since that little stroll through a field lopping off the tallest stalks of grain, making sure no one sticks up too high, too clearly.
But then...I'm a tall stalk of grain myself by nature, and I know firsthand how people love to cut things down.
Selfhood and 'containing multitudes'....(part of my manifesto)
[This was first posted on the MSN group The Flowered Grave--I was responding indirectly to some rather exhortative meditations/catechisms that had been posted lately by another member, and directly to some poems posted by the group owner.]
From: Aureantes_ in response to Message 3
Sent: 2/18/2005 3:07 AM
Hmmm......I'm rather fond of all those great personalities too. Characters, even....or, as the saying goes, character is what you have when no one is looking.
My deliberate approach to life is like the opposite method of going around the world--the actor's and novelist's way. By maximizing and multiplying awareness of selfhood, a spark of spirit caught in circumstance, and living as many lives or slices-of-lives as possible, like Walt Whitman--"I am large, I contain multitudes" ("Song of Myself")--and Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "Renascence":
... I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,
--Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God. ....
A thorough odyssey there, to contain and feel all--but there, that's the whole thing, as Atticus Finch said in To Kill a Mockingbird, that you never know a man "till you've walked a mile in his shoes." Empathy carried toward its positive extreme exceeds individual selfhood, making each such contemplative a myriad light, less and less worried for his particular place and title and status even as he plays his own instinctive/allotted part. If you follow the dictum "Know thyself" and carry it to the nth degree of seeing yourself in others, others in yourself, than gradually this myriad light is multiplied times itself, onward and deeper and higher. Not that the personal self must disappear "in the end", but that its boundaries cease to matter, its own anxious self-definition ceases to be a need, for it is at home in the consummation of all selfhoods, all awareness. The culmination is bliss and paradox.
Here's some pages I came across while looking up these quotes--and a thesis I find (of course) extremely intriguing and valid:
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage1.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage2.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage3.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage4.htm (with the Whitman quote of "contain multitudes")
Enjoy....
From: Aureantes_ in response to Message 3
Sent: 2/18/2005 3:07 AM
Hmmm......I'm rather fond of all those great personalities too. Characters, even....or, as the saying goes, character is what you have when no one is looking.
My deliberate approach to life is like the opposite method of going around the world--the actor's and novelist's way. By maximizing and multiplying awareness of selfhood, a spark of spirit caught in circumstance, and living as many lives or slices-of-lives as possible, like Walt Whitman--"I am large, I contain multitudes" ("Song of Myself")--and Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "Renascence":
... I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,
--Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God. ....
A thorough odyssey there, to contain and feel all--but there, that's the whole thing, as Atticus Finch said in To Kill a Mockingbird, that you never know a man "till you've walked a mile in his shoes." Empathy carried toward its positive extreme exceeds individual selfhood, making each such contemplative a myriad light, less and less worried for his particular place and title and status even as he plays his own instinctive/allotted part. If you follow the dictum "Know thyself" and carry it to the nth degree of seeing yourself in others, others in yourself, than gradually this myriad light is multiplied times itself, onward and deeper and higher. Not that the personal self must disappear "in the end", but that its boundaries cease to matter, its own anxious self-definition ceases to be a need, for it is at home in the consummation of all selfhoods, all awareness. The culmination is bliss and paradox.
Here's some pages I came across while looking up these quotes--and a thesis I find (of course) extremely intriguing and valid:
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage1.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage2.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage3.htm
http://www.students.dsu.edu/roemmica/Nonpage4.htm (with the Whitman quote of "contain multitudes")
Enjoy....
Thursday, February 17, 2005
"Working for the man".....
[Alright.....this starts off me feeding this blog in earnest, with annotations and hyperlinks even, starting with a semi-personal post from today in one of my rather more recreationally topical groups--the site, if you find yourself intrigued atall, is
Striped Tomato's Revenge --and I think I'll just leave that all to speak for itself when you get there....anyhow, I did not get that job with the local police department.....though, the general commentary re jobs still stands as I reread this a good while later. You wanna know more about the fangs and blue eyes, check out Starsky & Hutch--BloodPromises...otherwise known (well, still unknown, mostly) as one of the most original and daring Starsky & Hutch roleplays ever concocted.....]
____________________________________________________
--- In stripedtomatosrevenge@yahoogroups.com, "David Michael Starsky"
wrote:
--- In stripedtomatosrevenge@yahoogroups.com, jill wrote:
> I love the fangs!!! And the blue eyes are awesome!!
>
> You actually WANT to work for the PD? You want to
> work for the man? What's wrong with you??!! Yeah,
> okay, a job's a job..I guess. DO they run a background
> check for that position?
>
> What is this "Research" you're doing????
>
> [....]
'Research' means watching S&H Season 2 episodes, in this case--they're running them out of order on Channel 23, so it's a little tricky as to exactly what'll come up when. So I watched "The Committee" before hitting the hay, basically.
And yeah...a job's a job, and this one pays pretty well. I'm technically well-qualified for it, but my main worry is just that I'm temperamentally too much a live wire for most regular jobs--if I can dominate the situation, that's fine, but I'm apt to clash with people on account of hating 'arbitrary authority' till proven otherwise. The main reason for trying for bein' a parking clerk, since the ad appeared in the paper, is that I wouldn't have to make or justify any decisions on my own account, whether I agree with them or not--only deal with people reasonably and tactfully according to what's on the books, which I *can* do. It's a bit Lawrence-of-Arabia-after-Arabia, in terms of abnegating individual discretion, but I hate being stuck in positions where it's a limbo of vague accountability. I either want to be completely responsible for things where I have the
widest latitude, or not have to be responsible for anything decision-wise besides getting the paperwork and data entries right and keeping people's tempers cool about it.
Plus, I see it as a learning experience more than anything else (besides having a steady income, of course). I see a lot of things that way--of course, sometimes all that it shows is how deeply unsuited I am to the rest of the workaday world, and how much I disturb the rest of them...that sort of thing. I'm just not the steady and consistent foundation upon which society is based.
There is a background check (and a drug test), but I myself can likely pass that--the worst they'd find is that I'm pretty much flat broke and 'living at home', unfortunately distractable when not securely employed, and that I should have applied for a deferment on my student loan payments a long time ago. Smart people need firm niches and/or higher academic credentials--I got "Leonardo da Vinci Syndrome" instead (one of my terms for ADD)...too many talents, not
enough definite footholds for a specialized world. Or, to put it another way, a foot in every pie and a finger in every door.
But really--and I'm assuming I'm not even going to make an interview for this thing--it's a bit the wrong time for me to have any wholly- positive regard for the establishment. I respect people for doing the best they can do in an often-thankless job, but that doesn't, unfortunately, change the facts of the climate in which we are living. The needs will always be there, but the priority of going about them will also always be a dicey and often-f**ked-up balancing process, and idealism--like stubbornness--is both a strength and a weakness of mine. So far as the whole establishment goes, I oughta be working as a profiler for the FBI or something--I have those skills, that overview of things--but how long do you think I'd last in any initial-foundational-literal process getting in, before I could get around to doing some good?
The same thing happens to teachers, too--the best ones, the ones with a vocation (I take that word very seriously) are often burnt-out on account of the training system itself before they have a chance to apply their vision and energy to the classroom...it's the ones who play it safe and burn dim-but-steady who get their earthly rewards, so to speak. The real point of the job is far too often obscured with its own trappings and hierarchy, and it takes a lot to persist through all that while retaining real passion and integrity for the work itself. To continue playing with fire analogies (hey, I started it in the last post anyhow...), the more of it you have, the more likely you are to either get burnt-out or burnt-up by the others around you. A person needs a whole lot of close moral support to keep going when those are the odds.
But I really should stop sermonising--or, as I said I was going to do, save it for my formal blog (I'll forward this to it directly, actually--ah, the wonders of modern technology). I had a rather odd dream involving royalty last night/this morning, in convenient metaphor--but that's another one to dissect elsewhere, I suspect...>:)
Glad you like the pics...I always say I'm "doing dastardly deeds" with Photoshop whenever I tinker with stuff like this.
DM/Aurey
_____________________________________
--- End forwarded message ---
Striped Tomato's Revenge --and I think I'll just leave that all to speak for itself when you get there....anyhow, I did not get that job with the local police department.....though, the general commentary re jobs still stands as I reread this a good while later. You wanna know more about the fangs and blue eyes, check out Starsky & Hutch--BloodPromises...otherwise known (well, still unknown, mostly) as one of the most original and daring Starsky & Hutch roleplays ever concocted.....]
____________________________________________________
--- In stripedtomatosrevenge@yahoogroups.com, "David Michael Starsky"
--- In stripedtomatosrevenge@yahoogroups.com, jill wrote:
> I love the fangs!!! And the blue eyes are awesome!!
>
> You actually WANT to work for the PD? You want to
> work for the man? What's wrong with you??!! Yeah,
> okay, a job's a job..I guess. DO they run a background
> check for that position?
>
> What is this "Research" you're doing????
>
> [....]
'Research' means watching S&H Season 2 episodes, in this case--they're running them out of order on Channel 23, so it's a little tricky as to exactly what'll come up when. So I watched "The Committee" before hitting the hay, basically.
And yeah...a job's a job, and this one pays pretty well. I'm technically well-qualified for it, but my main worry is just that I'm temperamentally too much a live wire for most regular jobs--if I can dominate the situation, that's fine, but I'm apt to clash with people on account of hating 'arbitrary authority' till proven otherwise. The main reason for trying for bein' a parking clerk, since the ad appeared in the paper, is that I wouldn't have to make or justify any decisions on my own account, whether I agree with them or not--only deal with people reasonably and tactfully according to what's on the books, which I *can* do. It's a bit Lawrence-of-Arabia-after-Arabia, in terms of abnegating individual discretion, but I hate being stuck in positions where it's a limbo of vague accountability. I either want to be completely responsible for things where I have the
widest latitude, or not have to be responsible for anything decision-wise besides getting the paperwork and data entries right and keeping people's tempers cool about it.
Plus, I see it as a learning experience more than anything else (besides having a steady income, of course). I see a lot of things that way--of course, sometimes all that it shows is how deeply unsuited I am to the rest of the workaday world, and how much I disturb the rest of them...that sort of thing. I'm just not the steady and consistent foundation upon which society is based.
There is a background check (and a drug test), but I myself can likely pass that--the worst they'd find is that I'm pretty much flat broke and 'living at home', unfortunately distractable when not securely employed, and that I should have applied for a deferment on my student loan payments a long time ago. Smart people need firm niches and/or higher academic credentials--I got "Leonardo da Vinci Syndrome" instead (one of my terms for ADD)...too many talents, not
enough definite footholds for a specialized world. Or, to put it another way, a foot in every pie and a finger in every door.
But really--and I'm assuming I'm not even going to make an interview for this thing--it's a bit the wrong time for me to have any wholly- positive regard for the establishment. I respect people for doing the best they can do in an often-thankless job, but that doesn't, unfortunately, change the facts of the climate in which we are living. The needs will always be there, but the priority of going about them will also always be a dicey and often-f**ked-up balancing process, and idealism--like stubbornness--is both a strength and a weakness of mine. So far as the whole establishment goes, I oughta be working as a profiler for the FBI or something--I have those skills, that overview of things--but how long do you think I'd last in any initial-foundational-literal process getting in, before I could get around to doing some good?
The same thing happens to teachers, too--the best ones, the ones with a vocation (I take that word very seriously) are often burnt-out on account of the training system itself before they have a chance to apply their vision and energy to the classroom...it's the ones who play it safe and burn dim-but-steady who get their earthly rewards, so to speak. The real point of the job is far too often obscured with its own trappings and hierarchy, and it takes a lot to persist through all that while retaining real passion and integrity for the work itself. To continue playing with fire analogies (hey, I started it in the last post anyhow...), the more of it you have, the more likely you are to either get burnt-out or burnt-up by the others around you. A person needs a whole lot of close moral support to keep going when those are the odds.
But I really should stop sermonising--or, as I said I was going to do, save it for my formal blog (I'll forward this to it directly, actually--ah, the wonders of modern technology). I had a rather odd dream involving royalty last night/this morning, in convenient metaphor--but that's another one to dissect elsewhere, I suspect...>:)
Glad you like the pics...I always say I'm "doing dastardly deeds" with Photoshop whenever I tinker with stuff like this.
DM/Aurey
_____________________________________
--- End forwarded message ---
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
On the separation of pomp and power....(reply to query)
I realize I forgot to respond to the question posed of where democracy does work well...as my computer was giving me a hard time and crashed, losing (as usual) the incredibly lucid and eloquent post I was nearly done with, I hadn't gotten back to that till just now.
So. Where does democracy work best? Oddly enough, I think it likely works best in a constitutional monarchy, where all the show of power and pomp and circumstance and mandated reverence can be vested in a visible ruler who handles that well and graciously--a career diplomat or an actor, but with a crown--while the Prime Minister is a person who does the real work--and understands the practical meaning of the term "public servant". Separate these two faces of power from being vested in any one person, and you solve a multitude of problems.
Also, because in a monarchy the King or Queen is by default and tradition not a member of either/any political party, there is far less incentive to maximize party clout at the expense of responsiveness to actual needs. Therefore, every acting government is assembled as a coalition, and in Europe there are generally at least three major political parties, which represent actual relevant factions within the population, instead of being, as in the U.S., a chronic cage-match between two vehemently opposed but ill-defined establishments.
Also--size matters. So does diversity. The U.S., by dint of being a continent-wide, multi-climated republic made up of individual states--and with so many different industries and demographics and cultures and religions within them, due to a history of changing immigration patterns--is ill-equipped to be run well at the national level. Even the state level is a difficulty, as the needs and values of cities & suburbs vs. small towns and rural areas can be radically, even foreignly different. There are enclaves both of traditionalism and progressivism that have a hard time even realizing each other's existence, though to be accurate, the progressives seem to have less of an agenda of imposing themselves over others in a militant way. Real tolerance and dialogue, though, is a hard thing to achieve when yes, part of this country do speak and live and think in radically different languages than others.
In this, the U.S. has an even greater social problem than the USSR did in holding its territories together. There, at least there was a generally-similar shared culture (and geography, and a very long cultural history) that made for some comparative solidarity under pressure, whereas here the issues of states' rights and minorities have been present and heated all through the nation's growth, while rarely coming to an actual boil and letting off some badly needed steam. The United States was based on an ideological and imaginative unity rather than a genetic or ethnic one--which makes the loyalties of Americans similarly ideological rather than set in the blood itself. Avoiding certain problems thereby, but greatly exacerbating others, especially in terms of varying interpretations of the nation's greatness, or its destiny. This was likely the first nation to be so deliberately constructed as a demonstration of ideal social and political principles--the whole Great Experiment in absolute political balance and civic equality. Equality of those deemed competent to participate in its decisions, yes--but the nation evolved and grew with its people.
I'm very fond of the general concept of evolution lately, I should mention, even as it's being maligned and threatened by some benighted and reactionary fellow-citizens in this land. "Intelligent design" is one thing--intelligent self-growth is quite another, and a far more honourable thing in my estimation.
So. Ironic, isn't it, that I see the self-proclaimed champion of democracy being one of its worst practitioners? Really, there is not much at all separating America from being an empire, or a dictatorship...the "Fourth Reich" observations in my mind started a while ago, as I gained grim certainty on a certain day in September 2001, when I realized that the Bush administration would used this tragedy--whoever and whatever caused it--to further its own ambitions and agendas in any way possible--and largely succeed. Because in a crisis even Americans, in general, don't look too closely at the devil's deal they're offered--not when there's emotion involved, and revenge to be gained and heartstrings to be wrung.
The things that are remaining--freedom of speech and the press and religion, right to public assembly and petition for redress of grievances, the right of security in one's own home and personal records, the integrity of voting by conscience, the power of judicial review, and the possibilities of further evolution in civil rights for all--those sort of things are either being quietly compromised, ignored or fought against with fanatical determination by the ruling party. We may not have crowns or thrones in the White House, but there is tyranny afoot in this my native land.
........................
There, I waxed eloquent a bit--it happens. I could make a political career of my own with that. But at least there's one president I'd never stoop to write speeches for. Selling one's soul, or even loaning it, is not a prudent habit.
So. Where does democracy work best? Oddly enough, I think it likely works best in a constitutional monarchy, where all the show of power and pomp and circumstance and mandated reverence can be vested in a visible ruler who handles that well and graciously--a career diplomat or an actor, but with a crown--while the Prime Minister is a person who does the real work--and understands the practical meaning of the term "public servant". Separate these two faces of power from being vested in any one person, and you solve a multitude of problems.
Also, because in a monarchy the King or Queen is by default and tradition not a member of either/any political party, there is far less incentive to maximize party clout at the expense of responsiveness to actual needs. Therefore, every acting government is assembled as a coalition, and in Europe there are generally at least three major political parties, which represent actual relevant factions within the population, instead of being, as in the U.S., a chronic cage-match between two vehemently opposed but ill-defined establishments.
Also--size matters. So does diversity. The U.S., by dint of being a continent-wide, multi-climated republic made up of individual states--and with so many different industries and demographics and cultures and religions within them, due to a history of changing immigration patterns--is ill-equipped to be run well at the national level. Even the state level is a difficulty, as the needs and values of cities & suburbs vs. small towns and rural areas can be radically, even foreignly different. There are enclaves both of traditionalism and progressivism that have a hard time even realizing each other's existence, though to be accurate, the progressives seem to have less of an agenda of imposing themselves over others in a militant way. Real tolerance and dialogue, though, is a hard thing to achieve when yes, part of this country do speak and live and think in radically different languages than others.
In this, the U.S. has an even greater social problem than the USSR did in holding its territories together. There, at least there was a generally-similar shared culture (and geography, and a very long cultural history) that made for some comparative solidarity under pressure, whereas here the issues of states' rights and minorities have been present and heated all through the nation's growth, while rarely coming to an actual boil and letting off some badly needed steam. The United States was based on an ideological and imaginative unity rather than a genetic or ethnic one--which makes the loyalties of Americans similarly ideological rather than set in the blood itself. Avoiding certain problems thereby, but greatly exacerbating others, especially in terms of varying interpretations of the nation's greatness, or its destiny. This was likely the first nation to be so deliberately constructed as a demonstration of ideal social and political principles--the whole Great Experiment in absolute political balance and civic equality. Equality of those deemed competent to participate in its decisions, yes--but the nation evolved and grew with its people.
I'm very fond of the general concept of evolution lately, I should mention, even as it's being maligned and threatened by some benighted and reactionary fellow-citizens in this land. "Intelligent design" is one thing--intelligent self-growth is quite another, and a far more honourable thing in my estimation.
So. Ironic, isn't it, that I see the self-proclaimed champion of democracy being one of its worst practitioners? Really, there is not much at all separating America from being an empire, or a dictatorship...the "Fourth Reich" observations in my mind started a while ago, as I gained grim certainty on a certain day in September 2001, when I realized that the Bush administration would used this tragedy--whoever and whatever caused it--to further its own ambitions and agendas in any way possible--and largely succeed. Because in a crisis even Americans, in general, don't look too closely at the devil's deal they're offered--not when there's emotion involved, and revenge to be gained and heartstrings to be wrung.
The things that are remaining--freedom of speech and the press and religion, right to public assembly and petition for redress of grievances, the right of security in one's own home and personal records, the integrity of voting by conscience, the power of judicial review, and the possibilities of further evolution in civil rights for all--those sort of things are either being quietly compromised, ignored or fought against with fanatical determination by the ruling party. We may not have crowns or thrones in the White House, but there is tyranny afoot in this my native land.
........................
There, I waxed eloquent a bit--it happens. I could make a political career of my own with that. But at least there's one president I'd never stoop to write speeches for. Selling one's soul, or even loaning it, is not a prudent habit.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Election leftovers....the trail from Watergate to 2004
[From Aureantes Talks... ]
5:22 am, December 12, 2004 - So what /did/ we learn from Watergate, people...?
[Note: I initially posted most of this as a comment to another user's journal, but it was too good an impulse to not have on my own page...]
I have been reading All The President's Men, and have noticed that there are some strong parallels between the Nixon and Bush administrations...except for these additional/accentuated factors affecting both the election and general public outry this time around, despite the fact that Bush's incompetence as a world and national leader is already legendary:
--As we all know, Bush started the present Iraq situation on his own agenda instead of necessarily inheriting it, though there is a definite element of revenge/'pissing contest' in a son reviving war against the same bad guy his daddy fought. The truth of the deceptions in getting into the war has been both suspected and revealed for a long time now, rather than being singly and climactically exposed cf. the Pentagon Papers--which may account for why there's so little general noise about it, as very few habitual conservatives are willing to admit that the 'conspiracy-theorists' were right from the start.
--The vast and frankly disgustingly effective weight of the Religious Right has been put squarely on Bush's side (who says a personal religious awakening can't be planned as a political weapon?)
--The media conglomerates are larger, tighter and have a lot more experience now at avoiding, censoring and manipulating news coverage. Protests are barely or slantedly covered, and footage is censored or crafted for effective spin.
--The neocons have more, meaner, and less-rational pundits on their side (including Ann Coulter, who I think ought to be tossed down into the worst possible existence that the neocons would foist on women in general--like one of those poetic-justice Twilight Zone episodes...)
--There has been a smear operation going on against liberalism as "elitist" for years now, (I think it *began* with Nixon, or at least in reaction to Kennedy), and it's worked to convince a lot of people to "think with their hearts not their heads", when all that their hearts want is a leader who is not really any threat as a superior person to them in character, intellect, tact, or social conscience.
--Choice of media information--liberals today are far more likely to seek out and examine opposing points of view than conservatives are. Or (if you so see it) those who have their heads up their asses already are not likely to get a different view by forging ahead...
--Deliberate discrediting of the "liberal media" with the affair of Dan Rather and the supposedly false Texas Air National Guard memos. The content itself was never refuted--merely the physical authenticity of the documents themselves. I'm rather sure it was a plant, a forgery created to be 'debunked.'
--Stupid people conflating legal recognition of homosexual marriages with the threatening and 'undermining' of heterosexual ones. Not to mention grossly misinterpeting the benefits of a two-parent family and ignoring studies done regarding the positive welfare of children raised by lesbian couples.
--Vietnam. For good and for ill, people have strong feelings about this most-similar of U.S. military actions, not all of which have anything to do with the actual ethics/morality of the war. It's a dirty word so far as politics goes, and no one wants to admit that this present situation is just as bad or worse. And Kerry was not able to please everyone on account of his previous testimony against that war--even though he watered his approach down and in the process lost the absolute edge of his moral high ground.
--9/11. The politics of fear and uncertainty...pretty darn effective when you're already in office. Bush needed the war to give him credibility, and his neocons needed it as a cover and excuse for implementing all their wildest dreams. Which is pretty much what I was certain of on 9/11, pacing about the house and swearing at the TV--I knew they'd use it for anything they could.
The covert tactics of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in 1972 are clearly and closely related to the reported and suspected tactics of the GOP in this past election. What we are dealing with now politically has everything to do with Watergate, seeing as it was an exposure that could not be allowed to happen again.
So the neocons made sure that this time they had everything taken care of...
Plus they had the asset that yes, people are easily distracted. I think they're getting stupider, too.
5:22 am, December 12, 2004 - So what /did/ we learn from Watergate, people...?
[Note: I initially posted most of this as a comment to another user's journal, but it was too good an impulse to not have on my own page...]
I have been reading All The President's Men, and have noticed that there are some strong parallels between the Nixon and Bush administrations...except for these additional/accentuated factors affecting both the election and general public outry this time around, despite the fact that Bush's incompetence as a world and national leader is already legendary:
--As we all know, Bush started the present Iraq situation on his own agenda instead of necessarily inheriting it, though there is a definite element of revenge/'pissing contest' in a son reviving war against the same bad guy his daddy fought. The truth of the deceptions in getting into the war has been both suspected and revealed for a long time now, rather than being singly and climactically exposed cf. the Pentagon Papers--which may account for why there's so little general noise about it, as very few habitual conservatives are willing to admit that the 'conspiracy-theorists' were right from the start.
--The vast and frankly disgustingly effective weight of the Religious Right has been put squarely on Bush's side (who says a personal religious awakening can't be planned as a political weapon?)
--The media conglomerates are larger, tighter and have a lot more experience now at avoiding, censoring and manipulating news coverage. Protests are barely or slantedly covered, and footage is censored or crafted for effective spin.
--The neocons have more, meaner, and less-rational pundits on their side (including Ann Coulter, who I think ought to be tossed down into the worst possible existence that the neocons would foist on women in general--like one of those poetic-justice Twilight Zone episodes...)
--There has been a smear operation going on against liberalism as "elitist" for years now, (I think it *began* with Nixon, or at least in reaction to Kennedy), and it's worked to convince a lot of people to "think with their hearts not their heads", when all that their hearts want is a leader who is not really any threat as a superior person to them in character, intellect, tact, or social conscience.
--Choice of media information--liberals today are far more likely to seek out and examine opposing points of view than conservatives are. Or (if you so see it) those who have their heads up their asses already are not likely to get a different view by forging ahead...
--Deliberate discrediting of the "liberal media" with the affair of Dan Rather and the supposedly false Texas Air National Guard memos. The content itself was never refuted--merely the physical authenticity of the documents themselves. I'm rather sure it was a plant, a forgery created to be 'debunked.'
--Stupid people conflating legal recognition of homosexual marriages with the threatening and 'undermining' of heterosexual ones. Not to mention grossly misinterpeting the benefits of a two-parent family and ignoring studies done regarding the positive welfare of children raised by lesbian couples.
--Vietnam. For good and for ill, people have strong feelings about this most-similar of U.S. military actions, not all of which have anything to do with the actual ethics/morality of the war. It's a dirty word so far as politics goes, and no one wants to admit that this present situation is just as bad or worse. And Kerry was not able to please everyone on account of his previous testimony against that war--even though he watered his approach down and in the process lost the absolute edge of his moral high ground.
--9/11. The politics of fear and uncertainty...pretty darn effective when you're already in office. Bush needed the war to give him credibility, and his neocons needed it as a cover and excuse for implementing all their wildest dreams. Which is pretty much what I was certain of on 9/11, pacing about the house and swearing at the TV--I knew they'd use it for anything they could.
The covert tactics of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in 1972 are clearly and closely related to the reported and suspected tactics of the GOP in this past election. What we are dealing with now politically has everything to do with Watergate, seeing as it was an exposure that could not be allowed to happen again.
So the neocons made sure that this time they had everything taken care of...
Plus they had the asset that yes, people are easily distracted. I think they're getting stupider, too.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
We'll take a cup of kindness yet....
I'm listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the moment on WFMT (Chicago), and it just headed into the full-chorus final few pages, after that slight hesitation, that sense of just coming over the hill in the early morning light, you know?...
I have to say, I love this whole piece, but it generally isn't for the quality of the solo vocals in the last movement--they really have to have a consummate strength and relative purity of tone in order to not sound unbearably unwieldy. The chorus itself is always a joy of texture, most of all so when it approaches the absolute-music quality of the orchestral passages before--but most of all what this piece does represent in my mind is a triumph of human liberty and dignity and release--they got this definitely right in Immortal Beloved, in that flight through the city and woods to float among the reflected stars--really, completely worthy of its most historically significant usage, to celebrate the falling of the Berlin Wall. It does get me a bit emotional whenever I listen to it, because it has so much attached into it now, and I thoroughly approve of it being the classical New Year's anthem, more so than any waltz by the Strausses--though I've gotten a bit better about tolerating the unmitigatedly "happy" music of the occasion.
If this doesn't sound too cheesy, Beethoven's Ninth reminds me of that line in "O Little Town of Bethlehem"--"The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight." And I prefer my music like that, to have the tension and longing together, beauty acute enough to cause a pang...that's always the proof it works, so to speak, if you can have so much pleasure in music that it's almost pain to feel so much. Tears are the christening of highest art in this world.
I missed hearing any singing of "Auld Lang Syne" tonight, but there's another one that gets me right where it matters. Such a simple little poem, and a simple tune, but one that (no small thanks to Frank Capra) really gets at the core of what's most important to hold onto in this season. May sound like I'm waxing maudlin, but I'm deadly serious--well, and perhaps this year it doesn't sound so trite at all. We have to value each other--that's the end of it, or the beginning, end, and middle of it all.
Even if our leaders don't, and those who are supposed to be speaking for us. I hate to shove it in people's faces (okay, so that's not exactly true), but Osama bin Laden was right in reiterating one basic truth: our futures lie in our own hands. And it is the test of humanity now to cut through the crap of religions, political machines, and so-called "moral values"--a worse euphemism was never coined, save for "compassionate conservatism"--and get to the real work of actual civilization.
You know, that thing that Gandhi thought would be a good idea in the West...
I wish all who happen across this not-so-humble blog a good and fulfilling New Year, with health and prosperity and harmony. May all be better than before, and better for us all than we dare hope.
I have to say, I love this whole piece, but it generally isn't for the quality of the solo vocals in the last movement--they really have to have a consummate strength and relative purity of tone in order to not sound unbearably unwieldy. The chorus itself is always a joy of texture, most of all so when it approaches the absolute-music quality of the orchestral passages before--but most of all what this piece does represent in my mind is a triumph of human liberty and dignity and release--they got this definitely right in Immortal Beloved, in that flight through the city and woods to float among the reflected stars--really, completely worthy of its most historically significant usage, to celebrate the falling of the Berlin Wall. It does get me a bit emotional whenever I listen to it, because it has so much attached into it now, and I thoroughly approve of it being the classical New Year's anthem, more so than any waltz by the Strausses--though I've gotten a bit better about tolerating the unmitigatedly "happy" music of the occasion.
If this doesn't sound too cheesy, Beethoven's Ninth reminds me of that line in "O Little Town of Bethlehem"--"The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight." And I prefer my music like that, to have the tension and longing together, beauty acute enough to cause a pang...that's always the proof it works, so to speak, if you can have so much pleasure in music that it's almost pain to feel so much. Tears are the christening of highest art in this world.
I missed hearing any singing of "Auld Lang Syne" tonight, but there's another one that gets me right where it matters. Such a simple little poem, and a simple tune, but one that (no small thanks to Frank Capra) really gets at the core of what's most important to hold onto in this season. May sound like I'm waxing maudlin, but I'm deadly serious--well, and perhaps this year it doesn't sound so trite at all. We have to value each other--that's the end of it, or the beginning, end, and middle of it all.
Even if our leaders don't, and those who are supposed to be speaking for us. I hate to shove it in people's faces (okay, so that's not exactly true), but Osama bin Laden was right in reiterating one basic truth: our futures lie in our own hands. And it is the test of humanity now to cut through the crap of religions, political machines, and so-called "moral values"--a worse euphemism was never coined, save for "compassionate conservatism"--and get to the real work of actual civilization.
You know, that thing that Gandhi thought would be a good idea in the West...
I wish all who happen across this not-so-humble blog a good and fulfilling New Year, with health and prosperity and harmony. May all be better than before, and better for us all than we dare hope.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
My finger slipped, & semi-seasonal ramblings
This mouse is acting up a bit...don't know if it's the cold or what (well, I'm in the Chicago area, so that does indicate a certain degree of climatological extremities...). Anyhow, that previous was not a whole post, and will be deleted at once.
Probably not inclined to post the whole train of thought now anyhow, as I actually should be working on something else, namely my latest portrait commission...rather like a joke fallen flat, not sure if anyone wants to delve into the subject of cinematic accents as culturally analogical. Save it for a rainy day, maybe, after the pressing subjects of holidays and the state of humanity have receded slightly back into the everyday.
Will be posting more here after Christmas and the hectic flurry of making sure all the presents are properly wrapped and presented--the indoor decoration is mostly done now save for the 4.5' prelit artificial tree my siblings and I are in agreement on purchasing...the 3' fiber-optic one is fun to watch, but there's no way of hanging the ornaments on it, and that does tend to make the decking of halls quite a bit less communal. The smell of a pine tree is fine and much-desired, but not so the needles. When you're three grown people living together without a designed housekeeper (i.e., "your mama ain't here", at least not on a live-in basis), it helps to keep the holiday complications as manageable as possible.
Shall be sending out cards to all those for whom I have "earth-addys"...this is a yearly project, to address myself to the actual work of "keeping in touch" and maintaining professional contacts. I have sent out just one so far--but that's a long story and it went to Minnesota. First north, then south, another paper airplane shot out into the sky of the world. Sometimes I think I wonder whether it's ever guaranteed that the mail will get where I want it to go, but then again, I just realize now that I may still be suffering from the aftereffects of a couple of unanswered (one returned) 'fan letters' from my sophomore year of highschool...long story. Two long stories, and I have not the slightest intention of going into that right now, not at this time of this year and with all the memories it's bringing up.
Not misty watercoloured ones, just in case anyone at all had the reference in mind. Geez, and I already had that damn song stuck in my head today--with an interesting conglomerated plot idea to boot, but what does that have to do with knocking the stadium lights out with a home run? Guess the answer's in the parking garage...
Sorry--I'm trying to cut down on the cryptic references but it just ain't working. "Semper obfuscare" is my motto by default--or at least, if not to confuse the shiznit out of people, to make them exert a little more than the average deductive reasoning in figuring out the exact location of my thoughts. Unfortunately, most people my own age do not have that accumulation of artistic and historical exposure to be able to put all the links together...and if you have not the faintest idea at all where I might be hovering with these things, I'm sure it grows fairly tiresome. At least, so my former girfriends have implied.
But I'll just leave that as a semi-apologetic (it's just the way my mind works, after all), and go off to get that painting under control. My back is killing me due to my wrestling a large metal bookcase in close quarters last night, and I think I really ought to aim for going to bed before dawn...
Probably not inclined to post the whole train of thought now anyhow, as I actually should be working on something else, namely my latest portrait commission...rather like a joke fallen flat, not sure if anyone wants to delve into the subject of cinematic accents as culturally analogical. Save it for a rainy day, maybe, after the pressing subjects of holidays and the state of humanity have receded slightly back into the everyday.
Will be posting more here after Christmas and the hectic flurry of making sure all the presents are properly wrapped and presented--the indoor decoration is mostly done now save for the 4.5' prelit artificial tree my siblings and I are in agreement on purchasing...the 3' fiber-optic one is fun to watch, but there's no way of hanging the ornaments on it, and that does tend to make the decking of halls quite a bit less communal. The smell of a pine tree is fine and much-desired, but not so the needles. When you're three grown people living together without a designed housekeeper (i.e., "your mama ain't here", at least not on a live-in basis), it helps to keep the holiday complications as manageable as possible.
Shall be sending out cards to all those for whom I have "earth-addys"...this is a yearly project, to address myself to the actual work of "keeping in touch" and maintaining professional contacts. I have sent out just one so far--but that's a long story and it went to Minnesota. First north, then south, another paper airplane shot out into the sky of the world. Sometimes I think I wonder whether it's ever guaranteed that the mail will get where I want it to go, but then again, I just realize now that I may still be suffering from the aftereffects of a couple of unanswered (one returned) 'fan letters' from my sophomore year of highschool...long story. Two long stories, and I have not the slightest intention of going into that right now, not at this time of this year and with all the memories it's bringing up.
Not misty watercoloured ones, just in case anyone at all had the reference in mind. Geez, and I already had that damn song stuck in my head today--with an interesting conglomerated plot idea to boot, but what does that have to do with knocking the stadium lights out with a home run? Guess the answer's in the parking garage...
Sorry--I'm trying to cut down on the cryptic references but it just ain't working. "Semper obfuscare" is my motto by default--or at least, if not to confuse the shiznit out of people, to make them exert a little more than the average deductive reasoning in figuring out the exact location of my thoughts. Unfortunately, most people my own age do not have that accumulation of artistic and historical exposure to be able to put all the links together...and if you have not the faintest idea at all where I might be hovering with these things, I'm sure it grows fairly tiresome. At least, so my former girfriends have implied.
But I'll just leave that as a semi-apologetic (it's just the way my mind works, after all), and go off to get that painting under control. My back is killing me due to my wrestling a large metal bookcase in close quarters last night, and I think I really ought to aim for going to bed before dawn...
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Testing the opened channels....and railing at Murphy's Law
Alright, I certainly hope this works....last night either my computer connection or this server lost one of the most brilliant and insightful posts I'd ever written in my life, and the only logical reason I can see for it is that the rest of the world was never meant to read it...had too much in it.
Anyhow, this is just a test post, and so I will just flesh it out somewhat by stating that my freelance work is picking up for the holidays--portraits from photographs, for which purpose I've rigged up a homemade lightbox in my studio so that I can trace from the enlargements off my computer. It's installed in a desk with a lowered-out middle section--lined with aluminum foil and clear plastic bubble wrap for reflection and diffusion, with a pane of glass in an old wooden picture frame, and the light supplied by a three-light cream plastic faux candelabra I'd taken out to decorate for Christmas, just laid inside the hollow and shifted as needed.
I'm rather proud of my ingenuity there...always very satisfying to rig up something that works in a pinch. I'd been rather stymied over the difficulties of transferring accurate proportions onto the page--2D to 2D is a rather error-prone translation--so this is a breakthrough, and a very useful one for my present little line of business.
Signing off to go work on the present commission, just as soon as I'm assured this thing comes through as I rigged it up to....
Aurey
Anyhow, this is just a test post, and so I will just flesh it out somewhat by stating that my freelance work is picking up for the holidays--portraits from photographs, for which purpose I've rigged up a homemade lightbox in my studio so that I can trace from the enlargements off my computer. It's installed in a desk with a lowered-out middle section--lined with aluminum foil and clear plastic bubble wrap for reflection and diffusion, with a pane of glass in an old wooden picture frame, and the light supplied by a three-light cream plastic faux candelabra I'd taken out to decorate for Christmas, just laid inside the hollow and shifted as needed.
I'm rather proud of my ingenuity there...always very satisfying to rig up something that works in a pinch. I'd been rather stymied over the difficulties of transferring accurate proportions onto the page--2D to 2D is a rather error-prone translation--so this is a breakthrough, and a very useful one for my present little line of business.
Signing off to go work on the present commission, just as soon as I'm assured this thing comes through as I rigged it up to....
Aurey
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Initiating contact....
My other blog, Aureantes Talks, is now mainly designated as the place where I go off on obnoxious in-jokes and add quizzes and make snarky references with semi-incriminating personal information. Not that there isn't anything serious there (it is my first blog, after all), but the whole system there and the rather incestuous nature of my friends list and our mutual interests makes it a bit unlikely that anything of a scholarly or professional nature is going to get noticed on that network. And I am definitely scholarly and trying to keep somewhat professional about it.
Hence, this newest blogsite of yours truly, which I really must remember to add-link to the portal page of my main site, Aureantes' Realm. The more I can keep things organized the better, as I certainly did not come online in the first place to sit in a corner and surf without sound. I make a fair amount of noise as I pass, though only where it seems needful. And of course I like to get some noise in response.
Pundit?--sure, you can call me that, though being a Libra I am unlikely to espouse any real extremity of position. Definitely a universal critic as well, but vehemently opposed to dryness and miniscule dissections of signification. I follow the way of Camus, not so much that of Sartre. Camus regarded philosophy as needfully concrete and connected to the reality of one's situation, not so far abstract that it only seems to truly exist within the pages of academic dissertations, no matter how much popular culture it chews up and spits back in reference.
I was raised to be an academic myself--I can speak that language fluently if the occasion demands--but frankly, I find it rather boring. And empty. Someone said that music degenerates when it moves too far away from the dance (I'd say from natural singing and its rhythms, myself)--and modern philosophy, it seems, has moved so far away from any real estimation of necessary human concerns that it is now propagating itself more or less in vitro--via college computer monitors, camera lenses and overhead projectors, rather than by reiterating its contact with the physical and sensual world, the only interface through which it can achieve real and enduring value to anyone, anywhere.
Mysticism, on the other hand, is immanent. One does not need a special rarefied terminology to pin it down with, nor a degree, nor even the reading of a single thesis. It can be translated without any proprietary intellectual structure, so long as one has the key of insight. Of course, it can be--and sometimes tragically is--misunderstood. But that's the nature of wisdom itself--it cannot be forced but has to grow. Trying to turn it into an object, though, a science in the modern sense...well, who can say whether that's a vain or an honourable pursuit? All I know is, it seems a lot of people are going about that business all wrong, and that the study which is supposedly the "love of wisdom" seems to have its head simultaneously off in the clouds and up its own arse. I watched "Waking Life" and thought it was both poignantly beautiful and almost too erudite for its own good, a dreamscape so abstracted into verbal concept that one might as well float off into the clouds.
While we're in this thing some call reality, I think it best to engage it with all our senses, on every level. And I think the academic pursuit of wisdom itself (to which philosophy is apparently nothing more than a string of cages) should if anything be as non-formalized as possible, a matter of exposure and absorption rather than the drive to win a grade or impress with one's citings.
If anything one learns is to be of value, then the impulse to express it in discourse and inquiry must be sincere and spontaneous--not something that one is forced to produce but that on the contrary cannot be held back once the forum is opened. That is the true desire of wisdom, when no other persuasion than the sheer thrill of insight and connection is needed to spur one's searchings and all that follows from them. If one does not love wisdom and learning for their own virtue, then of what use is it to formalize and dry things out into easy bitesize pieces to try and feed everyone at similar pace? Far more useful that those who have the desire recieve the whole fruit wherever it can be given or found in their own gleanings, while those who are not ready or fit for such things should not be forcefed that which they cannot digest.
More on this to come...my own academic history is an interesting one, and my views are (as one can see) not necessarily those of the mainstream. I do tend to ramble a lot, though, when left to my own devices and not the framework of a plot or formal thesis. But of course...what else is this place for?
Hence, this newest blogsite of yours truly, which I really must remember to add-link to the portal page of my main site, Aureantes' Realm. The more I can keep things organized the better, as I certainly did not come online in the first place to sit in a corner and surf without sound. I make a fair amount of noise as I pass, though only where it seems needful. And of course I like to get some noise in response.
Pundit?--sure, you can call me that, though being a Libra I am unlikely to espouse any real extremity of position. Definitely a universal critic as well, but vehemently opposed to dryness and miniscule dissections of signification. I follow the way of Camus, not so much that of Sartre. Camus regarded philosophy as needfully concrete and connected to the reality of one's situation, not so far abstract that it only seems to truly exist within the pages of academic dissertations, no matter how much popular culture it chews up and spits back in reference.
I was raised to be an academic myself--I can speak that language fluently if the occasion demands--but frankly, I find it rather boring. And empty. Someone said that music degenerates when it moves too far away from the dance (I'd say from natural singing and its rhythms, myself)--and modern philosophy, it seems, has moved so far away from any real estimation of necessary human concerns that it is now propagating itself more or less in vitro--via college computer monitors, camera lenses and overhead projectors, rather than by reiterating its contact with the physical and sensual world, the only interface through which it can achieve real and enduring value to anyone, anywhere.
Mysticism, on the other hand, is immanent. One does not need a special rarefied terminology to pin it down with, nor a degree, nor even the reading of a single thesis. It can be translated without any proprietary intellectual structure, so long as one has the key of insight. Of course, it can be--and sometimes tragically is--misunderstood. But that's the nature of wisdom itself--it cannot be forced but has to grow. Trying to turn it into an object, though, a science in the modern sense...well, who can say whether that's a vain or an honourable pursuit? All I know is, it seems a lot of people are going about that business all wrong, and that the study which is supposedly the "love of wisdom" seems to have its head simultaneously off in the clouds and up its own arse. I watched "Waking Life" and thought it was both poignantly beautiful and almost too erudite for its own good, a dreamscape so abstracted into verbal concept that one might as well float off into the clouds.
While we're in this thing some call reality, I think it best to engage it with all our senses, on every level. And I think the academic pursuit of wisdom itself (to which philosophy is apparently nothing more than a string of cages) should if anything be as non-formalized as possible, a matter of exposure and absorption rather than the drive to win a grade or impress with one's citings.
If anything one learns is to be of value, then the impulse to express it in discourse and inquiry must be sincere and spontaneous--not something that one is forced to produce but that on the contrary cannot be held back once the forum is opened. That is the true desire of wisdom, when no other persuasion than the sheer thrill of insight and connection is needed to spur one's searchings and all that follows from them. If one does not love wisdom and learning for their own virtue, then of what use is it to formalize and dry things out into easy bitesize pieces to try and feed everyone at similar pace? Far more useful that those who have the desire recieve the whole fruit wherever it can be given or found in their own gleanings, while those who are not ready or fit for such things should not be forcefed that which they cannot digest.
More on this to come...my own academic history is an interesting one, and my views are (as one can see) not necessarily those of the mainstream. I do tend to ramble a lot, though, when left to my own devices and not the framework of a plot or formal thesis. But of course...what else is this place for?
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